"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ostler appeared who, grasping the horse's bridle and heeding me no whit, led us into the stable yard. And here I found Mr. Shrig leaning upon his knotted stick and lost in contemplation of a dusty chaise beneath which lay a perspiring and profane postboy busied with divers ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... given heap of corn or cutting (with sickles) an allotted patch of wheat. Among the men the bravos or bullies often were dandies also in the backwoods fashions, wearing their hair long and delighting in the rude finery of hunting-shirts embroidered with porcupine quills; they were loud, boastful, and profane, given to coarsely bantering one another. Brutally savage fights were frequent; the combatants, who were surrounded by rings of interested spectators, striking, kicking, biting, and gouging. The fall of one of them did ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... prayer slowly and reverently, and then, letting the paper fall upon the grass, Dundee fell into a reverie. There was a day when he would have treated the prayer lightly, not because he had ever been a profane man, like Esau, but because he had no relish for ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... gritty fellow and was not to be so easily defeated. With some word which I could not catch, but which I have no doubt was profane, or at least vulgar, he dashed up the stairs, and just as his hand touched the case I let the silver drop to the dining-room. I smiled as I saw his next move. He carefully removed his coat and vest, rolled up his sleeves, and took off his collar. This evidently ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... did, but more than once, in the darkness of night, I aided him and his men in their work. I was dressed as a boy, and only Injun Jack and my father knew I was not a boy. Now you know what sort of girl you have fancied you loved. I mingled with those men, those desperadoes, who were profane as pirates—who were, in a sense, the pirates of the great plains. A fine life for an innocent girl! Have you forgotten that my hands are stained with human blood? Have you forgotten it was my ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... brown cobs, animals which in the eyes of Kingthorpe were almost as sacred as that Egyptian beast whose profane slaughter was more deeply felt than the nation's ruin—to think that these exalted brutes should have been sent to fetch that debased creature, a salaried companion. But then Aunt Betsy ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... could stir him. In 1860 he became eleventh Earl of Dalhousie. He died two years later, having enjoyed every distinction, even that of President of the Royal Military Asylum. He was "unco guid," as pious as his father had been profane, but he had no social or political or intellectual merit of any kind which can at this distance of time be discerned. Florence Nightingale called him the Bison, and his life's energy seems to have been expended in trying, often with success, to frustrate every single practical reform which ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... thing came under the eye of the mother, And caused her a dreadful internal pother: The woman's scent is fine and strong; Snuffles over her prayer-book all day long, And knows, by the smell of an article, plain, Whether the thing is holy or profane; And as to the box she was soon aware There could not be much blessing there. "My child," she cried, "unrighteous gains Ensnare the soul, dry up the veins. We'll consecrate it to God's mother, She'll give us some heavenly manna or other!" Little Margaret made a wry face; ...
— Faust • Goethe
... unacquainted with any of them, felt that it was much pleasanter to be here, in a social atmosphere, than wandering around by himself in the dark and lonely streets. He observed one thing with surprise, that the boys refrained from profane or vulgar speech, though they were by no means so particular in the street during the day. This is, however, a rule strictly enforced by the superintendent, and, if not complied with, the offender is denied the privilege ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... ourselves free, and who is angry with a prisoner for asserting his freedom when it is in his power?" to this we replied, "You speak, friend, as if without any sense of religion. What rational person does not know that adulteries are profane and infernal, and that marriages are holy and heavenly. Do not adulteries take place with devils in hell, and marriages with angels in heaven? Did you never read the sixth commandment [Footnote: According to the division of the commandments adopted by the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... to be twisted into an evil sneer. He is a seducer and liar: he has ruined various women, and had special facilities for becoming acquainted with the rottenness of society: and occasionally he expresses, in language of the most profane, not to say blasphemous character, a momentary regret for having done so much harm,—such as the Devil might sentimentally have expressed, when he had succeeded in misleading our first parents. Of course, he never pays tradesmen for the things with which they supply ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... that has to do with it," Cicily interpolated languidly, from her place at the tea-table. "I remember it all quite perfectly." There was a smothered ejaculation from Morton, which sounded almost profane; Carrington's eyes were widely rounded as he stared at his hostess. "Yes," she went on, her musical voice gently casual in its modulations, "I remember it so well, because it was the day after—after—oh, well, after something or other! I shall ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... being of God—have absolutely no bounds at all. Men blaspheme the Author of nature, formally and in words renounce their allegiance to their Creator. Put an instance, then, with respect to any one of these three. Though we should suppose profane swearing, and in general that kind of impiety now mentioned, to mean nothing, yet it implies wanton disregard and irreverence towards an infinite Being our Creator; and is this as suitable to the nature of man as reverence and dutiful submission of heart towards that Almighty Being? ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... widening and better building of the streets, an improvement which came in aid of the cleanliness that was resorted to against the plague; so that instead of a judgment against the King and his government, Rochester said, in his profane way, that heaven never showed a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... interest in the final phase. While we clambered about on ladders and toyed with the peril of unfloored abysses, while we trespassed and pried and pervaded, snatching a scant impression from sorry material enough, clearly, the sacred edifice enjoyed a credit beyond that of the profane; but when both were finished and opened we flocked to the sound of the fiddle more freely, it need scarce be said, than to that of the psalm. "Freely" indeed, in our particular case, scarce expresses the latter relation; since our young liberty in respect to church-going was absolute and ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... in a back street, where a human being passes dismally through life the while he chips out an unending succession of these cheap urns and obelisks for his employers' retailing. But the question why numberless people will profane the memory of their departed by these public advertisements of Slap & Dash, and their evil trade, is a more difficult problem. For surely nothing could be more unmeaning or more ungainly than the monumental urn, unless it ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... a station which they are unable to defend. Knowing Christianity chiefly in the difficulties which it contains, and in the impossibilities which are falsely imputed to it, they fall perhaps into the company of infidels; and, as might be expected, they are shaken by frivolous