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Devil   /dˈɛvəl/   Listen
Devil

verb
(past & past part. deviled or devilled; pres. part. deviling or devilling)
1.
Cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations.  Synonyms: annoy, bother, chafe, get at, get to, gravel, irritate, nark, nettle, rag, rile, vex.  "It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves"
2.
Coat or stuff with a spicy paste.



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"Devil" Quotes from Famous Books



... e'er gained the golden crown Who did not in his search the cross upbear; For heaven he need entertain no care Who fears to sinfulness the Devil's frown, And lays, if once espoused, his burdens down, Because so many of his followers have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Privileges. What they are Prohibited. When any are religiously disposed, these Priests sent for in great Ceremony. None ever used violence towards them before this present King. The Second Order of Priests. The third Order. How they dedicate a Red Cock to the Devil. Their Oracle. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... King before his departure had gone to her and asked, "How shall I do and what plan shall I pursue? it is thou hast caused this great distress to us!" And she had answered, "O great King and mighty Cohen, I will teach thee a trick would baffle the Devil himself though he summon to his assistance all his grisly hosts. It is that thou send fifty thousand men going down in ships, and sailing over the sea to the Mountain of Smoke; and there let them land and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... wire-pulling: would have the feudal system back, with all the old inefficiency; in the name of Ta Yu and the Duke of Chow they would do what they might to undo the strivings of this Ts'in upstart. So all the subtleties of the old order were arrayed against him,—pull devil, pull baker. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the gleam of a devil in the man's eye, and in his right hand he clinched the haft ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... into the ledger in one way it will in another." So Mr Toogood started for Silverbridge, having sent to his house in Tavistock Square for a small bag, a clean shirt, and a toothbrush. And as he went down in the railway-carriage, before he went to sleep, he turned it all over in his mind. "Poor devil! I wonder whether any man ever suffered so much before. And as for that woman,—it's ten thousand pities that she should have died before she heard it. Talk of heart-complaint; she'd have had a touch of heart-complaint if she had known this!" Then, as he was speculating how Mrs Arabin ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... "The devil!" he said aloud, "how could she have known me?" But rack his memory as he would, he could not recall ever ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... around her, and pressed his face against hers; "I wish somebody would kick me. You made me wicked? You are the only thing that has kept me anyways straight! Mother—I've been decent; your goodness has saved me from—several things. I want you to know that. I would have gone right straight to the devil if it hadn't been for your goodness. As for how I felt about Elizabeth, it was just a mood; don't think ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... The most frequent sorts are mullets; several sorts of parrot-fish; silver-fish; old wives; some beautifully spotted soles; leather-jackets; bonnetos, and albicores; besides the eels mentioned at Palmerston's Island, some sharks, rays, pipe-fish, a sort of pike, and some curious devil-fish. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... said he, "I am delighted to see you; I made such a capital quotation just now: the young Benningtons were drowning a poor devil of a puppy; the youngest (to whom the mother belonged) looked on with a grave earnest face, till the last kick was over, and then burst into tears. 'Why do you cry so?' said I. 'Because it was so cruel in us to drown the poor puppy!' ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... leaving two sons, Richard and Robert, both violent and turbulent young men, the younger of whom was called, from his fiery temper, Robert the Devil. After a fierce dispute respecting Robert's appanage, the two brothers were suddenly reconciled, and, immediately afterward, Richard died, not without suspicion, on the part of the French, that he had been ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... dull, unimaginative days, are the terrors of conscience to the diseases of the liver? Not on morality, but on cookery, let us build our stronghold. There, brandishing our frying-pan as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the devil and live at ease on the fat things he ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... odious to me as a systematist."[203] He could indeed be angry with variations even as an evolutionist; but then only because he could not explain them, not because he could not classify them. "If, as I must think, external conditions produce little direct effect, what the devil determines each particular variation?"[204] What Darwin experienced in this particular domain holds good of all knowledge. All knowledge is systematic, in so far as it strives to put phenomena in quite definite relations, ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... Crerar was no mild and bashful affair, either. It was big-fisted with vigor. But when, with characteristic spirit, he had pointed out the injustice of the price offered and the dockage taken—the elevator man, quite calmly, had told him to go to the devil! ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... When I came out from under I threw my hat in the air and gave a whoop and cheer, at which the Mexicans were greatly enthused. They yelled excitedly and our mayordomo exclaimed: "Caramba, mira que diablito!" (Egad, see the little devil!) ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... at his anxious tone. That was always Hanley's way. A devil himself, when he was on a trail, but always worried for fear one of his men would come ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... a hat no other Terrestrial is this far from home. I can't help feeling sorry for the poor devil—he's a darn good man gone wrong—but we'd have had to kill him ourselves before we got done with him; so it's probably as well they got him. Pin your ears back, everybody, and watch close—we want to get this, all ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... product of scriptural interpretation. The pure monotheism, by which formerly a place in the Providence of God had been allotted to everything, even to moral evil,[52] became corrupted, under the influence of Parsism, by the conception of two kingdoms, of God and of the Devil. The angels, originally the messengers of Providence, became under mythological names, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, &c., so many middle beings who filled the space between the Deity, existing apart from the ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten

... stands unredeemed; never once swerving in his arrow-straight course to perdition, from the time when 'the little black-haired swarthy thing, as dark as if it came from the Devil,' was first unrolled out of the bundle and set on its feet in the farmhouse kitchen, to the hour when Nelly Dean found the grim, stalwart corpse laid on its back in the panel-enclosed bed, with wide-gazing eyes that seemed 'to sneer at her attempt to close them, ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte

... choice, I can assure you, mother; but you know the old saying, 'Needs must when the devil drives,' and in the present case you must read 'Yankee' instead ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... remember who you are."—"Two sisters" (these were real people known to him). "One going in for being generally beloved (which she is not by any means); and the other for being generally hated (which she needn't be)."—"The bequeathed maid-servant, or friend. Left as a legacy. And a devil of a legacy too."—"The woman who is never on any account to hear of anything shocking. For whom the world is to be of barley-sugar."—"The lady who lives on her enthusiasm; and hasn't a jot."—"Bright-eyed ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... to the Evil One require capitals: "Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness, Satan, King of Hell, Devil, Incarnate Fiend, Tempter of Men, Father ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... and I know, as it happens, the house they will go to.— Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the pictures, Statues, and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!— No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan, Off go we to-night,—and the Venus go to the Devil! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... eyes of a young child or other innocent person, the image of a cherub or an angel to be seen peeping out,—in those of a vicious person, a devil. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... said Mr Ford. 'He may want intelligent handling, but he's a mighty fine boy. I shall make inquiries, and if this man has been ill-treating Ogden, I shall complain to Mr Abney. Where the devil is this man ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... sweetness lightened his features, that a murmur of "Blessings on his comely face!" ran through the assembly; and Adam indulged in a gruff startled murmur of "'Tis the Prince, or the devil himself!" while his young master, comprehending the gesture of the Prince, and overborne by the lovely winning graces of the Princess, stepped forward, doffing his cap and bending his knee, and signing to Adam ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... didn't think you'd go back on a fellow. And I tell you straight up, Sir Redmond Hayes, I'm not out touching matches to range land—not if it belonged to the devil himself. I've got some feeling for the dumb brutes that would have to suffer. You can get right to work hunting evidence, and be damned! You're dead welcome to all you can find; and in this part of the country you won't be able to buy much! You know very well you deserve ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... them, not knowing what might turn up, but determined to keep them in sight. Those beggars with chairs were not to be trusted, and the ladies had gold enough about them to tempt violence. What a reckless old devil of a chaperon she was, to let those young girls go! So I walked on, cursing all the time the conventionalities of civilization that prevented me from giving them warning. They were rushing straight on into danger, and ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... discourse brilliantly on the deepest subjects during the day; and, thank goodness, virtue is rewarded in the evening with a little bridge. If I am ever Lady Pendragon (sounds well, doesn't it?) it shall be all bridge and skittles, for me—and devil take politics, military science, history, the classics, Herbert Spencer, Robert Browning, Shakespeare, and all other boring or out-of-date things and writers (if he hasn't already taken them) on which I am now obliged to keep up a sort of Maxim-fire ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... there are Will keep a curtal to show juggling tricks, And give out 'tis a spirit; besides these, Such a whole ream of almanac-makers, figure-flingers, Fellows, indeed that only live by stealth, Since they do merely lie about stol'n goods, They 'd make men think the devil were fast and loose, With speaking fustian Latin. Pray, sit down; Put on this nightcap, sir, 'tis charmed; and now I 'll show you, by my strong commanding art, The circumstance that breaks your ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... in the Devil an' all his works keeps him from bein' a heathen," observed young Adam in awe-stricken pride. "Even Mr. Mullen can't move him, he's so ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... give, a will weakened with self-indulgence, and the result is easy to forecast. George has been going from bad to worse for months past. He has sometimes won considerable sums of money, and these successes have excited him to try again—with this devil's luck, as the saying is. Of late, however, that luck has turned against him, and the events which took place to-day are only ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade

... manifested unto us," that is written "that we sin not:" For, saith this same apostle, chap. iii. 5, 8, "And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin;" yea, for this very purpose, saith he, "that he might destroy the works of the devil." Now, this is the great business, that drew the Son out of the Father's bosom,—to destroy the arch-enemy and capital rebel, sin, which, as to man, is a work of Satan's, because it first entered in man by the devil's suggestion and counsel. All that misery and ruin, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... moment or two, turned the quid of tobacco once or twice in his mouth, and then gave him a blow that felled him to the ground like a log of wood. He got to his feet again, when the Captain doubled the dose. The stranger was satisfied, and said, "You must either be the devil or Captain Barclay of Ury." "I am not the former," said the Captain, "but I am the latter." A stranger would hardly at first sight have got an adequate impression of Captain Barclay's power, but his appearance grew upon you when you came close to him; you then saw his great strength. ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... better friend than Lady Laura has been to me. Malice, wicked and false as the devil, has lately joined our names together to the incredible injury of both of us; but it has ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... have been the Devil who arranged the thing, but the fact of the case is that Losson had for a long time been worrying Simmons in an aimless way. It gave him occupation. The two had their cots side by side, and would sometimes spend a long afternoon swearing at each other; but Simmons was afraid of Losson and ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... the devil's opportunity." It was so in the present case, Green had a number of collections to make on that day, and his evil counsellors suggested his holding back the return of two of these, amounting to his indebtedness, and say that the parties were not yet ready to settle their bills. This would enable ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... stroke of work; but he's the Duke of Blanchmere, and I hope our friends here will come as near gettin' the worth of their money as we did. And if that chap"—she glanced at Percival—"marries a certain young woman, he'll never have a dull moment. I'd vouch for that. I'm quite sure she's the devil in her." ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... on the edge of its miles of heather, the free airs blowing about it, and all the wild birds crying. My mother would be coming to the door to look for my grandfather as he came off the hill from the sheep. A disgust at the bubbling devil's-caldron, a horror of the smiling, monosyllabic Woman of the Red Eyelids, filled my heart. I resolved to battle it out with Henry that very night, and to leave Vico Averso at once. If he would not do so much for me, I knew that I ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... again, powerful, manly, determined-looking. There was an expression in his eye which indicated courage without end, a courage that would enable him to brave the wrath of man, beast, or devil. ...
— The Hunters • William Morrison

... parts of Canada and the United States have investigated them in vain. Some people think that electricity is the principal agent; others, mesmerism; whilst others again, are sure they are produced by the devil. Of the three supposed causes, the latter is certainly the most plausible theory, for some of the manifestations are remarkably devilish in their appearance and effect. For instance, the mysterious setting of fires, ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell

... "The devil sit in Filon's eyes and laugh—laugh—some time he go away like a man at a window, but he come again. M'siu, he live there!" from a painting ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... knowledge, and fear of God to the children of men all his life, and deviating from the path of rectitude neither to the right nor the left.[62] He delivered the world from thousands of demons, the posterity of Adam which he had begotten with Lilith, that she-devil of she-devils. These demons and evil spirits, as often as they encountered a man, had sought to injure and even slay him, until Methuselah appeared, and supplicated the mercy of God. He spent three days in fasting, and then God gave him permission to write the Ineffable Name ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... had an idea," Rufus Shepley said, "that a genuine white man who went to one of those Central American countries turned bad after the first year and went to the devil generally. ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... it has given me much discomfort. In that book he says that it is immoral for any one to do less than his best. I can scarcely think of that statement without feeling that I ought to be sent to jail. I'm actually burdened with immorality, and find myself all the while between the "devil and the deep sea," the "devil" of work, and the "deep sea" of immorality. I suppose that's why I talk so much about being busy, trying to free myself from the charge of immorality. I think it was Virgil who said Facilis ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... service was managed? Somebody found the places in the prayer-book for them, and Brad was quick-witted, and got on very well; but Eli kept dropping behind. Brad nudged him. 'Read!' he said out loud. 'Read like the devil!' I've heard that story on an average of twice a day since I came to Tiverton. I'm not tired of ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... genuine child of Nature. Her life of little more than fourteen years had been spent in the mountains surrounding her ranch- home, Pebbly Pit. The farm was oddly located in the crater of an extinct volcano, known on the maps as "The Devil's Grave." Like many other peaks scattered about in this region of Colorado, the volcanic fires had been ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... is most intelligible contradiction. A brother of Him who went about doing good, and steal, enslave, torment, starve and scourge a man because his skin is of a different tinge! Such Christianity is the Devil's manufacture to delude souls to the regions of wo.'—REV. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... out, when Lansing appeared; "Peter says they raised the devil down at O'Hara's last night! This can't go on, d'ye see! ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... a great many Jews said to him, 'Unless we establish the right in the first place, it will surely be taken from us utterly. This is a providential opportunity to preach truth in the very camp of the enemy.' But who got it up, God or the devil?... Look over the history of the world, and in nine cases out of ten we shall find that Satan, after being foiled in his arts to stop a great moral enterprise, has finally succeeded by diverting the reformers from the main point to a collateral, and that too just at the moment ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... husband that was, as ever you slept in your life; for Old Nick or St. Dennis has not found 'em out yet: and your honour will he, no compare, snugger than at the inn at Clonbrony, which has no roof, the devil a stick. But where will I get your honour's hand; for it's coming on so dark, I can't see rightly. There, you're up now safe. Yonder ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... funeral next day, even if one has come all the way from New York and has nowhere else to go. Equally manifestly it is impossible to thrust oneself into it after the funeral till a decent interval has elapsed. But what the devil, Mr. Twist asked himself in language become regrettably natural to him since his sojourn at the front, is ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... was eminently a dare-devil enterprise of the type of the knightly forays of old, its results far less in importance than the risk of loss to the Confederacy had that fine body of cavalry been captured. Yet it was of the kind of ventures calculated ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... English caballero committed indiscretions, or quarrelled—and all these people quarrel, why, God knows—that Irish devil could hang many persons, even myself, or take ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... I shouldn't wonder if the poor devil would be glad enough to be relieved from it all. I'll tell you what I'll do, Ricketts. I'll write to Miss Brodrick's father, and ask him to come over here before the trial. He is much more concerned in the matter than I am, and should know as well ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... (which they are not) yet the meanes and ways of prosecution are unlawfull, because there is no ane equall avoiding of rocks on both hands, but a joyning with malignants to suppresse Sectaries, a joyning hands with a black devill to beat a white devil; They are bad Physicians who would so cure one disease as to breed another as evil; or worse. That there is in the present Engagement a confederacy and association in war with such of the English who according to the solemn League and Covenant and Declarations of both Kingdoms, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... M'Cormick, "we musn't keep this devil's gut, for conshumin' to the shoe or stockin' ever we'd bring out of it; however, do you folly me, Dandy, and there's ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Monoloa, in the State of Jalisco—was being worked by one Trevino and his partner, who, having been denounced to the Holy Office by jealous neighbours, they were accused of invoking the aid of the devil in their work. The unfortunate mine-owner was brought to the capital in consequence in ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... confesses were received "on the ground of tradition alone." He says: "I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Whereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the gospel.[A] Then when we are taken up (as new-born children) we taste, first of all, ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... amazement at the meeting was no greater than her brother's. "Sis! What the devil are you doing here?" he managed to say. One of the men who had been kneeling over a case of some sort, dimly outlined in the radiance of a side-light, rose and placed his ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... de ma cuisine," (Do you want me to tell you the truth? You are getting tired of my cooking). To the tried and impatient, the above incidents will cause them to ask themselves if there be any truth in the old saying: "God sent us food and the devil sent us cooks." ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... she said steadily, and I felt that the girl was but right in her assertion; "it is no murder to strike and kill, and kill quickly, he who would slay the innocent and unoffending. That man was a devil." ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... devil's advocate, the name popularly given to the promoter of the Faith (promotor fidei), and officer of the Sacred Congregation of Rites at Rome, whose duty is to prepare all possible arguments against the admission of any one to the posthumous honours of beatification and canonization. This functionary ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... pride of place in the angel host? Yes—once. The Devil wanted to be at the top, and he fell. The other angels are content where they are, and they remain angels. If they began pushing ahead of each other, cherubim wanting to be above seraphim, and angels envious of ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... An army of three thousand Piedmontese barred their way, but nothing daunted by the great disparity of force, the Vaudois, divided into three bodies, as at Salabertrans, mounted to the assault. As they advanced, the Piedmontese cried, "Come on, ye devil's Barbets, there are more than three thousand of us, and we occupy all the posts!" In less than half an hour the whole of the posts were carried, the pass was cleared, and the Piedmontese fled down the further side of the mountain, leaving all ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... bite at the very devil if his Satanical Majesty was filled to the teeth with brandy," exclaimed Jenkins, the others chorusing with ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon

... hoped to have seen you on your way back from Ellery. I believe you did not get the ballad of the 'Devil and the Bishop,' which Hartley transcribed for you. I am reprinting my miscellaneous poems, collected into three volumes. Your projected publication[32] will have the start of it greatly, for the first volume is not nearly through the press, and there is a corrected copy of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... he is nigh to deadly peril." Then they have put him on his palfrey, and, mourning, they lead him away in great dismay through the midst of the town. After them go more than twenty thousand, who follow him to the court. And all the people flock there, the one after the other, and the devil take ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... don't go to Soudan. You'll die there soon. How can you, a Christian, live there with such a white skin? The people who go there are all black, and have large swollen faces, (imitating them by blowing out her cheeks,) they are puffed out and nasty, they