"Impious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adversary with shame and confusion. "Mr. S.," he says, "with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated 'death-bed repentance' of the objects of his dislike; and indulges himself in a pleasant 'Vision of Judgment,' in prose as well as verse, full of impious impudence.... I am not ignorant," he adds, "of Mr. Southey's calumnies on a different occasion, knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from Switzerland against me and others.... What his 'death-bed' may be it is not my province to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... of consecrated buildings of all shapes and fancies, blending one with another; of battered pillars of old Pagan temples, dug up from the ground, and forced, like giant captives, to support the roofs of Christian churches; of pictures, bad, and wonderful, and impious, and ridiculous; of kneeling people, curling incense, tinkling bells, and sometimes (but not often) of a swelling organ: of Madonne, with their breasts stuck full of swords, arranged in a half-circle like a modern fan; of actual skeletons of dead saints, hideously attired ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... dared to build a fire on its shores; but before the sun again set he found an unknown grave in the great lake. Never in the memory of the Indians had such a terrific storm raged as after the perpetration of the impious act. ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Still! Thou impious man! Hast thou not heard the fame of Anselm's name? A very saint on earth, his eyes behold Things hidden from mankind; his face doth glow All radiant from ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... divine. Without the temple's doors the monster lays, And Ishtar o'er the towers the bulk surveys; She spurns the carcass, cursing thus, she cries: "Woe! woe to Izdubar, who me defies! My power has overthrown, my champion slain; Accursed Sar! most impious of men!" ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... with endless interlarding of proverbs did Pride relate how this impious malignant had been the means of the young man, Charles Stuart, making good his escape when otherwise he must have fallen into their hands. He accused him also of the murder of his son and of four other stout, God-fearing troopers, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... something of cant in talking much upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good, the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or profligate tendency. In this point of view, there is, at least, no edification in beholding the horrible crimes unto which OEdipus is unwillingly plunged, and in witnessing the dreadful punishment he sustains, though ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Matilda. She appeared to me the most charming of her sex. Her cheeks had the freshness of the peach, and her lips were roses. Her neck was alabaster, and her eyes sparkled with animation, chastened with the most unrivalled gentleness and delicacy. Her stature, her forehead, her mouth—but ah, impious wretch, how canst thou pretend to trace her from charm to charm! Who can dissect unbounded excellence? Who can coolly and deliberately gaze upon the brightness of the meridian sun? I will say in one word, that her whole figure ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... hotly away, but Flossy and Ruth looked. It was a representation of Belshazzar at his impious feast, at the time when he was arrested by the handwriting on the wall. Ruth Erskine curled her handsome lip into something ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... ye fluttering, poor assuming elves, Stark full of pride, of folly, of—yourselves; Say where's the wretch of all your impious crew Who dares confront his character to view? Behold Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, Then sink into yourselves, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Christian slaves at Algiers, to the number of four thousand, rose and killed their guards, and massacred all who came in their way." The insurrection was suppressed, but no one in Europe denounced the insurgents as bloodthirsty wretches, nor regarded their effort as an impious and anti-Christian rebellion against the powers ordained of God. In the reign of Elizabeth, one John Fox, a slave on the Barbary coast, slew his master, and, effecting his escape with a number of his fellow-slaves, arrived in England. The queen, instead ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... was shown that it leads to Universalism and to rank infidelity; that it sanctions all the errors that were ever promulgated; that it furnishes a complete justification of the worst conduct of the worst men, that ever lived, tends to paralyze all effort to resist temptation, and condemns as impious any opposition to the commission of sin by our neighbors, and, finally, that it is worse than the pagan doctrine ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... the king, and all his mandates are good. This is no meet time for marriage festivities, when the Lord of the World and all the Aryan power goes forth to war. Yet as soon as the impious rebels amongst the Hellenes shall be subdued, I will rejoice to bestow my sister upon whatsoever fortunate servant the king ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... new piety of God and the pope, that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul's own need, free it for pure ...
— Martin Luther's 95 Theses • Martin Luther
... indulge in their peculiar performance, let them ask themselves immediately afterwards whether they did see it or not, and in the majority of cases they will have to answer in the negative. When it is over, a few impious words are uttered, the ball is picked up, and there is a slow and gloomy march to the next tee, from which it is unlikely that a good drive will be made. The nervous system of the misguided golfer has been so completely upset by the recent occurrences, ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... that it would be easy, making this his headquarters, to explore their resources and natural productions, he therefore went to the chief of Subuth and suggested to him, that since he had turned away from the foolish and impious worship of false gods to the Christian religion, it would be proper that the chiefs of the neighboring islands should obey his rule; that he had determined to send envoys for this purpose, and if any of the chiefs should refuse to obey this summons, to compel them to do so by force of arms. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... kinds of visions round the grave of this young man, who, if he has now any feeling of the earth, must shrink with shame and disgust from the touch of the hand that could have written that impious sentence. These he classifies under names, the greater number as new we believe to poetry as strange to common sense. ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... voluminous to be given in the body of these Lectures.[22] Let it suffice to say here that though such bold phrases as "God became man, that we might become God," were commonplaces of doctrinal theology at least till after Augustine, even Clement and Origen protest strongly against the "very impious" heresy that man is "a part of God," or "consubstantial with God.[23]" The attribute of Divinity which was chiefly in the minds of the Greek Fathers when they made these statements, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... of that,' he answered, 'and I wouldn't dare,' he added soberly enough. And even as I had spoken there came to me the same feeling that he had expressed. It was as though something passed out of the grey rock that struck my heart as a hand strikes an impious lip. We turned away—uneasily, and faced Thora coming through a breach ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... act of uniformity, and expelled the clergymen that accepted of benefices, and yet refused to observe the ceremonies which they previously knew to be enjoined by law. He never refused them separate places of worship, because they themselves would have esteemed it impious to demand them, and no less impious to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... extremis. And in respect of the atrocicite of this Fact, the Assembly in all humility, do seriously recommend to the right honourable the Estates of Parliament to take such course, as the persons that shall be found guilty, may be exemplary punished, according to the merit of so unnaturall and impious an offence: And that some publick note of ignominie be put upon the Declaration and Band it self, if their Honours shall think ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... and theocratic view of them which had found expression as recently as in the works of Bossuet.(534) And he transferred this method to the treatment of holy scripture. No new branch of information was left unused by him for contributing to his impious purpose. The numerous works of travels which were affording an acquaintance with the mythology of other nations, were made to furnish him with the materials for hastily applying one solution to all the early Jewish histories, which he failed to invalidate by the application of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... the soul to be the mere result of bodily organization, but as holding the soul itself to be material—corporeal. It appears that in those days the vulgar held the soul to be incorporeal, according to the views of Plato and others, but that the orthodox Christian divines looked upon this as an impious, unscriptural opinion." Dr. R. S. Candlish said: "You live again in the body—in the very body, as to all essential properties, and to all practical intents and purposes in which you live now. I am to live not a ghost, a spectre, a spirit, I am to live then, as I live now, ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... She commanded him to drive on; the blood of her father spirted over the carriage and on her dress; and from that day forward the place bore the name of the Wicked Street. The body lay unburied; for Tarquin said, scoffingly, "Romulus too went without burial;" and this impious mockery is said to have given rise to his surname of Superbus, or the Proud. ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... a magical virtue; he who observes them all is a saint; he who neglects any of them is impious and destined to pass into the body of ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... labours and euer shall be) penned this small Treatise, occasioned by the detection of a late witch among you, whose irreligious care, and vnwearied industry, is not to be defrauded of deserued commendation, and by mature deliberation, and descreete search, found out her irreligious and impious demeanour, and also discouered sundry her vnnaturall and inhumane mischiefes done to others, whereof being conuicted, she was accordingly sentenced, and did vndergoe the penalty iustly appointed, and due by Law vnto malefactors of ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... a step toward the churchyard, but D'Effernay clutched his arm, and, with an impious oath, "you shall not stir," he said; "that grave ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... to the use of the new anaesthetic in maternity cases as Mahony had never expected to hear again: the therapeutic value of pain; the moral danger the patient ran in yielding up her will ("What right have we to bid a fellow-creature sacrifice her consciousness?") and the impious folly of interfering with the action of a creative law. It had only remained for him to quote ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... therefore, from his being accounted impious, perfidious, and cruel, these disadvantages resulted; but, on the other hand, there accrued to him one great gain, noticed with admiration by all historians, namely, that in his army, although made up of men of every race and country, no dissensions ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... not know, vile slave! quoth he, How impious 'tis to jest With sacred things, and to profane The office ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... find was that the Will of God was inscrutable and absolute; that it was man's duty to follow where God's hand led; and, if God's hand led towards violent excitements and extraordinary vicissitudes, that it was not only futile, it was impious to turn another way. Fatalism is always apt to be a double-edged philosophy; for while, on the one hand, it reveals the minutest occurrences as the immutable result of a rigid chain of infinitely predestined causes, on the other, it invests the wildest ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... the critic says:—'After all these contradictory propoundings concerning God we would remind him of what he lays down on page 23—'of this Godhead in itself he alone is not imbecile—he alone is not impious who propounds nothing. A man who thus conclusively convicts himself of imbecility and impiety needs no further refutation.' Now the sentence, as I wrote it, and as I find it printed on that very page which the critic refers to ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... I received no answer, and I was glad of it. "Oh, blessed solitude;" often I exclaimed, "how far holier and better art thou than harsh and undignified association with the living. Away with the empty and impious vanities, the base actions, the low despicable conversations of such a world. I have studied it enough; let me turn to my communion with God; to the calm, dear recollections of my family and my true friends. ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... conquered," cried Alexander, stretching his arm towards the receding waters. "The sea deserts the impious heretics. Strike from them now their last hope, and cut off their retreat to the departing ships." The Spaniards were not slow to perceive their advantage, while the courage of the patriots at last began to ebb with the tide. The day ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... parts, Halfdene visits the Isle of Lindisfarne, hoping perhaps in his pagan soul not only to commit ordinary sacrilege in the holy places there, which is every-day work for the like of him, but even to lay impious hands on, and to treat with indignity, the remains of that holy man St. Cuthbert, who has become, in due course, patron and guardian saint of hunters, and of that scourge of pagans, Alfred the West Saxon. If such were his thoughts, he is disappointed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... aged Chinaman with the prayer wheel stopped his incessant, impious turning, and rising, held up his hand as if to ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... denial, was engendered. They comprehended now why Abelard had claimed the "supremacy of reason over faith," and why Italian poets smiled at dreams of "immortality." Then, too, the new culture compelled respect for infidel and for Jew. Was it not from their impious hands, that this new knowledge of the physical universe had ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... to condemn all the world to wear their own strait-waistcoat, cut and sewn by rabbis and doctors some thousand years ago; a garment which the human intellect has altogether outgrown, which it is ridiculous to wear, which careless and impious men laugh at when it is seen in the streets; and might begin to see that spirit is spirit, and flesh is flesh; that while one lives for ever, the other is corruptible and passes away; that there are developments in faith as in every thing else; that as man's intellect and human knowledge have grown ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... in the riotous group. JOHNSON. 'Sir, he was my acquaintance and relation, my mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but not simoniacally. I never saw him but in the country. I have been told he was a man of great parts; very profligate, but I never heard he was impious.' BOSWELL. 'Was there not a story of his ghost having appeared?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it was believed. A waiter at the Hummums[1035], in which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of ambition in thy heart; nor be busy with devices, and circumventings, and selfish schemings; lest desolation and loneliness be on thy path, as it stretches into the long futurity! Live not a useless, an impious, or an injurious life! for bound up with that life is the immutable principle of an endless retribution, and elements of God's creating, which will never spend their force, but continue ever to unfold with the ages ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... an unfounded accusation against them of intriguing for the overthrow of the Republic; and in order to give it a "colour of probability," induced the above-named Anziani to sign it; and that, in order to accomplish his impious design, he wrote a private letter to De Pasqualis, telling him how the arrest of the accused might be effected. Again, I learn that a search, instituted by Salvatori into the priest Santurri's papers, produced no "evidence favourable to his infamous purpose," that the accused were never examined, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... and Lismore, with all other Seminaries of Piety and Learning, (the only genuine Sources of national Greatness, Concord, good Discipline, and Happiness) had obliged, in the 8th Century, so many learned Men to seek that Shelter and Security on the Continent, which the barbarous Hostilities, and impious Manners of those Northerns, denied them at Home; had made such frequent lamentable Breaches in the antient, wise Constitution of the Kingdom; had, by the fatal Example of their profligate dissolute Lives, so vitiated the national Morality; ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... reformation! Persons who wish to study the motives of the executions ordered by Calvin will find, all relations considered, another 1793 in Geneva. Calvin cut off the head of Jacques Gruet "for having written impious letters, libertine verses, and for working to overthrow ecclesiastical ordinances." Reflect upon that sentence, and ask yourselves if the worst tyrants in their saturnalias ever gave more horribly burlesque reasons for their cruelties. Valentin Gentilis, condemned to death for "involuntary ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... do believe there be, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord; Both mysteries divine, which do to me, By God's appointment, benefit afford. But shall they be my God, or shall I have Of them so foul and impious a thought, To think that from the curse they can me save? Bread, wine, nor water, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the citadel of Troy. There Diana and La-toʹna, the mother of Apollo, healed his wound and restored his health and strength. Then Apollo begged Mars to assist the Trojans in the battle, and particularly to drive from the field the impious son of Tydeus, who had dared to attack the immortals with his spear, and would now fight even with Jupiter himself. The god of war consented, and assuming the form of Acʹa-mas, a Thracian leader, he went through the Trojan ranks encouraging ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... arrived at last. The decision to which it came on the twelve articles was that this girl was wholly the devil's; was impious in regard to her parents; thirsted for Christian blood, etc. This was the opinion given by the faculty of theology. That of law was more moderate, declaring her to be deserving of punishment, but with two reservations: (1) In case she persisted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... would not so frequently happen amongst us; but being most part so irreconcilable as we are, perverse, proud, insolent, factious, and malicious, prone to contention, anger and revenge, of such fiery spirits, so captious, impious, irreligious, so opposite to virtue, void of grace, how should it otherwise be? Many men are very testy by nature, apt to mistake, apt to quarrel, apt to provoke and misinterpret to the worst, everything that is said or done, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... than the Eternal God!" he cried; and he cursed Antipas for his luxurious gardens, his statues, his furniture of carved ivory and precious woods, comparing him to the impious Ahab. ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... than nominal, and the salary was augmented for his accommodation. Interest and faction allow little to the operation of particular dispositions or private opinions. Two men of personal characters more opposite than those of Wharton and Addison could not easily be brought together. Wharton was impious, profligate, and shameless; without regard, or appearance of regard, to right and wrong. Whatever is contrary to this may be said of Addison; but as agents of a party they were connected, and how they adjusted their other sentiments ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... religion with religion itself, with the honor of God, with the worship and the love of God, and feel that somehow it is impious for them to consider the question whether their intellectual theories are correct or not; and so the world stands by the ideas of the past, and opposes anything like finer and nobler ideas that offer themselves for consideration. And not only in the ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... poor soul. He was not impious. He had been religiously brought up in the family of the late Governor Cavendish. He was accustomed to be devout during divine worship. And on this occasion he wrestled with Satan—that is, with himself—and tried to fix his mind in succession ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... could say to the contrary, dispute publicly concerning the Christian religion with more zeal than discretion; and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane; and cried out against all that adhered to them, as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner, he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... allow his companion to finish. He blushed at his lack of heart. He blushed at having an instant forgotten the horrible deeds perpetrated by the Romans in their impious war. He blushed at having forgotten that the sacrifice of the enemies of Gaul was above all else pleasing to Hesus. In his anger, he rang out, for answer, the war song of the Breton seamen, as if the wind could carry his words of defiance and death ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... And compass vile; so that ye taught a school[7] Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and chip, and fit, Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, Their verses tallied. Easy was the task: A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask Of poesy. Ill-fated, impious race, That blasphemed the bright lyrist to his face, And did not know it; no, they went about Holding a poor decrepit standard out Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... do the will of God and to perish in his success. He pursued an object, the excellence of which, as his mind saw it, transcended all other considerations, the freedom of England and the destruction of idolatry, and those who, from any motive, noble or base, pious or impious, crossed his path, he crushed and ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the crown of thorns. These things and deeds are diametrically opposed; they are as distinct as vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... and threatens me with all sorts of things; but I can see he knows no more about it than I do, for he has a bewildered look in his face when I ask him these things, and once or twice he has put his hands to his ears and fairly run away, as if I was saying something altogether profane and impious against the gods." ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... complexioned, though inhabiting the low and humid coast regions— a proof, if any were wanted, that there is nothing unwholesome in man's flesh. Some of our old accounts of shipwrecked seamen, driven to the dire necessity of eating one another, insinuate that the impious food causes raging insanity. The Wabembe tribe, occupying a strip of land on the western shore of the Tanganyika Lake, are "Menschenfresser," as they were rightly called by the authors of the "Mombas Mission Map." These miserables have ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... an instance of common life. I quote it with reluctance, not so much for its absurdity as that the expression in one place will strike at first sight as little less than impious; and it is indeed, though unintentionally so, most irreverent. But I know no other example that will so forcibly illustrate the important truth I wish to establish. The following epitaph is to be found in a church-yard ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... which they abound. The peasants assign to them a miraculous origin, and wear them in little bags round the neck as charms against headache, blindness, shipwreck, and hydrophobia, being, as they allege, signed with the cross. According to tradition, a pagan chief, having, in his impious rage, thrown down the cross in the chapel of Coatdry, Heaven, in memorial of the outrage, placed the sacred symbol upon the stones of ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... power, and then miserably slew him— hacking his body to pieces, as the wind tears the vine, with the axe Pelekus, which, like the swords of Roland and Arthur, has its proper name. The fragments of the body they boiled in a great cauldron, and made an impious banquet upon them, afterwards carrying the bones to Apollo, whose rival the young child should have been, thinking to do him service. But Apollo, in great pity for this his youngest brother, laid the bones in a grave, within his own holy place. Meanwhile, Here, full of ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... characters; that he has owned himself to be a sorcerer and a magician; that he had kept by him a book of magic, and had made use of it to conjure and invoke the evil spirit; that he has been with the said Magdalen to the sabbath, where he had committed an infinite number of scandalous, impious and abominable actions, such as having worshiped Lucifer:—for these causes, the said attorney-general requires that the said Gaufredi be declared attainted and convicted of the circumstances imputed to him, and as reparation of them, that he be previously degraded from sacred orders by ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... tarnished her fair fame. Such an idol of popular admiration would be sure to exhibit an overweening vanity. When in Hamburg in 1819, M. Schevenke, a great musician, criticised her vocal feats with severity. Mme. Catalani shrugged her beautiful shoulders and called him "an impious man." "For," said she, "when God has given to a mortal so extraordinary a talent as I possess, people ought to applaud and honor it as a miracle; it is profane to ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... despondency to hope. The night before it seemed as if all events were so arranged as to thwart him in his dearest wishes; he felt now as if his discontent and repining, not twenty-four hours before, had been almost impious, so great was the change in his circumstances for the better. Now all seemed promising for the fulfilment of what he most desired. He was almost convinced that he was mistaken in thinking that Kinraid had had anything ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... out with wretched rule And compass vile: so that ye taught a school Of dolts to smooth, inlay and clip and fit; Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, Their verses tallied. Easy was the task: A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race! That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face, And did not know it,—no, they went about, Holding a poor decrepit standard out, Marked with most flimsy mottoes, and, in large, The name ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... illustrated, fascinated her greatly. The colors and the gilding, the flowers and the emblems, pleased her, and she took the texts sandwiched between as the jalap in the jam. At first she thought it impious to have them there at all, because they were in the Bible, and mamma used to say that good Christians never read the Bible. It was a holy book which only priests might use, and when those pigs of Protestants looked into it and read it, just as they would read the newspaper, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... write in English impious, impotent, without a hyphen; but im-penitent, im-probable, ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... reasonings, the scepticisms, the critical doubts of men. There will be no refuge for praying sisters in that world of "simple views" from which they come forth at present furnished with a social and domestic decalogue whose sacredness it is impious to doubt or to dispute. In other words, the power which woman now exercises will simply crumble to dust. Whether she might gain a power higher and more beneficial to the world and to herself, is a matter which we are not now discussing. What is perfectly certain is that such a power would not be ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... spell. The letter slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. Trembling in his whole body, he walked up to the covered table, took a glass and hurled it against the wall. The glass broke into a thousand pieces. "I will choke you, you impious toad!" he panted, shook his clenched fist, went to Dorothea's room, and, seized with boundless wrath, upset the chairs ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... intolerance for nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... ever had time to come to a head in the shape of lightning. From that moment the thunderbolt was safely dead and buried. It was urged, indeed, that the attempt thus to rob Heaven of its thunders was wicked and impious; but the common-sense of mankind refused to believe that absolute omnipotence could be sensibly defied by twenty yards of cylindrical iron tubing. Thenceforth the thunderbolt ceased to exist, save in poetry, country houses, and the most rural circles; even the electric fluid was generally relegated ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... of this church, which looms so boldly impious toward the sky, be felled to the ground, and be converted into a liberty-pole, with the cast-off petticoats of the enfranchised women of Wimbledon flaunting proudly from its summit, as an emblem of the downfall of man's bigotry ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... What man's breath shall be strong enough to put out at one effort the burning lamp of God? These rash endeavours of an impious piety may evoke miracles strange and monstrous. Tremble, guilty that ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Finally, my task will be to show that Simon taught a system of Theosophy, which instead of deserving our condemnation should rather excite our admiration, and that, instead of being a common impostor and impious perverter of public morality, his method was in many respects of the same nature as the methods of the theosophical movement of to-day, and deserves the study and consideration of all students ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... executive directory of five. James Monroe, appointed minister to France, had begun his mission in September, 1794, just after the fall of Robespierre; he appeared in the National Convention, and the president of that body adjured him to "let this spectacle complete the annihilation of an impious coalition of tyrants." During Jay's negotiations he continued to assure the French of the friendship of America, although the Directory speedily declared that Jay's treaty had released France from the treaty of 1778. As Monroe made no effort to ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... thou wilt not do my desire, I will murder the Egyptian and wed with thee according to the law." Whereat Joseph rent his garment, and he said, "O woman, fear the Lord, and do not execute this evil deed, that thou mayest not bring destruction down upon thyself, for I will proclaim thy impious ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... race of India, death is Yama, the soul of the first man, departed to be the king of the subterranean realm of the subsequent dead, and returning to call after him each of his descendants in turn. To the good he is mild and lovely, but to the impious he is clad in terror and acts with severity. The purely fanciful character of this thought is obvious; for, according to it, death was before death, since Yama himself died. Yama does not really represent death, but its arbiter and messenger. He is the ruler over the dead, who himself ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... imbecil imbecile, foolish; m. fool. imitar to imitate. impaciente impatient. impedir to impede, prevent, hinder. imperar to rule. imperio empire, authority. imperioso imperious. imperterrito intrepid. impio impious. imponente imposing. imponer to impose. importancia importance. importar to import, matter. impropio improper, unfit. improvisar to extemporize. impulsar to impel, push. impunidad f. impunity. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... Of one of these copies the Government obtained possession, through a subordinate agent, and by not very creditable means, and Lord Sandwich holding it forth in his hand with the air of injured innocence, denounced it as not only scandalous and impious, but also as a breach of Privilege against the Bishop as a Peer of Parliament. He likewise complained of another profane parody, written by the same hand, and printed on the same occasion; this last was entitled, "The VENI CREATOR paraphrased." The ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... in his Propositions on Sin of May 5, 1570, was the first publicly to attack Flacius by name. About the same time Moerlin's Themata de Imagine Dei and Chemnitz's Resolutio appeared. The former was directed "against the impious and absurd proposition that sin is a substance", the latter, against the assertion "that original sin is the very substance of man, and that the soul of man itself is original sin." Hesshusius also published his Letter to M. Flacius Illyricus in the Controversy whether Original ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... deliberation, it was agreed to dispatch him by poison; but this not succeeding, Mar'cia hastily introduced a young man, called Narcis'sus, whom she prevailed upon to assist in strangling the tyrant. Com'modus died in the thirty-first year of his age, after an impious reign of twelve ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... virginity, the Church, bent on governing the body as well as the soul, condemned opinions denying the lawfulness of marriage, which she had constituted a sacrament. Those who would anathematise all works of the flesh she held to be abominable and impious. A maid deserved praise for preserving her virginity, provided always that her motives were praiseworthy. Two hundred years before the reign of Charles VII, a young girl of Reims realised that a grave sin may be ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... enacted. In the first place, Mr. Verdant Green took divers oaths, and sincerely promised and swore that he would be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria. He also professed (very much to his own astonishment) that he did "from his heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever." And, having almost lost his breath at this novel "position," ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... though I knew of its preparation. My own relations to or ideas of the Bible always have been peculiar, owing to my Quaker training. The Friends consider the book as historical, made up of traditions, but not as a plenary inspiration. Of course people say these women are impious and presumptuous for daring to interpret the Scriptures as they understand them, but I think women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to their own advantage as men always have twisted and turned it to theirs.... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... unenlightenment, had it not been so tragic for those who suffered in consequence of it, must have been almost comical. On one occasion the question of firing at the clouds to bring down rain was discussed, and declared to be impious. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... notes, described the repression of the political power of the Venetian Clergy by the Venetian Senate; and it became necessary for me—in supporting an assertion made in the course of the inquiry, that the idea of separation of Church and State was both vain and impious—to limit the sense in which it seemed to me that the word "Church" should be understood, and to note one or two consequences which would result from the acceptance of such limitation. This I may as well do in a separate ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... wondered whether she had been created as a mere sentient plummet to sound every gulf of human woe; then humbly recanted the impious repining, and thanked God that, at least, she had been spared that deepest of all abysses, the Hades of remorse. That which comes to most women as the supreme earthly joy—the consciousness of possessing the heart of the man they love, fell upon Beryl like the lash of flagellation; rendering doubly ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... plea—of extinguishable right in the Nabob. He constantly represents the seizing the treasures as a resumption of a right which he could not part with;—as if there were literally something in the Koran, that made it criminal in a true Mussulman to keep his engagements with his relations, and impious in a son to abstain from plundering his mother. I do gravely assure your Lordships that there is no such doctrine in the Koran, and no such principle makes a part in the civil or municipal jurisprudence ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... meanly, did I thee upbraid, And basely urg'd an elder brother's right; Then, calling impious passion to my aid, Forc'd thee, unwilling, to the ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable provocations which they had so long endured from the impious tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle, that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander, and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious pardon ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... warned him of his peril, could do nothing even to check the progress of the assailants, who carried all before them everywhere. Bursting into the palace, a band of Persians made their way to the presence of the monarch, and slew him on the scene of his impious revelry. Other bands carried fire and sword through the town. When morning came, Cyrus found himself undisputed master of the city, which, if it had not despised his efforts, might with the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... when Talleyrand and Bonaparte must have agreed about some new measure to indirectly chastise impious writers, the Senators Garat, Jaucourt, Roederer, and Demeunier, four of the members of the senatorial commission of the liberty of the Press, were sent for, and remained closeted with Napoleon, his Minister Portalis, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Impious braggart, you forget; God is not your conscript yet; You shall learn in dumb amaze That His ways are not your ways, That the mire through which you trod Is not the ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... thy wisdom, I conceive, is not adequate. None doth any act by virtue of his own power. It is God. who engageth him in acts good or bad, O bestower of honour. Where then is the room for repentance? Thou deemest thyself as having perpetrated impious acts. Do thou, therefore, O Bharata, harken as to the way in which sin may be removed. O Yudhishthira, those that commit sins, can always free themselves from them through penance, sacrifice and gifts. O king, O foremost of men, sinful people are purified by sacrifice, austerities ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Firouzan was appointed commander. The Caliph, hearing of the preparations of the Persian king, sent in his turn reinforcements, and placed at their head his general No'man, with the strictest orders to destroy the impious religion of the Fire-Worshippers. It was at Nehawend [9] that, after a delay of two months, the shock of arms decided the fate of Iran. Thirty thousand Persians fell on the battlefield, and eighty thousand were drowned in the moats surrounding the camp. Firouzan ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... three, but mine is the oldest. A flood came—sent by the gods, for the woman was impious. The king must ride with her into the sea and leave her there, himself to come back, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... account of the Creation. Look, finally, at the excitement caused by the publication of the 'Origin of Species;' and compare it with the calm attendant on the appearance of the far more outspoken, and, from the old point of view, more impious, 'Descent of Man.' ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... he is all right now, and might return home when he liked. But the question began to be agitated whether the whole system of Copernicus ought not to be condemned as impious and heretical. This view was persistently urged upon the Pope and College of Cardinals, and it was ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... then to me, if impious War— Array'd in flames, like to the Prince of Fiends— Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats Enlink'd to ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... constitute a sort of republic; they all know each other; the servants they recommend and hand on from one to another are a race apart, and preserved by them, as horse-breeders will admit no animal into their stables that has not a pedigree. The more the impious—as they are thought—come to understand a household of bigots, the more they perceive that everything is stamped with an indescribable squalor; they find there, at the same time, an appearance of avarice and mystery, as in a miser's home, ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... recourse was had to a barbarous superstitious custom, once unhappily common in Brazil, that of killing several fine healthy children, eating their hearts, livers, &c.; then washing in their blood, and annointing the body with grease made from the remains. Let us at least hope this impious and inhuman ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... now resembled the fallen angel, defiant in the presence of the Creator. The little old man gazed at him, and even seemed to breathe into him this impious transport. ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... too, to press the motives that seem to us the fairest upon other hearts. We must give them utterance as faithfully as we can, for they may be a step in another's progress. But the thought of interfering with the design of God will be impious, insupportable. Our only method will be a perfect sincerity, which will indeed lead us to refrain from any attempt to overbalance or to divert ingenuous minds from their own chosen path. To accuse our fellow-men of stupidity or of prejudice ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian, and the stolen burro were never seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco man—his wife paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast, being without sin, had been probably permitted to die; but ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... you do as I do? Why can't you be like your wise and sober Uncle Forty? Or like your good and earnest Auntie Fifty? Why can't you behave like your pious grandmother? Why can't you imitate your noble grandfather? Oh, grrrr-r, why can't you, you impious, unnatural, ill-mannered, irresponsive, irresponsible exasperating young nuisance, you!" Is it any wonder poor youth bawls back, or feels and behaves like bawling back, "How to goodness can I behave like my infernal uncle or my ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... he rushed, in the wild chase, upon the king of beasts, as is his unhappy offspring before our laws cleave to him. God creates no slaves. The laws of man do oftentimes pervert the best gifts of nature, and wage an impious warfare against her decrees. But you can discover what is of the earth and what is from above. You may take man at his birth, and by an adequate system make him a slave, a brute, a demon. This is man's work. ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... my father's prophetic forebodings were but too well founded! The ways of God are just, and the dispensations of his wisdom are not to be scanned, much more disputed, by impious man; to submit to his Divine will without repining, is the imperative duty of every sincere Christian. I shall never forget the day, nor the care and anxiety of my excellent father. We set off early, in order to walk leisurely to church, that my mother should not be so heated as ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... missionaries having more zeal than discretion, refused to quit the vineyard. — They persisted in saying mass, in preaching, baptizing, and squabbling with the conjurers, or priests of the country, till they had thrown the whole community into confusion. — Then the assembly proceeded to try them as impious impostors, who represented the Almighty as a trifling, weak, capricious being, and pretended to make, unmake, and reproduce him at pleasure; they were, therefore, convicted of blasphemy and sedition, and condemned to the stale, where they died singing Salve regina, in a rapture of joy, for the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... adverse to the renewal of hostilities. "Those Shiahs," he observes, "who are backward on this great occasion, and are reconciled to this shameful peace, shall be expelled from the faithful sect and forever counted among its enemies. To slaughter them will be meritorious; to permit their existence impious." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... fair maid, how monarchs you accuse: Such reasons none but impious rebels use: Those, who to empire by dark paths aspire, Still plead a call to what they most desire; But kings by free consent their kingdoms take, Strict as those sacred ties which nuptials make; And whate'er ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... holy old man, whose humility presented a marked contrast with the conqueror's haughty spirit. Pius VII., who was quartered in the Pavilion of Flora, led the life of an anchorite, with all the modesty and piety of an old monk, fasting every day as in his convent, and edifying even the impious by the nimbus that shone around his pale and mystic face. It was impossible to approach this worthy Vicar of Christ without a filial feeling of tenderness. The crimes of the French Revolution—the massacre or the execution of the priests, the profanation ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... out the impious aspiration as he sorted a judicious modicum of hemp into the canary seed. He spoke in semi-soliloquy, yet quite loud enough to reach the vigilant ear of Mrs. Punt, who was dusting the cages at the other end of the live-stock store. She said nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... Vain, impious words! The goddess came In likeness of an ancient crone, With grizzled locks and tottering frame, And spoke ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... chest gave him pain in the night, and that when ascending a hill he got out of breath, and when he stood still on the edge of a precipice he would be seized with a dizziness, and could scarcely restrain a foolish desire to throw himself down. And many other impious things he invented, as though not understanding that sicknesses do not come to a man by chance, but as a consequence of conduct not corresponding with the laws of the Eternal. Thus Judas Iscariot kept on rubbing his ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... I could eat even perdrix aux choux — a villanous dish formerly — but we have no more cabbages than partridges to thank God for. I have long been obliged to leave off saying "grace after meat;" it really became an impious mockery, and was also impolitic and uneconomical, as my stomach used to turn against it. I consulted John this morning about killing a sheep, as none of them seemed inclined to die naturally. John caught at the idea with great quickness. He really is an intelligent fellow; and both ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... all the eloquence of a pious woman who is trying to wither an impious man, she poured upon him a stream of reproaches for what she called his infamous treachery. What? How could he appear against Jacques, who was his friend, and who had actually aided him in obtaining the promise of a great match. By that one hope he had become, so to say, a member of the family. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Ecclesiastical Rome. The fixed epithet of Avignon is Papal; and as the express train rushes over its bleak and wind-tormented plain, the heavy dungeon-walls and battlemented towers of its palace fortress seem to warn us off, and bid us quickly leave the Babylon of exiled impious Antichrist. Avignon presents the bleakest, barest, greyest scene upon a February morning, when the incessant mistral is blowing, and far and near, upon desolate hillside and sandy plain, the scanty ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... nick of time for Nell, as all things, indeed, in life seemed to befall in the nick of time for her. The impious huswives shook their heads and attributed it to the evil influence; the pious huswives asserted it was providential; Nell herself laughingly declared it ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... at courts, where fools are sometimes favoured and backbiters preferred, a lie lacks not credit. Nor did Feng keep from shameful embraces the hands that had slain a brother; pursuing with equal guilt both of his wicked and impious deeds. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... defence of popular superstition was no longer a matter of mere policy but of heartfelt need. Marcus Aurelius was a great immolator of white cows. The Christians were disliked, not as superstitious, but as impious. Alexander of Abunoteichos expelled 'Christians and Epicureans' by name from his séances. Lucian is the Voltaire of a credulous age. As for sacerdotal magic, Ovid explicitly ascribed the ex opere operato ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various |
