"Vile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who on the 9th, at night, surprised Charenton. I met him on the first report of it, when he said, "Would you think there are people so wicked as to say that I had a hand in the capture of Charenton?" I said in answer, "Would you think there are people vile enough to report that the Prince de Conti is come hither by concert with ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... regard to self-respect, or the rights of their fellow-creatures. Injured, they injure in their turn. Their days are devoted to a campaign for the recovery of their birthright. Interested marriages, shabby bargains, and political jobbery, may be traced to the vile system of things which converts the elder son into a Dives, and makes a Lazarus of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... had twined its leash about one leg of its master—who was an alien from Wapping—and the spout of a zinc watering-can which a porter had left upon the platform; for which joke it had received a vile cuff on its wrinkled physiognomy from ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... a hoary speaker laugh thou never; often is good that which the aged utter, oft from a shriveled hide discreet words issue; from those whose skin is pendent and decked with scars, and who go tottering among the vile. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Chaldean Astronomers turned Astrologers, Fortune-Tellers, Calculators of Nativities, and vile Deluders of the People, as if the Wisdom of the holy God was in them, as Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel on ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... take up arms against an enemy whom the Bishop of Rochester described as "instigated by that desperate malignity against the Faith he has abandoned, which in all ages has marked the horrible character of the vile apostate." ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... Spinoza, is in God and of God. But what are we to say of bad men, the vile, the base, the liar, the murderer? Are they also in God and of God? Spinoza does not blench. Yes, they are. But here comes in his doctrine of "adequate" and "inadequate ideas." Thus, if you see the colour red it completely expresses ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton
... Simpson's, I felt rather a scab, but a glance in the mirror of the dressing-room reassured me. I recollected some beautiful words of Mr. Mark Sheridan's, "If I'm not clever, thank God, I'm clean." The other fellows in the dressing-room were things of beauty. Their public-school accent, with its vile mispronunciation of the English tongue, would have carried them into the inner circles of any European chancellery. I never heard anything so supernally affecting. I have heard many of our greatest actors and singers, but I have never heard so much music put into ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the hills around stood the wretched straw-thatched huts of the peasants belonging to the castle—miserable serfs who, half timid, half fierce, tilled their poor patches of ground, wrenching from the hard soil barely enough to keep body and soul together. Among those vile hovels played the little children like foxes about their dens, their wild, fierce eyes peering out from under a mat ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... stealth and concealment and nature's resourceful disguises had been his. He had thought of the sniper as of one whose shooting is done peculiarly in cold blood, and he was surprised and pleased to find his friend in this romantic and noble role of holding back, single-handed, as it were, these vile agents of ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... cold blood. Reports had first been spread among them that he was untrue to the gods, and then they were maddened by fanaticism and horror at the death of that sacred cat. But in cold blood, as I said, no Egyptian, however vile and criminal, would lift his hand against a priest. You may as well come with me, Amuba; it would be strange if one of us only ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... wife had sate breathless and motionless, listening, in the catalepsy of nightmare, to a sort of echo of the vile and impious reasoning which had haunted her for so long. At the last words of the sentence his voice became harsh and thrilling; and his whole manner bespoke a sort of crouching and terrific hatred, the like of which she could not ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... what name he deserved himself, entangling his friend in deceit, and hiring such vile creatures for low slander ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... threatenings, General Haldimand concluded in the following severe words: "These are facts, Brothers, that, unless you are lost to every sense of feeling, cannot but recall in you even a most hearty repentance and deep remorse for your past vile actions." ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... was brought into the deepest distress and perplexity of soul, to think that after my experience of conversion, and all I had done for the conversion of others, I was still such a vile, self-condemned sinner. I even began to think that I had never been converted; it appeared to me that my whole life was nothing but intense selfishness; that I availed myself of the blood of Christ for my salvation and happiness, and led others to do the same, rejoicing with them ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... the rat-faced man, and he added a vile name. He gripped Peter by the lapel of his coat and half jerked him to his feet, still keeping the muzzle of the revolver in Peter's face. And poor Peter, trying desperately to get his wits together, thought of half a dozen wild guesses one after another. Could ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... severe morality of the student was cast behind him by the minister. He did not even shrink from defending, from considerations of political convenience, the malversations of a colleague. The pattern