"Mean-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blessing of the New. These qualities that were going to produce ultimate success—conscientiousness, generosity, modesty, public spirit—they are, after all, as much gifts as any other gifts of intellect and bodily skill. How often has one seen boys who are immodest, idle, frivolous, mean-spirited, and ungenerous attain to the opposite virtues? Not often, I confess. Who does not know of abundant instances of boys who have been selfish, worthless, grasping, unprincipled, who have yet achieved success intellectually ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... time against France with the continent at its feet. If moralists or political theorists find much to condemn in the ends to which British policy was directed, they must admit that the qualities displayed were not such as can belong to a simply corrupt and mean-spirited government. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... man named Thorvald, the son of Eystein, bynamed the Tinker: he was a wealthy man, a smith, and a skald; but he was mean-spirited for all that. His brother Thorvard lived in the north country at Fliot (Fleet); and they had many kinsmen,— the Skidings they were called,—but ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... "You are a mean-spirited creature!" she said, her eyes flashing hatred at him as she spoke. "You have chained me to you all these years, although you know that I loathe the very sight of you, that I have worshiped Henri, my lover, all the while. Who but a base, vile wretch would ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Christian theology as something too full of evasions and sophistries to be reasoned about. The men who made it, he felt sure, were like the men who taught it. The noblest could be damned, according to their theory, while almost any mean-spirited parasite could be saved by faith. "Faith," as he saw it exemplified in the faculty of the Temple school, was a substitute for most of the manly qualities he admired. Young men went into the ministry because ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... I have seen you pull out your purse, or count your money, an amusement you were very fond of in prosperity." "I own all this," said the Chevalier, "but yet I will force you to confess, that you are but a mean-spirited fellow upon this occasion. What would have become of you if you had been reduced to the situation I was in at Lyons, four days before I arrived here? I will ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a prosperous estate. But before Marcus could talk plainly the crash had come. It seemed incredible that the Emperor in Rome should have known anything about the owners of a farm in Como. But Domitian's evil nature lay like a blight over the whole empire, and his cruelty, mean-spirited as well as irrational, was as likely to touch the low as the high. Angered by some officer's careless story of an insolent soldier's interview with Marcus's grandfather, he used a spare moment to order the confiscation of the rich acres and ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... under existing circumstances, to fail. The other is of a more sanguine type, and believes in the power of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice to transform the existing facts into something better, and to win success against all odds. Statesmen of the former type are always attacked as unpatriotic and mean-spirited; those of the latter, as unpractical and reckless. There is truth and falsehood in both accusations: but since no statesman has ever combined all the elements of statesmanship in a perfect and just proportion, and since neither ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... his father's first remark to him was doubtless an inquiry as to his opinion on the subject of Latin and Greek in our colleges. It's all right to be this kind of a baby if you like that sort of thing. For my part, I rejoice to think that there was once a day when I thought my father a mean-spirited assassin, because he wouldn't tie a string to the moon and let me make it rise and set as suited my sweet will. Babies of Mr. Pedagog's sort are fortunately like angel's visits, few and far between. In spite of his stand in the matter, ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... thought it braver to save than to spend it; and a questionable humanity has undoubtedly led us sometimes into feeble sentimentalities, and false estimates of its value. We have been in danger of thinking too much of it, and of being mean-spirited in its use. But the first sacrifice for which war calls is life; and we must revise our estimates of its value, if we would conduct our war to a happy end. To gain that end, no sacrifice can be too precious or too costly. The shudder with which we heard the first report that three thousand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the Host, no! The man is bewitched by that plausible rogue, Francesco. Far from resenting the fellow's treatment of him, he follows and obeys his every word, like the mean-spirited ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... far, then her brow flushed, and I could see there was an inward struggle. Then she rose from the form, and laying down her work, knelt and kissed the ground at Mother Ada's feet. I could hear Sister Roberga whisper to Sister Philippa, "That mean-spirited fool!" ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... noses. Dr. Washingtonian chose his leaders for their great vices. The honors bestowed upon his followers were measured by their crimes, and that man who could boast the largest accumulation was the hero of the hour. A decent, sober man was a mean-spirited fellow; while he who had brought the grey hair of parents in sorrow to the grave, wasted his patrimony and murdered his wife and children, was "King o' men for a' that." The heroines were those women who had smilingly endured every wrong, every indignity that brutality ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Porter and his crowd get what is coming to them," thought the money-lender's son. It pleased him greatly to think his school might be beaten. Which shows how really mean-spirited Nat was. ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... dishonourable, as well as so spiritually perilous, comes to be faced and gone through with positively on a ground of high principle, and, indeed, of stern moral necessity. So deceitful is the human heart that you could not believe what compelling reasons such a mean-spirited man will face you with as to why he should leave all the ways he once so delighted in for a piece of bread, and for the smile of the open enemies of his church, and his faith, not to say his Saviour. ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... precious Men you are— the King wou'd be finely hop'd up with such Rascals, that for fear of a little hanging would desert his Cause; a Pox upon you all, I here discharge ye— —Take back your Coward Hands and give me Hearts. [Flings 'em a Scroll. I scorn to fight with such mean-spirited Rogues; I did but try your ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... alongside, who did not like the Irish, told her that what the girl wanted was a shilling or two. Servants in Europe were always beggars, and the Irish people especially. But she wouldn't give the girl a quarter if it were her hat. What was the use of making people so mean-spirited? ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... convened, for the purpose of considering the subject of properties. A grand demonstration, with a procession of the members, is resolved upon: it is to come off upon Whit-Monday. In spite of the remonstrance of a mean-spirited Mr Nobody—who proposes that, by way of distinguishing themselves from the rest of the thousand-and-one clubs who will promenade upon that occasion, with music, flags, banners, brass-bands, big drums, sashes, aprons, and white wands, they, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... think of him if he knew what a mean-spirited coward he was? Well, it was impossible to tell him now. It would upset the whole ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... remained outside the adjoining Dominion, and in their deadliest form in the case of the Transvaal, where "Home Rule" was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union. Unionists ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... attributing arrogance,—though, after this meek confession and repentance, if you do not forgive me freely and fully, for past and future, your secondary will be a great deal worse than my original sin;—but you never would accuse me of "an arrogance that disdains docility," if you had seen the mean-spirited way in which I sit down by the side of an editor and let him ram-page over my manuscript. Out fly my best thoughts, my finest figures, my sharpest epigrams,—without chloroform,—and I give no sign. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... was at least a great lord, and the army which he commanded may have warranted his extravagance; but what are we to think when we find the base and mean-spirited Fouquet giving himself the same princely airs? During certain festivities prepared for Louis XIV., Fouquet placed in the room of every courtier of the king's suite, a purse of gold for gambling, in case any of them should be short of money. Well might Duclos ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... that I have condemned myself pitilessly. Stinging remorse for each new fault made me swear to lead a better life, to sin no more. What was the result of these periodical repentances? At the first temptation I forgot my remorse and good resolutions. I am weak and mean-spirited, and you are not firm enough to govern my vacillating nature. While my intentions are good, my actions are villainous. The disproportion between my extravagant desires, and the means of gratifying them, is too great ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... rather sin against thee, an' it were a sin, Richard. Were it wrong to think I would rather be in thy hands, sin or none, or sin and all, than in those of a mean-spirited knave whom I despised? Besides I might one day, somehow or other, make it up to thee—but I could not to him. But was it sin, Richard?—tell me that. I have thought and thought over the matter until my mind is maze. Thou seest it was my lord marquis's business, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... to have taken every occasion of showing her contempt for the mean-spirited wretch to whom she had given her hand: but at present her treatment only incited the King's ardor of affection: he formed more schemes of pleasure for her, and turned a deaf ear to all complaints ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... hunt for him, and found him at a house near the village, as free from hydrophobia as I am. To make sure, I traced the dog that bit him back to its owner's hut in the mountains, and found it there, sneaking around the lot and looking as vicious and mean-spirited as ever. Its master said the dog that was shot came from the other side of the mountains, and was worth a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... "new king over Egypt," influenced by an ill-founded jealousy of the Israelites, adopted one of those measures to which weak and wicked princes are sometimes excited by an unhappy combination of bad counsel, and mean-spirited perverseness. Instead of regarding this people, who had been prodigiously multiplied by a series of unexampled prosperities, as the most valuable portion of his subjects, and the best security to his crown; this Pharaoh was jealous of their strength, and determined to weaken ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... temperate, his expenses being solely confined to the chearful entertainment of his friends at home, and now and then a moderate glass of wine, in which he indulged himself in the company of his wife, who, with an agreeable person, was a mean-spirited, poor, domestic, low-bred animal, who confined herself mostly to the care of her family, placed her happiness in her husband and her children, followed no expensive fashions or diversions, and indeed rarely went abroad, unless ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... explanation from me, she had returned my last note unopened. Oh, she deserved all that had come to her. And bitterest of all was the thought that her own letter that should have righted everything with me, I must have taken from the rock. How could I ever care for a girl so mean-spirited and cruel as she had been to me? Lettie couldn't get letters out, O'mie had said; and in the face of what she had written, she had still refused to see me, had shown how jealous-hearted and narrow-minded she could be. What could I do but leave town? So ran the little girl's sad thoughts; ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... little interest clergymen show in the doings of those who don't happen to belong to their own particular sect; just as if a soul saved through the means of an Episcopalian was not of as much value as one saved by a Wesleyan, or a Presbyterian, or a Dissenter. Why, sir, it seems to me just as mean-spirited and selfish as if one of our chief factors was so entirely taken up with the doings and success of his own particular district that he didn't care a gun-flint for any other ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... much of which time, his friends, who nursed and watched him, really regarded his recovery as doubtful. This is another instance of what so often seems to us a matter of wonder,—the power of a narrow-minded, mean-spirited, ill-tempered, false-hearted man to inflict pain on ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... Europe can stand the wholesale, systematic slaughter of their song and insectivorous birds, we can! If they are too mean-spirited to rise up, make a row about it, and stop it, then let them pay the price; but, by the Eternal, Antonio shall not come to this country with the song-bird tastes of the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Alfred Thornton was snobbish and mean-spirited. She did not like him. She decided that on the night of the ball. She had seen him exchanging smiles with Miss Harris behind their backs before Tom Curtis had introduced him as his friend. This merely confirmed her bad opinion of him. But she realized ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... and did not rise till ten o'clock. Then they commonly walked out; but always found themselves very soon tired; when they would often sit down under a shady tree, and grieve for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes, and say to each other, "What a mean-spirited poor stupid creature our young sister is, to be so content with our low way of life!" But their father thought in quite another way: he admired the patience of this sweet young creature; for her sisters not only left ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... like yer!" Bessie flung at him at last in desperation. "You're allus the same—a mean-spirited feller, stannin' in your children's way! 'Ow do you know who old John's going to leave his money to? 'Ow do you know as he wouldn't leave it to them poor innercents"—she waved her hand tragically towards the children ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had spoken the truth, and declined to take his cousin's lapse upon his own shoulders about that letter; and then on getting home Sam had turned upon him, and any boy, Tom argued, would have done as he did, and struck back. He'd have been a mean-spirited coward if ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... smaller estates, must cut our coat according to our cloth." "Nay," says I, "every man knows his own circumstance best; you are in the right, if you haven't wherewithal." He looked very sour (for it is, you must know, the utmost vanity of a mean-spirited rich man to be contradicted, when he calls himself poor). But I was resolved to vex him, by consenting to all he said; the main design of which was, that he would have us find out, he was one of the wealthiest ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... poetic idea. To be sure there is a touch of stereotype in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And there is not the distinctive melody,—final stamp and test of the shaft of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands bewildered before such art and stunned of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... you. If you're so mean-spirited that you can't earn our living, I suppose we'll have to beg the rest of our lives, unless I go on the stage or something," said Eve. "You always do your best to ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "False, and mean-spirited!" exclaimed La Tour, scornfully; "you stoop to insult a prisoner, who is powerless in your hands, but from whose indignation you would cower, like the guilty thing you are, had I liberty and my good sword to revenge your baseness! Go, use me as you will, use me ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... than the more flaunting and luxurious licentiousness of the English Court. Of the fundamental aims of the nation, of the deep-seated traits of their character, he was profoundly ignorant. At once turbulent and mean-spirited, pharisaical and profligate; poverty-stricken and yet proud; bigoted in its beliefs, and yet careless of all the decencies of religion—such is the aspect which Scottish national character bore to Clarendon. To a superficial ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... give his eldest daughter, the lady Jane Grey, in marriage to his fourth son Guildford Dudley. At the same time he procured an union between her sister, the lady Catherine, and the eldest son of his able but mean-spirited and time-serving associate, the earl of Pembroke; and a third between his own daughter Catherine and lord Hastings, son of the earl of Huntingdon by the eldest daughter and co-heir of Henry Pole lord Montacute; in whom the claims of the line of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... manners and deference to employer alike forgotten, "don't you say no more of that wicked foolishness to me. I'll leave the minute you're mean-spirited enough to let that child go and not afore. And when THAT happens I'll be GLAD to leave. Land sakes! there's somebody at the door; and I expect I'm a ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... others, had they known as much as she did, they would have been most anxious to mortify; while she herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss Steeles courted its continuance, without thoroughly despising ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... night, lying in her berth, which was a top one, and looking languidly over the side at her friend, who lay in the berth below looking sympathetically up, she revealed her hopes and fears and sentiments, to the edification, (it is to be hoped) of a mean-spirited passenger in the saloon, who stood on the other side of the very thin partition, and tried to overhear. If he succeeded it must have been a new sensation to him to listen to the gentle streams of hope and love that flowed through to him—for Aileen's thoughts were gems, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... taking Prussia in such a manner under his protection would be honorable to the protector." With a view of appeasing public opinion in Germany and influencing it in favor of the alliance between France and Russia, Zschokke, who was at that time in Napoleon's pay, published a mean-spirited pamphlet, entitled, "Will the human race gain by the present ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... more than five hundred, and shut themselves up in S. Marco, and Baccio with them, on account of the great affection that he had for their party. It is true that, being a person of little courage, nay, even timorous and mean-spirited, and hearing an attack being made a little time after this on the convent, and men being wounded and killed, he began to have serious doubts about himself. For which reason he made a vow that if he were ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... Burley, addressing himself to Macbriar; "the base, mean-spirited traitor, to curry favour for himself with the government, hath set at liberty the prisoner taken by my own right hand, through means of whom, I have little doubt, the possession of the place of strength which hath wrought us such trouble, might now ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... apron-string; and intimated that, saving for the sake of the horses, which required both rest and food, he would advise his worshipful Master Tressilian to push on a stage farther, rather than pay a reckoning to such a mean-spirited, crow-trodden, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Book, and if they believe the Kuran to be the true word of God, then let a furnace be lighted, and let me with the Gospel in my hand, and the 'Ulama (learned doctors) with their holy book in their hands, walk into that testing-place of truth, and the right will be manifest." The black-hearted mean-spirited disputants shrank from this proposal, and answered only with angry words. This prejudice and violence greatly annoyed the impartial mind of the Emperor, and, with great discrimination ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... himself as any other; Hugh Latimer, blunt, warm-hearted old man, who calls a spade a spade in the most uncompromising manner, and spares not vice, though it flaunt its satin robes in royal halls; William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the mean-spirited time-server who would cry long life to a dozen rival monarchs in as many minutes, so long as he thought it would advance his own interests; Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, who spends his life in a fog of uncertainty, wherein the most misty object ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt |
