"Respectable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman had come up to the playground with a basket of trifles, by the sale of which she hoped to support herself during the unexpectedly long absence of a sailor son. Her extreme neatness of person, and her quiet, respectable manners had interested some of the boys in her appearance; and when she came up to sell the little articles, many of which her own industry had made, she generally found ready purchasers. Walter, who knew her ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... acquaintance the journeyman mason of twenty-three years ago. He had been, when I knew him, a steady, industrious, religious man,—with but one exception the only contributor to missionary and Bible societies among a numerous party of workmen; and he was now occupying a respectable place in his village, and was one of the voters of the county. Let Chartism assert what it pleases on the one hand, and Toryism what it may on the other, the property-qualification of the Reform Bill is essentially a ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... Pfalz proved a highly respectable Kaiser; lasted for ten years (1400-10), with honor to himself and the Reich. A strong heart, strong head, but short of means. He chastised petty mutiny with vigor, could not bring down the Milanese Visconti, who had perched themselves so high on money paid to Wenzel; could not heal the schism ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... authour; and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for of all possessions I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book which has been approved by the world, has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day, is hardly possible; and to aim at it must put us under the fetters of a perpetual restraint. The ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... Jacob—and so she is. At present she is in a state to be pitied. She would throw a share of the blame upon other people, and cannot—she feels it is all herself. All her bubbles of grandeur have burst, and she finds herself not half so respectable as she was before her vanity induced her to cut her former acquaintance, and try to get into the society of those who laughed at her, and at the same time were not half so creditable. But it's ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the practice of burning cattle alive in order to stop a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living memory. On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John Rhys: "A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... she fell prone—not merely hurled back into the lowly condition from which she had raised her head only to despise it with base unrighteousness, and to adopt and reassert the principles she had abhorred when they affected herself—not merely this, but, in her own judgment at least, no longer the respectable member of society she had hitherto been justified in supposing herself. The relation of her father and mother she felt overshadow her with a disgrace unfathomable—the more overwhelming that it cast her from the gates of ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile, if it be not impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask that question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment, insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair a la jeune France, who has taken a fancy to his friend's ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is true, then!" Henderson ran on, with a sly chuckle. "It is reported that Delbridge, the feller you started out to race against so big, has swiped the bank presidency right from under your nose, nabbed the cream of the business, and put it on a respectable footing." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... have your own way. But saying nothing more of those ways, which prevailed hitherto among your people in this mansion, you must now do as I tell you; for on the slightest disregard of my orders, I shall, with no discrimination between those who may be respectable and those who may not be, clearly and distinctly call ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... mischance, and they can turn only to pawnbrokers and usurers, with their fearful charges; or charity, with its shame. Then there are hundreds of people whom a loan of a little money would help wonderfully. This boy can get a place if he had a respectable suit of clothes. Another can obtain work by learning a trade, but can't live while he learns it. A woman can support herself if she can buy a sewing-machine, but hasn't the money to buy it. Another can get ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... Christ is not ruling the world now; that the kingdom of God will only come, when Christ comes at the last day, and meanwhile, if people will only believe what they are told, and live tolerably respectable lives, they may behave in all things else as if there was no God, and no judgments of God. Seeking the righteousness of God, say these preachers of Amaziah's school, only means, that if Christ's righteousness ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... ears for having been unkind to herself in a game of croquet she was playing with herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people,) "but it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!" ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... putting his arm over her shoulder. "I quite agree with her, Rutherford. We shall always see that both those boys, Jim and Bill, are well provided for; and neither of them shall lack for such an amount of education as may fit him to make his way in some respectable calling. To Jim we owe a debt which far outbalances the benefit he has received at our hands." And papa's eye turned, with lingering tenderness, to the far corner of the room, where Allie and Daisy, unconscious of the weighty matters which were being ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... family lived in lower Kansas, near Coffeyville, which was situated almost directly upon the border of the Nations. They engaged in farming, and indeed two of the family were respectable farmers near Coffeyville within the last three or four years. The mother of the family still lives near Oklahoma City, where she secured a good claim at the time of the opening of the Oklahoma lands to white settlement. The father, Lewis Dalton, was a Kentucky man and served ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... contrary, all very serious, and I could discern very well that