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adjective
Subversive  adj.  Tending to subvert; having a tendency to overthrow and ruin. "Lying is a vice subversive of the very ends and design of conversation."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Subversive" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... especially, so necessary to him. Some even went so far as to denounce him publicly, and he was mentioned one day from the height of the pulpit, to the indignation of the pupils of the upper Normal College, as a man at once dangerous and subversive. ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... regarded by all as a compromise between the Book of Common Order and the English Prayer Book, and appears to have excited no enthusiasm, even among its promoters; it was too subversive of Scottish custom to please those who were loyal to the old usage, and it was not sufficiently liturgical to suit ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... when again human beings are 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, such a person attains ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Unhappily these principles, subversive of all morality, are not advanced by the aspirants only to academical distinctions; most certainly the students would not advance these theories had they not learned them from their masters. Hence we find one of the Professors of the University of France, in Bordeaux, asserting, that "even among ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... nation, it is also that of the state of the times; and a great work usually originates in the age. Certain events must precede the man of genius, who often becomes only the vehicle of public feeling. MACHIAVEL has been reproached for propagating a political system subversive of all human honour and happiness; but was it Machiavel who formed his age, or the age which created Machiavel? Living among the petty principalities of Italy, where stratagem and assassination were the practices of those wretched ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... you, do ye even so unto them.' Now, were this precept obeyed," he continues, "it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely subversive of the principle of slavery." If strong assertion were argument, we should no doubt be overwhelmed by the irresistible logic of Dr. Wayland. But the assertion of no man can be accepted as sound argument. We want to know the very meaning ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... that you boys don't tumble to the wisdom of the centuries as you ought. Consequently I've got to instruct you. I'm going to waltz around in a motor-car, probably with tabs up, and lecture. And there aren't to be any questions asked, for that's subversive of discipline." ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... and the energy of its agitation than to the South's wild outcry and preposterous effrontery of demand. Conservative northerners began to see that, bad as abolitionism might be, the means proposed for its suppression were worse still, being absolutely subversive of personal liberty, free speech, and a free press. More serious was the conviction, which the South's attitude nursed, that such mortal horror at Abolitionists and their propaganda could only be explained by some sort of a conviction on the part of the South ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... customs of his country, he replied that in every country the impulse towards democratic institutions had come in the first instance from small minorities and had always been regarded at first as subversive and revolutionary. If, again, it was objected that the moderate and reasonable views he expressed were not the views of the more ambitious politicians who professed to be the accredited interpreters of Western-educated India, that there were ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... expediency might be matter of small moment to any but his biographer, were it not that we are so prone to copy the example of those whose names are ever in our mouths. It has now become the doctrine of a large class of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement. Such a doctrine in politics is to be deplored; but alas! who can confine it to politics? It creeps with gradual, but still with sure and quick motion, into all the doings of our daily life. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... aid, and slow in dissent, remonstrance, or reproof. These departments are defined with perfect distinctness by considerations of intrinsic fitness, and any attempt to interchange them can be only subversive of domestic ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... day began the real instruction of Prince Adalbert of Lippe-Schweidnitz in the art of life and the graces of social intercourse. Pollyooly continued it with unswerving firmness. Her method of treating a Hohenzollern was indeed entirely subversive of all current ideas on the matter of the deference due to the members of a family which has practically made the history of Europe since the beginning of this century. It seemed at times as if to her a Hohenzollern was a hardly animate ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... which were most misleading to the British public. Moreover, his letters, over which I could have no control, and which I heard of for the first time when the copies of his paper arrived in Kuram, were most subversive of the truth. It was on the receipt of these letters that I felt it to be my duty to send the too imaginative author to ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... Nature Mysticism can be at home with diverse world-views. There is, however, one exception—the world-view which is based on the concept of an Unconditioned Absolute. This will be unhesitatingly rejected as subversive of any genuine "communion" with nature. So also Symbolism will be repudiated on the ground that it furnishes a quite inadequate account of the relation of natural phenomena to the human mind. The only metaphysical theory ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... 