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Lawless   Listen
adjective
Lawless  adj.  
1.
Contrary to, or unauthorized by, law; illegal; as, a lawless claim. "He needs no indirect nor lawless course."
2.
Not subject to, or restrained by, the law of morality or of society; as, lawless men or behavior.
3.
Not subject to the laws of nature; uncontrolled. "Or, meteorlike, flame lawless through the void."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lawless" Quotes from Famous Books



... separate destinations; Ripton was left to the unusual exercise of his fancy. Such is the nature of youth and its thirst for romance, that only to act as a subordinate is pleasant. When one unfurls the standard of defiance to parents and guardians, he may be sure of raising a lawless troop of adolescent ruffians, born rebels, to any amount. The beardless crew know that they have not a chance of pay; but what of that when the rosy prospect of thwarting their elders is in view? Though it is to see another eat the Forbidden Fruit, they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... look at things in their true light," Fred said. "Your present expedition is the first one that has ever been able to cope with the lawless scoundrels: and you can readily comprehend how the bushrangers will feel when they know that two of their most formidable bands have been broken up, and by only a dozen men. In Melbourne, one dauntless escaped convict is considered more than a match for four policemen, because the former fights ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... Chainbearer," the Yankee squatter, Thousandacres, is a repulsive figure, but drawn with a powerful pencil. The energy of character, or rather of action, which is the result of a passionate love of money, is true to human nature. The closing scenes of his rough and lawless life, in which his latent affection for his faithful wife throws a sunset gleam over his hard and selfish nature, and prevents it from being altogether hateful, are impressively told, and are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... great cause, and did not stop to haggle. Nor were he and Dudley of the temper to leave a task half done. Undoubtedly at the governor's instigation, a resolve was introduced into the Assembly reviving the Act of 1650 by which the university had been incorporated, and it is by the sanction of this lawless and masterly feat of statesmanship that Harvard has been administered for ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... bright eyes on the art critic—"I will excuse you from excusing me for all the things I haven't done; and you, I hope, will excuse me if I differ from you altogether about the morality of poets. As you suggest, it is a fashionable view, but I think it is a fallacy. No man has less right to be lawless than a man of imagination. For he has spiritual adventures, and can take his holidays when he likes. I could picture the poor Squire carried off to elfland whenever I wanted him carried off, and that wood needed no crime to make it wicked for me. That ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton

... I could think so," said Charley anxiously. "But you know as well as I that there are some gangs of lawless men in Florida, gathered from all quarters of the globe, and, Walter," lowering his voice to a whisper, "I saw signs that there was more than one man near our ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote, and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade, and midnight show, From lapdogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, tyrants, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... impressive; combined with the low moaning of the night-breeze, which rose and sank at intervals, with a wild and wailing murmur. The light was so indistinct that he could discover nothing of his horse, and in the lawless state of the country no time was to be lost in getting to a place of safety. But, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... the eye that guides the soul through the craggy paths of this life. Pure souls are raised by divine grace to dwell with God on earth by holy contemplation, and are fitted for eternal bliss, (Hom. 4;) true Christians differ in their desires and actions from other men. The wicked burn with lawless passions, and are disturbed with anxious desires and vain wishes, hunt after, and think of nothing but earthly pleasures; but the true Christian enjoys an uninterrupted tranquillity of mind and joy, even amidst crosses, and rejoices ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... mind of wise antiquity told the riddle of the Sphinx, if having ears to hear we would hear. "Our youth should be educated in a stricter rule from the first, for if education becomes lawless and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted or meritorious citizens; and the education ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... now," said Grace. "It is a pity that Eleanor has taken up with Edna Wright. She is the only girl in the class that I really dislike. She is frivolous and empty-headed, and Eleanor is self-willed and lawless. Put them together, and they will make a bad combination. As to the other two girls, they ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... prose-rhythms is, I have hinted, with the higher developments of music, which, compared with the simple tunes of the street, are as apparently lawless and unlicensed as is prose compared to verse. And as it is not poets who follow laws, but precede them—as trochee and iambic, alcaic and hexameter, are the inventions of grammarians following on the trail of genius—so it behoves the Aristotle who would discover the laws of the rhythm of prose ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... American children. More strongly than ever do I feel that Europe and America have not done justice to the character of the Chinese. I do not refer to the bigoted and corrupt Manchu officials, or to the lawless barbarians who, like the "lewd fellows of the baser sort'' in other lands, are ever ready to follow the leadership of a demagogue. But I refer to the Chinese people as a whole. Their view-point is so radically different from ours that we have often harshly misjudged them, when the real ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... the Charans are graziers, cattle-sellers and pack-carriers. Colonel Tod says: [181] "The Charans and Bhats or bards and genealogists are the chief carriers of these regions (Marwar); their sacred character overawes the lawless Rajput chief, and even the savage Koli and Bhil and the plundering Sahrai of the desert dread the anathema of these singular races, who conduct the caravans through the wildest and most desolate regions." In another passage ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... hearken to them. He was an old lawyer; and he could not realize that the people would do any thing so utterly lawless as to assault him in his peaceful home. He was one of King George's chief officers; and it would be an insult and outrage upon the king himself, if the ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... serfs in Fleet Street, when they catch a glimpse of the fairies, think the fairies are utterly free. But fairies are like journalists in this and many other respects. Fairies and journalists have an apparent gaiety and a delusive beauty. Fairies and journalists seem to be lovely and lawless; they seem to be both of them too exquisite to descend to the ugliness of everyday duty. But it is an illusion created by the sudden sweetness of their presence. Journalists live under law; and ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... Chapel They stood together, chain'd in deep discourse, 50 The earth heav'd under them with such a groan, That the wall totter'd, and had well-nigh fallen Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frighten'd; A fever seiz'd him, and he made confession Of all the heretical and lawless talk 55 Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seiz'd And cast into that hole. My husband's father Sobb'd like a child—it almost broke his heart: And once as he was working in the cellar, He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's, 60 Who sung ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... scarcely any other kind, the monasteries and ecclesiastical buildings of every description were generally spared, even by the most ruthless marauders; and, had this not been the case, those possessing sufficient valuable property to attract the cupidity of the lawless were far more likely to provide an inconspicuous hiding place for their wealth than to advertise its possession by erecting a tower which, from every direction, was invariably the most conspicuous feature of the landscape. That ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... desert—something of which all my boyhood training made me no less afraid than of the shadows, born of the blood, born of the very strength I had won. It seemed to run counter to books and gardens and peace itself—a lawless, devil-like creature! Yes, I gloried in the fact that I could kill Leddy. It was an intoxication to hold a steady bead on him. And you saw and felt that in me—yes, I tell you everything as a man must when he comes to a woman offering himself, ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... the hero is, such will his worshippers be; and the men who idolised Robin Hood will be found to have been men who were themselves in revolt against oppressive law, or who, finding law powerless to prevent tyranny, glorified the lawless punishment of wrongs and the bold denunciation of perverted justice. The warriors who listened to the saga of Beowulf looked on physical prowess as the best of all heroic qualities, and the Normans who admired Roland saw in him the ideal of feudal loyalty. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... the Ochori country. All the bad characters, not only the French of the Belgian Congo, but of the badly-governed German lands—all the tax resisters, the murderers, and the criminals of every kind, but the lawless contingents of every nation, formed a floating nomadic population in the tree-covered hills which lay beyond the country ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... abominable idolatries; and that, with all the murdering violence, diabolical subtilty and malignant rage that hell and Rome could invent and exert. He had formerly published a proclamation (as is noticed above), granting a lawless liberty to several sorts of persons therein specified, called his first indulgence; but breathing nothing but threatenings and slaughter against the people of GOD, who stood firm to his cause. But ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... his party to their march; if so, the men who acted as carriers should receive 6 dollars a man for their services. This was agreed to. Susi had arranged that they should avoid the main path of the Wagogo; inasmuch, as if difficulty was to be encountered anywhere, it would arise amongst these lawless pugnacious people. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... parties who threatened offence.[1] Fifty years later, in the reign of Richard II, it was found necessary to provide further measures for repressing forcible entries on lands. The course of justice was interrupted and all these provisions were rendered in a great degree ineffectual by the lawless spirit of the times. The Statute of 1379 recites that "our Sovereign Lord the King hath perceived ... that divers of his Liege People claiming to have Right to divers Lands, Tenements, and other Possessions, and some espying Women and Damsels unmarried ... do gather ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... projected by the newly-elected city council. A new era was dawning for Saguache. The hall was crowded, as one citizen after another spoke of the future possibilities of the town, and a good government that would no longer tolerate a lawless element. When resolutions were passed and the assembly was ready to adjourn, one speaker arose and said he heartily endorsed everything that was said and done there that evening, but there was another matter which should have attention: One of the men rescued ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... instrument giving sweet sound when shattered. He served her faithfully, in spite of his distaste for some of his lady's commissions. She had to get her news of Alvan through Marko. He brought her particulars of the old trial of Alvan, and Alvan's oration in defence of himself for a lawless act of devotion to the baroness; nothing less than the successfully scheming to wrest by force from that lady's enemy a document precious to her lawful interests. It was one of those cases which have a really high gallant side as well as a bad; an excellent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nature, they described Chloe sitting on a green bank watching her sheep, or sighing when Strephon confessed his flame. And yet, with all this apparent shallowness, the age was earnest enough in its way. It was a good hater. It was filled with relentless literary feuds. Just recall the lawless state of things on the Scottish Border in the olden time,—the cattle-lifting, the house-burning, the midnight murders, the powerful marauders, who, safe in numerous retainers and moated keep, bade defiance ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... in thine own soul, The sloth, the intellectual pride, The trivial jest that veils the goal For which our fathers lived and died; The lawless dreams, the cynic art, That rend thy ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... poem of Virgil, who, as I long held with Filelfo, before Landino had taken upon him to expound the same opinion, embodied the deepest lessons of philosophy in a graceful and well-knit fable. And I cannot but regard the multiplication of these babbling, lawless productions, albeit countenanced by the patronage, and in some degree the example of Lorenzo himself, otherwise a friend to true learning, as a sign that the glorious hopes of this century are to be quenched ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... and Combativeness, which were active to the last moments of his life, is quite characteristic. Upon the whole, the test by the inner light inserted at the foramen magnum in the base of the skull indicates a very low, lawless, desperate and unprincipled character, with enough of adhesiveness to give him comrades in crime, and enough of intelligence ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... lands charged against him; but he finally concluded that this would not be safe, and he determined, in the end, to refer the case to Amulius for decision. He accordingly sent Remus to Amulius, making grievous charges against him, as a lawless desperado, who, with his brother, Numitor said, were the terror of the forests, through their domineering temper and their acts of robbery ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... country? He was like sheep led to the pasture by those in authority. But when the Sarcar sent among the sheep a butcher with no stomach for the suffering of the helpless ones, it was time to protest and to see to it that he was recalled or driven away. Some were for even more lawless methods of ridding the countryside of this monster who disembowelled the sick and suffering, severed limbs, and ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... were most frequent. Are the streets, he would ask, most infested with thieves at sunset or at midnight? Are there any public places of resort which give peculiar facilities to pickpockets? Are there any districts completely inhabited by a lawless population? Which are the flash houses, and which the shops of receivers? Having made himself master of the facts, he would act accordingly. A strong detachment of officers might be necessary for Petticoat Lane; another for the pit ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the expectation that an offense against it will take place. Law anticipates transgression as much as license; but law provides a check upon offenses and license provides an incitement to them. "The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient." Have not murder and stealing always existed? Are they not likely to exist in spite of laws against them, so long as human nature remains so frail? Then why not license them in order to keep them under control? It is perfectly ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... disapprove it, this preamble ran: "We would fain hope that the soil of Georgia may never be reddened or her people disgraced by the arbitrary shedding of human blood; for if the people allow themselves but one participation in such lawless proceedings, no human sagacity can foretell where the overwhelming deluge will be staid or what portions of our state may feel its desolating ruin. This course of protection unhinges every tie of social and civil society, dissolves those guards which the laws throw around property ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... river road this morning for a change, intending to go up later on to our trysting place through the wood." She heard him call it a trysting place without a thought of resentment or shame. "When I came to the log there I stopped, but Bonaparte, lawless old chap, kept on. I paid no attention to him, for I was thinking of—of something else. He had raced around in the forbidden underbrush for some time before I heard the report of a gun near at hand. The dog actually screamed like a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... many places they have protected the wasting shores with rows of piles. One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver— not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of robbers and the governor of police sought and burrowed into every den in the Middle country, they could not find the missing treasure. Then they knew that the looting was not done by any of the licensed robbers. So all the professional thieves and all the police set themselves to seek out the lawless plunderers." ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... was, in Mr. Gladstone's own words, "a rapid and vast extension of agrarian disturbance," which grew all through the winter of that famine- stricken year, presenting to the Chief Secretary the traditional Irish problem, how to deal with a lawless demand for redress of grievances. Towards the end of September Mr. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... Word was dumb all the while. He 'was still and refrained' Himself. It was the silence of the King before a lawless tribunal of rebels, of patient meekness, 'as a sheep before her shearers'; of innocence that will not stoop to defend itself from groundless accusations; of infinite pity and forbearing love, which sees that it cannot win, but will not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... a successful war, waged for the preservation of the Union, had the legal effect of dissolving it. The victory of the nation's arms was not the disgrace of her policy; the defeat of secession on the battlefield was not the triumph of its lawless principle. Nor could Congress, with or without the consent of the Executive, do anything which would have the effect, directly or indirectly, of separating the States from each other. To dissolve the Union is to repeal the Constitution which holds it together, and that is a power ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... to this second feeling, this sudden, lawless joy, that his pulses beat as he turned a cold face on ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... his plans: a hiding-place for the treasure when he should get it, and a large number of lieutenants whom he could trust. He could, he believed, at the least throw the whole city into a state of chaos for a few hours—for half a day—for a whole day. And during that period of lawless confusion anything might happen to anybody—to Barbara for instance. But his plans were not ripe, nor his trusted lieutenants as yet sufficient in number. He must therefore either put off his vengeance indefinitely, or run the risk of having his own career as a criminal come to a ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... overcome for the moment by the infatuating qualities of the chicken stew. But when appetites, needlessly inflamed by the lawless tippling, had at last been appeased and the lady had built her first cigarette I betrayed a willingness to hear more of the hinted connection between winter sports and Latin Quarters peopled by Bohemians, glass-blowing or otherwise. The woman chuckled privately through the first cigarette, adeptly ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... result of his perhaps incautious test statement. He knew that he was trapped by a dangerous tyrant, such as might spring up in any new, lawless country. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... and pulses of unselfish love; instead of regarding religion as an isolated peculiarity for a corner of the closet and a fraction of the week, and leaving all the rest of time and space an unconsecrated waste, where lawless passions travel, and selfishness pitches its tents. O! if religion were thus a diffusive, practical, every-day reality, there would be a marvellous change in the aspects of life and the conditions ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... were made much of by the warriors, Stephen's dexterity with the bow and back-sword were shown off and lauded, Giles's strength was praised, and all manner of new feats were taught them, all manner of stories told them; and the shrinking of well-trained young citizens from these lawless me "full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard," and some very truculent-looking, had given way to judicious flattery, and to the attractions of adventure and of a free life, where wealth and honour ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... you come to that,' said Traddles, a little disconcerted, 'I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment—for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to end—of a difficult affair. Those I.O.U.'s, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... when the publick rights are infringed, when the ministry assume the power of giving away the properties of the people, it is then necessary to exert an uncommon degree of vigour and resentment; it is as necessary to stop, the encroachments of lawless power, as to oppose the torrent of a deluge; which may be, perhaps, resisted at first, but from which, the country that is once overwhelmed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... Hume as president, held an interesting meeting. They are assisting in the support of a missionary at our Indian Mission at Santee, Neb. The Sunday-school State Association, Rev. J. W. Whittaker, moderator, also held an inspiring meeting. Mr. Alfred Lawless, Jr., was appointed general Sunday-school superintendent to visit needy Sunday-schools in the State, and especially to assist in organizing ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 4, April, 1895 • Various

... my navy experience I came back home and landed on an East River tug. Said I struck the busy season. Must have struck a busy concern, too. From daylight to ten, eleven at night—once in a while a night lapping over. Nothing doing but work. I don't mind work, but this indulging a lawless passion for it—not for mine. I've had three months of that, and I think I'm due for a change. And don't you think that's enough autobiography to qualify me for pump-man ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... and chasms breathing vapour from the pit of Hades. What were the Cyclops—that race of one-eyed giants—but the many minor cones of Etna? Observed from the sea by mariners, or vaguely spoken of by the natives, who had reason to dread their rage, these hillocks became lawless and devouring giants, each with one round burning eye. Afterwards the tales of Titans who had warred with Zeus were realised in this spot. Typhoeus or Enceladus made the mountain heave and snort; while Hephaestus not unnaturally forged thunder-bolts ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... there was none to take pity on her, nor to break the galling chains; no! the punishment was inflicted with the measured coolness of men engaged in an every-day vocation. It was simply the right which a democratic law gave men to become lawless, fierce in the conspiracy of wrong, and where the legal excitement of trafficking in the flesh and blood of one another sinks them ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the imperial German government, and it has therefore not been possible for this government to receive Count Tarnowski, the ambassador recently accredited to this government by the imperial and royal government ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... serious attention. Howat Penny had lately seen a new moroseness among the charcoal burners that could only have come from the association of the son of Gilbert Penny and the potential owner of Myrtle Forge with the founderman's daughter. Charcoal burners were lawless men, fugitive in character, often escaped from terms of indenture; Dan Hesa was, he knew, well liked by them; and the hazard created by his attraction to Fanny Gilkan drew Howat Penny irresistibly away from the superior ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... to him 'Come! Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget! She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb, He listened, and they thought him ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... Indeed, so had O'Brodar done already, ever since he wore beard, to every chieftain of his own race whom he was strong enough to ill-treat. Many a fair herd had he driven off, many a fair farm burnt, many a fair woman carried off a slave, after that inveterate fashion of lawless feuds which makes the history of Celtic Ireland from the earliest, times one dull and aimless catalogue of murder and devastation, followed by famine and disease; and now, as he had done to others, so it was to be ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... increases upon us daily. Break through at least this pretence of existence; determine what you will be, and what you would win. You will not decide wrongly if you resolve to decide at all. Were even the choice between lawless pleasure and loyal suffering, you would not, I believe, choose basely. But your trial is not so sharp. It is between drifting in confused wreck among the castaways of Fortune, who condemns to assured ruin those who know not either how to resist her, or obey; between this, I say, and the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... be murdered, for as well might Frank hope to escape the blood-thirsty jaws of a wild beast, if in its power, as to expect mercy from these cruel, half-civilized, lawless men. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... be so ruled in right and grace That men shall say: "O, drive afield The lawless eagle from the shield, And call an ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... "keep out of those ruins! My dear professor," he continued reproachfully, "you are a student, a man of peace. Don't try to wage war on these Amapalans. They're lawless, they're unscrupulous. So is Ward. Besides, you are in the wrong, and if they turn ugly, your minister cannot help you." He shook his head and smiled doubtfully. "I can't understand," he exclaimed, "why you're ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... to read a literal meaning into certain other words of Jesus: the command, for example, that a man should give up his cloak also, if he be sued for his coat. Little acumen is required to see that no society could protect itself against the depredations of the lawless under such a system of non-resistance; and we may be sure that Jesus had no intention of tearing down the social structure or destroying vested rights. Those who demand a literal construction of the parable of Dives and Lazarus ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... attracted the attention of the boatmen to the clump of bushes, some one would steal the Whitewing while her crew were absent. They had already seen enough of the "canalers" to know that they were a wild and lawless set of men, and they were not anxious to put the temptation of stealing a nice boat ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... action and desire of human sympathy, characteristic of youth. Neither the care of my flock, nor the change of seasons, were sufficient to tame my eager spirit; my out-door life and unemployed time were the temptations that led me early into lawless habits. I associated with others friendless like myself; I formed them into a band, I was their chief and captain. All shepherd-boys alike, while our flocks were spread over the pastures, we schemed and executed many a mischievous prank, which drew on us the anger ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... very uncertain personage named Lycurgus, we are told by Herodotus, the Greek historian, that when he was born the Spartans were the most lawless of the Greeks. Every man was a law unto himself, and confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the oracle at Delphi, and received instructions as to how he should act ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... space Are one by one subdued by lordly man. The awful lightning that for eons ran Their devastating and untrammeled race, Now bear his messages from place to place Like carrier doves. The winds lead on his van; The lawless elements no longer can Resist his strength, ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... search dead leaves, We chase the sunset's saddest flames, The nameless hues that o'er and o'er In lawless wedding lost their names. ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton

... sought against new machinery that displaced hand labor. In June, 1835, a New York paper remarked that "it is well known that many of the most obstinate turn-outs among workingmen and many of the most violent and lawless proceedings have been excited for the purpose of destroying newly invented machinery." Such acts of wantonness, however, were few, even in those first tumultuous days of the thirties. Striking became ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. "The Siege of the Castle" opens with Cedric's discovery of his son's identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was hundreds of years ago, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... that for various reasons, all having to do with the delicate rectitude of his nature, Roderick Anthony (a man of whom his chief mate used to say: he doesn't know what fear is) was frightened. There is a Nemesis which overtakes generosity too, like all the other imprudences of men who dare to be lawless ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... be imagined that Sibyl Carnaby was one of them—Sibyl, the woman of culture, of high principle, the critic of society—Sibyl, to whom she had so long paid homage, as to one of the chosen of her sex? That Redgrave might approach Sibyl with lawless thought, she could well believe, and such a possibility excited her indignation; that Sibyl would meet him on his own terms, she could not for a moment have credited, but for a traitor-voice that spoke in her for the first time, the voice ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves—of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... dwelling in it by love, as the first wheel of this motion, the primum mobile. And as it begins in the spirit, so it ends there, in the glory of Jesus Christ, and our heavenly Father. Consider this then—it is not a lawless walking and irregular walk, it is according to the rule, and the rule is perfect, and it is a motion to perfection, not a rest in what is now attained to. The course of this world is the way and rule of the children of disobedience; Eph. ii. 2. There is a spirit indeed that works in them, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... himself always made his manner serve his thought. We may fail to appreciate his manner and may be incapable of comprehending his thought, but only insincere or conceited critics will venture to gauge the latter by what they feel to be displeasing in the former. What seems lawless in him follows the law of a profound and peculiar genius, with which, whether we like it or not, we must reckon. His imitators were devoid of thought, and too indifferent to question whether there was any law to be obeyed. Like the jackass in the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... those men would not have turned us over to the regularly constituted authorities; they are part of a band of lawless men, and we world have been tried and executed before morning, under the auspices of ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... on a lawless quest, With passions foul in the hero's breast, Moved by no greed at the fiend's behest, Gloating in lust o'er a bloody prey; But from tyrant robber the spoil to wrest, And tear down ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... the sense of the tempter's nearness. It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... was made king, he spent several years in war with his lawless barons before he finally established a stable government in England. Malory's accounts of these wars are interspersed with stories of miraculous incidents, accounts of the adventures of knights, and descriptions of feasts, tournaments, and jousts. The ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... the Pope, the Emperor, and the Oecumenical Council already assembled at Trent. He set his own authority above all councils, although they had been instituted by the common consent of Christendom, and he appealed to a lawless, headless council which might only meet at Bonn or at Schmalkald, in order that it might be unrestrained by any authority whatever. There was, continued the Carmelite, no end to the archbishop's innovations. In defiance of all justice and precedent he had transferred the ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... the fact that all the fury of the Parisians seemed to be turned against the Communards. Many of them, speaking of the Prussians, referred warmly to the contrast between their conduct and that of their own lawless fellow-citizens. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... of anger against this unwieldy hypocrite and well-fed malefactor swept over the jester. The man's assumed heartiness, his manner of joviality and good-fellowship, were only the mask of moral turpitude and blackest purpose. But for the lawless scholar, the fool would probably have retired to his bed with full confidence in the probity and honesty of the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... been a revolution,[55] properly so called; there never has even been one grand national rebellion. The people, tho often lawless, are never free. Among them we find still preserved that peculiar taint of barbarism which makes men prefer occasional disobedience to systematic liberty. Certain feelings there are of our common nature, which even their slavish loyalty can not eradicate, and which, from time ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... against him, and the deepest dissimulation necessarily accompanies this kind of political revolution; for they must load, with the appearance of respect, the person whom they wish to assassinate. And yet, what would become of a country governed despotically, if a lawless tyrant had not to dread the edge of the poniard? Horrible alternative, and which is sufficient to show the nature of the institutions where crime must be reckoned as ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... a thraldom off that we abhor, To keep our ancient rights inviolate, As we received them from our fathers—this, Not lawless innovation, is our aim. Let Caesar still retain what is his due; And he that is a vassal, let him pay The service he is sworn ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... that ignorance of law which is deemed an essential part of a private citizen's accomplishments in modern days. In a word, by temper and firmness, and a smattering of law gathered from the omniscient 'Tiser, Edward cleared his castle of the lawless crew. But they paraded the street, and watched the yard till dusk, when its proprietor ran rusty ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... Mr. Holgrave is a lawless person!" remonstrated Phoebe, a part of whose essence it was to keep within the ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... I could to the lawless act of justice, partly to save my waning authority, partly to save them the consequences of executing a prisoner who might give valuable information to the authorities ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... Andy. The country I know is in a disturbed and lawless state, and ever since that unfortunate affair of the priest, I know I am not popular with a great many. I hope we won't ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... in that country. Still, it was thought necessary to suppress another catholic convention in 1814, and to renew the insurrection act, which remained in force with one interval till 1817. It can well be imagined that a population so lawless, and so prone to horrible outrages which shock Englishmen more than a thousand crimes against property, should have excited little general sympathy by their complaints of political grievances. These grievances were justly denounced by party leaders, but in the eyes of ordinary ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... whole legend and tradition of Europe, from the lion who will not touch virgins, from the unicorn who respects them, and who make up together the bearers of your own national shield, from the most living and lawless of your own poets, from Massinger, who wrote the Virgin Martyr, from Shakespeare, who wrote Measure for Measure—if you in Fleet Street differ from all this human experience, does it never strike you that it may be Fleet ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... chief pretenders to the first place were bitterly hostile; and while the one was detained in Italy by insurrection against his authority, the other was plunged in luxury and dissipation, enjoying the first delights of a lawless passion, at the Egyptian capital. The nations of the East were, moreover, alienated by the recent exactions of the profligate Triumvir, who, to reward his parasites and favorites, had laid upon them a burden that they were ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... the free life, of the country. She and her brothers represent much of what is best in Boldrewood's portrayal of native character. Maddie and Bella Barnes and Miss Falkland in the same novel, Kate Lawless in Nevermore, and Possie Barker in A Sydneyside Saxon, are also Antipodeans, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... possible,)—under which bill they would probably have been convicted and sentenced to the State Prison. Thus the omnipotent Slave Power reaches forth its hand into our most Northern cities, end saves its minions from the punishment which their lawless acts have justly merited.—Chicago Daily ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... find, so far as I was informed by personal observation or report, that their conduct could, on the whole, be called lawless. There was some stealing of pigs and chickens and other petty pilfering, but rather less than might have been expected. More serious depredations rarely, if ever, occurred. The vagrants were throughout very good-natured. They had their carousals with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... characteristic. His one concession to the customs of his neighbors was the possession of two or three of the half-broken and spirited mustangs of the country, which he rode with the fearlessness, if not the perfect security and ease, of a native. Whether the subjection of this lawless and powerful survival of a wild and unfettered nature around him was part of his plan, or whether it was only a lingering trait of some younger prowess, no one knew; but his grim and decorous figure, contrasting with the ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... were left arrayed against each other,—the North, the government, the carpet-bagger, and the slave, here; and there, all the South that was white, whether gentleman or vagabond, honest man or rascal, lawless ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... the air, and it was rather too late to assert that she was also the cold and watery element in the world. As for his own explanation of the myths, Eusebius holds that they descend from a period when men in their lawless barbarism knew no better than to tell such tales. "Ancient folk, in the exceeding savagery of their lives, made no account of God, the universal Creator (here Eusebius is probably wrong)... but betook them to ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... but he looked thoughtful. His life had been a lawless one, but he was not the thorough-going scoundrel that Bill Mosely was, and would have been glad if circumstances had favored a more creditable mode ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus: He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... Vincent would be a far better judge of what was proper for young ladies than a couple of perfectly lawless girls who have been brought up on a Southern ranch or something. I call them perfect hoydens and they would not be countenanced a moment in the Back Bay," was Isabel's ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... dochtna bide To hear yer bonnie name Whaur lawless mous war openit wide Wi' ill-tongued ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... we expect peace with the Indians on our frontiers so long as a lawless set of unprincipled wretches can violate the rights of hospitality, or infringe the most solemn treaties, without receiving the punishment ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... heartsome youth will, but, strange to say, the young woman his father approved of was not at all to his liking. He was nearing man's estate, and though he labored with himself to repress what he knew would be considered lawless desires, they returned again and again. And how much he should long for the sweetness ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... limited to the inheritance of cells. If I buy ancestors by the gross from the benevolence of Lyon King of Arms, my grandson (if he is Scottish) will feel a quickening emulation of their deeds. The men of the Elliotts were proud, lawless, violent as of right, cherishing and prolonging a tradition. In like manner with the women. And the woman, essentially passionate and reckless, who crouched on the rug, in the shine of the peat fire, telling these tales, had cherished ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with me, Alice," friend wife chirped in. "I believe if John were to suddenly display the ability to dance the Tango I'd be broken-hearted. Naturally, I'd know that he must have learned it with a wicked companion in some lawless cabaret. And if he frequented cabarets without my knowledge—oh, Alice, ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... in the eyes of her companion, she wasted her words. Halfman had not been so happy since his return to England, not even in the briskest days of the siege, as he was now in the staging of this lawless comedy. The old pirate jigged in him at this ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... an earlier period in Scotland, the opening of the eighteenth century, when all punitive measures were primitive and the lawless social elements seethed with restless discontent, Scott had a fine chance: and at the very opening, in describing the violent putting to death of Captain Porteous, he skilfully prepares the way for the general picture to be given. Then, as the story progresses, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... was opened the holy Bishop of Dromore stated the arguments in favour of Colonial taxation with learning and effect. Hugh himself impeached the Bards for their licentious and lawless lives. Columbkill defended both interests, and, by combining both, probably strengthened the friends of each. It is certain that he carried the Assembly with him, both against the monarch and those of the resident ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... people is fit to be free and to govern itself, and generously strives to be so, there go all its sympathies. It detests the tyrant, the lawless oppressor, the military usurper, and him who abuses a lawful power. It frowns upon cruelty, and a wanton disregard of the rights of humanity. It abhors the selfish employer, and exerts its influence to lighten the burdens which want and dependence impose upon the workman, and to ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... of idealism among the advocates of violence;[Footnote: Cf, for example, Giovannitti's poem, The Cage, in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1913.] there is a great deal of sympathy on the part of the public with lawless strikers, with the I.W.W. gangs that have recently invaded city churches, with all those under-dogs who are now determining to have a share in the good things of life. Unless the employing and governing classes meet their demands halfway, gunpowder ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... his challenge, for those that had held with the Black Knight, deprived of their leader, had lost heart, whereas they that for their loyalty to their lady had been held in subjection, gathered fast about Sir Owain, ready to do battle. So in short space, Sir Owain drove forth the lawless invaders of the Countess' lands, and called together her vassals that they might do ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay

... little, and perhaps soon forgotten; while the ominous words of Dandie - heard, not heeded, and still remembered - had lent to her thoughts, or rather to her mood, a cast of solemnity, and that idea of Fate - a pagan Fate, uncontrolled by any Christian deity, obscure, lawless, and august - moving indissuadably in the affairs of Christian men. Thus even that phenomenon of love at first sight, which is so rare and seems so simple and violent, like a disruption of life's tissue, may be decomposed ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... council assented to these terms, and the charters were sent over to the king in Flanders, to be there confirmed by him. Edward felt the utmost reluctance to this measure, which, he apprehended, would for the future impose fetters on his conduct, and set limits to his lawless authority. On various pretences he delayed three days giving any answer to the deputies; and when the pernicious consequences of his refusal were represented to him, he was at last obliged, after many internal struggles, to affix his seal to the charters, as also to the clause that bereaved him ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... to unite Sassari, the second capital of the island, with Cagliari by a magnificent highway (the only one ever made in that wild waste by name Sardinia), the direct line lay through Bornova, a district inhabited by lawless people, all the more like our Arab tribes because they are descended from the Moors. Seeing that they were about to fall into the clutches of civilization, the savages of Bornova, without taking the trouble to discuss the matter, declared their opposition to the road. The ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare, seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's plays are ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... Greenland, or those of any other arctic territory. There are now between two hundred and twenty and two hundred and thirty in the tribe. They are savages, but they are not savage; they are without government, but they are not lawless; they are utterly uneducated according to our standard, yet they exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence. In temperament like children, with all a child's delight in little things, they are nevertheless enduring as the most mature of civilized men and women, and the ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... the woods, homeless and lawless, is a race that hates the white man—the aborigines of Australia. Civilization has driven them farther and farther north, for the Australian black-fellows cannot be tamed and trained—their nature is too wild and fierce to be kept within bounds ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... Arabs who are settled in the numerous towns of Arabia are, of course, very much more peaceable than the Bedouin of the wilderness, those sons of Ishmael of whom we read in Holy Writ. But the Arab blood is covetous and lawless, so that when I saw several hundred of them formed in a semi-circle round our camels, looking with greedy eyes at my boxes of precious metals and my packets of ostrich ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... controversy, who had suffered abuse from newspapers, and who in every case was inclined to consider his opponents as blockheads. No matter in what society he found himself, in imagination he was always back in the free but lawless atmosphere of the frontier village in which his youth was spent. Hence he was well fitted to take the point of view of Natty Bumppo (in The Pioneers), who looked with hostile eyes upon the greed and waste of civilization; ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... the National W.C.T.U, which has for years counted among its departments that of peace and arbitration, is utterly opposed to all lawless acts in any and all parts of our common lands and it urges these principles upon the public, praying that the time may speedily come when no human being shall be condemned without due process of law; and when the unspeakable ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... off-planet, as Hoddan did. But he mainly counted upon a breathing-space in the Embassy, during which to make more plans as yet unformed and unformable. He began, though, to see some virtues in the simple, lawless, piratical world in which he ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... dictated Darius's invasion of Scythia seems to have been purely a selfish and domineering love of power. The attempts of a stronger and more highly civilized state to extend its dominion over a weaker and more lawless one, are not, however, necessarily and always of this character. Divine Providence, in making men gregarious in nature, has given them an instinct of organization, which is as intrinsic and as essential ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... might, Have banished honors and unequal right, Have taught the proud in wealth, and high in place, To reverence justice and abhor disgrace; And given to both a shield, their guardian tower, Against ambition's aims and lawless power." ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... intimated, Corey was in bad repute. Either he was a lawless man, or much misunderstood. I am inclined to the latter opinion. He belonged to that class of persons, instances of which we occasionally meet, who care little about the opinions or the talk of others. On one ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... by this very plain conduct. Once or twice she allowed a word of regret to escape her, and Alice could see that she lived in awe of her daughter. And May, there was no doubt, was a little lawless when Fred was about her skirts; but when he was gone she returned to her old, glad, affectionate ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... though there was much noise and excitement all night, for a lawless element was abroad, and there were several shooting affrays among the gamblers and miners, but fortunately ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster

... exposure. At Mosul, he enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Rassam, and had conferences with Mr. Williams of Mardin. The second tour was in the autumn, and extended as far as Tiary.[1] The mountaineers may be viewed, he says, in two very different lights; first, as feeble, unreasonable, and lawless; poverty stricken, and lacking in self-respect, and self-reliance; connecting their interest in spiritual things too often with the hope of temporal benefits. Then there are constant feuds between villages, clans, and chiefs. The hopeful side is in the great preparatory work that has been ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... do remember that much," said Peyton dryly, "it is only just to him that I should tell you that it appears that he was not an impostor. His story was TRUE. I have just learned that Colonel Brant WAS actually his father, but had concealed his lawless life here, as well as his identity, from the boy. He was really that vague relative to whom Clarence was confided, and under that disguise he afterwards protected the boy, had him carefully educated at the Jesuit College of San Jose, and, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... administered to these lawless men, soon created quite a sensation with the class to which they belonged, and threats were freely thrown out against his life; but these had no effect in intimidating him, or in changing his conduct. He went on fearlessly to administer the law, which at that ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... under the Gospel that only which is justly given them (that is to say, a due and moderate livelihood, the hire of their labour), and that the heave-offering of Tithes is abolished with the Altar (yes, though not abolished, yet lawless as they enjoy them), their Melchizedekian right also trivial and groundless, and both tithes and fees, if exacted or established, unjust and scandalous, we may hope, with them removed, to remove Hirelings in some good measure." II. It is maintained ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... reason for doubting the real—date of the Apocalypse is under Vespasian, is so evidently implied in the five kings preceding (for Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, were abortive emperors) that it seems to me quite lawless to deny it. That [Greek: Lateinos] is the meaning of the 666, (c. xiii. 18.) and the treasonable character of this, are both shown by Irenaeus's pretended rejection, and his proposal of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... Here too may the explanation of a thing which seemed to be against the laws of human nature, and upon which I longed, but dared not to cross-question Lorna. How could such a lovely girl, although so young, and brave, and distant, have escaped the vile affections of a lawless company? ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... hearers that he had not called Kirkcaldy a murderer (though in the case of the Cardinal, he was), but had said that the lawless proceedings shocked him more than if they had been done by common cut-throats. Knox then wrote a letter to the kirk-session, saying that Kirkcaldy's defence proved him "to be a murderer at heart," for St. John says that "whoso loveth not his brother is a man-slayer"; and Kirkcaldy did not love ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... She had entreated him, over and over again—not as earnestly as she might, perhaps—to give up his dangerous and lawless occupation, and with a laugh he had told her that each trip should be his last. Did it never occur to him how his promise might be fulfilled? It did to Susan; and often and often she had trembled at the thought. She had ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston

... is with the drift of wandering winds; with the whirl and crystals of driving snow, with the slant and splash of rain. And so, too, with the flight of birds; the dash and tumble of restless brooks; the roar of lawless thunder and the ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... like some of the corporations, have taken advantage of the infirmities of local and state governments to become arrogant and lawless. On the occasion of a great strike the strikers are often just as disorderly as they are permitted to be by the local police. When the police prevent them from resisting the employment of strike-breakers by force, they apparently believe that the political ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... weak. I listened to his insidious persuasion, and tried to make myself believe that I was guiltless, as I owned no fealty to King George. But I am justly punished, and never again will I allow myself to be made an accessory to these lawless deeds." ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... excuse her lawless conduct on the ground of her "artistic temperament," there are no depths to which she ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... propriety of this proclamation: some contending that public opinion was not to be directed by such a measure, and others arguing that it was a timely exertion of authority in a turbulent season, and which was indispensably requisite to restrain that lawless spirit which threatened to subvert the established government. The address was warmly opposed by Mr. Grey, who denounced the proclamation in severe terms, as an insidious and pernicious measure, and who moved a counter address, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... all this the fiction was maintained of preserving him from his lawless foes and his own inconvenient devotion to duty. A struggle for escape was not to be thought of, as the full measure of his deceitfulness would transpire in the event of failure, and the wedding drew nearer day by day, while his active brain was still casting about in vain for any means ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... Lawless has written many kinds of stories about the West Coast, reaching almost to greatness in her "Grania" (1892). In the short story, Miss Jane Barlow, accused of superficiality by many Irish critics and as eagerly declared ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... changed strangely, a most inexplicable contortion. His little rat eyes focused on the ranchero, and he drew back in a sort of fear. Convoy her whom people called Jacqueline through the lawless Huasteca, at the bidding of this man! "No, no, no!" he cried, and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... bow and stern. Both are calculated to ascend streams but by a very slow process. Each boat would require from ten to thirty hands, according to its size. A number of these boats frequently sailed in company. The boatmen were proverbially lawless at every town and landing, and indulged without restraint in every species of dissipation, debauchery and excess. But this race has become reformed, or nearly extinct;—yes, reformed by the mighty power of steam. A steamboat, with half the crew ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... all of that. I am myself inclined to think that his mental state, at this time, bordered close upon insanity! The Book remarks about a young man at this stage of his existence, that he had to "come to himself" before his reformation, as though he had been away from himself during his lawless and outrageous career. I am inclined to think that boys are often a good deal nearer insane than they get credit for being, at ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... purposes, is not called for, we not unnaturally slide readily into the pleasant belief that government is purely a moral agency, and that people obey the law through admiration of intellectual power and the dread of being "cornered" in argument, or of being exposed as selfish or lawless. ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... driven to banish him also at last, at his too flagrant treachery. But he was not dismissed with the scathing scorn our modern age would heap upon a traitor. He was sent regretfully, as one turns from a charming but too persistently lawless friend. The banishment was only for ten years, and he had his nest already prepared with the Persian King. If you would understand the Greek spirit in its fullest perfection, study Themistocles. Rampant individualism, seeking ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... negroes, who, from this retreat, menaced the peace beyond the line. Spain could not preserve law and order here. This was perhaps a sufficient excuse for the act of General Gaines in crossing into Florida and bombarding the negro fort, July 27, 1816. Amelia Island, on the Florida coast, a nest of lawless men from every nation, was in 1817 also seized by the United States with the same propriety. Knowledge that Spain resented these acts encouraged the Floridians. Collisions continually occurred all along the line, finally growing into general hostility. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... bloodshed; in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world; by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in an instant; and things divorced in Nature are married in Fancy as in a lawless place." ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... the face of the land, at this time, like a great whirlwind; and the hearts of men died within their persons with fear and trembling. The accounts that came from abroad were just dreadful beyond all power of description. Death stalked about from place to place, like a lawless tyrant, and human blood was spilt like water; while the heads of crowned kings were cut off; and great dukes and lords were thrown into dark dungeons, or obligated to flee for their lives into foreign lands, and to seek out hiding-places ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... the refuge of persons of high and low degree. No small number of smugglers have made it their abode, as from thence formerly they could carry on their lawless trade with impunity. The most noted of them was a man named Benson, at one time a member of Parliament, who had ultimately to escape to "foreign lands" to avoid punishment. The pirates also in days of yore used to make it their headquarters; indeed, Marisco, who built the castle, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... called a man that lived nigh to him, a chosen prophet of the most high Zeus, Teiresias the true seer: and he set forth to him and to all his company with what manner of fortune should the child have his lot cast, how many lawless monsters on the dry land, how many on the sea ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar



Words linked to "Lawless" :   lawlessness, wide-open, uncontrolled, anarchical, outlaw, unlawful



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