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Self-condemnation   Listen
noun
Self-condemnation  n.  Condemnation of one's self by one's own judgment.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Self-condemnation" Quotes from Famous Books



... me the wildest possible perversion of the Puritan instinct for self-condemnation and, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... her shoulders wrapped in a serious-toned pelerine, said little. Jasper Penny instinctively excluded her from a trivial conversation. She was, he decided, paler than usual, the shadows under her eyes were indigo. He was filled with self-condemnation. Mrs. Penny, gazing at her with a beady discernment, asked if her rest had been interrupted. "I am always an indifferent sleeper," Susan Brundon replied evasively. He followed her into the carriage that was to take her to the station at Jaffa; and, ignoring ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... his last hours at the University in the dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking. Only one of his friends was invited to his room that night and he no denizen of "Rowdy Row," but the quiet, irreproachable librarian. To this gentle guest The Dreamer confided his past sins and his penitence, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... we will now resume our narrative, was also, ever since her tiff with Pao-yue, full of self-condemnation, yet as she did not see why she should run after him, she continued, day and night, as despondent as she would have been had she lost some thing or other belonging ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... companions, the result might have been different and Martel might at this moment be on his way to Rome with his bride, alive and well. On such occasions he felt like a murderer. But his mind was not always undivided in this self-condemnation; there were times when with some show of justice he told himself that the result would have been the same or even worse if he had fought; and he tried to ease his conscience by dwelling on the possibility that under other circumstances he might not have proved a coward. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... will now resume our narrative, was also, ever since her tiff with Pao-y, full of self-condemnation, yet as she did not see why she should run after him, she continued, day and night, as despondent as she would have been had she lost some thing or ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the church is broadening out. Thinking men believe that religion should not be an auto-intoxication of self-condemnation or worry, sobs and misery. Because so much of this sort of teaching is prevalent the church is not making the gains it should. The church is largely supported by nice little women, many of them maiden ladies ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... something. The Judge's method was skillfully chosen to give him this advantage: it made his meaning clear while it gave no possible opening for a reply to the real idea his words conveyed, and forced his listener to an embarrassed silence of self-condemnation, that secured the Judge in his assumed position ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... she doubted the existence of that passion, every letter from Mary Greville would have confirmed it; for we will not say it was jealousy she felt, it was more self-condemnation and regret, heightened at times almost into wretchedness. That St. Eval should so soon forget her, that he should love again ere six months had passed, could not fail to be a subject of bitter mortification to one in whose bosom pride still rested. She would not have thus ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... casually, in fact; but her heart was torn to the depths about this baby. Life never would be even what it had been before Polly left them, for into her going there entered an element of self-reproach and continual self-condemnation. Adam felt that if he had been less occupied with Milly York and had taken proper care of his sister, he would not have lost her. Kate had less time for recrimination, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... dislike and loathing of her proceedings during the last year grew more strongly upon her. The sense of her faults had been latent in her mind for months past, but the struggle of her external life had kept it down, until now it came forth with an overpowering force of grief and self-condemnation. It was not merely her sins against Mr. Fotheringham and Lord St. Erme that oppressed her, it was the perception of the wilful and rebellious life she had led, while making so high ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... grief at Stephen's loss he had given no thought to any one else. He had expected Clare to be like himself, had made no allowance for differences of temperament, had.... Poor Peter had never before known an hour of such miserable self-condemnation. Had he known where to find him he would have gone that very ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... and looked so forlorn and heartbroken and ashamed as she faltered out her woeful story; so consumed with self-condemnation, making no excuse for herself except to repeat over and over again that she had never meant to do wrong, that Nora could not refrain from weeping ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... outcome of Miss Greeb's very lively imagination; yet, even though he reduced her communications to bare facts, he could not but acknowledge that there was something queer about Mr. Berwin and his mode of life. The man's self-pity and self-condemnation; his hints that certain people wished to do him harm; the curious episode of the shadows on the blind—these things engaged the curiosity of Denzil in no ordinary degree; and he could not but admit to himself that it would greatly ease his mind to arrive at some reasonable explanation ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... generations, but which must, after all, yield the palm, as a literary production, to the writings of Bunyan, who, like Augustine, gave himself up to all the agony of unsparing personal examination and relentless self-condemnation, anatomizing his very soul, and dragging forth every sin ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... upright man cannot be happy if he is not first conscious of his uprightness; since with such a character the reproach that his habit of thought would oblige him to make against himself in case of transgression and his moral self-condemnation would rob him of all enjoyment of the pleasantness which his condition might otherwise contain). But the question is: How is such a disposition possible in the first instance, and such a habit of thought ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... of Black Moran, known far and wide as the hardest man in the North. And, now, there was no Black Moran—only a grotesquely sprawled thing—and a slush of crimson snow. The boy was conscious of no sense of regret—no thought of self-condemnation—for he knew too well the man's record. This man who had lived in open defiance of the laws of God and of man had met swift death at the hand of the savage law of the North. The law that the men of the outlands ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... gold shipment aboard," he explained in a low voice, and added in bitter self-condemnation: "He sent me along to guard it, and I never even fired a ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... Parker, but the flight sub-commander had been most explicit in his instructions on that head. "If you by any chance lose Parker," he had said, "come back." He had lost Parker, right enough. That was about the first thing he had done, he thought to himself with some feeling of self-condemnation. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll

... at this psychological instant that the wave of self-condemnation suddenly burst upon and submerged the young clergyman. It passed again, leaving him staring fixedly at the pile of books he had taken down from the shelves, and gasping a little, as if for breath. Then the humorous side of the thing, perversely enough, appealed ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... The noble man was much enamored, and Jane unconsciously gratified. It is true, love had never entered her thoughts in its direct and unequivocal form; but admiration is so consoling to those laboring under self-condemnation, and flattery of a certain kind so very soothing to all, it is not to be wondered that she listened with increasing pleasure to the interesting conversation of Harland on all occasions, and more particularly, as often happened, when ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... Callender's bearing toward him did not reassure Millard. He thought she might have called him Charley; or if that was not just the thing to do, she might have made her voice a little less frosty. He could not get rid of a certain self-condemnation regarding Phillida, and he conjectured that her family were disposed to condemn him also. He thought they ought to consider how severely his patience had been tried; but then they could not know how Phillida was talked about. How could they ever ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... I dwell, with self-condemnation and shame, upon this part of my story. To feel extraordinary indignation at vice, merely because we have partaken in an extraordinary degree of its mischiefs, is unjustifiable. To regard the wicked with no emotion but pity, to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The old Adam is only too glad to get a word in, if even in behalf of his supplanting successor." Then he rose, and, taking my mother by the arm, walked away with her. I confess I honored him for his self-condemnation the most. I must add that the offending nurse had been ten years in the family, and ought to ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... was there ever great remorse? The cases are not many; before the self-condemnation of a dying man and the final scene, friendship may feel it best to draw the veil. Yet one case of this poignant regret is worthy consideration, ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... have next the self-condemnation from unwilling lips. Our Lord turns to the rulers with startling and dramatic suddenness, which may have thrown them off their guard, so that their answer leaped out before they had time to think ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... an error which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must have been horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before that it was his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He would ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she, seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she could not give an opinion, he would say, "That's because you didn't know my mother's nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so; but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... silently down beside her, and gently withdrawing her hand, placed it within mine. A dreadful feeling of self-condemnation shot through me as I felt the gentle pressure of her taper fingers, which rested without a struggle in my grasp. My tears fell hot and fast upon that pale hand, as I bent in sadness over it, unable to utter a word. A rush of conflicting thoughts passed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... require more careful treatment than those of their tougher-fibred brothers. Many parents reproach themselves for not having enforced their own convictions on their children in the face of every inborn antagonism they encountered. Let them not be too severe in their self-condemnation. A want of judgment in this matter has sent many a young person to Bedlam, whose nature would have opened kindly enough if it had only been trusted to the sweet influences of morning sunshine. In such cases it may be that the state we call insanity is not always an unalloyed evil. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... error, we may readily suppose that Lucy never for a moment admitted the supposition that Clifford had been really guilty of gross error or wilful crime. True that expressions in his letter were more than suspicious; but there is always a charm in the candour of self-condemnation. As it is difficult to believe the excellence of those who praise themselves, so it is difficult to fancy those criminal who condemn. What, too, is the process of a woman's reasoning? Alas! she is too credulous a physiognomist. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." The lesson he drew from the words was God's recognition of the fallibility of human judgment, and the self-condemnation brought about by ignoring the prohibition in the text. By an effort, he spoke deliberately at first, but the fire in his heart came out more and more in his words as he progressed. "Blinded by our own prejudices," he said, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... troubled looks of his mother and the disturbed manner of his father, that the secret of his late visits abroad, as well as of the unexpected advent of the family visited, had, in some way, become known to them in his absence. A feeling of mingled delicacy and self-condemnation, however, prevented him from making any inquiries; and, with a commonplace remark, which was received in silence, he took a seat, and, with much inward trembling, awaited the expected denouement. But it did not come so soon nor in so harsh terms as he expected. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... passed the night without sleep, in melancholy reflections on the vanity of young men, which prompts them to commit so many foolish actions, contrary to their own sober judgment. Next day, however, instead of profiting by this self-condemnation, I yielded still more to the dictates of the principle I had endeavoured to chastise, and if fortune had not befriended me more than prudence could expect, I should have been treated with the contempt it deserved. After breakfast my lady, who was a true author, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... would have been a better ground of distress, considering the frailty of human nature, and the violent temptations he lay under; if he had been at last prevailed upon to profess himself a Mahometan: For then his remorse, and self-condemnation, would have been natural, his punishment just, and the character of Eudocia placed in a more amiable light. In answer to these objections, and in order to do justice to the judgment of Mr. Hughes, we must observe, that he formed his play ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... himself. Should a man make confession of guilt before a legally constituted tribunal, such confession is not to be used against him unless properly attested by two other witnesses,'—Maimonides, 4:2. 'Not only is self-condemnation never extorted from the defendant by means of torture, but no attempt is ever made to lead him on to self-incrimination. Moreover, a voluntary confession on his part is not admitted in evidence, and therefore not competent ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... a self-condemnation to which, even though loving her as fervently as I did, I could not altogether ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... man's candle burns brighter than his, every man improves grace better than he, every good man does more sincerely his duty than he. And if these be not some of the effects of the renewings of grace, I will confess I have taken my mark amiss. (6.) Renewings of grace beget renewed self-bemoanings, self-condemnation, self-abhorrences. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... most part he was silent. While not attempting any definite analysis of his feelings, he was distinctly conscious of conflicting emotions. He was deeply touched by the kindness of Mr. Underwood and Mrs. Dean, and felt a sort of self-condemnation that he was not more responsive to their affection. He knew that their home and hearts were alike open to him; that he was as welcome as one of their own flesh and blood; yet he experienced a sense of relief at having escaped ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... express herself always as affectionately as she felt; failed to avoid giving slight occasions of offence, although she "never, never meant to do it!" In short she was, strange to say, a victim to self-condemnation. When the Gospel of Jesus came to her, telling, as it does, that "God is Love," that Christ came to sweep away for ever the very sins that troubled her, and that His Holy Spirit would fight for and in her, so as to make her ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... party left to fill up its share, as had been done in former Coalition Ministries. He had seen Lord Palmerston, who was not willing to give up the Foreign Office—spoke of retiring from business at his age, of his success in conducting Foreign Affairs, and of its being a self-condemnation if he accepted another Office. Lord John told him that he did not agree in this view, that the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland was to be maintained, and thought it best to leave it there. He thought Lord Palmerston had given up the idea of leading the House of Commons. We ascertained ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... was a Unitarian or not, my behaviour to Ellen showed I was bad enough to be one. Anyhow, he had forbidden her all further intercourse with me. When I had once more settled down in my solitude, and came to think over what had happened, I felt the self-condemnation of a criminal without being able to accuse myself of a crime. I believe with Miss Arbour that it is madness for a young man who finds out he has made a blunder, not to set it right; no matter what the wrench ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... and the all-pervading stench of the port. This was, in itself, sufficiently distasteful, sufficiently depressing. And to Richard, just now, the disgust of it came with the heightened sensibility of physical illness, and as accompaniment to an immense private shame and immense self-condemnation, a conviction of outlawry and a desolation passing speech. He looked for comfort, for promise of restoration, and found none, in things material or things intellectual, in others or in himself. For ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... it is perfectly all right!" she repeated hurriedly, anxious to escape the distasteful subject, still smarting under the lash of her own self-condemnation—her own ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... was altogether groundless, and not even a relief from aching heads and self-condemnation could have induced the subjects of Macora to drink any more ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... perplexity, for I could not follow the bent of her thoughts, nor appreciate the feelings that moved her. I was, however, considerably touched, and upbraided myself for not having hitherto done justice to the depth and sincerity of nature which underlay her external frivolity. I expressed this self-condemnation to Denny Swinton, but he met it very coldly, and would not be drawn into any discussion of the subject. Denny was not wont to conceal his opinions, and had never pretended to be enthusiastic about my engagement. This attitude of his had not troubled me before, but I was annoyed at it ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... rumination. I had grown familiar with him from repeated conversations, and had found him superior in mind to the rest of the band. I was anxious to seize every opportunity of sounding the feelings of these singular beings. I fancied I read in the countenance of this one traces of self-condemnation and remorse; and the ease with which I had drawn forth the confidence of the chieftain encouraged me to hope the same ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... and that, as a rat in the mouth of a practised terrier. You will leave out some word or letter in your answer, and the ignorance of the cathedral clergy will be harped upon; you will make some small mistake, which will be a falsehood, or some admission, which will be self-condemnation; you will find yourself to have been vulgar, ill-tempered, irreverend, and illiterate, and the chances are ten to one, but that being a clergyman, you will have been guilty of blasphemy! A man may ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... stubbornly. "A block of solid ivory from the collar up. I'm—I'm young in the head," he concluded, with supreme effort of self-condemnation. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... trunk and worked all night, dry-eyed, with agony and fear tearing at her heart. The iron will had snapped at last, like a broken reed, and fierce self-condemnation seized on her. "I've been a wicked ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... he growled, in tones of self-condemnation. "If ever I was done by a crafty jade, I've been done ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter

... which drove him to his rebellion lay at her door, not to feel at least that she had nothing but dread and horror for the threatened doom. She had no love for him; it came home to her now with a strange new sense of self-condemnation; she had married him for her own pleasure, because he interested her and made life seem dull without him. She pleaded no more that he had killed her love; it had never been there to kill. Had she left him to find a woman who loved him in and for ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... that, in dealing with them, he allowed himself to be carried away neither by pride nor cowardice. And if the worst should come to the worst, then let him face it like a man! There was a certain manliness about him which showed itself perhaps as strongly in his own self-condemnation as in any other part of his conduct at this time. Judging of himself, as though he were standing outside himself and looking on to another man's work, he pointed out to himself his own shortcomings. If it were all to be done again he thought that he could avoid this bump ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... bitterness to his soul. He had obliged himself to treat her with paternal kindness: he had forced himself not to hate her, and even, perhaps, to feel some degree of kindly regard for her, at last, in return for her artless and unsuspecting attachment to himself; but the bitterness of his self-condemnation for his inward feelings towards that innocent being, his constant struggles to subdue the evil promptings of his nature (for it was not a generous one), though partly guessed at by those who knew him, could be known to God and his own heart alone;—so also was the hardness ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... was with a real estate firm trying to secure applications for a mortgage. The commission was $25, but, naturally, that did not go far toward expenses. It was not long before I was in a bad mental condition again through worrying, self-condemnation, and uncertainty. It would not have been difficult to prove ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... look cold desolation meets me. My father—Andre—and self-condemnation! Why seek I Andre now? Am I a man, To soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and ...
— Andre • William Dunlap

... it by force, on account of his refusal to go of his own accord, and perhaps to be held there, or even to be tied. Cases requiring treatment so decisive as this must be very rare with children under ten years of age; and when they occur, the mother has reason to feel great self-condemnation—or at least great self-abasement—at finding that she has failed so entirely in the first great moral duty of the mother, which is to train her children to complete submission to her authority from ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... let me utter a word of protest against any and every form of affectation. It always arouses contempt; in the first place, because it argues deception, and the deception is cowardly, for it is based on fear; and, secondly, it argues self-condemnation, because it means that a man is trying to appear what he is not, and therefore something which he things better than he actually is. To affect a quality, and to plume yourself upon it, is just to confess that you have not got it. ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... and his second appear. Stangrave is haggard, not from fear, but from misery, and rage, and self-condemnation. This is the end of all his fine resolves! Pah! what use in them? What use in being a martyr in this world? All men are ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... why I stopped writing," said Glory Goldie, with a little laugh. There was something strong and sturdy about the girl then, as formerly. She was not one of those who torture themselves with remorse and self-condemnation. "Don't think any more of that, mother," she added, as Katrina did not speak. "I've been doing real well lately. For a time I kept a restaurant and now, I'll have you know, I'm head stewardess on a steamer that runs ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's life—certainly much of his own dishonor. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... God—"The things that are impossible with men are possible with God"! "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to all good work." Do let us believe that God's call to much prayer need not be a burden and cause of continual self-condemnation. He means it to be a joy. He can make it an inspiration, giving us strength for all our work, and bringing down His power to work through us in our fellowmen. Let us not fear to admit to the full ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray

... personal ill-treatment. Her flushed countenance and agitated manner were at times indexes of passion, revenge, and self-love; for a moment the feeling is strong and irresistible, then calms again with the holier sentiments of remorse and self-condemnation. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... had to sell it," cried his wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I should be GLAD if we had to, as far ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... arm gently. "You mustn't think like that, Steve," she said gently. "You've done enough useless self-condemnation. Can't you stop accusing yourself of some evil factor? Something that ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... cordiality; and it depressed me again—started me down toward those depths of self-condemnation from which I had been held up for a few days by the excitement of the swiftly thronging events and by the necessity of putting my whole mind upon ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... whole army being filled with tears and distracted after this fashion found it not easy to go, even from an enemy's land, where they had already suffered evils too great for tears and in the unknown future before them feared to suffer more. Dejection and self-condemnation were also rife among them. Indeed they could only be compared to a starved-out town, and that no small one, escaping; the whole multitude upon the march being not less than forty thousand men. All carried anything they could which might be of use, and the heavy ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... Bunyan is the history of a most excitable mind in an age of excitement. By most of his biographers he has been treated with gross injustice. They have understood in a popular sense all those strong terms of self-condemnation which he employed in a theological sense. They have, therefore, represented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed by means almost miraculous, or, to use their favourite metaphor, "as a brand plucked from the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was moderately cheerful, but when the night watches came, and Old Peg took her place beside him, and memory had time to commence with him undisturbed, the deed of which he had had been guilty was forced upon him; Conscience was awakened, and self-condemnation was the result. Yet, so inconsistent is poor humanity that self-exculpation warred with self-condemnation in the same brain! The miserable man would have given all he possessed to have been able to persuade himself that his act was purely one of self-defence—as no doubt to some extent it ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... with a strange mingled feeling of relief and apprehension. The relief was a salve that touched his wounded conscience gently. If he had sinned, at least this physician's letter told him that by his sin he had accomplished something beneficent. And for the moment self-condemnation ceased to scourge him. The apprehension that quickly beset him rose from the knowledge that Sir Graham was in danger so long as he was in the Island. But how could he be persuaded to leave it? ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... these words of self-condemnation. Joyce, I reflected, mundanely, had clearly swept her off her feet in the ardor of their first meeting and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... two days of unrest and self-condemnation, I quieted myself with the assurance that I would go to the Hall and see Mr. Bristed; then also I could see dear Herbert, to whom my heart went often out with longing. His name was never mentioned between Richard and myself. I avoided the subject; a dread which ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... witnessed his success in destroying the presence of mind of that weak wretch who was endeavouring to do his best in the cause of justice. And again, when Mr. Chaffanbrass had seized hold of that poor dram, and used all his wit in deducing from it a self-condemnation from the woman before him;—when the practised barrister had striven to show that she was an habitual drunkard, dishonest, unchaste, evil in all her habits, Graham had felt almost tempted to get up and take ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... she left the shop, closing the door so sharply in her self-condemnation as to set the little bell upon it ringing as if it had gone mad. She could hear its metallic tinkle till she was close upon the church. Here other sounds filled her ears. There was a light in the church, and Fred Hurst was there playing one ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... practice is perpetually haunted with most troublesome companions, inward regret and self-condemnation, fear and disquiet: the conscience of dealing so unworthily doth smite and rack him; he is ever in danger, and thence in fear to be discovered, and requited for it. Of these passions the manner of his behaviour is a manifest indication: for men do seldom vent their ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... nodded. "I've heard that contended. Somebody says that self-condemnation is only self-conceit turned wrong ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... same time were to be seen the citizens flying into the country for safety, and the inhabitants of the country coming to seek shelter in the city. 7. In this universal confusion, Pompey felt all that repentance and self-condemnation, which must necessarily arise from the remembrance of having advanced his rival to his present pitch of power: wherever he appeared, many of his former friends were ready to tax him with his supineness, and sarcastically to reproach ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... Wilton players that for the moment he could not rise. With horrified gaze he saw the leather oval roll free and he felt the overwhelming shame of one who has failed to be equal to the demands of a crisis. But his feeling of self-condemnation immediately gave way to an entirely different emotion, for a swiftly moving pair of legs incased in the Ridgley red and white came within the range of his vision. He glanced up and saw that it was Neil Durant. Two Wilton players were after the ball also, but the Ridgley captain was ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... the heights above, and broke with bitter fury in his face. He struggled against it vigorously for a time till he gained a point whence he saw the dark blue sea lashing on the cliffs below. He looked up at the pass which was almost hid by the driving sleet. A feeling of regret and self-condemnation at having so readily given in to Grady was mingled with a strong sense of the duty that he had to discharge as he once more breasted the steep. The bitter cold began to tell on his exhausted frame. In such ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... and confusion." The old man was lashing himself into a white rage, while Thomas sat looking stolidly before him, his slow tongue finding no words of defense. And indeed, he had little thought of defending himself. He was conscious of an acute self-condemnation, and yet, struggling through his slow-moving mind there was a feeling that in some sense he could not define, there was justification for ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... has so nobly and frankly taken upon himself the blame of Nicholson's Nek that an impartial historian must rather regard his self-condemnation as having been excessive. The immediate causes of the failure were undoubtedly the results of pure ill-fortune, and depended on things outside his control. But it is evident that the strategic plan which would justify the presence of this ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... unworthiness, and fear of keeping out a better man, brought his spirits down to the lowest ebb; nevertheless, he went to meet the representatives of the Society at New York, and there, though between the hubbub of the town and his own perpetual self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so well satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition that he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red men between the Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a dispute between these and the Government, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... was dishonourable. That went without saying. He had failed ignominiously from the outset to behave as an upright and honourable man. Self-analysis laid his pride in the dust and made him writhe in self-condemnation. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... requirements of the Gospel, and my friends, who had no misgivings on the subject of public worship, were resolved not to tolerate a change. I kept the usual course as long as I could do so without self-condemnation, but at length was constrained to change. One Sunday night I preached from the concluding words of the Sermon on the Mount,—"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker



Words linked to "Self-condemnation" :   self-accusation, accusal, confession



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