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Subvert   Listen
verb
Subvert  v. t.  (past & past part. subverted; pres. part. subverting)  
1.
To overturn from the foundation; to overthrow; to ruin utterly. "These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength, With which he yoketh your rebellious necks, Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns." "This would subvert the principles of all knowledge."
2.
To pervert, as the mind, and turn it from the truth; to corrupt; to confound.
Synonyms: To overturn; overthrow; destroy; invert; reverse; extinguish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Subvert" Quotes from Famous Books



... even more of the population is Roman Catholic, it cannot be believed that a Protestant bishop, or a Protestant head of the civil law, can exercise any other powers than those which their offices permit them to do; and by the British constitution it is very clear that any attempts to subvert the established order of things on their parts would inevitably lead to deprivation ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... thou labour'd to subvert in vain, What one poor Smile of ours calls home again? Can any see that glorious Sight ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

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

... and that Roman Antichrist, to promise, swear, subscribe, and for a time use the holy sacraments in the Kirk deceitfully, against their own conscience; minding hereby, first, under the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and subvert secretly God's true religion within the Kirk; and afterward, when time may serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of the Pope's dispensation, devised against the Word of God, to his greater confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... to subvert our liberties by enforcing unrighteous laws. The Colonies exhibited their loyalty to the king when we stood side by side to drive out the French. We taxed ourselves to the utmost. England has repaid but a very small proportion ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

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

... first New England emigration was the result of those strong tendencies of the British people soon afterward strengthened into a determination sufficiently powerful to sacrifice the monarch and subvert the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

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

... is not derived from the light of nature. It is the error of every man who denies the possibility of any mystery beyond the limits of his reason, of every one who, discarding revelation in defence of the pretended rights of Reason, Equality, and Liberty, seeks to subvert the whole fabric of the Christian religion." B. 4.] to detect in the writings of Voltaire and of the leading Encyclopedists, a conspiracy not only against the Altar but also against the Throne. He severely denounces the "Last Will ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... United States as a catspaw against England. The actual German propagandists have the excuse of patriotism for their race and Vaterland, but these Hibernian hybrids, neither good Irishmen nor good Americans, have no excuse whatever when they try to subvert the functions of the country which is ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... a dark political hue, which, by their tendency to subvert the government or destroy the institutions of the country, necessarily assume a character highly dangerous to the safety and well-being of the state, it might be difficult to say what degree of punishment would be excessive or unusual. It seems probable, that in cases of this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... thieves. I urged that he should either allow me to purchase rations, or else feed them from the palace as Rumanika did; but he always turned a deaf ear, or said that what Sunna his father had introduced it ill became him to subvert; and unless my men helped themselves they would ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

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

... in 1792 to unite in a war against that wild democracy in France, which threatened to subvert, by force, monarchy in every form, throughout the world, and to give the fraternal embrace to every nation upon earth, willing or unwilling, does it follow that she will look with composure at a war on the limited monarchies in her neighborhood, which she has thought proper to ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt

... did at the first court exhibit a Charge against him, containing the highest Treasons that ever was wrought upon the theatre of England; That a king of England trusted to keep the law, that had taken an oath so to do, that had tribute paid him for that end, should be guilty of a wicked Design to subvert and destroy our Laws, and introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government, in defiance of the Parliament and their Authority, set up his standard for War against his Parliament and People: And ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: I believe that the dictatorship, so to speak, which Ignatius claims for the bishop in each church, was required by the circumstances of the case; but to change the temporary into the perpetual dictatorship, was to subvert the Roman constitution; and to make Ignatius's language the rule, instead of the exception, is no less to subvert the Christian church. Wherever the language of Ignatius is repeated with justice, there the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