Georges was actually trembling. At length the Mayor came in by a little door and appeared before us, awkward and podgy in his dress-coat, which was too large for him, and which his scarf caused to rise up. He was a very respectable man who had amassed a decent fortune from the sale of iron bedsteads; yet how could I bring myself to think that this embarrassed-looking, ill-dressed, timid little creature could, with a word hesitatingly uttered, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in water. One class, the more clashing, dashes into a cold tub every morning. Another, the more ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... deal too much to suit me. Jest think of her letting Mary go off to Lowell, in the midst of that city of iniquity, and stay three or four years, jest because James must be college larned. As if it warn't as respectable to stay to home and be a farmer, as his father and his grandfather was before him. I haven't much 'pinion of him, but Stephen Gordon is going to make the man. Steddy and industrious ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... to send to Congress men of character, ability, and public spirit. They might as well be asked to select men of that quality to follow the profession of burglars, a comparison which is not intended to convey any disrespect to the number of honest and respectable men who constantly are sent to Congress. Chosen as burglars, they would fail just the same in the business.... It is the organization of Congress which offers every facility to those who wish to buy and those who wish ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... the war Anthony would get a divorce and they would be married—but she never mentioned this to Anthony, she scarcely knew why. She shared his company's idea that he was a sort of bank clerk—she thought that he was respectable and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... it; and my mother still lying in a half-conscious state, I was spared the pain of making excuses for past absence, or explaining that which I designed. I communicated the plan I had formed to Simon Fleix, who saw no difficulty in procuring a respectable person to stay with Madame de Bonne. But for some time he would come no farther into the business. He listened, his mouth open and his eyes glittering, to my plan until I came to his share in it; and then he fell into a violent fit ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... he is getting the upper hand of his unlucky equipment; and his genuine talent and personal taste, beginning to assert themselves, have made it impossible for criticism any longer to treat him merely as an amiable member of a respectable group. What is true of Spain and Scandinavia is even truer of Poland and what remains of Russia. Goncharova and Larionoff—the former a typically temperamental artist, the latter an extravagantly doctrinaire one—Soudeikine, Grigorieff, Zadkine live permanently ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... caliph had in his disguise a grave and respectable appearance, Abou Hassan, who thought him to be a Moussul merchant, rose up, and after having saluted him with a graceful air, said to him, "Sir, I congratulate you on your happy arrival in Bagdad, I beg you to do me the honour to sup with me, and repose ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... peace, in a territory made by nature a geographical unity, inhabited by a people, or peoples, of one lineage, one language, bound together in historical reminiscences, yet divided into petty sovereign States too small for any respectable nationalities themselves, and yet preventing any beneficent nationality as a whole. No animosities have been so fierce as those existing among people thus geographically and politically related. No wars with each other have been so cruel; no home factions have been so incessant, so ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Until society has enough of benevolence or enough of practical sagacity to get rid of this common impulse of brute life, we shall continue to have an energetic, skilful, and formidable army of criminals, spread all over the land, levying an immense tax upon respectable citizens, and requiring an increasing army ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... reached Paris, he found that Deane had already made himself a respectable position, and that, through Caron de Beaumarchais, the brilliant author of "Figaro," the French Government had begun that system of pecuniary aid which it continued to render through the whole course of the war. Vergennes granted the Commissioners ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... "Alice is different from most country girls. Besides, she's lived in the city and knows city ways. Anyway, I sha'n't interfere; I know Mr. Sawyer is a respectable young man, and, by George! when he wants to do anything, don't he jest put it through. The way he sarcumvented that Strout was as ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... him? Gaffer Fenwick? You're a nice, respectable young monkey! Well, he's not half a bad-looking fellow; well set up." But none of this, though good in itself, is what Sally sat down to talk about. A sudden change in her manner, a new earnestness, makes the Major ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... wherever, within thirty feet, the fisherman wishes. That is the way the net behaved when Johnny threw it. And when Johnny arranged the net on Dick's arms, told him just what to do and watched him, Dick made some respectable throws, and thought he had learned the game; but now, away from his teacher, when he tried to cast it, net and leads went out in a solid mass that never could have caught anything, though it might have killed a fish by knocking it in ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... inform you, Mr. Armadale, that we are in luck's way so far. I asked the waterman to show me the regular men on the stand; and it turns out that one of the regular men drove Mrs. Mandeville. The waterman vouches for him; he's quite an anomaly—a respectable cabman; drives his own horse, and has never been in any trouble. These are the sort of men, sir, who sustain one's belief in human nature. I've had a look at our friend, and I agree with the waterman; I think ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... to the events which marked its progress. There is not a man living to-day, I trust, that does not wish they could be blotted out from our history. While watching the course of these events Mr. Lincoln chanced one day to be talking with his friend, Newton Bateman, a highly respectable and Christian gentleman, and Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois. I can only quote a part of the interview, as furnished by Mr. Bateman himself: "I know there is a God," said Lincoln; "and he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming. I know that his ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... such thing. There is a class of New York young people who are so 'loud' that respectable people cannot have anything to do with them without lowering themselves. Miss Van Duzen belongs ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... Rupprechts. They learned that the father had held some kind of inferior position about the Grand-duke's court, and was now dead, leaving a widow, a noble lady, and two daughters, the elder of whom was Sophie, my friend. Madame Rupprecht was not rich, but more than respectable—genteel. When this was ascertained, my father made no opposition to my going; Babette forwarded it by all the means in her power, and even my dear Fritz had his word to say in its favour. Only Kaetchen was against it—Kaetchen and Karl. The opposition of Karl did more to send me ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... violin because they have always known it associated with dancing and dissipation. Let it be understood that your violin is 'converted,' and such an obligation will no longer lie against it. ... Many delightful hours may be enjoyed by a young man, if he has obtained a respectable knowledge of his instrument, who otherwise would find the time hang heavy on his hands; or, for want of some better amusement, would frequent the dangerous and destructive paths of vice and be ruined forever. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... arrived together without distress at the "half-way house," by 1 P.M. Suppose a haystack hollowed out, and some holes cut for doors and windows, and you have a picture of the "half-way house," and the ordinary dwellings of the natives of these islands; it is kept by a respectable person, chiefly for the accommodation of travellers, and in it we found the comfort of a table, a piece of furniture by these people usually considered superfluous. Here we soon made ourselves snug, commencing by throwing ourselves on the mats, and allowing a dozen vigorous urchins ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... terrier were forgotten. It was therefore agreed, in a cabinet council held in the harness room, that we must make the best of it; and, as the dog would not leave the ponies, the best thing we could do, was to put a little flesh on his bones, and make him look respectable. We therefore victualled him that day, and put him on our books with the purser's name of Pompey. Now this dog proved, that sudden as was his attachment to the ponies, it was of the strongest quality. He never would and never has since left these animals. If turned out in the fields, he remains ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... contradictory character is the constant element of subtlety which blends with so much frankness. He wants to do wrong in many different ways but he wants still more to do it with propriety, and to have some sort of plausible excuse which will explain it in a respectable light. Nor is it only other people whom he is bent on deceiving. Were that all, we should have a very simple type of hypocritical scoundrel, which would be as different as possible from the extraordinary Pepys. There is a sense of propriety in him, and a ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... when a tumult reached their ears from outside, in which one voice was heard considerably louder and deeper than the rest; and almost immediately afterwards an old acquaintance of the reader's, to wit, the worthy student, Ambrose Gray, in a very respectable state of intoxication, made his appearance, charged with drunkenness, riot, and a blushing reluctance to pay his tavern reckoning. Mr. Gray was dragged in at very little expense of ceremony, it must be confessed, but with some prospective damage to his tailor, his clothes having received considerable ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... is a bad one, and who are bad workmen in the trade." Indeed there was a good deal of random hitting in the Enquiry, which was sure to provoke resentment. Why, for example, should he have gone out of his way to insult the highly respectable class of people who excel in mathematical studies? "This seems a science," he observes, "to which the meanest intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says 'All men might understand mathematics if they would.'" There was also in the first edition of ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... that they had resolved to conquer her virtue by imprisonment and starvation; and that she had magnanimously and patiently resisted all their efforts. The story was hawked about everywhere. It was spoken of in every tavern and at every dinner-table. The indignation of many respectable citizens was roused. They were parents, and had daughters of their own, who might be made the victims of the diabolical crew from which this poor girl had escaped. Many of them resolved to rally round her—avenge her wrongs, and punish the perpetrators. Elizabeth ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... man is an old scoundrel!" he said, his face crimson with indignation. "He should be in the galleys, and not at large among respectable people." ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... raised quite a respectable sum for the Red Cross by charging threepence admission to see a stuffed menagerie ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... The 'Irish Dairy Company' was attracting purchasers of shares. It was the kind of scheme which easily recommended itself to a host of the foolish people who are ever ready to risk their money, also to some not quite so foolish. The prospectus could show some respectable names: one or two Irish lords, a member of Parliament, some known capitalists. The profits could not but be considerable, and think of the good to 'the unhappy sister country'—as the circular said. Butter, cheese, eggs of unassailable genuineness, to be ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Christ and of the devil have both been cut about may be conjectured from their draperies being in part real linen or calico, and not terra-cotta; Christ's red shirt front is real, as also is a great part of the devil's dress. This last personage is a most respectable-looking patriarchal old Jewish Rabbi. I should say he was the leading solicitor in some such town as Samaria, and that he gave an annual tea to the choir. He is offering Christ some stones just as any other respectable person might do, and if it were not for his formidable two clawed feet there ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... girls of our school often amused themselves in recess by collecting into little groups for singing. As there seemed to be a sufficient power of voice, and a respectable number who were willing to join in the performance, it was proposed one day that singing should be introduced as a part of the devotional exercises ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... and others with them." [107:1] The court of Areopagus, long the highest judicial tribunal in the place, had not even yet entirely lost its celebrity; and the circumstance that Dionysius was connected with it, is a proof that this Christian convert must have been a respectable and influential citizen. He appears to have occupied a very high place among the primitive disciples; and the number of spurious writings ascribed to him [107:2] shew that his name was deemed a tower of strength to the cause with which it was associated. He seems to have been long at the head of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... vacancies in their Trust, made by death or resignation, by the major vote of the survivors; something like this I conceive will be most agreeable to the Right Honorable, Honorable, and generous benefactors who have accepted the Trust in England, and I apprehend it will make the design popular and respectable. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... cause of his need of money. He has taken, at Ghent, 'a preti house, and room in it to lodge a friend,' and he invites Dormer to be his guest. The house was near the Place de l'Empereur, in 'La Rue des Varnsopele' (?). He asks Dormer to send 'two keces of Books:' indeed, literature was his most respectable consolation. Old Waters had died, and young Waters was requested to be careful of Charles's portrait by La Tour, of his 'marble bousto' by Lemoine, and of his 'silver sheald.' To Madame La Grandemain he writes in a peremptory style: 'Malgre toute votre repugnance ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... husband had been drowned at sea. An Arab man thinks it a disgrace if any women related even distantly to him or his wife are thrown on the world to make their own living. It could never happen with an Arab woman if she were respectable. And even though my mother's sister was Spanish and a Christian, my father offered her and her boy a home. Already his own sister, Aunt Mabrouka, had come to stay with us, and had brought her son Tahar. Neither of the boys lived in the harem of course, for they ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... entitle you to wholesale prices; and pay cash in order to avail yourself of the lowest market price. Make your purchases as early in the day as possible in order to secure a choice of fresh articles; and trade with respectable dealers who give ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... productions of the fields, it is noticeable what trifling conventional prepossessions will, in common minds, not only preclude pleasure from the sight of natural beauty, but will even turn it into an object of disgust. 'If I had to do with this garden,' said a respectable person, one of my neighbours, 'I would sweep away all the black and dirty stuff from that wall.' The wall was backed by a bank of earth, and was exquisitely decorated with ivy, flowers, moss, and ferns, such as grow ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... cure for existing ills. Between the extremes of the Black Republican Negro Worshippers and the Southern Rights party of Breckenridge, your conservative had the choice of two candidates,—of Judge Douglas or Senator Bell. A most respectable but practically extinct body of gentlemen in ruffled shirts, the Old Line Whigs, had likewise met in Baltimore. A new name being necessary, they called themselves Constitutional Unionists Senator Bell was their candidate, and they ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... yourself down on that thar step and we'll have this here thing out. My boardin'-house is for gals. I fixed it so when I come here. There ain't scarcely a rowdy feller in Cottonville that hain't at one time or another had the notion he'd board with Pap Himes; but I've always kep' a respectable house, and I always aim to, I am a old man, and I bear a good name, and I'm the only man in this house, and I aim to stay so. Now, sir, there's my flatform; and you may ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... twentieth century with hope and cheer. With an enrollment of 94 congregations in the greater city and an advance patrol of many more in the Metropolitan District, it had become an army of respectable size among the forces striving for the Christian ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... presides at the head of the Supreme Judicature of the United States a Roman Catholic; and no man, I suppose, through the whole United States, imagines that the judicature of the country is less safe, that the administration of public justice is less respectable or less secure, because the Chief Justice of the United States has been, and is, an ardent adherent to that religion. And so it is in every department of society amongst us. In both Houses of Congress, in all public offices, and all public affairs, we proceed on ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... of a necklace for a nice young Irish gentleman of polite manners and respectable connexions," he exclaimed, still laughing away. "But I say, doctor, do bear a hand and get these brutes off me, for they are becoming ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... long to enjoy the happiness of his married life. Just as he had anticipated, he soon received orders to join his regiment; and parted from the chateau, leaving his young wife under the special care of an old and respectable domestic—the steward Juan de Dios Canelo. He parted from his home never more to return to it; for in the battle of Burgos, a French ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... with enormous mirrors which were surrounded by gaudy mouldings. Tables were everywhere, and all appeared to be occupied. Men and women in evening dress, men and women in morning clothes, some of the women painted, others ordinary respectable members of the bourgeoisie, were sitting and dining and smoking and chattering loudly. Glasses, cigarettes, bottles, all sorts of dishes, strewn upon the tables, caught Sally's bewildered eye. Above all, a scratching orchestra rasped out a selection ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... great poets; but they have produced lines and verses so good, and have, besides, exerted an influence so considerable on modern versification, and the style of poetical utterance, that they are entitled to a highly respectable place amidst the sons ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... away; and then she tells me that, in Sophie's delicate state, it really is abominable for me to increase her cares, and so I invite fellows to dine with me at Delmonico's, and then Sophie cries, and Sophie's mother says it doesn't look respectable for a family man to be dining at public places; but, hang it, a fellow ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... desperate a course to rely wholly on desperation. And as time went on the terrible truth slowly declared itself; the degraded class was really degenerating. It was right and proper enough to use a man as a tool; but the tool, ceaselessly used, was being used up. It was quite reasonable and respectable, of course, to fling a man away like a tool; but when it was flung away in the rain the tool rusted. But the comparison to a tool was insufficient for an awful reason that had already begun to dawn upon ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... to give up, and sit down on a doorstep to fetch his breath. Simon meanwhile, without once stopping, fled at the same degree of swiftness to The Boot, where, as he well knew, some of his company were lying, and at which respectable hostelry—for he had already acquired the distinction of being in great peril of the law—a friendly watch had been expecting him all night, and was even now on the look-out for ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... "The Modern Hep, Hep, Hep!" "to the divine gift of a memory which inspires the moments with a past, a present and a future, and gives the sense of corporate existence that raises man above the otherwise more respectable and innocent brute." The memories of the past lie mainly in the direction of national movements, and hence the higher moral life of the present must be associated with national memories. The glorious commonplaces of historic teaching, as ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... writing plainly that I am still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. ESTO PERPETUA! To have had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done him in the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of Newcastle once, and as the farmer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... world; we live and die for it—let us respect all who have convictions!"—I have actually heard such sentiments from the mouths of anti-Semites. On the contrary, gentlemen! An anti-Semite surely does not become more respectable because he lies on principle.... The priests, who have more finesse in such matters, and who well understand the objection that lies against the notion of a conviction, which is to say, of a falsehood that becomes a matter of principle because it serves a purpose, have borrowed from the Jews the ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... year, when he left home to go upon foreign voyages. Of his mother, he often spoke with the greatest respect, and said that she was a strong-minded woman, and had the best system of education he had ever known; a system which had made respectable men of his three brothers, and failed only in him, from his own indomitable obstinacy. One thing he often mentioned, in which he said his mother differed from all other mothers that he had ever seen disciplining ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... if it is assisted by respectable forces of men, contributes greatly both to their preservation and their chances of victory, but by itself is worth nothing. Nor is there any other profession that is of weight without persons to cooeperate and to aid in ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... I am an usurer. My dear sir, if all the usurers in this great metropolis could only pass in procession before you at this moment, how you would start! You might find some Right Honourables among them; many a great functionary, many a grave magistrate; fathers of families, the very models of respectable characters, patrons and presidents of charitable institutions, and subscribers for the suppression of those very gaming-houses whose victims, in nine cases out of ten, are their principal customers. I speak not in bitterness. On the whole, I must not complain of the world, but I have ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... faces and gleaming rows of teeth. These were my mother's servants; that was something that came near to my heart. I heard inquiries after "Mis' Felissy" and "Mass' Randolph," and then the question, "Mis' 'Lizy, is this little missis?" It was asked by an old, respectable-looking, grey-haired negress. I did not hear my aunt's answer; but I stopped and turned to the woman and laid my little hand in her withered palm. I don't know what there was in that minute; only I know that whereas I touched one hand, I touched a great many hearts. Then and there began my good ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... newspaper, and talked over by every scandal-monger on the face of the earth; was it any wonder—not that it was right—but was it any wonder that this high-spirited, educated woman, sprung from as respectable a family as any in the great State of Missouri, proud of her ancestry, and prizing her good name above everything on this earth, when she heard herself thus adjudged in one breath to be guilty of forgery, perjury, and unchastity, and thus degraded from the exalted position of ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... is a very ancient version, and as respectable or of as high authority as any. Leusden and Schaaf translate the Syriac thus: "Hoc autem, quod praecipio, non tanquam laudo vos, quia non progressi estis, sed ad id, quod minus est, descendistis." Compare this ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... his going away as being a good riddance, and declared him to be unfit for respectable society; but I did not answer them, and after ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... post had settled down to routine, the factor found in his mail, one morning, a long letter from the Chief Commissioner at Winnipeg. It told the factor that he was in bad repute, that the English Church bishop had been grieved, shocked, and scandalized through seeing the hitherto respectable factor going over to the Catholics. Not only had he fraternized with them, but had actually taken part in their religious ceremonies. And to crown it all, he had carried, a respectable Cree and the ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... are now unable to resist, if they were to try, the deed of shame their male companions are bent upon doing, in that closed carriage, whose driver has been ordered to go slowly, and we know what has taken place, as in after days we see these girls no more in respectable society, although their accomplices still appear as most elegant and highly ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... which has never been published, but which the writer of this work has examined in manuscript, shows a condition of society far from exemplary, and it also shows that persons whose position ought to have been respectable, sometimes took Indians either as wives or in a less honorable relation. There is, perhaps, more Indian blood in New England than is generally supposed, and the earlier inhabitants of that section were probably less exclusive toward the aborigines than is assumed in conventional ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... house. It is on this ground that I have dismissed several young serving-maids and depend on the services of Mrs Symes. I don't quite know what your views may be about Miss Palmer, but as I hear you are apprenticed in Bristol to a respectable goldsmith I should wish to make it plain that I can have ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... Mischief, Art and Guile has stooped to many things but to conquer himself and be his own best friend; that is, according to the conception of the ordinary, respectable, get-on folk of the world. He has followed more or less the wild, shifting impulses of his nature—restless and reckless, if aimless and harmless; fickle and passionate, if rebelliously natural; exhausting ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... to spend, but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin it to her dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before she goes into the house;—there may be poor women that will think it worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry such things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers any too well,—in fact, I never saw but one, and she—or he, or it—had a mob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as if she had ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... their freight. The ladies were prettily gowned, their faces were bright and animated, and Ben observed that most of the gentlemen wore dress suits; but also, much to his relief, that a number, sufficient to make at least a respectable minority, did not. He was rapidly making up his mind to enter, when Colonel French's carriage, drawn by a pair of dashing bays and driven by a Negro in livery, dashed up to the door and discharged Miss Graciella Treadwell, radiantly beautiful in a new low-cut pink gown, with pink flowers ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... rezina. Resist kontrauxbatali, kontrauxstari. Re-sole (boots, etc.) replandumi. Resolute decida. Resolution decideco. Resolve decidi. Resonant resona. Resort kunvenejo. Resound resoni. Resource rimedo. Respect respekti. Respect respekto. Respectable respektinda. Respectful respekta. Respecting (concerning) pri. Respirable spirebla. Respiration spirado. Respire spiri. Resplendent, to become briligxi. Respond respondi. Response respondo. Responsible for, to be garantii, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... mastiff-bloodhound I have, in pursuit. Couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. They were coming towards us with professional mystery, and he was in the air on his way to the throat of an eminently respectable constable when ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... not consist in the cowardly abandonment of their friends in the moment when danger menaces them, but in adhering strictly, if they can do no better, to the obligations they have contracted with them. It is by such proceedings that they will render themselves respectable to all the powers; that they will preserve their friends and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... at once," said the man in black, "in the house of two highly respectable Catholic ladies in this neighbourhood, where she would be treated with every care and consideration till her conversion should be accomplished in a regular manner; we would then remove her to a female monastic establishment, where, after ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... large and beautifully-kept greenhouse, Hutchinson came from the further end of it to meet them an old man, of most respectable appearance. He bowed very civilly, and then slipped his pruning-knife into his left hand, to leave the right at liberty for John, who shook ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fear that I was something of a fop, though I carried neither spy-glass nor the two watches sacred to all fops. But if I loved dress, so did his Excellency, and John Hancock, not to name a thousand better men than I; and while I confess that I did and do dearly love to cut a respectable figure, frippery for its own sake was not among my vices; but I hold him a hind who, if he can afford it, dresses not to please others and do justice to the figure that a generous Creator has so patiently fashioned. "To ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... present time the Rev. Marshall W. Taylor, D. D., and the Rev. Wm. M. Butler are the most prominent men in the Church. Marshall William Boyd (alias) Taylor was born July 1, 1846, at Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky, of poor, uneducated, but respectable parents. He was the fourth in a family of five children, three of whom were boys, viz.: George Summers, Francis Asbury, and himself; and two girls, Mary Ellen and Mary Cathrine. He is of Scotch-Irish and Indian descent ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... was a sepulchral and also clerical odour, yet there was also something homelike—though a little too imposing—about it such as is not to be found in the cardboard houses they build nowadays. You could see at a glance that it did not harbour the apartment house promiscuities: decent, respectable couples with kept women for neighbours. The house pleased him, and he considered Hyacinthe the more desirable for ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the one quality I still show; all my other qualities (hope, among them) often seem to have pretty much taken leave of me; but it is necessary to hold by this last. Pray for me; I will complain no more at present. General Washington gained the freedom of America— chiefly by this respectable quality I talk of; nor can a history of Frederick be written, in Chelsea in the year 1855, except as against hope, and by planting yourself upon it ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... heretics, or what we should call the orthodox Brahmans, he says: "The Brahmanas are regarded throughout the five divisions of India as the most respectable. They do not walk with the other three castes, and other mixed classes of people are still further dissociated from them. They revere their Scriptures, the four Vedas, containing about 100,000 verses.... The Vedas are handed down from mouth to mouth, not written on paper. There ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... notoriously lax. Other Members were friendly to the project, and Mr. DENNIS HERBERT, in the avowed interest of churchwardens, urged the Government to seize the opportunity to abolish the threepeeny-bit, the irreducible minimum of "respectable" almsgiving. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, however, stoutly championed the elusive little coin, for which he declared there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... doubt about it. The respectable and greatly-trusted Sam was letting off a series of wild howls which would have done credit to a penny-gaff Zulu, and was evidently very much out of temper ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... was two hundred and thirty-five men. General Thompson, sustained by Governor William P. Duval, continued to urge upon the Government, an increase of the military force. The latter, in a letter to the Secretary of War, informed that official that even with a respectable military force stationed at Fort Brooke and Tampa Bay the agent and superintendents would have much difficulty in carrying the treaty of Payne's Landing into effect. The necessity for additional military force was urged by Generals ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... that respectability from manner, which is denied to the lowness of their condition, and the vulgarity of their occupation; and they therefore assume the manner which is associated in their minds, and in the minds of their observers, with situations acknowledged to be respectable. ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... professions—puts the instruments of man-making into their hands and tells them to work out their manhood. And the most of them do it somehow; not always very well. The men who fail to make themselves a respectable manhood are the boys who are put to no business, the young men who have nothing to do, the male beings that have no Employment. We have them about us—walking nuisances—pestilential gas-bags—fetid air-bubbles, who burst and are gone. Our men of wealth and character, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... of our independence and sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign, with satisfaction, the appointment I accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the Union, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... 'Long had she worn, and now Belinda wears,' he quoted. 'My dear Mettle, the effect is better than the detail. You should spare us the pedigree, however respectable.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nothing else. Self-interest cannot keep him from that sin. I do not believe that self-interest ever kept any man from any SIN, though it may keep him from many an imprudence. Self-interest may make many a man respectable, but whom did it ever make good? You may as well make house-walls of paper, or take a rush for a walking- stick, as take self-interest to keep you upright, or even prudent. The first shake—and the rush bends, and the paper ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... alone?" said a respectable elder who had been enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval the grin of satisfied wit faded from the ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... and what the demon do you mean by going back to the old leaves? You've come home from foreign parts to your old and doting mother—I thought she would be in her dotage by this time—and you're a responsible citizen, and an eminently rich and respectable man. Carl, my boy, forget the past, and behave yourself for the future; as the copy-books say: 'Be virtuous ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... eve there was a ball at the Hotel (Col. Henry's), a very decently conducted and a very respectable assemblage of the worthy mechanics and that class of society. I was present, and would not wish to see better conduct, better dress, and better looking Ladies!!! There was perfect neatness of dress, without as much Indian finery ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... of songs and ballads resounds from every branch, we hear from Russian groves only solitary voices, and these voices seem to be exhausted almost as soon as they are heard. A volume of twenty sheets is in general considered in Russia as quite a respectable collection. Pushkin is almost the only one of their poets, whose ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... conquest was by no means concluded. Some refused to stir, others started off at such a pace as speedily brought the holder of the halter on his nose. One respectable old gentleman, in gray stockings and knee-breeches, lost his animal in much less time than it took him to extract the sixpence ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... life extended over three years, from October, 1791, to December, 1794. It was an unhappy time for him and an uneasy time for his respectable relatives, for reasons that were partly in his own nature and partly in the temper ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in Australia, and afforded a regular coast-communication between Sydney and the northern portion of the colony. The land communication became, in consequence, an object of less importance than before, to the small handful of settlers at least, although it was not the less essential to a respectable government, or where an armed force had been organised, as in New South Wales, solely for the suppression of bushrangers, a sub-genus in the order banditti, which, happily, can no longer exist, except in places inaccessible to the mounted police. The ascent northward ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... which destroy your hunger without exactly satisfying you. For myself, after a pretty good run of French cookery (and it beats the world for making the most out of little), when I sat down again to what the eminently respectable waiter in white and black calls "a dinner off the Joint, sir," with what belongs to it, and ended up with an attack on a section of a cheese as big as a bass-drum, not to forget a pewter mug of amber liquid, I felt as if I had touched bottom again,—got ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... for maintaining the peace of Europe; or even should this be refused, they saw no reason for Britain exhausting her wealth and strength to support a chimerical balance, in which her interest was but remotely concerned. It was their opinion, that by keeping aloof she might render herself more respectable. Her reserve would overawe contending powers; they would in their turn sue for her assistance, and implore her good offices; and, instead of declaring herself a party, she would have the honour to decide as arbitress of their disputes. Perhaps they extended this idea ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... lives, bringing bane to strangers?' The same question is addressed to Odysseus by Polyphemus, and was plainly the first thing thought of when a seafaring stranger was encountered. As among the Highlanders and Borderers of Scotland, cattle-lifting was looked upon as a perfectly respectable form of employment, and stolen cattle were considered a quite proper gift for a prospective bridegroom to offer to his father-in-law. The power of the strong hand was, in most respects, supreme, and the rights of a tribe or a city were respected more on account of the ability ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in every respectable mind. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... good? Your grief, my friend, is so respectable! It was my duty to treat it kindly. To have informed you of this misfortune, which I knew would pain you so greatly, D'Artagnan, would have been, in your eyes, to have triumphed over you. Yes, I knew that M. de Valon had buried himself beneath the rocks of Locmaria; I knew ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... have some lavender-leaves, and if you will draw up the line, I will rub the fly over with them, for fish love the smell of lavender. Try him with that. Ah, I see him—a respectable fish. He is coming up toward the hook; I ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... suitable for the day and our destination— New York, to-wit, and Sunday—when forth came Tom, bedizened from top to toe in his most new and knowing rig, and looking now, to do him justice, a most respectable and ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... that an example of such terrible enormity should be allowed to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society of respectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think more lightly of all forms of illness; neither can it be permitted that you should have the chance of corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you. The unborn must not be allowed to ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... apathy; apathy cannot know the virtue. Remember, too, that one act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions. The miser, who thinks himself respectable, merely because he possesses wealth, and thus mistakes the means of doing good, for the actual accomplishment of it, is not more blameable than the man of sentiment, without active virtue. You may have ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... them thoroughly. In spite of this, however, they have not attracted the kind of tenant they were intended for. Many of them have apartments to let. The house we have to do with is No. 7. The even numbers are on one side of the road, the odd on the other. No. 5 is a boarding-house of a very respectable kind, frequented by young fellows in business chiefly. No. 9 is occupied by a man who, after retiring from business comparatively wealthy, had financial losses. His four daughters have had to go out and work. ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the serious turn of his mind; but, his son having made choice of the medical profession, he was readily induced to acquiesce. In consequence of this determination, Mungo Park was bound apprentice at the age of fifteen to Mr. Thomas Anderson, a respectable surgeon in Selkirk, with whom he resided three years; continuing, at the same time, to pursue his classical studies and to attend occasionally at the grammar school. In the year 1789, he quitted Mr. Anderson, and removed ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... hadn't been so, he would not have missed his shot. He must do something for a living, and he thought that throwing dirty water was as good an occupation as any other. Had made money out of it by threatening respectable people with his pewter squirt, and they would give him money rather than have their clothes soiled. He would do anything to make money; and he didn't in the least mind dirtying his hands ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... the big evening papers. You are well educated, and I know you are energetic. You are keen on everything connected with the police, and you'll get on splendidly as a reporter. You will be able to earn an honest and respectable name that way. Would you like ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... went on with a change of tone. "Of course, though, what I really want is to help him pass the time, if I can. He must be very lonely for thoroughly congenial people. Must you go? Be sure you give the poor dear man my message. And good bye. Next time, I do hope I shall have a respectable maid to let you out. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... surgeon, he was married in August, 1852, and since that time he has practised medicine in Boston. Earning a good reputation here by his diligence and skill, he was admitted a member of the Medical Society, as above stated. Many of our most respectable physicians visit and advise with him whenever counsel is required. The Boston medical profession, it must be acknowledged, has done itself honor in thus discarding the law of caste, and generously acknowledging real merit, without regard to the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams |
