"Debase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... industriously diminished, and their Persons, as well as their Employment, rendred contemptible on purpose to enhance the Value of those that serve for Pay; insomuch that few Gentlemen of Quality will now a-days debase themselves so much, as to accept of a Company, or a Regiment in the Militia. But for all this, I can never be persuaded that a Red Coat, and Three Pence a Day, infuses more Courage into the poor Swaggering ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... either equality shall reign, or I will die contending against protectors and tribunes. Tribunes! they are the worst enemies of the people. They flatter to enchain it. They spread suspicions of virtue, which will not debase itself. Remember who were Aristides and Phocion,—they did not always sit ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... doing so," said Catherine, "you debase a cause so noble, by naming along with it any lower or more selfish motive. Believe me," she said, with kindling eyes, and while the blood mantled on her cheek, "they think vilely and falsely of women—I mean of those who deserve the name—who deem that they love the gratification of their vanity, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... declared that truth was the characteristic of an English officer, that when he was bound by a parole he would not break his word; for the gentleman scorns to lie, in word or deed; and is ready to brave all consequences rather than debase himself ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... a canker'd heart That can debase the excellence of art, Nor great in titles makes our worth obey, Since we have lines far more esteem'd than they. For there is hidden in a poet's name A spell that can command the wings of Fame, And maugre all oblivion's hated birth Begin their immortality on ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... railroad man myself, though I have no interest in this affair. My turn may come later. Will come later, I suppose. Isaac D. Worthington has a very little heart or soul or mercy himself; but the corporation which he means to set up will have none at all. It will grind the people and debase them and clog their progress a hundred times more than Jethro Bass has done. Mark my words, Carry. I'm running ahead of the times a little, but I can see it all as clearly as if it ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in life is the possession of good manners, or timely thoughtfulness with human sympathy behind it. They are the kindly fruit of a refined nature, and are the open sesame to the best of society. Manners are what vex or soothe, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, invincible operation like that of the air we breathe. Even power itself has not half the might of gentleness, that subtle oil which lubricates our relations with each ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... crumbling of the old deities and the looming of the Unknown,—are we to lie down content and docile and suffer this hybrid monster of Frankenstein, under guise of governing, to squat on our necks, bind our Titan limbs, bandage our awakening eyes, gag our free voices, sterilize our civic manhood, and debase us from sons of divine liberty into ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... not," assented Villiers promptly. "No poet, and indeed no author whatsoever, who lays claim to a fraction of conscience, writes for money ONLY. Those with whom money is the first consideration debase their Art into a coarse huckstering trade, and are no better than contentious bakers and cheesemongers, who jostle each other in a vulgar struggle as to which shall sell perishable goods at the highest profit. None of the lasting works of the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... India. There are a host of these women (twelve thousand in South India alone) who, without their own consent, and in the sacred name of religion, have been handed over to this life of shame, to corrupt and debase the youth of the land. Their life is a loud cry against their mother-faith, which systematically devotes them to destruction of soul and body. Some educated men of the land denounce this as an evil which should ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... that our former relationship of tutor and pupil was at an end, but that friendship for his person was incompatible with the respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the dignity of letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable roof,—a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and apparent heir. Suffer me to offer you my gratitude for the favours you have hitherto bestowed on me, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and ye keep sweet youths to wait upon me, Sweet bred-up youths, to be a credit to me. There's your delight again, pray take him to ye, He never comes near me more to debase me. ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... One worthless man, that gains what he pretends, Disgusts a thousand unpretending friends: And since no art can make a counterpass, Or add the weight of gold to mimic brass, When princes to bad ore their image join, They more debase the stamp, than raise the coin. Be thine the care, true merit to reward And gain the good—nor will that task be hard; Souls form'd alike so quick by nature blend, An honest man is more than half thy friend. Him, no mean views, or haste to rise, shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... over the housewife. And here also comes the question of the quality of jealousy, whether being wife of a man and mother of his children does not almost necessarily give a woman a feeling of exclusive possession in him, and whether, therefore, if we are earnest in our determination not to debase her, our last shred of polygamy does not vanish. From first to last, of course, it has been assumed that a prolific polygamy alone can be intended, for long before we have plumbed the bottom of the human heart we shall know enough to imagine what the ugly and pointless consequences ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... poet, if he will; but let him not stake his all on success in that pursuit, but have a second line to fall back upon if driven from his first. Let him be so reared and trained that he may enter, if he will, upon some intellectual calling in the sustaining consciousness that he need not debase himself, nor do violence to his convictions, in order to achieve success therein, since he can live and thrive in another (if you choose, humbler) vocation, if driven from that of his choice. This buttress to integrity, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... right the Stage, And undeceive the long abused Age, Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy Wit Gives not more Gold then they give drosse to it: Who not content like fellons to purloyne, Adde Treason to it, and debase thy Coyne. But whither am I strayd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other Mens dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser Ruines built, Nor needs thy juster title the foule guilt Of Easterne Kings, who to secure their ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... resided in this city some time, assures me that he could not find language to give me an idea of the gross debaucheries into which the lower order of people fall; and the promiscuous amours of the men of the middling class with their female servants debase both beyond measure, weakening ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolved! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... priest who with one wise opinion had indicated to him the method of escape from that labyrinth. And now appeared unexpectedly before him two powers, the interest of the state, which he had not felt thus far, though he was heir to the throne; and the priesthood, which he wished to debase ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... restored to them, and having invited the merchants of Rotterdam to join with them in this Deputation, the latter have answered, that with men capable of acting so ruffianlike, they would rather let them keep all that they had robbed, than debase themselves by courting the robbers. This noble answer would be still more so, if Rotterdam had lost as much at St Eustatia as Amsterdam; there being, as for that, a very ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... love on Polly, Charlotte Bronte could not possibly have meant to debase her and efface her. How then did it happen that Polly was ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... with the passage of time and the influence of outside elements, the sects thus born undergo visible modifications. By turns sublime or outrageous, simple or depraved, they either aspire heavenwards or debase the human spirit to the level of its ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... colloquial inelegances; the greatest characters are levelled by the poverty of his style. Warburton, and his imitator Hurd, and other living critics of that school, are loaded with familiar idioms, which at present would debase ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... shun the flabby gang That tricked your taste with cards and drink, When out of independence sprang A silly downfall. Think, Tom, think! While stupid lads debase their worth In feather-headed Folly's thicket, Get back your muscle and your mirth Beneath ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... minority report, and addressed the House in opposition to the proposed amendment of the Constitution. He thus presented his view of the object of the measure proposed: "It appears to have in its body, in its soul, and in its life only one great object and aim; that is, to debase and degrade the white race, and to place upon a higher footing than the white men are placed, under the Constitution, this African race. It is a proposition to change the organic law of the land with regard ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Queen, is grief to me: Thy gain my greatest gain would be. Proud daughter of a princely line, The rights of consort queen are thine. How art thou, born of royal race, Blind to the crimes that kings debase? Thy lord is gracious, to deceive, And flatters, but thy soul to grieve, While thy pure heart that thinks no sin Knows not the snares that hem thee in. Thy husband's lips on thee bestow Soft soothing word, an empty show: The wealth, the substance, and the power ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Sequestered from the world, neither its pageants nor its mortifications could have reached me there. I have seen thee, matchless Constantine! Like a bright planet, thou has passed before me!—like a being of a superior order! And I never, never can debase my nature to change that love. Thy image shall follow me into solitude—shall consecrate my soul to the practice of every virtue! I will emulate thy excellence, when, perhaps, thou hast forgotten ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... lesse to be Christians,) they must, will they nill they, ascribe vnto them this loue and affection towardes their children: if not, they doe not onely take from them the title and dignitie of men, but also they debase them vnder euery brute beast, which euen by the instinct of nature are bound with exceeding great loue, and tender affection towards their ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed him softly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if it is not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... Hawk—if such a term can be applied to the thoughts of the systematic and calculating man of dissipation, whose joys, regrets, pains, and pleasures, are all of self, and who would seem to retain nothing of the intellectual faculty but the power to debase himself, and to degrade the very nature whose outward semblance he wears—the reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk turned upon Kate Nickleby, and were, in brief, that she was undoubtedly handsome; that her coyness ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... laboriously collected from the flowers of the field. It is not so recorded; but doubtless the nameless one in question was by profession a maker of opium pipes, for this person has observed from time to time how that occupation, above all others, tends to degrade the mental faculties, and to debase its followers to a lower position than that of the beasts of labour. Learn therefrom, O superficial Wang Yu, that wisdom lies in an intelligent perception of great principles, and not in a slavish imitation of details which are, for the most part, beyond your ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... where beauty of nature and classic treasures were heaped in profusion; whose loggie [Footnote: Arched colonnades.] glowed with the finest forms of Greek sculpture, resuscitated from the tombs of ages to inspire newer artists to perfection, but alas! also to debase the aim ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... should not interfere in these matters. You simply debase you husband's high office. The distaff were more fitting for you. My lord, good morning." And before either of them could speak again, he was out of the room, and through the hall, and beyond the gate, and standing beneath the towers of the cathedral. Yes, he had, he thought, in truth ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... of existence. And whence is their excitement derived? From the most contemptible and silly frivolities, from balls, parties, visits, and gossip without end—excitements utterly selfish, which materialise the soul, debase its tastes, enervate its powers, rendering it incapable of all earnest labours or self-denial, and which incapacitate it from apprehending the purity, the majesty, and the surpassing wonder of spiritual realities. These are the ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... reign over our fine country. Whether the nobility of the Bourbons take the step of expatriating itself again, or consent to live among us, is no concern of ours. The sacred cause of liberty, and of our independence, will no longer suffer from their fatal influence. They have endeavoured to debase our military glory; but they have found themselves mistaken. This glory is the fruit of labours too noble for us to lose the remembrance of it. Soldiers! those days are no more, when nations were governed by stifling their rights. Liberty is at length triumphant and Napoleon, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... consent awaits their wills, retire to coverts, and to darkness, to complete their wishes? And shall such a sneaking passion as this, which can be so easily gratified by viler objects, be permitted to debase the noblest? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... powers. I really begin to feel that I know only part of you. First Lillian's Duty taught me some of your stern Scotch morality. Then Enid's Choice revealed to me your conception of the integrity of a good woman's soul—that nothing can debase it. Alessandra disclosed your learning and your imaginative power. Now here I feel the poet, the imaginative boy. I will not say this has increased my faith in you—it has added to my knowledge of you. But I must confess to you it has made it very difficult for me to go ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and forcible language, the great truths of Christianity, as opposed to the false teaching of Rome. He showed how the one must, when received, elevate and ennoble the human mind; while the other was calculated in every way to lower and debase it. He then, in eloquent language, called upon his countrymen to unite in overthrowing that fearful system, supported by the Pope and his cardinals, to which King Philip had completely subjected himself. "He who is a slave to such a system is unfit to rule his fellow-men!" he exclaimed. "Already ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... The adoption of a hypothesis and the making of a survey in order to prove it by a careful selection and manipulation of facts would not discredit survey as a means to the attainment of truth; it would only discredit and debase the moral character of the man who made ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... consistent with due subordination to the objects displayed. To enter a room in the Louvre is an education in itself; but two steps on the filthy floor and under the iron forks, half scaffold, half gallows, of the big Norwood glass bazaar, debase mind and eye at once below possibility of looking at anything with profit all the day afterwards. I have just heard that a French picture dealer is to have charge of the picture gallery there, and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... be false, Leonardo had too grand a soul. A wretched woman in England, at the beginning of the last century, Mrs. Manley, systematically employed fiction as a cover for personal libel; but such an abuse of art as this could be practiced or countenanced only by the vile. Novelists, however, often debase fiction by obtruding their personal vanities, favouritisms, fanaticisms and antipathies. We had, the other day, a novel, the author of which introduced himself almost by name as a heroic character, with a description of his own personal appearance, residence, and habits ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... females, of respectable appearance and dress, will be gazing upon these subjects; and now that the art of lithography is become fashionable, the print-shops of Paris will be deluged with an inundation of these odious representations, which threaten equally to debase the art and to corrupt morals. This cheap and wholesale circulation of what is mischievous, and of really most miserable execution, is much to be deplored. Even in the better part of art, lithography will have a pernicious effect. Not only a well-educated and distinguished ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a poor man from his birth, and an exciseman from necessity; but—I will say it!—the sterling of his honest worth, poverty could not debase; and his independent British spirit oppression might bend, but could not ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... and made him sit down among them. And after the meeting was ended, and the Friends departed to their several homes, addressing himself to Mary Penington, as the mistress of the house, he could not enough magnify the bravery and courage of the Friends, nor sufficiently debase himself. He told her how long he had been a professor, what pains he had taken, what hazards he had run, in his youthful days, to get to meetings; how, when the ways were forelaid and passages stopped, he swam through rivers to reach a meeting; and now, said he, that I am grown old in the profession ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... alone can point the dart, Whose hidden sting could wound no other heart— These, of all pains the sharpest we endure, The breast which now inflicts, would spring to cure.— No more deserted genius then, would fly To breathe in solitude his hopeless sigh; No more would Fortune's partial smile debase The spirit, rich in intellectual grace; Who views unmov'd from scenes where pleasures bloom, The flame of genius sunk in mis'ry's gloom; The soul heav'n form'd to soar, by want deprest, Nor heeds the wrongs that pierce a kindred breast.— Thou righteous ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... things to the one who hath erred, for every one who errs hath but missed the appointed path and wandered away. Reflect, and thou wilt discover that no one of these with whom thou art annoyed hath done aught to debase thy mind, and that is the only real evil ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... state of nudity, without anything like sandals or mocassins to protect his feet from the flint stones and sharp shells, and under the burning rays of an intolerable sun. Blood marked his footsteps. The king met him and compelled him to debase himself by the most abject ceremonies of slavery. He was now overcome, and with a dogged indifference was ready to die. He could not, he would not walk back; his feet were lacerated, swollen, and almost in a state of putrefaction. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... not hear you speak in that way, Charlotte. Of course I married her. Did you wish me to ruin and debase her? That, I suppose, you could have forgiven. My sin against the Sandals and society ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to which sensual love will drive a man who is not strong enough to throw off its degrading chains. The whole of humanity seemed to her unclean as she thought of the obscene secrets of the senses, of the caresses which debase as they are given and received, and of all the mysteries which surround ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... col'ny here. (Enter Quezox) Francos: But Bonset, list! 'Twere well to let them wait: To quick respond will lower dignity. The British mind doth breed a rev'rence deep For form and etiquette which swift cognition Might debase, and thus we on their mental Vision might mayhap but feeble impress Make as envoys by most noble Caesar sent To rule these Isles with gravity and state. Quezox: Most noble Sire! If I might but suggest, 'Twere well for Bonset to inquire each name ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... enough to debase them; they must be so stupefied that they wish to be debased. The formidable autocracies of Egypt, Persia, and Syria, made playthings of the lives of millions of men; and the secret of their power lay in the supernatural light of their pseudo-divinity. From the extreme ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... are we afraid when we send a young man from the Schools into active life, lest he should indulge his appetites intemperately, lest he should debase himself by ragged clothing, or be puffed up by fine raiment? Knows he not the God within him; knows he not with whom he is starting on his way? Have we patience to hear him say to us, Would I had thee with me!—Hast thou not God ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... whirling dervishes, in witnessing whose singular movements one is at a loss whether to sigh or to laugh. To the young the performance suggests that of the circus, and until wearied of the monotony of it, is perhaps as amusing; but to this more thoughtful observer it is melancholy to see men so debase themselves. The ring in which these people whirl about was full of deluded men, on the day of our visit, self-proclaimed disciples. About twenty of them commenced at a signal to turn rapidly about on their heels and toes, without a moment's pause, for a period of some thirty or forty ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to ask what purpose in either case these heroic mantles subserved, and whether, in fact, they could not be dispensed with to advantage, he was soon made to know that his inquiry indicated ignorance, and a desire to debase in the one case Man, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of that madness, a brief passion. She was content, it seemed, that her lover should be wise, should be careful for the future, should take her life into his hands with a sort of quiet mastery as if he had a right to do so—a right, not to ruin and debase, such as is usually considered the privilege of that which is called a great passion and admired as such—but a right to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... wants have been of a common sort, who are chiefly struggling to get better and more food, clothing, shelter, and bodily recreation, may lead to hasty measures for the sake of having things more fairly shared, which, even if they did not fail of their object, would at last debase the life of the nation. Do anything which will throw the classes who hold the treasures of knowledge—nay, I may say, the treasure of refined needs—into the background, cause them to withdraw from public affairs, stop too suddenly any of the sources ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... brandy. It was the same flask that he used when tempting Richard Ashton at Charlotte, and he and John, jun. indulged so freely of its contents as soon to be considerably under its influence. Miss Sealy perceived the state they were in, and blaming the former for leading her brother to thus debase himself, gave him to understand his presence was extremely distasteful to her, and that he might consider their engagement broken off; for, no matter what influence might be brought to bear, she had made up her mind, after ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... nobles, meanwhile, looking alone to the legislation of Heaven and to the laws of Scotland, which alike demand justice and mercy from all, will live the fathers of their country, teaching her brave sons that the only homage which does not debase a man, is that which he pays ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of childhood, in which danger may arise from playmates or school-fellows. This applies equally to children of either sex. Danger may also arise from adults, not only through systematic seduction on the part of grown persons who deliberately debase the mind of youth, but also in other ways. The conversations of adults often lead to sexual acts on the part of children, who understand far more of what is said in their presence than grownups commonly believe. While the child is ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... I will not perform. Do you suppose that I, by birth and marriage a royal princess, would debase myself so far as to ask for my son's wife the daughter of a harlot who drove the hapless queen to her grave? and to take her by the hand, and present her to the court as my daughter? I would rather absent ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant heart repels the conviction that is believed to debase it.... Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their own alarms for the powers of this house; that the addresses which have been made ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that ignorance in which it could be thus accredited, are past; for the leader of this Advancement is already unfolding his tradition, and opening his books; and he bids us debase his name no longer, into a name for these sordid fatuities. The Leader of ages that are yet to be,—ages whose nobler advancements, whose rational and scientific advancements to the dignity and perfection ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... walks the earth and haunts the institutions of to-day, in the great corporations, with the control of the National highways, their occupation of great domains, their power to tax, their cynical contempt for the law, their sorcery to debase most gifted men to the capacity of splendid slaves, their pollution of the ermine of the judge and the robe of the Senator, their aggregation in one man of wealth so enormous as to make Croesus seem a pauper, their picked, paid, and skilled retainers who are summoned ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... abode Has oft received, and yet receives a God; A God victorious of the Stygian race Here laid his sacred limbs, and sanctified the place, 710 This mean retreat did mighty Pan contain: Be emulous of him, and pomp disdain, And dare not to debase ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... every day (even among those we despise with so much reason), who reign with a scepter of iron, treat as slaves men who are attached to them, debase them by force of controlling them. Well, these are the women who are loved longer than the others. I am persuaded that a woman of refinement, well brought up, would never think of following such an example. That military manner is repugnant ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... is a vile, pernicious, Wicked and degraded rule, Tending to debase the vicious, And corrupt the harmless fool; If there is a hateful habit Making man a senseless tool, With the feelings of a rabbit And the wisdom of a mule; It's the rule which inculcates, It's the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... blood nor pompous titles, but upon the work and personal merit of each one; a free society, where exist neither egotism nor personal politics which annihilate and crush, neither envy nor favoritism which debase, neither fanfaronade nor charlatanism which ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... youth whose anxious heart Labours with love's unpitied smart? Though now he stray by rills and bowers, And weeping waste the lonely hours, Or if the nymph her audience deign, Debase the story of his pain With slavish looks, discolour'd eyes, And accents faltering into sighs; 80 Yet thou, auspicious power, with ease Canst yield him happier arts to please, Inform his mien with manlier charms, Instruct his tongue with nobler arms, With more commanding passion move, And teach ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... Anne, is her subject; and may be guilty of high treason against her: but, in the instance of conjugal fidelity, he is not subjected to the same penal restrictions. For which the reason seems to be, that, if a queen consort is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or bastardize the heirs to the crown; but no such danger can be consequent on the infidelity of the husband to a ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... was gain and profit, is not without very good ground and reason. If with the reward, which ought to be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commodities and add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase of estimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St. Michael, which has been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than that it had no communication with any other commodity, which produced this effect, that formerly there was no office or title whatever to which ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... mummeries, were beguil'd. Yet should the Satyrs so chastise their mirth, Temp'ring the jest that gives their sallies birth; Changing from grave to gay, so keep the mean, That God or Heroe of the lofty scene, In royal gold and purple seen but late, May ne'er in cots obscure debase his state, Lost in low language; nor in too much care To shun the ground, grasp clouds, and empty air. With an indignant pride, and coy disdain, Stern Tragedy rejects too light a vein: Like a grave Matron, destin'd to advance On solemn festivals to join the dance, Mixt with the shaggy tribe of Satyrs ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... the influences of civilised life to make an honourable, upright man, any more than it needs the influences of savage life to make a thorough scoundrel. Of course the tendency of civilisation is to elevate, of savagery to debase, nevertheless it is certain that as we occasionally see blackguards in the highest ranks, so we sometimes find men and women with exalted conceptions of right and wrong in the lowest circles ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... clergymen, desiring it to be done with tolling of bell and putting out of candle, because these solemnities had the greater effect on the laity. This statute is a sad proof how much too cheaply sacred things were held, and how habit was leading even the clergy to debase them by over-frequent and frivolous use of the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the consistency of Burke, the identity of the first Whig. Most of this, I suppose, is undisputed, and calls for no enlargement. But the weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... content to take the ornaments of your excellent nature from the most base and vile things, neither understand you what injury you do your Creator. He would have mankind to excel all earthly things; you debase your dignity under every meanest creature. For if it be manifest that the good of everything is more precious than that whose good it is, since you judge the vilest things that can be to be your goods, you deject yourselves under them in your own estimation, which questionless ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... whose faces we trace a resemblance to the portraits of Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon. For this piece of flattery the painter was justly rebuked by Goldsmith, whose sympathies were certainly not on the side of infidelity. "It very ill becomeF a mann Of your eminence and character," said the poet, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... be a strong man whom the sudden stare of Penury does not daunt and, in some measure, debase. Tarrant, whatever the possibilities of his nature, had fallen under a spell of indolent security, which declared its power only when he came face to face with the demand for vigorous action. The moment found him a sheer poltroon. 'What! Is it possible that ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... party in power, because no place was made for the Negro element in its civil service. In the first issue of La Sentinelle, he wrote, "From day to day the Maurician Press develops a system entirely dangerous and which seems to have this for a foundation—to discredit and debase English institutions and the English Government in the eyes of all. Here are the consequences of this system—the government believing that the opinions of the press are those of all the inhabitants of Maurice, has seen in us enemies rather than ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... the reason why Orange struck me so much; a place of which I had heard and read little or nothing. No attentive and intelligent cicerone anticipated our reflections in this place; nor did the creature-comforts of a good inn debase our Roman reveries, though we could well have pardoned their so doing. Madame Ran, of the Croix Blanche, was as mean and dirty as the hole in which she lived; and looked as malevolent as Canidia, Erichtho, or any other classical witch; and as to the ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... in these commands the language of enthusiasm of hyperbole? These maxims! are they not directly fitted to discourage, and debase a man? to degrade him in his own eyes, and those of others? to plunge him into despair? And would not the literal fulfillment of them prove destructive to society? What shall we say of that morality which orders the heart to detach itself from objects, which God, and reason, and ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... however, proper to remark, that as his habitual meekness and command of his passions prevented indecent sallies of ungoverned anger towards those in the lowest state of subjection to him, by which some in high life do strangely debase themselves, and lose much of their authority, so the natural greatness of his mind made him solicitous to render their inferior stations as easy as he could: and so much the rather, because he considered all the children of Adam as standing upon ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... But all would be well, if we could eradicate abuses and bring out our strength. A fatality, however, seems pursuing us. The blockade-runners drain the country of the little gold which is left in it; the forestallers run up prices, and debase the currency beyond hope; the able-bodied and healthy men who ought to be in the army, swarm in the streets; and the bitter foes of the President poison the public mind, and infuse into it despair. It is this, colonel, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... taught to maintain, was looked upon as iniquitous extravagance. Nor was this, even in those bloody days, enough to condemn her. Lies of the basest kind were, with care and difficulty, contrived to debase her character—lies which have now been proved to be so, but which were then not only credible, but sure to receive credit from those who already believed that all royal blood was, from its nature, capable of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... And undeceive the long-abused age, Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy wit Gives not more gold than they give dross to it; Who not content, like felons, to purloin, Add treason to it, and debase the coin. But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; 20 Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built, Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt Of eastern kings, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... happiness of society, to animate our hopes, to subdue our passions, to instruct man in the happy science of purifying the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to confirm him in his exalted notion of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire him with sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of his origin, the public would be indebted to you; your name would be recorded amongst the assertors of morality and religion; and I myself, though brought up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to offer my incense at the shrine of merit. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... workmen. And then she described to me the beautiful marbles she had seen abroad, where the artist's inspiration was so chastely uttered by the purity of his material, declaring that a subject which coloring would debase might be worthily treated by the chisel. And when I exclaimed, that Autumn, with her glowing palette, was as pure an artist as the old sculptor Winter, chiselling in unvaried white, she reminded me that Nature was infinite, handling all themes with equal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... altered the face of the earth and accomplished works which make the creation more perfect. The President of the Court of Appeal has immortalised himself by condemning Ferdinand de Lesseps, for the nations will always demand the name of the man who was not afraid to debase his century by investing with the convict's cap an aged man, whose life redounded to ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... pleased with this request, and gladly gave them his daughter; for in doing so, he does not debase himself, nor diminish his honour in any way. But he says that he had promised her to the Duke of Saxony, and that they would not be able to lead her away unless the emperor should come with a great army, so that the duke would be unable to do him any harm ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... however, the Negroes lost their political power, their property was seized on the plea for delinquent taxes and they were forced into the ghetto of towns and cities, as it became a crime punishable by social proscription to sell Negroes desirable residences. The aim was to debase all Negroes to the status of menial labor in conformity with the usual contention of the South that slavery is the ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... buying a book. Whether it is ever wise to buy a book, as Aulus Gellius used to do, simply because it is cheap, and regardless of its condition, is a debatable point, but to buy one dear at the mere bidding of a bookseller is to debase yourself. The result of this ungodly traffic has been to enlarge for the moment the circle of book-buyers by including in it men with commercial instincts, sham hobbyists. But these impostors have been lately punished in ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... enervating their manhood by every artifice in their power. Thus they have successfully achieved the introduction into Germany of that most degraded form of self-worship—Chauvinism. They poison her morality by wisely organizing that every conscience, every conviction, should have its price. They debase her ideals by decreeing that henceforth the officer is to be the national patron saint to whom the people are to offer up their devotion and worship. The press, literature, art, lecturing-room—all preach the same gospel, that the highest product ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... to absolute princes, which he attributes to himself. Dixi quod Dii estis.'" (N. B. This axiom he applies to the kings of England.) Mr. Secretary Cecil said, "I am servant to the queen, and before I would speak and give consent to a case that should debase her prerogative, or abridge it, I would wish that my tongue were cut out of my head. I am sure there were law-makers before there were laws; (meaning, I suppose, that the sovereign was above the laws.) One gentleman went about to possess ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... beauty for whom, as it were, all nature plays the ham to the point that they say nothing in an ordinary way, imagine nothing in the way in which it is perceived outside of poems, but instead elevate, debase, alter, and clothe everything in a theatrical mask. For this reason we have excluded from this anthology a number of epigrams as too metaphorical: for example, these two by Daniel Heinsius, a man otherwise ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... difficulties, and do not satisfy them by telling us what is really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the King of Prussia; and above all, to King William and the Revolution. My own objections are little more essential: they relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the expression or obscure the meaning. As to your argument@ most of the principal parts are made out with a clearness and evidence that no one would expect, where materials are so scarce. Yet I still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... exclaimed Mr. DeVere. "I never would consent to acting in the moving pictures. I would not so debase my profession—a profession honored by Shakespeare. I never would consent to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... the existing institution is to be maintained in its greatest possible dignity and purity. We believe that with the establishment of truth and justice in the practical affairs of society; with the guarantee of pecuniary independence to all persons, the most fatal temptations to debase and profane this relation will be removed.... But to purer and nobler generations more upright, honorable and generous, we leave all legislation on this subject. It is for us to maintain the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... treasure can provide, what can be brought on by the resurrection of misguided human intelligence, successively smothered and slain hitherto by infamous slavery, by the despicable infectious necessity of armed attack and defense, and by the privileges which debase human worth. You can have no notion what human intelligence may one day find of new adoration. The people's absolute reign will give to literature and the arts—whose harmonious shape is still but roughly sketched—a splendor boundless ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... were about to part, the minister said: "Mr. Lincoln, may I say one thing to you before we separate?" "Certainly; anything you please," was the response. "You have just spoken," said Mr. Gulliver, "of the tendency of political life in Washington to debase the moral convictions of our representatives there, by the admixture of considerations of mere political expediency. You have become, by the controversy with Mr. Douglas, one of our leaders in this great struggle with slavery, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... purifies—it is the lamp of naphtha in the alabaster vase, glowing with fragrant odorous, but shining only through the purest vessels. No; it is not love, and it is not friendship, that Arbaces feels for Ione. Give it no name—earth has no name for it—it is not of earth—why debase it with ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... words. Words are your idols, the bricks out of which your idols and oracles are built. Listen, I will tell you what I have always found in towns. I have found words worshipped as something holy in themselves. Words were used to limit God, debase man. So is it in your town. Once man thought words; now words are beginning to think man. Once man conceived future progress; now your idol Progress is beginning to conceive future man. It is the same as with money; once man made money, but now ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... added: "No man is now so wise and gifted that he can save this Nation from bankruptcy. * * * No borrowing system can save us. The scheme of making greenbacks a legal tender, which enabled the debtor to cheat his creditor, thereby playing the old game of kingcraft, to debase the currency in order to aid the designs of despotism, may float us for a while amidst the fluctuations and bubbles of the day; but as no one possesses the power to repeal the Law of the Almighty, which decrees (and as our ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan |
