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Desecrate   Listen
verb
Desecrate  v. t.  (past & past part. desecrated; pres. part. desecrating)  To divest of a sacred character or office; to divert from a sacred purpose; to violate the sanctity of; to profane; to put to an unworthy use; the opposite of consecrate. "The (Russian) clergy can not suffer corporal punishment without being previously desecrated." "The founders of monasteries imprecated evil on those who should desecrate their donations."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Desecrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... like everything else about that place," Vic responded, grimly. "Old Lagonda, Chief of the Wahoos, I reckon, I don't know his tribe, did n't want to give up this valley to the sons and heirs of Sunrise to desecrate with salmon cans and pop bottles and Harvard-turned chaperons. He held out against putting his multiplication sign to the treaty, claiming that land was like water and air and could n't be bought and sold. But ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... Mr. Quinn exclaimed. "Damn it, Henry, he'd desecrate it! He'd tear up my cornfields and meadows and put factories and mills in their place! That's what he'd do!" He turned sideways and leant against the lintel of the window so that he was looking at his son. "There was a fellow came to see me once," he said, "from London. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... deliverance of the millions who are clanking their chains on our blood-red soil. Yet I know that God reigns, and that the slave system contains within itself the elements of destruction. But how long it is to curse the earth, and desecrate his image, he alone foresees. It is frightful to think of the capacity of a nation like this to commit sin, before the measure of its iniquities be filled, and the exterminating judgments of God overtake it. For what is left ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... says Love, "all that I ask, Is just thy hand clasp. Could I brush thy cheek As zephyrs brush a rose leaf, words are weak To tell the bliss in which my soul would bask. There is no language but would desecrate A ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... against the chicane of unpatriotic demagogues. As a counter-blast, "All Good Democrats" were summoned to hold mass-meetings in the several counties on the Fourth of July. "We select the Fourth of July," read this pronunciamento, "not to desecrate it with unhallowed shouts ... but in cool and calm devotion to our country, to renew upon the altars of its liberties, a sacred oath of fidelity ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... remembered it well afterwards. It was the day when an annual saturnalia of vulgar vice usurps and pollutes the open downs at Epsom. Bertram did not care to see it, he said—the rabble of a great town turned loose to desecrate the open face of nature—even regarded as a matter of popular custom; he had looked on at much the same orgies before in New Guinea and on the Zambesi, and they only depressed him: so he stopped at Brackenhurst, and went for a walk instead in the fresh summer meadows. Robert Monteith, for his part, ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... different—fanatics, too, but with a new sort of fanaticism—new to them, I mean—the kind that made the French revolutionists destroy everything their ancestors had set value on. There are plenty of Arabs so full of this disease of Bolshevism that they would make it easy for me to desecrate what others believe is holy ground. But these idiots of English are worse than the Turks! They have stopped all excavation. They are so afraid of Bolshevism that, if they could, they would imitate Joshua and ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... the most deadly of weapons, but it never harms those who have the hardihood of getting down to basic facts and classifying things and ideas according to their true value. Why should we be guided by the wit and sarcasm of indolent voluptuaries who daily desecrate their ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... now in mourning, but tomorrow, covered with laurels, she will have extinguished the last of the tyrants who now desecrate her soil. Then she will invite you to a single association, so that our motto may be 'Unity in South America.' All Americans ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... emphatically the President of the entire people, and not of a section, or a party. His administration was truly national in its scope, its objects, and its results. His views of the sacred nature of the trust imposed upon him by his fellow-citizens were too exalted to allow him to desecrate the power with which it clothed him to the promotion of party or personal interests. Although not unmindful of the party which elevated him to the presidency, nor forgetful of the claims of those who yielded sympathy and support to ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... would shrink up, her face would become peaked and pitiful, she would seem like a child of ten. Sometimes Thyrsis could laugh her out of such a mood by telling her of her "beady black eyes"; and she did not like to desecrate her eyes. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... until they feel my power; wait until I choose to direct them, and—hey, presto—they walk in my paths, not their own. Now I have made up my mind on one point. I have not the faintest idea how it is to be managed; but managed it shall be. Susan Drummond and her father are not to desecrate the Towers with their commonplaceness, their shallowness, and vulgarity. The Lorrimers are still to live here; and Nell's heart is not to be broken. For the sake of the ugly duckling I do this. How, I know ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... Christmas-day 1815 with us; what it may be with you I don't know, the 12th of June next year perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then what puddings have you? Where will you get ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... the secret places of my soul? Teaching him that his lips, Uttering their native earthquake and eclipse, Could never so avail To rend from hem to hem the ultimate veil Of this most desolate Spirit, and leave it stripped and desecrate, - Nay, never so have wrung From eyes and speech weakness unmanned, unmeet; As when his terrible dotage to repeat Its little lesson learneth at your feet; As when he sits among His sepulchres, to play With broken toys your hand has cast away, With derelict trinkets of the darling young. Why have ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson

... the threshold. Here he can look calmly out upon the changes of fortune and the frowns of the world. Here his perplexed spirit finds inspirations of strength, and space for rest. There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a Home. ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... advertisements exhorting the traveller to go to such or such a curiosity shop. The Arch of Drusus was surrounded by a band of Cookites, listening inattentively to their Bear Leader; and the whole Via Appia, to beyond Cecilia Metella, was alive with cabs and landaus. But such things, which desecrate Venice and spoil Florence, are all right in Rome; Rome, somehow, knows how to subdue them all to her eternal harmony. That all the vulgarities of all the furthest lands should all pass through Rome, like all the barbarians, the ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... awakening, when your mind is free, you can so direct your attention as to receive joy instead of gloom, love instead of hate. You can exclude the thought of evil or you can yield and allow the tempter to desecrate your shrine. Whichever choice you make, these first moments of your day's living will color the whole course of the coming hours. The feeling first accepted and welcomed will more or less continue and form a background to all your ideas and determine ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... hero of tragedy plays Scrub in the farce. This is "very tolerable and not to be endured." The Noble Lord is almost the only writer who has prostituted his talents in this way. He hallows in order to desecrate; takes a pleasure in defacing the images of beauty his hands have wrought; and raises our hopes and our belief in goodness to Heaven only to dash them to the earth again, and break them in pieces the more effectually from the very height they have fallen. Our enthusiasm for genius or virtue ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... merely the fanciful echo of an idea that only at that moment sprung up in his mind? If it was real it came from the street parallel with the one he was in. Who could be driving out at this time? What other buggy than his own could be found to desecrate this Christian Sabbath? An irresistible thought impelled him at the risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the corner as Richard Demorest drove up to the Independence Hotel, sprang from his buggy, throwing ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... things generally: first of all, to have the greatest self-respect; to stoop to no meanness; to desecrate the body or mind in no way; to conquer and overcome all foolish emotions; to be unselfish, to be gay, to be courageous; to bear physical and moral pain without any outward show; to forever have in front of one that a straight and ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... suddenly occurred to him to visit Mrs Allcraft, and to worry her with his complaints. He hurried to her house, and forced himself into her presence. We will not follow him, for grief is sacred; and who that had the heart of man, would desecrate the hearth hallowed by affliction, deep and terrible as that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... could never discover—and Marigold had the lowest opinion of Timbs. It was an offence for Marigold to desecrate the garden by his mere footsteps; to touch a plant or a flower constituted a damnable outrage. On the other side, Timbs could not approach my person for the purpose of rendering me any necessary physical assistance, without ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... N. misuse, misusage, misemployment^, misapplication, misappropriation. abuse, profanation, prostitution, desecration; waste &c 638. V. misuse, misemploy, misapply, misappropriate. desecrate, abuse, profane, prostitute: waste &c 638; overtask, overtax, overwork: squander &c 818. cut blocks with a razor, employ a steam engine to crack a nut; catch at a straw. Adj. misused &c v.. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Madelon's face his own softened, and he set his mouth hard to keep back the quiver in it. Madelon wore not the silk of green and gold in which she had planned to be wedded to Lot; that she could not bring her mind to do, since the old wretched dreams and imaginations seemed to cling to the garment and desecrate it for this. She wore instead a sober gown of a satin sheen with the rich purplish-red hue of a plum, which set off the dark bloom of her face by suggestion rather than contrast; but all the boy Richard noted of ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Sophia, leaving their homes and goods to be plundered. A hundred thousand persons rushed in and locked and barred all the church doors behind them. They trusted that the conqueror would not dare to desecrate so holy a place. Abashed before the holiness of God, he would bow down in the dust and leave them in peace. And according to a prophecy the angel of God would descend from heaven in the hour of need and rescue the church ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined and oak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilight reigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation had forborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massive silver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end of the hall, where dinner, apparently, was just ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... homebodies than these little wrens are not among the feathered tribe. Once let the hand of man desecrate their nest, even before the tiny speckled eggs are deposited in it, and off go the birds to a more inaccessible place, where they can enjoy their home unmolested. Thus three or four nests may be made ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... York Rite says, "it is necessary that there should be Wisdom to conceive, Strength to support, and Beauty to adorn, all great and important undertakings." "Know ye not," says the Apostle Paul, "that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man desecrate the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... you want to desecrate a great, important Art! It takes long years of preparation, hard labour, infinite patience, aching disappointment; it takes brain, and passion, and intelligence to make an actor. Now where do ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... part of the premises was by a short, narrow lane, very dirty and very little used, because, whatever might have been in old times, it led now from nowhere to nowhere. Meadows received by this entrance one or two persons whom he never allowed to desecrate his knocker. At the head of these furtive visitors was Peter Crawley, attorney-at-law, a gentleman who every New Year's Eve used to say to himself with a look of gratified amazement—"Another year gone, and I not ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... recital, he again rubbed the stone for a while, and gave vent to some nonsensical utterances, after which he surrendered it to Chia Cheng. "This object," he said, "has already resumed its efficacy; but you shouldn't do anything to desecrate it. Hang it on the post of the door in his bed-room, and with the exception of his own relatives, you must not let any outside female pollute it. After the expiry of thirty-three days, he will, I can ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... appointed her," and reinstated her in her own sanctuary "which she had delighted in." 1635 added to 645 make 2280, a date not to be disputed. Now if a successful Elamite invasion in 2280 found in Chaldea famous sanctuaries to desecrate, the religion to which these sanctuaries belonged, that of the Cushite, or Semitic colonists, must have been established in the country already for several, if not many, centuries. Indeed, quite ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... against this commandment who grossly misuse and desecrate the holy day, as those who on account of their greed or frivolity neglect to hear God's Word or lie in taverns and are dead drunk like swine; but also that other crowd, who listen to God's Word as to any other trifle, and ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... prayer, is inter-related with every other thought, deed, word, sentiment, passion and prayer of every other living thing in all eternity. We have an ideal to maintain, and if we are untrue or fail, we interrupt, we desecrate the everlasting scheme of the universe. We will therefore be held responsible for our manner of living,—for the sum total of our existence. We have a purpose to fulfill, a responsibility to sustain. If we are false to that purpose, and fail in our responsibilities, we rob the world of the help ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... barrenness and the vicious pandering to lower appetites, consequent upon the trading spirit of literature, we note with regret the growing tendency to desecrate beautiful subjects by using them as materials for burlesque. We have had a Comic History of England—one of the dreariest and least excusable of jokes, and capable of for ever vulgarizing in the young mind the great deeds and noble life ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... air won't desecrate