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 to throw the whole science of mineralogy ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... country called, by appointment, on Mrs. Gallilee. On the coming Tuesday afternoon, an event of the deepest scientific interest was to take place. A new Professor had undertaken to deliver himself, by means of a lecture, of subversive opinions on "Matter." A general discussion was to follow; and in that discussion (upon certain conditions) Mrs. Gallilee herself proposed to ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... Scriptures: therefore we only can declare the will of God. But it was evident that, were the dogma of "the inner light" once accepted, this reasoning must fall to the ground, and the authority of the ministry be overthrown. Necessarily those who held so subversive a doctrine would be pursued with greater hate than less harmful heretics, and thus contemplating the situation there is no difficulty in understanding why the Rev. John Wilson, pastor of Boston, should have vociferated in his pulpit, that "he would carry fire in one hand ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... beyond the reach of vulgar philosophy, to confess that the cause of artificial society is more defenceless even than that of artificial religion; that it is as derogatory from the honor of the Creator, as subversive of human reason, and productive of infinitely more mischief ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of those 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 ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... 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 proceedings ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... community to the moral wrong and political reproach of slavery. In the name and spirit of democracy, the moral and political powers of the people were invoked to limit, discountenance, and put an end to a system so manifestly subversive of its foundation principles. It was a revival of the language of Jefferson and Page and Randolph, an echo of the voice of him who penned the Declaration of Independence and originated ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... counsel for the defendants, made a motion before Judge Tallmadge for an order to prevent the District Attorney from using the preliminary evidence taken at the private examinations. "It was a proceeding," he said, "arbitrary and subversive of the first principles of law and liberty,"—"which would have disgraced the reign of Charles and stained the character of Jeffries." The District Attorney was heard in opposition, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... used in cases of serious illness, but always secretly, for such practices, as well as dark seances for communicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chinese authorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely to be subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick person, or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind are equally under the ban of the law, the assumption—a very justifiable one—being that the aim of these societies is to upset the existing order of political ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... 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

... Trajan change the policy of the government. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius permitted the laws to be enforced against the Christians, and Marcus Aurelius saw no reason to alter them. But to the mind of the Stoic on the throne, says Arnold, the Christians were "philosophically contemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable." They were regarded as statesmen looked upon the Jesuits in the reign of Louis XV., as we look upon the Mormons,—as dangerous to free institutions. Moreover, the Christians were everywhere misunderstood and misrepresented. It was impossible for Marcus Aurelius to see ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... as a vested interest, which in the Travels is expressed through the giant king's strictures against civil liberty for religious dissenters (II, vi). He recommends this passage as a proper explanation of the principle restricting the civil liberty of potentially subversive dissidents, adding, furthermore, that "the Sectaries" themselves were "averse to all the Modes" of religion and ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous

... Carlisle, "you are, as usual, brilliant. Your imagination vaults—your daring is splendid. But as usual you are visionary and impractical. Buy them? To do this would require the credit of a nation! It would be subversive of all peace and all industry. You do not realize the sums required. You do not realize how ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... it is concerning the fire-dog; and likewise concerning all the spouting and subversive devils, of which not only old women ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... already been passed by the Public Censor, are again examined by Colonel P——, who rigorously eliminates every line even distantly hinting at politics or social life, or which may appear to him "subversive." Thanks to this system, I for some time read nothing but scientific and philosophic works, for which classes of reading I am too young and but ill-prepared. Gradually, however, these works take hold upon me; they appeal to my pride, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... over a hill. He is spoken of as holding "very extreme opinions." Chalmers rails at him for being "a thick-skulled Englishman," for being "fine, polished," etc. To say a man is "polished" here is to give him a very bad name. He accuses him also of holding views subversive of all morality. In spite of all this, I thought he might possess a map, and I induced Mrs. C. to walk over with me. She intended it as a formal morning call, but she wore the inevitable sun-bonnet, and had her dress tied up as when washing. It was not ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... 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

