"Pernicious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... will perceive that everything seems to be referred to the Miamis, which does not promise a peaceable issue. The confidence they have in their situation, the vicinity of many other nations not very well disposed, and the pernicious counsels of the English traders, joined to the immense booty obtained by the depredations upon the Ohio, will most probably prevent them from listening to any reasonable terms of accommodation, so that it is to be feared the United States must prepare effectually to chastise ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... in a speech from a flimsy, temporary stand erected in the middle of the street in front of the Plaza—and in saying so he merely told the truth. For, next to money-making, adulation pleased him most. He would have been an able man had he ignored the latter passion. It seared his intellect as a pernicious habit blasts the character. It sat on his shoulders—extravagantly squared; it shone in his eyes—inviting inspection; his lips, curved with smug complacence, betrayed it as, sitting in Corrigan's office after the conclusion of the festivities, he smiled ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... August (1572), a shot was fired at Coligny, from a window of a house, by an adherent of the Guises. He was wounded, but not killed. Charles was incensed. At a visit made to the wounded chief, the king was warned by him, as Catherine quickly learned, against her pernicious influence in the government. Thereupon she arranged with her confederates for a general slaughter of the Huguenots, and almost coerced the half-frantic and irresolute king to acquiesce in the plan. Perhaps, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... skill at "grand tactics"—the management of men in the mass. His one weakness—and that, from my standpoint, a great one—was a literal belief in democratic institutions and in the inspiring but in practice pernicious principle of exact equality ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... America's independence. Yes, gentlemen, this is so sure to me, that I would pledge life, honour, and everything dear to man's heart and honourable to man's memory, that either America must take her becoming part in the political regeneration of Europe, or she herself must yield to the pernicious influence of European politics. There was never yet a more fatal mistake, than it would be to believe, that by not caring about the political condition of Europe, America may remain unaffected by the ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... Showdown were garnished with tin cans and trash, dirt and desolation. Unlike the ordinary cow-town this place was not sprightly, but morose, with an aspect of hating itself for existing. Even the railroad swung many miles to the south as though anxious to leave the town to its own pernicious isolation. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... influences are lost to apperception in its haste, and if in some rational moment reconstructed and acknowledged, are soon forgotten again and cut off from living consideration. But the emptiest experience, even the most pernicious tendency, if embodied in a picturesque image, if reverberating in the mind with a pleasant echo, is idolised and enshrined. Fortunate indeed was Achilles that Homer sang of him, and fortunate the poets that make a public titillation out of their ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... strenuously and perseveringly seek the subversion of the Presbyterian Church. In the earlier stage of the struggle, first Morton, and then James, attempted force, but found the attempt to be in vain. At length the King seemed inclined to leave off the hopeless and pernicious contest; and, in the year 1592, an Act of Parliament was passed, ratifying all the essential elements of the Presbyterian Church, in doctrine, government, discipline, and worship. But this proved to be merely a cessation of hostilities on the part of the King, preparatory to their resumption in a ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... the bad effects of calumny, we should be able to find at bottom something that could be applauded without impairing our veracity, deceiving the public, or joining the multitude in burning the vile incense of flattery under the boy's nose, and hiding him from the world and from himself in a cloud of pernicious adulation. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... often reflect that there is something wanting. Do you know what my dream is? I should like to have over in yonder corner a transparent chapelle. You, perhaps, are unacquainted with a chapelle. It is a framework or basket-funnel above a chimney, for facilitating the release of volatiles and pernicious vapours, and having one side of glass. It enables the chemist to watch the process taking place within. German chemists have nearly always transparent chapelles in ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... sense there was in Hezekiah's "Answer him not."—No, no,—keep your temper.—So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled his left fist and looked at it as if he should like to hit something or somebody a most pernicious punch ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... don't know that you go about preaching the pernicious doctrines of Patrick Henry and Tom Jefferson, who sports on his seal that sentiment of the demagogue: 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.' Who's the tyrant? Why, our most gracious sovereign! That sort of talk is nothing short of treasonable. The purpose ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... many wholesome and needed reforms being agitated with reference to women's work. Doubtless, also, there are many pernicious changes being advocated by both the sincere but mistaken and the vicious and designing. It is not the purpose of this chapter to discuss these reforms or to favor or to oppose any of them. We shall, in this chapter, discuss the ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... neither instantaneous salvation nor unmediated mercy. But as many, not thinking from the understanding about things of the church or of religion, believe that they are saved by immediate mercy and hence that salvation is instantaneous, and yet this is contrary to the truth and in addition is a pernicious belief, it is important that it ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... probably as worthy of the Being to whom they were addressed as they could well be made by human powers. They produced their full impression on the hearers; for it is worthy of remark, that, notwithstanding the pernicious effects of a false taste when long submitted to, real sublimity and beauty are so closely allied to nature that they generally find ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... necessary to their happiness. I have only a word or two to say about one special cause of overwork—the ambitious desire of doing great or clever things, and the hope of accomplishing them by immense efforts: hope as vain as it is pernicious; not only making men overwork themselves, but rendering all the work they do unwholesome to them. I say it is a vain hope, and let the reader be assured of this (it is a truth all-important to the best interests of humanity). No great intellectual thing ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... into all communities. They often disturb the peace, and pervert the decisions, of benevolent and scientific associations. But it is in literary academies that they exert the most extensive and pernicious influence. In the first place, the principles of literary criticism, though equally fixed with those on which the chemist and the surgeon proceed, are by no means equally recognised. Men are rarely able to assign a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... suffering much from thirst, having eaten freely of the Bologna sausages after the loss of my mutton. I became very uneasy, and could no longer take any interest in my books. I was overpowered, too, with a desire to sleep, yet trembled at the thought of indulging it, lest there might exist some pernicious influence, like that of burning charcoal, in the confined air of the hold. In the meantime the roll of the brig told me that we were far in the main ocean, and a dull humming sound, which reached my ears ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as they were called, held that health is the necessary result of obeying certain physical laws, and disease the equally certain result of disobeying them; that all stimulants are pernicious to the human body, and should be rejected, except in those rare cases where it becomes necessary to administer one known poison as an antidote to another equally deadly, in order to neutralize its effects or expel it from the system. Dr. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... they had to deal. Alluding to the constant attempts made to poison himself and his brother, he likens the pretended negotiations to Venetian drugs, by which eyesight, hearing, feeling, and intellect were destroyed. Under this pernicious influence, the luckless people would not perceive the fire burning around them, but would shrink at a rustling leaf. Not comprehending then the tendency of their own acts, they would "lay bare their own backs to the rod, and bring faggots for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... order finally to attain their purpose. The progress of moral truth, however slow, is always certain, and the issue of those proceedings has been such as the excellence of their object might have led us to anticipate. Several of the States have already signified their willingness to forego all the pernicious advantages of slavery. And the number of slaves offered gratuitously by owners in different parts of America, vastly exceed the present means of the Society to provide for them in Africa. The legislature of Maryland appreciate so highly the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... painted from a photograph. In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N. He is director of the Foreign Department ... editor of a magazine ... and doctor of medicine. He gives the impression of being an unusually stupid person and a reptile. He said: "There's nothing more pernicious on earth than a rascally liberal paper," and told us that, apparently, the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free of charge, ask him for a tip. He and S. speak of the peasants ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... reformers have been at work, and down through the centuries their energies have been unflagging. We owe to them whatever advance has been made toward a perfect system of voice training, but they are also responsible for many things pernicious in their nature which have been incorporated in present day methods of teaching, for it must be admitted that there are false prophets among singing teachers no less than among the members of other professions. There is one interesting thing connected with the work of these ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... 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 say, and truthfully, that this land is ruined; and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude that the Mongol Emperor was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. If some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timur, the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Watch well how he dines, during any great Question— What makes him feel gayly, what spoils his digestion— And always feel sure that his joy o'er a stew Portends a clear case of dyspepsia to you. Read him backwards, like Hebrew—whatever he wishes Or praises, note down as absurd or pernicious. Like the folks of a weather-house, shifting about, When he's out be an In-when he's in be an Out. Keep him always reversed in your thoughts, night and day, Like an Irish barometer turned ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... When we yield to these propensities of the flesh, we lay a snare for our own souls, and expose our weakness to an adversary, ever ready to take advantage of our infirmity. It is a common fault in children to desire with greedy appetite such food as is pernicious, and to wish for more than even a mouth opened wide requires—till at length they learn to lust after forbidden things. And what does it lead to? Frances, you began to pick and steal, and your own iniquity chastised you:—you were ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... Loring, emphatically. "I don't approve of young people running about Europe, learning their pernicious habits and customs; I've had my fill of foreign ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... to put the laws against vagabonds in force with the utmost vigour, a great many of those vermin, the japanners, having lately been taken up and sent to the several work-houses in and about this city; and indeed high time, for they grow every day more and more pernicious. ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... men. The new comedy never could have raised its head, had the middle comedy continued to be supported by a succession of such wits as Aristophanes, with new supplies of envenomed personal satire. Fortunately, however, the stage was pretty well cleared of that pernicious kind of writing when Menander, the amiable and the refined, came forth and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... the United States can not enter the capitol of the nation from any direction without passing depleted and agriculturally abandoned lands. Is it not in order to ask the Congress or the president of the United States how long the American farmer is to be burdened with these pernicious, disproved and condemnable doctrines poured forth and spread abroad by the ...
— The Farm That Won't Wear Out • Cyril G. Hopkins
... lighter reading is on the increase at Rugby, he withdraws Hallam and sends down Thackeray and Jerrold. He never undersells and he gives no credit. His business is a ready-money one, and he finds it his interest to maintain the dignity of literature by resolutely refusing to admit pernicious publications among his stock. He can well afford to pay the heavy fee he does for his privilege; for his novel speculation has been a decided hit—of solid advantage to himself and of permanent utility to ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... estimate for consumption of acid and use of zinc is twenty cents for each horse-power per day of twenty-four hours. The escape of acid vapours from the batteries is an evil that will have to be guarded against, to prevent the pernicious effects produced in several electro-plating establishments, where the health of the workmen has been seriously injured by the liberated gases. This defect being overcome, Professor Page's electro-magnetic engine may become highly valuable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... unseemly freedom of language; but she displayed greater resources of mind than I supposed her capable of doing, and though they had been directed against me, I could not help feeling thankful to her—to such an extent do I hate fools, whom I have ever found in this world more pernicious than wicked people. The result was, that with the feeling of repulsion and contempt with which the extravagantly worldly woman inspired me, there was henceforth mingled a shade of gentle pity for the badly brought-up child and ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... the ways of fickle Women—in short, Sir, your Sister Marcella was to have been married to this noble Gentleman,—nay, was contracted to him, fairly contracted in my own Chappel; but no sooner was his back turn'd, but in a pernicious Moon-light Night she shews me a fair pair of heels, with the young Baggage, your other Sister Cornelia, who was just come from the Monastery where I bred her, to see ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... goddess. She, which concealeth herself from others, is wholly known to thee. If thou likest her, frame thyself to her conditions, and make no complaint. If thou detestest her treachery, despise and cast her off, with her pernicious flattery. For that which hath caused thee so much sorrow should have brought thee to great tranquillity. For she hath forsaken thee, of whom no man can be secure. Dost thou esteem that happiness precious which thou art to lose? And is the present ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... change in his conduct, he derived the advantage, not only of enriching himself with a plentiful crop of fruit, but also of getting rid of bad and pernicious habits. His father was so perfectly satisfied with his reformation, that the following season he gave him and his brother the produce of a small orchard, which ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... evils of a bad reputation, and when he saw the numerous advantages which Francisco's good character procured. Such had been Piedro's wretched education, that even the hard lessons of experience could not alter its pernicious effects. He was sorry his knavery had been detected, but he still thought it clever to cheat, and was secretly persuaded that, if he had cheated successfully, he should have been happy. "But I know I am not happy now," said he to himself one ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... I am speaking were singularly remote, being so surrounded by other large plantations that they were exempt from all outside and pernicious influences. The one or two country stores at which the negroes traded might have furnished whiskey, had not those who kept them stood too much in awe of the planters to incur the risk of their displeasure. ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... lend themselves to the otherwise necessary encounter with what are now admitted to be the recognized errors of the, temporarily dominant, medical school, save in so far as it may be requisite to remove from the mind of the layman pernicious and antiquated ideas to which he has been long and persistently educated, or to protect those who have ceased to believe in them from the pitfalls to which, as an alternative, they may be exposed amongst the numberless unscientific, quasi-miraculous, healing cults, or the equally ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... evident, amusements are evil (b) when they unfit for work. "The end of labor," said the Greek philosopher Aristotle, "is to rest." It is equally true that "the end of rest is to labor." Pleasures that tempt us from daily duty, that leave us listless and weary, are pernicious. Outdoor games, for instance, ought to strengthen the physical frame, they ought to make us healthy and strong and ready for work. But when carried to excess they often produce the opposite result, ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... asked what was become of loyalty. "That depends on what you mean by it," returned our girl graduate. "LOI- AUTE, steadfastness to principle, is noble, but personal loyalty, to some mere puppet or the bush the crown