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

... great anxiety to preserve the Federal Union? For the Federal Union can only be preserved by subduing the armed rebellion that menaces it. Anything short of the absolute and thorough defeat of the Southern armies must lower the dignity of the nation, and weaken and subvert the foundations of the Union. Thus far, by the grace of God and our right arm, the Constitution and Union are preserved, and so long as they 'still stand strong,' the basis of settlement remains; and whenever the rebels are tired of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... so reverenced among men, that those who attempt to subvert any system of it whatever, have to contend against a very natural prejudice. But this prejudice can only be in degree with the antiquity of its establishment; for modern error, how high soever its authority, has but little claim to our veneration. This concession made, could it be expected that ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... No. 2.—Your telegram of 14th January, No. 1. The accused are between fifty and sixty in number, and are mostly members of the Reform Committee. They have been arrested on charge of treason, and of seeking to subvert the State by inviting the co-operation and entrance into it of an armed force. The proceedings are based, I understand, on sworn information, and the trials will take place before High Court. The accused are being well treated, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... and government, firmly spread on record a series of resolutions that admitted of no double meaning. They declared that taxes could not be imposed without their consent, given through their respective colonial assemblies; that the Stamp Act showed a tendency to subvert their rights and liberties; that the recent trade acts were burdensome and grievous; and that the right to petition the king and Parliament was their heritage. They thereupon made "humble supplication" for the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... behind in Brazil by his father, and was then fourteen years of age, was proclaimed emperor. Measures were taken against the slave-trade, and it was finally abolished; an effective plan for the gradual emancipation of slaves was adopted (1871). Rosas, dictator of Buenos Ayres, who intended to subvert the republics of Uruguay and Paraguay, was defeated by the Brazilian forces and their allies (1852). A long war against Lopez, dictator of Paraguay, ended in his capture and death (1870). This war involved losses to Brazil in men and money. Under Dom Pedro II., ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... and open opposition of the nobles was stigmatized as a cabal by the offended priest. He repeatedly whispered in the royal ear that their league was a treasonable conspiracy, which the Attorney-General ought to prosecute; that the seigniors meant to subvert entirely the authority of the Sovereign; that they meant to put their King under tutelage, to compel him to obey all their commands, to choose another prince of the blood for their chief, to establish a republic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... reason for receiving money privately, would constitute a precedent of the most dangerous nature to the Company's service. That, in attempting to justify the receipt and application of the said money, he has endeavored to establish principles of conduct in a Governor which tend to subvert all order and regularity in the conduct of public business, to encourage and facilitate fraud and corruption in all offices of pecuniary trust, and to defeat all inquiry into the misconduct of any person in whom pecuniary trust is reposed.—That the said Warren Hastings, in his letter above mentioned, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... such a substitution. On the contrary, Christ had the power to lay down his life; and he did so, in perfect accordance with the appointment of God. In submitting to the death of the cross, he did not subvert, he fulfilled the end of his ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... only govern himself, but he will also employ himself. There are few worse elements in society than an idle leisure class,—a body of men and women who make mere recreation the business of living, and so reverse or subvert the ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

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

... found more effective against the advocates of improvement or change than that of Agrarianism,—by which is meant hostility to existing property institutions, and a determination, if possible, to subvert them. Of the two, the charge of Agrarianism is the more serious, as it implies the other. A man may be irreligious, and yet a great stickler for property, because a great owner of it,—or because he is by nature stanchly conservative, and his infidelity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... altogether to blame for this barbarous and cruel persecution. Had the Jesuits been satisfied with their spiritual conquests, and not sought to subvert the government of the country, all might have gone well, and Japan, ere now, been a Christian country. But no; true to themselves and to their Order, they came not to bring peace, but literally a sword, and the innocent were ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

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

... representation or to procure relief by an amendment of the Constitution. But the measures of the Government are to be recognized as valid, and consequently supreme, until these remedies shall have been effectually tried, and any attempt to subvert those measures or to render the laws subordinate to State authority, and afterwards to resort to constitutional redress, is worse than evasive. It would not be a proper resistance to "a government of unlimited powers," as ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

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

... Hiopa took it.—"Within," said he, "is the life of a land; And behold! I breathe on the coal, I breathe on the dales of the east, And silence falls on forest and shore; the voice of the feast Is quenched, and the smoke of cooking; the rooftree decays and falls On the empty lodge, and the winds subvert deserted walls." ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson

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

... For had not California and New Mexico been won by the bravery and blood of the South as of the North, and how then was the North to deprive the South of its joint ownership of them without destroying the federal equality of the two halves of the Union? What was it but to subvert the Union ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... out some of his acquaintances. "When I came to the army, among Cromwell's soldiers," he says, "I found a new face of things which I never dreamt of: I heard the plotting heads very hot upon that which intimated their intention to subvert both Church and State. Independency and Anabaptistry were most prevalent; Antinomianism and Arminianism were equally distributed; and Thomas Moor's followers (a weaver of Wisbeach and Lynn, of excellent parts) had made some shifts to join these two extremes together. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... of Vertue in others, they strive to sully or efface it, and by turning it into Ridicule, make it seem rather the Dishonour and Deformity, than the Beauty and Perfection of the Mind: And if they can disgrace Religion, and subvert all moral Distinction, Men will be valu'd only for their intellectual Endowments, and then they imagine they have gain'd their Point, since the Superiority of Wit, as they suppose, is on their Side. These seem to me the genuine and natural Causes, why Men of great Parts and extraordinary ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore

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

... inclination to stoutness; and he had a handsome, sunburned face, with a short brown beard and deep-set, dark-brown eyes. His hair was not cut quite to the conventional shortness, perhaps: there was a lock that would fall in an unruly manner across the broad brow with an obstinacy no hairdresser could subvert. But, in all other respects, he was very much as other men: he dressed well, if rather carelessly, and presented to the world a somewhat imposing personality. He did not wear gloves, and he had no flower at his button-hole; but the respectability of his silk hat and well-made ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... all its venom. This circumstance seems to prove that his abilities must have been great indeed, to have kept such crowds silent. Several Catholic writers lament that his book was burnt, and regret the loss of Pletho's work; which, they say, was not designed to subvert the Christian religion, but only to unfold the system of Plato, and to collect what he and other philosophers had written ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... thirteen Articles, of which the following is an abstract. It begins by stating that "Whereas the late King James II, by the advice of divers evil counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom:" 1. By dispensing with and suspending the laws without consent of Parliament. 2. By prosecuting worthy bishops for humbly petitioning ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... the warming pan. They were associated with the Rye House assassins; that conspiracy was their ruin. Charles triumphed, and did not spare his enemies. When he died, in spite of the Dover Treaty, of his paid subserviency to France, of the deliberate scheme to subvert the liberties of England, James, the chief culprit, succeeded, with undiminished power. The prostrate Whigs were at the mercy ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... take them into the account, they would perceive the impossibility of the thing. To suppose it required is to blaspheme God—to pretend that man can submit to it, is to belie human nature—to conceive that a child of God can reconcile himself to it, is to subvert every just idea of true religion. To require it, God must deny himself! To consent to it, man must consent to become an infernal! The statement of the case is a refutation ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

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

... nature of things that hostility to these institutions can spring from this source, or any opposition to their course of business, except when they themselves depart from the objects of their creation and attempt to usurp powers not conferred upon them or to subvert the standard of value established by the Constitution. While opposition to their regular operations can not exist in this quarter, resistance to any attempt to make the Government dependent upon them for the successful ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... destroy it. The men of '76 fought for Magna Charta. These principles had been prominent in our Constitution until a Republican majority attempted destruction and civil war. Kings had made efforts to destroy its power and subvert its influence. Not a single noble family existed in England but which had lost a member in its defense. Society was organized to protect it, and all good and true men are required to maintain its teachings. "The ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

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

... the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations." But by the law of 1842, contended the report, Congress had only partially exercised its power, and had attempted "to subvert the entire system of legislation adopted by the several States of the Union, and to compel them to conform to certain rules established by Congress for their government." Congress "may" make or alter such regulations, but "the right to change State laws or to enact others which shall suspend ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find—'D'you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

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

... unavoidable outcome of events unforeseen and uncontrollable. It has been deliberately planned years ahead, with elaborate preparation of railway and other facilities, and with every invention and contrivance, to rush in irresistible forces; to subvert and destroy the independent State that Germany was ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... fair trial before an impartial jury; that the privilege of habeas corpus shall not be denied in time of peace, and that no bill of attainder shall be passed even against a single individual. Yet the system of measures established by these acts of Congress does totally subvert and destroy the form as well as the substance of republican government in the ten States to which they apply. It binds them hand and foot in absolute slavery, and subjects them to a strange and hostile power, more unlimited and more likely to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

