"Profanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... animated two-step not on the programme. It took one glance at the diabolical machine, and went up on its hind legs, preliminary to giving an elaborate exhibition of pitching. The rider indulged in vivid profanity and plied his quirt vigorously. But the bronco, with the fear of this unknown evil on its soul, varied its bucking so effectively that the puncher astride its hurricane deck was forced, in the language of his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... many cases, a large membership; often as high as from five to six hundred. In Rockford, Ill., the juvenile union numbers over eight hundred boys and as many girls. The pledge taken by these children includes, in some localities, tobacco and profanity ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... angel qualities after that time. I spoze he cut up dretful and said words she never dremp of his knowin' by sight, and she wuz jest as surprised and horrified as she would have been to had a lamb or a cooin' dove bust out in profanity. But he wuz a likely man, and got over it quick, and wuz most too good to her for a spell afterwards, as pardners have been wont to do on such occasions ever since ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... profanity in California. Excuses for its use. A mere slip of the tongue, etc. Grotesqueness of some blasphemous expressions. Sleep-killing mining machinery. What a flume is. Project to flume the river for many miles. The California mining system a gambling or lottery transaction. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... and wit and a natural gift for terms. That Samuel Clemens maintained his promise as to drink and cards during those apprentice days is something worth remembering; and if he did not always restrict his profanity to moments of severe pressure or sift the quality of his wit, we may also remember that he was an extreme example of a human being, in that formative stage which gathers all as grist, later to refine it for the uses and delights ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shortly after Phineas Everton and his daughter had disappeared over the shoulder of the spur on their way back to the Lawrenceburg. I gave my two partners the gist of the conversation with the assayer, briefly and without comment. Gifford oozed profanity; ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... revered her as a saint; and when she appeared on deck the roughest man took off his cap as she passed, and hushed the profanity on his lips. Suspicions of the true state of the case were abroad, but no one dared to show sympathy with the prisoner. The men stood in great awe of De Roberval, and still more of the terrible Gaillon, who was daily advancing in favour with his master, whose ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... saw the combination of ancient equine and youthful tree and rushed bellowing to the rescue of the latter. When he returned, empty of profanity and copiously perspiring, his former skipper ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... breathless, and the blood from a stone-cut on the cheek oozed down his face. He, too, in a fit of anger, springing to his feet when he had changed clips in his pistol, burst out with mouth-filling profanity. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... are some ingrates so constituted that it moves them the other way. When Tom replied gently to Zeigler, and asked him privately why he annoyed him without cause, the fellow sneered the more at him. He took pains to indulge in profanity and obscenity before Tom, and received the full reward he sought when he saw how ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... parrot," said Mr. Wright, "and he is indebted for his profanity to my men, who learn him much that is bad, and little that is good, and to tell the truth, he learns the former much more readily than ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... said," she persisted, "that my son is working as a common factory hand, nor will I have our name associated with that wretched old creature whose profanity and general outlandishness are the town-talk and the constant theme of newspaper squibs. You at least owe it to us to let this scandal die out as speedily as possible. If you will comply with these most reasonable requirements, I will see that you ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of the rural community do not differ greatly from those of the town. The most common rural vices are profanity, drunkenness, and sexual immorality. Profanity is often a habit rather than a defect in moral character, and is due sometimes to a narrow vocabulary. It is a mark of ignorance and boorishness. In many localities ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... broke from its pen and ran bellowing to its mother. The dogs bayed, the niggers yelled, the Mexican swore in his delightful tongue; and the stuttering Michigander remained silent, simply from his inability to pronounce the profanity of his feelings. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... and tyranny of his reign. But the ordinary doings of a tyrant were not the worst things about William Rufus. Effeminate fashions, vices horrible and unheard-of in England, flourished at his court and threatened to corrupt the nation. The fearful profanity of the king, his open and blasphemous defiance of God, made men tremble, and those who were nearest to him testified "that he every morning got up a worse man than he lay down, and every evening lay down a worse man than ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... reviled and scoffed without a shock to the conscience and a revolt of the heart. As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald profanity on which the tinker put his black finger made Lenny's blood run cold. Safe, too, was the peasant boy from any temptation in works of a gross and licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance of his rural ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saying, "this beam is rotten and must come down; this roof is decayed and must be stripped off; this floor is unsafe and must be pulled up." He does not propose to his disciples to enter upon a wholesale denunciation of profanity and licentiousness. He points out and condemns many of these things it is true; but the main lever of his teaching is the assertion of the great gospel principles. For these he seeks a place of lodgment everywhere. The old tables of the law contained but one commandment that ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... that part of the country, and he was proud of the designation. He was a standing reproach to the loafers who frequented his shop, and that fact gave him pleasure in their company. Besides, a man must have an audience when he is an expert in swearing. Macdonald's profanity was largely automatic,—a natural gift, as it were,—and he meant nothing wrong by it. In fact, when you got him fighting angry, he always forgot to swear; but in his calm moments oaths rolled easily and picturesquely from his lips, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... had the paper in his hand as he walked up the street, and he felt numbed and dazed as if someone had struck him a blow. He was nearly run over in crossing one of the thoroughfares, and heard an outburst of profanity directed at him from a cab-driver and a man on a bus; but he heeded them not, walking through the crowd ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Mark's "geysers of profanity" cease spouting after these gay and youthful days in San Francisco. With Clemens it may truly be said that profanity was an art—a pyrotechnic art ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... experience that his "education" was largely in the direction of indolence and inefficiency. I thought that by having a boy with whom I had to speak French I could improve my command of the language. Later on I realized my mistake because my French is a non-conductor of profanity. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... Penn to permit me to make an extract from his journal in this place. It is less harrowing to copy than to recall. I omit the pious observations and reflections which grace the original. Comforting as they are to me, it seems a profanity to make them public; besides, it is his wish that I should withhold ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the young man uttered violent language; but, since there was nobody present to hear him, it is likely he found small satisfaction in his profanity, rich though it may have been in metaphor and variety. So presently he betook himself off, going straight to the office in Legal Row ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... including our large and delightful Sabbath-school, we have various reformative and benevolent societies. Our temperance society carries the triple pledge at the front and saves many from the debasement of profanity, tobacco and ardent spirits ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... Steve, 'don't shoot him. Just swear at him. You can easily kill him at any range with your profanity.' ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... adding that he did not intend to pick up a pilot, as he considered their charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat, whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the Padova could understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... decision of which would destine to eternal bliss or eternal woe, and that Justice personified in Him "whose glory is a burning like the burning of a fire,"—no, but the revolting fears produced by the profanity of that poor worm of very common mud, which has been since the beginning of time acting the God. Ay, the aurelia-born image of grace sees a difference when it looks from the sun to the epigenetic thing which He raises out of corruption. There was, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... uses] the blasphemy and profanity which he confesses to be so common in Catholic countries, as an argument for, and not against the 'Catholic Faith.'"—p. 34. That is, because I admit that profaneness exists in the Church, therefore I consider it a token ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... evidently the homes of the ultra-wealthy. Close at hand we have the pleasant chink-chink of caulking hammers, for barges are built and repaired in this snug harbor. Now and then a river tug comes, with noisy bluster of smoke and steam, and amid much tightening and slackening of rope, and wild profanity, takes captive a laden barge,—as a cowboy might a refractory steer in the midst of a herd,—and hauls it off to be disgorged down stream. And just as we conclude our lunch, German women come with hoes to practice the gentle art of horticulture—a characteristic conglomeration, in the heart of our ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... tribute from so great a saint, it seems almost a profanity—certainly a bathos—to add any more secular touches. Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it must be remembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... ever ye heard. Now to what purpose speak we of these things unto you, and why do we choose this discourse, when ye expect to hear public things? I will tell you the reason of it. Because I conceive this is the great sin of the times, and the most reprehensive and fountain sin, the root of all our profanity and malignity, even this which Christ points out in this similitude. The great blessing and privilege of Scotland is the gospel. Ye all must grant this. Now, then, the great misery and sin of this nation is, the abuse and contempt ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... ground often has a bad effect on those who follow it. Wrestle with a chimney-sweep and you will need a bath. Throw back the mud that is thrown at you, and you will have dirty hands. Answer Shimei when he curses you and you will echo his profanity. Many a man has entered a crusade against intemperance and proved himself as intemperate in his language as other men are in their potations. Many a man has attacked a bad cause with righteous indignation and ended in a personal squabble ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... MacLachan for past drunkenness. He mourns for Schepstein, who occasionally helps out a friend at ten per cent, as a usurer. He once accused old Madame Tallafferr of pride, but he'll never do that again. He calls the Little Red Doctor, our local physician, to account for profanity, and gets a fresh sample every time. Even against the Bonnie Lassie, whose sculptures you can just see in that little house near the corner"—I waved an illustrative hand—"he can quote Scripture, as to graven images. We all revere and respect ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... breath. For a moment he was speechless. To him it seemed something like profanity that this young man should ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... able to keep away from it. Our imaginations got astir with it. We made up for lost time and went round it and through it and over it exhaustively. I recall prolonged discussion of polygamy on the way to Royston, muddy November tramps to Madingley, when amidst much profanity from Hatherleigh at the serious treatment of so obsolete a matter, we weighed the reasons, if any, for the institution of marriage. The fine dim night-time spaces of the Great Court are bound up with the inconclusive finales ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... and all, except the one reserved for the authorities, were literally packed with prisoners. Passing by the windows, Nekhludoff listened to the sounds within. Everywhere he heard the rattling of chains, bustle, and the hum of conversation, interspersed with stupid profanity; but nowhere did he hear, as he expected, any reference to the dead comrades. Their conversation related more to sacks, drinking-water, and the choice of seats. Looking into the window of one of the cars, Nekhludoff ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... profoundest indignation, and it was not until Miller Lyddon returned, heard the news, and heartily congratulated Billy on a merciful escape, that the old man grew a little calmer under his disappointment, and moderated the bitterness and profanity of his remarks. ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... had heard all he could stand. He had to do murder or get out. He slammed the coffee-pot down on the floor and bolted out of the open door. His arms whirled in violent gestures as he strode away. An unbroken stream of profanity floated ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... said, either. I guess mother wouldn't let me go out with him if she knew he used profanity—Maria wouldn't, anyway. I have decided I won't tell them. It's the only time I ever caught him. The other thing is this. He said to himself—but out loud—I think he had forgotten me: "So they made her believe I liked her aunt better." And then, in a minute: "She said it would break ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... murmur in the hall swelled into a chorus of profanity in which cries of "What's your hurry?" "You can't get in!" intermingled. Next, a violent pounding on the door announced the presence of someone more determined than the ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... cried the rector, authoritatively; 'you are standing in the chamber of the dead, and such profanity is out of place here—no ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... most concerned to suggest here is that the distinction between prose and poetry (using prose to mean artistically wrought language) will not survive investigation. The popular instinct has long ago seen that the vital thing is the matter—that it is profanity to call that "poetry" which is only verse; it remains to be recognised that even the distinction of form rests only on the non-recognition of the rhythm of "prose,"—a rhythm that is not metre in so far as metre has ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... other, she seemed a nice girl enough, but he never wanted to see another girl, nice or otherwise. Her eyes were pretty, so was her hair, but what of it? Oh, hang the luck! Just here he banged his swollen forehead on the sharp edge of the door, and found relief in profanity. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... such a process belongs distinctly to "Black" Magic, and is wholly evil. Ethereal corpses, like dense ones, if not swiftly destroyed by burning, should be left in the silence and the darkness, a silence and a darkness that it is the worst profanity to break. ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... copy pencil-marked with corrections by Jeffrey or Gifford: indeed, they are nearly as wretched as the touchings-up of the 'Siege of Corinth' by the latter. If ever diabolic agency was caught at tricks with 'apostolic' achievement (see page 9)—and 'apostolic', with no 'profanity' at all, I esteem these poems to be—surely you may bid it 'aroint' 'about and all about' these desecrated stanzas—each of which, however, thanks to your piety, we may hail, I trust, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... other Fannies and Idas and Louisas, say, "My Gawd!" as Miss Elizabeth says "You don't say!" and it is all one to the Heavenly Father. Therefore, gentle reader, it must be all one to you. There is not the slightest shade of disrespect in Annie's or Fannie's hearts as they shower their profanity on creation in general. There is not the slightest shade in mind as I write ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... him by the devil-devil doctors. Other tribesmen the devil-devil doctors tabooed against eating shark, or handling turtle, or contacting with crocodiles or the fossil remains of crocodiles, or from ever being smirched by the profanity of a woman's touch or of a woman's shadow cast ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... postponing his trip from day to day; and finally an important hearing, in which he was a valued witness, was postponed by the referee—or deferee—till after the holidays. The Colonel saw himself confronted with another Christmas far away from any of his people. The first two days he spent in violent profanity, and in declining invitations which he received from business acquaintances to share their homes. Then he set out to make the occasion memorable. Once more we may ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... matter to Professor Mansfield: his mother's dreams for him, her prejudices, his own choice and his renouncing of it all for the sake of what his mother had already given up for him. To his colleagues, the old professor expressed himself with plain profanity. To Scott, he took a gentler tone, spoke with appreciation of a mother such as Mrs. Brenton must be, spoke of the ministerial profession with an admiration he was far from feeling, and then craftily suggested to his favourite student that the preaching ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... upon the barrel which he had used for his interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the committee-man released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear of his companion and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in Pixley's precinct on the morrow, and who had now reported for instructions not necessarily received in a too ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... for the Pacific coast. Young's company came across other Missourians on the plains; but no hostilities ensued, the Missourians having no object now to interfere with the Saints, and the latter contenting themselves by noting in their diaries the profanity and quarrelsomeness of their ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... device; they petitioned the king to command the prosecution of Wilkes and, later, when he was out of their reach, ordered that he should be confined for his offence against themselves. Their proceedings excited public ridicule. That Sandwich should complain of obscenity and profanity, and should censure Wilkes, a fellow-monk of Dashwood's debauched fraternity, for indulging in them was, indeed, a case of Satan rebuking sin. At a performance of the "Beggar's Opera" at Covent Garden theatre the audience caught up with delight ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... are in the neighborhood, we must see the locality to which—in mild and humorous profanity—States people are sometimes assigned; and therefore proceed to Halifax and thoroughly "do" that sedate, quiet, and delightfully ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... and indulged himself in a piece of profanity that was inexpressibly disgusting and mean in the mouth of a man who was used to cross himself when alarmed and swear by the saints. But perhaps he knew, even better than I, how little he had to expect from Providence. He filled his pipe, exclaiming that ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... keeping alive the spirit of religion. The worship of God formed one of the most important duties of the Swedish army wherever located. "Twice every day the roll of the drum assembled the soldiers to prayer. The usual vices of soldiers, like profanity and drunkenness and gambling, were uniformly punished. Death was inflicted on any soldier who assaulted a citizen in his house. Even a certificate was required of the chief citizens of any place where troops were quartered, that their conduct had been orderly. He never allowed, under ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... to have been a not unusual compound of piety and profanity. We read in one place of his reckless exploits in burning churches and desecrating shrines, and in others of his liberal endowments ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... non-existences in your preserve. Such talk only encourages the mind to continue its empty imaginings.' Just at that point the Stubenmadchen trod on the cat's tail, and the cat let fly a frenzy of cat-profanity. I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... porch, seeming to shake with joviality as he walked. Years ago he had served as captain of a large steamboat, and this at times gave him an air of bluff authority. He was a successful river man, and was therefore noted for the vigor and newness of his profanity. His wife was deeply religious, and year after year she besought him to join the church, pleaded with him at evening when the two children were kissed good night—and at last he stood the rector's cross-examination and had his name placed upon the register. It was a hard ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... give his description in his own words. Prominent among the ceremonial rites of these Indians, he says, "are the observances peculiar to the fair sex, and many of them are remarkably analogous to those practised by the Hebrew women, so much so that, were it not savouring of profanity, the ordinances of the Dene ritual code might be termed a new edition 'revised and considerably augmented' of the Mosaic ceremonial law. Among the Carriers,[235] as soon as a girl has experienced the first flow of the menses ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... that, you are greatly mistaken. One sentence from the lips of the Son of God in regard to the future state has forever settled it in my mind. "If ye die in your sins, where I am, there ye cannot go." If a man has not given up his drunkenness, his profanity, his licentiousness, his covetousness, heaven would be hell to him. Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. What would a man do in heaven who cannot bear to be in the society of the ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... this fiery son of the sea broke off into a string of Oriental profanity, mingling gods and devils, lineages and men, metaphors and monsters, with so savage a virility that Jacob Kent was paralyzed. He shrank back, his arms lifted as though to ward off physical violence. So utterly unnerved was he that ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... Right.... We've been two years together now, Joe, and this is the only thing I've ever asked you to do or done myself that wasn't square and aboveboard. But look here"—here, for some half-minute, Captain Dave Liardet launched into profanity—"I tell you that the owners of this ship wouldn't care a single curse if you and I and every living soul aboard had had our livers cut out at La Vandola as long as they didn't lose money over it, and haven't to pay our wages ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... the green shore at Curry's Landing, Fred and Evelyn Brydon, standing on the narrow deck, felt the grip of the place and the season. Even the captain's picturesque language, as he directed the activities of the "rousters" who pulled the boat ashore, seemed less like profanity and more like figure ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... even during siesta, only stopping long enough for Carlitos to mend his car with a piece of wire and what Janice supposed must be much Spanish profanity. The journey was getting on the Mexican's nerves as it was upon ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... will teach her daughter that she must conquer or control her lower nature and not permit privileges with her body or her given name. Her conduct at home and on the street must also command this. Her daughter will no more use the Lord's name in exclamation than any other profanity. She must be taught not to hang out or ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... lengths, with a lively accompaniment of curry-combs knocking against back fences and stable walls, for the darkies loved to curry their horses in the alley. Darkies always prefer to gossip in shouts instead of whispers; and they feel that profanity, unless it be vociferous, is almost worthless. Horrible phrases were caught by early rising children and carried to older people for definition, sometimes at inopportune moments; while less investigative children ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... himself bound not to leave them unchecked in their evil courses, they thought themselves aggrieved. Nor was his manner likely to gain them. Grave and earnest, he had never in his life known sportiveness, and his distress and horror at the profanity and blasphemy that rang in his ears made him doubly sad and stern. From the first his Sunday service was by most treated as an infliction, and the officers, both of the ship and of the military, had so little sense of decency as to sit drinking, smoking, and talking within ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... it were, personified, and their effects on men are painted as their own characters. And an ugly picture it is, which should hang in the gallery of every young man and woman. 'Wine is a mocker.' Intemperance delights in scoffing at all pure, lofty, sacred things. It is the ally of wild profanity, which sends up its tipsy and clumsy ridicule against Heaven itself. If a man wants to lose his sense of reverence, his susceptibility for what is noble, let him take to drink, and the thing is done. If he would fain keep these fresh and quick, let ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gone—and what a hole! Other men can do his work as well, if not as quickly. The paper still goes to press and the public sees no change; but we, who worked beside him, see it nightly. By twelve o'clock on a busy night, nervous, drawn faces surround the central desk, and profanity is snapped crossly back and forth. There is no alleviation of cheerful inanity. Presently somebody looks up, remarking, "I wish Bobbie Barton was back." And somebody else replies with profane asperity and lax grammar, "I wish he was!" Bobbie, meanwhile has become a lawyer, ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... the spread of vice; the decline of even feudal virtues. These evils and others followed naturally and inevitably from those distant wars. The immediate effects of all war are evil and melancholy. Murder, pillage, profanity, drunkenness, extravagance, public distress, bitter sorrows, wasted energies, destruction of property, national debts, exaltation of military maxims, general looseness of life, distaste for regular pursuits,—these are the first-fruits of war, offensive and defensive, and as inevitable and uniform ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... nay, the aspiration of both was that the whole world should be Christianized. But, looking about them, they knew, in fact, that the vortices or concourses did and could involve but a small proportion of the society in which they occurred. They knew that there must be large tracts of unbelief, profanity, and false worship in every so-called Christian nation, left utterly unaffected by any of the true associations of Christ's real people; besides the huge wilderness of heathenism and idolatry lying all round in the dark lands of the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the Hixon conclave met in the room over Hollman's Mammoth Department Store, and with much profanity read a communication from Frankfort, announcing the pardon of Samson South. In that episode, they foresaw the beginning of the end for their dynasty. The outside world was looking on, and their regime could not survive the spotlight of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark was taken up by Mr. Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a few hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... fact is, Mr. Farnaby, you're positively saturated with the love of money. Get your New Testament and read what Christ says of rich people.' What do you think he did, when I put it in that unanswerable way? He held up his hand, and looked horrified. 'I can't allow profanity in my office,' says he. 'I have my New Testament read to me in church, sir, every Sunday.' That's the sort of Christian, Rufus, who is the average product of modern times! He was as obstinate as a mule; he wouldn't give way a single inch. His adopted ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... Culteraws, and minister at[632] in Annandale, left his church and emitted a declaration bearing what stings he suffared in his conscience for conforming with the present church governement, which he fand to be a fertile soyle for profanity and errors of all kinds, and theirfor he gives all to whom thir presents may come to know that he disapproves of the said governement and of his bypast complyance, and that in tyme coming he will forsake the ministrie, since he ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Eastern hall. Miao Y, with a face beaming with smiles, made way for her to walk in. "We've just been filling ourselves with wines and meats," dowager lady Chia observed, "and with the josses you've got in here, we shall be guilty of profanity. We'd better therefore sit here! But give us some of that good tea of yours; and we'll get off so soon as we have had a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the world attracts man downward into the foul pits of vice, immorality, intemperance, gambling, profanity, anger, jealousy, worldly fashions, and all the forms and phases of evil. God would have men come out of these horrible pits, wash themselves in the pure water of his Word, and take a lowly seat at his table. Then with joy he will say ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... too tired for profanity, and gazed down the mountainside after the manner of baffled men, who look far off from the thing that troubles them. They could tell by the trees that it was a high altitude. There were no cottonwoods, though the cottonwoods will follow a stream for more than a mile above sea level. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... everlasting staring! This it is that leads us astray. That old stargazer, with whom Aesop has made us acquainted, deserved, indeed, to fall into the well, no less for his profanity than his stupidity. Yet this same star-gazing it is that we miscall reflection. Thus, in our blank wonder at Nature, in our naked analysis of her life, expressed through long lists of genera and species and mathematical calculations, as if we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... not say perdition. She left that to weak spirits. She thought it a virtue to say "hell" with unction and emphasis, by way of alarming the consciences of sinners. Mrs. Anderson's prayer is not reportable. That sort of profanity is too bad to write. She capped her climax—even as I have heard a revivalist pray for a scoffer that had vexed his righteous soul—by asking God to convert her daughter, or if she could not be converted to take her away, that she might not heap up wrath against the day of wrath. For that sort ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... won't repeat his language, mother, but the muscles stood out on his profanity in regular knots—he intimated, in a way that left no doubt as to his meaning, that I was not quite up to the nine per week standard. I'll be honest with you and admit that I didn't lean against the pay-shed and weep. I still ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... jar of a footstep should send a dart of agony to the point of mutilation. My wife gave much assistance in my hospital duties, often reaching and influencing those beyond me. I recall one poor fellow who was actually six months in dying from a very painful wound. Profanity appeared to be his vernacular, and in bitter protest at his fate, he would curse nearly every one and everything. Mrs. Roe's sympathy and attentions changed him very much, and he would listen quietly as long as she would read to him. Some of the hospital attendants, men and women, had good ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... said to Blithelygo and myself: "There'd be a fortune in that menagerie if it was anchored in Lake Michigan." On that occasion he was answered in strong terms. It was the only time I ever heard Blithelygo use profanity. But the American merely dusted his patent leather shoes with a gay silk kerchief, adjusted his clothes on his five-foot frame as he stood up; and said: "Say you ought to hear my partner in Chicago when he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Lott Cary had set himself to accomplish. By his unselfish labors and untiring efforts he had won the hearts of the natives. He had been indefatigable in his efforts to uplift the colony. The morale of the settlement was greatly lifted. Drunkenness, profanity and quarreling were unknown; the Sabbath was observed with strictness.[151] Nearly the whole adult population had come under the influence of Christianity. On the site of a once desolate forest consecrated to demon worship was erected the commodious chapel which stood as ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you! Ask the God who ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... assumption was a safe one," said the priest, smilingly, "unless," he added on afterthought, "it be by way of a genial profanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to my soul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a long time. I ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Arbuthnot wouldn't go into that—not here, not to-day. The vicar, she knew, would have called Lotty's talk levity, if not profanity. How old he seemed from here; an old, ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... them off the field pell-mell, he sings, as Carlyle says, "with a wild burst of spiritual enthusiasm, the charms of the rearward part of certain men; and what a royal ecstatic felicity there is in indisputable survey of the same." "He rises," adds Carlyle, "to the heights of Anti-Biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of Vision." To Soubise and Company the poet of ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... cease, and decency to be restored to the parish churches, where the grooms and gamekeepers should give way to competent ministers; economy, order, justice, and reverence were to heal the canker of profligate profanity which had eaten too long into the moral life ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... disguise and revealed themselves in their true colors. A cigar was actually taken out of a day scholar's mouth during prayers! A flask of whisky was dragged from another's desk, and then thrown out of the window. And finally, Profanity, Hazing, Theft, and ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... neighbours with marked respect. She never speaks of the past, but it has been remarked that whenever the stalwart form of a certain policeman passes her door, her clean, delicate face assumes an expression which can only be described as frozen profanity. The Strong ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... only two horses with two riders flying around the ring; but there is many a man on that stand whose honor and domestic happiness and fortune—white mane, white foot, white flank—are in the ring, racing with inebriety, and with fraud, and with profanity, and with ruin—black neck, black foot, black flank. Neck and neck they go in ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... own child comes in from the street, and has learned to swear from the bad boys congregated there, it is a very different thing to you from what it was when you heard the profanity of those boys as you passed them. Now it takes hold of you, and makes you feel that you are a stockholder in the public morality. Children make men better citizens. Of what use would an engine be to a ship, if it were lying loose in the hull? It must be fastened to it with bolts and screws, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... House "Bull" McNabb launched an attack on those who were withholding the resolution, using freely the words "bribery," "cajoling," "threats" and much profanity. Mrs. Thompson, the anti-suffrage president, kept calling out encouragement to him until the Republican floor leader, William Lyons, had to ask ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... and logically this demoralization, especially in countries under a republican government. Profanity, drunkenness, and general recklessness as to money matters were everywhere prevailing vices; and this demoralization was, in the eyes of Washington, more to be dreaded than any external dangers that had thus far caused alarm and distress. "I have," ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... involved, notably Thomas' article on The Gaming Instinct, Groos's chapter on "Fighting Play," in his Play of Man, and G. T. W. Patrick's Psychology of Relaxation, in which the theory of catharsis, familiar since Aristotle, is employed to explain play, laughter, profanity, the drink habit, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... meals, and would endeavor to engage Sackett in an argument concerning devils, hell, and many other subjects not relating to navigation of the Indian Ocean. At such times the third mate would raise his piping voice and plead with Andrews not to shock him with his profanity. The second officer of the Sovereign appeared to enjoy the situation, and would laugh until ordered from the table by Sackett. Miss Sackett, of course, would not dine with the rest, but had her meals served in her stateroom by the steward, who did it with ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... imminent danger. Their duties, grave, tranquil, and solemn, held them aloof from the stir of temporary agitation. They were the last great refuge of the state, to which, on common occasions, it was almost profanity to appeal. Their very demeanour was modelled to harmonize with the reputation of their virtues and the dignity of their office. It was forbidden to laugh in their assembly—no archon who had been seen in a public tavern could be admitted to ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is sure of his pittance those that are behind regard enviously and with suppressed anger the person ahead of them. First come outcries, then jeering and then scuffling; the women rival the men in struggling and in profanity,[4268] and they hustle each other. The line suddenly breaks; each rushes to get ahead of the other; the foremost place belongs to the most robust and the most brutal, and to secure it they have to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that the Manufacture of Bowling Balls involved the Destruction of the Hardwood Forests, while the Game itself overtaxed certain Important Muscles ending with "alis," at the same time encouraging Profanity and the use ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... a need. The final authority is the people, and it is better to teach youth to discriminate between good and bad slang rather than to forbid it entirely. Emerson calls it language in the making, its crude, vital, material. It is often an effective school of moral description, a palliative for profanity, and expresses the natural craving for superlatives. Faults are hit off and condemned with the curtness sententiousness of proverbs devised by youth to sanctify itself and correct its own faults. The pedagogue objects that it violates ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... these young men would become better members of their own church. Athletic grounds were secured together with a field-house, and Christ Church teams won an enviable reputation for high standards of sportsmanship. Their spirit may be judged by the story of a football player who waxed into colorful profanity in the heat of a game and was bawled out by a Roman Catholic teammate in terse words: "Don't you know who you represent?" During an interim when another parish house was being built, Christ Church basketball teams used the Holy Cross Monastery ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... a new S. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with his keys, a new S. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent, divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, Sic Genius. Are not all things, even profanity, permissible in dreams? ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... this my charge fell into so unseemly a rage that I deemed it wise not to insist. He, indeed, bluntly threatened a nameless violence to the barber if he were so much as touched with the iron, and revealed an altogether shocking gift for profanity, saying loudly: "I'll be—dashed—if you will!" I mean to say, I have written "dashed" for what he actually said. But at length I had ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... explains to our friends, as he does to every one whose acquaintance he makes, that he was in former days a seafaring man, and that he has brought his two little grandsons here to show them something about a ship; and the poor old soul helplessly saturates his phrase with the rankest profanity. The boys are somewhat amused by their grandsire's state, being no doubt familiar with it, but a very grim-looking old lady who sits against the pilot-house, and keeps a sharp eye upon all three, and who is also doubtless familiar with the unhappy ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... Scotland, in the seventeenth century, from the grotesque "Pockmanty Sermon" of the Rev. James Row, minister at Monnivaird and Strowan, from Hobbes's Behemoth, from the unpolished, unauthenticated(43) discourses of some of the field preachers, or from that collection of profanity and obscenity entitled "Scotch Presbyterian ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... horses invariably "shied" in passing to the windward of my house, and that the baker and milkman had great difficulty in the delivery of their wares in the morning, and indulged in unseemly and unnecessary profanity in so doing. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... pendulum and weights. A gun of antique pattern leans beside the clock. To the right the cabin is recessed, with a door right-angled in the jog and other windows looking on the sea. A parrot sits on its perch with curbed profanity. The gaudy creature is best if stuffed, for its noisy tongue would drown our dialogue. Like Hamlet's player it would speak beyond its lines and raise a quantity of barren laughter. Our furniture is a table ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... loafer hanging about in the store, and having paid only attention to the dram counter, the necessary concomitant of the village center, became garrulous, but unfortunately more than seasoned the flow with a profanity tolerably rich in variety if not distinguished for refinement; he was of the Clary's Grove genus. As there was a crowd at the "ladies' department," that is, the dry-goods and finery, where it happened Lincoln was commonly besieged, the language was resented by woman's ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... born in East Tennessee, went into the United States Navy at the early age of eleven. He was the youngest midshipman in the service. "Before I had reached the age of sixteen," he says, "I prided myself on my profanity, and ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... was the perfect counterpart of the men who were working night and day in the North to create a condition of mob feeling out of which a civil conflict might grow. Uncle Tom's Cabin had set him on fire with new hatreds. His vocabulary of profanity had been enlarged by the addition of every name in the novel. He had been compelled to invent new expressions to fit these characters. He damned them individually and collectively. He cursed each ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... once to improve the defenders of the flag, who were their shipmates, and yet a disgrace to their native land. Blair went on in his own peculiar way; while Derry at once announced his position as a Christian mate, who would suffer no profanity in his hearing, and would see the crew of the Molly engage in no deeds on the high seas, not sanctioned by the letters of marque which were their warrant for their blows struck against the ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... officiate as his substitute when the king came to service. He did so with becoming propriety till the close of the service, when, instead of the solemn departing air, he struck up the monarch's old favourite, "Brose and Butter." The scheme, though bordering on profanity, succeeded in the manner intended. The king proceeding hastily to the organ-gallery, discovered Cockpen, whom he saluted familiarly, declaring that he had "almost made him dance." "I could dance too," said Cockpen, "if I had my lands again." ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... 10. Words of profanity are not allowable if they are the mere expression of the author, but any foul or profane expression may be quoted. An author should not be charged with the impropriety of his characters who are merely taken ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... perhaps in no part of the world are prisoners so left to themselves and so utterly neglected as in Spain. Yet in this prison of Madrid the ears of the visitor are never shocked with horrid blasphemy and profanity, nor are his eyes outraged and himself insulted. And yet in this prison were some of the most desperate characters in Spain. But gravity and sedateness are the leading characteristics of the Spaniards, and the very robber, except in those moments when he is engaged in his occupation, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... like it, and that is the reason they like me." He was in the hottest place because he thought it was his duty to be there, and not because he was fearless. "The man who says he isn't afraid under fire, is a liar. I am afraid," he frankly said, with a touch of that profanity which Grant never used, "and if I followed my own impulse I should turn and get out. It is all a question of the power ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... God's earth that he was made for, it was to pile up epithets against this infernal rebellion!" Chacun a son gout. Our young author has struck a harder blow at the Confederacy by his damaging facts, than if he had intensified them with the vocabulary of profanity and vituperation. There has been more than enough of bitter words, North and South; it is now a question of strength, and skill, and endurance. This book will teach us to respect the energy, while we detest the principles, of this ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... as to render them, per se, fitter subjects for the exclusive exercise of a young man's faculties than "the Pickwick Papers," or "The Rod and the Gun." I have heard—(I never saw, nor will I believe it)—of the profanity of certain sporting under-graduates, who took into chapel the racing calendar, bound in red morocco, instead of a prayer-book; I hold it to have been the malicious fiction of some would-be university ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... man was so startling, his muttered exclamation—so natural that its profanity never even grated. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his head, his lips were drawn back from his teeth. Blank, unutterable surprise held him, dumb and spellbound, as he stared at a half-sheet of type written notepaper. She herself, amazed at his transformed ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the lips,—suggested with dreadful exactitude a corpse in burial clothes just lifted from its coffin and placed stiffly upright in a sitting position. Involuntarily Cardinal Bonpre, as he made the usual necessary genuflections, thought, with a shrinking interior sense of horror at the profanity of his own idea, that the Holy Father as he then appeared, might have posed to a painter of allegories, as the frail ghost of a dead Faith. For he looked so white and slender and fragile and transparent,—he sat so rigidly, so coldly, without a movement or a gesture, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... takes no chances of losing a heat by coming back to ask questions. It was different in the case of Marengo Todd, driver of the pole-horse, and entitled to "protection." He pulled "Maria M." to a snorting halt under the wire and poured forth the vials of his artistic profanity in a way that piqued Cap'n Sproul's professional interest, he having heard more or less eminent efforts in ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... PROFANITY. The extent to which some men habitually interlard their talk with oaths is disgusting even to many who, on occasion, do not themselves hesitate to give expression to their feelings in oaths portly and unctuous. If these fellows could be made to know how offensive ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... treasure sought. Such indirect issues we all admit; but it would be simply dishonest to affirm that it is such issues that are always in view. Here, for the present, I must end. I ask no space to reply to those railers who make such free use of the terms insolence, outrage, profanity, and blasphemy. They obviously lack the sobriety of mind necessary to give accuracy to their statements, or to render their charges worthy of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... they hears Peg-leg beller from where's he layin' on the lounge (they ain't figured on his bein' so contiguous), and he gives it to be understood, does Peg-leg, as how the next one-lunger that indulges in whatsoever profanity will lose ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... stages of this process of purification (the word is Professor Dowden's) is impossible here; and there are scenes, such as that of the meeting of Lear and Cordelia, which it seems almost a profanity to touch.[159] But I will refer to two scenes which may remind us more in detail of some of the points just mentioned. The third and fourth scenes of Act III. present one of those contrasts which speak as eloquently even as Shakespeare's ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... brig, and all that belonged to her, not hesitating about wishing that she might founder at sea, and carry all hands of us to the bottom of the ocean. In a word, I indulged in all that looseness and profanity of the tongue, which is common enough with those who feel no restraints on the subject, and ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... clumsy crowd, half-hearted, moved chiefly by a cruel delight in destruction for its own sake, and giving voice at intervals to coarse comment of which the wittiest penetrated through a stream of profanity, like one of those same splinters of glass, to the consciousness of at least two of the three men who hung listening in the ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... a state of profanity. I could not get a sensible word out of him. He was in a white heat of pure rage. The butler, who seemed as anxious as I to learn the ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... under the obligation of the covenant, and consequently, bound to renew and keep it inviolable; but all are not in present capacity, and therefore have no actual right to enter into covenant: such as are obstinately wicked, living in error, profanity, or malignancy, have not God's call and right from him, as such, to renew a covenant with him; for, Psal. 1. 16, 17—"God says to the wicked, What hast thou to do to take my covenant in thy mouth?" But all such as are reformed, or reforming ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... should plunge in medias res upon a sketch of De Quincey's life; were it not a rudeness amounting to downright profanity to omit the important ceremony of prelibation, and that at a banquet to which, implicitly, gods are invited. The reader will assuredly unite with me in all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... as fossil formations. I didn't say anything about it to the Tenderfoot, but I hitched my six-shooter around to the front, resolved to find out how good I was at wing-shooting horses. But Tunemah declared he would die for his convictions. "All right," said we, "die then," with the embellishment of profanity. So we stripped him naked, and stoned him into the raging stream, where he had one chance in three of coming through alive. He might as well be dead as on the other side of that stream. He won through, however, and now I believe ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... trough, and began to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as I heard, by an old woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such profanity in Irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the tolbooth. To the which he replied scoffingly, "that martyr was a new name for a sworn rebel to king and country,"—words which so kindled the worthy woman's ire, that she began to ban his prelatic ungodliness to ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... into this," said Cutler, "it's the most indecent thing I ever beard of. It is downright profanity; it is shocking." ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... I discovered that with death staring him in the face Abner Perry was transformed into a new being. From his lips there flowed—not prayer—but a clear and limpid stream of undiluted profanity, and it was all directed at that quietly ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... N. impiety; sin &c. 945; irreverence; profaneness &c. adj.; profanity, profanation; blasphemy, desecration, sacrilege; scoffing &c.v. [feigned piety] hypocrisy &c. (falsehood) 544; pietism, cant, pious fraud; lip devotion, lip service, lip reverence; misdevotion[obs3], formalism, austerity; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... word that I thought was strong enough for an amateur to begin on. It stuck in my throat and nearly choked me. My friend laughed and looked both amused and ashamed. Reader, if you have lived to maturity and never indulged in profanity, you can't imagine how awkward it will be for you to turn out your first piece of swearing. You can't do it justice. With no disposition to want to sermonize on the matter I would say, don't begin. I have seen several women—or ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... distance from civilization trifles prove of absorbing interest, and callers came to see what they "could do for him," and learn for themselves, and Nevins' face was black as a storm and his language punctuated with profanity. He raved about tyranny and oppression, but vouchsafed no intelligible explanation of what he confessed to be the commanding officer's latest order—that he was ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... The simplest and most familiar form of that is the boys' gang. Here is a group of young humans who get their fun and adventure by pulling the whiskers of the law. They idealize vice and crime. Leadership in their group is won by proficiency in profanity, gambling, obscenity, and slugging. The gang assimilates its members; there is regimentation of evil. It acts as a channel of tradition; the boy of fifteen teaches the boy of twelve what he has learned from the ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... nevertheless proceeded gravely to explain and defend his "profession of faith," which was altogether unnecessary. On this Huntington returned to the charge, and directed against the mechanic a fresh volley of Scripture texts and phraseology, not without humour, if profanity be allowable in controversy, as where he says, "Poor man! he makes a good patent lock, but cuts a sad figure with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven!" "What Mr. Bramah is," says S.S., "In respect to his character or ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... hovering about on the top of the cliff, but the instant he descried us, and while we were yet a great way off, he had retired precipitately, and was now busy rejoining the others with Agag's walk and a profusion of embryo profanity. He explained afterwards that if he had been wearing his own bathing-dress, instead of a green and red striped one—his own was being mended—he should have remained, but that he did not like to be seen wearing the colours of the Redruth Rangers ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... made straight for the Judaean hills, and in the first little village were welcomed by the inhabitants at their harvest, as they saw them coming across the plain. But again death attended the Presence, and curiosity, which was profanity, was punished. So the villagers were as eager to get rid of the ark as they had been to welcome it, and they passed it on to the little city of Kirjath-jearim,'the city of the woods,' as the name means, or, as we might say, 'Woodville.' And there it lay, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... us. A monastery. A feu-de-joie. The first telegraph station. Congratulatory messages. Intimations of receptions. A triumphal march. Messrs. Clunes Brothers. An address. Culham. White ladies. Newcastle. A triumphal arch. A fine tonic. Tommy's speech. Unscientific profanity. Guildford on the Swan. Arrival at Perth. Reception by the Mayor. The city decorated. Arrival at the Town Hall. A shower of garlands. A beautiful address. A public reception at Fremantle. Return to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... his feet, "those little marks are on my foot yet. And just you tie into one idea: Dickey Darrel's got it coming." His face darkened with a swift anger. "God damn his soul!" he said, deliberately. It was no mere profanity. It was an imprecation, and in its very deliberation I glimpsed the flare of ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... The Squire, not unwilling to get a handle against so bad a rebel, observed that it was high time for the authorities to make a head against the tide of blasphemy which had swept over the state since the war, and to advertise to the rabble that the statute against profanity was not a dead letter and thereupon sentenced Abe to ten lashes at the whipping-post, to be at once laid on, it chancing to be a Saturday afternoon. While Abe, frantic with rage, was struggling with the constable and his assistants, Jake ran away to the Widow Nimham's cottage and asking Lu to go ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... stream of tremendous profanity burst from Nash. It rose, it rushed on, it seemed an exhaustless vocabulary built up by long practice ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... water, some frying pieces of meat, others heating soup, and all the time laughing and carrying on a most animated conversation. From other groups came the subdued humming of favourite songs. Some were cursing and swearing, but with such a bluntness that, if I may say so, it seemed to take all the profanity from the words. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... to the Supreme Being, under the names of Amen, Horus, and Tum, all identical with the Sun. But for the old Egyptians the ruling Pharaoh of the day was the living image and vicegerent of the Sun, and they saw no profanity in addressing the King in terms precisely similar to those with which they worshipped their god. The following address or petition, which also is found in the "Anastasi Papyri," is a remarkable instance ...
— Egyptian Literature
... as the guards about the Embassy went furiously back to their proper posts to keep anybody from slipping out Two men remained swearing bitterly over a dummy made of old clothes and pillows. But their profanity ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster |
