Base

Famous quotes containing the word base:

    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
    To smother up his beauty from the world,
    That when he please again to be himself,
    Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
    By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
    Of vapors that did seem to strangle him
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it—low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion—and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land.
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

    There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.
    Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)