"Sacrilege" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mahomet. Both are said to have been unexceptionable according to European ideas, but the whole Mussulman population (145,000 in number) considered their faith insulted and outraged by the publication, holding it sacrilege and idolatry to imagine and print any likeness whatever of so sacred ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... up from the Main Avenue, two mummies long since taken away, were to be seen in 1813. They were in good preservation; one was a female with her extensive wardrobe placed before her. The removal of those mummies from the place in which they were found can be viewed as little less than sacrilege. There they had been, perhaps for centuries, and there they ought to have been left. What has become of them I know not. One of them, it is said, was lost in the burning of the Cincinnati museum. The wardrobe of the female was given ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... sailed across to Oberwoerth. Having landed at that part of the island furthest from the convent, he was obliged to pass the haunted spot on his way thither. The circular patch of barren earth was said to be a spot accursed, by reason of sacrilege and suicide committed there. But such things were far from the thoughts of ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... never sing the glories of our line: Our ancient castles echo to the clumsy feet of churls, The spinning Jenny houses in the mansion of our Earls. Sing not, sing not, my Angeline! in days so base and vile, 'Twere sinful to be happy, 'twere sacrilege to smile. I'll hie me to my lonely hall, and by its cheerless hob I'll muse on other days, and wish—and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... reverence for the relationship. I heard Charley call her 'a jolly old party,' and Metelill respond that she was 'a sweet old thing.' Why, we should have thought such expressions about our grandmother a sort of sacrilege, but when I ventured to hint as much Charley flippantly answered, "Gracious me, we are not going back to buckram"; and Metelill, with her caressing way, declared that she loved dear granny too much to be so stiff and ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the popular idol in the North as well as in the South. Opposition to it was not only offensive, but dangerous. It was sacrilege. ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... little table that usually held the nourishment prepared for her grandmother. A little arrowroot, and a light potage, that contained bread, still remained. Although it was all that seemed to separate the girl from death, she hesitated about using it. There was an appearance of sacrilege, in her eyes, in the act of appropriating these things to herself. A moment's reflection, however, brought her to a truer state of mind, and then she felt it to be a duty to that dear parent herself, to renew her own strength, in order to discharge her duty to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... significant she had written it and as it afterwards appeared in pamphlet form it filled fourteen closely printed pages. It was a masterly treatment of woman suffrage in its relation to many of the great problems of the day and it seems a sacrilege to attempt to convey by detached quotations an idea of its power and beauty. A large part of it will be found in the Appendix to this chapter. She set forth in the strongest possible words the necessity of a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... loved Rome and made their pilgrimages there—as good Moslems travel toward Mecca, so there are some of us who have come to San Francisco. Then when we arrive and find it all that we have dreamed, our love for it becomes its highest tribute. And I don't know why it is sacrilege to mention Rome and San Francisco in the same breath. As for me I greatly prefer San Francisco, although I have ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... seconds, evidently fighting with herself. She knew she could not in honour promise even what Trevanion had asked for without telling him the truth. And this was terribly difficult. She felt that he had a right to know, and yet it was like sacrilege to tell him. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... in its expression, as her visitor followed her on up the broad staircase into the spacious hall above, and on still further, till they came to the door of Richard's room, which Hannah had left open. Then for a moment Ethelyn hesitated. It seemed almost like a sacrilege for her feet to tread the floor of that private room, for her breath to taint the atmosphere of a spot where the new wife would come. But Mrs. Dobson led her on until she stood in the center of Richard's room, surrounded by the unmistakable paraphernalia of a man, with so many things ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... pearls. These drops did not even disappear when he trimmed his beard, but rose to the roots of the hair. Moses at first feared that the useless waste of these drops of holy oil on Aaron's beard might be considered sacrilege, but a Divine voice quieted him. A Divine voice quieted Aaron, also, who likewise feared the accident that had turned the holy oil ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... mean to shut yourself away from the world," he interrupted me again. "But you shall not. It would be sacrilege. You—the most beautiful, the most womanly girl in ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... silence (it seemed a sacrilege to break in on such a train of thought), until gradually her eyes lost their far-away expression, and, turning to me with a smile, she exclaimed: “How we ever had the courage to appear in the street dressed ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... of the times, the impiety of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are not altogether extinguished in their ashes,—in their throats, I might rather say,—for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be loath to venture upon. ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... deeper into the shade of the barn. It seems a sacrilege now to be thus spying upon their movements, and he is ashamed of the impulse that kept him there. He decides to leave the yard and betake himself to his lodgings, when he is suddenly aware of a dark object rising from ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... it's sacrilege to keep a dinner waiting—especially the production of an artist like yours." Mr. Ascham sipped his Burgundy luxuriously. "But the fact is, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... hour on upper earth. Some day I shall waken from a supposed hour's lingering here and find myself an old man with white hair and ragged coat, as in that fairy tale we read the other night. Will you let me give you this book? I should never commit the sacrilege of reading it in any other place than this. It is an old book, Kilmeny. A new book, savouring of the shop and market-place, however beautiful it might be, would not do for you. This was one of my mother's books. She read it and loved it. See—the faded rose leaves she placed in it one day are ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they had put upon him. Those that were so luckless as to fall into his hands, were hastened away to their execution with but the mockery of a trial. Doubtless Berkeley felt himself justified in this severity. To him rebellion against the King was not merely a crime, it was a hideous sacrilege. Those guilty of such an enormity should receive no mercy. But this cannot explain or excuse the coarse brutality and savage joy with which he sent his victims to the scaffold. It is impossible not to feel that many of these ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... a suite of three rooms—one of them large, the others small. Exquisite order was apparent in all, combined with signs of a dainty, cultured taste. It seemed a sacrilege to search her possessions, and he made no attempt to do so. Indeed, he gained nothing from his quick, keen survey of the place, save a sense of her beauty and refinement as expressed in the features of her "nest." He felt ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... the most dauntless of all the sons of Norway, he would have been prostrated with fear for the consequences of this terrible sacrilege. Could he longer escape the avenging anger of Balder? Summoning all his courage, he ran to the shore and immediately embarked in Ellida. Swiftly the dragon-ship skimmed the waves, while Helge paced up and down the shore in helpless wrath, all of his vessels having ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... which we lived, revived insensibly our early feelings of devotion. Manon had never been an irreligious girl, and I was far from being one of those reckless libertines who delight in adding impiety and sacrilege to moral depravity: all the disorders of our lives might be fairly ascribed to the natural influences of youth and love. Experience had now begun with us to do the office of age; it produced the same effect upon ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... because she might get information beforehand, and hide herself in one of the cloister retreats whose secret is known only to the superior; secondly, because Liege was so religious a town that the event would produce a great sensation: the act might be looked upon as a sacrilege, and might bring about a popular rising, during which the marquise might possibly contrive to escape. So Desgrais paid a visit to his wardrobe, and feeling that an abbe's dress would best free him from suspicion, he appeared at the doors of the convent in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... cavalier may not only threaten to talk and "tell," but refuse to return the amatory correspondence, unless under substantial pecuniary inducements. This is the return she gets for what may be termed her privateering experiences, and there are numbers of creatures, whom it were sacrilege to call men, who make a regular business of becoming acquainted with married women for this special purpose. Instances are on record where a certain stipulated sum of money has been paid for years to a professional black-mailer, who held letters written to him by a lady ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... vague discomfort and restlessness began to characterize the attitude of his mind towards her. He felt himself at once attracted by her beauty—as what man of his years would not?—and repelled by the likeness that made of the feeling a sacrilege. Meantime, whether he would or no, they were left together—much together. M. Mirande went abroad each day and seemed intent on public affairs. Each day, indeed, his look grew a trifle more austere, and the shade on his brow grew ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... showing no more nor less reverence than James would have done himself. But is it at all likely that, had such been his wish, James would have selected for this office a man who could not act according to the belief of his master without committing sacrilege according to his own? The want of reverence must have been expected from Lord Nottingham or his suite, for there was no one else present who was not ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... inquire into the prophecies. It is enough to say that to Coleridge as to Southey the preservation of an established church seemed to be an essential condition of morality and civilisation. They differed from the ordinary Tory, who was content to defend any of the abuses by the cry of sacrilege and confiscation. The church was to be made worthy of its position, and rendered capable of discharging its high functions effectually. Coleridge, it may be said, would fully admit that an organ which had ceased to correspond to its idea must die. It could not continue to preserve itself by mere ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... if he had been treated according to his merit, they should have decreed him public honours rather than have condemned him to an infamous death. For against whom have the laws ordained the punishment of death? Is it not for thieves, for robbers, for men guilty of sacrilege, for those who sell persons that are free? But where, in all the world, can we find a man more innocent of all those crimes than Socrates? Can it be said of him that he ever held correspondence with the enemy, ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... exceedingly astonished at the idea of a marriage between Therese and himself. Laurent added, in an unsteady tone of voice, that he loved the widow of his poor friend as a sister, and that it would seem to him a perfect sacrilege to marry her. The former commissary of police insisted, giving numerous good reasons with a view to obtaining his consent. He even spoke of devotedness, and went so far as to tell the young man that it was clearly ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Miracle-Plays of the birth and resurrection of Christ in churches, but a sin to witness them "on the highways or greens." He also reproves the practice, then not uncommon, of aiding in such performances by lending horses or harness from the monasteries, and especially declares it sacrilege if a priest or clerk lend the hallowed vestments for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... purposes. Like all institutions which bestow upon man the proper prerogative of God, and affect authority over religious and not civil opinions, the Amphictyonic council was not very efficient in good: even in its punishment of sacrilege, it was only dignified and powerful whenever the interests of the Delphic temple were at stake. Its most celebrated interference was with the town of Crissa, against which the Amphictyons decreed war B. C. 505; the territory of Crissa ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dearly in loss of international good-will. A century hence these shattered churches will be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation which permitted the sacrilege. They have destroyed glass and paintings and sculptures that were a joy to the whole world, they have undone the work of saints and heroes and masters, and they have gained no corresponding military advantage. In every city which has been subjected to air raids the inhabitants have been ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... falling tower; but in its accusation of the Ghibellines as having definitely intended the destruction of the Baptistery. It is only modern reformers who feel the absolute need of enforcing their religious opinions in so practical a manner. Such a piece of sacrilege would have been revolting to Farinata; how much more to the group of Florentines whose temper is centrally represented by Dante's, to all of whom their "bel San Giovanni" was dear, at least for ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... give you credit for the kindest of motives in sending the check, which I now return to you, with my compliments. We are not as poor as you suppose, and would almost deem it sacrilege to let another than ourselves provide for Katy so long as she is ours. And furthermore, that Mrs. Ryan's services will not be needed, so it is not worth her while to make a ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... mind. The great edition of Voltaire's works which Beaumarchais was printing over the frontier at Kehl, excited their anger to a furious pitch. The infamous Cardinal de Rohan, archbishop of Strasburg (1781), denounced the publication as sacrilege. The archbishop of Paris (1785) thundered against the monument of scandal and the work of darkness. The archbishop of Vienne forbade the faithful of his diocese to subscribe to it under pain of mortal sin. In the general assembly of the clergy which opened in the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Then, instead of looking forwards as I did in youth, and forming for myself fairy palaces, upon the verge of the grave, I turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners of my better time; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come so close and interesting, that I almost think it sacrilege to be wiser, or more rational, or less prejudiced, than those to whom I looked ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... arrived at Janina Sir John Cartwright, the English Consul at Patras, to arrange for the sale of the lands of the Parganiotes and discuss the conditions of their emigration. Never before had any such compact disgraced European diplomacy, accustomed hitherto to regard Turkish encroachments as simple sacrilege. But Ali Pacha fascinated the English agents, overwhelming them with favours, honours, and feasts, carefully watching them all the while. Their correspondence was intercepted, and he endeavoured by means of his agents to rouse the Parganiotes against them. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... or shrines among us save those of nature. Being a natural man, the Indian was intensely poetical. He would deem it sacrilege to build a house for Him who may be met face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock, and yonder in the jeweled vault of the night sky! ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... my head to the drops, I knew it was impossible to choke down the sacristan, strip off his surplice, invest myself with it and get out of the cell before priest or turnkey looked back. The sacrilege of such an attack would take all the strength out ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... this vine, that suggests the dim old forest and exhales the very breath of the spring woods, will consent to run about our rock gardens, although it seems almost a sacrilege to move it from natural surroundings so impressively beautiful. Unlike the arbutus, which remains ever a wildling, pining slowly to death on close contact with civilization, the twin-flower thrives in light, moist garden soil where the sun peeps for a little while only ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... simplicity of an utterly abandoned baby. Nothing mystical or beautiful about the Rat. He did not disguise from me in the least that there was no crime that he had not committed—murder, rape, arson, immorality of the most hideous, sacrilege, the basest betrayal of his best friends—he was not only savage and outlaw, he was deliberate anarchist and murderer. He had no redeeming point that I could anywhere discover. I did not in the least mind his entering my room when he pleased. I had there nothing of any value; he could take ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... did you search for it; for when those troubles began I filled up the letters in the stone with mortar, and gave the wall two or three coats of whitewash. I did not choose to run any risk of my grand wine going down the throats of thirsty French soldiers. It would be an act of sacrilege. When matters are settled, and we are at peace again, I will pick out the mortar from the letters; but not till then. I have often reflected since how short sighted it was not to have stowed away another hogshead for my own consumption. It would have ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... only to those who, for the sake of truth and their own lives, will never disclose the knowledge of it, bound as they are, in addition to this, by an oath of the deepest and most dreadful solemnity—an oath the violation of which would constitute a fearful sacrilege in the eye of God. As for these orphans, whose parents were victims to the cruel laws that are grinding us, I have so trained and indoctrinated them into a knowledge of their creed, and a sense of their duty, that they are thoroughly ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Solomon; his heathen workmen, probably, were angry and terrified at what they were doing. They said among themselves—"These cedars belong to Baal, or to Melkart, the gods of Tyre. Our king has no right to send them to build the temple of Jehovah, the God of the Jews. It is a robbery, and a sacrilege; and Baal will be angry with us; and curse us with ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... priestly kings—(for the priestly is ever the first form of government)—devise, than to have made the ox or cow the representatives of the divine principle in the world, and, as such, an object of adoration, the wilful destruction of which was sacrilege?—For this rendered a return to the pastoral state impossible; in which the flesh of these animals and the milk formed almost the exclusive food of mankind; while, in the meantime, by once compelling and habituating men to the use of a vegetable diet, it enforced the laborious cultivation ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... great that, in their pity, they had resolved to spare him; and then, on the spot, entered into a solemn compact that no one should be told. Encouraged by the forbearing tenderness, the unfortunate one ventured to return to the house of his friend, the owner of the wood, hoping that, in spite of the sacrilege committed, he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant of his crime. As the vulpicide, on the afternoon of the day of the deed, went along the corridor to his room, one maid-servant whispered ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... predetermines events but discounts values; and it reduces every mortal aspiration, every pang of conscience; every wish that things should be better than they are, to a blind impertinence, nay, to a sacrilege. Thus, you may not pray that God's kingdom may come, but only—what is not a prayer but a dogma—that it has come already. The mythology that pretends to justify prayer by giving it a material efficacy misunderstands ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... with the national colors, dancing at the end of a cord, the French city rose upon its very foundations with terrible cries of rage. Four papist, suspected of this sacrilege, two marquises, one burgher, and a workman, were torn from their homes and hung in the manikin's stead. This occurred the eleventh ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... that the ashes of a friend may lie undisturbed, and that the divinities that favoured him in his life may watch for ever round him, to preserve his tomb from violation, and drive sacrilege away, is only rational in him who believes the soul interested in the repose of the body, and the powers which he invokes for its protection able to preserve it. To censure such expressions, as contrary to religion, or as remains of heathen superstition, would ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... combinations often to be found in latter-day instruments. You understood after hearing the Haarlem organ why Bach wrote his organ preludes and fugues. Modern music, with its orchestral registration, its swiftness and staccato, would be a sacrilege on this key-board. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... turn brought us to a dwelling which we think it a sort of sacrilege to call a public-house. The Baskerville Arms, in the village of Clyroe, is more fit for the home of a painter or a poet than for the retail of beer, "to be drunk on the premises." There was a row of three nice clean windows in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... all, the vengeance of destiny which exacted this sacrilege, filled her with such a feeling of revolt that at the moment when vertigo was about to seize her and the flooring began to flee from beneath her feet, she was lashed by it and kept erect. And then she displayed extraordinary strength, will, and insolent courage. When the stricken man passed before ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... of emotional expression—whether a flood of exclamations, or silence. This is no light boast, for at one time or another, I have done all this, but in only one place—the Botanical Gardens of Georgetown, British Guiana. As I hold it sacrilege to think of dying without again seeing the Taj Mahal, or the Hills from Darjeeling, so something of ethics seems involved in my soul's necessity of again watching the homing of the herons in these tropic ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... Sacrament, the Its mercenary use Presbyterian objection to prostituting the service of our falsification of the Sacrilege Sancroft, Archbishop Satan, his depths St. Patrick's, liberty of, petition of to Swift St. Paul, on obedience on mutual service his opinion of philosophy St. Peter, on obedience Schism, its danger and spiritual evil Schoolmen, the Scotch, the characteristics of Scott, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... this: I had committed sacrilege for her sake. I had committed a theft; I had violated a shrine; violated and stolen holy relics, and for that she adored me, thought me loving, tender, divine. Such ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... profoundest possible trouble to all the blameless souls animating that ship. He stole eleven golden sovereigns, and a gold pocket chronometer and chain. I am really in doubt whether the crime should not be entered under the category of sacrilege rather than theft. Those things belonged to the captain! There was certainly something in the nature of the violation of a sanctuary, and of a particularly impudent kind, too, because he got his plunder out of the captain's state-room while the captain was asleep there. But ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... terrible havoc among them; and during this time Adam Spencer kept the door so that none might escape. He called aloud to Gamelyn to respect the sanctity of men of Holy Church and shed no blood, but if he should by chance break arms and legs there would be no sacrilege, because no ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... necessary tools in their pockets. They even begged sword knots, epaulettes, and galons that they might add more of the precious threads to the spool on which they wound the ravelled bullion, which they sold." To the appreciative collector this seems wanton sacrilege. ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... old man with an indifferent shrug; but the word struck Caesar like a thunder-bolt. He listened breathlessly to hear what more the Indian might say; but Arjuna, who regarded it as sacrilege to waste the highest lore on one unworthy of it, went on reading to himself, and Adventus stretched himself out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rare; they do not often speak, and then only of such interests as are superficial to their lives. Yet here, in their fine neglect of the two sternest of self-imposed, human limitations, the religious instinct is manifest. As it would be sacrilege to count God's breaths, were that possible, so to them it seems a kind of blasphemy to number the recurrence of their own small perceptions when the Divine Perceived seems so entirely unconscious of ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... moment amazement held the Domina silent and immoveable: But no sooner did She recover herself, than She exclaimed against sacrilege and impiety, and called the People to rescue a Daughter of the Church. They were eagerly preparing to obey her; when Don Ramirez, protected by the Archers from their rage, commanded them to forbear, and threatened them with the severest vengeance of ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... straws of the floor. In the times of the French Revolution, French soldiers, it is said, stabled their horses in some of the magnificent cathedrals of France; but some of us are guilty of a far worse sacrilege in that holy of holies which we call the soul. "Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold," but with blood, precious blood, even the blood of Christ. And the soul which cost that, we are ready to sell any day in the open market for a little ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... Florence. The exquisite romance of their love is preserved in Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and in the volume of Letters recently published,—wonderful letters, but so tender and intimate that it seems almost a sacrilege for inquisitive ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... that, under the distressing circumstances of the case, there would be no sacrilege in placing in the church, for the night, the pieces of furniture and utensils which had been saved from the several houses. There was no other place of safety for them, and they ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... however, to talk with her. His recently born determination to have nothing more to do with any girl had melted like snow in July. That feeling, which had come through his experience with Ida May Bostwick, seemed a sacrilege when he ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... they regard as profane, and they denounce it as tyranny whenever it is sought to be enforced. They pretend that in all times the priesthood has been sacred, that its rights come from God himself, and that no government can, without sacrilege, or without outraging the Divinity, touch the property, the privileges, or the immunities which have been snatched from ignorance and credulity. Whenever the civil authority would touch the objects considered inviolable ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... We are the covetous. Our neighbours' goods afflict us sore. From Frisco to the Bosphorus All sightly stuff, the less the more, We want it in our hoard and store. Nor sacrilege doth us appal— Egyptian vault—fane at Cawnpore— ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... there really WASN'T anything more than a kind of excited fondness. I can't be sure, but I think that though I did mean to marry him I never should have done it, because that sort of a marriage is—it's sacrilege—something would have stopped me. Something did stop me; it was your sister-in-law, Sibyl. She meant no harm—but she was horrible, and she put what I was doing into such horrible words—and they were the truth—oh! I SAW myself! She was proposing a miserable ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... staring into his, dilated, her face grew whiter than his own. "I don't know what you can mean," she said. "Sir Francis Forcus and me? Me! Me! Deleah Day!" She whispered the words in a kind of awe. Almost there seemed sacrilege in them. ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... aware, Philonous, that in making God the immediate Author of all the motions in nature, you make Him the Author of murder, sacrilege, adultery, and ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... the trouble of showing the tree to visitors, had "the gothic barbarity" to cut down and root up that interesting—indeed sacred memorial—of the Pride of the British Isles. The people of Stratford were so enraged at this sacrilege that they broke Mr. Gastrell's windows. That prosaic personage at last found the place too hot for him, and took his departure from a town whose inhabitants "doated on his very absence;" but before he went he completed ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... subtle too, As meet for subtle essence—as I'll prove Hereafter unto thee with large discourse. Further, to say that for the sake of men They willed to prepare this world's magnificence, And that 'tis therefore duty and behoof To praise the work of gods as worthy praise, And that 'tis sacrilege for men to shake Ever by any force from out their seats What hath been stablished by the Forethought old To everlasting for races of mankind, And that 'tis sacrilege to assault by words And overtopple all from base to beam,— Memmius, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... speech." And even if they had named it well (which is not for a moment to be admitted!), it is cheap for the price. How Mr. Crewe's ears must tingle as he paces his headquarters in the Pelican! Almost would it be sacrilege to set down cold, on paper, the words that come, burning, out of the Honourable Timothy's loyal heart. Here, gentlemen, is a man at last, not a mere puppet who signs his name when a citizen of New York pulls ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... inspire the pen of a poet. The further preliminaries amount to a ceremony. There can be, there must be no haste. The whole summer lies back of this moment. There on the plate are weeks of golden sunshine, interwoven with the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers; and it were sacrilege to become hurried at the consummation. When the meat has been made fine the salt and pepper are applied, deliberately, daintily, and then comes the butter, like the golden glow of sunset upon a bank of flaky clouds. The artist tries in vain to rival this blending of colors ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... to change the objects of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish the rights affirmed by a justice purely secular; they said: "Rome has conquered through her politics and her gods; any change in theology and public opinion would be folly and sacrilege. Rome, merciful toward conquered nations, though binding them in chains, spared their lives; slaves are the most fertile source of her wealth; freedom of the nations would be the negation of her ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... and was wavering itself between factions and the monarchy, might very well maintain safety in a public place, was unable to serve as a strong and independent support to political power. It was itself of the people; every serious intervention against the will of the people, appeared to it as sacrilege. It was a body of