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Subvert   Listen
verb
Subvert  v. i.  To overthrow anything from the foundation; to be subversive. "They have a power given to them like that of the evil principle, to subvert and destroy."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Subvert" Quotes from Famous Books



... a vessel which had sailed from Corsica brought to France a boy who, not only as regards Josephine's life, but also as regards all Europe, yea, the whole world, was to be of the highest importance, and who, with the iron step of fatality, was to walk through Europe to subvert thrones and raise up new ones; to tread nations in the dust, and to lift up others from the dust; to break tyranny's chains in which people languished, so as to impose upon them ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... in no manner or degree tends to subvert the spiritual nature of Thought, which has its source in the capacities whereby we perceive, remember, and comprehend that significant sounds or words are the commuted representatives of the objects of intelligence. The perceptive ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam

... retinue, but no Catholics. I am not critical in this respect for I observe that he is enjoying but a personal privilege. But I allude to this fact at this moment to assure you that this scheme of forming a regiment of Roman Catholic Volunteers is directed solely to subvert the good relations already existing between us and our brethren in arms. The promises made bore no hope of fulfillment. The guarantees of immunity deserve no consideration. The Quebec Act, and for this ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... what it means to experiment with the future of a people. To overthrow their traditions: to confute their beliefs and superstitions, and to subvert their gods! And what do you offer them in return? Other traditions; other beliefs; another God—and education! Do you dare to assume the responsibility? Do you dare to implant in the minds of these people an education—a culture—that will render them for ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... its shortcomings, which, nevertheless, are not shortcomings that impair its supreme effect. This, I take it, is the intimation of a mystical authority in marriage against which divorce sins in vain, which no recreancy can subvert, and by virtue of which it claims eternally its own the lovers united in it; though they seem to become haters, it cannot release them to happiness in a new union through ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... each side men with papers before them. 'May it please your lordship and Bailie McSweem, the prisoner being present we will now proceed.' He went on to explain that the prisoner was a member of one of those political associations that were plotting to subvert the government of the country, even thinking they could organize a revolution and drive his majesty from the throne. He need not dwell on the danger State and Church were in from the plottings of those ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... a land; And behold! I breathe on the coal, I breathe on the dales of the east, And silence falls on forest and shore; the voice of the feast Is quenched, and the smoke of cooking; the rooftree decays and falls On the empty lodge, and the winds subvert ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I have more largely entered into the history of the party who attempted to subvert the government in the reign of Elizabeth, and who published their works under the assumed name of Martin Mar-prelate, than had hitherto been done. In our domestic annals that event and those personages are of some importance and curiosity; ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... if you pant for glory, If you sigh to live in story, If you burn with patriot zeal; Seize this bright, auspicious hour, Chase those venal tools of power, Who subvert ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... of James II at St. Germains (5 Sept., 1701) Louis broke his vow (made at Ryswick) not to do anything to disturb or subvert the government of England, and forthwith proclaimed the late king's son to be heir to his father's throne. The whole English nation was stirred against the French king for having dared to acknowledge as their sovereign the boy who had been held to be supposititious ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... the king sent a message to them to say that in his opinion the earl had not been guilty of treason, or of any attempt to subvert the laws; and that several things which had been alleged in the trial, and on which the bill of attainder chiefly rested, were not true. He was willing, however, if it would satisfy the enemies of the earl, to have him convicted ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... have been arranged in concert with the Hardies, Thelwalls, Holcrofts, and so forth, who were a few weeks later brought to trial in London for an alleged conspiracy to "summon delegates to a National Convention, with a view to subvert the Government, and levy war upon the King." The English prisoners were acquitted, but Watt and Downie were not so fortunate. Scott writes as follows to his aunt, Miss Christian Rutherford, then at ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... you to come, to furnish us assistance in men, provisions, and munitions, that we may drive out the army of the North, who would subvert our government and ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... grew important in [195] public estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its gains led naturally to the possession of wealth. This, from the quasi-omnipotence with which it invests men—enabling them not only to command the best energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very principles of their fellows—has, in the vast majority of cases, an overpowering sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the Millennium shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty of the world. ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... The superstitious priests of heathen idols, were constantly active with all possible inventions calculated to excite jealousies and sharpen the edge of persecution against a doctrine that was calculated to subvert their order and demolish their temples. It was not until A. D. 311, that Maximin Galerius, who had been the author of the heaviest calamities on the christians, published a solemn edict, ordering the persecution to cease, which his indescribable horrors ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... Jews, then secondarily adopted into Christianity, and thence finally impacted into the mongrel creed of Mohammed and his followers. It is philosophically irreconcilable with a pure monotheism; for, if God be infinite, no enemy could subvert his original scheme and force Him to an arbitrary miracle to restore it. It is a creaking and dissonant artifice, every way repugnant to all whose reason and sentiment have learned to love the smooth and continuous evolution of the order ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... three times, while Mars does once, hence it rises in the west and sets in the east, making one day of Mars equal three of its months. This moon changes every two hours, passing all phases in a single martial night; is anomalous in the solar system, and tends to subvert that theory of cosmic evolution wherein a rotating gaseous sun cast off concentric rings, afterward becoming planets. Astronomers were not satisfied with the telescope; true, they beheld the phenomena of the solar system; planets ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... principles of the Revolution to which we owe the present happy establishment, and an audacious insult upon His Majesty, whose paternal care has been so early and so effectually shown to the religion, laws, and liberties of his people; tending to subvert the fundamental laws and liberties of these kingdoms and to introduce an illegal and arbitrary power." The Commons concurred with the Lords in condemning a copy to the flames at Westminster Palace Yard and the Exchange on February 25th and 27th ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... demanded. The fiercest, the least scrupulous, and the most consistent of those who battle against slavery recognize the same fact that he does. They see that merely human wisdom and human efforts cannot subvert it, except by tearing to pieces the Constitution, breaking the pledges which it sanctions, and severing into distracted fragments that common country which Providence brought into one nation, through a continued ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... associates, whilst rightly holding that trade was to some extent the natural foe to war, appear to me to have pushed the consequences to be derived from that argument much too far. They allowed too little for other causes which tend to subvert peace, such as racial and religious differences, dynastic considerations, the wish to acquire national unity, which tends to the agglomeration of small States, and the ambition which excites ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... School of thinkers, as they were once, and indeed might yet be termed. But impiety was never the result of Transcendentalism. Its advocates endeavored rather to prove the adaptability of a generous and catholic spirit of Philosophy to religion than to subvert it. They never advanced to a love of Strauss and Feuerbach, and men of the second generation, of whom G.H. Lewes may be taken as a type, have generally been regarded by them as the Girondists regarded the Jacobins. Both urge reform, the Vergniaud and the Robespierre, but the one ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... defamatory, and unseemly invectives, reproaches, and passionate speeches, toward and against the worshipful magistrates and godly ministers of the colony, thereby contriving and designing to bring into contempt, all law, order, religion, and good government, &c., and to subvert the authority of the magistrates and undermine the wholesome influence of the godly ministers, &c., to the disgrace and ruin of the colony and scandal of ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... negative rights;—for every pretended negative would be in effect a positive;—as if a soldier had a right to keep to himself whether he would, or would not, fight. Now, no one of these fundamentals can be rightfully attacked, except when the guardian of it has abused it to subvert one or more of the rest. The reason is, that the guardian, as a fluent, is less than the permanent which he is to guard. He is the temporary and mutable mean, and derives his whole value from the end. In short, as robbery is not high treason, so neither ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... liberty—the result of living under the law. It is the great desire of Massachusetts to continue such legislation of progress and humanity. Those who are attempting to wrench the scepter of authority from the representatives of the people, to subvert the jurisdiction of her laws, are the enemies not only of progress, but of all present achievement, not only of what we hope for, but ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... enclose letters written by Thomas Hutchinson and Oliver——-and others of less importance, the originals of which have been laid before the house of representatives.1 The house have already resolved, by a majority of 101 out of 106 members, that the design and tendency of them is to subvert the constitution and introduce arbitrary power into the province. They are now in the hands of a committee to consider them farther, and report what is still proper ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... loyal obedience to the hereditary revered laws of the nation, equally instilled, qualifying him to uphold them, and to defend their freedom from all offensive operations at home or abroad, intended to subvert the purity of their code or the integrity of their administration. Such was the import of the implied vow ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... disposed of their shirts and clothes, to gratify their mistresses. The simplicity of their dress, &c. might contribute to this attraction; and the view of several of these nymphs swimming all nimbly round the sloop, such as nature had formed them, was perhaps more than sufficient entirety to subvert the little reason which a mariner might have left to govern his passions. As trifling circumstances had given occasion to their taking the water. One of the officers on the quarter-deck intended to drop a bead into a canoe for a little boy about six ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... Christ and the Gospel are lost. Such would have been the fate of the Corinthians had not Paul saved them from it by this epistle admonishing and urging them to purge out the leaven of license; for they had begun to practice great wantonness, and had given rise to sects and factions which tended to subvert the one Gospel and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... to subvert the constitution. Now let us inquire how far these patriots were disinterested in their enactments. First, as to grants for local improvements, how were ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... at all regarding their identity. Seven weeks of their fellowship had blessed (or cursed) him with a familiarity with their style and proportions such as no manner of wraps and tricksy half-lights could subvert. With a full heart and twitching lips, Mr. Morgan dwelt blasphemously upon the several destinies for which, to his mind, their untimely appearance had ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... uttered, they told each other of the first delightful dawnings of that affection which had sprung up between them, and which they fondly believed neither time nor circumstance would have the power to change or subvert. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... men resemble all those who study virtue. They are relieved of their vices; they are relieved of their errors. Unless, perchance, you think that Tiberius Gracchus, the father, was not happier than his son, when the one laboured to establish the republic, and the other to subvert it. And yet he was not a wise man. For who taught him wisdom? or when? or where? or whence did he learn it? Still, because he consulted his twin glory and dignity, he had made great progress ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... interest of curtailing some special desire. "In order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties," he said in the famous Speech on Conciliation with America (1775), "we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own." The way for the later despotism of the younger Pitt, was, as Burke saw, prepared by those who persuaded Englishmen of the paltry character of the American contest. His own receipt was sounder. ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... natural consequence of the acts of Congress in relation to the public debt, the Bank, excise, currency, and other important measures passed in accordance with the secretary's policy. Whether this policy was meant to destroy the Union, subvert the republic, and establish a monarchy upon its ruins, at any rate such must be the inevitable result of those mischievous measures. He urged this view of the subject with such pertinacity that Washington, either because ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... introduction of base materials—the "wood, hay, stubble" of human wisdom, instead of the "gold, silver, precious stones" of the truth as Paul had taught it. The false teachers among the Galatians, on the contrary, sought to subvert the very foundations of Christianity by bringing in a system of legal justification. In writing to the Galatians, therefore, Paul contends, with apostolic severity, for the very substance of the gospel, but in addressing the Corinthians, ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... of the sovereign people and the democratical institutions became both familiar and precious to every individual citizen. We shall hereafter find the Athenians binding themselves by the most sincere and solemn oaths to uphold their democracy against all attempts to subvert it; we shall discover in them a sentiment not less positive and uncompromising in its direction, than energetic in its inspirations. But while we notice this very important change in their character, we shall at the same time perceive that the wise precautionary ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... minority of the Uitlanders who had any desire to come into the British system. They were a cosmopolitan crowd, only united by the bond of a common injustice. The majority of the British immigrants had no desire to subvert the State. But when every other method had failed, and their petition for the rights of freemen had been flung back at them, it was natural that their eyes should turn to that flag which waved to ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... cause for her advantage over them. She kept all her admirers by the very looseness of her grasp, which gave no indication of any eagerness to hold, and thus aroused in them no fear of detention nor of wiles of beauty which should subvert their wills. And, furthermore, Mary Cavendish distributed her smiles as impartially as a flower its sweetness, to each the same, though but a scant allotment to each, as beseemed a maid. I could not, even with my outlook, observe that she favoured one more than another, unless it might have ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... which were common to all of them: the rulers promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make their rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulers observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others to subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings and peoples when injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings in like manner. ...
— Laws • Plato

... place every possible restraint in your power over the members of your church, to prevent them from committing acts of aggression or retaliation on any citizens of the state, as a contrary course may, and most probably will, bring about a collision which will subvert all efforts to maintain the peace in this county; and we propose making a similar request of your opponents in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... which, at some moments, prevails, may give place afterwards to sanguine hopes and expectations. Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... own person, or in that of his parent or guardian, had directly entered into the covenants of the fundamental law, as that law then existed, they now began to quarrel with its provisions, and to advance doctrines that would subvert everything as established, in order to put something new and untried in its place. Progress was the great desideratum; and change was the hand-maiden of progress. A sort of 'puss in the corner' game was started, which was to enable those who had no places to run into ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... breathed nothing but vengeance and implacable resentment. These members of the council were removed from it for their disobedience; nevertheless they had such influence among the people, as to occasion great trouble to the governor, and totally to subvert his authority; in consequence of which, Joseph West appeared again at the head of the colony, and gave his assent to several laws made in it. During which time the people followed their former practice, of inveigling ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... myself a different object of glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger who employed the sword of the Goths not to subvert but to restore and maintain the prosperity of the ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... that the bailiff had squared his conscience exactly according to law, and that he could not easily subvert his way of thinking. He therefore gave up the cause, and desired the bailiff to expedite the bonds, which he promised to do; saying, he hoped he had used him with proper civility this time, if he had not the last, and that he should ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... poor children;" at which words the tears gushed from his eyes. The other begged him not to admit any such apprehensions, for that he would employ his utmost diligence in his service, and doubted not but to subvert any villanous design laid for his destruction, and to make his innocence appear to the world as white as it was in his ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... not rarely from the mind which it possesses, an envious desire of plundering wealth or degrading greatness; and of which the immediate tendency is innovation and anarchy, an impetuous eagerness to subvert and confound, with very little care ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... felt that a premeditated and foul attempt,—for, as she turned it in her mind, the attempt seemed to be very foul,—was being made to injure Harry. A false accusation was brought against him, and was grounded on a misrepresentation of the truth in such a manner as to subvert it altogether to Harry's injury. It should have no effect upon her. To this determination she came at once, and declared to herself solemnly that she would be true to it. An attempt was made to undermine him in her estimation; but they who made it had not known her character. She was sure of herself ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find—'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... subjugated a nation by winning the loyalties of the oppressed and downtrodden. The communists first win the support of liberal-intellectuals, and then use them to subvert and pervert all established mores and ideals and social ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... both empires were tottering; while the Christian religion gave rise to different sects, hating each other with intense and fanatical hatred, a silent power was rising among the Turks, which was destined to subvert empires and found a new religion. Their original seat was among the Altai mountains, where they were employed by their masters in working iron mines. They rose in rebellion, threw off their allegiance, and made incursions into Persia and China, proving ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... are not to be compared with men. The Yahoos, in their total depravity, are not human; they represent, and that with a terrible truthfulness, the condition into which men may fall when their animal instincts and baser passions are allowed to subvert their reason and their noble qualities. The more a man suffers his better nature to yield to his lower, the more he resembles the detestable Yahoo. In this sense alone, the satire applies generally to mankind; but it applies with peculiar ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... who by her emissaries laboured to destroy it as soon as formed; because she justly foresaw that the continuance of it would be destructive to all her vast designs against the liberty of Europe. I myself had the honour to have a principal share in subduing one rebellion designed to subvert it, and since my death it has been, I hope, established for ever, not only by the defeat of another rebellion, which came upon us in the midst of a dangerous war with France, but by measures prudently taken in order to prevent such disturbances for the ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... Attorney-General Yorke and Solicitor-General De Grey in 1766 severely condemned any system that would permanently "impose new, unnecessary and arbitrary rules (especially as to the titles of land, and the mode of descent, alienation and settlement), which would tend to confound and subvert rights instead of supporting them." In 1772 and 1773 Attorney-General Thurlow and Solicitor-General Wedderburne dwelt on the necessity of dealing on principles of justice with the province of Quebec. The French Canadians, ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... saving a fellow-soldier's life at the storm of Mytilene. In 78 B.C. he was serving under Servilius Isauricus against the Cilician pirates when the news of Sulla's death reached him and he at once returned to Rome. Refusing to entangle himself in the abortive and equivocal schemes of Lepidus to subvert the Sullan constitution, Caesar took up the only instrument of political warfare left to the opposition by prosecuting two senatorial governors, Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (in 77 B.C.) and C. Antonius (in 76 B.C.) for extortion in the provinces of Macedonia and Greece, and though he lost both ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... sad and very sickly person," Pao-yue explained laughing, "while you are that beauty who could subvert the empire and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... another and a different government in its place, unauthorized by the Constitution and in defiance of its guarantees; that the defendants, acting under orders of the President, were about to set in motion a portion of the army to take military possession of the State, subvert her government, and subject her people to military rule. The presentation of this bill and the argument on the motion of the Attorney-General to dismiss it produced a good deal of hostile comment against the Judges, which did not end when the motion was granted. It was ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... that they may be sound in the faith; there must be wisdom to rebuke some within long-suffering, and there must be courage to suppress and stop the mouths of others. The apostle tells Titus of some whose mouths must be stopped, or else they would subvert whole houses, Titus i. 11. Where this courage hath been wanting, not only whole houses, but whole churches have been subverted. And Paul tells the Galatians, that when he saw some endeavour to bring the churches into bondage, that he did not give place to them, no not for an ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan

... There was at once a great fluttering of hope among the cities of Thessaly at the reputation of that general, and the cause of the tyrant tottered to its fall, such fear fell upon his officers and friends, and such a longing to subvert his government upon his subjects, who viewed the future with hope, as now they expected to see the tyrant meet with his deserts. However, Epameinondas, disregarding his own glory in comparison with the safety of Pelopidas, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... with the blind and suicidal measures which all those connected with the throne instigated or encouraged in this reign,—from the King to the most infamous of his mistresses. Whoever pretended to give his aid to the monarchy helped to subvert it by the very measures which he proposed. "The Duke of Orleans, when he patronized Law, gave a shock to the whole economical system of the old regime. When this Scotch financier said to the powerful aristocracy around him, 'Silver is only to you the means of circulation, beyond this ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... the Company, knowing that these money transactions were likely to subvert that empire which was first established upon them, did, in the year 1765, send out a body of the strongest and most solemn covenants to their servants, that they should take no presents from the country ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... religious, and of the power of the state to confiscate ecclesiastical property, and not restore it to us, but alienate it forever. For the chance of subverting the Anglican Establishment, he is favoring a policy which will subvert religion itself. In his eagerness he cannot see that the Anglicans have only a lease of our property, a lease ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... slavery in Kansas; the frequent murders and mobbings, in the south, of northern citizens; the present turbulence and violence of southern society; the manifest fear of the freedom of speech and of the press; the danger of insurrection; and now the attempt to subvert the government rather than submit to a constitutional election—these events, disguise it as you may, have aroused a counter irritation in the north that will not allow its representatives to yield merely for peace, more than is prescribed by the letter and spirit of the constitution. Every ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... some here present may know, as a matter of history,—a secret and somewhat extended conspiracy to subvert the government of Lower Canada was seasonably discovered and crushed at Quebec, which was its principal seat, and which, according to the plan of the conspirators, was to be the first object of assault and seizure. This was to be effected by the contemporaneous rising of a strong force within ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... life. By the close of the third century the hostility to pagan schools and Hellenic learning had become so pronounced that the Apostolic Constitutions (R. 41) ordered Christians to abstain from all heathen books, which could contain nothing of value and only served "to subvert the faith of the unstable." In 401 A.D. the Council of Carthage forbade the clergy to read any heathen author, and Greek learning now rapidly died out in the West. For a time it was almost entirely lost. In consequence Greek science, then best represented by ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... "never to subvert any Amphictyonic city— never to stop the courses of its waters in peace or in war. Those who attempt such outrages I will oppose by arms; and the cities that so offend I will destroy. If any ravages be committed in the territory ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... looked in vain for any stable authority, we now look in vain for any trace of constitutional freedom. And we, Gentlemen, in the meantime, have been exempt from both those calamities which have wrought ruin all around us. The madness of 1848 did not subvert the British throne. The reaction which followed ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... words:—"he that is not for us is against us." I find he cares not whose the expression is, so it be not Christ's. But how comes Pompey the Great to be a whig? He was, indeed, a defender of the ancient established Roman government; but Caesar was the whig who took up arms unlawfully to subvert it. Our liberties and our religion both are safe; they are secured to us by the laws; and those laws are executed under an established government, by a lawful king. The Defender of our Faith is ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Indians.... Dissatisfaction of Carolina with the proprietors.... Rupture with Spain.... Combination to subvert the proprietary government.... Revolution completed.... Expedition from the Havanna against Charleston.... Peace with Spain.... The proprietors surrender their interest to the crown.... The province divided.... Georgia settled.... Impolicy of the first regulations.... Intrigues ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... thou not, also, that the people of my kingdom are the first-born of the Master of Heaven? So it hath been written that he who doth needlessly subject the people to wounds and death shall not be suffered by Heaven to live! Thou who wouldst subvert those laws founded by the wise,—those laws in obedience to which may happiness and prosperity alone be found,—thou art committing the greatest of all crimes,—the crime that is ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... almost a religion with the celestials, to subvert which requires great caution, persistency and strength. If anything can be justified by old custom, or even precedent, it is considered to be unassailable, no matter how harmful or irrational ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... necessity of maintaining the solidarity of the family—a necessity (as the late John Fiske luminously pointed out) due to the long period of infancy in man—has forced mankind to adopt certain social laws to regulate the interrelations of men and women. Any strong attempt to subvert these laws is dangerous not only to that tissue of convention called society but also to the development of the human race. And here we find our dramatists forced—first by the spirit of the times, which gives them their theme, and second by the nature of the dramatic ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... surprise him to be told that in ante-bellum days it was not only the chief repository of culture, but possessed a fair proportion of the nation's wealth. The South has ever been chiefly an agricultural country, and will so remain despite the frantic efforts of enthusiasts to subvert natural laws. Not until the resources of our soil are in great measure exhausted, or increase of population forces people from the fields, can the South become a great manufacturing country. Such is the lesson of history, which we can ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... ruler should wish to subvert the liberties of a people used to these guarantees, where ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... used to cheat them out of it; if, by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions—in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty; and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it. Again, a people may be unwilling or unable to fulfill the ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... inconveniencies, whereby he is secure, whilst the government stands, from all violence and harm whatsoever; than which there cannot be a wiser constitution: for the harm he can do in his own person not being likely to happen often, nor to extend itself far; nor being able by his single strength to subvert the laws, nor oppress the body of the people, should any prince have so much weakness, and ill nature as to be willing to do it, the inconveniency of some particular mischiefs, that may happen sometimes, when a heady prince comes to the throne, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... character of Catiline, V. Virtues of the ancient Romans, VI.-IX. Degeneracy of their posterity, X.-XIII. Catiline's associates and supporters, and the arts by which he collected them, XIV. His crimes and wretchedness, XV. His tuition of his accomplices, and resolution to subvert the government, XVI. His convocation of the conspirators, and their names, XVII. His concern in a former conspiracy, XVIII., XIX. Speech to the conspirators, XX. His promises to them, XXI. His supposed ceremony to unite them, XXII. His designs ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... command of the combined forces was intrusted. "I am perfectly in sentiment with you, that the business we are drawn out upon should be effectually executed, and that the daring and factious spirit which threatens to overturn the laws and to subvert the Constitution ought to be subdued." Thus he wrote to Morgan, while the commissioners from the insurgents were politely received, and told that the march of the troops could not be countermanded. Washington would fain have gone himself, in command of the army, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... crime," said Mrs. Calvert, "for the due punishment of which the Almighty may be supposed to subvert the order of nature, it is fratricide. But tell me, dear friend, did you remark to what the subtile and hellish villain was endeavouring ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... one side we have, as I have shown you, France and Spain, urged by the Pope, wanting nothing but ability to attack us. By Alva's designs our commerce in the Low Countries has been crippled. In Scotland there is a strong Roman Catholic party, who are doing their utmost to subvert the throne of Elizabeth, and to substitute Mary Stuart in her place. The disaffected, whether in religion or politics, make that unhappy lady their rallying-point. Ireland is in a state of rebellion; and, as if this were not enough, there are those ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... successful general—rich, proud, and dictatorial from the long exercise of power, and seated in the chair of supremest dignity—would make sweeping changes; might reduce their authority to a shadow, and elevate himself to perpetual dictatorship; and thus, by substituting imperialism for aristocracy, subvert the Constitution. That is evidently what Cicero feared, as appears in his letters to Atticus. That is what all the leading Senators feared, especially Cato. It was known that Caesar—although urbane, merciful, enlightened, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... to surrender their property; the poor were unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth." ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... afflicted. Nouns are wedded to obedient adjectives, adverbs to their willing verbs, by the lawful mediation of the recognized authorities of punctuation, the illegitimate and licentious disregard of which, as recklessly manifested in "It is Never too Late to Mend," indicated a disposition to entirely subvert the established morals of the language. It is pleasant to see how unreservedly Mr. Reade has abandoned his functions as apostle of grammatical free-love. Of tricks of typography there are also fewer, although these yet remain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... sleepy quarters; and we may forget the stories and the play-grounds of our boyhood. But we have some possessions that not even the infuriate zeal of builders can utterly abolish and destroy. Nothing can abolish the hills, unless it be a cataclysm of nature, which shall subvert Edinburgh Castle itself and lay all her florid structures in the dust. And as long as we have the hills and the Firth, we have a famous heritage to leave our children. Our windows, at no expense to us, are mostly artfully stained to represent a landscape. And when the Spring comes round, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of its own being. But imaginations differ. That of Berlioz, for example, was quite a new phenomenon; and as for the working principles of musical composition, they are as much subject to modification as any other form of human experimentation. Berlioz, himself, says that he never intended to subvert the laws of music, only to make a new and individual use of them. As he was no abstract maker of music, his autobiography—one of the most fascinating in the history of art, only to be compared with that of Benvenuto Cellini—should be familiar to all who would penetrate the secrets ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... dissuade him from changing his Ministry and trying a coup d'etat, that the King has always been in his heart averse to a Constitution, and has now got it into his head that there is a settled design to subvert the royal authority, in which idea he is confirmed by those about him, 'son petit entourage.' He anticipates nothing but disaster to the King and disorder in the country from these violent measures, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... that hotel so celebrated, not only for the efforts made by its coterie towards refining the manners and morals of her day, but the language also, until the affectation to which its members carried their notions of purity, exposed them to a ridicule that tended to subvert the influence they had previously exercised ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... has brought upon us. It has been decided in certain councils—whose decrees are seldom gainsaid—that an example shall be made of Captain Gorman O'Shea, and that no effort shall be spared to make his case a terror and a warning to Irish landowners; how they attempt by ancient process of law to subvert the concessions we have ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... There is a deadly antagonism between itself and free speech. Where the one exists the other cannot. The vitality of the one rests in pure force, and force and reason never agree. It always has been, and always will be, that force must either suppress reason or reason will subvert force. One of the first acts of the slavery propagandists in Kansas was to pass enactments through their spurious Legislature, making it a felony, punishable by imprisonment and hard labor, for ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... bravery and blood of the South as of the North, and how then was the North to deprive the South of its joint ownership of them without destroying the federal equality of the two halves of the Union? What was it but to subvert the Union ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... here, as in many others cases, I am content to abide with him. In Bromage v. Genning, a prohibition was sought in the Kings' Bench against a suit in the marches of Wales for the specific performance of a covenant to grant a lease, and Coke said that it would subvert the intention of the covenantor, since he intends it to be at his election either to lose the damages or to make the lease. Sergeant Harra for the plaintiff confessed that he moved the matter against his conscience, and a prohibition ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. A very practical application of the compact theory was made in the English Revolution of 1688, when in order to avoid the embarrassment of deposing the king, the convention of the Parliament adopted the resolution: "That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom, by breaking the original Contract between King and People, and having, by the advice of Jesuits, and other wicked persons, violated the fundamental Laws, and withdrawn ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... might be the monarchy lately restored, it required that great man and a combination of these great social powers to subvert it. Stupefied and intimidated, France left events to their course, without opposition or confidence. Napoleon adopted this opinion, with his admirable penetration:—"They allowed me to arrive," he said to Count Mollien, "as they permitted the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the philosophy of Plato possesses this preeminence; that its dignity and sublimity are unrivaled; that it is the parent of all that ennobles man; and, that it is founded on principles, which neither time can obliterate, nor sophistry subvert, is the principal design of ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... ruins of the palace of Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument of the Gothic conflagration. Yet a contemporary historian has observed that fire could scarcely consume the enormous beams of solid brass, and that the strength of man was insufficient to subvert the foundations of ancient structures. Some truth may possibly be concealed in his devout assertion that the wrath of Heaven supplied the imperfections of hostile rage, and that the proud Forum of Rome, decorated with the statues of so many gods and heroes, was leveled ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... the recovery of damages. Commercial treaties cannot cover all our missionary enterprises. Confusion of ideas here has confounded a good many fine plans and zealous men. It is a tremendous begging of the whole question to insist on the nation's protection of the men who are to subvert the national faith. Property rights and preaching rights get closely entwined, and it is difficult to untangle them at times, but the distinction is definite and the difference often fundamental. By confusing ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... clergy and the Magistrate presented the archbishop with a remonstrance. Hermann replied by sending Melancthon to support Bucer at Bonn, and thus, by entrusting the work of reform to men whose sole aim was to subvert Catholic doctrine and to disorganise Christian society, proved himself faithless to the solemn promise he had made neither to introduce religious novelties into his diocese, nor to abolish customs founded ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... words of Washington, who in his Farewell Address, after remarking that "of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports," adds, "In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them." "And let us," he further adds, "with caution indulge ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett

... arbitrate between the affirmations of the Conservatives, on the one hand, that the animus of the opposition was a spirit of disloyalty toward the Government, an unprincipled and unconstitutional striving to subvert the foundations of royalty, and introduce a substantially democratic form of government, and the complaints of the opposition, on the other hand, that the ministry was trying to domineer over the House of Delegates, and reduce ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the dust," continued Mr. Chipperton,—"I would ask them, I say, how they could think of all this, and then deliberately subvert, at the behest of a young and giddy colored hireling, the structure we had upraised. And what could they have said to that, I would like to know?" he asked, looking around from one ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... patches were then incorporated into a pair of programs called 'Robin Hood' and 'Friar Tuck'. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were designed to run as 'ghost jobs' (daemons, in UNIX terminology); they would use the existing loophole to subvert system security, install the necessary patches, and then keep an eye on one another's statuses in order to keep the system operator (in effect, the superuser) ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... experience; and the French, being taught by the revolutionists to look for that relief from changes of government which such changes cannot afford, now expect that the restoration of the monarchy will produce plenty, as they were before persuaded that the first efforts to subvert it would ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... one fact to be stated here, which harmonises ill with such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdroeckh made like other men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that no pilgrim could now ask him: Watchman, what of the Night? Professor Teufelsdroeckh, be it known is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... submission of the country to his rule for a brief period, but not so at the present crisis of Mexican affairs. A civil war has been raging for some time throughout the Republic between the central Government at the City of Mexico, which has endeavored to subvert the constitution last framed by military power, and those who maintain the authority of that constitution. The antagonist parties each hold possession of different States of the Republic, and the fortunes of the war are constantly changing. Meanwhile the most ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... not something to preach of which he can say, 'If any man makes it his business to subvert this, let him be anathema,' he has no gospel at all."—Denny, in "The ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... government, far from gaining additional vigour, are, on the contrary, enfeebled by being intrusted to one hand, what arguments can be used for allowing to the will of a single being a weight which, as history shows, will subvert that of the whole body politic? And this brings me to my grand objection to monarchy, which is drawn from (THE ETERNAL NATURE OF MAN.) The office of king is a trial to which human virtue is not equal. Pure and universal representation, by which alone ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... Once they had submitted, their power was gone. Abdullah reduced their forces to a personal escort of fifty men each, deprived them of their flags and their war-drums—the emblems of royalty—and they became for the future the useful supporters of a Government they were unable to subvert. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... The Houses at Dublin were themselves occupied in a similar manner. Towards the end of February articles of impeachment were drawn up against the Lord Chancellor, Bolton, Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, Chief-Justice Lowther, and Sir George Radcliffe, for conspiring with Strafford to subvert the constitution, and laws, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government. In March, the King's letter for the continuance of Parliament was laid before the Commons, and on the 3rd of April, his further ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Philosophy—and all creeds of Religion,—who seems to have no power of retaining an opinion,—no trust in the principles which he defends,—but who fluctuates from theory to theory, according as he is impelled by vanity, envy, or diseased desire of change,—and who, while he would subvert and scatter into dust those structures of knowledge, reared by the wise men of this and other generations, has nothing to erect in their room but the baseless and air-built fabrics ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... that impeached the great genius of this Inn, Francis Bacon, Sandys advocated the then novel proposition that accused prisoners should have the right to be represented by counsel, to which the strange objection was made that it would subvert the administration of justice. As early as 1613, he had boldly declared in Parliament that even the King's authority rested upon the clear understanding that there were reciprocal conditions which neither ruler nor subject could ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... Washington was the Atlas whose broad shoulders bore up the Federalists. Bache, of the Aurora, with whom Jefferson's word was law, and Freneau, of the Gazette, who had received from Jefferson a clerkship in the Department of State, accused the General of a desire to subvert the Constitution: the reserve of his manners was said to proceed from an affectation of royalty; they even ventured to charge him with perverting the public money. Jefferson refused to check these base attacks, and wrote in the same vein himself in the famous letter to Mazzei. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... and received the assurance of its return. By means of this exercise my resolution daily grew stronger, until at last I had piled together such a mass of obstinacy as it would have taken a cataclysm of nature to subvert. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... which cannot be got rid of quickly, and against which any of us who have got sense, decency, and instruction have need to watch. That these degraded fellow-men could really get the mastery in a persistent disobedience to the laws and in a struggle to subvert order, I do not believe; but wretched calamities must come from the very beginning of such a struggle, and the continuance of it would be a civil war, in which the inspiration on both sides might soon cease to be even a false notion of good, and might become the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... aroused the watchful Rover, who trotted around swiftly to know what was the matter. But Annie had made friends with Rover long ago, by stealing to his kennel door and feeding him, and she had now but to say "Rover" in her melodious voice, and throw her arms around his neck, to completely subvert his morals. ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... that dismal experiment indifferently termed "making the best of both worlds," and "serving God and Mammon "—in view of all these things, I cannot think it is anything worse than a locally-seated and curable ignorance which makes men eager to subvert a human equality, self-evident as human variety, and impregnable as any mathematical axiom. And this special brand of ignorance is even more rampant amongst those educated asses who can read Kikero in the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy



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