Famous quotes containing the word shocking:
“Mr. [Christopher] Smart the poet was here yesterday.... This ingenious writer is one of the most unfortunate of men—he has been twice confined in a mad house.... How great a pity so clever, so ingenious a man should be reduced to such shocking circumstances. He is extremely grave, and has still great wildness in his manner, looks and voice—’tis impossible to see him and to think of his works, without feeling the utmost pity and concern for him.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“The spring is here, young and beautiful as ever, and absolutely shocking in its display of reckless maternity; but the Judas tree will bloom for you on the Bosphorus if you get there in time. No one ever loved the dog-wood and Judas tree as I have done, and it is my one crown of life to be sure that I am going to take them with me to heaven to enjoy real happiness with the Virgin and them.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Conversation ... is like the table of contents of a dull book.... All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayed in it. Listen to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking, the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)