hangs on, is a pernicious figment." Charley shouted that this was the No. 1 letter A point in Pie's prize essay, and there the discussion ended, Isa only sighing to herself, "Ah, if I had any one to ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... put upon the plains and battled for; I have learned that the English language is too often used to deceive the commonwealth of labor; I have learned that the man who prides himself on getting on the wrong side of every public issue is as pernicious an enemy to the country as the man who openly fires upon the flag; and I have seen mute sufferings of men in prison which no human pen ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... act of Congress in 1802, in which a provision, directed particularly against the Mormon Church, declared that no church in a Territory of the United States should have in excess of $50,000 of wealth outside of the property used for purposes of worship. It is evident that as early as that time the pernicious effects of a system which used the name of God and the authority of religion to dominate in commerce ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns
... our goods to permit us to carry away the rest; and after this troublesome adventure arrived at a place something more commodious than that which we had quitted, where we met with bread, but of so pernicious a quality that, after having ate it, we were intoxicated to so great a degree that one of my friends, seeing me so disordered, congratulated my good fortune of having met with such good wine, and was surprised when I gave him an account of the whole affair. He then offered me some curdled milk, ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... production of evil" (President Hyde). Men are morally lazy; they have to be pushed into what is good for them, and the "pushee" is almost sure to resent the pushing. The idea that men ardently desire what is rational and noble is pernicious fiction. They want to be let alone. This is part ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... deist. My favourite author was the late celebrated David Hume. I constantly urged his exemplary behaviour in private as a strong argument in favour of his doctrines, forgetting that his literary life was uniformly employed in diffusing his pernicious tenets, and his utmost endeavours were constantly exerted in extending the baneful influence of his philosophical principles. Happy for me had I always been actuated by the considerations which fill my bosom at this moment, and which I hope will animate me in that awful part to-morrow's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... honestest Tradesman"; and he urged the need of legislation to prohibit the amazing advertisements by which our ancestors promised to give rewards for the recovery of stolen goods "and no questions asked." Such advertisements he declares to be "in themselves so very scandalous and of such pernicious Consequence, that if Men are not ashamed to own they prefer an old Watch or a Diamond Ring to the Good of [the] Society it is a pity some effectual Law was not contrived to prevent their giving this public ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... country where splenetic Maladies are prevailing and pernicious, perhaps above any other, hath afforded numberless instances, of even pious people, who have contracted those Melancholy Indispositions, which have unhinged them from all service or comfort; yea, not a few persons have been hurried thereby to lay ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... or reading; whether in developing the power of reasoning or the memory, or the art of study,—is to throw wide open the doors that lead to the lines of least resistance, to lax methods, to easy honors, to weakened mental fiber, and to scamped work. Just as the pernicious doctrine of the subconscious is the first and last refuge of the psycho-faker, so incidental learning is the first and last refuge of soft pedagogy. And I mean by incidental learning, going at a teaching task in an indolent, unreflective, hit-or-miss fashion in the hope that somehow or other ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... Canadian discussions. The Ministers have on the whole come out of them discreditably. Peel has worried and mauled them sadly, and taken a tone of superiority, and displayed a real superiority, which is very pernicious to a Government, as it tends to deprive them of the respect and the confidence of the country. Brougham's harangues in the House of Lords have not done them half the mischief that Peel's speeches have done them in the House of Commons, because Peel has a vast moral ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... things," he replied, "but I'd like to say right here, the fixin' of that all-fired chu'ch is jest about the limit fer the morals of this doggone city. Standin' right here I seem to sort o' see a vision o' things comin' on like a pernicious fever. I seem to see all them boys—good boys, mind you, as far as they go—only they don't travel more'n 'bout an inch—lyin', an' slanderin', an' thievin', an' shootin', an'—an' committin' every blamed sin ever invented since Pharo's ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... however frequently used, or however savoury to the palate of ill-nature, is extremely pernicious, as it is often unjust and highly injurious to the person slandered, and always dangerous, especially in large and mixed companies, where sometimes an undesigned offence is given to an innocent relation or friend of such person, who is thus exposed to shame ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... 