With the judges that were to determine the preference, this difference was perfectly decisive; and thus, for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities they gradually bartered their whole power and authority.

When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things!

Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school.

I had no consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay.

Sordid and selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it was, to let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted to Dora that I could not help it.

Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!'

That he had once, by way of experiment, privately removed a heap of these stones from the place where one of his _Yahoos_ had buried it; whereupon the sordid animal, missing his treasure, by his loud lamenting brought the whole herd to the place, there miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing the rest, began to pine away, would neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, till he ordered a servant privately to convey the stones into the same hole, and hide them as before; which, when his _Yahoo_ had found, he presently recovered his spirits and good humour, but took good care to remove them to a better hiding place, and has ever since been a very serviceable brute.” My master further assured me, which I also observed myself, “that in the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and most frequent battles are fought, occasioned by perpetual inroads of the neighbouring _Yahoos_.” He said, “it was common, when two _Yahoos_ discovered such a stone in a field, and were contending which of them should be the proprietor, a third would take the advantage, and carry it away from them both;” which my master would needs contend to have some kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I thought it for our credit not to undeceive him; since the decision he mentioned was much more equitable than many decrees among us; because the plaintiff and defendant there lost nothing beside the stone they contended for: whereas our courts of equity would never have dismissed the cause, while either of them had any thing left.

It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would howl, and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall asleep in the mud.” I did indeed observe that the _Yahoos_ were the only animals in this country subject to any diseases; which, however, were much fewer than horses have among us, and contracted, not by any ill-treatment they meet with, but by the nastiness and greediness of that sordid brute.

The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to the eternal honour of our calling be it said, that the first whale attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent.

"Winston ranted and raved, venting his spleen on the two government ministers present and demanding to know how they could support a policy that was 'sordid, squalid, sub-human and suicidal'." At that time, they still shared the minority view in parliament; the majority agreed with Moyne's cousin-in-law 'Chips' Channon MP, who recorded about Munich that 'the whole world rejoices whilst only a few malcontents jeer.'

"Variety" also praised the film saying it "not only maintains interest but conveys with rare artistry, restraint and clarity the many brutal, sordid and gamy plot turns".

Although some of Rourke's work was viewed as controversial in the U.S., he was well received by European, and especially French, audiences, who loved the "rumpled, slightly dirty, sordid ... rebel persona" that he projected in "Year of the Dragon", "9½ Weeks", "Angel Heart", and "Desperate Hours".

When she goes underground to investigate her college daughter's sordid activities, she gets drawn into a world of prostitution, orgies, drugs, and more.

In his autobiographical writings, Cardus refers to his home environment at Summer Place as "sordid ... unlettered and unbeautiful", yet enlivened by laughter: "Humour kept breezing in".

This portrayal is echoed in the more sordid reality of lower level Mafia "familial" entanglements depicted in various post-"Godfather" Mafia fare, such as Scorsese's "Mean Streets" and "Casino", and also to the grittier hard-boiled pre-"Godfather" films.