... principle of equity engraven in their minds, which even false religion is not able totally to obliterate, they were shocked to see persons of probity, of honor, of pious dispositions, exposed to punishments more severe than were inflicted on the greatest ruffians for crimes subversive of civil society. To exterminate the whole Protestant party was known to be impossible; and nothing could appear more iniquitous, than to subject to torture the most conscientious and courageous among them, and allow the cowards and hypocrites to escape. Each martyrdom, therefore, was equivalent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... Edinburgh from which he had fled and the heresies that had apparently taken possession of Dick's mind, her heart continued to sink within her, for it seemed that the opinions attributed to Dick were subversive of all she had held true from her childhood. With such intelligence and sympathy, however, did she listen to Mr. Finlayson discoursing, that that gentleman carried back with him to college a heart somewhat ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... good player, and that such a boy may be finding his proper development in the pursuit of butterflies, a development which he would never gain by unsuccessful and involuntary cricket. House masters too are apt to complain that freedom for hobbies is subversive of discipline, and to quote the old adage about Satan and idle hands. That there is risk, is not to be denied. But you cannot run a school without taking risks. Our whole system of leaving the government largely in the hands of boys is full ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... the Government," he declared, "has usurped the powers of Law and Justice to an extent subversive of republican institutions, and not to be borne by any free people. He has given access to the vaults of prisons but not to the bar of justice. It is a part of the nature of frail men to sin against laws, both human and divine; but ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... faith, or by publishing violent pamphlets such as /The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women/, in which he undertook to prove that the rule of women is repugnant to nature, contrary to God's ordinances, and subversive of good order, equity, and justice. Though this document was aimed principally against Catharine de' Medici, Queen Mary of England, and Mary of Guise regent of Scotland, it rankled in the mind of Queen Elizabeth after her accession, and did not serve to raise the apostle of ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... distinctly before Parliament? It strikes the Queen that all the Commons want is a Parliamentary security against the abolition of the Competitive System of Examinations by the Executive. Can this not be obtained by means less subversive of the whole character of our Constitution? The Queen cannot believe that Lord Derby could not find means to come to some agreement with the Opposition, and she trusts he will leave nothing ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... who was not himself present on this occasion, heard what Clarence had done, he said that such proceedings were subversive of the laws of the realm, and destructive to all good government, and he commanded that Clarence should be arrested and ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... such surroundings, had no temptation to adopt Rousseau's sweeping revolutionary fervour. His nominal whiggism was not warmed into any subversive tendency. The labourers with whose sorrows he sympathised might be ignorant, coarse, and drunken; he saw their faults too clearly to believe in Rousseau's idyllic conventionalities, and painted the truth as realistically as Crabbe: they required to be kept out of the public-house, not to be liberated ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... probability of such an attempt being made. Nor was the work irreligious and blasphemous in its spirit, like the attacks of the last century. It professed to be executed solely in the interests of science; and, though subversive of historic religion, to be conservative of ideal. The critical part was only a means to an end; its real basis was speculative. But the literary aspect of the question was lost sight of in the religious. The heart spoke forth ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... of the earlier nations to give little attention to these troublesome and subversive fellows, who always thought more of the truth than they did even of the inviolability of the High Priests of the State. They preferred to die rather than surrender the out-dated rights of man. Therefore they had to die. The rights of man cannot ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... 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

... of the Noces de Figaro, in 1784, was the culmination of a three years' struggle. Louis XVI had declared the play subversive, and the author had raised a storm of protest in its behalf. A special performance was conceded for the Court; and the Parisian public, irritated at being thus excluded, then raised for the first time the cry of tyranny and oppression. When at ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... that of the King of England, and Peter de Montfort, Leicester's son, he brought this great cause to a trial and examination. It appeared to him, that the provisions of Oxford, even had they not been extorted by force, had they not been so exorbitant in their nature, and subversive of the ancient constitution, were expressly established as a temporary expedient, and could not, without breach of trust, be rendered perpetual by the barons. [MN 23d Jan.] He therefore annulled these provisions; restored ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... enough; but what is far worse is when scientific experts on the strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments some at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus we have lately been told that it is "wanton cruelty" to keep a weak or sickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of medical ethics, is to have leave and licence to put an end to ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... christened his Ancient Marinere "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? For me, I was never so affected with any human Tale. After first reading it, I was totally possessed with it for many days—I dislike all the miraculous part of it, but the feelings of the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... 