"Subversive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presented to them in an altered shape and furnished with certain favourite appendages. The Gnostics called themselves believers; and their most celebrated teachers would willingly have remained in the bosom of the Church; but it soon appeared that their principles were subversive of the New Testament revelation; and they were ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... prepared to sympathise in these flights, considering them subversive of the dignity of a Grecian. [15] Middleton was then on the threshold of the College, and lads in this situation seemed called upon, to preserve with dignity their honours, and with more outward forms than suited their age. This at the time ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... the gods, for he was exact in his legal worship; but really and virtually there was some foundation for the accusation, since Socrates was a religious innovator if ever there was one. His lofty realism was subversive of popular superstitions, when logically carried out. As to the second charge, of corrupting youth, this was utterly groundless; for he had uniformly enjoined courage, and temperance, and obedience ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... such hidden deeds. 'Twas a mad prank of yours last night, and might have involved us all in common ruin. Go this time free, except for these words of censure; for you are not directly under my orders. Another such attempt, subversive of all discipline, and the gates of Dearborn will ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... type, unchecked by a broad sense of humanity, full of subversive wilfulness, and not only untrained in moderation, but degenerating into crass exaggeration, Rousseau was the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... cannot be challenged, but, like most aphorisms, it only conveys a portion of the truth; for the commercial spirit, though eminently beneficent when under some degree of moral control, may become not merely hurtful, but even subversive of Imperial dominion, when it is allowed to run riot. Livingstone said that in five hundred years the only thing the natives of Africa had learnt from the Portuguese was to distil bad spirits with the help of an old gun barrel. This is, without doubt, an extreme case—so extreme, indeed, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... denial that any element of theocratic government can claim political validity. The magistrate is concerned only with the preservation of social peace and does not deal with the problem of men's souls. Where, indeed, opinions destructive of the State are entertained or a party subversive of peace makes its appearance, the magistrate has the right of suppression; though in the latter case force is the worst and last of remedies. In the English situation, it follows that all men are to be tolerated save Catholics, Mahomedans ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... honestly. Still, there were occasions when, under the stress of temptation, fair-dealing was lost sight of, and immediate prospect of gain was allowed to lead to the commission of acts destructive of all feeling of security, subversive of commercial morals, and calculated to effect a rupture of commercial relations, which it may often have taken a long term of years to re-establish. Herodotus tells us that, at a date considerably anterior to the Trojan war, when the ascendancy over the other ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Influential persons would have been justly submitted to question on their allegiance, and insufficient answers would have been interpreted as justifying suspicion. Not the expression only, of opinions subversive of society, but the holding such opinions, however discovered, would have been regarded and treated as a crime, with the full consent of what is called the common sense and ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... capacity of a preposition, from its meaning in other situations, by spelling it in different ways. I know of no good argument in support of the former of these two opinions; nor has it probably been ever maintained. The latter opinion, which seems to be the real one, is founded on a principle subversive of the analogy and stability of written language, namely, that the various significations of the same word are to be distinguished in writing, by changing its letters, the constituent elements of the ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... for this result was that of every other delegate,—no more and no less. Neither he nor they, whether more or less opposed to slavery, saw in it a system so subversive of the rights of man that no just government should tolerate it. That was reserved for a later generation, and even that was slow to learn. To the fathers it was, at worst, only an unfortunate and unhappy social condition, which it would be ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... their faces full of pleasant history are passing away one by one; the bar itself is to go—its doom has been pronounced by The Jupiter; rumour tells us of some huge building that is to appear in these latitudes dedicated to law, subversive of the courts of Westminster, and antagonistic to the Rolls and Lincoln's Inn; but nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of the Temple: it is the mediaeval court of ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... obedience even to the tyranny of Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of political subjection. Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To forms of government the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among the external circumstances above which his spirit soared in serene self-contemplation. We trace in Seneca no yearning for a restoration of political ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... which, if seen fairly and in a good light, would go far to contradict the other.' Then they must be without prejudice; they must not close their eyes or turn their backs on any view, because it is 'dangerous' or 'damaging' or 'subversive' or 'unpractical.' They must not be afraid to face an idea because of its probable consequences if its truth is proved. They must not call anything common ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... first cares was to sound the religious sentiment of the people, and here I found, to my surprise, great confusion. As a learned Dutchman most justly wrote a short time ago, "Ideas subversive of every religious dogma have made much way in this land." It is quite a mistake, however, to believe that where faith decreases indifference enters. Such men as appeared to Pascal monstrous creatures—men who live without giving any thought to religion, of whom there are numbers in ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... think I do," he said, smiling. "Decidedly not. As Mr Reardon would say, it would be totally subversive of discipline. It couldn't be done. But one gentleman can of course apologise to another, and I do so most heartily. My dear Mr Herrick, I beg your pardon for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of the unknown continent ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... before the year expired. He vented this pique officially, by suspending my report of Oct. 18th, 1837, on the debt claims against the Indians, finally assumed powers in relation to them, directly subversive of the principles of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, which had been negotiated by me, and referred them for revision to a more supple agent of his wishes at New York, who had been one of the efficient actors in the "goods offer" ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... he grew dogmatic and crotchety in the extreme. He imitated Carlyle in his scoldings, and indeed was much influenced by Carlyle in many ways. He has always been an impracticable theorist, and in these latter years he has put forth a thousand foolish and subversive vagaries. People have not taken him quite seriously for some time. They laugh at his follies, ridicule his philanthropic schemes,—of which he has an infinite number, for he is a man of the kindest heart,—they tell excruciating stories ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... The Gnostics, the men who aimed at superior knowledge, disdained the humbling doctrine of Paul, which made faith supreme over all forms of philosophy, and were the first to seek solutions of difficult points of theology by abstruse inquiries— honorable to the intellect, but subversive of that docile spirit which Christianity enjoined. This tendency to speculation was unfortunate, but natural to those active minds who sought to discover a connection between the truths taught by revelation, and those which we arrive at by consciousness. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... true that frost-bites were cured by cold and burns by heat, it would be subversive, so far as it went, of the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said to owe debts to the Pitris, the Rishis, and the gods, how can any one attain to Emancipation?[1243] This false doctrine (of incorporeal existence called Emancipation), apparently dressed in colours of truth, but subversive of the real purport of the declarations of the Vedas, has been introduced by learned men reft of prosperity and eaten up by idleness. That Brahmana who performs sacrifices according to the declarations of the Vedas is never seduced by sin. Through sacrifices, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... soon collect, from the tone held respecting his conduct at Madame B * * *'s, how subversive of all the morality of intrigue they considered the late step of which he had been guilty in withdrawing his acknowledged "Amica" from the protection of her husband, and placing her, at once, under the same roof with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, Necessity; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the future world, (which, as he is pleased to inform us, will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... The foreigners present deemed them void of offence, but the police declared that all the speakers had said things subversive of the public good. The students were arrested, interrogated and then released, as their previous records had been good. The provincial chief of gendarmes, however, summoned the students before him and again investigated the case. The president of the college was called to the office, and ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... Parliament,—if this be the example of loyalty alluded to in the speech from the throne, then we must beg leave to express our serious concern for the impression which has been made on any of our fellow-subjects by misrepresentations which have seduced them into a seeming approbation of proceedings subversive of their own freedom. We conceive that the opinions delivered in these papers were not well considered; nor were the parties duly informed of the nature of the matters on which they were called to determine, nor of those proceedings of Parliament ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... any respectable man would call me a disunionist, I would answer him in monosyllables.... But I have often asserted the right, for which the battles of the Revolution were fought—the right of a people to change their government whenever it was found to be oppressive, and subversive of the objects for which governments are instituted—and have contended for the independence and sovereignty of the States, a part of the creed of which Jefferson was the apostle, Madison the expounder, and Jackson ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the law cannot be withdrawn where they have once been conceded. Not only because their withdrawal would be opposed to the spirit of our age, but also because it would immediately drive all Jews, rich and poor alike, into the ranks of subversive parties. Nothing effectual can really be done to our injury. In olden days our jewels were seized. How is our movable property to be got hold of now? It consists of printed papers which are locked up somewhere or other in the world, perhaps in ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... great leader in the material part of the social movement which has been the subject of this chapter, for a long time hesitated to adopt principles altogether subversive to society. In her worldly good sense she endeavored to follow what she imagined a via media in her wisdom, to avoid what seemed to her extremes, but what is in reality the eternal antagonism of truth and falsehood, of order and chaos. Twenty years ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... not here written anything which is intended to displace the observations of other authors on this subject, nor will it be found that anything has been said subversive of the conclusions arrived at by experimentalists who have essayed the study of clairvoyant phenomena in a manner that is altogether commendable, and who have sought to place the subject on a demonstrable and scientific basis. I refer to the ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... mineral determined to be the same by physical characters, crystalline form, and optical properties, have been declared by skilful analysers to be composed of distinct elements. This disagreement seemed at first subversive of the atomic theory, or the doctrine that there is a fixed and constant relation between the crystalline form and structure of a mineral and its chemical composition. The apparent anomaly, however, which threatened ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... to-day," protested the King, "history, precedent, and the Constitution are the words that have been drummed into my ears, for all the world as though I, and not you, were the preacher of subversive doctrine." ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction, is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of praemunire should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... for his correspondence with the colonial secretary, Sir Archibald Campbell in another message gave a tart refusal, stating that such a request was subversive of the principles and spirit of the British constitution, and that he would ill deserve the confidence put in him by His Majesty were he to hesitate in meeting so dangerous an encroachment, not ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... danger, in representative republics, of conferring upon the military, in time of peace, extraordinary powers—so carefully guarded against by the patriots and statesmen of the earlier days of the Republic, so frequently the ruin of governments founded upon the same free principles, and subversive of the rights and liberties of the citizen—the question of practical economy earnestly commends itself to the consideration of the lawmaking power. With an immense debt already burdening the incomes of the industrial ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... the one true system of my doctrine, this must not be held by you. What opposes Dharma, what opposes Vinaya, or what is contrary to my words, this is the result of ignorance: ye must not hold such doctrine, but with haste reject it. Receiving that which has been said aright, this is not subversive of true doctrine, this is what I have said, as the Dharma and Vinaya say. Accepting that which I, the law, and the Vinaya declare, this is to be believed. But words which neither I, the law, nor the Vinaya declare, these are not to be believed. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... have not been finally ratified. Of the two great minds of the seventeenth century, Newton and Leibnitz, both profoundly religious as well as philosophical, one produced the theory of gravitation, the other objected to that theory that it was subversive of natural religion. The nebular hypothesis—a natural consequence of the theory of gravitation and of the subsequent progress of physical and astronomical discovery—has been denounced as atheistical even down to ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... measure; for, backed by such influences, and actuated, as it is, by impulses so pure and holy, not a solitary doubt can obtain in relation to its ultimate success. True, that there are those who are thoughtless or traitorous enough to designate it as antagonistic to religion, and subversive, of the established order of things; but these, for the most part, are persons who reason through their pockets or their prejudices, and who are devoid of any thorough recognition of those great principles which are applicable to nations as well as to individuals and which are based ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... expressed an abhorrence of France, and of its rule, and protested against the contemplated introduction of French troops on this continent, which, under the pretext of subduing or seducing the French-Canadians, might prove to be subversive of their ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... would coalesce. Another element which materially influenced and, vice versa, was materially influenced by Pagan formulae, was Christianity. Introduced into Rome at a very early period, it was for a long time opposed as subversive of the established religion of the empire. Now, during the festival of the Saturnalia, the Romans decorated their houses, both inside and out, with evergreens, the Christian converts refraining from this were easily discovered ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... sanction to a certain view which appears to conflict with statements contained in the standards of the Church, the Presbytery of Muirtown declares first of all, its unshaken adherence to the said standards; secondly, deplores the existence in any quarter of notions contradictory or subversive of said standards; thirdly, thanks Doctor Saunderson for the vigilance he has shown in the cause of sound doctrine; fourthly, calls upon all ministers within the bounds to have a care that they create no ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... contradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as necessary. On this opinion, therefore, our faculties are shown to be weak, but not deceitful. The mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions, subversive of each other, as equally possible; but only as unable to understand as possible either of the two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. We are thus taught the salutary lesson, that ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... constitutional checks. The Constitution as originally adopted made no mention of, and allowed no place for these voluntary political organizations. In fact, the purpose of the political party was diametrically opposed to and subversive of all that was fundamental in the Constitution itself, since it aimed at nothing less than the complete destruction of the system of checks by bringing every branch of the government under its control. To the extent that it had achieved its purpose, it had consolidated the powers of the general ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... the finishing touch on this anarchy, a sect which likewise derived from Christianity—Manicheeism—began to have numerous adepts in Africa. Watched with suspicion by the Government, it concealed part of its doctrine, the most scandalous and subversive. But the very mystery which enveloped it, helped it ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... groups and leaders: no substantial political opposition groups exist, although the government has identified the Falungong spiritual movement and the China Democracy Party as subversive groups ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... deed, the sincere intention for the achievement, or the yearning of the heart for the practical accomplishment, is subversive of all our standards of conduct. No business could be run on the basis of paying men in accordance with their readiness to work, irrespective of the service rendered, as is the case in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. But God seems to be able to ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones
... of paints has been very correctly characterized as "a species of corporeal hypocrisy as subversive of delicacy of mind as it is of the natural complexion," and has been, of late years, discarded at the toilette of ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... who have asserted that the whole doctrine concerning the immortal Gods was the invention of politicians, whose view was to govern that part of the community by religion which reason could not influence? Are not their opinions subversive of all religion? Or what religion did Prodicus the Chian leave to men, who held that everything beneficial to human life should be numbered among the Gods? Were not they likewise void of religion who taught that the Deities, at present the object of our prayers and adoration, were valiant, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... inside every man instead of outside him; when he is told, such a thing must be so, there is immense authority and custom in favor of its being so, it has been held to be so for a thousand years, he answers with Olympian politeness, "But is it so? is it so to me?" Nothing could be more really subversive of the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may be remarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, no persons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe's influence most ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... providing of a shield against the ever-threatening fiend which we call WANT. Property once obtained, the possessor's next aim is to keep it. The very fact, that the mode of acquisition may have been wrong, and subversive of property-rights, if suffered to be imitated, naturally makes its possessor suspicious and cruel. He fears that the measure he has meted to others may be meted to him again. Hence severe laws, the monopoly of political power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... not, sir. It removed Antonio de Souza, but it did not take the trouble to go further and remove his friends at the same time. They remained to carry on his subversive treacherous intrigues. What guarantees have I that the Council will ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... In 1724 the English law held any one legally responsible for action subversive of law and order unless he was "totally deprived of his understanding and memory and doth not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute or a wild beast." Since 1843, the criterion of responsibility under the law is "knowledge of what is right or wrong ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... through the prevalence of its spirit in the hearts of your pupils, and not from any assistance which you can usually derive from it in managing particular cases of transgression. Many teachers make great mistakes in this respect. A bad boy, who has done something openly and directly subversive of the good order of the school, or the rights of his companions, is called before the master, who thinks that the most powerful weapon to wield against him is the Bible. So, while the trembling culprit stands before him, he administers to him a reproof, which consists of an almost ludicrous mixture ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... spontaneous, emphatic, and practically unanimous. Their memorial, with three thousand and fifty signatures, protested against the bill, "in the name of Almighty God and in his presence," as "a great moral wrong; as a breach of faith eminently injurious to the moral principles of the community and subversive of all confidence in national engagements; as a measure full of danger to the peace and even the existence of our beloved Union, and exposing us to the just judgments of the Almighty." In like manner the memorial of one hundred and fifty-one clergymen of various denominations in New York ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... unsuccessful attempt at Spartan and Roman republican manners; the citizen succeeding to Monsieur; the blasphemous, incredulous, atheistical principles instilled into the then growing generation of all classes; the system of equality, subversive of courtliness, and the obliging attentions and suavities of society, poisoned at once the source 220of morals and of manners; for there can be nothing gentlemanlike in atheism, radicalism, and the level, ling system. To this state of things succeeded a reign of terror, assassination, and debauchery; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... will furnish the corrective and bring it back within safe limits. Still, to hasten this auspicious result at the present crisis we ought to remember that every rational creature must be presumed to intend the natural consequences of his own teachings. Those who announce abstract doctrines subversive of the Constitution and the Union must not be surprised should their heated partisans advance one step further and attempt by violence to carry these doctrines into practical effect. In this view of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... not breakfast with slashed young men; it would have been subversive to discipline, and it was negligently, through a lateral entrance, that presently he appeared. In evening clothes on this early morning, he surveyed his visitor, a big fellow with a slight moustache, an easy way and a missing front tooth, who went ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... indicated to that he believed that there was a possibility that this entire matter might have been started by subversive individuals for the purpose of creating a mass hysteria. He suggested that the Bureau keep this in mind in any interviews conducted regarding reported sightings. General Schulgen stated to that he would make available to the Bureau all information in the possession of the ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... supervision of the Grand Lodge, while the placing in the hands of the craft so powerful, and at times, and with bad spirits, so annoying a privilege as that of immediate appeal, would necessarily tend to impair the energies and lessen the dignity of the Master, while it would be subversive of that spirit of discipline which pervades every part of the institution, and to which it is mainly indebted for its prosperity ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... us into intellectual cages; there is in all of us a strange tendency to yield and have done. Thus the impertinent colleague of Aristotle is doubly beset, first by a public opinion that regards his enterprise as subversive and in bad taste, and secondly by an inner weakness that limits his capacity for it, and especially his capacity to throw off the prejudices and superstitions of his race, culture anytime. The cell, said Haeckel, does not act, it reacts—and ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... propose is, we believe, a very modest program, and one which can be carried out, as soon as public opinion is educated on the subject, without any great sociological, legal or financial hindrances. We suggest nothing more than that individuals whose offspring would almost certainly be subversive of the general welfare, be prevented from having any offspring. In most cases, such individuals are, or should be, given life-long institutional care for their own benefit, and it is an easy matter, by segregation of the sexes, to prevent reproduction. In a few cases, it will probably be found ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... divert, convert, invert, pervert, advertize, inadvertent, verse, aversion, adverse, adversity, adversary, version, anniversary, versatile, divers, diversity, conversation, perverse, universe, university, traverse, subversive, divorce; (2) vertebra, vertigo, controvert, revert, averse, versus, versification, animadversion, vice versa, controversy, tergiversation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... any suspicion, that this science is uncertain and chimerical; unless we should entertain such a scepticism as is entirely subversive of all speculation, and even action. It cannot be doubted, that the mind is endowed with several powers and faculties, that these powers are distinct from each other, that what is really distinct to the immediate perception may be distinguished by reflexion; and consequently, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... Sins, which in their due co-ordination are woven into the whole texture of life, become truly damnable. Life says for ever: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself." And to such Morality Logic is fatally subversive. There can be no large and harmonious and natural Morality when Logic is made to stand where ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... to be made, and, if any, in what respect. If this basis is unjust or unreasonable, surely it ought to be abandoned; but if it be just and reasonable, and any change in it will make concessions subversive of equality and tending in its consequences to sap the foundations of our prosperity, then the reasons are equally strong for adhering to the ground already taken, and supporting it by such further regulations as may appear to be proper, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... shop struck work. It is a usual course for men of the union to "strike" in this manner against persons of their own condition, and to exercise a force not resting in law or natural right, but merely on the will of a majority, and directly subversive of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... complains, that they will make reparation as far as reparation is possible for injuries which are without measure, and that they will take immediate steps to prevent the recurrence of anything so obviously subversive of the principles of warfare, for which the Imperial German Government in the past so wisely and so firmly contended. The Government and people of the United States look to the Imperial German Government for just, prompt and enlightened action in this vital ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... Whitbread, shortly before his death, proposed to the assembled subscribers of Drury Lane Theatre, that the concern should be farmed to some responsible individual under certain conditions and limitations: and that his proposal was rejected, not without indignation, as subversive of the main object, for the attainment of which the enlightened and patriotic assemblage of philodramatists had been induced to risk their subscriptions. Now this object was avowed to be no less than the redemption of the British stage not only from horses, dogs, elephants, and the like zoological ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... my power to obtain mercy for the unfortunate young man. All our endeavours were fruitless. The minister of war refused to listen to the applications by which he was besieged. In a military view, the crime was flagrant, subversive of discipline, and especially dangerous as a precedent in an army where promotion from the ranks continually placed between men, originally from the same class of society and long comrades and equals, the purely conventional barrier of the epaulet. The court-martial, taking ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... the King, "gave liberty to the nation, and now it is my duty and my hope to give security and strength. It is known to Parliament that certain subversive elements, not in Italy alone, but throughout Europe, throughout the world, have been using the most devilish machinations for the destruction of all order, human and divine. Cold, calculating criminals have perpetrated crimes against the most innocent and the most highly ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... those who, while exercising care in raising dogs and horses, allowed unworthy husbands to have offspring. This, in itself, was a praiseworthy thought; but the method adopted by Lycurgus to overcome that objection was subversive of all morality and affection. He considered it advisable that among worthy men there should be a community of wives and children, for which purpose he tried to suppress jealousy, ridiculing those who insisted on a conjugal ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... argument is that no evil which one man may do to another is of any moment, since he cannot touch his soul which is eternal and beyond the reach of any human power! In the destiny of a soul what can the destruction of one of its bodies signify? This is an argument which is subversive of morality ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... Rhode Island, the commissioners found no difficulty in the full exercise of the powers committed to them. In Massachusetts, they were considered as men clothed with an authority subversive of the liberties of the colony, which the sovereign could not rightly confer. The people of that province had been long in habits of self-government, and seem to have entertained opinions which justified their practice. They did not acknowledge that allegiance to the crown which is due from ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies, and let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the unintelligent masses, ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... it among the people that subversive or mistaken doctrines had their rise. A Father of the Church said that property was theft many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops, and ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... all that makes for exact knowledge, and that he fled from his Latin teacher, the celebrated Puoti, on account of his somewhat exclusive love of grammatical rules. None the less, though con-genitally averse to the materialistic and subversive theories that were then seething in Naples, he became entangled in the anti-Bourbon movements of the late thirties, and narrowly avoided the death-penalty which struck down some of his comrades. At other times his natural piety laid him open to the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... vehement. And yet they were tender, too; spoken in a loving tone, and containing ever and anon assurances of respect, and a resolve to be guided now and for ever by her wishes,—even though those wishes should be utterly subversive of his happiness. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... repugnant ideas; and so are, after a "method," and "by instinct." Again, what sense is there in making the "liberty" of publishing one's "private observations" to depend on the presumed absence of rivals? That the author did not lack confidence in the general applicability of his speculations, subversive though they are of the best and most popular teaching on this subject, is evident from the following sentence: "We intend, also, that if these principles, with the others previously expressed, are true in the given instances, they are equally true for all languages and all varieties ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... whatever their opinions might be, how many more had editors who were mere slander-mongers, and columns all the more eagerly read, the more calumnious they were, and the more they pandered to every envious and subversive passion. Such men were the spokesmen of that increasingly numerous class of speculators, who relinquish any useful career to seek fortune in the chances of politics. According to them, oppression and corruption had grown intolerable, and would never cease until power passed into their ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... causality, it would still fail to account for the harmonious relation of causes, or the fact with which we are now alone concerned. This distinction is not perceived by the anonymous author 'Physicus,' who, in his Candid Examination of Theism, lays great stress upon Mr. Spencer's theory of causation as subversive of Theism, or at least as superseding the necessity of theistic hypothesis by furnishing a full explanation of the order of Nature on purely physical grounds. But he fails to perceive that even if Mr. Spencer's theory were conceded fully to explain ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION of ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... inconsistent with the nature of this influence that it began by appealing to him in a subversive form. The Shelley whom Browning first loved was the Shelley of 'Queen Mab', the Shelley who would have remodelled the whole system of religious belief, as of human duty and rights; and the earliest result of the new development was that he became a professing atheist, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... of their age, and took a view of Dives and Lazarus which would commend itself to the Nihilists of to-day. The church is now often held up to us as the great barrier against Socialism, and the one refuge against subversive doctrines. In a well-known essay on "People whom one would have wished to have seen," Lamb and his friends are represented as agreeing that if Christ were to enter they would all fall down and worship Him. It may have been so; ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... same policy of investigation and research was pursued. Solemn warning was given that freedom of speech and assembly must be respected rigidly but that neither must become the instrument of license nor of subversive speech or conduct. At the time when the situation reached a critical stage the ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... during the past decade, and now employed to bring about the establishment of such a Parliament, have been, and are in their nature, essentially revolutionary, subversive of all sound and healthy relations between man and man, inconsistent with social stability, and therefore with social progress and with social peace, what I have seen and heard in Ireland during the past six months compels me to feel. Of the "Coercion," under which the Nationalist speakers ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... useful?) to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable to the imagination (Italics ours) should not be considered as subversive of the theory"!! Darwin undertakes a task far too great for his mighty genius. "Believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed" is many moral leagues from proving that it was so formed. We must have stronger proof than sufficient to lead us to believe that such ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... advocated in Mr. Tyrrell's very able book 'Lex Orandi.' The test of truth for a dogma is not its correspondence with phenomenal fact, but its 'prayer-value.' This writer, at any rate before his suspension by the Society of Jesus, to which he belonged, is less subversive in his treatment of history than the French critics whom we have quoted. Although in apologetics the criterion for the acceptance of dogmas must, he thinks, be a moral and practical one, he sometimes speaks as if the 'prayer-value' of an ostensibly historical proposition ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... knave, you have heard a friend of yours grossly insulted, and you ask me what's the matter." The car swung round a corner, and Lady Touchstone, who was unready, heeled over with a cry. "I wish Mason wouldn't do that," she added testily, dabbing at her toque. "So subversive of dignity. What was I saying? Oh yes. A change. We'd better go ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... foundations of his life. He had come to despise all that he had counted most precious, and to clasp as the only true treasures all that he had despised. With him the revolution had turned his whole life upside down. Though the change cannot be so subversive and violent with us, the forsaking of self-confidence must be as real, and the clinging to Jesus must be as close, if our Christianity is to be fervid and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the salt or the mustard, or the mere combination of so many subversive agents, as soon as the last had been poured over his throat, the young ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... commodity in his country. The lower part of his dress was particularly improper, and he kept his boots on in his room, without any consideration for the carpet he was treading upon, which struck me as a custom subversive of all decorum. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... encouragements to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints, to force from a particular species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be employed in it, is, in reality, subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote. It retards, instead of accelerating the progress of the society towards real wealth and greatness; and diminishes, instead of increasing, the real value of the annual produce of ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... "Not a bit of it! Do you suppose Brandon—I beg pardon for mentioning his name, as we're all so particular—do you suppose Brandon wouldn't fight just such a man? He regards him as dangerous, modern, subversive, heretical, anything you please. Wistons! Why, he'd make Brandon's ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... vindicate constitutional rights, but for the overthrow of the Constitution, the destruction of the Government, and the dismemberment of the nation. They must lay down their arms in unconditional submission before they can be constitutionally treated with. Any other doctrine would be subversive of the Constitution, of the principles that lie at its basis, of the principles of all government, all national existence, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... simply their victims or their slaves. What is a home where women are treated as inferiors? Paganism never recognized their equality with men; and if they ever ruled men, it was by appealing to their lower qualities, or resorting to arts and devices which are subversive of all dignity of character. When their personal beauty fled, their power also departed. A faded or homely woman, without intelligence or wit, was a forlorn object in a Pagan home,—to be avoided, derided, despised,—a melancholy object of pity or neglect, so ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... as we are obliged to proceed,—that is, upon an hypothesis that we address rational men,—can false political principles be more effectually exposed than by demonstrating that they lead to consequences directly inconsistent with and subversive of the arrangements grounded upon them? If this kind of demonstration is not permitted, the process of reasoning called deductio ad absurdum, which even the severity of geometry does not reject, could not be employed at all in legislative discussions. One of our strongest weapons against ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... there are also Federal laws as well as Postal Regulations covering matters which are akin to libel. The answer to libel is truth, but not always, for sometimes the truth may be spread with so malicious an intent as to support an action. It is not well to put into a letter any derogatory or subversive statement that cannot be fully proved. This becomes of particular importance in answering inquiries concerning character or credit, but in practically every case libel is a ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... through all time, gives ample opportunity for every species of extravagance and corruption to be concealed under the sanctity of the apostolic commission. The inspiration claimed by Muenzer and his associates proceeded from no higher source than the vagaries of the imagination, and its influence was subversive of all authority, human or divine. True Christianity receives the word of God as the great treasure-house of inspired truth, and the test ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... rational, and well-fitted for their purposes, I am very ready to admit. For God forbid that guilt should ever leave a man the free, undisturbed use of his faculties! For as guilt never rose from a true use of our rational faculties, so it is very frequently subversive of them. God forbid that prudence, the first of all the virtues, as well as the supreme director of them all, should ever be employed in the service of any of the vices! No: it takes the lead, and is never ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ready to adopt, (of which Mr Adams received an account through Mr William Lee, and which he immediately transmitted to me, and, probably, to Congress also) that, if I mistake not, the effect of it will be quite of another kind. It will be seen to be subversive of the very principles upon which it is pretended to be established, and so revolting in its nature, that it is utterly impossible the United States could ever comply ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... feel this deficiency at an epocha like the one in question: when means so despotic were daily adopted to curb the growing spirit of enquiry that despot ministers might pursue measures so tragical; so subversive of the order which they pretended to maintain, and so destructive to the happiness they were appointed to guard? Alas! the topics were so numerous, so melancholy, so almost maddening, that the man who ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... purposes, to have abstained from meddling with many of the civil institutions of his time, though in themselves wicked, thinking probably, that it was sufficient to have left behind him such general precepts, as, when applied properly, would be subversive of them all. And, thirdly, that he never commended the centurion on account of his military situation, but on account of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... first Lieutenant Colonel was Cleland, that implacable avenger of blood who had driven Dundee from the Convention. There was no small difficulty in filling the ranks: for many West country Whigs, who did not think it absolutely sinful to enlist, stood out for terms subversive of all military discipline. Some would not serve under any colonel, major, captain, serjeant, or corporal, who was not ready to sign the Covenant. Others insisted that, if it should be found absolutely necessary to appoint any officer who had taken the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as his reason, not that he intended to be sole master and free from all ancient trammels—but that the Mother of God had come to him in a dream and commanded him so to do! But an end came to all his dreams and ambitions. He was assassinated in 1174 by his own boyars, who were exasperated by his subversive policy and ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... Confucius, Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido. His forcible and often quite democratic theories were exceedingly taking to sympathetic natures, and they were even thought dangerous to, and subversive of, the existing social order, hence his works were for a long time under censure. Still, the words of this master mind found permanent lodgment in the ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... from his own wonders, and wanted to call the piece "A Poet's Reverie." "It is as bad as Bottom the weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of all credit—which the tale should force upon us—of its truth?" Lamb himself was forced, by the temper of the time, to declare that he "disliked all the miraculous part of it," as if it were not all miraculous! Wordsworth wanted the Mariner "to have a character and a profession," ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... years had been the occasion of a fierce contention between the Conservatives and the Radicals. It proved no more final than its predecessors. The representatives of the duchies in the new common Rigsraad protested against it, as subversive of the Conventions of 1851 and 1852; and their attitude had the support of the German powers. In 1857, Carl Christian Hall (q.v.) became prime minister. After putting off the German powers by seven years of astute ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... time that he was wrong in his judgment. She was tall, but not so tall as to be unfeminine in her height. Her head stood nobly on her shoulders, giving to her bust that ease and grace of which sculptors are so fond, and of which tight-laced stays are so utterly subversive. Her hair was very dark—not black, but the darkest shade of brown, and was worn in simple rolls on the side of her face. It was very long and very glossy, soft as the richest silk, and gifted ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... urgent and necessary than the prevention of the propagation of such doctrines which are a crime against the rights of man and against the respect due to crowned heads—an insult to the people submissive to their government—and, in short, subversive of ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... said to have invented, and on the neighboring wall the motto, "God bless our proof-reader, He can't call for him too soon." But his crudest device, "fatal," as his friend E.D. Cowen writes, "to the vengeance of every visitor who came with a threat of libel suit, and temporarily subversive of the good feeling of those friends he lured into its treacherous embrace, was a bottomless black-walnut chair." Its yawning seat was always concealed by a few exchanges carelessly thrown there—the floor being also liberally strewn with them. As it was the only chair in the room except the one ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Exploring Expedition, as read before the committee of the Royal Society, there can be little doubt but that the judgment pronounced on Mr. Landells remains unaltered. He deserted his leader on the eve of the fight; and such an act, so subversive of all discipline, and so far from the thoughts of the smallest drummer-boy, renders all explanations contemptible. In the present instance, Mr. Landells' explanations make his act the more inexcusable. ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... administering them. The overseer must record in the prescription book every dose of medicine administered." Weston said he would never grudge a doctor's bill, however large; but he was anxious to prevent idleness under pretence of illness. "Nothing," said he, "is so subversive of discipline, or so unjust, as to allow people to sham, for this causes the well-disposed to do the work ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... of "Important Advices," spread before the community the King's speech to Parliament. This state-paper, which was read the world over, represented the people of Boston as being "in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and to have proceeded to measures subversive of the Constitution, and attended with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off their dependence upon Great Britain"; and it contained a pledge "to defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious persons who, under false pretences, had but too successfully ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... intentions and by vanity born of his hopes, for he had ever in reserve that perspective of confidence and esteem with which he believed the third estate to be impressed towards him; but the promoters of the revolution, those who wanted it complete and subversive of the old government, those men who were so small a matter at the outset, either in weight or in number, had too much interest in annihilating M. Necker not to represent as pieces of perfidy his hesitations, his tenderness towards the two upper orders, and his air of restraint towards ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... we talked and so we mused upon the whims of Fate That had degraded Tragedy from its old, supreme estate; And duly, at the Morton bar, we stigmatized the age As sinfully subversive of the interests of the Stage! For Jack and I were actors in the halcyon, palmy days Long, long before the Hoyt school of farce became the craze; Yet, as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago That we were Roman soldiers ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field |
