"Incentive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with such thoughts, I should not have presumed to write this book, or to intrude on the public the ideas it presents, had I not made the facts with which it deals a subject of long and earnest meditation. And I have gathered a strong incentive to undertake this duty from the circumstance that a "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," published by me several years ago, which has passed through many editions in America, and has been reprinted in ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... a-laughing, and asked Partridge, "if he was not ashamed, with so much charity in his mouth, to have no charity in his heart. Your religion," says he, "serves you only for an excuse for your faults, but is no incentive to your virtue. Can any man who is really a Christian abstain from relieving one of his brethren in such a miserable condition?" And at the same time, putting his hand in his pocket, he gave the poor object ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... something about Hazlitt, but I have received more than one application for it, in case I can manage to complete my essay. As in the case of Lamb, I am really the only person living who knew much about his daily life. I have not, however, quite the same incentive to carry me on. Indeed, I am not certain that I should be able to travel to the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... first place, most criminals are criminals from choice, not from necessity; and with a cultured man the incentive is usually the excitement of it. Have you ever thought what an exciting game it is, Lester, to defy society, to break the law, to know that the odds against you are a thousand to one, and yet to come out ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... enough of a "life on the ocean wave," and though I had no great fancy for working all day at a desk, I agreed to enter my father's office and tackle to in earnest, my incentive to labour, I confess, being the hope of one day becoming the husband of Grace Goldie. We married, and I have every reason still ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... state. The traffic which is thus carried on from state to state, is fruitful of evil consequences, not only depraving the minds of those engaged in it, but producing the most cruel separations of near connexions, and depriving its victims of almost every incentive to conjugal fidelity or correctness of conduct. Perhaps next in importance in meliorating the condition of the slaves, is the adoption of regulations for their religious instruction, and the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... by all, need hardly be said. He rejoiced that he was enabled to do so much good, retained his modest bearing, and continued to regard his wealth as only an incentive to promote the happiness of mankind, without distinction of creed or nationality. Unhappily, his wife was just the opposite. She rarely gave food or raiment to the poor, and felt angry at her husband's liberality, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Great danger and possible annihilation of the small army would result were these precautions overlooked, rendering the force liable to be cut up in detail by the large bodies of rebels then occupying the streets and houses of Delhi. Lastly, as a reward and incentive to all engaged, the General gave his word, promising that all property captured in the city would be placed in one common fund, to be distributed as prize according to the rules of war in such cases. The commanding officer, as well as all in the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... the immortal bell up in the Old South steeple muttered some urgent word of incentive to that iron clanger as it beat against its ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... innermost thoughts; and that we have a most absolute and immediate dependence on Him. A clear view of which great truths cannot choose but fill our hearts with an awful circumspection and holy fear, which is the strongest incentive to Virtue, and the best guard ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... a successful play, or a political career, were all incidentally to make his fortune; though it must be said, in justice, that this motive, though it entwines itself with everything in Balzac's life, was not his only, or even his principal incentive to action. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... With the Martians the incentive to live is to express life and be in harmony with the Creator, to develop spiritually and build for Eternity. On Mars each one strives to live for his brother to the end that all may inherit the promised Kingdom when yet as a physical being. Commercialism with us is ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... languages, dug among the Greek roots by day and soared up among the stars by night. None could outstrip him as a student, and he easily held his place at the head of his class. The dullest scholar found in him a friend and a helper, while the brighter ones found in his example, an incentive ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetime still as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive, and making my memory an incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I have found them when they might have slighted my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and wealth, lingering by the way, like single-hearted children, to recall their love for me when ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... naturally so, always asking, it was better, that if the Government saw their way safely to increase the number of cattle given to any band, it should be, not as a matter of right, but of grace and favor, and as a reward for exertion in the care of them, and as an incentive to industry. Already, the prospect of many of the bands turning their attention to raising food from the soil is very hopeful. In the reserve of St. Peter's, in Manitoba, the Church of England has for many years had a church and mission, and long before the advent of Canada ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... lower than that which leads people into any other occupation or profession. To make a living, and to have a career, is the original incentive in all cases. Even in purely philanthropical enterprises the driving-wheel that keeps them in motion for any length of time is the salary paid the working members. So powerful is this incentive that sometimes