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

... the first, and perhaps the greatest blow. The whole conduct of that celebrated man proved that he had formed a deliberate scheme to subvert the fundamental laws of England. Those parts of his correspondence which have been brought to light since his death, place the matter beyond a doubt. One of his admirers has, indeed, offered to show "that the passages which Mr. Hallam has invidiously extracted from the correspondence between ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the Word of God, quote this passage and kindred ones, and, accepting the commonly received idea of their meaning, endeavor to subvert the faith of the masses. With those who do not carefully examine the matter for themselves, they often succeed. It has been asserted, too, by those who would wish the teachings of the Koran to take precedence over those of the Bible, that the ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

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

... suffice to say that he displayed the greatest talent and bravery, first against the Spaniards, and, after their subjugation, in the civil wars which ensued. He was drawn into the latter, when, in 1829, part of the troops, under General Prieto, attempted to subvert the existing authorities, because, as he wrote, he "considered that no free government or orderly state could exist an hour, if the military were once allowed to throw the sword into the scale, and decide points ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... son's looks acquiesced in all the father said, "I will not take from any one in affluence what only belongs to the widow, the fatherless, and the infirm; for to such alone, by Christian laws—however custom may subvert them—the overplus of the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... which the Holy Ghost has placed you as Bishops, but in particular to watch over children and young men. They ought to be the special object of your paternal love, of your vigilant solicitude, of your zeal, of all your care. They who have tried to subvert society and families, to destroy authority, divine and human, have spared no pains to infect and corrupt youth, hoping thus the more easily to execute their infamous projects. They know that the mind ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... will continuously strive to get for himself to the utmost limit regardless, if it could be discovered, of what is rightfully due. And a plan of Society which each member of Society is striving to subvert is doomed ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams

... practical geologists - like Hugh Miller, in his "Footprints of the Creator," and Professor Sedgwick, in the invaluable notes to his "Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge" - have wielded in defence of Christianity the very science which was faithlessly and cowardly expected to subvert it. ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

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

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

... appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the U.S. Senate, to investigate the Harper's Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to inquire: (1) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the States of the Union." (2) "What was the character and extent of such organisation." (3) "And whether any citizens of the United States, not present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by contributions ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... fell from the Father of his Country in his Farewell Address to the American people. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... creatures and servants of the Most High! (be His glorious name by all His infinite creation reverenced and adored!)—and we, in conjunction with the most exalted hierarchies of Heaven, are spirits, ministrant to man! Amongst us, alas! are evil and wretched Fays, whose terrible study it is to subvert our beneficent labours, to prevent our entrance into this ethereal region, and in their own desolate and accursed country to insult the veritable Fairy Land by employing their small remnant of celestial power in creating imitations of it, as paltry as absurd. Know also, O mortal! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... personal observation. To estimate the character of these practices, and of the present attempt to tamper with the extradition treaty, we must remember that Louis Napoleon himself long enjoyed, as a political refugee, the shelter of the asylum which he is now endeavoring to subvert. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... Abdul Cossim, the first mushtehed (divine) of Persia; a man who, if he were to give himself sufficient stir, would make the people believe any doctrine that he might choose to promulgate. Such is his influence, that many believe he could even subvert the authority of the Shah himself, and make his subjects look upon his firmans as worthless, as so much waste paper. But the truth is, he is a good man; and, except stoning his sufi, and holding us wandering dervishes as the dirt under his feet, I ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... considered the time to be ripe, he began secretly to sow the seeds of discontent among the people. It was his deliberate purpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he kept that to himself for a time. He used different arts with different individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... mind is doubtless singular and perverse; yet that opinion, perhaps, is the fruit of my ignorance. It may by no means be uncommon for men to fashion their conclusions in opposition to evidence and probability, and so as to feed their malice and subvert their happiness. Thus it was, in an eminent degree, in my case. The simple fact was connected, in my mind, with a train of the most hateful consequences. The depravity of Welbeck was inferred from it. The charms of this angelic woman were tarnished and withered. I had ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... without fruits. Although every man in the colony, either in his own person, or in that of his parent or guardian, had directly entered into the covenants of the fundamental law, as that law then existed, they now began to quarrel with its provisions, and to advance doctrines that would subvert everything as established, in order to put something new and untried in its place. Progress was the great desideratum; and change was the hand-maiden of progress. A sort of 'puss in the corner' game was started, which was to enable those who had no places to run into the seats of those ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

