"Spurn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boy of mine. What little heart I have belongs to him. There can be no game where he is concerned. Some day, perhaps, he'll find out the kind of a man I've been to others, but can always remember that I was fair and honest with him. He'll despise my methods and he'll spurn my money, but he'll have to love me. Jane Cable is not the girl I would have chosen for him, but she is good and true and he ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Ah! anguish as yet untried! For what new tortures am I still reserved? All I have undergone, transports of passion, Longings and fears, the horrors of remorse, The shame of being spurn'd with contumely, Were feeble foretastes of my present torments. They love each other! By what secret charm Have they deceived me? Where, and when, and how Met they? You knew it all. Why was I cozen'd? You never told me of those stolen hours Of amorous converse. Have they oft been seen Talking ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. v. 6). Is that not enough to convince you that He loves you? He would not have died for you if He had not loved you. Is your heart so hard that you can brace yourself up against His love, and spurn and despise it? You can do it; but it will be at ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... helplessly upon the loss and ruin of all the fair, once precious things of by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of God—no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness—a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through space! Of what avail these twinkling stars—these stately leaf-laden trees—these cups of fragrance we know as flowers—this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was God Himself, I widely mused, since even He could not keep one woman true? ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... is so profound I'd serve her, spurn and scorn despite Ere with another I'd be found— Yet I'd ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... burned, and be damned to it, I take ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself? Night after night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone. And what was I to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that? Is it for that that you would spurn a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it is true, but in that form was no real servant. Just so, while dispensing with a divine appearance, behind the appearance chosen was God. And we likewise take upon ourselves the divine form, but in the form we are not divine; and we spurn the form of servants, though that is what we are irrespective of appearance. Christ disrobes himself of the divine form wherein he existed, to assume that of a servant, which did not express his essential ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... must needs be strangers: would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? this is the strangers case; ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... truth? Those hills are as full of wild beasts as Amenti is of spirits. And even if no hurt befell thee, the trepidation of that long journey would be cruel. Nay; Ptah, the gallant god, would spurn my next offering, did I send thee back to camp ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... author gives up his whole life for your joy and help, he consecrates himself, he lashes and burns and tortures himself—for your sake! And you spurn him from you, and ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... the feet also are anointed and blessed. They are to feel, even in the event of possible recovery, a repugnance to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. A wonderful elasticity is to be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them the clod of earth which hitherto attracted them. And so, through a brilliant cycle of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however far asunder they may chance to be, are ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... touch thee to the quick, Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious, And that this body, consecrate to thee, By ruffian lust should be contaminate! Wouldst them not spit at me and spurn at me, And hurl the name of husband in my face, And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot brow, And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring...? My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: For, if we two be one, and thou play false, I do digest ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... springs to the corner, and while he feels for the heavy mass with his club, she raises it with her tender hands, and supports the drooping head upon her loving breast, while a cry of anguish goes out from the heart that could never spurn him, even in ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... cried Agnes, wildly. "Did he know all, he would curse me—he would spurn me from him—he would discard me forever! Oh! when I think of that poor old man, with his venerable white hair,—that aged, helpless man, who was so kind to me, who loved me so well, and whom I so cruelly abandoned. But tell me, signor," ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... love, to frenzy wrought, Spurn'd calm reflection and each sober thought. A little time had shewn e'en Charlotte's charms Had shrunk and faded in a Werter's arms: For guilt and meanness ne'er could dwell with thee; And virtuous friendship soon had set thee free. But hadst thou triumph'd o'er the fair one's fall, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Myriads whose spirits spurn The limitations thou didst love so well, Who never knew the shades of Oriel, Or felt their quickened spirits pulse and burn Beneath that eye's regard, that voice's spell,— Myriads, world-scattered and creed-sundered, turn In thought to that hushed chamber's chastened gloom. In all great hearts ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... Radha? she is sad in turn, Heaven foregoes its blessings, if it holds not thee, All the cooling fragrance of sandal she doth spurn, Moonlight makes her mournful with radiance silvery; Even the southern breeze blown fresh from pearly seas, Seems to her but tainted by a dolorous brine; And for thy sake discontented, with a great love overladen, Her ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... to the great republic of the West; that it takes it for an insult which Ohio will not bear, but will put all the weight of its power into the political scale. Would that all the United States with equal resolution might spurn that ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... intensely devoted to the cause of the poor than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent those who will not submit to any man's dictation from leaving their ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... affrights his eye, Still groans the dagger'd sound, "despair and die." And hapless Juliet's unextinguish'd flame, Gives to the tomb she mock'd, her beauteous frame; Yet diff'rent far, where Claudio sees return'd To life, and love, the maid too rashly spurn'd; Or Falstaff, in his sympathetic scroll, Forth to the Wives of Windsor pours his soul. Again, forsaking mirth's fantastic rites, The Muse to follow, through her nobler flights, Where Milton paints angelic hosts in arms, And Heaven's wide champaign rings with dire alarms, Till ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... old story-books! we owe you much, old friends, Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends. Who can forget? Who can spurn the ministers of joy That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy? Talk of your vellum, gold embossed, morocco, roan, and calf; The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half. ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... to dumb creatures, be gentle, be true, For food and protection they look up to you; For affection and help to your bounty they turn. Oh, do not their trusting hearts wantonly spurn! ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... accosted Ashton, was the one who acted imp to his satanic majesty in leading him to his last fall, and here he was again to tempt him. Well would it be for you, Richard Ashton, if you would contemptuously spurn him as you would kick a rabid ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... merely in repelling an attack. But suppose we should appeal to law: could this be done without the knowledge and concurrence of the lady? She would never permit it. Her heart was incapable of fear from this quarter. She would spurn at the mention of precautions against the hatred of her brother. Her inquietude would merely be awakened on his ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... shelter. "So Jean Lafitte an' me, we looked it up in the book; an' it says where the heartless jade is brought before the pirut chief, 'How now, fair one!' says he, an' he bends on her the piercin' gaze o' his iggle eye: 'how now, wouldst spurn me suit?' The fair captive she bends her head an' stands before him unable to encounter his piercin' gaze, an' for some ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... repel, repulse, shut the door in one's face, slam the door in one's face; rebuff; send back, send to the right about, send away with a flea in the ear; deny oneself, not be at home to; discard, spurn, &c (repudiate) 610; rescind &c (revoke) 756; disclaim, protest; dissent &c 489. Adj. refusing &c v.; restive, restiff^; recusant; uncomplying, unconsenting; not willing to hear of, deaf to. refused &c v.; ungranted, out of the question, not to be thought of, impossible. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... he will be allowed to trail the fair name of the school for propriety and correctness of deportment in the dust of a pew-floor, and spurn my reputation as a preceptor like a church hassock beneath ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... my sight! Return to me Disgraced, defeated, from the battle-field, Thy sire shall meet thee with extended arms: But thus in tears, I spurn thee from my feet. A coward's guilt alone should wash its stains In such ignoble streams. The man who weeps Without a blush will ne'er want ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the shadowed window—all are poetical materials, and of a higher character. Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so on in infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth from ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... best societies, declaring to one individual or one set of acquaintances that the pity, the sympathy, the love, or the admiration they have been expressing for others is, in reality, all feigned to soothe or please? As long as the motive is not base, men do not spurn the falsehood as such. How much of untruth is tolerated in the best circles of the most civilized nations, in the relations between electors to corporate and legislative bodies and the candidates for election? between nominators to offices under Government ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... race: Who first needs buy a husband at great price, To take him then for owner of our lives: For this ill is more keen than common ills. And of essays most perilous is this, Whether one good or evil do we take. For evil-famed to women is divorce, Nor can one spurn a husband. She, so brought Beneath new rule and wont, had surely need To be a prophetess, unless at home She learned the likeliest prospect with her spouse. And if, we having aptly searched out this, A husband house with us not savagely Drawing ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... entered—and solicitors make more money—they well knew that there were many religious people among their constituents, and it would not do for them to act singular, or else they would find so short an account at the next ballot-box that they would not be sent back. He would spurn such legislators and keep them for ever ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... high, my friend, And Youth's blue sky is bright, And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend, Love's early dawning light, Let the free soul spurn care's control, And while the glad days shine, We'll use their beams for Youth's gay dreams Of Love ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... let him see them in magnificent action, their masters not more conscious of the situation and all that is asked and hoped from them—their heads tossing, nostrils in play, now distent, now contracted—limbs too dainty for the sand which they touch but to spurn—limbs slender, yet with impact crushing as hammers—every muscle of the rounded bodies instinct with glorious life, swelling, diminishing, justifying the world in taking from them its ultimate measure of force; finally, along with chariots, drivers, horses, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... reason. First, I am come in my own name, as your friend and comrade, to conjure you solemnly not to spurn this creature from you; for, by my soul, you will not ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... 'Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage rightly understood Gives to the tender and the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... thy sorrows hush, And spurn the sex,' he said: But while he spoke, a rising blush ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... absence decidedly beyond the date he had originally set for his return, and still there was much to be done. He had not borne the separation from his wife without pain, and he looked forward to prolonging it with much more than reluctance; but he felt that to leave now would be to spurn the hand of Providence, the more so because, though Ellen had many times anxiously inquired for the date of his return, she had never failed, whenever she wrote, to assure him of her own content so long as he was successful and happy. He therefore ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... intent allows no other thought Or room or entrance."—"Hast thou seen," said he, "That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen How man may free him of her bonds? Enough. Let thy heels spurn the earth, and thy rais'd ken Fix on the lure, which heav'n's eternal King Whirls in the rolling spheres." As on his feet The falcon first looks down, then to the sky Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food, That woos him thither; so the call I heard, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... duty to the girl he loved, higher and more imperative by far than any he owed to his fiancee. But he had not the means to employ a detective to find Berene; and he was not sure that, if found, she might not spurn him. He had heard and read of cases where a woman's love had turned to bitter loathing and hatred for the man who had not protected her in a moment of weakness. He could think of no other cause which would ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... because it will do the sinner no good to continue his pleadings. It is a known law of the mind that truth resisted loses its power. Why should God continue when we only spurn his offers of mercy? ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... he made two or three trips to London in his collier brig, always to report on his return a notable addition to his trade. Once, too, on his homeward voyage, he had had himself put ashore a little north of Spurn, and had trudged the five and twenty miles to Hull, the rising port on the east coast. Then, after appointing an agent and starting what seemed likely to grow into a big business, he had tramped the hundred and twenty miles or more that separated him ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... rest on those that survive, who are so dead to the privileges of the Gospel, as either to forget that it was ever said,—"Whosoever receivers one such little one in my name, receivers me" (Matthew 18. 5), or to neglect the opportunity, despise the honour, and spurn away the blessing, of entertaining such a guest. Oh! if we really believed our Saviour's declaration, how dearly should we value, and how warmly embrace, such an opportunity of glorifying our Master, ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... stick to it yet on Livy's account, and shall always continue to do so, without a pang. But somehow it seems a pity that you quit, for Mrs. T. didn't mind it if I remember rightly. Ah, it is turning one's back upon a kindly Providence to spurn away from us the good creature he sent to make the breath of life a luxury as well as a necessity, enjoyable as well as useful, to go and quit smoking when then ain't any sufficient excuse for it! Why, my old boy, when they use to tell me I would shorten my life ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sufferings are too much like my own to permit me even to dislike her. She has rich beauty, a rarely luxuriant vitality, and the immense advantage of being free to show her love in a natural way. I have nothing but my love for her lover! If I could only trample on it, despise it, spurn it, but I can't, I can't! My love is stronger than my pride, stronger than my life. It is not a mere fancy of yesterday, it has grown and strengthened ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... major firmly; "recollecting my own strange experience, how can I discredit Mr. Ancelot's narrative? I firmly believe it. We are surrounded by mysteries. The invisible world enshrouds us. Spirits have their regards intently fixed on us, and a very slight vail divides us. Spurn the vulgar error," said the old veteran stoutly, "that a soldier must be a scoffer. I remember the holy record, and its thrilling declaration; 'We are a spectacle unto angels and unto men.'" A pause ensued, which neither of the listeners cared to terminate. At ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... 'mid crime and toil The doom to which such guilt is hurried, Go—to leave on Indian soil Your bones to bleach, accursed, unburied, Go—to crush the just and brave Whose wrongs with wrath the world are filling, Go—to slay each brother slave, Or spurn the blood-stained Saxon Shilling. Irish hearts! why should you bleed, To swell the tide of English glory? Aiding despots in their need, Who've changed our green so oft to gory? None save those who wish to see The ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... said Helena, "it is you have set Lysander on to vex me with mock praises; and your other lover, Demetrius, who used almost to spurn me with his foot, have you not bid him call me goddess, nymph, rare, precious, and celestial? He would not speak thus to me, whom he hates, if you did not set him on to make a jest of me. Unkind Hermia, to join with men in scorning your poor friend. Have you forgot our schoolday ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... we give no credit to them. We are generous enemies: we are faithful allies. We spurn from us with disgust and indignation the slanders of those who bring us their anecdotes with the attestation of the flower-de-luce on their shoulder. We have Lord George Gordon fast in Newgate; and neither his being a public proselyte to Judaism, nor his having, in his zeal ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... you will call me and claim me because you will need me; Cheer me and gird me and into the battle-wrath speed me. . . . And when it's over, spurn me ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustick tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, Spurn'd as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live unregarded, unlamented die. [k]For what but social guilt the friend endears? Who shares Orgilio's crimes, his fortune shares. [l]But thou, should tempting villany present All Marlb'rough hoarded, or all Villiers spent, Turn from the glitt'ring bribe ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... graves, the fearful husbandry of death, that are ridging your fields and even your humble homesteads,—by the holy and most adorable name of the Deity, who chasteneth whom He loveth,—we entreat, we implore, we exhort, we adjure you to stand true to Ireland at these elections; to spurn Whig and Tory, and to prove yourselves worthy of your rights by returning none but those who will unflinchingly assert them;—and foremost amongst those rights, before all and above all, the right to make your own laws in your own ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Fisherman?" "I will throw thee back into the sea," he answered; "where thou hast been housed and homed for a thousand and eight hundred years; and now I will leave thee therein till Judgment day: did I not say to thee:—Spare me and Allah shall spare thee; and slay me not lest Allah slay thee? yet thou spurn east my supplication and hadst no intention save to deal un graciously by me, and Allah hath now thrown thee into my hands and I am cunninger than thou." Quoth the Ifrit, "Open for me and I may bring ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... would'st view one more than man and less, Made up of mean and great, of foul and fair, Stop here; and weep and laugh, and curse and bless, And spurn and worship; for thou seest Voltaire. That flashing eye blasted the conqueror's spear, The monarch's sceptre, and the Jesuit's beads And every wrinkle in that haggard sneer Hath been the grave of Dynasties and Creeds. In very wantonness of childish mirth He puffed Bastilles, and thrones, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... has insulted you; she has encouraged and sustained America; and, whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officious insult of French interference. The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels and enemies are in Paris; in Paris they transact the reciprocal interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortifying insult? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... till it is your turn to be sent for up thither, when the shining knife is sharpened and the red fire kindled. You will not despise La Meffraye when that day comes. You will grovel and weep, and then will La Meffraye spurn you with her foot, till the noise of your crying be borne out over the forest, and for very gladness the wolves howl in ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Carries fragrance and health over mountain and dale, Follow me, brother falconers, and share in those joys, Which envy disturbs not, nor grandeur destroys: Up hill, down the valley, all dangers we'll dare, While our coursers spurn earth, and our hawks sail in air. Dash on, my brave birds, Your quarry pursue; "Strike, strike!" ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... is full of kindness, thronged with men who want to be Of some service to their neighbors and they'll run to you or me When we're needing their assistance if we've lived upon the square, But they'll spurn us in our trouble if we've ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... long ago; Now a younger grief to mourn Needs a new song younger born. Who shall teach our tongues to reach What strange height of saddest speech, For the new bride's sake that is given to be A stay to fetter the foot of the sea, 630 Lest it quite spurn down and trample the town, Ere the violets be dead that were plucked for its crown, Or its olive-leaf whiten and wither? Who shall say of the wind's way That he journeyed yesterday, Or the track of the storm that shall sound to-morrow, If the ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a suppliant meet, Or from the door untended spurn A dog; an outcast kindly treat; And so thou ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Only death Can silence it, or hinder. While there's breath Or sense of feeling, it will spurn the sod, And lift itself to glory, and to God. The acorn sprouted—weeds nor flowers can choke The certain ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... whom his titles, his rank, his riches, his power, and his acquirements have corrupted. Thou hast only known him who has sacrificed his nature to thy own idol,—to vanity. Thou hast merely frequented palaces and courts, where men spurn away the unfortunate, and laugh at the complaints of the oppressed, whilst they are dissipating in revel-rout and roar that which they have robbed them of. Thou hast seen the sovereigns of the world; thou hast seen tyrants surrounded by their parasites and their infamous ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... with a letter from the Prince of Orange, announcing his immediate coming; and finally, the disembarkation of two hundred English marines, on the 29th, was followed the next day by the landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and every reproach for rashness. He was received with indescribable enthusiasm. The generous flame rushed through the whole country. No bounds were set to the affectionate confidence of the nation, and ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... coming in the fall, I'd brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... the horse, They treat man with disdain; They spurn the rider and his whip, His bridle, ...
— The Tiny Picture Book. • Anonymous
... mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called GRANDOLPH GOODFELLOW. Are you not he That did your best to spill Lord S-L-SB-RY? Gave the Old Tory party quite a turn, And office with snug perquisites did spurn? And now you'd make Strong Drink to bear no barm (Or proper profit.) You would do us harm. Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sly PUCK, Are right; you always bring your friends bad luck. Are you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... reached and cured by ridicule. Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from the selfish motives which underlie our economic life. But I did not know these things then, nor for long afterwards, and so I gave ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cried Colonel Musgrave, warming to his subject—and regarding it, too, very intently; "ah, no, a face that could be patched together at the nearest florist's would not haunt a man's dreams o'nights, as hers does! I haven't any need for praises sauced with lies! I spurn hyperbole. I scorn exaggeration. I merely state calmly and judicially that she was God's masterpiece,—the most beautiful and adorable and indescribable creature that ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... furnishes no argument in favor of excluding women from the exercise of the franchise. It is the denial of the right of which they complain. There are multitudes of men whose vote can be purchased at an election for the smallest and most trifling consideration. Yet all such would spurn with scorn and unutterable contempt a proposition to purchase their right to vote, and no consideration would be deemed an equivalent for such a surrender. Women are more sensitive upon this question than men, and so long as this right, deemed by them ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... false, cruel beauty, that a man's heart could be constant to a dead love and spurn ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... afterward, as a fleet then appeared to the southward. It was so late in the day that I could not come up with the fleet before night; at length, however, I got so near one of them as to force her to run ashore, between Flamborough Head and the Spurn. Soon after I took another, a brigantine from Holland, belonging to Sunderland; and at daylight the next morning, seeing a fleet steering towards me from the Spurn, I imagined them to be a convoy, bound from London for Leith, which had been ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... of the body, over which it holds its empire; but those of the soul, like the soul itself, spurn his ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... dead away. They had to send for your uncle, and he brought me home, and for days and days I heard nothing but shouting and swearing, and saw animals dripping with blood, and crying and moaning in their anguish, and now, Laura, if you'd lay down a bit of Ch o meat, and cover it with gold, I'd spurn it from me. But what am I saying? you're as white as a sheet. Come and see the cow stable. John's ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... deceived you, Commandant, to get out of your power, nothing more," said Vanderdecken. "She would spurn a contemptible withered wretch like yourself, were she as free as ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Her who brings increase, The Feeder of Children, Peace. No grudge hath he of the great; No scorn of the mean estate; But to all that liveth His wine he giveth, Griefless, immaculate; Only on them that spurn Joy, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder; And I shall spurn, as vilest dust, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... self-approval seek applause: What ken not men thou kennest thou! Spurn every idol others raise: Before ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... is great: 'T is thou that execut'st the traitor's treason; Thou sett'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st the season; 'T is thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason. 1285 SHAKS.: R. of ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... flower of youth to use? Or with thy beauty choose To make him blest who loves thee best of all? Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, Poor, or a cripple born, Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow With honour to our land, with pomp and power; My youth is yet in flower, And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. My lot it is to deal right royally With all ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... according to the evidence, you were willing, to please them, to decide against the evidence, and let perjury rest on your souls. I know that you [pointing to one of the jurors] have been approached. Did you spurn the wretch away who made a corrupt proposal to you, or did you hold counsel, sweet counsel with him? I know that you [pointing to another juror] talked over this case with one of the other side at the house on the hill last night, for I overheard the conversation—the ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... can't affront the world, because you are bound by its conventionalities and respectabilities, as I am not. I spurn them." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... child! My light, my joy, my burden and my grief! How would I lead you to the wells of peace, And see you dip your fevered palms and drink! Gladly to purchase this would I lay down The precious remnant of my life, and sleep, Wrapped in the faith you spurn, till the archangel Sounds the last trump. But God's good will be done! I leave you ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... — like thee to be conceived Within my soul, — for strength to turn away From his new altar, when, that task achieved, He, too, stands manifest. Yea, let me yearn From dream to grander dream! Let me not rest Content at any goal! Still bid me spurn Each transient triumph on the Eternal Quest, Abjuring godlings whom my hand hath made For ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... it? May I, Miss Amy? I but ask the question humbly—may I say it? I know very well your family is far above mine. It were vain to conceal it. I know very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... honest friend 's a precious gift, And such a gift was mine; And now whatever might betide A happy man was I, In any strait I knew to whom I freely might apply. A strait soon came: my friend I try'd; He heard, and spurn'd my moan; I hied me home, and tuned my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Neighbours, I am glad I have brought ye to understand good manners, Ye had Puritan hearts a-while, spurn'd at all pastimes, But I see some ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... will beg until I earn The wherewithal my debt to pay. Ignoble falsehood I will spurn. That steals ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... reminds us year by year What 'tis to be a man: to curb and spurn The tyrant in us: that ignobler self Which boasts, not loathes, its likeness to the brute, And owns no good save ease, no ill save pain, No purpose, save its share in that wild war In which, through countless ages, living things Compete in internecine greed—ah, God! Are we as creeping things, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... with the memory of young lives dissolved, mothers dead, widows desolate, and orphans in tears. Think of the day after his death, when he who has passed through the world like the scourge of God lies at its feet, and no one so mean but he may spurn the dishonoured carcass. You are aiming high, your ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... He retired to his reservation, on the waters of the Alleghany river, within the boundaries of Pennsylvania, where he devoted himself, during the remainder of his long life, to the elevation and improvement of his people. He did not, after the example of his great rival Red Jacket, spurn the improvements of civilization, but engaged in agriculture after the example of the whites, and welcomed to his abode the teachers of christianity, and himself openly avowed ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... spurn the thought with disdain Of that pool Alekoki: On the upland lingers the rain And fondly haunts Nuuanu. 5 Sharp was the cold, bootless My waiting up there. I thought thou wert true, Wert loyal to me, Whom thou laids't under bonds. 10 Take ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... unriddle, though I search, 150 And pore on Nature's universal scroll Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities, The first-born of all shap'd and palpable Gods, Should cower beneath what, in comparison, Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here, O'erwhelm'd, and spurn'd, and batter'd, ye are here! O Titans, shall I say 'Arise!'—Ye groan: Shall I say 'Crouch!'—Ye groan. What can I then? O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! What can I? Tell me, all ye brethren Gods, 160 How we can war, how engine our great wrath! O ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... in many a mind, Those darker deeds of bigot madness Are closely with your own combined, Yet "less in anger than in sadness"? What marvel, if the people learn To claim the right of free opinion? What marvel, if at times they spurn The ancient ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Boys who spurn a mother's counsel, who are ashamed to own that they are wrong, who think it manly to resist her authority, or yield to her influence, beware. One act of disobedience may cause a blot that a life-time can not wipe out. ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... is also the mystery of democracy, or sentiment of the equality before God of all his creatures. This sentiment (which seems in general to have been more widespread in Mohammedan than in Christian lands) tends to nullify man's usual acquisitiveness. Those who have it spurn dignities and honors, privileges and advantages, preferring, as I said in a former lecture, to grovel on the common level before the face of God. It is not exactly the sentiment of humility, though it comes so close to it in practice. It is HUMANITY, rather, refusing to enjoy anything that others ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... said. "Think what it is to be a Jew—an outcast, a thing that the lowest may spurn and spit at, one beyond the law, one who can be hunted from land to land like a mad wolf, and tortured to death, when caught, for the sport of gentle Christians, who first have stripped him of his gains and very ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... taste which dictated the German compositions was of a kind as nearly allied to the English as their language: those who were from their youth accustomed to admire Shakespeare and Milton, became acquainted for the first time with a race of poets, who had the same lofty ambition to spurn the flaming boundaries of the universe, and investigate the realms of Chaos and Old Night; and of dramatists, who, disclaiming the pedantry of the unities, sought, at the expense of occasional improbabilities and extravagance, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... under the sun ever yet played a part worth playing if it feared its fate overmuch—if it did not have the courage to be great. We of America, we, the sons of a nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings of distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair. We know that the future is ours if we have in us the manhood to grasp it, and we enter the new century girding our loins for the contest before us, rejoicing in the struggle, and resolute so to bear ourselves that the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... man shall rule by thought, And worth shall gain her just return, Till all shall every singer spurn Who in the ancient cycles taught That heroes rest in royal graves, But never in ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... Others may spurn the pledge of land to land, May with the brute sword stain a gallant past; But by the seal to which you set your hand, Thank ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... Queen of Scots. It will establish a broad distinction to note the fact, that whereas our friend the Archdeacon would collect several imperfect copies of the same book, in the hope of finding materials for one perfect one among them, Inchrule would remorselessly spurn from him the most voluptuously got-up specimen (to use a favourite phrase of Dibdin's) were it tainted by the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... myriads to cover the plain with their loveliness; while the towering ferula conceals the sandy rock whence it springs, with its delicate tracery yet unspecked by the solar rays; and the stately teazle, bending under the clutch of goldfinch and linnet, or recoiling as they spurn it, in quest of their butterfly-breakfast, has still some sap in its veins. Early on one of the most exhilarating mornings of this truly delicious season, (alas, how brief in its continuance!) we are awaked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... him, "there's thrice thy money offer'd thee," it is because she really feels that both the justice of the cause and the honour of her husband would be better served by such a payment than by the more brilliant triumph which awaits her in case the Jew should spurn her offer. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... no one shall thee learn: Nor do I care; for none I wot, so well As I may chant thee; so, This one behest I lay upon thee, go Hie thee to Love, and him in secret tell, How I my life do spurn, My bitter life, and yearn, That to a better harbourage he bring Me, of all might and grace that own ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... viper!" cried the father, stung with remorse, but not touched with penitence. "Get away, you amorous young hypocrite; get out of my house, get out of my sight, or I shall spurn you and curse you at ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Spurn not the nobly born With love affected, Nor treat with virtuous scorn The well-connected. High rank involves no shame— We boast an equal claim With him of humble name To be respected! Blue blood! blue blood! When virtuous love is sought Thy power is naught, Though dating from ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan |
