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Detest   Listen
verb
Detest  v. t.  (past & past part. detested; pres. part. detesting)  
1.
To witness against; to denounce; to condemn. (Obs.) "The heresy of Nestorius... was detested in the Eastern churches." "God hath detested them with his own mouth."
2.
To hate intensely; to abhor; to abominate; to loathe; as, we detest what is contemptible or evil. "Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell."
Synonyms: To abhor; abominate; execrate. See Hate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Detest" Quotes from Famous Books



... the roughest way possible, but I have always detested pretentious efforts at civilization of an inferior kind. Thus I sat having a meal—eggs, beans, rice—all soaked in toucinho (pork fat) which I detest and loathe. I watched black railway workmen and porters stuffing themselves with food in a most unappetizing way, and making ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... be said or thought; but I tell you honestly that hope is extinguished; and it has grown to me intolerable longer to remain in sight of that treasure for which I cannot cease to wish, and which I never can possess. I've grown, Madam, to detest the place.' ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... having regard to the distance between France and that part of the world. And even if it were necessary to spend ten years of my life awaiting a favourable opportunity of acting against the English, whom I detest because of the injury they have done to our country, I should undertake the task with the utmost satisfaction." Napoleon merely observed that what he desired might ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... Florence, they are rarer, and in all The fair Dominions of the Spanish King, They are never heard of: Nay, those neighbour Countries, Which gladly imitate our other follies, And come at a dear rate to buy them of us, Begin now to detest them. ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont

... her," she replied, "if the union that your father desired is a greater sacrifice than you have strength to make; but do not hope that I shall ever be weak enough to yield to your entreaties. Whether you love her or whether you detest her, Antoinette ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... should meet with one or two neighbours who would recognise me. No more putting up window-blinds, pulling up weeds in the back garden, sticking in seeds which never grew, or errands to suburban shops at midday. How I used in my retirement to detest the sight of those little shopkeepers when the doors of Glyn's Bank were swinging to and fro! I came home dead-beaten now, it is true, but it was a luxury to be dead-beaten, and I slept more soundly than I had ever slept in my life. In about six months my position improved ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... some service or other, is a restless man, always busy about what the devil I don't know. He is constantly carrying about trunks and boxes, with the aid of a sorrowful valet, dressed in black, who appears to detest his position. The captain must devote the morning to doing gymnastics, for I hear him from my room, which is next to his, jumping and dropping weights on the floor, each of which must weigh half a ton, to judge by the ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... become as necessary a part of speech as articles or prepositions. If deprived of them they are crippled; they seem lost, and cannot express themselves. They are therefore unfit for any society but that of loafers and brawlers. Such slavery to an idle and foolish custom Frank had the sense to detest, even while he himself was coming under ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... shrieked the marquis. "I'm far from recovered; I'm worse than ever. I detest congratulations, Monsieur! It's what a lying world always does when you are on the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... believe that," said the officer; "but discipline must be maintained. Look here, my lads: I will serve you if I can. You made a great mistake in deserting. I detest pressing men; but it is done, and it is not my duty to oppose the proceeding. Now, ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... "I detest a married belle," I answered with warmth. "The woman who aims at such a distinction is false, heartless, and unprincipled. I would bless the watching love that shielded me from ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... dissipation which alone could cloud such memories and keep them out of sight for a time; till at last he had come to live in a continual transition from recklessness to fear and from fear to recklessness, and he had grown to detest the very sight of Marcello so heartily that an open quarrel was ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... solicitation, both of hand and mind Depend as much upon fortune as anything else we do Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need Desire of travel Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us Did my discourses came only from my mouth or from my heart Did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory Die well—that is, patiently and tranquilly Difference betwixt memory and understanding Difficulty ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... Mercedes, who will detest you if you have only the misfortune to scratch the skin of her ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... a little myself, Nora. Life doesn't seem much worth living for me as it is, and if your theories are making you detest me ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington

... superior to theirs, and they are always busy, and intermeddling in everybody's affairs; and we hate them—ah, how we do hate them!' In short, a certain leading class at the South, that which moulds and leads the hollow, shrinking, scared thing they called public opinion, have come to hate and detest everything distinctively New English, and finally to make the wicked, traitorous attempt to overturn the Government, which they know received its highest and controlling impulse from the Puritan ideas ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... over Sheila's face. Had she come to this old woman only to make her husband's degradation more complete? Was he to be intimidated into making friends with her by a threat of the withdrawal of that money that Sheila had begun to detest? And this was what her notions of wifely duty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... vainly Is youth with ardor fired; How fondly, how insanely I formerly aspired. A boy may still detest age, But as for me I know, A man has reached his best age ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... Belstone. "The point is, that if my poor brother Timothy had not been mad enough to go to London, he would have been alive at this moment. I have never heard of Dr. Blundell finding it necessary—much as I detest the man—to perform ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... in fact, he was uneasy at the place of Mr. Heartfree's confinement, as it was to be the scene of his future glory, and where consequently he should be frequently obliged to see a face which hatred, and not shame, made him detest ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... unfasten and fumble about his fur garment; but Sintram, filled with disgust and horror, said, "Psha! I detest such animals! Be quiet, and tell me at once who and ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... intercourse with commonplace people was a source of some disagreement between him and Mrs. Shelley, and kept him further apart from Byron than he might otherwise have been. In a valuable letter recently published by Mr. Garnett, he writes:—"I detest all society—almost all, at least—and Lord Byron is the nucleus of all that is hateful and tiresome in it." And again, speaking about his wife to Trelawny, he said:—"She can't bear solitude, nor I society—the quick coupled ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... when applied to totally different circumstances. Victoria is prosperous; Ireland is in distress. Victoria takes pride in the Imperial connection; the difficulty in dealing with Ireland consists in the fact that large bodies of Irishmen detest the British Empire. Victoria has never aspired to be a nation; the best side of Irish discontent consists in enthusiasm for Irish nationality. Above all this, there has never been any lasting feud between England and her Australian dependencies; ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... manner, exclusively to those of their own country, they expect to share in the good offices of other people. Now (said Johnson,) this principle is either right or wrong; if right, we should do well to imitate such conduct; if wrong, we cannot too much detest it."[352] ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... impurity, while the despair which tries to keep it within limits by moderation and indulging it, is a folly and an infatuation, especially when coupled with police licenses and police espionage. Our ladies since 1869 have learned to detest the despotic police and the despotic doctor with an intensity which ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... whom Coleridge detested, or seemed to detest—Paley, Sir Sidney Smith, Lord Hutchinson, (the last Lord Donoughmore,) and Cuvier. To Paley it might seem as if his antipathy had been purely philosophic; but we believe that partly it was personal; and it ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... there was no premeditation. It was a word and a blow. The latter, though inexcusable to the last degree, was given by a ruffian whose class are in the habit of shooting and stabbing one another (let alone strangers, whom they detest) at the slightest provocation. They are not natives of Turkey, but come of strange tribes who live far away and are hired to guard the sheep in the winter months, returning to their homes in the summer. I went myself to the spot where the sad occurrence took place shortly afterwards, and ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... 37th section: Some read secular literature for pleasure, taking delight in the inventions and elegant language of the poets; but others study this literature for the sake of scholarship, that by their reading they may learn to detest the errors of the Gentiles and may devoutly apply what they find useful in them to the use of sacred learning. Such men study secular literature in a laudable ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... I know you!" was all she could gasp, as she bowed herself submissive before him. "I detest you, and shall therefore marry you. Trample upon me!" And he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest, being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... a punch, most respectable and gay. We ladies went with Major Parr, Lieutenant Boyd, and the Ensign you so detest, to view the hilarity, but not to join, it being a sociable occasion for officers only, the kegs of rum being offered by General Clinton—a gentleman not famed for his ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... bayonet through them"—private Johann Wenger to his German sweetheart, dated Peronne, March 16, 1915. Germany, whose newspaper the Cologne Volkszettung deplored the doings of her Kultur on land and sea thus: "Much as we detest it as human beings and as Christians, yet we exult ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... as I have told you, I detest her. Once Maurice has her money safely in his hands, I shall know how to deal with her. A little, ignorant, detestable child! I tell you, Marian, that the time will come when I shall pay her out for her ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... childless!"—But no historian speaks of this pretended inclination, and is it probable that Mary ever thought proper to call to the succession of the English throne the son of the Spanish Monarch? This marriage had made her nation detest her, and in the last years of her life she could be little satisfied with him, from his marked indifference for her. She well knew that the Parliament would never consent to exclude her sister Elizabeth, whom the nobility loved for being more friendly to the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... world of plenty every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the rudiments of education. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" when one-tenth of the human family, booted and spurred, ride the masses to destruction. I detest the words "royalty" and "nobility," and all the ideas and institutions based on their recognition. In April the great meeting in Hyde Park occurred—a meeting of protest against the Irish Coercion Bill. It was encouraging to see that there ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... there is anything I detest, loathe, and despise, it is people who get up in the morning feeling full of humor. We will go to Cambridge, missing the Little Choptank, and cross the Choptank on the bridge. Route 50 goes almost straight north. Is that more ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... any thing like a jesting tone; for we were now wet to the skin: and of all situations, I believe a damp one to be the least favourable to jocularity. I confess a certain partiality for adventures, when they are not carried too far. There is nothing I detest like a monotonous wearisome Quaker's journey, with every thing as tame, and dull, and uniform, as at a meeting of broad-brims; but to be overtaken by darkness and a deluge in the middle of a maple-swamp, to be unable to go three steps on one side without falling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... whose indifference to the party politics of the day, as well as to the gossip of the neighbourhood, made him an impartial, if apathetic, judge of the merits of such an encounter, "you have both sufficiently blackballed each other, and proved how cordially you detest each other, and how wicked you think each other. For my part, my hate is still running in such a strong current against the fellows who have broken my frames that I have none to spare for my private acquaintance, and still less for such a vague thing as ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Sea a sea of Hollands gin, The liquor (when alive) whose very smell I did detest—did loathe—yet, for the sake Of Thomas Thumb, I would be ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... have me marry a sot, who is twice my age, and whom I detest, in order that you may have a paltry advantage over one who, when she calls, you kiss and use the most endearing epithets in your vocabulary, in order to express your friendship for her. To tell you the truth, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... labour which above all others I detest. My metier is to write—one day I even hope to become a great writer. But what I never hope to become is a culinary expert. Should you command your cook to turn out a short story she could not suffer more in the agonies of composition than I do in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various

... do not want to go, one hairs-breadth beyond what Mr. Roosevelt said in condemnation of the lynchers. Further, I fully realise that the best men in the South detest lynching and are as anxious to put down lynching as indeed were the best men in the South to get rid of slavery. I want, however, to say with Roosevelt that whatever else is right, and whatever ought to be the relations between white men and ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... being covered with rosework of exquisite delicacy. This comprises my suite of apartments, for I never could understand why the little space that is given one in this world to dream, to sleep, to live, to die in, should be divided into a set of compartments like a dressing-case. I detest hedges, partitions ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... am going to be ill-natured. You have shown signs of smugness, a quality which I detest. I am going to rob you of some part of your self-satisfaction. Of course I killed Jordan. I killed him in the very chair in which you ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... tacxmento. Detail detalo. Details (minutes) detaleto. Detain malhelpi, deteni. Detect eltrovi. Deter malhelpi. Deteriorate difekti. Determine decidi. Determination decideco. Determined decida. Detest malami. Dethrone detroni. Detonation eksplodbruo. Detract kalumnii. Detriment malprofito, perdo. Detrimental malhelpa. Devastate dezertigi, ruinigi. Develope vastigi. Development vastigo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... no stranger," she said coolly. "Nor have I spoken a word to you that is not known already to all about me. My cousin, Ruiz Rios, whom I distrust and detest; the Captain Escobar who is a small man and a murderer, the other men whom I have gathered about me, they all know, for in this, if in nothing else, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... John, I fear I can walk no farther," said Phyllis. "We must go to a hotel after all, though I detest the idea. My shoes are ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens

... could feel that his eyes were on me. And I hated him. It was all well enough for Jane to say he was handsome. She wasn't going to have to marry him. I detest dimples in chins. I always have. And anybody could see that it was his first mustache, and soft, and that he took it round like a mother pushing a new baby in a ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... moment a powerful revulsion of feeling toward the girl, who was undeniably involved in some exceptionally deep-laid plan, crept throughout his being. Not only does a man detest being used as a tool and played upon like any common dunce, but he also feels an utter chagrin at being baffled in his labors. Apparently he had played the fool, and also he had lost the vital evidence ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... was to seize my hand and cover it with tearful kisses. I detest any exhibition of emotion, and this girl's utter abandonment to whatever grief or terror was hers irritated me. But I tried not to show my feelings. I merely patted her head ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... I detest an apology. The world is full of people who are always making trouble and apologizing for it. If a man respects me, he will not give himself occasion for apology. An offense can not be wiped out in that way. If it could, we would substitute ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... against Atheisme (1652), and again in Divine Dialogues (1668), refutes Lucretius by asserting the usefulness of all created things in God's Providence and the essential design in Nature. His reference in Democritus Platonissans (st. 20) is typical: "though I detest the sect/ of Epicurus for their manners vile,/ Yet what is true I may not well reject." In bringing together Democritus' theories and neo-Platonic thought, More obviously has attempted reconciliation of two exclusive world ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... use of women distressing themselves with such things?" said Mrs. Vosburgh, irritably. "I can't bear to think of war and its horrors, except as they give spice to a story. Our whole trouble is a big political squabble, and you know I detest politics. It is just as Mr. Lanniere says,—if our people had only let slavery alone all would have gone on veil. The leaders on both sides will find out before the summer is over that they have gone too far and fast, and they had better settle their differences with words rather than blows. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... is another man; but I did not send for him, for I hate the very sight of his face. Instead of predicting good, he makes a point of foretelling evil; I detest that man." But his more amiable and pious friend said, "Pray, do not speak so, your Highness: it is not right." Seeing that he was unwilling to go until he had consulted the prophet, the King of ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... a question from her young husband, Zoe said, "No, no. I shall not wear mourning! I detest it, and so did papa. He made me promise I would not wear it for him. I shall dress in white whenever it is suitable. That is if you like it," she added quickly. "Oh, I shall try to please you always, dear Edward, ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... and, Merton, I beg you to recollect that I detest bantering,—it is so excessively ungenteel. No wonder you look nervous and ashamed, after your recent very surprising manifestation of—well, I might as well say what I mean—of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... not bark at the Spaniards only, in any country, but at those who are strange to them. Neither do the Indians detest the fathers from birth. The fact that the Indians yield to anyone who assumes a boasting attitude, especially if he be drunk, and have a knife, is not so much cowardice as prudence. "I believe that the reverend father was very melancholy, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... beautiful and apparently artless young creature, not noble, how that affair was managed, for there is no harm done I am sure, said I: "Why no," replied she, "no great harm to be sure: except wearisome attentions from a man one cares little about: for my own part," continued she, "I detest the custom, as I happen to love my husband excessively, and desire nobody's company in the world but his. We are not people of fashion though you know, nor at all rich; so how should we set fashions for our betters? They would only ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... Queen; we may discover, when we arrive, that she has raised the standards of admission, and requires us to 'back out' of the throne-room. I don't propose to do that without London training. Besides, I detest crowds, and I never go to my own President's receptions; and I have a headache, anyway, and I don't feel like coping with the Reverend Ronald to-night!" (Lady Baird was to take us under her wing, and her nephew was to escort us, Sir ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the actual had taken the place of the sentimental. Her class-mates could not forbear teasing her a little. It was too bad of them; but then they had resented her entire pre-appropriation of the new-comer, and, moreover, had one or two old scores from last term to pay off. Ulyth began to detest the very name of "the Prairie Flower". She wondered how she could ever ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... torture you, meanwhile arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of married life. She will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at home. She will be dull when you are merry, and will make you detest her merriment when you are moody. Your two faces will present a ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... "Because I detest prejudice!" With this assertion of liberal feeling she pointed to Alban, standing quietly apart at the further end of the room. "There is the most prejudiced man living—he hates Mrs. Rook. Would you like to be introduced to him? You're a philosopher; you may ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... faults before he commits them; do not blame him when once they are committed; you would only stir his self-love to mutiny. We learn nothing from a lesson we detest. I know nothing more foolish than the phrase, "I told you so." The best way to make him remember what you told him is to seem to have forgotten it. Go further than this, and when you find him ashamed of having refused ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... of this is only a small part of the total effort that must be made—I think chiefly by the local governments throughout the Nation—if we expect to reduce the toll of crime that we all detest. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson

... All of us detest ourselves now and again, or at least we think we do. It comes to the same thing, but you—you ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... yet each of those deluded young men saw something angelic about me, and would insist on asking me to share his lot. They kept themselves sternly blind to the fact that I detest with equal vigor broth and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... could have got along with her," Leslie said decidedly. "I am glad we never took her up. I detest her and Vera Mason, too, but not half so hard as I do Miss Bean and her satellites." Leslie invariably said "Bean" instead of Dean ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... thus addressed: "Wretch, provoke me not, lest in my wrath I abandon thee, and detest thee as much as heretofore I have wonderfully loved thee, and lest I scatter destructive hate in the midst of the Trojans and Greeks, and thou perish by ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... mused aloud, "though she did not inspire me with love. Beauty: that is the true religion, that is the shrine of worship, as the Greeks understood it; beauty of woman. Woman was born to express beauty, man to express strength. We detest weakness in a man, and a homely woman is a crime. And so De Brissac passed violently? And his oaths of vengeance were breaths on a mirror. Ah well, I had ceased to hate him these twenty years. Did he love yonder woman, or was his fancy like mine, ephemeral? ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... she did so always when both father and brother were out. Many things I do not like, but what I most detest is the monopolizing of favors behind some one else's back. Bad as my relations were with my brother, still I did not feel justified in accepting candies or color-pencils from Kiyo without my brother's knowledge. ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... Discobolus recover when he has let go the quoit?"—or haunted by thoughts even more frivolous (though not any less aesthetically irrelevant!) like "How wonderfully like Mrs So and So!" "The living image of Major Blank!"—"How I detest auburn people ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... career of a remarkable man. Whatever the Chinese thought of the Manchus, they could not but detest the cruel bandit whom they supplanted, and who, but for their aid and the courage of a single opponent, would have placed himself upon the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... poor people—I positively do! I despise their pale faces and cadaverous expression. I detest straggling little girls who come up to you and say their mothers have been bedridden for three months, and all their little brothers and sisters are down with the fever. I know it's a lie. I can detect at once the professional whine, and am certain the story has been repeated ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... England Society to respond for him. It is probably due to that element in the New Englander that he delights in provoking controversy. The Governor is a Democrat, and I am a Republican. Whatever he believes in I detest; whatever he admires I hate. The manner in which this toast is received leads me to believe that in the New England Society his administration is unanimously approved. Governor Robinson, if I understand correctly his views, would rather that any other man should have ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... "Politics? I detest it. It is all stealing and calling names, isn't it? And something dreadful is always going to happen if somebody or other isn't elected, or is elected, to something or other. And then, whether he is ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... the constitution. In proportion to the progress of reason and philosophy, which have made great advances in this kingdom [**kingfrom in original], superstition loses ground; ancient prejudices give way; a spirit of freedom takes the ascendant. All the learned laity of France, detest the hierarchy as a plan of despotism, founded on imposture and usurpation. The protestants, who are very numerous in the southern parts, abhor it with all the rancour of religious fanaticism. Many of the Commons, enriched by commerce ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... the work of three men labouring among an unstated population with the work of two other men working in an unstated population; the moment that the proportions are worked out the cases can be compared. But some men detest this purely quantitative comparison. They insist, and rightly, that there is no true equality in the comparison. One man differs from another man and his work differs from the work of the other man: over large areas it is often the work of one man among many which really saves the ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen

... Edgar, I congratulate you heartily. You can now ride to the wars when the king's banner is spread to the winds, and do your duty to your country, but there will be no occasion for you to become a mere knight adventurer—a class I detest, ever ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder, and to kill men, against whom they have no cause of complaint, as indifferently as a butcher would strike down a ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... feelings for granted—but never other people's! She says she doesn't love him—and that's the reason. And I straightway don't believe her. What snobs we all are! One's astonishment betrays one's standard. Gerald says, 'What have the poor to do with fine feelings?' and I detest him for it. But ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... came to her in her loneliness, when she was homesick and heartsick; and I came, a kindred nature, of a race more like her own; and she saw in me the only one of all around her whom it was possible not to detest, ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... is frail and soft, accustomed to rise late; it becomes weak if not nourished by flesh meat, and is subject to neuralgia at any change of the hour of meals. I should never be able to hold out down there with vegetables cooked in warm oil or in milk; first I detest oily cookery, and I hate milk still ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... so—He wears glasses, and has nasty, scrabbly bits of fur on his face, which he thinks is a beard, and he is pompous and he talks like this," and she imitated a precise Boston voice. "'My dear Sabine—have you considered,' and he is lanky—and Oh! I detest him, and I can't imagine why I ever said I would marry him—but if I don't, what am I to do with Aunt Jemima for four years! ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... patriotism, bore the patrician stamp. Yet he loved liberty and he loved the people, because they were the English people. The effusive humanitarianism of to-day had no part in him, and the democracy of to-day would detest him. Yet to the middle-class England of his own time, that unenfranchised England which had little representation in Parliament, he was a voice, an inspiration, and a tower of strength. He would not flatter the people; but, turning with contempt from the tricks and devices of official ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... "I detest anything that has to do with gratitude," Wilfrid appended, "pray give me none. Why did you go away ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... lived most of my life in a small inland town, where people were old fashioned enough to believe in honor and upright conduct, and from what I had heard of Frank Miller I was led to despise his vices and detest his character, and yet here were women whom I believed to be good and virtuous, smiling in his face, and graciously receiving his attentions. I cannot help thinking ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... remember what suits one's opponents had originally discarded, what it would be like to have some one persistently reminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simply maddening. If Eric did that I should detest him." ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... (for "the slave property is worth a billion dollars"), "fashion, philosophy," and even "the theology of the day," were enlisted in favour of this opinion. And it met with no resistance. "You yourself may detest slavery; but your neighbour has five or six slaves, and he is an excellent neighbour, or your son has married his daughter, and they beg you to help save their property, and you vote against your interests and principle to oblige a neighbour, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... creed. In appearance he was a little younger than his years, lithe, long in the leg, with a thin brown face and grey eyes which twinkled with humour. Harold Hazlewood was intensely proud of him, though he professed to detest his profession. And no doubt he found at times that the mere healthful, well-groomed look of his son was irritatingly conventional. What was quite wholesome could never be quite right in the older man's ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... the "wrinkled-up nut" of his Puzzlehead boyhood. "I'm not sticking up for them. I detest their methods as much as you do. I think they're monstrous and indefensible. All I said was that, things being as they are, you can't help seeing that their horrible ways are bringing the vote a jolly sight nearer than it's ever been before. Millions of people ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... don't know,' returned Audrey, who could be a trifle dense when she chose. 'I do not think Mr. Blake is a lady's man, if that is what you mean. Don't you detest the genus, Michael?' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... obey them in all things which are not repugnant to the word of God; to pour out prayers for them, that God would vouchsafe to direct them in all their actions, and that we may under them lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Wherefore we detest the Anabaptists and all turbulent men who cast off superior dominions and magistrates, pervert laws and judgments, make all goods common, and finally abolish or confound all orders and degrees which God hath constituted for ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... lacking the education and refinements of polite society, but shrewd and experienced in the affairs of the world, the little man found his greatest enjoyment in the family circle that he had been instrumental in founding. Being no longer absorbed in business, he had come to detest its every detail, and so allowed his bankers to care for his fortune and his brother-in-law to disburse his income, while he himself strove to enjoy life in a shy and boyish fashion that was as unusual in a man of his wealth as it was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... whosoever he be, and of what, nation soever that hath forged this device. Count Hohenlo doth know I never gave him cause to fear me so much. There were ways and means offered me to have quitted him of the country if I had so liked. This new monstrous villany which is now found out I do hate and detest, as I would look for the right judgment of God to fall upon myself, if I had but once imagined it. All this makes good proof of Wilkes's good dealing with me, that hath heard of so vile and villainous a reproach of me, and never gave me knowledge. But I trust your Lordship shall ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... for me, as I for you, does not that passion stand in your way like a Balaam's ass? and am I not Balaam's ass golden-mouthed occasionally? But mostly, do you not detest ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence

... the word, which is like the body; in uniting oneself with the Church, which is the mystical substance of Christ; and in suffering for Him and with Him, this last communion of agony that is your portion, madame, and is the most perfect communion of all. If you heartily detest your crime and love God with all your soul, if you have faith and charity, your death is a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... so. When her husband left us alone, I said, humbly and tenderly, that I knew I was a monster, and that she must detest me. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Epicurus, or of what he took to be his doctrine, was certainly sincere. The poet of the life to come could not but detest the denier of immortality; and a world neither made nor ruled by God, no less than the vulgar objects of earthly life which the system appeared to countenance, could not but be intensely repugnant to a nature like his. But if we look ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... the alcove and the confessional, only going forth from their chambers by night as fireflies glisten, and living on secret love and daily gossip. What can these do in their gaunt, dull villas—they who detest the sough of the wind and the sight of a tree, who flee from a dog and scream at a tempest, who will not read, and whose only lore is the sweet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... hope I have said or done nothing that calls for any such observation, Mr Doyle. If there is a vice I detest—or against which my whole public life has been a protest—it is the vice of hypocrisy. I would almost rather be ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... Ireland, and indeed, speaking generally, all men of property in Ireland, whether Protestant or Catholic, detest Home Rule. They hate the new constitution, they protest against the new constitution, they assert that they will to the utmost of their ability resist the introduction and impede the working of the new constitution. Their abhorrence of Home Rule ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... may be a ditcher in good earnest on an estate no longer his; but here we fleet the time carelessly, as in the golden world. And you ask me to join a raucous political association for an object you detest in your heart, merely because you want to swim with the turbid democratic current! You are an historian, Maitland: did you ever know this policy succeed? Did you ever know the respectables prosper when ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... into an opinion that the construction of the new fabric was an object of admiration, as well as the demolition of the old. Mr. Fox, however, has explained himself; and it would be too like that captious and cavilling spirit which I so perfectly detest, if I were to pin down the language of an eloquent and ardent mind to the punctilious exactness of a pleader. Then Mr. Fox did not mean to applaud that monstrous thing which, by the courtesy of France, they call a Constitution. I easily believe it. Far from meriting the praises ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... how I detest it! In the juvenile brain it conjures up mental punishment in the shape of a scolding, for to be "lectured" is to be verbally flogged, and the wrathful words that smite the youthful ear carry with them just as sharp a sting as the knots of the lash that fall on ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... don't get angry—" she continued, as I slightly withdrew from her side, in momentary pique at hearing the curate's part taken.—"I like to hear you talk of such things, Frank, far better than if you only spoke to me of commonplace matters, as most gentlemen do, or dosed me with flattery, which I detest!" ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... of course, he's a good-enough fellow," said Madariaga, excusing himself. "But he comes from a land that I detest." ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley made paper boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and with all this mass of evidence before me, I had expected Bellairs to be entirely of one piece, subdued to what he worked in, a spy all through. As I abominated the man's trade, so I had expected to detest the man himself; and behold, I liked him. Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires, all sensibility and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without parts, quite without courage. His boldness was despair; the gulf behind him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a murder ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... said, hotly. "And I detest all these Labour people. Vile creatures.... Of course I don't mean people like Rodney—the University men. They're merely amateurs. But these dreadful Trades Union men, with their walrus moustaches.... Why can't they shave, like ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... from her own lips. The presence of the figure—the figure of a man—on the opposite side of the hedge, was also inexplicable. I should have guessed it to be Mannering, but I would have staked my life upon Evie's truthfulness when she had told me how much she had learned to detest him. Besides, her delight was obvious when I arrived ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... it would get dark so quickly?" said Anita Derby, fearfully. "If there is one thing I detest it ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... codification of himself in the final terms of philosophy. It is that kernel of personality which inclines him in this direction or that. It is this kernel of personality which turns him in the first place to philosophy, if he be a philosopher; or which makes him detest abstract speculation, if he is another kind of man. It is prior to philosophy. It is a condition of its being. It determines, surely, even the character of a man's metaphysic, setting him, not to range like an aimless ghost of thought across the Universe, but to express ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... here it is at the very beginning—November 1, 18——. How faded the ink looks! Let me read it: "To-day I told mother I meant to attend a course of medical lectures: we had a scene, and she called in Cousin Jane to reason with me. How I detest Cousin Jane! She is nothing but a mass of orthodox dogmatism. Of course we quarreled over it, and she ended by telling me I was disgracing the family, and was no true woman. Well, we shall see which of us has the truer comprehension ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... little indiscreet," pursued M. Leminof; "but M. Lerins is responsible for them. His last letter caused me great uneasiness. He introduces you to me as an exceptionable being; it is natural that I should wish to enlighten myself, for I detest mysteries and surprises. I once heard of a little Abyssinian prince, who to testify his gratitude to the missionary who had converted him, sent to him, as a present, a large chest of scented wood. When the missionary opened the ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... be wrong, I leave it to God alone to mend, or reform them, which, whenever he does, it must be by greater instruments than I am. I am not a Papist, for I renounce the temporal invasions of the papal power, and detest their arrogated authority over Princes and States. I am a Catholic in the strictest sense of the word. If I was born under an absolute Prince, I would be a quiet subject; but, I thank God, I was not. I have a due sense of the excellence ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... made, but he pretended to be terribly fond of her, and was always calling her his "little fairy" and his "heart's delight," so that the silly woman always forgave him. He tried to kiss Kate the first day, which made her detest him. ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... I tell you what she is—she's a cold-blooded pedantic prig, and a systematic flirt! I loathe and detest a prig, but a ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various

... some years, however, so little was there of greater importance to engage their attention in naval affairs, that this sensible order was rescinded, and the original one renewed in full force, and, of course, with similar bad effect, as only those captains who detest smoking—an invisible minority—or those who look for promotion from scrupulous obedience to insignificant details—an equally invisible minority—act up to the said instructions. Nevertheless, so important an element in naval warfare ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... I detest the sea! But Clara has.' Everyone looked at Clara, who in her turn looked in naive bewilderment from ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... think it would be extremely difficult to detest Miss Phebe under even the must aggravating circumstances," said Halloway, smiling frankly at her. "Hallo, who ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... love, accepted his offer. There was, it is true, an obstacle in the way. She was already provided with a husband. But the barbarian queen had learned the art of getting rid of inconvenient husbands. Having, perhaps, grown to detest the tool of her revenge, now that the purpose of her marriage with him had failed, she set herself to the task of disposing of Helmichis, this time using the cup instead of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... Clement, the author of the Stromata, has produced "Tares and dregs": the other Fathers of this age, Apostolic men to be sure, "have left blasphemies and monstrosities to posterity." In Tertullian they eagerly seize upon what they have learned from us, in common with us, to detest; but they should remember that his book On Prescriptions, which has so signally smitten the heretics of our times, was never found fault with. How finely, how, clearly, has Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto pointed out beforehand the power of Antichrist, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... John's illness had not prevented my coming out last year, I might have gone into the world like other girls. Now I see the worth of a young lady's triumph—the disgusting speculation! I detest it.' ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Marphisa yearn To execute more vengeance, — lest she say, — She one and all will slaughter and will burn, — The townsmen all were advised to the sway And cruel statute of that tyrant stern; But did, as others mostly do, that best Obey the master whom they most detest. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... home!" she kept repeating to herself. "I never will see one of those girls again. Oh, dear, dear! If I only hadn't gone on that sleigh-ride; that abominable Mamie Smythe is always getting the girls in trouble: I perfectly detest her. What will my ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... candle-snuff, a mouse, a toad, or some trifle of that kind floating in it: in a word, to know what I am about to swallow. Just so I deal with men, when they approach me in a way that seeks connexion: for I dont like changing, and I greatly detest the fallings out and fallings in again which seem to make up the business and pleasure of so many in this life. While I was blackguarding you and you staring and laughing at me, I was looking down through your contents from your frothy powdered head down to the very bottom; and so, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... eyes on her own and then went on with a vibration in his voice: "I've imperilled my immortal soul, or at least bemuddled my intelligence, by all the things I don't care for that I've tried to do, and all the things I detest that I've tried to be, and all the things I never can be that I've tried to look as if I were—all the appearances and imitations, the pretences and hypocrisies in which I've steeped myself to the eyes; and at the end of it (it serves me right!) my ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... its immediate form is the fullest and freest development of the individual life. We all three hate equally and sympathetically the spectacle of human beings blown up with windy wealth and irresponsible power as cruelly and absurdly as boys blow up frogs; we all three detest the complex causes that dwarf and cripple lives from the moment of birth and starve and debase great masses of mankind. We want as universally as possible the jolly life, men and women warm-blooded and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... and without blame, that I like a butterfly better than a bettle, or a trembling aspen better than a grim Scots fir, that never wags a leaf—or that of all the wood, brass, and wire that ever my father's fingers put together, I do hate and detest a certain huge old clock of the German fashion, that rings hours and half hours, and quarters and half quarters, as if it were of such consequence that the world should know it was wound up and going. Now, dearest lady, I wish you would only compare that clumsy, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... word," he said. "I might kill a man who named me that—depending on the man. My brother I would kill for it—a stranger perhaps not. Those men are Zingarri, who detest to sleep between brick walls. They have a tent pitched in ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... led astray, Aunt Caroline, and there is nothing to pardon. I am twenty-one years old now and surely can judge for myself whether or no I wish to marry a man—and I have decided I do not intend to marry Eustace Medlicott. I almost feel I detest him." ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... consigned Boris to be my victim. I am tsarevich. Enough! 'Twere shame for me To stoop before a haughty Polish dame. Farewell for ever; the game of bloody war, The wide cares of my destiny, will smother, I hope, the pangs Of love. O, when the heat Of shameful passion is o'erspent, how then Shall I detest thee! Now I leave thee—ruin, Or else a crown, awaits my head in Russia; Whether I meet with death as fits a soldier In honourable fight, or as a miscreant Upon the public scaffold, thou shalt not Be my companion, ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin

... pleasure from this party of pleasure, but the reverse, as it would compel her to be for some hours in the company of a man she had so much reason to detest, sat in the stern sheets, with the fat clergyman directly in front, and forming an impenetrable rampart against the impertinent gallantries of the coxcomb Gregorio. She wore no jewels or ornaments, and from her pensive ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... tear-stained thing, white-robed, with her hair down her back; I could call her by a hundred names, in a hundred languages, Melisande, Elizabeth, Juliet, Butterfly, Phedre, Minnehaha, etc. Each new time I hear her voice, with its faint clang of tears, my heart grows big and hot, and my bones melt. I detest her, but it is no good. My heart begins to swell like a bud under the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... say they detest, Yet allus like that chap the best 'At gives em twice as mich as th' rest? ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... tortuous course of assumptions and usurpations, and it was not strange that he should expect them to turn towards him in choosing a leader to continue the contest. But it is an old maxim, repeatedly illustrated, that while men are ready to profit by the treason, they instinctively detest the traitor. Mr. Johnson had embittered the party he had sought to serve. By his attempt to re-establish the political power of the elements which had carried the South into rebellion he had acquired some friends in that section, but his intemperate zeal had so greatly exasperated ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... is it?" exclaimed Nora, irritated beyond her power of endurance. "Why don't you speak out, instead of stuttering in that fashion? I always did detest stuttering." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... people who project the happiness of their own lives into a general good will, or their unhappiness into suspicion and hate, there are the outwardly happy people who are brutal everywhere but in their own circle, as well as the people who, the more they detest their families, their friends, their jobs, the more they ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... statesmen live by public favour, as ours do, this is a hard saying, and it requires to be carefully limited. I do not mean that our statesmen should assume a pedantic and doctrinaire tone with the English people; if there is anything which English people thoroughly detest, it is that tone exactly. And they are right in detesting it; if a man cannot give guidance and communicate instruction formally without telling his audience "I am better than you; I have studied this ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... resumed, turning smilingly towards P'ing Erh, "You know well enough how many ways and means I've had all these years to devise in order to effect retrenchment, and how there isn't, I may safely aver, a single soul in the whole household, who doesn't detest me behind my back. But now that I'm astride on the tiger's back, (I must go on; for if I put my foot on the ground, I shall be devoured). It's true, my tactics have been more or less seen through, but there's no help for it; I can't very well become more open-handed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... that is plausible and insinuating; but to no purpose. She was still upon her guard; all her suspicions were awake; and her integrity and her innocence were as vigilant as ever. Incapable of effecting any thing under that form she had learned to detest, I laid it aside. I assumed a form most prepossessing and most amiable in her eyes. Surely if her breast had not been as cold as the snow that clothes the summit of Snowdon; if her virtue had not been impregnable as the groves of Mona, a stratagem, omnipotent and impenetrable ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin



Words linked to "Detest" :   abhor, scorn, love, contemn, disdain, loathe, execrate, detestation, despise, hate, dislike, abominate



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