"Perpetration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the invasion of Cuba seem to have determined with coolness and system upon an undertaking which should disgrace their country, violate its laws, and put to hazard the lives of ill-informed and deluded men. You will consider whether further legislation be necessary to prevent the perpetration of such ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... it was plucked hastily up by the roots again. The plantations of Mary's reign, and the still larger operations carried on in that of her sister, awakened a deep-seated feeling of distrust, a rooted belief in the law as a mysterious and incomprehensible instrument invented solely for the perpetration of injustice, a belief which is certainly not wholly extinguished even in our ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... the attitude of gnostical romanticism, wrenches my personal instincts in quite as violent a way. It falsifies the simple objectivity of their deliverance. It makes the goose-flesh the murder excites in me a sufficient reason for the perpetration of the crime. It transforms life from a tragic reality into an insincere melodramatic exhibition, as foul or as tawdry as any one's diseased curiosity pleases to carry it out. And with its consecration of the 'roman naturaliste' state of mind, and its enthronement of ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... took fortress after fortress, scaling ramparts, mercilessly cutting down garrisons, plundering and burning towns, and massacreing the inhabitants. Neither sex nor age was spared, and a brutal soldiery gratified their passions in the perpetration of indescribable horrors. Even the Duke of Bavaria was shocked at such barbarities, and entered his remonstrances against them. Many large towns, terrified by the atrocities perpetrated upon those who resisted the imperial arms, threw open their gates, hoping thus, by submission, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... brutal assaults. I strongly question the expediency of advocating the revival of whipping for those crimes. It is a natural and generous impulse to be indignant at the perpetration of inconceivable brutality, but I doubt the whipping panacea gravely. Not in the least regard or pity for the criminal, whom I hold in far lower estimation than a mad wolf, but in consideration for the general tone and feeling, which is very much ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... esteemed erudite amongst the most learned of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given much for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... have been the successors of the "Old Lion." The predominant spirit of that energetic and sagacious ruler bridled the licentious turbulence which for the last seven years has rioted in the unrestrained indulgence of all abominable vices, and in the daily perpetration of the most atrocious crimes. Five Maharajahs in this brief period, "all murdered," have been sacrificed to the ambition of profligate courtiers, or the rapacity of a debauched soldiery. Kurruck Singh, the son of Runjeet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... which he stood in dire need and from which he drew courage to go on for the few days remaining before his exile. Just to protect her, he prayed, and leave her unhurt, and he failed to see that the humility and blindness of a great love were leading him into the perpetration of a great cruelty, to the undoing ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that sows the serpent's teeth not hope to reap a joyous harvest. Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, its own avenging angel,—dark misgivings at the ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... education, and which lead youth into those moral footsteps in which they should tread, were made criminal in the Catholic to pursue, and impossible to attain; and having thus been reduced by ignorance to the perpetration of those crimes which it uniformly produces—the people were punished for that which oppressive laws had generated, and the ignorance which was forced upon them was turned into a penalty and a persecution. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... business-like manner, without any passion, without any feeling of any kind, and, indeed, with a certain air of gratification, as though they were performing some peculiarly high and sacred duty. The mildness and benevolence of their faces seemed actually heightened, and the perpetration of this unutterable atrocity seemed to affect these people in the same way in which the performance of acts of ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... first instance slightly for the violation of these laws would inflict no great injury on them, whilst by always punishing them when guilty of a crime, without reference to the length of period that had elapsed between its perpetration and their apprehension, at the same time fully explaining to them the measure of punishment that would await them in the event of a second commission of the same fault, would teach them gradually the laws to ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Southampton the matter was for the moment forgotten, but on the day that they arrived in Plymouth one of the lady passengers reminded him of his promise. This was followed by another application. Thus surrounded, the unhappy man found himself in the unpleasant position of being discovered in the perpetration of an untruth, or of being compelled to invent some feasible tale in order to account for his not being able to produce the ring. It was at this juncture that he made his great mistake. Anxious, doubtless, to attract attention, he returned from ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... the clerk as soon as he arrived, and stabbed him with poniards which he had bought three days before on the Pont Neuf. Hoping to conceal the share which he had taken in this crime, he went immediately after its perpetration to the Commissaire du Quartier, and told him, with a cool and determined air, that he had been obliged, in his own defence, to kill the clerk, who had attacked him and put him in danger of his life. The Commissaire looking at him steadfastly, said, "You ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... 10th of August had been fixed as the day on which he was to stand in the pillory for an hour in front of the Royal Exchange. But the danger of a disturbance among the people, and of fierce opposition in the House of Commons hindered the perpetration of this indignity. Some sentences of a letter addressed to Lord Ebrington, deprecating his motion in Parliament for a remission of this part of the sentence, are too characteristic, however, to be left unquoted. "I did not expect," said Lord Cochrane, "to be treated by your lordship ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... sin originates in a depravity of heart, which is the fatal inheritance of the whole human race, will any one pretend that such a sentiment justifies its excesses? The perpetration of iniquity in the course of our daily practice, must not be confounded with the original tendency. These excesses are in no sense chargeable upon the principle as its necessary and unavoidable result, because thousands escape "the pollutions that are in the world." Nor ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... period of monomaniacal concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers. Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one 36-hour {hacking run} in a given week; neglect of all other activities including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal hygiene; and a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Constitution and laws of the land [that is the fugitive slave bill and other laws which annihilate a man's unalienable right to his liberty], and denouncing those who execute them as no better than a Scroggs or a Jeffreys;—who stimulate and exhort poor negroes to the perpetration of offences which they know must bring them to the penitentiary ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... of these expressions, which seemed to burst from him even in sleep with the stern energy accompanying the perpetration of some act of violence, Morton shook his guest by the shoulder in order to awake him. The first words he uttered were, "Bear me where ye will, I ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... parts of the country, travellers, freemen and slaves without distinction, were forcibly carried off, and kept to work in the houses of correction [168]. Several associations were formed under the specious (97) name of a new college, which banded together for the perpetration of all kinds of villany. The banditti he quelled by establishing posts of soldiers in suitable stations for the purpose; the houses of correction were subjected to a strict superintendence; all associations, those only excepted ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... retribution, in the course of which he, among others, would have to pay the full penalty. No, that would not do at all; it was not that Don Manuel Rebiera was a coward; very far from it; but with the speed of thought he pictured to himself the happenings that must inevitably follow the perpetration of an act of such base treachery as he meditated; he saw in imagination the execution of the hostages— among whom, he suddenly remembered, were one or two very dear friends of his own; the bombardment of the town, with ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... murmur. One of them, Terasaka Kichiemon by name, had been sent to carry the news to Ako immediately after the perpetration of the deed of vengeance. He returned when his comrades were condemned and gave himself up to the authorities, but they declined to punish him on the ground that the case had already been disposed of. The eminent Confucian scholar, Hayashi Nobuatsu, petitioned for the pardon of the ronins, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... in order to effect a change in their government, or under any pretext whatever, have from the commencement of our Government been held equally criminal on the part of those engaged in them, and as much deserving of punishment as would be the disturbance of the public peace by the perpetration of similar acts ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... should seek the destruction of him to whom I owed my elevation, the most devoted of friends, and for whom my heart cherished the most lively sense of gratitude? What interest could I possibly derive from the perpetration of such a crime? The imputation was too absurd for belief, but slander cares little for the seeming improbability of such an event. The simple fact remained that Lebel was dead, of course the cruel and unjust consequence became in the hands of my enemies, that I had been the principal accessory ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... urged as to the probable cause of this cold-blooded and heartless attack on Lander and his party. Some persons imagine that the natives had been stimulated to the perpetration of this disgraceful deed by the Portuguese and South American slave dealers, who have considerable influence in the country, and whose interests would unquestionably decline by the introduction into the interior of British subjects and British ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... simply mean that we should become useless burdens upon a thrifty and prudent community. To ignore the legal and judicial institutions of our country by neither judging nor going to law in cases where wrong has been inflicted would be to foster the perpetration of crime in a world whose very propensity towards crime has necessitated the establishment of the courts. Similarly to decline to resist evil, where evil is rampant and aggressive, would be to play the part of a traitor and ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... any but the old-school medical men, and he sneered at the idea of anybody's being cured with sugar, as he contemptuously termed the pellets and powders affected by the new school. Thomas, who was considered something of a wit and who sustained his reputation by the perpetration of certain time-worn puns, had replied that other hogs were sugar-cured, and why not Dan'l? This had turned the laugh on Hastings, and he went home from the corner grocery, where the men were ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... never before had he seen him in full daylight. He knew him well enough from the description of those who had seen him and from the glimpses he had had of the marauder upon several occasions when the ape-man had entered the village of Mbonga, the chief, by night, in the perpetration of one ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Action. — N. action, performance; doing, &c. v.; perpetration; exercise, excitation; movement, operation, evolution, work; labor &c. (exertion) 686; praxis, execution; procedure &c. (conduct) 692; handicraft; business &c. 625; agency &c. (power at work) 170. deed, act, overt act, stitch, touch, gest transaction[obs3], job, doings, dealings, proceeding, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... commander, or captain, or skipper of this suspicious-looking schooner,—a man pre-eminently fitted for the accomplishment of much good, or the perpetration of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... coolly stepped up to the prisoner, the whole of the natives at the same time falling on their knees, and was proceeding with great deliberation to cut his throat, when Captain Harrison and Mr. Jeffery hastened forward, and prevented the perpetration of the act by holding back his arm, and making signs that our chief was coming. Fortunately, Capt. Owen was actually coming on shore at this juncture, and, having passed to the centre of the assembly, by means of signs succeeded in explaining that it was not his wish to have the man ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... time of its commission he sins blindly as well as wilfully, and unreflectingly as well as freely; and though the transgressor has forgotten much of that small amount of sin of which he was conscious, and by which he was pained, at the time of its perpetration; though on the side of man the powers of self-inspection and memory have accomplished so little towards the preservation of man's sin, yet God knows it all, and remembers it all. He compasseth man's path, and his lying-down, and is acquainted with all his ways. "There ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... that joke of Jack's was heard of in the halls of Congress later on. The significant fact of it all was that, while the "Pollard" had been manoeuvred for the successful perpetration of the joke, neither of the other two submarines with the fleet was "handy" enough to be used in ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... watchful enemies the opportunity they had been seeking to carry out their plan of revenge; and that the man who had been engaged to fill the vacant post was a marked character, living in the village of Panipara, who was well known to the police. Doubtless he had been heavily bribed for the perpetration of the intended crime which had so strangely miscarried. The instigators pointed to their own complicity by disappearing from the District, and the vain search for them occupied Mr. Bright and his ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... back to her couch, and till morning haunting her troubled dreams. "Fire! Fire!" "Murder! Murder!" is the cry—and there is wrath and wonderment at the absence of the police-officers and engines. A most multitudinous murder is in process of perpetration there—but as yet fire is there none; when lo! and hark! the flash and peal of musketry—-and then the music of the singing slugs slaughtering the Catti, while bouncing up into the air, with Tommy Tortoise clinging to his carcass, the Red Rover yowls wolfishly to the moon, and then descending ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... and had not the growth of population decreased the comparative power of the government, or had its original plan been perpetuated, it must have formed a community of slanderers and slaves. The intentions of the governor, however just, could not save him from the falsehood of spies, and thus the perpetration of wrong. It was early announced that opponents would be "crushed." The extent of the "crushing system" was greatly exaggerated, and even the course of good government was commonly ascribed by the sufferer to ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... monstrous, of which Philip was not capable, and of the righteous necessity of which he could not persuade himself if he chose. Nothing could possibly be more dangerous than to stand between him and the perpetration of any evil he considered politically necessary, except perhaps to hinder him in the pursuit of his gloomy and secret pleasures. Adonis decided at once that he would not be the means of enlightening the King ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... "You have arraigned Lincoln," he said, "as being guilty of interfering with the freedom of speech, the freedom of elections, and of arbitrary arrests, and yet you propose to nominate a man who has gone even farther than Lincoln has gone in the perpetration of similar tyrannical measures. McClellan is guilty of the arrest of the Legislature of a sovereign State. He has suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and helped to enforce the odious Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln, the wiling instrument of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Essnousee now showed how eminently qualified he was for this infernal traffic. He did drive them on most furiously, while as to one wretched Negress, I thought he would have left her dead on the spot, flaying her most unmercifully. The miscreant Essnousee was only prevented from the perpetration of this horrid crime by the main-force interference of Mohammed Azou, another slave-dealer travelling with us, with seven slaves, and who, I must record, was a humane man, though a dealer in the flesh and blood of his fellow creatures. I have not observed him even once beating his slaves, which ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the end of April the Register had reached its thirty-first performance, a good run at that date; and according to an advertisement in the Craftsman the satire was still being played on the 7th of May. In little more than four weeks, and after the alleged perpetration of a treasonable and profane farce called The Golden Rump, a Bill for stifling the liberty of the stage under a censorship was introduced, had passed through both Houses, and received the royal assent. Well might Lord Chesterfield exclaim in the brilliant speech which, in Smollet's ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... said his lordship. "And on the grounds of political expediency you made a bargain then with Sir Terence, I understand, a bargain which entailed the perpetration of an injustice." ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... until such time as he should have obtained from Louis all that he desired of him—in short, that he sold him the dispensation for the highest price he could extract. The only motive served by this statement is once more to show Alexander and his son in the perpetration of simoniacal practices, and the statement springs, beyond doubt, from a passage in Macchiavelli's Extracts from Dispatches to the Ten. Elsewhere has been mentioned the confusion prevailing in those ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... the families of the victims thus sacrificed to placate the barbarians, and put so much honor on the corpses of these martyrs to foreign demands, that it has encouraged similar atrocities whenever a suitable time shall arrive for their perpetration. The Imperial proclamation stating even this unsatisfactory redress, which the Government solemnly promised should be published throughout the land, has not been published except in a few instances where foreigners have compelled ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... mortgage deed, and the large sum of money, in the prisoners' sleeping apartment; the finding the key of the back-door in the male prisoner's pocket; and his demeanor and expressions on the night of the perpetration of the crime. In his cross-examination of the constable, several facts perfectly new to me were elicited by the very able counsel for the prisoners. Their attorney had judiciously maintained the strictest secrecy as ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... deprive innocence of its guard, and to let loose oppression and perjury upon the world. It is a bill to dazzle the wicked with a prospect of security, and to incite them to purchase an indemnity for one crime, by the perpetration of another. It is a bill to confound the notions of right and wrong, to violate the essence of our constitution, and to leave us without any certain security for our properties, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... a man of an impaired intelligence. My lord's mind throughout this interval dwelled almost wholly in the Wilderness, following that party with whose deeds he had so much concern. He continually conjured up their camps and progresses, the fashion of the country, the perpetration in a thousand different manners of the same horrid fact, and that consequent spectacle of the Master's bones lying scattered in the wind. These private, guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man's talk, like rabbits from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the questions of her aunt, to ascribe her swoon to anything but the real cause; and it was, perhaps, well she so determined, for she remembered that, in her flight from the fatal spot where she had witnessed the perpetration of so foul a deed, she had picked up a letter, which she had hid in her bosom, scarcely conscious of what she did, yet, perhaps, imperceptibly aware—with the foresight of inexplicable convictions—that it might yet prove of essential service. When she ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... mouldering into decay; on the plaster of the coping of its river wall you may still see the marks of the treacherous bullets. The stair which, built against its wall, led down to the water's edge, has disappeared. Tantia Topee's dispositions for the perpetration of the treachery could not now succeed, for the Ganges has changed its course and there is deep water close in shore at the ghaut. In the stream nearest to the Oude side the river has cast up a long narrow dearah island, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... frightened, bullied and tormented, whenever it was the fancy of Ned Anderson and his associates to make his timidity their sport; he was scorned and ill-treated, and driven, by bodily terror, into acts alarming to his conscience, dangerous in their consequences, and painful in the perpetration; and yet, among all his sufferings, the little coward dreaded nothing so much as truth, though it would have set him free at once ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... nefarious operations of lawless persons. By these statistics we are informed of the number of crimes committed during the course of the year so far as they are reported to the police. We are informed of the number of persons brought to trial for the perpetration of these crimes; of the nature of the offences with which incriminated persons are charged, and of the length of sentence imposed on those who are sent to prison. The age, the degree of instruction, and the occupations ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... peace and justice of the city were imperfectly maintained by the private jurisdiction of the citizens. The malefactors who replenish our jails are the outcasts of society, and the crimes for which they suffer may be commonly ascribed to ignorance, poverty, and brutal appetite. For the perpetration of similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and abuse the sacred character of a member of the republic: but, on the proof or suspicion of guilt, the slave, or the stranger, was nailed to a cross; and this strict and summary justice might be exercised ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... undecided about doing the foul deed. He had quite determined upon it; and the attempt now being made by his confederate to steal the knife was the first stop towards its perpetration. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... constitutionally impair the right of private property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally, legalize the perpetration of such acts, by others, nor protect those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob the earner of his right to them? Who has a better right to the product than the producer?—to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... two years old, and the moment was at hand when its author might have counted on regaining the blessed shelter of oblivion—if only he had not written another book! For it was the worst part of his plight that his first success had goaded him to the perpetration of this particular folly—that one of the incentives (hideous thought!) to his new work had been the desire to extend and perpetuate his popularity. And this very week the book was to come out, and the letters, the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... sooner than action. The things a man did were necessarily more different from each other than the things he said, even if he went in for surprising you. Nick felt Nash could never surprise him any more save by mere plain perpetration. ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... that this was entirely unexpected by the small coterie which knew him, would be to say an untruth; and yet never once had we, his intimates, ever canvassed the idea. Rather had we been prepared for it in some incomprehensible subconscious way. Before the perpetration of the deed, its possibility is remotest from our thoughts; but when we did know that he was dead, it seemed, somehow, that we had understood and looked forward to it all the time. This, by retrospective analysis, we could easily explain ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... orators of rationalism. If the teachings of Jesus Christ are to be applied to the art of war, then the art of war is doomed to extinction. If the Church be an international society, based on mutual love and peace, then the perpetration of war on members of the Church is clearly wrong. If the ideals of the Christian life be charity, gentleness, forgiveness, non-resistance to evil, then all war is a violation of the faith. The question ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... weltering in his blood upon the floor of the temple in the conservatory. The poor mangled youth was discovered in that deplorable situation shortly after the perpetration of the abominable outrage which had deprived him of the blessed gift of speech forever. He was conveyed to the residence of Dr. Schultz, a medical gentleman of eminent skill, who stopped the effusion of blood, and pronounced his eventual ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... "The Outlaw" was actually to be produced. And his wildest dreams were then realized, for, despite the unappreciative attitude of the critics toward this splendid Viking piece, the King, Carl XV, after seeing the play, commanded Strindberg to appear before him. Strindberg regarded the summons as the perpetration of a practical joke, and only obeyed it after making sure by telegraph that it ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg |