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

... basis of the commonwealth. Destroy family confidence and family government, and you destroy society, subvert civil government, and bring destruction on the human race. Mankind are so generally agreed on this subject, that adultery, even among heathens, is regarded and punished as a crime. The whole school of Infidel ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... why the love of self and love of the world are infernal loves, and yet man has been able to come into them and thus subvert the will and understanding within him, is as follows: the love of self and the love of the world by creation are heavenly loves; for they are loves of the natural man serviceable to spiritual loves, as a foundation is to a house. For man, from ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... effect we suffer as much at home by this loosening of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions as we do abroad; for in order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... to extremes. So I am a prisoner in my own house! Can it be that they will carry out their diabolical threats and have me tried as a suspect? Nonsense! I will subvert their plans and ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

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

... is an evil that extends at once to the whole community: that neither leaves quiet to the poor, nor safety to the rich; that, in its approaches, distresses all the subordinate ranks of mankind; and, in its extremity, must subvert government, drive the populace upon their rulers, and end in bloodshed and massacre. Those who want the supports of life will seize them wherever they can be found. If in any place there are more than can be fed, some must be expelled, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... with their blood the moors, where they rendered homage to the King of Zion; while, in the sunshine of courtly favour, ecclesiastics moved, who without fear bartered, for their own sordid gain, the blood-bought liberties of the Church of God, and showed themselves as willing to subvert the civil rights of their countrymen as they had been to destroy their religious ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... candidates who had been put in nomination for the offices of governor and lieutenant-governor at the November election in 1872, and who had been declared not elected by the board of canvassers, recognized by all the courts to which the question had been submitted, undertook to subvert and overthrow the State government that had been recognized by me in accordance with previous precedents. The recognized governor was driven from the statehouse, and but for his finding shelter in the United States custom-house, in the capital of the State ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... leader appears only when needed, in war; he cannot for years afterward be rewarded by the presidency; pensions cannot be made perquisites of party; the army, i.e. the whole effective force of the nation, will support, and not attempt to subvert, the republic. ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... rules of Scripture may subvert his cause, desireth to subject them to the church's determination, and to make it our highest rule. Jam autem, saith he,(1196) in talium rerum usu, id edificat, quod pacificum; illud est pacificum quod est ordinatum; is autem decens ordo est in ecclesia ab ipso Christo constitutus, ut in ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... man as an enemy, who does not in some line or other, give his assistance towards supporting the same; at the same time we consider the offence to be heightened to a degree of unpardonable guilt, when such persons, under the show of religion, endeavor, either by writing, speaking, or otherwise, to subvert, overturn, or bring reproach upon the independence of this continent as ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... it was impossible, by any importunity, to induce her to violate her principles; he had nothing more to attempt, but to subvert them. 'When,' said he, 'shall ALMEIDA awake, and these dreams of folly and superstition vanish? That only is virtue, by which happiness is produced; and whatever produces happiness, is therefore virtue; and the forms, and words and rites, which priests have pretended ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth

... the slumbering passions and avidities of his people, were to make a stigma out of their former diffidence and delight in aloofness, an offence out of their exoticism and hidden permanency, were to depreciate their most radical proclivities, subvert their consciences, make their minds narrow, and their tastes 'national'—what! a statesman who should do all this, which his people would have to do penance for throughout their whole future, if they had a future, such a statesman would be GREAT, would he?"—"Undoubtedly!" replied ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... reason for believing that the slavery modification of servitude should not be classed with the confessedly proper relations with which you class it, is the conclusive one, that it interferes with, and tends to subvert, and does actually subvert, these relations. The Apostles prescribe duties, which are necessary to sustain these relations, and make them fruitful sources of happiness to the parties to them. Among these duties are the following: "Wives, submit yourselves ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Mirabeau was at one and the same time to support the monarchy and to subvert the influences by which the throne was environed. He was solicitous of securing popular freedom, but regarded the monarchy as the only form of rule suitable for France in that age, and was led to adopt that peculiar statesmanship identifying ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

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

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

... complete set of the Variorum Classics, and the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, I have read through from beginning to end, deposes, with irrefragable refutation, against your ratiocinative speculations, wherein you seem desirous, by the futile process of analytical dialectics, to subvert the pyramidal structure of synthetically deduced opinions, which have withstood the secular revolutions of physiological disquisition, and which I maintain to be transcendentally self-evident, categorically certain, and ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... to perpetuate the power of the economically dominant class—since the increase of wealth has divided society into classes—has ever been accounted moral conduct; conduct that has tended to weaken or subvert the power of the ruling class has always been branded as immoral. There you have the key to all the varying codes of ethics the world has seen. For it must never be forgotten that ideas of right and wrong are not absolute, but relative; ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