municipal police; it could never again be the army of the throne or the constitution; it was born of itself on the day after the 14th of July on the steps of the Hotel de Ville, and it received no orders but from the municipality. The municipality had assigned ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... yelled, his teeth all set on edge: "This man perfanes the house of God! W'y, this is sacrilege!" The tramp didn' hear a word he said, but slouched 'ith stumblin' feet, An' stalked an' swaggered up the steps, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... still for several seconds. Her eyes were fixed upon me; but I am quite certain that I had passed from within the orbit of her vision. The things which she saw were of another world—somehow it seemed sacrilege on my part to dream of peering even into the dimmest corner of it. So I looked away, and I could never tell altogether what effect my words had had upon her. For when I looked up, she ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it's like sacrilege to take possession here; but when there's a soft bed on one side and some straw on the boards of a loft on the other, ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... are generally juicy, sweet with a slight admixture of acid, luscious, and peculiarly agreeable in a warm climate; and when partaken of with temperance and due regard to quality they are highly promotive of health. For this reason Booddhists regard the destruction of a fruit tree as quite an act of sacrilege, and their sacred books pronounce a heavy malediction on those who wantonly commit so great a crime. One who has tasted the fruits of the tropics only at a distance from the soil that produces them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... when Jean was left to himself he could not help giving way to speculation. The sentiment he experienced for his friend was one of boundless gratitude, a sort of religious reverence, which would have made him repel the idea of love as if it were a sort of sacrilege. And yet he told himself that had he had a wife like her, so gentle, so loving, so helpful, his life would have been an earthly paradise. His great misfortune, his unhappy marriage, the evil years he had spent at Rognes, his ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... care," he burst out, "it's wrong; it's not worth it nothing could be. I'd be willing to go a long way, but a Prussian officer! It's, it's sacrilege. And ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... companion, (for Claridge alone has been with me) have not been very amusing, and, as to their "Sincerity," they are doubtless sincere enough for a man who will never put them to the trial. Besides you talked so much of your conjugal happiness, that an invitation from home would have seemed like Sacrilege, and my rough Bachelor's Hall would have appeared to little advantage after the "Bower of Armida" [1] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... which is notorious to everyone, and that is that Sir Eustace was a confirmed drunkard. To be with such a man for an hour is unpleasant. Can you imagine what it means for a sensitive and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and night? It is a sacrilege, a crime, a villany to hold that such a marriage is binding. I say that these monstrous laws of yours will bring a curse upon the land—God will not let such wickedness endure.' For an instant she ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... first. It was a mercy I envied them; for I remembered both, until loss of consciousness would have seemed a blessing. I shall never forget mother's shriek of horror when towards evening she recalled it. O those dreadful days of misery and wretchedness! It seems almost sacrilege to refer to them now. They are buried in our hearts with our boys—thought of with prayers ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Was't not enough, like a wild zealot, there, All the rich outward ornaments to tear, Deface the innocent pride of beauteous images? Was't not enough thus rudely to defile, But thou must quite destroy the goodly pile? And thy unbounded sacrilege commit On th'inward holiest holy of her wit? Cruel disease! there thou mistook'st thy power; No mine of death can that devour, On her embalmed name it will abide An everlasting pyramide, As high as heav'n the top, as earth, the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... the scene of any considerable engagement during the great Rebellion; but the Parliamentary troops are held responsible for much ecclesiastical sacrilege at St. Albans, Hitchin and elsewhere, and it was from Theobalds that Charles I. set out to meet his army in 1642. In 1647, when a prisoner in the care of Cornet Joyce, he was taken from Leighton Buzzard to Baldock and from thence to ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... Among other changes the marginal kiva, which was nearly in line with the proposed improvements, was removed. This was done despite the protest of the older men, and their predictions of dire calamity sure to follow such sacrilege. A new site was selected close by and the newly acquired knowledge of the use of powder was utilized in blasting out the excavation for this subterranean chamber. It is altogether probable that the sites of all former kivas were largely determined by accident, these rooms being built ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... class had really a capital choice in a girl like this. Men of another class as well, possibly, for temporary anchorage out midchannel. No?—possibly not. Here and there a girl is a Tartar. Ines talked of her as if she were a kind of religious edifice and a doubt were sacrilege. She could impress the rascal: girls have their arts for reaching the holy end, and still they may have a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the thing and knowing it for sacrilege, I summoned this priest and warned him of his danger and of the doom which awaited him should he continue in that path. He grew affrighted. He flung himself upon the ground before me with groans and supplications, and kissing my feet, vowed ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... detestable, and destructive of all right, order, and society; that monarchy was of divine institution, therefore indefeasible by any human power; and of consequence those events in the English history, which he had so liberally commended, were no other than flagrant instances of sacrilege, perfidy, and sedition; that the democracy of Athens was a most absurd constitution, productive of anarchy and mischief, which must always happen when the government of a nation depends upon the caprice of the ignorant, hair-brained vulgar; that it was in the power ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... actually stabbed the confessor, although the wound was not dangerous. That, in consequence of this, all further lenity was denied to him, and that the authorities were in search of him to award him the punishment due to murder and sacrilege. That up to the present they could not find him, and it was supposed that he had made his escape to Malta in one of ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hearts planned to achieve the impossible. For what is more difficult of attainment than to achieve the perfected phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of its wording would be little short of sacrilege? ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... describe her? It is sacrilege thus to weigh and consider the points and merits of one we love. Besides, even the most perfect and faultlessly-beautiful face in the world would be unable to stand the test of minute examination in detail. As ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... their cud-chewing audience whose crass stupidity was spread about their works like a heavy mist.—No matter, there was in the works, even the most beautiful of them, a disturbing quality which Christophe had never before felt.—What was it? He dared not analyze it, deeming it a sacrilege to question his beloved masters. But in vain did he shut his eyes to it: he had seen it. And, in spite of himself, he went on seeing it: like the Vergognosa at Pisa he looked: between ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... their route seem like a solemn march down a cathedral aisle. The rescued one spoke but seldom, her mood partaking of the hush of nature that surrounded them. Armstrong looked upon her as an angel. He could not bring himself to the sacrilege of attempting to woo her as other women may ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... on the public indiscrimination. How would he marvel to see literary reputations born, grow old, and die within a season, the owners thereof content to be damned or forgotten eternally for a moment's incense or an equally fugitive shilling. Nectar and ambrosia mean to them only meanness, larceny, sacrilege, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... them," I protested. "It would be too great a sacrilege." The best way to get Peter properly started is never to agree ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her maidenly mystery; but, as she appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with, I could not resist the impulse to take just one ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... herself, who was smiling at him as she had smiled since his entrance. He did not wonder at the prominence her beauty had brought her, for even at this close range her make-up could not disguise her loveliness. The lily had been painted, to be sure, but the sacrilege was not too noticeable; and he knew that the cheeks beneath their rouge were faintly colored, that the lashes under the heavy beading were long and dark and sweeping. As for her other features, no paint could conceal their perfection. Her forehead was linelessly serene, ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... 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; sanctimony, sanctimoniousness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... city at its feet, a monument of men's aspirations raising its head high into the sky in spite of the unseen missiles that even then were beginning once more their attack. I would that these words might go to swell that cry which has gone up from all civilized peoples at the sacrilege to Rheims! Even now something of its majesty and its glory might be saved if the German guns were silenced—if within the German nation there were left any respect for the ancient decencies and traditions of man. But I know too well with what ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... disreputable companions, for vice has such an attraction for some minds that they cannot forego its pleasures, even at the utmost personal inconvenience. Such revels, at such a time of tempest, while the wrath of heaven is wreaked upon the trees, are nothing short of sacrilege, and I for one have always set my mind against irreverence. I shall do the world a service if I rid it of such an abandoned creature." So he called to a moor-hen, who was flying over from the Long Pond at a tremendous ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his friends or to ...
— The Republic • Plato |
