baseness

• “III. i.14 (63,3) [For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st Are nurs'd by baseness] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by _baseness_ is meant _self-love_ here assigned as the motive of all human actions.”

  Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies

• “Marechale (de Mirepoix) had been extremely severe upon her, for what they called the baseness of her conduct, with regard to Madame de Pompadour.”

  Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete

• “To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied with each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of Cantacuzene obtained the preference: but the succor and victory were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and the passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal stroke in the fall of the Roman empire.”

  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

• “-- that comes from having accepted his own baseness from the very beginning.”

  The Huffington Post: Anis Shivani: Why American Reviewers Disliked Ian McEwan's "Solar": And What That Says About the Cultural Establishment

• “Yes in vain might we search our vocabulary and be disappointed still in finding language that would express in proper terms the baseness of this principle, that would describe the polluted heart of him or hear who could thus unfeelingly and without a fear reduce inch by inch an innocent being to the lowest grades of degradation.”

  Letter from Mary Houston to Young John Allen,September 14, 1855

• “He had not, however, such rivals as mine; it is true, their baseness is my security.”

  Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete

• “For then leaving virtue, it falls into disdained baseness, which is the undoubtable badge of one that will betray society.”

  The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 20, No. 572, October 20, 1832

• “But now he seems to me never to have taken any thought of securing the property, but to keep it for himself, thinking that his baseness should be the dead man's heir.”

  The Orations of Lysias

• “Kitty's bright eyes met mine, and we obeyed that mysterious human impulse to smile triumphantly at the spectacle of a fellow-creature occupied in baseness.”

  The Return of the Soldier

• “Her strength she knew was greater than his, but his baseness was his weapon, and the depths of that baseness she knew she had never reached.”

  A Lady of Quality

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