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Impious   Listen
adjective
Impious  adj.  Not pious; wanting piety; irreligious; irreverent; ungodly; profane; wanting in reverence for the Supreme Being; as, an impious deed; impious language. "When vice prevails, and impious men bear away, The post of honor is a private station."
Synonyms: Impious, Irreligious, Profane. Irreligious is negative, impious and profane are positive. An indifferent man may be irreligious; a profane man is irreverent in speech and conduct; an impious man is wickedly and boldly defiant in the strongest sense. Profane also has the milder sense of secular.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impious" Quotes from Famous Books



... men I sing: douce Jeemsy Todd, rushing from his loom, armed with a bed-post; Lisbeth Whamond, an avenging whirlwind; Neil Haggart, pausing in his thanks-offerings to smite and slay; the impious foe scudding up the bleeding Brae-head with Nemesis at their flashing heels; the minister holding it a nice question whether the carnage was not justified. Then came the two hours' sermons of the following Sabbath, when Mr. Dishart, revolving like a teetotum in the pulpit, damned every bandaged ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... is something of cant in talking much upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good, the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or profligate tendency. In this point of view, there is, at least, no edification in beholding the horrible crimes unto which OEdipus is unwillingly plunged, and in witnessing the dreadful punishment he sustains, though ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum of L21,000 a year of the public money,[48] and having just failed in a desperate and rapacious attempt to secure to himself for life the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster; and the best of it is, that this Minister, after abusing his predecessors for their impious bounty to the Catholics, has found himself compelled, from the apprehension of immediate danger, to grant the ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... upon the author, he exposed himself to the retort which he had recorded in his Life of Boerhaave (Works, vi. 277). 'As Boerhaave was sitting in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the passengers upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa, which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all religion. Boerhaave sat and attended silently to this discourse for some time, till one of the company ... instead of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... laws lined out with wretched rule And compass vile; so that ye taught a school[7] Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and chip, and fit, Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit, Their verses tallied. Easy was the task: A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask Of poesy. Ill-fated, impious race, That blasphemed the bright lyrist to his face, And did not know it; no, they went about Holding a poor decrepit standard out Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large The name of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... he fainted with thirst and terror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooled in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, to partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person and dignity of a king," said the sultan, "are sacred, but this impious robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed, or meet the death which he has so often deserved." On the proud or conscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on the head with his cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards. [61] The trembling ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... the coquette. The emperor at first proposed that his son, the Archduke Ferdinand, should nominally have the command, while Wallenstein should be his executive and advisory general. "I would not serve," said the impious captain, "as second in ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... voluminous to be given in the body of these Lectures.[22] Let it suffice to say here that though such bold phrases as "God became man, that we might become God," were commonplaces of doctrinal theology at least till after Augustine, even Clement and Origen protest strongly against the "very impious" heresy that man is "a part of God," or "consubstantial with God.[23]" The attribute of Divinity which was chiefly in the minds of the Greek Fathers when they made these statements, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... possible. Finally, my task will be to show that Simon taught a system of Theosophy, which instead of deserving our condemnation should rather excite our admiration, and that, instead of being a common impostor and impious perverter of public morality, his method was in many respects of the same nature as the methods of the theosophical movement of to-day, and deserves the study and consideration of all ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead

... there are the tombs of the daughters of Skedasus, whom they call Leuktridae because of the place of their burial; for there it was that they were buried after they had been violated by some Spartan strangers. When this base and impious deed was done, their father, as he could get no satisfaction from the Lacedaemonians, invoked curses upon the Spartan race, and slew himself at the tombs of his daughters. Oracles and legends always had warned the Spartans to beware of the vengeance of Leuktra, though most of them ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... of his quarrel with Philip, Boniface built great hopes on Edward's support, and strongly urged him to fight for holy Church against the impious French king. But Edward had suffered too much from Boniface to fall into so obvious a trap. His hold over his own clergy was so firm that Winchelsea himself had no chance of taking up the papal call ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... there had utterly converted him to a belief in the fury of Lurgha and he had been frightened out of his simple wits, fleeing without making the search he had intended. But Lurgha had seen him there, had read his impious thoughts.... ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... tree spirits lie thickly scattered throughout the folk-lore of most countries, survivals of which remain even amongst cultured races. It is interesting, moreover, to trace the same idea in Greek and Roman mythology. Thus Ovid[17] tells a beautiful story of Erisicthon's impious attack on the grove of Ceres, and it may be remembered how the Greek dryads and hamadryads had their life linked to a tree, and, "as this withers and dies, they themselves fall away and cease to be; any injury to bough or twig is felt as a wound, and a wholesale hewing down puts an ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... Polyeuctes to an interview, and adjures him to be a prudent man. Felix at length says, "Adore the gods, or die." "I am a Christian," simply replies the martyr. "Impious! Adore them, I bid you, or renounce life." (Here again Voltaire offers one of his refrigerant criticisms: "Renounce life does not advance upon the meaning of die; when one repeats the thought, the expression ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... the great master. In 1793, when the mob, incited by the furious spirit of the French Revolution, broke into the church, pillaging altars and tombs alike, that of Rubens was spared from desecration by the universal respect for his memory, though not another tomb in St. Jacques escaped their impious touch. ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... had warned him of his peril, could do nothing even to check the progress of the assailants, who carried all before them everywhere. Bursting into the palace, a band of Persians made their way to the presence of the monarch, and slew him on the scene of his impious revelry. Other bands carried fire and sword through the town. When morning came, Cyrus found himself undisputed master of the city, which, if it had not despised his efforts, might with the greatest ease ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... note of Grandmother's voice would have made the dead stir. "Ain't I showed it to you, in the paper?" To question print was as impious as ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... looking for the hearse. When they came back, the one who was inside got out and said that he was Lazarus risen from the dead. This act so inflamed some of the white gentlemen that they had the firemen arrested and prosecuted. These two impious gentlemen became so indignant because of their arrest that they set fire to the chapel and burned it to the ground. These communicants, being homeless again, went back to the house of William Beckett on L Street and commenced to rebuild. This time they succeeded in erecting a brick building, a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... description did actually exist and ran about the plains of Babylon. If his method was good for the divination of the course of events ten hours old, why should it not be good for those of ten years or ten centuries past; nay, might it not extend ten thousand years and justify the impious in meddling with the traditions of Oannes and the fish, and all the sacred ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... section of the corral; but not until Cole Campbell came down the next day was the Stinging Lizard road even mentioned. It was gone, they all knew that, and all their prayers and tears could not bring back one rock from its grade; and yet somehow Wunpost felt guilty, as if his impious words had brought down this disaster upon his friends. He rushed feverishly about in the blazing sun, trying to undo the most imminent damage; and Billy and Mrs. Campbell, half divining his futile regrets, went about their own tasks in silence. But when Campbell ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... The rescript contains the words "Junium Rusticum amicum nostrum Praefectum Urbi." The Martyrium of Justinus and others is written in Greek. It begins, "In the time of the wicked defenders of idolatry impious edicts were published against the pious Christians both in cities and country places, for the purpose of compelling them to make offerings to vain idols. Accordingly the holy men (Justinus, Chariton, a woman Charito, Paeon, Liberianus, and others) ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... stern, Nor the faithless Allobrogian, who still for change doth yearn. Ay, what Gennania's blue-eyed youth quelled not with ruthless sword, Nor Hannibal by our great sires detested and abhorred, We shall destroy with impious hands imbrued in brother's gore, And wild beasts of the wood shall range our native land once more. A foreign foe, alas! shall tread The City's ashes down, And his horse's ringing hoofs shall smite her places of renown, And the bones of great Quirinus, now religiously enshrined, Shall be flung by ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... of its preparation. My own relations to or ideas of the Bible always have been peculiar, owing to my Quaker training. The Friends consider the book as historical, made up of traditions, but not as a plenary inspiration. Of course people say these women are impious and presumptuous for daring to interpret the Scriptures as they understand them, but I think women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to their own advantage as men always have twisted and turned it to theirs.... It was written by men, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... not useful for our beatitude, we do not merit it; and sometimes by asking for and desiring such things we lose merit for instance if we ask of God the accomplishment of some sin, which would be an impious prayer. And sometimes it is not necessary for salvation, nor yet manifestly contrary thereto; and then although he who prays may merit eternal life by praying, yet he does not merit to obtain what he asks for. Hence Augustine says (Liber. Sentent. Prosperi ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... ilusion f. illusion. ilustre illustrious. imaginar to imagine. imbecil imbecile, foolish; m. fool. imitar to imitate. impaciente impatient. impedir to impede, prevent, hinder. imperar to rule. imperio empire, authority. imperioso imperious. imperterrito intrepid. impio impious. imponente imposing. imponer to impose. importancia importance. importar to import, matter. impropio improper, unfit. improvisar to extemporize. impulsar to impel, push. impunidad f. impunity. inaccion ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... took its name; they denied the orders of those ordained by Caecilianus, and hence the validity of the Sacraments administered by them. Excommunicated themselves, "they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind who had embraced the impious party of Caecilianus, and of the traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that the apostolical succession was interrupted, that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... impertinences of the one office with less zeal, or shrink from the bloody boldness of the other with greater timidity, because the blockhead thinks he can eat angels in muffins and chew a spiritual nature in the crumpets which he buys from the baker's shop? I am sorry there should be such impious folly in the world, but I should be ten times a greater fool than he is, if I refused, till he had made a solemn protestation that the crumpet was spiritless and the muffin nothing but a human muffin, to lead him out against the enemies of the state. ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... their friendship and converse was injury and ruin to the soul. So also he detested the heresy of the Arians, and exhorted all not to approach them, nor hold their misbelief. {66b} In fact, when certain of the Ariomanites came to him, having discerned them and found them impious, he chased them out of the mountain, saying that their words were worse than serpent's poison; and when the Arians once pretended that he was of the same opinion as they, he was indignant and fierce against them. Then being sent for by the bishops and all ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... me not—mine is no impious grief, Meekly I pray for Heaven's supporting grace. And soon, I feel, his hand will give relief, And the last sad survivor of her race Quit this lone mansion for the home above. Where dwell her happy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... could not be persuaded that her daughter was really in any danger, until the doctor told her that her case was hopeless; then the grief of the mother burst forth, and she gave way to the most frantic and impious complainings. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... the inequality of the towers produce rather an unfavourable effect. During the revolution, this august edifice was converted into a sulphur and gunpowder manufactory, by which impious prostitution, the pillars are defaced, and broken, and the whole ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... of the real crimes of England; and I have selected them on a principle which cannot fail to interest and please you. On many occasions we have been very wrong indeed. We were very wrong indeed when we took part in preventing Europe from putting a term to the impious piracies of Frederick the Great. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the triumph over Napoleon to be soiled with the mire and blood of Blucher's sullen savages. We were very wrong indeed when we allowed the peaceful King of Denmark ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton

... much the fashion to be witty at the expense of religion that a man will hardly pass for a genius if he does not allow his impious satire to run a tilt at its most sacred truths. The noble simplicity of holy writ must needs be abused and turned into ridicule at the daily assemblies of the so-called wits; for what is there so holy and serious that will not raise a laugh if ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... satisfaction of involving another in one's destruction added its miserable appeal to my baser egoism; and had fear or horror flown to my companion's face, I shudder to think I might have died diabolically happy with that look for my last impious consolation. It was the look that came instead which held my hand. Neither fear nor horror were in it; only wonder, admiration, and such a measure of pleased expectancy as caused me after all to pocket my revolver with ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... temple flock apace, Where he that long ago composed of brass Great Jupiter, Thrasonic old bald pate, Now scribbles impious books,—a ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... matter to be decided by the family, not by the children; for mutual inclination could not be suffered to interfere with the requirements of the household religion. It was not a question of affection, but of religious duty; and to think otherwise was impious. Affection might and ought to spring up from the relation. But any affection powerful enough to endanger the cohesion of the family would be condemned. A wife might therefore be divorced because her husband had become too much attached to her; an adopted husband might be divorced because of his power ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... observed, that alchymy had become a mere covert for secret and deadly sins. That the practisers of it were apt to scruple at no means to satisfy their inordinate greediness of gold. Some had been known to use spells and impious ceremonies; to conjure the aid of evil spirits; nay, even to sell their souls to the enemy of mankind, so that they might riot in boundless ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... religious veneration, and prescribed the form of worship most acceptable to him, whoever admitted the truth of it held, of consequence, every other system of religion, as a deviation from what was established by divine authority, to be false and impious. Hence arose the zeal of the first converts to the Christian faith in propagating its doctrines, and the ardor with which they labored to overturn every other form of worship. They employed, however, for this purpose no methods but such as suited the nature ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Hadrian divulged Antinous Would I denote Thy sanctity, not thus Should Love's deep litany be cried aloud. There is a mountain set apart for us Where I have hid Thy soul as in a cloud, And there I dedicate as I have vowed My secret voice,—all else were impious. ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, insomuch that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers, and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices. God was therefore much displeased at them, and determined to punish them for their pride, and to overthrow their city, and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... the seeds of which are provided with numerous hooks adapted to catch the hair of moving quadrupeds, and so to become disseminated. But, as we have just seen, there are no quadrupeds in these islands to meet this case of adaptation; so that special creationists must resort to the almost impious hypothesis, that in these cases the Deity only carried out half His plan, in that while He made an elaborate provision for plants which depended for its efficiency on the presence of quadrupeds, He nevertheless, ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes

... Walt Whitman. A belief in the preciousness of filth. Entirely bestial. Nastiness and animal insensibility to shame. Noxious weeds. Impious and obscene. Disgusting burlesque. Broken out of Bedlam. Libidinousness and swell of self-applause. Defilement. Crazy outbreak of conceit and vulgarity. Ithyphallic audacity. Gross indecency. Sunken sensualist. ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler

... consciousness [e]. This opinion it seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked, abominable, and even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to all eternity [f]. [FN [d] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 168. [e] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 171. [f] Ibid. p. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... of her ever forsaking him. He had thus been led into discussions on suicide, and had even argued for the moral right of man to end his own being under circumstances. Persuasion hangs on the lips of those we love. What she would have rejected as impious, from some immoral man, in dispute, sank deep into her soul, emanating from a heart she loved, through lips that, to her, seemed formed for eloquence as much as love ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... attractive for picnic parties and Sunday excursionists. I contended, on the other hand, that if they were in America the authorities would close them up and protect the moldered bones of those early Christians from the vulgar gaze and prying fingers of every impious relic hunter who might come along. The dispute rose higher and grew warmer until I offered to bet him fifty dollars that I was right and he was wrong. He took me up promptly—he had sporting instincts; I'll say that for him—and we shook hands on it then and there to bind the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... juice bereft. Be sure the pride of Raghu's race Will never stoop to such disgrace: The lordly lion will not bear That man should beard him in his lair. Were all the worlds against him ranged His dauntless soul were still unchanged: He, dutiful, in duty strong, Would purge the impious world from wrong. Could not the hero, brave and bold, The archer, with his shafts of gold, Burn up the very seas, as doom Will in the end all life consume? Of lion's might, eyed like a bull, A prince ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... and invention were frowned upon. New devices were regarded as impious. The typewriter was tolerated; the telephone was regarded with shame. The Ancestors had not made use of such things....Malcolm Lightener let no instrument for adding efficiency pass untried. It was the same in office and in shop. The plant was ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... the judge to whom, but the day before, I had confided the reality! There, upon the Bench above me, sat that time-honored man—that upright magistrate, pure as his ermine, "narrowly watching" every word I said. Had I dared to make an appeal so horrible and so impious—had I dared so to outrage his nature and my own conscience, he would have started from his seat and withered me with a glance. No, Warren, I never made such an appeal; it is a malignant untruth, and sure I am, had the person who ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... is this new piety of God and the pope, that for money they allow a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God, and do not rather, because of that pious and beloved soul's own need, free ...
— Martin Luther's 95 Theses • Martin Luther

... The dire effects of her proud tyrant's guilt;— An Umpire partial and unjust, And a lewd woman's impious lust, Lay heavy on her head, and sunk ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... th' enchanted Tow'r; Go impious, false and cruel, go To her who has inflam'd your Heart, but know, That now Melissa (justly enrag'd) Will soon raise all th' Infernal Monsters up, All ugly Harpies shall approach, Cerberus and Furies, Fire and Flames appear. ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... wondered whether she had been created as a mere sentient plummet to sound every gulf of human woe; then humbly recanted the impious repining, and thanked God that, at least, she had been spared that deepest of all abysses, the Hades of remorse. That which comes to most women as the supreme earthly joy—the consciousness of possessing the heart of the man they love, fell upon Beryl like the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... raging iconoclast, after having overthrown religion by history, upset history by science, and then toppled over science, has now laid his impious hands upon babies' ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... impious arms from Latium chas'd, Their ancient bounds the banish'd Muses pass'd; 710 Thence Arts o'er all the northern world advance, But Critic-learning flourish'd most in France: The rules a nation, born to serve, obeys; And Boileau still in right of ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... Love, like one from some delightful Dream, To reassume my wonted Cares and Shame. —I will not speak with him. [Exit Boy. Oh Hippolyta! thou poor lost thing, Hippolyta! How art thou fallen from Honour, and from Virtue, And liv'st in Whoredom with an impious Villain, Who in revenge to me has thus betray'd thee. Keep thy self closer than thou'st done thy Sin; For if I find thee out, by all that's good, Thou hadst more Mercy on thy slaughter'd Honour, Than I will have for ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... man," I cried, "it isn't a matter of hardness! It's a matter of impious and indecent wickedness. If your Sir Joseph knew the passions he was playing with, he did you a wrong for which in many Christian countries he would have a ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety, but that the government of the individual States, that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty? We have heard of the impious doctrine in the Old World, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the New, in another shape that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political ...
— The Federalist Papers

... Ten thousand devils more are in this habit; Saintship and zeal are still our best disguise: We mix unknown with the hot thoughtless crowd, And quoting scriptures, (which too well we know,) With impious glosses ban the holy text, And make it speak rebellion, schism, and murder; So turn the arms of heaven ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Peter helped her to clear away the things and insisted on being allowed to help wash the dishes. But to this Beth demurred for they were of Aunt Tillie's blue colonial china set and not to be trusted to impious hands. But she let Peter sit in the kitchen and watch her (which was quite satisfactory) and even spared him a kiss ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... Mrs Reichardt solemnly; "this is impious. God never abandons those who are worthy of His protection. He will either save them at His own appointed time—or if He think it more desirable, will snatch them from a scene where so many dangers surround them, and place them where there prevails eternal ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... arrested and thrown into jail, where I passed a most uncomfortable night, being unable to sleep because of the profanity of my fellow-prisoners, two clergymen, whose theological training had given them a fertility of impious ideas and a command of blasphemous language altogether unparalleled. But along toward morning the jailer, who, sleeping in an adjoining room, had been equally disturbed, entered the cell and with a fearful oath warned ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... and adds eight other proofs of his proposition that "the earth can be nowhere if not in the centre of the universe." So earnest does this mildest of the Reformers become, that he suggests severe measures to restrain such impious teachings as ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... could not be obtained, he sins against the whole meaning, end, and design of the prohibition, which no consideration in the world could prevail with him to go against the letter of. And surely that impious counsel he gave to Balak against the children of Israel was, considered in itself, a greater piece of wickedness than if he ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... herd of Eck. Words fail me to describe the bitter, Pharisaical hatred I noticed there. They do nothing, they plan nothing else than how they may incite the princes against us, and supply the Emperor with impious weapons." (197.) The implacable theologians also succeeded in fanaticizing some of the princes and bishops, who gradually became more and more opposed to any kind of settlement by ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... whispered eagerness of the outcasts round David is reproduced! They think it would be 'tempting Providence' to let such a chance slip. They put a religious varnish on their advice. It would be almost impious not to kill Saul, for here was the hand of God evidently fulfilling a prophecy! There may have been some unrecorded prediction of the sort which they seem to quote; but more probably they are only referring to David's designation ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Father, pretending that they are the only possessors of Light and Eternal Life. How? I, who have given to each being air, light, life and love, that he may be happy, could I deny to one of the most transcendental, true happiness, for the sake of others? Impious! Absurd! Tell them that I, who am All, and apart from whom nothing exists, nor could exist, I have not and cannot have enemies. Nothing equals me, and no ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... hands. The German professor accorded to the idol the most profound veneration, but on the epoch of quarter-day he was sometimes forced to carry him to the Mont-de-piete, upon which he fell into a state of sombre chagrin, and did not recover his serenity until he was able to make amends for his impious act. He never failed, moreover, to renew his avowals in prosperous times, and finally to take his god ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... terms:—"During that Christmas feast of which my lord was talking to you, he and his followers discoursed much concerning the German merchants, and the best means of keeping down the increasing pride and power of the trading-towns. At length Biorn laid his impious hand on the golden boar's head, and swore to put to death without mercy every German trader whom fate, in what way soever, might bring alive into his power. The gentle Verena turned pale, and would have interposed—but it was too late, the bloody word was uttered. And immediately ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... heroic, and the lower lyric compositions, yet in Christian poems, of the sublime and greater kind, a mixture of the Pagan theology must, by all who are masters of reflexion and good sense, be condemned, if not as impious, at least, as impertinent and absurd. And this is a truth so clear and evident, that I make no doubt it will, by degrees, force its way, and prevail over the contrary practice. Should Britons recover their ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... a step toward the church-yard, but D'Effernay clutched his arm, and, with an impious oath, "you shall not stir," he said; "that grave shall ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... All other crimes appear less atrocious than this scorn of a Saviour's love—this trampling under foot the blood of the covenant. While no finite mind could have conceived it possible, that Almighty love should be so slighted, yet the Spirit of prophecy announced this impious ingratitude, long before the incarnation. When Isaiah saw the glory of Christ, and spake of him, he also saw that he would be despised and rejected of men. And by all their hostility to the doctrines of grace, sinners are only verifying the description, which inspiration gave long ago, ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... Phocas conferred the title "Universal Bishop" upon the Pope of Rome. In A.D. 756 the Pope became a temporal sovereign. Yet the power of Papal usurpation did not reach the summit until the reign of the impious Hildebrand, who succeeded to the Popedom in A.D. 1073, under the title of Gregory VII. But according to the symbols before us, we must look for a period not so much when the Popes were enabled to definitely enforce their arrogant claims, as when ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... except so far as a person who is agitated by maddening Furies is not alone, fluctuated in sorrow like a stormy sea; and though her purpose was fixed and her heart was resolute when she first began to make preparations for the impious work, her mind now wavered, and feared. She hurried, she procrastinated; now she was bold, now tremulous; now dubious, now agitated by rage; and what was the most singular thing of all, in the same being she hated the beast and loved ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... the mere putting of ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart from any attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities mere illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even vices, impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous attempts to adapt the Perfect to ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... this point the Jews fancy foolish things. They interpret the sons of God to signify demon-lechers by whom that impious generation was begotten, and that they were called the sons of God by reason of their spiritual nature. The more moderate ones, however, refute such folly and represent the sons of the mighty. This has been aptly ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... on the part of Miss Prowley. Not recognize the authority of the spirits! Miss Turligood fairly staggered, when she heard the impious announcement. The smooth sciolist Stellato rallied his weak wits and uttered a cry of wonder at such flagitious heresy. The future Lady Byron, taking as a deliberate insult any doubts of the identity and authority of her posthumous spouse, threw up her arms in horror, and trotted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... spoke to Arachne, and, with the persuasive words of a wise old woman, warned her that she must not let her ambition soar too high. Greater than all skilled craftswomen was the great goddess Athene, and were Arachne, in impious vanity, to dream that one day she might equal her, that were indeed a crime for any ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... trembling hand Received the dagger. Starting then, she cried, "Avaunt DESPAIR! Eternal Wisdom deals Or peace to man, or misery, for his good Alike design'd; and shall the Creature cry, Why hast thou done this? and with impious pride Destroy the life God gave?" The Fiend rejoin'd, "And thou dost deem it impious to destroy The life God gave? What, Maiden, is the lot Assigned to mortal man? born but to drag, Thro' life's long pilgrimage, the wearying load Of being; care corroded at the heart; ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... which erst our fathers blest, Favored of Heaven—the pilgrim's hope of rest— Now cursed by traitors, who with impious hands Have dared to sunder our once-hallowed bands— Have dared to poison with their ven'mous breath All that was fair—and raise the flag of death; Have dared to blight the country of their birth, Striving her name ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... labor he was to undertake in the region in which his hero strength—so the impious king hoped—would not accompany him. This was a fight with the dark powers of the underworld. He was to bring forth from Hades Cerberus, the dog of Hell. This animal had three heads with frightful jaws, from which incessantly poison flowed. A dragon's tail hung from his ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... "this scoundrel deserves admiration! Thou wilt cleave to Moses and yet defendest thou that which the law condemns? Ha! Fathers of Israel, the impious words call ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... it, for Orbajosa's sake," said Dona Perfecta. "This poor city has fallen into misfortune. Do you know if Francisco Acero gave his word to the governor not to trouble the poor soldiers in their abductions, in their impious deeds, in their sacrilegious acts, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... your friendship to my unnatural nephew thus far. But I know you have been privy to his impious designs upon my wife. This evening she has told me all. Her good nature concealed it as long as was possible; but he perseveres so in villainy, that she has told me even you were weary of dissuading ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... pietist[obs3], precisian[obs3], religionist, devotee; ranter, fanatic, juramentado[obs3]. the wicked, the evil, the unjust, the reprobate; sons of men, sons of Belial, the wicked one; children of darkness. V. be impious &c. adj., profane, desecrate, blaspheme, revile, scoff; swear &c. (malediction) 908; commit sacrilege. snuffle; turn up the whites of the eyes; idolize. Adj. impious; irreligious &c. 989; desecrating &c.v.; profane, irreverent, sacrilegious, blasphemous. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the existence of the "three Marys," as to denounce the Bishop of Meaux for favoring "Lutheran" preachers in his diocese. Against all innovators in church or state, the sentiments of the Sorbonne, which it took no pains to conceal, were that "their impious and shameless arrogance must be restrained by chains, by censures—nay, by fire and flame—rather ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... of his station, one of which might be helping his wife off her horse; but he would not have refrained from doing this because he had read in a book that a course of falling off horses often resulted in the birth of a genius. Both Moslem and Christian would have thought such speculations not only impious but utterly unpractical. I quite agree with them; but that is not ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... with a black seal. Another blow. Some other member of my family dead. It is too bitter. I cannot stand this. I'll go to sea again, and hope that in mercy I may lose that life which has become too burdensome to bear. Such thoughts, (wrong and impious I know they were), passed through my mind as I kept the letter in my hand before breaking the seal. I looked at the superscription. It was from my dear sister Jane. I tore it open. The contents soon riveted my attention. It was not long. One ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... swore that he would be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria. He also professed (very much to his own astonishment) that he did "from his heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever." And, having almost lost his breath ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... one rank in the civil order removed from us as unworthy to breathe even the same air, and regard the most distant communication with them as an indignity and disgrace offered to ourselves. This is considering the difference not in the individual, but in the very species; a height of insolence impious in a Christian society, and most absurd and ridiculous ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... that the name of Christian will avail them nought. And therefore our holy fathers of old, considering that the majority of men on those days became slaves to gluttony and riotous living and raved in drunkenness and impious dancing, determined for the whole world that throughout the Churches a public fast should be proclaimed.... Let us therefore fast, beloved brethren, on those days.... For he who on the Kalends shows any civility to foolish men who are wantonly sporting, is undoubtedly ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... eyes raised from the wool-work, motionless at the posturing figure of her sister. It was sacrilege that she was witnessing, a prodigious irreverence. She was conscious of an expectation that punishment would instantly fall on this daring, impious child. But she, who never felt these mad, amazing impulses, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... confronted in shabby clothes with that person all dressed up. When she hurried to the Church for mercy it was desolation to learn from the pulpit that her heart clamor for divorce was not a cleanly and aseptic impulse, but an impious contribution to the filthy social ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... with which the idolatrous priests of that day blindfolded and deceived the people; his plays having frequent cuts upon the gross superstition which then darkened the heathen world. For some expressions which were deemed impious he was condemned to die. Indeed christian scholars particularly mark a passage in one of his tragedies in which he palpably predicts, the downfall of Jupiter's authority, as if he had foreseen the dispersion of heathenism. The multitude were accordingly going to stone him to death when they were ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the crown of thorns. These things and deeds are diametrically opposed; they are as distinct as vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... is possible that, in his haughty pride, Frederick will take no notice of this command. But it will be otherwise with the generals and commandants of this usurper. They have been commanded by the emperor to leave their impious master, and not to be the sharers of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... horrified at the morals and tenets of the Gnostic sects, the Manicheans, the Albigenses, and other defunct heresies of old; but we doubt if any thing more impious, immoral, or absurd happened under the auspices of these by-gone sects than the blasphemies, delusions, and corruptions carried on under the cloak of your "camp meetings," "revivals," "mediums," "spiritual wife system," and other modern ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... system, but of harsh, protesting cries—Panta chorei kai ouden menei. All things give way: nothing remaineth. There had been enquirers before him of another sort, purely physical enquirers, whose bold, contradictory, seemingly impious guesses how and of what primary elements the world of visible things, the sun, the stars, the brutes, their own souls and bodies, had been composed, were themselves a part of the bold enterprise of that romantic age; a series of intellectual adventures, of a piece with its ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... mentioned that my Guardian was a Man of uncommon knowledge: He took pains to instil that knowledge into my infant mind. Among the various sciences which curiosity had induced him to explore, He neglected not that which by most is esteemed impious, and by many chimerical. I speak of those arts which relate to the world of Spirits. His deep researches into causes and effects, his unwearied application to the study of natural philosophy, his profound and unlimited knowledge of the properties and virtues of every gem which enriches the deep, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... us,—a vast and glittering mausoleum, in which the purpose of the constructor has long been entombed, we fear without hope of a happy resurrection. Nevertheless, into this splendid ruin, hieroglyphed with the most brilliant images the modern mind has yet conceived, we are about to dig,—not with the impious desire of dragging forth the intellectual tenant, now in the fourth century of its everlasting repose, but, haply, to discover in the outer chambers and passages of the pyramid some relics of the individual architect, his family and mode of life. In fact, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... the impious and unjust; What vain designs they form! Their hopes are blown away like dust, Or chaff ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... degree, to the value of one cent, knowingly, myself, nor suffer it to be done by others, if in my power to prevent it. Furthermore, do I promise and swear, that I will not govern this Lodge, nor any other over which I may be called to preside, in a haughty, arbitrary, or impious manner; but will at all times use my utmost endeavors to preserve peace and harmony among the brethren. Furthermore, do I promise and swear, that I will never open a Lodge of Master Masons, unless there be present three regular Master Masons, besides the Tyler, nor close the same without giving ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... years ago," said Berry, "you would probably have been pressed to death for this impious display. In consideration of your age, you might instead have ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... of horror shake the forms of Harut and of all those with him as the full meaning of these, to them, most impious requests sank into their minds. But he only ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... betrayed; 'tis sacrilege! Our friend, he who picked up corn-seeds in the same plains as ourselves, has violated our ancient laws; he has broken the oaths that bind all birds; he has laid a snare for me, he has handed us over to the attacks of that impious race which, throughout all time, has never ceased to war against us. As for this traitorous bird, we will decide his case later, but the two old men shall be punished forthwith; we are going to tear ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes

... one before the Throne of Christ the Judge is brought, Both righteous and impious that good or ill hath wrought. A separation, and diff'ring station by Christ appointed is (To sinners sad) 'twixt good and bad, 'twixt Heirs ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... slightly displeased. "As a church-woman," she said, "I really feel that it is positively impious to bring back the souls of the departed, before they are called from ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... remark which naively assumed that Roman Catholics were not Christians,—the Rev. Daniel Shute of Hingham replied that no conceivable advantage could result from a religious test. Yes, said the Rev. Philip Payson of Chelsea, "human tribunals for the consciences of men are impious encroachments upon the prerogatives of God. A religious test, as a qualification for office, would have been a great blemish." "In reason and in the Holy Scripture," said the Rev. Isaac Backus of ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... lesser, now called Natolia. This shew is made once in every year, on which occasion people flock thither from almost a thousand miles off, worshipping the river as a god and saviour; a most abominable and impious superstition of these brutish heathens, aliens from Christ. As soon as I have seen this ceremony, I propose, by God's help, to repair to Lahore, twenty days journey from hence, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... he foreseeing, with his Son, the Earl, Forsook the City; and by secret wayes As you give out, and we would gladly have it, Escap'd their fury: though 'tis more than fear'd They fell amongst the rest; Nor stand you there To let us only mourn the impious means By which you got it, but your cruelties since So far transcend your former bloody ills, As if compar'd, they only would appear Essays of mischief; do not stop your ears, ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... each verse; the organ accompanying in a plagal cadence,[85] which completes its effect. The chant is preceded by an admonition from the abbot, which lays down its text: that God is unchanging, and His justice as infinite as His mercy; and singer and chorus both denounce the impious heresy of "John:" who admitted only the love, and sinned the "Unknown Sin," in his confidence in it. How the logs are fired; how the victim roasts; amidst what hideous and fantastic torments the damned soul "flares forth into the dark" is ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... some confusion of words and mind he began to prevaricate, saying that he thought he had made himself clear: the release of pious souls from the bondage of the flesh was more important than the continuance of the impious. Moreover in the days of Moses, Israel was not steeped in as many iniquities as she is now, and the Day of Judgment was not so close at hand. More men meant more sins, and sin has become so common that God can endure the torture no longer.... Again Joseph ceased speaking ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... child, wheresoever born, whether within the Church or out of it, whether of pious parents or of impious, is received by the Lord at death; is educated in heaven; is taught and imbued with affections of good and by these with knowledges of truth; and then, as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, is introduced into heaven ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg

... find was that the Will of God was inscrutable and absolute; that it was man's duty to follow where God's hand led; and, if God's hand led towards violent excitements and extraordinary vicissitudes, that it was not only futile, it was impious to turn another way. Fatalism is always apt to be a double-edged philosophy; for while, on the one hand, it reveals the minutest occurrences as the immutable result of a rigid chain of infinitely ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... the pious work. Then the giant form uprises,— From the dear lips of his mother, Lips all god-like—changeless—blissful, Sound these words with horror fraught: "Son, oh son! what overhast'ning! Yonder is thy mother's body, Near it lies the impious head Of the woman who hath fallen Victim to the judgment-sword! To her body I am grafted By thy hand for endless ages; Wise in counsel, wild in action, I shall be amongst the gods. E'en the heav'nly boy's own image, Though in eye and ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... with that of a certain maddened lad who, on a certain spring Sunday ten years before, and in the hour of church-time silence, had stolen from that city by the Glasgow road. In the face of these changes, it were impious to doubt fortune's kindness. All would be well yet; the Mackenzies would be found, Flora, younger and lovelier and kinder than before; Alan would be found, and would have so nicely discriminated his behaviour as to have grown, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... things I declare and testify to you that you shall observe none of the impious customs of the pagans, neither sorcerers, nor diviners, nor soothsayers, nor enchanters, nor must you presume for any cause, or for any sickness, to consult or inquire of them; for he who commits this sin ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... stand. They crossed a broad street which seemed the metropolis of the district; it flamed with gin-palaces; a multitude were sauntering in the mild though tainted air; bargaining, blaspheming, drinking, wrangling: and varying their business and their potations, their fierce strife and their impious irreverence, with flashes of rich humour, gleams of native wit, and racy ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... to do it, in order that such impious men may the sooner bring down upon their heads the judgments of heaven for having dared to entertain even the thought of delivering up ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... independency. These are calumnies. Permit us to be free as you are, and our union with you will be our greatest glory. But if your ministers sport with human rights, if neither the voice of justice, the principles of the constitution, nor humanity will restrain them from shedding human blood in an impious cause, 'we will never submit.' We ask peace, liberty and safety, and for this we have laid our prayer at the feet of the king as a loving father." The battles at Lexington, Concord and Ticonderoga preceded the second meeting of Congress in May, 1775. Their plea for justice ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple

... The storm-winds bore away that dream Far as Armenia's perfume-breathing bids. Great Venus! Did I at thy shrine blaspheme? Am I accursed for rash and impious words? ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... it sanctions all the errors that were ever promulgated; that it furnishes a complete justification of the worst conduct of the worst men, that ever lived, tends to paralyze all effort to resist temptation, and condemns as impious any opposition to the commission of sin by our neighbors, and, finally, that it is worse than the ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... to be no restraint at all on thinking freely upon any proposition, however impious or absurd. There is not the least hurt in the wickedest thoughts, provided they be free; nor in telling those thoughts to everybody, and endeavouring to convince the world of them; for all this is included in the doctrine ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... buildings, but gave some strong evidence of his dislike of affairs of exchange within them. And yet there might surely be a heroism in such affairs; and all commerce become a kind of selling of doves, not impious. The wonder has always been great to me, that heroism has never been supposed to be in anywise consistent with the practice of supplying people with food, or clothes; but rather with that of quartering oneself upon them for food, and stripping them of their clothes. Spoiling of armour is ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... then Burman king pulled down some of the pagodas to build up the defences of his walls when he heard that a Chinese king was coming to attack him; but of course he got the worst of it after such an impious act, as anyone would guess, and since then the place has been deserted. Some of the largest pagodas have been restored, which is rather a wonder in Burma as restoration does not make for "merit." You can see the snow-white outlines rising gracefully in the middle of the rough ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... The impious adventurers gave no other sign. The sailors, the Indian, and the stolen burro were never seen again. As to the mozo, a Sulaco man—his wife paid for some masses, and the poor four-footed beast, being without sin, had ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... approximation to president-making, with the canvassing, stumping, and wrangling, incidental to such a contested election. Annexation, or peaceful absorption, is the "manifest destiny" of the islands, with the probable result lately most wittily prophesied by Mark Twain in the New York Tribune, but it is impious and impolitic to hasten it. Much as I like America, I shrink from the day when her universal political corruption and her unrivalled political immorality shall be naturalised on Hawaii-nei. . . . Sunday evening. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... he putteth no trust in his saints. Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?" Strange, that after all these thousands of years, we should still persist in this degrading confession, as a thing which it is impious to deny, and impious to attempt to render otherwise, when scripture itself, in language so emphatic, declares that it is a lie. Job is innocent, perfect, righteous. God Himself bears witness to it. It is Job who is found at last to have spoken truth, and the friends to have sinned in denying it. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... classical example of the snares ever lying around the footsteps of the impious, I perceived that the jocular stripling, whom I had so delicately reproved, was no longer present. Doubtless he had been unable to remain in the same room with the commanding Helena's high-spirited indignation, and anticipating that in consequence there would now ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... K[)e]s[i]l signifies "a fool," and that in the general sense of the term as used in Scripture; not merely a silly, untaught, feckless person, but a godless and an impious one. Thus, in the Book of Proverbs, Divine Wisdom ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... their enthusiasm the hand of God. St. Bernard himself, the chief promoter of the expedition, gives a most unflattering description of the "soldiers of Christ." "In that countless multitude you will find few except the utterly wicked and impious, the sacrilegious, homicides, and perjurers, whose departure is a double gain. Europe rejoices to lose them and Palestine to gain them; they are useful in both ways, in their absence from here and their presence there." It ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... my father's prophetic forebodings were but too well founded! The ways of God are just, and the dispensations of his wisdom are not to be scanned, much more disputed, by impious man; to submit to his Divine will without repining, is the imperative duty of every sincere Christian. I shall never forget the day, nor the care and anxiety of my excellent father. We set off early, in order to walk leisurely to church, that my mother should ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... of skill and authority to amend it. Which also discovereth their intent and purpose to be rather destructive than corrective. 3. Those very exceptions which they take are frivolous and impertinent. Some things indeed they accuse as impious; which if they may appear to be such, God forbid ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... Titian, to the very texture and colour of the wedding garments, the ring glittering upon the bride's fingers, the metal and fashion of the wine pots; for at such seasons there is leisure and luxury to be curious. But in a "day of judgment," or in a "day of lesser horrors, yet divine," as at the impious feast of Belshazzar, the eye should see, as the actual eye of an agent or patient in the immediate scene would see, only in masses and indistinction. Not only the female attire and jewelry exposed to the critical ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Frauds, crimes, remembrances of the past, terrors of the future,—these are the domestic Furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.—Cicero. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... torches borne by the attendants were reflected from the walls of the edifice. What a spectacle! The remains of kings and queens, princes and princesses, of the most ancient of monarchies, sought with pious care, with sacred respect, in the ditches dug by impious arms in the evil days. The bones of the Valois and the Bourbons found pele-mele outside the walls of the church, and brought again, after a long exile, to ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... her hands in horror and cried: "Such an impious civilization must come speedily not only to spiritual and moral ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... visible sign of their presence, except a slight movement, and then a shiver amongst the frost-bitten boughs above the rocks. He had not power to bethink him of his Paternosters and Ave Marias, which, doubtless, would have dissolved the impious charm. Ralph had so neglected these ordinances that his tongue refused to repeat the usual nostrums for protection against evil spirits. His creed was nigh forgotten, and his "salve" was not heard. Whilst he was pondering on this occurrence, there ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... is not her vain enmity I fear, Another foe alarms Hippolytus. I fly, it must be own'd, from young Aricia, The sole survivor of an impious race. ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... sufficient means of judging how far the disasters of D'Anville's fleet were due to a neglect of sanitary precautions or to deficient seamanship. Certain it is that there were many in self-righteous New England who would have held it impious to doubt that God had summoned the pestilence and the storm to fight the battles of ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... kept by him a book of magic, and had made use of it to conjure and invoke the evil spirit; that he has been with the said Magdalen to the sabbath, where he had committed an infinite number of scandalous, impious and abominable actions, such as having worshiped Lucifer:—for these causes, the said attorney-general requires that the said Gaufredi be declared attainted and convicted of the circumstances imputed to him, and as reparation of them, that he be previously degraded from sacred orders by the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... actual exposition of boredom come over us from many quarters without drawing for new bores upon the imagination? It is true I gave a single drop of comfort. JOHN PICKARD OWEN was dead. But his having ceased to exist (to use the impious phraseology of the present day) did not cancel the fact of his having once existed. That he should have ever been born gave proof of potentialities in Nature which could not be regarded lightly. What hybrids might ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... more; what we know is good, and what we do not know or understand must also be good. We judge from what we see what that must be which we cannot see. We do not wish it otherwise. We feel that it would be impious to try and understand him fully, for is he not connected with God Himself? So we see one side of the life of the Eternal; but we are friends; we do not wish it otherwise. We cannot understand Him—we never can. And yet 'I have called you friends.' His main purposes we see: ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson

... face of the deep." A new source for fables and most impious imaginations may be found by distorting the sense of these words at the will of one's fancies. By "darkness" these wicked men do not understand what is meant in reality—air not illumined, the shadow produced by the interposition of a body, or finally a ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a common slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, I could well believe that nothing more was meant than was pretended. But when I see, that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished, nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on Royal Majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... who says it is ten thousand pities he had not known it, he could have added such abundance of things upon every subject. Among lady critics, some have found out that Mr. Gulliver had a particular malice to maids of honour. Those of them who frequent the church, say his design is impious, and that it is depreciating the works of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... had been thus arranged, while the men destined for the service of seizing Ursicinus were waiting for the appointed time, the emperor's mind changed to mercy, and so this impious deed was put off for ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... men, which we so rashly pronounce criminal. And we must therefore conclude, either that they are not criminal, or that the Deity, not man, is accountable for them. But as either of these positions is absurd and impious, it follows, that the doctrine from which they are deduced cannot possibly be true, as being liable to all the same objections. An absurd consequence, if necessary, proves the original doctrine to be absurd; in the same manner as criminal ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... of hunger, nor by malady; I saw the snow around him, stain'd with gore; I said I had no tears for such as he, And, lo! my cheek is wet—mine eyes run o'er; I weep for mortal suffering, mortal guilt, I weep the impious deed, the blood self-spilt. ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... reading some of the awful oaths administered to the partisans of those secret societies. They proposed to war against God, to sweep away all salutary checks against the indulgence of passion, to level the alter and the throne, and advocated the claims of those impious theories that in modern times have found their fullest development ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... in Elymais or the modern Luristan, the most celebrated and the richest shrine in the whole region of the Euphrates.(17) From far and near the Asiatics flocked in crowds to the banner of the kings, who summoned them to protect the east and its gods from the impious foreigners. But facts had shown not only that the mere assemblage of enormous hosts was of little avail, but that the troops really capable of marching and fighting were by their very incorporation in such a mass rendered useless and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen



Words linked to "Impious" :   disrespectful, wicked, profane, piety, irreverent, irreligious, impiousness, secular, pious, godless



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