of wisdom and goodness devised and executed a cynical and vile intrigue, from which Sir Robert Walpole would have shrunk with masculine disgust, and that would have raised scruples in Dubois or Calonne. Finally, this famous professor of political science possessed so little skill in political practice, that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... independence they know to be latent there. In this iniquitous attempt they murdered eighty persons; yet the citizens, on their guard, refused them the desired means of ruin, and they were forced to retractions as impudently vile as their attempts had been. The Viceroy proclaimed that "he hoped the people would confide in him as he did in them"; and no doubt they will. At Leghorn and Genoa, the wiles of the foe were baffled by the wisdom of the popular leaders, as I trust they always will be; but it is needful daily to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... amongst the Number of my vile Offences, that which afflicts me to the greatest Degree, is, that I am in love: Not (continued she) that I believe simple and virtuous Love a Sin, when 'tis plac'd on an Object proper and suitable; but, my dear Father, (said ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... brothers marched for the Rhine early in 1743, both in the same regiment. James was now sixteen, Edward fifteen. The march was a terrible one for such delicate boys. The roads were ankle-deep in mud; the weather was vile; both food and water were very bad. Even the dauntless Wolfe had to confess to his mother that he was 'very much fatigued and out of order. I never come into quarters without aching hips and knees.' Edward, still more delicate, was sent off on a foraging party to find something for the regiment ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... by men, O Christ, for Thy companion then Thou didst accept the base and vile, Whose hand was stained with blood the while; O, number us with him, we pray! Thou who art good ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... comments was making himself agreeable to the lady who was to be his hostess for the next few days. Leslie, perhaps in the desire to be alone with his reflections, sat forward with the chauffeur, and paid little or no heed to that unhappy person's comments on the vile condition of ALL village thorough-fares, New York ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... all alone, And she felt mighty nate wid a house av her own— Shwate-smellin' and houlsome, swaped clane wid a rake, Wid two or thray pigs jist for company's sake. Well, phat should she get but the malady vile Av cholera-phobia-vomitus-bile! And she sint straight for me: "Dochther Barney, me lad," Says she, "I'm in nade av assistance, bedad! Have yez niver a powdher or bit av a pill? Me shtomick's a rowlin'; jist make it ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... give up that vile tobacco? I won't use any sugar till you do. All you care about is the money my sickness will cost—my suffering is nothing." Mrs. Lively raised her cup to her lip, then set it back in the saucer with a haste that sent the contents splashing over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... for half an hour before they had turned into the "short cut" they had seen no sign of habitation—and what lay in the other direction, ahead, would in all probability be the same—they were up in the timber regions, in the heart of them—she couldn't walk miles in the rain with the roads in a vile condition, and growing viler every minute as the rain sank in and the mud grew deeper. And then another thought—a thought that came now, sharp and quick, engulfing the mere discomfort of a miserable night spent there in the woods—the clatter of busy, gossiping ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... shortly after our arrival on the island, on the multifarious uses of the cocoa-palm. He told how the juice from the unexpanded flower-spathes is drawn off to form a potent toddy, so that where every prospect pleases man may still be vile. Cookie, experimentally disposed, set to work. Mr. Vane, also experimentally, sampled the results of Cookie's efforts. The liquor had merely been allowed to ferment, whereas a complicated process is necessary for ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Christ, art all I want; More than all in thee I find; Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, Heal the sick, and lead the blind. Just and holy is thy name, I am all unrighteousness; Vile and full of sin I am, Thou art ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Goodwin thus comments on his death:—"Thus fell the Duke of Burgundy, who, as he had caused the Duke of Orleans to be assassinated in the streets of Paris, so, by the requital of divine justice, his own life was abandoned to vile treachery." How very unwise and unsafe are such comments upon the dispensations of Providence is most clearly evinced here. Never was a more foul murder, or more desperate defiance of all law, human and divine, than the Dauphin was ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... the process is belittling, and a man is through it blasted for this world and damaged for the next one. The ass in the fable wanted to die because he was beaten so much, but after death they changed his hide into a drum-head, and thus he was beaten more than ever. So the plagiarist is so vile a cheat that there is not much chance for him, living or dead. A minister who hopes to do good with each burglary will no more be a successful ambassador to men than a foreign minister despatched by ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... art, you hear me say, scornfully; and I have told you, in some of my teaching in "Aratra Pentelici," that all great art must be popular. Yes, but great art is popular, as bread and water are to children fed by a father. And vile art is popular, as poisonous jelly is, to children cheated by a confectioner. And it is quite possible to make any kind of art popular on those last terms. The color school may become just as poisonous ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... wretched catchpenny trash called 'Memoirs of the Time of George IV.,' which might well set all the world what Scott calls 'gurnelising,' for nobody could by possibility compile or compose anything more vile or despicable. Since I came here, a world of fine thoughts came into my head which I intended to immortalise in these pages; but they have all evaporated like the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... natural that this Evanson should do the Governor willing service, since the one was the victim of the vile Sharkey and the other was his avenger. One could see that it was a pleasure to the big American to lend his arm to the invalid, and at night he would stand with all respect behind his chair in the cabin ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... basest kind, what was the good of wasting strength in behalf of a wretch so abandoned? Why should such a man be permitted to live to bring shame and misery on everybody connected with him? and why, when noxious vermin of every other description were hunted down and exterminated, should the vile human creature be spared to suck the blood of his friends? Mr Wentworth grew sanguinary in his thoughts as he leaned back in his chair, and tried to return to the train of reflection which Elsworthy's arrival had banished. That was totally impossible, but another train of ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... with pride when I think of the noble and exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels instead. Pointing to some poor drab lurking in a shadowy corner he asks, "See! is she not a vile thing?" On this we must part; he is too old to change, and his mind has withered in prejudice and conventions; "a meager mind," I mutter to myself, "one incapable of the effort necessary to understand me if I were to tell ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... "And Laura's dying to renew the intimacy. It's dull for her down here. Take him into the garden, Lally. You'll excuse me now, Lawrence, I can't talk long without getting fagged. Wretched state of things, isn't it? I'm a vile bad host but I can't help it. At the present moment for example I'm undergoing grinding torments and it doesn't amuse me to make conversation, so you two can cut along and disport yourselves in any way you like. Give Lawrence a drink, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... set all engines at work, to find out by what witchcraft I have taken my husband from her. Every precaution that prudence could devise against her malicious curiosity I have taken. Marriott, you know, is above all temptation. That vile wretch (naming the person whose quack medicines had nearly destroyed her), that vile wretch will be silent from fear, for his own sake. He is yet to be paid and dismissed. That should have been done long ago, but I had not money both for him and Mrs. Franks ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... having been fired over their heads as they ascended the opposite bank. It appeared that this party consisted of eight men, each carrying a spear and a waddy, besides the same boy who had been seen higher up, and who was observed on this occasion very busy lighting branches in the scrub; the vile old fellow sans nose was one, and also the sullen man, who was the first we had ever seen throw dust. These latter stood on our side, covering the passage of the others, and crossing last, which manly conduct was the best trait I had seen in their ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Record. Consequently, any word of condemnation from so earnest a friend, comes against the Seceders with triple emphasis. And this is shown in the tone of the expostulations addressed to the Record by some of the Secession leaders. It spares us, indeed, all necessity of quoting the vile language uttered by members of the Free Church Assembly, if we say, that the neutral witnesses of such unchristian outrages have murmured, remonstrated, protested in every direction; and that Dr, Macfarlane, who has since corresponded with the Duke of Sutherland upon ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... acquainted. Yet how sad is it, that this which is so absolutely needful and universally profitable, should be lying under the manyest difficulties in the attainment of it? So that there is nothing harder, than to bring a man to a perfect understanding of himself:—what a vile, haughty, and base creature he is—how defiled and desperately wicked his nature—how abominable his actions, in a word, what a compound of darkness and wickedness he is—a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion—a sink ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... teeth met in the marrow of the fat cigar. Equally without heat and without restraint, he stripped her of all that was womanly, pouring out upon her a flood of foul epithets and vile names garnished with bitter, brutal oaths. She shrank from the crude and savage upbraidings as if the words had been hot irons to touch the bare flesh, but at the end of it she was still ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... from taking forcible possession of the granddaughter of Rhodopis, and because thine own incapacity moved me to place him in thy room as commander of the troops. Ah! thou growest pale! Verily, I owe Phanes thanks for confiding to me your vile intentions, and so enabling me to bind my friends and supporters, to whom Rhodopis is precious, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... name were read out, and the little rubber stamp, which carried death to one and sorrow to so many, thudded down upon the paper. Malcolm felt physically ill. The room was close and reeked of vile tobacco fumes. There was no ventilation, and the oil lamps made the apartment insufferably hot. An hour, two hours passed, and no further notice was paid to the ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... ain't the damnedest impudent thieves! Look at this woman, cutting it up! Put that down, will you? We'll save you the trouble of dryin' our meat for us, besides killin' it! Fork over, now, every bit you've got, you—" And he called Ramona by a vile epithet. ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... cruelty of it! It was he who taught me what love was, and yet of love he knows nothing, else I would not be here to meet my doom alone! Oh! Paul, Paul! Oh, for one touch of your hand, for one kind look! My heart is sick and faint with longing! Am I indeed so low and vile a thing that you should turn away with never a single word of farewell? O! my love, you are hard indeed! If my hands are stained with blood—for whose sake was it? It was only a word I craved for, Paul! Only a word—a look, even! Was it too great ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with a web of wiles;[sg] A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, To hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming; 60 A lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, And, without feeling, mock at all who feel: With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,— A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.[sh] Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud, Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale—[si] ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the object Philip renewed a royal ordinance—fallen into desuetude— allowing to informers the fourth part of the property of those guilty of heresy. This abominable edict greatly increased the zeal and activity of the vile tribe. Pope Paul the Fourth also assisted with eagerness in the object, and issued a bull enjoining all confessors to examine their penitents, from the highest to the lowest, and to charge them to denounce all whom they knew to be guilty of buying, selling, reading, or possessing any book prohibited ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... inferior dramatists were sometimes preferred to Shakspeare; and again, that vile travesties of Shakspeare were preferred to the authentic dramas. As to the first argument, let it be remembered, that if the saints of the chapel are always in the same honor, because there men are simply discharging a duty, which once due will be due for ever; ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... not!" she cried, her eyes flashing in the twilight—"you coward! you dare not! Sir Victor has you in his power, and he will keep his threat. Speak one word of that vile lie, and your tongue will be silenced in Chesholm jail. Leave me, I say!"—she stamped her foot passionately—"I am not afraid of you, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... fortune Dr. Leiden was shown in at this instant. And the candles being lighted, he examined my neck, haranguing the while in his vile English against the practice of duelling. He bade me keep my bed for two days, thereby ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... dare not trust myself to speak of that; the thought of the old happy days in the Abbey almost breaks my heart now. Let me get back to the other subject. I must tell you that I kept the frightful vision which pursued me, at all times and in all places, a secret from everybody, knowing the vile reports about my having inherited madness from my family, and fearing that an unfair advantage would be taken of any confession that I might make. Though the phantom always stood opposite to me, and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... this pride—"stinking pride" Leopardi called it—and they ask us who are we, vile earthworms, to pretend to immortality; in virtue of what? wherefore? by what right? "In virtue of what?" you ask; and I reply, In virtue of what do we now live? "Wherefore?"—and wherefore do we now exist? "By what right?"—and by what right are we? To exist is just as gratuitous as to go on existing ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... the sea, which was done to shew them that we did contemne their sorcery. [Sidenote: Great theeues.] These people are very simple in all their conuersation, but marueillous theeuish, especially for iron, which they haue in great account. They began through our lenitie to shew their vile nature: they began to cut our cables: they cut away the Moonelights boat from her sterne, they cut our cloth where it lay to aire, though we did carefully looke vnto it, they stole our oares, a caliuer, a boare speare, a sword, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... him remember, that vengeance though it comes with leaden feet, strikes with iron hands. If he behaves ill in this case, he may find it so. What a pity it is, that a man of his talents and learning should be so vile a rake! Alas! alas! Une poignee de bonne vie vaut mieux que plein muy de clergee; a handful of good life is better than a whole ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... not fair; it is vile! it is a cheat!' exclaimed the Frenchman, beginning to stalk up and down the cabin, to grind his teeth, and to pull out his hair. 'I say it is a cheat; give me back my ship, send on board my men, and ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... vile thing they did, perhaps; but then they had drunk deep, and Kenneth Stewart counted no friend amongst them. In an instant they had him, kicking and biting, on the floor; his doublet was torn rudely open, and from ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... too good for me!" she repeated, between the sobs she tried hard to keep back. "How wicked and vile I should be to throw him over! He's too good for me!—too good for ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... with their feet made fast in the stocks at midnight prayed and sang praises to God. Is it not an occasion of wonder and astonishment how the bigoted zeal of deceived and blinded, high-minded professors leads them to become the most vile persecutors of the righteous? Paul persecuted the church of God and wasted it. He thought he was doing God's service. The children of God in every age have received their persecutions from religious bigots, and so will it ever be. We rejoice to be counted worthy to suffer for Jesus' sake. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... been said, and deservedly, in reprobation of the vile mixture which Dryden has thrown into the Tempest: doubtless without some such vicious alloy, the impure ears of that age would never have sate out to hear so much innocence of love as is contained in ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... upon the scene, each a fresh shadow to deepen its already sombre hue, while the gloom gathers in spite of the glimpse of sunshine shot through it by the visit to Elverston. Dudley's brutal encounter with Captain Oakley, and vile persecution of poor Maude till his love marriage comes to light, lead us on to the ghastly catastrophe, the hideous conspiracy of Silas and his son against the life of the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of drink— Stop, friends, and think How, reft of spirits weak or strong, My Nation will be purified Of all corruptions vile. The lamb and lion, side by side, Will smile and smile and smile. The workman when his day is o'er Will hurry to his cottage door To kiss his loving wife; He'll lay his wages in her hand And peace will settle on the land Without a trace of strife. The criminals will cease to swarm, Forgers and burglars ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... Traders of some Companies and Countries often set the Indians on to injure the English on the Frontiers, out of a barbarous inhuman Design; and often private Injuries done by some of our ordinary or vile People (who esteem and use the Indians as Dogs) are repaid with ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... to avert what was uncommonly near a scuffle, even at the price of the captain's drunken ill-will. I do not think I have ever heard quite so much vile language come in a continuous stream from any man's lips before, though I have frequented eccentric company enough. I found some of it hard to endure, though I am a mild-tempered man; but, certainly, when I told the captain to "shut up" I had forgotten that I was ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Margrave, no longer with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below—"and this witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake her, that in death I should die in her arms! Sorceress, avaunt! Art thou useless and powerless now when I need thee ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... often been taught that human nature is composed of two hostile elements, a body and a soul. The soul alone was to be honoured, while the body was regarded as the vile source of evils. This doctrine has had many disastrous consequences, and it is not surprising that in consequence of it celibacy should have been regarded as the ideal state. Art fell from the ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... the two last verses of it, proceeds a step further, for it is there added by our Saviour, "Is thine eye evil because I am good?" which is as if he said, "What, do you take offence then at my being so merciful? Does it provoke your envy to see a vile Gentile called at the eleventh hour, and made equal to yourselves, who profess to have been the people of God from the beginning, and to have borne the whole burden and heat of the day?" Some very awful words are then added, wherein it is implied, that they who ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... inhuman sexlessness. Why do you talk in such a changed way? We have not been selfish, except when no one could profit by our being otherwise. You used to say that human nature was noble and long-suffering, not vile and corrupt, and at last I thought you spoke truly. And now you seem to take such a ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... wealth. We all know this, and say it every day of our lives. But presuming that a way into the society of Park Lane was open to us, and a way also into that of Bedford Row, how many of us are there who would prefer Bedford Row because it is so vile ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... and pride surrounded, The vile insatiate despots dare, Their thirst of power and gold unbounded, To mete and vend the light and air. Like beasts of burden would they load us, Like gods, would bid their slaves adore; But man is man, and who is more? Then shall they longer ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... on her cheek the mask of peace And on her lips the smile Of those who mourn and find release, Who know, not love, the vile. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... And among all men, to choose one vile enough to rob her of her jewels, and force her to be his accomplice in the ruin ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... of the mill tilted more and more; the space to which the two vile creatures hung grew less and less. There was no longer room for both of them. They began to quarrel, to curse and jibber at each other, their fierce, bestial faces not an inch apart as they crouched there on hands and knees. The water rose ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... up to some villainy, blow them to shivers! Oh, these women are vile creatures! One can't say much for men either; but women!... They are like wild ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... such idiotic actions?" the squire of dames demanded, as he freed the maddened Henry from his durance vile in the woodhouse and confronted the red-faced man, who had not ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... of "Annie Roonie" and kindred fervid lay With mandolin and banjo, marching in bold array The devil's strongholds storming, battling to victory— With banners flying, the tambourine and drum Forever has she silenced the shamans vile tom-tom. All Fetish Spirit-medicine she has tabooed, banished away Except bourbon and rye, sour-mash, hand-made And copper-distilled, licensed, taxed and gauged, Then stored in bond to ripen, mellow, age. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... I found it full of people of all classes indulging in tobacco (the only solace left them) in every form. It is all very well to say that smoking is a vile habit; so it may be, when indulged in by luxurious fellows who eat and drink their full every day, and are rarely without a cigar or pipe in their mouths; it may, perhaps, be justly said that such ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... her fingers nervously in and out between his. "I don't have to tell you, do I? I love you. Oh, how I love you! It's as if the very heart had gone out of my body into yours. And yet, Chip—oh, don't be angry—it seems to me that if I left him now and went back to you I should become something vile. It isn't because he's so noble and good. No, it isn't that. And it isn't just the idea of passing from one man to another and back again. We have turned marriage into opera bouffe, we Americans, and we might as well take it ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... the gentleman will not gnash his teeth so hard; he might hurt himself. Who is here playing the overseer over white men—who but he, who is throwing his filthy gall and assailing everybody as Northern Whig Dough-faces, and what he calls the vile slave-holders? He is the only man who acts in that way. We don't raise the overseer's lash over our slaves in North Carolina. If that member was in the southern country, nobody would own him as a black man with a white skin—(laughter)—but he would be suffered to run wild as a free ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... gone, I learnt that the vile slander had indeed been circulated throughout the company, in the very presence of the victim. Rose, however, vowed she did not and would not believe it, and my mother made the same declaration, though not, I fear, with the same amount of real, unwavering incredulity. It seemed to ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... our "chow," which is the soldier's name for food of all kinds, was vile. It consisted largely of spoiled beef and such foods as spoiled rabbits. When I say spoiled, I mean just what the word implies. These rabbits were positively in a state of decay. They had been in cold storage for a long time, evidently a very long time. They had been carried in the ice boxes ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... the knee to pomp that loves to varnish guilt"? Of what avail our benevolence that offers, not the Christ-touch of pity and understanding, but the bitter bread of craven servitude and Pharisaical condescension, that says "thou art vile and lost for ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Divorce Court. Perhaps that's where you think I ought to be. The benefit of the doubt! You certainly have given it me. It's been nothing but doubt with you, Walter, ever since I knew you. You always thought awful things about me. I know you have. I could see you thinking them. You thought vile things about me, and vile things about Jimmy. You came rushing out to Belgium because you thought them. And the other day you thought the same thing of me and Charlie Thesiger, and you came rushing after me again and giving me away, and behaving so ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... vile tobacco,—he dropped some things and knocked over others, he shaved apparently only on festas, and if he happened to arrive late in the day his speech was thick ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... cooled by the shower-bath I had had—to say nothing of the prospect of passing the night in this vile hole; and I would willingly have given the tenacious Yankee information concerning the prices of flour and butter in every state of the Union, upon the sole condition that he should afterwards help us out of this reservoir ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... "that's all over; I've been a vile sinner in my time, God forgive me for it. But, thank Heaven, I ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... "impostor" from the territory, and the dispersion of the warriors he had collected about him. "The British," he writes, "could not have adopted a better plan to effect their purpose of alienating from our government the affections of the Indians than employing this vile instrument. It manifests at once their inveterate rancour against us and their perfect ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Rama, die. In vain my Tara reasoned well, On dull deaf ears her counsel fell. I scorned her words though sooth and sweet, And hither rushed my fate to meet. Ah for the land thou rulest! she Finds no protection, lord, from thee, Neglected like some noble dame By a vile husband dead to shame. Mean-hearted coward, false and vile, Whose cruel soul delights in guile, Could Dasaratha, noblest king, Beget so mean and base a thing? Alas! an elephant, in form Of Rama, in a maddening storm Of passion casting ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence they sprung, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... contrast presented by the world's conceptions of Godhead, and the reality as unveiled in Christ! On the one hand you have gods lustful, selfish, passionate, capricious, cruel, angry, vile; or gods remote, indifferent, not only passionless, but heartless, inexorable, unapproachable, whom no man can know, whom no man can love, whom no man can trust. On the other hand, if you look at Christ's tears as the revelation of God; if you look at Christ's ruth and pity ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... of POOR men and POOR women pay for more than half the vile whiskey, gin and other poisons that men buy to help ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... liked to curse them; and the dainty design of the hips, the beautiful little hips, and the breasts curved like shells, that I modelled so well. It is he who blasphemes. They blaspheme against Life.... My God, what a vile thing is the religious mind. And all the love and veneration that went into that statue! There it is: only a lump ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... rival"—Bacon. As to prisoners, "his brutal conduct ... brought permanent disgrace upon himself and upon the English Bar." When Sir Walter Raleigh was being tried for his life, but had not yet been found guilty, Coke said to him: "Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived. I want words sufficient to express thy viprous treasons." When Sir Everard Digby confessed that he deserved the vilest death, but humbly begged for mercy and some moderation of justice, Coke told him that ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... the case of a slender shaft, at the side of the first altar on the right of the main entrance. I suppose this figure typifies Grief, but it really represents a drunken woman, whose drapery has fallen, as if in some vile debauch, to her waist, and who broods, with a horrible, heavy stupor and chopfallen vacancy, on something which she supports with her left hand upon her knee. It is a round of marble, and if you have the daring to peer under the arm of the debauchee, and look at it as she does, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... it, and say RAPHAEL at once). I hate those simpering Madonnas. I declare that the "Jardiniere" is a puking, smirking miss, with nothing heavenly about her. I vow that the "Saint Elizabeth" is a bad picture,—a bad composition, badly drawn, badly colored, in a bad imitation of Titian,—a piece of vile affectation. I say, that when Raphael painted this picture two years before his death, the spirit of painting had gone from out of him; he was no longer inspired; IT WAS ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the colony; and I should be one of the happiest if I were not constantly tormented with regret at having so unfortunately failed in an honourable enterprise, and at being regarded on that account as a vile criminal, even by those among you, my compatriots, who cannot know the noble principles [sic "nobles principes"!] which actuated my conduct, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Lesley, softly, "lest the years that have gone by should have made you forget his gentleness and nobleness of soul—lest for one moment you should think him capable of a mean or vile action. I came to tell you, dearest mother, how impossible it was for us—who know him—to credit for one moment an accusation of this kind. If all the world said that he was guilty, you and I, mamma, would ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... whine. Then, in unconscious imitation of the scornful caterpillar in the wonderful story of Alice, she added, "You! And who are you! Shall I tell you what you are? A filthy, ragged little beggar picked out of the gutter, a sneaking area thief, put into the house for a spy! You vile cat, you! A starving mangy cur! Yes, I'll give you your dinner; I'll feed you on swill and dog-biscuits, and that's better than you ever had in your life. You, a diseased, pasty-faced little street-walker, too bad even for the slums, to keep you, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... me," said Sylvia. She turned, from him and went to her father. "Have you nothing to say," she asked, "about this vile and hateful plot? But I suppose you can't. She is your wife. However much you despise her, you have got to endure her. But I have not. And ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... fact. For Israel did vniuersalie decline frome God by embrasing idolatrie vnder Ieroboam. In whiche they did continue euen vnto the destruction of their common welthe[c]. And Iuda withe Ierusalem did followe the vile superstition and open iniquitie of Samaria[d]. But yet ceased not the prophetes of God to admonishe the one and the other: Yea euen after that God had poured furthe his plagues vpon them[e]. For Ieremie did write to the captiues of Babylon, and did correct their ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... a den of the worst kind of slave-traders; those whom I met in Urungu and Itawa were gentlemen slavers: the Ujiji slavers, like the Kilwa and Portuguese, are the vilest of the vile. It is not a trade, but a system of consecutive murders; they go to plunder and kidnap, and every trading trip is nothing but a foray. Moene Mokaia, the headman of this place, sent canoes through to Nzige, and his people, feeling their prowess among men ignorant of guns, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... passed in discussion and nine in execution. During this time very remarkable and noteworthy things occurred whereof no idea at all had been formed. I have arrived at, and am in, such a condition that there is no person so vile but thinks he may insult me: he shall be reckoned in the world as valour itself who is courageous enough not to ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... had penetrated into that notorious Camarilla or secret council of King Ferdinand VII., so much spoken of, so often cursed and scoffed at, so greatly feared, and justly hated. This was the cringing and pernicious conclave, of whose vile proceedings so many tales were told; these were the men, of all ranks and classes, who poured into the jealous despot's ear the venom of calumny and falsehood; these the spies and traitors who, by secret and insidious denunciations, brought sudden arrest and unmerited ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... "when your father makes enough to quit, he'll take you out of this. It's a vile hole for ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... pretty closely together. Now Edith is counting on us to put the peeping-Tom Rodneys and the charitable Carneys to rout with our own little bombshell. They're saying nasty things about all of us. They're calling you a vile thing for stealing your sister's husband, and they're calling me a dog for what I'm doing. No telling what they'll be saying if we don't step into the breach as soon as it is opened. We can't afford to wait, no matter what Roxbury says when he ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... it, but more frequently received a cruel drubbing when I did not deserve it, that, too, at the hands of the old negro crone who was