"Undermine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when the Church denies the facts—not the unproven theories, notice, but the clearly demonstrated facts—of science, something is wrong with the Church. And when the Schools put forth theories that undermine the very foundations of the Church and her work, there is something ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country. You, or Eccles—I don't care who 'tis—you've been at my servants to get at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war. You've been trying to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow, I've come for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dealings so augmented their Convent that they have 40,000 livres standing rent. Whow they come be this is not uneasy to dewine, we toucht it a litle already. If any fat carcasse be on his deathbed, they are sure to be their, undermine him wt all the slights imaginable, wring donations in their faveurs from them, of which we know and have heard seweral exemples: vitness the Abby at Bourdeaux, whom they undermined, and he subtilly getting a grip ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... sinking an increasing volume of merchant tonnage week by week. The people of this country as a whole rose superior to many disheartening events and never lost their sure belief in final victory, but full knowledge of the supreme crisis in our history might have tended to undermine in some quarters that confidence in victory which it was essential should be maintained, and, in any event, the facts could not be disclosed without benefiting the enemy. But the position at times was undoubtedly ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... Him who is the eternal principle of all justice. You work harder to destroy it than the atheistic professors themselves; for, after all, the atheistic professors have but little power; you statesmen, who sometimes talk of your belief in God, you undermine His authority far more deeply than those professors, by the bad example of your practical atheism. You who imagine you believe in the Godhead of Christ are, in reality, prophets and priests of the false gods. You serve them, as the idolatrous Hebrew princes served them, in high ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... like him, had long been endeavouring to undermine the authority which was the only safeguard to the morality of the school, felt themselves distinctly baffled. Mackworth had been put to utter rout by Bliss, and though he was almost bursting with dark spite, would not venture to do much; Jones had ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... assaulting the walls of the besieged city. As soon as he was well enough, the king caused himself to be carried near the city wall and placed under the shelter of a kind of wooden hurdle. Seated there, he directed the movements of his men, who were endeavoring to undermine and carry by storm a tower ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... intellect. I pray you, great and glorious showman, take pity on your artists and your audiences. Don't drive the former mad and the latter distracted. Remember that insanity is on the increase, and that accommodations in asylums are limited. Take warning before you undermine the reason of an entire continent. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... OF CONFIDENCE.—Nothing is more certain, says Dr. Naphey, to undermine domestic felicity, and sap the foundation of marital happiness, than marital infidelity. The risks of disease which a married man runs in impure intercourse are far more serious, because they not only involve himself, but his wife ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Jack, dear, you'd best get the hang of it before Cynthia comes. You might tell me all about your divorce. That's a sympathetic subject. Were you able to undermine it? ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... so badly managed, or so badly brought up, as where the law of nature is reversed, and we contemplate that most despicable of all lusi naturae—a hen-pecked husband. To proceed, the consequence of my mother's treatment, was to undermine in me all the precepts of my worthy grandmother. I was a slave; and a slave under the continual influence of fear cannot be honest. The fear of punishment produced deceit to avoid it. Even my brother Auguste, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... of this fact, which forms the central idea of the geological part of the book, he was indebted to his uncle Josiah Wedgwood, who suggested that worms, by bringing earth to the surface in their castings, must undermine any objects lying on the surface and cause ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... from side to side, or rock back and forth on your heels when you are talking to a man whom you want to impress with your stability of character, you will undermine everything you say by what you do. Of course you should not stand stiffly. Your leg posts are designed to serve as a flexible pedestal for your body. Your ability to shift your weight from one foot to the other easily without losing your ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Scudder a better role for this morning, than her tender gravity, and her constant expedients to break and ripple, by changing employments, that deep, deadly under-current of thoughts which she feared might undermine her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... his attempt to undermine the loyalty of the two Dyaks von Horn had chosen the only other way to keep the knowledge of the whereabouts of the chest from Barunda's uncle and Muda Saffir, and now his principal interest in life was to escape the vengeance of the head hunters and return to ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... do so without any loss of moral dignity. Altogether, this humiliating affair showed me what a trap for the conscience these subscriptions are: how comfortably they are passed while the intellect is torpid or immature, or where the conscience is callous, but how they undermine truthfulness in the active thinker, and torture the sensitiveness of the tenderminded. As long as they are maintained, in Church or University, these institutions exert a positive influence to deprave or eject those who ought to be their ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... must not, and shall not, boycott her in trade; but let us not go to sleep at the switch! Just as busily as she is baking pottery opposite Coblenz, labelled "made in St. Louis," "made in Kansas City," her "army of spies" is at work here and everywhere to undermine those nations who have for the moment delayed her plans for world dominion. I think the number of Americans who know this has increased; but no American, wherever he lives, need travel far from home to meet ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... perversion of Masonry to Jacobite influence would be absurd. How could it be supposed that either Ramsay or Lord Derwentwater (who died as a devout Catholic on the scaffold in 1746) could have been concerned in an attempt to undermine the Catholic faith or the monarchy of France? I would suggest, then, that the term "Scots Masonry" became simply a veil for Templarism—Templarism, moreover, of a very different kind to that from which the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... reside. It would be necessary to have a level, but he had provided for this difficulty by proposing that the best line that the circumstances would admit of, should be taken through the sewers which undermine the streets of the metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from the gas pipes which run immediately above them, would form a pleasant and commodious arcade, especially in winter-time, when the inconvenient custom of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly dispensed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... she spoke my name smote me. "How can you say that? How can you doubt their loyalty, and mine? Do you think they would undermine you, and to me, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fell to-day; they have been working some days to undermine it at the base of the socle. Every one thought it would make a tremendous crash, but it did not; it fell just where they intended it to fall, toward the Rue de la Paix, on some fagots placed to receive it. They were a long time pulling at it; three or four pulleys, and as many ropes, and twenty ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... marriage Deaves, who up to that time had only been a money-lender, had succeeded in entering the realms of high finance. No sooner was his own position secure, so the story went, than Simeon Deaves set himself to work to undermine Warrender, and in the end ousted him from his railway and ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... was formerly usual. It was this circumstance that continued to render her beauty even unearthly, without its being accompanied by the emaciation so common in the latter stages of pulmonary disease, though its tendency was strongly to undermine her strength. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Berenice," which were also successful. His plays were full of intense passion and eloquence, and it would not give the reader a fair idea of their influence over the French, did we not admit that their representations of human life were such as to undermine the morality of those who listened to them. The plays of Racine have exerted a prodigious influence over the intelligent classes of Paris, and their wretched morality poisoned the nation. For my part, when I consider the literature ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... captives were not valuable; but as soon as slavery became instituted in any form, then women slaves were particularly valued, not only for their labor, but because they might be either concubines or wives. It is evident, then, that war and slavery would thus indirectly tend to undermine ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... and rend the terrible passion of Paris with teeth as sharp as rat's teeth. We have Puritan women here, sour enough to tear the laces of Parisian finery, and eat out all the poetry of your Parisian beauties, who undermine the happiness of others while they cry up their walnuts and rancid bacon, glorify this squalid mouse-hole, and the dingy color and conventual small of our ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... hunter and fighter, was second only to that of the great Chief himself, had never aroused the Chief's jealousy. This for several reasons. He had always loyally supported the Chief's authority, instead of scheming to undermine it, and his influence had always made for tribal discipline. He was not so tall as the Chief, by perhaps half a handbreadth, and for all his huge muscles of arm and breast he was altogether of a slimmer build; wherefore the Chief, while vastly respecting his counsels, was ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... eyes to see that to love means no less than changing the axis on which one's whole nature revolves. There's the stumbling-block with us artists. We rebel by instinct against anything that threatens to encroach upon our cherished ego; and excuse ourselves on the plea that it would undermine our art. But that is not true;—oh, believe ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... suit some fifteen years ago and admitted his ignorance of matters with which even grammar school children are familiar, the country laughed. His ignorance, however, is his own affair, but when he takes no step to curb his personal representative from working with secret foreign agents to undermine a friendly government, it becomes a matter, it appears to me, of importance to the people of this country and the Government ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... theory, but of demonstrated fact. They scourge the mining States and Territories with the unspeakable curse of uncertainty of land titles, as everywhere attested by incurable litigation and strife. They thus undermine the morals of the people, and pave the way for violence and crime. They cripple a great national industry and source of wealth, and insult the principles of American jurisprudence. And the misfortune of this legislation is heightened by the probability of its continuance; for it is not easy to ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... general; but so far I may be allowed, that when the effects of female jealousy do not appear openly in their proper colours of rage and fury, we may suspect that mischievous passion to be at work privately, and attempting to undermine, what ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... equality, liberty, and fraternity are included under the democratic principles which assume the same names, the Bible is the most democratic book in the world. As such it began, through the heretical sects, to undermine the clerico-political despotism of the middle ages, almost as soon as it was formed, in the eleventh century; Pope and King had as much as they could do to put down the Albigenses and the Waldenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the Lollards and the Hussites ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... across at Honor for a confirmation of his resolve not to let tenderness undermine his sense of right. But that which he saw banished all thought ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... but to this scheme the council would not lend itself for a moment. The governor well knew that the usefulness, virtue, and moral condition of his people, depended on their being employed, and he had no wish to undermine the permanent prosperity of the colony, by resorting to an expedient that might do well enough for a short time, but which would certainly bring its ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the mouth of the mine, when a man named Cash, a fellow who had once been in the quartermaster's employ as a teamster, spoke up: "Governor Mason, did Judge Ricord say that?" "Yes," said the Governor; and then Cash related how he and another man, whose name he gave, had been employed by Ricord to undermine a heavy rock that rested above the mouth of the mine, so that it tumbled down, carrying with it a large quantity of earth, and completely filled it up, as we had seen; "and," said Cash, "it took us three days of the hardest kind of work." This was the act of God, and on the papers ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... nostrils of the godly and a synonym for atheism and blasphemy. His book was denounced from a hundred pulpits, and copies of it were carefully locked away from the sight of "the young," whose religious beliefs it might undermine. It was, in effect, a crude and popular statement of the Deistic argument against Christianity. What the cutting logic and persiflage—the sourire hideux—of Voltaire had done in France, Paine, with coarser materials, essayed to do for the English-speaking ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Bolton, somewhat angrily. She was fond of Ann Holland, and liked the reverence she had always paid to her. But this ridiculous notion of Mr. Warden's seemed to have taken possession of the poor, uneducated woman's brain, and threatened to undermine her influence over her. She cut short her visit to her at this point, and returned home uncomfortable and disturbed, wishing she had never offered the shelter of her roof to her ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... me this himself and he told me also that he resented the correspondence which was, he knew, being carried on, behind his (K.'s) back, between the army in France and his (K.'s) own political Boss: that sort of action was, he considered, calculated to undermine authority. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... impression of the usurper's activity, energy, and vigour, his authority is liable to be soon disputed, or even set at nought It behoves him to give indications of strength and breadth of character, or of a wise, far-seeing policy, in order to deter rivals from attempting to undermine his power. Sheshonk early let it be seen that he possessed both caution and far-reaching views by his treatment of a refugee who, shortly after his accession, sought his court. This was Jeroboam, one of the highest officials ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... preserve the distinction of language and the varnish of "high life" which came, with so much prestige, from Copenhagen. By the patriotic party, on the other hand, the stage was looked upon with grave suspicion as likely to undermine the purity ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... forward. When being brought up it had cleared the walls of their defenders by means of the catapultae and ballistae ranged through all its stories, then Hannibal, thinking it a favourable opportunity, sends about five hundred Africans with pickaxes to undermine the wall: nor was the work difficult, since the unhewn stones were not fastened with lime, but filled in their interstices with clay, after the manner of ancient building. It fell, therefore, more extensively than it was struck, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... some are wholly outside the law. They are fragmenting, with an increasing breakdown in command structure. The militias target Sunni Arab civilians, and some struggle for power in clashes with one another. Some even target government ministries. They undermine the authority of the Iraqi government and security forces, as well as the ability of Sunnis to join a peaceful political process. The prevalence of militias sends a powerful message: political leaders ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... hat, and a long, pointed, swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than any actual human aspect of the time. But it was passed round among the boys and made its laugh, helping of course to undermine the master's authority, as "Punch" or the "Charivari" takes the dignity out of an obnoxious minister. One morning, on going to the schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... overhanging. The manner of their formation is now to be seen in the amphitheatre immediately contiguous to the village, although it appears to be very slow. It is thus, bodies of water falling from the edge of the table land, seem to undermine the sandstone below, producing land slips, which occur in this manner year after year. Since 1835, the edge of the Moosmai fall has receded at least 10 feet, and ample evidence remains of the recession to take place next rains. This ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... the many millions of the non-Jewish population.... To isolate the village from the town, the towns of the West and South from the towns and villages of the Centre and the East, is to disturb intentionally the economic life of the country, to undermine credit and ...
— The Shield • Various
... think if you were to speak boldly to her, you might do some good. You might begin to undermine this unlucky infatuation of her's; and I am sure, if her eyes were once opened, that the more she saw him, the ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... hypocrisy in sitting daily at the right hand of the President while privately slandering him; of exercising all the arts of an intriguing mind, ripened by a long course of European diplomacy, to undermine an Administration whose solidity was the only guaranty for the continued prosperity and honour of the country. Hamilton reminded the people, with a pen too pointed to fail of conviction, of the increase of wealth and happiness which had ensued every measure opposed by the Secretary of State, and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... witnessed on an extensive scale to establish the principles of Atheism, as the first attempt to popularize these principles by means of a literature addressed and adapted to the common people, and as the first systematic attempt to undermine the foundations, and to innovate on the very substance of Morals.[24] But if we compare the first with the new Encyclopedie,—the former concocted by Voltaire, D'Alembert and Diderot, the latter ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... now grown beyond such beliefs, but he did nothing to undermine Mhor's trust. He knew that the longer you can believe in such things the nicer ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... The whole of Popery lies in the assumption of a Church, as a numerical unit, infallible in the highest degree, inasmuch as both which is Scripture, and what Scripture teaches, is infallible by derivation only from an infallible decision of the Church. Fairly undermine or blow up this: and all the remaining peculiar tenets of Romanism fall with it, or stand by their own right as opinions ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in the hearts of the country-wenches; Alcon, a quacksalver, who introduces tobacco to ruin the constitutions of the shepherds; Lincus, 'a petty-fogger,' who breeds litigation among the simple folk; and lastly Pistophanax, who seeks to undermine the worship of Pan. Colax has, it appears, already abused the love of Daphne, and won that of Dorinda from her swain Mirtillus; Techne has sown jealousy between the lovers Palaemon and Silvia; while Lincus ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... alluding to "old King Derby, old Billy Gray, old Simon Forrester, and many another magnate of his day; whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb, before his mountain-pile of wealth began to dwindle." But Nathaniel's family neither helped to undermine the heap, nor accumulated a rival one. However good the forecast that his immediate ancestors had made, as to the quickest and broadest road to wealth, they travelled long in the wake of success without ever winning it, themselves. The malediction that fell on Justice ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... relations between the two powers, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris had been Prince Charles of Schwarzenberg, the warrior and statesman who later, as commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces, was to deal such heavy blows to France. In 1810 he was all for peace, and his sole aim was to undermine, for the good of his country, the influence of his Russian colleague, Prince Kourakine. The Austrian Ambassador was very anxious that the Archduchess Marie Louise should become Empress of the French; for he was convinced that such an event would be of as much benefit to ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Petersburg and was warmly supported by us. On July 28th the Kaiser telegraphed to the Czar begging him to remember that it was Austria-Hungary's right and duty to stop the Greater-Serbian agitation, as this threatened to undermine Austria's existence. (Cries of indignation.) The Kaiser pointed out to the Czar the gulf between monarchical interests and the outrage at Serajewo; he begged him to give his personal support to the Kaiser's endeavour to smooth out ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... the birthright of all the race. While a raging and vindictive foe bays her in front, and the leal and true are pressing in countless hosts around her at her call, a false and craven crew are basely creeping in at undefended passages, and, with lies and slanders and deceitful tongues, endeavoring to undermine the foundations of her strength. Base sappers and miners! Thank God ye are few! And the number of the people ye are trying to hoodwink and seduce from their allegiance is hourly growing less, as your cunningly devised schemes explode. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... who are carried through college. I do not regard it, however, as desirable that one should have to work his own way entirely, as the tax upon strength and time is likely to be such as to interfere with scholarship and to undermine health." ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... overseas investment supplements income from domestic production. The government provides for all medical services and free education through the university level and subsidizes rice and housing. Brunei's leaders are concerned that steadily increased integration in the world economy will undermine internal social cohesion. Plans for the future include upgrading the labor force, reducing unemployment, strengthening the banking and tourist sectors, and, in general, further widening the economic base beyond oil ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... gaining the confidence of the clergy and peasantry, and thereby counterbalancing the imperious nobility. On the whole she applied herself to the civilization of her three kingdoms, and to their improvement by excellent laws, the great aim of which was to undermine the nobility. She pursued the plan of her great father to recall all rights to the crown lands, which during the reign of her weak and inefficient predecessors had been granted to the nobility. The prosecution of this plan for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... our kingly courtesies, Which we too long in favour have bestow'd Upon thy false, dissembling heart with us? What grief thou therewithal hast thrown on us, What shame upon our house, what dire distress Our soul endures, cannot be uttered. And durst thou, villain, dare to undermine Our daughter's chamber? durst thy shameless face Be bold to kiss her? th'rest we will conceal. Sufficeth that thou know'st I too well know All thy proceedings in thy private shames. Herein what hast thou won? thine own content, With the displeasure of thy lord and king; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... elaborate, learned, and judicious book, in which he treated at large of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft, and did all that scholarship, talent, and philosophy could do to undermine and subvert the whole system of the prevailing popular superstition. But he fared no better than his predecessor, patron, and master, Agrippa; for, like him, he was accused of having attempted to persuade ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to care for anything outside my career. I flirted with you because it was a piquant thing to do. You were a woman whom other men found difficult, you were the wife of a man whom I despised and who was trying all the time to undermine my position. I sacrificed my self-respect every time I crossed your threshold. To-day I pay. I am willing. As for you, Mabel, your visit here shall square things between us. I wish you the best of luck. You must let me ring for my servant. He ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sun from the waters of these regions situated near the equator. The Venetians call these worms bissa, and quantities of them come into life in both the ports of Alexandria, in Egypt. These worms, which are a cubit long and sometimes more, and never thicker than your little finger, undermine the solidity of ships which lie too long at anchor. The Spanish sailors call this pest broma. It was therefore because he feared the bromas and was wearied out with struggling against the currents that the Admiral allowed his ships to be carried by the ocean towards the west. Two ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to brave it as he has many others; but, | | alas, its strength is undermined; Its vitals are eaten away, and it | | falls,—a victim to the tiny worm. Thus does tobacco, or alcohol, or | | opium, or any other poison when taken habitually, undermine the | | system, slowly, imperceptibly,—but surely. | | | | Go into any tobacco factory of cigars, snuff, or plug, and bring out | | a healthy man if you can. | | | | Tobacco so destroys the sensations and functions of the mouth that, | | mild natural drinks, are not ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... supremacy for the purpose of securing to every citizen, whether rich or poor, the rights of liberty and of property conferred upon him by law. To maintain that any policy, however plausible, by which these principles are violated, must undermine the moral basis of the Constitution, and must therefore lead the nation to calamity and to disgrace, is at any rate to plead a cause which rests upon a firm foundation of plain morality. The case may be ill-stated, the arguments by which it is defended may admit ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... of the blind," said Mr Lerew. "The pernicious principles of such men are calculated to produce the overthrow of our Holy Church, and to undermine all ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... rises the monthly moon, whither wanes she? how is it that her horns are contracted and reopen? whence do winds prevail on the main? what does the east wind court with its blasts? and whence are the clouds perpetually supplied with water? is a day to come which may undermine ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Witt, the great statesman. De Witt despatched a spy from Picardy, France, one Eli Godefroy Touret, who chanced to know Groseillers, to meet the explorers in London. Masking as Groseillers' nephew, Touret tried to bribe both men to join the Dutch. Failing this, he attempted to undermine their credit with the English by accusing Radisson and Groseillers of counterfeiting money; but the English court refused to be deceived, and Touret was imprisoned. Owing to the plague and the war, two years passed without the vague ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... undermine The haughty shores each hour, Time's sea has brought its waves of thought To crumble thrones of power; And one by one shall kingdoms fall Like leaves before the blast, As man with man combines to plan Republics ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the devil played at chess with me, and, yielding a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me; taking advantage of my honest endeavours; and, whilst I laboured to raise the struc- ture of my reason, he strove to undermine ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... great an Influence over our Actions, and is in many Cases so impregnable a Fence to Virtue; what can more undermine Morality than that Politeness which reigns among the unthinking Part of Mankind, and treats as unfashionable the most ingenuous Part of our Behaviour; which recommends Impudence as good Breeding, and keeps a Man always in Countenance, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... with danger, but might come upon their backs altogether unlooked for. And though his house were of stone, so that it could not be burnt; yet if our Captain would undertake the attempt, they would undermine and overthrow, or otherwise break it open, in such sort, as we might have easy ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... numbers of young persons have been exposed to almost every influence which could impair health, undermine character and unfit them, both in body and mind, for regular industry and ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... be useful to society, for personal happiness. It is evident to demonstration, that the interest of our preservation excites us to moderate our desires, and put a bridle on our passions; to renounce dangerous habits, and to abstain from vices which can only injure our fortune, and undermine our health. These truths are evident to every being whose passions have not dominion over his reason; they are totally independent of theological speculations, which have neither evidence nor demonstration, and which our mind can never verify; they ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... dislodged. ... On that day when she had realized that this position was threatened she had been put to one of two alternatives—open revolt or deceitful acceptance. She had chosen the latter. In the end her choice was justified, for she had begun to undermine Helen Starratt's content with subtle purring which dripped a ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... my frame was enfeebled by the uneasy postures I was required to keep for so long a time during prayers. This alone I thought was sufficient to undermine my health and destroy my life. An hour and a half every morning I had to sit on the floor of the community-room, with my feet under me, my body bent forward, and my head hanging on one side —in a posture expressive of great humility, it is true, but very fatiguing to keep for such an unreasonable ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... was as maddening as the suspense of the poor insomniac who implored the man next door to "drop the other shoe." Mamise suffered doubly from her dual interest in Abbie and in Davidge. She dared not tell Abbie what was in the wind, though she tried to undermine gradually the curious devotion Abbie bore to her worthless husband. But Mamise's criticisms of Jake only spurred Abbie to new defenses of him and a more ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... accounts of conscience has been to undermine its authority and empty life of its responsibility, but no theory of the origin of conscience must be permitted to invalidate its judgments. If conscience has any moral worth it is that it contains the promise ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... who first suggested this most excellent method of reconciling conscience with treachery to the Constitution. Though he professes the most profound respect for that instrument, he deliberately sets to work to undermine one of its most clear and unequivocal mandates. He does not, like Mr. Seward, openly smite the Constitution with his hand, or contemptuously kick it with his foot. He betrays ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... degeneration of various organs and to general deterioration of health through disturbed balance of the constitution. The brain, or rather particular parts of it, are often over-stimulated, while the body is neglected. In many ways education and civilization foster nervousness and weakness, and undermine the rude natural health and spirits of the human animal. Alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, extra brain work, late hours, dissipation, overwork, indoor life, division of labour, preservation of the weak, and many other causes, ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... artisan class has thus become a power in our State. It is organized in trade unions, and has politically fallen under the influence of the international social democracy. It is hostile to the national class distinctions, and strains every nerve to undermine the existing power ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... you do, love, if distant tidings Thy fond confidings Should undermine?— And I abiding 'neath sultry skies, Should think other eyes Were as bright as thine?" "Oh, name it not:—tho' guilt and shame Were on thy name I 'd still be true: But that heart of thine—should another share it— I could not bear it! What would ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... continually broke out anew.—Proudly and piously spoke the Luzerners: They would follow their forefathers in everything, in adherence to the Federal Compact, and in love, but only when it did not deviate from the faith. Seditious persons now try to undermine this, as once the serpent sneaked around our first parents in Paradise. From such poison they would preserve their children and children's children. They had been prompted to do what they now did, in the face of censure, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... hearing. The Queen was succeeded by monarchs after her own heart. In 1636 Prynne published his 'Newes from Ipswich,' 'discovering certain late detestable practices of some domineering Lordly Prelates to undermine the established doctrine and discipline of our Church, extirpate all orthodox sincere preachers and preaching of God's Word, usher in popery, idolatry and superstition.' For this publication Prynne was sentenced to be fined 5,000 pounds to ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... be the more useless to attempt to undermine this dogma, inasmuch as it has an appearance of reasonableness in its favour. "In an era of equality," Tocqueville justly remarks, "men have no faith in each other on account of their being all alike; yet this same similitude gives them an almost limitless confidence ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... then raise ladders against the walls; or else to drive engines against the defenses, battering-rams which struck them with heavy beams, mangonels which launched stones, sows whose arched wooden backs protected troops of workmen who tried to undermine the wall, and moving towers consisting of a succession of stages or shelves, filled with soldiers, and with a bridge with iron hooks, capable of being launched from the highest story to the top of the battlements. The besieged could generally disconcert the battering-ram by hanging ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of that bunch down there that's trying to undermine the best government on the face of the earth. Come along! I've got a bit o' business on hand right now and I need ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... in an imprudent moment seek to undermine this barrier, by a word, a smile, sweet but chilling, she expresses either astonishment or amusement at his presumption (the latter being perhaps the more murderous weapon of the two, as ridicule is death to love), ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... taste liquor. For some time I faithfully kept my promise, and for weeks the very thought of liquor was revolting to me. No one becomes a drunkard in a day or week. Alcohol is a subtle poison, and it takes a long time for it to so undermine man's system that he finds life almost intolerable unless stimulated by the hell-broth which must surely destroy him in the end, unless he closes his lips like a vise against it. But for me, I never could drink, from my childhood, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... stubborn upon trial! Dastard that I am, too, as well as fool: I felt sunk into the dust by his voice. But pooh, I must have him yet; your worst villains make the most noise about the first step. True that I cannot storm, but I will undermine. But, wretch that I am, I must win him or another soon, or I perish on a ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ingratitude, you have in part acknowledged it, by your laughing at our easy delivery of your cautionary towns: The best is, we are used by you as well as your own princes of the house of Orange: We and they have set you up, and you undermine their power, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... formal, ignorant Episcopal Priests established; and some Ministers, who are bitter enemies to Commonwealth's Freedom, and friends to Monarchy, are established preachers, and are continually buzzing their subtle principles into the minds of the people, to undermine the peace of our declared Commonwealth, causing a disaffection of spirit among neighbours, who otherwise would live ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... the stack. This wore upon him so that he grew cross, thinner than ever before, and generally disheveled. The little girl saw that another week of such confinement would all but kill him; while if he were shut up in the cave unchained he would undermine the stack. She feared, however, to give him his entire freedom; so she set to work to puzzle out a scheme that ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Not that this reticence proceeds from scrupulous feeling or a proud stern spirit. Seward, however, never speaks evil of any one unless to destroy, and to one who sympathises in that same amiable wish. To undermine a rival or to destroy an enemy, Seward will expend any amount of slander; but, in the absence of personal interest, Seward, though officially civilian, is, by nature, far too good and too old a soldier to waste ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... their hopes in obtaining assistance from Spain, led the conspirators, Catesby, and his brethren, to devise some other means, by which their object might be obtained. Frequent meetings took place; and various plans were considered and then relinquished. At length it was determined to undermine the parliament house, and destroy the king by means of gunpowder. It appears that Thomas Winter had some misgivings, lest the church of Rome should suffer in the estimation of the public if the plot should be defeated. Catesby replied, that the nature of the disease ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... of thousands of planets we have seeded. If you fail, we will use your failure to perfect the eventual system we must devise for future teams. Even your failure would be of infinite use to us." He lifted and dropped a shoulder. "I have no desire to undermine your belief in yourselves but—how are we to know?—perhaps there will be a score of failures before we find the ideal method of quickly bringing these primitive colonies into ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... crushing the power of their Church. 'I have long since laid it down as a principle (which in my judgment no Governor of this Province ought to lose sight of for a moment),' wrote Ryland in 1804, 'by every possible means which prudence can suggest, gradually to undermine the authority and influence of the Roman Catholic Priest.' 'The Province must be converted into an English Colony,' declared Sewell, 'or it will ultimately be lost to England.' The opinion these men held of the French Canadians was most uncomplimentary. 'In the ministerial dictionary,' complained ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... PHILOSOPHY.—ANSWER.—Sixthly, you will say there have been a great many things explained by matter and motion; take away these and you destroy the whole corpuscular philosophy, and undermine those mechanical principles which have been applied with so much success to account for the PHENOMENA. In short, whatever advances have been made, either by ancient or modern philosophers, in the study of nature do all proceed on the supposition that corporeal substance or Matter doth really ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... ponds are endowed with added beauty from the lovely names they wear—a tragic yet a charming legacy from Kanonsis and Kanonsionni, the brave and mighty people of the Long House, and those outside its walls who helped to prop or undermine it, ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... or moral. He is for being lawless; or at least, without law: but the Bible is unmistakably an external Law, and is opposed to him. The Bible is his enemy, and the Bible claims to be Divine.... What need to state that to deny the Inspiration of the Bible, and to undermine its authority, and to explain away its statements, becomes the next object of the unbeliever? It is precisely at this stage of his downward progress that public attention is excited, and public indignation aroused. The Church, (like its Divine ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... make them true to you. You might find some means to pay them, for they would be a good buffer between you and your enemies. The president of the Diet and the members are passing bills which will eventually undermine you. How long it will take I can not say. But this last folly, the loan, which you could have got on without, caps the climax. The duke was in the city last week unknown to you. Your minister of finance ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... dissension among the foe; but, placing the most sanguine confidence in a wisdom never to be deceived, it is clear that we should relax no energy within our means, but fight while we plot, and seek to conquer, while we do not neglect to undermine." ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been helping to run the gas works of a certain Corporation during a strike. While commending this action, we admit that we can conceive of nothing more likely to undermine the resolute patriotism of the man in the street than a gas bill furnished ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... she was on the watch for every favorable opening to say something to undermine the child's faith, or bias her mind in favor of the tenets of ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... the girls, and had loved them in vain. Doubtless he had been a disagreeable neighbour to his sister-in-law, making her feel that it was never for her personally that he had opened his hand. Doubtless he had been moved by an unconscious desire to undermine and take upon himself her authority with her own children. Doubtless he had looked askance at her from the first day of her marriage with his brother. She had been keenly alive to all this since she had first known him, and more keenly alive to it than ever since ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... day of April, A.D. 1791. He came of good Puritan stock, his father, Jedediah Morse, being a militant clergyman of the Congregational Church, a fighter for orthodoxy at a time when Unitarianism was beginning to undermine the foundations of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... can hope to do is, for the moment, negative: in my view, at least. We can undermine the power of the Capitalist Press. We can expose it as we have exposed the Politicians. It is very powerful but very vulnerable—as are all human things that repose on a lie. We may expect, in a delay perhaps as brief as that which was required ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... After striving with all my might during the whole of his brief little life to inculcate in him an absolute belief in the unalterable truth of God's promises, why should I now allow the weakness of my own faith to undermine his? My child is in the hands of a merciful God; ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... began, and in 1891 and 1892, as many as fourteen actions were brought against the adepts of the Great Candle, and numbers of them were sentenced to imprisonment and to the confiscation of their goods. All this in spite of the fact that their beliefs did not in any way threaten to undermine the foundations ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... ever diminished this essential pledge of the continuance of a German nation; and even though, in view of other primitive decisions, what the higher German patriotism must desire was not invariably to be effected, yet at least there was no direct opposition to its interests; no effort was made to undermine that love, to eradicate it, and to replace it ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... a town congregation you would be sure to meet, clever sceptics, who know well how to argue, who will detect your fallacies and point them out to those who are not yet troubled with doubts, and thus undermine all their confidence ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... national poet that he resented the domination of Jewish belief and thought by the alien Greek speculation. In a style free from rhetoric, and characterized rather by a severe brevity and precision, he undertakes to undermine the Aristotelian position by using the Stagirite's own weapons, logical analysis and proof. His chief work is the "Or Adonai," ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Service—Examples of such Non-compliance in other States—Governments do not Know how to Treat Men who Refuse to Comply with their Demands on Christian Grounds—Such People, without Striking a Blow, Undermine the very Basis of Government from Within—To Punish them is Equivalent to Openly Renouncing Christianity, and Assisting in Diffusing the Very Principle by which these Men justify their Non-compliance—So Governments are in a Helpless Position—Men who Maintain the Uselessness of Personal Independence, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... competent to make the necessary arrangements with a more than satisfactory result," when he might so easily have used his great and growing personal influence with the Chinese (he was a persona grata with them from the beginning) to undermine ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... the disastrous consequences which might accrue to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, if these voracious creatures were suddenly deprived of their usual sustenance. It is well known, that the mischief which they occasion is not confined to what they eat; but they undermine houses, burrow through dams, destroy drains, and commit incalculable havoc, in every place ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... chosen yearly, and that the elective Franchise should be extended to all who pay taxes, we have been desired to wait, for the enemy was at the gate, and ready to avail himself of the discords attending our political contests, in order to undermine our national independence. This argument is gone, and our Adversaries must now look for another. He had mentioned the two radical doctrines of yearly election, and the Franchise enjoyed by all paying taxes; but it would be superfluous ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... could undermine literature and level it with the dust, various interruptions and divisions broke in upon his design, and sic nos servavit Apollo. As he wrote the last sentence, a loud rap came to his door. A servant in livery brought him a note from Mr. Vane, dated Covent ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... Barkilphedro to let go his hold. He awaited his time. Was it to come? What mattered that? He watched for it. Self-love is mixed up in the malice of the very wicked man. To make holes and gaps in a court fortune higher than your own, to undermine it at all risks and perils, while encased and concealed yourself, is, we repeat, exceedingly interesting. The player at such a game becomes eager, even to passion. He throws himself into the work as if he were composing an epic. To be very mean, and to attack that which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... became in his writings an inveterate enemy against it for several pretended reasons: among which were, first, that the members thereof intended to bring a contempt upon ancient and solid learning, upon Aristotle, to undermine the universities, and reduce them to nothing, or at least to be very inconsiderable. Secondly, that at long running to destroy the established religion, and involve the nation in popery, and I know ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... conceal'd in sylvan ways, May laud the rose, and wish, from hour to hour, That he had petals like the empress-flower, And there could grow, unwing'd, and be a bud, With all his warblings ta'en at singing-flood And turned to vagaries of the wildest scent To undermine ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... my dear lord, if such nothings as my letters could contribute to any part of your lordship's; but as your own partiality bestows their chief merit on them, you see they owe More to your friendship than to the writer. It is not my interest to depreciate them; much less to undermine the foundation of their sole worth. Yet it would be dishonest not to warn your lordship, that if my letters have had any intrinsic recommendation, they must lose of it every day. Years and frequent returns of gout have made a ruin of me. Dulness, in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the darkness upon me. Hunched up in the deck chair, with his legs crossed under him, he was like an animated Buddha venting a dark philosophy and seeking to undermine my ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to affect in the forms of the Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments, as of ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... even offering to kneel as she made the solemn protestation. All this was painful to the prisoner, who distinctly foresaw the consequences. Still, so profound was his reverence for Ghita's singleness of heart and mind, that he would not, by look or gesture, in any manner endeavor to undermine that sacred love of truth which he knew formed the very foundations of her character. She was accordingly sworn, without anything occurring to alarm her affectations, or to apprise her of what might be the sad ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... mountain. When Gontran was told of this incident, he said he had dreamt that he crossed a bridge of steel, and, having entered a cave at the foot of a mountain, entered a palace of gold. Gontran employed men to undermine the hill, and found there vast treasures, which he employed in works of charity and religion. In order to commemorate this event he called the hill Mont ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Great River Platt the Sand bars are much more noumerous than they were, and the quick & roleing Sands much more danjerous, where the Praries aproach the river it is verry wide, the banks of those Plains being much easier to undermine and fall than the wood land passed (4) a willow Island Situated near the middle of the river, a Sand bar on the S. S. and a Deep bend to the L S. camped on the right Side of the Willow Island-W. Bratten hunting on ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... just the boy to take his fancy, and to admire him in return; his life, strength, and pluck made him a ready pupil in all schemes of mischief, and Upton, who had often noticed him, would have been the first to shudder had he known how far his example went to undermine all Eric's lingering good resolutions, and injure permanently the boy of whom ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... accomplished by 'regaling the venal beasts.'" {196} He also gave a ball at Mariquita, which passed off with eclat, the governor from Honda, with a host of friends, honouring it with their presence. It was, indeed, necessary to "make a party" in this way, as other schemers were already trying to undermine the Colombian company in influential directions. The engineer did not exaggerate when he said, "The uncertainty of transacting business in this country ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... thine now—for this moment— 'Tis thine, but think with terror on the slow, The quiet power of time. From open violence The attachment of thy soldiery secures thee Today—tomorrow: but grant'st thou them a respite Unheard, unseen, they'll undermine that love On which thou now dost feel so firm a footing, With wily theft will draw away from thee One after the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... be created. Hints had been appearing from time to time in the newspapers that matters were not altogether as the miners thought they were. Then vague rumors got afloat in many districts and spread with great rapidity, and these began to undermine the confidence of ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... above all, they are deficient in energy, probably because there is nothing that they can destroy and therefore no pickings to struggle for. In short, they are not 'capaces imperii.' The want of these qualities and of leaders will very soon undermine their hold upon the country, always a slight one, and, assisted by a few other pushing men, I anticipate, by carefully playing into the hands of the Irish party which will really rule England in the future, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... moled to undermine the company. Dave's men finished building a bridge across a gulch late one day. It was blown up into kindling wood by dynamite that night. Wagons broke down unexpectedly. Shipments of supplies failed to arrive. Engines were ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... command. Almagro and Luque were very much chagrined at the meagre reward that had fallen to them, and Almagro looked with deep antagonism upon the advent of the Pizarros, who, he realized instinctively, would undermine his influence with his partner. This hatred the new Pizarros repaid in kind. Some sort of peace, however, was patched up between them, and in January, 1531, with three small ships and one hundred and eighty-three men, including thirty-seven horses, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... dream from which your Majesty awoke nervous and agitated can be realized only in so far that we shall still have many stormy and noisy parliamentary debates, which must unfortunately undermine the prestige of the Parliaments and seriously interfere with State business. Your Majesty's presence at these debates is an impossibility; and I regard such scenes as we have lately witnessed in the Reichstag regrettable enough as a standard ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... assumption that the imps chose certain persons as their very own. Moreover, the constant reminders of the danger of straying from the strait and narrow way, and of the tortures of the afterworld led to self-consciousness, introspection, and morbidness. The idea that Satan was at all times seeking to undermine the Puritan church also made it easy to believe that anyone living outside of, or contrary to, that church was an agent of the devil, in short, bewitched. As it is only the useful that survives, it was essential ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... not to gamble with the unknown because I hate the known. Never really had so little trouble with a gang—at least, not till these last few weeks. . . . What d'ye think's got into them, Adrian? Somebody's sure at the bottom of all these things. That last bit of trestle didn't undermine itself, and them spikes didn't loosen just to dump the ballast ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... bent upon the absorbing object of productive efficiency; but they have paid a price they little realize. For in the attainment of this minor object, they have made a tremendous breach in the greatest defense of the existing order of society against the advancing enemy. To undermine the foundations of Liberty is to open the ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... in insuring* truth and fidelity. So far as their educational influence is concerned, they tend, as we have seen, to undermine the reverence for truth in itself considered, which is the surest safeguard of individual veracity. Then too, so far as reliance is placed upon an oath, the attention of those concerned is directed with the less careful scrutiny ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... will to renounce doth also miss; My sated life, with having nothing sated, In the motion of moving poised aye, Within its dreams from its own dreams abated— This life let the Gods change or take away. For this endless succession of empty hours, Like deserts after deserts, voidly one, Doth undermine the very dreaming powers And dull even thought's active inaction, Tainting with fore-unwilled will the dreamed act Twice thus removed from the ...
— 35 Sonnets • Fernando Pessoa
... policy of Frederick the Great in this respect,—but his dealings with the Roman Catholic Church at large show not merely wisdom but kindliness. If he felt bound to resist, and did successfully resist, the efforts of Cardinal Rampolla to undermine German rule and influence in Alsace and Lorraine, there was a quiet fairness and justice in his action which showed a vast deal of tolerant wisdom. His visits to the old Abbey of Laach, his former relations with its young abbot, his settlement of a vexed question by the transfer ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... was especially anxious that neither the ruling power nor the conquered rebels should be needless procrastination become accustomed to military government—a form of administration which he regarded as very tempting, but very sure to undermine, and in time to destroy, the real spirit of independence and self-government. It was his belief, as he expressed it himself, that "We must begin with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements, nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the other hand soon learn that they are strong. They hear their parents boast about it. They get the idea that because they are strong they will always remain so, that nothing will do them any serious harm. By living up to this fallacy they undermine their constitutions. Parents should teach their children about the law of compensation as applied to health, that is, he has permanent health who deserves it, and no one else. The children will not always heed true teachings after they have left the parental influence, but the ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... delusion reminding one of Mrs. Southcott, has an idea of entrusting an egg to that particular denomination, or merely understands that she has no business in the building and is consequently frantic to enter it, I cannot determine; but she is constantly endeavouring to undermine the principal door: while her partner, who is infirm upon his legs, walks up and down, encouraging her and defying the Universe. But, the family I have been best acquainted with, since the removal from this trying sphere of a Chinese circle at Brentford, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... towards Heaven we look with reverence and humble hope, I do not know that Tom, Dick, and Harry's notions of it have any special claim to our respect.) Such publicity would destroy all individuality, and undermine the foundations of society. Clairvoyance—if there be any such thing—always seemed to me a stupid impertinence. When people pay visits to me, I wish them to come to the front-door, and ring the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... like not your enquiring after Sir Timorous: I suspect you have some design upon him: You would fain undermine your cousin, and marry ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... princesses—The archbishop de Senlis The spoiled child of fortune, I had now attained the height of my wishes. The king's passion augmented daily, and my empire became such as to defy the utmost endeavors of my enemies to undermine it. Another woman in my place would have employed her power in striking terror amongst all who were opposed to her, but for my own part I contented myself with repulsing their attempts to injure me, and in proceeding to severity only when my personal interests ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... more animate than depress me." Note that his health, usually delicate, is here raised to the level of his morality, although what it had suffered through the various disturbances might have been enough to undermine it. He had the satisfaction of feeling that he had some hold against fortune, and that it would take a greater shock ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... myself and others have had, that because thou hast loved me thou wouldst love me to my end, and at my end. Open none of my doors, not of my heart, not of mine ears, not of my house, to any supplanter that would enter to undermine me in my religion to thee, in the time of my weakness, or to defame me, and magnify himself with false rumours of such a victory and surprisal of me, after I am dead. Be my salvation, and plead my salvation; work it and declare it; and as thy triumphant shall be, so let the militant church be ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... with the employer or producer, to give him the least possible return for his labor or product, was the ideal every capitalist must constantly keep before him, and yet it was mathematically certain that every such sharp bargain tended to undermine the whole business fabric, and that it was only necessary that enough capitalists should succeed in making enough such sharp bargains ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... in-wind athrough the nostrils too, Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath; Of not a few must one avoid the touch; Of not a few must one escape the sight; And some there be all loathsome to the taste; And many, besides, relax the languid limbs Along the frame, and undermine the soul In its abodes within. To certain trees There hath been given so dolorous a shade That often they gender achings of the head, If one but be beneath, outstretched on the sward. There is, again, on Helicon's high hills A tree that's wont to kill a man outright By fetid odour of its ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... The continental city was probably taken first. Against this Nebuchadnezzar could freely employ his whole force—his "horses, his chariots, his companies, and his much people"—he could bring moveable forts close up to the walls, and cast up banks against them, and batter them with his engines, or undermine them with spade and mattock. When a breach was effected, he could pour his horse into the streets, and ride down all opposition. It is the capture of the continental city which Ezekiel describes when he says:[14231] "Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... virtuous, and an intelligent people. Our country abounds in the necessaries, the arts, and the comforts of life. A general prosperity is visible in the public countenance. The means employed by the British cabinet to undermine it have recoiled on themselves; have given to our national faculties a more rapid development, and, draining or diverting the precious metals from British circulation and British vaults, have poured them into ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... that women remember best. As Osmond's wife she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the other hand his warning should be justified the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed his cousin's marriage, Ralph's ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James |
