"Curst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are trying—those bullies! My mother wants you to carry on their musical education. How selfish of her! As if attending to these curst cocks and hens here were not enough work for any girl. I would flatly refuse, if I ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... a flower should ever burst From climes with rigorous winter curst!— We bless you, that so kindly nurst This flower, this ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... critic need not be fastidious to regret that most of them are not better written, useful and interesting as they are in the mass. Every sort of information about the country is to be got from them, but not always with pleasure or ease. To get it you must do a good deal of the curst hard reading which comes from easy writing. And even then, for the most part, it is left to your own imaginative power ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, The source of evil one, and one of good; From thence the cup of mortal man he fills, Blessings to these, to those distributes ills, To most he mingles both: the wretch decreed To taste the bad, unmixed, is curst indeed; Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, He wanders, outcast both of earth ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree, How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee! How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Diffuse their pleasures, only to destroy. Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, Boast of a florid vigour not their own. At every draught more ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... Curst be the dastard who shall halt or doubt! And doubly damned who casts one look behind! Ye who are men! with unsheathed sword, and shout, Up with her banner! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... and again Up to the citadel I speed my way. Armed, in the vacant courts, by Juno's fane, Phoenix and curst Ulysses watched the prey. There, torn from many a burning temple, lay Troy's wealth; the tripods of the Gods were there, Piled in huge heaps, and raiment snatched away, And golden bowls, and dames with streaming hair And tender boys stand round, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... dale and down,' quoth Guy, 'And I have done many a curst turn; And he that calls me by my right name Calls me ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... (Indeed she was curst) In knowledge that tasted delight; And sages agree, The laws should decree To the first possessor ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... I trow, is doubly blest, Who of the worst can make the best; And he, I'm sure, is doubly curst, Who of the ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... horse And guide him with the rein, and play about With right hand free, oft times before he tried Perils of war in yoked chariot; And yoked pairs abreast came earlier Than yokes of four, or scythed chariots Whereinto clomb the men-at-arms. And next The Punic folk did train the elephants— Those curst Lucanian oxen, hideous, The serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks— To dure the wounds of war and panic-strike The mighty troops of Mars. Thus Discord sad Begat the one Thing after other, to be The terror of the nations under ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... world's a bubble, and the life of man less than a span; In his conception wretched, from the womb so to the tomb: Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years with cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns the water, or ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter reclaim ther castle. 'Tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. But if ye be intendin' to shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the bhlood-dhrip. If so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all the gold ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... well as you can while you are in England. German cookery is an education for the sentiment of hogs. The play of sour and sweet, and crowning of the whole with fat, shows a people determined to go down in civilization, and try the business backwards. Adieu, curst Croat! On the Wallachian border mayst thou ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that wretched taste, Which, gorged and glutted, does with hunger last? Custom and duty cannot set me free, Even sin itself has not a charm for me. Of married lovers I am sure the first, And nothing but a king could be so curst. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... Much greater powers than Neptune's gave them sway. 200 They loved Leander so, in groans they brake When they came near him; and such space did take 'Twixt one another, loath to issue on, That in their shallow furrows earth was shown, And the poor lover took a little breath: But the curst Fates sate spinning of his death On every wave, and with the servile Winds Tumbled them on him. And now Hero finds, By that she felt, her dear Leander's state: She wept, and prayed for him to every Fate; 210 And every Wind that whipped her with her hair About the face, she kissed and spake ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here, Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard. Sakil's high roof, the Muses' palace, rung With endless cries, and endless sons he sung. To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first; But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst. Sakil without distinction threw his bread, Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed." I need not say that Sakil is Sackville, or that Laurus is a translation of the famous ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... business, and all that's kind in you seems to harden, and all that's straight to run crooked. There's times I think you couldn't do wrong if you weren't so sure of doing right; and there's times, when I hear of your being kind to the school-children, I think it must be some curst ill-luck of my own that brings ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, And a ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... kill a craw." "It's a good horse that duz never stumble, And a good wife that duz never grumble." "Neare is my sarke, but nearer is my skin." "It's an ill-made bargain whore beath parties rue." "A curst cow hes short horns." "Wilfull fowkes duz never want weay." "For change of pastures macks fat cawves, it's said, But change of women macks ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... disappears; The wild death-raven's might no more she fears; A gentle red bedecks her cheek again, And briny drops her eye no longer stain. "My Harrald stalks in manly size and strength; Swart bird of darkness, I rejoice at length; If thy curst claw could hurt my gallant son, Long, long, ere this, the deed would ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... poor inhabitant beholds in vain The reddening orange and the swelling grain: Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines, And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines: Starves, in the midst of nature's bounty curst, And in the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Scratch their Husbands Faces or Eyes, and to pull them down by the Coxcombes. And I am subject to think, It was a meer Rogery in the Combination, or Club-council of the Taylors, to Abuse the Women in That Fashion, in Revenge of some of the Curst ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... to destroy the fair harmony of worlds, and thou, Pluto, condemned, to an eternity of ungrateful existence, Hell, and Elysium, of which no Thessalian witch shall partake, Proserpine, for ever cut off from thy health-giving mother, and horrid Hecate, Cerberus curst with incessant hunger, ye Destinies, and Charon endlessly murmuring at the task I impose of bringing back the dead again to the land of the living, hear me!—if I call on you with a voice sufficiently impious and abominable, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... object: whether revenge or the natural bent of a cruel and degraded mind, I know not; but if any be curst because of the Outlaw of Torn, it will be thou—I had almost said, unnatural father; but I do not believe a single drop of thy debased blood flows in the veins ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was the cause, our noble virago obtained a signal triumph, and "the oracle of law," with all his gravity, stood before the council-table hen-pecked. In June, 1616, Sir Edward appears to have yielded at discretion to his lady, for in an unpublished letter I find that "his curst heart hath been forced to yield to more than he ever meant; but upon this agreement he flatters himself that she will prove ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... will be upon me: never more Thy face come back to me. For thou hast made My whole life sore. Fare hence, and be forgotten.... Sing thy song, And braid thy brow, And be beloved and beautiful—and be In beauty baleful still ... a Serpent Queen To others not yet curst in loving thee As I ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and full of invention; taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him thrice, it shall nor be amiss; and as many lies as will lie on a sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... hizzy!" exclaimed his wife, who had, at the instant, about a yard of her antagonist's hair rolled about her hand. "It's a' aboot your nichtkep, John, and her curst jeely mug. A' aboot your nichtkep, and the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... he vanished where he stood; King William sterte up wroth and wood; Quod he, 'Fools' wits will jump together; The Hampshire ale and the thunder weather Have turned the brains for us both, I think; And monks are curst when they fall to drink. A lothly sweven I dreamt last night, How there hoved anigh me a griesly knight, Did smite me down to the pit of hell; I shrieked and woke, so fast I fell. There's Tyrrel as sour as I, perdie, ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... apominations, and be curst to you!" said Donald, who perfectly understood that judgment had gone against him, "and much goot may't do you! but mysel would sooner trink the dirty bog water of Sleevrechkin. Oich, oich! the dirts! But ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... I care to know thee. Thou must be An arrant coward, thus to league with foes Against so poor a wretch as I—to call me By the most curst, despised, unhallowed name God's creatures can own. Away! and let me pass; I ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... pleasure am I foregoing; I do not pretend to aught worth knowing, I do not pretend I could be a teacher To help or convert a fellow-creature. Then, too, I've neither lands nor gold, Nor the world's least pomp or honor hold— No dog would endure such a curst existence! Wherefore, from Magic I seek assistance, That many a secret perchance I reach Through spirit-power and spirit-speech, And thus the bitter task forego Of saying the things I do not know,— That I may detect the inmost force Which ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... wound is deepest. Oh time, most curst!] I have a little mended the measure. The old edition, and all ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... the trifles die: Die, and be lost in dark oblivion's shore, And never rise to vex their author more. I would not dream o'er some soft liquid line, Amid a thousand blunders form'd to shine; Yet rather this, than that dull scribbler be, From every fault and every beauty free, Curst with tame thoughts and mediocrity. Some have I found so thick beset with spots, 'Twas hard to trace their beauties through their blots; And these, as tapers round a sick man's room Or passing chimes, but warn'd me of the tomb! ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... Sense, that understands the Language of the Countenance, but seen the Astonishment, the Chagrin, the Vexation and Anguish of Soul, that appear'd on the Faces of these Atalantic Noblemen, at this surprizing Event; how they gnashed their Teeth for Anger, and curst the Hour that ever they were Members of this grand Council; how they Bann'd, (an Atalantis Word used there, for what we call Swearing and Damning in our Country;) how they raged at Greenwiccio, and the Lord of the Isles, ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... already have we bartered for those curst estates our everlasting peace!—for those did midnight flames surprise the sleep of innocence—for those did the sacrificed Eugenia with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... you when we go) you may Boldly assault the necromancers hall; Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood, 650 And brandish't blade rush on him, break his glass, And shed the lushious liquor on the ground, But sease his wand, though he and his curst crew Feirce signe of battail make, and menace high, Or like the sons of Vulcan vomit smoak, Yet will they soon retire, if he ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies; And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise: Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... of ungrateful existence, Hell, and Elysium, of which no Thessalian witch shall partake, Proserpine, for ever cut off from thy health-giving mother, and horrid Hecate, Cerebrus [Errata: read Cerberus] curst with incessant hunger, ye Destinies, and Charon endlessly murmuring at the task I impose of bringing back the dead again to the land of the living, hear me!—if I call on you with a voice sufficiently impious and abominable, if I have never sung this chaunt, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... by him, Mrs. Muldoon, ma'am! Ah, there's thim says for this war, an' there's thim says agin this war, but Heaven lave Himself where he is, I says, for of all the ragin' Turcomaniacs iver a misfortunate woman was curst with, Pat Brady, my full private, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... county there lives at Swan Green,[1] As curst an old Lady as ever was seen; And when she does die, which I hope will be soon, She firmly believes she will go to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... impatient of Freedom, yet so much Happiness as I but now injoy'd without this part of Suffering had made me too blest.—Death and Damnation! what curst luck have I? ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... know how hys medicine wrought being in bed with her, he demaunded of her how she did, and sodenly she answered and sayd, I beshrewe thy harte for waking me so early, and so by the vertue of that medycyne she was restored to her speche. But in conclusion her spech encresed day by day and she was so curst of condycyon that euery daie she brauled and chyd with her husbande, so muche at the laste he was more weped, and had much more trouble and disease wyth her shrewed wordes then he hadde before when she was dumme, wherfore as he walked another time alone he happened to mete agayne with the same ...
