Disgust

“ We return disgust for disgust, as they must surely perceive. We often abandon to them merely a statue, and while inflamed by their own desires they consume themselves on insensible charms, our tranquil coldness leisurely enjoys their sensibility. ”

“ As the lines of one and the other constituent of this composite picture blend, the momentary feeling of impatience and disgust vanishes in a wave of compassion as the irresistible earnestness and the pitiless logic of those days press, for recognition, and we realize the awful sufferings of many an ignorant or sensitive soul. ”

“ To take you, and make you just such a creature, kill or cure—nothing else! Not one instant’s patience—but just one insistent, frantic demand that you succeed—and fiery, writhing disgust with you when you do not succeed—disgust that will make you scream—and make you live! ”

“ A disgust, bitter as a nausea, an almost savage hate, arose from his heart at the thought that the following night he would again have that woman near him on the same pillow, that he would again hear the breathing of the sleeping woman, that he would again smell the odor and feel the contact of that heated skin, and then that the day would break again and pass by in the usual idleness, amidst the torture of perpetual alternatives. ”

“ How many thousand times has a feeling of disgust passed through me, alive as I am to the nobleness of the stage, when I have seen the poorest creatures fancying they could speak a word of power to the hearts of the people! ”

“ No horror of the Middle Ages wrung the modern conscience with a sense of disgust more acute than was felt in remembering the treatment of the insane even within recent times. Shut in attics or cellars, or in cages outside a house, without warmth, light, or care, they lived in filth, with nourishment such as was thrown to dogs. ”

“ The disgust attendant on so ugly a sickness magnified this dislike; at the same time, and with more than compensating strength, shame for a sentiment so inhuman bound them the more straitly to his service; and even the evil they knew of him swelled their solicitude, for the thought of death is always the least supportable when it draws near to the merely sensual and selfish. ”

“ Then each of these creatures, heaped up on their chairs like bundles of dirty linen, plunges into the narration of some dirty action, some scandal, some crime. Coward that I am, I try to smile with them, to applaud with them; but I feel something insurmountable, something like frightful disgust. A nausea turns my stomach, forces its way to my throat, leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and presses my temples. I should like to go away. ”

“ We have frequently seen sinners, who, through despair and disgust at the world, have fled to opposite extremes; lose rest, health, reason, and life; fall into states of horror, and the blackest melancholy, and no longer regard life but as the greatest torment. But where are the righteous, whom the disgusts which accompany virtue have thrown into such dreadful extremities? They sometimes complain of their sorrows; but they still prefer them to the pleasures of the passions: virtue, it is true, may sometimes appear melancholy and unpleasing to them ”

“ Human beings filled him with disgust. ”

“ And her disgust, her revolt at feeling herself a piece of dishonored flesh, a prey, an instrument of man's pleasure! To have soared so high and to fall so low! To have dreamed of celestial kisses, of mystic caresses and divine possessions and then . ”

“ Certainly the emotions of disgust and satisfaction do express themselves in this mimetic way. Disgust is an incipient regurgitation or retching, limiting its expression often to the grimace of the lips and nose; satisfaction goes with a sucking smile, or tasting motion of the lips. ”

“ Like when someone, who has eaten and drunk far too much, vomits it back up again with agonising pain and is nevertheless glad about the relief, thus this sleepless man wished to free himself of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust. ”

“ In nearly all races, even the most savage, we seem to find distinct traces of this aptitude for disgust in the presence of certain actions of others, an emotion naturally reflected in the individual's own actions, and hence a guide to conduct. ”

“ Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these,—but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire and turn drudges, or die of disgust,—some of them suicides. ”

“ We turn at once with instinctive disgust from the grosser embodyings of evil, abhorrent in their undisguised loathsomeness as the haggard forms and hideous heads of serpent-haired furies, and hence learn little of the essential guilt and overwhelming consequences of iniquity. But in this portraiture we read a high moral lesson; we look on it only to feel in our inmost being an ever widening recoil from the evil of one indulged sin, which can so weave a curse around all that was else lovely in the character. ”

“ The same mutual relationships with the ideas of morality are found in connexion with the sense of shame. Beyond question, the sentiments of shame and of disgust are closely connected with the ideas of custom and morality; for shame and disgust arise especially in connexion with matters which conflict with our ideas of morality. ”

“ I lingered over this examination of my feelings with that species of bitter complaisance, mixed with disgust, that I brought to bear upon the analysis of all the inner manifestations in which I believed I discovered a proof of the natural wickedness of man. ”

“ In the minds of most, an ugly exterior excites more disgust than sympathy; and, to excuse this feeling to one's self, one is apt to declare that the child or person in question has an "unpleasant expression," thus hinting at moral responsibility in the matter of the exterior, as if it were the result of an ugliness of soul which would, in a measure, excuse one's disgust. ”

“ Disgust is a very strong emotion, and when it is turned against a part of ourselves, united with that other strong impulse of self-regard and incorporated into the conscience, it makes a Chinese wall of exclusion against the baffled, misunderstood reproductive instinct, which is thrust aside as alien. ”

“ On the contrary, when we gaze upon the progress of the vicious and the criminal, however successful and prosperous in their brief space of action, to contempt and indignation, to disgust and horror, are added the same consciousness of a hereafter, and the certainty of an awful retribution. ”

“ I would far sooner be told of my nasty habits than of my own special brand of original sin. Sin has to be in very disgusting form to evoke lasting dislike, whereas a "nasty habit" breeds DISGUST, which is a far more terrible emotion than hatred. ”

“ But to decent, active, leisured folk it is, I maintain, humiliating; humiliating to become so much by comparison in one's own consciousness; and I suspect that the vague sense of self-disgust attendant on days thus spent is a sample of the self-disgust we feel very slightly (and ought to feel very strongly) whenever our wretched little self is allowed to occupy the whole stage of our perceptions. ”

“ One has done one's possible. It was a delicate position. Thirty hours! They prepared me some food. As for the wine--go and whistle for it--not a drop." In some extraordinary way, without any marked change in his inert attitude and in the placid expression of his face, he managed to convey the idea of profound disgust. ”

“ Reverse the picture—and tremble for the fate of those whom God hath made one, and whom no one man must put asunder. In common natures, what hot and sensual passions, whose gratification ends in indifference, disgust, loathing, or hatred! ”

“ He failed quite to see how his situation could clear up at all logically except by some turn of events that would give him the pretext of disgust. He was building from day to day on the possibility of disgust, but each day brought forth meanwhile a new and more engaging bend of the road. ”

“ Then come the pleasant moments, which may find themselves in extreme exertion and the general exercise of muscles, and even, in some cases—brains. Disgust is the necessary mental attitude under reaction. ”

“ The slightest stimulating impression that leaves a man with normal acting mind perfectly indifferent and cold, or even evokes a feeling of disgust, such as vulgar, indecently-dressed women, suggestive stories, ribald songs, etc., sets such a man on fire and renders him a helpless slave to an animal passion. ”

“ In this relationship between the sense of disgust and immorality, it is often impossible to determine what is primary and what is secondary. A mutual retroaction occurs: the sense of disgust is increased, because the act is regarded as immoral; and, on the other hand, a strong sense of disgust may increase the perception of immorality. ”

“ But do not disagreeable impressions please in the imitation? Not all. An acute critic has already remarked this in respect of disgust. [154] “Representations of fear,” he says, “of sadness, horror, compassion, &c., arouse painful emotions only in so far as we believe the evil to be actual. The consideration that it is but an illusion of art may resolve these disagreeable sensations into those of pleasure. But, according to the laws of imagination, the disagreeable sensation of disgust arises from the mere representation in the mind, whether the object be thought actually to exist or not. ”

“ From my earliest youth I revolted against the gross licentiousness and debauchery, not only of the masses, but of those in highest places, whose criminally bestial orgies were beyond description, vile and demoralizing. My parents, too, shrank in horror and disgust from a condition of society which words cannot express. ”

“ This last folly is more especially chargeable on those who are under the influence of some inveterate prejudice, or prevailing passion. For, when the moral instruction pressed upon us, directly opposes a principle we will not part with, or contradicts an inclination we resolve to cherish, the very repugnancy of the doctrine to our notions or humours creates disgust: and then, to spare ourselves the trouble of inquiry, or to countenance the hasty persuasion that we have no need to inquire at all, we very naturally express that disgust in contempt and ridicule. ”

“ And you make nothing," he went on, "of one's having at last so beautifully started you? Your complaint," he developed, "was that you couldn't get in. Then suddenly, with a splendid jump, you are in. Only, however, to look round you and say with disgust ' Oh, here?' Where the devil do you want to be?" ”

“ But in this instance I was seduced by no love of low company, nor disposition to indulge in low vices. I have always despised the brutally vulgar; and I have always had a disgust at vice, whether in high or low life. ”

“ Whatever view we take of this problem, there can be no doubt as to the possibility of exerting a marked influence upon both qualities, the sentiment of disgust and 254the sentiment of shame, by means of influences operating during the lifetime of the individual. ”

“ And still fear and disgust may become intimately associated when disgust and its objects awaken the fear instinct, and the fear becomes the fear of disgust or of the disgusting object. Disgust is more of a specialized character, and is associated with particular events or specific objects, while fear, in its primitive form at least, is more of a generalized character. ”

“ And in the reaction there were, also, the emotions of disgust and self-assertion and the vengeful emotion.
With such emotions, particularly anger and disgust,disgust, this affect was in conflict as was also fear. When two primary emotions are in conflict both cannot live; one will be suppressed. Fear will be suppressed by an outburst of blazing anger, and anger cannot exist when an overwhelming fear is excited. One will replace the other. ”

“ I need not go through the whole list, everyone knows already how much crime results from disgust at the present - desire for change, headlong anger, and contempt for poverty - and how men's minds are engrossed and kept in turmoil thereby. ”

“ Those who have not true faith; avowed infidels; infidels at heart; and all who have not the sincere faith of the gospel. See Notes on Mar. xvi. 16. ¶ And the abominable. The verb from which this word is derived means to excite disgust; to feel disgust at; to abominate or abhor; and hence the participle—“the abominable”—refers to all who are detestable, to wit, on account of their sins; all whose conduct is offensive to God. Thus it would include those who live in open sin; who practise detestable vices; whose conduct is fitted to excite disgust and abhorrence. ”

“ Disgust would have been shown at a very early period by movements round the mouth, like those of vomiting,—that is, if the view which I have suggested respecting the source of the expression is correct, namely, that our progenitors had the power, and used it, of voluntarily and quickly rejecting any food from their stomachs which they disliked. But the more refined manner of showing contempt or disdain, by lowering the eyelids, or turning away the eyes and face, as if the despised person were not worth looking at, would not probably have been acquired until a much later period. ”

“ As the sensation of disgust primarily arises in connection with the act of eating or tasting, it is natural that its expression should consist chiefly in movements round the mouth. But as disgust also causes annoyance, it is generally accompanied by a frown, and often by gestures as if to push away or to guard oneself against the offensive object. ”