exceedingly violent as well as unjust. This, of course, cultivated in me a hatred against the vile creature which was little short ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... in answer to the audible remarks of the opposition. "It's no names Oi'm callin'. If yez know such a beast, such a snake, fit it to him. Oi'm mentionin' no names. As Oi was sayin', Misther Chairman, Oi'll not waste the time av this meetin' wid discribin' the conduct av a beast so vile that he must be the contempt av every honest man. Who would have been driven out by St. Patrick, wid the rest av the reptiles, if he'd lived at that time. Oi only rise to widdraw the name av Caggs from the list ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... year to year, through hope and fear, [171] With many a curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, And all his best-of-life the easy prey Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way With vile array, From rascal statesman down to petty knave; Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. [181] Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, He fled away into the ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... answered simply, "you say some things that are true; but you say them so that all seems false and vile. Yes, I have dreamed dreams—even dreams of becoming a gentilhomme, as you say; but my dreams were never wicked as you colour them, seeing that they all flowed from love of Mademoiselle Diane, ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he, "and she has robbed me." "Ay," said he, "since I have come at the doom of this reptile, I will ransom it of thee. I will give thee seven pounds for it, and that rather than see a man of rank equal to thine destroying so vile a reptile as this. Let it loose, and thou shalt have the money." "I declare to Heaven that I will not let it loose." "If thou wilt not loose it for this, I will give thee four and twenty pounds of ready money to set it free." "I will not set it ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... war of 1870, was let to Messieurs Swanzy; it is a series of ridge-roofs surrounded by a whitewashed stockade. Both have been freely accused of supplying the Ashantis with arms and ammunition during the last war. Similarly the Gambia is said to have supported the revolteds of Senegal. The site is vile, liable to be flooded by sea and rain. The River Akbu or Komo (Comoe), with its spiteful little bar, drains the realms of Amatifu, King of Assini. It admits small craft, and we see the masts of a schooner amid ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... corrupte passions incidente to all mortall men, yea to y^e saints them selves in some measure,) by which wofull effects followed; as not only bitter contentions, & hartburnings, schismes, with other horrible confusions, but Satan tooke occasion & advantage therby to foyst in a number of vile ceremoneys, with many unproffitable cannons & decrees, which have since been as snares to many poore & peaceable souls even to this day. So as in y^e anciente times, the persecutions[2] by y^e heathen & their Emperours, was not greater then of the Christians one against other; the Arians ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... housekeeping Since they went out upon the pad In the first twilight of self-conscious Time: Growling, hideous and hoarse, Tales of unnumbered Ships, Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance, In some vile alley of the night Waylaid ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... of wonders!" exclaimed the queen; "Bethoc, thy servant, is come. The victim also is here—Agitha, the morning-star. By thy power, which is stronger than the lightning, and invisible as the wind, render loathsome her beauty; yea, make her as a vile worm which crawleth on the ground, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... of love Money is not a common thing between gentlemen like you and me Monsieur, I know that I have lived too long Neither idealist nor realist No writer had more dislike of mere pedantry Offices will end by rendering great names vile Princesses ceded like a town, and must not even weep Principle that art implied selection Recommended a scrupulous observance of nature Remedy infallible against the plague and against reserve True talent paints life rather than the living Truth, I here ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... (condor), or some other bird of prey.' {104a} To these worshipful creatures 'men offered what they usually saw them eat' (i. 53). But men were not content to adore large and dangerous animals. 'There was not an animal, how vile and filthy soever, that they did not worship as a god,' including 'lizards, toads, and frogs.' In the midst of these superstitions the Incas appeared. Just as the tribes claimed descent from animals, great or small, so the Incas drew their pedigree from the sun, which they adored like ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... thee! Thou desirest to be rid of thy present trouble; the Lord shall rid thee out of trouble. Thou desirest to be delivered from temptation; the Lord shall deliver thee out of temptation. Thou desirest to be delivered from thy body of death; and the Lord shall change this thy vile body, that it may be like to his glorious body. Thou desirest to be in the presence of God, and among the angels in heaven. This thy desire also shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt be made equal to the angels (Exo 6:6; 2 Peter 2:9; Phil 3:20,21; Luke ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... venal Fair, Who courts yet hates his vile embrace, Our lively strains shall muttering hear, While Envy pales each ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Mrs Fyne. "It is your former governess who is horrid and odious. She is a vile woman. I cannot tell you that she was mad but I think she must have been beside herself with rage and full of evil thoughts. You must try not to think of these abominations, my ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad |
