"Blameworthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... authoritative share in all deliberations, and owed, even to him, only a nominal subjection. But if we acquit him individually of cowardice, we only throw the greater blame on the Greek force as a whole. That it was blameworthy is clear. "Your lordship," wrote Sir Richard Church in answer to the letter just quoted, "is not aware of all the difficulties I had to encounter in passing our troops who had all struck for pay. Not one would ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... gave no notice of the falling tree, it was natural to presume that the carelessness was shared between the two, and the law would neither attribute blame to the employer nor levy the damage upon him when he was not blameworthy. ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... his prerogatives and spread injurious reports to the effect that he was glad to accept them and behaved more haughtily as a result of them. It is true that sometimes Caesar erred by accepting some of the honors voted him and believing that he really deserved them, yet most blameworthy are those who, after beginning to reward him as he deserved, led him on and made him liable to censure by the measures that they voted. He neither dared to thrust them all aside, for fear of being thought contemptuous, nor could he be safe when he accepted them. Excess in honors and praises ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... recent experience he should have preferred not to reopen a career of agitation among a people who have shown themselves so unprepared for parliamentary liberty, is what we do not know that we have either the right or the cause to deem blameworthy." ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... you will be more thoughtful in future—will use your influence against such objectionable sport; surely bright young men and boys should be capable of finding or making better or less blameworthy fun. You may feel assured, however, that your mother is interested in all that interests you. So if you have anything more to tell of your college experiences we will be ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... had dismissed the venerable Bishops who brought your message, without taking exception to your requests, though there were some things blameworthy among them, we received tidings that the City of Rome was agitated by certain foolish anxieties, from which real evil would grow unless the suspicion which caused them ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... unmolested border of the pasture? Nothing was happening here! An impulse to join his father or Sandy swept over him; then a thought rose in his mind and held him back—if he left his patrol he would be a deserter, a deserter as blameworthy as any sentry who fled from his post. Straightening up proudly, the ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... little of the aesthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony; namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... practicable, be given notice that blame may be attributed to him, and that he or they may make a statement or give evidence, and produce witnesses, and examine any witnesses from whose evidence it appears that he may be blameworthy". In the case of the earlier investigation by Mr. Chippindale into the Erebus disaster that ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... while Mr Merrett, as usual, took everything kindly and even sympathetically, Mr Barnacle was disposed to regard Jack's representation of himself on first coming to the office as not candid, and so blameworthy. However, they both agreed that he had done the proper thing in speaking out now, and willingly agreed to let him take his holiday at the time proposed, so as to accompany his ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... regard of their special way of acting) only by those that have such extraordinary calling and gifts. Christ therefore blames his apostles for desiring to imitate Elijah's extraordinary act in calling for fire from heaven, &c., when they had not his spirit, Luke ix. 54, 55. Papists are blameworthy for imitating the extraordinary forty days' and nights' fast of Moses, Elijah, and Christ, in their Lent fast. Prelates argue corruptly for bishops' prelacy over their brethren the ministers, from the superiority of the ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... fair uncle, my lord, you would have had us burnt without trial. But God took compassion on us; we prayed him and he saved the Queen, as justice was: and me also—though I leapt from a high rock, I was saved by the power of God. And since then what have I done blameworthy? The Queen was thrown to the lepers; I came to her succour and bore her away. Could I have done less for a woman, who all but died innocent through me? I fled through the woods. Nor could I have come down into the vale ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... changes by methods beyond the conventions which have the sanction of the majority of a community, may be rash and blameworthy sometimes, but they are not necessarily dishonorable, and may even occasionally be obligatory ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... chivalrous, mindlessly gallant, he lacked the faculty of learning by experience—especially where the other sex were concerned. "Predestined to be stung!" was, his first wife's laconic comment on her ex-husband. She, for instance, was undoubtedly the blameworthy one in their marital failure, but she had managed to extract a ruinous alimony from him. Twice married and twice divorced, he was traveled through the Orient to write a series of muck raking articles and, incidentally if possible, to forget his last ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... war with King Omar ben Ennuman and trodden the earth of these lands!" "Put away from thee this foul thought," said Sherkan. "Hast thou not seen this holy man excite the faithful to battle, recking nought of spears and swords? Wherefore, slander him not, for slander is blameworthy and the flesh of pious folk is poisoned. Look how he encourages us to battle, and did not God love him, He had not rolled up the distance for him (like a carpet), after He had aforetime cast him into grievous torment?" Then Sherkan let bring a Nubian mule for her riding and said to her, "Mount, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... public at the disinclination of Rumania and Jugoslavia to sign the treaty with Austria without reservations. Yet this should scarcely occasion surprise, for the attitude of the great among the Allies toward the smaller brethren who helped them along the road to victory has been at times blameworthy, often inexplicable, and on frequent occasions arrogant and tactless. At the outset of the Peace Conference some endeavor was made to live up to the promises so loudly made that henceforth the rights of the weak were ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... long time, and the commons cried out by reason of that grievous affair into which they were fallen and feared the wrath of Allah Almighty, dreading lest He destroy them by means of this. still the king persisted in that practice and in his blameworthy intent of the killing of damsels and the despoilment of maidens concealed by veils,[FN452] wherefore the girls sought succor of the Lord of All-might, and complained to Him of the tyranny of the eking and of his oppression. Now the king's Wazir had two daughters, sisters german, the elder of whom ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... carping, hypercritical; fastidious &c. 868; sparing of praise, grudging praise. disapproved, chid &c.v.; in bad odor, blown upon, unapproved; unblest[obs3]; at a discount, exploded; weighed in the balance and found wanting. blameworthy, reprehensible &c. (guilt) 947; to blame, worthy of blame; answerable, uncommendable, exceptionable, not to be thought of; bad &c. 649; vicious &c. 945. unlamented, unbewailed[obs3], unpitied[obs3]. Adv. with a wry face; reproachfully &c. adj. Int. it is too bad! it won't ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is involved in this contempt, since he appears to countenance such things. You, beloved son, have charge of the Bishopric of Valencia, the first of Spain; you are also Vice-Chancellor of the Church; and what renders your conduct still more blameworthy is that you are among the cardinals, with the Pope, one of the counsellors of the Holy See. We submit it to your own judgement whether it becomes your dignity to court young women, to send fruit and wine to her you love, and to have no thought for anything but pleasure. We ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Christian, but will keep for them one corner of her heart. To them alone can she entrust those little natural affairs, which, harmless as they are in a chaste wife's dwelling, the Church at any rate would count as blameworthy. They are the confidants, the confessors of these touching womanly secrets. Of them she thinks, when she puts the holy log on the fire. It is Christmastide; but also is it the ancient festival of the Northern spirits, the Feast ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... limping gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright- eyed boy that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts. We stayed but a little while to smoke a sului; I would not have kava made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous (perhaps even blameworthy) enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, and on coming to the ford, the commandant came and asked me if there were many on the other side. 'Very many,' said I; not that I knew, but I would not lead them on the ice. 'That ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... read it in the book from which it is cited, without having examined the subject of which it treats, and without having read what went before and followed, so that I might run no risk of quoting an objection as an answer, which would have been blameworthy and unfair. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... said, "is himself blameworthy and unfit for his position, in that he has adjudged others to be as weak as himself; in fact, he has committed a wrong against religion. Nevertheless, my dear son, it was not wise of you to go and irritate him." As I had told him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... blame others for their good or evil actions; and in our conduct toward them we show that we believe them to have been not merely fortunate or unfortunate, but praiseworthy or blameworthy. So far as we suppose their wills to have been influenced by circumstances beyond their control, we regard them with diminished approval or censure. On the other hand, we give the highest praise to those who have chosen the good amidst strong temptations ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... dangerous, without the hope of some reward. The Sieur Mure contented himself with informing the minister, that he had given the strictest orders that a proper search should be made for us. The conduct of Sieur Mure was so blameworthy, that, lest he should consider me as a vile traducer, I did myself the honour to make it known to his masters. It was my duty, as a Frenchman, and a ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... Sophia imitated the eldest son in the parable. She had never been on good terms with her romantic sister; she persisted in regarding her brother-in-law as an abductor and a deceiver, who had obtruded himself on the family; charged her parents with blameworthy infirmity of purpose, and, in short, declined ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... should stand accountant to-day as he does!" You bring the whited sepulcher home to you, and find that you have been living in it yourself. And if you have a little intelligence you will acknowledge in your convict the scapegoat who—not more and perhaps less blameworthy than you—is bearing your iniquities as ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... a tragedy, and his character full of flaws. But he fought at tremendous odds, and as Carlyle in his great Essay says, "Granted the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle damaged, the pilot is blameworthy ... but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe or only to Ramsgate and the Isle ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... exordium is the discovery that a few pages back, with a blameworthy hankering after the picturesque, I have grossly misused a foreign word. Those cats in Trajan's Forum at Rome are nowise a "macabre exhibition"; they are not macabre in the least; they are sad, or saddening. The charnel-house flavour ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... so much prudence in Mrs. Worden, that, as well for that, as for the confidence your ladyship places in her, I have made no scruple of speaking my mind freely before her; and of blaming my dear master while he was blameworthy, as well as acknowledging his transcendent goodness to me since; which, I am sure, exceeds all I can ever deserve. May be not, said my lady; I hope you'll be very happy in one another; and I'll now rise, and tell ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... and Scotland are fine wine in cobwebbed bottles; and many have made the error of paying too much attention to the cobwebs and not enough attention to the wine. This error is as blameworthy as its converse: we must take the inside ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... personal individual other than an actual living member of the tribe who approves or disapproves of their conduct, so far as anything like what we call morality is concerned. Any such idea as that of a future life of happiness or the reverse, as a reward for meritorious or as a punishment for blameworthy conduct, is quite foreign to them.... We know of no tribe in which there is a belief of any kind in a supreme being who rewards or punishes the individual according to his moral behaviour, using the word moral in ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... life, but his reasons were in accord with all his general views. Slavery might be rendered harmless by the State, and some form of compulsion might be the only way of dealing with child-races, indeed, it might be merely a form of education no more morally blameworthy than the legal disabilities of minors. But the absolute state recognising no limits but its own will, and bound by no rule either of human or Divine law, appeared to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... a hostile feeling had been excited against him by her friends, for the manifestation of which an opportunity was afforded about five months after her marriage. Wesley having discovered in her conduct several things which he thought blameworthy, with his wonted ingenuousness, frankly mentioned them to her; intimating that they were not becoming a participant of the Lord's Supper. She, in return, became angry. For reasons, therefore, which he stated to her in a letter, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... happiness into my own life, I am inclined to nail my flag to the masthead in defence of the principle that lovers can do no wrong. It is no ordinary stake that a lover plays for, and if he stacks the cards, and in other ways turns his back upon the guiding principles of his life, blameworthy as he may be, I shall not blame him, but ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be blameworthy? ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... his real opinions is increased by the fact that he was an ironist. We have called him a self-revealer; but you never quite know where to have an ironical self-revealer. Goethe has the useful phrase, 'direct irony'; a certain German writer 'makes too free a use of direct irony, praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy—a rhetorical device which should be very sparingly employed. In the long run it disgusts the sensible and misleads the dull, pleasing only the great intermediate class to whom it offers the satisfaction of being able to think themselves more shrewd than other people, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... songs as a Princess. And he does well; the title Princess belongs of right to 'Shabbath.' For the name—be it said in passing—is probably a corruption of a title of the Mother-goddess Ashtart, and it would, I think, have been no blameworthy act if the religious transformers of Israelite myths had made a special myth, representing Shabbath as a man. When the Messiah comes, I trust that He will do this. For 'the Son of Man is ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... default or defect—not exactly blameworthy, because the time was not yet, but certainly to be taken account of—is the almost utter want of character just referred to. From Cyrus and Mandane downwards the people have qualities; but qualities, though they are necessary to character, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... more ultimate purpose is "to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarizing, to lead him towards perfection." It is not to be confined to art and literature, but is to include within its scope society, politics, and religion. It is not only to censure that which is blameworthy, but to appreciate ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... evening passed. Yourii would not admit that he was blameworthy, for he did not agree with his father that politics were no part of his business. He considered that his father was incapable of understanding the simplest things, being old and void of intelligence. Unconsciously he blamed him for his old age and his antiquated ideas: they ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... not intended to deny that criminal liability, as well as civil, is founded on blameworthiness. Such a denial would shock the moral sense of any civilized community; or, to put it another way, a law which punished conduct which would not be blameworthy in the average member of the community would be too severe for that community to bear. It is only intended to point out that, when we are dealing with that part of the law which aims more directly than any other at establishing standards of conduct, we should expect there more than elsewhere ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... heir in the first six years of marriage made Captain Tiago's thirst for riches almost blameworthy. In vain all this time did Dona Pia make novenas and pilgrimages and scatter alms. But at length she was to become a mother. Alas! like Shakespeare's fisherman who lost his songs when he found a treasure, she never smiled again, and died, leaving a beautiful ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... more, salving his lust of power with the reflection that, by deciding the question for herself, she had removed all responsibility from his shoulders, and proved herself to be a contumacious woman and blameworthy. So long as there is no risk of publicity the domestic tyrannies of respectable elderly gentlemen of irascible disposition may be carried to any length, but once there is a threat of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... sorrowful dignity and self-command. 'Is it Basil who speaks thus? Were it only the wrong done me that I had to bear, I could keep silence, waiting until God restored your justice and your gentleness. But, though in nothing blameworthy, I am the cause of what has come about; for had I not entered that room when I did, you would not have struck the fatal blow. Listen then, O Basil, whilst I make known to you ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... against Alexander's majority"; or, "This will fall in again handsomely for Alexander's marriage." Every day this absorption of the man's nature became more observable, with many touching and some very blameworthy particulars. Soon the child could walk abroad with him, at first on the terrace, hand in hand, and afterward at large about the policies; and this grew to be my lord's chief occupation. The sound of their two voices (audible a great way off, for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either PRAISE OR BLAMEWORTHY, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in Christendom." Again, he says, "No man can control his belief." Notwithstanding all this, his whole occupation consists in traveling over the country and blaming men, women and children for their belief. He is consistent? He is a Scientist, you ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880
... who had visited Turlock might then be established, whence would rise suspicion, and perhaps discovery. Richard had no terrors upon his own account, but he was solicitous to spare his mother this new shame. He had been hitherto guiltless in her eyes, or, when blameworthy, the victim of circumstances; but could her love for him survive the knowledge that he was a murderer? But why encourage these morbid apprehensions? Was it not just as likely that the Thing would never be discovered at all? Once set upon a wrong scent, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... discomfort of repentance by teaching us to declare with a new inflection, "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves," forget that there is another side to this argument. It is, of course, very alluring to be told that we are not really blameworthy for acts which hitherto we have blamed ourselves for—that our impulses are God-given—that "the sinner is merely a learner in a lower grade in the school," [8] and so forth; one can understand how grateful is such a morphia injection for deadening the pangs of an accusing conscience. The ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... her that Jack and Hilda should take so lively an interest in Chris, who was bound to turn out badly. Had she not already shown herself to be incorrigibly flighty? But since it vexed her still more that anyone should regard her actions as blameworthy, she had yielded to their persuasions. And thus Chris had been ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... erotiques, tant des anciens que des modernes, livres impies ou corrupteurs, Ovide, Tibulle, Properce, pour ne nommer que les plus connus, Dante, Petrarque, Boccace, tous ces auteurs Italiens qui deja souillaient les ames et ruinaient les moeurs, en creant ou perfectionnant la langue. {2} Blameworthy carelessness at the least, which can class the Vita Nuova with the Ars Amandi and the Decameron! And among many English Catholics the spirit of poetry is still often received with a restricted Puritanical ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... madame, I have done nothing blameworthy," returned Fraisier. Evidently he meant to deny his nocturnal ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... progress in the road of science; blinds The eyesight of discovery, and begets, In those that suffer it, a sordid mind Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man's noble form. Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art, With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed By public exigence, till annual food Fails for the craving hunger of the state, Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free, My native nook of earth! Thy clime is ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... cheerless noons cannot believe in the sun of spring, soon to ripen into the sun of summer; and its best time is the night, that shuts out the world and weeps its fill of slow tears. But she was not altogether so blameworthy as she may have appeared. Her affectations had not been altogether false. She valued, and in a measure possessed, the feelings for which she sought credit. She had a genuine enjoyment of nature, though after ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald |