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

... against the social conventions that require two brothers to wear a mask if the older will succeed to the entail, and the other to the fortune of a younger son. The whole civilization of Europe turns upon the principle of hereditary succession as upon a pivot; it would be madness to subvert the principle; but could we not, in an age that prides itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect this essential ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac

... professed a freedom from decided bias, and to favor the general system of Arthur, rather than that propounded by Archbishop Whately. The opinions he ultimately adopted, he ascribed to his own observation, and disclaimed all prejudice against those forms of prison discipline he was destined to subvert. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

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

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

... sworn, that he should be left to defend himself, without the help of counsel against the best abilities which the Inns of Court could furnish. The Whigs, it seemed, reserved all their compassion for those crimes which subvert government and dissolve the whole frame of human society. Guy Faux was to be treated with an indulgence which was not to be extended to a shoplifter. Bradshaw was to have privileges which were refused to a boy who ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... alienating the affections of His Majesty's subjects from the respect which was due to His Majesty's person. It was impossible for His Majesty's representative longer to disregard or suffer practices so directly tending to subvert His Majesty's government, and to destroy the happiness of His Majesty's subjects. He, therefore, announced, that with the advice and concurrence of the Executive Council, and due information having been given to three of His Majesty's Executive ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... abdicated. The latter designation was agreed on, for in a full assembly of the Lords and Commons, met in convention, it was resolved, in spite of James's protest, "that King James II. having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

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

... from East Cowes to Eaglehurst; as if there were not already conventicles enough on shore for those who are disposed to separate themselves from the established church, without the aid of a floating chapel, furnished by the government agent to subvert the present order of things. On this point, you know, I was always a liberal thinker, but a firm friend to the church, as being essential to the best interests of the state. An old college chum of ours, who has been unusually fortunate in obtaining ecclesiastical preferment, thought proper ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... which was in the Colbert library? (Leuglet du Fresnoy, Meth. pour etud. l'Hist., iii. 8., a Paris, 1735.) That it was published previously to the famous Mentz Bible of this date is altogether impossible; and was the figure 6 a misprint for 8? or should we attempt to subvert it into 9? The editio princeps of the Latin version by Angelus is in Roman letter, and is a very handsome specimen of Vicenza typography in 1475, when it was set forth "ab Hermano Leuilapide," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... stronger than the ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union party, on an ever-memorable evening in the month of January, he startled the company by the proposition that the time had come when the friends of the government must arm in its defence. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... whoever is placed over them as commander act as their father not as their executioner, leading them with a gentle hand; for whoever rules them as a friend and associate will be beloved by them, as he who will order them as a superior will subvert and nullify everything; yea, they will excite against him the neighbouring provinces to which they will fly. 'Tis better to rule by love and friendship ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... committee to remember that the Constitution under examination is framed upon truly republican principles; and that, as it is expressly designed to provide for the common protection and the general welfare of the United States, it must be utterly repugnant to this Constitution to subvert the State governments or ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... intercourse now ceased to be by letter, and the subtle and laborious argumentations which he had formerly produced against religion, and which were contained in a permanent form, were combated in transient conversation. He was not only eager to subvert those opinions which he had contributed to instil into me, but was anxious that the letters and manuscripts which had been employed in their support should be destroyed. He did not fear wholly or chiefly on my own account. He believed that the influence ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... most humble Address to your most judicious Consideration, hoping you will most vigorously, and with all your might, maintain the Rights and Privileges of the Honourable City; and not suffer the Force or Persuasion of any Arbitrary Lover whatsoever, to subvert their antient and Fundamental Laws, by seducing and forcibly bearing away so rich and so illustrious a Lady: and, Madam, we will unanimously stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes.—This I learnt from a Speech at the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... else, we will preserve our household laws; Nor let the license of these fickle times Subvert the holy shelter which command Of fathers, and undoubting faith of sons, Rear'd for our ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

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

... be inferred from what he said; for he told us the people of a State where the constitution gives the same weight to a smaller as to a greater number, might take the remedy into their own hands; meaning, as I understood him, that a mere majority might at their pleasure subvert the constitution and government of a State,—which he seemed to think was the essence of democracy. Our little State has a constitution that could not stand a day against such doctrines, and yet we glory ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... people who work out subjects thoroughly are disagreeable wretches. One only feels as one should when one doesn't know much about the matter." In other words, we are not to let our knowledge come between us and our power to feel. In thus seeming to assail education I am not seeking to subvert or destroy; I want simply to adjust the emphasis. The really wise man is he who knows how to make life yield him its utmost of true satisfaction and furnish him the largest scope for the use of his powers and the expression of himself. In this sense a newsboy in the streets may ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes

... that the head of the Buenos Ayrian government, Rodriguez, having taken the field against some Indian tribes, who have lately committed great ravages in his territories, an attempt was made by one of the ex-chiefs to subvert his government; happily, without success. I say happily, because I am convinced that every week and month passed without change, is of infinite consequence both to the present and future wellbeing of the Spanish colonies. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

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

... would stand or fall; and he demanded that he might have the right of explaining and defending his doctrines in public court. This liberty was scornfully denied him. He was condemned for being guilty of desiring to subvert the Government and religion of the country, and thrown into prison. He would at once have been transported to Siberia, but the Government hoped by keeping him to discover others who held the same tenets. They little knew how far the true faith ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... this destroys the very end of Parliament as a control, and is a general previous sanction to misgovernment; and secondly, the setting up any claims adverse to the right of free election; for this tends to subvert the legal authority by which ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... the law with regard to, ii. 384. public, excessive, their tendency to subvert government, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... people, being dazzled with his cheats, and stubbornly adhering to his pernicious doctrine, worshipped him even as a deity. Therefore he continually blasphemed the ways of the Lord, and those who were desirous to be converted from idolatry did he labor to subvert in their faith, and to pervert from Christ. And almost in the same manner as Simon Magus resisted Saint Peter did he oppose Saint Patrick. And on a certain time, when he was raised from the earth by the prince of darkness and the powers of the air, and the ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... beneficial. He, at the same time, always taught that Ireland was utterly unfit for democracy, and that under her peculiar conditions no policy could be more disastrous than one which would 'destroy the influence of landed property'; 'set population adrift from the influence of property'; subvert or weaken the guiding influence of the loyal and educated. When the United Irishmen proposed a Reform Bill which would have made the Irish Parliament a purely democratic body, Grattan denounced it with the greatest vehemence. ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... devilish set of patches. These patches were then incorporated into a pair of programs called 'Robin Hood' and 'Friar Tuck'. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were designed to run as 'ghost jobs' (daemons, in Unix terminology); they would use the existing loophole to subvert system security, install the necessary patches, and then keep an eye on one another's statuses in order to keep the system operator (in effect, the superuser) from ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... girl," went on Titus Caesar. "It seems that she is a Nazarene, a sect of which all men speak ill, for they try to subvert authority and preach doctrines that would bring the world to ruin. Also she was false to her own people, which is a crime, though one in this instance whereof we Romans cannot complain. Therefore, if only for the sake of example it would be wrong to set her free; ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... remarked, that the most enlightened men are commonly bad Christians. For independent of its effects on faith, which science is exceedingly apt to subvert, it diverts the Christian from the work of his salvation, which is the only thing needful. In a word, the peculiar principles of Christianity literally obeyed, would entirely subvert from its foundations ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... go to smash, go to shivers, go to wreck, go to pot, go to wrack and ruin; go by the board, go all to smash; be all over, be all up, be all with; totter to its fall. destroy; do away with, make away with; nullify; annual &c 756; sacrifice, demolish; tear up; overturn, overthrow, overwhelm; upset, subvert, put an end to; seal the doom of, do in, do for, dish [Slang], undo; break up, cut up; break down, cut down, pull down, mow down, blow down, beat down; suppress, quash, put down, do a job on; cut short, take off, blot out; dispel, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget



Words linked to "Subvert" :   disobey, overthrow, destroy, lead off, sensualize, lead astray, sabotage, demoralize, pervert, force out, ruin, debauch, poison, counteract, derail, suborn, overturn, depose, alter, vitiate, sensualise, bring down, subversion, modify, deprave, subverter, carnalise, change, profane



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