the wheel will continue to turn round when there ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... child, I should advise you not to make too many ideals apart from the characters in the books you write. Fortunately your special talent brings you an occupation which will save you from that kind of thing. You have ambition as an incentive, and fame ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the girls of the village had the day before enjoyed one of their favorite amusements—a ball-play on the ice. Those who owned the bright cloths and calicoes which were hung up before their eyes, as an incentive to win the game, were still rejoicing over their treasures; while the disappointed ones were looking sullen, and muttering of partiality being shown to this one because she was beautiful, and to that, because she was the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... This incentive has been developed to manifest advantage in America by such novelists as Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mr. George W. Cable, Mr. Hamlin Garland, Mrs. Edith Wharton, Frank Norris, Jack London, Mr. Booth Tarkington, and Mr. Stewart Edward White. Each of these authors—and ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... I couldn't wait to help her with her too-heavy burden. Although I had brought back from the hospital fifteen pounds less flesh on my bones, there was something in my heart instead that was sure to make me strong and well. My new incentive was the secret knowledge of Esther's devotion. To prove to her that her sacrifices had not been in vain became my ambition. For a few days I idled in the room, as the doctor ordered; strolled about Gramercy Park near-by, ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... the restraints of law, religion, and morality," contentious, always complaining, and always indebted. They were likely to be Baptists or Methodists, by persuasion, and Democrats in politics. As small farmers their lot was a hard one. They needed only the incentive of cheap lands in the West to sever the slender ties which bound them to the stony hillsides of New England. Yet the older towns of New England also complained of the Western fever which was carrying off the available labor supply. Fearon found "the small and middling ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... satirical reasoning, of which the foregoing is an abstract, conviction was brought to the mind of the painter. Changing his tone to one of serious advice, the clergyman counselled him to go to work, to let competition become an incentive to action, instead of paralysing his energy. He then told him how the advent of these foreign divines had been a stimulus to him and to his brethren in the ministry. The result was that to-day there is a higher standard of pulpit eloquence in New York than in ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... right in essence," said Paul, looking at her gravely. "But I should have my incentive. I know my own mind. My affection for you is of the deepest. That is Truth—I needn't tell you. We could lead a happy ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... aspiration to better things. Whatever it was, material, spiritual, was gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed twilit doubt crept in—the same dull acquiescence—the same uncertainty of self, the familiar lack of will, of incentive, the congenial tendency to drift; and with it came weariness—perhaps reaction from the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... book the author takes pleasure in expressing an appreciation of the criticism and helpful suggestions given by the Editor, Dr. Henry Suzzallo, under whose counsel, cooperation, and incentive the work grew. The author wishes also to make a general acknowledgment for the use of many books which of necessity would be consulted in organizing and standardizing any unit of literature. Special acknowledgment should be made for the use of Grimm's Household Tales, edited ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... own crew and nearly two hundred other fiends well-nigh as bloodthirsty and cruel as himself. Some two or three of them had been killed by the musketry fire from the ship, and their fellows needed no incentive from their white leaders to ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... Lacking incentive to stir about, they came to spend most of their time lying on their backs watching the sky. This in turn bred a languor which is the sickest, most soul- and temper-destroying affair invented by the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to walk down the beach and back, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the strongest support of faith, and the greatest incentive to love, and the mightiest persuasive to obedience that can be. I say, the strongest support of faith, for, a soul apprehending the greatness and heinousness of sin and the inviolableness of God's righteousness, with the purity ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... adventure and pioneering finds less to stimulate it, the gregarious impulse, the tendency to flock together for our work and our play, gains in ascendancy. Growing out of the greater intellectual opportunities and demands of modern times, the standard of education has greatly advanced. And under the incentive of present-day economic success and luxury, comfortable circumstances and a moderate competence no longer satisfy our people. Hence they turn to the city, looking to find there the coveted ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... extended itself much more slowly over the rural districts, the inhabitants of which, in addition to being much more conservative and passionately attached to their native institutions and language, lacked the incentive of ambition and of commercial and trade necessity. A powerful Druidical priesthood held the rural Celts together and set their faces against Roman culture and religion. But even in the rural districts Latin ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... scandalous unfounded gossip which, born Heaven alone knows on what back-stairs or in what servants' hall, circulates currently to the detriment of the distinguished in every walk of life? And the more conspicuously great the individual, the greater the incentive to slander him, for the interest of the slander is commensurate with the eminence of the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... pleasure or feeling of self-approbation: or higher still, the idea of duty for its own sake, commonly called 'conscientiousness.' (4) The ideal of life, the highest imperative of conscience. Here the nobility of life, as a whole, the supreme life-purpose, gives meaning and incentive to each and every action. The ideal of life is not, however, something static and completed, given once and for all. It grows with the enlightenment of the individual and the development of humanity. The consciousness of every ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... awake in her to love and conjugality, like song and seed in the spring bird; yet a hard, steely prejudice had shut her out from every institution and equality, let every crime be perpetrated upon her, made the scent of freedom in her nostrils worse than the incentive of the thief, and has outlasted her half a century, and is self-righteous ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... report which concerns the condition of our shipping interests can not fail to command your attention. He emphatically recommends that as an incentive to the investment of American capital in American steamships the Government shall, by liberal payments for mail transportation or otherwise, lend its active assistance to individual enterprise, and declares his belief that unless that course be pursued our foreign carrying ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... to destroy a still greater proportion of all these reinforcements. Most of them were coming by detachments, formed provisionally into marching battalions under officers new to them, whom they were to leave the first day, without the incentive of discipline, esprit de corps, or glory, and traversing an exhausted country, which the season and the climate would be rendering daily ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... be only heard, not seen. But the deep regular breathing, still going on while the other was taking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a glimpse ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... as if they needed this incentive. In less time than it takes to tell they were gone. Their instant readiness was a joy ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... He had merely loved the dream to which her tender words and timid caresses gave an adorable reality; but now in his disappointment at not hearing from her he felt that her love and loyalty to him were the only things in the world worth having and persuaded himself that without her there as no incentive to live or to strive. His misery was increased by an over-whelming homesickness, to escape from which, he wandered restlessly about, vainly seeking ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... and I always feel that the difference between Altruria and America is so immense that it is altogether beyond me to describe it. But now we have had some occurrences recently, quite in the American sense, and these have furnished me with an incentive as well as opportunity to send you a letter. Do you remember how, one evening after dinner, in New York, you and I besieged my husband and tried to make him tell us why Altruria was so isolated from the rest of the world, and why ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... about 3,000 manuscripts had to be examined word for word and letter for letter. The men who undertook this gigantic task, arid who are always on the watch for new finds, do not belong in the Roman fold, and did not receive the incentive for their work from the Roman Church. This work started soon after the Reformation, and the intense interest aroused in God's Word by that movement is the true cause of it. The Protestant Church, not the Church of Rome, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... now opening and Sheridan's army marched eastward. Men and horses were covered with mud, but they still had the flush of victories won, and the incentive of others expected. They were even yet worn by hard marching and some fighting, but it was a healthy leanness, making their muscles as tough as whipcord, while their eyes were ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... theory that after death animals live again in a different form; those that have done well in a higher, those that have done ill in a lower grade. To realize this is, they find, a powerful incentive to a virtuous life. But whether it be true of a future life or not, it is certainly true of our present existence. If we do our best for a day, the next morning we shall rise to a higher life; while if we give way to our passions and temptations, ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... But the greatest incentive to the search had always been the detailed account left by Fray Pedro Simon, who for twenty years lived among these tribes as missionary, preceding Valverde, known as ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... France. Do you remember what I told you that night in my room? Better the one should suffer than the many. And now there is a double reason, a double incentive to us both. Mademoiselle de Vesc's life hangs upon it. Follow the chain of reasoning, and, for God's sake, Stephen, follow closely. There is more than the life of a girl in all this. Jean Saxe cannot be suppressed ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... lay amid rubbish the motive power of my passions. My heart was dumb, my hand nerveless, and even need—that last incentive—had slackened to ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... can certainly be predicated of Manbo men, but such qualities are to be attributed to lack of incentive to work and to hurry. All the household duties fall, by custom, upon the shoulders of the women, so that there is little left for the man except to fish, hunt, trap, trade, and fight. When, however, the men set themselves to clearing the forest ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... hearth stone a piece of money as a reward behind them. But should the house be dirty, never would the Fairies enter it to hold their nightly revels, unless, forsooth, they came to punish the slatternly servant. Such was the popular opinion, and it must have acted as an incentive to order and cleanliness. These ideas have ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... were as abhorrent, as his methods were foolish and contemptible. It was too evident that he was not concerned for the girl's welfare. It is one of the damning characteristics of the slave system, that it robs its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy life. The fear of God, and the hope of heaven, are found sufficient to sustain many slave-women, amidst the snares and dangers of their strange lot; but, this side of God and heaven, a slave-woman is at the mercy of the power, caprice and passion of her owner. Slavery provides no means ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... will starve. The Coast region's malaria will always keep the black, as well as the white, population thinned down, but if deserted by the trader, and left to the Government official and the missionary, without any longer the incentive of trade to make the native exert himself, or the resulting comforts which assist him in resisting the climate, which the trade now enables him to procure, the Coast native will sink, via vice and degradation, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... considered the advantage and the justification of a contest confined to a single state or a limited region. Also, when residents of a state, through a contest, discover promising seedlings within their own state, it is believed that there is created in the sponsors more incentive to compile continuous data about the new kinds than would exist when the prize winners are chosen from regions quite removed. That so many examples were submitted was the result of excellent ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... proved only too successful. Haida succeeded in enticing the old chief Huen and his son, the father of Noorhachu, into a conference, when he murdered them and many of their companions. The momentary success gained by this breach of faith was heavily paid for by the incentive it gave Noorhachu to exact revenge for the brutal and cowardly murder of his father and grandfather. Haida constructed a fortified camp at Toolun, but he did not feel secure there against the open attacks of Noorhachu or the private plots he formed to gain possession of his person. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... character, persevering, sagacious, and determined, and well known as such, both in and out of the service. The commanders of the different vessels were likewise men of elevated character, zealous in performing their duty, and honorably ambitious of distinction. If the incentive of gain be reckoned stronger than considerations of duty and honor, it was not wanting; for, besides half the value of the vessel, each liberated slave would have been worth twenty-five dollars to the captors—a handsome amount ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... en permission were grazing peacefully. Our guide said that some were "Americans," and I fancied them dreaming of Kentucky grasslands, or the desert herbs of the Far West, which they will never taste again. Also I yearned sorrowfully over the weary creatures that had done their "bit" without any incentive, without much praise or glory, and that would presently go back to do it all over again, until they died or were finally disabled. I remembered a cavalry-man I nursed in our Hopital des Epidemies telling ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for the antagonism which she sensed in the steady scrutiny of those light-blue eyes. As far as she was concerned, the Mother Superior was an entire stranger, without incentive either to like or ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... but you always had a knack for theatricals. I know I'm a hard, unforgiving man, but there is just one phase of human nature that I will not stand for, and that is the refusal to take the medicine prescribed for the disease. What incentive have people for better living and upright thinking if every devil of a fellow who gets through his beastiality is permitted to come up into the ranks and march shoulder to shoulder with the best? ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... own sex as well as those of the masculine. She was unique, he assured himself. He could trust her blindfold, even among wolves in sheep's clothing; for essentially she was a mother, and had every incentive to keep pure. Love of children and a respect for religion were sure safeguards against the wiles of the tempter; he could therefore make his mind easy, feeling ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... happiness is insured if you fully comprehend the importance of the epoch which you now begin, and the greatness of its results for the rest of your life. Let past delinquencies become an incentive, stimulating your will to energetic action. Let the need of repairing the past, and the importance of preparing for the future inspire you with generous resolutions and an ardent desire of acquiring all the virtues necessary to ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... profligate of mankind: Pen and Venables were of incompatible tempers: the troops were not furnished with arms fit for such an expedition: their provisions were defective both in quantity and quality: all hopes of pillage, the best incentive to valor among such men, were refused the soldiers and seamen: no directions or intelligence were given to conduct the officers in then enterprise: and at the same time they were tied down to follow the advice ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... ELCOMBE spent a most interesting and instructive day within the Fortress of Haudiomont. He really did not want to go. The visit bored him. The world was at peace, and there was no incentive to espionage as there ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... now on Locke's mind. Here he was faced by the case of his life, involving the happiness of the very girl whom he had so soon come to love. His incentive was double—love and success: triple—above ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... numerous other incidents, which the boys could not understand, or unravel, made such an impression on them, that they were determined to devote their energies to ferret out the inexplicable things, and the earnestness of John was a great incentive in the undertaking. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... execution is largely the labour of conveying to others what the artist already feels and sees. Why should he toil thanklessly? It is sweeter to dream. Even the money that art produces may be a valuable incentive. Not, of course, if the artist aims at the money; but art wrought for love may bring in money, like a woman married for love. In so far as the lover has his eye on the dowry, in so far his love is vitiated; ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... objections, if some little guidance or leadership be given the children for lively games. The best discipline the writer has ever seen, in either class room or playground, has been where games are used, the privilege of play being the strongest possible incentive to instant obedience before and after. Besides, with such a natural outlet for repressed instincts, their ebullition at the wrong time is not so apt to occur. Many principals object to recesses because of the moral ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... of national growth and progress. It is only the rudest, most ignorant and barbarous nation that arrogates to itself perfection: it is that nation only which, conscious of no defects, sees no necessity for reform, and has no incentive thereto. The consciousness of defects, both physical and moral, is the life of all reform, and hence of all progress; while the capacity to detect error in our system implies the ability for thorough reform, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... letters enclosed in the Textbook and send them in for "The Adresaro." Many have already done so, and will no doubt soon commence their foreign correspondence, even if the collecting of picture postcards or postage stamps be the initial incentive. Several translators have experienced slight difficulties in their work, which we now take the opportunity ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... through some lack of provision in the law, and year after year the subject was fought out and postponed, the disputed ground all the time becoming more and more valuable, and consequently a greater prize for the concessionaire and pirate, and a greater incentive to bribery on all hands, until it came to be regarded by the worthy members of the Volksraad as something very like a special dispensation of Providence, intended to provide annuities for Volksraad members at the expense of the unfortunate owners. After a particularly ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... in that State were, however, they were not intolerable. It was still lawful for a slave to learn to read, and free persons of color had the privilege of acquiring any knowledge whatsoever.[1] The chief incentive to the education of Negroes in that State came from the rising Methodists and Baptists who, bringing a simple message to plain people, instilled into their minds as never before the idea that the Bible being the revelation of God, all men should be taught ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... accountable as, though scanty as regards the number of its species, the natural history of Ireland is full of interest, abounding in problems not even yet fully solved: the very scantiness of its fauna being in one sense, an incentive and stimulus to its study, for the same reason that a language which is on the point of dying out is often of more interest to a philologist than one that is ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... right good earnest, and, with necessity for an incentive, found ourselves at the expiration of three days master of a fine canoe, with which we drew down the astonishment of the natives. Two days more and we bid them a touching farewell, promised to call and see them again, bring cotton, cloth and sundry Yankee notions, with which to ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... volumes rather than a single chapter. Even the part played in it by Americans can be sketched in outline only. But it is worth remembering that the systematic attack of our countrymen upon the Arctic fortress, began with an unselfish and humane incentive. In 1845 Sir John Franklin, a gallant English seaman, had set sail with two stout ships and 125 men, to seek the Northwest Passage. Thereafter no word was heard from him, until, years later, a searching party found a cairn of stones on a desolate, ice-bound headland, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... persisted in. The criminal records of the nation show too often the truth of the saying that "Once a thief always a thief." Deprived of his good repute, man loses his chief protection against evil and his incentive to good. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... father, who approved of it heartily. The only weak point in his scheme had been the difficulty which might arise in inducing the girl to venture out of the Priory on that tempestuous winter's night. There was evidently only one incentive strong enough to bring it about, and that was the hope of escape. By harping skilfully upon this string they might lure her into the trap. Ezra and his father composed the letter together, and the former handed it to Mrs. Jorrocks, with a request ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... inevitable consequence, lost every incentive to labor, energy, foresight and the moral qualities which are fostered by honestly rewarded work. They worked as little as possible on their farms, and the standard of cultivation steadily declined, while the mode of ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... mightiest tone poets, accomplished his mission, not by means of the contrapuntal fashion of his age, but in spite of it. The laws of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation as those of the rondo and sonata form; I find it impossible to imagine their ever having been a spur or an incentive to poetic ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... it, because it is a natural result and a political fact that can only be remedied by a removal of the immediate cause. It is not possible or desirable to rid the people entirely of the spirit of discontent, but it can be so minimized that it will be no longer a menace to national life but an incentive ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can officially serve you; and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with which I have the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... effusions.—The truth is, that the child is a blind Colossus, exasperated by sufferings. hence whatever it takes hold of is shattered—not only the local wheels of the provinces, which, if temporarily deranged, may be repaired, but even the incentive at the center which puts the rest in motion, and the destruction of which will throw the whole ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... question both the grounds of his own conduct and the validity of the accepted codes and compromises of society. He must try to work out a scheme of morality suitable to his own case and temperament, which found the prohibitory law of Moses chill and uninspiring, but in the Sermon on the Mount a strong incentive to all those impulses of pity and charity to which his heart was prone. In early days his sense of social injustice and the inequalities of human opportunity made him inwardly much of a rebel, who would have embraced and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the warnings which these false-hearted Arabs have repeated so often. This melancholy and loneliness I feel, may probably have their origin from the same cause. The single candle, which barely lights up the dark shade that fills the corners of my room, is but a poor incentive to cheerfulness. I feel as though I were imprisoned between stone walls. But why should I feel as if baited by these stupid, slow-witted Arabs and their warnings and croakings? I fancy a suspicion ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... was to realize that the sport of horse-racing in England gets its name of Turf from the fact that the races are run on the grass, and not on the bare ground, as with us. We call the sport the Turf, too, but that is because in this, as in so many other things, we lack incentive and invention, and are fondly colonial and imitative; we ought to call it the Dirt, for that is what it is with us. As a spectacle, the racing lacks the definition in England which our course gives, and when it began, I missed the ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... said to have understood his notes, and to sing in (in the words of one who had sung with him) a plump bass, but that he only looked upon music as an incentive to mirth, not caring for any that he could not "stamp the time to." The endeavour of his accomplished and gifted young organist to lead the King and his people to admire what he terms "the seriousness and gravity" of Italian music, and "to loathe the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... inspiration is not the helping of one's fellowmen but the saving of one's own soul. A secular morality teaches that what man thinks, says, and does lives after him and influences for good or ill future generations. This is a higher, nobler, and greater incentive to righteousness than any life of personal reward or fear of punishment in a future life. There are today a rapidly growing number of eminent moral teachers who condemn the clinging to the belief of personal existence after death as a hindrance to the best life on earth. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... With this incentive to intrepidity the Governor withdrew, leaving the poor poet in a pitiable state between remorse and terror. One thing alone somewhat comforted him! the mitres had vanished, and the gifts of the Gods lay on the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... when they are thwarted in their designs. No real husband could have been more critical in his observations on his wife's deportment, than he was in his remarks on mine. If I could have been guilty of coquetry, the desire to annoy him would have been incentive enough; but I always considered that I could not afford to suffer in my own estimation for the sake of punishing him. When I recall all these things, I take credit to myself for magnanimity; though then I was governed only by my poor uncultivated ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... even as I owe all my music to you." To Dorn he writes that many of his compositions, including the Noveletten, the Kreisleriana, and the Kinderscenen, were inspired by Clara; and it is well known that his love became the incentive to the composition, in one year, of over a hundred wonderful songs—his previous compositions, up to 1840, having all been for the piano alone. In the last letter of this collection he says: "Sometimes it appears to me as if I were treading entirely new paths in music;" and there are many ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... the earthquake, the cataract, the moaning forest—these are the chief inspirations of his powers. Whatever is suggestive of high emotions, that act upon his moral nature, and in turn are acted upon by it, forms an unconquerable incentive to his poetical exertions. Mere word-painting he has no affection for. A scene of nature, however beautiful, would be poetically valueless to him, unless it moved his feelings past the point of silent contemplation. The first poem in his volume affords ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... conscience. Conscience may be a fear which is the shadow of justice; even as pity is the shadow of love. Though simply a geographical and chronological accident, which changes with every age of the world, it may deter men from seeking and securing the prize of successful villainy. But this incentive to beneficence must be applied to actions that will be done, not to deeds that have ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. 'I am such a one, the son of such a one,' is a common expletive, especially in times of danger; and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly acts as an incentive to gallant actions."—Pilgrimage, ii, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had the treasures of Ophir for thy sake," exclaimed Spikeman; "but I am a ruined man if thou require so much, Ephraim Pike. But there, take the Carolus, and let it be an incentive to godly action." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... nineteenth-century movement, and a resultant of the new political philosophy and the democratic revolutions of the later eighteenth century, combined with the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. A new political impulse now replaced the earlier religious motive as the incentive for education, and education for literacy and citizenship became, during the nineteenth century, a new political ideal that has, in time, spread to progressive nations ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... own people, and to master that will by a superior will, to hold back the destructive force which, to the ignorant minds of the braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing more than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put in motion was an incentive to present resistance—to stave off the day of trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and the murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the foolish replies of the Hudson's Bay Company's man to their demand for supplies. Arrowhead had killed him with ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... untidy, careless, and uncleanly in person and dress; ignorant, lazy, and perhaps intemperate, with no thought beyond the gratification of his bodily wants and desires. Slang words and obscene are his daily vocabulary; selfishness his best-developed trait, and want the only incentive for his labor. His partner is like unto him, or worse, either by nature or association. Without taste, modesty, good sense, or natural refinement, she accompanies her dear Silas in his round of life, sympathizing in his lowness, his common feeling, and his common complaints—slatternly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... they did so for the purpose of stimulating their piety, for their minds had been accustomed from childhood to the idea of sacrifice, which we know had been universal from the time of Enoch; and thus they found in sacrifice their most powerful incentive. (30) The patriarchs, then, did not sacrifice to God at the bidding of a Divine right, or as taught by the basis of the Divine law, but simply in accordance with the custom of the time; and, if in so doing they followed any ordinance, it was simply the ordinance of the ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Doubtless they felt that their art lacked a medium for the publication of the individual, but it is by no means likely that they realized the full significance of this deficiency or of their own efforts to supply it. Nevertheless, what they did under the incentive of a genuine artistic impulse was in direct line with the whole intellectual progress of the Renaissance. The thing that was patent to them was the importance of studying the models of antiquity to find out how dramatic delineation was to be accomplished; but in doing so they discovered ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... sentences arraigning the Greeley Republicans as partners of Tammany, it lingers in the memory as a forceful philippic, full of pose and gesture and dramatic action. Its influence, however, is not so clear. The power of patronage had already twice carried the convention, and that this incentive would have done so again had Conkling simply whispered to his lieutenants, must be evident to all who read the story. Ward's motion was lost by 154 to 194, the Conkling vote being eight less than on the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... been of so much importance because it has terrified Mindanao and Jolo, and has been a strong incentive to the resumption of peace. The day when the fleet sailed, there was a juanga of Joloans at Sanboangan which was seen going out, and a little while afterward another was seen entering which came from Zibu, carrying Captain Becerra; the rest of his company, consisting of thirty infantrymen, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... And every incentive which awakens the soul of honor in men appealed to him then. Behind him stood the destinies of a great people, the fate of a great cause; on him they trusted, upon his honor they had depended, and ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... see," said she, "that if the incentive was suddenly taken away from him—he might go to pieces. And I was fond of him, and I am proud to think that he has made good for my sake, and the letters.... Oh, Billy, it's a dreadful mess. My letters to him have been rather warm, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... literary traditions was due to the one stable element in all these centuries—the Church. Far from Christianity inhibiting culture, it was the most important factor for its preservation, and it provided the best stimulus and incentive for its renewed development just as soon as the barbarous peoples were brought to a state of mind to ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... will look at the Athens, Ala., Trinity School in our list, they will see their own State represented there, an incentive, we trust, to special effort toward the sum recommended by the ...
— The American Missionary Vol. XLIV. No. 2. • Various
... upon weaving, which had been tightening through the period of the great spinning improvements, acted as a special incentive to Cartwright, Horrocks, and others to perfect the power-loom in its application, first to woollen, then to cotton industries. Not until well into the nineteenth century, when steam power had been fully ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... had laid my scheme of work before certain prominent Australians and some large donations** had been promised. The sympathy and warm-hearted generosity of these gentlemen was an incentive for me to push through my plans at once ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... is the last thing the Chevalier is seeking. I feel genuinely sorry for him. The stain on his name does not prevent him from being a brave man and a gentleman. Control yourself, Monsieur de Saumaise, and the day will come when you will thank me for the advice. As you have no incentive for running away, I will put you on your word, and the vicomte also. You may go. While I admire the spirit which led you to take up the Chevalier's cause, I deplore it. Who, then, will ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... praise is implanted in our bosoms as a strong incentive to worthy actions; it is a very difficult task to get above a desire of it for things that should be wholly indifferent. Women, whose hearts are fixed upon the pleasure they have in the consciousness that they ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... men of one's own age, also writing verse, the occasional companionship of an older poet, who stands aside, in a dignified seclusion, acknowledged, respected, not greatly loved or, in his best work at least, widely popular, can hardly fail to be an incentive and an invigoration. It was with a full sense of my privilege that I walked to and fro with Coventry Patmore on that high terrace in his garden at Hastings, or sat in the house watching him smoke ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... critical positions he had been in since his acquaintance with Wetzel, he had failed in all but one. The exception was the killing of Silvertip. Here his fury had made him fight as Wetzel fought with only his every day incentive. He realized that the border was no place for any save the boldest and most experienced hunters—men who had become inured to hardship, callous as to death, keen as Indians. Fear was not in Joe nor lack of confidence; but he had good sense, and realized he would have done a wiser thing ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... view to cut off our retreat, and the one in front advanced upon us, hemming us in. To retreat together seemed our only chance, but it was getting dark, and my boats were badly manned. I gave the order to close together and retire, offering ammunition as an incentive, and all came to me but one boat, which seemed so paralysed with fright, it kept spinning round and round ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of their number and diversity, may never be adequately dealt with by Congress.[784] When the regulation of matters of local concern is local in character and effect, and its impact on the national commerce does not seriously interfere with its operation, and the consequent incentive to deal with them nationally is slight, such regulation has been generally held to be within ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... address. It was a moderate and conservative document, dealing chiefly with axioms readily assented to. Its strongest passages were in favor of a sound and stable currency. He said that the danger of depreciation in the purchasing power of the wages paid to toil should furnish the strongest incentive to prompt and conservative precaution. He declared that the people had decreed that there should be a reform in the tariff, and had placed the control of their government, in its legislative and executive branches, with a political party pledged in the most positive terms to the accomplishment ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Miamis and Shawanoes, armed to the teeth, and impelled by the greatest incentive that can inflame the passions ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the most important event of the Russian campaign this year. It finally and irrevocably consolidates the position of the Russians in Galicia. The Austro-German armies are deprived of the incentive hitherto held out to them of relieving the isolated remnant of their former dominion. The besieging army will be freed for other purposes. From information previously published the garrison aggregated about 25,000 men, hence the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... instantly, seemed instinctively to know whom I meant. I used to wonder at the ease with which a cockroach can climb a perfectly smooth wall and run across the ceiling. I know now that to do this is the easiest thing in the world—if you have the proper incentive behind you. I had gone up one wall of the tent and had crossed over and was in the act of coming down the other side when Bill burst in, his eyes blurred with sleep, a lighted lamp in one hand and a gun in ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... man from that mad rush which must end in disaster. He has followed the lure and excitement of some insatiable ambition, never pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate object for which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He forgot that far more potent than competition was mutual help and co-operation in the scheme of life. And in this country through milleniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... officer is eligible for staff employment in India he must serve at least one year with a British regiment and one year with a native regiment, and must pass examinations in the native languages and on professional subjects. This is an incentive to study, of which many young officers take advantage, and in the Indian army list are several pages of names of officers who have submitted to examinations and have demonstrated their ability to talk, read and write one or more of the native tongues. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Caton's optimism had inspired me. Then the inevitable reaction came. The one thing upon which he built so happily had been denied me,—the woman I loved was the wife of another. I might not even dream of her in my loneliness and poverty; the remembrance of her could be no incentive to labor and self-denial. The Lieutenant's chance words, kindly as they were spoken, only opened wider the yawning social chasm between us. The greatest mercy would be for us ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... himself first and for a master secondarily. In our new society where tradition plays no part, where the useful is paramount, where business asserts itself over art and beauty, where material needs are the first to be satisfied, and where the country's unclaimed riches are our chief incentive to effort, it is not uninteresting to find an analogy with the society in Italy which produced the Renaissance. Diametrically opposed in their ideals, they have a common spirit. In Italy the rebirth was of the love of art, and of classic forms, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... painting, art in all its far-flung branches, even science, were suffering in these days from a general and paralysing inertia. Life which demanded no sacrifice of anybody was destructive of everything in the nature of aspiration. Sport seemed to be the only incentive to sobriety, the desire to live long in this fat land the only brake upon an era of self-indulgence. He looked eastwards to where his own millions were toiling, with his day-by-day maxims in their ears, and it seemed to his elastic fancy that he was ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... surely follow a declaration of war against England, on which country in peace the merchants of New York, Boston, and the other seaports of the United States principally depend, seemed to be the only incentive for such a war. But while the filibusters of "the greatest nation in creation," were looking for any cause of war, a good cause, in American eyes, arose. The American ships of war were mostly manned by British seamen. Men were greatly in demand for British war vessels, and it ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... tones rang forth, "that this important event will serve as an incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of the country depend, under God, solely on the success of our arms and that he is in the service of a state possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit and advance ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... including a box of old sea shells which she found in the closet. It was a curious fact that neither Sutter nor Travail possessed relatives or friends to make inquiry as to their whereabouts and thus without incentive the official search ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi |
