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Shame   /ʃeɪm/   Listen
Shame

noun
1.
A painful emotion resulting from an awareness of inadequacy or guilt.
2.
A state of dishonor.  Synonyms: disgrace, ignominy.  "Suffered the ignominy of being sent to prison"
3.
An unfortunate development.  Synonym: pity.



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"Shame" Quotes from Famous Books



... themselves anxious to become Christians, and were put to death, thus becoming martyrs baptized in their own blood. How many lessons we may learn from all this: (1) How very respectful we should be in the Church, which is holy for all the reasons I have given. (2) What a shame it is for us not to hear Mass when we can do so easily. Our churches are never very far from us, and generally well lighted, ventilated, furnished with seats and every convenience, and in these respects unlike the dark, damp, underground churches ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead

... ignoble to ask a woman to take her chance with you, or to accept it from one's conscience that her chance could be at the best but one of the degrees of privation; whether, too, otherwise, marrying for money mightn't after all be a smaller cause of shame than the mere dread of marrying without. Through these variations of mood and view, all the same, the mark on his forehead stood clear; he saw himself remain without whether he married or not. It was a line on which his fancy could be admirably active; ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... called us into their shops, expressed their sympathy with us, and an earnest desire that we would remain. They called the Armenians to discuss questions with us, but the latter did so only when constrained by fear, or shame. We were frequently followed by a number of respectable Moslems, as we went from shop to shop to converse with the Armenians; and one day so many gathered about us that we could scarcely proceed on our way; all exclaiming, 'Right,' 'True,' ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance was a policy of moderation. It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not for good; indeed their conduct is such as to make them by no means desirous of having allies present to witness it, or of having the shame of asking their concurrence. Besides, their geographical situation makes them independent of others, and consequently the decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... from the same sources. At least they are not lied about, and a bishop, forsooth! can compare them, pagans in thought and act and habit though they be, with the most moral and religious people in the world, to his own shame. It is the English lie working. The Irish are inferior, and of a low, groveling, filthy nature; they are buried both in ignorance and superstition; their ignorance can be seen in their hatred of British rule, and their refusal ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... I didn't mean to go back any more," she said. Her voice was low and full of a weary bitterness. "I was so unhappy I didn't want to live." She caught her breath. "If it hadn't been for you"—she was looking at him now with shame in her eyes. "If it hadn't been for you I shouldn't have gone back—ever——" she ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... Bosphorus; but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command, attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... base cabals—the hate which drove thee forth A wanderer, ennobled thee: thy fame Looked lightning on the curs that dared abuse, But lacked the power to shame. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... heat and shame, and of God knows what came over Mr. Bosengate; he fell on his knees and pressed his forehead to her arm; and he was silent, more silent than the grave. Nothing—nothing came from him but two long sighs. Suddenly he felt her hand stroke his cheek—compassionately, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... France with the project of retrieving their affairs; for it is very necessary they should be informed, that it is not so much the difference in the price of things, which makes a residence here oeconomical, as a conformity to the habits of the country; and if they were not deterred by a false shame from a temporary adoption of the same system in England, their object might often be obtained without leaving it. For this reason it may be remarked, that the English who bring English servants, and persist in their English mode ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... large a portion of the young women to Hell? What causes so many to forsake the "straight and narrow path" that is supposed to lead to everlasting life, and seek the irremediable way of eternal death? What mad phantasy is it that leads so many wives to sacrifice the honor of their husbands and shame their children? Is it evil inherent in the daughters of Eve themselves? Is it lawless lust or force of circumstances that adds legion after legion to the cohorts of shame? Or has our boasted progress brought with it a ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... bear a few minutes of this spectacle. A natural shame intervened. He bent over his father and ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a decent girl to have a ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... impossible, that an infinite Spirit of love and wisdom could have planned this repulsive adventure! I have been misled! I am the victim of a delusion!" he said to himself, in shame and bitterness. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... Dean was in a jovial mood now, happy, expectant of the evening's party, faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers' he chose a dozen neckties, selecting each one after long consultations with the other man. Did he think narrow ties were coming back? And wasn't it a shame that Rivers couldn't get any more Welsh Margotson collars? There never was a collar ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... for one afternoon a smooth-faced gentleman appeared at their quiet lodgings. This was none other than Jasper Vermont, who in a long private interview with the unhappy Harker informed him that he had heard of Lucy's escapade, and threatened to proclaim her shame, if Mr. Harker failed to comply with a proposition he was about to make to him. The business which he suggested was one entirely abhorrent to the ex-bank clerk; but with money running short, and the thought of his daughter's misery should ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... soul admired, compared his state With that of some rude brawler, whose crude mind Some wondrous change on earth would fain create; Who after flatt'ring, harassing mankind, Gains titles, riches, pomp, with shame ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... the fruit-house, he was just pulling out his big key, when something almost like shame showed itself in his ruddy face, as a decided and somewhat ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... maturity on earth. The old man almost allows himself to be led into making a confession. With, bursting heart and burning tongue he does confess to not having felt any inclination towards individuals nor indeed any inclination which could cause him shame, but an intellectual and moral aspiration to unite himself with some incorporeal feminine spirit, that should belong completely to his incorporeal being, at the same time remaining sufficiently distant from it, to admit of the intervention ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... she arrived at the Conciergerie, Licquet, without showing himself, had gone to "study" his prisoner. Like an old, caged lioness, this woman of sixty-seven behaved with surprising energy; she showed no evidence of depression or shame; she did as she liked in the prison, complained of the food, grumbled all day, and raged at the gaolers. There was no reason to hope that she would belie her character, nor to count on an emotion she did not ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... of these new kindnesses, incurring yet further distinctions; till the people and they, mutually inflamed, and vieing thus with each other in honors and benefits, brought things at last to such a pass, that they might say that to engage so far was indeed a folly, but to retreat would now be a shame. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... letters, he should like to make use of some of those to Swift, as none would be more honourable to him. Nay, he says, he meant to erect such a minute monument of their friendship as would put to shame all ancient memorials of the same kind.[16] This avowal of his intention to publish did not conciliate Swift. Curll next published in 1736 a couple of letters to Swift, and Pope took advantage of this publication (perhaps ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... suddenly jumped on the floor, and shaking his disordered clothes, exclaimed, "Shafto! get up This is abominable! I cannot help thinking that if we spend one half of our days in pleasure and the other in lolling off its fatigues, we shall have passed through life more to our shame than ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... force at Tegea, to which place he summoned a council of the Achaeans and their allies; at which were present, also deputies from the Epirots and Acarnanians. Here it was resolved, that as the minds of his men were now sufficiently recovered from the shame of the disgrace suffered at sea, and those of the enemy dispirited, he should march directly to Lacedaemon; for he considered that by this measure alone could the enemy be drawn off from the siege of Gythium. On entering the enemy's ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... millions of human beings, to prowl about like wild beasts without restraint, or control, and commit depredations on the white population? Four millions of human beings without property or character, and utterly devoid of all sense of honor and shame, or any other restraining motive or influence whatever! And they too, under the ban of a prejudice, as firm, as fixed as the laws which govern the material universe. In that event, is it not probable; is it not almost certain, that there would be either a general massacre ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... out, wiggle-waggle, and "various," as rendered it highly likely that matters would be terminated by a fall out; but at last they were fairly in line, and marched down the steps into the street; feeling a little shame-faced, but excessively proud of their new and ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow

... belong to the class of armed neutralities, like the ingenious invention of sanitary cordons. The fact is, that the 40,000 men assembled in Bohemia were destined to aid and assist the Russians in case they should be successful (and who can blame the Austrian Government for wishing to wash away the shame of the Treaty of Presburg?). Napoleon had not a moment to lose, but this activity required no spur; he had hastened the battle of Austerlitz to anticipate Prussia, and he now found it necessary to anticipate Russia in order to keep ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... "SHAME, Penrod Schofield!" said both the aunts Rennsdale publicly, and Penrod, wholly innocent, became scarlet with indignant mortification. Carlie Chitten himself, however, marked the true offenders. A slight flush tinted his cheeks, and then, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... when your souls Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, Death will stand grieving in that field of war Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; The unreturning ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon

... for him, for the brother, for the child, for the cherished being who will come to me aged and desperate; and I wish that he may yet believe in something good, that he will not imagine everything in this world is unjust and infamous, for he will return to me weighed down by twenty years of shame, of degrading and undeserved shame. How will he bear these twenty years? What efforts must I not make to prove to him that he should not abandon himself to despair, and that life often offers the remedy, compassion to the most profound, to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... "For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's-maid. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... the young man, striking his hand hard against his forehead, while an expression of shame and agonizing remorse passed over ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... once to talk of this boy—a boy of whom any mother—any parent, might be proud? I could see that, Ruth. I have seen him; he looked like a prince in that cramped, miserable house, and with no earthly advantages. It is a shame he should not have every kind of opportunity ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... slow minutes dragged away, and as he thought of the shame it would be if the town were lost, he decided to make the attempt. Slowly he crawled across the room and down the narrow, twisted staircase. He was trembling from head to foot, and his breath seemed to come in great gasps. What if Oscar heard him? His door was ajar, and the lamp threw a ray of ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... jauntiness of his speech, and the evident desire he evinced to appear perfectly at his ease, Dorothy at once detected an under-current of shame-facedness and apprehension in Bastien's manner. His presence urged that he was no longer a prisoner with Poundmaker's band. What ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... laureate assured me—first, that whosoever in any circumstances arraigns this country for anything that she may do or leave undone thereby covers himself with shame; secondly, that although the continued torture, rape, and massacre of a Christian people, under the eyes of a Christian continent, may be a lamentable thing, it is best to be patient, seeing that the patience ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... his prospective bride cared only for him and not for his position. To a Staff Corps officer, even one with a small private income, this was no unattainable ideal. Then he met with his debacle in the shame and agony of the court-martial. Whilst his soul still quivered under the lash of that terrible downfall, Iris came into his life. He knew not what might happen if they were rescued. The time would quickly pass until the old order was resumed, she to go ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... little of that individuality of character which I have traced through former pages, just as a mother loses the first bloom of her girlhood when her son is born. Though Rouen once more passed for some years into the possession of an English king, the days of her captivity—with its culminating shame—are as little agreeable for us to hear, as for her citizens to remember, and Englishmen will no longer take that vital interest in her each year's growth, with which a grandson reads the memoirs ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... to devise howe the burden may leste tyme reste on the backe of the bearer of the same, that he sincke not under the same, but that he maye stande upp in full strengthe, and goe throughe with ease, fame, and profitt, withoute shame of all the bymedlers and fauters of the same. And entred into consideration hereof, this cometh to mynde: that the firste chardge of the navye to be admitted as for the present deade chardge for the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... persons. She stood there before me, with her hands clasped in each other; that seraph-face of hers, that seemed the type of innocence and purity, without a tinge of colour, although her dreadful confession was enough to paint the cheeks of the most degraded woman with the colour of shame. She seemed to have no bashfulness, no sense of shame, and to be wholly incapable of realising her offence. And I had not believed in a Devil! Here he was before me, in the shape of this fair woman, who had tempted me ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... slowly. That was the day she and Dean were planning to put in a dictograph. She wondered at herself calmly carrying on this casual conversation with the man she was planning to betray. Coloring a little from the very shame of it, she continued, "How ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... that the real Mrs. Henry Leek had certainly the temperament which manufactures bigamists. She understood how a person may slide into bigamy. And after thirty years!... She never thought of bigamy as a crime, nor did it occur to her to run out and drown herself for shame because she was not ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... unconscious of our being; whose days and nights were rendered wearisome by her anxious cares for our welfare; whose eager eye followed us through every path we took; who gloried in our honor; who sickened in heart at our shame; who loved and mourned, when others reviled and scorned; and whose affection for us survives the wreck of every other feeling within. When her voice is raised to inculcate religion, or to reprehend irregularity, it possesses unnumbered claims of attention, respect and obedience. She ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... lower lip meditatively. "Let me see! One of those Mexican mines, isn't it? Or wait a moment," shrewdly. "I may have mines on the brain because we've been talking about them. Upon my word, Hayden," his face flushing with shame, his professional pride sadly wounded, "I'm awfully sorry; but to tell the truth, I can't just put my finger on it. Yet somewhere, lately, I've heard of it. Did I read of it or hear people speaking of it?" He drew his hand over his brow, looking really worried. "Come ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... evil. We managed to do without them in our pretty extensive plan of warfare fifteen years ago; and there is no reason why we should find our difficulties now more intractable than then. I should imagine that the American Congress and the French Executive would look on uneasily, and with a sense of shame, at the prospect of sharing largely in commercial benefits which they had not earned, whilst the burdens of the day were falling exclusively upon the troops of our nation; but that is a consideration for their own feelings, and may happen to corrode their hearts and their sense of honour most ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... who have much offended A too indulgent father, in great shame, Penitent, and yet not daring unattended To go into his presence, at the gate Speak to their sister and confiding wait Till she goes in before and intercedes; So men, repenting of their evil deeds, And yet not venturing rashly to draw ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness in her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy regions stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... companion," answered Cuthbert, who was sufficiently imbued with the spirit of his father's creed not to hesitate for a moment to utter an untruth in a good cause, and think no shame of it; "I am journeying forth to London alone, to seek a relative there, who methinks will help me to earn an honest livelihood. I would I were the rich man you take me for. But even the dress I wear is mine through the charity of a kinsman, as ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Shame, regret, love, seethed hotly within him. It was long since he had felt emotion like that which mastered him when her tearful eyes again met his, and now, in the enthusiastic soul of this favourite of fortune, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... as the most subtle logician of the time of Ptolemy Soter, that Stilbo one day in the presence of the king, proposed a question to him, to which he was unable to reply. The king, willing to cover him with shame, pronounced only one part of his name, and called him ovos, ass, instead of Chronos. Diodorus was so much affected at this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... grown on the same stem with the castaway—stood gazing at her sister, longing to fling herself upon her bosom, so that the tendrils of their hearts might intertwine again. At first she was restrained by mingled grief and shame, and by a dread that Prudence was too much changed to respond to her affection, or that her own purity would be felt as a reproach by the lost one. But, as she listened to the familiar voice, while the face grew more and more familiar, she forgot ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... stately thrones and to cathedrals. Princes of great names, like Robert of Normandy, and bishops who were also secular princes made the pilgrimage and returned to speak with authority on the attractions of the holy places and on the shame of the infidel's domination. ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell

... declaration. O, he knew that there was a net of intrigue enmeshing him, but it was so very fine that he could not pick up the smallest thread whereby to unravel it. Down in his soul he felt the shame of the knowledge that he dared not. A dreamer, rushing toward the precipice, would rather fall dreaming than waken ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... choking, smothering—smothering with shame, hopelessness, despair. He must get away; get away to breathe, to think; get away out of it all; ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me to ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... progeny in begging, they need not have dared and suffered so much to achieve the mastery of the world—they might have begged it, and saved an infinity of needless slaughter. These people have no proper pride, no manly shame, because they have no hope. Untaught, unskilled in industry, owning nothing, their government an absolute despotism, their labor only required at certain seasons, and deemed amply rewarded with a York shilling or eighteen ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... tigers! For shame, Clara! Look at this young man, who never saw a jaguar in his life; and heeds them no more than so ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... "It'll just be a shame if we can't all go," Dave declared seriously. "It won't be a quarter as much fun unless we have ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... the depths of her shame and sorrow she called upon God and He heard her. She told Him all her selfishness and sin and urged by some strong spiritual necessity, begged God's forgiveness and help with the conquering prayers that He himself gave her. "Cast me not from Thy ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... is a shame and a warning to us. Our children are taught to remember it so. The "little group of wilful men," the eleven who came near to shipwrecking the country, were equally bad, perhaps, but they are forgotten. La Follette stands for them and bears ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... that he was, and being informed by other people, that from the greatest to the lowest they sinned most dishonestly, not only in natural but in unnatural ways, without any restraint or remorse to shame them; so much so that for the poor and the dissolute of both sexes to take part in any affair was no small thing. Besides this he saw that they were universally gluttons, wine-drinkers, and drunkards, and much devoted to their stomachs after the manner of brute animals; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... "Shame—trash! Your life is going to be a fine turmoil if you run to Teddy with an account of every little mild flirtation you happen to have. Of all the imbeciles, the most imbecile is the ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... girl who leads a life of sin and shame is by any means a white slave in the full sense of the word, as the white slave traffic exists, though truly a slave she is, for God is no respecter of persons and the same judgment will be hers unless ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... rougher and rougher," declared Mrs. David. "That big fellow they call Pete, that came up from Pedro—the way he's handling the women is a shame!" ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... shame to make him walk all the way from Lemby here and back," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "It must be all ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope

... told of the pressmen's questions his mind burned with excitement, and a recklessness, such as he had never felt before, invaded him. He had been indignant, had even felt a sort of shame, when he was asked whether he had been "cute" in the libretto matter, whether he had stolen a march on his rival. Crayford's treatment of the affair had disgusted him. For Crayford, with his sharp eye to business, had seen at once that ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... I was thinking what a shame it was that he was not sticking his spade into his own garden, instead of mine: he knew about the earth and the underworld of seeds, the resurrection of Spring and the flowers that appear in order like a procession marshalled ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... of that appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification. The comparison with a looking-glass self hardly suggests the second element, the imagined judgment, which is quite essential. The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind. This is evident from the fact that the character and weight of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... I did not mean to vex you," said Philip, who was rather weak in purpose than hardened in evil; "it was a shame to bring Jones and Wildrake here, but—but you see I couldn't help it." And he played uneasily with his gold-headed riding-whip, while his eye avoided ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown

... the first order. Plato's poet says of him in the 'Symposium,' "When I hear the verses of Sappho or Anacreon, I set down my cup for very shame of my own performance." He composed in Greek somewhat, to use a very free comparison, as Herrick did in English, expressing the unrefined passion and excesses which he saw, just as the Devonshire parson preserved the spirit ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the statesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle with shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk gazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... looked up, and lo, a man there came From midst the trees, and stood regarding me Until my tears were dried for very shame; Then he cried out: "O mourner, where is she Whom I have sought o'er every land and sea? I love her and she loveth me, and still We meet no more than ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... we shall leave this for Kuka on Monday next, whether the Sultan of Zinder returns from his razzia or not. It certainly is a shame that I should be kept here waiting the pleasure of a fellow gone to heat up for slaves to pay ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... years since which even the self-interest of a speculative builder would not do nowadays, nor would be permitted to do by the local sanitary authority. Yet houses built in those times are still inhabited, and in many cases sickness and even death are the result. But it is with shame I must confess that, notwithstanding the advance which sanitary science has made, and the excellent appliances to be obtained, many a house is now built, not only by the speculative builder, but designed by professed architects, and in spite ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... this,' the learned Doctor confessed. 'I have come to an hour when a lie, and nothing but a lie, can show my sense of shame. I solemnly swear that I ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller

... burning shame," said the motherly landlady, on being told of her success—"a real lady like you; it's ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... would assume the character of a corrupt informer [73] and appropriator of the claims of others. For what judge in a private cause ever acted in such a way as to adjudge to himself the property in dispute? That even Scaptius himself would not act so, though he had now outlived all sense of shame. Thus the consuls, thus the senators exclaimed; but covetousness, and Scaptius, the adviser of that covetousness, had more influence. The tribes, when convened, decided that the district was the public property of the Roman people. Nor can it be denied that it might have been so, if they ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... been otherwise, in your intelligent community, where it must be apparent to all who inquire into it, that you had done nothing but what was deserving of high commendation, instead of blame and punishment; and shame on the jury who would bring in the two men guilty of assault and battery. They ought to have another trial; perhaps another jury would be more just. It is well for the credit of Philadelphia, that there is one upright judge, as Kelley seems to be, and his sentence will be a light one it is ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... bank of this river we saw some sign of inhabitants, but met with none for the first day; but the next day we came into an inhabited country, the people all negroes, and stark naked, without shame, both men ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... not a believer in the Christian religion,—that he does not believe even in a God,—that he obtained the holy seat by simony,—that he uses all its power to enrich a brood of children whose lives are so indecent that it is a shame to modest lips even to say ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... were looking at them; generals became marshals, and marshals became kings. There's one of those kings still left, to remind Europe of that time; but he is a Gascon, and has betrayed France in order to keep his crown. He doesn't blush for the shame of it, either; because crowns, you understand, are made of gold! Finally, even sappers, if they knew how to read, became nobles all the same. I myself have seen in Paris eleven kings and a crowd of princes, surrounding Napoleon like rays of the sun. Every soldier ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof

... her. Let her sacrifice everything that she has gained by the fraud to the sacred duty of atonement. If she can do that—for conscience' sake, and for pity's sake—to her own prejudice, to her own shame, to her own loss—then her repentance has nobly revealed the noble nature that is in her; then she is a woman to be trusted, respected, beloved! If I saw the Pharisees and fanatics of this lower earth passing her by in contempt, I would hold out my hand to her before them all. I ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and executed it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dismay. He sent the Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of the House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords. Not content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the uninterrupted ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Dan. Cool, boy. Relax. Shame on you. Can't you quit being selfish just for a little while? Dan didn't like the idea as it flickered through his mind, but then he didn't like anything too much right then, so he forced the thought ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... shame!" said the other, shortly. "He's an old laborer who'd saved quite a lot of money. He kept it in his cottage, and the other day it was all stolen by a tramp. He has lived with these two women—his sister-in-law ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... ancient Syriac, which was an unknown tongue to almost all of them. Their spoken language was an unwritten dialect of the Syriac. Still deeper was their moral degradation, almost every command of the decalogue being transgressed without compunction, or even shame when detected. Yet they were entirely accessible to the Protestant missionary, and were more Scriptural in their doctrines and ritual, with far less of bigotry, than any other Oriental sect; so much so, indeed, that the Nestorians were ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... he thought to himself, "Man's life, from the womb to the grave, is made up of good and of ill luck. Here am I, nearly forty years old, a wanderer, without a calling, or even a hope of advancement in the world. To be sure, it seems a shame; yet if I could steal the money this priest is boasting about, I could live at ease for the rest of my days;" and so he began casting about how best he might compass his purpose. But the priest, far from guessing the drift of his comrade's thoughts, journeyed ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... native place, and no little good sense in this adherence to his old profession... It is far manlier and nobler than that weak form of vanity shown in a slavish imitation of the great, and a cowardly shame of ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... plain fact, these people, that instead of being impressed by the speaker's strong common sense, they took it in extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered "Shame!" and the women, "Brute!" Whereupon Mr. Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... hear how they talk of a good simple giddy vain dull Baker Street creature, and canvass her points, and show her letters, and insinuate—never mind, but I tell you my soul grows angry when I think of the same; and I can't hear of an Englishwoman marrying a Frenchman without feeling a sort of shame and pity ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with no reason for their failure except the jealousy excited in us by their virtues. To rob Ferdinand of Aragon of the kingdom of Naples, Calixtus kindled a terrible war, which by a happy issue only served to increase our fortune, and by an unfortunate issue must have brought shame and disaster upon the Holy See. Lastly, by allowing himself to be governed by men who sacrificed public good to their private interests, he inflicted an injury, not only upon the pontifical throne and his own reputation, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... proceed, Proclaims the audience very kind indeed? And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords A tragedy complete in all but words?[13] Who but must mourn while these are all the rage, The degradation of our vaunted stage? Heavens! is all sense of shame and talent gone? Have we no living bard of merit?—none? Awake, George Colman! —Cumberland, awake! Ring the alarum bell, let Folly quake! Oh, Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen, Let Comedy resume her throne again, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... guilt (or what I imagined to be guilt), that I was forced to repeat once more to myself that it was not a good man's overthrow I sought, or even a bad man's immunity from punishment, but the truth, the absolute truth. No shame could equal that which I should feel if, by any over-delicacy now, I failed to save ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... daughter-in-law. She knew him, and understood all the workings of his mind, and the deep sorrow of his heart. In very truth, the star of his life was going out darkly under a cloud; but he was battling against his sorrow and shame—not that he might be rid of them himself, but that others might not have to share them. That doctrine of "No surrender" was strong within his bosom, and he understood the motto in a finer sense than that in which his grandson had used it. He would not tell them that his heart was broken,—not ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... with light-heartedness and he looked at her approvingly. "I hope nothing I may say ever will come true unless it makes you happy," he answered lightly. "It would be a shame if it did ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... Wasn't it a shame for two people to lie here so quietly and drearily, parted by a bit of a wall, when they could have been amusing each other?... His white neighbour was sure to be asleep by now ... and, if he only dared ... ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... its accommodation, might well have been devised in kindness as a place of training for the still more straitened circumstances of the grave, she was forced to hid from her own child a blush of remorse and shame. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... chap, knew all we do about the cipher, and what they said at their last meeting, he wouldn't doubt for a moment but that it was one of them who screwed up Grice's door. Travers says the doctor has sent for Oaks and old Ally; it'll be an awful shame if they get ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... or a fool? A straw will reveal the wind, so will an eyelash, a smile, the carriage of a dress. Ankles also! One saw too much of them. Let it be said then. Teeth and neck were bared too often and too broadly. If modesty was indeed more than a name, then here it was outraged. Shame too! was it only a word? Does one do this and that without even a blush? Even vice should have its good manners, its own decent retirements. If there is nothing else let there be breeding! But at this thing the world might look and understand and censure if it were not ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... target on the battlefield. A Kentucky or Tennessee rifleman who'd miss such a target would die of shame." ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the prophet, who, when the holy David had so far forsaken God, as to confirm adultery with murder, when he was to do the tenderest office of a friend, in laying his own shame before his eyes, being sent by God to call again so chosen a servant, how doth he it? but by telling of a man whose beloved lamb was ungratefully taken from his bosom. The application most divinely true, but the discourse itself feigned; which made David (I speak of the second and ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... people say," Rusty Wren told him. "When my cousin gives a party it would be a shame if I couldn't go ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey

... arm," I said, paying for my energy with some excruciating throbs. "There's so much to be looked after, and here I am, bandaged, splinted, and generally useless. It's a beastly shame." ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... consequences? Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment and of shame. If marriage befal him, it is a real affliction, involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... "butchered to make a Roman holiday" and feast the eyes of the conqueror and the Herodian ally and his spouse. But he certainly witnessed at Rome the triumph of the Flavii, father and son, and gazed on the shame of his country, when its most holy monuments were carried by the noblest of the captives through the streets amid the applause and ribald jeers of a Roman crowd. Josephus enlarges with apparent apathy on the procession, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... "but it was a damn'd shame to tak' the auld man's pig awa', whaever did it. But I hear them saying that the polisman is gaun to the farm the nicht to watch, so that the tatties 'll no' be stolen," he went on, as some of the younger men joined them, "an' I suppose ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... of the big house in order and to keep it tidy, and she tried to induce her to be less wasteful and reckless. But the girl was developing a certain sense of justice, and she rather doubted her right to insist. Devoted as Kate was to Mr. Middleton, and attached, in an apologetic, shame-faced way, to her mistress, overworked and unpaid, save for the sums Elsie forced upon her, how could she demand that Kate be more scrupulous about details? It would seem that she had all she could carry ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... bamboos were made only into flutes, They would droop and die with very shame, They hold their heads high in the sky, Because ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... delaying to do so. "He has the management of your property," said Mr Finnie; "but he manages it in the interest of his own friend. It is quite clear, and we will expose it." "By all means," said Sir Louis. "It is a d——d shame, and it shall be exposed." Of all this the squire ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... Carleton!" said Mrs. Evelyn, but in a tone of very gentle and laughing reproof,—"for shame! What a picture! and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... that emulate the Tyrian dye, Wishing to take his afternoon's repose, In easy chair had just began to doze, When, in a voice that sleep's soft slumbers broke, His oily helpmate thus her wishes spoke: "Why, spouse, for shame! my stars, what's this about? You's ever sleeping; come, we'll all go out; At that there garden, pr'ythee, do not stare! We'll take a mouthful of the country air; In the yew bower an hour or two we'll kill; There you may smoke, and drink what punch you will. Sophy and Billy each shall walk ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... have I Preferr'd some poor trifle to thee; How is it thou dost not deny The blessing and birth-right to me? No better than Esau I am, Though pardon and heaven be mine To me belongs nothing but shame, The praise and the ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury

... drunkenness, whoredom, with other gross and scandalous vices of some of their own side, by which God's own commandments are most fearfully violated? This just recrimination we may well use for our own most lawful defence. Neither do we hereby intend any man's shame (God knows), but his reformation rather. We wish from our hearts we had no reason to challenge our opposites of that superstition taxed in the Pharisees, Quod argubant &c.—that they accused the disciples of little things, and themselves ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... vain words, and idle words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and silly words, and empty words, and profane words, and boisterous words, and warlike words. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, and morose, and unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... either with anger or shame, or both, and seemed meditating a passionate reply, when some of his companions, who had been eating their ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... the search. She forgot. Her mind was taken from morbid breedings as they climbed stairs and explored rooms and questioned agents. Bonbright was very happy—happier because he was openly and without shame adapting his circumstances to his purse.... They found a tiny flat, to be had for a fourth of their income. Ruth said that was the highest proportion of their earnings it was safe to pay for rent, and Bonbright marveled at her ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland



Words linked to "Shame" :   shame plant, defile, misfortune, disgrace, outstrip, feeling, odium, attaint, outgo, ignominy, elicit, provoke, honor, reproach, fire, kindle, maculate, dishonor, conscience, exceed, pity, befoul, outdo, obligate, outmatch, surmount, sense of shame, compel, obloquy, self-disgust, raise, evoke, bad luck, arouse, surpass, embarrassment, self-hatred, humiliation, foul, opprobrium, dishonour, discountenance, outperform, enkindle, oblige



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