become as ugly as the devil himself." The town wife and lady of the Sheikh, who is heir-apparent to the Touarghee throne of Ghat, is herself a comely bustling body, rather stout, of middle size, about thirty-five years of age; and were she dressed in European style, she might, with her fine ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... and crushed out of existence like spawn? Is not humanity the commonest and cheapest thing in the world?" But as yet his faith was unshaken, and he repelled the doubt as a temptation of Satan. Blessed is the man who can assign promptly everything which is not in harmony with himself to a devil, and so get rid of it. The pitiful case is that of the distracted mortal who knows not what is the degree of authority which his thoughts and impulses possess; who is constantly bewildered by contrary messages, and has no evidence as to their authenticity. Zachariah had his rule ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... the dead man's chest. Hey! ho! and a bottle of rum!" Faith, that's a chorus I can rattle off with zest. Gratefully it clatters upon DAVY'S tym-pa-num, Like a devil's tattoo from Death's drum! Fi! Fo! Fum! These be very parlous times for old legends of the sea. VANDERDECKEN is taboo'd, the Sea Sarpint is pooh-pooh'd, but 'tis plain as any pikestaff they can't disestablish Me! DADDY NEPTUNE may delight in the Island ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... with pain and passion. "Ye devil's hound! ... But I'll go for ye now!" Recovering his balance, he ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... "Go to the devil," they answered. "What for?—they're our bags, not yours. Who in Sam Hill are you, anyhow? What are you? ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... I said, in response to the strange fear he had inspired. "No one can frighten me now." A sense of my inaccessibility was the first taste of an achieved triumph. I had done with fear. The poor devil before me appeared infinitely remote. He was lost; but he was only one of the lost; one of those that I could see already overwhelmed by the rush from the flood-gates opened at my touch. He would be destroyed in good company; swept out of my ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... poor young woman is better with her ain father, though he be a Jew and a dour chield into the bargain, than she would have been with the loon that wranged her, who is, by your account, Dr. Gray, baith a papist and a rebel. The Jews are well attached to government; they hate the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender, as much as any honest ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... grumbled the man, evidently displeased at the question. "A black-browed devil who it won't do to talk about here. Mrs. Hazen was only a slip of a gal when she married him, and as he didn't live but a couple o' months folks have sort o' forgiven her and forgotten him. To us Mrs. Hazen was always Mrs. Hazen; and Alf—well, he was just Alf Hazen too; a lad with too much good ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... Elisabeth. One day I got nursin' my wrongs and forgettin' my blessings, and the devil was on hand to give me the chance. Dorcas was off nursing a sick neighbor, Oliver was to Newburgh on some Fair business, and there wasn't nobody in the house but me and Leah. I took an old horse and wagon, 't he'd been meaning to sell, to the sales-stable at the Landing; and ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... utterly embittered against him both atheists and pious people. In disappointed rage at his failure, he laid aside the characters of prophet and mild saint to give vent to his natural wickedness and to become a devil. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... till'd, Much corn, repeopled towns, a realm again. So far my course, albeit not glassy-smooth, Had prosper'd in the main, but suddenly Jarr'd on this rock. A cleric violated The daughter of his host, and murder'd him. Bishops—York, London, Chichester, Westminster— Ye haled this tonsured devil into your courts; But since your canon will not let you take Life for a life, ye but degraded him Where I had hang'd him. What doth hard murder care For degradation? and that made me muse, Being bounden by my coronation oath To do men justice. Look to it, your ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... they have seen horrible and impossible demons in the sea. Pare describes and pictures a monster, at Rome, on November 3, 1520, with the upper portion of a child apparently about five or six years old, and the lower part and ears of a fish-like animal. He also pictures a sea-devil in the same chapter, together with other gruesome examples of the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... into my arms. "Your work is ended and mine begun," said I to him. We embraced each other, and he gave me the pike and a pair of scissors. I told Soradaci to cut our beards, but I could not help laughing to see the creature—his mouth all agape-staring at the angel, who was more like a devil. However, though quite beside himself, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... of the supreme Deity and of man; they were enemies only of the Demiourgos, the Jewish god Yahweh, who, they held, wished to keep man in ignorance.[1183] The Mesopotamian Yezidis also (the so-called devil-worshipers) revere only beings that they regard as morally good or as destined to become good. Their peculiar attitude toward Satan (a mingling of fear and respect) is based not on his connection with evil but on their ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... more dissension and lack of love between man and man, the occasions whereof are opinions only and names devised for the continuance of the same. Some are called Papists, some Lutherans, and some Anabaptists; names devised of the devil, and yet not fully without ground, for the severing of one man's heart by conceit of opinion from the other." But the remedy was a simple one. Every man was "to travail first for his own amendment." Then the bishops and clergy were to agree in their ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... in Ruhleben camp was terrible. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. If one, in desperation, approached the authorities for a word of suggestion to improve this or that, officialdom merely shrugged its shoulders and candidly admitted impotence to recommend ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... 'if your husband has been idiot enough to trust you with his secrets, keep them; keep them, she-devil that you are!' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... always ready to kiss your hands. He does not speak French—that's no great loss. I am not over strong in the French lingo myself. It would be better if he could not speak at all; he would not tell lies then. But here he is—speak of the devil," added Marfa Timofyevna looking into the street. "Here comes your agreeable man striding along. What a lanky creature he ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... liberties of the country, and drew hosts of conservative Churchmen, such as Pym, to their side, although not at all in sympathy with a religious fanaticism which condemned innocent pleasures, and all the things which adorn life, as mere devices of the devil. Such were the means by which the line was at last sharply drawn. The Church of England and tyranny on one side, and Puritanism ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... up again. "Oh, you don't," he screamed, leering frenziedly. "You yellow devil! You almond-eyed pigtail! But I know you do! And I must have it. Quick! quick!" He hung, clutching, on the edge of Fong Wu's wide ironing-table, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... I thrust my idle hands hard into my pockets to keep them from the Devil who would have them out at the moths instantly—an evil job, killing ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... Steve. "Well, who the devil cares what you'd do, anyhow? And if you tell me to cool down just once more, I'll drive you into ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... made trial of a new and larger model, with unsatisfactory results upon the first trial. He wrote Roebuck that "by an unforeseen misfortune, the mercury found its way into the cylinder and played the devil with the solder." Only after a month's hard labor was the second trial made, with very different and indeed astonishing results—"success to my heart's content," exclaimed Watt. Now he would pay his long-promised debt to his partner Roebuck, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... to make you—or maybe it was Emma. But I thought I'd better hang a tail on it and let it be the cat." He studied the result gravely. "I'll stick horns on it, and if they're very good horns I'll let it be the devil; if they're not, it can be Mis' Hughes's ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... interest asserts that we will never stop our headlong rush to the devil if we do not get free coinage of silver. Silver, like pork or potatoes, is something for sale, and its owners have given up their whole attention to finding it a market. Whoever heard of J. P. Jones interesting himself in anything except silver. Never in all of his ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood

... some young men deny, because God fails to recognize their importance, I imagine. And now it is all done. It is crumbled up by the scurrilous treachery of some miscreant. Ach! I should like to have him out here on the plain. I would choke him. For money, too! The devil—it must have been the devil—to sell that secret to ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... Daunton, to daunt. Daur, dare. Daurna, dare not. Daur't, dared. Daut, dawte, to fondle. Daviely, spiritless. Daw, to dawn. Dawds, lumps. Dawtingly, prettily, caressingly. Dead, death. Dead-sweer, extremely reluctant. Deave, to deafen. Deil, devil. Deil-haet, nothing (Devil have it). Deil-ma-care, Devil may care. Deleeret, delirious, mad. Delvin, digging. Dern'd, hid. Descrive, to describe. Deuk, duck. Devel, a stunning blow. Diddle, to move quickly. Dight, to wipe. Dight, winnowed, sifted. Din, dun, muddy of complexion. Ding, to beat, to ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... colours (the scenes) is exceedingly wonderful, for every instant a new painting is exhibited. Then people, disguised like angels and fairies, the one moment come upon the stage and dance, and the next vanish from the sight. There is also a man with a black face, who is a kind of devil, and called harlequin; at one time he appears, and at another time hides himself, and sometimes attaches himself to the others, and taking the hands of the dancing girls, he dances with them; he then scampers off, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... remember. Her account of the visit to the potteries proved very amusing, but before she told him of their fall amid the cups and saucers she made Montgomery swear he would never breathe a word. 'Oh, the devil! Was that the way he cut his legs? He told us that he had forgotten his latchkey, and that he had done it ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... my way I wouldn't take no prisoners. 'Tain't safe, for one thing. That was 'ow pore old Bill got done in; went to take a white-headed old devil prisoner as might have been his grandfather, and he up and strafed him in the stomach with a shot-gun. Don't care 'oo it is. They say the women's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various

... flaps out in de gloomin' dark, An' even ef he's boun' for a harmless lark, He favors de devil an' he keeps sech hours Dat he seems in cahoot wid de evil powers. An' he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— An' he ain't ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... because He did such works as no other man did, he ought, logically speaking, to accept the works of those who, in His name, had cast out devils, as demonstrating a proportionate goodness on their part. But it is people of this class who are consigned to ever-lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Such zeal as that of Mr. Mozley for miracles tends, I fear, to eat his religion up. The logical threatens to stifles the spiritual. The truly religious soul needs no miraculous proof of the goodness of Christ. The words addressed to Matthew at the receipt of custom required ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... long enough to be sure that I'm not the sort of man to be turned from my purpose. You and I have lived together many years now, and all on 'em's been spent in the service of the devil. I'm not laying the blame more on you nor on myself. I've been the worse, it may be, of the two. But I can't go on as I have done. The Lord has been very merciful to me, or I shouldn't be here now. I've served the old lad too long by the half, and I mean now to serve a better Mayster, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... devil! a devil!" she repeated mechanically; and then, forcing herself out of the trance-like feeling that oppressed her, she combated with the cowardice that prevented her rushing out—if only to die in an attempt to save her children. She had not realized till then that it was possible to care ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... then, Jack was believed to be guilty. It was curious to see how each Dillon shrank unconsciously as the Turners gathered—all but Jerry, one of the giant twins. He always stood his ground—fearing nor man, nor dog—nor devil. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... whole system, so that although the frame-work is good and divine, the spirit and life within it are evil. Thus, for instance, to be in a high station is the gift of God; but the pride and injustice to which it has given scope is from the Devil. To be poor and obscure is also the ordinance of God; but the dishonesty and discontent which are often seen in the poor is from Satan. To cherish and protect wife and family is God's appointment; but the love of gain, and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... did not think so. Lady Alice made a devil of a row about it, as far as I understand. Everyone who knows the story blames you, Rosalind, for the quarrel and separation ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... to the theatre, and came home possessed of a demon. Her confessor, seeking to cast out the evil one, demanded of him how he dared to take possession of a believer, who, by holy baptism, had been redeemed out of his kingdom. "I have done nothing but what is proper," said the devil, "for I found her on my own territory." He might have made a captive of Nat for ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... both sides. Almost as many pamphlets were published about the India trade as about the oaths. The despot of Leadenhall Street was libelled in prose and verse. Wretched puns were made on his name. He was compared to Cromwell, to the King of France, to Goliath of Gath, to the Devil. It was vehemently declared to be necessary that, in any Act which might be passed for the regulation of our traffic with the Eastern seas, Sir Josiah should be by name excluded from all ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was a heavily built man, with a big jaw. And when he saw me there, confronting him, his face changed from a look of displeased surprise to one of angry contempt—lowering his head like a bull—as if he were saying to himself: "What! That d—— little devil! I'll bet he heard me!" But he did not speak. And neither did I. He went off about whatever business he had in hand, and I caught up my hat and hastened to Gardener to tell ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... fooleries, with shouting and with laughter, They fill the streets of Burgos—and the Devil he comes after; For the King has hired the horned fiend for sixteen maravedis, And there he goes, with hoofs for toes, to terrify ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... porter, with a load of wood upon his back, passed by on the other side of the horse so near, that the rider was forced to turn his head towards him, to avoid being hurt, or having his clothes torn by the wood. In that moment the devil tempted me; I took the string in one hand, and with the other pulled out the purse so dexterously, that nobody perceived me. The purse was heavy, and I did not doubt but it contained ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Anthony, with a meaning flourish of his stick, "there it is. The poetic spirit always dies at the advance of that ghastly fetich." Then he spoke sententiously. "Popular education is a contrivance of the devil, whereby he looks to extinguish every last saving grace from the life of the populace. Not poetry only, but all good things and all good feelings,—religion, reverence, courtesy,—sane contentment, rational ambition,—the right sort of humility, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... the Fairy Mythology, there is a legend of a farmer cheating a Troll in an argument respecting the crops that were to be grown on the hill within which the latter resided. It is there observed that Rabelais tells the same story of a farmer and the Devil. I think there can be no doubt that these are not independent fictions, but that the legend is a transmitted one, the Scandinavian being the original, brought with them perhaps by the Normans. {592} But what are we to say to the actual fact of the same legend being found in the valleys ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various

... ballet "Evadne" (op. 155). A "Clown's Dance" in bolero rhythm is delightful. The "Introduction to Act II." contains many varied ideas and one passage of peculiar harmonic beauty. A "Valse de Salon" has its good bits, but is rather overwrought. A "Devil's Dance" introduces some excellent harmonic effects, but the "Waltz with Chorus and Finale" is the best number of the opus. It begins in the orchestra with a most irresistible waltz movement that is just what a waltz should be. A chorus is then superimposed on this rhapsody, and a climax of superb ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... photographed! here is proof of it!' and he pointed to a little yellow spot on the paper, shrieking out, 'Look! Smell! Smell it, you devil! It is—' I forget the name he called it, but ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... for sterility was customary in very early times. Complete sterility or miscarriage was thought to be occasioned by evil spirits; a woman thus possessed with a devil came to be looked on as a dangerous being whom ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... somewhere or other, you scoundrel!" I cried; "to the devil himself, so long as there's a ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable, and more perhaps than any one man recorded in History capable of justifying the bold illustration of that character in Horace, "Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae") had, however, a ferocity in his character, and a touch of the devil in him, very rarely united with the same tranquil intrepidity. But, for Caesar, the all-accomplished statesman, the splendid orator, the man of elegant habits and polished taste, the patron of the fine arts in a degree transcending all example of his own or the previous age, and as a man of general ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... had no money. My savings were exhausted. My salary was not due. I dared not beg it in advance. I was manager of the bank, and had control over all that was in it. The devil within me tempted me, and I yielded. I falsified the accounts, and tampered with the books of the bank. My very desperation made me ingenious, and it was not till I had been away a month with my ill-gotten booty ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... a quick, straight column of cigarette smoke into the air, tilted his chair back, and said: "I do not know what you mean by 'ha'sh,' but he is the devil. Eh, well, there was more than one devil made sometime in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... afternoon the damaged room was put to rights, the invalids were better, and there was time to hear and judge the little culprits quietly. Nat and Tommy told their parts in the mischief, and were honestly sorry for the danger they had brought to the dear old house and all in it. But Dan put on his devil-may-care look, and would not own that ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... leisure in reading good books; that he had read the Bible, the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas a Kempis; and that as often as he could, without being perceived, he had studied a great good book which lay open in the hall window, where he had read, "as how the devil carried away half a church in sermon-time, without hurting one of the congregation; and as how a field of corn ran away down a hill with all the trees upon it, and covered another man's meadow." This sufficiently ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... soldiers, and to satisfy every one. All this was in his power; and if the Austrian court hesitated to confirm his agreement, he would unite with the allies, and (as he privately whispered to Arnheim) hunt the Emperor to the devil." At the second conference, he expressed himself still more plainly to Count Thurn. "All the privileges of the Bohemians," he engaged, "should be confirmed anew, the exiles recalled and restored to their estates, and he himself would be the first to resign his share of them. The Jesuits, as ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... friendless man against the rich and successful one—a feeling somewhat like that which in England enlisted the working-classes in London on the side of the Tichborne claimant, in defiance of all reason and evidence, as a poor devil fighting a hard battle with the high and mighty. One of the reporters of a Western paper which has made important contributions to the literature of the scandal, recently accounted for his support ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... trick on their part to evade being seen, and on further inquiry into the matter from a Corean friend, I discovered that a woman has a right to open and enter any door of a Corean house when she sees a foreign man appearing on the horizon, as the reputation of the masculine "foreign devil" is still far from having reached a high standard of morality in the minds of the gentler sex of Cho-sen. In the main street and big thoroughfares, where at all times there are crowds of people, there is more chance of approaching them ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... rusty gleam of something like mummified pleasure passed unseen behind the spectacles of old Carson Tinker. "Stage-hands are the devil," he explained to the stupefied Canby. "Rehearsals bore them and they love to hear what an actor says when his nerves go to pieces. If Potter blows up they'll quiet down to enjoy it and then do it again pretty soon. ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... one day, mes chers," grunted the big blacksmith at St. Anne's. "He'll do anything, that man. Le bon Diable is his papa. Hein? Voyez, mon petit stupide! Last week, because he needs no more and because the devil likes him, he finds gold again in the Nez Casse! Nom d'un gros porc! But who has dreamed to find gold in the Nez Casse? Oho! Some day he comes up with three man and la princesse. And then . ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... shouted as he held up the radiant, struggling fish that reached from his chin to his belt. "I tell ye boys they're goin' to be sassy as the devil. Jump out an' go to ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... and that they rush,—cannot see him anywhere. Presently there stepped across the threshold a very old devil. ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... promises but what it performs, and we may take it as an absolutely certain thing that if any of the "systems" of our day secured palpably higher ethical results amongst its adherents, the world would flock to that Church forthwith. As Augustine says, "no one loves the devil," which, being ethically interpreted, means no one wants to be bad, and if any ecclesiastical corporation, by an appeal to history or to present and urgent visible facts, could justify its claims to successfully strengthen man's oftentimes rebel ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... Fremont's division marched to the Cache la Poudre River, and thence to the plains of Laramie until they came to the North Fork of the Platte. This river they crossed below the New Park and bent their way to the sweet water, reaching it at a point about fifteen miles below the Devil's Gate. From this point they traveled almost the same road which is now used by emigrants and which leads to Soda Springs on Beaver River. It had been decided by Fremont to go to the Great Salt Lake and accomplish its exploration. He therefore started for that direction; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... that the devil is not the head of the wicked. For it belongs to the head to diffuse sense and movement into the members, as a gloss says, on Eph. 1:22, "And made Him head," etc. But the devil has no power of spreading the evil of sin, which proceeds from the will ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... are pretty good staggers, some of the minor stuff. Lots of it is good talk—only wandering. That woman may write something some day if she breaks loose and goes to the devil for ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... devil nor hell in our religion until the white man brought them to us, yet Unk-to-mee, the Spider, was doubtless akin to that old Serpent who tempted mother Eve. He is always characterized as tricky, treacherous, ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman



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