"Subversive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a broad sense of humanity, full of subversive wilfulness, and not only untrained in moderation, but degenerating into crass exaggeration, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... rectitude of his intentions and by vanity born of his hopes, for he had ever in reserve that perspective of confidence and esteem with which he believed the third estate to be impressed towards him; but the promoters of the revolution, those who wanted it complete and subversive of the old government, those men who were so small a matter at the outset, either in weight or in number, had too much interest in annihilating M. Necker not to represent as pieces of perfidy his hesitations, his tenderness towards the two upper orders, and his air of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were—she had been heard to state it more or less publicly and repeatedly—suitable to abject ministers and throngs at the court of an Indian rajah, that he did not hesitate to term highly unbecoming in a lady of her station, subversive and unchristian. The personal burdens inflicted on him by her ladyship he prayed for patience to endure. He surprised Weyburn in speaking of Lady Charlotte as 'educated and accomplished.' She was rather ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... reason, a happy life must be one in which there is activity. If it is also to be a useful life, the activity ought to be as far as possible creative, not merely predatory or defensive. But creative activity requires imagination and originality, which are apt to be subversive of the status quo. At present, those who have power dread a disturbance of the status quo, lest their unjust privileges should be taken away. In combination with the instinct for conventionality,[1] which man shares with the other gregarious ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... submission and obedience even to the tyranny of Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of political subjection. Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To forms of government the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among the external circumstances above which his spirit soared ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... original thought in the world, at any time, was an evil: perhaps it is not so; nay, perhaps, it is a good! Is not an interregnum of genius necessary somewhere? A great genius, sun-like, compels lesser suns to gravitate with and to him; and this is subversive of originality. Age is as visible in thought as it is in man. Death is indispensably requisite for a new life. Genius is like a tree, sheltering and affording support to numberless creepers and climbers, which latter die and live many times before their protecting ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... this was directly subversive of Evan Blount's ideas touching the manner in which the political affairs of a free country should be conducted, but he was willing to ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... in Catholic countries the freemason is regarded as the embodiment of radical and subversive ideas. The church ofticially disapproves ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... and customs of his country, he replied that in every country the impulse towards democratic institutions had come in the first instance from small minorities and had always been regarded at first as subversive and revolutionary. If, again, it was objected that the moderate and reasonable views he expressed were not the views of the more ambitious politicians who professed to be the accredited interpreters of Western-educated India, that there were many amongst ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... implacable avenger of blood who had driven Dundee from the Convention. There was no small difficulty in filling the ranks: for many West country Whigs, who did not think it absolutely sinful to enlist, stood out for terms subversive of all military discipline. Some would not serve under any colonel, major, captain, serjeant, or corporal, who was not ready to sign the Covenant. Others insisted that, if it should be found absolutely necessary to appoint any officer who had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... altered shape and furnished with certain favourite appendages. The Gnostics called themselves believers; and their most celebrated teachers would willingly have remained in the bosom of the Church; but it soon appeared that their principles were subversive of the New Testament revelation; and they were accordingly excluded ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... they could find their best support in Italy? Or were they driven by the instinct of self-preservation to accept the constitutional government as a bulwark against the incoming tide of Anarchism, Socialism, and the other subversive forces? The Church is the most conservative element in Christendom; in a new upheaval it will surely rally to the side of any other element which promises to save society from chaos. These motives have been cited to explain the recent action ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... as contributing to the liveliness of the little society—a pretty smiling young girl is seldom de trop; but then she must be satisfied without lovers, whose presence the Colonel considered subversive of all rational comfort. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... vexation and expense of arrest and trial unless there is reasonable presumption of their guilt. On the other hand, a grand jury should aid in bringing to justice persons who indulge in practices subversive of public peace, but which individuals are disinclined to prosecute, such as gambling. Incidentally the grand jury examines into the condition of ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... which are akin to libel. The answer to libel is truth, but not always, for sometimes the truth may be spread with so malicious an intent as to support an action. It is not well to put into a letter any derogatory or subversive statement that cannot be fully proved. This becomes of particular importance in answering inquiries concerning character or credit, but in practically every case libel is a question ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... dull thud, and hesitate for a moment; then resolutely it would make a first leap, and each time it touched the ground, gathering from it speed and strength, it would become light, furious, all-subversive. Now it no longer leapt, but flew with grinning teeth, and the whistling wind let its dull round mass pass by. Lo! it is on the edge—with a last, floating motion the stone would sweep high, and then quietly, with ponderous deliberation, fly downwards in a curve to the invisible ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... unsuspiciously honest. They also frankly confess their own and each others' errors, ignorance, prejudices, and faults. Would they have done this save from simple hearted truthfulness? Would a designing knave voluntarily reveal to a suspicious scrutiny actions and traits naturally subversive of confidence in him? The conduct of the disciples under the circumstances, through all the scenes of their after lives, proves their undivided and earnest honesty. The cause they had espoused was, if we deny its truth, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... to do this requires that we ignore such hidden deeds. 'Twas a mad prank of yours last night, and might have involved us all in common ruin. Go this time free, except for these words of censure; for you are not directly under my orders. Another such attempt, subversive of all discipline, and the gates of Dearborn will be closed ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... banishment—De Potter for eight years, Tielemans and Barthels for seven years, DeNeve for five years. These men had all committed offences which the government were fully justified in punishing, for their language had passed the limits not only of good order but of decency, and was subversive of all authority. Nevertheless they were regarded by their Belgian compatriots as political martyrs suffering for the cause of their country's liberties. Their condemnation was attributed to Van Maanen, already the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Golden, of counsel for the defendants, made a motion before Judge Tallmadge for an order to prevent the District Attorney from using the preliminary evidence taken at the private examinations. "It was a proceeding," he said, "arbitrary and subversive of the first principles of law and liberty,"—"which would have disgraced the reign of Charles and stained the character of Jeffries." The District Attorney was heard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... off, as it were, the rugged points of the masculine disposition, and where they soon lose all the delicacy of feeling peculiar to a brother's regard, and learn to look on the female character in a light wholly subversive of the frankness, the purity, the generous care for which earth can yield no substitute, and the loss of which only transforms him who ought to be the tender preserver of woman into her heartless destroyer. The girls are either grouped at home, with the blessed privilege of a father's ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... merchants, who had used their private influence to poison the minds of the natives by attributing particular motives to the travellers, which were at variance with the interests of the country, and subversive of the authority of the chiefs. Nor is this scarcely a matter of doubt, when we peruse the following extract from a letter addressed by John Lander to the editor of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... marriage ought to take. Many theorists have exercised their ingenuity in inventing and preaching new and unusual marriage-arrangements as panaceas for social ills; while others have exerted even greater energy in denouncing all such proposals as subversive of the foundations of human society. We may regard all such discussions, on the one side or the other, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... about a reunion, and despairing of arriving at this happy result by an agreement among the contending Popes, many honest theologians put forward principles, which, however suitable to the circumstances of the schism, were utterly subversive of the monarchical constitution of the Church. They maintained that in case of doubtful Popes the cardinals had the right to summon a General Council to decide the issue, and that all Christians were bound to submit to its decrees. In ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... pretensions, mixed with his subversive professional democratic tendencies, his seven-and-sixpenny visits, added to his utter disregard of Lady Arabella's airs, were too much for her spirit. He brought Frank through his first troubles, and that at first ingratiated her; he was equally successful with the early dietary ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... their communication with northern teachers and abolitionists, whose activity had caused the South to believe that if such precaution were not taken these agents would teach their slaves principles subversive of southern institutions. Thereafter the documents which mention the teaching of Negroes to read and write seldom even state that the southern white teacher was so much as censured for his benevolence. In the rare ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... which the Governor's fame as an administrator in troubled times largely rests. The same policy of investigation and research was pursued. Solemn warning was given that freedom of speech and assembly must be respected rigidly but that neither must become the instrument of license nor of subversive speech or conduct. At the time when the situation reached a critical stage the Governor ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... of freezing mixtures. Long ago, without doubt, would these results have been attained if I had been aided by those who surrounded me, instead of being made the butt of their railleries; if our authorities had sustained me with their influence instead of treating me as a subversive spirit. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... "You hold subversive views, Burleigh—views to which the public mind is not educated up, nor will be in this generation," said Mr. Chiverton. "The old order of things will ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido. His forcible and often quite democratic theories were exceedingly taking to sympathetic natures, and they were even thought dangerous to, and subversive of, the existing social order, hence his works were for a long time under censure. Still, the words of this master mind found permanent lodgment in the heart ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions of the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... brought distinctly before Parliament? It strikes the Queen that all the Commons want is a Parliamentary security against the abolition of the Competitive System of Examinations by the Executive. Can this not be obtained by means less subversive of the whole character of our Constitution? The Queen cannot believe that Lord Derby could not find means to come to some agreement with the Opposition, and she trusts he will leave ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction, is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of praemunire should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, in cases where those other courts have ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... in other situations, by spelling it in different ways. I know of no good argument in support of the former of these two opinions; nor has it probably been ever maintained. The latter opinion, which seems to be the real one, is founded on a principle subversive of the analogy and stability of written language, namely, that the various significations of the same word are to be distinguished in writing, by changing its letters, the constituent elements of the word. The variation in question, instead ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... out to be great misfortunes to a museum. Moreover, in accepting donations, it is sometimes convenient to be able to refer to a fixed plan. Where room is scanty, as in most museums, nothing is more subversive of order, or more fatal to an instructive arrangement, than the gift of a collection, coupled with a stipulation that it must be displayed in some special way. [Footnote: We possess in the Leicester Museum a very ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... and setting at naught and speaking Evil of all our Civil Rulers, Congress, Continental and Provincial, of all our Courts, Legislative and Executive, are not only subversive of good Order: But we apprehend come under Predicament of those spoken of in 2 Pet. II. 10, who despise government, presumptuous, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... respecting the Victorian Exploring Expedition, as read before the committee of the Royal Society, there can be little doubt but that the judgment pronounced on Mr. Landells remains unaltered. He deserted his leader on the eve of the fight; and such an act, so subversive of all discipline, and so far from the thoughts of the smallest drummer-boy, renders all explanations contemptible. In the present instance, Mr. Landells' explanations make his act the more inexcusable. He is ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... it from his words, they were so rapid and vehement. And yet they were tender, too; spoken in a loving tone, and containing ever and anon assurances of respect, and a resolve to be guided now and for ever by her wishes,—even though those wishes should be utterly subversive ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we, whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V, humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... authorities, and formed bands which displayed a hostile attitude in the hills and high places—so that it was necessary to employ force and violent measures, in order to make them return to the fulfilment of their duty. Exemplary punishments were inflicted, which procured a partial result. But that subversive idea was one of fatal consequences, and produced some pernicious fruits so lasting that they have come down almost to our ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... candour, I feel myself compelled to give my decisive verdict against the conduct of men whose measures I firmly believe to have been hostile to British interests, destructive of British glory, and subversive of the splendid and, I trust, lasting fabric of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... say this so loudly and when again human beings are said to owe debts to the Pitris, the Rishis, and the gods, how can any one attain to Emancipation?[1243] This false doctrine (of incorporeal existence called Emancipation), apparently dressed in colours of truth, but subversive of the real purport of the declarations of the Vedas, has been introduced by learned men reft of prosperity and eaten up by idleness. That Brahmana who performs sacrifices according to the declarations ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... with England was denounced.... Citizens of these States expressed an abhorrence of France, and of its rule, and protested against the contemplated introduction of French troops on this continent, which, under the pretext of subduing or seducing the French-Canadians, might prove to be subversive of ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... judgment. She was tall, but not so tall as to be unfeminine in her height. Her head stood nobly on her shoulders, giving to her bust that ease and grace of which sculptors are so fond, and of which tight-laced stays are so utterly subversive. Her hair was very dark—not black, but the darkest shade of brown, and was worn in simple rolls on the side of her face. It was very long and very glossy, soft as the richest silk, and gifted apparently with a delightful aptitude to keep itself in order. No stray ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... often must it be repeated that theology as well as physical science is satisfied by the Diluvial explanation of the origin of petrified organisms, whereas inexorable logic compels the Vulcanists to own that their thesis is subversive of all dogmatic belief?" ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... ruling party were evidently at a loss how to act. It required much tact and skill to break the ranks of the chief forces arrayed against the scheme to revest the reserves in the Crown—a scheme distasteful to Canadians generally, and subversive of the legislative independence of Upper Canada. Two methods were therefore adopted: The first was to divide the Methodists (as shown in the last chapter). The second and more astute one was to appeal to the professed loyalty of that class which hitherto had been held ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... proceeded in their courses, Nature with her subversive forces, Time, too, the iron-toothed and sinewed; And the edacious years continued. Thrones rose and fell; and still the crescent, Unsanative and now senescent, A plastered skeleton of lath, Looked forward to a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... political opposition groups exist, although the government has identified the Falungong spiritual movement and the China Democracy Party as subversive groups ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... chemist's shop at least to look as if it contained reasonable remedies. These do not. Either our shops contain too many drugs or these too few. The chemist's sign, a large comic head with its mouth wide open (known as the gaper), is also subversive of confidence. A chemist's shop is no place for jokes. In Holland one must in short do as the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... for the established Anglican Church as a vested interest, which in the Travels is expressed through the giant king's strictures against civil liberty for religious dissenters (II, vi). He recommends this passage as a proper explanation of the principle restricting the civil liberty of potentially subversive dissidents, adding, furthermore, that "the Sectaries" themselves were "averse to all the Modes" of religion and opposed ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... two, and the one of which she rid herself first, consisted of those who advised her not to take so much care of herself, and preached (even if only negatively and with no outward signs beyond an occasional disapproving silence or doubting smile) the subversive doctrine that a sharp walk in the sun and a good red beefsteak would do her more good (her, who had had two dreadful sips of Vichy water on her stomach for fourteen hours!) than all her medicine bottles and her ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... this aphorism cannot be challenged, but, like most aphorisms, it only conveys a portion of the truth; for the commercial spirit, though eminently beneficent when under some degree of moral control, may become not merely hurtful, but even subversive of Imperial dominion, when it is allowed to run riot. Livingstone said that in five hundred years the only thing the natives of Africa had learnt from the Portuguese was to distil bad spirits with the help of an old gun barrel. This is, without doubt, an extreme ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... every breath we breathe, and every meal we eat, we are putting one or more of them in peril. If we clung as devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make out we are, for the subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might sound[4] by the hour and no one would follow them into battle—the blue-peter might fly at the truck,[5] but who would climb into a sea-going ship? Think (if these ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Christ seems, for wise purposes, to have abstained from meddling with many of the civil institutions of his time, though in themselves wicked, thinking probably, that it was sufficient to have left behind him such general precepts, as, when applied properly, would be subversive of them all. And, thirdly, that he never commended the centurion on account of his military situation, but on account of his ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... processes employed during the past decade, and now employed to bring about the establishment of such a Parliament, have been, and are in their nature, essentially revolutionary, subversive of all sound and healthy relations between man and man, inconsistent with social stability, and therefore with social progress and with social peace, what I have seen and heard in Ireland during the past six ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... famous, and to him is attributed the saying, 'Man is the measure of all things.' As applied to conduct, this dictum is commonly interpreted as meaning that good is entirely subjective, relative to the individual. Viewed in this light the saying is one-sided and sceptical, subversive of all objective morality. But the dictum may be regarded as expressing an important truth, that the good is personal and must ultimately be the good for man as man, therefore for ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... he said, smiling. "Decidedly not. As Mr Reardon would say, it would be totally subversive of discipline. It couldn't be done. But one gentleman can of course apologise to another, and I do so most heartily. My dear Mr Herrick, I beg your ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... an old wheeze. The definition of a red subversive is anybody who doesn't see eye to eye with the United States. They've been pulling the gag for decades. Remember Guatemala and Cuba? Do anything that interferes with American business abroad and the cry goes up, he's an enemy of the ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... they have condescended to borrow my words. For the Address goes on: '... principles destructive of the rights of all independent States, which strike at the root of the British Constitution, and are subversive of His Majesty's legitimate title to the throne.' Now by far the strongest expression in this sentence—the metaphor (such as it is) about 'striking at the root of the British Constitution '—is mine. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... scrupulous observance of foreign treaty rights. At critical moments they did not hesitate to memorialize the Throne, urging the protection of the legations, the restoration of communication, and the assertion of the Imperial authority against the subversive elements. They maintained excellent relations with the official representatives of foreign powers. To their kindly disposition is largely due the success of the consuls in removing many of the missionaries from the interior to places of safety. In this relation the action of the consuls ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... thought, Americans of the mid-twentieth century have added positive opposition. Critical ideas are apt to make any critic suspected of being subversive. The Southwest, Texas especially, is more articulately aware of its land spaces than of any other feature pertaining to itself. Yet in the realm of government, the Southwest has not produced a single spacious thinker. ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... the rights of free discussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular institutions, must render,—and they are intended to render,—the continuance of an extensive grievance and of the dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the country, and ultimately subversive of the authority of the State. Experience and theory alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free constitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. But we ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... providing of a shield against the ever-threatening fiend which we call WANT. Property once obtained, the possessor's next aim is to keep it. The very fact, that the mode of acquisition may have been wrong, and subversive of property-rights, if suffered to be imitated, naturally makes its possessor suspicious and cruel. He fears that the measure he has meted to others may be meted to him again. Hence severe laws, the monopoly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... saw in England the triumph of political ideas adapted to the new state of society which had arisen, but subversive of the tyrannical system which had done its work, a work great and good in the creation of peoples and the production of social order out of chaos. For a time it seemed as if the island state were to become the overshadowing influence in all the rest of Europe. By the middle of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... race in question. It is entirely creditable to them that steps have been taken by them to remove their protection from the more flagrant violators of American hospitality, but there is still room to discard outworn ideas of racial superiority maintained by economic or intellectually subversive ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... procedure against the Queen of Navarre to be not only derogatory to the respect due to the royal dignity, which that princess could claim to an equal degree with the other monarchs of Christendom, but injurious to the rights and honor of the king and kingdom, and subversive of civil society. It was unjust, for it was dictated by the enemies of France, who sought to take advantage of the youth of the king and his embarrassments arising from civil wars, to oppress a widow and orphans—the widow and orphan children, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... organ of its nation, it is also that of the state of the times; and a great work usually originates in the age. Certain events must precede the man of genius, who often becomes only the vehicle of public feeling. MACHIAVEL has been reproached for propagating a political system subversive of all human honour and happiness; but was it Machiavel who formed his age, or the age which created Machiavel? Living among the petty principalities of Italy, where stratagem and assassination were the practices of those wretched courts, what did that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... trunks, whooping down the corridor, and "gloating" in form-rooms, received the news with amazement and rage. No school in the world did prep. on the last night of the term. This thing was monstrous, tyrannical, subversive of law, religion, and morality. They would go into the form-rooms, and they would take their degraded holiday task with them, but—here they smiled and speculated what manner of man the Common-room would send up against them. The lot fell ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... made addresses. The foreigners present deemed them void of offence, but the police declared that all the speakers had said things subversive of the public good. The students were arrested, interrogated and then released, as their previous records had been good. The provincial chief of gendarmes, however, summoned the students before him and again investigated ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... instances, dealt by each other fairly and honestly. Still, there were occasions when, under the stress of temptation, fair-dealing was lost sight of, and immediate prospect of gain was allowed to lead to the commission of acts destructive of all feeling of security, subversive of commercial morals, and calculated to effect a rupture of commercial relations, which it may often have taken a long term of years to re-establish. Herodotus tells us that, at a date considerably anterior to the Trojan war, when the ascendancy over the other Phoenician ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... wanted to call the piece "A Poet's Reverie." "It is as bad as Bottom the weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of all credit—which the tale should force upon us—of its truth?" Lamb himself was forced, by the temper of the time, to declare that he "disliked all the miraculous part of it," as if it were not all miraculous! Wordsworth wanted the Mariner "to have a character and a profession," perhaps ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... opposes Dharma, what opposes Vinaya, or what is contrary to my words, this is the result of ignorance: ye must not hold such doctrine, but with haste reject it. Receiving that which has been said aright, this is not subversive of true doctrine, this is what I have said, as the Dharma and Vinaya say. Accepting that which I, the law, and the Vinaya declare, this is to be believed. But words which neither I, the law, nor the Vinaya declare, these are not to be believed. Not gathering the true and hidden ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, Necessity; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the future world, (which, as he is pleased to inform us, will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this; which, if believed, would sink wretched ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... apology for slavery," and did not show the convention willing to discharge its duty to the memorialists, and to the people whose protests could not there be heard. His principal argument was that the principles guiding this committee in its decision were subversive of the principles of true republicanism; that they were also against the principles of the Bible. Since the committee had admitted the evil of slavery, he contended, the failure to find a remedy is unworthy of the representatives of the people of the State. He maintained ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... evident from a great variety of considerations. But that we should pretend to fight for the Constitution and the Union, and yet against its express provisions, in respect to those held in bondage by loyal citizens, is simply to act a part subversive of the true intent of the Constitution. To violate its provisions, in relation to loyal citizens South, is in the highest degree impolitic and suicidal. It is the constant aim of the enemies now in armed rebellion against the Union, to misrepresent the North upon this very point. By systematic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... provincial marshal of nobility, to have you summoned and made to see the incongruity of your conduct with the title of nobleman which you have the honour to bear. His Excellency Alexander Pavlovich, justly thinking that your conduct may be subversive, and finding that persuasion may not be sufficient, without serious intervention on the part of the authorities, has given me his decision as to your case, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... Imperial German Government will disavow the acts of which the Government of the United States complains, that they will make reparation so far as reparation is possible for injuries which are without measure, and that they will take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence of anything so obviously subversive of the principles of warfare for which the Imperial German Government have in the past so wisely and ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... tradition, and humour is the determined foe of everything that is conventional and traditional. The Pharisaical spirit loves precedent and authority; the humorous spirit loves all that is swift and shifting and subversive and fresh. One of the reasons why the orthodox heaven is so depressing a place is that there seems to be no room in it for laughter; it is all harmony and meekness, sanctified by nothing but the gravest of smiles. What wonder that humanity is dejected at the thought of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hands and looked aghast. The idea of any man venturing to do what no one ever thought of doing before was so utterly subversive of all their ideas of propriety—such a desperate piece of ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... my every earthly interest with the welfare and glory of my country, and perfectly convinced that the discussion and passage of the above-mentioned resolution were not only unauthorized by the Constitution, but in many respects repugnant to its provisions and subversive of the rights secured by it to other coordinate departments, I deem it an imperative duty to maintain the supremacy of that sacred instrument and the immunities of the department intrusted to my care by all means consistent with my ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... shadow, Hazlitt bent his energies to fix its outline and prove its reality. "I am attached to my conclusions," he says, "in consequence of the pain, the anxiety, and the waste of time they have cost me."[22] His doctrines contained nothing that was subversive of social order, and their ultimate triumph lends the color of heroism to a consistency which people have often interpreted as proof of a limited horizon. It is at least certain that he did not put his conscience out to market, and that ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... conclusive and sacred. The important truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... trying in vain to re-adjust an equable balance. Conservatives and Unionists, almost indistinguishable, were waving the Imperialist banner in the face of the world. The Liberals, once the advanced and subversive party, were now raising their voices in protest, tentatively advocating the claims of what they considered the oppressed races. Derisive epithets were hurled at them by their enemies; the Pro-Boers, the Little Englanders took the place of the ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... one witnesse, ... and that one both to be known." ... [Footnote: Cotton, Way of New England Churches, pp. 39, 40.] Moreover, it is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the advantage it would have given the reactionists to have been able to fix subversive opinions upon their prominent opponents, it was found impossible to prove heresy in a single case which was brought to trial. The legislature chosen in May was apparently unfit for the work now to be done, for the extraordinary step of a dissolution was ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... female friend from the country called, by appointment, on Mrs. Gallilee. On the coming Tuesday afternoon, an event of the deepest scientific interest was to take place. A new Professor had undertaken to deliver himself, by means of a lecture, of subversive opinions on "Matter." A general discussion was to follow; and in that discussion (upon certain conditions) Mrs. Gallilee herself proposed ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... Falungong spiritual movement note: no substantial political opposition groups exist, although the government has identified the organizations listed above as subversive groups ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... paints has been very correctly characterized as "a species of corporeal hypocrisy as subversive of delicacy of mind as it is of the natural complexion," and has been, of late years, discarded at the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... adjudication is subversive of all law and good order; because, if a court instituted for the benefit and government of a corporation may take upon themselves to dispense with a law of the state, all other courts ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... of these feelings, M. Dumont has gone so far as to say that the writings of Mr Burke on the French Revolution, though disfigured by exaggeration, and though containing doctrines subversive of all public liberty, had been, on the whole, justified by events, and had probably saved Europe from great disasters. That such a man as the friend and fellow-labourer of Mr Bentham should have ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... subversive of Christianity; for if this theory is true the fall of man is entirely fabulous; and if the fall, then the redemption, these two being inseparably ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... written anything which is intended to displace the observations of other authors on this subject, nor will it be found that anything has been said subversive of the conclusions arrived at by experimentalists who have essayed the study of clairvoyant phenomena in a manner that is altogether commendable, and who have sought to place the subject on a demonstrable and scientific basis. I refer to the ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... afraid, sir, and more than afraid, for he makes no secret of it himself, that his views tend rather in the opposite direction; to an infidelity so subversive of the commonest principles of morality, that I expect, weekly, to hear of some unblushing and disgraceful outrage against decency, committed by him under its fancied sanction. And you know, as well as myself, the double danger of some profligate outbreak, which always attends ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... the same time they felt that I was serious and sincere; they became gradually convinced that my historic impartiality was not indifference, nor my political creed a leaning towards the old system, nor my opposition to every kind of subversive plot a truckling complaisance for power. I gained ground in the estimation of my listeners: some amongst the most distinguished came decidedly over to my views; others began to entertain doubts on the soundness of their theories and the utility ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... institutions which have been hitherto venerated, the aggrandisement of the power of the people, the embodying and recognition of popular authority, the use and abuse of the King's name, the truckling to the press, are things so subversive of government, so prejudicial to order and tranquillity, so encouraging to sedition and disaffection, that I do not see the possibility of the country settling down into that calm and undisturbed state ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... were they shocked?" wondered Sachse. "At the flogging, or the intercourse, or because he sent the female packing when she proposed to have a child? Do they not know that to have children about the premises would be subversive of military excellence?" ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... person as Jesus at all, but that his personality is simply a myth that gradually grew up in the minds of some Jewish fanatics who sought a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy. We might treat these perverse and subversive conclusions as only curious instances of a wrong method of criticism. But they filter down from the scholars to the masses of Christian believers and weaken their faith. It becomes a duty to deal with the method which leads to such results, and threatens ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... authority is absolutely necessary, and that it matters little whether it be the authority of a French monarch or an English parliament. The Whig he thought objected to authority on principle, and was therefore simply subversive. Something of the same opinion was held by Johnson's circle in general. They were conservative both in politics and theology, and English politics and theological disputes did not obviously raise ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... to whether I should or should not accept these glittering invitations. There hovered before him a painful sense of danger in resigning the soul to pleasures which savoured of 'the world'. These, though apparently innocent in themselves, might give an appetite for yet more subversive dissipations. I remember, on one occasion,—when the Browns, a family of Baptists who kept a large haberdashery shop in the neighbouring town, asked for the pleasure of my company 'to tea and games', and carried complacency so far as to offer to send that local ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the woman who had given me such a plausible lecture on pride. Alas, for our fallen nature! Which is more subversive of peace and Christian fellowship—ignorance of our own characters, or the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... deeps of immorality. The principles which to her were most sacred, were to him light subjects upon which, she was well aware, only her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; and Edith found argument impossible with one ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... narratives as true illustrations of God's ways toward men, drew forth from a religious journal a bitter editorial on "The Old Testament and its New Enemies." But a great light has since dawned in that quarter. It is no longer deemed subversive of faith in a divine Revelation to hold that the prophet Gad was not infallible in regarding the plague which scourged Jerusalem as sent to punish David's pride in his ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... spirit in the hearts of your pupils, and not from any assistance which you can usually derive from it in managing particular cases of transgression. Many teachers make great mistakes in this respect. A bad boy, who has done something openly and directly subversive of the good order of the school, or the rights of his companions, is called before the master, who thinks that the most powerful weapon to wield against him is the Bible. So, while the trembling culprit stands before him, he administers to him a reproof, ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... no evidence whatsoever that can be relied upon of the great antiquity of this manuscript: on the contrary what we do know about it as a fact is utterly subversive of such an assumption: this copy in the Mediceo-Laurentian Library in Florence of all the Annals of Tacitus cannot be traced further back than to the possession of a man who flourished in the days of Leo X. and the Emperor Maximilian I.,—Johannes Jocundus of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross |
