"Insult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peasants, in their moral indignation, have been known to destroy the marble statues of women erected in public places. Such acts serve no purpose, for prudery will never rid the world of eroticism; it will only increase it by leading to hypocrisy. We have something better to do than persecute and insult true art and men of talent or genius who expose our ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... minister and maternal grandfather of Ravana and the king's sister Surpanakha have heard the news of Rama's wedding with Sita from Siddhasrama and discuss the consequences with some apprehension. The minister takes the marriage as an insult to ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... of those who held him in their power—persons who were being continually hunted by the police, yet who always evaded them—criminals all! To insult him would be to insult those who had paid him so well for ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... home was quiet as a fortress the day after it has been blown up. The front-parlor was full of paving-stones; the carpets were cut to pieces; the pictures, the furniture, and the chandelier lay in one common wreck; and the walls were covered with inscriptions of mingled insult and glory. Over the mantel-piece had been charcoaled "Rascal"; over the pier-table, "Abolitionist." We did not fare as badly as several others who rejoiced in the spoiling of their goods. Mr. Tappan, in Rose Street, saw a bonfire made of all he had in the world that could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and advice is the more unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the service recommended, but often from its very obviousness. We are fired with anger against those who make themselves the spokesmen of plain obligations; for they seem to insult us as they advise. In the present case I should have feared to waken some such feeling, had it not been that I was addressing myself to a body of special men on a very special occasion. I know too much of the history of ideas to imagine that the sentiments advocated in this appeal are peculiar ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... never bring herself to forgive. A chivalrous stiffness, a melancholy dignity, a frozen frigidity, which suggest the fiery bubbling of the lava flood beneath the icy surface,—these are delightful to the female mind. But friendly indifference and fraternal cordiality constitute the worst insult that can be offered to her beauty, the most bitter outrage upon the majesty ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... a Council to appoint a successor to the Constable in Italy. This scene is of stirring interest. The Queen goads the high-minded Bourbon nigh unto madness, and at length breaks out into open insult. Lautrec the brother of Francoise, and despised by Bourbon, is named the governor. In the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... was easy. The Marechal began now to utter unmistakable insults and the most bitter reproaches. In vain Bissy tried to silence him; representing to him how far he was wandering from the subject they came to talk upon; how indecent it was to insult a man in his own house, especially, after arriving on purpose to conclude a reconciliation with him. All Bissy could say simply had the effect of exasperating the Marechal, and of making him vomit forth the most extravagant ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... accelerated indeed the march of conversion. Vespasian and Titus forebore to take the title "Judaicus" after their triumph, lest it should be taken to mean that they had Judaized. The speedy defection of Roman citizens to the superstition of a conquered people was an insult, which, added to the injury of their obstinate resistance, roused to fury the remnants of the Roman conservatives. The entanglement of Titus with the Jewish princess Berenice was the final outrage. ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... core of the apple decisively into the grate] Tosh, Eliza. Don't you insult human relations by dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You needn't marry the fellow if you ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... dispute went so far that they came from words to blows, and our people were several times very near being set at liberty; but at last the party for keeping them Prevailed, but, as they had still some friends, no insult was offer'd them. A little while after they brought Webb and Gibson, the two deserters, to them as Prisoners likewise; but at last they agreed that Webb should be sent to inform us where the others ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... himself, the foreigner no less than the Burman. If a foreigner have no respect for what is good, that is his own business. It can hurt no one but himself if he is blatant, ignorant, contemptuous. No one is insulted by it, or requires revenge for it. You might as well try and insult gravity by jeering at Newton and his pupils, as injure the laws of righteousness by jeering at the Buddha or his monks. And so you will see foreigners take all sorts of liberties in monasteries and pagodas, break every rule wantonly, and disregard everything the Buddhist holds holy, and yet very ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... The story of the insult spread widely through the country, all the tribes of the Volscians took up the quarrel, and a great army was raised and set in march towards Rome, with Attius and ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... mind the last time we had seen Murtha, in Carton's office as the bearer of an offer which had made Carton almost beside himself with anger at the thought of the insult that he would compromise with the organization. What a contrast, this, with the Murtha who, in turn, had been trembling with ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... with him, he pursued me with sneers; before the family he used me with the extreme of friendly condescension. This was not only painful in itself; not only did it put me continually in the wrong; but there was in it an element of insult indescribable. That he should thus leave me out in his dissimulation, as though even my testimony were too despicable to be considered, galled me to the blood. But what it was to me is not worth notice. I make but memorandum of it here; and chiefly for this reason, that it had one good result, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of respect whatever was allowed to be shown them. Biron and Lafayette were in the carriage with them. The mob followed the carriage into the garden of Tuileries; and on alighting, these wretched captives heard every species of abuse and insult, that even a Paris mob is ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... can be changed. Arsene Lupin is now and always will be Arsene Lupin. To you, he cannot be even so much as a memory. Pardon me....I should have known that any attention I may now offer you is simply an insult. Forgive me." ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... except to a person who had been a special student of the subject. Second, the thoroughness of the treatment depends on the knowledge of the readers. For persons acquainted with the record of the momentous events of Milton's time, it would have been quite unnecessary, it might be considered even an insult to intelligence, to go into such details of history. The shortest statement suffices when the reader is already familiar with the subject and needs only to know the application in this case. Third, the scale of treatment ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... insulted in a restaurant, the man dying within a few hours of the deed. His murderer attempted no other exculpation, or indeed explanation, than by saying that according to the army code of honor he was forced to avenge on the spot the insult offered him. Bruesewitz was sentenced to merely a mild type of confinement for a term of two years, but was pardoned by the Kaiser at the expiration of a twelvemonth. A more recent case was that of a young navy lieutenant ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... insult my clock, my boy," said the doctor. "It keeps as good time as any one in London. It's you who are too fast. Keep cool, ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... insulting rascal,' he ses, as Tom jumped up spluttering and wiping 'is face with his coat. 'How dare you insult me?' ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... their abode in the house of a brother in the Lord now in fellowship with us, who is the brother of the young wife. On the next day the newly married brother went to the clergyman, and humbly stated to him, that that, which had occurred on the previous day, was not in the least intended as an insult to him, but that he had been forced to act thus to maintain a good conscience. But he again declared the marriage as void, and said that he should legally proceed against him. Either on the same day, or the day after, ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... too strong to condemn the heartless cruelty of this imputation. The venerable prelate, on whom the authorship of this anonymous work was thrust, deserved least of all men to be exposed to such an insult. As an academic teacher and as an ecclesiastical ruler alike, he had distinguished himself by a courageous avowal of his opinions at all costs. For more than a quarter of a century he had lived in the full blaze of publicity, and on his fearless integrity no breath of suspicion had ever rested. ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... against Mantua. Ecelino retired to Verona, and maintained a struggle against the crusade for nearly two years longer, with a courage which never failed him. Wounded and taken prisoner, the soldiers of the victorious army gathered about him, and heaped insult and reproach upon him; and one furious peasant, whose brother's feet had been cut off by Ecelino's command, dealt the helpless monster four blows upon the head with a scythe. By some, Ecelino is said to have died of these wounds alone; but by others it is related that his death was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... a civilization that has boasted much. Neither Roman nor Arab, Greek nor Egyptian, Persian nor Mongol ever took himself and his own perfectness with such disconcerting seriousness as the modern white man. We whose shame, humiliation, and deep insult his aggrandizement so often involved were never deceived. We looked at him clearly, with world-old eyes, and saw simply a human thing, weak and pitiable and cruel, even as ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... surrounded and served were, like themselves, natives of Spain, or "Gachupinos," (as the Creoles used to call them,) while the Creoles—no matter how rich, or learned, or accomplished in any way—were excluded from every office of honour and profit. They were treated by the Gachupinos with contempt and insult. Hence for long, long years before the great revolutions of Spanish America, a strong feeling of dislike existed between Creole Spaniards and Spaniards of Old Spain; and this feeling was quite independent of that which either had ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... their secret hearts relegate them to one or other of these classes. But there are, happily, increasing numbers of men who are perfectly aware of, and sympathise with the indignation of women at the affront thus put upon them. These men cannot but feel that the insult thus publicly affixed to all women affects them also. They say: "We are the sons of women, and may in our turn also become fathers of women. Are we, then, sons of slaves, and shall we in turn create slaves to hinder the development and lower the morality ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet
... battle. He takes the field himself, and performs many heroic deeds until he is wounded and forced to withdraw to his tent. His chief fault is his overweening haughtiness, due to an over-exalted opinion of his position, which leads him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks. But his family had been marked out for misfortune from the outset. His kingly office had come to him from Pelops through the blood-stained hands of Atreus and Thyestes, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... own work that confronted her and she did not recognize it. She had exhausted resources to convince him of her determination to cast him off at once; to render it plain that further parley would to her be further insult. She had made him feel this on the night of his confession; in the note of direct repulse she sent him by the hand of a servant in her own house the following afternoon; by returning to him everything that he had ever given her; by ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... lasts, not a bee stirs, but all look abashed and humbled: yet whether the emotion is one of fear, or reverence, or of sympathy with the distress of the queen mother, is hard to determine. The moment it ceases and she advances again toward the royal cells, the bees bite and pull and insult her ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... Let them call it Brahm, as their brethren in India do, or any other name not appropriated to any existing being in heaven or earth, or under the earth; and let them cease to profane religion, and insult common sense, by affixing the holy name of the Supreme to their ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... are, are you? Then you may also be my messenger to him, and tell him that, for your sake, I will let him come back here. I know he'll insult me the first day; but I'll try and put up with it,—for your sake, my dear. Of course I must know what your ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... to seek their fortunes. But, for amusement, the silver spoons and other trifles of one [of the curas] have been carried away. There are various others; especially among the recently-arrived military men, who, brought up among disturbances, and accustomed to insult the religious with impunity, have no scruples about telling them what they call "the truths of the coxswain." "Who could eat free soup [100] as you do, father, without working?" "What matters to you the good or poor harvest, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... world," said General Logan, "in after times will read the history of the depth to which political and official perfidy can descend. His great aim and purpose has been to subvert law, usurp authority, insult and outrage Congress, reconstruct the rebel States in the interest of treason, and insult the memories and resting-places of our ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Hunt's granddaughter." Observation had taught her what was customary on such occasions, and she knew that he had once noticed her taking wine with the gentleman who sat next to her; but now repugnance conquered politeness, the mention of her grandfather's name seemed an insult from his lips, and putting her hand over her glass, she looked him full in the face and shook her head. Nevertheless he lifted his wine, bowed, and drank the last drop in the crystal goblet; then turned to a gentleman on his right hand, and instantly entered into a learned ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... by the wanton fires and assaults on the American coasts, could be easily brought home to the enemy's doors. Though, indeed, if the retaliators were headed by Paul Jones, the satisfaction would not be equal to the insult, being abated by the magnanimity of a ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... which may be regarded as the 'elements' of mathematical truth. Would it not be better for '[Pi]' to answer Mr. Smith, to refute his arguments, to point out their fallacies, and to save learners from error, than to plunge into gross insult and unmanly abuse? Would it not be well, also, that Professor De Morgan should favour us with a ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... celebrated painter has expressed it, I propose to play the world topsy-turvy: I beg these ladies to make advances to us, to tease us, to excite us, to steal kisses from us, to take all sorts of liberties with us, and (we shall not die of it) even to insult us. Yes, I declare that I will allow myself to be insulted. So, LOVE, you may offer me the greatest insult that can be offered to a virtuous and modest bachelor," added the religious writer, leaning ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the boy, and he went on to say, "This figure that you see here on horseback, covered with a Gascon cloak, is Don Gaiferos himself, whom his wife, now avenged of the insult of the amorous Moor, and taking her stand on the balcony of the tower with a calmer and more tranquil countenance, has perceived without recognising him; and she addresses her husband, supposing him to be some traveller, and holds with him all that conversation and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 'Schelte' or insult, for instance, to call a man arga, i.e. a lazy loon, is a serious offence. If the defendant will confess that he said it in a passion, and will take oath that he never knew the plaintiff to be arga, he must still pay 12s.; but if he will stand to his word, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... like sheep without a shepherd!' Perhaps the subject should be isolated in a separate volume, where the rude Omar, and Jovian, and the despoilers of the monasteries, might be pilloried. Seneca would be indicted for his insult to Cleopatra's books: Sir Thomas Browne might be in danger for his saying, that 'he could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could he with a few others recover the perished leaves of Solomon.' He might escape by virtue of his saving ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... household, father and daughter alike. The day came when Monsieur de Varandeuil chose to have her sit at his table and be served by Sempronie. That was too much. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil rebelled under the insult, and drew herself up to the full height of her indignation. Secretly, silently, in misery and isolation, harshly treated by the people and the things about her, the girl had built up a resolute, straightforward character; tears had tempered ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... long-drawn distant moan, a sigh like that of a querulous woman; then the sigh grew nearer and became a shriek, as if the same woman were working herself up into a passion; and finally a gust of rainy hail, mixed with dust and small stones, was dashed, like a parting insult, on the windows of ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... her yet. She is up in Michigan,—Harbor Point, I believe,—but I hear she is expected home within a week or two. I am rather curious to see her. The place where I have taken a room is run by a couple of old maids named Dowd. It is really a sort of hotel. At least, you would insult them if you called it a boarding house. Their grandfather built the house and ran it as a tavern back before the Civil War. When he died his son carried on the business. And now his two daughters run the place. They have built on a couple of wings and it is really an interesting old shack. Clean ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... better known in France as a fighter than as a wit and a poet. Born about 1620, he entered the Regiment of the Guards in his nineteenth year, and quickly became renowned for his bravery. He was an indefatigable duellist; when he was about twenty years old, he found a hundred men assembled to insult one of his friends, and he attacked them, killed two, mortally wounded seven, and dispersed all the rest. He died at Paris in 1655, struck by a huge beam falling into the street. As an author he was strangely underrated by his fellow-countrymen. Moliere was the only man who really ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... of personal insult to precedence of redress was too old a frontier principle to be gainsaid now. Both parties held back and every eye was turned to where Seth Davis had been standing. ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... Long afterward, Fitz-Peter, the itinerant justiciary, alluding to the same case, called him a murderer in the open court at Dunstable. A violent altercation ensued, and the irritation of Philip drew from him expressions of insult and contempt. The report was carried to the King, who deemed himself injured in the person of his officer, and ordered De Brois to be indicted for this new offence in the spiritual court. He was tried and condemned ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... family upon a small fortune. She had even been obliged to set up a brewery at Huntingdon, which she managed to good advantage. Hence Cromwell, in the invectives of that age, is often stigmatized with the name of the brewer. Ludlow, by way of insult, mentions the great accession which he would receive to his royal revenues upon his mother's death, who possessed a jointure of sixty pounds a year upon his estate. She was of a good family, of the name of Stuart; remotely allied, as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... and a certain conviction. No pen could adequately describe the suffering and horror of those months of waiting, while the unfortunate victims lived in crowded, dirty cells, subjected to every conceivable indignity and insult from brutal guards, half starved, and breathing foul, fetid air—the breath of sickness, the stench of unclean wounds. Dragged forth at last, one by one, into a court organized for condemnation, presided over by a foul-mouthed brute, whose every word was insult, denied ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... cloaks so much worn by the Spanish, and, while they were regarding himself and Inez attentively, seemed anxious to avoid observation. Not knowing what might be their character or intention, he hastened to quit a place where the gathering shadows of evening might expose them to intrusion and insult. On their way down the hill, as they passed through the wood of elms, mingled with poplars and oleanders, that skirts the road leading from the Alhambra, he again saw these men apparently following at a distance; and he afterwards caught sight of them among ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... of Virginia shall operate in such manner as, while protecting western Virginia and the national capital from danger or insult, it shall in the speediest manner attack and overcome the rebel forces under Jackson and Ewell, threaten the enemy in the direction of Charlottesville, and render the most effective aid to relieve ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... death, is content to resign existence itself, if so be it fulfil but its destiny, and swerve not from its being's law. Not to be envied is that man who, in the solemn prayer of two embattled hosts, can discern but an organized hypocrisy, a mockery, an insult to God! God is the God of all the earth, but dark are the ways, obscure and tangled the forest-paths, in which He makes His children walk. A mockery? That cry for guidance in the dread ordeal, that prayer by the hosts, which is but the formulated utterance of the still, the unwhispered ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... KERCHIVAL'S shoulder.] A time will come, perhaps, when I can avenge the insult of this search, and also this scar. [Pointing to a scar on his face.] Your aim was better than mine in Charleston, but we shall meet again; give me back ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... and insult our men. But they can fight, Madre de Dios! I like see General Castro take your little Commodore Sloat by the neck. He look like a little ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... reply, she knew, would be regarded as a cold-blooded insult. In fact, Tillie herself did not understand her ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... harmed by a worse. You could not harm the sage any more than you could harm the sunlight; he was in our world, but not of it. There was no possibility of evil for him, save in his own will, and that you could not touch. And as the sage was beyond harm, so also was he above insult. Men might disgrace themselves by their insolent attitude towards his mild majesty, but it was not in ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... should do its best to heal divisions instead of widening them. Jean Jacques, he said, "is a madman who is very clever, and who is only clever when he is in a fever; it is best therefore neither to cure nor to insult him." ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... resolution so that it left out all names, and merely tendered a respectful welcome, in terms, to "The President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the General of the Army, and the Admiral of the Navy.'' But suddenly came up a second amendment which was little if anything short of an insult to the President and Secretary. It extended the respectful welcome, in terms, to "The President of the United States; to the Secretary of State; to Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Army; and to David G. Farragut, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... what an opportunity is offered for those two chiefs to take revenge upon us for what they must consider an insult to their dignity." ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... and stubborn king. Go where you will. But remember this, that the insult you have offered me and the blow you have struck me shall ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother, They parted ne'er to ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... 2d of December, Bonaparte had made an attempt to go out. He had ventured to go and look at Paris. Paris does not like being looked at by certain eyes; it considers it an insult, and it resents an insult more than a wound. It submits to assassination, but not to the leering gaze of the assassin. It took offence ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... without a home wherein to lay His head—and here was the end of His life! True, He had preached noble words, He had done noble deeds: but what had they helped Him? They had not made the rich, the learned, the respectable, the religious believe on Him; they had not saved Him from persecution, and insult, and death. The only mourners who stood by to weep over His dying agonies were His mother, a poor countrywoman; a young fisherman; and one who had been a harlot and a sinner. There was ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... as day that the abolition of the worship of the Church of England, and the establishment of a new form of worship, and a new confession of faith, and a new ordination to the ministry at Massachusetts Bay in 1629, was a violation of the Charter, an insult to the King, and a breach of faith with him, notwithstanding his acknowledged kindness to them, and a renunciation of all the professions which were made by ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... fortune, and I fell to the care of my father's only brother, a man of wealth and standing. I have no story to tell of the bitterness of dependence,—of slights, and insult, and privation. My uncle had married, somewhat late in life, a young and gentle woman; when I was twelve years old she became the mother of twins,—two lovely little girls. No one, unacquainted with the family history, could have supposed that I was other than the elder ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... in his Prince of Homburg, moreover, touched what in his day was a most sensitive spot—when Theodor Koerner made his characters run a race to see who could die first. Fear of death and a hero! That was really going too far! It was an insult to every ensign "You ask a piece of bread and butter of me! I will not give you that! But my life you may have ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... and don't assume for one moment that you continue to be my prospective son-in-law. Your insult was a most intolerable piece of effrontery, not only ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... the vicomte, with a sigh of relief; "that settles the Hohenzollern matter. My dear, can you imagine France permitting a German prince to mount the throne of Spain? It was more than a menace—it was almost an insult. Do you remember Count Bismarck when he was ambassador to France? He is a man who fascinates me. How he used to watch the Emperor! I can see him yet—those puffy, pale eyes! You saw him ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... she once taken his fancy; his prodigality was princely, although he had no income; further, he was most sensitive to slights, as all men are who, because they are placed in an equivocal position, fancy that everyone who makes any reference to their origin is offering an intentional insult. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his presence was in the room at that moment. Tavia's face crimsoned when he referred to her as a "harum-scarum" and only a warning look from Dorothy kept her from replying to his insult. ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... extravagant attitudes, shaking his foot from time to time. When he found that all his violence had no effect, he turned his rear to us in a most laughable manner, and absolutely groaned in spirit when he found that this last insult failed ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... me, Alimami?"—"I like that much, but black man not be head enough to do what white man does;" and putting his hand to his bosom, he took from it a piece of gold in the form of a heart; and said, "take that for me." To have refused it would have been an insult; I therefore accepted it; adding, "that I would tie it to fine riband, and wear it when I look my country, to let Englishmen see what fine present he make me." He was quite pleased with the idea, and expressed his ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... the capacity of the common-sized plate, and it is an insult to the human stomach, to offer any one three sixths of a pie after a dinner ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
... the prince's had been indicted before Gascoigne, the chief justice, for some disorders; and Henry was not ashamed to appear at the bar with the criminal, in order to give him countenance and protection. Finding that his presence had not overawed the chief justice, he proceeded to insult that magistrate on his tribunal; but Gascoigne, mindful of the character which he then bore, and the majesty of the sovereign and of the laws which he sustained, ordered the prince to be carried to prison for his rude behavior.[*] The spectators ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... to me the next day: "Now, Anna, no matter how many babies cry you must not say one word or it will be taken as an insult to motherhood." That afternoon I gave a little talk. The church was crowded and there were so many children it seemed as if every family had twins. There were at least six of them crying at the top of their lungs. The louder they cried, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the only man of substance among them, Jonas Tabor, and shut the door behind him with majestic insult. He was Canaan's millionaire. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... dressed myself in black, because I had only that suit with a mantle, and another, a magnificent one in cloth of gold, which I did not wish to wear lest it should cause the remark to be made, though much out of season, that I wished to insult the Parliament and M. du Maine. I took two gentlemen with me in my coach, and I went in order to witness all that was to take place. I was at the same time full of fear, hope, joy, reflection, and mistrust of M. le Duc d'Orleans' weakness, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... ingenuity could devise.' One day George visited his wife in a distracted state of feeling. '"I have been careful, and I have been patient," said he; "but it's growing worse and worse: flesh and blood can't bear it any longer. Every chance he can get to insult and torment me, he takes. I thought I could do my work well, and keep on quiet, and have some time to read and learn out of work-hours; but the more he sees I can do, the more he loads on. He says ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... times more virulent than ever. Before the commencement of the present disturbances, the coercive power of the mother-country had always been able to restrain those factions from breaking out into any thing worse than gross brutality and insult. If that coercive power were entirely taken away, they would probably soon break out into open violence and bloodshed. In all great countries which are united under one uniform government, the spirit of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... without mocking of me, the liberty you desire to take, and God helping me, I desire no more [than] to shift for myself among you. As to your saying, that I proudly and imperiously insult, because I say they are 'babes and carnal, that attempt to break the peace and communion of churches, though upon better pretences than water.' You must know I am still of that mind, and shall be, so long as I see the effects that follow, viz. The breach of love, taking off Christians from ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... favour, effectually removes the difficulty, and gives the reader an advantage over the author; for we believe a majority are themselves ignorant of the meaning of the terms they employ. Very few truly learned authors will insult their readers by introducing Latin or French quotations in their writings, when "plain English" will do as well; but we will ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... Gustavus had treated ungenerously; and still more concerning Lieutenant Colonel Douglas, whom Gustavus had committed to a common prison for a slight breach of etiquette, a punishment at which the English ambassador, Sir Harry Vane, remonstrated, and which the whole Scottish officers considered an insult to ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... that between babyhood and manhood their sons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and either the influence or the protection of women is shameful. "Your mother won't let you," is an insult. But, "My father won't let me," is a dignified explanation and cannot be hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows if he talks much of his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it as his duty to offer at least the appearance of persecution to all things ranked as female, such ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... enough that you stole into my house and robbed me of my daughter? Was it not enough that you led her to forfeit her life in your plots and then left her to die? Was not this enough, that you now come and insult me by ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... audience by the monarch, who received them in the presence of his officers. The ambassadors freely enumerated the various causes of complaint entertained by their master against the French king; the insult offered to him in the person of his minister Alonso de Silva; the contumelious treatment of the pope, and forcible occupation of the fortresses and estates of the church; and finally, the enterprise against ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... to insult Mary and her faith, unless Randolph errs, in September, took her part in a few weeks, we do not know. At Perth, Mary was again offended, and suffered in health by reason of the pageants; "they did too plainly condemn the errors ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... not have expected to know that his cousin was a consistent church-goer and knew a great deal about Christmas carols. If it had been in his power to hate any one, Mr. Bingle would have hated his solitary male cousin for that stupendous insult to literature. As it was, he could only pity him for his ignorance, and at the same time blame Uncle Joseph for bringing up his son in ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... from him in a white heat of anger, more with herself than with him, though that, of course, it was not given him to know. But he caught a glimpse of her face and read his answer, and since he was in reality a nice boy, and insult had been the last thought in his mind, he took off ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... out of breath. His little, narrow chest panted like a forge bellows. His eyes were full of the ignoble happiness of a feeble, cruel, and cowardly creature, which finds that it can, at last, harass what it has feared, and insult what it has flattered, the joy of a dwarf who should be able to set his heel on the head of Goliath, the joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead that he can no longer defend himself, but sufficiently ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Did I share crop? No, ma'am!" (Sharply as tho repramanding the inquirer for an undeserved insult.) "I didn't share crop, except just at first to get a start. I rented. I paid thirds and fourths. I always rented. I wasn't ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... recover it, and this action broke the current of his ideas. With his hat he recovered his reason, and went home as alive as usual. His hat has come to mean for man much more than a protection for his head. It is for him a symbol of his manhood. You cannot more greatly insult a man than by knocking off his hat. As a sign of his reverence, his esteem, his respect, a man bares his head. Though, indeed, the contentious Mr. Chesterton somewhere argues that there is no more reason for a man's removing his hat in the presence of ladies ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... thief, the assassin! To the galleys with him! To Ceuta! The clumsy butcher, to spoil such a noble beast!" And so on, through the entire vocabulary of abuse which the Spanish tongue so abundantly supplies. Juancho stood erect under the storm of insult, biting his lips, and tearing with his right hand the lace frills of his shirt. His sleeve, ripped open by the bull's horn, disclosed his arm a long violet scar. For an he tottered, and seemed about to fall, suffocated by the violence of his emotions; but he promptly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... that, I hope," he murmured gently. "I will not insult a person of your experience and intelligence by enumerating the various ways in which the seal of a dispatch may be liquefied. It is quite true that I have read with much pleasure the letter which you are carrying from a certain group of very distinguished men to a certain person now in The Hague. ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for despising him, and could not bear to lose her. He followed her, and put forth all those powers of persuading and soothing, which had so often proved irresistible. But this time it was in vain. The insult was too savage, and his egotism too brutal, for honeyed ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Could he meet them? Ay! meet them! Defy them! Insult them! He descended to the dining-room. He heard her musical and liquid voice; the scowl upon his brow melted away; but, gloomy and silent, he took his seat, and gloomy and silent he remained. Little he spoke, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... with a base amour (it was written very early) and is therefore really reprehensible to some extent; the Shakspeare sonnet, because of its incongruity with the rest of the poems, and also because of the insult (however jocose) to the worshipful body of tailors; and the political sonnet for reasons which are plain enough, though the date at which I wrote it (not without feeling) involves now a prophetic value. In a MS. vol. I have a sonnet (1871) After the ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... bewildered: the whole train of my reasoning and dreaming passed afresh through my mind; I was again tempted, drawn as if with cords, by the image of the cabman's eating-house, and again recoiled from the possibility of insult. "Qui dort dine," thought I to myself; and took my homeward way with wavering footsteps, through rainy streets in which the lamps and the shop-windows now began to gleam; still marshalling imaginary dinners ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... evils of society. I mean the full appreciation of essential human qualities and claims, and the firm, unyielding determination to press forward to the mark of this calling, and not to be swerved from its pursuit by doubt, denial, danger, rebuff, ridicule, insult, and contemptuous treatment. While the Negro may not have it within his power to resist or overcome these things, he must preserve the integrity of his ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... house was fast being rebuilt on the old site, but on a much improved plan. The former had been a two-story building of squared logs, and, to my eyes, an insult to the landscape. The new one, a low cottage of rough logs, seemed to fit into the valley without marring the view from any point. The beautiful wooded hall to the north, which had been completely shut out by the old house, now ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Nicholas, recovering his voice. 'I will not have it. I will not hear him. I do not know that man. I cannot breathe the air that he corrupts. His presence is an insult to my sister. It is shame to see him. I ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the large and populous suburb of the Vatican, and their various habitations were distinguished, in the language of the times, as the schools of the Greeks and Goths, of the Lombards and Saxons. But this venerable spot was still open to sacrilegious insult: the design of enclosing it with walls and towers exhausted all that authority could command, or charity would supply: and the pious labor of four years was animated in every season, and at every hour, by the presence of the indefatigable pontiff. The love of fame, a generous but ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... sacrifices which they had hitherto offered to the mother of Apollo and Artemis. The sacrilegious words had scarcely passed her lips before Apollo called upon his sister Artemis to assist him in avenging the insult offered to their mother, and soon their invisible arrows sped through the air. Apollo slew all the sons, and Artemis had already slain all the daughters save one, the youngest and best beloved, whom Niobe clasped in her arms, when the agonized ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him. Let those who have betrayed him by their adulation insult him with their malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure I may have leave to lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too much by general maxims. I speak with the freedom of history, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... an indiscreet action of the Legislature of this State an insult of the grossest nature—an insult to all common decency and to all civilization, has been thrust into our faces by way of an election for judges of the respective circuits of Judges Maher, Reed and Shaw; and whereas, it was ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... gentleman, before he left, slip a square white card under the papers on Johnny's desk; and, though he did not conjecture what the card might be, he knew from the curl of Gresham's lips that it meant some covert trick or insult. Turning, he was about indignantly to call Johnny's attention to the circumstance when the beaming expression upon his friend's face stopped him, and sealed any explanation that might have risen to his lips. Johnny had found ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... to insult me? Mind what you say!" blustered Mark, unpleasantly surprised at this outburst from a boy whom he expected would now transfer his allegiance from Frank ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the Jaylors be so pregnant what is the hangman, troe? By the time my misery hath brought me to climbe to his acquaintance I shall find a frend to the last gaspe. What's here? a Lady? are the weomen so cruell here to insult ore ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... this inquisition Julia's tongue[ad] Was not asleep—"Yes, search and search," she cried, "Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong! It was for this that I became a bride! For this in silence I have suffered long A husband like Alfonso at my side; But now I'll bear no more, nor here remain, If there be law or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Passable Lie His Parts Seemed to Be Raised by the Demands of Great Station House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand I Can't Spare That Man, He Fights! Idealization Which So Easily Runs into the Commonplace If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong Ignored the Insult, but Firmly Established His Superiority Inability to Say "No" as a Positive Weakness Leave Us to Take Care of Ourselves Let Us to the End Dare to Do Our Duty as We Understand It Lincoln-Shields Duel Lost Townships Manifested His Courage ...
— Widger's Quotations from Abraham Lincoln's Writings • David Widger
... disturbed and all wrought up about something, or you wouldn't attack me like this. You don't really think me a suspicious character, and you know you don't. You are not yourself, old man, and I'll be hanged if I'll take anything you say as an insult, until I know that you say it, deliberately, in cold blood. I'm sorry for your trouble, Phil—damned sorry—I would give anything if I could help you. Perhaps I may be able to prove that later, but just now I think the kindest and ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... can boast of acquaintance with any of the less familiar departments of Sacred Learning; is not even pretended. (It would matter nothing if the reverse were the case.) What else, then, is this but to offer a deliberate insult to the Majesty of Heaven in the Divine Person of Him who is alike the Object of the Everlasting Gospel, and ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... at their command. No class of men in our own or any other country has made one-tenth the effort nor sacrificed one-tenth as much for the vote. The long delay, the double dealing, the broken faith of political parties, the insult of disfranchisement of the qualified in a land which freely gives the vote to the unqualified, combines to produce as insufferable a tyranny as any modern nation has perpetuated upon a class of its citizens. The souls of women which should be warm with patriotic ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... before Gloucester's castle. Enter Lear and the fool. Lear sees Kent in the stocks, and, still not recognizing him, is inflamed with rage against those who dared so to insult his messenger, and calls for the Duke and Regan. The fool goes on with ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... appreciated. This verse was free from assonance and the banalities which it draws into operatic works, but it kept the rhythm and sonorous sound which is far removed from prose. That was the period when there was nothing but praise for Alfred Ernst's gibberish, though that was an insult alike to the French language and the masterpieces he had the temerity to translate. Gallet used the same blank verse in Dejanire, although its use here was more debatable, but he handled it with surprising skill. Now that this text ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... from far and near, and asked us many questions: if we carried an apparatus for making banknotes (this is not meant as an insult, but a common belief that Europeans can fabricate their paper-money at will—a belief of which we had sadly to disillusionise them); if our glasses could show us Belgrade, and so on—questions sometimes so difficult to answer that we had to give them up. Then they would talk of themselves; ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... be no sadder relic of a greater sorrow, and the last consolation of the Queen did not escape the French popular genius for cruelty and insult. The arms on the covers of the prayer-book have been cut out by some fanatic ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... red about the cheeks and temples, believing that an insult was intended, when Desaugiers proceeded with ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... arose, for the choice of weapons lay with Cisy, as the person to whom the insult had been offered. But Regimbart maintained that by sending the challenge he had constituted himself the offending party. His seconds loudly protested that a buffet was the most cruel of offences. The Citizen carped at the words, pointing out that a ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... upon their haunches at a little distance and seemed to consult, grinning and snapping their teeth from time to time at the spaniel, who cowered almost into the ground, whimpering piteously, while her master leaned upon his paling and laughed aloud, an insult to which the wolves responded by throwing back their heads and uttering howls like those of a dog baying the moon. Then suddenly leaping into the bushes they disappeared as quickly as they came, leaving Goodman, still chuckling, to resume his ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... fought him as a boy at school, and often he had been badly whipped, but he had never refused the challenge of an insult when he was twelve and Jopp fifteen. The climax to their enmity at school had come one day when Terry was seized with a cramp while bathing, and after having gone down twice was rescued by Jopp, who dragged him out by the hair of the head. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lifting his roll of proof over Prim's head as if it had been a policeman's billy. "Don't you insult me, Mike! I don't have to take any more of your damn impudence and ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... see that my ancestors are inferior to those who are so bitterly opposed to my marriage with Ambulinia. I know I have seen huge mountains before me, yet, when I think that I know gentlemen will insult me upon this delicate matter, should I become angry at fools and babblers, who pride themselves in their impudence and ignorance? No. My equals! I know not where to find them. My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my superiors! I think it presumption; therefore, if this youthful ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... greater portion, as did the Persian mentioned by Xenophon. And when it was requisite to drink, a bowl was placed by the side of each; and inhaling with their trunks they took a draught very orderly; and then they scattered the drink about in fun; but not as in insult. Many other acts of a similar kind, both clever and astonishing, have persons described, relating to the peculiarities of these animals, and I saw them writing letters on Roman tablets with their trunks, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... tired to death. It was awful, and I began to have a terrible detestation for these Asiatic faces, which, because they are dead, become such a hideous green-yellow-white, and whose bodies seem to shrivel to nothing in their limp blue suitings. Such dead are an insult to the living. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... "'Twas an insult cast upon me by this Winter," replied Monteagle. "Effingston chancing to hear, resented it, and an exchange of sword thrusts followed; but that is past. As I told thee this morning I received a letter from Paris in which the Viscount says ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley |
