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Unforgiving   /ənfərgˈɪvɪŋ/   Listen
Unforgiving

adjective
1.
Unwilling or unable to forgive or show mercy.
2.
Not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty.  Synonyms: grim, inexorable, relentless, stern, unappeasable, unrelenting.  "Grim necessity" , "Russia's final hour, it seemed, approached with inexorable certainty" , "Relentless persecution" , "The stern demands of parenthood"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unforgiving" Quotes from Famous Books



... had known that author. He had a kind heart. He has changed even the unforgiving cherubim in the Genesis story to those King's men who try in such a friendly way to restore Humpty-Dumpty. But the story can't let them. That would leave the hero back on his wall again—like some Greek philosopher. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... had never known her to be unkind, uncharitable, unforgiving; he had never known her to be insincere, untruthful, or envious. But the decalogue is no stronger than its weakest link. Was it in the heart of such a woman—this woman he loved—was it in the heart of this ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... I have a reason of my own for wondering at it.' No, you would not guess, from his way of writing, that he had ever thought of this Miss (what's her name?) for himself. He very handsomely hopes they will be happy together; and there is nothing very unforgiving in ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... burst of tears that she put it down. "Oh, mother, mother!" she cried to herself, "how can you be so unkind, so unjust, so unforgiving? He is the best man in the world, and yet you have the heart ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... deferential behaviour. George's hostility was strengthened by the friendship between Fox and the Prince of Wales. The prince's habits were dissolute and extravagant; he was an undutiful son, and the king a somewhat unforgiving father. He violently espoused the cause of the coalition, and George is said to have called the government "my son's ministry". It was time to provide him with a separate establishment, and Fox promised ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... in those early days. And it is unquestionable, that much of that contempt for the slow vengeance of a legal proceeding, which now distinguishes the people of the frontier west, originated then. It was, doubtless, an unforgiving—eminently an unchristian—spirit: but vengeance, sure and swift, was the only thing which could impress the hostile savage. And, if example, in a matter of this sort, could be availing, for their severity to the Indians, they had ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... prayers, I asked especially that if it should appear to me, I might have strength to forget all selfish fear and try only to know what it wanted. And as I prayed the foolish shrinking dread we have of such things seemed to fade away; just as when I have prayed for those towards whom I felt cold or unforgiving, the hardness has all melted away into love towards them. And after that came to me that lovely feeling which we all have sometimes—in church, or when we are praying alone, or more often in the open air, on beautiful summer days when it is warm and still; as if one's heart were beating ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... am glad you are,' and there was a little kissing match. 'You'll always come to my room, won't you? Do you know, when Constance came to luncheon, I only shook hands, I wouldn't try to kiss her. Was that unforgiving?' ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... public as well as private affairs. No officer who had bravely done his best had anything to fear in defeat from Washington's anger. He was never unjust, and he was always kind to misfortune or mistake, but to the coward or the traitor he was entirely unforgiving. This it was which made Arnold's treason so bitter to him. Not only had he been deceived, but the country as well as himself had been most basely betrayed; and for this reason he was relentless to Andre, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... She did not believe that either William or his wife would regard their mother in any way; both were too selfish and too unforgiving. Much was said all around, but no clear course of ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur

... can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And—which is more—you'll be a Man, ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... days were taken up in reaching the mouth of the bay;[130] but he sailed from it the 28th of June, ten days before D'Estaing arrived, though more than ten weeks after he had sailed. Once outside, a favoring wind took the whole fleet to Sandy Hook in two days. War is unforgiving; the prey that D'Estaing had missed by delays foiled him in his attempts upon both New ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... only thoughtful I give you my word. From that moment I harbored no further grudge against Morhange. Yet my silence persuaded him that I was unforgiving. And everyone, do you hear me, everyone said later ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... have found my wife," he answered, in measured and serious tones; "but she is unforgiving, and refuses to have anything more to say to me. In fact, I have heard from her own lips that she no longer loves me! There is nothing more to be said. I have come back to my old home, to work again on the farm, to try to pick ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... his friends imparted to me, and which turned out to be quite incorrect). To his dying day that quarrel was never quite made up. I said to his brother, 'Why is your brother's soul still dark against me? It is I who ought to be angry and unforgiving, for I was in the wrong.'" Odisse quem laeseris was never better contravened. But what we chiefly refer to now is the profound pensiveness of the following strain, as if written with a presentiment of what was not then ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... them for a paean, but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me the past is unforgiving; I with uncovered head 250 Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not.