"Incentive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lowly incentive to celestial thought! We ne'er with listless step can pass thee by, For thou with tender embassies art fraught, Like the fond beaming of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... his brain simply snapped back into health and began to function normally again, after a period of temporary mania from shell-shock. It is true that his memory was left blank, but there doesn't seem to be any organic reason for it to be blank—other than lack of incentive to remember. Catch me up, if you don't follow me. In other words, he has been slowly convalescing since that night: under the proper stimuli I have no doubt that everything ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... know how it would be with me," said Melville, "for I am one of those, fortunate or otherwise, who are born to a fortune. I have sometimes been sorry that I had not the incentive of poverty to induce me ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... With the Martians the incentive to live is to express life and be in harmony with the Creator, to develop spiritually and build for Eternity. On Mars each one strives to live for his brother to the end that all may inherit the promised Kingdom when yet as a physical ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... sky, but the brightness was gone from the day. He sat down to his desk and attacked his work, but "copy" would not come. The sporting editor and his inane jokes harassed him beyond expression. Just the sight of the clipping editor's back was an irritation. The office boy was a mere incentive to profanity. There was no spring in Condy that morning, no elasticity, none of his natural buoyancy. As the day wore on, his ennui increased; his luncheon at the club was tasteless, tobacco had lost its charm. ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... by so many others without success. In his mind, the fame of fetching back the two young giraffes far outweighed the five hundred pound prize to be obtained, though the latter was a consideration not to be despised, and no doubt formed with him, as with the others, an additional incentive. ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... this, to be the chief mover, the actual incentive to disclosing God knows what, is simply horrible," he said in a rough, pained voice. "I've done my share of work, Coryndon, and I've taken my own risks, but any cases I've had against white men haven't been against men ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... indeed! To win this girl for my own, to show myself worthy of her innocent faith, supplied me with the most powerful incentive in life. In the quarter they regarded me first with ridicule, then with wonder, and, finally, with respect. For my enthusiasm did not fade. "He has turned over a new leaf," they said, "he means to be famous!" It was understood. No more excursions for Silvestre, ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... of so much importance because it has terrified Mindanao and Jolo, and has been a strong incentive to the resumption of peace. The day when the fleet sailed, there was a juanga of Joloans at Sanboangan which was seen going out, and a little while afterward another was seen entering which came from Zibu, carrying Captain ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... strong an incentive to action, as fear: this is the anticipation of good, that of evil."—Brown's Institutes, p. 135. "The poor want some advantages which the rich enjoy; but we should not therefore account those ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the almost invariable accompaniments of my evenings spent at home or with my friends. Reading and knitting were often indulged in, but patience was a change and a rest and relief to the mind. I have always had the idea that card games are an excellent incentive to the memory. We had an afternoon meeting in the Melbourne Town Hall to inaugurate a league in Victoria, at which Dr. Barrett, the Rev. Dr. Bevan, Professor Nanson, and I were the principal speakers. Just recently I wrote to the ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... first real movement upward will not take place until, in a spirit of resolute self-denial, indolence, so natural to almost every one, is mastered. Necessity is, usually, the spur that sets the sluggish energies in motion. Poverty, therefore, is often of inestimable value as an incentive to the best endeavors ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... certainty. INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it—but look at the figures in this pamph— HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid! INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift. HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... allusion, he went out, and left me to meditate on what lay before me. It was not pleasant, certainly; but then the incentive was so great!—to join all whom I held dear, in a free land! The light affliction would be but for ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... hurriedly visited and too little understood, an attempt at classification has here been made, as well as to give them a certain setting. This may prove a reminiscence to those who are familiar with the mosques, and an incentive to investigation on the part of those who are ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... staff employment in India he must serve at least one year with a British regiment and one year with a native regiment, and must pass examinations in the native languages and on professional subjects. This is an incentive to study, of which many young officers take advantage, and in the Indian army list are several pages of names of officers who have submitted to examinations and have demonstrated their ability to talk, read and write one or more of the native tongues. The gossips ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... of each of those players who were so fortunate as to be present at the sessions. It can safely be affirmed, I think, that the principles of artistic rectitude, of exactness and thorough musicianship which were there inculcated, ever remained with the members of that class, as a constant incentive and inspiration. ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... scarcely to be known beyond her own borders. Nun' Alvarez (1360-1431), one of the greatest men of all time, is even now unknown to Europe. And Portugal herself as yet hardly appraised at its true worth the life and work of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), at whose incentive she was still groping persistently along the western coast of Africa. His nephew Afonso V, the amiable grandson of Nun' Alvarez' friend, the Master of Avis, and the English princess Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, was on the throne, to ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... and with all branches of the Government in political harmony, and in the absence of partisan incentive to captious obstruction, the law as it was left by the amendment of 1869 was much less destructive of Executive discretion. And yet the great general and patriotic citizen who on the 4th day of March, 1869, assumed the duties of Chief Executive, and for whose freer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... which are, as it were, the birthright of those born under a luckier star. This desire, which opens to the diligent the way to material prosperity and inner contentment, seems for society as a whole an important incentive to industrial progress, and turns the discontent of the slaves of machinery into happiness of men conscious of their own success. The more the old order changes which held the work people in the narrow bonds of tradition, the more is customary prescription replaced by education and independent ...
— The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany • Arthur Henry Chamberlain
... what was to me so powerful an incentive, my progress toward proficiency as a reader was rapid; and, in a comparatively short time, I felt equal to a renewed effort to sound the depths ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... neatenteco. Inaudible neauxdebla. Inauspicious nefavora. Incalculable nekalkulebla. Incapable nekapabla. Incapacity nekapableco. Incarnate korpigi. Incarnation korpigxo. Incendiary brulkrimulo. Incense bonodorfumo. Incense furiozigi. Incest sangadulto. Incentive kauxzo. Inch colo. Incident okazajxo. Incision trancxo. Incite instigi, inciti. Inclination inklino. Incline inklini. Incline (slope) deklivo. Include enhavi. Incoherent sensenca. Income rento. Incommode gxeni. Incomparable nekomparebla. Incompatible nekunigebla. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... philanthropy the trustees, to whom he was indebted for his office and responsible for his conduct, had not the happiness to appear. As to them, it was held by the village humorist aforementioned that in their management of the great charity Providence had thoughtfully supplied an incentive to thrift. With the inference which he expected to be drawn from that view we have nothing to do; it had neither support nor denial from the inmates, who certainly were most concerned. They lived out their little remnant of life, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... activity and energy and so were his officers. He seemed not at all daunted by the news of Dieskau's rapid advance. Rather he welcomed it as an end to his army's doubts and delays, and as a strong incentive to the spirits ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... preparing herself for the position of first lady in the land. This is very well in theory, and practice has shown that, as Napoleon said, "Every private may carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack." Alongside of the good such incentive may produce, it is only fair, however, to consider also how much harm may lie in this way of presenting ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... "Above all their qualities, personal conceit is remarkable; they show it in their strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. 'I am such a one, the son of such a one,' is a common expletive, especially in times of danger; and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly acts as an incentive to gallant actions."—Pilgrimage, ii, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... accomplished his mission, not by means of the contrapuntal fashion of his age, but in spite of it. The laws of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation as those of the rondo and sonata form; I find it impossible to imagine their ever having been a spur or an incentive ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... I thought myself capable of doing anything mean to save my life, to get out of here, or for any other selfish purpose. Let no man think a cause is lost because some suffer for it. It is only a proof that those who suffer are in earnest, and should be an incentive to others to be equally so—to do their duty with firmness, justice, and disinterestedness. I feel confident of the ultimate success of the Irish cause, as I do of my own existence. God, in His great mercy and goodness, will strengthen the ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... its rights. Their wars were probably not general, nor could they have been very bloody. When, however, horses came into the possession of the Indians, all this must have soon become changed. Hitherto there had really been no incentive to war. From time to time expeditions may have gone out to kill enemies,—for glory, or to take revenge for some injury,—but war had not yet been made desirable by the hope of plunder, for none of their neighbors—any more than themselves—had property which was worth capturing and taking ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... state of mukti were annihilation of individual consciousness it would hardly be an incentive to do good deeds, except that good deeds in themselves bring happiness, but if the bringing of happiness did not also bring with it a larger consciousness, it would not be true happiness, but merely a condition, and conditions are ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... becomes quite easy. The only difference is in the motive. Ours is mostly because social influence is always on the side of educated mediocrity, and theirs because self, coupled with corruption, is their natural incentive to all exertion. We have a different standard; all our theories of Government preclude the possibility of hidden personal advantage in the transaction of State business. The Russian view is that no competent ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... into print in the hope that it may be found of interest for certain readers of the younger generation and may serve as an incentive to the reading of the fuller histories of the War period, and particularly of the best of the biographies of the great American whom we honour as ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... latent best in him. She developed in him a quickness of perception, a depth of thought and emotion, a facility of speech which he had never known. She stimulated every faculty, and gave him new incentive—a new and firmer resolve to aspire and fight for all that he ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... connection with the stage does not begin until January 1730, when the Temple Beau was produced by Giffard the actor at the theatre in Goodman's Fields, which had then just been opened by Thomas Odell; and it may be presumed that his incentive was rather want of funds than desire of fame. The Temple Beau certainly shows an advance upon its predecessor; but it is an advance in the same direction, imitation of Congreve; and although Geneste ranks it among the best of Fielding's plays, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... discursive allusions to it in the old numbers of "Notes and Queries" hinting to me the desirability of a more systematic mode of treatment. To bibliographers and literary historians I conceived that such a work might prove of utility and interest, and possibly serve to others as an introduction and incentive to a branch of our literary history that is not without its fascination. But I must also own to a less unselfish motive, for I imagined that not without its reward of delight would be a temporary sojourn among ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... salvation by which one died for all and all find forgiveness in His sacrifice. It is this Gospel that has made it possible for the forgiven sinner to go forth to begin a new life, no longer under conviction of sin and remembering his past only as an incentive ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... of a disastrous speculation," replied Carrados, answering the question. "If there was another motive—or at least an incentive—which I suspect, doubtless ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... There was nothing abject, timid, or conventional in her doubts. The end sought she prized; but the means she questioned. Though pleased in listening to sanguine visions of the future, she was slow to credit that an organization by "Groups and Series" would yield due incentive for personal development, while ensuring equilibrium through exact and universal justice. She felt, too, that Society was not a machine to be put together and set in motion, but a living body, whose breath ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the best incentive to make men love their country; it encourages that patriotism which never falters, even at the cannon's mouth. The sight of a flag or the music of a band merely enthuses as long as one is in sight or the other can be heard; but ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... so every year—naturally wonders how the youth, who are undeniably commonplace in the daily intercourse of college, should become such lofty beings in the hall of a secret society; or, more probably, he thinks of nothing but the sport or the mysterious incentive to a studious and higher life which the society is to furnish. He feels the passionate curiosity of the neophyte. He is smitten with the zeal of the hermetical philosophy. He would learn more than Rosicrucian lore. That is a vision soon dispelled. But the ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... the splendour of his privileges. He examined Tipping carefully, as the latter was still assuming a hostile attitude and chanting a sort of war-cry supposed to be an infallible incentive to strife. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... an expert degree. But he was no easy mark, no mere degenerate who hacked off great chunks of a splendid fortune for the sake of violent exercise. He was too indolent for violence, too inherently fastidious for degeneracy. And deep down somewhere in a nature that had had no incentive to develop, there was the fag end of that family shrewdness which had made the early Palgraves envied and maligned. Tall and well built, with a handsome Anglo-Saxon type of face, small, soft, fair mustache, large, rather bovine gray eyes, and a deep cleft in his chin, he gave at first ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... for a wager. I prefer to stroll. Don't you remember the chapter in Marius where Pater talks of the gentle exercise of walking as the best incentive to conversation?" ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... very accompaniments of the slave system stamp it as the offspring of hell itself. To ensure good behavior, the slaveholder relies on the whip; to induce proper humility, he relies on the whip; to rebuke what he is pleased to term insolence, he relies on the whip; to supply the place of wages as an incentive to toil, he relies on the whip; to bind down the spirit of the slave, to imbrute and destroy his manhood, he relies on the whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the pillory, the bowie knife ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... of forces in the busy period of a man's life renders it fruitful in material for a sketch. What a successful man, of marked force of character, has done, may be an incentive and an encouragement to others. Perhaps this was Longfellow's chief thought when he penned the "Psalm ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... yelled back the Indians, excitedly; and taking it as an incentive to renewed exertion, they pressed the flanks of their horses, which responded freely, and they swept on more ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... habit, my nerves spell out a few sensations which my thoughts do not put into words. My heart is beating. Now, with no idea or purpose in my mind, I am speeding with a full heart towards the girl who was at least the inspiration of a splendid hope and above all an incentive to action. ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... qualities, of a kind of fibre he needed in a helpmate. She dwelt with a woman's fascination upon the prospect of exercising a creative influence—even while she acknowledged the fearful possibility of his power in unguarded moments to overwhelm and destroy her. Here was another incentive to resist the gusts of his passion. She could guide and develop him by helping and improving herself. Hope and ambition throbbed within her, she felt a contempt for his wife, for the women who had been her predecessors. He had not spoken of these, save once or twice by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Wilson has performed a public service in presenting this volume to the public in so attractive a shape. It is full of incentive to ambitious youth; it abounds in encouragement to every patriotic ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... away. The elixir of High Purpose. Never was love on such a plane! He lifting her,—no marvel in this; and she—by a magic power of levitation at which she never ceased to wonder—sustaining him. By her aid he would make something of himself which would be worthy of her. At last he had the incentive to enable him to take his place in the world. He pictured their future life at Grenoble until her heart was strained with yearning for it to begin. Here would be duty,—let him who would gainsay it, duty and love combined ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for a continuance of the horrors which then prevailed. She knew that when the incentive was removed the acts would cease. There would be peace, because there would no longer be any need for violence. But she was sure there would be no real freedom, no equality of right, no certainty ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... severe rebuke, saying, "Every parish ought to keep their own poor." Jones then fell a-laughing, and asked Partridge, "if he was not ashamed, with so much charity in his mouth, to have no charity in his heart. Your religion," says he, "serves you only for an excuse for your faults, but is no incentive to your virtue. Can any man who is really a Christian abstain from relieving one of his brethren in such a miserable condition?" And at the same time, putting his hand in his pocket, he gave the poor object ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Bank, which all are invited to patronize; six and a half per cent being the incentive held out to those economisers on a small scale. But neither the school, nor the Co-operative Store, nor the Savings' Bank can make the working man's life what it should be without the home, and ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... simple, this man-to-man system of traffic, but no one took it lightly or in the spirit of jest. They were serious, they were sober-minded. Interest, incentive, grim determination centred in the seemingly childish arrangement. Greed was lacking, for there was no chance to hoard; confidence was paramount, for there was ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... all other laboring classes, the negroes had to work, and of course, as they had not the incentive of poverty, discipline was necessary. They knew that they would be housed, clothed and well fed whether they earned these comforts or not; so, in order to insure diligence, reliable men were chosen from among them as assistants to the ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... down entirely and see what the native reaction would be," von Schlichten told her. "Independently-hired free workers can make themselves rich, by native standards, in a couple of seasons; many of the serfs pick up enough money from us in incentive-pay to buy their freedom after ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... age, also writing verse, the occasional companionship of an older poet, who stands aside, in a dignified seclusion, acknowledged, respected, not greatly loved or, in his best work at least, widely popular, can hardly fail to be an incentive and an invigoration. It was with a full sense of my privilege that I walked to and fro with Coventry Patmore on that high terrace in his garden at Hastings, or sat in the house watching him smoke cigarette after cigarette, or ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the rendering of a particular decision which excites public interest and he will be subject to punishment if that decision is unpopular. Judges will naturally be afraid to render unpopular decisions. They will hear and decide cases with a stronger incentive to avoid condemnation themselves than to do justice to the litigant or the accused. Instead of independent and courageous judges we shall have timid and time-serving judges. That highest duty of the judicial power to extend the protection of the law to the ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root
... in all ages been so great as often to defeat even the purpose of revenge, his object being to die gloriously rather than to inflict death; assured that his name would never perish, but, preserved in immortal rhyme by the bard, would serve as the incentive to similar deeds." [485] He sums up their character in the following terms: "High courage, patriotism, loyalty, honour, hospitality and simplicity are qualities which must at once be conceded to them; and if we cannot vindicate them from charges to which human nature ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... assurance that it is no mere make-believe. Macaulay never stops to brood over an incident or a character, with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth of motive and cause, to the furthest complexity of impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The spirit of analysis is not in him, and the divine spirit of meditation is not in him. His whole mind runs in action and movement; it busies itself with eager interest in all objective particulars. He is seized by the external and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... are thwarted in their designs. No real husband could have been more critical in his observations on his wife's deportment, than he was in his remarks on mine. If I could have been guilty of coquetry, the desire to annoy him would have been incentive enough; but I always considered that I could not afford to suffer in my own estimation for the sake of punishing him. When I recall all these things, I take credit to myself for magnanimity; though then I was governed only by my poor uncultivated judgment, and my impulses. For instance, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... into practice and start now," proposed Grace. "We'll have a good incentive in the lunch at the end ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... a woman could have compassed the ruin of a man by means of love and temptation, Rallywood was lost from that hour, for the rivalry of Valerie Selpdorf added the one incentive of bitter resolve that drives such slight-brained jealous souls to the ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... that the sport of horse-racing in England gets its name of Turf from the fact that the races are run on the grass, and not on the bare ground, as with us. We call the sport the Turf, too, but that is because in this, as in so many other things, we lack incentive and invention, and are fondly colonial and imitative; we ought to call it the Dirt, for that is what it is with us. As a spectacle, the racing lacks the definition in England which our course gives, ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... I don't think I do!" said Cyn, with a glance half-humorous, half-pitying, at its victim on the log; "what incentive would we have to any effort, if we were sure everything was marked out for ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... father was on firmer ground now, and a characteristic smile began to lighten his eyes and voice, besides showing upon his expressive mouth. I am not sure that I ever heard him laugh outright; but his chuckle was a choice incentive to merriment, and he had a smile of exceptional sweetness.) 'There'll be a Mrs. Ted presently, you know, and how should I ever win her friendship, as I hope to, if she knew I had helped to prevent her lord and master from getting together the price of a home? No, no, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... character went, Ursula could believe that it had been so. He was twice the man he would have been without the incentive to work, and the constant exercise of patience and cheerfulness; but her heart was heavy with apprehension that the weight of the trial might be too heavy. To her eyes the baby's life seemed extremely doubtful, and Annaple looked so ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to sever the tie which binds man to his Maker, and which connects the earth with Heaven. He circumscribes his prospects within the narrow range of "things seen and temporal," and thus removes every stimulus to dignity of sentiment, and every incentive to elevation of character. His wretched creed (if a series of cold negations may be called a creed) must be fatal to every disinterested and heroic virtue; let it prevail, and the spirit of self-sacrifice will give place to Epicurean indulgence, and the age of martyrdom will return no more. ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... ask you to believe that your society was one incentive to make me accept the countess's kind hospitality," the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... the present generation lack the energy to hoist and place such huge stones. Also, they lack incentive. There are plenty of pae-paes to go around, with a few thousand unoccupied ones left over. Once or twice, as we ascended the valley, we saw magnificent pae-paes bearing on their general surface pitiful little straw huts, the proportions being similar to ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... promoted to King's College and these fellowships was, strangely to say, upon that of seniority, or long residence, and not of merit. Because there was no competition, scholars who were deficient in education at Eton were promoted to Cambridge, where they had no incentive to work, being exempt from ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... telegram to his congregation, but I did not justify his high opinion of my Biblical knowledge. I was obliged to search the Scriptures to unravel the enigma. As there may be others like me, but who have not the incentive I had to look up the reference, I quote from God's word the message I received: "Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... has not taken away incentives to work; it has simply changed the incentive from a low order to a higher. We can not afford to work for money as an end. Wealth, with us, is simply a means to an end, and that is the bringing to pass of saving righteousness to the race, individually and collectively. Wealth is not ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... midst of the strange happiness which had lately come to her heart, had not forgotten her resolve to search for the proofs, of such importance to her. On the contrary, she had now a new and powerful incentive which gave additional zest to her efforts, although, thus ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... gardening. Of the special beauties of Strawberry Hill he is himself historiographer; elaborate copper plates, elegant paper, and a particularity that is ludicrous, set forth the charms of a villa which never supplied a single incentive to correct taste, or a single scene that has the embalmment of genius. He tells us grandly how this room was hung with crimson, and that other with gold; how "the tearoom was adorned with green paper and prints, ...on the hearth, a large green vase of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... have inherited the name of an energetic and admirable man, my dear Oswald Alving. No doubt it will be an incentive to you— ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... with instances of which the Greek and Latin authors everywhere abound. May not a Christian, therefore, be well ashamed of making a stumbling- block of a precept, which is not only consistent with his worldly interest, but to which so noble an incentive ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the shadow of justice"; even as pity is the shadow of love. Though simply a geographical and chronological accident, which changes with every age of the world, it may deter men from seeking and securing the prize of successful villainy. But this incentive to beneficence must be applied to actions that will be done, not to ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... as a sacred goal, and as an incentive to put out the best there is in you in order to reach it. Do more than this; resolve that when you enter this covenant you will carry into it as clean a conscience about the past as you expect her to have who gives her happiness into your keeping. ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... of any position of importance in that vast continent of swarming bees intent on their day's labour and nothing else. It is a good token for the future that men shall feel their labour is appreciated, although a desire for official recognition may be no incentive to the devotion itself. It is certain that William McNair always valued the appreciation of his official superiors, and that nothing could have given him greater pleasure or more comfort, in his review of his own brief labours, than to have known he would be thus remembered by the head of his own ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... himself—this self that could believe so much—found difficulty in doing so coherently in modern language. He went very far. For the fact that while Stahl criticized and denied, he yet understood, was a strong incentive to talk. O'Malley plunged repeatedly over his depth, and each time the doctor ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... pages contribute to impress this salutary truth on my countrymen, my utmost ambition will be gratified; persuaded, that a sense of the miseries they have avoided, and of the happiness they enjoy, will be their best incentive, whether they may have to oppose the arms of the enemy in a continuance of the war, or their more dangerous machinations on the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... was one of us,' Sergius answered, taking a position nearer the table, and commencing to pick off a crumb of bread as the incentive to a more extended repast. 'He was with us, as there always will be some rude and unmannerly intruder in every company; but there were also others, the associates of Emilius. There was Sotus, the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... to letting ourselves worry and fret over things that others do toward us, it is often an incentive to them to try to make us trouble. We see a good illustration of this in the life of Hannah. Elkanah had two wives. Peninnah had a number of children, but Hannah was childless. Peninnah took advantage of this to reproach Hannah, and it is said she "provoked her sore, to make ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... for gradual education. Such a school is not, no doubt, the ideal one, but in fact it may have a very happy influence. If a youth is to give an account of a scene with his pencil at a certain hour—to give it, as it were, or perish—he will have become conscious, in the first place, of a remarkable incentive to observe it. so that the roughness of the foster-mother who imparts the precious faculty of quick, complete observation is really a blessing in disguise. To say that it was simply under this kind of pressure that Mr. Abbey acquired the extraordinary refinement which distinguishes his work in ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... most ostensible, when he urged me to tread the same path; but he had others with which I only became acquainted at a later period. Impetuous in his schemes, as well as skilful and daring, each new adventure, when successful, became at once the incentive, and furnished the means, for farther speculation. It seemed to be necessary to him, as to an ambitious conqueror, to push on from achievement to achievement, without stopping to secure, far less to enjoy, the acquisitions which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Hans Christian Andersen and the Norwegian Ibsen writing in German, as do also many Scandinavian scientists. Georg Brandes abandons his native Danish and seeks a larger public by making English the language of his books. The incentive to follow a literary career, especially if it includes making a living, is relatively weak among a people of only two or three millions, but gains enormously among large and cultivated peoples, like the seventy ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... regarded the birth of this heir to the throne as the fulfilment of his prophesy. In a genethliakon he flatters the duchess with the hope that the deeds of her brother Caesar and of her father Alexander would be an incentive to her son—both would remind him of Camillus and the Scipios as well as of ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... look from their standpoint, as for them to see from ours. While appreciating the kindnesses measured out to us in this city by our friends and the press, yet laboring without visible results for the recognition of our rights as citizens of the United States, we cannot, even through the potent incentive of sympathizing with our "husbands, fathers, brothers and sons," lay aside our grievances and rejoice in a triumph which more clearly marks ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... cards or folders give the advantage of simplicity; the return card offering a powerful incentive to immediate action on the part of the customer. The return card indicates to the house that the customer is interested and a salesman is called ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... William Morris is happily spared from witnessing the atrocities which trade has committed in his name, and the excellent beginning of taste and authority over matter inculcated by the spiritual integrity of Ruskin is yet far from becoming an incentive of the many. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... activity of the body, striving to develop itself, succeeds the activity of the mind, endeavoring to instruct itself. Children are at first only restless; afterwards they are inquisitive. Their curiosity, rightly trained, is the incentive of the age we are now considering. We must always distinguish natural inclinations from those that ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... worthy Actions, abstracted from the Views of popular Applause, be to a generous Mind an ample Reward, yet the Desire of Distinction was doubtless implanted in our Natures as an additional Incentive to exert ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... customs, Protestantism, habits of thought, and methods of culture, we also inherited the English literature. So rich was already this inheritance when our colonies were settled, that there was little need or incentive for the early Americans to strike out into new literary paths, and create an original literature. Our ancestors read Milton, Bunyan, Doddridge, Butler, Dryden, Pope, and Shakespeare. It is a noteworthy fact that American literature not only took its start from, but, up to ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... made no answer to them, but contented himself with redoubling his exertions with the brush; and it did seem to him after such encounters, and every new insult, that his hand received a fresh inspiration, and his mind renewed vigor. Perhaps he needed the incentive of pride, as well as that of love and ambition, to lead him on, and sustain him in the prosecution of his ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... and where he deems fit. In some cases the agreement is more liberal to the share farmer, and a fixed amount—perhaps 16 to 18 bushels—is agreed upon, which is shared equally, any balance being taken by the farmer. This is sometimes adopted as an incentive to good farming, and in cases as an inducement to attract the share farmer into new districts some distance from the railway. There have been cases where farmers have secured very good crops, 30 to 36 bushels to the acre, which meant that they received 22 and 28 bushels per acre for their share, ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs
... a few whose names are printed in italics, the party consisted of prisoners of the Crown in different stages of probation, with whom the prospect of additional liberty was an incentive so powerful, that no money payment was asked by them or expected, while, from experience, I knew that for such an enterprise as this I could rely on their zealous services. The patience and resolution of such men in the face of difficulties, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... wonderful to live with some one who thinks you are wonderful! It does not make you conceited, not a bit, but it makes a happy singing feeling in your heart to feel that the one you love best in the world is proud of you. And there is always the incentive of vowing that some day you will ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... he lost his job. Measles was the cause of it. After he recovered, he got work in a glass factory. The pay was better, and the work demanded skill. It was piecework, and the more skilful he was, the bigger wages he earned. Here was incentive. And under this incentive he developed into a ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... the other a shy sort of admiration which, until last autumn, had made their somewhat infrequent encounters exceedingly interesting. Autumn had altered their attitudes; Bunny became serious in proportion to the distance she put between them—which is of course the usual incentive to masculine importunity. They had had one or two little scenes at Roya-Neh; the girl even hesitated, unquietly curious, perplexed at her own attitude, yet diffidently interested in ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... he was distinguished for his comprehensive charity, and his genuine appreciation of great and good men from whom he differed widely in opinion. His goodness no less than his greatness will serve to keep his memory fresh among us, and the recollections of his virtue is to us a powerful incentive to a fuller consecration to the service ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... changes, by the lack of food, by the ferocity of fellow-creatures. Heat, cold, flood, drought, earthquake, and volcanic eruption were forever against it. Struggling from stage to stage upward from the slime a new danger was always to it a new incentive to ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... servants, even if convicts, than any of the native Christians. One great cause of this is the fact, that with the Mahometans temperance is a part of their religion, and has become so much a habit that practically the rule is never transgressed. One fertile source of want, and one great incentive to idleness and crime, is thus present with the one class, but absent in the other; but besides this the Christians look upon themselves as nearly the equals of the Europeans, who profess the same religion, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Mobile Bay had come out, and the major needed no further information to enable him to act with promptness and decision. The fact that Miss Florry must be on board of the Bellevite was doubtless an additional incentive to make him do his entire ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... Lacking incentive to stir about, they came to spend most of their time lying on their backs watching the sky. This in turn bred a languor which is the sickest, most soul- and temper-destroying affair invented by the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to walk down the beach ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... dwell on that side. It's enough to remember that women without our incentive have to bear worse. It's part of a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... There is no standing still: we must go forward; or back. Man, with his own machines softening him, enabling him to do nothing, eventually unfitted himself to cope with nature. That storm at 4,000 A.D. in New York, for instance, even in my own Time would have been merely an incentive to reconstruct upon a greater scale. But the men of 4,000 A.D. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... that their prayers never ceased—at night, in their homes; and by day, in the church. As a result, on the feast of the glorious St. Joseph I baptized fifty adults, among them the most prominent persons of this village. To see their leaders already Christians is a strong incentive for the others to follow these. From many others I withheld baptism, as it was necessary to investigate their marriages, and this could not be done on account of the absence of the persons concerned. Of these latter there is a considerable number, but I trust in our Lord that within ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... by the House with a "hear, hear." "Such," continued the noble Lord, "is the incentive which is given to the poor Irish peasant to break the law, which, he considers, deprives him of the means, not of being rich, but of the means of obtaining a subsistence." Having pointed out the ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... severed, gory head of your victim, which you deposit with pardonable pride in the basket at the side of your door. It may be the head of your enemy, your friend, or a stranger, according as competition, jealousy, or simple sportiveness has been your incentive to labor. ...
— Options • O. Henry
... membership, to devote themselves to Jewish subjects as worthy of their best literary effort,—with publication in the Menorah Journal as a prize to be eagerly sought for. The Menorah hopes through the incentive of the Journal to develop a "new school" of writers on Jewish topics that shall be distinguished by the thoroughness and clarity of the university-trained mind and inspired by the youthful, searching, unfearing spirit of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... miles had spun backwards under their hoofs and the boys were filled with the joyous excitement of the run. It seemed now that every stride of the horses was bringing them nearer to the hoped-for rescue of Tom and Juarez. And this was an incentive ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... full tablets to take home with me, even though my hands were empty. You need not shrug your shoulders at study under such conditions. It is really surprising how the mind is stimulated by bodily movement and exercise. I find the most powerful incentive to thought in having the woods all about me, in the solitude and the silence which is observed in hunting. So when next you go hunting, take my advice and carry your writing tablets with you as well as your luncheon basket ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... to do with quitting a sinking ship?" Jim asked a trifle impatiently. "I don't deny you're likely right. I confess I don't see that there's much incentive to—well, to stick to a straight and narrow course. I'll certainly strike a gait of my own, and I don't know that it'll be a slow one. It'll be honest though. It'll be honest as far as the laws of man go. As for the other laws, well, they're for my personal consideration as far as my ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... all, physically strong. Generations of toiling ancestors, though they could not brace his nerves, have braced his muscles. Under the pressure of local circumstances there has been developed a creature who can work with little food, with little incentive, very hard for long hours under a merciless sun. Throughout the river campaigns, if the intellect of the army, if the spirit of the troops, have come from without, Egypt herself has provided the sinews ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... of feed, made their camps early, broke camp early, and rode steadily. With no visible incentive to keep going, Bartley lost his first keen interest in the hunt, and contented himself with listening to Cheyenne's yarns about the country and its folk, or occasionally chatting with some wayfarer. But never once did Cheyenne hint, ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... who had reached his goal, on the supreme bench, had gratified Danvers, and Latimer's enthusiasm and persistent belief in the ultimate good, when the builders and founders of the newly formed State should merge personal desires into one—one that had the best good of all for its incentive, tempered his ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... befell when David discovered he had a great-great-grandfather. With that fact itself Miss Anthony was almost as pleased as was David himself, but while he was content to bask in another's glory, Miss Anthony saw in his inheritance only an incentive ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... taking a grossly material view of human life. If, on the other hand, our knowledge of the mischief done by reckless giving makes us morbidly sceptical of all material assistance, we are losing a valuable tool; for relief at the right time, and given in the right way, may be made an incentive to renewed exertion, and a help to ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... ignorant, lazy, and perhaps intemperate, with no thought beyond the gratification of his bodily wants and desires. Slang words and obscene are his daily vocabulary; selfishness his best-developed trait, and want the only incentive for his labor. His partner is like unto him, or worse, either by nature or association. Without taste, modesty, good sense, or natural refinement, she accompanies her dear Silas in his round of life, sympathizing in his lowness, his common feeling, and his common complaints—slatternly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... determined, and well known as such, both in and out of the service. The commanders of the different vessels were likewise men of elevated character, zealous in performing their duty, and honorably ambitious of distinction. If the incentive of gain be reckoned stronger than considerations of duty and honor, it was not wanting; for, besides half the value of the vessel, each liberated slave would have been worth twenty-five dollars to the captors—a handsome amount ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... prospective, that they headed straight for the flat in which Lady Hermione was living with her maid. Naturally, I am keenly interested in the causes which led up to a peculiarly brutal and uncalled-for murder, and, as my wife's husband, I have the further incentive of hoping to bring to justice certain of her persecutors whom I cannot help connecting indirectly with the crime of which I was, I suppose, one of the most credible and intelligent witnesses. Now, before I was aware that such a winsome creature existed as the present Lady Hermione Curtis, ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... come the tragedy which had deprived him at once of the girl he had loved and the incentive to a better, worthier manhood which her love had supplied. For her sake he could have done much, could have vanquished all the petty failings, the selfish weaknesses which marred his not otherwise unattractive character; ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... food for speculation. The man had been killed, and robbery had undoubtedly been the incentive. Who could have committed the deed and so successfully have escaped ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... really thought that Lilian Ashford was a silly girl, and if Lilian really supposed so herself, it must be added, in justification of her conduct, that she had given the soldier boy a new incentive to do his duty nobly, and kindled in his soul a holy aspiration to serve God and his country with renewed ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... letting of first blood. She fulminates her major excommunication against duellists, even in the event of their failing to keep their agreement. Her sentence affects seconds and all those who advise or favor or abet, and even those whose simple presence is an incentive and encouragement. She refuses Christian burial to the one who falls, unless before dying he shows certain dispositions ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... authorities and private individuals are settled in the ordinary courts of justice, under the rules of the ordinary law of the land. This super-common-law position of the Prussian official is a fatal incentive to the aggravating exaggeration of his importance, and to the indifference of his behavior to the private citizen. There may be officials who are uninfluenced by this sheltered position, indeed I know personally many ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high order of animal whose great physical need was action, and now the incentive to action seemed dead. He grew lax. He did not want to move. He performed his diminishing ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... disappointment poisoned the springs of life. But now I have learned that mistakes can often be set right, that anxieties fade, that calamities have sometimes a compensating joy, that an ambition realized is not always pleasurable, that a disappointment is often of itself a great incentive to try again. One learns to look over troubles, instead of looking into them; one learns that hope is more unconquerable than grief. And so there flows into the gap the certainty that one can make more of misadventures, of unpromising people, of painful experiences, than one had ever hoped. It ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... faith in the certainty of finding the place. He now knew the tramp well enough to appreciate that the other had not risked his own life and nearly killed one of his pursuers through sheer bravado, or fear, or personal hatred. Something more potent was beneath the tramp's motives—some incentive that was almost a religion. So far, Winthrop was correct. He erred, however, in supposing Overland to be obsessed with a mania for gold for its own sake. The erstwhile sheriff of Abilene had dreamed a dream ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... in the world. But when several hundred thousand of the working classes are suddenly huddled together in densely peopled localities, this invaluable check is wholly lost. Nay, what is worse, it is rolled over to the other side; and forms an additional incentive to licentiousness. The poor in these situations have no neighbours who care for them, or even know their names; but they are surrounded by multitudes who are willing to accompany them in the career ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... (4) the effects of the slave trade in discouraging legitimate commerce. None of these causes is necessarily permanent, that most difficult to remove being the third; the negro races finding the means of existence easy have little incentive to toil. The first drawback has almost disappeared, and the building of railways and the placing of steamers on the rivers and lakes—a work continually progressing —renders it year by year easier for producer and consumer to come together. As to the second ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... his father and his natural surroundings. I want you to find him if you can. If he has been brought up vilely or treated brutally by strangers, the fault, of course, lies with me; this will probably distress you, but I think it will be an incentive also to you to try to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... was called on to sacrifice his comfort also should do it; but for most educated people comfort was the indispensable condition of work and help the foundation of happiness. And there was a charm of beauty about it, too, which is a rare incentive. ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... incessant hammering that wounds and pains our ears; which things all together and each of itself are enough to instil fear, dread, and dismay into the breast of Mars himself, much more into one not used to hazards and adventures of the kind. Well, then, all this that I put before thee is but an incentive and stimulant to my spirit, making my heart burst in my bosom through eagerness to engage in this adventure, arduous as it promises to be; therefore tighten Rocinante's girths a little, and God be with thee; wait for me here ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the individual to overcome the fear of thought. Once I was afraid that men might think too much; now, I only dread lest they will think too little and far too timidly, for I now see that real thinking is rare and difficult and that it needs every incentive in the face of innumerable ancient and inherent discouragements and impediments. We must first endeavor manfully to free our own minds and then do what we can to hearten others to free theirs. Toujours ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... returned at two, when school recommenced; and only such boys as obtained full marks for their lessons were allowed to have them. In this way, instead of the library being a cause of idleness—as some of the guardians predicted, when they heard of its presentation—it was an incentive to work. ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... of Congress render it doubtful, whether they would not rather that full time should be given for the present disposition of America to mature itself, and to produce a permanent improvement in the federal constitution, rather than, by removing the incentive, to prevent the improvement. It is certain that our commerce is in agonies at present, and that these would be relieved by opening the British ports in the West Indies. It remains to consider, whether a temporary continuance ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... reimburse the owner for all the outlays that can be called costs. If they sell for more than this, there is to be had from the business an income that costs nothing. It is a net profit above all claims based on personal labor or on the aid furnished by capital, and it furnishes an incentive for enlarging the business, and labor and capital are therefore drawn into it. Entrepreneurs bring them and for a time make a profit by this means; but as their presence increases the output of goods that are here made, it brings down the price till there is no inducement ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... of Kosciuszko's dealings with his people. The greater the reverses which the cause of Poland encountered, the greater must be the courage with which to conquer them. Defeat must be regarded merely as the incentive to victory. Thus, a few days after the battle of Szczekociny, giving the nation a full report of the battle, in which he mitigated none of his losses, ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner |
