"Decency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same rank were pitted against each other; the accounts of each were kept separately, and every man lived in terror of losing his job, if another made a better record than he. So from top to bottom the place was simply a seething caldron of jealousies and hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency anywhere about it, there was no place in it where a man counted for anything against a dollar. And worse than there being no decency, there was not even any honesty. The reason for that? Who could say? It must have been old Durham in the beginning; it was a heritage which the self-made merchant ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... by that, you impertinent young man?" said Mrs Tomkins, her blood rising to her face, herself rising from her chair. "I should have thought that a man who had been so recently expelled from his church would have had more decency. A pretty person you must be, to bring a charge of this kind against so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... transient—the progress of corruption was checked, but the disease still lurked in the heart, and tainted the life-blood of the community. The orgies of Medmenham Abbey, the triumphs of Wilkes, and the loss of America, bear fatal testimony to the want of decency and disregard of merit in private as well as public life which infected Great Britain, polluting the sources of her domestic virtues, and bringing disgrace upon her arms and councils during the greater part of the eighteenth century. It is with a masterly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... weeks at Grange Heath, and felt that he could not, in common decency, stay any longer; so he had packed his portmanteau one pleasant May morning, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... would be the greatest comfort to him. To the old people, whose one solace of a cup of tea would be gone unless I gave it them; to the boys who were learning to read, who wanted testaments; to the bed-ridden and sick, who wanted blankets; to the young and well, who wanted gowns (not indeed for decency, but for the natural pleasure of looking neat and smart)—and to Margaret, first and last, who was nearest to me, and who, I began to think, might want some other trifles besides a cloak. The girl come in ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... medical bookseller, and, to my surprise, having every appearance of being a grave, respectable man; notwithstanding this undeniable fact, that the libellous journal, to which he thought proper to affix his sanction, trespassed on decency, not only by its slander, but, in some instances, by downright obscenity; and, worse than that, by prurient solicitations to the libidinous imagination, through blanks, seasonably interspersed. I ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... its roses, its clematis, its azaleas, its wistaria, had the sweetness of an English rectory garden. He liked to think that Corinna Meecham had been able to escape from her duties in the crowded, fetid, multi-colored city right outside the gates to something like peace and decency within these ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the workingman can hope for as a result of his own labor under the very best conditions. To attain that level of comfort and decency he must deny himself and his wife and children of many things which they ought to enjoy. It is not too much to say that none of your fellow-workmen in Pittsburg, men known to you, your neighbors and comrades in labor, have been able to attain such a condition ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... primordial quality that he shared, though in less splendor and abundance, with Laurence Furnival. He had kept his head, or had seemed inimitably to have kept it. At any rate, he had preserved his sense of decency. He was incapable of presenting on the terrace at Amberley the flaming pageant of his passion. Straker was not sure how far this restraint, this level-headedness of young Reggy, had been his undoing. It might be that Miss Tarrant had required ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... There was something she had meant to say. In spite of decency, in spite of feminine decorum, she had intended to give him a little shove into the path that should lead him, still innocently, to her own blazonment as a woman who could have her little triumphs like the rest. "If you should ever feel to tell Lizzie Ann I was a good housekeeper," ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... much defiance of decency and public morality, in the presence of such profound abuse of sacred things, God did not, nevertheless, remain without testimony, and his omnipotent justice had spoken. On the 21st of July, 1719, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... grace is not traceable in their easy posture. The fact is, that they pose for something; generally their own animal idiosyncrasy, if not respectable vanity. Stevens's figures, on the contrary, always for their own decency, which throws into the core, the heart of the monument such an expression of beauty, giving rise to the word innate, quenching the sense of frivolity, which unrestrained, disordered state of things oozes out somewhere, or is at any rate felt "in the air" in ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... the argument. In all such discussions he was wont to feel that his son was "talking the hind legs off a dog." His own ideas on concrete points were clear enough to him,—as this present idea that his daughter, Lady Frances Trafford, would outrage all propriety, all fitness, all decency, if she were to give herself in marriage to George Roden, the Post Office clerk. But words were not plenty with him,—or, when plenty, not efficacious,—and he was prone to feel, when beaten in argument, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... person three times your age!" Mrs. Forrester exclaimed, the more incensed for the confusion of thought into which the girl's persistence threw her. "The long and short of it is that he must make it possible for Mercedes to meet him, with decency, in ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... street-car just recently, near the rear door where the conductor stood. I had admired his quiet handling of many small affairs, and the courtesy with which he managed his part. When I saw the mild virtue and decency of his face and head and ears, I wondered afresh that ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... this kind, was that of Captain Kotzebue, commanding a Russian exploring expedition. Wherever he went he outraged decency by the licence he allowed his crew, and on his return home malignantly abused the English missionaries whom he found nobly struggling, against innumerable difficulties, to reclaim the hapless natives from the sin and corruption which he had done ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... with her face turned away and her eyes fixed upon the wall. She was no longer sobbing now, but was hardening herself against her aunt. She was resolving that she would be a castaway,—that she would have nothing more to do with godliness, or even with decency. She had found godliness and decency too heavy to be borne. In all her life, had not that moment in which Ludovic had held her tight bound by his arm round her waist been the happiest? Had it not been to her, her one single morsel of real bliss? She was thinking now ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... to excite the people against each other on the score of religious dissension. The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem; and making himself master of the town of Munster, sent out his disciples ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... think, an unjust one. I am more often astonished by the prudence of girls than by their recklessness. A woman of thirty will often love well and not wisely; but the girls of twenty seem to me to like propriety of demeanour, decency of outward life, and a competence. It is, of course, good that it should be so; but if it is so, they should not also claim a general character for generous and passionate indiscretion, asserting as their motto that Love shall still be Lord of All. Clara was more