"Subversive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of immense consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction, is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of praemunire should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, in cases where those ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... dignity, would know at the time that he was wrong in his judgment. She was tall, but not so tall as to be unfeminine in her height. Her head stood nobly on her shoulders, giving to her bust that ease and grace of which sculptors are so fond, and of which tight-laced stays are so utterly subversive. Her hair was very dark—not black, but the darkest shade of brown, and was worn in simple rolls on the side of her face. It was very long and very glossy, soft as the richest silk, and gifted apparently with a delightful aptitude to keep itself in order. No stray jagged ends would show themselves ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... will not by themselves procure good government, but they will prevent bad government from growing intolerable. In France, as we have seen, to print anything which might stir the public mind was a capital offense; and while the writer of an abstract treatise subversive of religion and government might hope to escape punishment, the citizen who earned the resentment of a petty official was likely ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... there has been error—but the CERTAINTY of such error necessarily and exclusively appearing from the record itself. To act upon speculation, instead of certainty, in these cases, is dangerous to the last degree, and subversive of some of the fundamental principles of English jurisprudence. "Judgment may be reversed in a criminal case by writ of error," says Blackstone, "for NOTORIOUS (i. e. palpable, manifest, patent) mistakes in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... exceedingly ill at ease here: jostled by lawless pirates, lassoed by wild Guachos, and plundered of their loose cash by irresistible broom and orange girls, they were fain to make an early retreat, with as good a grace as might be assumed, under circumstances so subversive of all due gravity. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... may be in some degree traced to the shameful and scandalous conduct of some of the Liverpool merchants, who had used their private influence to poison the minds of the natives by attributing particular motives to the travellers, which were at variance with the interests of the country, and subversive of the authority of the chiefs. Nor is this scarcely a matter of doubt, when we peruse the following extract from a letter addressed by John Lander to the editor of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... friend from the country called, by appointment, on Mrs. Gallilee. On the coming Tuesday afternoon, an event of the deepest scientific interest was to take place. A new Professor had undertaken to deliver himself, by means of a lecture, of subversive opinions on "Matter." A general discussion was to follow; and in that discussion (upon certain conditions) Mrs. Gallilee herself proposed ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... "you are, as usual, brilliant. Your imagination vaults—your daring is splendid. But as usual you are visionary and impractical. Buy them? To do this would require the credit of a nation! It would be subversive of all peace and all industry. You do not realize the sums required. You do not realize how vast are ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... the United States complains, that they will make reparation as far as reparation is possible for injuries which are without measure, and that they will take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence of anything so obviously subversive of the principles of warfare, for which the Imperial German Government in the past so wisely and so firmly contended. The Government and people of the United States look to the Imperial German Government for just, prompt and enlightened action in this vital matter. . . . Expressions of regret ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... monda, Tolemaico et Copernicano (Florence), which was the cause of his undoing. In this book he defended the opinion of Copernicus concerning the motion of the earth round the sun, which was supposed by the theologians of the day to be an opinion opposed to the teaching of Holy Scripture and subversive of all truth. The work was brought before the Inquisition at Rome, and condemned by the order of Pope Urban VIII. Galileo was commanded to renounce his theory, but this he refused to do, and was cast into prison. "Are these then my judges?" he exclaimed when he was returning from ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... without injury to its efficiency, be indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all control, would cease to form an army, and would become the worst and most dangerous ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... results have been attained if I had been aided by those who surrounded me, instead of being made the butt of their railleries; if our authorities had sustained me with their influence instead of treating me as a subversive spirit. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... capabilities. In the ministries of Health, Agriculture, and Transportation—controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr—the Facilities Protection Service is a source of funding and jobs for the Mahdi Army. One senior U.S. official described the Facilities Protection Service as "incompetent, dysfunctional, or subversive." Several Iraqis simply ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... last to be appreciated, and Miss Alcott's first novel did not meet with an encouraging reception from the public. Some tender critics even complained that the story was subversive of conservative morality. "I cannot help that," Louisa remarked in her emphatic manner, "I did not make morality or human nature, and am not responsible for either: but people who are given to moods act as I have described; ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... fulfilled, it cannot be known where their fluctuations will end. Every man who is anxious for the preservation of person and property should help the world in obtaining rational freedom: if it be not obtained, mankind will search after other forms of action, totally subversive of all existing social order; and where the excitement will subside, I do not know. Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... of men's minds, the bringing into contempt all the institutions which have been hitherto venerated, the aggrandisement of the power of the people, the embodying and recognition of popular authority, the use and abuse of the King's name, the truckling to the press, are things so subversive of government, so prejudicial to order and tranquillity, so encouraging to sedition and disaffection, that I do not see the possibility of the country settling down into that calm and undisturbed state in which ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... and humanity; and that it is the duty of those with whom the power lies at once to remove the sanction of the law from the principle that man can be the property of man,—a principle inconsistent with our free institutions, subversive of the purposes for which man was made, and utterly at variance with the plainest ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... should be useful, (what if not useful?) to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable to the imagination (Italics ours) should not be considered as subversive of the theory"!! Darwin undertakes a task far too great for his mighty genius. "Believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed" is many moral leagues from proving that it was so formed. We must have stronger proof than sufficient ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... money, I would give him the toe of my boot. However, let him have the benefit of the doubt. I am perfectly willing to take it that he has done nothing worse than to stick a knife into somebody—with extenuating circumstances—French fashion, don't you know. But that subversive sanguinary rot of doing away with all law and order in the world makes my blood boil. It's simply cutting the ground from under the feet of every decent, respectable, hard-working person. I tell you that the consciences of people who have them, like you ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... with their faces full of pleasant history are passing away one by one; the bar itself is to go—its doom has been pronounced by The Jupiter; rumour tells us of some huge building that is to appear in these latitudes dedicated to law, subversive of the courts of Westminster, and antagonistic to the Rolls and Lincoln's Inn; but nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of the Temple: it is the mediaeval court ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... at naught and speaking Evil of all our Civil Rulers, Congress, Continental and Provincial, of all our Courts, Legislative and Executive, are not only subversive of good Order: But we apprehend come under Predicament of those spoken of in 2 Pet. II. 10, who despise government, presumptuous, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Port Andro during the attack on Belle Isle off the west coast of France. In 1762 he was wounded at Havana in the West Indies. After that he enjoyed four years of quietness at home. Then came the exceedingly difficult task of guiding Canada through twelve years of turbulent politics and most subversive war. ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... of seditious language an act of treason, would not have been adequate to the danger. Influential persons would have been justly submitted to question on their allegiance, and insufficient answers would have been interpreted as justifying suspicion. Not the expression only, of opinions subversive of society, but the holding such opinions, however discovered, would have been regarded and treated as a crime, with the full consent of what is called the common sense and educated judgment of ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... saying, 'Man is the measure of all things.' As applied to conduct, this dictum is commonly interpreted as meaning that good is entirely subjective, relative to the individual. Viewed in this light the saying is one-sided and sceptical, subversive of all objective morality. But the dictum may be regarded as expressing an important truth, that the good is personal and must ultimately be the good for man as ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... which have not been finally ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion. The nebular hypothesis—a natural consequence of the theory of gravitation and of the subsequent progress of physical and astronomical discovery—has been denounced as atheistical even down to our own day. But it is now largely adopted by the most theistical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... then openly enter on a course subversive of our whole covenanted system of doctrine and order, by withdrawing their dissent from the civil institutions of the United States, and incorporating with the National Society—knowing the same to be, by the terms of the ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... this idiot attitude gave Turnbull another sick turn. He had grown to tolerate those dreary and mumbling madmen who trailed themselves about the beautiful asylum gardens. But there was something new and subversive of the universe in the combination of so much cheerful decision with a body without ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... made January 14, 1791, by the Pennsylvania Assembly in a series of resolutions which are supposed to have been drafted by Mr. Gallatin, and to have been the first legislative paper from his pen. They distinctly charged that the obnoxious bill was "subversive of the peace, liberty, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... with slashed young men; it would have been subversive to discipline, and it was negligently, through a lateral entrance, that presently he appeared. In evening clothes on this early morning, he surveyed his visitor, a big fellow with a slight moustache, an easy way and a missing front tooth, who went ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... happy monarch, King Darius,'—who fails to see that, although a correct 'Kuraush' may pass, yet 'Darayavush' disturbs the metre as well as the rhyme? It seems, however, that 'Themistokles' may be winked at: not so the 'harsh and subversive Kirke.' But let the objector ask somebody with no knowledge to subvert, how he supposes 'Circe' is spelt in Greek, and the answer will be 'with a soft c.' Inform him that no such letter exists, and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... fallen from thy virtuous state? For in the line from which we spring The eldest is anointed king: No monarchs from the rule decline, And, least of all, Ikshvaku's line. Our holy sires, to virtue true, Upon our race a lustre threw, But with subversive frenzy thou Hast marred our lineal honour now, Of lofty birth, a noble line Of previous kings is also thine: Then whence this hated folly? whence This sudden change that steals thy sense? Thou shalt not gain thine ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... on receiving the impudent invitation, you were full of holy indignation, and will have rejected far from you this guilty and shameful provocation. Notwithstanding, that none of you may say he has been deluded by fallacious seductions, and by the preachers of subversive doctrines, or ignorant of what is contriving by the foes of all order, all law, all right, true liberty, and your happiness, we to-day again raise and utter abroad our voice, so that you may be more certain of the absoluteness ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... promotion of a crusade, but to greed. Gregory's conduct seemed to bear out this interpretation of his motives. Despite the excommunication Frederick once more set sail in June, 1228. But an expedition under such circumstances was an independent act subversive of all ecclesiastical discipline. Consequently, instead of his departure being the signal for the removal of his sentence, Frederick was followed to Palestine by the anathema of the Church. The Pope having got Frederick into his power intended ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... whatsoever that can be relied upon of the great antiquity of this manuscript: on the contrary what we do know about it as a fact is utterly subversive of such an assumption: this copy in the Mediceo-Laurentian Library in Florence of all the Annals of Tacitus cannot be traced further back than to the possession of a man who flourished in the days of Leo X. and the Emperor Maximilian I.,—Johannes ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... of counsel for the defendants, made a motion before Judge Tallmadge for an order to prevent the District Attorney from using the preliminary evidence taken at the private examinations. "It was a proceeding," he said, "arbitrary and subversive of the first principles of law and liberty,"—"which would have disgraced the reign of Charles and stained the character of Jeffries." The District Attorney was heard in opposition, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... tap-rooms, "subversive" pamphlets were read. They treated the government with contempt, says a secret ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... by England, consents to having her vessels incessantly stopped, sent to England, and so turned aside from their course, why should the Americans not suffer the blockade laid by France? Certainly France recognizes that these measures are unjust, illegal, and subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to resort to force, and to declare themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence." * But an invitation to enter the European maelstrom and battle for neutral rights made no impression upon ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... no man's property. It cannot be let, like a paltry farm, to those who shall bid the highest, in vain compromises and delusive hopes of liberty. Should the Roman people, of their own free will, pretend to give themselves away,—to sell themselves to a faction whose subversive principles they abhor, their forefathers of all preceding ages would protest against their base degeneracy; the children of the generations to come would curse their memory; all reflecting men of the present time would accuse them of black ingratitude,—ingratitude to the mighty ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... than a clever manipulator of seditious movements. But he had mainly distinguished himself as a rebel against authority. And it was in the temper of a rebel that he came to Athens. Obstacles, however, external as well as internal, made a subversive enterprise impossible. With the quick adaptability of his nature, he turned into a guardian of established institutions: the foe of revolution and friend of reform. Supported by the Crown, he was able to lift his voice for a "Revisionist" above the angry sea ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... shall be first, and the first last.' I found a dozen roundabouts drinking and making free with the liquors of the cabin, and all the officers prisoners forward—a state of things, as you will allow, a little subversive of decency as ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... in England the triumph of political ideas adapted to the new state of society which had arisen, but subversive of the tyrannical system which had done its work, a work great and good in the creation of peoples and the production of social order out of chaos. For a time it seemed as if the island state were to become the overshadowing influence in all the rest of Europe. By the middle of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... faded into a shadow; yet, notwithstanding this, its preeminence as a court has remained intact. Were a similar clash to occur in America no such result could be anticipated. Supposing a President, supported by a congressional majority, were to formulate some policy no more subversive than that which has been formulated by the present British Cabinet, and this policy were to be resisted, as it surely would be, by potent financial interests, the conflicting forces would converge upon the Supreme Court. The courts are always believed to tend ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... the people that subversive or mistaken doctrines had their rise. A Father of the Church said that property was theft many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops, and of the theory that the State owed every man a living. Nay, was not the Church ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... King, "gave liberty to the nation, and now it is my duty and my hope to give security and strength. It is known to Parliament that certain subversive elements, not in Italy alone, but throughout Europe, throughout the world, have been using the most devilish machinations for the destruction of all order, human and divine. Cold, calculating criminals have perpetrated crimes against the most innocent and the most highly placed, ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... and encouragement which were, at this moment especially, so necessary to him. Some even went so far as to denounce him publicly, and he was mentioned one day from the height of the pulpit, to the indignation of the pupils of the upper Normal College, as a man at once dangerous and subversive. ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... human nature; which, if believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, Necessity; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the future world, (which, as he is pleased to inform us, will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this; which, if believed, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... to the minimum compatible with coherency. Fortunately, Nature Mysticism can be at home with diverse world-views. There is, however, one exception—the world-view which is based on the concept of an Unconditioned Absolute. This will be unhesitatingly rejected as subversive of any genuine "communion" with nature. So also Symbolism will be repudiated on the ground that it furnishes a quite inadequate account of the relation of natural phenomena to the human mind. The only metaphysical ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... question. It is entirely creditable to them that steps have been taken by them to remove their protection from the more flagrant violators of American hospitality, but there is still room to discard outworn ideas of racial superiority maintained by economic or intellectually subversive warfare upon Christian society. ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... Senate I announced that, if any respectable man would call me a disunionist, I would answer him in monosyllables.... But I have often asserted the right, for which the battles of the Revolution were fought—the right of a people to change their government whenever it was found to be oppressive, and subversive of the objects for which governments are instituted—and have contended for the independence and sovereignty of the States, a part of the creed of which Jefferson was the apostle, Madison the expounder, and Jackson the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceed to weaken a nation prior ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... was regarded by all as a compromise between the Book of Common Order and the English Prayer Book, and appears to have excited no enthusiasm, even among its promoters; it was too subversive of Scottish custom to please those who were loyal to the old usage, and it was not sufficiently liturgical to suit James and ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... put into practice a new technique, based on a mixture of twisted economics, police control, and military garrisons. Out of this grew the latter-day highly developed railway-zone which, to all intents and purposes, creates a new type of foreign enclave, subversive of the Chinese State. The especial evil to-day is that Japan has transferred from Manchuria to Shantung this new technique, which ... she will eventually extend into the very heart of intramural China ... and also into extramural Chihli and Inner Mongolia (thus outflanking Peking) unless ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... how it is concerning the fire-dog; and likewise concerning all the spouting and subversive devils, of which not only old ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... they overthrow with one hand the edifice they erect with the other, when they announce this famous formula—To each according to his capacity; to each capacity according to its works—a formula wise and equitable in appearance, but in reality subversive and unjust. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... struggle which has for its object the acquisition of property, the providing of a shield against the ever-threatening fiend which we call WANT. Property once obtained, the possessor's next aim is to keep it. The very fact, that the mode of acquisition may have been wrong, and subversive of property-rights, if suffered to be imitated, naturally makes its possessor suspicious and cruel. He fears that the measure he has meted to others may be meted to him again. Hence severe laws, the monopoly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... reported by those ancients, who, assuming to be their descendants, must therefore be supposed to have been well acquainted with their own ancestors and family connections." And the Theism of Anaxagoras was still more decidedly subversive, not only of Mythology, but of the whole religion of outward nature; it being an appeal from the world without, to the consciousness of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... ignorance of the industrial conditions of the Rand was equalled only by their personal devotion to himself. Here the adverse findings of the commissioners on the dynamite and railway monopolies were reversed; and the recommendation for a Local Board for the Rand was condemned as subversive of the authority of the State. At length, after the report had been tossed about from Volksraad to committee, and from committee to Volksraad, until very little of the original recommendations remained, the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... Parliament? It strikes the Queen that all the Commons want is a Parliamentary security against the abolition of the Competitive System of Examinations by the Executive. Can this not be obtained by means less subversive of the whole character of our Constitution? The Queen cannot believe that Lord Derby could not find means to come to some agreement with the Opposition, and she trusts he will leave nothing undone ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... homage to the Grand Master for the time being, and to his officers when duly installed, and