"Instigate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commit an unlawful or immoral act do not create a legal obligation—as if Titius were to instigate you to steal, or to do an injury to the property or person of some one else; and even if you act on his instructions, and have to pay a penalty in consequence, you cannot recover its ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... that we have been insulted. I won't venture to tell him anything else, but (tell him I will) that having come with all propriety and made our report to Mr. Chia Jui, Mr. Chia Jui instead (of helping us) threw the fault upon our shoulders. That while he heard people abuse us, he went so far as to instigate them to beat us; that Ming Yen seeing others insult us, did naturally take our part; but that they, instead (of desisting,) combined together and struck Ming Yen and even broke open Ch'in Chung's head. And that how is it possible for us to continue ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of it keep us from sleeping. Amidst this joy for peace, and for the near prospect of our seeing, once more, our dear America, there is not a man among us but feels disposed to try again the tug of war with the Britons, should they impress and flog our seamen, or instigate the savages of the wilderness to scalp and tomahawk the inhabitants of our frontiers. This war, and this harsh imprisonment, will add vigor to our arms, should the people of America again declare, by their representatives in congress, that individual oppression, or the nation's wrongs, render it ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... and in mind. As Charles was but ten or twelve years of age, his mother, Catharine de Medicis, was appointed regent during his minority. Catharine was a woman of great strength of mind, but of the utmost depravity of heart. There was no crime ambition could instigate her to commit from which, in the slightest degree, she would recoil. Perhaps the history of the world retains not another instance in which a mother could so far forget the yearnings of nature as to endeavor, studiously and perseveringly, to deprave the ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... accident being considered as one by an intellect: otherwise the intellect could not form this proposition: "The digger of a grave found a treasure." And just as an intellect can apprehend this so can it effect it; for instance, someone who knows a place where a treasure is hidden, might instigate a rustic, ignorant of this, to dig a grave there. Consequently, nothing hinders what happens here by accident, by luck or by chance, being reduced to some ordering cause which acts by the intellect, especially the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... nation dearly suffered by this tutorage, in having its wealth and treasure squandered by that luxurious Monarch. Hobbs seems not to have been very amiable in his life; he was certainly incapable of true friendship, for the same cowardice, or false principle, which could instigate him to abandon truth, would likewise teach him to sacrifice his friend to his own safety. When young, he was voluptuous, when old, peevish, destitute alike of resolution and honour. However high his powers, his character is mean, he flattered the prevailing ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... cannot allow. I did not instigate my men to recapture the vessel, they managed it themselves; but now that they have possession, I dare not order ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... function of the feelings and passions in our composite nature is to instigate Action, when Reason and Conscience by themselves do not: so that as a matter of fact our Moral Choice is, in general, fairly described as [Greek: orexis dianoetike]. See Bishop Butler's Sermon II. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... adored by curates, Then might follow a meditative pause—a short gaze at her, from which she could have the option of reflecting that to wait is not the privilege of those who have lived to acquire patience. The track he marked out was clever in a poor way; perhaps it was not positively unkind to instigate her to look at her age: but though he read character shrewdly, and knew hers pretty accurately, he was himself too much of a straw at the moment ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... settlements." It was fondly believed by thousands of braves that then the British might be exterminated, or at least driven to the seaboard and confined to their coast settlements. It was the great chief, Pontiac, who if he did not originally instigate, fostered, directed, and personally commanded this secretly arranged universal movement. His mastermind comprehended the importance and necessity of combined and harmonious effort. He proposed to unite all the tribes into one confederacy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... is the business of my admirers to give me as much money as I want, to do my work in a cheerful mood. Well, it is a good thing, and I will take courage from the thought that the Americans will make me no such offer. Do not you instigate it either, for in the "luckiest" case it would be a great trouble to me. Of your dear ones I never have any real news; I am frequently asked, and do not know what to say. But you must greet them all the more cordially for me, and, if you can, love me with ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... was succeeded in my master's good graces by another lady, who appeared sole mistress of the AEtna, and mostly lodged on board. I was not so great a favourite with this lady as with the former; she had conceived a pique against me on some occasion when she was on board, and she did not fail to instigate my master to treat me ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... pursued relentlessly: "bad all round. Mulready, in your father's pay, tries to have him arrested, the better to rob him. Mrs. Hallam, to secure your property for that precious pet, Freddie, connives at, if she doesn't instigate, a kidnapping. Your father takes her money to deprive you of yours,—which could profit him nothing so long as you remained in lawful possession of it; and at the same time he conspires to rob, through ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... whiteness of his beautiful hands. Now, Lanigan, Sir Robert, aware that he cannot act the tyrant at present, as he used to do, will instigate my father to some act of outrage against him; for you know, Lanigan, how cowardly, how cruel, how vindictive, the detestable villain is; and most assuredly he will make my credulous and generous, but hot-tempered, father the instrument of his vengeance ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the accused such as were grounds of suspicion, yet very intricate and difficult to draw up right conclusions about them. They affirmed that they saw the ghosts of several departed persons, who, at their appearing, did instigate them to discover such as (they said) were instruments to hasten their death, threatening sorely to afflict them if they did not make ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... event, he will subject me no longer to his insults: how, indeed, can he, under your perpetual protection? or, for what cause should he attempt it, if he could? I shall be then yours,—only and ever yours; what hope could, therefore, then nerve his hardihood or instigate his intrusions? Trust to me at that time, and suffer me to—nay, I repeat, promise me that I may—trust in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... has set his heart. While passing through Paris he was to confide his dangerous secret to the Ambassador Chantonnay, and instruct him to support any of the Roman Catholic nobles that might show a disposition to rise,[1241] or to instigate them to action by the promise of Philip's support. Neither Margaret nor Chantonnay, however, could fulfil the monarch's desires. The former thought that Philip had thrown away the golden opportunity by failing to interfere while the question of Catharine's and Navarre's claims to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... millennium, they imagine themselves so many exalted spirits. They have no doubt whatever on these two points even after everything has fallen in through their blunders, even after their obliging hands are sullied by the foul grasp of robbers whom they were the first to instigate, and by that of executioners of which they are partners in complicity.[2231] To this extent is self-conceit the worst of sophists. Convinced of their superior enlightenment and of the purity of their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... some time past the fanatical Jacobins had invented a new means to find guilty ones for the guillotine, and to keep the veins bleeding, so as to restore France to health. They sent emissaries into the prisons to instigate conspiracies among the prisoners, and to find out men wretched enough to purchase their life by accusing their prison companions, and by delivering them over to the executioner's axe. Such a spy had been sent into that portion of the prison where Beauharnais was, and he had begun his ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... So many instigate, assist, or sanction the commission of every one of these actions that no one who has a hand in them feels himself morally responsible ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... only just that steps should be taken against those who still resist, and principally against those persons who are in authority, and who are responsible for the continuance of the present state of disorganization in the country, and who instigate their fellow citizens to persist in their hopeless ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... American note dispatched to Ambassador Penfield at Vienna for transmission to the Austrian Foreign Minister was blunt and direct. After informing Baron Burian that Dr. Dumba had admitted improper conduct in proposing to his Government plans to instigate strikes in American manufacturing plants, the United States ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... years a trader in London. My beginning was narrow, and my stock small; I was, therefore, a long time brow-beaten and despised by those, who, having more money, thought they had more merit than myself. I did not, however, suffer my resentment to instigate me to any mean arts of supplantation, nor my eagerness of riches to betray me to any indirect methods of gain; I pursued my business with incessant assiduity, supported by the hope of being one day richer than those who contemned me; and had, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... missives had been industriously scattered through the back settlements of both Carolinas. There are also letters from Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year earlier, urging that something be done immediately to counteract rumors set afloat that the British were endeavoring to instigate both the Indians and the negroes ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... Bannerman announced her intention of calling heaven and earth together rather than sanction the impropriety, and set off for her party at the sheriff's in a mood which made Phoebe tremble lest the attractions of ortolans and Burgundy should instigate the 'tremendous ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mother's womb by encircling conditions that none single-handed can break, is wronged and sinned against by us all most foully. If it dies we murder it. If it lives to suffer we crucify it. If it steals we instigate, despite our canting hypocrisy. And if it murders we who hang it have beforehand hypnotised its will and armed its ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... Japan; introduce fire-arms; Spanish jealousy of; Dutch and English intrigue against; instigate Christian revolt; edict of 1637 against; refuse grant in Yedo; monopolize early ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... tone of belief among the people at home—namely, that the Chinese really prefer the Japanese to all other foreigners; for they realize their dependence upon them, and if they do not make common cause with them it is because foreigners, chiefly Americans, instigate it all from mercenary and political motives. As a matter of fact, I doubt if history knows of any such complete case of national dislike and distrust; it sometimes seems as if there hadn't been a single thing ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... "unconditionally opposed" to the use of coloured troops. This is a curious prejudice on the part of the diplomatic representative of a Government that is seeking to bring Turkey into the conflict and trying to persuade the Turk to instigate a "holy war" in Egypt and India against ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... outrages were reported to Amos Kendall, the Postmaster-General, he approved of them; and when Congress met, Jackson asked for a law that would prohibit the circulation "in the Southern States, through the mails, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." From the legislatures of five Southern states came resolutions calling on the people of the North to suppress the abolitionists.[1] Congress and the legislatures of New York and Rhode Island responded; but the bills ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... instigations. Because the internal movements of the soul are vital functions. Now no vital functions can be exercised except by an intrinsic principle, not even those of the vegetal soul, which are the lowest of vital functions. Therefore the devil cannot instigate man to evil ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... assistance, and he in his turn promised never to commit any further invasion of her rights. This compact was formally guaranteed by the Government of Bengal. But times had changed; money was wanted; and the power which had given the guarantee was not ashamed to instigate the spoiler to excesses such that even ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... what it means not to kill is to be impressed most explicitly upon the simple-minded. In the first place that we harm no one, first, with our hand or by deed. Then, that we do not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel thereto. Further, that we neither use nor assent to any kind of means or methods whereby any one may be injured. And finally, that the heart be not ill disposed toward any one, nor from anger and hatred wish him ill, so that body and soul may be innocent in regard ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... proposition been made to consolidate the States after their independence had been achieved, all must know it would have been rejected—yet there are those who now instigate you to sectional strife for the purpose of sectional dominion and the destruction of the rights of the minority. Do they mean treason to the Constitution and the destruction of the Union? Or do they vilely practice on credulity and passion ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... and selling each other, gives their interested oppressors a pretence for representing them as unworthy of liberty, and the natural rights of mankind. But these sophisters turn the argument full upon themselves, when they instigate the poor creatures to such shocking impiety, by every means that fantastic subtilty can suggest; thereby shewing in their own conduct, a more glaring proof of the same depravity, and, if there was ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... September, 1898, President Snow, if he did not instigate, at least authorized the candidacy of Brigham H. Roberts for Congress—a polygamist who had been threatened with excommunication for his opposition to the "political manifesto" of 1896 and who had recanted and made his peace ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... a most provoking letter from my sister. I might have supposed she would resent the contempt she brought upon herself in my chamber. Her conduct surely can only be accounted for by the rage instigate by ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... close to us, we prepared to leave the Arapahoes. The crowd fell back on each side and stood looking on. When we were half across the camp an idea occurred to us. The Pawnees were probably in the neighborhood of the Caches; we might tell the Arapahoes of this and instigate them to send down a war party and cut them off, while we ourselves could remain behind for a while and hunt the buffalo. At first thought this plan of setting our enemies to destroy one another seemed to us a masterpiece of policy; but we immediately ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... agent, these surely are the characters most impressive at that stage of culture, these communicate the thrills of curiosity and the earliest intellectual stirrings. Tempests and conflagrations, pestilences and earthquakes, reveal supramundane powers, and instigate religious terror rather than philosophy. Nature, more demonic than divine, is above all things multifarious. So many creatures that feed or threaten, that help or crush, so many beings to hate ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... themselves enemies of the Protestants; and, 3d, that there is no evidence of any premeditation. To these I will add, as important in contrasting this massacre with the many massacres in which the Huguenots were the victims, the fact that the Protestant ministers not only did not instigate, but disapproved, and endeavored as soon as possible to put an end to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... human race, but he will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest. From the age of Constantine to the Plantagenets, this rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and hardy Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems to inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage ignorance of the virtues of peace, and of the laws of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... arrived at the Landing, a prisoner was put in his charge for safe keeping. Ross Landing is Chattanooga now, and John Ross lived there, and was one of the chiefs of the Cherokees. The prisoner was his guest, and his name was John Howard Payne. He was suspected of trying to instigate the Cherokees to revolt and fight, and not leave their beautiful forest homes on the Tennessee and Coosa and Oostanaula and the Etowah and Connasauga rivers. He brought Payne back as far as New Echota, or New Town, as it was called, an Indian ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... terror to the hearts of the people of his kingdom; and we may well presume that the woman who afterwards proved herself so reckless and heaven-defying, prompted to this first crime. She who was herself so ready to commit deeds of blood would be quick to instigate others. ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... by means of a superior power permanently present on the spot; the feeble policy of sentiment, with all its apparent humanity, was far more cruel than the sternest occupation would have been. In Boeotia for instance Rome had, if not to instigate, at least to permit, a political murder, because the Romans had resolved to withdraw their troops from Greece and, consequently, could not prevent the Greeks friendly to Rome from seeking their remedy in the usual manner of the country. But Rome herself also ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... this deed of Gonzaga's anything more than such a trickster's act as it is always agreeable to foil. And then, to the others, who knew naught of what was passing in Cappoccio's mind, he did a mighty strange thing. From being the one to instigate them to treachery and mutiny, he was the one now to raise his voice in a stout argument of loyalty. He agreed with all that Messer Francesco had said, and he, for one, ranged himself on Messer Francesco's side to ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... judges of the land had the least idea of embracing such a transaction as this, within their view of conspiracy. The older cases, in which the doctrine upon conspiracy has been applied, have been cases described by the statute of 21st Edward I. of persons who have conspired to instigate a criminal prosecution against an innocent individual, and of persons who, for the purpose of supporting their unlawful enterprises, have kept retainers in the country. In modern times, the decisions have come nearer to ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... for the guard. When, in obedience to the orders of Baron Wenk, an officer with some of the Elector's bodyguards had arrived from the palace, Sir Kunz gave him a short account of the shameful way in which the burghers of the city permitted themselves to instigate revolt, and called upon the officer to place the ringleader, Master Himboldt, under arrest. Seizing the Master by the chest, the Chamberlain accused him of having maltreated and thrust away from the cart the groom who, at his orders, was unhitching the black horses. The ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... callous creature in the world, he must have melted under it. To his eternal shame, let it be said, the bassoon remained as impervious to her beseeching glances as if he had been a sphinx or a rhinoceros. In fact, Aurora's supplicating eyes seemed to instigate him to further and greater madness, for after that he became still more riotous, and at many times during the evening the crisis in the orchestra threatened anarchy ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... what was your steamboat about? What had she been doing? What was she to do the next morning? And what ought you to do? You have reparation to make for all the men, and for all the arms and implements of war, which we were transporting, and going to transport, to the other side, to foment and instigate rebellion in Canada. That is what the third party would say to us. And it would come, in the end, after all the blood and treasure had been wasted by a war between the two countries, to this, that we must shake hands and drink champagne together, after having ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... little bit deep. De ghost track on top de snow big as a elephant's. Him or she or it's tracks 'pear to drap wid de snow and just rise up out de snow and disappear. De white folks say 'twas a man wid bags on his foots, but they never found de bags, so I just believe it was ghost instigate by de devil to drap down dere and make all dat misery for my ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... government not taking the proper measures to put a stop to confusion and agitation; and on the contrary, in place of putting a stop to such scenes, allowing some Lords of his Majesty's household, to encourage and instigate ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... had, no doubt, sunk deep into the hearts of the Jews. It has been observed that oppression, which drives even wise men mad, may instigate fanatics to the wildest acts of frenzy; an incident at Oxford will illustrate this. Throughout these times the Jews still flourished, if they may be said to have flourished, at Oxford. In 1244 certain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... catch a lame rabbit." Similar to this is another, "To use a battle-ax to cut off a hen's head." They say of wicked associates: "To cherish a bad man is like nourishing a tiger; if not well-fed he will devour you." Here are several others mingling wit with wisdom: "To instigate a villain to do wrong is like teaching a monkey to climb trees;" "To catch fish and throw away the net," which recalls our saying, "Using the cat's paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire;" "To climb a tree to catch ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... obloquies he sustained from all sorts of opposers, he had one faithful and fervent wrestler on his side, Mr. Alexander Peden; and yet a little before his death, these reproachers so far prevailed with him as to instigate him to a declared opposition against Mr. Renwick, which not only contributed to grieve him much, but was also an occasion of stumbling to many[233] others of the well affected, and to the confirmation of his opposers. Yet nevertheless ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie |
