Literary notes about Disrepute (AI summary)
The term "disrepute" has been used in literature to denote a fall from honor or esteem in various contexts, emphasizing both personal and institutional loss of regard. For example, Yogananda uses it to illustrate how charlatans have degraded high science [1], while Helen Keller's observation humorously laments the neglect of the sense of smell [2]. In more philosophical and critical texts, authors like Santayana and Locke associate disrepute with incompetence and the inherent degradation of character [3, 4]. Moreover, its application stretches from the symbolic loss of status—such as the decline of the beard’s fashion in post-Henry IV France [5]—to public declarations of shame in social settings, as seen in Wells' narrative [6]. The term also serves to critique the devaluation of concepts, from romance [7] to the downfall of respected institutions like schools [8], and even finds poetic expression in epic verse [9]. Finally, its use in moral discussions by Sidgwick highlights disrepute as an inevitable accompaniment to immorality [10], while Mackay further reinforces its significance in assessing the adequacy of schemes and practices [11].
- "Charlatans have brought the stellar science to its present state of disrepute.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The sense of smell has fallen into disrepute, and a deaf person is reluctant to speak of it.
— from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller - Such gifts suggest too much incompetence and such honours too much disrepute.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - He must be of a strange and unusual constitution, who can content himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 by John Locke - In France also the beard fell into disrepute after the death of Henry IV., from the mere reason that his successor was too young to have one.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay - They would hear next door, they would hear in the road, it was a public announcement of their disrepute.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - He complained that romance had fallen into disrepute.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey - Fraser, the tutor, died however, and the school which had begun well sank from disrepute into infamy.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - O thou wretched beer of barley, Thou hast met with great dishonor, Into disrepute hast fallen,
— from Kalevala : the Epic Poem of Finland — Complete - Doubtless in the last-mentioned cases the mere disrepute inevitably attaching to open immorality is an important consideration.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick - The scheme of Walpole had been found insufficient, and had fallen into disrepute.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