— A Merry Dialogue Declaringe the Properties of Shrowde Shrews and Honest Wives • Desiderius Erasmus
... aft your moss-traversing spunkies Decoy the wight that late and drunk is; The bleezin', curst, mischievous monkeys Delude his eyes, Till in some miry slough he sunk is, Ne'er mair ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... rover tore his hair, He curst himself in his despair; The waves rush in on every side, The ship ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Peace, I am somwhat trobled. Oh tis hee, My brother; and those rude and violent gusts That to this strange Road thrust my shipp per force, And I but late for new disasters curst, Have with there light winges mounted mee aloft, And for a haven in heaven new harbord mee. Yet they but feede upon theire knowne delights; Anon I'l make ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... malignant arrows tipt with lead: The heedless God, suspecting no deceits, Shoots on, and thinks he has done wondrous feats; But the poor nymph, who feels her vitals burn, And from her shepherd can find no return, Laments, and rages at the power divine, When, curst Discretion! all the fault was thine: Cupid and Hymen thou hast set at odds, And bred such feuds between those kindred gods, That Venus cannot reconcile her sons; When one appears, away the other runs. The former scales, wherein he used to poise Love against ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... as a man may shun His evil hour. I should have curst the sun That made the day so bright and earth so fair When first we met, delirium through the air Burning like fire! I should have curst the moon And all the stars that, dream-like, in a swoon Shut out the day,—the lov'd, ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... is talking somewhat like. I would have you all disclaim my actions. I own I have done very vilely by this lady. One step led to another. I am curst with an enterprizing spirit. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... the cross he hung, and bowed his head, And prayed for them that smote, and them that curst; And, drop by drop, his slow life-blood was shed, And his last hour of ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... and leave me not uncertain thus! And, whilst thou tellest me what's like my fate, Oh! teach me how I may avert it too! Curst be the man who first a simile made! Curst ev'ry bard who writes!—So have I seen Those whose comparisons are just and true, And those who liken things not like at all. The devil is happy that the whole creation Can furnish out ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... and the Life of Man Less than a span: In his conception wretched, from the womb, So to the tomb; Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns on water, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... patience, for she has vilely deceived us.'—'Indeed, Sir,' resumed my son, after a pause, 'your rage is too violent and unbecoming. You should be my mother's comforter, and you encrease her pain. It ill suited you and your reverend character thus to curse your greatest enemy: you should not have curst him, villian as he is.'—'I did not curse him, child, did I?'—'Indeed, Sir, you did; you curst him twice.'—'Then may heaven forgive me and him if I did. And now, my son, I see it was more than human benevolence that first taught us to bless our enemies! Blest ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... go to join them; he that cometh late is curst, For the Lords of War (by Akbar) have ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... can be such barbarians, so supremely wicked, as to abuse it? Can you find in your hearts* to despoil the gentle, trusting creatures of their treasure, or do any thing to strip them of their native robe of virtue? Curst be the impious hand that would dare to violate the unblemished form of Chastity! Thou wretch! thou ruffian! forbear; nor venture to provoke heaven's fiercest vengeance." I know not any comment that can be made seriously on this curious passage, and I could produce ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good—but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands 100 Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... person to lose his money is to suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so dearly earned, so foolishly departed! Villon stood and curst; he threw the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was not horrified to find himself trampling the poor corpse. Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps toward the house beside the cemetery. He had forgotten ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... vice, Which I us'd but in private whilst honour was nice; I'll publickly now practice over and o'er, Till thou'rt fain'd for a Cuckold and I for a Whore." Cries Vulcan, "Could ever man think that a Goddess, Admir'd for her charms by such numbers of noddies, Should ever be curst with so rampant a tail, That will wallow more love-sap, than I can do ale; A pox on your rump, for I plainly see 'tis As salt as your parents, Oceanus and Tethys. But had I first known you had sprung from salt ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... all the world, and declared His will to us by Moses and the prophets, and finally by Jesus Christ and His apostles; and we have one sole Redeemer, who purchased us by His blood, and by whose grace we hope to be saved: All the idols of the world are curst, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various |
