"Mortify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pardon of sin, and must go to hell. Now, it was our solemn duty, on withdrawing from the world, to consecrate our lives to religion, to practice every species of self-denial. We could not become too humble, nor mortify our feelings too far; this was to be done by opposing them, and acting contrary to them; and what she proposed was, therefore, pleasing in the sight of God. I now felt how foolish I had been to place myself in the power of such persons as were ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... fair. In every thing of this kind there must be risk; and till that be past, in one way or the other, I would not willingly add to it, particularly in times like the present. And pray always recollect that nothing could mortify me more—no failure on my own part—than having made you lose by ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of Morano, and the resentment which he had felt at the indifference of Emily, being lost in indignation of the insolence of Montoni, he determined to mortify him, by defending her. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... masterpiece, and should not obtain the prize—now, in heaven's name! what does it matter? He would perhaps, from the very circumstance of his having less fortune as a poet, be only the more practical man, and I confess that would not mortify me. And I shall wish both the poem and the appointment at the place where pepper grows if you are to become pale and nervous on its account! Promise me now next post-day to be reasonable, and not to look like the waning ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... appetites are fed with air Where grows whatever is most fair; They bathe religiously in pools Which golden lily-pollen cools; They pray within a jewelled home, Are chaste where nymphs of heaven roam: They mortify desire and sin With things that others fast ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... Saint Paul's sense mortify our dispositions. If they are not stimulated, they do not therefore die, nor is the human being what he would be if they had never existed. If we leave unstimulated, or, to use a shorter term, if we "baulk" any one of our main dispositions, Curiosity, Property, Trial and Error, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... interference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its keeping alive through central Europe the sense of a deep-seated vulnerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in one quarter to which the hopes of Christendom turned in secret. ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... off on that trip and might never come back, and the man that was with him wrote that they got lost from each other, and water was so scarce and all that. And then, you know, I didn't get married again till you was 'most ten years old, Jason. I'm sure I don't know what to do. I don't want to mortify anybody, but I'd like to know just what's ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... sight, "The world," I cried, "Shall hear of this thy deed. My dog shall mortify the ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... children should be fostered and nourished: whereas concupiscence and pleasure, about which intemperance is concerned, are always to be thwarted and uprooted, according to Col. 3:5, "Mortify . . . your members upon the earth, which are . . . concupiscence" [*Vulg.: 'your members which are upon the earth, fornication . . concupiscence'], etc. Therefore intemperance is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... inflict injury upon the body; for he saw very well that he had rendered himself unfit to be of service to his brethren. Therefore St. Peter requires nothing more than that we should be sober,—that is, mortify the body to such an extent as to prevent its being in our apprehension too wanton; for he fixes no definite time how long we should fast, as the Pope has done, but leaves it to each, individually, to fast so that he remain sober and do not burden the body with gluttony, to the ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... have spoken, to which she belonged by profound sympathy; and that of Father Damon, to which she belonged by undefined aspiration. In him was the spiritual element asserting itself in a mediaeval form, in a struggle to mortify and deny the flesh and yet take part in modern life. Imagine a celibate and ascetic of the fifteenth century, who knew that Paradise must be gained through poverty and privation and suffering, interesting himself in the tenement-house question, in labor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... did he make of yours, Master Cookery-Book?" cried the captain with some heat. "Did he fancy you meant to mortify the flesh with a fortnight's fast? No, no, sir; you are a very respectable first officer, but are no more acquainted with Joe Bunk's principles of signs, than this editor here knows of truth and propriety. It is your blundering ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... things now. Why could we not do so before? I have had my sinful worldly dream of happiness, and death has ended it. When I heard of his death and Jim's my heart turned to stone. All the strength I have shall be given to religion from this out. I can ease my heart and mortify the flesh for the good of my soul. To God—to the Holy Virgin—who hears the sorrows of such as me, I can pray day and night for their souls' welfare—for mine, for yours. And oh, Dick! think when that day, that dreadful day, comes that ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... decided critic in music as well as in literature. Dang. So I am—but I have a bad ear. I'faith, Sneer, though, I am afraid we were a little too severe on Sir Fretful— though he is my friend. Sneer. Why, 'tis certain, that unnecessarily to mortify the vanity of any writer is a cruelty which mere dulness never can deserve; but where a base and personal malignity usurps the place of literary emulation, the aggressor deserves neither quarter nor pity. Dang. That's true, egad!—though ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind which enabled, me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions, a certain ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... was removed. There was a certain something in the usually-smiling faces of the heads of the mansion that acted as a repellent to her, and she sat for some time silent; but at length she spoke to Ellen, who, from her gentle meekness, was ever easy of access, and whom, intending to mortify, she accosted thus—"Nelly, did ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... oat,—"I do not need that. I will try nine hundred and ninety-nine cases, if clients will continue to trust me, and, if I fail just as I have today, will try the thousandth. I shall live to argue cases in this court house in a manner that will mortify neither myself nor my friends." It is in such moments of defeat that character and ability are mot fairly tested; they would irremediably crush a youth devoid of real energy, and, being neither more nor less than his just desert, would ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... saying that "it is more blessed to give than to receive," not as the promise of reward in another life for mortified selfishness in this, but as pledge of bestowal upon us of that sweet and better nature, which does not mortify itself in giving.] ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... even before he was lifted into the water, and after his first immersion he was revealed to be a dog weighing about one-fourth of what an observer of Duke, when Duke was dry, must have guessed his weight to be. His wetness and the disclosure of his extreme fleshly insignificance appeared to mortify him profoundly. He wept. But, presently, under Penrod's thorough ministrations—for the young master was inclined to make this bath last as long as possible—Duke plucked up a heart and began a series of passionate attempts to close the interview. As this ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... he acted real huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't mortify men by namin' a home like that for thousands ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... ambition, the brilliancy of a court, the resources of wealth, invite me to a thousand joys. I will not be deaf to the call. Meanwhile I will not betray to Gerald, to any one, the scar of the wound I have received; and I will mortify Gerald, by showing him that, handsome as he is, he shall ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fair As would the vainest of her sex be thought, With wealth beyond what woman's pride could waste, She should not cheat me of my freedom.—Marry! When I am old and weary of the world, I may grow desperate, And take a wife to mortify withal. ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... made your blood run cold, my dear, to have heard him go on at times. And yet he was a real good old man every other way. He couldn't help it someway. He tried to, but he used to say that profanity came as natural to him as breathing. It used to mortify his family terribly. Fortunately, none of them took after him in that respect. But he's dead—and one shouldn't speak ill of the dead. I must go and get Mattie Penhallow to do my hair. I would burst these sleeves ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... very plain, as she had known so long that the consciousness of it had ceased to mortify her. You can hardly live in Manchester without having some idea of your personal appearance: the factory lads and lasses take good care of that; and if you meet them at the hours when they are pouring out of the mills, you are sure ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... your intimate companion, I will not mortify Your Grace with the history of her origin, and an account of her genealogy, which I am sure would greatly distress you. Believe me, Madam, I should be sorry to give you a moment's mortification. My sincere desire is to do you good, by warning you of ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... looked green and yellow with age, and we were not surprised at their shabby appearance when we learned that they each only had one coat a year in which to do all their work, no matter how dirty that work might be. Are they not there to mortify the flesh and learn economy? What is the want of raiment when compared with the wants of ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... their departure, Xavier, who was sometimes too far transported by the fervency of his soul, had tied his arms and thighs with little cords, to mortify himself, for some kind of vain satisfaction which he took in out-running and over-leaping his young companions; for he was very active; and, amongst all the recreations used by scholars, he liked none but the exercises of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... and turned to go in. He thought Hiram had accomplished little, and he did not wish to mortify him by ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... else], except such as either had been truly struck by [the lightning of] the Law, or had been vainly vexed by the devil with a sorrowful spirit. Otherwise [with the exception of these persons] such contrition was certainly mere hypocrisy, and did not mortify the lust for sins [flames of sin]; for they had to grieve, while they would rather have continued to sin, if it ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... flight by the vanquished princes of darkness. This was cast out of the world and shut up somewhere in the dark air, and is the Manichaan hell, presided over by the king of the demons. If a soul, while in the body, mortify the flesh, observe a severe ascetic moral discipline, fix its thoughts, affections, and prayers on God and its native home, it will on leaving the body return to the celestial light. But if it neglect these ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired sledge thinking about ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... great gentleness that the good man reminds his wife and daughters that, after their sudden loss of fortune, it does not become them to wear much finery. "The first Sunday, in particular, their behaviour served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next day; for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... to those who point out faults. For they mortify us. They teach us that we have been despised. They do not prevent our being so in the future; for we have many other faults for which we may be despised. They prepare for us the exercise of correction and freedom ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... a sisterhood, mademoiselle cherie, for those who would withdraw themselves from the world. They are very strict, I believe, the sisters, and mortify the flesh exceedingly. Me, I cannot see why we should leave the beautiful world the bon dieu has put us into. For certain, He would not have put us in if He had not ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... general condemnation of the world on religious grounds, and must receive further consideration in that connection. Its proper meaning as a purely prudential formalism is best exhibited in the Greek Cynics. These philosophers were moved to mortify the flesh, and to deny their social interests, by extreme caution. They discovered that the safest method of adjustment was simplification. If one permits one's self no desires, one need not suffer {93} from their conflict, nor need one treat with the desires ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... and sneers at me on reception days; ask about my palace in Ireland, and the kings my ancestors, and whether, when I was a private in Bulow's foot, my royal relatives had interposed to rescue me, and whether the cane was smartly administered there,—anything to mortify me. But, Heaven bless you! I can make allowances for people, and used to laugh in her face. Whilst her jibes and jeers were continuing, it was my pleasure to look at poor Magny and see how HE bore them. The poor devil ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... facetious friend of mine used to say, the wine could not be bad, where the company was agreeable; a maxim which, however, ought to be taken cum grano salis: but what is the society of London, that I should be tempted, for its sake, to mortify my senses, and compound with such uncleanness as my soul abhors? All the people I see, are too much engrossed by schemes of interest or ambition, to have any room left for sentiment or friendship. Even in some of my old acquaintance, those schemes and pursuits have obliterated ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... were to blame for everything, because they, without his knowledge or consent, had used the horses in getting in the crops and, by overworking them, partly in their own fields, had rendered them unfit for further use. He sat down as he said this and begged them not to mortify and insult him and thus wantonly cause a relapse of the illness from which he had ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... A new Wench, I warrant—But prithee, Sham, I have other matters in hand; 'Sheart, I am so mortify'd with this same thought of Fighting, that I shall hardly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... cattle-drivers, and passing with much more of discomfort than satisfaction many of those sublime combinations of mountainous scenery which now draw visitors from every corner of England, to feast their eyes upon Highland grandeur, and mortify ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... in a passion, and never knew him to strike a slave, though he had over a hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it." He rebuked those who were in fault; but, adds Jennings, he would "never mortify them by doing it before others." It will be remembered that on the first occasion of his being a candidate for public office he refused to follow the universal Virginian habit of "treating" the electors. To the principle which governed him then he adhered through life, and his letters ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... to an excessive and habitual use of wine. In the same year we find him in London, brought out once more under the "special patronage" of Dean Swift, who had quite a penchant for Parnell, and who wished, through his side, to mortify certain persons in Ireland, who did not appreciate, he says, the Archdeacon; and who, we suspect, besides, did not thoroughly appreciate the Dean. Swift, partly in pity for the "poor lad," as he calls him, whom he saw to be in such imminent danger of losing ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... of this dull stuff. 'Tis time enough To whine and mortify thyself with penance, The present moment claims more gen'rous use; Thy beauty, night, and solitude, reproach me, For having talk'd thus long—come, let me press thee, [laying hold of her. Pant on thy bosom, sink into thy arms, ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... the kindness of my friend, I have arranged to have a cabin kept in reserve, on payment of a small deposit. If the ball ends (as I believe it will) in new mortifications for Mercy—do what they may, I defy them to mortify me—I have only to say the word by telegraph, and we shall catch the ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... contradiction and petty teasing, his repugnance to annoy or mortify any one, arose from the same cause. Once, after having replied with his usual frankness to an inquiry of Madame de Stael, that he thought a certain step ill-advised, he wrote in his memorandum-book:—"I have since reflected that it would ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... lead a double life. They chafed bitterly under the code to which they were obliged ostensibly to submit. In their moods of revolt, they honestly believed their parents to be dull and obstinate creatures who had lost the appetite for romance and ecstasy and were determined to mortify this appetite in others. They desired heaps of money and the free, informal companionship of very young men. The latter—at the cost of some intrigue and subterfuge—they contrived to get. But money they ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... masses believe that he demands the most painful efforts on the part of those whom he deigns to initiate into the supremely adorable mysteries of His Person—it is necessary and just that he should mortify them before allowing them to taste the essential intoxication of union ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... righteousness." That is the main profession or business of a Christian man, and the Font, where Baptism constantly represents our Lord's death and rising again for us, should ever remind us of it and call us afresh to "mortify all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceed in all virtue ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... works of the ancients the modern arts were revived, and it is by their means that they must be restored a second time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them our masters; and we may venture to prophecy, that when they shall cease to be studied, arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... encourage the Scholar if he improves; let him mortify him, without Beating, for Indolence; let him be more rigorous for Negligences; nor let the Scholar ever end a Lesson ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... can't tell clearly! I have thought that we have been selfish, careless, even impious, in our courses, you and I. Our life has been a vain attempt at self-delight. But self-abnegation is the higher road. We should mortify the flesh—the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Hole within the area of those law regions to consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have used them. As it was, he contented himself by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the detected youth, who sat on his perch insensible to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... physical movement is sacrificed to the mechanical or mathematical; geometry is proclaimed as the chief science. Materialism takes to misanthropy. In order to overcome misanthropic, fleshless spiritualism on the latter's own ground, materialism must mortify its own flesh and turn ascetic. It reappears as an intellectual entity, but it also develops all the ruthless ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... the house; but how great soever his devotion was, he had not patience to wear it till night, and was sick a long time after; adding withal, that he did not think there could be any youthful heat so fierce that the use of this recipe would not mortify, and yet perhaps he never essayed the most violent; for experience shows us, that such emotions are often seen under rude and slovenly clothes, and that a hair shirt does not always render ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Horace died, he said, 'Be a father to my daughter; take my place when I am gone.' If I were at liberty to divulge some matters confided to me, I could easily assure you that there is not a shadow of possibility that Muriel will ever grieve and mortify me as Salome has done. Now look at me, dear Janet, and kiss me, and trust your brother; for he will never deceive you, and can not endure a moment's estrangement ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... her all new ones when she knew she was going to Europe, so that she would be neat and not mortify me. Would you like ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... together. Waverley's mind involuntarily turned to the Patmos of the Baron of Bradwardine, who was well pleased with Janet's fare and a few bunches of straw stowed in a cleft in the front of a sand-cliff; but he made no remarks upon a contrast which could only mortify his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... they had charged Jesus with being,—a rebel; and, if they preferred him to Jesus, the hypocrisy of their suspicious loyalty would be patent. The same sub-acid tone is obvious in Pilate's twice designating our Lord as 'Jesus which is called Christ.' He delights to mortify them by pushing the title into their faces, as it were. He dare not be just, and he relieves and revenges himself by being cynical ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... embarrass, mortify, chagrin, discompose, humble, overawe, confound, disconcert, humiliate, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... wines, yet there is no bad spirit in Portugal towards the French. The reason of this is no mystery; it is the nature not of the Portuguese only, but of corrupt and unregenerate man, to dislike his benefactors, who, by conferring benefits upon him, mortify in the most generous manner ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... your misfortune, Mr. Lovelace, as well as mine, at present. Every woman of discernment, I say as I say, [I had a mind to mortify a pride, that I am sure deserves to be mortified;] that your politeness is not regular, nor constant. It is not habit. It is too much seen by fits and starts, and sallies, and those not spontaneous. You must be reminded ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... came it to pass that many of the Saints were so perfect, so contemplative of Divine things? Because they steadfastly sought to mortify themselves from all worldly desires, and so were enabled to cling with their whole heart to God, and be free and at leisure for the thought of Him. We are too much occupied with our own affections, and too anxious about ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... with threats of that most dread compeller of obedience which none but a sovereign pontiff may wield; and very clearly phrased, that all might understand, the declaration in the words of his Holiness himself, that he had determined to "mortify the over-weening audacity of the secular rulers of ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... is another requisite of female civility. "The excitable imagination and ardent feelings of woman," says a female writer, "expose her to exaggeration of sentiment." Ignorant and weak women mortify their friends and disgust many others, in society. They talk for the sound's sake, giving flippant utterance to the commonplaces of the day. But did God endow this sex with speech, to be exercised only on folly and nonsense? No, we have seen too many living examples ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... bad enough to be called small for her age, but to be told that she was stupid was more than Mary Rose could bear in silence. She opened her mouth to explain and then she remembered that she had promised she would mortify her pride so she said never a word, although she thought she would burst at having to keep quiet. But Aunt Kate's pride was also touched and she stammered hurriedly that she should have said her ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... to his father, and to "try to make up for the disappointment and vexation he must receive from your {119} profligate and worthless brother." But she also admonished him to attempt nothing against his brother, and only to mortify him by showing superior merit. She asked for her keys, and gave them to the King. She took off her finger a ruby ring which he had given her at her coronation, and put it on his finger, and said to him, almost as patient Grizzel does, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... whether I would or not," was the unembarrassed reply. "One of our graduates went to Chicago, and has a nice practice there. I don't know where I shall go. It would mortify mother dreadfully to have me driving about Philadelphia ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was a good teacher, amiable, affectionate, and laborious, but firm and resolute. He was too strict to please such indolent boys as Samuel, who often tried him by his idleness and stupidity. His object in making him spell as he did was to mortify him by an exposure of his ignorance. His father had given him good opportunities to learn, but he had not improved them, so that he could spell scarcely better than scholars eight years old. Had he been a backward boy, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as you please, it is still alive, and will every now and then ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... rank, fortune, etc. In the two last articles, it is unjust, they not being in his power: and in the first it is both ill-bred and ill-natured. Good-breeding, and good-nature, do incline us rather to raise and help people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies. The constant practice of what the French call 'les Attentions', is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... modified instance of seclusion," she added, "there are features very different from our own case. We are not forced to impoverish our blood with insufficient diet, or mortify our flesh with various forms of punishment. We do not neglect the worship of God. We offer up daily thanks for His loving care of us, and sing His praises in continual hymns; and instead of wasting the hours of the day in unmeaning ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... king," says Montesquieu, "are less tormented by envy and jealousy, than those who live under an hereditary aristocracy. The prince is so far distant from his subjects, that he is rarely seen by them; he is so far above them that nothing in his situation can mortify his self-love. But the nobles who govern in an aristocracy are under the eyes of all, and they are not so elevated, but that odious comparisons are made without ceasing. Thus in all ages we have seen the people detest their senators, though they frequently love ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... others, gayer, will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can, objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing without ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... excited no small alarm in my father's household. At length, however, they became accustomed to my escapades. My father used to protest to me on such occasions that he thought I was born to be a strolling pedlar; and though the prediction was intended to mortify my conceit, I am not sure that I altogether disliked it. I was now familiar with Shakespeare, and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... end you are charged to "abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;" to "mortify your members, which are earthly;" to "exercise yourselves rather unto godliness;" to "be kindly affectioned towards all men." But who does not know that "strong drink," not only "eats out the brain," ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... the Crolian Dissenters as wide as possible, and to do this it was resolv'd to shift Sides, and as the Crown had always took part with the Church, crush'd, humbl'd, persecuted, and by all means possible mortify'd the Dissenters, as is noted in the Reign of his Predecessor. This Prince resolv'd to caress, cherish, and encourage the Crolians by all possible Arts and outward Endearments, not so much that they purpos'd them any real Favour, for ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... and in the punctual birds; Better, the linked purpose of the whole, And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty In the glad home plain-dealing Nature gave. The polite found me impolite; the great Would mortify me, but in vain; for still I am a willow of the wilderness, Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine, Salve my worst wounds. For ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... your late employments, and what hardships or satisfactions you have had in them, that I may govern myself accordingly." He answered: "To give you an example of the drudgery we go through, I will entertain you only with my three last stations: I was on the 1st of April last, put to mortify a great beauty, with whom I was a week; from her I went to a common swearer, and have been last with a gamester. When I first came to my lady, I found my great work was to guard well her eyes and ears; but her flatterers were so ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... the eminent engraver, in one of his commonplace-books, now preserved in the British Museum,[62] thus feelingly refers to the embarrassed circumstances of the Earl:—'My good Lord, lately growing heavy and pensive in his affairs, which for some late years have mortify'd his mind.... This lately manifestly appeared in his change of complexion; his face fallen less; his colour and eyes turned yellow to a great degree; his stomach wasted and gone; and a dead weight presses continually, without sign of relief, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... says Massillon, in his sermon on the Incarnation, "it was not thus that the apostles announced the gospel to our ancestors. The spirit of the gospel is a holy eagerness of suffering, an incessant attention to mortify self-love, to do violence to the will, to restrain the desires, to deprive the senses of useless gratifications; this is the essence of Christianity, the soul of piety. If you have not this spirit, you belong not, says the apostle, to Jesus Christ; it is of no consequence ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to do a foolish thing. She deliberately began to bait Cary—to say things to annoy her—to try to mortify her. At first Cary refused to see what was evident to the rest of us. (Oh, my dinner-party was ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... are most welcomed, and, next them, ill news, as that which extends their fellowship in misery, and leaves few to insult:—and they breath their discontents more securely here, and have their tongues at more liberty than abroad. Men see here much sin and much calamity; and where the last does not mortify, the other hardens; as those that are worse here, are desperately worse, and those from whom the horror of sin is taken off and the punishment familiar: and commonly a hard thought passes on all ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... there was—so, as I was going to tell you, you must know, my dear Harriet, that Mr. Frankton sat opposite to me at the theatre; and as he seem'd to be very much chagrin'd at the attention which was paid me by a couple of beaux, I took some pains to mortify him a little; for, tho' he strove to hide his uneasiness by chattering, and whispering, and tittering, and shewing his white teeth, his embarrassment was very visible under ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... is in danger of falling into obscurity in England, and he hopes to make himself considerable by provoking an illustrious adversary. He will have a great party—the Church, the Whigs, the Jacobites, the whole wise English nation—who will love to mortify a Scotchman, and to applaud a man who has refused a pension from the king. It is not unlikely, too, that they may pay him very well for having refused it, and that even he may have had in view this compensation. Your whole friends here wish you not to write,—the Baron, D'Alembert, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... mademoiselle, following her pupil, "and I must not miss to be by, for I shall love to see dat man mortify." ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... however, lest she should irritate her poet He divined this, and his hatred and jealousy of the child increased. And when the early letters of Ron-die contained complaints of Jack, he was very much delighted. But this was not enough. He wished to mortify and degrade the boy still more. His hour had come. At the first words of the letter, for he finally opened it, his eyes flamed with malicious joy. "Ah! I knew it!" he cried, and he ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... alliance with France. And now, when my zeal, eloquence, and untiring expositions of the utility of this alliance have succeeded in rendering him deaf to all promises, and attaching his heart more sincerely to France, you mortify and insult the king in so defiant a manner! Ah, count, this is to postpone the attainment of my object to a very distant period, and to take from me, perhaps forever, the order I am longing for. For how can I keep my word?—how can I obtain the king's consent to the betrothal ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... are many who will not in the least instance mortify their own humour to purchase the satisfaction of all mankind, so there are some who make no scruple of satisfying their own pride and vanity at the expence of the most cruel mortification of others. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Belford. "To be sure you cannot believe your ears. Do you not see that this is a preposterous lie, and that he is telling it to you to tease and to mortify me?" ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... point of good-breeding, which can not, in all cases, be understood and applied by children in its widest extent. It is that which requires us to avoid all remarks which tend to embarrass, vex, mortify, or in any way wound the feelings of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... mortify me if it were in your power for acting against your advice. But my fame does not depend upon your judgment. All Europe admired the greatness of my mind in resigning a crown to dedicate myself entirely to the love of the sciences and the fine arts; things of which ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... pains to make better. He was not, like most persons who rise to eminence, dissatisfied even with his best productions. He had set up no unattainable standard of perfection, the contemplation of which might at once improve and mortify him. His path was not attended by an unapproachable mirage of excellence, for ever receding, and for ever pursued. He was not disgusted by the negligence of others; and he extended the same toleration to himself. His mind was of a slovenly character,—fond of splendour, but indifferent ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... surely you don't think Cecilia jealous; she only tries to excel and to please. She is more anxious to succeed than I am, it is true, because she has a great deal more activity, and perhaps more ambition; and it would really mortify her to lose this prize. You know that she proposed it herself; it has been her object for this month past, and I am sure she has taken great pains to ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... tears condole As for a brother dead! And fasting mortify'd his soul, While for their life ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... promised to give Monopolist a little advice, I will now enter upon my task. I hope he will mortify that talking member of his body for a few moments while I am discharging this necessary duty. After I have done he may speak on to his heart's content, that is, in ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... reality produce, scarce goes beyond some exterior exercises, which are vainly thought to reconcile man to God. It may make men build temples, sacrifice victims, offer up prayers, or perform something of the like nature; but never break a criminal intrigue, restore an ill gotten wealth, or mortify the lust of man. Lust being the source of every crime, it is evident (since it reigns as much among idolaters and anthropomorphites, as among atheists) idolaters and anthropomorphites must be as susceptible of all of crimes as atheists, and neither ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... affirm that the judgment of a nation is erroneous may mortify, but to affirm that her judgment against is for; to assert that she has said ay when she has pronounced no; to affect to refer a great question to the people; finding the sense of the people, like that of the parliament, against the question, ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... miserable humanity can enjoy it. They laugh, as you know, at Praxilla, the poetess, because she makes the dying Adonis lament, when face to face with death, that he is forced to leave the apples and pears behind him. But is not that subtly true? Yes, yes; Praxilla is right! We fast, we mortify ourselves—I have felt it all myself—to partake of divinity. We almost perish of hunger and thirst, when we might be so happy if only we would be satisfied with apples and pears! No man has ever yet succeeded in the great effort; those who would be truly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as if this was only one among many injuries, too frequent for a reproach more or less to be needed. Mr. Lyddell did not take it half so much to heart, and no prohibition against future rides was issued, for the truth was that no one liked to mortify Lionel. It was exactly one of the cases in which the whole danger is not conquered, because it melts at the very ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... poetry; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerably off-hand jeu-d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo, or you, if they were worth house room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance of ninescore miles.—I am, Madam, with the highest respect, your ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Kolomna, made up of pensioners, half-pay officers, petty functionaries, obscure artists, and others equally necessitous, preferred bearing the utmost distress to having recourse to the dreaded money-lender. They all declared they would rather mortify their bodies than destroy their souls. Those who met him in the street hurried by with an uneasy sensation, making way for him with anxious submissiveness, and looking long over their shoulders at the tall lean figure as it lost itself in the distance. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... alone let the Ladies of Rank look at PAMELA.—-Such an alarming Reflection as that will, at the same time that it raises the Hope and Ambition of the Humble, correct and mortify the Disdain of the Proud. For it will compel them to observe, and acknowledge, that 'tis the Turn of their Mind, not the Claims of their Quality, by which (and which only) Womens Charms can be lasting: And ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... by the same subtle and piercing Body that produces the stink; both these effects proceeding from hence, that by the Alcalizate Salt, the Sea Salt that enter'd the composition of the Sal Armoniack is mortify'd and made more fixt, and thereby a divorce is made between it and the volatile Urinous Salt, which being at once set at liberty, and put into motion, begins presently to fly away, and to offend the Nostrils and Eyes it meets with by the way. And if the operation ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle |
