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Unprovoked   /ˌənprəvˈoʊkt/   Listen
Unprovoked

adjective
1.
Occurring without motivation or provocation.  Synonyms: motiveless, wanton.  "Unprovoked and dastardly attack"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unprovoked" Quotes from Famous Books



... first president of that union; now it was question after question regarding Dr. Franklin's reception in America on his return from France and release from his arduous duties and the vexatious persecutions to which he had been subjected by his former colleagues—the most outrageous and unprovoked that ever man suffered—and there were endless inquiries about personal, friends, about the currency in America, and about the feeling of security and tranquillity of ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... with the juniors of Welch's. The debt was of long standing, having begun as far back as the middle of the Lent term, when the Welchers had played upon some of Parrett's with a hose from behind their own door, and culminating in the unprovoked outrage upon the luckless Parson on ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... joined the first rush. His blood pounded in his veins at the unprovoked brutality. For a hasty moment he visioned the commencement of the revolt. But as the mob retreated before the weapons, his brain cooled. The time was not ripe yet. It would be pure slaughter. ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... the subjects of Lobengula and of his predecessor, Mosilikatze, 'the lion,' to attack with every cruelty conceivable, raiding their cattle, slaughtering their men, and sweeping their maidens and young children into captivity. Terrified, half exterminated indeed, as they were by these constant and unprovoked onslaughts, the Mashonas welcomed with delight the occupation of their country by white men, and thankfully placed themselves under the protection of the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... accustomed thing for a grizzly to make an unprovoked attack. He has done it many times, in the history of the west, but usually he is glad enough to turn aside, only launching into his terrible death-charge when a mortal wound obliterates his fear of man, leaving only his fear of ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... privacy about what I have promised the Government here. I have promised to propose to the Senate a supplement in which we shall agree, subject to the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to come immediately to the assistance of France in case of unprovoked attack by Germany, thus merely hastening the action to which we should be bound by the Government of the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... merely because everybody knows them; if my list were quite complete, they would have been in it. But the reader will find Gilbert, the great precursor of sound magnetical theory; and several others on whom no censure can be cast, though some of their paradoxes are inadmissible, {7} some unprovoked, and some capital jokes, true or false: the author of Vestiges of Creation is an instance. I expect that my old correspondent, General Perronet Thompson, will admit that his geometry is part and parcel of my plan; and also that, if that plan ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... natural butts for Barker's craving ill-nature, and for a time he had been tremendously bullied. But gradually his mental superiority asserted itself. He took everything without tears and without passion, and this diminished the pleasure of annoying him. One day when Barker had given him an unprovoked kick, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... this unprovoked assault, the crew wished to attack the hostile natives, but Drake ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... Europe. My daughter will for the first time appear in the splendour and publicity becoming the approaching nuptials of the presumptive heiress of this empire. This season your Royal Highness has chosen for treating me with great and unprovoked indignity; and of all his Majesty's subjects, I alone am prevented by your Royal Highness from appearing in my place, to partake of the general joy, and am deprived of the indulgence of those feelings of pride and affection permitted to every ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... waking dreamer was on the borderland of sleep, and Mrs. Burr's image crossed it with her and became a real dream, and whistled the tune the boy had whistled to Farmer Jones's Bull. And into that dream came, suddenly and unprovoked, her sister Phoebe of old, beautiful and fresh as violets in April, and ended a tale of how she would have none of Ralph Daverill, come what might, by saying, "Why, you are all in the dark, and the fire's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... Militia's disobedience of Orders,—had they retreated without a very extraordinary miracle the Loyalists would have fallen a prey to their unmerciful yet unprovoked Enemies. ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones

... and the principals exchanged several shots without injury to either party. This duel, like the preceding, originated with the Frenchman, who insulted the Englishman at the Theatre Francais in the most unprovoked manner. At the present day our fiery neighbours are much more amenable to reason, and if you are but civil, they will be civil to you; duels consequently are of rare occurrence. Let us hope that the frequency ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... afflicted with either an incorrigible disposition, or else is afflicted with insanity, either temporary or permanent. I know of no instance on record wherein a normal elephant with a healthy mind has been guilty of unprovoked homicide, or even of attempting it. I have never heard of an elephant in India so much as kicking, striking or otherwise injuring either human beings or other domestic animals. There have been several instances, however, of persons ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... have told me of similar experiences, and never have I heard of one instance of unprovoked attack upon a sleeping person by a bear, or for that matter by any other of the large carnivorae of this country. Only one authentic instance of a bear feeding on human flesh have I known, and that ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... intelligent face and frank and courteous manners, shrewd and able in conversation on the business in hand. At the durbar on the 22nd of July 1880, Abbdur Rahman was officially recognized as amir, granted assistance in arms and money, and promised, in case of unprovoked foreign aggression, such further aid as might be necessary to repel it, provided that he followed British advice in regard to his external relations. The evacuation of Afghanistan was settled on the terms proposed, and in 1881 the British troops also made over Kandahar to the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... feelings with reference to the speech were freely expressed to his friend, Mr. Everett, the evening succeeding Mr. Hayne's closing speech. He regarded the speech as an entirely unprovoked attack on the North, and what was of far more importance, as an exposition of politics in which Mr. Webster's opinion went far to change the form of government from that which was established by the constitution ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... of Aggression," I replied. "Its mottoes are, 'Stop trouble before it starts,' and, 'If we have to fight, let's do it on the other fellow's real estate.' But this situation is just a little too delicate for literal application of those principles. An unprovoked attack on the z'Srauff would set every other non-human race in the galaxy against us.... Would an attack by the z'Srauff on New ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... suffering of refugees driven by necessity from captured towns, starvation through no fault of the invader, the accidental wounding of noncombatant peasants, farmers, etc. For the present purpose the word is intended to include all cases of unnecessary, unprovoked personal cruelty, as well as, of course, the outraging of women. Such acts, for example, as the reported gouging-out of the eyes of prisoners, cutting off the wrists of children, the alleged stabbing of old women, cutting off the wrists and ears of nurses, and ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... the insurrection at Mooltan long since had founded, that there will be no peace for India, nor any stability of Government in the Punjab, nor any release from anxiety and costly defensive preparations on our frontier, unless the British Government, justly indignant at the unprovoked and treacherous aggression once again committed against them by the Sikhs, shall now effectually provide against future dangers by subverting for ever the Dynasty of the Sings, by converting the Punjab into a British province, and by adopting the only measure which will ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie's unprovoked goodness was prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the caving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... Lucy too well to attach any importance to her misrepresentations,' said Mr. Kendal, turning to Mrs. Meadows, 'but I know not what amends she can make for this most unprovoked slander. Speak, Lucy, have you no apology ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... proved significant reading, and confirmed the fears that he had been trying to shake off. Mr. Ap Dave, the Chancellor, whose lively controversial style endeared him to his supporters and embittered him, politically speaking, to his opponents, had risen in his place to make an unprovoked apology for having alluded in a recent speech to certain protesting taxpayers as "skulkers." He had realized on reflection that they were in all probability perfectly honest in their inability to ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... seethed in her brain: "If even you had been a widow," he had said. "A widow?" ... Ever to the same word her thoughts returned—"a widow." What if he were to die now? If only...! Then she thought of the bitten hand. Was it not more than likely that the dog was mad when, unprovoked, it bit a man? And if it were mad ... But assuredly it was mad! She would ask old Elspeth. Who so wise as Elspeth, who so skilled as she in the treatment of wounds? And if she could cure wounds, why ... perhaps...! ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... the fact was pretended. Were the duchess(15) and her daughters silent on so scandalous an insinuation? Agrippina would scarce have heard it with patience. Moriar modo imperet! said that empress, in her wild wish of crowning her son: but had he, unprovoked, aspersed her honour in the open forum, would the mother have submitted to so unnatural an insult? In Richard's case the imputation was beyond measure atrocious and absurd. What! taint the fame of his mother to pave his way to the crown! Who had heard of her guilt? And if guilty, how came ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of unprovoked aggression? All faces in Europe are illuminated with smiles of prosperous malice. It is a painful preeminence which England occupies—hard to keep, dangerous to forfeit. Hit, and a million of hearts are tainted with jealousy; fail, and a million revel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... of affairs, in May, 1845, the civil war broke out. The Christians attacked the Druses in several districts on the same day. The attack was unprovoked, and eventually unsuccessful. Twenty villages were seen burning at the same time from Beiroot. The Druses repulsed the Christians and punished them sharply; the Turkish troops, at the instigation of the European authorities, marched into the mountain and vigorously interfered. The Maronites ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... old gentleman, speaking like a gentleman, 'my name, sir, is Brownlow. Permit me to inquire the name of the magistrate who offers a gratuitous and unprovoked insult to a respectable person, under the protection of the bench.' Saying this, Mr. Brownlow looked around the office as if in search of some person who would ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... be mad, utterly and positively mad!" exclaimed Colonel Delmar; "I regret very much that he has ever come here. I know that some years ago, when he was younger, he fought two or three duels rather than make an apology; but in this instance it was so unprovoked, and I had hoped that he had got over all that nonsense and obstinacy. Are you a good shot, Keene? because he is a ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... latter sets before our eyes the venerable figures of a Soranus and a Thrasea, intrepid in their fate, and only moved by the melting sorrows of their friends and kindred. What sympathy then touches every human heart! What indignation against the tyrant, whose causeless fear or unprovoked malice gave rise to ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... to its origin and motives, and to drag the people of the loyal States down from the national position they had instinctively taken to the old level of party squabbles and antipathies. The wholly unprovoked rebellion of an oligarchy proclaiming negro slavery the corner-stone of free institutions, and in the first flush of over-hasty confidence venturing to parade the logical sequence of their leading dogma, "that slavery is right in principle, and has nothing to do with difference of complexion," ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... This unprovoked attack on their unresisting and unoffending guest brought the rich blood to the very temples of Miss Howard, who rose, and addressed herself to her kinsman, with a manner that could not easily be mistaken any more ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... week's journey of their destination, they were turned off their course, and were more than six weeks in reaching it. Added to this, and running through the whole journey, was the incessant and determined, although unprovoked, hostility of the natives, which, but for the unceasing vigilence and prompt and daring action of the Brothers, might have eventually compassed the annihilation of the whole party. Had Leichhardt used the same vigilance and ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... fire at this unprovoked outrage, and lent the fellow a dig in the ribs that gave him to understand the young lady had a protector. My chap was about my own age and weight, and he surveyed me a minute with a species of contempt, and ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... an auspicious beginning for a long night-drive. And though for a while all things seemed to be going about as well as I could wish, there remained a nervousness which, slight though it seemed while unprovoked, yet tinged every motion of the horses and even my own state of mind. Still, while we were going west, and later, north into the one-third-way town, the drive was one of the most marvellously beautiful ones that I had had during that winter ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... at Villanow, but always with the same issue: she smiles and refuses; and Thaddeus 'shakes his ambrosial curls' with a 'very god-like frown' of denial; I hope it is self-denial, in compliment to his mother's cruel and unprovoked negative. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... best man in the world, this remark stirred the women up to a degree of wrath which no amount of abuse leveled against themselves would have aroused. On the other hand, the Atlanta people, even those who were not in favor of suffrage, felt mortified by this unprovoked insult to their guests, and many of them took occasion in private to express their regret. Several speakers at the convention criticised Dr. Hawthorne's utterances, and every such allusion was received with warm ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... creed. He regarded England as the chief abettor of heresy in the world, and therefore would have rejoiced over her downfall; this was the common feeling of his party. So far as his animosity was connected with race and nationality, it was not unprovoked. The English people cherished deep prejudices against Ireland and the whole Celtic race; and the English newspapers frequently discussed the universal claims of the Anglo-Saxon to dominancy, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Evans, better known as "Young Dutch Sam," a pugilist, was brought before Mr. Conant, charged with having committed an unprovoked and violent assault on policeman Mackenzie, C 182, and Lord Waldegrave was also charged with attempting to rescue ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... say that I have been for the last four months going about in my little Ship as in former years, and now am about to lay up her, and myself, for the Winter. The only Friend I hear from is Donne, who volunteers a Letter unprovoked sometimes. Old Spedding gives an unwilling Reply about thrice in two years. You speak when spoken to; so does Thompson, in general: I shall soon ask of him what he has been ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... drunken Englishman, an officer of the Indian army, I am sorry to say, beat several natives of Cairo, with whom he happened to come in contact in the crowd, in the most brutal and unprovoked manner, and yet no notice was taken, and no complaint made. It was certainly something very unexpected to me to see a Frank Christian maltreating the Moslem inhabitants of a Moslem city in which he was a stranger, and I regretted exceedingly that the perpetrator of acts, which brought disgrace upon ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... be,—for there you fancy yourself safe from the blow of a skull-cracker, hurled by an unseen hand on watch under a gateway. The police make themselves conspicuous here by their absence; 'tis a fit spot for midnight murder and robbery—unprovoked, unpunished. Honest tradesmen may reside here, but not from choice; they are bound to ignore street rows; lending a helping hand to a victim would cause them to receive, on the morrow, a ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was, that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order I was conscious of a certain trepidation as to the possibility—nay, likelihood—of this encounter ending in some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be explained, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... Government, that I was present on Thursday at Ennistymon, when Mr. Wynne, an inspecting officer of the Board of Works, gave my colleague, Mr. O'Brien, in the presence of several magistrates and gentlemen assembled at the Ennistymon Relief Committee, the most unprovoked insult, by stating that he treated what Mr. O'Brien said with utter contempt, although Mr. O'Brien merely observed that certain letters containing what we all believed to be unfounded charges against the Liscannor Committee, afforded ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... and woo. Yet he asked as though none could refuse, and his prayer presumed a favourable answer. Barbara listened in quiet; I could not tell whether fear alone bound her, or whether the soft courtly voice bred fascination also. I was half-mad that I could not hear, and had much ado not to rush out, unprovoked, and defy the man before whom my master had bowed almost to ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... general anxiety. We are admonished by recent events that we have not yet reached the termination of our toils and embarrassments, and they have awakened the painful apprehension that our just rights may not be secured by honorable negotiation or patient submission to unprovoked injuries. These considerations, in the opinion of your committee, call loudly for the interposition of the General Government, and require at their hands all needful preparation for possible contingencies. The late Governor Lincoln nearly ten years since called the attention of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... indeed, there was no lack. Not only had every sovereign to defend himself against the enemies in his own house but external politics seemed based on the maxim that it is the duty of a powerful ruler to increase his territory by direct and unprovoked attacks on his neighbours. There is hardly a king of eminence who did not expand his power in this way, and the usual history of a royal house is successful aggression followed by collapse when weaker hands were ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... turns to bay, gave intimation that his patience was failing. "Madam," he said, "I have been much to blame—more than even your just resentment has expressed. Yet, madam, let me say that my guilt, if it be unpardonable, was not unprovoked, and that if beauty and condescending dignity could seduce the frail heart of a human being, I might plead both as the causes of my concealing ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... tampering with. There arose from before him the curtains of boyhood, and he saw for the first time the ambiguous face of woman as she is. In vain he looked back over the interview; he saw not where he had offended. It seemed unprovoked, a wilful convulsion of brute nature. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... raid was both justifiable and necessary to the village in which a death had occurred, it was considered an unprovoked attack by the raided settlement; a challenge and an insult which had to be avenged. Thus feuds were established, some of which ran through many years, and resulted in considerable loss of life. A town, which had lost to another a greater number of heads than they had secured, ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... this might be only a private marauding party, I refused to admit the soldiers; and saw them depart, swearing to return next day with a stronger force, and storm the castle. To be ascertained of their commission, and to appeal against such unprovoked tyranny, should it be true, I ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... suspect? Be calm now; don't speak in a passion. You are a witness, sir,—a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical—but whom do you suspect, I say?" Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered, "I hear as how the two Papishers slept at ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... inveteracy, a darkness, a design and cunning in his character that stamp him for a very unamiable young man: it is uncommon for a heart to be so tainted so early My cousin's(1332) affair is entirely owing to him;(1333) nor can I account for the pursuit of such unprovoked revenge. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... among the grass. Here was a strange grandchild for the warriors that followed or faced Kamehameha. I give the singular instance as the more explicit; but the whole race must have been stricken at the moment with a similar weakness. No man dare say of this revolution that it was unprovoked; but its means were treachery and violence; the numbers and position of those engaged made the design one of the most insolent in history; and a mere modicum of native boldness and cohesion must have brought it to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... joke played at their own expense, and that those whose staple of conversation is banter or "chaff" become irascible the moment they are flicked with their own whip. For years Wagner had been the victim of unprovoked personal attacks in the Jew-controlled press, and some of the worst of these can be traced to Jew scribblers. Yet on the publication of Judaism in Music in the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik, a wail went up from these journalistic descendants of Elijah; and several prominent Jew musicians signed ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... makes it the more unpardonable, as it is not the result of sudden passion, but of an indulged and slowly-meditating ill-nature. What a merry mixed mortal has nature made you, that can debase that strength and excellence of genius to the lowest human weakness, that of offering unprovoked injuries, at the hazard of your being ridiculous too, when the venom you spit falls short of your aim!" I have quoted largely, to show that Cibber was capable of exerting a dignified remonstrance, as well as pointing the lightest, yet keenest, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... against the Imperial Government, the emigrants dwelt largely upon the devastation of the eastern districts by the Kaffirs' inroad of December, 1834, which was certainly unprovoked by the colonists. Yet Lord Glenelg, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, justified the Kaffirs, and not only refused to punish them, but actually gave them a large slip of land, including the dense jungles along ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... damp on the enterprise. The dread of the Macedonian power induced the league to court the alliance of the Kings of Egypt and Syria, who, as successors of Alexander, were rivals of the king of Macedon. This policy was defeated by Cleomenes, king of Sparta, who was led by his ambition to make an unprovoked attack on his neighbors, the Achaeans, and who, as an enemy to Macedon, had interest enough with the Egyptian and Syrian princes to effect a breach of their engagements with the league. The Achaeans were now reduced to the dilemma of submitting ...
— The Federalist Papers

... of Attainder, passed in a fit of servility or animosity, had, when fortune had changed, or when passion had cooled, been repealed and solemnly stigmatized as unjust. Thus, in old times, the Act which was passed against Roger Mortimer, in the paroxysm of a resentment not unprovoked, had been, at a calmer moment, rescinded on the ground that, however guilty he might have been, he had not had fair play for his life. Thus, within the memory of the existing generation, the law which attainted Strafford ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... are; they are uneducated, and so are you. This is no fault in either; but it might teach you to pay a little more respect to those who are possessed of superior advantages. But, Mrs. R—-, my helps, as you call them, are civil and obliging, and never make unprovoked and malicious speeches. If they could so far forget themselves, I should order them ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... Canada, unprovoked by Dissent, was altogether free from the stain of religious persecution: hopelessly fettered in the chains of metropolitan power, she was also undisturbed by political agitation. But this calm was more the stillness of stagnation than ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... quite as wanton and unprovoked as Warrington's, and Bartholomew's foe was relatively to himself even less powerful; moreover, while the Peacock's crew showed great skill in handling their guns, the crew of the Erebus most emphatically did not. The intent in both cases was equally bad, only ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... or Utility[19]). This is shown by the fact that our approbation is not in proportion to the amount of happiness flowing from an action [he means immediately flowing, which does not decide the question]. We disapprove of falsehood, injustice, and unprovoked violence, even although more happiness would result from them than from the contrary. Moreover, we are not always judges of the whole consequences of acting. Undoubtedly, however, benevolence is our duty, if there be no ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... omitted to inform us that the first acquaintance of the Iroquois with triese colonists was through two most wanton and butcherly assaults which Champlain and his soldiers, in company with their Indian allies, made upon their unoffending neighbors. No milder epithets can justly describe these unprovoked invasions, in which the Iroquois bowmen, defending their homes, were shot down mercilessly with firearms, by strangers whom they had never before seen or perhaps even heard of. This stroke of evil policy, ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king's body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... at how light an estimate the poor creatures were generally rated by their white brethren. My claim on their attachment consisted in nothing more than the performance of a bounden duty in sheltering for a few weeks one of their number who had, in a most unprovoked and cruel manner, been wounded by a party of our soldiers and left to perish in ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... can be stretched without sinking into cowardice, or plunging into credulity. This, my friends, I conceive to be your situation. Hurried to the very verge of both, another step would ruin you for ever. To be tame and unprovoked when injuries press hard upon you, is more than weakness; but to look up for kinder usage without one manly effort of your own, would fix your character, and show the world how richly you deserve those chains you broke. To guard against this evil, let us take a review of the ground upon which we ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... relief. Blake, who had received secret orders from the council, gave chase; the whole squadron was captured, and the next day[c] Dunkirk opened its gates.[2] By the French court this action was pronounced an unprovoked and unjustifiable injury; but Mazarin coolly calculated the probable consequences of a war, and, after some time, sent[d] over Bordeaux, under the pretence of claiming the captured ships, but in reality to oppose the intrigues of the agents of Spain, of the prince of Conde, and of ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... unprovoked attack meet with its just punishment and at the same time taught us a useful lesson to be more cautious in future. With respect to the size of these natives they are much the same as at Sydney, their understanding better though, ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... had been accorded only since France had become involved in war with Great Britain. The principle was utterly illegal and extremely injurious. Mr. Adams, in his first resolution, stigmatized it "as an unprovoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of these United States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroachment upon their national independence." By his second resolution, the President was requested to demand and insist upon the restoration of property seized under ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... character, but his mind was too full, fertile, and fond of real knowledge to take much pleasure in the generally barren occupation of gainsaying other men. But at this point in his life he made an exception, and an unprovoked exception. When he wrote his famous vindication of the first volume of the Decline and Fall he was acting in self-defence, and repelling savage attacks upon his historical veracity. But in his Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... but?" says Tardieu. "Sceller la garantie offerte, mais y ajouter l'occupation." Outside the Versailles Treaty the United States and Great Britain had made several treaties of alliance with France for the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany. Later on the French-English Treaty was approved by the House of Commons, the French-American underwent the same fate as the Versailles Treaty. But the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on account of the provision ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... public disgust make the author feel, in the midst of the little circle of flatterers that remains to him, what an insight he has given into the guilt of satire before maturity, before experience, before knowledge; if the original unprovoked intruder upon the peace of others be thus taught a love of privacy and a facility of retraction; if Turnus have found ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... and densely-wooded part of the island, far removed from those portions which we have yet had occasion to describe, a band of fiendish-looking men were making arrangements for one of those unprovoked assaults which savages are so prone to make on ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... The viceroy was taken a prisoner to India, whence he never returned. As though ashamed to enter upon a second unprovoked and unjust war alone, she invited France, Russia, and America to join her. France was quite ready to do so in the hope of strengthening her position in Indo-China, and with nothing more than the murder ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... whites that those of my own country pointed at me as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of the white man.' I had even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... some from choice, and some from necessity. That against the Catti [810] was unprovoked, but that against the Sarmatians was necessary; an entire legion, with its commander, having been cut off by them. He sent two expeditions against the Dacians; the first upon the defeat of Oppius Sabinus, a man of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... of Sir Lister re-visit his departed property, one might ask, What reception might you meet with, Sir Lister, in 1770, among your venerable ancestors in the shades, for barring, unprovoked, an infant heiress of 7000l. a year, and giving it, unsolicited, to a stranger? Perhaps you experience repeated buffetings; a sturdy figure, with iron aspect, would be apt to accost you—"I with nervous arm, and many a bended back, drew ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... There are days which, to imaginative minds, at least, possess strangely human qualities. Their atmospheres predispose people to crime or virtue, to the calm of good will, to sneaking vice, or fierce, unprovoked aggression. The day was of the last description. A beast, or a human being in whose veins coursed undisciplined blood, might, as involuntarily as the boughs of trees lash before storms, perform wild and wicked deeds after inhaling ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... probably right on both. He lays stress on the expediency of judging the Comparini by the morals of their class, and Count Guido by the peculiarities of his own nature; admits the punishment of the wife and parents to have been excessive, and cannot admit it to have been unprovoked; does not pretend to decide between the conflicting statements, and does not consider that Pompilia's dying confession throws much light upon them; seeing that it may be equally true, or false, or neutralized by another reserved for the priest's ear. Does not regard ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... for some time on his proposal; I was reluctant to mark the first approach of civilized man to this country of a savage race by an unprovoked act of pillage and robbery; yet we were now in the desert, on the point of perishing for want of food, the pangs of hunger gnawing us even in our very sleep, and with the means of temporary relief at hand. I asked myself if I should be acting justly ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... Major Jamieson said. "There are many no older, both in the ranks and as officers. Men in Sweden of all ages and of all ranks are joining, for this unprovoked attack, on the part of Poland, has raised the national spirit to boiling heat. The chief difficulty is their and your ignorance of the language. Were it not for that, I could obtain, from the minister of war, commissions for ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... state himself. In 684 the Irish coasts were devastated, and even the churches pillaged, by the soldiers of Egfrid, the Saxon King of Northumbria. Venerable Bede attributes his subsequent defeat and death, when fighting against the Picts, to the judgment of God, justly merited by these unprovoked outrages on a nation which had always been most friendly to the English (nationi Anglorum ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... this being as it escapes or separates from the vessel. That it has departed is argued from the fact that the vase when cracked or fragmentary never resounds as it did when whole. This vague existence never cries out violently unprovoked; but it is supposed to acquire the power of doing so by imitation; hence, no one sings, whistles, or makes other strange or musical sounds resembling those of earthenware under the circumstances above described during the smoothing, polishing, painting, or other ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing

... had never forgiven the formidable and unprovoked invasion of their country by Kublai Khan. The Japanese are by nature a military nation, and the Chinese writers themselves describe them as "intrepid, inured to fatigue, despising life, and knowing well how to face death; although inferior in number a hundred ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... too should have their lesson. He would show them the savagery of which he was capable. Never again would he trust man; he was cruel and unfair. Two experiences had taught him that—first the poisoned bird and now the unprovoked attack. Hereafter he would match his cunning with the man-creatures and if necessary, it would be a battle to the bitter end. Vast as the wilderness was, it was too small to harbor both ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... hope to be able to announce something definite in the morning. The sympathy of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with us, for every known tenet of international law has been outraged by this entirely unprovoked invasion." ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... Bishop Butler, "constituted so as to condemn falsehood, unprovoked violence, injustice, and to approve of benevolence to some preferably to others, abstracted from all consideration, which conduct is likeliest to produce an overbalance of happiness or misery." [Footnote: Dissertations appended to the "Analogy," II, Of the Nature of ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... reference was made in an earlier chapter. Smollett, always irritable and combative, retorted by a needlessly coarse and venomous pamphlet, in which, under the name of "Habbakkuk Hilding, Justice, Dealer and Chapman," Fielding was attacked with indescribable brutality. Another, and seemingly unprovoked, adversary whom the Journal of the War brought upon him was Bonnel Thornton, afterwards joint-author with George Colman of the Connoisseur, who, in a production styled Have at you All; or, The Drury Lane Journal, lampooned Sir Alexander with remarkable rancour and assiduity. Mr. Lawrence ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... an impostor soliciting alms under false pretences! This is a flagrant violation of my "personal rights relating to my reputation"; and, therefore, according to the above judicial ruling of an American court, Dr. Royce is guilty of wanton and unprovoked libel against one who never injured him in ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... with difficulty repressed the indignation excited by this unprovoked attack on his meek and unresisting aunt; but as the door closed on her retiring figure, he gave way to ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the editor says, the attack made upon the "Agnes" would seem to have been altogether unprovoked by the conduct either of the captain or any of the crew; but we must not, in matters of this kind, assume that we are in possession of the whole truth, when we have heard the statement of only one of the parties. What may have been the exact nature of the offence given ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... "I've already heard it said about Matterplay, that if one sows an answer there, a rich crop of questions immediately springs up. But why do you make this unprovoked attack on me, Digrung?" ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... again when things got too bad they would toll the city bell, and the Vigilance Committee turned out and hanged the suspicious characters. A man didn't begin to be suspected in those days till he had committed at least one unprovoked murder," said a ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... orgy of osculation in the vestry, from which I escaped with nothing worse, so to speak, than a few scratches, despite an unprovoked and unexpected flank attack (when I was signing the register) from an elderly female in bugles, whom I at first took to be a rather giddy pew-opener, but who ultimately proved to be a ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... Democrats, they were now held in detestation by all Gentiles of adjoining counties, irrespective of political affiliations. The announcement of the doctrine of polygamy by the Prophet Smith had been accompanied by acts of defiance and followed by depredations, which, while not altogether unprovoked, aroused the non-Mormons to a dangerous pitch of excitement. In the midst of general disorder in Hancock County, Joseph Smith was murdered. Every deed of violence was now attributed to the Danites, as the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... she knew nothing of the claimants to either. She was a stranger, seeking only hospitality in Klosterheim, which apparently was violated by unprovoked ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... came over the soldier's face at this unprovoked demonstration of heartless cruelty was fearful, but he kept his head. "Lor' blime!" he commented to me when I came up and sympathised with him over his loss, "I could have knocked the god-damned head off the swine ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... due to the rains. This calamity is not the work of the unprovoked fury of the angry elements. This fair town and the populous valley above it, all the varied industries of this thriving city, all these precious lives are a sacrifice to the selfishness of a few men whose purses were bigger than ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Crespal, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge; I have sought it; ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... kindred tribes, are strangers to the calamities of war, and are consequently a peaceful, harmless people; yet they cherish the unprovoked enmity of their race towards the poor Esquimaux, whom they never fail to attack, when an opportunity offers of doing so with impunity. Our presence, however, has had the effect of establishing a more friendly intercourse ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... nearly as strong, and in character, had not at all become subdued. Upon drawing near to the source of this river, they discovered that the main village of these savages, their old foes, was in close proximity. This was pleasing intelligence to the trappers. They had suffered too many unprovoked insults at their hands not to desire the avenging of their wrongs and to punish them by way of retaliation. During the whole winter, and, in fact, from the time the party was first organized, they had anxiously abided their opportunity to meet and punish the rascally Blackfeet warriors. The old ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... encampment was found in the neighbourhood, near a small freshwater swamp, and by the things that were left behind it was evident that a hasty retreat had been made. It would have been as well if we could have punished these people in some way for their unprovoked attack; but to have followed them far into the bush would have been quite useless. A comparison of their conduct with that of the natives of Shoal Bay, confirms what I have before stated of the extraordinary contrast presented by the dispositions of ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... was succeeded, in 1416 or 1417, by an unfortunate expedition into England, known as the "Foul Raid", and after the Foul Raid came the battle of Bauge. They are all part of one and the same story; although Harlaw might seem an internal complication and Bauge an act of unprovoked aggression, both are really as much part of the English war as is the Foul Raid or the battle of Bannockburn itself. The invasion of France by Henry V reminded the Scots that the English could be attacked on French soil as well as in Northumberland. ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... Ohio regiment was shot through the head and instantly killed while reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their posts below, pretty much after the fashion of boys after squirrels; ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... invitation, our friend Sprightly, indignant at this unprovoked attack of Doctor Lobelia, had, in order to disguise himself, exchanged his clerical garb for a friend's blue coatee bedizzened with metal buttons; and also had erected a very tasteful and sharp coxcomb on his head, out of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... themselves, might induce to give evidence such as was required. The Count d'Estaing had always been connected with her enemies. Bailly, once Mayor of Paris, as has been seen, had sought a base popularity by the wantonness of the unprovoked insults which he had offered to the king. Michonis knew that his head was imperiled by suspicions of his recent desire to assist her. But one and all testified to her entire innocence of the different charges which they had been brought forward to support, and to the falsehood of the statements ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... suddenly any of the sources by which their leisure and ease are furnished, rob them of the chances by which they may be influential and pre-eminent, and you do something as short-sighted as the acts of France and Spain when in jealousy and wrath, not altogether unprovoked, they drove from among them races and classes that held the traditions of handicraft and agriculture. You injure your own inheritance and the inheritance of your children. You may truly say that this which I call the common estate of society ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... replied I warmly, "although your age prevents my taking notice of the unprovoked insults you have seen fit ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... new Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is bold, high-toned, and American, but it has dark shadows; shows an inexperienced hand in diplomacy and in dealing with events. The passages about the frequent changes in Europe are unnecessary, and unprovoked by anything whatever. It is especially offensive to France, to the French people, and to Louis Napoleon. It is bosh, but in Europe they will consider it as ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... its name, and be no longer anger, but revenge; which, though the worst and most fiend-like propensity of a vicious inclination, is sometimes excited by circumstances, that seem in a great measure to alleviate the blackness of it:—repeated and unprovoked insults, friendship and love abused, injuries in our person, our fortune, or reputation, will sour the softest temper, and are apt to make us imagine it is an injustice to our selves, not to retaliate in kind, the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... "stolen the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in." These were responsible for the atrocious Mountain Meadow Massacre, in June of this same year, though the wily "Saints" had planned to place the odium of an unprovoked murder of innocent women and children upon the Indians, who had enough to answer for, and in this instance were but the tools of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young repudiated his accomplice, and allowed John D. Lee to become the scapegoat. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... apparently a much maligned race. They are exceedingly independent, and although along the frontier of their own territory in S'suchuan they wage a war of robbery and destruction it is not wholly unprovoked. No one can enter their country safely unless he is under the protection of a chief who acts as a sponsor and passes him along to others. Mr. Brooke, an Englishman, was killed by the Lolos, but he was not properly "chaperoned," and Major D'Ollone of the French ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... went to warn them. The storm broke. He was the first to fall, smitten in 'that street called Straight.' I found him soon after. Thus did he speak to me—even in these words: 'The blood of women and children shed here to-day shall cry from the ground. Unprovoked the host has turned wickedly upon his guest. The storm has been sown, and the whirlwind must be reaped. Out of this evil good shall come. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' These were his last words to me then. As his life ebbed out, he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... with fire and sword, burning churches, driving off herds and flocks, and slaughtering the clergy and the husbandmen. The piety of an after age saw in the retribution which overtook Egfrid the following year, when he was slain by the Picts and Scots, the judgment of Heaven, avenging the unprovoked wrongs of the Irish. His Scottish conquerors, returning good for evil, carried his body to Iona, where it was interred ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... above are in jeopardy, the two governments will communicate with one another fully and frankly as to the measures which should be taken to safeguard those menaced rights or interests, and will act in common in case of unprovoked attack or aggressive action, wherever arising, or the attack or aggressive action, whenever arising, on the part of any other power ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... it appears to me, can possibly do. A peace on other terms would, if I may be allowed the expression, be a peace of war. The injuries we have received from the British nation were so unprovoked, and have been so great and so many, that they can never be forgotten. Besides the feuds, the jealousies, the animosities that would ever attend a union with them; besides the importance, the advantages, which ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... follows, as a matter of course, that which is usually the whole significance of the word, the meekness which is displayed in our attitude towards men. The truly meek heart remains unprovoked amidst all provocation. Most men are like dogs that answer bark for bark, and only make night hideous and themselves hoarse thereby. But it is our business to meet evil with good; and the more we are depreciated, the more we are harmed, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... whole prosperity, and make us the victims of a theory which, even if sound, could not profess to give us one tittle more advantage than the course which we had so long pursued! We believe that if the annals of legislation were searched through, we could not find a parallel case of such wanton and unprovoked temerity! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... all, but until you reach a certain stage you do not become aware of it. It is most useful to the worthy. It springs up naturally without any thought of training. It comes unprovoked and leaves unnoticed. Just what this force is we do not know, but we do know that it is what intensifies the will in demanding just and ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont

... others of our party come to my assistance. He seemed demented, and he had acquired such strength during his exile that it was as much as four men could do to hold him down. But, notwithstanding his unprovoked attack upon me, I felt I could not abandon him again to his solitude. I therefore ordered him to be taken on board our vessel, where Hartog would be the judge of ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... shoulders, as if to silence his groans. The boy flung up his manacled hands to shield himself, and the light from a street lamp showed blood flowing where the chains had cut. The whole proceeding was so unprovoked, so sickening in its cruelty, that Kirk, who until this instant had looked upon the affair as a rather enjoyable lark, flew into a fury and, disregarding his own captors, leaped forward before the policeman could strike a third ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... hounds, would gladly have scoured the Strand, with the charitable purpose, now he saw himself so well supported, of knocking the London knaves, who had insulted him, into twiggen bottles; but he was withheld by the prudence of Julian, who, though himself extremely irritated by the unprovoked ill-usage which they had received, saw himself in a situation in which it was necessary to exercise more caution than vengeance. He prayed and pressed his father to seek some temporary place of retreat from the fury of the populace, while that prudent measure was yet in their power. The ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... and became silent. He could not understand this unprovoked aggressiveness of her attitude, and certainly was very far from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of something resembling emotion in the tone of his last words had caused that uncontrollable burst of sincerity. It completed his bewilderment, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... "Genealogy of the Macras" informs us that "the remains of a monument erected for him, in the place where he was killed, is still (1704) to be seen." Kintail was naturally much exasperated at this unprovoked raid upon his territory, as also for Macdonald's attack upon his friend and ally, Macleod of Dunvegan; and to punish Donald Gorm, he dispatched his son, Kenneth, with a force to Skye, who made ample reprisals in Macdonald's country, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... after glaring down irresolutely at his chief mate, disclosed the gloomy and cynical conviction that more than half of them had been lost overboard, "if only the truth was known," and retired to the other end of the bridge. Jukes, exasperated by this unprovoked attack, broke the needle at the second stitch, and dropping his work got up and cursed the ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... a few of her ribs is a trivial offence compared with sleeping out under the naked stars because one has not the price of a doss. The lad who steals a few pears from a wealthy railway corporation is a greater menace to society than the young brute who commits an unprovoked assault upon an old man over seventy years of age. While the young girl who takes a lodging under the pretence that she has work commits so dangerous an offence, that, were she not severely punished, she and her kind might bring the whole ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... most deeply feel. God has implanted feelings in the breast of natural parents, which peculiarly fit them to take care of their own children. No other persons can precisely take their place, and feel the same interest, the same unwearied concern—the same unprovoked temper and unchangeable love through good report and through evil report. In a word, no other persons, however good and worthy, can be natural parents. Guardians can be found, who will feel a warm interest in those children who are bright, interesting, well-behaved and pious. But ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... I regret to say, confess his blunder, but left the Reverend Mr. Withholder to remain under suspicion of having committed an unprovoked assault and battery. It was characteristic of Rocky Canyon, however, that this suspicion, far from injuring his clerical reputation, incited a respect that had been hitherto denied him. A man who could hit out straight from the shoulder had, in the language of the critics, "suthin' in him." ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... few seconds a large tigress sprang up the bank, and appeared about 20 paces in our front. Without a moment's hesitation she uttered several short roars, and upon the beautifully clean ground she bounded forward in full charge straight for Moolah Bux. I never saw a more grand but unprovoked attack. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... life. We have all known men who met with a prosperity or disaster entirely out of relation to any of their actions; men upon whom good or bad luck seemed suddenly, at a turn of the road, to spring from the ground or descend from the stars, undeserved, unprovoked, but complete and inevitable. One, we will say, who scarcely has given a thought to some appointment for which he knows his rival to be better equipped, will see this rival vanish at the decisive moment, another, who has ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... I am, sir," I said, "for my unprovoked insult to you and for forcing you to fire at me. I am ten times worse than you and more, maybe. Tell that to the person whom you hold dearest in ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... vicomte, wiping his lips. "You are all witnesses to this unprovoked assault. There can be but one result. You shall die, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... they could do but laugh with bitter irony at their fate, and with savage satire at their oppressors. With such an ancestry as this behind him, it is not to be wondered at that Disraeli's wit is scornful, and that he excelled in personal satire and invective. It was never, however, unprovoked. Disraeli never indulged in personal satire or invective except in his own defence. For example, his mockingly ironical reply to the attack of a member of the House of Commons named Roebuck, which was one of the most effective rejoinders Disraeli ever made, was in answer ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... impetuous girl of Rieti, a town which rivals Tivoli as a hot-bed of homicide,—was constantly involved in disputes with a young Jewess, who occupied the floor above Madame Ossoli. On one occasion, this Jewess offered the maid a deliberate and unprovoked insult. The girl of Rieti, snatching up a knife, ran up stairs to revenge herself after her national fashion. The porter's little daughter followed her and, running into Madame Ossoli's rooms, besought her interference. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie—making me, as a matter of course, appear in ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... garrison, and destined to carry me to Cayenne, whither I repaired by Macapa, coasting along the left of the Amazons to its mouth, without, like you, making tour of the great island of Joanes, or Marajo. After similar courtesies, unprovoked by express recommendations, what had I not to expect, seeing his Most Faithful Majesty had condescended to issue precise orders to expedite a vessel to the very frontiers of his dominions, for the purpose of receiving my ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... these, and a thousand other nameless Arts, which tis easier for her to practise than for another to express, by the Obstinacy of her Goodness and unprovoked Submission, in spight of all her Afflictions and ill Usage, Bromius is become a Man of Sense and a kind Husband, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele



Words linked to "Unprovoked" :   motiveless, unmotivated, wanton



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