Insult

“ You have no brother, no father to protect you, and no man knows better than I that your profession exposes you to insult. I beseech you to honour me by remembering that if any man insults you my sword is at your service. ’Tis no empty proffer. ”

“ To this her ladyship said nothing at the time; but to-day, being in a state of excitement, the word insult recurred to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she asked, “that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another’s toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult? It is only people like —— and —— who take such things into their heads. I never have hurt a person’s feelings in my life intentionally, except, perhaps, by my wit. ”

“ But even in gentle and cultured persons, an insult, a disappointment, a blow will provoke the tell-tale signs of pugnacity and anger, the flushing of the cheeks, the flash of the eye, the incipient clenching of the fists, the compressing of the teeth and lips, and the trembling of the voice. We substitute sarcasm for punching, and find subtly civilized, and, in the long run, more terrible, ways than bruises of punishing those who oppose us in our play, our passions, our professions. ”

“ Is it manly to follow me with studied insult? I can bear the hatred of fools. Contempt I have not deserved. Dead! I should be dead, if my conscience had once reproached me. I am a mark for slander, and brave men should beware of herding with despicable slanderers. ”

“ There are none here to be cheated with your outrages, and to insult me will bring you no result. Once for all, hear and understand;—this one man has become dear to me, and, what is more, is honoured by me. ”

“ If an equal, it is at your own option whether or not you resent the insult, which can be done by the use of irony; thus, though an implied return of the insult, your resentment is on its face politeness itself. Duels are not allowable in America, and seldom in any country. A deadly insult is now usually [172] looked upon by society as a just cause of expulsion of the insulter from its ranks, as no longer worthy of the name of gentleman ”

“ For insult and degradation are not without their peculiar solaces. You may spit upon Shylock's gaberdine, but the day comes when he demands his pound of flesh; every blow, every insult, not without a certain satisfaction, he adds to the account running up against you in the day-book and ledger of his hate—which at the proper time he will ask you to discharge. ”

“ I heard at twelve o'clock that your friends were excluded for the day; at three o'clock by the medium of the vile old Osgood that there had been a fury between you and your gaoler. You say Walter the gaoler insults you. That is your fault. It is not in the power of man to insult me. The world could not do it if it were to try. Assault is one thing, but insult is another, and there can only be insult where there is a disposition to court it. Human nature is capable of a dignity that will not leave room for the word insult. ”

“ The slight that can be conveyed in a glance, in a gracious smile, in a wave of the hand, is often the "ne plus ultra" of art. What insult is so keen, or so keenly felt, as the polite insult which it is impossible to resent? ”

“ The body, its necessities, its passions, its perpetually impeding grossness throughout life, is an insult to the mind. But the final act of this long course of insult, namely, the decay of this vile associate, is the culminating insolence, the most unpardonable insult of all. ”

“ In a few words, what I call an insult is the bare supposition that I could for a moment think of prostituting my person for a maintenance; for in that point of view does such a marriage appear to me, who consider right and wrong in the abstract, and never by words and local opinions shield myself from the reproaches of my own heart and understanding. ”

“ He regarded me with a smile. 'There are two sides to everything, especially a row,' he said. 'I made up my mind when a boy that turn-about is fair play. When I insult a man, I'm prepared to take the consequences; yet I never insulted a man in my life. The man that insults me must pay for it. Women may wipe their feet on me, and children may spit on me; but no man shall insult me, not by so much as the lift of an eyelash, or the twitch of an upper-lip. ”

“ And to crown the injury you have done me with insult, you adjure me to save you from temptation to perjury by heaping lie upon lie, in continuing to assert by actions, if not by direct protestation, that I love a man to whom I am indifferent. ”

“ If it is a woman she will probably insult you, all unconsciously, in a thousand and fifty ways by savage scruples inherited from a long line of pithecan ancestresses eared to hear in the rustle of every leaf the tonguefall of the arboreal Mrs. Grundy. If it is a man there should be no needless delay in insulting him. ”

“ Heaven knows 'tis bad enough when thou, as a soldier, hast to fight battles; but this murder should not be permitted in a Christian land."
"But, my darling," I replied, "when one man doth insult another the one which is insulted must avenge himself."
"Yes, but if men would ever learn not to insult each other there should be then no cause for these horrible affairs." ”

“ I might pretend not to know aught of what has been said; I might attempt some elaborate apology. It would be worse than folly from me to you. Let me tell you, that could I have shielded you from this insult with my life, I would have done it.”
“Yes, yes,” she hurriedly answered. ”

“ You cannot comprehend that it is one's duty to avenge insult and outrage, even at the cost of a life. In my part of the world a man would be held a coward who hesitated to retrieve his honour in such a fashion. ”

“ Shall ingratitude to man be looked upon as the blackest of crimes, and not ingratitude to God? Shall an insult offered to a king be looked upon in the most offensive light, and yet no notice (be) taken when the King of kings is treated with indignity and disrespect? ”

“ A more worldly and suspicious nature would have taken umbrage at once, and run away with the unhappy idea that homage of this kind, openly addressed to a wife and a mother, was but an insult in disguise, involving moral degradation instead of social dignity, and instead of honour and glory, only ridicule and contempt. ”

“ Now then, while this recollection is fresh on your mind, let me ask you if you think yourself justified in staying here where you are now exposed to insult and to danger, for the sake of one who at a moment which would have bound another man more tenderly than ever, could so meet and so offend your eyes? ”

“ Yes! if you have committed one mortal sin, you have insulted Almighty God. And there is every thing in the act to make the insult deep and deadly. The greatness of an insult is measured by the comparative importance of the persons between whom the offence passes. If one should come into the church and strike the bishop on his throne, would you not feel more indignant than if a common man in the street were the object of the insult? ”

“ Steal! says her husband, she would steal nothing but, perhaps, a few ribbands before they were left off by her lady. Sir, answer'd I, why should you, by supposing me a thief, insult one from whom you have received no injury? Insult, says the lady; are you come here to be a servant, you saucy baggage, and talk of insulting? What will this world come to, if a gentleman may not jest with a servant? Well, such servants! pray be gone, and see when you will have the honour to be so insulted again. Servants insulted—a fine time.——Insulted! Get down stairs, you slut, or the footman shall insult you. ”

“ How many an insolent inclination to personal violence has been checked—how many a truculent heart has sickened, before the prospect of a "leaden breakfast!" Take a single case, which is really embarrassing to the candid opponent of duelling; an insult offered, by either words or deeds, to the character or person of a lady whom one is bound to protect—an injury beyond all legal cognisance, and perpetrated by one occupying the station of a gentleman. ”

“ This undeserved affront, that you regard us as stupider than yourselves, and fancy that you deceive us—that is the most irritating insult which you have put upon us in the presence of surrounding races, who wait with astonishment to see what we will do. ”

“ I think it to our interest to punish the first insult; because an insult unpunished is the parent of many others. We are not, at this moment, in a condition to do it, but we should put ourselves into it, as soon as possible. ”

“ There are innumerable modes of insult and tokens of contempt, for which it is not easy to find a name, which vanish to nothing in an attempt to describe them, and yet may, by continual repetition, make day pass after day in sorrow and in terrour. ”

“ In other words, the man who is insulted remains—in the eyes of all honorable people—what the man who uttered the insult—even though he were the greatest wretch on earth—was pleased to call him; for he has put up with the insult—the technical term, I believe. Accordingly, all honorable people will have nothing more to do with him, and treat him like a leper, and, it may be, refuse to go into any company where he may be found, and so on. ”

“ Insult, we have said, is the servant of drunkenness. A man is judged, not from his deeds alone, but from his words. “In a banquet,” it is said, “reprove not thy neighbour, nor say to him a word of reproach.” [134] For if we are enjoined especially to associate with saints, it is a sin to jibe at a saint: “For from the mouth of the foolish,” says the Scripture, “is a staff of insult,” [135] —meaning by staff the prop of insult, on which insult leans and rests. Whence I admire the apostle, who, in reference to this, exhorts us not to utter “scurrilous nor unsuitable words.” ”

“ To insult people in distress is the property of a cruel, indiscreet, and giddy temper; for, as the proceedings of fortune are very irregular and uncertain, we may, the next turn of the wheel, be thrown down to their condition, and they exalted to ours. ”

“ Injury was aggravated by insult, and insult was embittered by pleasantry. ”

“ If an insult follows an unpolite expression,—if the aggressor considers himself offended, or if the person who has received the insult, considers himself insulted,—the case must also be referred to a meeting.
3. If in the course of a discussion, during which the rules of politeness have not been transgressed, but in consequence of which, expressions have been made use of, which induce one of the party to consider himself offended, the man who demands satisfaction cannot be considered the aggressor, or the person who gives it the offender. ”

“ The coarseness of the man and his insulting words were hard to bear, so that I was constrained to ask him if it were not customary to protect a condemned man from insult rather than to expose him to it. ”

“ The first thing done is to try the mettle of the new comer by putting upon him some insult, which if he resents and offers to fight his way, he may be looked on with some respect; but if he appear timid, or reluctant to retaliate, he may be assured of becoming the object of a most harassing persecution for the amusement of the thoughtless and the gratification of the cruel. ”

“ I want to say to all those men: 'You are brutes!' to all those women: 'You are vile creatures!' I want to shout your name, your sacred name, to that idiotic crowd, to grovel at your feet and bite the dust, calling down upon myself all the scorn, all the insults, all the shame! ”

“ Moreover, in the case of insult also no less than in that of honour generally, the important matter is not the content, in which I necessarily feel myself insulted; for that which is negated has reference to the personality which has appropriated such a content as its own, and now conceives itself as this ideal centrum of infinity attacked.
(c) For such reasons every insult to honour is regarded as essentially of an infinite significance. It can consequently only be repaired by means which possess that character. No doubt we may have many degrees of insult, and as many modes of satisfaction ”

“ The expression of anger towards any body present, if it exceeds a bare intimation that we are sensible of his ill usage, is regarded not only as an insult to that particular person, but as a rudeness to the whole company. ”

“ An offense to one's selfÐrespect; shame.
Arbuthnot.
Syn. Ð Affront, Insult, Outrage. An affront is a designed mark of disrespect, usually in the presence of others. An insult is a personal attack either by words or actions, designed to humiliate or degrade. An outrage is an act of extreme and violent insult or abuse. An affront piques and mortifies; an insult irritates and provokes; an outrage wounds and injures.
Captious persons construe every innocent freedom into an affront. When people are in a state of animosity, they seek opportunities of offering each other insults. ”

“ For example, the most bitter insult one can offer to a Londoner is ‘bastard’–which, taken for what it means, is hardly an insult at all. ”

“ I think I heard you use that word.'
'Yes, we have larrikins, and larrikins who curse and swear, and insult passers-by, who stand for hours at the corners of streets. And we have liars, and drunkards, and cheats, and villains of all descriptions. ”

“ The thirteenth topic is when insult is shown to have been added to injury, and by this topic we awaken hatred against pride and arrogance.
The fourteenth topic is one which we avail ourselves of to entreat those who hear us to consider our injuries as if they affected themselves; if they concern our children, to think of their own, if our wives have been injured, to recollect their own wives, if it is our aged relations who have suffered, to remember their own fathers or ancestors. ”