strictly to conform to every edict of the Grand Lodge that is not subversive of the principles and groundwork ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... he said, smiling. "Decidedly not. As Mr Reardon would say, it would be totally subversive of discipline. It couldn't be done. But one gentleman can of course apologise to another, and I do so most heartily. My dear Mr Herrick, I beg your pardon ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... more than afraid, for he makes no secret of it himself, that his views tend rather in the opposite direction; to an infidelity so subversive of the commonest principles of morality, that I expect, weekly, to hear of some unblushing and disgraceful outrage against decency, committed by him under its fancied sanction. And you know, as well as myself, the double danger of some profligate outbreak, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... wrong. Nothing is more consoling than these feelings innately of the multitude. Is it not evident that these salutary instincts may become fixed principles in those unfortunate beings whom ignorance and poverty expose to the subversive attacks of evil? Why not have every hope of a people whose good moral sense is so invariably manifested? of a people who, in spite of the fascinations of art, will never permit a dramatic work to arrive at its denouement by the triumph of the wicked and the punishment of the just? This fact, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... this deficiency at an epocha like the one in question: when means so despotic were daily adopted to curb the growing spirit of enquiry that despot ministers might pursue measures so tragical; so subversive of the order which they pretended to maintain, and so destructive to the happiness they were appointed to guard? Alas! the topics were so numerous, so melancholy, so almost maddening, that the man who would paint them truly must temper and rein-in his feelings with an iron ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... their age, and took a view of Dives and Lazarus which would commend itself to the Nihilists of to-day. The church is now often held up to us as the great barrier against Socialism, and the one refuge against subversive doctrines. In a well-known essay on "People whom one would have wished to have seen," Lamb and his friends are represented as agreeing that if Christ were to enter they would all fall down and worship Him. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... counterpoises since so absurdly defined as "privileges." There are no privileges now, when every human being is free to climb the greased pole of power. But surely it would be safer to allow open and avowed privileges than those which are underhand, based on trickery, subversive of what should be public spirit, and continuing the work of despotism to a lower and baser level than heretofore. May we not have overthrown noble tyrants devoted to their country's good, to create the tyranny of selfish interests? Shall power lurk ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... enjoined submission and obedience even to the tyranny of Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of political subjection. Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To forms of government the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among the external circumstances above which his spirit soared in serene self-contemplation. We trace in Seneca no yearning for a restoration of political ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... works by a lie, and so much prevails, and keeps up an unscriptural hope in the hearts of so many professors. Do, reader, study this point well; for here seems to be a show of scriptural truth, while the rankest poison lies concealed in it. For it is utterly subversive of, and contrary to, the faith and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... most of them frightfully annoyed by the Vida Sherwins. They were young American sociologists, young English realists, Russian horrorists; Anatole France, Rolland, Nexo, Wells, Shaw, Key, Edgar Lee Masters, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Henry Mencken, and all the other subversive philosophers and artists whom women were consulting everywhere, in batik-curtained studios in New York, in Kansas farmhouses, San Francisco drawing-rooms, Alabama schools for negroes. From them she got the same confused desire ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... more urgent and necessary than the prevention of the propagation of such doctrines which are a crime against the rights of man and against the respect due to crowned heads—an insult to the people submissive to their government—and, in short, subversive of law, order, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... shrank from his own wonders, and wanted to call the piece "A Poet's Reverie." "It is as bad as Bottom the weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of all credit—which the tale should force upon us—of its truth?" Lamb himself was forced, by the temper of the time, to declare that he "disliked all the miraculous part of it," as if it were not ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Substantial fortika. Substantiate pruvi. Substantive substantivo. Substitute anstatauxi. Subterfuge artifiko. Subterranean subtera. Subterraneous subtera. Subtile maldika. Subtle ruza. Subtract elpreni. Subtraction elpreno. Suburbs cxirkauxurbo. Subvention helpa mono. Subversive detruanta. Succeed (order) postveni, sekvi. Succeed sukcesi. Success sukceso. Successful sukcesa. Succession, in vice. Successive intersekva. Successor posteulo. Succinct mallonga. Succour helpi. Succulent ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... up their hands and looked aghast. The idea of any man venturing to do what no one ever thought of doing before was so utterly subversive of all their ideas of propriety—such a desperate piece of profane ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... statements contained in the standards of the Church, the Presbytery of Muirtown declares first of all, its unshaken adherence to the said standards; secondly, deplores the existence in any quarter of notions contradictory or subversive of said standards; thirdly, thanks Doctor Saunderson for the vigilance he has shown in the cause of sound doctrine; fourthly, calls upon all ministers within the bounds to have a care that they create no offence or misunderstanding by their teaching, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... monument to his memory, upon the score of his public services! and this vote was passed, recollect, by the very same men who had declared, for the last twenty years, that the measures of Mr. Pitt were destructive to the nation, burthensome and oppressive to the people, and subversive of their dearest rights and liberties. But Mr. Fox was now in place! the case was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... for discussion, he kept by that which chance first presented. Like one who himself wished information, he first put a question, and then, profiting by the concessions of his respondent, brought him to a proposition subversive of that which in the beginning of the debate had been considered as a first principle. He spent one part of the day in conferences of this kind, on morals. To these everyone was welcome, and according to the testimony of Xenophon, none departed from ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... The view entertained by many geologists, that each fauna of each Secondary epoch has been suddenly destroyed over the whole world, so that no succession could be left for the production of new forms, is subversive of my theory, but I see no grounds whatever to admit such a view. On the contrary, the law, which has been made out, with reference to distinct epochs, by independent observers, namely, that the wider the geographical range of a species the longer is its duration in time, seems entirely ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... 1724 the English law held any one legally responsible for action subversive of law and order unless he was "totally deprived of his understanding and memory and doth not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute or a wild beast." Since 1843, the criterion of responsibility ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... marching straight to madness. He even went to open his mind to the bishop, but the latter understood no more than others his vague, incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to realize and possibly subversive.[2] It was thus that in spite of himself Francis was led to ask nothing of men, but to raise himself by prayer to intuitive knowledge of the divine will. The doors of houses and of hearts were alike closing upon him, but the interior voice was about to speak out with ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... store; that we are morally bound to increase it as much, and to waste it as little, as we can, that of the two it is happier to be underpaid than to be overpaid; and that we shall all find it so in the sum of things. There is nothing in such a view in the least degree subversive of the legal rights of property, which the founders of Christianity distinctly recognised in their teaching, and strengthened practically by raising the standard of integrity; nothing adverse to active industry or good business ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the ties which unite my every earthly interest with the welfare and glory of my country, and perfectly convinced that the discussion and passage of the above-mentioned resolution were not only unauthorized by the Constitution, but in many respects repugnant to its provisions and subversive of the rights secured by it to other coordinate departments, I deem it an imperative duty to maintain the supremacy of that sacred instrument and the immunities of the department intrusted to my care by all means consistent with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... shop struck work. It is a usual course for men of the union to "strike" in this manner against persons of their own condition, and to exercise a force not resting in law or natural right, but merely on the will of a majority, and directly subversive of the freedom of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... day," which he is said to have invented, and on the neighboring wall the motto, "God bless our proof-reader, He can't call for him too soon." But his crudest device, "fatal," as his friend E.D. Cowen writes, "to the vengeance of every visitor who came with a threat of libel suit, and temporarily subversive of the good feeling of those friends he lured into its treacherous embrace, was a bottomless black-walnut chair." Its yawning seat was always concealed by a few exchanges carelessly thrown there—the floor being also liberally strewn with them. As it was ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... know," said Mr. Lavender, with all the delicacy in his power, "how terribly subversive of the national effort it is to employ your beauty and your grace to snare and slacken the sinews of our glorious youth? The mystery of a woman's glance in times like these should be used solely to beckon our heroes on to death in the field. But you, madam, than ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... armed collision; and to do this requires that we ignore such hidden deeds. 'Twas a mad prank of yours last night, and might have involved us all in common ruin. Go this time free, except for these words of censure; for you are not directly under my orders. Another such attempt, subversive of all discipline, and the gates of Dearborn will be ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... transgress the laws of his nature without wronging his intelligence and his happiness, even his strength and beauty, how shall art merit our love and homage if its power be exerted to excite inferior faculties and subversive passions? Are not poise and harmony the best conditions of existence for the human organism? That which Plato demanded for the Beautiful in favor of the True—namely, splendor—Delsarte demanded also of art in favor of the Good. His thought is summed up in this formula, "Man is ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... PROSPER, a Socialist and journalist, born in Paris, adopted the views of SAINT-SIMON (q. v.); held subversive views on the marriage laws, which involved him in some trouble; wrote a useful and sensible book on Algerian colonisation, and several works, mainly interpretative of the theories ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was not himself present on this occasion, heard what Clarence had done, he said that such proceedings were subversive of the laws of the realm, and destructive to all good government, and he commanded that Clarence should be arrested and sent to ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Majesty upon any bill or other proceeding depending in either House of Parliament, with a view to influence the votes of the members, is a high crime and misdemeanor, derogatory to the honor of the crown, a breach of the fundamental privileges of Parliament, and subversive of the constitution of the country." It was opposed by Pitt, chiefly on the ground that Mr. Baker only based the necessity for such a resolution on common report, which he, fairly enough, denied to be a sufficient justification of ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... shape and furnished with certain favourite appendages. The Gnostics called themselves believers; and their most celebrated teachers would willingly have remained in the bosom of the Church; but it soon appeared that their principles were subversive of the New Testament revelation; and they were accordingly excluded ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... a direct tax, was therefore declared to have a "manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies." Of the Sugar Act, which was not a direct tax, so much could not be said; but this act was at least "burthensome and grievous," being subversive of trade if not of liberty. No one was likely to be profoundly stirred by the declaration of the Stamp Act Congress, in this month of October when the spirited Virginia Resolutions ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Thirteen. He declared that the report was "an apology for slavery," and did not show the convention willing to discharge its duty to the memorialists, and to the people whose protests could not there be heard. His principal argument was that the principles guiding this committee in its decision were subversive of the principles of true republicanism; that they were also against the principles of the Bible. Since the committee had admitted the evil of slavery, he contended, the failure to find a remedy is unworthy of the representatives of the people of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... is utterly subversive of Christianity; for if this theory is true the fall of man is entirely fabulous; and if the fall, then the redemption, these two being ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... the respectable and representative opinion of the country was "prejudiced." Halls and assembly rooms in all the cities were closed against Fanny Wright, not only because her doctrines were absolutely infidel and materialistic, but because they were deemed subversive of law, order, and decency. The better portion of society in the United States was of one mind in its estimate of "The Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Woman's Eights," as she was called. In the columns of "The Free Inquirer," ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... the rule do none of them prove, that where the main object of a statute is unreasonable the judges are at liberty to reject it; for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government. But where some collateral matter arises out of the general words, and happens to be unreasonable; there the judges are in decency to conclude that this consequence was not foreseen by the parliament, and therefore they are ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... decision, and was quite unfitted for his position. His method of dealing with an Indian murderer was long repeated on Red River as a subject for humor, when he instructed the interpreter to announce to the criminal: "that he had manifested a disposition subversive of all order, and if he should not be punished in this world, he would be sure to be punished in the next." The hopelessness of carrying on the affairs of the Colony apart from those of the general affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company, was now seen, and on the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... result was that of every other delegate,—no more and no less. Neither he nor they, whether more or less opposed to slavery, saw in it a system so subversive of the rights of man that no just government should tolerate it. That was reserved for a later generation, and even that was slow to learn. To the fathers it was, at worst, only an unfortunate and unhappy social ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... repeated that theology as well as physical science is satisfied by the Diluvial explanation of the origin of petrified organisms, whereas inexorable logic compels the Vulcanists to own that their thesis is subversive of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of his intentions and by vanity born of his hopes, for he had ever in reserve that perspective of confidence and esteem with which he believed the third estate to be impressed towards him; but the promoters of the revolution, those who wanted it complete and subversive of the old government, those men who were so small a matter at the outset, either in weight or in number, had too much interest in annihilating M. Necker not to represent as pieces of perfidy his hesitations, his tenderness towards the two upper orders, and his air of restraint ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the name "Roosevelt" stood for a man as honest as he was energetic, and as fearless as he was true. Platt and the Machine naturally wished to get rid of this marplot, who could not be manipulated, who held strange and subversive ideas as to the extent to which the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code should be allowed to encroach on politics and Big Business, and who was hopelessly "altruistic" in caring for the poor and down trodden and outcast. Even Platt knew that, while it would ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... rid of every difficulty, but seems to leave us mere "machines;" yet he has recourse to it, in order to reconcile the Calvinistic view of divine grace with the free-agency of man. "The great objection," says he, "against the invincibility of divine grace, is, that it is subversive of the liberty of the will."(33) But, he replies, "True liberty consists in doing what we do with knowledge and ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... vicars and partisans unquestionably are on this earth. The dead hand pushes all of us into intellectual cages; there is in all of us a strange tendency to yield and have done. Thus the impertinent colleague of Aristotle is doubly beset, first by a public opinion that regards his enterprise as subversive and in bad taste, and secondly by an inner weakness that limits his capacity for it, and especially his capacity to throw off the prejudices and superstitions of his race, culture anytime. The cell, said Haeckel, does not act, it reacts—and what ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... he said, "I have called to see you in your own interests. I do not, as you perhaps know, approve of your schemes. I consider them—ah—subversive of the best interests of the home! But I think you mean well, though mistakenly. Now I fear you are not aware that this-ah—ill-considered undertaking of yours, is giving rise to considerable adverse comment ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... own way.' This would be very well if there were not other motives mixed up with this—jealousy of the Whigs and a desire to keep clear of them, and quarrel with them again when this is over. Herries told Hyde Villiers that their policy was conservative, that of the Whigs subversive, and that they never could act together. All false, for nobody's policy is subversive who has much to lose, and the Whigs comprise the great mass of property and a great body of the aristocracy of the country. Nobody seems to doubt that the Bill will pass. The day before yesterday ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... she freely forgiven me, but I believe that, after I had fully explained the motives which actuated me, she felt almost inclined to admit that I was to a certain extent justified. Possibly she would have admitted this but for the fact that such an admission might have been subversive of discipline. Monroe and I had always got on splendidly together; and even the once haughty Miss Anthea had at length thawed completely, even to the extent of singing duets with me and playing my accompaniments ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... Concordat, they could find their best support in Italy? Or were they driven by the instinct of self-preservation to accept the constitutional government as a bulwark against the incoming tide of Anarchism, Socialism, and the other subversive forces? The Church is the most conservative element in Christendom; in a new upheaval it will surely rally to the side of any other element which promises to save society from chaos. These motives have been cited to explain the recent action ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... above the sphere in which words can have being at all, otherwise it is not yet incarnate. For sense is to knowledge what conscience is to reasoning about light and wrong; the reasoning must be so rapid as to defy conscious reference to first principles, and even at times to be apparently subversive of them altogether, or the action will halt. It must become automatic before we are safe with it. While we are fumbling for the grounds of our conviction, our conviction is prone to fall, as Peter for lack of faith sinking into the waves of Galilee; so that the very power to prove at all is ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... through Peru to Chili, and had wandered across the continent to Buenos Ayres, where the details connected with the running of a boarding-house had left them with but little time for putting their subversive tendencies into practice. Amongst their paying guests was an elderly man from the country of their origin, who twenty-five years earlier had so disapproved of the particular President elected to rule his native land, that he had shown his resentment ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... of the danger, in representative republics, of conferring upon the military, in time of peace, extraordinary powers—so carefully guarded against by the patriots and statesmen of the earlier days of the Republic, so frequently the ruin of governments founded upon the same free principles, and subversive of the rights and liberties of the citizen—the question of practical economy earnestly commends itself to the consideration of the lawmaking power. With an immense debt already burdening the incomes of the industrial and laboring classes, a due regard ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... emphatic, and practically unanimous. Their memorial, with three thousand and fifty signatures, protested against the bill, "in the name of Almighty God and in his presence," as "a great moral wrong; as a breach of faith eminently injurious to the moral principles of the community and subversive of all confidence in national engagements; as a measure full of danger to the peace and even the existence of our beloved Union, and exposing us to the just judgments of the Almighty." In like manner the memorial ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... would make safe from the effects of her own ignorance, folly, and obstinacy? "When is she to go?" he asked in a low, sepulchral tone,—as though these new tidings that had come upon him had been fatal—laden with doom, and finally subversive of all chance ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... what is far worse is when scientific experts on the strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments some at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus we have lately been told that it is "wanton cruelty" to keep a weak or sickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of medical ethics, is to have leave and ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... England was never more torn by divergent thought and subversive act than in the period between the death of Elizabeth in 1603 and the Revolution of 1688. In this distracted time who could say what was really "English"? Was it James the First or Raleigh? Archbishop Laud or John Cotton? Charles the First or Cromwell? Charles the Second or William Penn? Was it ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... days of the formation of the Spanish Empire beyond the sea there were neither free elections, nor public press, and the criticism of the government was sedition. To allow a contest in the courts involving the governor's powers during his term of office would be subversive of his authority. He was then to be kept within bounds by realizing that a day of judgment was impending, when everyone, even the poorest Indian, might in perfect security bring forward his accusation. [57] In the Philippines the residencia ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... tug which was to take him out to the spot where the disaster had taken place. The Admiral was a naval officer of the old school—of the school who called their men "my children"—and who detested the Republican form of government as being subversive of discipline. ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the Cuvierian doctrine, Professor Owen avails himself of the odium theologicum. He attributes to his opponents "the insinuation and masked advocacy of the doctrine subversive of a recognition of the Higher Mind." Now, saying nothing about the questionable propriety of thus prejudging an issue in science, we think this is an unfortunate accusation. What is there in the hypothesis of necessary, as distinguished from actual, correlation of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... cannot repose any confidence. One likes a chemist's shop at least to look as if it contained reasonable remedies. These do not. Either our shops contain too many drugs or these too few. The chemist's sign, a large comic head with its mouth wide open (known as the gaper), is also subversive of confidence. A chemist's shop is no place for jokes. In Holland one must in short do as the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... and other works dealing with current events. Even the books allowed, although they have already been passed by the Public Censor, are again examined by Colonel P——, who rigorously eliminates every line even distantly hinting at politics or social life, or which may appear to him "subversive." Thanks to this system, I for some time read nothing but scientific and philosophic works, for which classes of reading I am too young and but ill-prepared. Gradually, however, these works take hold upon me; they appeal to my pride, and I struggle to vanquish ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... conduct which the custom of our times supported by enlightened sentiment disapproves. But the object of the writer is not to charge the Negro ministry with all kinds of misdemeanors. There is only one kind of conduct which is so far-reaching in its results because it is fundamentally subversive of and destructive to the best interests of society, that the writer wishes to bring up as a defect of our ministry. It is sexual unchastity. There are causes for this depravity among a certain class of Negro ministers. It is not a constitutional ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma
... reach the inner truth of Burke. Every statement of a principle in an orator or a pamphleteer is coloured by the occasion, the emotion, and the mood of an audience to whom it is addressed. Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of his philosophical obiter dicta were uttered. The real nerve of the thinking ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... been suddenly ordered to make the attempt. I speak of things as they were in those days, not as they are now. Happily at the present day it is considered highly disgraceful for an officer to be drunk; and not only is it disgraceful, but subversive of discipline, whether he is on or off duty, and thus injurious to the interests of the service, and prejudicial to his own health and morals. Taking the matter up only in a personal point of view, how can a man tell how he will behave when he has allowed ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Religious Freedom for All, regardless of race or color; with the Harmony of God's works; with Peace and Goodwill to all Mankind. That conviction is this: that to make taxation the incident of protection to special interests, and those engaged in them, is robbery to the rest of the community, and subversive of National Morality and National Prosperity. I believe that taxes are necessary for the support of government, I believe they must be raised by levy, I even believe that some customs taxes may be more practicable and economical ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... impossible story, if not to that dear old silver hair—to those grave peaceful eyes,—at least to one whose measure of her whole life must perforce be changed by it. What would it mean, to Widow Thrale, to have such a subversive fact ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the future literature of the labourer becomes a serious question. He will think what he reads; and what he reads at the present moment is of anything but an elevating character. He will think, too, what he hears; and he hears much of an enticing but subversive political creed, and little of any other. There are busy tongues earnestly teaching him to despise property and social order, to suggest the overthrow of existing institutions; there is scarcely any one to instruct him in the true lesson of history. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... about it, however ingenuous he may pretend to be. Are we to wish to play havoc with all that too?—to disown the flower of the world's youth, and ruin the world's finest cities? It seems to me that people wish to do so much in the name of morality, that they end by wishing to do what would be subversive of all morality. ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... for Kent; perilous, and subversive of many things. One of his meliorating comforts had been the thought that however bitter his own disappointment was, Elinor at least was happy. But in this new-old field of talk a change came over her and he was no longer ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Bernard paints immorality—it would be unjust to say that he encourages it. He neither deals in highly-coloured and meretricious scenes a la Sue and Dumas; nor supports, with the diabolical talent and ingenuity of a Sand, the most subversive and anti-social doctrines. His works are not befouled with filth and obscenity, such as that impure old reprobate Paul de Kock delights and wallows in—or disgraced by the irreligion, and contempt of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... his subversive professional democratic tendencies, his seven-and-sixpenny visits, added to his utter disregard of Lady Arabella's airs, were too much for her spirit. He brought Frank through his first troubles, and that at first ingratiated her; he was equally successful with ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... to him, was the name of the injured heroine. The major, I imagine, had never read a work of fiction in his life, but he knew by hearsay that Madame Blumenthal's literature, when put forth in pink covers, was subversive of several respectable institutions. Besides, he didn't believe in women knowing how to write at all, and it irritated him to see this inky goddess correcting proof-sheets under his nose—irritated him the more that, as I say, he was ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... trunks, whooping down the corridor, and "gloating" in form-rooms, received the news with amazement and rage. No school in the world did prep. on the last night of the term. This thing was monstrous, tyrannical, subversive of law, religion, and morality. They would go into the form-rooms, and they would take their degraded holiday task with them, but—here they smiled and speculated what manner of man the Common-room would send up against them. The lot fell on Mason, credulous and enthusiastic, who loved ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... has to my mind escaped another danger which was quite as great as that of allowing the Tariff question to be pushed on one side, and that was the danger of being frightened by the scare, which the noisy spreading of certain subversive doctrines has lately caused, into a purely negative and defensive attitude; of ceasing to be, as it has been, a popular and progressive party, and becoming merely the embodiment of upper and middle class prejudices and alarms. I do not say that there are not many projects ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... aimed at superior knowledge, disdained the humbling doctrine of Paul, which made faith supreme over all forms of philosophy, and were the first to seek solutions of difficult points of theology by abstruse inquiries— honorable to the intellect, but subversive of that docile spirit which Christianity enjoined. This tendency to speculation was unfortunate, but natural to those active minds who sought to discover a connection between the truths taught by revelation, and those which ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... professes to classify. To pass over any distinctions of Kind, and substitute definite distinctions, which, however considerable they may be, do not point to ulterior unknown differences, would be to replace classes with more by classes with fewer attributes in common; and would be subversive of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... They are dangerous, but perhaps not nearly so much so as the slippery "Yellows," cunning weasels of the imported Russian Hillquit type, who, though they do not talk as openly as the "Reds," are spreading their subversive principles on every side, and especially among the less educated classes of our people, into whose minds they instil the spirit of hatred between employers and employees, while at the same time encouraging strikes, wherever they can, with the hope of overthrowing our Government ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... all this calmly. There are secular principles of legitimity and order which have been violated in this reckless enterprise for the sake of most subversive illusions. Though of course the patriotic ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... party, chiefly from Slavonia and Serbia. This remarkable man, whose mind floats serenely in a body that is paralysed, has twice been included in the Cabinet. By many he is looked upon as too subversive, but he believes that a revolution will come unless his department acts in a revolutionary fashion. His programme includes old-age pensions from the age of sixty—the people being now enfeebled by the wars—and obligatory insurance with regard to all those, including State employees in the railway ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... wherein the church and church relationship are exalted above the personal relationship of the individual with his God, many teachers now incline to an opposite extreme, which makes little of the church as an institution, substituting therefor a sort of "loyalty to Christ," individualism, subversive of true New ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... other officers or their households visiting him. Nevertheless, they who publicly do so lay themselves liable to the imputation of sympathizing with the accused at the expense of the accuser, and some commanding officers are so sensitive that they look upon such demonstrations as utterly subversive of discipline, ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... obedience involved no action opposed to Roman teaching, and that the supreme duty of obedience was not to the Heavenly Sovereign at Kyoto, but to the Pope at Rome. Had not the Gods and the Buddhas been called devils by these missionaries from Portugal and Spain? Assuredly such doctrines were subversive, [320] no matter how astutely they might be interpreted by their apologists. Besides, the worth of a creed as a social force might be judged from its fruits. This creed in Europe had been a ceaseless cause of disorders, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... church, in which reason is outraged, religion caricatured, and God dishonoured. Transubstantiation is a doctrine manifestly absurd and impious; and the practice of presenting those supplications to dead saints, which the Supreme Being alone can hear and answer, is no less ridiculous, as well as subversive of true piety. Perhaps, however, no deviation from common sense is more remarkable than those extravagancies of the Catholics which respect the Virgin Mary; and yet these have not only been practised by the multitude, but defended by men of learning with the utmost subtlety and the warmest zeal. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... "the Reformation did not at first carry with it much cleansing force of moral enthusiasm." In the hands of men more logical or of a less healthy moral fibre, Luther's favourite dogma, of justification by faith alone, led to conclusions subversive of all morality. However this may be, enemies and friends alike have to admit that the immediate effects of the Reformation were a dissolution of morals, a careless neglect of education and learning, and a general relaxation of the restraints ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... disagreeably undeceived. A gale sprang up with little warning about midnight, and hove us almost on our beam-ends; and though we righted with the loss only of a spar or two, we were tumbled about in a manner subversive of all comfort, to say the ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... despairing of arriving at this happy result by an agreement among the contending Popes, many honest theologians put forward principles, which, however suitable to the circumstances of the schism, were utterly subversive of the monarchical constitution of the Church. They maintained that in case of doubtful Popes the cardinals had the right to summon a General Council to decide the issue, and that all Christians were bound to submit to its decrees. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... from the western land offices, on public drafts, before the year expired. He vented this pique officially, by suspending my report of Oct. 18th, 1837, on the debt claims against the Indians, finally assumed powers in relation to them, directly subversive of the principles of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, which had been negotiated by me, and referred them for revision to a more supple agent of his wishes at New York, who had been one of the efficient actors in the "goods offer" ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... of the most difficult and dangerous problems confronting civilized mankind, his views and his acts assume public importance and invite and compel attention and discussion. Therefore, believing as I do that Mr. Ford is primarily responsible for a propaganda which is subversive of the best traditions and institutions of this Republic, and which has everywhere and at all times resulted in shameful crimes against humanity, and in resistance to every progressive and humane movement, I feel ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... broken down our system of constitutional checks. The Constitution as originally adopted made no mention of, and allowed no place for these voluntary political organizations. In fact, the purpose of the political party was diametrically opposed to and subversive of all that was fundamental in the Constitution itself, since it aimed at nothing less than the complete destruction of the system of checks by bringing every branch of the government under its control. To the extent that ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... gratuitously circulated in France and other countries. As they were adapted to the capacity of all classes of persons, they were eagerly sought after, and read with avidity. The doctrines inculcated in them were subversive of every principle of morality and religion. The everlasting distinctions between virtue and vice, were completely broken down. Marriage was ridiculed—obedience to parents treated as the most abject slavery—subordination to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the innocent and defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators and all connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline and efficiency of the army and destructive of the ends of our present movements. It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... that person as a fit subject for the lunatic asylum. But the passing of that Act and its operation have rudely forced the fact upon us that the Union Parliament is capable of producing any measure that is subversive of native interests; and that the complete arrest of native progress is the object aimed at in their efforts to include the Protectorates in their Union. Thus we think that their sole reason for seeking to incorporate Basutoland, Swaziland and Bechuanaland is that, when they have definitely eliminated ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje |
