"Appall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... becomes impossible."[8] "The tremendous extent and pertinacity of the habit of human slaughter in battle," wrote Dr. William R. Alger, "its shocking criminality, and its incredible foolishness, when regarded from an advanced religious position, are three facts calculated to appall every thoughtful man and startle him into amazement." "It is vain," he said, "to undertake to impart a competent conception of the crimes and miseries belonging to war. Their appalling character and magnitude stun the imagination and pass ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... shore 290 Roam ye the waters? traffic ye? or bound To no one port, wander, as pirates use, At large the Deep, exposing life themselves, And enemies of all mankind beside? He ceased; we, dash'd with terrour, heard the growl Of his big voice, and view'd his form uncouth, To whom, though sore appall'd, I thus replied. Of Greece are we, and, bound from Ilium home, Have wander'd wide the expanse of ocean, sport For ev'ry wind, and driven from our course, 300 Have here arrived; so stood the will of Jove. We boast ourselves ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... rolling on in a confused tide towards the fortress. At the same time the terraces and flat roofs in the neighbourhood were thronged with combatants, brandishing their missiles, who seemed to have risen up as if by magic! It was a spectacle to appall the stoutest. The Spanish forces were crowded into a small compact mass in the palace, and the whole army could be assembled at a moment's notice. No sooner, therefore, did the trumpet call to arms, than every soldier was at his post—the cavalry mounted, the artillerymen at their guns, and ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... yearning to be free. Another blot on her great name, who stands Confounded, left intolerably alone With the dilating spectre of her own Dark sin, uprisen from yonder spectral sands: Penitent more than to herself is known; England, appall'd by her ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... Confounded and appall'd, the unfinish'd game The suitors quit, and all to council came. Antinous first the assembled peers address'd. Rage sparkling in his eyes, and burning ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... veins with ghost-dances, haply practisin' them before they go to be ghosts in reality? What wonder that they sharpen up their ancestral tomahawk, and lift it against their oppressors? What wonder that the smothered fires do break out into sudden fiery tempests of destruction that appall the world? ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... all she loved must fall; One cause must perish in defeat; Success of either would appall, And victory, however sweet To others, ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... seem to appall him. In the House it is a tradition that young and ambitious members sit "below" the gangway; the more modest and less assured are content to place themselves "above" it, at a point ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... face to face with certain duties and responsibilities," Gorham began, "which appall me with their far-reaching significance, and I have asked you, who are the nearest and dearest to me, to be witnesses of my faithful performance of them, to the extent ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the truth is more important than both of you, because it is eternal. If your mind falters in its leadership the sword will drop from your hands. Your assumption of being able to instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or even a small group of people may appall you as being colossal impudence—as indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be courageous. BE courageous—it lies within you to be what you will. MAKE yourself be ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... been playing, and smiled brightly. He had a thin, slightly delicate face with an expression which was both animated and amiable, and keen, strong gray eyes. "I've thought of that. I'm not what is called contemplating matrimony at the moment; but I've considered the possibility, and it doesn't appall me." ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... stern man, and he determined to punish the abettors of this rebellion with severity, which should appall all the discontented. General Gordon, in the battle, had slain three thousand of the insurgents and had taken five thousand captive. These prisoners he had punished, decimating them by lot and hanging every tenth man. Peter rewarded magnificently the royal ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... unimaginative and of restricted mental horizon does not think in terms of masses of mankind. Masses vaguely appall him. They exist in the big cities on which he turned his back in his unaudacious youth. His contacts are with individuals. His democracy consists in smiling upon the village painter and calling him "Harry," in always nodding to the village ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... about to proclaim such malefactions of myself, as the brothers here rebuke in their unnatural parent, in words more keen and dagger-like than those which Hamlet speaks to his mother. Such power has the passion of shame truly personated, not only to strike guilty creatures unto the soul, but to "appall" even ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... look a difficult situation in the face one can see frequently in daily life. Great difficulties seem to appall some people. They hate so much to believe a disaster possible, they fear so much to let themselves or others realize that a danger is impending, they are so afraid that other people will think them "nervous," and they shrink so from recommending ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... it have been redeemed! If this man were standing strong beside her, life would be nothing to fear, nothing to appall her spirit. All the ancient persecutions of the elements, all the pitfalls of life and the exigencies of fortune could never bow their heads. Instead they would know high adventure and the exhilaration of battle; even if at the day's end they should go down into ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Nickerson, there was one thing he was afraid of and that was a woman. Not that he trembled in the presence of all women—no, indeed! He had brought far too many of them to land for that. Women as a class did not appall him in the least. He had seen them in the agony of terror, in the throes of despair, and undismayed had offered them sympathy and cheer. It was one woman only who disconcerted him, the woman who for years ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Seat, The fit is momentary, vpon a thought He will againe be well. If much you note him You shall offend him, and extend his Passion, Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man? Macb. I, and a bold one, that dare looke on that Which might appall the Diuell ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... confirmed her fears, seemed for a moment to appall the girl; but she repressed her feelings, and ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... I said gently and actually pushed her a little toward New York, which even now was beginning to appall me. She kissed me good-by. I looked up and saw her floating away in ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... running his hand through his heavy brush of hair. "Were it not for the gentle rains, and the dews later on, the fields and slopes of the hills would not be clothed in the verdant green which all true lovers of nature so much admire. Instead we might have a bleak barrenness, a dissolution which would appall——" ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... houses should ever have been built or homes established in such hazardous places, or that any people should have ever lived there. But that they did is an established fact as there stand the houses which were built and occupied by human beings in the midst of surroundings that might appall the stoutest heart. Children played and men and women wrought on the brink of frightful precipices in a space so limited and dangerous that a single misstep ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... didn't appall him. Somehow, it had just the opposite effect. Perhaps it was because his strength had come back, and had brought with it the buoyancy that is natural to health. He could sense the vitality that surrounded him, poised, potential, waiting only ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... imagination, in depicting the consequences of violating natural law! Suppose a preacher should give a plain, cold, scientific exhibition of the penalty which Nature exacts for the crime, so common among church-going ladies and others, of murdering their unborn offspring! It would appall the Devil. Scarcely less terrible are the consequences of the most common vices and meannesses when they get the mastery. Mr. Beecher has frequently shown, by powerful delineations of this kind, how large a part legitimate ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the silence. "Something must be burning," exclaimed she. In an instant the cry of fire was heard. All started up and rushed to the door; and there, indeed, they were witnesses of a sight which might well appall. The whole upper part of the house was in flames. Instantly the cause flashed upon them. The house had been struck and set on fire by lightning. "My father! O, my father!" shrieked Amelia, and fell fainting to the floor. Quick as the word came the thought of Ray Bland ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... no doubt the bravest cowers, When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appall. How odd a single hobgoblin's nonentity Should cause more fear than a whole host's ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... said, in a kinder tone than he had yet used, "your words shock and appall me beyond all measure. Your suspicions wrong me cruelly, foully; I know nothing whatever of the fate of your woman; on my soul and honor, I do not! But if you really suspect that anyone had an interest in the taking off of that poor old creature, tell me at once to whom ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... she know about him? What manner of man had she married? The consequences of the step they had taken began to appall her. She would have to live with him in all the intimacies of married life, cook for him, wash his clothes, sit opposite him at the table three times a day for fifty years. He was to be the father of her children, ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... tragick sights, Which onely doo the name of Rome retaine, Olde moniments, which of so famous sprights The honour yet in ashes doo maintaine, Triumphant arcks, spyres neighbours to the skie, That you to see doth th'heaven it selfe appall, Alas! by little ye to nothing flie, The peoples fable, and the spoyle of all! And though your frames do for a time make warre Gainst Time, yet Time in time shall ruinate Your workes and names, and your last reliques marre. My sad desires, rest therefore ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... the young chieftain. Once he abruptly Halted, and listened; Then he sped forward Faster and faster Toward the bright water. Breathless he reached it. Why did he crouch then, Stark as a statue? What did he see there Could so appall him? Only a circle Swiftly expanding, Fading before him; But, as he watched it, Up from the centre, Slowly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... him was eight hundred miles of wilderness—eight hundred miles between him and the little town on the Saskatchewan where McDowell commanded Division of the Royal Mounted. The thought of distance did not appall him. Four years at the top of the earth had accustomed him to the illimitable and had inured him to the lack of things. That winter Conniston had followed him with the tenacity of a ferret for a thousand miles along the rim ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... the death-bed of their dearest friends, And point the parting anguish! Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life— One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate, Vice in its high career would stand appall'd, And heedless, rambling impulse learn to think; The conscious heart of Charity would warm, And her wide wish Benevolence dilate; The social tear would rise, the social sigh, And into clear perfection gradual bliss, Refining ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... arm Will let no harm Come near me nor befall me; Thy voice shall quiet my alarm, When life's great battle waxeth warm— No foeman shall appall me. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Gallows down, Out-pilfer half the Rogues in Town). With saucy boldness will presume To pass th' impenetrable gloom, And lift the Curtain which we see Is drawn betwixt the World and Thee; Of nought but endless Torments speak, To frighten and appall the weak; Dwell on the horrid Theme with glee, And fain themselves wou'd Hangmen be; With so much Dread their Hearers fill, That they have neither Pow'r, nor Will, Tho' Heav'n's the Prize, to move a Hand, But ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd |
