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Piety   /pˈaɪəti/   Listen
Piety

noun
1.
Righteousness by virtue of being pious.  Synonym: piousness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Piety" Quotes from Famous Books



... records among those simple Boers of happy and triumphant death-bed scenes of old and young, softening the grief of the bereaved believers. Frivolous education and advanced surroundings are accountable for a certain waning of the original habits of serious piety; this is to some extent more the case among the Cape Colonial and Orange Free State Boers, the declension appearing greatest with those residing in or in close proximity to towns. Among the men of exemplary ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... la Santsima Virgen!" and if this does not serve their purpose, they appeal to your domestic sympathies. From men they entreat relief "By the life of the Seorita." From women, "By the life of the little child!" From children it is "By the life of your mother!" And a mixture of piety and superstitious feeling makes most people, women at least, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... Worship, and mutuall edification, and censuring such as neglect Familie Worship. The Directions of the Generall Assembly, for Secret and Private Worship & mutuall edification, for cherishing Piety, for maintaining Unitie, and avoiding Schisme and Division. Act against such as withdraw themselves from the publike Worship in their own Congregation. 26. August 1647. Postmeridiem. Sess. 22. Approbation ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... shiver, and I jerked out a broken prayer that my intended victim might turn out some fat, unarmed farmer, as easy a prey as an over-fed gander. Then I cursed myself for a fool. No man can mortgage past piety for present sin. Who was I that I should be allowed ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister, and daughter, in Antigone; the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and silent; and finally, the expectation of the resurrection, made clear to the soul of the Greeks in the return from her grave of that Alcestis, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... at last comparison showed that this refusal was a mere conventional form. And there are still scholars who, like the Benedictines of the eighteenth century, look in the chancery-formulae of a prince for information as to his piety or his liberality.[150] ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... no improper figure can enter. Indeed, few wish to enter; for the putrid infection reaches even to the Oeil-de-Boeuf; so that 'more than fifty fall sick, and ten die.' Mesdames the Princesses alone wait at the loathsome sick-bed; impelled by filial piety. The three Princesses, Graille, Chiffe, Coche (Rag, Snip, Pig, as he was wont to name them), are assiduous there; when all have fled. The fourth Princess Loque (Dud), as we guess, is already in the Nunnery, and can only give her orisons. Poor Graille and Sisterhood, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... was believed that "Patrick, Brigid, and Columkille" had slept for more than six centuries, was not spared; the remains were flung out into the churchyard, and only saved from further desecration by the piety ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... some clear soaring mind Is drawn by mutual piety To simple souls and unrefined, Who in ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... would have left nothing at loose ends. So endowed, she would have emphasized her not excessive age by a slightly excessive gravity of dress and of deportment; and would have adorned it, and her dignified widowhood, by becoming devote: and thereafter, clinging with a modest ostentation only to her piety, would have radiated, as time made its marches, an always increasingly exemplary grace. But as Madame Jolicoeur did not possess a temperament that even bordered on severity, and as her mind was a sort ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... a work of similar tone and charm: Marie Madeleine, by P. Lacordaire, an exquisite little book written with tenderness and piety, which deliciously calls up before us the Magdalen of repentance and love, "the loving woman accustomed to the delights of contemplation and needing only to see in her heart him whom in other days she saw under the transparent veil of ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... me his carved ivory case to select cigarettes from. It would have required considerable inducements to have trusted either my L.A.W. badge or the Smith & Wesson in the custody of any of our unsavory acquaintances of last night, notwithstanding their great outward show of piety. There are no deep-drawn sighs of Allah, nor ostentatious praying among the Malosmanlis, but they bear the stamp of superior trustworthiness plainly on their faces and their bearing. There appears to be far more jocularity than religion among these prosperous villagers, a trait that probably owes ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... historians allow that the figure of the child may have been left there by Magellan. It worked miracles of a surprising character for years after his death, and the first settlement in Cebu was called The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in its honor. The customary discrepancies between the piety and the practice of the conquerors existed in the Philippines, as in the Antilles. They slew the natives until the survivors threw up their hands and professed the right religion; then they shot twenty-four ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... in doing nothing else. But even supposing that, when once you get home, you feel no inclination to look at the plays and have anything to drink, you can merely wait upon your father and mother, and acquit yourself of your filial piety! Well, if it's only a matter of fulfilling this obligation, and you don't care whether our old mistress and our lady, your mother, experience concern or not, why, the spirit itself, which has just been the recipient of your oblations, won't feel in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... be recompensed at the resurrection of the just,' and saying, no doubt in a pious tone and with a devout shake of the head, 'Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God.' It was a very proper thing to say, but there was a ring of conventional, commonplace piety about it, which struck unpleasantly on Christ's ear. He answers the speaker with that strange story of the great feast that nobody would come to, as if He had said, 'You pretend to think that it is a blessed thing to eat bread in the Kingdom of God, Why! ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... better illustration of the commercial ethics of the sixties than may be found in the letters of Jay Cooke, philanthropist and financier. With a lively and sincere piety, and an unrestrained generosity, he at once extended hospitalities to the political leaders of the day, carried their private speculations on his books, and performed official services to the Government. It was impossible to tell where his public service ended and his private emolument began, ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... it, is but an attempt to collect the fragments of the lost book that remained in men's minds after the conquest), or whether the purer portions of the myth be due to untaught native reflection and piety, it is not possible to determine. It is improbable that the ideas of a hostile race would be introduced into religious hymns by their victims. Here, as elsewhere in the sacred legends of civilised peoples, various strata of mythical and religious ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... by day his followers, who were many, kept near him, and by night hath he cunningly concealed himself. Cowards and curs are these Jews whose faces are solemn and whose prayers are long. Rome shows her hand in the open. But these move under dark cloaks of piety, spin webs and ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... flourish among the vicious and the unreliable. Other evils may flourish among the idle, the indolent, the treacherous, the deceitful and the dishonest, but industry and economy and integrity and faithfulness and honor and even God-fearing piety are desirable qualities in the usurer's victims. The higher the civilization, yes Christian civilization, the more is produced and the richer the harvest. The usurer has no use for a savage. This worm thrives in the living body and sucks ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... it is highly disputable if the facts on which is exhibited such an uncommonly zealous display of justice on the part of the historian, are adequate to warrant his opinion, that America inflicted this calamity. This is rather unfortunate for his apparent warmth of piety, and the more so, as, from the information to which he alludes in his note on the text, he must have been diffident at least of the accuracy of its application. In that note, he makes mention of a dissertation published in 1765, by Dr Antonio ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... whom I can never mention without respect and kindness, Mrs Hannah More, often declared in conversation, and has declared in one of her published poems, that she first learned from the writings of Richardson those principles of piety by which her life was guided. I may safely say that books celebrated as works of art through the whole civilised world, and praised for their moral tendency by Dr Johnson, by Mr Wilberforce, by Mrs Hannah More, ought not to be suppressed. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the Plantagenets—passed some portion of his bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of Marston Moor, waved the banners of the loyalists against the soldiers of Lilburne. It was made yet more touchingly memorable at that time, as you may have heard, by an instance of filial piety. The town was greatly straitened for want of provisions; a youth, whose father was in the garrison, was accustomed nightly to get into the deep dry moat, climb up the glacis, and put provisions through a hole, where the father stood ready to receive them. He was perceived ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... without believing at least two miracles, the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of the Christ. Without comment on the significance of this retreat upon the minimum of miracle, it must here be noted that a minority of the Church, not inferior to their brethren in learning and piety, believe that there are no tides in God's presence in Nature, that his contact with it is always ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... an idea of the greatness of the manifest achievements of virtue and piety at the time. It was Popillius Laenas who killed Marcus Cicero, in spite of the latter's having done him favors as his advocate; and in order that he might depend not wholly on hearsay but also on ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... successors of Notker, were unable to sign their names. The Abbot was a nobleman who composed love-songs, a branch of poetry at all events out of place in the monastery founded by St. Gall. It is only among the lower clergy that we find the traces of genuine Christian piety and intellectual activity, though frequently branded by obese prelates and obtuse magistrates with the names of mysticism and heresy. The orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans, founded in 1208 and 1215, and intended to act as clerical ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... Exemplary for Christian piety and benevolence and the exercise of every female virtue. She bears to her Grave the fond recollections of a numerous host of Descendants and the esteem and respect ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... Morris who was singing. With growth of years had come increase of piety, and it was his custom once a week to gather about him such of the servants as would for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... do the kids dread the green lizards, or the wolves sacred to Mars; whenever, my Tyndaris, the vales and the smooth rocks of the sloping Ustica have resounded with his melodious pipe. The gods are my protectors. My piety and my muse are agreeable to the gods. Here plenty, rich with rural honors, shall flow to you, with her generous horn filled to the brim. Here, in a sequestered vale, you shall avoid the heat of the dog-star; ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... of grammar schools, in various parts of the country, which owe their foundation and endowment to the piety and liberality of citizens of London ... far exceeds what might be supposed, approaching as it does nearly to a hundred."—Preface to Brewer's Life of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... you, and other interested aspirants and unprincipled demagogues, the Catholic Church has invariably shown herself to be destitute of both, whenever she had the opportunity of using them. Sir, intolerance is an element of her faith, and persecution a specimen of her piety; and no man knows it better than you do. In taking upon herself the obligation of "true obedience to the Pope," the Catholic Church imposes upon herself a task that proves beyond all doubt she cannot, under any circumstances, remain ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... be sought in humility. But the world despised it, wishing to contemplate the works of God, which He had made a source of wonder, and it did not wish to venerate what He had set for imitation, neither did it look to its own disease, seeking medicine in piety; but presuming on a false health, it gave itself over with vain curiosity to the study ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... possessed a more heavenly countenance than William Lloyd Garrison, and few men evinced a more genuine or a more exalted piety. The bible was his text book—held sacred, as the word of the Eternal Father—sinless perfection—complete submission to insults and injuries—literal obedience to the injunction, if smitten on one side to turn the other also. Not ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... We can write of it as no sequent generation will find possible; for we are bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh; and when we go, something goes with us which will require for its reconstruction, not the natural piety of a returned native, such as I claim to be, but the cold, calculating art of literary ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman

... indescribable air of mock humility. "Sir," says he—"Reverend sir, you see before you a humble and penitent sinner, who has fallen so desperately deep into iniquities that he knows not whether even so profound piety as yours can elevate him out of the pit in which he finds himself. Sir, it has got about the town that the Devil has taken possession of my old meeting-house, and, alas! I have to confess—that it is the truth." Here our Captain hung his head down upon his breast ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... one of those unconscious hypocrites who put conscience out of court in advance by assuming that whatever they wish to do is right or they could not wish to do it. He led Roebuck on to show off this peculiarity of his,—a jumbling, often in the same breath, of the most sonorous piety and the most shameless business perfidy. All the time Woodruff's face was perfectly grave,—there are some men who refuse to waste any of their internal enjoyment in ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... much better; but unfortunately our religion is weak on the sanitary side. One of the worst misfortunes of Christendom was that reaction against the voluptuous bathing of the imperial Romans which made dirty habits a part of Christian piety, and in some unlucky places (the Sandwich Islands for example) made the introduction of Christianity also the introduction of disease, because the formulators of the superseded native religion, like Mahomet, had ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... body burst open, and the long links of sausages which represented intestines were devoured by the imps amid the laughter and delight of the peasant audience. Now all this has passed away. Wise and learned men have taken the play in hand, and have left it a monument to their piety and good taste. Everything grotesque, or barbarous, or ridiculous has been eliminated. All else is subordinated to a faithful and artistic representation of the life and acts of Christ. Stately prose and the language of the Gospel narratives have been substituted for doggerel verse. ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... German music, German folk-songs, German art, German sentiment. They had been abandoned by God, by the protecting hand of the altes gutes Deutsches Gottes to whom many had prayed for comfort and help in those years of war, in Protestant churches and Catholic churches, with deep piety and childlike faith. What sins had they done that they should be abandoned by God? The invasion of Belgium? That, they argued, was a tragic necessity. Atrocities? Those were (they believed) the inventions of ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... during the period of the civil wars. The ruthless soldiers discovered their barbarism by violating the sacred tombs of the dead, and by offering every indignity which they supposed would be considered a profanation of the places which the piety of their ancestors consecrated to religion. At such instances of the violence of civil factions, the ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... was obtained from Clement XIV. Under his successors the world had an opportunity of comparing the times when Popes like Alexander III. or Innocent IV. governed the Church from their exile, and now, when men of the greatest piety and conscientiousness virtually postponed their duty as head of the Church to their rights as temporal sovereigns, and, like the senators of old, awaited the Gauls upon their throne. There is a lesson not to be forgotten in the contrast between ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... dark. He had done justice; he had loved mercy; he had walked humbly with his God. The reader to whom religious utterance makes little appeal will not suppose that his imaginative words stand for no real experience. The reader whose piety knows no questions will not be pained to think that this ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... will live in a miserable hovel, but he looks forward to a commodious tomb beneath pretty shade trees. The tender regard for the dead is an admirable trait in the Chinese character, and springs, no doubt, from that filial piety which is so deeply ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... leaning back in her arm-chair: as the wood-fire sprang up brightly and sank again suddenly, her great deep eyes seemed to flash back the fitful gleams. It was long since she had spoken. In truth, she had been drawing largely upon her piety at first, to make herself feel interested, and, when this failed, upon her courtesy, to appear so; but she was conscious of relapses more and more frequent into the dreary regions of Boredom. Every body would agree with every body else so completely! ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... after examining witnesses from Domremy, and the Queen of Sicily and other great ladies to whom Joan was entrusted, the clergy found nothing in her but 'goodness, humility, frank maidenhood, piety, honesty, and simplicity.' As for her wearing a man's dress, the Archbishop of Embrun said to the king, 'It is more becoming to do these things in man's gear, since they have to be ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... professed, was Mora, Countess of Norelle. I know this because, years ago, I saw her at the Court, when she was a maid of honour to the Queen; very young and lovely; yet, even then remarkable for wisdom, piety, and a certain sweet dignity of deportment. Sometimes now, when she receives me in the severe habit of her Order, I find myself remembering the flow of beautiful hair, soft as spun silk, bound by a circlet of gold round the regal head; the velvet and ermine; the jewels at her breast. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... were, in each case, for forty days. We may look with admiration at our Cathedral, “fabrica tam nobilis, et honorifica toti regno,” as the Bishop calls it; but surely it takes not a little gilt from the gingerbread, when we reflect that this grand edifice was not entirely the product of the piety of our forefathers, as we have too fondly supposed, but due largely to the episcopal sanction of what with all charity, can hardly be called a pious fraud; and that it was really paid for by “the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... poor and suffering people to whom the pious fathers had proved themselves benefactors. For, since they knew that their existence was threatened, they had assiduously devoted themselves to works of charity and mercy, and to strengthening, especially in Rome, their reputation for piety, benevolence, and generosity. Prodigious sums were by them distributed among the poor; more than five hundred respectable impoverished Romans, who had been accused of political offences, were secretly supported by them. In this ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... manuscripts of Homer and the dramatists, of Thucydides and Herodotus, and most momentous perhaps for the age to come, of Plato and Demosthenes and of the New Testament in its original Greek. The quick and vivid intellect of Italy, which had been torpid in the decadence of mediaevalism and its mysticism and piety, seized with avidity the revelation of the classical world which the scholars and their manuscripts brought. Human life, which the mediaeval Church had taught them to regard but as a threshold and stepping-stone to ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... he extracts the same pathetic little moral: both are lovely and both must die. And so, between his virgins that are for love indeed and those that sit silent and delicious in the 'flowery nunnery,' the old singer finds life so good a thing that he dreads to lose it, and not all his piety can remove the passionate regret with which he sees things hastening ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... first gave offence shall be seen, and how he was punished: offences of the second and the third we can only guess to have been perhaps pulpit-rebukes of said punishments: perhaps general preaching against military levities, want of piety, nay open sinfulness, in thoughtless young men with cockades. Whereby the thoughtless young men were again driven to think of nocturnal charivari? We will give the story in Dr. Busching's own words, who looks before ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... till he had promised to go to see my father. I offered him any sum that he might demand, and assured him that I would engage to procure such post horses, as would take him there and back in six hours. He gazed upon me with astonishment. At length be exclaimed, "your uncommon filial piety has triumphed. No money should have induced me to leave Bath under my present circumstances; but such devotedness, such unfeigned and unusual affection in a son for a father, I never before witnessed:" and turning round to ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... Uncle Grafton's looks a snare to which I knew my grandfather was blind. I never rightly understood how it was that Mr. Carvel was deceived in Mr. Allen; perchance the secret lay in his bold manner and in the appearance of dignity and piety he wore as a cloak when on his guard. I caught my breath sharply and took my way toward them, resolved to make as brave a front as I might. It was my uncle, whose ear was ever open, that first heard my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... beverage, much uncertainty prevails among the brethren of the cloth as to what refreshment would be considered orthodox and proper. There is no doubt that some men are so constituted as to require fluid aids to religion. To deprive them of it would be to strike a blow at popular piety. As the laborer is worthy of his hire, so is the minister, whose throat becomes parched by reason of much exhortation, worthy of the liquid balm which is to renew his powers and strengthen his organs. PUNCHINELLO has had under consideration the question of inventing some drink which might happily ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... bygone day Peleus' fate foretelling Chaunted from breasts divine prophetic verse the Parcae. For that the pure chaste homes of heroes to visit in person Oft-tide the Gods, and themselves to display where mortals were gathered, 385 Wont were the Heavenlies while none human piety spurned. Often the Deities' Sire, in fulgent temple a-dwelling, Whenas in festal days received he his annual worship, Looked upon hundreds of bulls felled prone on pavement before him. Full oft Liber who roamed from topmost peak of Parnassus 390 Hunted his howling host, his Thyiads with tresses ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... private life, a pattern worthy of imitation, and happy would it be for us, that our nobles were more disposed to walk in the paths which he trode;—for, "Above all his virtues, which were not a few, he shined in piety towards God, ordering himself and his family in such a sort as did more resemble a church than a court; for therein, besides the exercise of devotion, which he never omitted, there was no wickedness to ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... saved the ancestral gods—his father's and his mother's; (41) yea, and his own father also, whereby he bore off a reputation for piety so great that to him alone among all on whom they laid their conquering hand in Troy even the enemy granted not ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... rebuke them. If he should attempt to do so the gods would visit him with perpetual misfortunes. Children play around the beasts, but no one ever abuses them. Pilgrims buy food for them and stuff them with sweetmeats, and it is an act of piety and merit to hang garlands over their horns and braid ribbons in their tails. When they die they are buried with great ceremony, like the sacred bulls ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... were brought to the fishermen that an immense shoal was upon the coast; and, regardless of its being Sabbath morning, they began to prepare their thousand boats, and to go out to set their nets. The Rev. Andrew Simpson, a man possessed of the piety and boldness of an apostle, was then minister of Dunbar; and, as he went forth to the kirk to preach to his people, he beheld the unhallowed preparations of the fishermen on the beach; and he turned and went amongst them, and reproved them sternly for their great wickedness. But the men were ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... Robert. "Cold blood never will come to an understanding with hot blood, and the old lady's is like frozen milk. She's right in her way, I dare say. I don't blame her. Her piety's right enough, take it as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Scriptures. No case, indeed, can try so severely, or put upon record so conspicuously, this indestructible propensity for seeking light out of darkness—this thirst for looking into the future by the aid of dice, real or figurative, as the fact of men eminent for piety having yielded to the temptation. We give one instance—the instance of a person who, in practical theology, has been, perhaps, more popular than any other in any church. Dr. Doddridge, in his earlier days, was in a dilemma both ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... a sober temperament, and am, besides, a member of that sect which Dr. More has called, mistakenly indeed, "the most melancholy of all;" but I confess a special dislike of disfigured faces, ostentatious displays of piety, pride aping humility. Asceticism, moroseness, self-torture, ingratitude in view of down-showering blessings, and painful restraint of the better feelings of our nature may befit a Hindoo fakir, or a Mandan ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... ladies. It's very strange, but old ladies of a certain class—the almost obsolete class that wears caps and connects piety with black brocade—like me. They think me 'a bright young thing.' And so ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... Hugh a Bible. My mother was sitting with Mr. Penny in the drawing-room after luncheon, when Hugh, in a little black velvet suit, his flaxen hair brushed till it gleamed with radiance, his face the picture of innocence, bearing the Bible, a very image of early piety, entered the room, and going up to his godfather, said with his little stammer: "Tha-a-ank you, Godpapa, for this beautiful Bible! will you read ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... before us, is not indeed so memorable as these; but to present Circumstances it is, in many Respects, more suitable: And it may the rather deserve our Notice, as it shews us the Wisdom, Composure, and Piety of one of the weaker and tenderer Sex, on an Occasion of such aggravated Distress, that had Aaron or Job behaved just as she did, we must have acknowledged, that they had not sunk beneath the Dignity of their Character, nor appear'd unworthy ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge

... sarcophagy than harmless primulas. In other words, the beetle-browed Lucretia, with the handy poison-ring, whom they promise you turns out to be a blue-eyed, fair-haired, rather yielding little darling, ultimately an excellent wife and mother, given to piety and good works, used in her earlier years as a political instrument by father and brother, and these two no worse than masterful and ambitious men employing the political technique common to their day ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... learning, religion, and morality. They ranged from hedge parsons and Fleet chaplains, who had slunk away from England to find a desirable obscurity in the new world, to divines of real learning and genuine piety, who were the supporters of the college, and who would have been a credit to any society. These last, however, were lamentably few in number. The mass of the clergy were men who worked their own lands, sold tobacco, were the boon companions of the planters, hunted, shot, drank ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... piety performed, she signed to Nigel to aid her; and, having pushed aside the heavy bedstead, they saw the brass plate which Martha had described. She pressed the spring, and, at once, the plate starting up, showed the keyhole, and a large iron ring used in lifting the trap-door, which, when raised, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... praised for from the 3 fold sort of dueties: 1, these we ow to God; 2, these towards our neighbours; and 3, these towards himselfe. For the vertues that are relative to God, he numbered them up to 13, and that out of Thomas, whom they follow in all things; amongs which were piety, sanctite, zeal for Religion, which broke out to that hieght that he caused sundry of the poor Albingenses, over the inquisition of whom he was sett, to be brunt; but this he mentioned no. For duties of the 2nd sort he ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... have doubtless existed in the history of the English race, perhaps in our own country, but not one who to great excellence in the threefold composition of man, the physical, intellectual, and moral, has added such exalted integrity, such unaffected piety, such unsullied purity of soul, and such wondrous control of his own spirit. He illustrated and adorned the civilization of Christianity, and furnished an example of the wisdom and perfection of its teachings which the subtlest arguments ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... neighbor, then he is bound by this golden rule of benevolence to give his little all to him, without regard to the necessities or wants of his own family! But this interpretation, though seriously propounded by a man of undoubted genius and piety, has not, so far as we know, made the slightest possible impression on the plain good sense of mankind. Even among his most enthusiastic admirers, it has merely excited a good-natured smile at what they could not ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... years; his hair partially gray, but his complexion retaining much of its youthful freshness and color; and there was some difficulty in determining his age. Although his brow was thoughtful and his grave eyes habitually looked upward with an expression of calm serenity and humble piety, yet the curve of his mouth, around which there lurked a peculiar smile, contradicted ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... crouching to the tyrant's rod, Whose iron thongs are red with human gore? Never: but bravely bearing on, thy will Is destined an eternal war to wage 190 With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot The germs of misery from the human heart. Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The thorny pillow of unhappy crime, Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, 195 Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease: Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will, When fenced by power and master of the world. Thou art ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... read of those who have massacred and tortured their opponents in religion, have boiled alive the unfortunates who have differed from themselves as to the meaning of an unintelligible word or two, have vigorously torn the entrails out of those who have been pious with a piety different from their own, how shall we dare to say that they should be punished for their fidelity? Mrs. Bolton spent much of that afternoon with her knees on the hard boards,—thinking that a hassock would have taken something from the sanctity of the action,—wrestling for her ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... often ruins it. Above all, we have the same great upperclass assumption that things are done best by large institutions handling large sums of money and ordering everybody about; and that trivial and impulsive charity is in some way contemptible. As Mr. Blatchford says, "The world does not want piety, but soap—and Socialism." Piety is one of the popular virtues, whereas soap and Socialism are two hobbies of the upper ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... No early bell calls to chapel prayers, but, when the recitations are over, all assemble for devotional exercises. There is no standing during these exercises, and the result is quiet, and an addition both to "the stock of piety," and "the stock of health." Oberlin furnishes no pleasanter sight than this daily assembling of its thousand ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... considerable degree, of this parent's situation and character. Ethelwolf was a younger son, and was brought up in a monastery at Winchester. The monasteries of those days were the seats both of learning and piety, that is, of such learning and piety as then prevailed. The ideas of religious faith and duty which were entertained a thousand years ago were certainly very different from those which are received now; still, there was then, mingled ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... therefore, only relative and not positive, for nothing happens against God's will. It is only a simple negation or deprivation, which only seems to be a reality in our representation."[200] The late Samuel Johnson, in his chapter on "The Morality and Piety of Pantheism," undertakes to defend both the Vedantic and the Spinozan philosophy by pointing out a distinction between an "external compulsion and an inner force which merges us in the Infinite. Though both are equally efficient as to the result, and both are inconsistent with ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... on arriving at the spot on which the church now stands, the wafer is said to have ascended miraculously to some distance above the soldier's head, while at the same time the mule he rode, being imbued with more religious piety than his master, reverently knelt down on his front legs. The holy wafer was now encircled by a halo of shining light; this, with the kneeling donkey and the soldier raining blows on the pious animal, while he ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... colour of the parable surrounds us. Here is a fitting scene for such a drama of lawless violence, cowardly piety, and unconventional mercy. In these caverns robbers could hide securely. On this wild road their victim might lie and bleed to death. By these paths across the glen the priest and the Levite could "pass by on the other side," discreetly turning their heads away from any interruption to their ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... than now, that Wesleyism spread widest and deepest. If any part of Wesley's mission tended to modify or abolish slavery, then a devotion to freedom so constant and generous as Conway's should link their names by an irrefragable, however subtle, filament of common piety. I wished to look into Finsbury Chapel for my old friend's sake, but it seemed to me that we had intruded on worshippers enough that morning, and I satisfied my longing by a glimpse of the interior through the pane of ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... bound him to himself by the ties of friendship and gratitude, and he resolved to continue with his benefactor. After thirty years travel and warlike service, he determined to return to his native land, and to spend the remainder of his life in peace; and, by devoting himself to works of piety and charity, prepare for a better ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... qualities of Englishmen to their own destruction, which made Mr. Pitt omnipotent, continues his power to those who resemble him only in his vices; advantage is taken of the loyalty of Englishmen to make them meanly submissive; their piety is turned into persecution, their courage into useless and obstinate contention; they are plundered because they are ready to pay, and soothed into asinine stupidity because they are full of virtuous patience. If England must perish at last, so let it be: ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... merits the term; and still more, in running after their preachers, expecting to promote their salvation, they disregard their welfare in this world, and neglect the interest and comfort of their families; so that, in proportion as they attain a reputation for piety, they become idle. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... duly exercised himself in this part of the subject, I hope he will come back to me and say:—"What I desire is to be free from passion and from perturbation; as one who grudges no pains in the pursuit of piety and philosophy, what I desire is to know my duty to the Gods, my duty to my parents, to my brothers, to ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... delighted to listen to the deeds of the past, or to theological treatises, when he dined, after the fashion of monks. His interest in learning centred in his interest in the teaching and services of the Church. Most reverently, we are told by his biographer, and with the utmost piety did he cultivate the Christian religion with which he had been imbued from his infancy. He was a constant church-goer, a regular worshipper at the mass. Near to his religious interest was his interest in education. A famous ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... and Cherry streets, and that immediate locality. They were all frequenters of the well-known establishments presided over by such eminent lights of the profession as Kit Burns, Jerry McAuley, Johnny Allen, etc., but all three of whom afterwards forswore their evil ways and died in the odor of piety. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... of St. Lorenz, and then slowly make his way to the Thiergarten Gate, where, along the Seilersgasse to the churchyard, rise at regular intervals the seven stone pillars on which Adam Krafft has carved, in beautiful bas-reliefs, scenes from the Passion of the Lord. Years before the simple piety of a Nuremberg citizen had erected these monuments of holy art, and their founder, Martin Ketzel, had even travelled into Palestine, that he might measure the exact distances of that most sorrowful journey from the house of Pontius Pilate to the hill of Calvary. Heedless of the severe weather, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... prayer to Almighty God, in which I therefore believe, the poet did not club. To libel the king through all the pamphlet, and to pray for him in the conclusion, is an action of more prudence in them than of piety. Perhaps they might hope to be forgiven, as one of their predecessors was by king James; who, after he had railed at him abundantly, ended his lampoon with these ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... even among those who minister in holy things, who seem by their actions wedded to the vanities which they profess to renounce, that I turn away with a feeling akin to disgust, and am almost ready to believe that the piety which characterized the first professors ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert

... they are in truth the very smallest graces compared with the grace of God and the piety of ...
— Martin Luther's 95 Theses • Martin Luther

... ennuye in our tastes for fiction than were our forefathers, and the pretence of piety being less a convention, we incline to insist more firmly that the pill at least be sugar-coated,—if indeed we submit ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... as American agriculture goes, between successful and permanent agriculture and a religious life. The country church becomes the expression of a permanent and abiding rural prosperity. Agriculture is shown by its very nature to require a religious motive. An element of piety appears to be necessary in the makeup ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... Yesterday's discovery in the cave had rounded out the history of Peter to a melancholy completion. But though we knew the end we guessed in vain at the beginning, at Peter's name, at that of the old grandfather whose thrifty piety had brought him to Havana and to the acquaintance of the dying mate of the Bonny Lass, at the whereabouts of the old New England farm which had been mortgaged to buy the Island Queen, at the identity of Helen, who ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... "This feud of yours. What's it all about? You mentioned that Book business once before, and it seems a people with your apparent piety and maturity and general advancement would certainly find a way to arbitrate such a dispute. What are ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden

... somewhat, though not altogether. There were points of difference, as a niche in the wall, with a plaster cast on a plinth, apparently the image of some saint, with carvings in the woodwork, crosses, and other emblems of piety. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... Banting sent me a travelling-clock at one time the property of Lord Baringstoke, and a letter of such fervent piety and tender affection that it is too sacred for me ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... I seem to myself to be allowing them undue honour, when I feel that our minds are really moved to a warmer devotion and more ardent piety by the holy words themselves when they are so sung than when they are not so sung; and when I recognize that all the various moods of our spirit have their proper tones in speech and song, by which they are, through I know not what secret familiarity, excited. But the mere sensuous delight, ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges

... the value of such an acquisition? What pure morality; what maxims of supreme wisdom for guidance along the slippery paths of youth, and onward through every stage of life; what bright examples of early piety, and of its glorious rewards, even in the present world; what sublime revelations of the being and perfections of God; what incentives to love and serve him, and to discharge with fidelity all the duties which we owe to our fellow-men! and all these enforced by the highest sanctions ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... at Higham Ferrers was a much earlier design. On the 2nd of May 1422 Henry V., in right of the duchy of Lancaster, "hearing that Chicheley inflamed by the pious fervour of devotion intended to enlarge divine service and other works of piety at Higham Ferrers, in consideration of his fruitful services, often crossing the seas, yielding to no toils, dangers or expenses ... especially in the conclusion of the present final peace with our dearest father the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... rest, which we have reached in health and tranquillity, and which is crowned with so many blessings, is by universal consent a convenient and suitable one for cultivating personal piety and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... the slightest exaggeration. It is said to have been drawn, several years before the present anti-slavery agitation began, by a northern Methodist preacher, who, while residing at the south, had an opportunity to see slaveholding morals, manners, and piety, with his own eyes. "Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... for ... commonweal Were piety in thine, it is in these.... Wilt thou draw near the nature of the Gods? Draw near ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... mother, with dishevelled hair, and tearing her robe asunder, point to the breast with which she suckled you; though your father fall down on the threshold before you, pass on over your father's body. Fly with tearless eyes to the banner of the cross. In this matter cruelty is the only piety.... Your widowed sister may throw her gentle arms around you.... Your father may implore you to wait but a short time to bury those near to you, who will soon be no more; your weeping mother may recall your childish days, and may ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... not only a peculiar kind of interest for the student of English poetry, but are intrinsically delightful, and will reward a careful and frequent perusal. Full of naivete, piety, love, and knowledge of natural objects, and each expressing a single and generally a simple subject by means of minute and original pictorial touches, these sonnets have a place ...
— MacMillan & Co.'s General Catalogue of Works in the Departments of History, Biography, Travels, and Belles Lettres, December, 1869 • Unknown

... you do not know of whom you speak. M. Jacques Ferrand is the most honorable man in the world; of most exemplary piety, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... keep your eye up, and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the Butlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy of a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them, the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will give the best ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... feelings of others, even when he thought them wrong. But he would not suffer the children to get the notion that they were guilty of any deadly crime if they happened to come short of the conventional standard of piety. Once, when their grandfather reported to him that the boys had been seen throwing stones on Sunday at the body of a dog lodged on some drift in the river, he rebuked them for the indecorum, and then ended the matter, as he often did, by saying, ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... had recently dined at the Mansion House, and who had described "flunkeys" in hair-powder and cloth of gold—like Thackeray's Jeames Yellowplush. But here the only servants were two slim, discreet and attentive young gentlemen in black coats with a gentle piety in their manner instead of pride. And he was a little disappointed too by a certain lack of splendour in the company. The ladies affected him as being ill-dressed; there was none of the hard snap, the "There! and what do you say to it?" about them of the well-dressed American woman, and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... Grey's piety, which was genuine, did not so often manifest itself in words as in deeds, but he felt constrained to speak to Bessie, whose tears fell like rain as she listened to him, and who felt when he was gone a greater sense of loneliness ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... who had remained in the vessel, not seeing Xisutbros return, descended too, and began to seek him, calling him by his name. They saw Xisuthros no more; but a voice from heaven was heard commanding them piety toward the gods; that he, indeed, was receiving the reward of his piety in being carried away to dwell thenceforth in the midst of the gods, and that his wife, his daughter, and the pilot of the ship shared the same honor. The voice ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... she praying about? What about?" In his thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... with buttered toast, and with her own hands and on her own legs carried these delicacies round to her papa. On such an occasion as this no servant, no friend, no Mr Startup, was allowed to interfere with her filial piety. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... of piety and love are infinitely better than indulgences,[8] and yet these are not preached with such ceremony or such zeal; nay, for the sake of preaching the indulgences they are kept quiet, though it is the first and the sole duty of all bishops that the people should learn the ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... momentary shadow flitted over his face; then came the smile of serenity, as if, in that brief eclipse, he had acknowledged the existence of some hard futurity, and, asking nothing, yet hoping all things, left the issue in God's hand, with that submission which is true piety. ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... and will take my meaning discreetly. You have saved the very life and spirit within us; for so much perplexity had those giants cast about our place, that the way to the Lord among us was blocked up. May He who sent you into these woods reward the justice and piety by which we are delivered from our trouble. Thanks be to him and to you. We shall all be disconsolate at your departure. We shall grieve that we cannot detain you among us for months and years; but you do not wear these weeds; you bear arms and armour; and you may possibly ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... a monumental and mortuary effect. A sort of vestibule first received us, and beyond this dripped and glimmered the garden. The walls of the vestibule were covered with inscriptions setting forth the sentiments of the philosophy and piety of all ages concerning life and death; we began with Confucius, and we ended with Benjamino Franklino. But as if these ideas of mortality were not sufficiently depressing, the funereal Signor P——had collected into earthern ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... whose memories, though vexed with an oyster-rake would not yield matter for gratitude, and whose piety though strained through a sieve would leave no trace of an object upon which to lavish thanks. It is easy enough, with a waistcoat selected for the occasion, to eat one's proportion of turkey and hide away one's allowance of wine; and if this ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... thunderbolt and the aegis inscribed Christo et Ecclesiae. It is a common weakness enough to wish to find one's self in an empty saddle; Cotton Mather was miserable all his days, I am afraid, after that entry in his Diary: "This Day Dr. Sewall was chosen President, for his Piety." ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... unsuccessful fly. At the sound of voices, perhaps suspecting an unlicensed rival, for that part of the stream was preserved,—he had suspended his task, and noiselessly put aside the clustering leaves to reconnoitre. The piety of Waife's simple grace seemed to surprise him pleasingly, for a sweet approving smile crossed his lips. He continued to look and to listen. He forgot the fly, and a trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac, having ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... laid on colours, how vivid is the portrait Lady Fanshawe has painted for posterity of the gallant gentleman and scholar, one of those "very perfect gentle knights" which that age produced; loyal and religious, with the straightforward simple piety that held unwaveringly to the Anglican Church in which he had been born ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe



Words linked to "Piety" :   religiousness, impious, dutifulness, devoutness, godliness, righteousness, impiety, pious



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