it," Harney laughingly rejoined; and they walked to the other end of the library while he set forth ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... as it may, Richard Cameron with his followers asserted the principle which afterwards became law—namely, that the House of Stuart should no longer desecrate the throne. He did not, however, live to see ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... might be carried to the central mill and the produce of the land brought to the central storehouse. The new settlers showed a measureless cunning and industry in reclaiming worthless soil; and so eager were they for land at last, that the Cistercians were even said to desecrate churchyards, and to encroach on the borders of royal forests. They grew famous for the breeding of horses according to the exacting taste of the day, learned in the various species of palfreys and sumpter horses and knight's chargers and horses for ambling or for trotting. They thanked ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... month by month the King pushed on with his armies, hoping to come at last on Time. Sometimes they encamped at night near palaces of beautiful design or beside gardens of flowers, hoping to find their enemy when he came to desecrate in the dark. Sometimes they came on cobwebs, sometimes on rusted chains and houses with broken roofs or crumbling walls. Then the armies would push on apace thinking that they were closer upon the track ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... forever. Even In their dances!—desecrate Thus this high and noble art Which a sacred ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... fire, and a heavy brow, Portentous as the lowering front of heaven, When the reverberant, sullen thunder rolls Among the echoing clouds. Thus she denounced Her ancient, fickle worshippers, who left Her altars desecrate, her fires unfed, Her name forgotten. "But I reign, I reign!" She would shrill forth, triumphant; "yea, I reign. Men name me not, but worship me unnamed, Beauty and Love within their heart of hearts; Not with bent knees and empty breath ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... God hath giv'n me arms indeed, Worthy a God, and such as mortal man Could never forge; I go to arm me straight; Yet fear I for Menoetius' noble son, Lest in his spear-inflicted wounds the flies May gender worms, and desecrate the dead, And, life ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... times for facts or fictions so old that they were as good as new, and introduced herself to folly, sin, and misery, as well as her limited opportunities allowed. She thought she was prospering finely, but unconsciously she was beginning to desecrate some of the womanliest attributes of a woman's character. She was living in bad society, and imaginary though it was, its influence affected her, for she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... nobody and letting their children grow up in the same way. In brief, there are Germans here, and probably the most of them, who despise God's Word and all good outward order, blaspheme and frightfully and publicly desecrate the Sacraments. Spiritus enim errorum et sectarum asylum sibi hic constituit (For the spirit of errors and sects has here established his asylum). And the chief fault and cause of this is the lack of provision for an external visible church-communion. ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... Lady Margaret," he said approaching the litter, "to have been able to save you from the power of these villains. Fortunately, word came to me that the outlaws in the forest were about to carry you off, and that they would not hesitate even to desecrate the walls of the convent. Assembling my men-at-arms, I at once rode to your rescue, and am doubly happy to have saved you, first, as a gentleman, secondly, as being the man to whom our gracious prince has assigned you as a wife. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... the privacy of the mails, in fact, our most intimate tastes, are at the mercy of this inexorable tyrant. Anthony Comstock, or some other equally ignorant policeman, has been given power to desecrate genius, to soil and mutilate the sublimest creation of nature—the human form. Books dealing with the most vital issues of our lives, and seeking to shed light upon dangerously obscured problems, are legally treated as criminal offenses, and their helpless ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... thanks, ye reverend senators! That ye have lent your credence to these proofs; And if I be indeed the man whom I Protest myself, oh, then, endure not this Audacious robber should usurp my seat, Or longer desecrate that sceptre which To me, as the true Czarowitsch, belongs. Yes, justice lies with me,—you have the power. 'Tis the most dear concern of every state And throne, that right should everywhere prevail, And all men in the world possess their own. For there, ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... to his father would have. A slight tinge of shame was in his face; but I saw that he had not sufficient moral courage to resent the shameful desecration of a parent's name. How should he, when he was himself the first to desecrate that name? ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... you imagine yourselves better than he is. No, that will not do. The intention must decide. If any one bakes bread on the Sabbath, I should say to him: 'Is it for your own good or for gain?' In the first case you are acting rightly, in the last you desecrate the Sabbath." ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... interesting—and the breaking up of this Council accompanied with an event so striking and characteristic, that I am tempted to give it at length in a translation. 'Who, exclaimed the King, when the Council was ended, shall first desecrate the altars and the temples? I, answered the Chief Priest; for who more fit than myself, through the wisdom which the true God hath given me, to destroy, for the good example of others, what in foolishness is worshipped? Immediately, casting away vain superstition, he besought the King ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... thank God!—I should even then remain honest and true—faithful to one love, simply from pride. I should prefer," she added, in a voice deep and sustained, but somewhat strained, "I should prefer to desecrate ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... on its choice as a voluntary. Those who had heard the tune before and half remembered it decided that it must come from the "Mikado"; and one stern dowager went so far as to protest to the rector for permitting such a tune to desecrate the sacred edifice. ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... chief justice, with somewhat of an old Puritan feeling in his breast. "No good can come of men who desecrate the house ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ease; Albeit men mock thee with their similes And prate of being "happy as a clam!" What though thy shell protects thy fragile head From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea? Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee, While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed, And bear thee off—as foemen take their spoil— Far from thy friends and family to roam; Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home, To meet destruction in a foreign broil! Though thou art tender yet thy humble bard Declares, O ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... music consists of masses, and other sacred airs, varied with selections from popular operas. The performers are famous throughout the country for their musical skill, and the audiences are large and fashionable. No one seems to think it sinful thus to desecrate the Lord's Day; and it must be confessed that these concerts are the least objectionable Sunday ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... obstacles to their advance; the King of Naples and the Viceroy of Italy were to march upon Vienna and make Austria tremble in the heart of her capital before the timid million of her Allies, who measured their steps as they approached Paris, should desecrate by their presence the capital of France. When informed of the vast project, which, however, was but the dream of a moment, I immediately recognised that eagle glance, that power of discovering great resources in great ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... his tragedy began to flourish. I was sorry to witness his discomfiture and his first forensic defeat. Clergymen denounced him; and thinking no doubt that they were the spokesmen of the back-hall radicalism and ignorant morality which he despised, he fought them back bitterly: "You who desecrate the pulpit to the miserable influence of party politics! Is slavery the only wrong in the country? If so, why not recognize the great principles of self-government and state equality ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... brandished his hammer, with intent to annihilate the boaster. This the gods would not permit, however, and they quickly threw themselves between the irate Thunderer and their guest, imploring Thor to respect the sacred rights of hospitality, and not to desecrate their ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... Ka'aba itself, and began winging erratic courses all about the Forbidden City. Men, birds, and animals alike, all shared the terror of this unheard-of outrage when—according to ancient prophesy—the Great Devils of Feringistan should desecrate the holy places. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... Mr. Height will be with us too, for I promised to have luncheon with him again," she exclaimed, as Miss Lindsey began to insert her into an evening wrap made of a priceless old Paisley shawl which "Fashions" had also tempted Miss Elvira to desecrate with ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth. Who shall conceive what kind of roof the heavens might extend over him, what seasons minister to him, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... were even then preparing to desecrate the beautiful land. A war-party of enemies had come down upon the tribe, with whom they dwelt. Scouts had brought in the news. All was commotion and excitement in the camp. Goods and chattels were being packed up. The women and children were to be sent off with these, ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne

... like it naturally, just as they now like their follies and sins. Or those who are much engaged in worldly business, who confess they do not give that attention to religion which they ought to give; who neglect the ordinances of the Church; who desecrate the Lord's day; who give little or no time to the study of God's word; who allow themselves in various small transgressions of their conscience, and resolutely harden themselves against the remorse which such transgressions are calculated to cause them; and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... I drawn a lesson from the spot, And shrined it in these verses for my heart. Thenceforth those tranquil precincts I have sought Not less, and in all shades of various moods; But always shun to desecrate the spot By vain repinings, sickly sentiments, Or inconclusive sorrows. Nature, though Pure as she was in Eden when her breath Kissed the white brow of Eve, doth not refuse, In her own way and with a just reserve, To sympathize with human suffering; But for the pains, the fever, and the ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... is a principle of conduct dating back to Him who of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is the mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect a body nor desecrate its resting place. The fact that in life it was tenanted by the soul of an enemy is no justification for dishonoring it; for He who is Infinite Truth and Justice declares "Love thy enemy; do good to those who hate you, and bless those who persecute ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... the devil fleeing from holy water, were not perhaps quite so benighted as our superior modern culture has led us to suppose. For that "hatred of goodness exaggerated to the point of paroxysm," that impulse to desecrate and defile which forms the basis of black magic and has manifested itself in successive phases of the world-revolution, springs from fear. So by their very hatred the powers of darkness proclaim the existence of the powers of light and their own ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... and its pillars have false bases in a palpable imitation of veined red marble. Its pure and early form, the Latin cross, is gone, its fine old stalls are hidden in a gallery, and at the altar Corinthian columns desecrate its ancient Romanesque. Yet in spite of the incongruities the atmosphere of the church is truly that of its dim past. There are the low broad arches, the great, supporting pillars that are massive buttresses; there is the simple practicality of a style ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... child! You silly baby! You wicked, horrible, sacrilegious girl!" Brinnaria stormed. "You irreligious, atheistical, blasphemous wretch! To save your hide you'd desecrate the temple, pollute the Altar, anger Vesta, make all our prayers in vain, bring down curses without count on Rome and all of us. Be silent! Don't you dare to speak another word! ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... mind always—ever since I first met you. I feel now as though every thought, every hour, every event of the last five months has been a preparation for this moment. On one point, however, I have never wavered. We can't desecrate our love by some odious law-suit. If this life were all, it would be different. But it isn't all. It seems as though we are not to be everything to each other. Yet we can be more than everything—we can be one existence even if we cannot be man and wife. We ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... who had taken his stand on the very site which they proposed to cover with a marble floor, shook his head and frowned, and the young man and the Lily deemed it almost enough to blight the spot and desecrate it for their airy temple that his dismal figure had thrown its shadow there. He pointed to some scattered stones, the remnants of a former structure, and to flowers such as young girls delight to nurse in their gardens, but which had now relapsed ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that the fishermen on the shores of the Baltic are remarkably superstitious, and careful not to desecrate any of their saints' days. They never use their nets between All Saints' and St. Martin's, as they would be certain not to take any fish throughout the year. On Ash Wednesday the women neither sew nor knit, for fear of bringing misfortune upon the cattle. They contrive so as not to use ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... rather than thronged; that Gideon must reject soldiers rather than recruit them. And it is partly, alas, the unhappy Progressive trying to be in front of his own religion, trying to destroy his own idol and even to desecrate his own tomb. But from whatever causes, this furious escape from popularity has involved Shaw in some perversities and refinements which are almost mere insincerities, and which make it necessary to disentangle the good he has done from the evil in this dazzling course. ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... and force as he learnt to appreciate the affection that had subsisted between the father and child, and foresaw too plainly that the time must come when some rude shock would shatter all Madelon's early beliefs, and desecrate, as it were, her tenderest memories. There was something so sad in this certain retribution that must fall upon her innocent head, as the child of such a father, something so touching in her anomalous position, left all friendless and lonely ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... the Indians is considered a mark of distinction, as compressing the feet is with the Chinese; no slave being allowed to practise either. The reverence of the Indians for the graves of their fathers approaches the worship of ancestors among the Chinese. No outrage is greater to the Indians than to desecrate the burial-places of their dead. They often make sacrifices to them, and celebrate anniversaries of the dead with dancing and feasting. The Chinese feast their dead at regular intervals, and carry them thousands of miles across the ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... qualified to exercise political privileges, and to attain the distinctions of society, than many men; yet who complains of the order of society by which they are excluded from them? For I do not speak of the few who would desecrate them; do violence to the nature which their Creator has impressed upon them; drag them from the position which they necessarily occupy for the existence of civilized society, and in which they constitute its blessing and ornament—the only position which they have ever occupied in any human ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... life away. In its name, we have been called upon to deepen our infamy before the world, to rivet the fetter more firmly on the limbs of the enslaved, and to become utterly insensible to the voice of human woe that is wafted to us on every southern gale. We have been called upon, in its name, to desecrate our whole land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even to engage ourselves in ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... actor can have is to witness the pitiful performance with which all other actors desecrate the stage. In order to give himself this pleasure he will often forsake the sunniest Broadway corner between Thirty-fourth and Forty-fourth to attend a matinee offering by his less gifted brothers. Once ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... and confess!" whispered Simon in a trembling voice. "Desecrate the Sacrament by tale-bearing, and set a spy on poor people who will manage to find a way to snatch their bit of bread from between their teeth, even if he is not permitted to talk—go!" Frederick stood, undecided; he heard a soft noise; the clouds cleared ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... their branches! To love! Oh! yes, they call it that at the altar—'joined together by God!' As likely as not two human creatures who hate each other, and are standing there swearing those impossibilities for some political purpose and advantage of their family. They desecrate the word love. Love is for us, Paul, who came together because our beings cried, 'This is my mate!' I should say nothing of it—oh no! if it had no pretence—marriage. If it were frankly a contract—'Yes, I give you my ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... truth that sets it free—not binds, and lops, and mutilates it! who see God to be the father of every human soul—the ideal Father, not an inventor of schemes, or the upholder of a court etiquette for whose use he has chosen to desecrate the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... cat upon a door and stick a cigar in its mouth, to blow up and poison wells, to desecrate graves, to smash open vaults and rob the corpses which lay there, and then to kick the bones in all directions and use the coffins as cess-pools—these things I have seen with my own eyes. Is this war? It is the ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... you that I'd rather starve than desecrate the home of my ancestors—that I'd sooner end my days in a London garret than level a single wall for my own benefit—what then? Would you put me down as ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... of emotions: it worships, yet it will not stop at sacrilege; it will build about its object a temple of adoration, then desecrate the fane; it will give all, yet ruthlessly seize everything; it delights in pleasing, yet it sometimes wittingly wounds; its ineffable tenderness often merges into an inclemency extraordinary; —symbol of universal duality, it is at once demonical ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... sound, in soft recurrent ways, The perfect song, or in remoter days Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek; But I am not as they,—and dare not speak Of you unworthily, and dare not praise Perfection with imperfect roundelays, And desecrate the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... your own miserable soul, think that in this sin you cannot sin alone; think that you are dragging down to the nethermost abyss others besides yourself. Remember the wretched victims of your infamous passions, and tremble while you desecrate and deface for ever God's image stamped on a fair human soul. Think of those whom your vileness dooms to a life of loathliness, a death of shame and anguish, perhaps an eternity of horrible despair. Learn something of the days they are forced to ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... reform passed even across the frontier and was borne into the Assyrian province of Samaria; the temple and image which Jeroboam had set up at Bethel were reduced to ashes, and human bones were burnt upon the altar to desecrate it ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... am of that impious race, Those slaves of Fire, that moan and even Hail their creator's dwelling place Among the living lights of heaven; Yes! I am of that outcast crew To lean and to vengeance true, Who curse the hour your Arabs came To desecrate our shrines of flame, And swear before God's burning eye, To break our country's ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... seek beautiful marbles for new villas, that shall surpass the old in splendor, you never dream that the shadow of death is hanging over your halls. Forgetful of the tomb, you lay the foundation of your palaces. In your mad pursuit of pleasure you rob the sea of its beach and desecrate hallowed ground. More even than this, in your wickedness you destroy the peaceful homes of your clients! Without a touch of remorse you drive the father from his land, clasping to his bosom his household ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... black wands, in solemn Undertakers' order of procession on either side of the funeral vehicles. Those clumsy pomps of feathers and velvet, of strutting horses and marching mutes, which are still permitted among us to desecrate with grotesquely-shocking fiction the solemn fact of death, fluttered out in their blackest state grandeur and showed their most woeful state paces, as the procession started magnificently with its meager offering of one dead body more to the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... a Sunday afternoon. The quiet of the holiday was noticeable even on the mountains where, hand in hand, the little comrades walked. They were nicely washed and arrayed in Sunday clothing, because Bacha Filina would not suffer anybody to desecrate Sunday. Everyone who could, had to go to the next town to church, though it was almost two hours' walk. He himself seldom went; he was not able to take long walks. Once a timber fell on his foot in the woods and from that time on he had pains in it, but since he did not go ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy

... as he began thinking calmly about it, it all fell to pieces. He could not admit that he was mistaken then, for his spiritual condition then was precious to him, and to admit that it was a proof of weakness would have been to desecrate those moments. He was miserably divided against himself, and strained all his spiritual forces to the utmost to ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... future; the two worlds were distinct and separate—that which had been, from that which was to be. To what a bold and adventurous enterprise he had pledged his life!—to unveil the mysteries in which he had participated—to desecrate the altars he had served—to denounce the goddess whose ministering robe he wore! Slowly he became sensible of the hatred and the horror he should provoke amongst the pious, even if successful; if frustrated ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... fool's reasoning. Because he was a stranger and an infidel, so has he been told of dark things done to those who desecrate our faith." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... murdered mother were marked—I could recognize them again. Father, you shall take me to my mother's grave. One prayer there—one word with Estelle—and then I will go to Paris; it is the resort of every criminal, and thence it sends forth its crime-blackened ruffians to desecrate this fair earth with horror. Come, father, come—my mother's ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... Mr. Cutting, "I do not intend upon this floor to answer the remark which the gentleman from Kentucky has thought proper to employ. It belongs to a different region. It is not ere that I will desecrate my lips with undertaking to ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... misunderstanding and barren error. What do I want more after having experienced this? What do you want of me after having experienced this with me? Let the tear of a beloved woman mingle with this joy, and what else can we desire? Do not let us desecrate our own selves. Let us look upon the world through the medium of contempt alone. It is worth nothing else; to found any hope on it would be deceiving our own hearts; it is BAD, BAD, THOROUGHLY BAD: only the heart of a FRIEND, the tears of a woman, can dispel its curse. We do not respect ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... of the Christian doctrine concerning it, v. 312. endeavors of the French Constituent Assembly to desecrate it, v. 312. ends for which it was instituted, vii. 131. restraints upon it in the reign of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... kisses of the lips—kisses that one forgets as one forgets the roses we smelt last year—which profane; they but soil the vessel of the sacrament, and it is the sacrament itself which those consuming spirit-kisses, which burn but through the eyes, may desecrate. It is strange that man should have so long taken the precisely opposite attitude in this matter, caring only for the observation of the vessel, and apparently dreaming not of any other possible approach ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... in 1814, he did not desecrate or despoil the place: it was left for the Germans to do that, just a century later in the progress of civilization! My blood grew hot as I heard from our two men the story of what the new Vandals had done. Just for a moment I almost forgot the secret ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... superb scenery and its alluring women; Lombok, the northernmost island whose flora and fauna are Australian; Sumbawa, where the sandalwood comes from; Flores, whose inhabitants consider the earth so holy that they will not desecrate it by digging wells or cultivation; Timor, the northeastern half of which, together with Goa in India and Macao in China, forms the last remnant of Portugal's once enormous Eastern empire; Rotti, Kei, and Aroo, the great chain thus formed ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... murmured she, hoarsely. "Not here, in the house of the man whose name I bear. Let us not desecrate love; enough that we ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... up beside Nelson on the doorstep. "I beg of you all to disperse to your homes and don't desecrate the Sabbath by ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... hospitals, and for other secular purposes. It was a natural outcome of such practices that the succeeding generation should go a step further and do infinitely worse. If God-fearing men did not scruple to desecrate consecrated churches, was it likely that their godless successors ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... voices, so long slumbering, would break silence, that those forms which hang upon these walls behind me might come forth, and that the sabers so long sheathed would leap from their scabbards to drive from this sacred temple those who desecrate it as did the money-changers who sold doves in the temple of the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... opinions or the charges that have been stated or written against him. Let us not commit the sacrilege, if he is ever made prisoner and is not shot for the murders and cruelties he and his subjects have committed on British men and women at sea and on land, of deporting the Kaiser to St. Helena to desecrate the ground made sacred for all time because of the great Emperor who was an exile there. Force of circumstances made Louis Philippe declare the truth to the world's new generations (doubtless to save his own precious skin) that "he was not only ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... be no great merit. Her life was not so easy that she should fear this pure embrace. It would be better, far better, than to marry Owen Davies, than to desecrate their love and teach Geoffrey to despise her. And how else could she ward this trouble from him except by her death, or by a marriage that in her eyes was more dreadful ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... admission to his garrisons. Brisac was in his hands already, and her fortifications held by mercenaries, but an order to the citizens to work, one and all, upon the defences, produced a sudden disturbance with very serious results. It was at Eastertide, and the command to desecrate a hallowed festival, one especially cherished in the Rhinelands, proved ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... in this view, it was melancholy to see him so utterly engrossed in his pursuits and plans. He did not take time to look about him and enjoy. The Sabbath to him was a dull, wearisome, restless day. He had too much respect for it to desecrate it by even a private attention to his affairs, and he had very little idea of any spiritual wants. He was active in erecting a church and securing a good preacher, on whose ministrations he attended regularly with his family. Yet it was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... at the parson's fee—not to mention the best man's scarf-pin. And I should hate," Ned added sentimentally, "to see 'the touch of a woman's hand' desecrate the sublime ugliness of the ancestral home. Think of such ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... crowned with Crawford's equestrian statue of Washington. The right hand of the rider, lifted against the sky, points a prophetic finger toward the southwest. Dark, and motionless, and grand, it is the one symbol belonging solely to the Union, which they have not dared to desecrate; which they have strangely chosen to consider neither as an insult ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... conversed some time longer, returning toward the cottage; but there was nothing further to communicate, that it is necessary to record. Neither of us thought of self, and I would as soon have attempted to desecrate a church, as attempt to obtain any influence over Lucy, in my own behalf, at such a moment. All my feelings reverted to my poor sister again, and I was dying with impatience to return to the sloop, whither, indeed, it was time to repair, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... wonderful. produccion, f., production, performance. producir, (pres. produzco, past abs. produje), to produce, yield, cause. producto, m., product. productor,-ra, productive. profanar, to profane, desecrate. profano,-a, profane, irreverent. profesor, m., professor. profeta, m., prophet. profundidad, f., depth. profundo,-a, deep, profound. programa, m., program. progresista, progressive. ...
— A First Spanish Reader • Erwin W. Roessler and Alfred Remy

... glory,—ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose, To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing,—one arm round the tent-prop, to raise {220} His bent head, and the other hung slack—till ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... and did not understand it. The place had been covered with an artificial lake, if only because the whole truth had to be covered with an artificial legend. But don't you see that it is exactly what those pagan nobles would have done, to desecrate it with a sort of heathen goddess, as the Roman Emperor built a temple to Venus on the Holy Sepulchre. But the truth could still be traced out, by any scholarly man determined to trace it. And this man was ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... the mother of his foe, He will not speak to her in hate; My boy will never stoop so low As motherhood to desecrate. But she shall know what once I knew— Eyes that are glorious to see, The light of manhood shining ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest

... seen enough," said Dalton, rising slowly, and drawing a small riding-whip, "to know now that this person is no duke, but either a charlatan or a devil. In either case, since he has intruded here, to desecrate and degrade, I find it proper to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... sun's rays would shine through them in the daytime, so on Sunday morning when they were dancing and did not want to stop you would see them filling up the cracks with old rags. The idea was that it would not be Sunday inside if they kept the sun out, and thus they would not desecrate the Sabbath; and these things continued until the freedom ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer

... minutes thereafter the 'gentlemen' had all taken position at the end of the 'company street,' and, with their opera-glasses, were taking observations upon those who, as they thought, had come to desecrate the 'hop' room. I was on guard that day, but not being on post at that time, I was sitting in rear of the guard tents with my friends—that place being provided with camp-stools for the accommodation of visitors— when a cadet corporal, Tyler, of Kentucky, came and ordered me to go and fasten ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... of certain things one must not do: such as saluting with the left hand, which is the dishonourable one of the pair, and refraining carefully, when in a temple or mosque, from touching anything at all, because for an unbeliever to touch is to desecrate. I was told also that a Mohammedan grave always gives one the points of the compass, because the body is buried north and south with the head at the north, turned towards Mecca. The Hindus ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... to inform the reader, that in Ireland many of the church-yards are exclusively appropriated to the interment of Roman Catholics, and, consequently, the corpse of no one who had been a Protestant would be permitted to pollute or desecrate them. This was one of them: but it appears that by some means or other, the body of a Protestant had been interred in it—and hear the consequence! The next morning heaven marked its disapprobation ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... Raphael? Yes, art was magic; and as he owned the truth of the aphorism, he could comprehend that in magic there may be religion, for religion is an essential to art. His old ambition, freeing itself from the frigid prudence with which Mervale sought to desecrate all images less substantial than the golden calf of the world, revived, and stirred, and kindled. The subtle detection of what he conceived to be an error in the school he had hitherto adopted, made more manifest to him by the grinning commentary of Nicot, seemed to open to him ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... cell to be picked by my industrious fingers had all been removed the previous evening, lest I should desecrate the sacred day by pursuing my ordinary avocation. My apartment was therefore clean and tidy, and by the aid of a bit of dubbin I managed to give an air of newness to my well-worn shoes. The attendants had, however, omitted to provide me with ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... most vulnerable, he hurt her. Oh, where she was delivered over to him, in her very soft femaleness, he seemed to lacerate her and desecrate her. She pressed her hands over her womb in anguish, whilst the tears ran down her face. And why, and why? Why was ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... was one blaze of gold and silver; and as the king marched through the main aisle with his splendid retinue, every eye was bent upon him and every whisper hushed. Proceeding straight up to the high altar, he bent his knee before the God whose name he was now so soon to desecrate. Then the archbishop raised from the altar a crown of gold glittering with precious jewels, and placed it reverently upon the monarch's brow. The sacred rite of consecration over, the monarch rose and turning was met by a herald of Charles V., who came from his master bringing a fleece ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... was the repugnance felt for the slayer of a Brahmana that to even talk with him was regarded a sin. To instruct such a man in the truths of the Vedas and of morality was to desecrate religion itself. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the rest," Mr. Murphy answered anxiously. "'Twould be a sin to desecrate that lovely ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... proposal. To desecrate the graves of his fathers was a deed which made him shudder, and, bad as he was, the thought filled him with the greatest horror, ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... able. It appeared as if some powerful spell held it firmly together; and it has remained unopened down to the present time. May it remain so until the last awful day, and may the impious hand of avarice or curiosity never desecrate these holy ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... village life in those days. The village church stood in the centre of the hamlet, with a carefully made fence around it, in order that no swine or foul beast might desecrate the graves. Surrounded by the churchyard, with its yew tree and lich-gate, the church was very similar to the old building wherein the villagers still worship. All the houses had thatched roofs, and chief among the other dwellings stood the lord's hall. Near the church ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... other, and discussing what they read. Even their Sundays were often wickedly devoted to such intellectual pastime on the banks of the Schuylkill, whither they strolled, instead of visiting the house of God—all except Watson, who had too much religious principle thus to desecrate the Sabbath. ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... picture or a statue of the Emperor be placed in the temples of the people who inhabited the outlying parts of the Roman domains. This was a mere formality and it did not have any deep significance. But to the Jews such a thing seemed highly sacrilegious and they would not desecrate their Holiest of Holies by the carven ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon

... sweetest idea. In some distant parts of the world it may be that an Englishman acknowledges his permanent resting place; but there are many others in which he will not call his daily house, his home. He would, in his own idea, desecrate the word by doing so. His home is across the blue waters, in the little northern island, which perhaps he may visit no more; which he has left, at any rate, for half his life; from which circumstances, and the necessity of living, have banished him. His home is still in England, and when he speaks ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope

... place on a Friday. Joshua knew it would pain the people deeply to be compelled to desecrate the holy Sabbath day. Besides, he noticed that the heathen were using sorcery to make the heavenly hosts intercede for them in the fight against the Israelites. He, therefore, pronounced the Name of the Lord, and the sun, moon and stars stood still. (40) The sun at first ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... neither peculiar to the eternal (?) snows of the former, nor to the burning sun of the latter." ... "That we improve to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington." Washington's mind, when he rises from his grave at the Last Day, will be immediately relieved by the information that no Britisher has ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... verity these be souls Such as in life were vile, Risen again from the nethermost coals To harry the earth a while; Versed in wickedness, old in sin, Never was hell could hold them in, And back they hasten in droves and shoals To desecrate and defile. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various

... reject them if, in return, I were to lead a nameless, disreputable, and obscure existence. I will sooner die of starvation as a Princess Dowager von Reuss than live in opulence as Marianne Meier. This is my last word; and now, sir, begone! Do not desecrate this room by your cold and egotistic thoughts, and by your heartless calculations! Honor the repose of the dead and the grief ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... quite funny to think how each tourist feels that he is the only spiritual-minded, imaginative person travelling—that he alone has the right to be in Egypt—that all the others are offensive, vulgar creatures, who desecrate the beautiful places with their presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves of silly men in pith helmets with little white lambrequins looped up, when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they have at home. And some of the women are weird! ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Stand vilest on the record writ of fate, Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great, Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn. Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn, Or left for utter shame to desecrate. High souls and constant hearts of faithful men Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss And soil her standard ere her bark win home: But shame falls full upon the Christless cross Whose brandmark signs ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... "Or Boy Scouts. They desecrate everything. Why can't the TUNICATUS POPELLUS keep away from a paradise like this!" Dickson, a democrat who felt nothing incongruous in the presence of other holiday-makers, was meditating a sharp rejoinder, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... meant, but always perverted and misunderstood. While this spirit lasts, there can be no hope of the achievement of high things, for men will not open the secrets of their hearts to us, if we intend to desecrate the holy, or to broil themselves upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... Inventor of musical artillery— Barbarous rain and thunder maker— Unconscionable money taker— Travelling about both near and far, Toll to exact at every bar— What brings thee here again, To desecrate old Drury's fane? Egregious attitudiniser! Antic fifer! com'st to advise her 'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls? To raze her benches, That Gallic wenches Might play their brazen antics at masked balls? Ci-devant waiter Of a quarante-sous traiteur, Why did you leave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various

... was, it was not crowded, for it was Friday night and a large contingent of strikers refused to desecrate the Sabbath by attending the meeting. But these were the zealots—Moses Ansell among them, for he, too, had struck. Having been out of work already he had nothing to lose by augmenting the numerical importance of the agitation. The ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... taste and the unfeeling ignorance of restorers have been employed, as so often in Italy, to spoil and desecrate the memorials of the past; and the munificence of Pius, Munificentia Pii IX., is placarded on the inner walls. One is too frequently reminded at Rome of the old and new lamps in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... we do venture to swear, without due advice and care, without much respect and awe, upon any slight or vain (not to say bad or unlawful) occasion, we then desecrate swearing, and are guilty of profaning a most sacred ordinance: the doing so doth imply base hypocrisy, or lewd mockery, or abominable wantonness and folly; in bodily invading and vainly trifling ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... you mean the Terrorists and Anarchists of France, M. L'Abbe.... The Committee of Public Safety who pillage and murder, outrage women, and desecrate religion.... Is ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... child is pure, innocent, natural. One of the first efforts of nursery culture is to smear that white page with our self-made foulness. We labor conscientiously and with patience, to teach our babies shame. We degrade the human body, we befoul the habits of nature, we desecrate life, teaching evil and foolish falsehood to our defenceless little children. The "sex-taboos" of darkest savagery, the decencies and indecencies of primitive convention, we have preserved throughout the ages in our guarded temple of ancient idols, and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... great number of particulars as to the burial customs of various nations, we find mention made of an odd way in which the natives of Thibet dignify their great people. They do not desecrate such by giving them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs to devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that Englishwoman, a century or two back, who had her husband burnt to ashes, and these ashes reduced to powder, of ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... go on! It is they, sir, who finance the thugs and repeaters who desecrate our polls. It is they who suborn our press and blind the eyes of our people. It is they who are responsible for this traffic in the flesh of our women. It is they who have to answer for the tottering reason of that poor peasant girl in ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair

... while, in other communes, we will get rid of this authoritatively through our missionary representatives. We will close the churches, demolish the steeples, melt down the bells, send all sacred vessels to the Mint, smash the images of the saints, desecrate relics, prohibit religious burials, impose the civil burial, prescribe rest during the decadi[2133] and labor on Sundays. No exception whatever. Since all positive religions deal in error, we will outlaw them all: we will exact from Protestant clergymen a public abjuration; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... days when that great captain of the Gauls, Brennus, led his forces through Italy and Greece, there were in his troop two French nobles, one named Felsinus, the other named Bono, who seeing the wicked designs of Brennus to invade and desecrate the temple of Delphos, after his great conquests, withdrew their forces and passed into Asia with their ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... on the subject of the Sacrament, which I now boldly, and with full purpose, intended to desecrate, by concealing the fact that I was deceiving the very person that would give it to me. I tried in vain to dismiss these thoughts, or at any rate to put them off, until the very last day before confirmation. My mind became every day more uneasy, and ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie



Words linked to "Desecrate" :   profane, violate, assault, unhallow, set on, desecration, turn, assail, change by reversal, consecrate, reverse



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