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Pernicious   Listen
adjective
Pernicious  adj.  Quick; swift (to burn). (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pernicious" Quotes from Famous Books



... establishments, the administration of which was given to a kind of council called the Congregation of Charities, and the cession to the city from the royal domain of the island of Saint Christopher, to be used as a general cemetery; for until then here, as in the rest of Italy, they had the pernicious custom of interring the dead in churches. Finally the decree ordered the adoption of a new mode of lighting the beautiful square of Saint Mark, the construction of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... year by year. Even of these a certain percentage are supposed to be wilful. There is no denying that the crime of arson owes its origin entirely to the introduction of fire insurance; and there can be as little doubt that of late years it has been very much increased by the pernicious competition for business among the younger offices, which leads them to deal too leniently with their customers; or, in other words, to pay the money, and ask no questions. It is calculated that one fire in seven which occur among the small class of shopkeepers ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.

... doubtless greater power will be conceded by the States to the Federal Government. The day has gone by when the people were frightened at the bare idea of giving to the central Government the necessary power to maintain its own integrity. The pernicious doctrine of State sovereignty as paramount to the national, has in this war received its deathblow at the hands of those who have always been its most zealous supporters. The South, starting out upon the very basis of this greatest political heresy of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... union were not a source of misery to the lady, she was indebted for her tranquillity to the force of her mind. She was, indeed, governed, in every action of her life, by the precepts of duty, while her husband listened to no calls but those of pernicious dissipation. He was immersed in all the vices that grow out of opulence and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... vicious? It is much easier to make a pail of pure water foul, than it is to make a pail of foul water pure. It must not be supposed that I wish to sweep off every kind of amusement from the juvenile part of society, but I do wish to sweep off all that has a pernicious tendency. The limits which I have prescribed to myself will not allow me to enter more at large into this subject; otherwise I could produce a number of facts which would prove, most unquestionably, the propriety ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... accounted for that by saying there was a large American colony in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our pernicious ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... converse with my friends in Eternity, see visions, dream dreams, and prophesy and speak parables, unobserved, and at liberty from the doubts of other mortals: perhaps doubts proceeding from kindness; but doubts are always pernicious, especially when we doubt our friends. Christ is very decided on this point: 'He who is not with me is against me.' There is no medium or middle state; and if a man is the enemy of my spiritual life while he pretends to be the friend of my ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... be struck in honour of each little general who conquered a town—"von Emmich, conqueror of Liege," etc., a pernicious practice as each general and princeling wanted to continue the war until he could get his face on a medal—even if no one bought it. But the climax was reached when medals celebrating the sinking of the Lusitania were sold throughout Germany. ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... to a treaty which if ratified would have benefited Spain, and would have brought undreamed of evil upon the United States. Jefferson, to his credit, was very hostile to the proposition. As a statesman Jefferson stood for many ideas which in their actual working have proved pernicious to our country, but he deserves well of all Americans, in the first place because of his services to science, and in the next place, what was of far more importance, because of his steadfast friendship for the great West, and his appreciation of its ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... would have more exactly fulfilled that obligation if he had endeavored faithfully to comprehend and adopt as his own all the plans proposed by his chosen and trusted general-in-chief, guarding the latter against all possible interference, theretofore so pernicious, from the War Department or any other source. By such means the President could have actually exercised the chief command imposed upon him by the Constitution, sharing in due measure with his chief military officer the responsibilities ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... Your hand in mine is cold. Oh the pernicious woman! Oh the depths of the misery—if I were indeed to tell you all I have met with and known—which are entailed upon the race by the vanity, the folly, and the vice of women. Angels! yes, angels ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... river improvements, but the remainder was to be expended in the construction of eight railroads. A sop of $200,000 was tossed to those counties through which no canal or railroad was to pass.[61] What were prudent men to do? Should they support this bill, which they believed to be thoroughly pernicious, or incur the displeasure of their constituents by defeating this, and probably every other, project for the session? Douglas was put in a peculiarly trying position. He had opposed this "mammoth bill," but he knew his constituents ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... instincts.[3305] At another, as in the prohibition of spirituous liquors, and of animal food, it is necessary to conform to the climate prescribing a vegetable diet, or to the race-temperament for which strong drink is pernicious.[3306]At another, as in the institution of the right of first-born to inherit title and castle, it was important to prepare and designate beforehand the military commander who the tribe would obey, or the civil chieftain that would preserve the domain, superintend ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... victory for him over the King, but with the King himself, to whose sudden decision he owed its fruits—the acknowledgment of his feudal superiority. He blamed the archbishop for concealing the movements of the barons from him, and for having, perhaps, even encouraged them, though knowing their pernicious nature: with what view was he stirring questions of which no mention had been made either under the King's father or brother? He censured the barons for refusing the scutage, which had been paid from old times, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... Rousseau and others into politics was most mischievous and destructive, its place and worth in poetry are very different; because here in the region of the imagination it had the effect, without any pernicious practical consequences, of giving shape and proportion to that great idea of ensemble throughout the visible universe, which may be called the beginning and fountain of right knowledge. The conception of the ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... whiskers), forgetting his humble origin and defying all control, has dared to address to the mistress of the house a piece of poetry suggestive of the most improper sentiments; by the irregularity of its style, this letter is recognized as a direct emanation from the pernicious influence of Monsieur Rodolphe and ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... of all right doctrine, and all right conduct. A correct intuition of it leads to correct religious theories and practice; while any erroneous or defective view of the Supreme Being will pervade the whole province of religion, and exert a most pernicious influence upon the entire character and conduct ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... demands that they should wear garments manufactured in India only and eat food only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food. Lord Curzon set the fashion for tea-drinking. And that pernicious drug now bids fair to overwhelm the nation. It has already undermined the digestive apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men and women and constitutes an additional tax upon their slender purses. ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... did Pitt "blend Ireland with the industry and capital of Great Britain." Cupped by his finance she gave the venal blood of her industry to strengthen the predominant partner, and to help him to exclude for a time from these islands that pernicious French Democracy in which all states and peoples have since found redemption. Such was the first chapter in the ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... So pernicious have been the consequences resulting from the use of this "swill-milk," as it is called, in the largest city of this country, that the Legislature of the State of New York, at a recent session (1861-2), interfered in behalf of the community by making the ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... the slaves of all rebels who did not return to their allegiance by the 1st of January, 1863," and they urged upon the National Government "to use all the means that the God of battles had placed in its power against a revolt so malignant and so pernicious." Lyman Tremaine, a distinguished citizen who had been theretofore connected with the Democratic ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... insects which it can take on the wing with wonderful dexterity, it need not be wholly condemned. But as we look upon a favorite maple or fruit tree devitalized or perhaps wholly dead from its ravages, we cannot forget that this bird, while a most abstemious fruit-eater, has a pernicious and most intemperate thirst for sap. Indeed, it spends much of its time in the orchard, drilling holes into the freshest, most vigorous trees; then, when their sap begins to flow, it siphons it into an insatiable throat, stopping in its orgie only long ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimed lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... turn away His countenance in wrath from our unhappy country. Even here, at the seat of my cousin, the Marchioness K———de C———, where I am at the present moment, I can discover nothing but frivolity among the men, and dangerous coquetry among the women. The pernicious atmosphere of the period seems to pervade even the highest rank of the French aristocracy. Sometimes discussions occur on matters pertaining to science and morals, which aim a kind of indirect blow at religion itself, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity, I assure you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with it. A governess may be a very useful or a very useless person; but she may also be about the most pernicious inmate imaginable. She may teach you a bad accent, and worse manners, and heaven knows what beside. Send the housekeeper, my dear, to tell her that I am going to ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... the manner in which parents may defeat the work of the juvenile reformatory or industrial school was given by Senator Roussel at the Fourth International Prison Congress:—"The pernicious influence of parents relative to minors is manifest in two ways and at two periods of the child's life. First in extreme youth, when he is only a burden, his parents neglect him. He is left without ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... British king, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, they sealed its doom by inviting in among them like wolves into the sheep-fold), the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations. Nothing was ever so pernicious to our country, nothing was ever so unlucky. What palpable darkness must have enveloped their minds-darkness desperate and cruel! Those very people whom, when absent, they dreaded more than death itself, were invited to reside, as one ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas

... generally, would be generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it. The amount of regard for the public interest implied in this recognition, is no greater than is demanded by every system of morals; for they all enjoin to abstain from whatever is manifestly pernicious to society. ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... were furnished for the study of the law, and professional training became more general. The crying need for a learned and honorable profession of the law was made manifest by the growth of a class of advocates and advisers whose influence was most pernicious. Litigants needed guidance in the presentation of their cases and no learned profession being available, the underbailiffs, undersheriffs, clerks and other underlings of the administration of justice began to practice, ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft

... or not to say ten thousand horsemen; but not to call God God, and not to believe him to be God,—as you and the rest do, who will not confess that there is a Jupiter presiding over generation, or a Ceres giving laws, or a Neptune nourishing the plants,—it is this separation of names that is pernicious, and fills our life with audaciousness and an atheistical contempt of the gods. When you pluck from the gods the names and appellations that are tied to them, you abolish also the sacrifices, mysteries, processions, and feasts. For to whom shall we offer the sacrifices preceding the tilling ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... with Mr. Greenwood. It seemed to him that Fortune, Fate, Providence, or what not, had only done its duty. He believed that he had in truth foreseen and foretold the death of the pernicious young man. But would the young man's death be now of any service to him? Was it not too late? Had they not all quarrelled with him? Nevertheless he ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... mischief, will, upon mature deliberation, be found worthy of that wisdom which planned the most beautiful parts of the world. Many poisons are valuable medicines, Storms are beneficial; and diseases often promote life. These Termites are indeed frequently pernicious to mankind, but they are also very useful and even necessary. One valuable purpose which they serve is, to destroy decayed trees and other substances which, if left on the surface of the ground in hot climates, would in a short time pollute the air. In this respect they resemble very much ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... only a masked father-confessor, whose special function it is to exhibit what is dangerous in sentiment and pernicious in action, by a vivid ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... competition, a competition which enlarges the heart and the mind, a noble and generous competition,—it is emulation; and why should not this emulation have for its object the advantage of all? There is another competition, pernicious, immoral, unsocial, a jealous competition which hates and which kills,—it ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... whenever any dish of food was set before Sancho Panza, the governor, he touched it with his wand, that it might be instantly removed, as unfit for the governor to eat. Partridges were "forbidden by Hippoc'rat[^e]s," olla podridas were "most pernicious," rabbits were "a sharp-haired diet," veal might not be touched, but "a few wafers, and a thin slice or two of quince," ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... their inability to prevent the ravages made by the savages on the back settlements, and by unanimous vote entreated the lieutenant governor "to use the most pressing instances with Colonel Montgomery not to depart with the king's troops, as it might be attended with the most pernicious consequences." Montgomery, warned that he was but giving the Cherokees room to boast among the other tribes, of their having obliged the English army to retreat, not only from the mountains, but also from the province, shunned the path of duty, and leaving four companies ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... years ago are reduced before our eyes into their real pettiness. The first Reform Bill still retains its importance for as a measure which for good or bad revolutionised the constitution; its beneficial or pernicious effects are still traceable in the England of to-day; but its evils are not lessened by the acknowledged virtues of Lord Althorpe, nor are its good effects marred by the ambition of Brougham or the violence of O'Connell. It is no slight recommendation of any mode of reasoning if it suggests ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... to have been carried to the Queen, and to have wounded her perhaps more deeply than anything that had yet happened in this affair, his conscience left him, despite his fears, powerless now to thwart her even to the extent of removing those pernicious familiars of hers of whose plottings he ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... of revolution is a pernicious disease of the human mind, and once acquired hard to throw off. Our political horizon has been draped in storm-clouds ever since 1911, and our local social plans liable to disintegration on account of rumours calculated ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... await the twilight gloom, that the large owl might come forth and wheel around the tree, and call out his companions with a melancholy hoot; while the smaller bat, dipping lower in his flight, brushed by me, accustomed to my presence. I had entered betimes upon the pernicious study of nursery tales, as they then were, and without having the smallest actual belief in the existence of fairies, goblins, or any such things, I took unutterable delight in surrounding myself with hosts of them, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... you have any pernicious remnants of literary chauvinism I hope it will not survive the series of foreign classics of which Mr. William Heinemann, aided by Mr. Edmund Gosse, is publishing translations to the great contentment of all ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... two or three committee-men; the fundamental law of England knowing no such constitution, abhorring such administrations: and that the Hon. Court would release your petitioner from the injurious effects of the said committee's act, and explode so pernicious a precedent." ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... this rule, because it keeps the nurse unemployed, who otherwise may be doing it the greatest mischief, by cramming and stuffing its little bowels, till ready to burst. And, if I am right, what an inconsiderate and foolish, as well as pernicious practice it is, for a nurse to waken the child from its nourishing sleep, for fear it should suffer by hunger, and instantly pop the breast into its pretty mouth, or provoke it to feed, when it has no inclination to either, and for want of digestion, must have its nutriment turned ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... constantly bringing young people together, and endeavouring to induce them to love and marry each other, without there being between them any true congeniality or fitness for such a relation! Of all assumed social offices, that of the match-maker is one of the most pernicious, and her character one of the most detestable. She should be shunned with the same shrinking aversion with which we shun a serpent which ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... individual will, no healthy play of passions, and consequently no crime. What wonder that a system so unspeakably repugnant to a being who feels that his will is a divinity working within him fell to pieces at the first touch of foreign invasion, or that it left no vestige of its pernicious existence on the continent it had ruled! For the whole state was, so to speak, putrid even before dissolution, and when it fell it mingled with the dust and was forgotten. Poland, before its conquest by Russia, a country ill-governed ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... essential defect rendered the nation semi-dependent on its neighbour and adversary and powerless to pursue a policy of its own. For half a century this dangerous flaw in the national edifice and its pernicious effects on Italy's international relations had been patiently borne with, but Baron Sonnino considered that the time for repairing it and strengthening the groundwork of peace had come. And as he had not the faintest doubt ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... whole history of the whole world I have never known anything like this. For, when we were weighed down with slavery, when the evil was daily increasing, when we had no defence, while we were in dread of the pernicious and fatal return of Marcus Antonius from Brundusium, this young man adopted the design which none of us had ventured to hope for, which beyond all question none of us were acquainted with, of raising an invincible army of his father's ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... see, old soul, we admire you no end, and we're determined to save your life. Word has leaked through from Petrograd that your name has been triple-starred on the Smolny's Index Expurgatorius. Karslake's too. An honour legitimately earned by your pernicious collaboration in the Vassilyevski bust. Karslake's already taken care of, but you're still in the limelight, and that makes you a public nuisance. If you linger here much longer the verdict will undoubtedly be: Violent death at the hands of some person or persons unknown. So here ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... people reject the offer themselves, but they impeded its progress on New Caledonia, by threatening all who became Christians, till the French arrived and put a stop to the promulgation of Protestant truth among the people. Altogether, the influence of Romanism has been most pernicious in these islands. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... general health so much improved, that I determined to make abstinence a permanent rule, and have stuck to my determination ever since, with decided benefit. I shall certainly never resume smoking. I never use any stimulants whatever when writing, and believe the use of them to be most pernicious; indeed, I have seen terrible results from them. When a writer feels dull, the best stimulant is fresh air. Victor Hugo makes a good fire before writing, and then opens the window. I have often found ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... teamster would see them dragged to death before he would give them a helping hand. If he knew how to apply a proper remedy, very likely he would not give himself the trouble to apply it. I have never been able to find out how this pernicious habit of tying mules behind wagons originated; but the sooner an order is issued putting a stop to it, the better, for it is nothing less than a costly torture. The mule, more than any other animal, wants to see where he is going. He cannot do this at the tail of an army wagon, though it is an ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... result of all this is the production of a feeling of bondage most unfavourable in its influence towards the lessees themselves, and most pernicious in its influence over ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... Fiery Darts as may cause a sad Life unto them; yea, 't is well if Self-Murder be not the sad end into which these hurried. People are thus precipitated. New England, a country where Splenetic Maladies are prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded Numberless Instances, of even pious People, who have contracted these Melancholy Indispositions which have unhinged them from all Service or Comfort; yea, not a few Persons have been hurried thereby to lay Violent Hands upon themselves ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... success of this coinage," writes the author of the pamphlet already quoted, "by having contracted for a great quantity of his halfpence at a large discount, or biassed by the hopes of immoderate gain to be made out of the ruins of their country, expressed their apprehensions of the pernicious consequences of this copper money; and resolved to make use of the right they had by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... discovered that Frank endeavoured to pass as a Mohammedan in Turkey; "he was therefore arrested in Warsaw and delivered to the Church tribunal on the charge of feigned conversion to Christianity and the spreading of a pernicious heresy."[478] Unlike his predecessor in apostasy, Shabbethai Zebi, Frank, however, came to no untimely end, but after his release from prison continued to prey on the credulity of Christians and frequently travelled to Vienna ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... impetuous; but every time he speaks, the anger of the son of Peleus comes boiling over his lips. He does not describe Agamemnon as overbearing and haughty; but the pride of the king of men is continually appearing in his words and actions, and it is the evident moral of the Iliad to represent its pernicious effects on the affairs of the Helenic confederacy. Ulysses never utters a word in which the cautious and prudent counsellor, sagacious in design but prompt in execution, wary in the council but decided in the field, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... the most miserable of lives, and they are, perhaps, the only happy of the earth. At least those of them are still so, amongst whom the knowledge of those objects that disturb and seduce us, has not yet penetrated, or awakened in them, those pernicious desires which their ignorance kept happily dormant: it has not, however, hitherto made great ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... our voluntary functions, capacities and powers which we fail to exercise will in time become benumbed and paralyzed. Unprejudiced observers who come in close contact with metaphysicians cannot help perceiving the pernicious effect of their subtle sophistries ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... whether of time, or influence, or money, or talent, which could in any way promote a brother's spiritual welfare. But we are too apt to forget, if not to disbelieve, the solemn declarations of the bible; and forgetfulness to all practical results is as pernicious as downright infidelity. The man who forgets God is as little influenced by his law as the fool, who in his heart says there is no God at all. Now, this forgetfulness paralyzes our energies, damps our zeal, checks our benevolence. We do not consider that sinners are heaping up wrath ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various

... proceeding from this pernicious advice on the very same evening. I remarked an unwillingness on her part to speak to me before my brother; and, as soon as she entered into discourse with him, she commanded me to go to bed. This ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Navy had indeed reached a low ebb. Living always in barracks, under the pernicious system gradually forced upon the country by "The Destroyers" in the name of economy, our bluejackets had fallen steadily from their one high standard of discipline and efficiency into an incompetent, sullen, half-mutinous state, due solely ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... the road again. If he did this thing he would be a yellow cur. It was one thing to destroy Lindsay's influence with Beatrice by giving her a false impression. From his point of view their friendship was pernicious anyhow and ought to be wiped out. At most the cattleman would have gone back unhurt to the Arizona desert he was always talking about. Nobody there would care about what had happened to him in New ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... be to the President and heads of Departments, but that it will also greatly tend to remove the causes of embarrassment which now inevitably and constantly attend the conflicting claims of patronage between the legislative and executive departments. The most effectual check upon the pernicious competition of influence and official favoritism in the bestowal of office will be the substitution of an open competition of merit between the applicants, in which everyone can make his own record with the assurance that his success ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes

... it will not be inferred from any thing I have written, that I do not regret the omission to record New York as voting against what appeared to me an unwise and pernicious proposition. Though the importance of the vote has been greatly magnified, and the result in my opinion would not have been different if the vote of New York had been counted, as I believe some of the States not voting would, if necessary, have voted in the affirmative; and even if it had been otherwise, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... a man have exerted a pernicious influence on many since, is, we fear, undeniable. He had been taught, by the lives of the "wits," to consider aberration, eccentricity, and "devil-may-careism" as prime badges of genius, and he proceeded accordingly to astonish the natives, many of whom, in their turn, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... whom they were charged, by the authority of your Majesty, to make free, and to secure from all those wrongs. If this be true, what punishment would be fitting for such a crime? Or how could your Majesty so overlook a thing so pernicious, that you should not order it to be punished rigorously, and should not remedy evils which so greatly need correction? But whether this is so or not, it is not for me to accuse or to speak ill of any one. I only ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... one," he said, continuing, "of these The young especially should be suspicious; Seeing no ailment in Hippocrates Could be at once so tedious and capricious; No seeming apple of Hesperides More fatal, deadlier, and more delicious— Pernicious,—he should say,—for all its seeming...." It seemed to him he ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... Rochester. He was about to add, "She would go to your room, would she not?" when he remembered that she herself had told him that nothing would induce her to adopt so pernicious a course. ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... blasphemous opinions, Despising Government and the order of God In Church and Commonwealth, and speaking evil Of Dignities, reproaching and reviling The Magistrates and Ministers, and seeking To turn the people from their faith, and thus Gain proselytes to their pernicious ways;— This Court, considering the premises, And to prevent like mischief as is wrought By their means in our land, doth hereby order, That whatsoever master or commander Of any ship, bark, pink, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... children by their parents. Others blame the automobile and sports and recreations which are being indulged in on Sunday, through the laxity and insufficiency of the law-makers. Still others attribute it largely to the pernicious influence of the alien population. Finally, there are some who blame the vain, selfish spirit of the age, without bothering their heads to decide where that came from (except to infer a general ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... fallibility of such acute discernment have arisen many sad mischiefs and most grievous heart-aches to innocence and virtue. I cannot help, therefore, regarding this vast quick-sightedness into evil as a vicious excess, and as a very pernicious evil in itself. And I am the more inclined to this opinion, as I am afraid it always proceeds from a bad heart, for the reasons I have above mentioned, and for one more, namely, because I never knew it the property of a good one. Now, from this degree of suspicion ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... will for a moment doubt the immense advantage of the stimulus and culture derived from a reverent familiarity with the works of our great predecessors and contemperaries, there is a pernicious error which has been fostered by many instructed minds, rising out of their reverence for greatness and their forgetfulness of the ends of Literature. This error is the notion of "models," and of fixed ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... probable that there were some German officers in Belgium before the war commenced, and if not, there were certainly hundreds of spies, of whose pernicious activities the Belgian people were to learn later to their infinite sorrow, but because Germany employed an elaborate system of espionage in Belgium, it could not justify France in invading its territory ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... Fray Pedro, was well able to answer those calumnies (for they were calumnies), and to restrain insinuations so pernicious and prejudicial to the interests with which he was charged; for he had discretion and a spirit for everything. The most effective thing in that was the pressing need of his commissions, and the contents of his credentials. But death, which overtook him at Milan ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... or twenty in the bark, so long as the good vessel can float and steer? Our Leman winds are fickle friends, and the wise take them while in the humor. Give me the breeze at west, and I will load the Winkelried to the water's edge with executioners, or any other pernicious creatures thou wilt, and thou mayest take the lightest bark that ever swam in the bise, and let us see who will first make the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... that my knowledge should keep pace with that of my brother, but conceived that all beyond the mere capacity to write and read was useless or pernicious. He took as much pains to keep me within these limits, as to make the acquisitions of my brother come up to them, but his efforts were not equally successful in both cases. The most vigilant and jealous scrutiny was exerted in vain: Reproaches and blows, painful privations and ignominious ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... a pernicious thing; an inconstant, evil spirit; that never continues in peace, but is always in discord. Wherefore refrain thyself from it, and keep peace ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... his clothes, went straight up to the studies, and called the upper boys together. He briefly told them what had occurred, and they rejoiced greatly, binding themselves for the future to check, if they could, by all fair means, Brigson's pernicious influence and abominable example. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... twopence. A check was placed upon this habit by imposing a tax of 5s. on every gallon of gin. This was in the year 1735 and in 1750 about 1,700 gin shops were closed. Since then the continual efforts made to stop the pernicious habit of dram drinking have greatly reduced the evil. But it was not only the drinking of gin: there was also the rum punch which formed so large a part in the life of the Georgian citizen. Every man had his club to which he resorted in the evening after the day's work. ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... profession; but the tragic muse affords superior pleasure. My first attempt was in the reign of Nero, in opposition to the extravagant claims of the prince [a], and in defiance of the domineering spirit of Vatinius [b], that pernicious favourite, by whose coarse buffoonery the muses were every day disgraced, I might say, most impiously prophaned. The portion of fame, whatever it be, that I have acquired since that time, is to be attributed, not to the speeches ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... of anonymous writing, on its occasional convenience, and on its pernicious consequences, I shall make no remarks. Facts, rather than arguments, should be the staple commodity of an ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various

... not come from yourself. The true author is the brother of the African magician, your enemy, whom you have destroyed. He is now in your palace, disguised in the habit of the holy woman, Fatima, whom he has murdered. It is at his suggestion that your wife makes this pernicious demand. His design is to kill you, therefore take care of yourself." After these words ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... serve to prevent the tragedies of the excluded; would go far toward stopping the pernicious activity of the steamship companies and their enticing emissaries; would facilitate the detection and punishment of those breakers and evaders of the law who are now immune; and it would make possible a quite different and more ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... which is to challenge and analyze the assertion before us and seek its basis in human nature. Before this is done, we should run the risk of expanding a natural misconception or inaccuracy of thought into an inveterate and pernicious prejudice by making it the centre ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... the unfortunate contentions alluded to had diffused their pernicious effects, slackened the ardour for the public-service, and destroyed the success of the expedition by anticipation, he did not suffer any narrow party spirit to influence his conduct He was as ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... that pernicious influences may be exerted upon the secret springs of life, while we are wholly unconscious of their operation. Such is the effect of the habitual use of tobacco and other narcotics, and of all stimulants ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey

... exhibition of such intellectual feebleness were the worst charge that could be brought against the American newspaper, there would be little more to say; but, alas, "there are some among the so-called leading newspapers of which the influence is wholly pernicious because of the perverted intellectual ability with which they are conducted." (Prof. Chas. E. Norton, in the ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... admiral, and retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion, and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of French Protestants in America; but his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... feasibility of "Comfortable living on seven hundred a year," or "How to keep house on a restricted income," are both helpful and pernicious. The prospective housewife buys them eagerly and devours them with avidity. She and John are boarding now, but are soon to have a home of their own, and after perusing their newly purchased volumes, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... 1786; fourth, 1807; A Letter to the People of Scotland on the present state of the Nation, Edinburgh, 1783; A Letter to the People of Scotland on the Alarming Attempt to infringe the Articles of the Union and introduce a Most Pernicious Innovation by Diminishing the Number of the Lords of Session, London, 1785; Letters of James Boswell addressed to the Rev. W.J. Temple, London, 1857; Ode to ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell

... pills, to break off the habit; it was getting too expensive, he said, especially for a married man. In a number of towns places were pointed out where these pills were sold by the Government. Those who know, say they are often as pernicious as the ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... it fertile, is fit for nothing. The majority of boys, at the very period when the buds of intellect begin to unfold themselves, are so accustomed to be told that they are dull and fit for nothing, that the most pernicious effects are necessarily produced. They become half convinced by the ill-boding song of the raven, perpetually croaking in their ears; and, for the other half, though by no means assured that the ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... promulgated by BRUNO, KANT and LAPLACE, of the nebular origin of the spheres, and the deductions consequent thereupon, in regard to the progressive stages through which the earth in its developments has passed, was pernicious in its influence in diverting the minds of investigators from other and truer channels. To the blind confidence with which that hypothesis has been universally accepted and perpetuated, and to the fallacious theories thus directly and indirectly engendered, ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... defence of his own pernicious policy, which had led to the crushing defeat at Mantinea, and thus enabled the Spartans to restore their damaged reputation, Alcibiades proceeded to deal with the question of the day, and exerted all his sophistry to confirm the Athenians in their design of invading ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... us to impute improper motives to any man, much less to a person of Mr Sidney Herbert's private character; but we would calmly ask that gentleman, whether such admissions, coming from a minister of the crown, are not likely to have the most pernicious effects upon the Irish people? No man who understands the system pursued in Ireland, can doubt but that they will be applied to the worst of purposes; the agitators will tell their dupes that the reason government took no precautions to protect life by day was, "because the only persons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... of permitting individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others. They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... employed. True, some persons grow up both gentle and straightforward in spite of the fact that they have been whipped in their youth, but it is in spite of, and not because of it. In their homes other good qualities must have counteracted the pernicious effect of ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne

... a disease common to persons far advanced in years; whether it be formed by the intestine or omentum slipping down into the scrotum, or proceed from a humor distending that part. In either case the part is tumefied. This pernicious disease the Preacher thought proper to compare to a grasshopper. The grasshopper, says he, shall be a burthen, Oneri erit locusta. For thus the Hebrew phrase is more literally translated, than by convenient cicadae, the cicadae shall come together, as the learned Castalio has rendered ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... soldiers without officers, or of officers without soldiers, as a commonwealth, especially such a one as is capable of greatness, of a people without a gentry, or of a gentry without a people. Wherefore this, though not always so intended, as may appear by Machiavel, who else would be guilty, is a pernicious error. There is something first in the making of a commonwealth, then in the governing of it, and last of all in the leading of its armies, which, though there be great divines, great lawyers, great men in all professions, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... my epithets in order to admire the insect's maternal logic and to hold it up to the admiration of others. The honey would be pernicious to the health of the larvae. How does the mother know that the syrup, a treat for her, is unwholesome for her young? To this question our science offers no reply. The honey, I say, would imperil the grubs' lives, The Bee must therefore ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... stage along the survey, with an eye to the best consummation possible: briefly, evolutionary meliorism. But it is called pessimism nevertheless; under which word, expressed with condemnatory emphasis, it is regarded by many as some pernicious new thing (though so old as to underlie the Christian idea, and even to permeate the Greek drama); and the subject is charitably left to decent silence, as if ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... early closing of the shutters, and letting down of the window curtains. After a short interval, tea and coffee succeed; liquors stimulating both by their inherent qualities, and by virtue of the temperature at which they are often drank. And that nothing may be wanting to their pernicious effect, they are frequently taken in the very stew and squeeze of a fashionable mob. The season of sleep succeeds, and to crown the adventures of the evening, the bed room is fastened close, and made stifling by a fire: and though the robust may not quickly feel the effects ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett



Words linked to "Pernicious" :   pernicious anaemia, perniciousness, deadly, pernicious anemia, subtle, harmful, noxious, baneful



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