Literary notes about Reprehensible (AI summary)
In literature, "reprehensible" is deployed to mark behavior, attitudes, or acts that cross the boundaries of moral and social acceptability. Some authors employ the term to provoke readers into questioning the nature of good versus bad, as seen when Dostoyevsky ponders whether something is "praiseworthy or reprehensible" [1]. In other contexts, writers use it to dismiss or condemn actions without ambiguity, whether it is an act as minor as wearing a warm coat in winter [2] or as grave as betraying one's moral obligations [3, 4]. Philosophical and critical works, such as those by Nietzsche, extend its usage to a broader reflection on values and the nature of ethical judgment [5, 6, 7, 8]. Moreover, the term is sometimes applied to personal failings or societal shortcomings, from attitudes of ignorance [9] to exploitative behaviors [10, 11], thereby underscoring the term’s flexibility in signaling moral disapproval in varying degrees.
- Only till that minute I had not known what it was: whether it was good or bad, splendid or shameful, praiseworthy or reprehensible?
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Just as in the past, the attendants fine me twenty kopecks for my fur coat, though there is nothing reprehensible in wearing a warm coat in winter.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - When your peers, Mr. Land, destroy decent, harmless creatures like the southern right whale or the bowhead whale, they commit a reprehensible offense.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Defection from the Roman Catholic Church, which seemed to him reprehensible, was considered here a sacred duty, worthy of every sacrifice.
— from The Historical Novels Of Georg EbersA Linked Index to the Project Gutenberg Editions by Georg Ebers - A reprehensible action, therefore, would mean a reprehensible world as a whole....
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - And even then, in a reprehensible world even reprehending would be reprehensible....
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - Formerly people argued: conscience condemns this action, therefore this action is reprehensible.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - The concept "reprehensible action" presents us with some difficulties.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - It would save us a great deal of the humiliation your reprehensible ignorance causes us.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - Jo leaned her chin on her knees, in a disconsolate attitude, and shook her fist at the reprehensible John.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott - Lady Chettam thought that such conduct was very reprehensible, and remembered that Mrs. Truberry's mother was a Miss Walsingham of Melspring.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot