"Depravity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... less can one realize without seeing it, how—apart from the corruption of sin, depravity, wickedness, and inveterate customs—how kind, honorable, content, gentle, pleasant, tractable, and easily governed these people are by nature; and how all China, with but one stock, is so great and populous, and so much intercourse is carried on in the greatest peace, regularity, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... ability. Though human nature is often degenerate, and corrupts itself by many inventions, yet it usually retains to the last an esteem for excellence. But even if we arrive at such an extreme degree of depravity as to have lost our native reverence for virtue, yet a regard to our own interest and safety will lead us to apply for aid, in all important transactions, to men whose integrity is unimpeached. When we choose an assistant or a partner, our first ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... Depend dependi. Dependence dependeco. Depict priskribi. Deplore bedauxregi. Deponent atestanto. Depopulate senhomigi. Depopulated senhoma. Deportment konduto. Depose (give evidence) atesti. Depose eksigxi, detroni. Deposit enmeti. Depot tenejo. Deprave malvirtigi. Depravity malvirto. Depreciate maltaksigi. Depredation rabado. Depress malleveti. Deprivation senigo. Depth profundo—ajxo. Depute deputi. Deputy deputato. Derail elreligxi. Derange malordigi. Deride ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... grew into an army, multitudes of the tribesmen gathered around him, and in a brief time he found himself at the head of a large body of the lowest of the people. The man was a savage at heart, betraying his innate depravity by foolish and useless cruelties, and in this way preventing the more educated class of the community from joining ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Yucatan. The Bacabs and Itzamna were closely related to ideas of fertility and reproduction, indeed, but it appears to have been especially as gods of the rains, the harvests, and the food supply generally. The Spanish writers were eager to discover all the depravity possible in the religion of the natives, and they certainly would not have missed such an opportunity for their tirades, had it existed. As it is, the references to it are not many, ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... predetermined, we can no more be capable of any obligation or choice, in regard to the end, than puppets which some unseen Harlequin moves by the terrible wires of primitive decree or transmitted depravity towards the genial or the tragic crisis. If the soul's fate there is to be heaven or hell according to the part enacted here, it must have free will and a fair opportunity to work the unmarred problem safely out. Otherwise ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... If my revered uncle[07] took a glimpse at these scenes, he did not see there any of our red brethren, as Mr. Jefferson kindly called them, who formed a considerable part of the gathering at the time of his graduation, forty-two years before; but he must have seen exhibitions of depravity which would disgust the most untutored savage. Near the close of the last century these outrages began to disappear, and lessened from year to year, until by public opinion, enforced by an efficient police, they were many years ago wholly suppressed, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... suspicion, he set this down as an attempt to disguise her hand. "So," said he, to himself, "this is the game. The old woman is to be drawn into it, too. She is to help to make Georges Dandin of me. I will go. I will baffle them all. I will expose this nest of depravity, all ceremony on the surface, and voluptuousness and treachery below. O God! who could believe that creature never loved me! They shall none of them see my weakness. Their benefactor shall be still their superior. They shall see me cold as ice, and ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... is punished for that particular act which he knows himself to have committed, he cannot feel the bitter sense of injustice and misunderstanding which a punishment inflicted for general reasons, and which attributes to him a depravity of motives and ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... Commons, Monday Night, Feb. 2.—"I do not," said OLD MORALITY, a cloud of disappointment settling on his massive brow, "know any case where, comparatively late in life, after a blameless career, depravity has so suddenly broken out in a man as it has with SYDNEY GEDGE. It is true, that upon occasion GEDGE has not given entire satisfaction to our friends opposite. They hold the opinion that his incursions in debate have been inopportune, and, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... ourselves. Such an event, therefore, will be neither pitiful nor terrible. There remains, then, the character between these two extremes,—that of a man who is not eminently good and just,-yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous,—a personage like Oedipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... the wasp, duped by a very clumsy imitation of her garb, and the depravity of the fly, concealing her identity under a counterfeit presentment, exceed the limits of my credulity. The wasp is not so silly nor the Volucella so clever as we are assured. If the latter really meant to deceive the Wasp by her appearance, we must admit that her disguise is none too successful. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... do his duty for its own sake. The motive is not sufficient. You shall not find him refusing to do any mischief which tends to his own advantage. I grieve to say it, for I have leanings towards the dog-boy, but there is in him a vein of unsophisticated depravity, which issues from the rock of his nature like a clear spring that no stirrings of conscience or shame have rendered turbid. His face, it is simple and childlike, and he has the most innocent eye, but he tells any lie which the occasion demands ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... man and this woman!" I said; "they are two bottomless pits of daring and depravity. Mohun has escaped them heretofore, but now, when the enemy seem driving us, and sweeping every thing before them, will not Darke and madam attain their vengeance, and come ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... of depravity, to which the human mind is subject, by force of tradition, more than the unnatural and absurd notion of enhancing future bliss, by beholding fellow creatures of the nearest connexion in a state of indescribable misery, there ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... Americans first awakened to the universal corruption of our politics, we used to attribute it to the "ignorant foreign vote." Turn to Lecky's "Democracy and Liberty" and you will see how reformers twenty years ago explained our political depravity. But we probed deeper, and discovered that the purely American communities, such as Rhode Island, were the most corrupt of all. It dawned upon us that wherever there was a political boss paying bribes on election day, there was a captain ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... ambition, or love of power more justly laid to their charge than to other men, because, that would be to make religion itself, or at least the best constitution of Church-government, answerable for the errors and depravity of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... "is the depravity of this accomplished hypocrite, if such is the littleness of soul that a manner so noble disguises, shall he next, urged, perhaps, rather by prudence than preference, make me the object of his pursuit, and the food of his vain-glory? ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... his son as a fool, and condemned as a sinner. Noah was sole governor of the Church and State, and ruled his own household with tireless care and labor. He had doubtless therein offended the proud and haughty spirit of his son in many ways. But the depravity of his heart which now, that the father's sin had become manifest, leaped to the surface, had ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... became a power. Louis XII., having returned victorious to France, did not trouble himself much about the check received in Italy by Emperor Maximilian, for whom he had no love and but little esteem. Maximilian was personally brave and free from depravity or premeditated perfidy, but he was coarse, volatile, inconsistent, and not very able. Louis XII. had amongst his allies of Cambrai and in Italy a more serious and more skilful foe, who was preparing for him ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... having established these premises, they argue that the tendency of country people to move into cities shows a degeneracy on their part, or that the abnormal growth of cities is a sure token of the moral depravity which has taken hold of the people. This, however, is not true. There is as much iniquity in proportion in small communities as in large ones, and not unfrequently wickedness and viciousness are attributed ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... also been convenient and consistent, in support of the doctrine of man's depravity, to exploit this dark view so as to make him a fit subject for redemption. Somehow, the traditional "Fall" and procreation have been so associated in religious thinking that it has been practically impossible for the religious mind to entertain ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... connive at any depravity among themselves, but must duly rebuke it. Those who have acquired the respect of the believers, and would be exemplary Christians, must take heed lest they accustom themselves to flattery and luxury; they must ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Ronquerolles would very likely have bidden him compromise the Duchess by responding to her show of friendliness by passionate demonstrations; but as it was, Armand de Montriveau came away from the ball, loathing human nature, and even then scarcely ready to believe in such complete depravity. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... all unmanned, many sobbing aloud, overwhelmed by emotions utterly uncontrollable. This scene stamps the impress of almost celestial greatness upon the soul of the tzar. He knew his son's weakness, incompetency and utter depravity, and even in that hour of agony his spirit did not bend, and he would not sacrifice the happiness of eighteen millions of people through parental tenderness for his ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... at hand, to administer a needful whipping. A really capable pedagogue can mean everything to a boy; but it is asking too much that a purchased slave should be an ideal companion.[*] Probably many pedagogues are responsible for their charges' idleness or downright depravity. It is a dubious system at ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... and has no more reason to be surprised by references to vice in some of them than by the language of virtue in many others. Confucius said, indeed, in his own enigmatical way, that the single sentence, 'Thought without depravity,' covered the whole 300 pieces[1]; and it may very well be allowed that they were collected and preserved for the promotion of good government and virtuous manners. The merit attaching to them is that they give ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... have found, if not original sin, at least vegetable total depravity in my garden; and it was there before I went into it. It is the bunch-, or joint-, or snake-grass,—whatever it is called. As I do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam did in his garden,—name things as I find them. This ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... killed and eaten; so death came into her world. She knew that the kid grew into a big goat, and became very wicked, for he ran at her one day, throwing her to the ground and hurting her severely; so sin came into her world. She saw innate depravity exemplified in the conduct of her innocent white pig, that would take to puddles and filth in spite of her gentle endeavors to restrain its wayward impulses. Her puppies too bit each other, would quarrel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... of the press only; that sacred Palladium, which no influence, no power, no government, which nothing but the folly or the depravity, or the folly or the corruption, of a jury ever can destroy. And what calamities are the people saved from by having public communication kept open to them! I will tell you, gentlemen, what they are saved from; I will ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... had been enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of faith, something of their national trait of foolishness plus their original depravity clung to them. Let no man think that once he has received faith, he can presently be converted into a faultless creature. The leavings of old vices will stick to him, be he ever ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... said, she never once counted on Hurstwood. She could only approach that subject with a pang of sorrow and regret. For a truth, she was rather shocked and frightened by this evidence of human depravity. He would have tricked her without turning an eyelash. She would have been led into a newer and worse situation. And yet she could not keep out the pictures of his looks and manners. Only this one deed seemed strange and miserable. It contrasted sharply with all she felt ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Illinois[236] the Court sustained an Illinois statute which makes it a crime to exhibit in a public place any publication which "portrays depravity, criminality, unchastity, or lack of virtue of a class of citizens, of any race, color, creed or religion" or which "exposes the citizens of any race, color, creed or religion to contempt, derision, or obloquy." ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the town, each of a doleful nature and each indicating an evident depravity in a citizen of Plainton, were related by Miss Shott, and then she ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... appreciate at its full within a day or two. He would have given a good deal to be present when they made a certain discovery. Would Moya smile when Verinder told her how the tables had been turned? Or would she think it merely another instance of his depravity? ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... this depravity in taste? for surely there are none so very mean and contemptible as to bring the pleasure of seeing a number of little wherries, gliding along after one another, in competition with what we enjoy in viewing a succession of ships, with all their sails expanded to the winds, bounding ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... wonderful! After all, there are people in the world, whose opinions and feelings are tainted by an habitual acquaintance with the evil side of society, though in action and intention they remain right; and who, without the real depravity of heart and malignity of intention of Iago, judge as he does of the character and productions ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... opportunity for many lively sallies from the gentlemen. I saw the same sort of thing repeated on different occasions at least a dozen times; e.g. a young lady is employed in making a shirt, (which it would be a symptom of absolute depravity to name), a gentleman enters, and presently begins the sprightly dialogue with "What ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... a good mother. So good she has ever appeared to me that I have often said that all I knew of her life seemed a striking contradiction of the doctrine of human depravity. In my youth I fully accepted that doctrine, and I do not deny it now; but my patient, self-sacrificing mother always appeared to be an exception ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... word, how changed am I myself! how fearfully, how dismally has the relation between us changed! It seems to me as though the very belief in the possibility of anything like what this man has believed possible of me, had cast a shade of vice and depravity over my whole life: for this noble being has hitherto been the mirror of my own worth, by looking at which I became conscious of my own well-meaning and integrity. Can everything, everything in our heart be thus transformed in a single moment? Yes, my dear, my fatherly ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... penniless upon the world. But there was a light in her eye and firmness in her step that told of a "will to do, a soul to dare." She had been educated in the customs of the village, and had been an aristocrat. Now she had another lesson to learn, a sad lesson speaking of the depravity of the human heart, and now she must learn all the cold heartlessness of that world that had heretofore shone so brightly upon her pathway. She did not once think in her grief that her change in fortune would make any change in friendship's tone, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... this, I marvelled at his evil nature and his depravity and mischief-making and his ignoble birth and provenance and, turning upon him, I said, 'There is none on the face of the earth better or more righteous than the Barmecides, nor any baser nor more wrongous than thou; for they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... faces, shifty and vapid faces, self-centered and morose faces, leech faces, pig faces, of well-tailored men—you watch them pass, you remember what you have seen at the tables, in near-by Monte Carlo, and the utter depravity of your race frightens you. Except clothes and jewels and the ability to get a check cashed, what is the difference between these people and the sailors from a hundred ships, making merry with their girls in the narrow streets back from the Vieux ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... hear nothing save what was lovely and ennobling. Whenever any debasing or evil influence approached him he would trample upon it with all the fierceness of a true Ueberhell; but such conflicts seldom occurred, for his nature was so exalted that it carried him unconscious through the depravity and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... enemies, or become enemies, because of their spleen; others because of their total depravity; and others still because they persist in standing upright when someone wants them to lie down and be stepped on. That is the meaning of backbone, in this world of human strife, and if, from time to time, it has ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... began to reflect more calmly on her present situation, for she had actually been rendered incapable of sober reflection, by the discovery of the act of atrocity of which she was the victim. She could not have imagined, that, in all the fermentation of civilized depravity, a similar plot could have entered a human mind. She had been stunned by an unexpected blow; yet life, however joyless, was not to be indolently resigned, or misery endured without exertion, and proudly termed patience. She had hitherto meditated only to point ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... ignorant, and therefore weak and wretched, since ignorance is the chief source of man's misery. "My people," says the prophet, "are destroyed for lack of knowledge." From ignorance rather than from depravity have sprung the most appalling crimes, the most pernicious vices. In darkness of mind men have worshiped senseless material things, have deified every cruel and carnal passion; at the dictate of unenlightened conscience they have oppressed, laid waste, and murdered; for lack of knowledge they have ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... thing for a stranger to do when he stands here is to make a pun on the name of this club, under the impression, of course, that he is the first man that that idea has occurred to. It is a credit to our human nature, not a blemish upon it; for it shows that underlying all our depravity (and God knows and you know we are depraved enough) and all our sophistication, and untarnished by them, there is a sweet germ of innocence and simplicity still. When a stranger says to me, with a glow ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Powers, 'tis his own Fault, if he does not employ them aright; but how does it appear, that such a Power only, can render Man a whit better, or more a moral Agent, than he is, or would be, without it? If Inclination to Virtue, must precede every truly virtuous Action; and Man's Depravity under the Fall, be such as prevents his ever having such good Inclinations, his natural Ability to do Good, must needs be a mere Joke and a Cypher. Just the same as, on the other hand, would be, the strongest Inclinations to Virtue, ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... O'Conor's arrest in Kent, Sampson's in Carlisle, and the other arrests in Belfast and Dublin, proved too truly that treason was at work, and that the much-prized oath of secrecy was no protection whatever against the devices of the Castle and the depravity of its secret agents. The extent to which that treason extended, the number of associates who were in the pay of their deadly enemies, was never known to the United Irish leaders; time has, however, long since "revealed the secrets of the prison-house," and we know now, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... contaminated by the presence of one who has, further, deceived—and cruelly deceived—an honourable and venerable gentleman, and who wisely suppressed that deceit from me when he sought my protection. I weep for your depravity. I mourn over your corruption, but I cannot have a leper and a serpent for an inmate! Go forth," said Mr. Pecksniff, stretching out his hand, "go forth, young man! Like all who know you, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... parents were severe, exacting, imperious—not bad nor exactly cruel—simply "consistent." They believed that man was a worm of the dust, and stood by the traditions. They believed in the dogma of total depravity and lived ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... yield. Perhaps the worthy school-master knew his daughter; if so he was the only one. Never did so consummate a hypocrisy minister to so profound a perversity, and a depravity so inconceivable in a young and seemingly innocent girl. If, at the bottom of her heart, she thought herself the most wretched of women, there was nothing of it apparent—it was a well-kept secret. She knew ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... afterwards made an observation that I do not recollect, which pleased him much: he said with a good-humoured smile, 'That there should be so much excellence united with so much DEPRAVITY, is strange.' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... words when he concludes that examination of his childhood memories which he undertook in order to prove the depravity of the soul from its first day on earth. He says: 'In the littleness of children didst Thou, our king, give us a symbol of humility when Thou didst say: Of such ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... He liked a bottle of wine and a good dinner, and having once been seen at the Cafe Royal with a lady who was very probably a near relation, was thenceforward supposed by generations of schoolboys to indulge in orgies the circumstantial details of which pointed to an unbounded belief in human depravity. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... and the papers?" said Ruth. "It was remembering that, that put it into our heads. I never thought of the cracks and—" with a little, low, excited laugh—"the 'total depravity of inanimate things,' ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... about Sabbath desecration. "I confess," observes this sage of ten, "when I look upon the present and past state of our public morals, and when I contrast our present luxury, dissipation, and depravity, with past frugality and virtue, I feel not merely a sensation of regret, but also of terror, for the result of the change." "The late Revolution in France," he adds, "has afforded us a remarkable lesson how necessary religion is ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... familiar with the pistols used in the duel. To convince the jury that he was not to be believed, the opposing counsel then told them that he had once pawned a watch belonging to somebody else. When the judge expressed himself shocked at such depravity, de Beauvallon, says a report, "hung his ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... thoughtfully; "I should have remembered that for a hundred years past the court of France has been so corrupt that unhappily the French nation have lost all faith in chastity and purity of heart. You, madame, must teach them to distinguish the innocence which has nothing to conceal, from the depravity which has lost all shame. But we must be cautious, and so conduct ourselves, that our actions may be ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... great French War, among other means resorted to in order to ease the English prisoners at Verdun of their loose cash, a gaming table was set up for their sole accommodation, and, as usual, led to scenes of great depravity and horror. For instance, a young man was enticed into this sink of iniquity, when he was tempted to throw on the table a five-franc piece; he won, and repeated the experiment several times successfully, until luck turned against him, and he lost everything he had. The manager ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... convictions, steeled by perils and endurance, calm, sagacious, resolute, grave even to severity, a valiant and redoubted soldier, Coligny looked abroad on the gathering storm and read its danger in advance. He saw a strange depravity of manners; bribery and violence overriding justice; discontented nobles, and peasants ground down with taxes. In the midst of this rottenness, the Calvinistic churches, patient and stern, were fast gathering ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Thaw was front-paged on the newspapers and gibbeted in the pulpits as the shocking example of youthful depravity. He seems never to have had a fighting chance to become a man. He seems to have been robbed of his birthright from the cradle. Yet the father of this boy who has cost America millions in court and detention expenses ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... people with money who wanted to educate their sons sent them out, at what seems to us a very tender age, to travel and tramp the earth alone. They were remittance-men who shifted from university to university, and took lessons in depravity, being ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... from us by the Parliament of Great Britain without our consent, and the men on whose opinions and decisions our properties liberties and lives, in a great measure depend, receive their support from the Revenues arising from these taxes, we cannot, when we think on the depravity of mankind, avoid looking with horror on the danger to which we are exposed? The British Parliament have shewn their wisdom in making the Judges there as independent as possible both on the Prince and People, both for place ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... wolverine, the marten, mink and weasel are all courageous, savage and merciless. To the wolverine Western trappers accord the evil distinction of being a veritable imp of darkness on four legs. To them he is the arch-fiend, beyond which animal cunning and depravity cannot go. Excepting the profane history of the pickings and stealings of this "mountain devil" as recorded by suffering trappers, I know little of it; but if its instincts are not supremely murderous, its reputation is no index ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... group consists of persons who, believing in the general truths of Evangelical religion, accommodate them to their passions, and are capable, by gradual increase in depravity, of any crime or violence. I am not going to include these in our present study. Trumbull ("Red Gauntlet"), Trusty Tomkyns ("Woodstock"), Burley ("Old Mortality"), are three of ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... a perfume swept over him like a breeze from the tropics. The tale turned him to stone. Sister Claire undoubtedly drew upon her imagination and her reading for the facts, since it rarely falls to the lot of one woman to sound all the depths of depravity. Louis had little nonsense in his character. At first his horror urged him to fly from the place, but whenever the tale aroused this feeling in him, the cunning creature broke forth into a strain of penitence so sweet and touching that he had not the heart to desert her. At the last she ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Instances of depravity amongst animals are not altogether unknown, though they are rare. A case is mentioned in Blackwood's Magazine of October 1817, where a lady walking along a London street had her bag snatched from ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the Holy House, he was bound by the unbreakable bonds of priestly dictum. Though one should swear by the altar of God, his oath could be annulled; but if he vowed by the corban gift or by the gold upon the altar,[1136] his obligation was imperative. To what depths of unreason and hopeless depravity had men fallen, how sinfully foolish and how wilfully blind were they, who saw not that the temple was greater than its gold, and the altar than the gift that lay upon it! In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord had said "Swear not at all";[1137] but upon ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... at all times to the state of your own mind both towards God and man: cultivate an intimate acquaintance with your own heart; labour to obtain a deep sense of your depravity and to trust always in Christ; be pure in heart, and meditate much upon the pure and holy character of God; live a life of prayer and devotedness to God; cherish every amiable and right disposition towards men; ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... rather remarkable that the men do not seem to object much to their brides having had a child or two by various fathers before marriage. The women do not lose reputation unless they become utterly depraved, but in that case they are condemned pretty strongly by public opinion. Depravity is, however, rare, for all require more or less to be wooed before they are won. I did not see (although I mixed pretty freely with the young people) any breach of propriety on the praias. The merry-makings were carried on near the ranchos, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... one of those men to whom a blot in the 'scutcheon is only less terrible than the knowledge that such trust has been misplaced. He is stung to madness by what seems this crowning proof of his sister's depravity; and by the thought of him who has thus corrupted her. He surprises Mertoun on the way to the last stolen visit to his love; and, before there has been time for an explanation, challenges and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... do cheerfully hope. But what a villain a man must be to blend together the beautiful language of love and the infernal phraseology of the law in one and the same sentence! I know but one of God's creatures who would be guilty of such depravity as this: I refer to the Unreliable. I believe the Unreliable to be the very lawyer's-cub who sat upon the solitary peak, all soaked in beer and sentiment, and concocted the insipid literary hash I am talking about. The handwriting closely ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... of succor or consideration at the hands of these murderers was idle. Unsatisfied with the mere acquisition of booty, these human devils, devoid of the last spark of compassion, would mete out to each member of the crew and the passengers the most unheard-of tortures which human depravity could invent, for the amusement of the captors. Some were tied to a windlass and pelted into insensibility, or perhaps more charitable death. Others were lashed with ropes and cast, almost dead, into the sea; or, spiked hand and ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... the Eastern land, he had nothing to say about the character of the man from China. But so soon as he felt the pressure of want because of his sloth, he began to find that the "yellow man" was vicious, and soon his depravity became a by-word. The Chinese were abused because of their virtues rather than their vices, for things for which all other nations are applauded— love of work and economy. It is the industry of our people that offends, because it competes with the half-done work of the white man, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... bound by his former offers, should Clementina recover. The interested motives of Lady Sforza and Laurana for treating Clementina with cruelty. Remarks on Lady Olivia's conduct, and on female delicacy. Sir Charles recommends Miss Byron as a pattern for his ward, and laments the depravity of ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... public life was set up for an example of clemency and kindness, but his path all the way descended until at sixty-eight he became a suicide. If eight hundred years did not make antediluvians any better, but only made them worse, the ages of eternity could have no effect except prolongation of depravity. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... been seen in Walden woods nearly as large as a crow and quite as black, he shook his head and looked up at the pine trees. That was not according to his idea of a woodpecker. Neither did he like to hear anything which tended to prove the depravity of human nature. Stories of fraud and corruption in commercial or political life were not pleasant to his ears; and if the perpetrators escaped punishment he was evidently much annoyed. He liked to tell the truth better than ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... husband of the Princess Elodie of—Hell! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and the Park trees heard a bit of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that should have made them hide in shame over the depravity of youth. ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... which the vice is practiced by an individual is in some cases appalling. Three or four repetitions of the act daily are not uncommon; and the following from Dr. Copland is evidence of much deeper depravity:— ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... dear," answered the manly voice, now graver, and with a little sadness in its ring, "ignorance is not innocence, and depravity is vastly more general than any mode. Nevertheless, there are customs of which I would greatly prefer Prissy and Fiddy to remain unaware, like ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... a Demagogue or an Infidel? I am both. For while many professed Christians contrive to serve both God and Mammon, the depravity of my nature seems to ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... therefore, has a right to arbitrary power. But the thought which is suggested by the depravity of him who brings it forward is supported by a gross confusion of ideas and principles, which your Lordships well know how to discern and separate. It is manifest, that, in the Eastern governments, and the Western, and in all governments, the supreme power in the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of his guilt and depravity thicken, on the 15th of June committed suicide by hanging himself to the bars of his cell with a handkerchief. He left letters to his father and brother, expressing in general terms the viciousness of his life, and his hopelessness of escape from punishment. When his associates in guilt ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... preached on Sundays, during my four years' course, in the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would walk in the footsteps of the only perfect One ever seen ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... wide as the world, and common as God,"[48] has never produced a nation of Rationalists; a fact very unaccountable, if Rationalism be true; and one which might well lead these writers to acknowledge at least one kind of total depravity, namely, that inspired men should love the darkness of external revelations, and even of book revelations, and read Bibles, and Korans, and Vedas, and "Discourses Concerning Religion," and "Phases of Faith," while yet "everything ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the criminality of the men themselves. My experience is that there should be no toleration of any "tenderloin" or "red light" district, and that, above all, there should be the most relentless war on commercialized vice. The men who profit and make their living by the depravity and the awful misery of other human beings stand far below any ordinary criminals, and no measures taken against ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of humble parents, in a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me, but an education free from the usual sources of depravity, and the inheritance, long since lost by their unfortunate progeny! of an honest fame. I was taught the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... anywhere discover. I did not in the least mind his entering my room when he pleased. I had there nothing of any value; he could take my life even, had he a mind to that.... The naive abysmal depths of his depravity interested me. He formed a kind of attachment to me. He told me that he would do anything for me. He had a strange tact which prevented him from intruding upon me when I was occupied. He was as quick as any ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... vainly would you cover up his guilt. Your love is blind to his depravity. But I have witness irreproachable: Tears have I seen, true tears, that may ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... depravity, improbity, unscrupulousness, iniquity, immorality, turpitude, knavishness, villainy, peccancy, baseness, profligacy, venality, licentiousness, obliquity, pravity, degeneracy, viciousness, wantonness, criminality, libertinism, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Islam, where thou shalt look upon many a lion-hearted prince and know who I am." His speech angered her and she said to him, "By the virtue of the Messiah, thou art keen of wit with me! But I see now what depravity is in thy heart and how thou allowest thyself to say a thing that proves thee a traitor. How should I do what thou sayest, when I know that, if I came to thy King Omar ben Ennuman, I should never win free of him? For he has not the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... foil to this picture of the depravity of Zion, a foil also to the immediately succeeding description of her pride and idolatry, is the beautiful vision of Zion in the issue of the days, ii. 2-5, as the city to which all nations shall resort for religious instruction, and their obedience to the ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... Praetorian Guards, finding that vice was a short cut to such rewards of virtue. In these and other high offices he developed the vices of maturity, first cruelty, then greed. He corrupted Nero and introduced him to every kind of depravity; then ventured on some villainies behind his back, and finally deserted and betrayed him. Thus in his case, as in no other, those who hated Nero and those who wished him back agreed, though from different ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... was enjoyed under the emperors, and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence, in some of the most important departments of life, reached perfection. If injustice was suffered, it was not on account of the laws, but the depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers. But the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European states. And, indeed, it is ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... a pre-existent state is not constantly supposed, that is, that mankind has existed in some state previous to the present, in which this guilt was incurred, and this depravity contracted, there can be no meaning at all or such a meaning as contradicts every principle of common sense, that guilt can be contracted without acting, or that we can act ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... vice, criminality, guilt, offense, viciousness, delinquency, ill-doing, transgression, wickedness, depravity, immorality, ungodliness, wrong, evil, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... have been very tall once, but it was stooped now, though the height was still well above medium. Hunted, haunted, ravaged and lost, was the face, and the long grey moustache, covering the chin almost, seemed to cover an immeasurable depravity. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 14.)(155) On the other hand, in over-cultivated ages, when decay begins, an over-estimation of material things is wont to become general.(156) The mere servants of mammon, whether as political economists or as private individuals, may see their depravity faithfully reflected in communism as in a mirror. We should not overlook the fact that it is with whole nations as with the individual man who amasses his own fortune. He reaches the culminating point of his wealth ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... pendant le 18me Siecle (Paris, 1819) i. 271.) but contents himself with partridges and grouse. Close-viewed, their industry and function is that of dressing gracefully and eating sumptuously. As for their debauchery and depravity, it is perhaps unexampled since the era of Tiberius and Commodus. Nevertheless, one has still partly a feeling with the lady Marechale: "Depend upon it, Sir, God thinks twice before damning a man of that quality." (Dulaure, vii. 261.) These people, of old, surely ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Jonson—and of these, only Spenser and Jonson died in their beds, and Ben had killed his man in a duel. The student of Elizabethan history and biography will find stranger contrasts than in the lives of these poets, for crime, meanness, and sexual depravity often appear in the closest juxtaposition with imaginative idealism, ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... deploring the depravity of the young woman, and the blindness of the unfortunate duke, a blindness which had, without doubt, endured till that ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... faint remembrance of seeing reference to such matters. Very self-denying, no doubt, and praiseworthy, though I must say that I doubt the use of preaching the gospel to such persons. From what I have seen of these lowest people I should think they were too deeply sunk in depravity to be capable of appreciating the lofty and ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... had gone, he had struck his brow, exclaiming: "Wretch that I am!—that great and good fellow, the fairest of the sons of men!...what a black depravity must be in this heart—" he had underlooked in the mirror, and cut a face; "but ah, Hogarth! this heart is in your net; and I loved the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... by Europeans (generally Portuguese and Spaniards) and Americans, on some secluded part of the coast. And in no instances are the parents and relatives known to sell their own children or people into slavery, except, indeed, in cases of base depravity, and except such miserable despots as the kings of Dahomi and Ashantee; neither are the heads of countries known to sell their own people; but like the marauding kidnapper, obtain them by ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... 'because he abode not in the truth.' When he says that he abode not in the truth, he certainly implied that he had once been in it; and when he calls him the father of a lie, he precludes his imputing to God the depravity of his nature, which originated wholly from himself. Though these things are delivered in a brief and rather obscure manner, yet they are abundantly sufficient to vindicate the majesty of God from every calumny."(65) Thus, in order to show that God is not the author of sin, Calvin assumes ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... give testimony. But it is sufficient, instar omnium, to behold the great critic, Mr Dennis, sorely lamenting it, even from the Essay on Criticism to this day of the Dunciad! 'A most notorious instance,' quoth he, 'of the depravity of genius and taste, the approbation this essay meets with.'[182] 'I can safely affirm, that I never attacked any of these writings, unless they had success infinitely beyond their merit. This, though an empty, has been a popular scribbler. The epidemic madness of the times has given him ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... departed as unceremoniously as they entered our mind—then I grant that it would be hard to make us responsible for such visitors. If we had no power over our own mental operations, it would seem as unjust to punish us for our delinquencies in these particulars as to censure us for the depravity of a resident of Asia or Africa. But can you defend such a position as this? Have you no power to determine what themes shall and what shall not employ your meditations? Are you the mere slave ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... present day to choose battles for his favourite topic, merely because they were battles, merely because so many myriads of troops were arrayed in them, and so many hundreds or thousands of human beings stabbed, hewed, or shot each other to death during them, would argue strange weakness or depravity of mind. Yet it cannot be denied that a fearful and wonderful interest is attached to these scenes of carnage. There is undeniable greatness in the disciplined courage, and in the love of honour, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... obscene, husky, full-fronted and heavy-chested, with a malign eye, a cat-like grip on life, and a genius for trickery and evil. There was neither faith nor trust in her. Her treachery alone could be relied upon, and her wild- wood amours attested her general depravity. Much of evil and much of strength were there in these, Batard's progenitors, and, bone and flesh of their bone and flesh, he had inherited it all. And then came Black Leclere, to lay his heavy hand on the bit of pulsating ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... his dressing-down without a whimper. He was too angry to cry. This Miss Prime took as a mark of especial depravity. In fact, the boy had been unable to discover any difference between an instructive and a vindictive whipping. It was perfectly clear in his guardian's mind, no doubt, but a cherry switch knows ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... greedy guests. But it was not upon this overthrow we stopped to look. It was upon something that mingled with it, dominated it, and made of this chaos only a setting to awful death. Janet's face, in all its natural hideousness and depravity, looked up from the floor beside this heap; and farther on, lay the twisted figure of him they called Hector, with something more than the seams of greedy longing round his wide-staring eyes and icy temples. Two in this room! and on the threshold of the one beyond ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... objection to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few instances; but I appeal to your observation if you have not met, and often met, with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegritive depravity of principle, in the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimony. I have every possible reverence for the much talked-of world beyond the grave, and I wish that which piety believes, and virtue deserves, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... purer world ascends, To share the fellowship of sainted friends, May this sweet vision of the blest be thine, To trace how widely, with a guide divine. Thy active mind, while resident below, In soften'd hearts taught piety to grow, Aiding benighted souls to view the day, And drive depravity's dark clouds away: What bliss, to welcome in those realms of light Young angels! owning thou hast helped their flight, And from the Saviour of the world to hear "Those, who befriended earth—to ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... Writers of a neighbouring Nation; which now shall have an Opportunity to receive English Bullion in Exchange for its own Dross, which has so long passed current among us in Pieces abounding with all the Levities of its volatile Inhabitants.} The reigning Depravity of the Times has yet left Virtue many Votaries. Of their Protection you need not despair. May every head-strong Libertine whose Hands you reach, be reclaimed; and every tempted Virgin who reads you, imitate the Virtue, ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... own; his ingenuity is infernal. Whoever tries to forestall or appease him might better be at work in Augean stables; because, after all, we must admit that the facts of life are on his side. It is not intended that we shall be very comfortable. There is a terrible amount of total depravity in animate and inanimate things. From morning till night there is not an hour without its cross to carry. The weather thwarts us; servants, landlords, drivers, washerwomen, and bosom friends misbehave; clothes don't fit; teeth ache; stomachs get out of order; ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... in the distance was silent, Ratcliffe for the first time addressed her, and it was in that cold sarcastic indifferent tone familiar to habitual depravity, whose crimes are instigated by custom rather than by passion. "This is a braw night for ye, dearie," he said, attempting to pass his arm across her shoulder, "to be on the green hill wi' your jo." Jeanie extricated herself from his grasp, but ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... little truer if she had won him, but as it is I am richly content with it. Perhaps I am the more content because in the case of Kitty Morrow I find a concession to reality more entire than the case of Mrs. Hunter. She is of the heredity from which you would expect her depravity; but Kitty Morrow, who lets herself go so recklessly, is, for all one knows, as well born and as well bred as those other Philadelphians. In my admiration of her, as a work of art, however, I must not fail of justice to the higher beauty of Mary Fairthorne's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... any country, but most of all in a monarchical and in aristocratic one, such manners can exist in the higher ranks, without inducing a total depravity of general thought, and perversion of the power of mind. Talent, often the most venal of venal things, follows in the wake of corruption. Covetous of gain, thirsting for patronage, it fans, instead of lowering, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Lynn, gives in his Journal a sad, sad disclosure of total depravity which was exposed by one of these sudden church-awakenings, and the story is best told in the ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... astonished at you!' said Gashford, with a kind of meek severity. 'This is a very sad picture of female depravity.' ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Amongst his irregularities, it must be reckoned that he is sometimes moral, and moral in a very sublime strain. But the general spirit and tendency of his works is mischievous,—and the more mischievous for this mixture: for perfect depravity of sentiment is not reconcilable with eloquence; and the mind (though corruptible, not complexionally vicious) would reject and throw off with disgust a lesson of pure and unmixed evil. These writers make even virtue ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in his evening reflections was as to what was going on west of the range, for Callahan knew through cloudy experience that what happens on one side of a mountain chain is no evidence as to what is doing on the other—and by species of warm weather depravity that night something was happening west ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... many other devices in every danger, by which to avoid death, if a man dares to do and say every thing. But this is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... murky, sullen November day Murglebed exhibits unimagined horrors of scenic depravity. It snarls at you malignantly. It is like a bit of waste land in Gehenna. There is a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile away from the more or less dry land which local ignorance and superstition call the sea. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... what virtue was by abandoning her empire for this Villiers de l'Ile Adam, whose servant she would rather be than reign of Christendom. The English cardinal remonstrated with the pope that this love for one, in the heart of a woman who was the joy of all, was an infamous depravity, and that he ought with a brief in partibus, to annul this marriage, which robbed the fashionable world of its principal attraction. But the love of this poor woman, who had confessed the miseries of her life, was so sweet a thing, and so moved the most dissipated ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... associated by pious antiquity. Indeed, the past would seem to have lived with special reference to the edification of the future. Chinamen were abnormally virtuous in those golden days, barring the few unfortunates whom fate needed as warning examples of depravity for succeeding ages. Except for the fact that instruction as to a future life forms no part of the curriculum, a far-eastern education may be said to consist of Sunday-school every day in the week. For no occasion is lost by the erudite authors, even in the most worldly ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... services. Considerable sums of money are collected and expended here, employment is found for the idle, strangers are introduced, news is disseminated and charity distributed. At the same time this social, intellectual, and economic centre is a religious centre of great power. Depravity, Sin, Redemption, Heaven, Hell, and Damnation are preached twice a Sunday after the crops are laid by; and few indeed of the community have the hardihood to withstand conversion. Back of this more formal religion, the Church often stands as a real conserver of morals, ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois |