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 than ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... however be confessed, that a man, who places honour only in successful violence, is a very troublesome and pernicious animal in time of peace; and that the martial character cannot prevail in a whole people, but by the diminution of all other virtues. He that is accustomed to resolve all right into conquest, will have very little tenderness or equity. All ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... is an example, on a colossal scale, of the pernicious and supine system of officials, as represented by the Board of Trade. Modern liners are so designed that they have no accommodations for more life-boats. Among practical seamen it has long been recognized that the modern passenger ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... are large that it was because the Greek girl had in her time dealt with wilder masculine beasts of the human sort; for she turned upon the man with hell's tides aflood in her blazing eyes, much as a bespangled lady upon a lion which has suddenly imbibed the pernicious theory that he is a free agent. The beast in him ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... question. "Awful people, implacable, insatiable, pernicious, destructive people. The trackers down, the hangers-on, the persecutors, the pursuers. Did I ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... reasons adduced in its favour are invalid, because it has sometimes been supported by the despicable tricks of vulgar imposture, and because the practices to which it has given rise have often been in the highest degree not only absurd but pernicious. ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... uneasy all her life for a misinterpreted word or action; nay, a good, a temperate, and a just man shall be put out of countenance by the representation of those qualities that should do him honour; so pernicious a thing is wit when it is not tempered with virtue ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... that the "ha'porth of milk," which means much more in all senses than with us, takes the place of tea, coffee, beer, to say nothing of more pernicious drinks, with the majority. New milk from the cow costs about a penny a quart, and perhaps if we could obtain a similar commodity at the same price in England, even gin might be supplanted. Eggs and butter are also very cheap; but as the peasants rear poultry ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... power defeat? Gold banished honour from the mind, And only left the name behind; 20 Gold sowed the world with every ill; Gold taught the murderer's sword to kill: 'Twas gold instructed coward hearts, In treachery's more pernicious arts. Who can recount the mischiefs o'er? Virtue resides on earth no more!' He spoke, and sighed. In angry mood, Plutus, his god, before him stood. The miser, trembling, locked his chest; The vision ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... and lie between thy breasts! He hath come hither with these stuffs for amusement's sake, and he is a ravishment to all who set eyes on him.' The princess laughed at her words and said, 'Allah afflict thee, O pernicious old woman! Thou dotest and there is no sense left in thee. Give me the stuff, that I may look at it anew.' So she gave it her, and she examined it again and seeing that though small, it was of great value, was moved to admiration, for she had never in her life seen its ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... spared no "plainness of speech," in his exposure of dangerous error, but from principle and feeling he has abstained from the malice of personal vituperation. His warfare is with pernicious opinions, not with those who hold them, many of whom are impressed with the religious persuasion, that what they have believed they have received from divine teaching, and that in upholding their creed ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... which, in fact, did them honour, though a few of the weakest and vainest among them rather lamented it, but the wiser valued their foliage as a great addition to beauty and elegance, and justly reprobated the prevailing Ton of transparent clothing as very pernicious to health. Mrs. Arbutus was particularly unlucky in having sent all her jewels away for the summer, but Lady Portugal Laurel and a few others ornamented their usual green dresses very prettily with white, and her ladyship ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... inroads have been made upon these forests, and as I stood one afternoon upon the summit of a mountain gazing over the miles of timbered hills below me, it seemed as though here at least was an inexhaustible supply of splendid lumber. But no more pernicious term was ever coined than "inexhaustible supply!" I wondered, as I watched the sun drop into the somber masses of the forest, how long these splendid hills would remain inviolate. Certainly not many years after the Gobi Desert has been crossed by lines of steel, and railroad sheds have replaced the ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... was the idolatry which a woman might show to her cat, her dog, her picture, her china, her furniture, her carriage and horses, or her pet maid-servant. Such was the idolatry of which Mr. Kennedy had spoken;—but was there no other worship in her heart, worse, more pernicious than that, in ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... fully aware of the great work which Mr. Shaw has done. He yields to no one in his admiration for the strength of character and the spirited eagerness which have made him so effective in his onslaught upon pernicious illusions, in making people look beyond the formula and refuse to be blinded by social taboos. But it is just because his influence is so great and in many respects beneficial that we ought to be on our guard against ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... 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, ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal both to ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... and tumults, and destructive war, Committed to the faithless tyrant's care; Who, when he saw the pow'r of Troy decline, Forsook the weaker, with the strong to join; Broke ev'ry bond of nature and of truth, And murder'd, for his wealth, the royal youth. O sacred hunger of pernicious gold! What bands of faith can impious lucre hold? Now, when my soul had shaken off her fears, I call my father and the Trojan peers; Relate the prodigies of Heav'n, require What he commands, and their advice desire. All vote to leave that execrable shore, Polluted with the blood ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... night; and, as usual, differed—and I think more than ever. He affects to patronise a system of criticism fit only for the production of mediocrity; and, although all his finer poems and passages have been produced in defiance of this system, yet I recognise the pernicious effects of it in the Doge of Venice; and it will cramp and limit his future efforts, however great they may be, unless he gets rid of it. I have read only parts of it, or rather he himself read them to me, and gave me ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... it is from this pernicious habit of translating the Bible to suit the thought of each ignoramous that thinks he knows something of the Bible, simply because he has read it once or twice, that all the contradictory sayings about the Bible originate, and it ought to be stopped ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... part; while an incapable or malevolent conductor ruins all. Happy indeed may the composer esteem himself when the conductor into whose hands he has fallen is not at once incapable and inimical; for nothing can resist the pernicious influence of this person. The most admirable orchestra is then paralyzed, the most excellent singers are perplexed and rendered dull; there is no longer any vigor or unity; under such direction the noblest daring of the author appears extravagant, enthusiasm ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... France, the consequences of the conquest of England by the Normans were clearly pernicious, and they have not yet entirely disappeared. It was a great evil, as early as the eleventh century, that the duke of Normandy, one of the great French lords, one of the great vassals of the king of France, should at the same time become ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... had advised forgiveness and the reinstallation of the discharged one. The crime was, after all, not so very serious. Most butlers exacted commissions from tradespeople, so he had been told. Of course it was all wrong, a pernicious system and all that, but they did do it. And many employers winked at the system. Hapgood was an exceptional fellow, really quite exceptional. Aunt Lavinia had treated him as one of the family, almost. Captain ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... snug little box this,' said Mr Lenville, stepping into the front room, and taking his hat off, before he could get in at all. 'Pernicious snug.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... time; our mouths and tongues were quite flayed with drought, and our teeth just fallen from our jaws; for though we had tried, by placing all the dead men's jackets and shirts one over another, to strain some of the sea-water through them by small quantities, yet that would not deprive it of its pernicious qualities; and though it refreshed a little in going down, we were so sick, and strained ourselves so much after it, that it came up again, and made us more miserable than before. Our corpse now stunk so, what was left of it, that we could no longer bear ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... they found a lodging in the soil, grew and prospered, and sent out more seeds. That thistle has been the cause of ruin to many a sheep and cattle run all over Australia. Thousands, yes, millions, of acres of grass have been destroyed by that pernicious weed. Anathemas without number and of the greatest severity have been showered upon the thick-headed Scotchman who brought the plant to Australia, and the other thick-headed Scotchmen who placed it ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... nearly always engaged in hunting the wild animals of the region they inhabit, for the sake of their furs, which they dispose of to the agents of the Hudson Bay Company and other traders, in exchange for blankets, firearms, hatchets, and numerous other articles, as well as too often for the pernicious fire-water, to obtain even small quantities of which they will frequently dispose of the skins which it has cost them many weeks to obtain with much hardship and danger. These Wood Indians are peaceably-disposed, and can always escape the attacks of their enemies of the prairies ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... West have begun to sneer at the achievements of those of the East, and to consider themselves the braver and the manlier of the two. Are these not the signs of the times? And do they not betoken a future of anarchy in the event of the establishment of this most pernicious and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... two very different opinions have been held concerning it. One, probably the earlier, was, that it was a book with a good purpose, and fit to stand side by side with Vicar Pritchard's Canwyll y Cymry and Llyfr yr Homiliau; the other, that it was a pernicious book, "llyfr codi cythreuliaid"—a devil-raising book. A work which in any shape or form bore even a distant relationship to fiction, instantly fell under the ban of the Puritanism of former days. To-day neither opinion is held, the Bardd ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... have been well. Then he reasoned, with himself, sensibly and consistently. It was a bad passion at first. How would it have shamed his father and mother had they heard of it! Its continuance was even more pernicious, making him profligate and idle; introducing him to light pleasures and companies; enfeebling him, morally and physically; diverting him from the beautiful arts; weakening his parental love; divorcing him from grand themes and thoughts. He could never marry this woman. Their ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... pardon these turbulent and ill-conditioned men, but to yield them to the desires of his soldiers, and utterly root out of the commonwealth the ambitious affectation of popularity, a disease as pestilent and pernicious as the passion for tyranny itself. Dion endeavored to satisfy them, telling them that other generals exercised and trained themselves for the most part in the practices of war and arms; but that he had long studied in the Academy how to conquer anger, and not let emulation ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Places about it were fill'd and infested with it; and that to such a degree, as Men could hardly discern one another from the Clowd, and none could support, without manifest Inconveniency. It was not this which did first suggest to me what I had long since conceived against this pernicious Accident, upon frequent observation; But it was this alone, and the trouble that it must needs procure to Your Sacred Majesty, as well as hazzard to Your Health, which kindled this Indignation of mine against it, and was the occasion of what it ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... combination of both kinds of activities; and instead of "technical education," which means the maintenance of the present division between brain work and manual work, we advocate the education integrale, or complete education, which means the disappearance of that pernicious distinction. Plainly stated, the aims of the school under this system ought to be the following: To give such an education that, on leaving school at the age of eighteen or twenty, each boy and each girl should be endowed with a thorough knowledge of ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... a curious fact that country people are much attracted to the sea, and the story of a shipwreck known to be true easily tempts the sixpences from their pockets. Dream-books and ballads sell as they always did sell, but for the rest the pedlar's bundle has nothing in it, as a rule, more pernicious than may be purchased at any little shop. Romantic novelettes, reprints of popular and really clever stories, numbers of semi-religious essays and so on—some only stitched and without a wrapper—make up the show he spreads open before the cottage door or the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... ever so many questions, Mr Carbury. Mr Melmotte wishes to get into Parliament, and if there would vote on the side which you at any rate approve. I do not know that his object in that respect is pernicious. And as a seat in Parliament has been a matter of ambition to the best of our countrymen for centuries, I do not know why we should say that it is vile in this man.' Roger frowned and shook his head. 'Of course Mr Melmotte is not the sort of gentleman whom you have been accustomed ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... they cannot hear. There is a law to control the spiritual, and a law for the material, and it is by observance of these two laws, that man's first estate is to be regained. He must, therefore be temperate, and sober, and wise in the regulation of his appetites and passions, banishing those pernicious inventions, whereby he degradeth and engendereth disease in a glorious structure that ought to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and must diligently cultivate all noble aspirations, weeding out selfishness and gross ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Catholic Apostolic Roman religion. This there could surely be no reasons for refusing. They owed it as a return for the generosity of the king, they owed it to their own relatives, they owed it to the memory of their ancestors, not to show greater animosity to the ancient religion than to the new and pernicious sect of Anabaptists, born into the world for the express purpose of destroying empires; they owed it to their many fellow-citizens, who would otherwise be driven into exile, because deprived of that which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... night with thee and might lie between thy breasts.[FN30] He hath come to thy city with these precious stuffs for amusement's sake, and he is a temptation to all who set eyes on him." The Princess laughed at her words and said, "Allah afflict thee, O pernicious old hag! Thou dotest and there is no sense left in thee." Presently, she resumed, "Give me the stuff that I may look at it anew." So she gave it her and she took it again and saw that its size was small and its value great. It pleased her, for she had never in her life seen its like, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... two feet from the ground. This experiment should be performed in dry weather, and the ring must be renewed: as soon as the ants arrive at it, not one of them will attempt to cross over.—Ant hills are very injurious in dry pastures, not only by wasting the soil, but yielding a pernicious kind of grass, and impeding the operation of the scythe. The turf of the ant hill should be pared off, the core taken out and scattered at a distance; and when the turf is laid down again, the place should be left lower than the ground around it, that when the wet settles ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... let me get a word in edgeways? Our older children, too, he is simply ruining. He teaches them the most pernicious and hurtful doctrines. He told Johnny the other day that Madagascar was an island in the Peruvian Ocean off the coast of Illinois, and that a walrus was a kind of a race horse used by the Caribbees. And our oldest girl told me that he instructed her that Polycarp fought the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Congress, by drawing on that fund, to call so large a quantity of paper presently out of circulation, as to appreciate the rest, and give time for taxation to work a radical cure. Without this remedy of the evil, very pernicious consequences may ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... be well content to try thir Art, Which to no few of them would prove pernicious. 1400 Yet knowing thir advantages too many, Because they shall not trail me through thir streets Like a wild Beast, I am content to go. Masters commands come with a power resistless To such as owe them absolute subjection; And for a life who will not change his purpose? ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... distilling spirits, generally attributed to Raymond Lully, was discovered, the secret of longevity was supposed to have been brought to light, the mercurius volatilis to be at length fixed, and the pernicious product received the name of aqua vitae—liquor of life; "A discovery concerning which," says a learned physician, "it would be difficult to determine, whether it has tended most to diminish the happiness, or shorten the duration of life. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... that all this knavery was devised, or winked at, not only by low class politicians but by statesmen of renown. The maxim salus populi suprema lex was relied upon not for the first or last time as a sufficient excuse for a crime far more pernicious than that of a private forger. But we have not yet realized, in our minds or in our penal codes, that public vices ought to be punished at least as ...
— The Paper Moneys of Europe - Their Moral and Economic Significance • Francis W. Hirst
... metal is so poisonous, that the steam arising from the furnaces in which it is smelted infects the grass of all the neighboring places, and kills the animals which feed on it: culinary vessels lined with a mixture of tin and lead, are apt to convey pernicious qualities to the food prepared in them. There are various preparations of lead, serving for ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... children of the pure race delight in sewing on sheep's tails to the dress of any Cagot who is so absorbed in his work as not to perceive them? And their bodily smell is so horrible and detestable that it shows that they must be heretics of some vile and pernicious description, for do we not read of the incense of good workers, ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Maggie," said Aneta, "and I am relieved that you have spoken as you did to Merry. But now I want to say something else. I have thought of it a good deal during the holidays, and I am firmly convinced that this taking sides, or rather making parties, in a school is pernicious, especially in such a small school as ours. I am willing to give up my queendom, if you, on your part, will give yours up. I want us all to be in unity—every one of us—all striving for the good of the school and for the happiness and welfare each of the other. ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... the most conscientious dealers are compelled to do. But we saw used in one case Prussian blue, which is poisonous—this, however, was not in Messrs. Walsh, Hall & Co.'s—and I was told that ultramarine is sometimes resorted to. These more pernicious substances produce even a "prettier green" than the indigo and gypsum, and secure the preference of ignorant people. Moral—Stick to black tea and escape poison. For all of which information, and many kind attentions, I have to thank Mr. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... British heretics, and urged them on to the destruction of the colony. Good policy required that the governor should keep a watchful eye on the motions of such neighbours, and guard his weak and defenceless colony against the pernicious designs of their Spanish rivals. Some men he discovered who were attempting to entice servants to revolt; these were ordered to receive so many stripes. Others, in defiance of the feeble power of the magistrate, took ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... now strongly raised against this odious governess, and he looked upon her pupil with an eye of compassion. "So early, so young, tainted by the pernicious maxims ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in: such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... sufficient to reward industry;—whilst none are so great as to permit the possessor to remain idle. It is this want of proportion between profit and labour which debases men, producing the sycophantic appellations of patron and client, and that pernicious esprit du corps, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... those precious gifts of Providence which are liable to be misused and misinterpreted. It has been applied, like oratory, to pernicious, as well as to useful purposes. It has been made to minister to vice, to indolence and to luxury—as well as to virtue, to industry, and to true refinement. But we must not on this account question the preciousness of the gift itself. The single circumstance that the Master ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... still in her chair. For several seconds she did not utter a syllable. Her lips were a little parted. The color seemed suddenly drawn from her face, and her eyes narrowed. One realized then the pernicious effect of cosmetics. Her blackened eyebrows were painfully apparent. The little patch of rouge was easily discernible against the pallor of her powdered skin. She was suddenly ugly. Saton, looking at her, was amazed that he could ever have ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the sea, usually contains a portion of the muriates over which it has been wafted. It is a curious fact, but well ascertained, that the air best adapted to vegetables is pernicious to animal life, and vice versa. Now, upon the sea-coast, accordingly, animals thrive, and vegetables decline.—Hurwood's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... the true standard of a proud monarchy, it was more than probable that they might see fit to attempt the "reformation" and re-organization of the Central and South American Colonies, which were following the "pernicious example of the United States," and declaring themselves "free and independent," it being an historical fact, that as soon as the Spanish King was completely reestablished he invited the co-operation of his allies in regard to his ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... has this Christian demand so little inspiration 38:1 to stir mankind to Christian effort? Because men are assured that this command was intended only for a par- 38:3 ticular period and for a select number of fol- lowers. This teaching is even more pernicious than the old doctrine of foreordination, - the election of a 38:6 few to be saved, while the rest are damned; and so it will be considered, when the lethargy of mortals, produced by man-made doctrines, is broken by the demands of 38:9 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... room of the Whitcomb and the primaries, Bassett had quietly visited every congressional district, holding conferences and perfecting his plans. "Never before," said the "Advertiser," "had Morton Bassett's pernicious activity been so marked." The belief had grown that the senator from Fraser was in imminent peril; in the Republican camp it was thought that while Thatcher might not control the convention he ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... But," with a vicious glance at Barbara, "I would condemn the parents who would bring their children up in a dark ignorance of the woes and vices of the world in which they must pass their lives. I think, as Mabel has been permitted to look at the pernicious exhibition of this afternoon, she should also be encouraged to look with calmness upon it, if only to teach her what to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... nothing can be more oppos'd to the ancient Tragedy, than the modern Tragedy in Musick, because the one is reasonable, the other ridiculous; the one is artful, the other absurd; the one beneficial, the other pernicious; in short, the one natural and the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins |
