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Incentive   Listen
adjective
Incentive  adj.  
1.
Inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulative. "Competency is the most incentive to industry."
2.
Serving to kindle or set on fire. (R.) "Part incentive reed Provide, pernicious with one touch of fire."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Incentive" Quotes from Famous Books



... hope of turning the tables upon Mendouca by overtaking him, in which case we were to do our best to detain him until the arrival of the Barracouta upon the scene, it being the captain's plan to follow us at a distance of some fifteen or twenty miles. As an incentive to expedition—and no doubt, incidentally, to the promotion of the capture of the Francesca—the captain informed me that if we managed to accomplish a quick run to Sierra Leone, I should probably be in time to rejoin the Felicidad, which schooner was then at that port, refitting after ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... ideas into concrete form do not depend too much on the "moment of inspiration." It is not my intention to ridicule this most valuable incentive to artistic work. I believe in it thoroughly when it is genuine, and I would advise you to take all advantage of it. Dash off your story as swiftly as you will—the swifter the better, for if it runs easily from your pen it stands a better chance of being spontaneous. ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... aim to settle New Netherlands and make use of its resources, Holland, through the States General, offered extraordinary inducements to promoters of colonization. The prospect of immense estates, with feudal rights and privileges, was held out as the alluring incentive. The bill of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629 made easy the possibility of becoming a lord of the soil with comprehensive possessions and powers. Any man who should succeed in planting a colony of fifty "souls," each of whom was to be more than fifteen ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... failed to come out of the struggle with honour. And I assure you that any one capable of something more serious than laughing at his solecisms and audacities of phrase, would have found in this man material for the most important studies on the development of the human mind, and an incentive to the most tender admiration for primitive ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... of incentive.] The oars used in the Philippines are usually made of bamboo poles, with a board tied to their extremities with strips of rattan. If they happen to break, so much the better; for the fatiguing labor of rowing must necessarily be suspended till ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... back to work in the plantation, for the bananas at least could be saved, and there was a well of sprouting yams and some tingapula that had somehow escaped destruction. But Jack's spirit was broken; the old incentive was gone; he could not revive the energy, the zest, the interest that before had never failed him. He did what Fetuao bade him and no more, and the days, once so short, seemed ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... that all was over? Had the last conflict been fought? Was it not rather to be believed that life was one long conflict? Was it not for her, Lloyd, to rouse that sluggard ambition? Was not this her career, after all, to be his inspiration, his incentive, to urge him to the accomplishment of a great work? Now, of the two, she was the stronger. In these new conditions what was her duty? Adler's clumsy phrases persisted in her mind. "That's his work," Adler had said. "God Almighty cut him out for that, and he's got to ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... limitless energy built up a great university; whose straightforward counsel for many years shaped the policies of one of the political parties of the Commonwealth; whose earnest teaching pointed out to many a man his civic duty; and whose personal life is an incentive to high intellectual morality. By a score of books covering the various fields of rhetoric, aesthetics, political economy, philosophy, and religion, he has moulded public opinion in his generation. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... murderers could have no rest. They were in continual fear that the friends of La Salle would rise and kill them. Father Douay, M. Joutel, and La Salle's brother the Chevalier, knew full well that the murderers had the strongest possible incentive to kill ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... is the fact, that with the Mahometans temperance is a part of their religion, and has become so much a habit that practically the rule is never transgressed. One fertile source of want, and one great incentive to idleness and crime, is thus present with the one class, but absent in the other; but besides this the Christians look upon themselves as nearly the equals of the Europeans, who profess the same religion, and as far superior to the followers ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Hugh Mainwaring was making final disposition of his property naturally spurred me on to increased action, since, in making final adjustment of his papers, he would be more than likely to destroy the old will. This incentive, together with the fact that opportunity was given me for a more thorough search than I had been able to make prior to that time, combined to bring about the discovery ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... were brought from Castilla. Inspired by the example of the profits made by some persons, all—especially the inhabitants of Andalucia—began to plant vineyards and olive-orchards. He who had esteemed any kind of trade a degradation twenty years before, now, with the incentive of sending away his crops, shipped greater cargoes than would a whole fair of merchants. Consequently, the ocean trade increased, in a short time, from at most fifty or one hundred casks of wine ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... the gregarious impulse, the tendency to flock together for our work and our play, gains in ascendancy. Growing out of the greater intellectual opportunities and demands of modern times, the standard of education has greatly advanced. And under the incentive of present-day economic success and luxury, comfortable circumstances and a moderate competence no longer satisfy our people. Hence they turn to the city, looking to find there the coveted social, educational, or ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... the fair presumption that it comes from General Grant, and that it has an object which, if you understood, you would be loath to frustrate. True, these troops are, in strict law, only to be removed by my order; but General Grant's judgment would be the highest incentive to me to make such order. Nor can I understand how doing so is bad faith and dishonor, nor yet how it so exposes Kentucky to ruin. Military men here do not perceive how it exposes Kentucky, and I am sure Grant would not permit it if it ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... Sickness may be often an incentive to poetical composition; I found it so; and I esteem the following lines only because they remind me of past feelings which I ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield

... experiencing the truth of the old maxim, that honesty is the best policy. It is to be regretted that his present devotion to duty had no higher incentive than mere policy; but it may be hoped of those who do their duty from low motives, that they may gather inspiration even from their politic fidelity to obey its behests from higher motives. The third lieutenant of the Young America intended to keep the promise he had made in accepting his ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... view to cut off our retreat, and the one in front advanced upon us, hemming us in. To retreat together seemed our only chance, but it was getting dark, and my boats were badly manned. I gave the order to close together and retire, offering ammunition as an incentive, and all came to me but one boat, which seemed so paralysed with fright, it kept spinning round and round like ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... The Mississippi was frozen, and the girls of the village had the day before enjoyed one of their favorite amusements—a ball-play on the ice. Those who owned the bright cloths and calicoes which were hung up before their eyes, as an incentive to win the game, were still rejoicing over their treasures; while the disappointed ones were looking sullen, and muttering of partiality being shown to this one because she was beautiful, and to that, because she was the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... his own country, but even inspired the artistic productions of the day. The most beautiful passages of Spenser's Faerie Queen were suggested by his pastoral poetry; while his chivalrous epic was to Milton at once the incentive and the model of his own immortal work. It is probable that the New Heloise of Rousseau, and the tragedy of Zaire by Voltaire, would not have been written had not Tasso invested the subject of romantic love and of the Crusades with such a deep interest to the authors. We of this age may ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... food for speculation. The man had been killed, and robbery had undoubtedly been the incentive. Who could have committed the deed and so successfully have escaped ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... governs their judgment, so that our glory depends less upon a real virtue than upon auspicious circumstances. The hope of filling an honorable place in their imagination, ought not to be the sole incentive to the practice of virtue, it should be the desire to have a good opinion of ourselves, and to be able to say, whatever may be the opinion of the public: I have nothing with which to reproach myself. But, what matters it to what we owe our virtue, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... Menshiviki, stated: "The Menshiviki are against every form of intervention, direct or indirect, because by providing the incentive to militarization it is bound to emphasize the least desirable qualities of the revolution. Further, the needs of the army overwhelm all efforts at meeting the needs of social and economic reconstruction. Agreement with the Soviet Government would lessen the tension of ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... were annihilation of individual consciousness it would hardly be an incentive to do good deeds, except that good deeds in themselves bring happiness, but if the bringing of happiness did not also bring with it a larger consciousness, it would not be true happiness, but merely a condition, and conditions are ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... had an incentive to work hard which she was not acquainted with, and he had certainly done so, but the long, iron winter, when there was nothing that could be done, had proved too much for him. It was very dreary sitting alone evening ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... took me four months to master Braille, but I passed my typewriting test in less than three weeks. I was pleased with my achievement in respect to the latter, as I had determined to take up stenography and typewriting as a profession. There was an added incentive for the students to take up typewriting, for Sir Arthur, the most generous of men, presents each of his boys with a typewriter when he is leaving ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson

... would rouse the emulation of your phylarchs, if you would stir in each a personal ambition to appear at the head of his own squadron in all ways splendidly appointed, the best incentive will be your personal example. You must see to it that your own bodyguard (35) are decked with choice accoutrement and arms; you must enforce on them the need to practise shooting pertinaciously; you must expound to them the ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon

... had done business with went out of business; and the Nicaraguan army recruited all my labourers and mounted them on my mules and horses, swiped all my grub, and told me to go home. I went. Why stay? Moreover, I had an incentive consisting of about an inch of bayonet—fortunately not applied in a vital spot—which accelerated rather than ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... discussion of the virtues and abilities of all the male members of the clan, from boyhood to old age. He is most successful in obtaining clan and tribal promotion who is most useful to the clan and the tribe. In this manner all of the ambitious are stimulated, and this incentive to industry ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell

... representative farmers have been able to add field to field until they have secured a substantial property and have ceased to be farmers. An extension of tenancy is to be deplored, not only because it takes away from the farmer a feeling of independence and of incentive, but because it creates a parasitic class which in Japan is perhaps even more parasitic than in the West. A landowner in the West almost invariably realises that he has certain duties. In Japan a landowner's duties to his neighbourhood and to the State ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... a man of incredibly vivid interests and emotions. Now it appeared to him that, in all the world, there was not a cause for feeling, not an incentive to rouse ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... revealed also enormous expanses which I had not suspected before. I therefore pressed on farther, and to-day am still engaged in the almost hopeless attempt to extirpate my ignorance. What incites me continually is the sense of how small I am, not that which a few moments ago seemed my best incentive—the picture of myself as large. That on the whole has had comparatively little influence. Of course I do not assert that we are altogether without visions of a larger life. That is far from being the case. Were it so, desire would cease. We must contrast the poverty ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... is insured if you fully comprehend the importance of the epoch which you now begin, and the greatness of its results for the rest of your life. Let past delinquencies become an incentive, stimulating your will to energetic action. Let the need of repairing the past, and the importance of preparing for the future inspire you with generous resolutions and an ardent desire of acquiring all the virtues necessary to a person ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... any position of importance in that vast continent of swarming bees intent on their day's labour and nothing else. It is a good token for the future that men shall feel their labour is appreciated, although a desire for official recognition may be no incentive to the devotion itself. It is certain that William McNair always valued the appreciation of his official superiors, and that nothing could have given him greater pleasure or more comfort, in his ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard

... authorities are obliged to recognise a maximum, so that if at the expiry of this maximum, the prisoner should have made no progress towards reform he must, nevertheless, be discharged. Since, however, a man may at Elmira reduce a sentence of ten years to something like 22 months, a great incentive is given to him to identify himself with the efforts being made on his behalf. From every point of view the indeterminate sentence in the case of those sent to reformatories appears the most reasonable. The ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... said we must have a new carpet to match them, and although mother protested against it, she was loud in her admiration when she saw the handsome white Brussels, thickly covered with crimson roses. Helen's introduction proved an astonishing incentive; we set a new value on ourselves. I never saw so much of Veronica as at that time; her health improved with her temper. She threw us into fits of laughter with her whimsical talk, never laughing herself, but enjoying the effect she produced. To please her, Helen changed her ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... would be made, and that God would defend the right." With the saving clause adroitly introduced into the last sentence, everyone, except an Atheist, will agree; and, but for this, this speech reads as an incentive to Civil War, intended to stir up brother against brother to fight to the death. Such sentiments may, in the future, be remembered as marked with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various

... prejudices in favor of game regulations, also that one of them had a daughter. She had white, even teeth that flashed when she laughed; the whole effect of her was as sound and as appetizing as a piece of ripe fruit. Greenhow told her that the prospect of having a home of his own was an incentive such as pot-hunting held out to no man. He looked as he said it, a very brother to Nimrod, for as yet the Pot had not ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... can rest their outstretched sword-arm in the pauses of the combat caused by the duellists getting out of breath; consequently, an undersized student is usually chosen for this considerate office. The heads and faces of the duellists are swathed in bandages—no small incentive to perspiration, the vital parts of their bodies are well protected against a fatal prick or blow, and the pricks or slashes must be delivered with the hand and wrist raised head-high above the shoulder. It is considered disgraceful ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... the thought and feeling of the community pretty generally sanctioned an individualistic philosophy of life. The result was tragic if inevitable. The new industrial order offered both the practical incentive and the theoretical justification for institutional declension from humane to primitive standards. It is not to be supposed that men slipped deliberately into paganism; the human mind is not so sinister as it is stupid nor so cruel as it is unimaginative nor so brutal as it is complacent. ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... cruisers all remaining charges additional to those mentioned above were paid, but the surplus was divided between the Crown and contractor. Thus the latter stood to gain a large sum if only a moderate number of seizures had been made, and there was, by this method, every incentive for the hired cruisers to use their best endeavours to effect captures. Still, if there was a deficiency instead of a surplus, this was also ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... fixed and sudden determination to send Lilla to school was, of course, laid by Annie and her confidant to Mrs. Hamilton's charge, and increased not a little their prejudice against her, adding fresh incentive to their schemes for the destruction of her peace, which Caroline's self-willed conduct now rendered even more easy than ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... the three works of restoration to life. Dr. John Laidlaw, in The Miracles of our Lord, treats this first among the miracles of its class though without affirming its chronological precedence; many other writers make it the second of the three. The incentive to arrange the three miracles of this group in the sequence indicated may, perhaps, be found in the desire to present them in the increasing order of apparent greatness—the raising of the damsel being an instance ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... toiled early and late. They scarcely stopped to eat, so feverish was their haste. Mr. Crowninshield had let it be known that if the wireless apparatus was in condition to send and receive messages within a week he would add to the regular wages of the mechanics a generous bonus and this incentive was sufficient to cause the avaricious workmen to transgress the laws of the labor unions and forget any ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... matters which do not admit of reasoning. He starts from a noble text: 'That without the sense of honour and dishonour neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work.' But he soon passes on to more common-place topics. The antiquity of love, the blessing of having a lover, the incentive which love offers to daring deeds, the examples of Alcestis and Achilles, are the chief themes of his discourse. The love of women is regarded by him as almost on an equality with that of men; and he makes the singular remark that the gods favour the return of love which is made ...
— Symposium • Plato

... Then he looked rather sheepishly out of the window. "I've given her an incentive to do ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... having him at bay. Within a few days was fought the decisive battle that brought about Burgoyne's surrender, and when the news reached Sir Henry Clinton he immediately set about returning to New York, there being no longer any incentive for action in the Highlands. Putnam and Clinton, after blowing up their two vessels in the river, had effected their retreat to Fishkill, where they entrenched; but on learning of the British retreat they moved ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... description of Susie, and speaking of my relationship to them both. To him I owe the guidance of my life,—all its best impulses, all its worthiest efforts; to her some of its happiest hours, and the blessings alike of incentive and reproof. In reading over Mr. Ruskin's Preface, I note that, either by grace of purpose or happy chance, he has left me one point untouched in our dear friend's character. Her letters inserted here give some evidence of ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... forgiven. A samurai could therefore fully sympathize with Hannibal's oath to avenge his country's wrongs, but he scorns James Hamilton for wearing in his girdle a handful of earth from his wife's grave, as an eternal incentive to avenge her wrongs on ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... voters of the State,—was in the fall of 1875 overthrown through the medium of a sanguinary revolution. The State Government was virtually seized and taken possession of vi et armis. Why was this? What was the excuse for it? What was the motive, the incentive that caused it? It was not in the interest of good, efficient, and capable government; for that we already had. It was not on account of dishonesty, maladministration, misappropriation of public funds; for every dollar of the ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... impetus which the trade with Santa Fe received shortly after his return to the United States. The student of American history will remember that the expedition commanded by this soldier was inaugurated in 1806; his report of the route he had taken was the incentive for commercial speculation in the direction of trade with New Mexico, but it was so handicapped by restrictions imposed by the Mexican government, that the adventurers into the precarious traffic were not only subject to a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... but in spite of it. The laws of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation as those of the rondo and sonata form; I find it impossible to imagine their ever having been a spur, or an incentive to poetic musical speech. Neither, pure tonal beauty, so-called "form," nor what is termed the intellectual side of music (the art of counterpoint, canon, and fugue), constitutes a really vital factor in music. This narrows our analysis down to two things, namely, the ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... fishers needed no incentive; they were rowing as well as ever Jason's Argonauts rowed, and a greater ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... answered her, fervently, that he would be guided by her in this as in everything; that he knew he was selfish, and he was afraid he was not very good; but it was not because he had not wished to be so; it was because he had not had any incentive. He thought how much nobler and better this was than the talk he had usually had with girls. He said that of course he would go home and tell his people; he saw now that it would make them happier if they could hear it directly from him. He had only thought of writing because he could not bear to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... (3) the small productive activity of the natives; (4) the effects of the slave trade in discouraging legitimate commerce. None of these causes is necessarily permanent, that most difficult to remove being the third; the negro races finding the means of existence easy have little incentive to toil. The first drawback has almost disappeared, and the building of railways and the placing of steamers on the rivers and lakes—a work continually progressing —renders it year by year easier for producer and consumer to come together. As to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... apartment, giving to the trash man all valueless and inconsequential articles, including a box of old sea shells which she found in the closet. It was a curious fact that neither Sutter nor Travail possessed relatives or friends to make inquiry as to their whereabouts and thus without incentive the official search died ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi

... affect community needs. Where immigration is increasing rapidly, institutions such as schools, churches, and stores are often inadequate, and there is every incentive toward the development of community spirit and united effort to meet the common needs. On the other hand, in the older sections decreasing populations make it impossible to maintain as many institutions as formerly. Many an eastern community has inherited two or three ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... work in right good earnest, and, with necessity for an incentive, found ourselves at the expiration of three days master of a fine canoe, with which we drew down the astonishment of the natives. Two days more and we bid them a touching farewell, promised to call and see them again, bring cotton, cloth and sundry Yankee notions, with which to start ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... his fate. Although he admitted he was a coward for talking to her as he had done about his wrecked life, yet he knew now that every word he had spoken was true. What did the future hold out to him? Not even the incentive to live. He found himself walking toward the tent, but, not wishing to meet Renmark in his present frame of mind, he turned and came out on the Ridge Road. He was tired and broken, and resolved to stay in camp until they arrested him. Then ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... Ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with respect to {{MS-DOS}} system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write programs that are not {well-behaved}. See ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... that the Great War has had an enormous forcing influence upon the science of aviation. In times of peace the old game of private enterprise and official neglect would possibly have been carried on in well-marked stages. But with the terrific incentive of victory before them, all Governments fostered the growth of the new arm by all the means in their power. It became a race between Allied and enemy countries as to who first should attain the mastery of the air. The British nation, as usual, started well behind in the race, and their handicap ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... practical life, and they admit promising boys from the elementary schools. A boy who has been through any one of these higher schools successfully need only serve in the army for one year; and that in itself is a great incentive to parents to send their children. A Real-Schule in Prussia only costs a hundred marks a year, and a Gymnasium a hundred and thirty-five marks. In some parts of Germany the fees are rather higher, in some ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... public men lead nowadays, is often an incentive to excessive expenditure. They may be men of moderate means; they may even be poor; but not many of them moving in general society have the moral courage to seem to be so. To maintain their social position, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... genius! Sublime incentive to eternal fame! Then, when the feeling is so universal, when it is one which modern civilization is nurturing and developing, who does not feel that it is not only the most benevolent, but the most politic thing you can do to avail yourselves of its influence, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... read in Church as an incentive to the praise of God. It supplies thoughts of God which are then offered up to Him, as Praise, in the words of the Canticles. It is therefore necessary that we should understand the Bible Lessons as well as our abilities will allow, and that we should endeavour to find ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... emasculates himself. These are grotesque tragedies, not devoid of literary power, but devoid of high sentiment and saturated with a woeful vulgarity. We cannot wonder that the high-minded Schiller should have condemned Wagner's malodorous play as a mediocre performance. His incentive came rather from Gemmingen's 'Head of the House', which in turn ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... ancient Leonidas, as story tells, being asked what manner of poet he thought Tyrtaeus, replied, "Good to whet young men's courage;" for being filled with a divine fury by his poems, they rushed into any danger. And so the stoic philosophy is a dangerous incentive to strong and fiery dispositions, but where it combines with a grave and gentle temper, is most successful in leading ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... [i.e., the Moros] cannot be slaves. As they are a race from whom the soldiers can get no other booty, because the Moros do not possess it, they fight unwillingly. If the soldiers could make captives of them, they would become very eager, and that would be a great incentive for the soldiers to destroy them. There is less incentive for them to capture those people than to kill them, as they do now. Again it would be very useful to the said islands, for the natives would also be encouraged to go to war because of their eagerness ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... of this subject of incentive taken by your contemporaries seems, in fact, to have been based upon the crude and childish theory that the main factor in diligence or execution of any kind is external, whereas it is wholly internal. A person is congenitally slothful or ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... difficulty braved is at any time, for the really addicted artist, to feel almost even as a pang the beautiful incentive, and to feel it verily in such sort as to wish the danger intensified. The difficulty most worth tackling can only be for him, in these conditions, the greatest the case permits of. So I remember feeling here (in presence, always, that is, of the particular uncertainty of my ground), that ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... of allies. It has no compelling force in it. We British are not naturally Imperialist; we are something greater—or something less. For two years and a half now we have been fighting against Imperialism in its most extravagant form. It is a poor incentive to right living to propose to parody the devil ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... shutting their eyes to nine out of ten of its essential features. Their policy gives a clean bill to the male prostitute, arrests the woman, takes away a part of her earnings, sets her free under the necessity of seeking new victims to offset the fine, offers her no incentive to lead any other life, incidentally increases opportunities for police graft, and virtually gives the sanction of the law to the whole nefarious business. The ostrich with his head buried in the sand sees our gravest social problem ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... line of argument. In the first place we must remember that his unlettered readers have been taught by their religious instructors to believe in the unlimited power of the devil, and they have probably found in the outrageous nature of the narratives a real incentive to accept them. In the second place my own position as a transcendentalist connects me less or more with the acknowledgment of transcendental phenomena, and to distinguish the limits of possibility in these ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... in life is good health; that is the substratum of fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick. He has no ambition; no incentive; no force. Of course, there are those who have bad health and cannot help it; you cannot expect that such persons can accumulate wealth; but there are a great many in poor health who need not ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... France. Do you remember what I told you that night in my room? Better the one should suffer than the many. And now there is a double reason, a double incentive to us both. Mademoiselle de Vesc's life hangs upon it. Follow the chain of reasoning, and, for God's sake, Stephen, follow closely. There is more than the life of a girl in all this. Jean Saxe cannot be suppressed even if we dared attempt it; Francois ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... that, and she laughed. "Yes, this is what they don't see. This is what they never know. Poetic impulses don't paint pictures, Karl. That's the incentive; the thing that keeps one at it, but you can't do it without these tricks of the trade which mean just downright work. I've never worked on a picture yet in which I wasn't almost fatally handicapped ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... known as such, both in and out of the service. The commanders of the different vessels were likewise men of elevated character, zealous in performing their duty, and honorably ambitious of distinction. If the incentive of gain be reckoned stronger than considerations of duty and honor, it was not wanting; for, besides half the value of the vessel, each liberated slave would have been worth twenty-five dollars to the captors—a ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... strength by battling with adverse circumstances, and, under all discouragements, kept steadily before him the charge which he received from his dying father, is fully told; and the author will be glad if the record shall prove an incentive and an encouragement to those boys who may have a ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... Fair Rent, and Free Sale—yet left the question in a wholly unsettled state. The fixing of fair rents, no doubt, acted as a curb on landlord rapacity, but from the tenants' point of view it was a wholly vicious, indeterminate and unsatisfactory system. It was incentive to indifferent farming, since the commissioners who had the fixing of rents, and the inspectors who examined the farms, made their valuations upon the farms as they saw them. True, the tenant could ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... Lacking incentive to stir about, they came to spend most of their time lying on their backs watching the sky. This in turn bred a languor which is the sickest, most soul- and temper-destroying affair invented by the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to walk ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... were reactionaries of an elderly character, conservative, meditative, stingy, and, worst of all, fearful or without courage for great adventure. It is a sad commentary that age almost invariably takes away the incentive to new achievement and makes "Let well enough alone" the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... in print is always an incentive to better work. The type is cheering even when its legibility reveals several faults unnoticed in manuscript. Most small newspapers are glad to publish fairly good verse when the poet is willing to let it go for nothing. Be sure that rhyme and meter are correct and then send it in and let the General ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow

... indeed. This is the less accountable as, though scanty as regards the number of its species, the natural history of Ireland is full of interest, abounding in problems not even yet fully solved: the very scantiness of its fauna being in one sense, an incentive and stimulus to its study, for the same reason that a language which is on the point of dying out is often of more interest to a philologist than one that is in full ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... falls to pieces, because it is the profit incentive that has always been considered as the binder that holds the capitalist world together. Hence the abandonment of the profit incentive is the surrender of the citadel of capitalism. While profit remains, exploitation persists, and while there is exploitation of one man by another, no human ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... writings the treatise Of Good Works also belongs Though the incentive for its composition came from George Spalatin, court-preacher to the Elector, who reminded Luther of a promise he had given, still Luther was willing to undertake it only when he recalled that in a previous sermon to his congregation he occasionally had made a similar promise to deliver a sermon ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... of Balzac. The rough labour of execution is largely the labour of conveying to others what the artist already feels and sees. Why should he toil thanklessly? It is sweeter to dream. Even the money that art produces may be a valuable incentive. Not, of course, if the artist aims at the money; but art wrought for love may bring in money, like a woman married for love. In so far as the lover has his eye on the dowry, in so far his love is vitiated; and in so far as the artist has his eye on the profits, in so far is he untrue to a mistress ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... their standpoint, as for them to see from ours. While appreciating the kindnesses measured out to us in this city by our friends and the press, yet laboring without visible results for the recognition of our rights as citizens of the United States, we cannot, even through the potent incentive of sympathizing with our "husbands, fathers, brothers and sons," lay aside our grievances and rejoice in a triumph which more clearly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... was soon discovered, which had its seat in his own staff; whoever was denounced had to take flight or die; but all were not betrayed, and the remaining conspirators, including especially Perpenna, found in the circumstances only a new incentive to make haste. They were in the headquarters at Osca. There, on the instigation of Perpenna, a brilliant victory was reported to the general as having been achieved by his troops; and at the festal banquet arranged ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... the strange happiness which had lately come to her heart, had not forgotten her resolve to search for the proofs, of such importance to her. On the contrary, she had now a new and powerful incentive which gave additional zest to her efforts, although, thus far, they had ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... enjoyed only by well-educated Chinese scholars, as the references and quotations are written in Chinese and require a good knowledge of the Chinese and Japanese classics to play them well. To boys who are eager to become proficient in Chinese it often acts as an incentive to be told that they will enjoy these games after certain attainments in scholarship have been made. Having made these attainments, they play the game frequently, especially during vacation, to impress on their minds what ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton

... aboriginal holding of the soil, and were sceptical both as to the validity and justice of these revived alien grants; but the newer arrivals hailed this certain tenure of legal titles as a guarantee to capital and an incentive to improvement. There was also a growing and influential party of Eastern and Northern men, who were not sorry to see a fruitful source of dissension and bloodshed removed. The feuds of the McKinstrys and Harrisons, kept alive over ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... their own poor." Jones then fell a-laughing, and asked Partridge, "if he was not ashamed, with so much charity in his mouth, to have no charity in his heart. Your religion," says he, "serves you only for an excuse for your faults, but is no incentive to your virtue. Can any man who is really a Christian abstain from relieving one of his brethren in such a miserable condition?" And at the same time, putting his hand in his pocket, he gave ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... say 'yes,'" he persisted. "It would be a real kindness. It would keep me outdoors all day and give an incentive to work. I'm good at it. I'll show you if I am not in a week or so. I can 'sugar,' manipulate lights, and mirrors, and all the expert methods. I'll wager, moths are numerous in the ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... of disinterestedness. The motive to observe moral rules is pride and vanity fomented by politicians. He does not regard virtue as an independent end, even by association, but considers that pride in its naked form is the ever present incentive ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... he had of digging a hole for his left foot, before delivering the ball, opened the contest, and did so well that he was kept in until the game was "in the refrigerator." Then Joe was given his chance, but there was little incentive to try, with the Cardinals ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... time I was given a gun of my own and was allowed to go shooting by myself. My father, to give me an incentive, offered a reward for every crow-scalp I could bring him, and, in order that I might get to work at once, advanced a small sum with which to buy powder and shot, this sum to be returned to him out of the ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... plunder. His reputation brought him associates from all quarters; and a vision, which he pretended to have appeared to him in his sleep, and which, according to his interpretation of it, prognosticated the greatest successes, proved also a powerful incentive with those ignorant and superstitious people [g]. [FN [f] Dudo, ex edit. Duchesne, p. 70, 71. Gul. Gemeticencis, lib. 2. cap. 2, 3. [g] Dudo, p.71. Gul. Gem. in ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... clear tones rang forth, "that this important event will serve as an incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of the country depend, under God, solely on the success of our arms and that he is in the service of a state possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... under the command of Lord Kenmure, was projected; whilst in Northumberland the English Jacobites, headed by Mr. Forster, with a commission of General from Lord Mar, and aided by the Earl of Derwentwater, was to give the signal and incentive to the adherents of James in the sister Kingdom, as well as to co-operate with the Scottish forces under the commands of Brigadier Mackintosh and Viscount Kenmure. An attack ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... have been in former days," answered the knight; "but in modern minstrelsy, the duty of rendering the art an incentive to virtue is forgotten, and it is well if the poetry which fired our fathers to noble deeds, does not now push on their children to such as are base and unworthy. But I will speak upon this ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... all the art centers of the Continent. Then, enthusiastic and eager for Jason's advancement, she returned with him to New York and set him up in a splendid studio where he had every convenience and incentive ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... great work than when lying in a hammock among whispering leaves, with the deep blue sky above him, and a tumbler of iced claret cup within easy reach of his hand. Failing a hammock, he found a deck chair a great incentive to mental labour. In the interests of the novel, he strongly recommended me to take down with me at least one comfortable deck chair, ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... declaring Sudan noncooperative because of its nonpayment of arrearages to the Fund. Despite subsequent government efforts to implement reforms urged by the IMF and the World Bank, the economy remained stagnant in FY91 as entrepreneurs lack the incentive to take economic risks. GDP: exchange rate conversion - $12.1 billion, per capita $450; real growth rate 0% (FY91 est.) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 95% (FY91 est.) Unemployment rate: 15% (FY91 est.) Budget: revenues ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... not to lessen the severity or the certainty of the penalty for the violation of the moral law, but to prevent this violation by the removal of the causes which lead to it. These causes are said to be wholly different with the sexes. The acknowledged incentive to this vice on the part of man is his own abnormal passion; while on the part of woman, in the great majority of cases, it is conceded to be destitution—absolute want of the necessaries of life. Lecky, the famous historian of European morals, says: "The statistics of prostitution ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... told, that I was never even seen to smile, and since that period, Heaven knows my merriment has been confined to particular and extraordinary occasions only. How then is it possible, that I can be grinning and playing the fool from morning to night, positively without any just incentive to do so, and sweltering at the same time under a sun that causes my body to burn with intense heat, giving it the appearance of shrivelled parchment. Fortunately these savages—for savages they most certainly ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... much outcry in these latter days against the newly-formed habit of cigarette smoking cultivated by ladies of the West. Condemnation of the practice seems if anything to act as an incentive, so, yielding to the pleasant temptation of palliating faults in pretty women, I would suggest as an excuse that they are but following in the foot-steps of their sisters of the Far East, where, it may be roughly stated, the women-folk ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... of this profound alteration in his character and temperament is not easy, but Dr. Laidlaw summed it up to himself in three words: Loss of Hope. The splendid mental powers remained indeed undimmed, but the incentive to use them—to use them for the help of others—had gone. The character still held to its fine and unselfish habits of years, but the far goal to which they had been the leading strings had faded away. The desire for knowledge—knowledge ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... invariably swept off the groves of fruit-trees in the same reckless manner. Parts of the country, which they merely passed through, have recovered their trees, because the desire to propitiate the Deity, and to perpetuate their name by such a work, will always operate among Hindoos as a sufficient incentive to secure groves, wherever man has be made to feel that their rights of property in the trees will be respected.[6] The lands around the village, which had a well for irrigation, paid four times as much as those of the same ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... urged me to tread the same path; but he had others with which I only became acquainted at a later period. Impetuous in his schemes, as well as skilful and daring, each new adventure, when successful, became at once the incentive, and furnished the means, for farther speculation. It seemed to be necessary to him, as to an ambitious conqueror, to push on from achievement to achievement, without stopping to secure, far less to enjoy, the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... miseries which, since this pestilential season began, are continually to be seen about our city. This, to my judgment, we have well and honourably done; for that, an I have known to see aright, albeit merry stories and belike incentive to concupiscence have been told here and we have continually eaten and drunken well and danced and sung and made music, all things apt to incite weak minds to things less seemly, I have noted no act, no word, in fine nothing blameworthy, either on your part or on that of us men; nay, meseemeth I ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... This volume also contains his own cadenza to the Beethoven violin concerto. In conclusion Mr. Kneisel laid stress on the importance of the student's hearing the best music at concert and recital as often as possible, and on the value and incentive supplied by a musical atmosphere in the home and, on leaving him, I could not help but feel that what he had said in our interview, his reflections and observations based on an artistry beyond cavil, and an ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... dilatoriness can certainly be predicated of Manbo men, but such qualities are to be attributed to lack of incentive to work and to hurry. All the household duties fall, by custom, upon the shoulders of the women, so that there is little left for the man except to fish, hunt, trap, trade, and fight. When, however, the men set themselves ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... glows with spiritual emotion and discloses a world of dreams, fairies, and romantic aspiration. As Richard Wagner received from the Scandinavian folk-lore the inspiration for his great music, as Tennyson found the incentive for The Idylls of the Kings in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, so the modern Celtic poets turned back to the primitive legends of their country for tales of Cuchulain who fought the sea, Caolte who besieged the castle of the gods, Oisin, who wandered ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... the crop and the market report. Interest in nut culture generally will lag or increase in just the same ratio. This is the eighth annual convention of this association. Will the sixteenth annual meeting see a greatly augmented membership without a practical incentive? ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... not queens in perspective, were not so plentiful in Queen Victoria's young days as to leave any doubt of their hands and hearts proving in great request when the proper time came. Therefore there was no necessity to hold before the little girl, as an incentive to good penmanship, the example of her excellent grandmother, Queen Charlotte, who wrote so fair a letter, expressed with such correctness and judiciousness, at the early age of fifteen, that when the said letter fell, by an extraordinary train ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... sufficiently old to be deemed companions and chaperons, but yet young enough to be regarded as having neither eyes nor ears, what mischief have ye to answer for; what a long reckoning of tender speeches, of soft looks, of pressed hands, lies at your door! What an incentive to flirtation is the wily imp who turns ever and anon from his careless gambols to throw his laughter-loving eyes upon you, calling up the mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your dalliance, making your secrets known unto ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact that the high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men, and that rank in the army constitutes the only mode of social distinction for the vast majority who are not aspirants in art, literature, and ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... would have preferred to discover it gradually for myself rather than have the essence of it extracted and poured into me in advance. The preface has not the excuse of a mere advertisement; to open this book at any point is to read the whole, and every page is the strongest possible incentive to the reading of the others. If (as is not admitted) any personal explanation was necessary, it should have been put at the end and in small type so that those who, like myself, detest explanations might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various

... passionless; the soul appeared to shrivel and sink into induration, and the whole people were growing into a nation of cheats and dastards. Such was the promise for the people of New England, in 1820. Has it not been realized in the years of the recent intestine war? The incentive held out to her people to volunteer into her armies, was the plunder of the South. The world has never witnessed such rapacity for gain as marked the armies of the United States in their march through the South. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... with her. She had suffered, felt, lived. She fascinated him, as often over the books they would stop to talk, talk of things the most irrelevant, yet to him the most interesting, until she would bring him back inevitably to the point of their work and start him again with a new power and incentive toward the purpose ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... apt to spring. Autonomy, both for districts and for organizations, would leave fewer occasions when governments were called upon to make decisions as to other people's concerns. And the abolition of capitalism and the wage system would remove the chief incentive to fear and greed, those correlative passions by which all free life is choked ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... Flamingo been an excellent diplomat, reconciling the matter by assuring her that she would get enough to eat, and clothes to wear, no few tears would have been shed. Madame, in addition to this incentive, intimated that she might attend a prayer meeting now and then-perhaps see Cicero. However, Molly could easily have forgotten Cicero, inasmuch as she had enjoyed the rare felicity of thirteen husbands, all of whom Lady Swiggs had sold when it suited ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... on by this incentive, and with their opponents resting under the belief that they had the game already "sewed up," by reason of that last touchdown, Jack's warriors exerted additional pressure, and bent the line back until they were fighting on Marshall territory, grimly pressing ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... that Madame d'Argeles knew the real culprit—possibly she had detected him in the act, possibly he had taken her into his confidence. But what he could not fathom was M. de Coralth's motive. What could have prompted the viscount to commit such an atrocious act? The incentive must have been very powerful, since he had naturally incurred the danger of detection and of being considered an accomplice at the least. And then what influence had closed Madame d'Argeles's lips? But after all, what ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... suffice to show the real importance of the study we undertake; but a much more powerful incentive to it exists in the very nature of the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... contrivance. Harris bore a villainous reputation, and he had been tampered with in private by my lord; Mountain, the trader, proved, upon inquiry, to be another of the same kidney; the errand they were all gone upon being the recovery of ill-gotten treasures, offered in itself a very strong incentive to foul play; and the character of the country where they journeyed promised impunity to deeds of blood. Well: it is true I had all these thoughts and fears, and guesses of the Master's fate. But you are to consider I was the same man that sought to dash him from the bulwarks of a ship in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... truly a sentiment, it is not only excusable but wise; for who would not wish to come of the brave, and honest, and learned, or by what other greatness they may be known?—it is wise, since the legacy of his virtues is perhaps the dearest incentive that a good man has for struggling against the currents of baser interest; but what hope is left to one like me, who finds himself so placed that he can neither inherit nor transmit aught but disgrace! I do not affect to despise ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... Incentive! You had an incentive twelve months ago, when I was willing to engage myself to you absolutely if you could obtain a good secretaryship or something of ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... for wealth, position or fame in their parts, no struggle for life which amongst us is the inexhaustible source of progress as well as the incentive to ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... much contribute to create a noble emulation in our youth, as the honourable mention of such whose actions have outlived the injuries of time, and recommended themselves so far to the world, that it is become learning to know the least circumstance of their affairs. It is a great incentive to see, that some men have raised themselves so highly above their fellow-creatures; that the lives of ordinary men are spent in inquiries after the particular actions of the most illustrious. True it is, that without this ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... family traditions and legends of curious and chivalric adventure, might have been sufficient to promote, in a mind less fertile than her own, sentiments of poesy. In the application of her talents she was influenced by another incentive. A loose ribaldry tainted the songs and ballads which circulated among the peasantry, and she was convinced that the diffusion of a more wholesome minstrelsy would essentially elevate the moral tone of the community. Thus, while still young, she commenced to purify the older melodies, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Irish life; and when Walpole stigmatised the habit to Joe Atlee as essentially that of the smaller island, he was not far wrong. I will not say that it is a high order of wit—very elegant, or very refined; but it is a strong incentive to good-humour—a vent to good spirits; and being a weapon which every Irishman can wield in some fashion or other, establishes that sort of joust which prevailed in the melee tournaments, and where each tilted with ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... lose some of its number in battle, they become reckless, and will often attack a small party with whom they are not at war, provided they hope to escape detection. The disgrace attendant upon a return to their friends without some trophies as an offset to the loss of their comrades is a powerful incentive to action, and they extend but little mercy to defenseless travelers who have the misfortune to encounter ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... from all traces of error, and it will be pleasant to me if I shall be able to add to the interest of this association by giving you some of my own practical experience; and may I trust that it will be an incentive to all engaged in kindred work to do that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... resources of its mighty West, and it is, from the point of view of a British Imperialist, deplorable that British capitalists should not now be ready to take those risks for the sake of the Empire which American capital is willing to take with no other incentive than the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... kneels humbly before the Saviour, the Virgin, or St. Mark. In that vast Hall of the Five Hundred, the most sumptuous room in the world, there is spread above the heads of the Doge and Senators and Councilors, as an incentive to the discharge of their duties on earth, a representation of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... master secondarily. In our new society where tradition plays no part, where the useful is paramount, where business asserts itself over art and beauty, where material needs are the first to be satisfied, and where the country's unclaimed riches are our chief incentive to effort, it is not uninteresting to find an analogy with the society in Italy which produced the Renaissance. Diametrically opposed in their ideals, they have a common spirit. In Italy the rebirth was of the love of art, and of classic forms, the desire to embellish—all that was ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... of unlaboured-for wealth lies, then, not in the nature of any material adjunct to life in itself, but in the power it may possess of robbing the individual of all incentive to exertion, thus destroying the intellectual, the physical, and ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... realize that the sport of horse-racing in England gets its name of Turf from the fact that the races are run on the grass, and not on the bare ground, as with us. We call the sport the Turf, too, but that is because in this, as in so many other things, we lack incentive and invention, and are fondly colonial and imitative; we ought to call it the Dirt, for that is what it is with us. As a spectacle, the racing lacks the definition in England which our course gives, and when it began, I missed the relief into which our track throws ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire to the prize which they have taken." All shares were allotted on the good old rule: "No prey, No pay," so that all had a keen incentive to bestir themselves. They were also "very civil and charitable to each other," observing "among themselves, very good orders." They sailed together like a company of brothers, or rather, since that were an imperfect simile, like a company of jolly comrades. Locks and keys were forbidden ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... small that it is prohibitive. Hence we find the Danish Hans Christian Andersen and the Norwegian Ibsen writing in German, as do also many Scandinavian scientists. Georg Brandes abandons his native Danish and seeks a larger public by making English the language of his books. The incentive to follow a literary career, especially if it includes making a living, is relatively weak among a people of only two or three millions, but gains enormously among large and cultivated peoples, like the seventy million ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... some of it have been spared me. However this may be, I had not the patience of mind necessary for a protracted experiment. What I did must be done at once; if I would win I must fight for it, and must find the incentive to courage in the conscious ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... up at her, felt his senses stir. At sound of her words his secret craving for success quickened to stronger life. The man whose sole incentive lies within may go forward coldly and successfully; but the man who grasps a double inspiration, who, even unconsciously, is impelled by another force, has a stronger impetus for attack, a surer, more vital hewing power. Still ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... preaching, the service of the church, and soul-saving, the angels look on—a solemn and appalling thought. 1 Cor. 4:9—the good angels are spectators while the church engages in fierce battle with the hosts of sin. This is an incentive to endurance. 1 Cor. 11:10—"Because of the angels." Is there intimated here a lack of modesty on the part of the women so shocking to the angels, who veil their faces in the presence of God ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... action have now been given. It must never be forgotten, however, that the prelude to action is the work of the engine-room department, and that during action the officers and men of that department perform their most important duties without the incentive which a knowledge of the course of the action gives to those on deck. The qualities of discipline and endurance are taxed to the utmost under these conditions, and they were, as always, most fully maintained throughout the operations under review. Several ships ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... been somewhat lax in his morals, when he became a man he put away childish things; his married life was a shining example to his people and he was abstemious both in food and drink, holding that "excess in either was an incentive to the worst of crimes." Even his enemy, Nureddin, said of him, when he died—"the Franks have lost such a prince that the world has not ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... years going through that long, patient mind-drilling which is the only preparation for a thorough education? When the young men observed that a civil engineer, a superintendent of a factory, or even a skilled mechanic could earn a larger salary than a college graduate, it took away much of the incentive for the old-fashioned education, and they were perfectly willing to see their sisters take what they had not ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... independent of foreign supplies, and thus keep within our own borders the vast sum of money required in former days for the purchase of foreign tanning materials. May this book prove the means of providing an incentive for a still wider application of ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser



Words linked to "Incentive" :   disincentive, dynamic, incentive option, payment, bonus, dividend, incentive stock option, sales incentive, moral force, motivator, incentive scheme, premium, incentive program, rational motive



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