"Caitiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and if you would arrive at honor you must pursue it steadily, turning neither to the right nor to the left. Opposition you will meet at each step. But fresh lights may be thrown upon this difficult case. It is in vain to hope for Checkley's evidence, even should the caitiff priest be living. He is himself too ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... might possibly have sharpened it a little; but I felt it my duty, as a censor of morals, to mark my reprobation of her having grown fat and wrinkled in her old age. It was necessary for me to correct the flattering picture drawn of her by that caitiff Canning. You know the contempt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... Elb. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked 165 Hannibal! I respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's officer. Prove ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said; I'll have to smoke, or I'll be dead? If so, then let the caitiff dread! My wrath shall fall upon his head. 'Tis plain he ne'er the Plant hath read; But "goody" trash, perchance, instead. Dear Cope, good night!—Yours, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... guardians have banished therefor? Hast forgot my loved and faithful Mopsa that is truly the dearest, gentlest, wisest witch that e'er witched rogue or fool? But O Mopsa, wise mother—would'st thou might plague and bewitch in very truth yon base caitiff knight, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... The caitiff Marquis de Ploermel perished, as she had said, in all things frustrated; for though his vengeance was in very deed complete, he believed that it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native:— Alas! must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought! And Socrates ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Brussels, and an obnoxious, detested garb, which in a measure publicly held forth to view the principles on which his future conduct would be governed. Neither his honorable rank, which alone often consecrates the most infamous caitiff, nor his talents, which commanded esteem, nor even his terrible omnipotence, which daily revealed itself in so many bloody manifestations, could screen him from derision. Terror and scorn, the fearful and the ludicrous, were ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... honourable object to see the reasons of other men wear our liveries, and their borrowed understandings do homage to the bounty of ours. It is the cheapest way of beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the sun, illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the sordidest piece of covetous- ness, and more contemptible than the pecuniary avarice. To this (as calling myself a scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my condition. I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge. I intend no monopoly, but ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... dear; you set too high a price upon it, Colonel Tarleton. If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could be the poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would be too good ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... rights have been trembling, but her eyes blazed at me disdainfully. I felt almost like a caitiff, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... too angry to stand upon compliment. "Bury me that grinning caitiff there!" he, pointing to ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... refused until, at last wearied out, his wild nature yielded to one of those sudden impulses which were wont to sweep over it; and he exclaimed, "Is it that they need a man-servant, then? Let this insolent caitiff, Gosselin, be relieved of his irons and sent on shore. Let him be my niece's servant or, since a Huguenot marriage is as good as any in the presence of bears and buccaneers, let her call the hound her husband, if she ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... gladly my most wretched body to be tormented, where GOD will! and of whom He will! how He will and when He will! and as long as He will! and what temporal pain He will! and death! to the praising of His name, and to the edification of His Church. And I, that am most unworthy and wretched caitiff, shall now, through the special grace of GOD, make to Him pleasant sacrifice of my most sinful ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... ne will not han my lif. Thus walke I like a restless caitiff, And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knocke with my staf, erlich and late, And say to hire, "Leve mother, let me in. Lo, how I vanish, flesh and blood and skin, Alas! when shall my bones ben at reste? Mother, with you wolde I changen ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... of a base villain," Lord Normanby said to Nicholson. "Hanging would be too good for such a caitiff. What induced you to ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... conditions of success in the English market. These remarks of Webb's are, however, merely incidental. His direct personal attack on Cooper rivaled that of the British periodicals in ferocity. "We may and do know him," said he in the only extract for which there is room, "as a base-minded caitiff who has traduced his country for filthy lucre and low-born spleen; but time only can render harmless abroad the envenomed barb of the slanderer who is in fact a traitor to ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... veterans were wont, by the connivance of the Procurator, to treat the neighbourhood with utterly illegal military licence, sacking houses, ravaging fields, and abusing their British fellow-subjects as "caitiff slaves."[174] ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... felt their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 35 'Neath the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... his whole life long, Yea, all thy sweet life long, Fair Lady. Where's he that craftily hath said, The day of chivalry is dead? I'll prove that lie upon his head, Or I will die instead, Fair Lady. Is Honor gone into his grave? Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, And Selfhood turned into a slave To work in Mammon's cave, Fair Lady? Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain All great contempts of mean-got gain And hates of inward stain, Fair Lady? ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... caught and known! Shun men like these, I charge ye all! With solemn words they chase their prey, and in their hearts plot foul disgrace. My wife is dead.—"Ha, so that saves thee now," That is what grips thee worst, thou caitiff, thou! What oaths, what subtle words, shall stronger be Than this dead hand, to clear the guilt from thee? "She hated thee," thou sayest; "the bastard born Is ever sore and bitter as a thorn To the true brood."—A sorry bargainer In the ills and ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... thee, boy, if e'er thou meet With one of Assynt's name— Be it upon the mountain's side, Or yet within the glen, Stand he in martial gear alone, Or back'd by armed men— Face him, as thou would'st face the man Who wrong'd thy sire's renown; Remember of what blood thou art, And strike the caitiff down! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound, 913 And asks the weary caitiff for his master, And there another licking of his wound, Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster; 916 And here she meets another sadly scowling, To whom she speaks, and ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... them, dressed in the imposing style of a cockney sportsman. He has been puffing 'Sir Danapalus (the Bart.)' in public, and taking all the odds he can get against him in private. Watchorn knows that it is easier to make a horse lose than win. The restless-looking, lynx-eyed caitiff, in the dirty green shawl, with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of the brown tarriar coat, is their jockey, the renowned Captain Hangallows; he answers to the name of Sam Slick in Mr. Spavin the horse-dealer's ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... later, but now—"—Hero Giles' voice took on a ringing quality like the clash of steel—"there is work to be done. To rescue ye, oh Hero Nelson, I slew the guards at the lower gate, for this prison lies in the hands of a caitiff rogue, Hero Edmund, one who clings to the priestly party. We had best be off lest we be trapped and slaughtered like ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... back way. I accused him of listening to our conversation. Of course he denies it; but it really doesn't matter, as I'm sorry to say he's much too 'fresh' (as they call it down here) to remember anything to-morrow morning. I let him have it, I can tell you. Varlet! Caitiff! But if you bolt off on the head of it, I shall go back and sack him into ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... gave the caitiff a toss that sent him reeling against the wall, and dashed up-stairs for the papers. All was darkness, and I nigh broke my neck over a coffin-shaped rough box made for one of the trappers, who had died in the fort. Why was the thing lying there, anyway? The man ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... must call for help," said the trembling caitiff, who felt at that moment all the bitterness of the mortal agony—"It was the law's act, not mine. What could ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... furtherance of my desires confide my suspicions to no one not even to my niece, but take leave of this caitiff with all ceremony as though he were indeed him ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... mine, King, close to this barricaded bridge," said the valorous boy, "and I will vow to break it down, or ye may call me caitiff and coward." ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... not—aught save these words. 'Now, then, give me those for whom I placed myself in thy power; let me restore Haco to his fatherland, and Wolnoth to his mother's kiss, and wend home my way.' And, saints in heaven! what was the answer of this caitiff Norman, with his glittering eye and venomed smile? 'Haco thou shalt have, for he is an orphan and an uncle's love is not so hot as to burn from a distance; but Wolnoth, thy mother's son, must stay with me as a hostage for thine own faith. Godwin's hostages ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... round the wretched garret to which my mother had been reduced, and pictured the days and hours of fear and suspense through which she had lived; through which she must have lived, with that caitiff's threat hanging over her grey head! I thought of her birth and her humiliation; of her frail form and patient, undying love for me; and solemnly, and before heaven, I swore that night to punish the man. My anger was too great for words, and for tears I was too old. I asked Simon ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... 'Caitiff wretch!' exclaimed Redgauntlet;—'and yet the name were better bestowed on the fool who could be misled ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... a hideous grin, The giant strides in haste, And, stooping, aims a second stroke: Now, caitiff, breathe thy last! ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... and hold Bayard back!" Her black eyes blazed upon the invaders until they shrank from that baleful gaze. "Who are you, you rascal robbers, who dare to misuse the King's name and to lay hands upon one whose smallest drop of blood has more worth than all your thrall and caitiff bodies?" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did sell his birthright indeed, and so do many besides, and by so doing exclude themselves from the chief blessing, as also that caitiff did; but you must put a difference betwixt Esau and Little-faith, and also betwixt their estates. Esau's birthright was typical, but Little-faith's jewels were not so; Esau's belly was his god, but Little-faith's belly was not so; Esau's want lay in his fleshly appetite, Little-faith's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