than twenty; but she was ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... assurance of an ever ready defense. Since 1931, nearly eight years ago, world events of thunderous import have moved with lightning speed. During these eight years many of our people clung to the hope that the innate decency of mankind would protect the unprepared who showed their innate trust in mankind. Today we are ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... satisfied on that head," resumed Madame de Saint Dizier, "if unfortunately the report should gain credit, that you have carried the forgetfulness of all duty and decency, to such a height, as to return home at eight o'clock in the morning. So I am told is the case but I cannot bring myself to believe such ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... can't you?" she whispered fiercely. "You've got all the time in the world to talk, and he hasn't more than ten minutes left to breathe unless that rube doctor gets here pretty soon. If you've GOT to settle the question right away, at least have the decency to ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... is liable carefully to conceal the object of his desire or aversion. But a constant inordinate suspicion of all people, and a carelessness of cleanliness, and of decency, are generally concomitants of madness. Their designs cannot be counteracted, till you can investigate the delirious idea or object of their insanity; but as they are generally timid, they are therefore less to ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... soliloquizes in some such strain as this: "BOOTH can't play MACBETH; for he neither looks nor understands the character. FANNY MORANT can't play LADY MACBETH as perfectly as it should be played; but she tries to do her best, and is quite respectable. Nobody else plays any part with common decency. But then the scenery is good; the Scottish nobility look sufficiently hungry and seedy, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... helper. The Accumulation came under control for the first time, and could no longer work its slaves twenty hours a day amid perils to life and limb from its machinery and in conditions that forbade them decency and morality. The time of a hundred and a thousand per cent. passed; but still the Accumulation demanded immunity and impunity, and, in spite of its conviction of the enormities it had practised, it declared itself the only means of civilization and ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... tell you, to begin with, I'm not a going to be sauced in this 'ere way by you. You hain't got common decency, nor common sense, nor common any thing else, to talk so to me about my father; I won't bear it, I ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Why not let the men eat at tables the same as the women, and have some decency about the matter? Then how much better in another respect. By the present system, rations must be dealt out to all alike, giving the same quantity to each, with the result of having more or less food returned or a part not have enough, some eating more than others. But if at a table, each can ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... allowance for a bachelor's table. Let me see; Monday will be a busy day with you, we will not come on Monday; and Tuesday will be a busy one with me. I expect my surveyor from Brockham with his report in the morning; and afterwards I cannot in decency fail attending the club. I really could not face my acquaintance if I stayed away now; for, as I am known to be in the country, it would be taken exceedingly amiss; and it is a rule with me, Miss Morland, never to give offence to any of my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of time ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... heart is to detain you; and I have no doubt but that the old lady will speak to your mother about it; and if she were to give your mother ample money, she'll, of course, not feel as if she could very well with any decency take you home!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... my daughter insists on it, pray come in," and he bowed. "If such an intrusion falls in with your ideas of decency it is ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... which had a great success. It was played at Fontainebleau before the king. "I was there that day," writes Rousseau, "in the same untidy array which was usual with me; a great deal of beard and wig rather badly trimmed. Taking this want of decency for an act of courage, I entered in this state the very room into which would come, a short time afterwards, the king, the queen, the royal family, and all the court. . . . When the lights were lit, seeing myself in this. array in the midst of people all extensively got up, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... your house things are being talked about that would shock your mother or sister, don't merely shun it as something vile. It is your duty to fight against it; reason with the boys. They probably have some grain of decency left in them. If that fails, report the matter to your house master. He will take your side. The boys will probably be expelled, but you will have done your duty, as Solomon says in Proverbs....' There now, Mansell. I am one of the children of light. So you know what to expect from me. Shall ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... or two before this, the lower room, in which I then lodged, containing about a hundred and seventy officers, was getting into such a condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting to see what measures could be adopted to promote comfort and decency. I was not the senior in rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized to issue orders. Some sort of government must be instituted at once. Nearly all recognized the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline. A committee was appointed consisting of myself, Major John W. Byron, ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... dear old relative—such a one as one reads of in romances—died and left seven thousand pounds apiece to the two sisters, whereupon the elder gave up schooling and retired to London; and the younger managed to live with some comfort and decency at Brussels, upon two hundred and ten pounds per annum. Mrs. Gorgon never touched a shilling of her capital, for the very good reason that it was placed entirely out of her reach; so that when she died, her daughter found herself in ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from lapse of time—great quantities more have been stolen—whilst whole cargoes, by the arbitrary authority of an auditor, have been given up without trial, to pretended owners, without even the decency of communication to the captors or their agents. In short, nothing has been done in furtherance of the gracious directions of His Majesty, given on the 12th ultimo, that the prize affairs should ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... hard and soft; pieces and yards; dozens and the fractions thereof; order and confusion, cleanliness and dirt,—to love the one and hate the other; materials, colors, and shades of color; patience, manners, decency in general; system and method, and the relation these sustain to independence; in short, that there is a vast deal more out of books than in books; and, finally, that the man who knows only what is in books is generally a lump of conceit, and of about as much weight in the scales of actual ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... decency to let me finish my breakfast in peace," protested Nick. "My appetite can't ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... the badge of authority, which she probably got from him for her unspoken purpose. Her letter to the elders of Jezreel speaks out, with cynical disregard of decency, the whole ugly conspiracy. It is direct, horribly plain, and imperative. There is a perfect nest of sins hissing and coiled together in it. Hypocrisy calling religion in to attest a lie, subornation of evidence, contempt ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous. We can not suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offenses have been treated with lenity, is singled out as ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... whole life," this is simply begging the question, a part of that whole being the point of dispute. But the evidence of the "portrait-statue" is, of course, resistless, and one cannot but regret, in the interests of public decency, that testimony so conclusive is not admitted in modern trials involving a similar issue. One great characteristic of Mr. Mahaffy's style is an unsparing use of the first personal pronoun. "I think," "I do not think," "I conceive," "I believe," "I advocate," "I infer," "I would select," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... years—Browning was now nearly forty-nine—the only symptoms were that he had lost his youthful slightness of figure, and that his beard and hair were somewhat blanched by time. "The women," his wife wrote to his sister, "adore him everywhere far too much for decency," and to herself he seemed "infinitely handsomer and more attractive" than when, sixteen years previously, she had first seen him. On the whole therefore she was well pleased with his new passion for clay, and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... the reviewer reminds him that he has no similar right as against clergymen presented to benefices in his diocese. They are protected by the patron's action of Quare Impedit; and all considerations of honour, decency, and common sense should restrain the Bishop from "letting himself loose against the working man of God," and enforcing against the curate a system of inquisition which he dare ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... off in the cloud of glory;[88] in the fifth the penitents, who occupy a place which even a perfectly pious man cannot obtain; in the sixth are the youths[89] who have not tasted of sin in their lives; in the seventh are those poor who studied Bible and Mishnah, and led a life of self-respecting decency. And God sits in the midst of them and expounds the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... cordage about his beast a separate name, as a sailor describes the rigging of a ship. But the fact remains that there is something peculiarly irritating in this first indent. Perhaps one feels, after buying and paying for a whole horse, that he might in decency have been allowed to breathe before being asked to pay again. If this is it, the sooner the delusion is dissipated the better. You will never have respite from payments while an active- minded syce remains on your staff. You think you have ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... men to take part in the hissing of him, avow the pride he felt in "living in the same parish with a man of that humble station of life of the defendant's," who was capable of paying money out of his own pocket to punish what he believed to be an outrage to decency. The second allusion was to a statement of the reviewer of the American Notes in the Edinburgh to the effect, that, if he had been rightly informed, Dickens had gone to America as a kind of missionary in the cause of international ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of the Lord." And his eyes, then sharp and clear, were peering about and watching all that was going on, and examining the faces of the people who were coming in and going out, and were engaged in prayer. One would have thought that common decency would have kept him from watching the face of the poor woman who was engaged in prayer, but Eli had not acquired control over his eyes—indeed, his great amusement was peering into people's faces and ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... simply disgusting! If you don't know yourself how to observe decency, then sit in your hovel! If you haven't anything to wear, then don't have any fancies! You write verses, you wish to educate yourself—and you go about looking like a factory hand! Does education consist in this, in singing idiotic songs? You idiot! ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... look upon them as companions of each other. And surely this is a national barbarism: within these beautiful walls is the ugliest church that was ever beheld—if it had been hewn out of the side of a hill it could not have been more dismal; there was no neatness, nor even decency, and it appeared to be so damp, and so completely excluded from fresh air, that it must be dangerous to sit in it; the floor is unpaved, and very rough. What a contrast to the beautiful and graceful order apparent in every part of the ancient design and workmanship! Mr. Scott ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... years of effort to secure Municipal Suffrage, owing to the character of the chief opponent, Senator Frank Smith, who represented the basest elements of Detroit. Knowing his illiteracy, the reporters had expected much sport by sending his speech to the papers in full, but in the interests of decency they refrained from publishing it. Women came down from the galleries white with anger and disgust, and avowed that if they never had wanted the ballot before they wanted it now. The suffrage committee received many friendly courtesies from Lieut.-Gov. John Strong, besides ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... immorality- -that type of moral hypocrite has done more to check the moral progress of humanity than all the immoral people put together—what I mean is the kind of good taste which demands that frankness should be linked with decency, the kind of moral tone which is braced and not relaxed when it is brought ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... with her sister had not made it impossible and absurd, I should have offered my heart to this fair young lady then and there. Now I could not make it seem the part of honor and decency. I could not help adoring her simplicity, her frankness, her beautiful ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... (naive of surprise) we are amused; if deliberate (naive of character) we are touched. Genius is always naive. Both in its works and in social intercourse, it manifests the simplicity and directness of nature. It is modest because nature is modest; but cares nothing for decency, for decency is the offspring of corruption. It is sensible, but not shrewd. It expresses its loftiest and deepest thoughts with naive grace: they are divine oracles from ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... ever left any marks of her affection," referring to the scratch she had given Carrie; who, before her brother had time to speak, replied that "the will and the claws remained the same, though common decency kept them ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... simple Pleasure foraging for Death; Honour misplaced, and Dignity astray; Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile Murmuring submission, and bald government, 605 (The idol weak as the idolater), And Decency and Custom starving Truth, And blind Authority beating with his staff The child that might have led him; Emptiness Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth 610 Left to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... flatter them by imitating their vices. Robespierre never condescended to this, and never sought to obtain ascendency over the people by pandering to their brutality, but by appealing to their reason; and the fanatical tone of his speeches possessed at least that decency that attends great ideas—he ruled by respect, and scorned to captivate them by familiarity. The more he gained the confidence of the lower classes, the more did he affect the philosophical tone and austere demeanour of the statesman. It was plainly perceptible in his most radical ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... horrible. Many of my readers have no conception of the brutishness of men when whisky and Satan have full possession of them. In the midst of a volley of oaths and terrible imprecations by one of the most violent of the set, there was a faint gleam of lingering decency exhibited by ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... believed in the impure tale, but that did not justify him in treating his noble guest and his friends in the snobbish and ill-mannered way he did. It is hardly likely that Nelson would have paid the visit without being asked, and in ordinary decency he should have been received or not asked at all. He was a greater figure and public servant than the Duke, and His Grace would not have suffered in dignity had he met Nelson on terms of equality. He could not have done less, at all events. On the other hand, the great Admiral ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... calling for Johnson, to find the great Cham dressed with quite unusual smartness. On asking the cause of this "singular transformation," Johnson replied, "Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice; and I am desirous this night to show him a better example." That Goldsmith profited by this example—though the tailors did not—is clear enough. At times, indeed, he blossomed out into the splendours of a dandy; and laughed at himself for doing so. But whether he was in ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... streets, the proportion of large, square, honourable-looking houses, suggesting an easy, copious material life, the little gardens, the grassy waysides, the open windows, the air of space and salubrity and decency, and above all the intimation of larger antecedents—these things compose a picture which has little of the element that painters call depth of tone, but which is not without something that they would admit to be style. To English ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... who has cast off his upper garment' is one who clothes himself very scantily only for the sake of decency and not ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Calm onflowings of life shaded in domestic privacy, and seen but at times coming out into the open light! What brave patience under poverty! What beautiful resignation in grief! Riches take wings to themselves and flee away—yet without and within the door there is the decency of a changed, not an unhappy lot—The clouds of adversity darken men's characters even as if they were the shadows of dishonour, but conscience quails not in the gloom—The well out of which humility hath her daily drink, is nearly dried up to the very ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... glad to notice that they had sufficient decency left in them to look very foolish. They explained to him that they had thought he was some one they knew. They said they hoped he would not deem them capable of so insulting any one except a personal friend of ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the prediction of my husband," said Dona Modeste. "Liberty, Independence, Decency, Honour, how long will ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... chum and have things in common. The social instinct was strong in them, yet they had remained lonely because they could not satisfy that instinct and at that same time satisfy their desire for cleanness and decency. ...
— The Game • Jack London
... there never yet was a man of forty who would not come back into the world of the unborn if he could do so with decency and honour. Being in the world he will as a general rule stay till he is forced to go; but do you think that he would consent to be born again, and re-live his life, if he had the offer of doing so? Do not think it. If he could so alter the past as that he ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... societies, surrounded by images and large drums. The dwelling-houses are rather poor-looking huts, with low walls and roofs and an exceedingly small entrance which is only to be passed through on one's hands and knees. Decency demands that the women should always enter the houses backward, and this occasions funny sights, as they look out of their huts like so many ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... those blessed writers have been convicted of one single inaccuracy of statement, their narratives ought to be accounted faultless, like Him whose Life they record;—like Him by whose Spirit they are inspired. I would to Heaven that men would have the decency to suspect themselves, and one another, rather than the Evangelists,—of mistake; or at least, before they venture publicly to impugn the Authors of the Everlasting Gospel, that they would be at the pains to weigh the evidence with the care that evidence deserves, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the cathedral, which, with more decency than in England, is open at all hours of the day, and is not exhibited for money. There might be some excuse for this, where any of the subjects of exhibition are portable, and such as might be carried away. But who would ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... then got on the quarter of the boat, without any one's touching her; there she placed herself with her legs outboard, while she sat on the gunwale. She gave one moment to the thought of arranging her clothes with womanly decency, and then she paused to gaze with a fixed eye, and pallid cheek, on the foaming wake that marked the rapid course of the boat. The troughs of the sea seemed less terrible to her than their combing crests, and she waited for the boat ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... unfavourable rumours only the previous day. Sagnier had declared that the debut of such a notorious harlot as Silviane at the Comedie Francaise, in such a part too as that of "Pauline," which was one of so much moral loftiness, could only be regarded as an impudent insult to public decency. The whole press, moreover, had long been up in arms against the young woman's extraordinary caprice. But then the affair had been talked of for six months past, so that Paris had grown used to the idea of seeing Silviane at the Comedie. And now it flocked thither with the one idea of being ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... derive their strength to resist; they were not to be defeated. Weren't they nearly ready to surrender? Very well—another thousand workers on the streets! But the distress, to all appearance, became no greater than before; they had learned to endure their privations in decency—that was their share in the increasing culture. One saw no obtrusive signs of want; they compromised with it in secret, and appeared full of courage. This weakened the faith of their opponents in the infallible ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that she is not afraid as she does it, whereas in the other case there was absolutely no thought beyond selfish terror. The one retains still some semblance of humanity, and some possibility of regaining self-control; the other has for the time cast aside all remnants of decency, and is an abject slave to ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... said, repeating the word with emphasis as if he were rather proud of it, "a beggar. I have not a possession in the world save the clothes on my back, which common decency demands that my creditors should allow to remain there. Now, I have all my life been a man of action, promptitude, decision. We return to England immediately—I do not mean before luncheon, but as soon as the vessel in which I have taken our passage is ready for sea, which will probably be in a few ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... and the true sense of what he plays; and, upon the Violoncello, he has execution sufficient to play Boccherini's quintettos, at least what may be called very decently. But ask Fisin, he will tell you about our Fiddling, and vouch for our decency at least. I saw in one of the public prints an insinuation that Haydn, upon his arrival in London, had detected some forgeries, some things published in his name that were not done by him. Is that true? It ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... history, it is refreshing to meet with a character so frank and manly, so simply pious and comparatively free from stain, as Colleoni. The only general of his day who can bear comparison with him for purity of public life and decency in conduct, was Federigo di Montefeltro. Even here, the comparison redounds to Colleoni's credit; for he, unlike the Duke of Urbino, rose to eminence by his own exertion in a profession fraught with peril to men of ambition and energy. Federigo started ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... thing. The vicious, uneducated barbarians who form the surplus of over-populous European countries, are far behind the wild man in delicacy of feeling or natural courtesy. The people who covered the island appeared perfectly destitute of shame, or even of a sense of common decency. Many were almost naked, still more but partially clothed. We turned in disgust from the revolting scene, but were unable to leave the spot until the captain had satisfied a noisy group of his own people, who were demanding ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... time of Napoleon there were dances in the Rue Coquenard, and at the Porcherons, near the Rue St. Lazar. In the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were dances at the Jardin de Tivoli. But at none of these were decency outraged or morality shocked. At Tivoli, the national pastime was indulged with decency and decorum, and although the price on entering was so low as fifteen sous with a ticket, and thirty sous without a ticket, and albeit the dancers ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... using her light to withdraw the grain, such was the industry of the Flemings, even at that period, she shone on broad, level, and fructifying rivers, where glided the white sail in the service of commerce, uninterrupted by rock and torrent, beside lively quiet villages, whose external decency and cleanliness expressed the ease and comfort of the inhabitants,—she gleamed upon the feudal castle of many a Baron and Knight, with its deep moat, battlemented court, and high belfry—for the chivalry of Hainault was renowned among the nobles of Europe—and ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... travelling here, there is nothing to disgust or debase man or woman, however exclusive; for it would really be impossible to feed a like multitude, of any rank or country, with slighter breaches of decency or decorum, or throw persons so wholly dissimilar together with less personal inconvenience either to ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... aghast, and to be afraid to lift their eyes to our excellent Emperor, who loves uprightness, still they have the courage of the hangman, they act like the very devil and like all reckless, wanton people, proceeding in blind defiance and forgetful of all honor and decency. And these pure chaste gentlemen dare to admonish His Imperial Majesty, the Electors and Princes not to tolerate the marriage of priests ad infamiam et ignominiam imperti, that is, to ward off shame and disgrace from ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... were, he recovered in a few months. The Lady Abbess, who called him her son, treated him with the affection and care of a mother; and he always declared that every thing which he saw within these walls, was conducted with the strictest decency and decorum. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge what they thought so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the Catholic faith, as they were pleased to call it. But they could not succeed; for though no religion ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... private larder behind the straw beehives among the sweet lavender and the gooseberry-bushes. No matter how rough the vagrant, the sincerity and pure impulse of the child seemed to throw round him a sunshine of decency and respect. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... no doubts of their own independence, they cannot with propriety sanctify the doubts of others, and, therefore, cannot admit the sufficiency or decency of ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... Fulham of the weakened influence and approaching downfall of the Church of England. I knew that the very thing he wished was that some one should rebuke his conduct, otherwise I should certainly have told him either to behave with decency or to be gone. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... has already done much good, and it will do far more, for it is in its essence a practical scheme through which to impart a proper standard of ethical conduct, proper standards of fair play and consideration for others, and courage and decency, to boys who have never been reached and never will be reached by the ordinary type of preaching, lay or clerical. I have been particularly interested in that extract of a letter from a scout master in the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... had spent half the time talking business with the poet that you spent picking strawberries with his helpless children I should not now be lugging this suit-case up this mountain. Decency requires few observations ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... thousand, clean, capable, notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely as a blood horse and healthy as the hill wind. High in flesh and voice and colour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle, not without buffets. Scarce more pious than decency in those days required, she was the cause of many an anxious thought and many a tearful prayer to Mrs. Weir. Housekeeper and mistress renewed the parts of Martha and Mary; and though with a pricking conscience, Mary reposed on Martha's strength ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... months after Tedham's conviction, I did not think we ought to intrude upon the Haskeths; but then my wife and I both felt that we ought, in decency, to make some effort to see them. They seemed pleased, but they made us no formal invitation to come again, and we never did. That day, however, I caught a glimpse of Tedham's little girl, as she flitted through the hall, after we were seated in the parlor; she was in black, a ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Grapes eaten from the vine, or after having been dried, are nutritious, like grain from the ear of corn; pressed out and fermented, they lose that nutriment—acquire a fiery force—mount to the brain—lead reason captive—and triumphs over decency: the most enlightened man ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... severest discipline; they break out into the most frantic licence. What is there that they may not do, and dare not do? Nothing is sacred in their eyes. Luxury, ambition, revenge, vanity, recklessness of decency, open rebellion, disgrace them in the sight of all men. And all these vices, remember, are heightened by the fact that they are not brothers, but rivals; sons of different mothers, hating each other, ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... Did we not already know that such taste and skill are compatible with utter barbarism, we could hardly believe that the same people are, in other matters, utterly wanting in all sense of order, comfort, or decency. Yet such is the case. They live in the most miserable, crazy, and filthy hovels, which are utterly destitute of anything that can be called furniture; not a stool, or bench, or board is seen in them, no brush seems ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... best, but strong enough to stand the wear and tear of well-to-do existence, if only it is returned. If Ethel had loved him, Thorne would have held to his lot, and munched his husks, if not with relish, certainly with decency and endurance. But Ethel did not ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... without a Higher Personality, a God who impresses His law upon us and makes us aspire after the ideal good? Mr. Salter explicitly denies that the moral virtues come "from below, from prudence, from the sense of decency, from longsighted selfishness; they who think so," he declares, in a fine burst, "never breathed the climate of morality." [8] But if not from below, they must come from above; and this "above" really must be something more than an atmospheric conception. ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... with us afterwards. I do not think he was an illiberal man at heart, but he had been very poor in his youth—('So poor, ma'am,' he said one day to my mother, 'that I could not live with honour and decency in the estate of a gentleman. I did not live. I starved—and bought books,')—and he seemed unable to shake off the pinching necessity of years. A wealthy uncle who had refused to help him whilst he lived, bequeathed all his money to him when he died. But when late in life the nephew ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... at Miss Ladd's dinner table, and Eleanor fended off Miss Moore and the widow, or when, in those long evenings in their own room they played solitaire, he was thinking of Lily, thinking of that inner summons to what he called "decency," which would, he knew, drive him—in three months—in two months—in one month!—to Lily's door. By and by it was three weeks—two weeks—one week! Then came days when he said, in terror, "I'll go to-morrow." And again: "To-morrow, I must ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... beard, an unwholesome pasty face, worn rather than wrinkled, with red-lidded eyes harnessed with spectacles, shuffling in his gait, and yet meaner in his appearance, realized the type of man that any one would conceive of as likely to be placed in the dock for an offence against decency. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... two that most attracted her sympathy were Madame de Camors and Renee Mauperin. But what horrors surrounded them! What a varied assortment of deceptions, treacheries, and mysteries, lay hidden under the outward decency and respectability of what men called "the world!" Her young head became a stage on which strange plays were acted. What one reads is good or bad for us, according to the frame of mind in which we read it—according as we discover in a volume healing for ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... slander upon young men for you to say that they—that any of them with a spark of decency—would do as you have done, as you DO! Leave ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... of society, with the means at hand of acquiring the few necessaries of life that Nature in this generous part of her domain fails to provide readymade, a Beachcomber of virtuous instinct, and a due perception of the decency of things, may enjoy a happy life. Should, however, he be of the type that demands a wreck or so every month to maintain his supplies of rum or gin, and other articles of his true religion, and is prepared ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... practised upon the slain, which were of such a nature that decency forbids our doing more than merely alluding to them here. In order to show that many of the savages of the South Seas were as bad, only a few years ago, as they were in former times, we give the following account of a scene which is published and vouched for in a recent work, named the ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... he said. "You might think worse. I admit the cleanliness, I strive for decency, I delight in being humanely interesting, even for an hour; you might think worse, much worse! You might consider me a 'clown.' 'A country clod.' Rather a lowdown, common thing, a 'clod,' don't you think? And a 'clown'! And ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... and drawn in from Enniskillen from sixty to one hundred loads of manure for my farm; this calculation is inside of the amount. I have toiled here year after year, and raised a family in credit and decency. When the last life in my lease died, my rent was immediately raised to L27 10s. I paid this for a few years, and then the seasons were bad, and I fell behind. It was not a fair rent, that was the reason I was unable to pay it. I complained ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... issue with her. This is because the plan devised by Miss Tertia was also hit upon by your lady Feng. But there must surely have been a reason why she couldn't carry it into execution. Again, as the young ladies have now their quarters in the garden, she couldn't, with any decency, direct any one to go and rule over it, for the mere sake of saving a few cash. Just consider this. If the garden is actually handed to people to make profit out of it, the parties interested will, of course, not even permit a single ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... public attention after his death—by means of a flaming dissertation by the coroner on his own zeal and spirit—the nature and extent of his rights, powers, and duties;—when high doctors are brow-beaten, the laws set at defiance, and public decency plucked by the beard, and the torn and bleeding hearts of surviving relatives still further agonized by an exposure, all quivering under the recent stroke, to the gaping vulgar! Indeed, I sometimes think that the object of certain coroners, now-a-days, is twofold; first, public—to ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... "So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of decency has always been considered, amongst us, the sure ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of mine, my only relation, who quarrelled with poor father as long as he lived about some silly matter that had neither right nor wrong to it. She left her money to me when she died. I used always to go and see her for decency's sake. I had so much to do before night that I didn't know where to begin. I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in my hands. It was as if an engine had been started going under my skull. Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it was a hard matter ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... an extent that I am granting you an interview with your former master. Messire de la Foret will naturally reflect that a man once torn in four pieces has no particular use for emeralds. He will, I repeat, be moved. In his emotion, in his gratitude, in mere decency, he will reveal to you the location of those eighteen stones, all flawless. If he should not evince a sufficiency of such appropriate and laudable feeling, I tell you candidly, it will be the worse for ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... resentment, you authorize the resentment of those who can hurt you and whom you cannot hurt; and give them that very pretense, which perhaps they wished for, of breaking with, and injuring you; whereas the contrary behavior would lay them under, the restraints of decency at least; and either shackle or expose their malice. Besides, captiousness, sullenness, and pouting are most exceedingly illiberal and vulgar. 'Un honnete ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... young fellow strode off into the dusk. Somehow, with his square shoulders and his tanned, resolute country face, he seemed to typify Young America setting cheerfully forth to face— anything—that Honor and Decency may still be more than empty words in this ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Stage, yet so near, that the Audience hear Clytemnestra crying out to AEghystus for Help, and to her Son for Mercy: While Electra, her Daughter, and a Princess, both of them Characters that ought to have appear'd with more Decency, stands upon the Stage and encourages her Brother in the Parricide. What Horror does this not raise! Clytemnestra was a wicked Woman, and had deserv'd to Die; nay, in the truth of the Story, she was ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... I halted and turned, striving to remember decency and that I was conducting like a very boor. This was neither the time nor place to force a quarrel on any man.... And Lana was right. I had no earthly warrant to interfere if she gave me none; perhaps no ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The Hurgo (for so they call a great lord, as I afterwards learnt) understood me very well. He descended from the stage, and commanded that several ladders should be applied ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... all, I was attracted by the independent air, and handsome and vigorous appearance of the people; almost every man was proprietor, and had the look which proprietorship alone can give. I found books in almost every cottage, decency of dress every where, and among the higher orders frequent elegance and accomplishment. The women were cultivated and intelligent; the men, spirited and enquiring. But the politics of France had made their way through a large portion of the province, and the glories ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Bishops, supported, as it has been, by the concurrence, or at least silence, of all classes in the Church, lay and clerical. If there ever was a case, in which an individual teacher has been put aside and virtually put away by a community, mine is one. No decency has been observed in the attacks upon me from authority; no protests have been offered against them. It is felt,—I am far from denying, justly felt,—that I am a foreign material, and cannot assimilate ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... convictions. Even the bare fact of having to give an account of their conduct is a powerful inducement to adhere to conduct of which at least some decent account can be given. If any one thinks that the mere obligation of preserving decency is not a very considerable check on the abuse of power, he has never had his attention called to the conduct of those who do not feel under the necessity of observing that restraint. Publicity is inappreciable, even when it does no more than prevent that which can ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... a true picture of our life were to rise before your mental vision, you would, I think, behold a scene like that of a town just taken by storm, where decency and righteousness were no longer regarded, and no advice is heard but that of force, as if universal confusion were the word of command. Neither fire nor sword are spared; crime is unpunished by the laws; even religion, which saves the lives of suppliants in the very ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... united and irritated, could have swept all before them. Hobson, a man accustomed to command rather than to manage, was instructed to control the Maoris by moral suasion. He was to respect their institutions and customs when these were consistent with humanity and decency, otherwise not. How in the last resort he was to stamp out inhuman and indecent customs was left unexplained, though he asked for an explanation. Certainly not by force; for it would have been flattery to apply such a term ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... reason lies buried under a mass of authorities and quotations. This fashion originated among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves. As to those, who first used this language, the most candid supposition that we can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work; for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a formidable display ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... the door, as if she considered the interview might now with decency come to an end. Neither Peachy nor Irene took the hint, however. The main object of their mission had ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... you son of a sea cook!" cries the old gentleman; "haven't you common decency to see when a man's engaged in a calculation he oughtn't to be ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... existing between the writers and those addressed. Between relatives and intimate friends the beginning and end may be in the most familiar form of conversation, either affectionate or playful. They should, however, never overstep the boundaries of decency and propriety, for it is well to remember that, unlike conversation, which only is heard by the ears for which it is intended, written words may come under eyes other than those for whom they were designed. Therefore, it is well never to ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... artistically, with the success of Mrs. Caudle among his books than he was pleased with the position of "Black-eyed Susan" among his plays, as he was well aware that he had done much better work in both branches. But for Punch's sake he was delighted. So after the death of Mrs. Caudle, which in decency could no longer be delayed, Jerrold attempted to carry on the idea by marrying the widower to the lady of whom his wife had been so jealous; so that Mr. Caudle—his head turned by his new-born liberty—might, in the "Breakfast Talk" levelled at his second ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... be proposed; and as this is said to be the first Instance of an Address to a Governor ever made by the Convention, it is not likely that seven-eighths of them, who were absent, ever had it in contemplation. But after all, I would ask, "with Modesty, Decency, and Charity," and with Humility too, all which I take to be excellent Christian Graces, as well as Sincerity; by what Authority is the Convention of the Clergy, as it is called, constituted "a corporate Body"? I am nevertheless, with all due Respect ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... he sought out the most obscure rooming house that gave any promise of decency and comfort, and stayed off Central Avenue and away from its loitering groups of range dwellers who might know him. That is why he hired a horse and rode early and alone to the fair grounds on the opening day, and avoided, by a roundabout trail a certain ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay not to examine it glass by glass. But while they affect to shine in trifles, they are often careless in essentials. Thus, their Hippolitus is so scrupulous in point of decency, that he will rather expose himself to death, than accuse his step-mother to his father; and my critics I am sure will commend him for it: But we of grosser apprehensions are apt to think, that this ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... to die so much as slide out of life, Pushed by the general horror and common hate Low, lower,—left o' the very ledge of things, I seem to see him catch convulsively, One by one at all honest forms of life, At reason, order, decency and use, To cramp him and get foothold by at least; And still they disengage them from ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... rank of the inhabitants of London is to draw a most disagreeable caricature, since the blackest vices and the most perpetual scenes of villainy and wickedness are constantly to be met with there. The most thorough contempt for all order, morality, and decency is almost universal among the poorer sort of people, whose manners I cannot but regard as the worst in the whole world. The open street for ever presents the spectator with the most loathsome scenes ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... shook hands with Jack an', says he: 'Young man, I have no doubt o' 'yer curidge or yer decency.' ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... rebuked us bitterly for publishing such a falsehood about President Smith. "How dare you tell such wicked lies about God's servants?" she scolded. "President Smith wouldn't do such a wicked thing as attend a prize fight. And you know that no man with any sense of decency would take his young sons to look at such a dreadful thing!" Some time later, when the facts in the case had come to her, in her retirement, from her friends, the editor called upon her to quiz her about the incident. ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... accept a certain given definition of a supposititious Divinity, together with the suitable maxims and code of morals accompanying that definition, ... we call this Religion, . . and we wear it as we wear our clothing for the sake of necessity and decency, though truly we are not half so concerned about it as about the far more interesting details of taste in attire. Still, we have grown used to our doctrine, and some of us will fight with each other for the difference of a word respecting it,—and as it contains within itself ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... As a result the followers of Besht, calling themselves the "New Saints," and at his death numbering no less than 40,000, threw aside not only the precepts of the Talmud, but all the restraints of morality and even decency.[471] ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... brazen is to imperil some of the best elements of character. Modesty may be strengthened into a becoming confidence, but brazen facedness can seldom be toned down into decency. It requires the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... strong a word to apply to the pest-ridden, epidemic-filled, filthy settlement where in this part of the country the mill-hand lives, moves and has his being, horrible honeycomb of lives, shocking morals and decency. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... fate was Shimei ben Gera, whose treatment of David had outraged every feeling of decency. His death was of evil portent for Solomon himself. So long as Shimei, who was Solomon's teacher, was alive, he did not venture to marry the daughter of Pharaoh. When, after Shimei's death, Solomon took her to wife, the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... your heart! Speak it out, at once!—or, if you hope so to promote it better, hide it till you can triumph in its success! But never speak again of your love for my poor brother. I cannot bear it! It will drive me beyond a woman's decency! It will drive me mad! Forbear! Not another word! It will ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be worthy of ridicule, but still it may be ridiculed. Just ridicule is a sufficient test of truth; but after all we should be driven to an inquiry, upon the principles of reasoning, whether the ridicule were just or not. Boldness, which is not incompatible with decency and candour, I do hold to be an absolute requisite in all speech and argument, where truth is the object of inquiry. Therefore when I am asked, whether there is a God or no God, I do not mince the matter, ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... had previously visited that same house of correction on account of his political views expressed in Mes Pensees, published at Copenhagen in 1751. In his Memoires he attributed to the mistress-queen of Louis XIV. sayings which she never uttered, and his style lacks the dignity and decency of true historical writings. Voltaire advised that La Beaumelle should be fettered together with a band of other literary opponents ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... much in it. But now, I was told, they were the chief promoters of a shameful traffic, and that for a spike-nail, or any other thing they value, they would oblige the women to prostitute themselves, whether they would or no; and even without any regard to that privacy which decency required. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... at Dijon near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the extreme case of a drunkard or a sensualist. Here we have a lust which has been strong enough during physical life to overpower reason, common sense and all the feelings of decency and of family affection. After death the man finds himself in the astral world feeling the appetite perhaps a hundred times more strongly, yet absolutely unable to satisfy it because he has lost the physical body. Such a life is a very ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... to turn to Joe as an arbitrator, knowing that he was honest and fair and had a sense of humor. Packard, moreover, had established himself firmly in the respect and affection of his neighbors, and his reiterations, week after week and month after month, of certain notions of order and decency, gradually began to have their effect. The Cowboy became the dominant factor in Medora's ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... that he started with private instructions from that quarter. But, while Fonseca had some of the wisdom along with the venom of the serpent, Bobadilla was simply a jackass, and behaved so that in common decency the sovereigns were obliged to disown him. They took no formal or public notice of his written charges against the Admiral, and they assured the latter that he should be reimbursed for his losses and restored to his ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... back while in the act of doing his duty, and who had called her a "damn fool" in her own house, and was even then off on the trail of another man he had sworn to kill on sight. By all the laws of justice, equity, and decency, she should hate this man! She was conscious of no other feeling toward him than a burning, unquenchable hate. And yet, deep down in her heart she knew—by the pain of her discovery of his treachery—she knew she loved him, and utterly she despised ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... are aware that all this will be pronounced rank heresy by those who assume the style of critics, who usually make a prodigious outcry when a great author is mutilated, even by expunging a word which modern decency excludes from the vocabulary of social and family intercourse. This word, however—supposing it to represent the mortal and perishing part of an author's productions—belongs not to him, but to his age; not to the intellectual man, but to the external and fleeting manners of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... that, for a spikenail, or any other thing they valued, they would oblige the women to prostitute themselves, whether it were agreeable or contrary to their inclinations. At the same time no regard was paid to the privacy which decency required. The account of this fact must be read with concern by every wellwisher to the good order and happiness of society, even without adverting to considerations ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... souls with intrigue. Never, probably, have the arts which make social intercourse delightful been carried to so high a degree of excellence as among them. Never perhaps, in a Christian country, have offenses against the laws of marriage been so readily condoned, where outward decency was not violated, as in the upper circles of France in the century preceding ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... I believe, there are Who live a life of virtuous decency, 135 Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel No self-reproach; who of the moral law Established in the land where they abide Are strict observers; and not negligent In acts of love to those with whom they dwell, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... bad enough had there been no worse. But he was vicious, malignant, dirty, and without common decency. He was a tall, powerful man, and he fought with everybody. And there was no fairness in his fighting. His first fight on board, the first day out, was with me, when he, desiring to cut a plug of chewing tobacco, took my personal ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... occasion Jacob Morris writes, "The brilliancy exhibited at Cooperstown last Tuesday—the Masonic festival—was the admiration and astonishment of all beholders. Upwards of eighty people sat down to one table—some very excellent toasts were drunk and the greatest decency and decorum was observed.... In the evening we had a splendid ball, sixty couple, thirty in a set, both sets on the floor at the same time, pleasant manners ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... a character seldom maintained on the watery element, especially by those who exercise any power on it. Every commander of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely free from all those rules of decency and civility which direct and restrain the conduct of the members of a society on shore; and each, claiming absolute dominion in his little wooden world, rules by his own laws and his own discretion. I do not, indeed, know so pregnant an instance of the dangerous consequences of absolute ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... life in Ashurst was very placid. There were no cases to try; property rarely went out of families which had held it when Mr. Denner's father wrote their wills and drew up their deeds in the same brick office which his son occupied now, and it was a point of decency and honor that wills should not ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... depend upon it, I go. Nay, Lord M. thinks she ought to permit me one interview. His opinion has great authority with me—when it squares with my own: and I have assured him, and my two cousins, that I will behave with all the decency and respect that man can behave with to the person whom he most respects. And so I will. Of this, if thou choosest not to go to Belton mean time, ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... work. He knew himself to be a liar whom nobody trusted. And he knew himself also to be a bully,—though he could not think so low of himself as to believe that he was a bully whom nobody feared. A private secretary was at the least bound to pretend to believe in him. There is a decency in such things, and that decency John Eames did not observe. He thought that he must get rid of John Eames, in spite of certain attractions which belonged to Johnny's appearance and general manners, and social standing, and reputed wealth. But it would not be wise to ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope |
