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Irreverence   /ɪrˈɛvərəns/   Listen
Irreverence

noun
1.
An irreverent mental attitude.
2.
A disrespectful act.  Synonym: violation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Irreverence" Quotes from Famous Books



... cats the names of some of the most respected and venerated saints among the Franciscans; going so far, indeed, as to bestow upon his finest cat the name of Saint Francis himself, the founder of the order. It is difficult to conceive of such irreverence in a priest, himself a member of that great order in the Catholic Church; and it is this, if anything, which would show a weakness of the mind. But even here, let us say, not as excuse, but in mitigation of his offense, that only from inadvertence did the Father ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... on the floor, and the sight of this confusion produced a favorable excitement and reaction; she succeeded in expressing herself in husky accents and broken, hardly intelligible sentences, so far as to scold them sharply for their irreverence for the precious documents, and for the disorder they had created. The waiting-woman proceeded to pick them up: but Damia again became unconscious. Gorgo bathed her brow and tried to pour some wine between her teeth, but she clenched them too firmly, till the slave-woman ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... about, and made themselves at home everywhere; and one of them sat up like a squirrel on the king's head and held a bit of cheese in its hands and nibbled it, and dribbled the crumbs in the king's face with naive and impudent irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and restful to the weary eye and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and, above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... superstitions and absurd conceptions that deform the pure faith of a Christian 220 should possess a greater immunity from ridicule than stories of witches, or the fables of Greece and Rome. But there are those who deem it profaneness and irreverence to call an ape an ape, if it but wear a monk's cowl on its head; and I would rather reason with this weakness than ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... inmost soul. Not alone, but cared for—sheltered, protected, loved. "Oh," breathed Rosemary, with her eyes shining; "Father, dear father—my father, taking care of me!" Then, in her thought, she added, without dreaming of irreverence, "I think God must ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... minister nor undertaker within forty miles. My father and D'ri made the coffin of planed lumber, and lined it with deerskin, and dug the grave on top of a high hill. When all was ready, my father, who had always been much given to profanity, albeit I know he was a kindly and honest man with no irreverence in his heart, called ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... light of early morning, the house was even uglier than at night. With an irreverence essentially modern, Dorothy decided, while she was dressing, to have all the furniture taken out into the back yard, where she could look it over at her leisure. She would make a bonfire of most of it, or, better yet, have it cut into wood for the fireplace. Thus ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... the Holy Ghost" had been pronounced, Malling settled himself to listen. He felt tensely interested. Both Mr. Harding and Chichester were now before him, the one as performer—he used the word mentally, with no thought of irreverence—the other as audience. He could study both as he wished to study them at ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... does not involve that flippant irreverence for the past that so often is associated with it. It offers no encouragement to the chase after vagaries in which so many moderns indulge, as though all that is old were belated and all that is novel were true. The idea ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... so much the better. There is service at half-past six this evening; I hope you will be regular attendants. You live in a godless house; take care that the atmosphere does not affect you. Mr. Tom Lester never entered the House of God after I spoke to him about the irreverence of his yawns during the sermon! Good-bye, and I hope you will prove pleasant neighbours. That ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... drew in her breath sharply and winced at this irreverence, but quickly remembered that she must always be sending out messages of love, north, east, south, and west. So she sent a rather spiky one in the direction of her husband who was sitting due east, so that it probably got to him at once, and smiled the particular hard firm smile ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... do their rhythm. The sentimentalities of Roman Catholic writers towards our Lord and his mother, are not half so offensive as the courtier-like flatteries Dr. Watts offers to the Most High. To say nothing of the irreverence, the vulgarity is offensive. He affords another instance amongst thousands how little the form in which feeling is expressed has to do with the feeling itself. In him the thought is true, the form of its utterance false; the feeling lovely, the word, often to ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... subject of tact and taste, the Cardinal Bibbiena introduces an elaborate discussion of the different sorts of jokes, which proves the high value attached in Italy to all displays of wit. It appears that even practical jokes were not considered in bad taste, but that irreverence and grossness were tabooed as boorish. Mere obscenity is especially condemned, though it must be admitted that many jests approved of at that time would now appear intolerable. But the essential point to be aimed at then, as now, was the promotion of mirth by cleverness, and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... legends in an atmosphere of truth—Adrian Reland, professor at the University of Utrecht. His work on Palestine is a monument of patient scholarship, having as its nucleus a love of truth as truth: there is no irreverence in him, but he quietly brushes away a great mass of myths and legends: as to the statue of Lot's wife, he treats it warily, but applies the comparative method to it with killing effect, by showing that the story of its miraculous ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... and generally a cheerful confidence in the world's evolution toward better things. On social ethics the poets of the mid-Victorian period wrote with philosophic sobriety; they maintained a strict moral standard. In their wildest emotional flights they abstained from irreverence or indecorum. They undoubtedly represented the prevailing cast of thought, the taste and tendencies of the society to which they belonged; the growing scepticism, the influence on established ideas of advancing science and philosophy. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... Mazzini sees much already,—at Milan, where he is, he has probably this day received the intelligence of the accomplishment of his foresight, implied in his letter to the Pope, which angered Italy by what was thought its tone of irreverence and doubt, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... and no uncomfortable questions were asked. It is easy to see that both of the pivotal moral ideals, i.e., loyalty and filial piety, would support this unquestioning habit of mind, for to ask questions as to authority is the beginning both of disloyalty to the master and of irreverence to the parents ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... asked Frank, smiling, for he had become accustomed enough to Tom's quaint parables, though he had to scold him often enough for their irreverence. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... my daughter!" the sick man murmured, in trembling tones. "I believe I am guilty of no irreverence in invoking His blessing," he added, "for I have learned to feel my need of faith in Him, and, Virgie, your husband has taught me ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... known how Luther was scandalized by the irreverence with which the priests in Rome said Mass. And at the same time the feasts of the Church were celebrated with a taste and magnificence of which Northern countries had no conception. It looks as if this most imaginative of nations was easily tempted ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... to my senses and my imagination; it is religion set to music and painting, and artistic religion does not suit me. The incessant passing of people through the church, too, disturbs one, and gives an unpleasant air of irreverence to the whole.... I think I might like to go to a cathedral for afternoon service, much as I like to spend my Sunday leisure in reading Milton, though I should not be satisfied to make my whole devotional exercises consist in reading ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... dusty confusion. The San Fernando church was in crumbled ruins, and such of the church properties as were left there were in the keeping of a Mexican not over-careful, and not in the least devout. It would not trouble him to part with a saint or two, Alessandro thought, and no irreverence to the saint either; on the contrary, the greatest of reverence, since the statue was to be taken from a place where no one cared for it, and brought into one where it would be tenderly cherished, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... sorrow, and entreat the Emperor's pardon. All the time they were gone the city gave itself up to prayer and fasting, listening to sermons from the priest, John—called from his eloquence Chrysostom, or Golden Mouth—who preached repentance for all the most frequent sins, such as love of pleasure, irreverence at church, etc. The Bishop on his way met the Emperor's deputies who were charged to enquire into the crime and punish the people; and he redoubled his speed in reaching Constantinople, where he so pleaded the cause of the people that Theodosius freely ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... played "medicine dance." This, to us, was almost what "playing church" is among white children, but our people seemed to think it an act of irreverence to imitate these dances, therefore performances of this kind were always enjoyed in secret. We used to observe all the important ceremonies and it required something of an actor to reproduce the dramatic ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... consequence of these chimeras is contempt of authority, and an irreverence for any superiority but what is founded upon merit; and their notions of merit are very peculiar, for it is among them no great proof of merit to be wealthy and powerful, to wear a garter or a star, to command a regiment or a senate, to have the ear of the minister or of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... Remington intended no irreverence; indeed, he could not tell what he did intend, or what it was which prompted his ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... to acknowledge this announcement in some way, speech, or bow, or something, because before my immobility he made a slight movement in his chair which smacked of impatience. "I am afraid, Senor, that you are affected by the spirit of scoffing and irreverence which pervades this unhappy country of France in which both you and I are strangers, I believe. Are you a ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... worship by the minister. It is not a difficult matter to take exception to methods to which we have long been accustomed, and to compare these, sometimes to their disadvantage, with ideal conditions. As a matter of fact, however, it may in all fairness be asked, does disorder or irreverence characterize Presbyterian worship in general, or indeed to any noticeable extent? Whatever lovers of another system, within our own Church, may say, it cannot be denied that the impression in the minds of men of all denominations (an impression that has not gained strength ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... say never. For perhaps we may say after Plato, and without irreverence, that the pattern of perfect cricket is laid up somewhere in the skies, and out of man's reach. But between it and ordinary cricket we may set up a copy of perfection, as close as man can make it, and, by little and little, closer every year. This ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... with ethereal sensations, and that in her sexual enjoyment is out of place, improper, scandalous. To arouse sexual emotions in a woman, if not to profane a sacred host, is, at all events, the staining of an immaculate peplos; if not sacrilege, it is, at least, irreverence or impertinence. For all men, the chaster a woman is, the more agreeable it is to bring her to the orgasm. That is felt as a triumph of the body over the soul, of sin over virtue, of earth over heaven. There is something diabolic in such pleasure, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... injustice to the Republican Party when he lays this irreverence for the past to their charge. As he seems to think that he alone has read books and studied the lessons of antiquity, he will be pleased to learn that there are persons also in that party who have not neglected all their opportunities in that kind. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... not do the thing at once which he takes time to do, we may surely say without irreverence. His will cannot finally be thwarted; where it is thwarted for a time, the very thwarting subserves the working out of a higher part of his will. He gave man the power to thwart his will, that, by means of that ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... of the Chapter in his pluvial, carrying a silver stick nearly as tall as himself, making the tiles of the pavement re-echo with its blows. During High Mass and the choir in the evening he walked about the naves to check any irreverence on the part of the congregation or any inattention on that of the staff. At eight o'clock at night in the winter, and at nine in summer, he locked the door of the staircase leading to the upper cloister, putting the key in his pocket, and so all the people in the cloister remained quite isolated ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... elemental control and moderation, I found the character and manners of the people gentler and sweeter than I had been led to believe they were. No loudness, brazenness, impertinence; no oaths, no swaggering, no leering at women, no irreverence, no flippancy, no bullying, no insolence of porters or clerks or conductors, no importunity of bootblacks or newsboys, no omnivorousness, of hackmen,—at least, comparatively none,—all of which an American ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... some ability and military information, Armstrong lacked conventional morals, and was the possessor of objectionable peculiarities. He never won either the confidence or the respect of Madison. He not only did harsh things in a harsh way, but he had a caustic tongue, and a tone of irreverence whenever he estimated the capacity of a Virginia statesman. On the other hand, Tompkins had gentleness, and that refined courtesy, amounting almost to tenderness, which seemed so necessary in ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... you driving at?" I asked in a passion. I put my hat on my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the other expenses consequent upon the delays arising ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... theology and method of instruction used by some of the earliest laborers in this field left something to be desired in point of adaptedness to the savage mind. Without irreverence to the great name of Jonathan Edwards, there is room for doubt whether he was just the man for the Stockbridge Indians. In the case of the Rev. Abraham Pierson, of Branford, in New Haven Colony, afterward founder of Newark, we have an illustration both ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... whether the showman or the priests are to blame for my irreverence, or whether it is the fault of the system itself. The argument in favor of the adoration of images is that they make impressions on the senses which aid devotion; but, if the impressions made on ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... the Grammar School of Kingston upon-Hull, 1789, p. 11. BOSWELL. Southey (Life of Wesley, i. 41), mentioning the names given at Oxford to Wesley and his followers, continues:—'One person with less irreverence and more learning observed, in reference to their methodical manner of life, that a new sect of Methodists was sprung up, alluding to the ancient school of physicians known by that name.' Wesley, in 1744, wrote The Humble Address to the King of the Societies ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of imposing silence, traversed in its turn the Piazza of St. Peter's: this was the dinner procession. The people received it with the usual bursts of laughter, without suspecting, for all their irreverence, that this procession, more efficacious than the former, had just settled the election of the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Let Irreverence stay her ribald tongue before these illustrious writings, and Indecency vomit her own nastiness elsewhere than ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... Dr. Potter looked upon this production as the height of irreverence and irreligion, and proposed to excommunicate the authors of it. Hence the dissenters declared themselves seceders, and took immediate steps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... come with the feeling—"I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the House of the Lord;" "I love the place, O Lord, wherein Thine honour dwells." All slovenliness in the performance of the service, all irreverence, or signs of inattention, and indifference, are tokens of a want of thankfulness. We should get this thought fixed in our minds when we enter Church,—I have come here to-day mainly to thank God for His great goodness to me, and to all men. I have come also to ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

... Never! When Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual passage serves him as a starting post towards all the "two-and-thirty Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious diligent Indolence!... Nor will this sparing touch of noble Books be any irreverence to their Writers—for perhaps the honors paid by Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the Benefit done by great Works to the Spirit and pulse of good ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... Boers concealed in the kopjes opened a brisk fire at long range on the naked figures, but did not hit anyone nor prevent them all from bringing the punt safely to our side: a dashing exploit, of which their regiment—the 'Cockyolibirds,' as the army, with its customary irreverence, calls us on account of the cock's feather cockades we wear in our hats ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... Indelicacy or irreverence is unpleasant in itself, and yet when complication is added to it few of us can avoid laughing, and I am afraid that some considerably enjoy objectionable allusions. To tell a man to go to h—-, or that he deserves to go there, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... you understood it, dear old sceptic!" returned Balder, with affectionate irreverence, throwing his arm across his father's broad shoulders. "I say that every soul of right capacity, living for culture, and not afraid of itself, will at last reach that highest point. It is the sublime goal of man, and no human life is complete unless in gaining it. Many fail, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... felt it scarcely possible to describe the scene without a certain mixture of the ludicrous, no feeling of irreverence crossed my mind at the time. On the contrary, my sympathies were greatly drawn out towards these our poor fellow-creatures; and there was something most instructive in the sight of them there assembled to enjoy those highest blessings—blessings of which no ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... the feeling that then prevailed by an amusing story of an earlier occurrence. A boy who had lost his way in London was called a "popish cur" by a Whig because he ventured to inquire for Saint Anne's Lane, while he was cuffed for irreverence by a Tory when, correcting himself, he asked ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... no irreverence, but because of the over-towering importance of the book, that the best scholars (devout, prayerful scholars, as well as the reverse) have given the best of their lives to the study of its text, its history, its ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes

... appreciation of the literary eminences whom Fields used to class together as "the old saints," Harte had a spice of irreverence that enabled him to take them more ironically than they might have liked, and to see the fun of a minor literary man's relation to them. Emerson's smoking amused him, as a Jovian self-indulgence ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... establish'd over me, that I could seldom think or speak of Lyons—and sometimes not so much as see even a Lyons-waistcoat, but this remnant of antiquity would present itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way of running on—tho' I fear with some irreverence—'I thought this shrine (neglected as it was) as valuable as that of Mecca, and so little short, except in wealth, of the Santa Casa itself, that some time or other, I would go a pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons) on purpose to ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... Heaven-descended, divine and sacred; He is pre-eminent above all His subjects. He must be reverenced and is inviolable. He has, indeed, to pay due respect to the law, but the law has no power to hold Him accountable to it. Not only shall there be no irreverence for the Emperor's person, but also shall He neither be made a topic of derogatory ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... presented himself at the drawing-room door, where he stood as grave and silent as Banquo's ghost. Constance arose at sight of this fantastic figure, barked furiously and darted toward a pair of legs for which she seemed to share the irreverence of the liveried servants; but the texture of the blue stocking and the flesh which covered the tibia were rather too hard morsels for the dowager's teeth; she was obliged to give up the attack and content herself with impotent ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... her aunt and the faith to which she belonged. It may be noted too that Miss Stisted has no word of womanly sympathy for the wife who loved her husband with a love passing the love of women, and who was bowed down by her awful sorrow. On the contrary, with revolting heartlessness and irreverence, she jeers at her aunt's grief and the last offices of the dead. We may agree with the doctrines of the Church of Rome, or we may not; the solemn rites may be unavailing, or they may be otherwise; but at least they can do no harm, and the death-chamber should surely be sacred from such ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... Following whither our object led, we have gone far beyond the bounds usually prescribed to a book like this; After perusing the present chapter, you may turn to the title-page, and reading thereon, "Olive, a Novel" may exclaim, "Most incongruous—most strange!" Nay, some may even accuse us of irreverence in thus bringing into a fictitious story those subjects which are acknowledged as most vital to every human soul, but yet which most people are content, save at set times and places, tacitly to ignore. There are those who sincerely believe that in such works as this it is ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... her native country. She can't tell the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans. And she didn't know why we came over here, and why it was not the same God in England, and if all the gods in India were idols. Chilian, you shouldn't encourage her irreverence. It ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... few ravelling threads of this our desultory tale have yet to be gathered up, as tidily as may be. Suffer, then, such mingling of my thoughts: the web I weave has many threads, woven with divers colours. Human nature is nothing if not inconsistent; and I have no more notion of irreverence in turning from a high topic to a low one, than a bee may be fancied to have of irrelevant idleness in flitting from the sweet violet to the scented dahlia. We may gather honey out of every flower. Have you not often noticed, that riches generally come to a man, when he least stands ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... long delay which it implied, it would be utterly fruitless. But the possible danger of exposing a Constitution, framed and adopted in the earlier and more conservative days of the Republic, to be torn in pieces in these times of lawless irreverence and change, is too great for any wise man willingly to encounter. The very equality of the States in the Senate, which was won by the revolutionary sacrifices and valor of the smaller States, now almost forgotten, would, in the judgment of your ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... seat on the fleurs-de-lis, he had published his Lettres persanes, an imaginary trip of two exiled Parsees, freely criticising Paris and France. The book appeared under the Regency, and bears the imprint of it in the licentiousness of the descriptions and the witty irreverence of the criticisms. Sometimes, however, the future gravity of Montesquieu's genius reveals itself amidst the shrewd or biting judgments. It is in the Lettres persanes that he seeks to set up the notion ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... understand these people," he said to me, soon after his adventure with the "boys." "Such a compound of devotion and irreverence, meanness and generosity, cunning and child-like openness, was never seen. When I give Holy Communion with you, sir, on Sunday morning, my heart melts at the seraphic tenderness with which they approach the altar. That striking of the breast, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... with certain religious ideas and certain Biblical terms. There is a kind of audacity in their use of the Scriptures, which reminds one of the freedom of mediaeval mystery-plays. Probably this boldness began, not in scepticism or in irreverence, but in honest familiar faith. It certainly seems very odd to us in England, and probably expressions often get a laugh which would pass unnoticed in America. An astounding coolness and freedom of manners probably go for something ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... into the crypt of the Church, and examine the foundations of the building. They could not be kept back by authoritative assurances that the stones were sound, and were well and truly laid. The hysterical protests against the irreverence of examination fell on deaf ears. The answer was the simple insistance on investigation. The very reluctance to permit it was an indication that it would ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... with a fierce hurt challenge in his eyes for irreverence and incredulity and even perhaps good-natured jeers, but Garry, sensing something big and unfamiliar, held out his hand. Kenny wrung it ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... Hall, from which I write, is somewhere in the vale of the Boyne, somewhere near Yellow Steeple, not so far from Treadagh, only a few miles from Ballybilly (I hope to be forgiven this irreverence to the glorious memory of his Majesty, William, Prince of Orange!), and within driving distance of Killkienan, Croagh-Patrick, Domteagh, and Tara Hill itself. If you know your Royal Meath, these geographical suggestions will give you some ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... perfectly evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of good. But now—admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite—in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom and knowledge and mind? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very serious if we err on ...
— Philebus • Plato

... pride that apes humility," cried Miss Hague with cheerful irreverence. "I don't pretend to teach you sermon-making: I only tell you that, such as sermons mostly are, precious little help or comfort can be ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... and it is my duty to be so. This mark of irreverence towards the Queen is the only one for which Mademoiselle de la Valliere can be blamed; but she would never have done such a thing of her own accord; it was all the fault of the Marquise, blinded as she ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... respecting these matters:' and then they would produce their books and read paragraphs, making such comments that every person was scandalized; they cared nothing about the Pope, and even spoke with irreverence of the bones of Saint James. However, the matter was soon bruited about, and a commission was dispatched from our see to collect the books and burn them. This was effected, and the skippers were either punished ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... first time, also, he was conscious of some irreverence in designating that stranger, even in his secret thoughts, by the sobriquet of M. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... worship and federal head; and such a condition of society wherein Satan will be received as supreme (as he will be in the person of the first Beast of Rev. 13), must, therefore, be developed by generations of increasing irreverence and lawlessness toward God. Thus it has been necessary for Satan to conceal his person and projects from the very people over whom he is in authority and in whom he is the energizing power. For this reason this class of humanity ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... against her zeal as an Irish Church-woman. It is true that she mentioned what she regarded as the disaster of Larry's religion in her prayers, but she did so without heat, leaving the matter, without irreverence, to the common sense of Larry's Creator, who, she felt must surely recognise the disadvantages of the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... sculptor may perhaps best be estimated from the often quoted sentence of Quintilian, perhaps the noblest praise ever accorded to an artist by a critic: "The beauty of the statue even made some addition to the received religion; the majesty of the work was equal to the god." We might indeed, without irreverence, impute to Phidias the words uttered in a very different sense by one who later gave a new and higher interpretation to a formula of "the received religion" in Greece: "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner

... engaged a guide for that purpose; but, as I intend to go thither again with S——-, I did not accompany them, but went away the quicker that one of the gentlemen put on his hat, and I was ashamed of being seen in company with a man who could wear his hat in a cathedral. Not that he meant any irreverence; but simply felt that he was in a great public building,—as big, nearly, as all out of doors,—and so forgot that it was a consecrated place of worship. The sky is the dome of a greater cathedral than St. Paul's, and built by a greater ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... children. Some women love so without having any. No conceivable treasure of the world could have once entered into comparison with the burden of richness Mrs. Porson bore. She told afterward, with voice hushed by fear of irreverence, how, as they went down one of the hills, she slept for a moment, and dreamed that she was Mary with the holy thing in her arms, fleeing to Egypt on the ass, with Joseph, her husband, walking by her side. For years and years they had been longing for a child—and here lay the ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... saw the amorphous agglomerate of human shreds and patches kneeling by the bedside of the dying murderer, to pray some comfort into his passing soul. But his "gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it," while through Helen ran a cold shudder of disgust at the familiarity and irreverence of the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... and consists of a number of questions on various mysteries in the universe. The meaning of the title would be better expressed by "Questions put to God," but we are told that such a phrase was impossible on account of the holiness of God and the irreverence of questioning Him. One question was, "Who has handed down to us an account of the beginning of all things, and how do we know anything about the time when heaven and earth were without form?" Another question was, "As Nu-ch'i had no husband, how could she bear nine sons?" The Commentary ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... foreigner and never took their eyes off us. Later, individual monks came running round the shrines, beating a gong as though to call the attention of the deity, and shouting a few words of perfunctory praise or prayer. Irreverence more complete I have not seen even in Italy, nor beggary more shameless. Such is the latter end of the gospel of Buddha in China. It seems better that he should sit deserted in his Indian caves than ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... influence in England. There was a growing inclination to think and speak of minor questions as being debatable; an increasing suspicion on one side that the spread of knowledge and of discussion tended to heresy and to irreverence—on the other, that they tended to edification. In theory the leading ecclesiastics agreed that an authorised translation of the Bible would be good, but half of them were afraid that it would lead to novel and dangerous interpretations. The general attitude may be regarded as one ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... "Such irreverence shall not be!" exclaimed Ranulph, seizing Luke with one hand, and snatching at the cereclothes with the other. "Remove it, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... not deny that this reading and expounding of the Scriptures by the ignorant and unlearned led almost invariably to those other sins of blasphemy and irreverence which curdled the very blood in his veins. Again and again had his heart burned within him to go forth amongst the people himself; to take upon himself and put in practice the office of evangelist, which he knew to be a God-appointed ministry, and yet which was so ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Italianized by Mr. and Mrs. Blyth, and by all intimate friends, into "Madonna." One or two extremely strict and extremely foolish people objected to any such familiar application of this name, as being open, in certain directions, to an imputation of irreverence. Mr. Blyth was not generally very quick at an answer; but, on this occasion, he had three answers ready before the objections were quite ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... and vulgar, in which we may of course trace the influence of his tavern associates. It is to his credit that he did not sink into Byronic misanthropy and bitter self-lacerating scorn, or even into Heine's irreverence ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... brushed—down at the shop?" Isabelle asked, laughing. Madame Carter never failed to be staggered by her daughter-in-law's irreverence, yet she never could quite resist the criticisms that ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... clergy ... is their packing their sermons so full of similitudes" (p. 41.). Eachard has a museum of curiosities in this line. The Puritan Pulpit, however, far outstrips even the incredible nonsense and irreverence which he adduces. Let any one curious in such matters dip into a collection of Scotch Sermons of the seventeenth century. Sir W. Scott, in some of his works, has endeavoured to give a faint idea of the extraordinary way in which passages of Holy Scripture were applied ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... man named Dercardius approached, and with rude and importunate speech, nay, even with clamor, wearying the ears of the saint, afflicting his mind, and stopping his mouth, demanded of him food. The which the saint not having at hand, blushed, and took unkindly the irreverence that prevented him from preaching. But a certain man named Nessan, who beheld how the just man's spirit was vexed, offered unto him a ram, which the saint bade him give to the bold importuner. This receiving, Dercardius returned to his companions, boasting that ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... him for such irreverence, we are not told; nevertheless, the fact is suggestive of an element in the boy's make-up to which the ingenious skeptic may appeal with success. Possibly it was only the native humor of the boy, which, with his love of fun, cropped out on that occasion. It was ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... in the direction of their banker's account; or fellows of colleges who have no children, and therefore never feel the difficulties of supporting them. Heaven forbid that so humble an individual as myself should question their wisdom, or say anything about them that should seem to smack of irreverence; but I do believe that (with one or two exceptions I have in my mind) the system they have introduced among us is the Greatest Humbug in the universe. In the meantime poor Paterfamilias (who is the last man, they flatter ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... fleet under Admiral William Penn appeared before the city and landed an army under General Venables, there was great excitement and fear in Santo Domingo, and the archbishop ordered that the sacred ornaments and vessels be hidden and that "the sepulchres be covered in order that no irreverence or profanation be committed against them by the heretics, and especially do I so request with reference to the sepulchre of the old Admiral which is on the gospel side of my holy church and sanctuary," That other tombs were hidden, whether at this time or another, ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... the bishop in this matter." So much he spoke in anger, and then he corrected himself. "I crave the bishop's pardon, and yours as his messenger, if in the heat occasioned by my strong feelings I have said aught which may savour of irreverence towards his lordship's office. I respect his lordship's high position as bishop of this diocese, and I bow to his commands in all things lawful. But I must not bow to him in things unlawful, nor must I abandon my duty before God at his bidding, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... been written concerning Roumanian funerals. That they are showy, almost to irreverence, and that the exposure of the face of the corpse in its glazed coffin is repulsive, there can be no doubt, but they are not one whit worse than the lugubrious processions with their 'arrangements' in black and feathers which are still to be seen in England; and ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... be wiser to add a little more wine. It was Easter Sunday. Many members of the congregation were farmers and farm labourers. He had vivid remembrances in his mind of having forcibly to take the cup from the lips of such as these. They meant no irreverence by it, of course. He imagined it to be habit in great part with them, and a smile flickered over his face as the thought ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... Thus sometimes (it must not be imagined that this happened in all or even in the majority of houses) the services became empty forms, to be hurried through with scant devotion and occasionally with scandalous irreverence. It was the almost inevitable reaction from too ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... soutar, he undid his parcel, and after carefully enveloping his own violin in the paper, took the old wife of the soutar, and proceeded to perform upon her a trick which in a merry moment his master had taught him, and which, not without some feeling of irreverence, he had occasionally practised upon his own ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... other man is equal unto him I want, in virtues, study, and birth. With respect to children and conduct, this other resembles the intelligent Sarmin. Do thou bring the individual I have in view. He should be worshipped with respect (instead of being dragged hither with irreverence).' The messenger having come to the place, did the very reverse of what he had been bidden to do. Attacking that person, he brought him who had been forbidden by Yama to be brought. Possessed of great energy, Yama ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... visited Paris he declined to be introduced to the Abbe Le Blanc, "on account of the irreverence with which he had treated Shakespeare." There can, indeed, be no doubt that the Abbe, although he wrote amusing letters, was a very prejudiced person, and his evidence and opinions touching the English stage ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... irreverence, such entire ignorance rather of all the questions at issue, from the pulpit, would be clearly impracticable. Men require to be taught "which be the first principles." They require to be educated in Divinity. And thus we come back to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... Ruskin's illness his cousin, Mrs. Arthur Severn, has become more and more indispensable to him: she sits at the head of the table and calls him "the coz." An eminent visitor was once put greatly out of countenance by this apparent irreverence. After obvious embarrassment, light dawned upon him towards the close of the meal. "Oh!" said he, "it's 'the coz' you call Mr. Ruskin. I thought ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... cast a self-complacent sneer on the soul itself, and on all who believe in its existence. First, because in my opinion it would be impertinent; secondly, because it would be imprudent and injurious to the character of my profession; and, lastly, because it would argue an irreverence to the feelings of mankind, which I deem scarcely compatible with a good heart, and a degree of arrogance and presumption which I have never found, except in company with a corrupt taste and a ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... irreverence and neglect are continually before us. We have already given extracts from sermons denouncing it. It was now that the raising of money by Government lotteries began, for the purpose of repairing the harbours, and a great shed was set up at the west door of St. Paul's for the drawing ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham

... against the powers of heathenism enthroned in the Roman Empire and throughout the world form a bright chapter in the annals of historic deeds and supreme loyalty to lofty ideals. When we view the subject from this angle, it would almost seem to be an act of irreverence or of sacrilege to call in question the doctrines and practises of that period when the church was baptized by fire and waded through rivers of blood. Reverence for the martyrs and for their noble efforts to extend the cause of Christ is praiseworthy, but in ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... would be interesting as a literary curiosity were it not in spirit and tendency so unspeakably wicked as to excite in every rightminded reader a feeling of amazement and disgust. With a hard, brutal audacity, a blasphemous irreverence, and a sneering mockery which would do honor to the devil of Faust, it takes issue with the moral sense of mankind and the precepts of Christianity. Having ascertained that the exports of sugar and spices from the West Indies have diminished since emancipation,—and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... discussion of business questions, it played a trivial and apologetic part in public affairs. And this was done not out of contempt but respect. The hold of the old religious organisations upon men's respect was still enormous, so enormous that there seemed to be a quality of irreverence in applying religion to the developments of every day. This strange suspension of religion lasted over into the beginnings of the new age. It was the clear vision of Marcus Karenin much more than any other contemporary influence which ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... if I am correct in my estimate of them, will afford a very sufficient answer to those who think that the scientific habit of mind tends to irreverence. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... found means to present a manuscript to one of those sons of fortune who are dignified with the appellation of patrons, instead of reaping that applause and advantage with which he had regaled his fancy, had the mortification to find his performance treated with infinite irreverence and contempt, and, in high dudgeon and disappointment, appealed to the judgment of another critic, who, he knew, had no veneration for ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... in the Court Gazette the next morning, but as I had other views on the matter I laughed heartily at the paragraph. The sheet was printed at night, after the king had placed his initials to the copy. In the morning several persons came to condole with me, but I received their sympathy with great irreverence. I merely laughed at Count Clary, who said I would surely submit to the operation; and just as he uttered the words the three surgeons ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... cheapness which had just then begun to be formed. The taint of a flippant wit was common to all its members, and their assurance was unbounded. They undertook to extinguish anybody with a few fine phrases; and, in their conceited irreverence, they even attacked eternal principles, the sources of the best inspiration of all ages, and pronounced sentence upon them. Repute of a kind they gained, but it was by glib falsifications of all that is noble in sentiment, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... he turned to one of the truly good people in the hall, that had watched his devotion, and said, "Say, boss, this is evidently a new scheme. I thought this was Sherman's dancing school. You must excuse my seeming irreverence. If you will kick me down stairs I will consider it a special dispensation of providence," and he went down into the wicked world and asked a policeman where the dancing school was. All the way home the lady ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... no gestures of gentleness and grace, no delicate attentions, no ladies' presence, no social circle, no books, no home, no church;—Good God! what a heathenish barbarism of coarse instincts, and irreverence, and insulting equalities, and all manner of gracelessnesses, to bring the dangerous impressionability of fine childhood to! The boy was nervous, sensitive, of a spirit quick to take alarms or hurts,—physically unprepared to wrestle with arduous toil, privation, and exposure,—most apt for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... spoke out, and said she didn't think the wit meant any irreverence. It was only another way of saying, Paris is a heavenly place after ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Douglas's simple statement, that if the people of a Territory wanted slavery they would have it, and if they did not, they would not let it be forced on them, was fully justified by the facts of American history. It has been characteristic of the American people that, without irreverence for law, they have not allowed it to stand in the way of their natural development: they have not, as a rule, driven rough-shod over law, but have quietly allowed undesirable laws to fall ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... hat as soon as his foot crosses the threshold of the sacred edifice. Travellers will often omit this salutation in visiting churches abroad, whose faith differs from their own. There is no more certain sign of ill breeding as well as irreverence. ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... Esmo said, in the cold, grave tone of a president rebuking disorder, mingled with the deeper displeasure of a priest repressing irreverence in the midst of the most solemn religious rite. "None may speak here till the Chiefs have ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... Everybody stared quickly at me. I might as well have uttered a round oath. The awful shame that flushed me and crushed me cannot be imagined. My parents talked kindly, but seriously, to me for such an irreverence; yet I suspect that by themselves they laughed. This book was a story called "Erminia," with an East India voyage in it. I don't know why the name should stick so fast in my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... no sign of re-awakening courage in his followers; rather, indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a darned thing," replied Mr. Temple Barholm. And just here his face changed as Mr. Palford had seen it change before, and as Pearson often saw it change later. His New York jocular irreverence dropped from him, and he ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... morsel half-way to his mouth, glared at him several seconds, and then resumed his eating; not like a horse now, but like a bad dog gnawing an old bone. He glanced again angrily at the embodiment of irreverence opposite. Mr. Tarbox smiled. Claude let slip, not intending it, an audible growl, with his eyes in the plate. Mr. Tarbox's smile increased to a noiseless laugh, and grew and grew until it took hopeless possession of him. His nerves ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... "Irreverence for pervading custom," went on Bob, "is shown by certain men when they smoke, with no word of apology, in a lady's reception-room, or track mud in on their boots, as if it was a country club. Some people enjoy having their Sundays observed as Sunday, ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... eighteenth century.[4] It is to be hoped and believed that, for the time being, this contention is well founded, but what assurance is there—if the Book which embodies the code of Christian morality may without irreverence be quoted—that "that which is done is that which shall be done"?[5] That is ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... skin tingle and glow slightly and almost painlessly; and, bowing submissively, as if to meet his companion's jesting mood, began to recite the CONFITEOR. The episode ended well, for both Heron and Wallis laughed indulgently at the irreverence. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... the hostess as she softly dropped her eyelids and smiled reprovingly; "this irreverence comes of visiting Miss Agnes Wilt too often. I must take ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... effect has anger on our soul? A. Anger begets in our souls impatience, hatred, irreverence, and too often ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous

... warmed to his work he broke out in rhyme—"Yes, brothers and sisters, there was little brother Paal, the very best of aal, laid down his life," etc. His use of biblical names was quite eccentric, which caused the undevotional members of his audience to snigger audibly. Without seeming to heed the irreverence, Jimmy pursued his impassioned diatribe and smote unbelievers hip and thigh, in language that was not conventional, or even relevant to the subject of his discourse. The sniggering had developed into suppressed laughter, and James suddenly stopped the even flow ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... surroundings; but in England there is a deep impassable gulf between the man at the table and the man behind his chair. This democratic independence of external and adventitious circumstance sometimes gives a tone of irreverence to American persiflage, and the temporary character of class distinctions in America undoubtedly diminishes the amount of literary material "in sight" but when, as in the case of Browne and Clemens, there is in the humorist's mind ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... American people have been characterized by idealism. It was the inner light of Pilgrim and Quaker colonists; it gleams no less in the faces of the children of Russian Jew immigrants to-day. American irreverence has been noted by many a foreign critic, but there are certain subjects in whose presence our reckless or cynical speech is hushed. Compared with current Continental humor, our characteristic American humor is peculiarly reverent. The purity of woman and the reality ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... with morning mist. It was blinding the sun with a matinal oblation of incense. A crew of the profane should not interfere with such act of worship. Sacrilege is perilous, whoever be the God. We were instantly punished for irreverence. The first "rips" came up-stream under cover of the mist, and took us by surprise. As we were paddling along gently, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a boiling rapid. Gnashing rocks, with cruel foam upon their lips, sprang out of the obscure, eager ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... instant sensation; it was denounced for its scandalous irreverence by the members of the Historical Society, especially by those who had Dutch ancestors, but was received with roars of laughter by the rest of the population. Those who read it now (from curiosity, for its merriment has long since departed, leaving it dull as any thrice-repeated ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... embodiments. From afar, you might trace the divine agency on its way. But to touch, to handle it, with these fleshly hands:—well! for Monseigneur, that was by no means to believe because the thing was "incredible, or absurd." He had smiled, not certainly from irreverence, nor (a prelate for half his life) in conscious incredulity, but only in mute surprise, at an administration of divine graces—this administration in which he was a high priest—in itself, to his quite honest thinking, so unfitting, so improbable. ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... There, too, had been the wide, dark-eaved garrets full of moth-devoured relics of splendor; who knew what might be lying hidden in those vast hair-covered chests? They were there no longer now; for once, in an access of angry irreverence, Margaret had had them all dragged down, and had sold their contents to the rag-man, and had made by her speculation cloaks for themselves and a shawl for Frederick,—in the days when gentlemen condescended to lend to their stiff costume the graceful dignity of a dropping fold or two. But ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... because of this kind of revelation. Gunnison relates that when a woman "speaking in tongues" pronounced "meliar, meli, melee," it was at once translated by a young wag, "my leg, my thigh, my knee," and, when he was called before the Council charged with irreverence, he persisted in his translation, but got off with an admonition.** At a meeting in Nauvoo in later years a doubting convert delivered an address in real Choctaw, whereupon a woman jumped up and offered as a translation an account of the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... gladistino. Ironmonger patvendisto. Irony ironio. Irradiate radii. Irregular neregula. Irreligious malpia. Irreparable neriparebla. Irrepressible nehaltigebla. Irreproachable neriprocxinda. Irresolute sxanceligxa, nedecida. Irreverence malriverenco. Irritable incitebla. Irritate inciti. Is estas. Island insulo. Islander insulano. Isle insulo. Isolate izoli. Israelite Izraelido. Issue eldoni. Issue (offspring) idaro. Issue elflui. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... gratification of a gorgeous spectacle, the joy of making a Sunday of a weekday, dominated every other feeling. As the procession passed along the boulevards, the spectators on the balconies almost applauded; here, in the populous quarters, irreverence manifested itself even more frankly. Coarse chaff, vulgar comments on the dead man and his doings, with which all Paris was familiar, laughter called forth by the broad-brimmed hats of the rabbis and the solemn "mugs" of the council of wise men, filled the air between two drum-beats. ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... or irreverence, but because the music, which sounds so grandly impressive here in the Sistine Chapel, strikes one as a mere confusion of discordant ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... for Kitty—the only worshiper of the professor's gods in Williamson Valley—to supply that companionship which seems so necessary even to those whose souls are so far removed from material wants. In short, as Little Billy put it, with a boy's irreverence, "Kitty rode herd on the professor." And, strangely enough to them all, Kitty seemed ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... absurd. If indeed you are resolved on this form of composition, there is no topic which may not, with equal facility, be discussed on earth; and you may intersperse as much ridicule as you please, without any fear of censure for inconsistency or irreverence. Hitherto such writers have confined their view mostly to speculative points, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmost, by interesting his reader in our native commodity by interspersing rural imagery, and incidental digressions, by clothing small images in great words, and by all the writer's arts of delusion, the meanness naturally adhering, and the irreverence habitually annexed to trade and manufacture, sink him under insuperable oppression; and the disgust which blank verse, encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an unpleasing subject, soon repels the reader, however willing ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... days cavilled at, reviled, hated, rejected, denied,)—that the SPIRIT would not leave Himself without witness in this place. It was to have been anticipated, I say, that Eternal Wisdom would carefully—(I trust there is no irreverence in so speaking of GOD and His ways!)—would carefully make provision: meet the coming unbelief (as His Angel met Balaam) with a drawn sword: plant up and down throughout these Twelve Verses of the Gospel, sure ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... on behalf of the Sweet Primal Truth to awaken from the sleep of negligence and selfish love of yourselves, and to offer humble and continual prayers, with many vigils, and with knowledge of yourselves, because the world is perishing through the crowding multitude of iniquities, and the irreverence shown to the sweet Bride of Christ. Well, then, let us give honour to God, and our toils to our neighbour. Ah, me, do not be willing, you or the other servants of God, that our life should end otherwise than in mourning and in sighs, for by no other means can ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... thistles. That Vicente himself was a devout Christian and Catholic and a deeply religious man such plays as the Auto da Alma, the Barcas, the Sumario, the Auto da Cananea are sufficient proof. He had much of the Erasmian spirit but nothing in common with the Reformation. His irreverence is wholly external, it was abuses not doctrine that he attacked, the ministers of the Church and not the Church itself. He may have been in the secret of King Jo[a]o's somewhat stormy negotiations with the Holy See and he took the national ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... does take cognizance of all the fitnesses which he knows or believes. Virtue may coexist with a very low standard of emotional piety; but it cannot coexist, in one who believes the truths of religion, with blasphemy, irreverence, or the conscious violation or neglect of religious obligations. He who is willingly false to his relations with the Supreme Being, needs only adequate temptation to make him false to his human relations, and to the fitnesses of his daily life. ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... but in spite of the favor of the court, and the open rancor of the friends of the Classic School, it failed; at Turin, where the Adelchi was tried, Pellico regretted that the attempt to play it had been made, and deplored the "vile irreverence ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... isn't heaven it must be the half-way house," said Redgrave, with what was, perhaps, under the circumstances, a pardonable irreverence. "Still, after all, we don't know what the inhabitants may be like, so I think we'd better close the doors, and drop on the top of that mountain-spur running out between the two rivers into the bay. Do you notice how curious the water looks after the Earth seas; bright ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... cannot change or influence, an outcast of the streets, a boy whom the mere animal appetites have turned into a small fiend. Never having had his mind awakened, evil is this creature's good; avarice, irreverence, and vindictiveness, are his nature; sorrow has no place in his memory; and from his brutish propensities the philosopher can take nothing away. The juxtaposition of two people whom such opposite means have put in the same moral position is a stroke of excellent art. There are plenty of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... forth of the rod of Moses that the Red Sea divided, and that the water sprang from the rock. The staff of Elisha and the spear of Joshua may also be cited in this connection, and other examples in Holy Writ may occur to the reader. They are mentioned here in no spirit of irreverence, but merely as evidence that the magic virtue of the rod was a fixed belief in the minds of the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... he equals him to, or rather what Gods he puts him above. And Glaucus took no exception to being praised at the expense of his art's patron deities; nor yet did they send any judgement on athlete or poet for irreverence; both continued to be honoured in Greece, one for his might, and the other for this even more than for his other odes. Do not be surprised, then, that when I wished to conform to the canons of my art and find an illustration, I took an ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata



Words linked to "Irreverence" :   evil, reverence, profaneness, desecration, attitude, violation, profanation, sacrilege, mental attitude, iniquity, wickedness, irreverent, blasphemy, immorality



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