objections and profane cavils, which, had they been grounded and bottomed in reason and argument, would have passed by them, "as the idle wind," and scarcely have seemed ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception; the other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from the profane eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the "metaphysical verse" of Cowley is but evidence of the simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in this but a type of his school—for we may as well designate in this way the entire class ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... And the word Profane, is usually taken in the Scripture for the same with Common; and consequently their contraries, Holy, and Proper, in the Kingdome of God must be the same also. But figuratively, those men also are called Holy, that led such godly lives, as if they had forsaken all worldly designes, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Two superb figures—the lay preacher Hans Nilsen and Skipper Worse—surpass all that the author had hitherto produced in depth of conception and brilliancy of execution. The marriage of that delightful, profane old sea-dog, Jacob Worse, with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the attempts of his mother-in-law to convert him, are described not with the merely superficial drollery to which the subject invites, ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... into the Thoughts of that Being, who is all along describ'd as aspiring to the Majesty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Instruments he could have made use of to imitate those Thunders, that in all Poetry, both sacred and profane, are represented as the Arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the Hills, was not altogether so daring a Thought as the former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an Incident by the Description of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you crazy? Would I dare to profane ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... to Irish and Jack Bates, absent members of the Happy Family of the Flying U; letters that explained the situation with profane completeness, set forth briefly the plan of the proposed pool, and which importuned them to come home or make haste to the nearest land-office and file upon certain quarter-sections therein minutely described. Those men who would be easiest believed ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... seclusion which rather exceeded even their own notions of personal dignity. Until one of the first noblemen in the nation was sent to treat with him, the Commodore shunned all intercourse with the people, and systematically refused to expose himself to the profane eyes of the multitude. This unusual course took the Japanese quite by surprise, and, not without some feeling of trepidation, they bestirred themselves with unexampled alacrity to satisfy, so far as they were able, his reasonable demands. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... religions of mankind, we must compare it, not with Judaeism only, but with the religious aspirations of the whole world, with all, in fact, that Christianity came either to destroy or to fulfil. From this point of view Christianity forms part, no doubt, of what people call profane history, but by that very fact, profane history ceases to be profane, and regains throughout that sacred character of which it had been deprived by a false distinction. The ancient Fathers of the Church spoke on these subjects with far ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... their ill-gotten prizes. May the spectre of Thomas Frognall Dibdin haunt the souls of these impious rascals, and torture them with never-ceasing visions of unobtainable and rare portraits, non-existent autographs, and elusive engravings in general! They even dare to profane your sacred work, the Biblia of book-lovers, by the 'insertion' of crudities invented by their fiendish imagination. They have committed the 'unpardonable sin' of bibliophilism. Not only do they carry on this wicked work, but actually flaunt ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... have an air of intelligence which successfully masks our colossal ignorance of occult facts and defunct dates, because they rely on us to inform them off-hand concerning everything social, political, historical, sacred and profane, spirituous and spiritual, from the protoplasm of the cliff-dwellers to the details of the Dingley bill, not skipping accurate information on the process of whiskey-making in Kentucky, a crocodile-hunt in Florida, suffrage in Wyoming, a lynching-bee in Texas, polygamy in Utah, ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... dangerous to a tyro in Antinomianism, the situation of the initiated is very different; to the former all things are sinful, but the latter being free from the law, and above ordinances, have a large licence. Valuing herself now only on her spiritual graces, Lady Bellingham opened the profane legend, which, she expected, described personal attractions; and to her astonishment recognized the writing of her son, of whom she had heard no certain tidings since the battle of Preston, but who was supposed, both ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... or a limited society. But this last remnant of the old custom shows itself here as a peculiar exception; the festival in the house instead of "before Jehovah " has also something ambiguous about it, and turns the sacrifice into an entirely profane act of slaughtering almost—until we come to the rite of expiation, which is characteristically retained (Exodus xii. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... actions; I would have given her all that remained to me of beauty; above all, I longed to pour into her veins the fire of my own great love, that you might be entirely happy and blest. I would have decked your bride with my own hands, and have brought her to you; I would have kept watch, that nothing profane should disturb ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... said Fouquet, laughing, "my secrets are of too profane a character to confide them to a bishop, however great a worldling ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be ashamed, my lad, if you have a patch on your elbow. It is no mark of disgrace. It speaks well for your industrious mother. For our part, we would rather see a dozen patches on your clothes than to have you do a bad or mean action, or to hear a profane or vulgar word proceed from your lips. No good boy will shun you or think less of you because you do not dress as well as he does, and if any one laugh at your appearance, never mind it. Go right ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... the people in West Rutland. On certain occasions Haynes was treated with unkindness and even with abuse by unprincipled men. Scandalous reports concerning him were circulated and he was denounced with profane language. But he gloried in tribulations, knowing that "tribulations worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed." Observing the signs of the times, therefore, and governed by prayerful deliberation he felt that he should sever his ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... And well we knew the worth of victory. Loud rolled the rounds of cheers from corps to corps; Comrades embraced each other; iron men Shed tears of joy like women; men profane Fell on their knees and thanked Almighty God. Then 'Hail Columbia' rang the brazen horns, And all the hill-tops shouted unto heaven; The welkin shouted to the shouting hills—And heavens and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... front upon a sheltered and sunny aspect. It should be near the ground, in a clean and quiet spot, free from the intrusion of other creatures, either human or profane, and undisturbed by noisome smells, and uncouth sounds—for it loathes all these instinctively, and loves nothing so much as the wild beauty of nature itself. The plan here presented is of the plainest and least expensive kind. Nine posts, or crutches, are set into the ground ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... his mind the soul became a thing to be hidden away, covered up, not thought of. One might be allowed to speak of the matter at the moment of death, but for the healthy man or boy to have the thought of his soul in his mind or word of it on his lips—one might better become blatantly profane and go to the devil with a swagger. With delight he imagined himself as dying and with his last breath tossing a round oath into the air ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... gods. He is by vocation a Sorcerer, and by rank a Priest. You now see him casting charms and blessings into the canoes of our fishermen, who kneel to him for fine weather and great plenty of fish. If any profane person, native or stranger, presumes to set foot on that island, my otherwise peaceful subjects will (in the performance of a religious duty) put that person to death. Mention this to your men. They will ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... time, to cyclopean dimensions. For the first time in my life I experienced the desire to murder—"saw red," as some of our picturesque writers phrase it. Life in general might still be sacred, but life in the particular case of Thomas Mugridge had become very profane indeed. I was frightened when I became conscious that I was seeing red, and the thought flashed through my mind: was I, too, becoming tainted by the brutality of my environment?—I, who even in the most flagrant crimes had denied the justice and righteousness ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... curate appeared pleased. The Jesuit persisted in his opinion. "Beware of a profane taste in your theological style. What says Augustine on this subject: ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had already gained among amateurs, particularly at auctions, which I attended diligently, the reputation of being able to tell at once what any historical picture represented, whether taken from biblical or profane history, or from mythology; and, even if I did not always hit upon the meaning of allegorical pictures, there was seldom any one present who understood it better than I. Often had I persuaded the artists to represent ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... old peer," replied his lordship, in a languid voice, "coming as a missionary to reform the profane and infidel. I wish he would let me alone, and subscribe to the Missionary ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the peculiarities of their style; (2) their use of popular language on scientific questions; (3) the corruption of the text; (4) the number of spurious books; (5) the retraction by the fathers of their own previous statements; (6) their careless use of profane learning; (7) the describing things as they appear, not as they are; (8) their ambiguous ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... following obligation: “I, ——, do hereby solemnly swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am in the employ of Russell, Majors, & Waddell, that I will under no circumstances use profane language; that I will drink no intoxicating liquors of any kind; that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... use profane language, Father, there's no telling how much you think in expletives. What is your opinion of a man who tumbles a poor, defenseless girl into prison and then refuses to let her be decently cared for? How do you express yourself ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men; for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... chanted feebly another part of the service; then the nuns warbled once more overhead; and it was curious to hear, in the intervals of the most lugubrious chants, how the organ went off with some extremely cheerful military or profane air. At one time was a march, at another a quick tune; which ceasing, the old nuns began again, and so sung until the service ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... words narrate it? The door burst open, and out flew the commercial traveller in his stockings. One hand held a lump of coat and trousers with suspenders dangling, his boots were clutched in the other. The sight of us stopped his flight short. He gazed, the boots fell from his hand; and at his profane explosion, Medicine Bow set up a united, unearthly noise and began to play Virginia reel with him. The other occupants of the beds had already sprung out of them, clothed chiefly with their pistols, and ready for war. "What is it?" they demanded. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Chip, and made himself another cigarette. He would be glad when he could hobble out to some lonely spot and empty his soul of the profane language stored away opposite the name of Dr. Cecil Granthum. There is so little comfort in swearing all inside, when one feels ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... Note: UNE] BONNE BIBLIOGRAPHIE," says Marchand, "soit generale soit particuliere, soit profane soit ecclesiastique, soit nationale, provinciale, ou locale, soit simplement personelle, en un mot de quelque autre genre que ce puisse etre, n'est pas un ouvrage aussi facile que beaucoup de gens se le pourroient imaginer; mais, elles ne doivent ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... retrieve their miserable affairs. The oracle answered, "Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother." They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence: "We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents." They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke: "Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety. The earth is the great parent of all; the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "a large iron screw," the beam was replaced and carefully fastened, and the vessel continued on. During this storm John Howland, "a stout young man," was by a "heel of the ship thrown into the sea, but catching by the halliards, which hung overboard, he kept his hold, and was saved." "A profane and proud young seaman," also, "stout and able of body, who had despised the poor people in their sickness, telling them he hoped to help cast off half of them overboard before they came to their journey's end, and to make merry with what they had, was smitten with a grievous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... meeting for the purpose of overthrowing the state. Their cry succeeded. The very book of the abridgment of the evidence was considered by many members as poisonous as that of the Rights of Man. It was too profane for many of them to touch; and they who discarded it, discarded the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... the presence of the nation's dead, and here, on the tomb of our chieftain, let us swear eternal enmity to treason and to traitors. Nor let us, when the assassin shall be arrested and punished—oh! let us not then think we have done our duty. I had rather the profane wretch who has done this deed were never taken, than that his execution should relieve our minds from one thought of our personal responsibility. No; rather let the wretch be a fugitive and vagabond, with the ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... the entire extent of the Green Island. In 360 A.D., they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the night's dark shadows, The hair stands on end through terror; Thus confused, so full of doubt, Sad remembrance so o'erwhelms me, That the thing I dared to do I scarce dare in words to tell thee. For, in fine, my crime is such, So to be abhorred, detested, So profane, so sacrilegious (Strange upon thee so to press it), That for having such committed I at times feel some repentance. Well, in fine, I dared one night, When deep silence had erected Sepulchres of fleeting sleep For men's overwearied senses, When a dark and cloudy veil Heaven ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... asked God to help him. From that day on he gave up tobacco, liquor, and profanity, devoted himself to the study of his profession, and so became the greatest Admiral of modern times. "The canal boat captains, when I was a boy," said General Garfield, "were a profane, carousing, ignorant lot, and, as a boy, I was eager to imitate them. But my eyes were opened before I contracted their habits, and I ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... it in me to laugh at the whole miserable hocus-pocus, had I been less indignant. The situation was, besides, sufficiently grave; and as I listened to this silly and profane juggling, and observed the wildness of my grandfather's bearing, it became plain to me that he could not long endure such an influence. I guessed from his talk that the old man's disorder was based upon the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... rakes the fire until it catches. Then from below, quite savory too, I scent the steam of onion stew. At length my master enters gay, Fresh for the business of the day. On Saturday a worthy priest Should keep his room, his house at least; Not visit or distract his brain, Turning his thoughts to things profane. My master was not tempted so, But once—don't let it out, you know— He squandered all his precious wits Making a titmouse trap for Fritz— Right here, and talked and had a smoke; To me, I'll own, it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was, the expression hereinbefore written would have seemed profane to young Fielding, for a farmer's farm and a sailor's ship have always something sacred in the sufferer's eyes, though one sends one to jail, and the other the other ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... fiction prose, poetry verbal, oral literal, figurative predecessor, successor genuine, artificial positive, negative practical, theoretical optimism, pessimism finite, infinite longitude, latitude evolution, revolution oriental, occidental pathos, bathos sacred, profane military, civil clergy, laity capital, labor ingress, egress element, compound horizontal, perpendicular competition, cooeperation predestination, freewill universal, particular extrinsic, intrinsic inflation, deflation dorsal, ventral acid, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of a London housewife, which can teach us much regarding the spirit of Puritanism.[83] "She was very loving and obedient to her parents, loving and kind to her husband, very tender-hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and profane. She was a pattern of sobriety unto many, very seldom was seen abroad, except at church. When others recreated themselves, at holidays and other times, she would take her needlework, and say, 'here ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... offered for my adoption, I was about to make use of. But when I reflected from whence I had collected that sacred earth, I dared not profane it by falsehood. So, with a faltering voice, and my eyes filling with tears, I told the magistrate ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Circassian was to be seen. The enemy had in fact begun to put his new tactics into execution, worrying the march he had no wish to arrest, and giving the column of invaders only a foretaste of the retribution which awaited them for daring to profane by their presence the woods free from the foundations of the world. During the freshness of the early morning the column advanced unhindered save by the unevenness of the ground, the thick-standing trees, and the undergrowth ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... of the results. But on reflection, Thomas Jefferson decided that this could not be The Sin. Profane swearing—that was what the Sunday-school lesson-leaf called it—was doubtless a mortal sin in a believer; was not he, Thomas Jefferson, finding the heavens as brass and the earth a place of fear and trembling because of that word to Nan Bryerson? ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... room, already crowded with females, waiting to be examined for their various offences. Madelaine's heart sunk, when she looked around upon those into whose society she was thus thrust. Some were intoxicated, others were gambling, quarrelling, and using profane and dreadful language. Mixed among these miserable women were several children, seeing and hearing all ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... Government, and come triumphantly even through the window-breaking episode. For if that episode was followed by the rejection of the second reading of the woman suffrage Bill, second readings, like the oaths of the profane, had come to be absolutely without significance, and the blocking of the Bill beyond this stage has been assured long before by the tactics of Mr. Redmond, whose passion for justice, like Mr. Asquith's passion for popular government, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... struck with astonishment at the work, that, like the gentlemen that they must have been, they let him go on. And thus, while the impious cruelty of those barbarous hordes was ruining the unhappy city and all its treasures, both sacred and profane, without showing respect to either God or man, Francesco was provided for and greatly honoured by those Germans, and protected from all injury. All the hardship that he suffered at that time was this, that he ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... northern heathenry the civilization spread with a simplier progress. But it was not till the end of the Middle Ages, and close on the Reformation, that the people of Prussia, the wild land lying beyond Germany, were baptized at all. A flippant person, if he permitted himself a profane confusion with vaccination, might almost be inclined to suggest that for some reason ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... to high aims and capacity for self-sacrifice often outweigh serious offences. Nelson is less a hero because he yielded to a great temptation; but he remains a hero in spite of the stain on his fame. It is much better not to be profane under any circumstances, but when Washington swore fiercely at Charles Lee on the battle field of Monmouth his profanity was the expression of the righteous wrath of a good man. In judging the hero one must take into account the age in which he lived, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... narrowness at the temples, the nervous twitching of the lids over the protuberant eyeballs and the abrupt outward bulge of the head above the collar at the back. Abimelech Johns was a tin-miner who had spent his days in profane swearing and coursing after hares with greyhounds until the Lord had thrown him into a trance like that which overtook Saul of Tarsus, and not unlike an epileptic fit Abimelech himself had had in childhood. Since the trance he was a changed man; his passion for souls ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... large-brimmed Panama hat, and hooking his cane on his arm, he led the way, fan in hand, into the road, tiptoeing in his tight, polished boots through the red, impalpable dust with his usual jaunty manner, yet not without a profane suggestion of burning ploughshares. The stranger strode in silence by his side in the burning sun, impenetrable in his ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... they had not read the 'Indicator' But why then do they praise the 'Rambler' and Montaigne? That comforting word, 'Mesopotamia,' which has been so often alluded to in religious matters, has many a parallel in profane literature. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... against me by the commander of the believers; you need only make it known to me." "Madam," answered Jaaffier, falling also down till she had raised herself, "God forbid any man should presume to lay profane hands on you. I do not intend to offer you the least harm. I have no farther orders, than to intreat you will be pleased to go with me to the palace, and to conduct you thither, with the merchant that lives in this house." "My lord," replied the favourite, "let us go; I am ready ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... image of misery; [Pg 163] Ps. xxv. 4; xxvii. 11, where the ways of God are the ways of salvation which He reveals to His people, that they may walk in them. The way is holy (comp. remarks on chap. iv. 3), because inaccessible to the profane world, to the unclean, who are not allowed to disturb the righteous walking on it; comp. ver. 9, which shows how entirely out of place is the remark that "the author, in his national hatred, will not allow any Gentiles to walk along ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... and now are not,— Because in some remoter day Your sacred dust from doubtful spot Was blown of ancient airs away,— Because you perished,—must men say Your deeds were naught, and so profane Your lives with that cold burden? Nay, The deeds you wrought are ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... less earthly than his own.[jj] 140 Yes, they who chose might smile, but some had seen They scarce knew what, but more than should have been. Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head[270] Which hands profane had gathered from the dead, That still beside his opened volume lay, As if to startle all save him away? Why slept he not when others were at rest? Why heard no music, and received no guest? All was not well, they deemed—but where the wrong?[271] Some knew perchance—but 'twere a tale too long; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the clergy were profane scoundrels like these; the rest repeated the words of the service, conceiving that they were working a charm. Religion was passing through the transformation which all religions have a tendency to undergo. They cease to be aids and incentives to holy life; they become contrivances rather ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... of more coarse experience of the world, more knowledge, and more rough and hard work on such a nature, one is invariably tempted to acquiesce in the view that it is good for man to have her in the state she is. One feels disposed to object to notions of female emancipation as profane. Education and science, thought and philosophy, like the winds of heaven, should never visit her cheek too roughly. The great thing is, to preserve in her that sort of luxurious unworldliness which represents ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... that instant have given my horse for a glance at either box or book. But in another moment the necessity was gone; and the revelation, though made by polluted lips, was not the less welcome to my ears. What cared I whether the oracle was profane, so long as its response echoed my most ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... hypocrite—coldblooded and heartless—and a fool. You repeated a great many times that I was superior, pretentious, and 'everlastingly stuck on myself,'—I think that was the expression. Of course, I cannot repeat your own words. They were forcible, but exceedingly profane." ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... the musician grew weary, and began to play odds and ends of old tunes, sacred and profane. He dwelt some time on an ancient "Kyrie Eleeson," and at last glided, unconsciously as it were, into the "Land o' ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... "Cease your profane remarks, my man," cried the lieutenant. "This must be examined into directly. Does any one know who ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... aware that at the fashionable bar-room the cigars are all of the same quality, though the prices mount according to the ambition of the purchaser. I found Mr. Mellasys gasping with efforts to light a dime cigar. Between his gasps, profane expressions escaped him. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... fortresses overthrown, our provinces depopulated. The ground remains untilled. Day by day idolaters exercise their rage upon the faithful, who are cruelly slaughtered; and bishops who should lie in dust and ashes seek for themselves vanitous names: glory in new and profane titles. ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... under their unceremonious jurisdiction, and he was formally reminded of his occasional neglect to say grace before and after meat—his repairing to hear the word more rarely than was fitting—his profane banning and swearing, and keeping of evil company—and finally, of his queen's carding, dancing, night-walking, and such like profane pastimes.—Calderwood, p. 313. A curse, direct or implied, was formally denounced against every man, horse, and spear, who should assist the king in his ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... away, and though I myself called to him. M. le Cure is not the man to flinch; and as he passed, walking as usual very quickly and straight, his soutane brushed against the blouse of Jacques. He gave one quick glance from beneath his eyebrows at the profane interruption, but he would not distract himself from his sacred errand at such a moment. It is a sacred errand when any one, be he priest or layman, carries the best he can give to the bedside of the dying. I said this ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... sacred body of Nature was covered with the veil of allegory, which concealed it from the profane, and allowed it to be seen only by the sage who thought it worthy to be the object of his study and investigation. She showed herself to those only who loved her in spirit and in truth, and she abandoned the indifferent and careless to error and to ignorance. "The Sages ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... contemporaneous history. The worst spirit of the time was incorporated in the later plays, and the Puritans made no discrimination. The players in turn hated them, and Mrs. Hutchinson wrote: "Every stage and every table, and every puppet- play, belched forth profane scoffs upon them, the drunkards made them their songs, and all fiddlers and mimics learned to abuse them, as finding it the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... century was approaching its close before a few sparse rays of the first dawn of the Italian Renascence reached England. But this ray was communicated neither through the clergy nor through the Universities; and such influence as was exercised by it upon the national mind, was directly due to profane poets,—men of the world, who like Chaucer quoted authorities even more abundantly than they used them, and made some of their happiest discoveries after the fashion in which the "Oxford Clerk" came across Petrarch's Latin version ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... inner laws of Nature and of our own being, can only become a scourge to ourselves and others, and it is for this reason that these secrets are so jealously guarded by those who know them, and that over the entrance to the temple are written the words "Eskato Bebeloi"—"Hence ye Profane." ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... d'en haut, with their glittering costumes—hats festooned with red or blue ribbons, sashes of variegated colors, barred shirts— tightly wedged, three by three, in caleches, like Neapolitans— patrolling the streets—interlarding a French song occasionally with an oath, tolerably profane—at all times to be met, whether in the light of day or the still hours of night. No police in those halcyon days; but with the thickening shades of evening issued forth that venerable brotherhood, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the Wolf; there shall be strife in the church of the one for ever; there shall be poverty in the church of the other." Quod impletur: strife at Clochar; Domhnach-mor-Maighe-Tochair, poverty is there. "The son upon whom the degree was conferred, two persons, after committing murder, shall profane his relics. One hundred and twenty years until a son shall be born in the southern parts [who shall reconsecrate his church], and it shall be restored to me again." Quod totum impletum est. The first place where his relics were was a high and ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... captain and she were scarcely ever alone. He was disappointed. He had regarded her coming as the life preserver which was to help him through the troubled waters to dry land, and so far he was as helplessly adrift as before. Serena had forgiven his profane expression concerning her beloved Chapter, that was true, but Serena also was "busy" during the days and evenings, and at bedtime she was too tired to talk. Gertrude was with her mother a great deal, and with Cousin Percy almost as much. They visited the water-color ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and felt the full value and importance of the judicial department of the government. An upright and able administration of the laws he held to be alike indispensable to private happiness and public liberty. The temple of justice, in his opinion, was a sacred place, and he would profane and pollute it who should call any to minister in it, not spotless in character, not incorruptible in integrity, not competent by talent and learning, not a fit object ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... losing his friends as a result of his speech are at variance with the facts. Cautious Northerners naturally hesitated to support him and face both the popular convictions on fugitive slaves and the rasping vituperation that exhausted sacred and profane history in the epithets current in that "era of warm journalistic manners"; Abolitionists and Free Soilers congratulated one another that they had "killed Webster". In Congress no Northern man save Ashmun of Massachusetts supported him in any speech for months. On the other hand, Webster ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... (for he was the carrier) was come with his letter to Hell-Gate Hill, he knocked at the brazen gates for entrance. Then did Cerberus, the porter, for he is the keeper of that gate, open to Mr. Profane, to whom he delivered his letter, which he had brought from the Diabolonians in Mansoul. So he carried it in, and presented it to Diabolus his lord, and said, 'Tidings, my lord, from Mansoul, from our ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... recognizing the nature of George Henry's struggle, had never sought payment—had, in fact, when the debtor had gone to him, apologetically and explaining, objected to the intrusion and objurgated the caller in violent language of the lovingly profane sort. He would have no talk of payment, as things stood. This claim, not only the oldest but the least annoying, should, George Henry decided, have the honor of being "No. 1"—that is, it should be paid first of all. So the list was extended, a careful analysis being made of the mental and moral ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... excite people here far more than love songs. One which began 'Remove my sins from before thy sight Oh God' was really beautiful and touching, and I did not wonder at the tears which ran down Omar's face. A very pretty profane song was 'Keep the wind from me Oh Lord, I fear it will hurt me' (wind means love, which is like the Simoom) 'Alas! it has struck me and I am sick. Why do ye bring the physician? Oh physician put ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... to be burnt with his book. Some people say the monks are grossly dishonest—it is a horrible lie. A preacher, after taking a little too much wine, has actually said that the principals of the University are given to drink and play. Some profane men say that the coat of our Lord at Treves is not genuine, but only an old rag; he does not believe there is now any hair of the Virgin in the world; and the preaching friars who sell indulgences are only a set of buffoons who deceive old apple-women. Another fool says ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... machine looks much as the Mayflower must have looked steering across Cape Cod Bay on that special occasion we read of in sacred and profane history, hung about with four-poster beds and whatnots. In our neighborhood," the plump girl added, "there is enough decrepit furniture declared to have been brought over on the Mayflower to have made a cargo ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... supposed that Billy meant to be profane, but he had taken a dislike to Mrs Dotropy, and did not choose to ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... acknowledge his moderation in contenting himself with a quiet intrigue between unmarried persons, instead of favouring us with a flagrant case of adultery, as in the "Double Meprise," or initiating us into the very profane mysteries of operatic figurantes, as in "Arsene Guillot." Even in France, where he is so greatly and justly admired, this last tale was severely censured, as bringing before the public eye phases of society that ill bear the light. Fidelity to life in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the Cauducas tumbled into their hammocks and were soon fast asleep. They rose at the usual hour the following morning, and while they were having breakfast angry and excited voices were heard alongside; and as they eagerly listened to the picturesque flow of profane language intermixed with a few eloquent remarks to God to forgive such irreverence, their minds were permeated with fear lest suspicion would fall on them during the paroxysm of alternate rage and godliness. Plunker was a powerful man, and when his anger was roused they ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... through her mind, she recollected a subterraneous passage which led from the vaults of the castle to the church of St. Nicholas. Could she reach the altar before she was overtaken, she knew even Manfred's violence would not dare to profane the sacredness of the place; and she determined, if no other means of deliverance offered, to shut herself up for ever among the holy virgins whose convent was contiguous to the cathedral. In this resolution, she seized a lamp that burned at the foot of the staircase, ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... missionary society to build up waste places in Connecticut. His sermon "Reformation of Morals practicable and desirable" warned against "profane and profligate men of corrupt minds and to every good ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... land, by ways remote and hidden, There stands a burg that men call Monsalvat; It holds a shrine to the profane forbidden, More precious, there is naught on earth than that. And throned in light, it holds a cup immortal, That whoso sees, from earthly sin is cleansed; 'Twas borne by angels through the heavenly portal, Its coming hath ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... mind who have left behind them a proverbial renown for wisdom. There is, indeed, Solomon, but he fell off at the last; and as he belongs to sacred history, we must not take a liberty with his name. Who is there very, very wise, besides Solomon? Think, Sophy,—Profane History." ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were worth. He sang, "I want you, my Honey," and put his back into it, as R. says, very slangily I think, and the suitors thought they had great subject for much mirth when they retired to the smoking-room—I think it was almost profane.... But it is time for one pipe on deck and a last look at the somewhat uncongenial sea, then to a bed, three or four ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... disarrange their loads by attempting to get on the top of them by rolling on them; others with tent-poles for part of their loads would manage to run a tent-pole on one side of a sapling while they would take the other. I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life; but I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack mules at ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... whole inspection of the situation, formation of the plot, and visual dialogue had really been so rapid as to make no long break after the lictor ceased speaking), "do you dare thus to do what even the most profane and impious have never dared before? Will you lay hands on two inviolate tribunes of the plebs, and those under their personal protection; and by your very act become a sacer—an outlaw devoted to the gods, whom it is a pious thing ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Scripture to prove "That the husband is the head of the wife, and she is to submit and obey." The wife answered, "It was blasphemy to talk Scripture out of church; that such things were very proper to be said in the pulpit, but that it was profane to talk them in common discourse." Joseph told Mr Adams "He was not come with any design to give him or Mrs Adams any trouble; but to desire the favour of all their company to the George (an ale-house in the parish), where he had bespoke a piece of bacon and greens for their ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Good Indian muttered something profane, and kicked his horse in the ribs. When it had taken no more than two leaps forward, however, he pulled it down to a walk again, and his eyes boded ill for the misguided person who goaded him further. He glanced at the ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... upon the words that Isabelle, terrified at this cruel effrontery, had scarcely time to start to one side, and so escape his profane touch; but the duke was not one to be easily balked in anything he particularly desired to do, and pressing nearer he again extended his hand towards Isabelle's white neck, and had almost succeeded in accomplishing his object, when his ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... knew. Hilda, in one of those impenetrable regards which she threw straight in front of her, while Pilate yawped and posed nearer and nearer the desire of the Magdalene to be admitted to his household, was at once aware of him. Presently he sat down again—it was still the profane, the fabulous, the horrible Patullo, but a strain of pure gold had come into the fabric worth holding in view, impossible, indeed, to close the eyes upon. Far enough it was from any semblance to historical fact, but almost possible, almost admissible, in the form of the woman, as historical ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... accompanying her to hear Mr. Lewis Wade, a celebrated missionary preacher, who had been to Syria and the Holy Land, and brought thence observations on subjects sacred and profane that made his ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Ifound this on my journey through the 'Christian Mountain,' the Tr el' 'Abedn, where I visited many places and monasteries but little known. Ionly saw Bibles in Estrangelo character, which were of value, nowhere profane books; but the people are so fanatical, and watch their books so closely, that it is very difficult to get sight of anything; and one has to keep them in good humor. Unless after a long sojourn, and with the aid of bribery, there can never ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... before God, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world;" James i. 27. From all which (together with many more texts that might be produced) it appears, that an unholy and profane life is inconsistent with Christian religion and society; and that holiness is essential to salvation and church-communion. So that these three things, faith, baptism, and a holy life, as I said before, all churches must agree and unite in, as those things which, when wanting, will ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... Later he came to us to recuperate, and was the most exacting and profane man we ever waited on. He conceived a special grudge against Georgia, whom he had caught slyly laughing when she first observed the change in his appearance. Yet months previous, he had laid ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth; setting up the Flag of Defiance to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarks, by Profane Writers, Natural Reason, and Common Experience: a Discourse as pleasant for Gentlemen that favour Learning as profitable for all that will follow Virtue." This Discourse Gosson dedicated "To the right noble Gentleman, Master ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... that error, I pray thee. Latin teaches the courtier how to thrive, the soldier how to manoeuvre, the husbandman how to sow; and if we churchmen are more cunning, as the profane call us (and the prelate smiled) than ye of the laity, the Latin must answer for the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... frequently desperate, but it was Susy's, and it shall stand. I love it, and cannot profane it. To me, it is gold. To correct it would alloy it, not refine it. It would spoil it. It would take from it its freedom and flexibility and make it stiff and formal. Even when it is most extravagant I am not shocked. It is Susy's spelling, and she was doing the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... ill, To set a form upon desired change, As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will, I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange; Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong, And haply of our old acquaintance tell. For thee, against my self I'll vow debate, For I must ne'er love ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... carrying his harp in hand on journey or visit. Wandering scholars of Ireland had left their books in the monastery of Glastonbury, as they left them along the Rhine and the Danube; and Dunstan plunged into the study of sacred and profane letters till his brain broke down in delirium. So famous became his knowledge in the neighbourhood that news of it reached the court of AEthelstan, but his appearance there was the signal for a burst of ill-will among the courtiers. Again they drove him from Eadmund's train, threw him from ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... as a storm-cloud, summed up his opinion of the management of the building in one soul-blistering phrase, produced his bandana and used it vigorously, uttered a libel on the ancestry of the night-watchman and the likes of him, and turned to give profane welcome to the policeman who had noticed the cab at Twenty-third Street and who now panted in, blown ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... blue feather in her hat, had called her away) a marvellous little band of light, of the colour of heliotrope, spread over the lawn like a carpet on which I could not tire of treading to and fro with lingering feet, nostalgic and profane, while Francoise shouted: "Come on, button up your coat, look, and let's get away!" and I remarked for the first time how common her speech was, and that she had, alas, no blue feather in ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... to the Sun office has been beneficial to them we are assured, and the closeness has not done us any hurt as we know of. Many times when something has happened that, had it happened in La Crosse, might have caused us to be semi-profane, instead of giving way to the fiery spirit within us, and whooping it up, we have thought of our neighbors who were truly good, and have turned the matter over to our business manager, who would do the subject ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... his tenderness, for any words of theirs, however fine. We all know that the holiest things, the deepest feelings, the most beautiful sights, are those about which we talk least, and least like to hear others talk. Putting them into words seems impertinent, profane. No one needs to gild gold, or paint the lily. When we see a glorious sunset; when we hear the rolling of the thunder-storm; we do not talk about them; we do not begin to cry, How awful, how magnificent; we admire them ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... was mistaken. To evince her repentance, she on the very next day attended her mother-in-law to church, who was highly edified by the sudden and religious turn of her daughter, and did not fail to ascribe to the efficacious interference of one of her favourite saints this conversion of a profane sinner. But Napoleon was not the dupe of this church-going mummery of his wife, whom he ordered his spies to watch; these were unfortunate enough to discover that she went to the Mass more to fill her appointments with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... idle yawning assistant, with legs stretched out, half asleep, mumblement, jumblement and all, from a little back window in a passage opening from that Calvary gallery upstairs. From thence at least did these profane eyes look down and see all the mumblement and jumblement, which after all was little enough; but saw especially the idle clerical apprentice who, had that screen been down, and had he been called on to do his ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Sabbath was unattended in the country with a religious welcome. Many employed their time in hunting: the more scrupulous in visits, and the profane in labor or intemperance. A gentleman, now distinguished among the wesleyans, was found by his neighbour ploughing by the road side on Sunday morning: both himself and his men had forgotten the day. Yet at the houses of all, a minister of religion, of any name, met a cheerful entertainment ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... ask, "How is it possible, against such a mode of argument, to prove the genuineness or authenticity of any book, sacred or profane?" And, of course, it is not. Such a way of conducting a controversy seems absurd, but on the author's premises it is a necessity. He asserts the dogma that the Governor of the world cannot interfere by way of miracle. He has to meet the fact that the foremost ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... adopt? What machine employ, or what reason consult by means of which we may contemplate this ineffable beauty; a beauty abiding in the most divine sanctuary without ever proceeding from its sacred retreats lest it should be beheld by the profane and vulgar eye? We must enter deep into ourselves, and, leaving behind the objects of corporeal sight, no longer look back after any of the accustomed spectacles of sense. For, it is necessary that whoever beholds this beauty, should withdraw his view from the fairest corporeal forms; ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... time in ten years," she answered. "I feel that I have no business to intrude here. This is your shrine, and strangers should not profane it." ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... higher order. He never forgot that he was the Bishop as well as the Sovereign of Rome. The Romans, although inhabiting the Holy City, like all other people, stood in need of the instructions and warnings of religion. The Pope was aware, besides, that bad habits prevailed, such as profane swearing, luxurious living, the neglect of parents in the training of their children. The knowledge of such things grieved him exceedingly. He now resolved to have recourse to a measure which was as striking as it ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... exemplary. "Not a chicken has been stolen," says William Smith, of New York; while, on the other hand, Colonel Ephraim Williams writes to Colonel Israel Williams, then commanding on the Massachusetts frontier: "We are a wicked, profane army, especially the New York and Rhode Island troops. Nothing to be heard among a great part of them but the language of Hell. If Crown Point is taken, it will not be for our sakes, but for those good people ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... helpless to keep back the light that shall stream to this heart from the error acknowledged, the pain undergone. It is not in her power to prevent the soul from transforming each single affliction into thoughts, into feelings and treasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never so great over all things external, she always must halt when she finds on the threshold a silent guardian of the inner life. And if it be granted her then to pass through to the hidden dwelling, it is but as a bountiful guest she will enter, bringing with her new pledges of ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Sit down, Prissie. I will forgive your profane words about Cicero, for I see you are excited. What is ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... based upon comparison, and where only a single account has been preserved of any event or of any period of history, it is extremely difficult to judge that account with historical accuracy. An illustration of this truth is furnished in profane history by the account which Thucydides has given us of the Peloponnesian War. For most of the period in question Thucydides is the only source; and despite the inherent merits of a great writer, it can hardly be doubted ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... directed all the proceedings in the lower house of convocation in concert with that minister. The queen, in a letter to the archbishop, signified her hope that the consultations of the clergy might be of use to repress the attempts of loose and profane persons. She sent a license under the broad seal, empowering them to sit and do business in as ample a manner as ever had been granted since the reformation. They were ordered to lay before the queen an account of the excessive growth of infidelity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... even as He is pure. The things they once hated, they now loved; and the things they once loved, they hated. The proud and self-assertive became meek and lowly of heart. The vain and supercilious became serious and unobtrusive. The profane became reverent, the drunken sober, and the profligate pure. The vain fashions of the world were laid aside. Christians sought not the "outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but ... the hidden man of the heart, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... questioner free to disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying, "After all, what is liberty? Man is ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it, One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And Pity from thee more dear Than ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... desecrate, violate, profane; maltreat, mistreat; revile, reproach, vilify, vituperate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... that we might sin more freely at his cost, and with less danger to ourselves. I say, this ensnared divers, and brought them to an utter and lamentable loss as to their eternal state; and they grew very troublesome to the better sort of people, and furnished the looser with an occasion to profane. ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... place of conference was the dining-saloon of the schooner. He waited there until Captain Downs, moving his bulk more deliberately, trudged down the main companionway and came into the apartment through its after-door which no sailor was allowed to profane. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the azure it perversely went about twelve feet to the right and then buzzed around in a circle. The clerical gentleman frowned, scowled, pursed up his mouth and bit his lips, but said nothing, and a friend who stood by him said: "Doctor, that is the most profane silence I ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... niches, and there was more appropriateness in the little picture of the Holy Child embracing His Cross, now that it hung as the solo ornament of the library, than when it was vis-a-vis to Venus blindfolding Cupid, and surrounded by a bewildering variety of subjects, profane and sacred, profanely treated. She could not help feeling that there was a following in those steps when she saw how many luxuries had been laid aside, and how the brother and sister, once living in an atmosphere of morbid ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... poetry of the Middle Ages was divided into sacred and profane, both were altogether Christian according to their kind; for if sacred poesy sang of the Jewish race and its history, the only race which was regarded as holy, or of the heroes and legends of the Old and New Testaments, and, in brief, the Church—still all the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of those who scold at us When we would read in bed? Or, wanting victuals, make a fuss If we buy books, instead? And what of those who've dusted not Our motley pride and boast? Shall they profane that sacred spot?" ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field |
