"Subvert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Epistle to the Corinthians: I believe that the dictatorship, so to speak, which Ignatius claims for the bishop in each church, was required by the circumstances of the case; but to change the temporary into the perpetual dictatorship, was to subvert the Roman constitution; and to make Ignatius's language the rule, instead of the exception, is no less to subvert the Christian church. Wherever the language of Ignatius is repeated with justice, there the church must either be in its infancy, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... of thinkers, as they were once, and indeed might yet be termed. But impiety was never the result of Transcendentalism. Its advocates endeavored rather to prove the adaptability of a generous and catholic spirit of Philosophy to religion than to subvert it. They never advanced to a love of Strauss and Feuerbach, and men of the second generation, of whom G.H. Lewes may be taken as a type, have generally been regarded by them as the Girondists regarded ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the same, who propose to direct and control its political organization by force. It appearing that combinations have been formed therein to resist the execution of the Territorial laws, and thus in effect subvert by violence all present constitutional and legal authority; it also appearing that persons residing without the Territory, but near its borders, contemplate armed intervention in the affairs thereof; ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... foundation of a new system of morals. If it be insisted upon that, notwithstanding God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, he is perfectly sincere, just, holy, and benevolent, we shall have obtained certain ethical principles which, if carried out into universal practice, would subvert all social order, and destroy all confidence. For ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... that his design would be improved upon in boldness, and that such men as his own carpenter and mason would set about the veritable realization of it! At the present time nothing is more common or familiar than the project of changing entirely the model of society. "To subvert a government," writes M. Reybaud of his own country men, "to change a dynasty or a political constitution, is now an insignificant project. Your socialist is at peace with kings and constitutions; he merely talks in the quietest manner imaginable of destroying every thing, of uprooting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... related an attempt of Lysander to subvert the constitution of Sparta; but he proceeded by a much more moderate and law-abiding means than Sulla, for he meant to gain his point by persuasion, not by armed force; and besides this he did not intend to destroy the constitution utterly, but merely to reform the succession ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and in speaking of Jesus Christ he said: "Jesus Christ was a Jew and a real philosopher and was therefore persecuted, for his philosophy interfered too much with, and tended to shake the political fabric of the Jewish constitution and to subvert our old customs and usages: for this reason he was put to death. I seek not to defend or palliate the injustice of the act or the barbarity with which he was treated; but our nation did surely no more than any other nation ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... they touch or rub the filth that is upon them, seem rather to increase than remove it; so some men blame the Academics, and think them guilty of the faults with which they show themselves to be burdened. For who do more subvert the common conceptions than the Stoic school? But if you please, let us leave accusing them, and defend ourselves from the things ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... as it is maintained by no proof. But Edward Lhuyd—one of the very best judges in such questions in former days—stated the lettering to be of the fourth or fifth century, without having any hypothesis to support or subvert by this opinion. And the best palaeographer of our own times—Professor Westwood—is quite of the same idea as to the mere age of the inscription, as drawn from its palaeography and formula, an idea ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... of Strafford was the first, and perhaps the greatest blow. The whole conduct of that celebrated man proved that he had formed a deliberate scheme to subvert the fundamental laws of England. Those parts of his correspondence which have been brought to light since his death, place the matter beyond a doubt. One of his admirers has, indeed, offered to show "that the passages which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were a very clever people, unrivalled in the fine arts; let them keep to their strong point; they were inimitable with the chisel, the brush, the trowel, and the fingers; but he was not prepared to think much of their calamus or stylus, poetry excepted. What did they ever do but subvert received principles without substituting any others? And then they were so likely to take some odd turn themselves; you never could be sure of them. Socrates, their patriarch, what was he after all but a culprit, a convict, who had been obliged to drink hemlock, dying under ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Corinthians had not Paul saved them from it by this epistle admonishing and urging them to purge out the leaven of license; for they had begun to practice great wantonness, and had given rise to sects and factions which tended to subvert the one ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... peril was being sedulously prepared by a widespread deterioration among popular ideas, and a fatal relaxation of the hold which they had previously gained in the public mind. In order to prove that the Americans had no right to their liberties, we were every day endeavouring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we were obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself. The material strength of the Government, and its moral strength alike, would have been reinforced by the ...
— Burke • John Morley
... lay it up safe, and make their conveyances never so close, lock and shut door," saith Chrysostom, "yet fraud and covetousness, two most violent thieves are still included, and a little gain evil gotten will subvert the rest of their goods." The eagle in Aesop, seeing a piece of flesh now ready to be sacrificed, swept it away with her claws, and carried it to her nest; but there was a burning coal stuck to it by chance, which unawares consumed her young ones, nest, and all together. Let ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... you to come, to furnish us assistance in men, provisions, and munitions, that we may drive out the army of the North, who would subvert our government and ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... ago,—as some here present may know, as a matter of history,—a secret and somewhat extended conspiracy to subvert the government of Lower Canada was seasonably discovered and crushed at Quebec, which was its principal seat, and which, according to the plan of the conspirators, was to be the first object of assault and seizure. This was to be effected by the contemporaneous rising of a strong force within ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Ghost has placed you as Bishops, but in particular to watch over children and young men. They ought to be the special object of your paternal love, of your vigilant solicitude, of your zeal, of all your care. They who have tried to subvert society and families, to destroy authority, divine and human, have spared no pains to infect and corrupt youth, hoping thus the more easily to execute their infamous projects. They know that the mind and heart ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... at war with the interests, the principles, the sympathies of all," boldly declared the unmuzzled Auburn statesman. "The integrity of the Union depends on the result. To increase the slave-holding power is to subvert the Constitution; to give a fearful preponderance which may, and probably will, be speedily followed by demands to which the Democratic free-labour States cannot yield, and the denial of which will be made the ground of secession, nullification and disunion."[343] This was another of Seward's ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... that none but colored missionaries should be sent hither. The difficulties between the Government and the Methodist Episcopal mission confirm these views. At a former period, that mission possessed power almost sufficient to subvert the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... the first place I have to say, that if two could be found who were willing to go together and live in this way, if they were not in some way severely punished, they might thank their good stars for it. In the next place I have to say that such cohabitation would wholly subvert the order of society by giving loose reins to lust which would break in upon the legal relationships of the social compact to an extent that would place us on a social level with the aborigines ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... Townshend, forever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that would create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder; something to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... negative rights;—for every pretended negative would be in effect a positive;—as if a soldier had a right to keep to himself whether he would, or would not, fight. Now, no one of these fundamentals can be rightfully attacked, except when the guardian of it has abused it to subvert one or more of the rest. The reason is, that the guardian, as a fluent, is less than the permanent which he is to guard. He is the temporary and mutable mean, and derives his whole value from the end. In short, as robbery is not high treason, so neither is every unjust ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... was arrayed against Great Britain, and might well look to destroy her, if it could command the support of the United States. Founded upon armed power, it proposed by continuous exertion of the same means to undermine the bases of British prosperity, and so to subvert the British Empire. The enterprise was distinctly military, and could be met only by measures of a similar character, to which existing international law was unequal. The corner-stone was the military power of Napoleon, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... made to detract from that of vermilion. Also that the Odes of Ch'ing should be allowed to introduce discord in connection with the music of the Festal Songs and Hymns. Also that sharp-whetted tongues should be permitted to subvert governments." ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... attempt,—for, as she turned it in her mind, the attempt seemed to be very foul,—was being made to injure Harry. A false accusation was brought against him, and was grounded on a misrepresentation of the truth in such a manner as to subvert it altogether to Harry's injury. It should have no effect upon her. To this determination she came at once, and declared to herself solemnly that she would be true to it. An attempt was made to undermine him in her estimation; but they who made it ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... James II at St. Germains (5 Sept., 1701) Louis broke his vow (made at Ryswick) not to do anything to disturb or subvert the government of England, and forthwith proclaimed the late king's son to be heir to his father's throne. The whole English nation was stirred against the French king for having dared to acknowledge as their sovereign ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... Measures were taken against the slave-trade, and it was finally abolished; an effective plan for the gradual emancipation of slaves was adopted (1871). Rosas, dictator of Buenos Ayres, who intended to subvert the republics of Uruguay and Paraguay, was defeated by the Brazilian forces and their allies (1852). A long war against Lopez, dictator of Paraguay, ended in his capture and death (1870). This war involved losses to Brazil in men and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... mariner grew important in [195] public estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its gains led naturally to the possession of wealth. This, from the quasi-omnipotence with which it invests men—enabling them not only to command the best energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very principles of their fellows—has, in the vast majority of cases, an overpowering sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the Millennium shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty of the world. Likewise, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... moment; they are utterly consumed with terrors." The progressive tendency of vice and virtue to reap each its appropriate harvest is finally illustrated by Bishop Butler, best of all perhaps in his picture of an imaginary kingdom of the good, which would peacefully subvert all others, and fill the earth. Indeed, as soon as we leave what is immediately before our eyes, and glance at the annals of the world, we behold so many manifestations of God, that we may adduce as a sixth proof of Providence the facts ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... dark-brown eyes. His hair was not cut quite to the conventional shortness, perhaps: there was a lock that would fall in an unruly manner across the broad brow with an obstinacy no hairdresser could subvert. But, in all other respects, he was very much as other men: he dressed well, if rather carelessly, and presented to the world a somewhat imposing personality. He did not wear gloves, and he had no flower at his button-hole; but the respectability of his silk hat and well-made coat ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of her own money to purchase the necessaries of life for him. Distracted at the sudden death of her master, and in the hope of saving him from damnation, she assisted Madame Felicite Rougon to destroy his great work on heredity, which in her narrow-minded bigotry she believed was intended to subvert true religion. The work of destruction completed, she went away to live by herself at Sainte-Marthe, as she refused to serve any other master than the one she had been with so many years. Le ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... being dazzled with his cheats, and stubbornly adhering to his pernicious doctrine, worshipped him even as a deity. Therefore he continually blasphemed the ways of the Lord, and those who were desirous to be converted from idolatry did he labor to subvert in their faith, and to pervert from Christ. And almost in the same manner as Simon Magus resisted Saint Peter did he oppose Saint Patrick. And on a certain time, when he was raised from the earth by the prince of darkness and the powers of the air, and ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... arranged in concert with the Hardies, Thelwalls, Holcrofts, and so forth, who were a few weeks later brought to trial in London for an alleged conspiracy to "summon delegates to a National Convention, with a view to subvert the Government, and levy war upon the King." The English prisoners were acquitted, but Watt and Downie were not so fortunate. Scott writes as follows to his aunt, Miss Christian Rutherford, then at Ashestiel, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... experience; and the French, being taught by the revolutionists to look for that relief from changes of government which such changes cannot afford, now expect that the restoration of the monarchy will produce plenty, as they were before persuaded that the first efforts to subvert ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Reflecting on her advanced period of life, and incapable of an implicit reliance upon the power of God, she requested Abraham to take Hagar, her Egyptian handmaid, in order that she might obtain children by her. It is scarcely possible to imagine a proposal more calculated to subvert the comfort of her family, or more illustrative of an unbelieving spirit. She could not rely upon the slow but certain operations of a superintending Providence to fulfil those promises which had been given; although a humble faith ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... declaration from me upon my legs, "that it was the determination of the Government of both countries to maintain the Protestant establishment, and to resist any attempts by force or intimidation that might be made to subvert it," afforded a degree of consolation which, not having witnessed, you can hardly credit, so great was ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... towards supporting the same; at the same time we consider the offence to be heightened to a degree of unpardonable guilt, when such persons, under the show of religion, endeavor, either by writing, speaking, or otherwise, to subvert, overturn, or bring reproach upon the independence of this continent ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... instead of changing, preserved one form of government; which King James II. intended to subvert, and establish absolute power ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... have adopted a worse measure than that of throwing disrespect on the nobility. It had it in its power to flatter the prejudices and feelings of the aristocracy, and thus artfully and imperceptibly win them over to its plans, and through them subvert the edifice of national liberty. Now it admonished them, most inopportunely, of their duties, their dignity, and their power; calling upon them even to be patriots, and to devote to the cause of true greatness an ambition which hitherto it had inconsiderately repelled. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that these money transactions were likely to subvert that empire which was first established upon them, did, in the year 1765, send out a body of the strongest and most solemn covenants to their servants, that they should take no presents from the country powers, under any name or description, except those things which were publicly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... whose zeal every reliance was to be placed; at the same time sending a recommendation to the President to use the force for the purpose of remitting to me those who had threatened his life, and of overawing those who had been endeavouring to subvert his authority. ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity (he observed), religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume would not trace all their connexions with private ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... then Earl of Holland, who by themselves or their families had brought an odium on the throne by the prodigal dispensation of its bounties towards them, who afterwards joined in the rebellions arising from the discontents of which they were themselves the cause: men who helped to subvert that throne to which they owed, some of them, their existence, others all that power which they employed to ruin their benefactor. If any bounds are set to the rapacious demands of that sort of people, or that others are permitted to partake in the objects they would engross, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... affairs of other nations is in open violation of the public law of the world. Who has authorized these learned doctors of Troppau to establish new articles in this code? Whence are their diplomas? Is the whole world expected to acquiesce in principles which entirely subvert the independence of nations? On the basis of this independence has been reared the beautiful fabric of international law. On the principle of this independence, Europe has seen a family of nations flourishing within its limits, the small among the large, protected not always by power, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... debating it, the king sent a message to them to say that in his opinion the earl had not been guilty of treason, or of any attempt to subvert the laws; and that several things which had been alleged in the trial, and on which the bill of attainder chiefly rested, were not true. He was willing, however, if it would satisfy the enemies of the earl, to have him convicted of a misdemeanor, and made incapable ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... disguises from the world, and not rarely from the mind which it possesses, an envious desire of plundering wealth or degrading greatness; and of which the immediate tendency is innovation and anarchy, an impetuous eagerness to subvert and confound, with very little care what ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... Republic." "I have conversed with many of the sovereigns and princes of Europe, and they have unanimously expressed these opinions relative to the government of the United States, and their determination to subvert it." ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... that he had no intention of violating it, that he had merely meant to gratify an unfortunate family nearly related to himself by using names and observing forms which really meant nothing, and that he was resolved not to countenance any attempt to subvert the throne of William. Torcy, who had, a few days before, proved by irrefragable arguments that his master could not, without a gross breach of contract, recognise the Pretender, imagined that sophisms which had not imposed on himself might ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... become, necessarily occupy attention—necessarily multiply the occasions for mistake, misunderstanding, and jealousy, on the part of one or other—necessarily distract all minds from the thoughts and feelings that should occupy them—necessarily, therefore, subvert those conditions under which only any sterling intercourse ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... recommend my most humble Address to your most judicious Consideration, hoping you will most vigorously, and with all your might, maintain the Rights and Privileges of the Honourable City; and not suffer the Force or Persuasion of any Arbitrary Lover whatsoever, to subvert their antient and Fundamental Laws, by seducing and forcibly bearing away so rich and so illustrious a Lady: and, Madam, we will unanimously stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes.—This I learnt from a Speech at the Election of a ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... freedom itself in the interest of curtailing some special desire. "In order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties," he said in the famous Speech on Conciliation with America (1775), "we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own." The way for the later despotism of the younger Pitt, was, as Burke saw, prepared by those who persuaded Englishmen of the paltry character of the American contest. His own ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... misrepresent the North upon this very point. By systematic lying, they have induced thousands South to believe that the election of Lincoln was designed as an act of war upon slave institutions, and to subvert the Constitution that protects them in all that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... and Cato for a while saved the commonwealth, and checked the future Dictator in his first efforts to subvert the liberties of Rome, happy for him and for his country if it ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... The latter designation was agreed on, for in a full assembly of the Lords and Commons, met in convention, it was resolved, in spite of James's protest, "that King James II. having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... enterprises. Confusion of ideas here has confounded a good many fine plans and zealous men. It is a tremendous begging of the whole question to insist on the nation's protection of the men who are to subvert the national faith. Property rights and preaching rights get closely entwined, and it is difficult to untangle them at times, but the distinction is definite and the difference often fundamental. By confusing them we weaken ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... schemes to destroy it. The men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it, and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The assassins of liberty are now in power, but a reaction is coming. ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... know John Manners, and all the Manners family, and well informed in politics; for they know John Russell, who never says I'll be hanged if I do this or that, but I will be beheaded if I do; in allusion to one of his great ancestors who was as innocent of trying to subvert the constitution as he is. And they have often seen 'Albert, Albert, Prince of Wales, and all the royal family,' as they say in England for shortness. They have travelled with their eyes open, ears open, mouths open, and pockets open. They have heard, seen, tasted, and bought ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Oliver——-and others of less importance, the originals of which have been laid before the house of representatives.1 The house have already resolved, by a majority of 101 out of 106 members, that the design and tendency of them is to subvert the constitution and introduce arbitrary power into the province. They are now in the hands of a committee to consider them farther, and report what is still ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... the continuance of that prodigious wickedness which is inseparable from nunneries and the celibacy of popish priests, they will ere long experience that divine castigation which is justly due to transgressors, who wilfully trample upon all the appointments of God, and who subvert the foundation of national concord, and extinguish the comforts of domestic society. Listen to the challenge again! All the papers with which the Protestant Vindicator exchanges, are requested to give the challenge one or two insertions." (Here ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... towards those whom disease, or weakness, or calamity of any kind causes to falter and faint amid the rude jostle of our selfish existence. The education of Christianity, it is true, the sympathy of a like experience and the example of women, may soften and, possibly, subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it is originally there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our brute brethren, who hunt the sick or disabled member of the herd from among them, as an enemy. ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the sovereign people and the democratical institutions became both familiar and precious to every individual citizen. We shall hereafter find the Athenians binding themselves by the most sincere and solemn oaths to uphold their democracy against all attempts to subvert it; we shall discover in them a sentiment not less positive and uncompromising in its direction, than energetic in its inspirations. But while we notice this very important change in their character, we shall ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... loathed; that a Frenchman was considered as a man always to be suspected; that young men were forbidden by their parents, in many instances, to associate with them, they considering their company and habits as tending to subvert their morals, and to render them frivolous and insincere. I added that in America as well as everywhere else there were bad men, men of no principles, whose consciences never stand in the way of their ambition or avarice; but that I firmly ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... necessity of maintaining the solidarity of the family—a necessity (as the late John Fiske luminously pointed out) due to the long period of infancy in man—has forced mankind to adopt certain social laws to regulate the interrelations of men and women. Any strong attempt to subvert these laws is dangerous not only to that tissue of convention called society but also to the development of the human race. And here we find our dramatists forced—first by the spirit of the times, which gives them their theme, and second by ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... theory was made in the English Revolution of 1688, when in order to avoid the embarrassment of deposing the king, the convention of the Parliament adopted the resolution: "That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom, by breaking the original Contract between King and People, and having, by the advice of Jesuits, and other wicked persons, violated the fundamental Laws, and withdrawn himself out of this Kingdom, has abdicated the Government, and that the throne ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... their attempts to subvert the constitution. Now let us inquire how far these patriots were disinterested in their enactments. First, as to grants for local improvements, how were they applied? His ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... when he considered the time to be ripe, he began secretly to sow the seeds of discontent among the people. It was his deliberate purpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he kept that to himself for a time. He used different arts with different individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Constitution and in defiance of its guarantees; that the defendants, acting under orders of the President, were about to set in motion a portion of the army to take military possession of the State, subvert her government, and subject her people to military rule. The presentation of this bill and the argument on the motion of the Attorney-General to dismiss it produced a good deal of hostile comment against the Judges, which did not end when the motion ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... to secure its independence, there were perpetual and unworthy jealousies of each rising State, when it had reached a certain point of prosperity and glory. Hence the various States united under Sparta, in the Peloponnesian war, to subvert the ascendency of Athens. And when Sparta became the dominant power of Greece, Athens unites with Thebes to break her domination. And now Athens becomes jealous of Thebes, and makes peace with Sparta, in the same way that England in the eighteenth century united with Holland and other States, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... impression. One does not see precisely what bearing it is to have on the political fortunes of Genoa. At first blush the conclusion seems to mean that the state has been saved from the clutches of a tyrant who was about to subvert its liberties. But if we look at the matter in that light we have a tragedy, not of republicanism, but of the "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other." With the usurper Fiesco, and the brute Gianettino, out of the way, the state returns to the good regimen ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... doctrine that teaches the son that he can be happy, with his mother in perdition; the husband that he can be happy in heaven while his wife suffers the agonies of hell. This doctrine is infinite injustice, and tends to subvert all ideas of justice in the human heart. I think it would be impossible to conceive of a doctrine better calculated to make wild beasts of men than that; in fact, that doctrine was born of all the wild beast there is in man. It was born of ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... offices of governor and lieutenant-governor at the November election in 1872, and who had been declared not elected by the board of canvassers, recognized by all the courts to which the question had been submitted, undertook to subvert and overthrow the State government that had been recognized by me in accordance with previous precedents. The recognized governor was driven from the statehouse, and but for his finding shelter in the United States custom-house, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... "My dear Vivaldi," said this gentleman, laying down a fossil, and fixing his gaze on Odo while he addressed the Professor, "why use such superannuated formulas in introducing a neophyte to a study designed to subvert the very foundations of the Mosaic cosmogony? I take it the Cavaliere is one of us, since he is here this evening: why, then, permit him to stray even for a moment in the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... to be stated here, which harmonises ill with such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdroeckh made like other men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that no pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor Teufelsdroeckh, be it known is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in space! Some ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... in print, it commanded a very marked attention as an exposition of the atrocious motives that underlaid the great Southern rebellion. The public mind was startled at the developed evidence of a great conspiracy to subvert the fundamental principles of free government in the South. The coalition between the conspirators of the South and their allies amongst the aristocracy of England was laid bare, whilst a great portion of the English press and reviews was shown to be suborned into the service of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... no conception of the ideal of government laid down by Hamilton; they will submit to neither checks nor balances, and would subvert the whole scheme of representative government and replace it with an out-and-out democracy. In accord with this mistaken view they have adopted the initiative and referendum, carried it overwhelmingly, three to one, ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... frequent murders and mobbings, in the south, of northern citizens; the present turbulence and violence of southern society; the manifest fear of the freedom of speech and of the press; the danger of insurrection; and now the attempt to subvert the government rather than submit to a constitutional election—these events, disguise it as you may, have aroused a counter irritation in the north that will not allow its representatives to yield merely for peace, more than is prescribed by the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... group will continuously strive to get for himself to the utmost limit regardless, if it could be discovered, of what is rightfully due. And a plan of Society which each member of Society is striving to subvert ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... born in Bridgwater, a keen Tory and uncompromising High-Churchman, the chief actor in the celebrated GORHAM CASE (q. v.), and noted for his obstinate opposition to political reform as the opening of the floodgates of democracy, which he dreaded would subvert everything that was ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... even by his enemies, that in regard to wine, he was abstemious. A remark is ascribed to Marcus Cato, "that Caesar was the only sober man amongst all those who were engaged in the design to subvert (35) the government." In the matter of diet, Caius Oppius informs us, "that he was so indifferent, that when a person in whose house he was entertained, had served him with stale, instead of fresh, oil [78], and the rest of the company would not touch it, he alone ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... have never subjugated a nation by winning the loyalties of the oppressed and downtrodden. The communists first win the support of liberal-intellectuals, and then use them to subvert and pervert all established mores and ideals ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... experience; but the very facts so learned force us inward on the antecedents, that must be presupposed in order to render experience itself possible. The first book of Locke's Essay, (if the supposed error, which it labours to subvert, be not a mere thing of straw, an absurdity which, no man ever did, or indeed ever could, believe,) is formed on a sophisma heterozaetaeseos, and involves the old mistake of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... while the parricide Caesar is lost in odious contrast. When the enthusiasm, however, kindled by Cicero's pen and principles, subsides into cool reflection, I ask myself, What was that government which the virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, and the ambition of Caesar to subvert? And if Caesar had been as virtuous as he was daring and sagacious, what could he, even in the plenitude of his usurped power, have done to lead his fellow-citizens into good government? I do not say to restore it, because they ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... deaths the followers of Jesus. The superstitious priests of heathen idols, were constantly active with all possible inventions calculated to excite jealousies and sharpen the edge of persecution against a doctrine that was calculated to subvert their order and demolish their temples. It was not until A. D. 311, that Maximin Galerius, who had been the author of the heaviest calamities on the christians, published a solemn edict, ordering the persecution to cease, which his indescribable horrors and painful sickness compelled him to ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... thine is greater. Thy intention, I know, is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish. Thou hast ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... should wish to subvert the liberties of a people used to these guarantees, where ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find—'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... to smash, go to shivers, go to wreck, go to pot, go to wrack and ruin; go by the board, go all to smash; be all over, be all up, be all with; totter to its fall. destroy; do away with, make away with; nullify; annual &c. 756; sacrifice, demolish; tear up; overturn, overthrow, overwhelm; upset, subvert, put an end to; seal the doom of, do in, do for, dish*, undo; break up, cut up; break down, cut down, pull down, mow down, blow down, beat down; suppress, quash, put down, do a job on; cut short, take off, blot out; dispel, dissipate, dissolve; consume. smash, crash, quell, squash, squelch, crumple ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... while Mars does once, hence it rises in the west and sets in the east, making one day of Mars equal three of its months. This moon changes every two hours, passing all phases in a single martial night; is anomalous in the solar system, and tends to subvert that theory of cosmic evolution wherein a rotating gaseous sun cast off concentric rings, afterward becoming planets. Astronomers were not satisfied with the telescope; true, they beheld the phenomena of the solar system; planets rotating on axes, and satellites revolving about ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... subjects should govern and be governed according to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulers promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make their rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulers observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others to subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings and peoples when injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings in like manner. ...
— Laws • Plato
... associated with the Rye House assassins; that conspiracy was their ruin. Charles triumphed, and did not spare his enemies. When he died, in spite of the Dover Treaty, of his paid subserviency to France, of the deliberate scheme to subvert the liberties of England, James, the chief culprit, succeeded, with undiminished power. The prostrate Whigs were at the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... circumstance seems to prove that his abilities must have been great indeed, to have kept such crowds silent. Several Catholic writers lament that his book was burnt, and regret the loss of Pletho's work; which, they say, was not designed to subvert the Christian religion, but only to unfold the system of Plato, and to collect what he and other philosophers had written ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... principle, but it might fairly be inferred from what he said; for he told us the people of a State where the constitution gives the same weight to a smaller as to a greater number, might take the remedy into their own hands; meaning, as I understood him, that a mere majority might at their pleasure subvert the constitution and government of a State,—which he seemed to think was the essence of democracy. Our little State has a constitution that could not stand a day against such doctrines, and yet we glory in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Academy at Bologna, and next in his article on shells in the Philosophical Dictionary, to take up the question as charged with one of the evidences of that Revelation which it was the great design of his life to subvert. And with an unfairness too characteristic of his sparkling but unsolid writings, we find him arguing, that all fossil shells were either those of fresh water lakes and rivers evaporated during dry seasons, or of land ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... forced to the conclusion that, as God holds truth in his hand and makes it minister to the good of his cause, so does he possess complete control of error, and sometimes causes its wildest vagaries to contribute to the advancement of those interests which they were designed to subvert. The promoters of the evil are none the less responsible, though their works terminated in an unexpected issue. "It must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the chair of supremest dignity—would make sweeping changes; might reduce their authority to a shadow, and elevate himself to perpetual dictatorship; and thus, by substituting imperialism for aristocracy, subvert the Constitution. That is evidently what Cicero feared, as appears in his letters to Atticus. That is what all the leading Senators feared, especially Cato. It was known that Caesar—although urbane, merciful, enlightened, hospitable, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... compose his retinue, but no Catholics. I am not critical in this respect for I observe that he is enjoying but a personal privilege. But I allude to this fact at this moment to assure you that this scheme of forming a regiment of Roman Catholic Volunteers is directed solely to subvert the good relations already existing between us and our brethren in arms. The promises made bore no hope of fulfillment. The guarantees of immunity deserve no consideration. The Quebec Act, and for this I might say in passing that we are duly grateful, ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth." ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... were not already conventicles enough on shore for those who are disposed to separate themselves from the established church, without the aid of a floating chapel, furnished by the government agent to subvert the present order of things. On this point, you know, I was always a liberal thinker, but a firm friend to the church, as being essential to the best interests of the state. An old college chum of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp to themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... am certainly not the sort of capitalist portrayed by cartoonists in the early part of the century who would subvert the freedom of the press by handpicking an editor and telling him what to say. I think the proof of this as well as of my broadmindedness is to be found in the fact that the paper I chose to buy was ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... storm of Mytilene. In 78 B.C. he was serving under Servilius Isauricus against the Cilician pirates when the news of Sulla's death reached him and he at once returned to Rome. Refusing to entangle himself in the abortive and equivocal schemes of Lepidus to subvert the Sullan constitution, Caesar took up the only instrument of political warfare left to the opposition by prosecuting two senatorial governors, Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (in 77 B.C.) and C. Antonius (in 76 B.C.) for extortion in the provinces of Macedonia and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... something to preach of which he can say, 'If any man makes it his business to subvert this, let him be anathema,' he has no gospel at all."—Denny, in "The Death ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... day; and if taken years hence, it will also cover all the intervening period. . . . It allows no distinction between acts springing from malignant enmity, and acts which may have been prompted by charity, or affection, or relationship. . . . The clauses in question subvert the presumption of innocence, and alter the rules of evidence which heretofore, under the universally recognized principles of the common law, have been supposed to be fundamental and unchangeable. They assume that the parties ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... two brothers to wear a mask if the older will succeed to the entail, and the other to the fortune of a younger son. The whole civilization of Europe turns upon the principle of hereditary succession as upon a pivot; it would be madness to subvert the principle; but could we not, in an age that prides itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect this essential portion ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... integrity and true benevolence; yet his steadfast denial of the right of civil magistrates to authority over the church, and his demand for religious liberty, could not be tolerated. The application of this new doctrine, it was urged, would "subvert the fundamental state and government of the country."(443) He was sentenced to banishment from the colonies, and finally, to avoid arrest, he was forced to flee, amid the cold and storms of winter, into ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... not propose to arbitrate between the affirmations of the Conservatives, on the one hand, that the animus of the opposition was a spirit of disloyalty toward the Government, an unprincipled and unconstitutional striving to subvert the foundations of royalty, and introduce a substantially democratic form of government, and the complaints of the opposition, on the other hand, that the ministry was trying to domineer over the House of Delegates, and reduce its practical power to a nullity. We may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... outcry was raised about a conspiracy against the Republic, and measures were sought for preserving it. But necessity, and indeed, it must be confessed, the general feeling of the people, consigned the execution of those measures to him who was to subvert the Republic. On his return to Paris Bonaparte spoke and acted like a man who felt his own power; he cared neither for flattery, dinners, nor balls,—his mind ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Buenos Ayrian government, Rodriguez, having taken the field against some Indian tribes, who have lately committed great ravages in his territories, an attempt was made by one of the ex-chiefs to subvert his government; happily, without success. I say happily, because I am convinced that every week and month passed without change, is of infinite consequence both to the present and future wellbeing of the Spanish colonies. While they had still to struggle for their independence, while ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... that ever was wrought upon the theatre of England; That a king of England trusted to keep the law, that had taken an oath so to do, that had tribute paid him for that end, should be guilty of a wicked Design to subvert and destroy our Laws, and introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government, in defiance of the Parliament and their Authority, set up his standard for War against his Parliament and People: And I did humbly pray, in the behalf of the people of England, ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... plainly saw that the bailiff had squared his conscience exactly according to law, and that he could not easily subvert his way of thinking. He therefore gave up the cause, and desired the bailiff to expedite the bonds, which he promised to do; saying, he hoped he had used him with proper civility this time, if he had not the last, and that he should ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding |
