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Demoralize   Listen
verb
Demoralize  v. t.  (past & past part. demoralized; pres. part. demoralizing)  To corrupt or undermine in morals; to destroy or lessen the effect of moral principles on; to render corrupt or untrustworthy in morals, in discipline, in courage, spirit, etc.; to weaken in spirit or efficiency. "The demoralizing example of profligate power and prosperous crime." "The vices of the nobility had demoralized the army."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Demoralize" Quotes from Famous Books



... power added to the anti-slavery movement, of great importance; it is the conviction, becoming every day more general and universal, that slavery must be abolished at the south, or it will demoralize and destroy liberty at the north. It is the nature of slavery to beget a state of things all around it favorable to its own continuance. This fact, connected with the system of bondage, is beginning to be more fully realized. The slave-holder is not satisfied ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... years ago was asked why he was unwilling to agree to a demobilization of his forces or to a reduction of his army and he said because it would demoralize the industries of Germany. They could not reabsorb so many men without reducing wages and throwing upon the country so many unemployed that it would make against the welfare of the land. We will have that problem ...
— Address by Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior at Conference of Regional Chairmen of the Highway Transport Committee Council of National Defence • US Government

... the social efficiency of the Negro, tend to degrade and demoralize him. The argument that the deprivation of the Negro's political and social rights in the South tends to crush his ambition, warp his aspirations and distort his judgment, is unsound, because his self-reliance, ambition and independence in the South can be traced ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards

... with this function of controlling the arms trade is another great necessity of Africa under "tutelage," and that is the necessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native population. That demoralization, physical and moral, has already gone far. The whole negro population of Africa is now rotten with diseases introduced by Arabs and Europeans during the last century, and ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... rights of manhood, denying him the right to the product of his labor, it left him no noble incentive to labor at these arts, and thus tended to render him improvident, careless, shiftless, in short, to demoralize ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... all this incalculable waste of life, energy, brains, and loyalty, was preventable and unnecessary. Ethics and honour apart, where was the common sense of the legislative Union? Would it have been possible to design a system better calculated to embitter, impoverish, and demoralize a valuable portion ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... condescension. They are impertinent and out of place in this free democracy. There is not, in fact, any such state of things or any such relation as would make projects of this kind appropriate. Such projects demoralize both parties, flattering the vanity of one and undermining ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... illegal operations, incest, and venereal disease. If the stage is the proper place for the exhibition and discussion of seduction, adultery, promiscuity, and prostitution, it must be thrown open to all the consequences of these things, or it will demoralize ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... investigators told us that alcohol taken into the system at such a time would cause sunstroke. If beer was fatal, most of us figured that we had been dead for years and didn't know it. The effect of constant complaints was to demoralize us and make our work harder. I thought at first that these investigators were our friends and I gave them all the help I could. But instead of helping us, they only hurt us, and then I soured on their misapplied zeal. They ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... trusted to behave himself in the Penniman parlour, not touching the many bibelots there displayed, or disarranging the furniture, while the Wilbur twin would not only touch and disarrange, but pry into and handle and climb and altogether demoralize. In all the parlour there was but one object for which he had a seemly respect—the vast painting of a recumbent lion behind bars. It was not an ordinary picture, such as may be seen in galleries, for the bars guarding the fierce beast were real bars ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... ameliorate the hard conditions of his fellows, to help to emancipate them from ignorance and drudgery; what shall we think of this man, so divinely endowed, so superbly equipped, who, instead of using his education to lift his fellow men, uses it to demoralize, to drag them down; who employs his talents in the book he writes, in the picture he paints, in his business, whatever it may be, to mislead, to demoralize, to debauch; who uses his light as a decoy to lure his fellows on the rocks and reefs, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... committee would place him in a false position. Florida had taken the initiative; her Legislature had ordered an election to choose members to a convention to be convened on the 3d day of January, 1861. The committee was a Trojan horse to gain time and demoralize the South; he regretted that it emanated from a Virginia Representative. He would tell the North that Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina were certain to secede from the Union within a short period. Arkansas, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... apologize apostrophize apprize (to value) authorize baptize brutalize canonize catechize catholicize cauterize centralize characterize christianize civilize colonize criticize crystallize demoralize dogmatize economize emphasize epitomize equalize eulogize evangelize extemporize familiarize fertilize fossilize fraternize galvanize generalize gormandize harmonize immortalize italicize jeopardize legalize liberalize localize magnetize ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton

... useless in forest fighting, while if, as must generally be the case in any body, there were a number of cowards in the ranks, the total lack of discipline not only permitted them to flinch from their work with impunity, but also allowed them, by their example, to infect and demoralize ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... at my own selection, to poor men who have gone astray from the path of life, a ruble, or ten rubles, or a hundred; and I grasp hundreds from people who have not yet left the path, and thereby I render them poor also, and demoralize ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... a peg—with mighty poor skill, too. Here come Patton McRae and Susy. Excuse me. I'll help him with his horses," for Patton's black mare hated the harness even more than she did the saddle, and was doing her best to demoralize her ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... Force "A." Passing through Seletskoe he left the Russian volunteers to oppose the Reds in Kodish, and guard his rear. But these uncertain troops fled upon approach of the Bolos and about the first of September Col. Hazelden instead of being in a position to demoralize the Reds on the railroad by a swift blow from behind, found himself in desperate defense, both front and rear, and beleagured in the woods and swamps some ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... of God, separated from its spirit, tends to demoralize mortals, and must be corrected by a diviner sense of liberty and light. The spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and acting; and falsity must thus decay, ere spiritual sense, affectional consciousness, and genuine goodness ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... made the necessary application of the home-truths he uttered. I question if another voice has been raised, far and near, on the subject, although I have heard Mr. Warren say the movement threatens more to demoralize New York than anything that has happened ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... he thought that," cried Bessie. "No doubt everybody thought that, but it wasn't entirely Teddy's fault. If there is anything in the world that is well calculated to demoralize an active-minded, able-bodied child, it is hotel life. Teddy was egged on to all sorts of indiscretions by everybody in the hotel, from the bell-boys up. If he'd stand on his head on the cashier's desk, the cashier would laugh first, and then, to get rid of him, would ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... Lieutenant Brown, on the right bank; while the two captains rowed up the stream between them, throwing grape into the bushes to disperse the Indians. Major Appling waited until the British were close up, when his riflemen opened with so destructive a volley as to completely demoralize and "stampede" them, and their whole force was captured with hardly any resistance, the American having only one man slightly wounded. The British loss was severe,—18 killed and 50 dangerously wounded, according to Captain Popham's report, as quoted by James; or "14 killed and 28 wounded," ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... hung that fellow to the nearest tree, I would gladly have done so; for it seemed to almost completely demoralize me and unfit me for the occasion. And I would have given ten times the price of the whole outfit could I have been ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... which what each holds in view as the crowning ideal is to do nothing himself, to squander without measure or care, and to have as many as possible work for his own personal profit, without asking who they are and how they live. A system that slowly but surely must demoralize and impoverish every nation to the core, even the richest and the strongest. A system that gives peace to none and can bring none to the highest possible grade of development and happiness. A system by which at least ninety ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... work of politics," said Montgomery, gloomily. "Of course it doesn't demoralize you so long as you keep your own hands clean, but it is sickening to suspect that you are sitting cheek by jowl in the Committee Room with a man whose pocket is stuffed with some Trust ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... my old mother—my dear young lady, even I, old as I am, have a mother—what does she do but draw a prize in the Austro-Hungarian lottery—a huge prize—enough to demoralize one for life—five thousand florins. More remarkable still, the money is paid. Not so remarkable, my good mother declares she will give half of it to an undutiful son, who has never done very well ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... government can hinder your children from succeeding to your freedom of mind. It can teach lies and superstitions in the schools, and compel you to send your children there. It can set an example of public morality which can demoralize a whole people. It can draw up manifest examples of miserable intentions and conduct of life, through whose imitation a people voluntarily mutilates itself or commits suicide. No, no; it does not do to limit oneself to ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... Stanley's wickedness out of him by giving him a whipping, and the end of the matter was that he ran away that afternoon. That is not the worst of it,—for the children all know the facts, and since they find that Stanley Owen can run away and be sustained in his disobedience, of course it tends to demoralize them. So I say that if I do my duty I am lashed by the tongues of people who know nothing of the circumstances; and if I fail to perform my duty I am lashed by my own conscience,—and between the two I ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... serve to annoy the troops we are about to attack, by the incessant sharp buzzing of their deadly bullets among them, like so many bees, killing some and disabling others; and this, sometimes, to such a degree as to demoralize them. ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt

... understood in England, and Penal Reformation, [Footnote: Corporal Punishments and Penal Reformation, Francis Newman, 1865.] he owns that "it has hitherto been most difficult to discover what due punishment of felony will not demoralize the felon." And of course, undoubtedly, that is the crux of the whole matter. But there is no one in England to-day but will agree that some change in our prison system is imperatively needed. Only the other day a woman, thoroughly qualified to judge, declared that the inevitable effect ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... South, to this unprecedented scale, will not get more ships, he fears, but less, for they will not work if they have wages in four days, equal to seven days' needs. I advised for standardization. He said the Navy wouldn't hear of it, as it would demoralize their yards. ... ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... various levels of the building, picking up information from the minds and conversation of the men it encountered. In a fairly short time, it learned enough to understand what was planned by the criminals; and it arrived at precisely your own conclusion ... that it might be possible to reduce and demoralize the gangs to the extent that they would no longer be able to carry out their plan. It began a systematic series of attacks on them with ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz

... and the effect of it has been to convince me more than ever of your innocence. But that sort of thing would scarcely convince anybody else. Now take my advice, and think as little about the case as possible. You cannot do any good—you will only demoralize yourself still more. Everything depends on how the judge and jury may be disposed to regard our story. I shall give a brief to the best man that can be had, and then we shall have done all that lies ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... to the second alleged cause of the increase of crime, namely, the jury laws, your Committee need hardly repeat, that the well-proven effect of transportation is to demoralize, not to reform an offender; therefore, in a community like New South Wales, wherein so large a proportion of the population are persons who have been convicts, to permit such persons generally to sit upon juries must evidently have an injurious effect. Your Committee, ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... made; for any kind of education will not accomplish this end. Only as people are truly cultured do they cease to be tools of politicians. Then their intelligence, not their passions, must be addressed. When the masses are thus cultured they will refine instead of demoralize our public men. ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... caused in 1887 among British employers when a few agitators started preaching the "go-canny" theory—"Bad pay, bad work"; "Take it easy, do not overwork yourselves, and waste all you can."—"They demoralize the worker, they want to kill our industry!" cried those same people who the day before inveighed against the immorality of the worker and the bad quality of his work. But if the workers were what they are represented to be—namely, the idler ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... received by everybody at Camp Supply, and they were particularly agreeable tome, for, besides being greatly worried about the safety of the command in the extreme cold and deep snows, I knew that the immediate effect a victory would be to demoralize the rest of the hostiles, which of course would greatly facilitate and expedite our ultimate success. Toward evening the day after Joe arrived the head of Custer's column made its appearance on the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... it be found that a catcher is a poor thrower, or a pitcher slow in his movements, every fair runner reaching first should immediately attempt to steal second, and even third. This style of play will demoralize an opposing team quicker than anything else, and even if unsuccessful at first, and the first few runners be caught, it should still be kept up for a couple of innings, because it will, at least, affect the nerves of ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... laborer, but he can't drive him out of the village, nor rob him of parish relief, for poor Hodge is my tenant, not a snob's. Nobody can build a beershop in Islip. That is true. But if they could, they would sell bad beer, give credit in the ardor of competition, poison the villagers, and demoralize them. Believe me, republican institutions are beautiful on paper; but they would not work well in Barfordshire villages. However, you profess to go by experience in everything. There are open villages within five miles. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... everybody. I tried to persuade W. to take him as a workman in the woods, with the hope of getting back as under-keeper, but he would not hear of it, said the man was perfectly unruly and violent-tempered, and would demoralize all the rest. They remained some time in the country, and the woman came sometimes to see me, but she had grown hard, evidently thought I could have done something for her husband, and couldn't understand that as long as he went on snaring game no one ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... could reckon on as sure to welcome him and his bride were political acquaintances of mark, far above the Dunstone range, and Cecil could not but be gratified, even while Mrs. Duncombe and her friend declared that they were going to try to demoralize her by the seductions of ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... some degree a surprise to Abolitionists, as well as to pro-slavery prophets. They compelled the admission, either that slavery was less demoralizing than had been supposed, or else that this particular type of human nature was less easy to demoralize. It is but a few years since anti-slavery advocates indignantly rejected the assertion that the English peasantry were more degraded than the slaves of South Carolina. Yet no dweller on the Sea Islands can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... too great distance to do much material damage, I thinking it more important to preserve my own men's lives and so to continue able to demoralize the Kurds, and afterward Ranjoor Singh commended me for that. But I was also acutely aware of the risk that our bullets might go past the Kurds and kill our own Sikhs. I am not at all sure some accidents of that nature did ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... I had to tell him, but anything terrifying could demoralize Harry and make him throw his arm before his face in blind panic. But I couldn't keep it locked up inside ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long

... against obscenity, that it makes the magistrate virtually a censor. But in the main a citizen can ascertain what he may do and what he may not do; and, though no one knows better than a magistrate that a single ill-conducted family may demoralize a whole street, no magistrate can imprison or otherwise restrain its members on the ground that their immorality may corrupt their neighbors. He can prevent any citizen from carrying certain specified weapons, ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... is charming; but don't let us get too dependent on pretty things. They demoralize as much ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had also been emptying her lunch-box. She listened eagerly to the conversation between her companions. This Dennis O'Day was the man who was doing all in his power to demoralize Bitumen. She was interested because she knew of him, and moreover, by the feeling that these questions were asked from more than ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... "go it, little un! Let 'im 'ave it! The long un's showing the white feather," etc., and finally I gave him a slight backhander that made his nose bleed and seemed to demoralize him completely. "Yah!" shouted the crowd; "'it ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... Doctor to his wife; "how's this? You know I never trade at any of those abominable department stores! You know what I think of them: they demoralize trade; they take the bread out of the mouth of the small dealer; they pay sinfully low wages to the poor ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... death of any one, yet I can not but feel that, in the death of Stephen A. Douglas, a most dangerous person has been removed. No man of his time has done more than he to intensify hatred of the negro and to demoralize northern sentiment. Since Henry Clay he has been the King of Compromise. Yours for the freedom of man and of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... of atheism, its nature, its objects, its effects; he had shown him how this doctrine, conceived in the drawing-rooms and boudoirs of the aristocracy, was the most perfidious invention the enemies of the people had ever devised to demoralize and enslave it; how it was a criminal act to uproot from the heart of the unfortunate the consoling thought of a Providence to reward and compensate and give them over without rein or bit to the passions ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... been said that the sinking of the Lusitania was carefully planned by the chiefs of the German admiralty. They expected, it was believed, to demoralize British shipping and strike terror into the minds of the British people by showing that the largest and swiftest of liners could ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... the organic law, persisted in for a considerable time, can not but create fears for the stability of our institutions. Habitual violation of prescribed rules, which we bind ourselves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our only standard of civil duty being set at naught, the sheet anchor of our political morality is lost, the public conscience swings from its moorings and yields to every impulse of passion and interest. If we repudiate the Constitution, we will not be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... smaller occasions, discovered that my appearance on the incomprehensible "asp-i-awhan" would be pretty certain to temporarily demoralize the troops and create general disorder and inattention, I am for a moment undetermined about whether to advance or retreat. The acclamations of delight and approval from the nearest troopers at seeing me enter the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... plan of attack embraced a heavy bombardment to demoralize their enemy and prevent reenforcement. This was to be followed by an infantry attack. It was expected that the Germans would be surprised to such an extent it would be impossible for them to make much resistance. Units of the First Army ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... returning, and gazing in comic dismay at his favorite sister, much as he would at a dove who had ruffled its plumes. "This from you, Pamela? If Betty be allowed to demoralize the family in this wise, I think it were well my father takes you ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... bring misfortune. He says it hurts him more to win the money of a man on a salary, especially if he has a family, than to lose his own, and as he does not care to be a loser he keeps these people away as far as possible. In plain English, he wishes to demoralize only the higher classes of society. His visitors are chiefly men who are wealthy and who can afford to lose, or whose high social or political stations make them welcome guests. You may see at his table Governors, Senators, members of Congress and of Legislatures, generals, judges, lawyers, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... to call your special attention. By reference to the comparative view of convictions contained therein, you will observe that two classes of offences against the laws constitute nearly two-thirds of the whole number of convictions. The inevitable effect of these offences is to demoralize and destroy the people, and I would designate as well worthy of your careful consideration and adoption, the recommendations of the Chief Justice in relation to such amendments or alterations of the existing laws ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV

... else to think of. If he got the train out of here, he would have to work with this guy. And there would always be an even greater resentment added to the normal fear and hatred of the psionic. That could demoralize the whole ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole

... true that armies necessarily diffuse immorality through community, is it not equally true that habitual submission to the injustice, plunder, and insult of foreign conquerors would tend still more to degrade and demoralize any people? ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... and the Salle Valentinois; but degenerates at a higher elevation. To improve her is to spoil her. In her white cap and muslin gown, the Parisian grisette is simply delicious. In a smart bonnet, a Cashmere and a brougham, she is simply detestable. Fine clothes vulgarize her. Fine surroundings demoralize her. Lodged on the sixth story, rich in the possession of a cuckoo-clock, a canary, half a dozen pots of mignonette, and some bits of cheap furniture in imitation mahogany, she has every virtue and every ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... hand and a Bible in the other, are even worse than certain objectionable literary celebrities, whose novels reek of the 'new journalism' and the Sermon on the Mount—the ridiculous and sublime in tasteless combination. You missionaries, I say, sap the primitive strength of Art; you demoralize her. To dare to make Art pander to a passing creed is vile—worse than the spectacle of the Salvation Army trying to convert Buddhists. That I saw in India, and laughed. But we won't quarrel. You paint Faith's jewelry; I'll amuse myself with Truth's drabs and duns. The point of view ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... rest of the train, and in the fore was the cow alone. It was evident that she was distressed and angry, for it took two men to keep her in the trail. And another thing plain to me was the fact that she was going to demoralize the pack horses. We were not across the wide range of this flat mountain when one of the pack animals, a lean and lanky sorrel, appeared suddenly to go mad, and began to buck off a pack. He succeeded. This inspired a black horse, very appropriately ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... in a room. They monopolize the space on the floor and wall that should be free for pictures and large articles of furniture, and otherwise completely demoralize the apartment. To do away with this inconvenience substitute heavy curtains whenever an impassable barrier is unnecessary; closet doors, for instance, and those between parlors. Again, doors that are much open may be made to ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... fatherland to its sons, the glory of brave valor, the shame of cowardice, probably ending with some practical directions about "Never edging to the right!" and exhorting his men to raise as loud a war-cry as possible, both to encourage themselves and to demoralize the enemy. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... the residents of foreign birth, a few of them favor annexation to the United States; but only a few. A large majority would oppose it as strenuously as the native people. Most of the planters see that it would break up their labor system, demoralize the workmen, and probably for years ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... fair play, and lawful means used on both sides alike. If you do more; if you interfere in any wise with the Trades' Unions themselves, you will fail, and fail doubly. You will not prevent the existence of combinations: you will only make them secret, dark, revolutionary: you will demoralize the working man thereby as surely as the merchant is demoralized by being converted into a smuggler; you will heap up indignation, spite, and wrath against the day of wrath; and finally, to complete your own failure, you will drive the working man to demand an extension ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... the field to defend against an all-out assault or eject another force and occupy the contested land to ensure the objectives of conflict are carried out. Air power can punish, simultaneously destroy center of gravity targets, and so demoralize the opposing forces that land campaign objectives can be achieved with smaller forces. In some cases, the Shock and Awe achieved by the air campaign may result in an early cessation of conflict before the land campaign is necessary. This is more likely against a modernized, ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... member of the Constitutional Convention, who had dwelt much on the superior prerogatives of the Anglo-Saxon race, was saying, "You go for political equality with the negro; we Democrats won't stand that, it would demoralize the white man." On my way to lecture in the evening, a friend forewarned me that the ex-Secretary, with two or three of his political stripe, had engaged a shrewd Democratic lawyer, by getting him half drunk, to reply ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... has failed, in this country, with its sparse population, to collect a duty of 1000 per cent, or that the experiment has cost the nation more than fifty millions. Such excessive duties may well be styled over-taxation, and tend to demoralize and corrupt our revenue officers, to encourage fraud, and to enrich illicit traders. The Commission believe that the reduction of the duty will restore alcohol to the arts, diminish fraud, and give us a revenue of at least $40,000,000 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... Pacific from San Diego to Sitka, as we did have to patrol the Atlantic from Key West to Bar Harbor. Palpably this was to go the longest way around to do a task that had to be done in any event, as well as to demoralize our forces at the opening of the war with a manoeuver in which our Navy has never been expert—that of avoiding a contest and sailing away from the enemy! The alternative was properly taken. Dewey went to Manila and sank the Spanish ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... school, from ten or twelve up to fourteen and sixteen, schools everywhere have come to contain many children who, having no natural aptitude for study, would at once, unless specially handled, become a nuisance in the school and tend to demoralize schoolroom procedure. These laws have thrown upon the school a new burden in the form of public expectancy for results, whereas a compulsory- education law cannot create capacity to profit from education. Under the earlier ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... ornament, embellish, deck, bedeck, garnish, bedizen, beautify. Decorous, demure, sedate, sober, staid, prim, proper. Deface, disfigure, mar, mutilate. Defect, fault, imperfection, disfigurement, blemish, flaw. Delay, defer, postpone, procrastinate. Demoralize, deprave, debase, corrupt, vitiate. Deportment, demeanor, bearing, port, mien. Deprive, divest, dispossess, strip, despoil. Despise, contemn, scorn, disdain. Despondency, despair, desperation. Detach, separate, sunder, sever, disconnect, disjoin, disunite. Determined, persistent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... instructed his players to abandon the use of signals for the time being, and to bat and run bases wholly as their judgment might dictate, and this sudden change threatened totally to demoralize the Wyndhamites. ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... that body at the time had a Democratic majority. The measure was killed by one convincing speech from Mr. Badger of North Carolina. The senators knew Colonel Benton's temper and temperament, and understood how completely unfitted he was for military command, and how his appointment would demoralize and practically destroy the army. To the end of his life, however, Colonel Benton himself believed a serious mistake had been made. He had been commissioned colonel in the war of 1812, but though of unquestioned bravery, and deeply read ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... July and August, 1862, except a brief visit home, were spent at Harrison's Landing, amid the scenes of distress, disease, wounds and suffering, which abounded there. The malaria of the Chickahominy swamps had done much to demoralize the finest army ever put into the field; tens of thousands were ill with it, and these, with the hosts of wounded accumulated more rapidly than the transports, numerous as they were, could carry them away. Their ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... I was thinking of asking you to retire, as your plebeian conduct with the men is apt to injure discipline, and so demoralize the ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... The Altrurians tried to make him understand that here people must not work against time, but must always work with it, so as to have enough work to do each day; otherwise they must remain idle during the Obligatoires and tend to demoralize the workers. It seemed that Lady Moors had a passion for gardening, and she was set to work with her father on the border of flowers surrounding the vegetable patch he was hoeing. She knew about flowers, and from her childhood had amused herself by growing ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... pillage, ravage, depredate, despoil devastate, sack; corrupt, vitiate, debase, mar, demoralize, deprave, sophisticate, infect, defile, contaminate; disfigure, deface, damage; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... warned, but he gives no heed, or treats it all lightly, pointing out how few the Maroons are. He forgets that a few determined men can demoralize a whole state, can fight and murder and fly to dark coverts in the tropical woods, where they cannot be tracked down and destroyed; and, if they have made supporters of the slaves, what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... opportunities of training in the Art of Sight Recognition, so as to enfeeble their intellects by depriving them of their pure and colourless homes. Once subjected to the chromatic taint, every parental and every childish Circle would demoralize each other. Only in discerning between the Father and the Mother would the Circular infant find problems for the exercise of its understanding—problems too often likely to be corrupted by maternal impostures with the result of shaking the child's faith ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... the gay strains of "The girl I left behind me," which the trumpeters were playing with all their might. "You see," said Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when one of them dies. Why, it would demoralize the whole command. So they play these gay things ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... free discussion. At a time when every power the nation can summon is needed to ward off the blows aimed at its life, and turn their force upon its foes,—when a false traitor at home may lose us a battle by a word, and a lying newspaper may demoralize an army by its daily or weekly stillicidium of poison, they insist with loud acclaim upon the liberty of speech and of the press; liberty, nay license, to deal with government, with leaders, with every measure, however urgent, in any terms they choose, to traduce the officer ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... revulsion, when it came, was extreme. The hero-worship gave way to contempt, to indignant condemnation, in which there was no pity, no excuse. That one upon whom so much had been lavished, who for himself had accomplished such good things, should bring disgrace upon his profession, should by his example demoralize his men, should risk losing all he had attained, all that had been given, was intolerable. When Standish learned his hero was a drunkard, when day after day Aintree furnished visible evidences of that fact, Standish felt Aintree had betrayed him and the army and the government that ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... personally far more tolerant than the great majority of his contemporaries, and the penal code was chiefly enacted under his successors. It required, indeed, four or five reigns to elaborate a system so ingeniously contrived to demoralize, to degrade, and to impoverish the people of Ireland. By this code the Roman Catholics were absolutely excluded from the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the corporations, from the bench, and from the bar. They could not vote ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... stern morality of the Puritans, Nonconformists, and the small classes of virtuous citizens of other denominations; and therefore every effort was made by allurements and intimidation to debauch and demoralize their minds. Well does Bunyan say that 'wickedness like a flood is like to drown our English world. It has almost swallowed up all our youth, our middle age, old age, and all are almost carried away of this flood. It reels to and fro like a drunkard, it is like to fall and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... were summarily drowned, however, by a new pandemonium of blood-curdling shrieks and groans which proceeded from the hall. Through the half open door leading into the hall came a menacing shuffle as of countless approaching feet. It was the final touch needed to demoralize the hazers. Forgetful of the two front windows, they bolted with one accord for the door opening into the hall, as nearly as each could locate it in the dark. Had a real enemy been present the hazers would have ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... war to demoralize our nation, but now peace is secure and the old Federal and Confederate soldiers are active in exchanging visits and generous hospitalities North and South in a ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... week of her services she was obedient and faithful to her duties; but, relaxing in the atmosphere of a house which seems to demoralize all menials, she shortly fell into disorderly ways of lying in wait for callers out of doors, and, when people rang, of running up the front steps and letting them in from the outside. As the season expanded, and the fine weather became confirmed, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... leghorn hat with pink streamers, at whose feet Steve O'Valley offered some surprise gift worth months of Mary Faithful's salary while he said: "I ran away from work to play with you, Gorgeous Girl! See how you demoralize me? Even your father frowned when I said I was coming. How are you, darling? I don't give a hang if I make poor Miss Faithful run the shop for a year as long as you want me to ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... also have secondary results of more or less value. Widespread practice of simple sabotage will harass and demoralize enemy administrators and police. Further, success may embolden the citizen-saboteur eventually to find colleagues who can assist him in sabotage of greater dimensions. Finally, the very practice of simple sabotage ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services

... failure to support his sorry tactics, and even went so far as to demand their dismissal from the army. There was undoubtedly some ground for his complaints, but such obviously incompetent leadership was enough to demoralize any army, and not long after his crippled battalions retreated behind the Rappahannock he was relieved of his command, which was given to General Joseph Hooker, one of the ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... one of the leading Fifth Avenue restaurants once said to the writer, substantially: "We don't like tips: they demoralize our men. But what can we do about it? We can't stop it, or even keep it within bounds. Our customers will give them, and people who have too much money or too little sense, give not only dollar bills or five dollar bills, but fifty dollar bills and even hundred dollar bills. We have tried to ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... they are exposed. But what the net result will be in a specific case, depends on the individual's equipment to start with, an equipment that is fixed before the environment has had a chance to act at all. The kindliness and indulgence that save some children demoralize others. In some people a soft answer turneth away wrath; in others it will kindle it. Andrew Carnegie starts as a bobbin boy, and becomes a millionaire; but there were many other bobbin boys. The sunset that stirs in one man ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... justified this notion. They were, many of them, idle, intemperate men, void of character and good constitutions. The high flying federal clergy, among other nonsense, told their flocks that the war would demoralize the people; whereas it had the contrary effect, as it regarded the towns an hundred miles from the sea coast. It absolutely picked all the rags, dirt, and vice, from our towns and villages, and transported ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... any sleeping which is not done upon spring-mattresses strown with rose-leaves,—cannot do otherwise than discourage and unnerve the whole immediate community in which they fall. Whether the growlers through the press and in general society, have done most to discourage and demoralize the army, or whether the grumblers in the army have wrought more effectually in discouraging enlistments and weakening the national cause, certain it is that the two evil influences have worked together, and that those who have displayed the contrary spirit ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... "star pitcher" who can be depended on, but if the star should happen to be ill or to injure his fingers on a hot liner or for some reason cannot play, unless there is a substitute, the effect of his absence on his team will be to demoralize it. For that reason every encouragement should be given to any boy who wants to try his hand at pitching. If a game is well in hand it is usually safe to put in a substitute pitcher to finish it. This is done in college teams for the reason that ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... are half a million (or some say, a million) men every year who suffer actual and real misery from this falsity, and many of whom die of it; that is the tragedy of the farce. And the fact that this falsity, prison, exists among us and has legal standing and warrant, tends to demoralize every one connected with it, and, more or less, the entire community. If its misery and evil were confined within the circuit of its walls we might endure it; but it spreads outward like a pestilence. It creates little jails in our minds and hearts, though ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty by inclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe to slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice will demoralize a whole ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... money as well as time to keep her; for boats are always in need of paint, spars, sails, rigging, and other repairs. He was resolute in his purpose to dispose of the Juno, lest the possession of her should demoralize him, and interfere with his ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... army. Such was the dream of German strategy, whose realization was so boldly and skilfully undertaken. The Germans counted on their immense force of artillery, built for this war in the last two years and out-ranging the French, to demoralize the French infantry. But the French infantry called the big shells marmites (saucepans), and made a joke of them and the death they spread as they tore up the fields in ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... time, and he finds that to be correct you must deluge the neighborhood with those articles. They are not at all what the people want, as far as I can make out. But that doesn't matter. It pleases papa to demoralize the neighborhood; so we're doing it. And mamma helps him. She dates from the prehistoric period when a wife really swore to obey her husband; so she does it through thick and thin. Of course, she knows better all the time. She could always set papa ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... provisions at this time, supplies not having been sent forward as Washington expected. His men were very much tried, and many of them were exasperated. Adding hunger and needless suffering to their pittance of pay was quite enough to demoralize the rank and file. Washington could not blame them much, in the circumstances, although the discontent added to his trials. He wrote to Governor Dinwiddie in ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... heart of man," and although a moderate and prudent indulgence in it can never excite reprobation, or cause mischief, still the sin of drunkenness is an extensive and a filthy evil. Not only does it demoralize, debase, and finally destroy its unhappy victim, but it renders him incapable of performing the ordinary duties of his station; constituting him an object of disgust to others, and of pitiable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... the workman, and you invite him to idleness, humiliate his dignity, and demoralize his conscience; take away from him the legitimate price of his efforts, and you either excite his anger or exalt his pride. In either case you damage his fraternal feelings. On the contrary, make enjoyment conditional upon labor, the only way provided by nature to associate men and make them ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it unfit to meet the legions which it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... hard, false ambitions which culminated in Gertrude's marriage with Victor Warren. I set my heart on the match, helped it in every, way, and until now nothing but sorrow has come of it. But my point—is this,—I see so clearly, now that it is too late, that two excellent persons may demoralize each other if they are ill-mated. It may be possible that I had the germs of false ambition in me when I was a girl, yet I was conscious only of the ideal which is in most women's hearts . ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets abominably selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the freshest egg, the right cut of the sirloin. The mode of travelling is death to all the courtesies and kindnesses of life, and goes a great way to demoralize the character, and cause it to retrograde to barbarism. You allow us excellent dinners, but only twenty minutes to eat them. And what is the consequence? Bashful beauty sits on the one side of us, timid childhood on the other; ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... there was now a great striving to outdo each other in luxury and gay apparel; the Lord's day was not so well kept as formerly; and the drinking of spirits and frequenting of ordinaries and places of public resort vastly increased. Mr. Saltonstall said the war did not a little demoralize the people, and that since the soldiers cause back, there had been much trouble in Church and State. The General Court, two years ago, had made severe laws against the provoking evils of the times: profaneness, Sabbath-breaking, drinking, and revelling to excess, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... people, whose business is not brutal fighting, but peaceful working, wars of this sort, in the world's long history, are scarce evils at all, and, even in the day of their wrath, bring compensative blessings. They may be fierce and terrible, they may bring wretchedness and ruin, they may 'demoralize' armies and people, they may be dreadful evils, and leave long trails of desolation, but they are none the less wars for victories in which men will return thanks while the world shall stand. The men who fall in such wars, receive the benedictions of their kind. The ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... by the rout of the Eleventh Corps. An occurrence of this kind always has a tendency to demoralize an army and render it less trustworthy; for the real strength of an armed force is much more in opinion than it is in numbers. A small body of men, if made to believe the enemy are giving way, will do and dare anything; but when they think the struggle is hopeless, they will not resist even a ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... of attack was formed. It is said that the level-headed Longstreet opposed the plan, and if so it was but in keeping with his remarkable generalship. The attack was to be opened with artillery fire to demoralize and batter the Federal line, and was to be opened by a signal of two shots from the Washington Artillery. At half-past one the report of the first gun rang out on the still, summer air, followed a minute later by the second, and then came the roar and flash of one hundred ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... ourselves; his absence will, doubtless, be of short duration; therefore, let us beware, lest by a pusillanimity which the general would consider a crime, of making his absence public, and by that means demoralize the army. The general gives a striking proof of his confidence in us; let us show ourselves worthy of it. Gentlemen, let the most profound silence cover all this with an impenetrable veil; we will detain this gentleman, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... somewhere in the Appalachian mountains near slave territory and from their mountain fastness to run off the slaves, ever extending the area of operations and eventually settling the Negroes in the territory that they had long tilled for others. He believed that operations of this kind would soon demoralize slavery in the South and he counted upon getting enough help from Canada ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... from pure savagery to free civilization. The Dutch system attempts to supply this missing link, and to bring the people on by gradual steps to that higher civilization, which we (the English) try to force upon them at once. Our system has always failed. We demoralize and we extirpate, but we never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system can permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be possible to compress the work of ten centuries into one; but at all events it ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... perhaps, be said that the country is not rich enough to purchase large pictures; yes, but two or three thousand dollars can be paid for an entertainment which is gone in a day, and whose effects are to demoralize and debilitate, whilst the same sum expended on a fine picture would be adding an ornament to the country which would be lasting. It would tend to elevate and refine the public feeling by turning their thoughts from sensuality and luxury to intellectual ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... to fear that we should fall in love with them. Huh! Even that didn't last long; pirate folk are not used to joking; when they are angered, instead of beating, they kill. At the end of a month, not more than two of the women were alive. Such feelings demoralize pirates." ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... necessary to make a separate "mission" of it. It has flourished as a commercial enterprise and is self-supporting. But the leader of that mission informs me that its blessings are questionable, in that it tends to demoralize the people and renders little or no ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... changes which had been made had been improvements. If they had been in the direction of increased liberality to the poor man who needed parish relief, and had to some extent lessened his discomforts, they had at the same time tended greatly to demoralize both him and his employer, by introducing a system of out-door relief, which, coupled with the practice of regarding such relief as a legitimate addition to wages, led the former to feel no shame at underpaying his workmen, and the workman to feel no shame at depending ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... spread like wild-fire, but no panic, nor even undue excitement, ensued; the people of Paris are totally different to-day from what they were in 1870. Of course the intention of these aeroplane bomb-throwers, of whose exploits we shall probably hear a great deal, was to create a panic and demoralize the inhabitants, and especially to terrify women and children. This utterly failed. After dropping the three bombs and his carte de visite, the German aeroplane vanished towards the east. It seems strange that the flotillas of air-craft at Buc were thus caught napping and allowed the ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... obliged to defend itself against criminals, has invented no more fearful suffering than what is called "close confinement." There is nothing that will sooner demoralize a man, crush his will, and utterly conquer the most powerful energy. There is no struggle more distressing than the struggle between an innocent man accused of some crime, and the magistrate,—a helpless being in the hands of a man armed ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... tenors," said Stephen, who was waiting with music in his hand while Philip finished the song. "You demoralize the fair sex by warbling your sentimental love and constancy under all sorts of vile treatment. Nothing short of having your heads served up in a dish like that mediaeval tenor or troubadour, would prevent ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... when he declared in his place in Parliament, if we remember correctly, that the Penal Laws enacted by England against Ireland, were characterized by an ingenuity the most fiendish on record, and an attempt to oppress, degrade and demoralize a people, without a parallel in the history of even the most barbarious ages. Within the recollection of persons now living, nine-tenths of the population were held in a condition of the most abject slavery, and treated ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... be awakened in the early morning, 'for one ought to wake up natural-like,' he explained. The white carter 'couldn't bear with niggers,' and though he did his work well and faithfully, he helped to demoralize the place and loosen discipline. Everything was at sixes and sevens, when, on the occasion of Mrs. Stevenson's going to Fiji for a few months' rest, my sister and I took charge of affairs. The expensive German was bidden to depart; Mr. Stevenson discharged the carter; the white overseer ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... location of the government there. It would ruin the trade, the morals and the reputation of the town. Dowagers had avowed their belief that the continuance of the Congress there for one year would render the city as perfect a Sodom as Washington—would demoralize the society ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... and though the Painted Lady had screamed in terror at the proposal, being afraid of doctors, Grizel would have ventured ere now, had it not been for her mistaken conviction that he was a hard man, who would only flout her. It had once come to her ears that he had said a woman like her mamma could demoralize a whole town, with other harsh remarks, doubtless exaggerated in the repetition, and so he was the last man she dared think of going to for help, when he should have been the first. Nevertheless she had come now, ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... to demoralize the market early, so they can buy cheaply, and later proclaim a scarcity so the market will advance to profitable levels. They seem fully alive to their interests. At the opening of the past season one very prominent New York buyer was offering from ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... of the Indians ran to cut him loose, the other trapper took him off his feet by a well-directed shot; he never uttered a groan. The besieged now saw their only salvation was to kill the ponies and so demoralize the Indians that they would have to abandon such tactics, and quicker than I can tell it, they had stretched four more out on the prairie, and made it so hot for the savages that they ran out of range and began to hold a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... to demoralize, frighten and overawe judges, witnesses and jurors. I do not pretend to say who was responsible, possibly I am not an impartial judge. I was deeply interested at the time, and felt all of these things, rather than reasoned ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... well." Our proselytizing missionary enterprises are thus flatly contrary to his advice; and their results appear to bear him out in his view that if you convert a man brought up in another creed, you inevitably demoralize him. He acts on this view himself, and does not convert his disciples from Judaism to Christianity. To this day a Christian would be in religion a Jew initiated by baptism instead of circumcision, and accepting Jesus as the Messiah, ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... Trifled with danger. But I cannot make A god of form, an idol crushing me. Unlike the church, I look on marriage as A civil contract, not a sacrament,[6] Indissoluble, spite of every wrong; The high and holy purposes of marriage Are not fulfilled in instances where each Helps to demoralize or blight the other; Let it then stand, like other contracts, on A basis ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... reason was Grant harassed by this thought, for in fact it was precisely this thing that the good soldier in Petersburg was scheming to do. The closing days of the month brought the endeavor and the crisis. To improve his chances Lee made a desperate effort to demoralize, at least temporarily, the left or western wing of the Union army, around which he must pass in order to get away, when he should actually make his start. March 25, therefore, he made so fierce an assault, that he succeeded in piercing the Union lines and capturing a fort. But it was a transitory ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... their leader did not demoralize the Greeks—it only made them more reckless and more desperate. At length they saw that the end was close at hand; the "Immortals," who had come in the night over the mountain, had arrived, and were ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... state of intoxication becomes an ungovernable maniac, who in the violence of his fury will rush into any excess and commit any crime. At the epoch which our history has now reached, the terrible vice threatened to demoralize the entire country, and to destroy the fruit of all the efforts made to convert the savages. Writing to her son on the subject, the Mother of the Incarnation says, "We have at present to contend with an evil far more calamitous in its results, than even the ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... adversary's position, being answered by almost as many of his guns. There has never been such a war of artillery on the American continent. Surely this was an exhibition of the "Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious War." It was hoped that so terrible a bombardment would demoralize the enemy and thus prepare the way for a successful onslaught of the infantry. During its continuance we lay among the guns, and as soon as their clamor hushed sprang to our feet and began rushing toward the enemy. We had to descend the slope of Seminary ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... fearful, above all, of works of art that represent moral evil. The method of artistic representation, which aims at awakening sympathy for the life portrayed, is bound, he thinks, to demoralize both the artist and the spectator. But art is something more than sympathy, and there are other aspects of the aesthetic experience which tend to render that sympathy innocuous, even from the standpoint of the puritan. In the first place, the sympathy is usually ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... in favour of extempore preaching, and was unwilling to listen to the delivery of a written sermon." (Indeed, if we had more people like him in this day, we would hear far more of the gospel and far less of politics and jokes which so demoralize the pulpit and take away all sacredness. The King was right, as all mankind will agree, in his idea of preaching.) "Patrick excused himself from a chaplaincy, 'finding it very difficult to get a sermon without book.' On one occasion the King asked the famous ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... of these convictions, riding over them as if to demoralize any coherence and logic that might go with the evidence he was building up, came question after question, pounding at him one after the other, until his mind became more than ever a whirling chaos of uncertainty. If St. Pierre was Black ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... as a boy—mere drivel—but of such a kind that even his butts were fond of him. He would make M. Bonzig laugh in the middle of his severest penal sentences, and thus demoralize the whole school-room and set a shocking example, and be ordered a la porte of the salle d'etudes—an exile which was quite to his taste; for he would go straight off to the lingerie and entertain Mlle. Marceline and Constance and Felicite (who all three adored him) ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my own, these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire of corruption. Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... blossomed like a rose, and generosity laughed in the sunshine when she put the apple in Adam's hand; and Adam, with the only woman in the world beside him, and the first free lunch before him, forgot all about God and His commands and "did eat," and the results prove that free lunches always did demoralize men—and always will. And modesty blushed rosy red when Adam put the apple to his lips, and invention and ingenuity, new-born, rushed to the rescue, and they gathered the ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley



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