—Say not so! 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No ban of endless night exiles the brave; And to the saner mind ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... paused. "It is true," he said, "I have brought the vengeance of an unforgiving devil upon this helpless creature. O Heaven! what a life, is mine, so fatal to all who approach me! What to do in the hurry? She must not go to my apartments. And all my men are such born reprobates. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... very sorry," she said. "It grieves me that Olive has an exceedingly peculiar and unforgiving disposition. She was devoted to her father, and you are quite correct in your supposition that ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... angry at myself. My vanity is still young and green, and I can not yet separate Monsieur du Cevennes from the boot-heel which ground upon my likeness. No woman with any pride would forgive an affront like that; and I am both proud and unforgiving." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... defence. They scruple not in the least to experience wounds, and pain, and even death itself, as often as the interest of the country to which they are so much attached is concerned; but the same attachment renders them implacable and unforgiving to all their enemies. In short, they seem to have all the virtues and the vices of the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... Lincoln's leniency, mercifulness, and lack of rigor, lead one to believe he could not be inexorable. But there was one crime to which he was unforgiving—the truckling to slavery. The smuggling of slaves into the South was carried on much later than a guileless public imagine. Only fifty years ago, a slave-trader languished in a Massachusetts prison, in Newburyport, serving out a five years' sentence, and still confined from ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... Abbe Mouret, whose head remained bowed, did not open his mouth, he went on: 'Religion is leaving the country districts because it is made over indulgent. It was respected when it spoke out like an unforgiving mistress. I really don't know what they can teach you now in the seminaries. The new priests weep like children with their parishioners. God no longer seems the same. I dare say, Monsieur le Cure, that you don't even know ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... I am resentful and unforgiving. You will find out, soon, that I am a very human girl, and then I will not make you ashamed. But your ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... after bleeding. His sisters both drove away yesterday, God be thanked. But they asked not my leave; and hardly bid me good-bye. My Lord was more tender, and more dutiful, than I expected. Men are less unforgiving than women. I have reason to say so, I am sure. For, besides implacable Miss Harlowe, and the old Ladies, the two Montague apes han't been ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... withhold it. It must be said. Pointing to the statue of Saint Catharine, whose face seemed, she thought, to frown unforgiving upon her, she ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... anxiously at the half-open front door. If only the absent one would return and save her from this new dilemma! If she did not speak, Mr. Ruthven Smith would think her harsh and unforgiving, yet she could not answer unless she gave the name adopted temporarily for convenience. She hesitated, her eyes on the door; but the darkness and silence outside sent a doubt into her heart, cold and sickly as a bat flapping in from ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... and the Legion was coming home—Basil was coming home. And Phyllis was for one hour haughty and unforgiving over what she called his shameful neglect and, for another, in a fever of unrest to see him. No, she was not going to meet him. She would wait for him at her own home, and he could come to her there with the honours of war on his brow and plead on bended knee to be forgiven. At ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... with all her young strength against the bitterness that had come to her through no fault of her own. There was only one cheerful gleam. She loved Jack Barrow. She believed that he loved her, and she could not believe—she could not conceive—him capable of keeping aloof, obdurate and unforgiving, once he got out of the black mood he was in. Then she could snuggle up close to him and tell him how and why Mr. Andrew Bush had struck at her from ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... of course, not unforgiving, when Freeman advanced to the rail, and warning the blacks that he had "changed his mind," ordered the odorous crowd out of my inclosure. Before the negroes departed, however, I made him swear eternal fidelity and friendship in their presence, after which I sealed the compact with a couple of ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... plan they were to carry out that night. David had told him all about it, and for the first time in his life he had felt afraid of this dearly loved brother of his. It had been a revelation to Pasty. Surely, this bitter, unforgiving, revengeful man could not be the same who had been father, mother and big brother to the little cripple for whom he had cared so tenderly since their mother ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams

... which chiefly distinguished the Puritan Englishman. These borderers, from lack of opportunity, were ruder than their more favored brethren to the south, but they were also more persistent, more tenacious, and more adventurous. They Were a vigorous, bold, unforgiving, fighting race, hard and stern even beyond the ordinary standard ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... lodgings. With words of sincere gratitude she took leave of Miss Ladd; but no persuasion would induce her to say good-by to Francine. "Do me one more kindness, ma'am; don't tell Miss de Sor when I go away." Ignorant of the provocation which had produced this unforgiving temper of mind, Miss Ladd gently remonstrated. "Miss de Sor received my reproof in a penitent spirit; she expresses sincere sorrow for having thoughtlessly frightened you. Both yesterday and to-day she has made kind inquiries after your ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... carpenter, whitewasher, paper-hanger—an expert fetcher and carrier, bullied by his father, sheltered under his stepmother's capacious wing. "It isn't his fault 'e's never come to anything. 'E hadn't half a chance. The truth is, Mary, for all they say to the opposite, men are harder than women—so unforgiving-like. Just because Tom made a slip once, they've never let 'im forget it, but tied it to 'is coat-tails for 'im to drag with 'im through life. Littleminded I call it.—Besides, if you ask me, my dear, it must have been a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. Tom as sedoocer!—can you ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... answered Joseph Duncombe, gravely, "I'm not an unforgiving chap; but there are some things try the easiest of men rather hard, and this is one of them. However, for my little Rosy's sake, and out of remembrance of the long night-watches you and I have kept together out upon the lonesome sea, I forgive ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... volunteer aid given to the Government in supporting the armies. This was done on a vast scale, by all classes of the population—that is, by all who supported the Union party, for the separation between the two parties was bitter and unforgiving. But of charity in the ordinary sense of the care of the destitute there was no significant increase because there was no peculiar need. Here again the fact that the free land could be easily reached is ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... my Church with this motto of St. Paul's upon it, which I now felt was mine. I had had for years feelings of resentment towards one who I thought had wronged me; those feelings were now dead. In another case I had been harsh and unforgiving under great provocation; but when I met after a long interval of time, the one who had injured me, my heart had only love and pity for him. I sought out the drunkard and the harlot, and, when I found them, all repulsion perished in the flow of infinite compassion which I felt. I prayed with fallen ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson

... rivers Ganga and Yamuna was his. That is, indeed, the central region of the Earth, while the out-lying regions are to be the dominions of thy brothers. I also told him that those without anger were ever superior to those under its sway, those disposed to forgive were ever superior to the unforgiving. Man is superior to the lower animals. Among men again the learned are superior to the un-learned. If wronged, thou shouldst not wrong in return. One's wrath, if disregarded, burneth one's own self; but he that regardeth it not taketh away ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to be. Then the thought of his task arose in his mind, and it bathed him in a sweat of horror. Over in France he had allowed himself to be persuaded, and had pledged himself to do this thing. Everard, the relentless, unforgiving fanatic of vengeance, had—as we have seen—trained him to believe that the avenging of his mother's wrongs was the only thing that could justify his own existence. Besides, it had all seemed remote then, and easy as remote things are apt to seem. But now—now that he had met in the flesh ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... Learning to admire him); and that he should throw this humorous Piece of Satire at his Prosecutor, at least twenty Years after the Provocation given; I am confidently persuaded it must be owing to an unforgiving Rancour on the Prosecutor's Side: and if This was the Case, it were Pity but the Disgrace of such an Inveteracy should remain as a lasting Reproach, and Shallow stand as a Mark of Ridicule ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... Linders' reluctance to send her to his sister, and sympathised with it fully. Poor little Madelon, with her pretty, impulsive ways, her naive ignorance,—Madelon, so used to be petted and indulged, she to be shut up within those dull walls, with that horrible, harsh, unforgiving woman, to be taught, and drilled, and turned into a nun—he hated to think of it! He would take her away with him, he would hide her somewhere, he would send her to his sister who had half a dozen children of her own to look after, he ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... All the way through the Bible, God charges His people with the same stiff neck; and it manifests itself in us, too. We are hard and unyielding. We are sensitive and easily hurt. We get irritable, envious and critical. We are resentful and unforgiving. We are self-indulgent—and how often that can lead to impurity! Every one of these things, and many more, spring from this proud self within. If it were not there and Christ were in its place, we would not have these reactions. Before we can ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession

... with a wave of solid pride sweeping on through the irides and almost overwhelming the pupils. The mouth,—oh, those lips! ever uttered they a prayer? They look, trembling the while, so unutterably unforgiving! When they come to stand before the I AM, will they ever plead? It is hard to think the Deity maketh such souls. Doth He? I looked a little farther on in the fiery group. Other forms of coal took the human face. I saw two. Whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... yourself to no sullen fretfulness. Let "the law of kindness" be in your heart. Put the best construction on the failings of others Make no injurious comments on their frailties; no uncharitable insinuations. "Consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted." When disposed at any time to cherish an unforgiving spirit towards a brother, think, if thy God had retained His anger for ever, where wouldst thou have been? If He, the Infinite One, who might have spurned thee for ever from His presence, hath had patience with thee, and forgiven thee all, wilt thou, on account ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... dead in the first year of her runaway marriage, had been the daughter of a stiff-necked, unforgiving old earl; she had bequeathed her child, besides these gentian eyes and wonderful, silvery blond hair, a warm, generous heart and a more or less ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... for food. "Yes," mused Mr. Lavender, "pity is the mark of the weak man. It is a vice which was at one time rampant in this country; the war has made one beneficial change at least—we are moving more and more towards the manly and unforgiving vigour of the tiger and the rat. To be brutal! This is the one lesson that the Germans can teach us, for we had almost forgotten the art. What danger we were in! Thank God, we have past masters again among us now!" A frown became fixed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... nearly the last epithet we think of applying to him. Hard almost to cruelty toward his sinning father; hard almost to contemptuousness toward his fond, foolish mother; bitterly hard toward his young master and friend, on the first suspicion of personal wrong; savagely vindictive, long and fiercely unforgiving, when he knows that wrong accomplished;—these may well seem things irreconcilable with any true fulfilment of that Christian life whose great law is love. Yet, examined more narrowly, they approve themselves as nearly associated with the larger fulness of that life. They ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown

... more unforgiving than our own savages, ma'am, and they keep the mother with the child; and when they spare life, they take the prisoners into their huts, and treat them as they treat their own. God has caused so many of the wicked to perish for their sins, in these eastern lands, that ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... dream. The shock of waking was numbing; there was no room for anything in his righted consciousness but a vast, down-bearing sense of shame. She had seen a side of his nature long submerged, long fought, long ago conquered as he believed; the vindictive, the savage part of him, the cruel and unforgiving. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... gentle and generous to his friends and kinsmen; to be stern and grim to his foes, but even towards them to feel bound to fulfil all bounden duties; to be as forgiving to some as he was unyielding and unforgiving to others. To be no truce-breaker, nor talebearer nor backbiter. To utter nothing against any man that he would not dare to tell him to his face. To turn no man from his door who sought food or shelter, even though he were a foe—these were other broad principles of the Northman's life, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... in the cab, which carried them away. And now, over the whole of rumbling Paris black night had gathered, an unforgiving night, in which the stars foundered amidst the mist of crime and anger that had risen from the house-roofs. The great cry of justice swept by amidst the same terrifying flapping of wings which Sodom and Gomorrah once heard bearing down upon them ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... done up in a novel, but the reality is quite another matter. Mrs. Grayson treated you like a brute; and it is not to be expected that you will have any extraordinary degree of affection for her. Human nature is spiteful and unforgiving; and as for your piling coals of fire on her head to the amount of nine thousand dollars, that ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... his mother, as she sat industriously sewing, and beg her for the hundredth time to recount the story of the grim Scotch home where his father had lost his birthright; of the stern old grandfather who had died inexorably unforgiving; of the unknown uncle of whom rumor told many eccentric stories. And, roused by the recital, his boyish face would flush, his boyish mind leap forward ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... so perplexed as the unfortunate shipowner. In the instant that his beloved daughter was restored to him out of the very depths of the sea, he was asked either to undertake the role of a disappointed and unforgiving parent, or sanction her marriage to a truculent-looking person of most forbidding if otherwise manly appearance, who had certainly saved her from death in ways not presently clear to him, but who could not be regarded as a suitable son-in-law solely ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... well! and if forever, Still forever, fare thee well, Even though unforgiving, never 'Gainst thee ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... little afraid of him," she continued, "even in the days when we were friendly. He was so hard and unforgiving. I know he thinks that he has a grievance against me. He will have been brooding about it all these years. I dare not see him! I—I ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... out as I hoped, Festus," said the sorrowful little Mrs. Willard to her husband that evening. "I don't know that Hal will ever believe in her again. How can he be so—so stupidly unforgiving!" ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... must come out, but it was to have been in a few hours' time, when he was far away, and deaf to the angry words and reproaches. To hear them now seemed more than he could bear. It could not be. Bob Dimsted must think and say what he liked, and be as angry and unforgiving as was possible. It could not be now. He must plead to the old housekeeper for pardon, and give up all idea of ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... should continue, for it is possible to live in the same house with a wilful and trying character, and live at peace, if he is lovingly let alone. If he is unlovingly let alone, the peace will be only on the outside, and must sooner or later give way to storms, or, what is much worse, harden into unforgiving selfishness. ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... Heart there is none so inexcusable as that of Parents towards their Children. An obstinate, inflexible, unforgiving Temper is odious upon all Occasions; but here it is unnatural. The Love, Tenderness, and Compassion, which are apt to arise in us towards those [who [2]] depend upon us, is that by which the whole World of Life is upheld. The Supreme Being, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... sin, just as one brother in a family admonishes another. But to be angry with evil and to inflict official punishment—punishment by virtue of office—is a different thing from being filled with hatred and revenge, or holding ill-will and being unforgiving. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... surprise and confusion, and after a few months of honest, but utterly fruitless, effort to understand and do what was required of him, he had taken the wholly unprecedented step of abdicating the papacy. He was succeeded by Benedict Caetani, Boniface the Eighth, keen, learned, brave, unforgiving and the mortal foe of the Colonna; 'the magnanimous sinner,' as Gibbon quotes from a chronicle, 'who entered like a fox, reigned like a lion and died like a dog.' Yet the judgment is harsh, for though his sins were great, the expiation was fearful, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... the old man, leaning forward, tapped Joe on the knee. "See hyar, Joe. Ye hev always been a good frien' o' mine. This hyar man he stole my darter from me, an' whenst she wanted ter be frien's, an' not let her old dad die unforgiving he wouldn't let her send the word ter me. An' then he sot himself ter spite an' hector me, an' fairly run me out'n the town, an' harried me out'n my office; an' when she fund out—she wouldn't take my word fur it—the deceivin' natur' o' the Kittredge tribe, she hed hed enough ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... way. And when we are made to suffer unjustly or disproportionately all our days for our error of judgment or our want of the wisdom of this world, or what not, we are sorely tempted to be bitter and proud and resentful and unforgiving, and to go back from duty and endurance and danger altogether. But we must not. We must rather say to ourselves, Now and here, if not in the past, I must play the man, and, by God's help, the wise man. I must pluck safety ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... which she knew she had regarded him, was schooled into such calmness, that it may be said to have been dead and passed away. The pang which it left behind was one of humility and remorse. "Oh, how wicked and proud I was about Arthur," she thought, "how self-confident and unforgiving! I never forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor, little, artless creature! I, professing to love one man, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... right. Now in the case of Joan, I see in her nothing to admire beyond the loveliness of her face, the grace of her, the sweet voice of her and—oh, her whole personality! But I know her to be mean-spirited and uncharitable, unforgiving, ungenerous. I know her to ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... dried his cheeks roughly with the back of his hand, and his very heavy black eyebrows were drawn down and together, as if the tension of the man's whole nature had been relaxed and was now suddenly restored. The look of sadness hardened to an expression that was melancholy still, but grim and unforgiving, and the grizzled beard, clipped rather close at the sides, betrayed the angles of the strong jaw as he set his teeth and rose to let in his visitor. He was round-shouldered and slightly bow-legged when he stood up; ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... lion or a spaniel." Unfortunately, at home he was always the lion, a fact which those who knew him only as the spaniel could not well believe. The marriage of two such people, needless to say, was not happy. They mutually aggravated each other. Eliza, with her sensitive, unforgiving nature, could not make allowances. Mr. Bishop would not. Much as her waywardness and hastiness were at fault, he was still more to blame in effecting ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... he must think of her as married to Jewdwine. Married to Jewdwine, she would make an end of his friendship as she had made an end of his peace of mind. There had been moments, at the first, when he had felt a fierce and unforgiving rage against her for the annoyance that ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of religious freedom, came to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assailed the new combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and more determined ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... point of departure) are over-strict and unwise in applying a Procrustean measure in their discipline, and, for that reason, if for no other, they cannot be a Church universal. Too stiff, unbending and unforgiving are they to the weaknesses of human nature, and, therefore, (without more,) I predict utter failure to every attempt of theirs to make the natives like themselves. They do forget that milk, not flesh meat, is the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... agreed to pay a fine of 2,500 marks for his lordship in Meath, and Hugh 4,000 marks for his possessions in Ulster. Of de Braos we have no particulars; his high-spirited wife and children were thought to have been starved to death by order of the unforgiving tyrant in one of his castles. The de Lacys, on their restoration, were accompanied to Ireland by a nephew of the Abbot of St. Taurin, on whom they conferred an estate ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... passage a day from the Book of Books, one golden ingot from some master mind, one fully-possessed thought of your own might thus be added to the treasury of your life. Do not waste your time in ways that profit you nothing. Fill "the unforgiving minute" with "sixty seconds' worth of distance run" and on the platform you ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... face things. Death stands between us now, yet we are closer to each other than we have been these last two years. And she loved me all the time, Fanny; sometimes it seems as if love could be very unforgiving. I must stay on down here for the time being; Uncle John needs someone, and he is content that it should be me. The War overhangs and overshadows everything, and it is going to be a hard winter for us all. I suppose he hasn't been back" (Fanny knew who was ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... orders, came on board, and brought along with him a surgeon of his own country, who soon made us sensible of the loss we suffered in the departure of Doctor Atkins; for he was grossly ignorant, and intolerably assuming, false, vindictive, and unforgiving; a merciless tyrant to his inferiors, an abject sycophant to those above him. In the morning after the captain came on board, our first mate, according to custom, went to wait on him with a sick list, which, when this grim commander had perused, he cried with a stern countenance, "Blood and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... is proverbial. Indeed, there is no love so pure and so thoroughly disinterested as the love of a good mother for her child. Her love knows no change; brothers and sisters have forgotten each other; fathers have proved unforgiving to their children; husbands have been false to their wives, and wives to their husbands, and children too often forget their parents; but you rarely hear of a mother forgetting even her ungrateful, disobedient children, whose ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... her eyes and stooped more humble downward. She saw now why the darkness had hung so long over her prayers. Filled with unforgiving bitterness against her mother she had asked God to forgive her, scarcely deeming her fault one to be repented of. A brief struggle against the memory of bitter ill-usage and fierce wrong inflicted by her mother, and Mary drew a deep free breath. Her eyes filled, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... it that brought this name to the lips of the guilty man? Was it remorse? or was it the last explosion of an unforgiving hatred? This is what history has ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire

... pluck, have a bone to pick, have a rod in pickle. keep the wound green; harbor revenge, harbor vindictive feeling; bear malice; rankle, rankle in the breast. Adj. revengeful, vengeful; vindictive, rancorous; pitiless &c 914.1; ruthless, rigorous, avenging. unforgiving, unrelenting; inexorable, stony-hearted, implacable; relentless, remorseless. aeternum servans sub pectore vulnus [Lat.]; rankling; immitigable. Phr. manet ciratrix [Lat.], manet alid mente repostum [Lat.]; dies irae dies illa [Lat.]; in high vengeance there is noble scorn [G. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... was written to Mrs. Morris. It was filled with self-reproaches, and earnest entreaties for her intercession and mine with Effie. He cursed his infatuation, and the cause of it, and closed with the declaration that he would be reckless of life if Effie remained unforgiving. As I finished reading the letter I heard Effie's voice warbling in wild and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... Prince 'as entirely abandoned to an irregular debauched life, even to excess, which brought his health, and even his life daily in danger,' leaving him 'in some degree devoid of reason,' 'obstinate,' 'ungrateful,' 'unforgiving and revengeful for the very smallest offence.' In brief, Dawkins had described Charles as utterly impossible—'all thoughts of him must be for ever laid aside'—and Dawkins backed his opinion by citing that of Henry Goring. The memorialists therefore adjure Charles to reform. ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... At bottom the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe. Do we accept it only in part and grudgingly, or heartily and altogether? Shall our protests against certain things in it be radical and unforgiving, or shall we think that, even with evil, there are ways of living that must lead to good? If we accept the whole, shall we do so as if stunned into submission—as Carlyle would have us—"Gad! we'd better!"—or shall we do so ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... so far true; but, passionate and unforgiving as he was, he was not so reckless as to be regardless whether the stone did not come back ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... jack-knife, as Walley Johnson and the others did. With Walley she would hardly condescend to coquet, so sure she was of his abject slavery to her whims; and, moreover, as must be confessed with regret, so unforgiving was she in her heart toward his blank eye. She merely consented to make him useful, much as she might a convenient and altogether doting but uninteresting grandmother. To all the other members of the camp—except the Boss, whom she regarded with ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the old man, holding up his hands, "is it thus the worms which thou hast called out of dust obey the commands of their Maker? Farewell, proud and unforgiving woman. Exult that thou hast added to a death in want and pain the agonies of religious despair; but never again mock Heaven by petitioning for the pardon which thou host ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... such hereafter! They have fallen Each in his field of glory, one in arms, And one in council—Wolfe upon the lap Of smiling Victory that moment won, And Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame! They made us many soldiers. Chatham still Consulting England's happiness at home, Secured it by an unforgiving frown If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought, Put so much of his heart into his act, That his example had a magnet's force, And all were swift to follow whom ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... longer have troubled herself to do so; but Gertrude was still her daughter, her dear child. Gertrude had done nothing to disentitle her to a child's part, and a child's protection; and even had she done so, Mrs. Woodward was not a woman to be unforgiving to her child. For Gertrude's sake she had to make Alaric welcome; she forced herself to smile on him and call him her son; to make him more at home in her house even than Harry had ever been; to give him privileges which he, wolf as he ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... is hard. With unforgiving rigour He forged a bolt to crush this heart of mine; He left the sturdy tree its living vigour, But stripped away and ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... his own mind, there could have been no objection to the act; but this was not the motive. These memoranda were to rise up in vengeance when necessary to gratify his spleen or vengeance. He was naturally suspicious. He gave no man his confidence, and won the friendship of no one. Malignant and unforgiving, he watched his opportunity, and never failed to gratify his revengeful nature, whenever his victim was in his power. The furtive wariness of his small gray eye, his pinched nose, receding forehead, and thin, compressed lips, indicated the malignant nature of his soul. Unfaithful ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... to gain their liberty by saying they were sorry for what they had done, the King, always remarkably unforgiving, never overlooked their offence. When they demanded to be brought up before the court of King's Bench, he even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about from prison to prison, so that the writs issued for that purpose should not legally find them. ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... gentleman and like a man of talent, nor was there anything of meanness in his face; neither was he ill-looking, in the usual acceptation of the word; but one could see that he was solemn, austere, and overbearing; that he would be incapable of any light enjoyment, and unforgiving towards all offences. I took him to be a man who, being old himself, could never remember that he had been young, and who, therefore, hated the levities of youth. To me such a character is specially odious; for I would fain, if it be possible, be young even to my ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope

... while her own sex judge her the more harshly in the degree of her beauty and the number of its partisans. Now it might be easy in an attempt to draw the following consequences from the correctness of this proposition: Men are generally inclined to forgive in kindness, women are the unforgiving creatures. This inference would be altogether unjustified, for the maxim only incidentally has woman for its subject; it might as well read: Woman forgives a handsome man everything, man nothing. What we have at work here is the not particularly ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... of Britain, as I do praise them, That I have been sweet-natured from my birth, And that I lack your unforgiving mind. Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear And draw away the under sheet for you; Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire— I never could put ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)



Words linked to "Unforgiving" :   forgiving, implacable, vindictive, vengeful, revengeful



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