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 ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... more torn by divergent thought and subversive act than in the period between the death of Elizabeth in 1603 and the Revolution of 1688. In this distracted time who could say what was really "English"? Was it James the First or Raleigh? Archbishop Laud or John Cotton? Charles the First or Cromwell? Charles the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... princes, but in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little, however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite the people against each other on the score of religious dissension. The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem; and making himself master of the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... boldly takes up. In fact, reasoning unreasonableness was a very frequent condition of George Sand's mind. That the unreasonableness of her reasoning remains unseen by many, did so at any rate in her time, is due to the marvellous beauty and eloquence of her language. The best that can be said of her subversive theories was said by a French critic—namely, that they were in reality only "le temoignage d'aspirations genereuses et de nobles illusions." But even this is saying too much, for her aspirations and illusions are far from being always generous and noble. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... might be allowed to read. This was of course refused; the recorder remarking, they might as well allow counsel for felons to address juries, as read defences; and that, as every practical man knew, would be utterly subversive of the due administration of justice. The clerk of the court would read the paper, if the prisoner felt too agitated to do so. This was done; and very vilely done. The clerk, I dare say, read as ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... all. In their efforts to bring about a reunion, and despairing of arriving at this happy result by an agreement among the contending Popes, many honest theologians put forward principles, which, however suitable to the circumstances of the schism, were utterly subversive of the monarchical constitution of the Church. They maintained that in case of doubtful Popes the cardinals had the right to summon a General Council to decide the issue, and that all Christians were bound to submit to its decrees. In accordance with these principles the Council of Constance ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... very material change for the better has taken place in the sentiments of the community since slavery was abolished. Religion and education were formerly opposed as subversive of the security of property; now they are in the most direct manner encouraged as its best support. The value of all kinds of property has risen considerably, and a general sense of security appears to be rapidly pervading the public mind. I have not heard one man assert that it would ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... 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

... is subversive of Church discipline!" Jose retorted warmly. "Look you, Don Mario," he added suggestively, "you and I are to work ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... "Suppose these opinions were subversive of all law and order. Suppose there were men who preached murder and adultery—doctrines that meant the destruction of society. Would you allow these, too, to publish their ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... it is utterly subversive of Christianity; for if this theory is true the fall of man is entirely fabulous; and if the fall, then the redemption, these two being ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... been suddenly ordered to make the attempt. I speak of things as they were in those days, not as they are now. Happily at the present day it is considered highly disgraceful for an officer to be drunk; and not only is it disgraceful, but subversive of discipline, whether he is on or off duty, and thus injurious to the interests of the service, and prejudicial to his own health and morals. Taking the matter up only in a personal point of view, how can a man tell how ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... prohibiting other officers or their households visiting him. Nevertheless, they who publicly do so lay themselves liable to the imputation of sympathizing with the accused at the expense of the accuser, and some commanding officers are so sensitive that they look upon such demonstrations as utterly subversive of discipline, and aimed directly ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... reduced to the ranks by court-martial for being absent without leave, and many privates have been punished in various ways for the same reason. It was my duty to approve or disapprove the finding of the court. Disapproval in the majority of cases would have been subversive of all discipline. Approval has brought down upon me not only the hatred and curses of the soldiers tried and punished, but in some instances the ill-will also of their fathers, who for years ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... State Rights, as expounded by its advocates in its application to the several States of the American Union, is subversive of all government, and calculated to destroy our political organization. Its tendency is to weaken the central government by minute division of the power necessary for its maintainance. Without power to make its authority respected, no government ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and defenseless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators and all connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline and efficiency of the army and destructive of the ends of our present movements. It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... been taken by them to remove their protection from the more flagrant violators of American hospitality, but there is still room to discard outworn ideas of racial superiority maintained by economic or intellectually subversive warfare upon ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... witch-trials are rumored to have been held, is a solid scrap of antique gloom; but an ephemeral druggist's shop has been fastened on to a corner of the old building, and clings there like a wasp's nest,—as subversive, too, of quiet contemplation. The descendants of the first settlers have with pious care preserved the remains of the First Church of Salem, and the plain little temple may still be seen, though hidden away in the rear of the solid, brick-built ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... the theory and practice of party organization, teachings which they eagerly absorbed, and which seemed sinister and ominous to the Whigs. He was showing them, in fact, the way in which elections were to be won; and though the Whigs denounced his system as subversive of individual freedom and private judgment, it was not long before they were also forced to adopt it, or be left alone with their virtue. The organization of political parties in Illinois really takes its rise from this time, and in great measure from the work of Mr. Peck with the Vandalia Legislature. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... custody, whom no most distant retirement would make safe from the effects of her own ignorance, folly, and obstinacy? "When is she to go?" he asked in a low, sepulchral tone,—as though these new tidings that had come upon him had been fatal—laden with doom, and finally subversive of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... institutions in New York State, the name "Roosevelt" stood for a man as honest as he was energetic, and as fearless as he was true. Platt and the Machine naturally wished to get rid of this marplot, who could not be manipulated, who held strange and subversive ideas as to the extent to which the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code should be allowed to encroach on politics and Big Business, and who was hopelessly "altruistic" in caring for the poor and down trodden and outcast. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... Switzerland. Calvin was gaining ground in the French cantons. Geneva had become a stationary fortress, the stronghold of belligerent reformers, whence heresy sent forth its missionaries and promulgated subversive doctrines through the medium of an ever-active press. Transformed by Calvin from its earlier condition of a pleasure-loving and commercial city, it was now what Deceleia under Spartan discipline had been to Athens in the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... for slavery," and did not show the convention willing to discharge its duty to the memorialists, and to the people whose protests could not there be heard. His principal argument was that the principles guiding this committee in its decision were subversive of the principles of true republicanism; that they were also against the principles of the Bible. Since the committee had admitted the evil of slavery, he contended, the failure to find a remedy is ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... instance only three. First, Materialism; by which mind is denied to human nature; which, if 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; which, if believed, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... Assembly had assigned to me; I gave lessons in Latin and Mathematics and I wrote pamphlets on the persecution of the Church of France. I have even composed a work of some length, to prove that the Constitutional oath of the Priests is subversive of Ecclesiastical discipline. The advances made by the Revolution deprived me of all my pupils, while I could not get my pension because I had not the certificate of citizenship required by law. This certificate I went to the Hotel de Ville to claim, in the conviction I was well entitled ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. Happiness ought to be the result of good actions. Happiness ought to spring from the seed a man sows himself. It ought not to be a reward, it ought to be a consequence, and there ought to be no idea that there is any ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... do nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it would inevitably suppress it more completely than the Lord Chamberlain does, because it would understand it better. The one play of Ibsen's which is prohibited on the English stage, Ghosts, is far less subversive than A Doll's House. But the Lord Chamberlain does not meddle with such far-reaching matters as the tendency of a play. He refuses to license Ghosts exactly as he would refuse to license Hamlet if it were submitted to him as a new play. He would ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... counterpoises since so absurdly defined as "privileges." There are no privileges now, when every human being is free to climb the greased pole of power. But surely it would be safer to allow open and avowed privileges than those which are underhand, based on trickery, subversive of what should be public spirit, and continuing the work of despotism to a lower and baser level than heretofore. May we not have overthrown noble tyrants devoted to their country's good, to create the tyranny of selfish ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... final years of G.K.'s Weekly the very opposite opinion is expressed. Hoffman Nickerson writes of the "subversive" nature of Chesterton's work, of his giving weapons to Communism and doing his bit towards starting "a very nasty class war" in America. Mr. Nickerson was allowed to develop this theme in a series ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... universities have begun to teach modern economics, social science and psychology—and this in the face of opposition from trustees. Successful business men, as a rule, have had neither the time nor the inclination to read books which they regard as visionary, as subversive to an order by which they have profited. And that some Americans are fools, and have been dazzled in Europe by the glamour of a privilege not attainable at home, is a deplorable yet indubitable fact. These have little sympathy with democracy; ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... them contrary to their judgment. Strange if this, which is so much insisted on as the policy of our Church, be right, that she cannot get a single man, of all she sends out to China, to think so. Can it be that the Missionary work is so subversive of right reason, or of correct judgment, or of conscientiousness, that all become perverted ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage

... a scientific subject, in terms which make it intelligible to all educated men. When Huxley spoke, the heat which had been kindled by the first announcement of the theory of evolution in Darwin's "Origin of Species" was still blazing; and there were many church people who held that the theory was subversive of religion, without giving themselves the trouble to understand it. This timid frame of mind explains Hurley's mode of approach ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... Freneau's Gazette opened at once. It began with a general assault upon the Administration, denouncing every prominent member in turn as a monarchist or an aristocrat, and every measure as subversive of the liberties of the country. Vice-President Adams received a heavy broadside, his "Discourses on Davila," with their animadversions upon the French Revolution in particular and Democracy in general, being regarded as a ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... upon him who is marching straight to madness. He even went to open his mind to the bishop, but the latter understood no more than others his vague, incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to realize and possibly subversive.[2] It was thus that in spite of himself Francis was led to ask nothing of men, but to raise himself by prayer to intuitive knowledge of the divine will. The doors of houses and of hearts were alike closing upon him, but the interior voice was about to speak out with irresistible ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... the other former symbolic books as a whole is sufficient reason for their rejection as a prescribed creed, even if all their contents were believed to be true.... The exaction of such an extended creed is subversive of all individual liberty of thought and freedom of Scriptural investigation." (20.) Part II of the Platform, the "Synodical Disclaimer," contains a list of the symbolic errors with extracts from the Lutheran symbols, "which are rejected by the great body of the American Lutheran Church," ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... errors, ignorance, prejudices, and faults. Would they have done this save from simple hearted truthfulness? Would a designing knave voluntarily reveal to a suspicious scrutiny actions and traits naturally subversive of confidence in him? The conduct of the disciples under the circumstances, through all the scenes of their after lives, proves their undivided and earnest honesty. The cause they had espoused was, if we deny its truth, to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... am not likely to forget it or to minimize it, for it is my own indictment against Mr. Jones' system, and since his practice strongly supports my contention I shall examine it and expose it (see p. 43); but the objection here raised is not really subversive of my argument here, as may be judged from the fact that the Oxford University Press has adopted or countenanced Mr. Jones' standard in their small popular edition of the ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... my 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, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... the woman who had given me such a plausible lecture on pride. Alas, for our fallen nature! Which is more subversive of peace and Christian fellowship—ignorance of our own characters, or the characters ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... water—while the lads congregated before the Inn laughed boisterously, the men turned away with a guffaw, dogs of disgracefully mixed parentage yelped, and the elder female members of the Proud and Sclanders families flung phrases lamentably subversive of gentility after their retreating figures from ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... % 1. Necessity of Competition % 2. Subversive Effects of Competition, and the Destruction of Liberty thereby % ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... plays a capital part in all national disturbances, consists of a subversive social residue dominated by a criminal mentality. Degenerates of alcoholism and poverty, thieves, beggars, destitute "casuals,'' indifferent workers without employment—these constitute the dangerous bulk of the armies ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... Franciscans, sounded an alarm. They said it destroys all personality, conducts to fatalism, and renders inexplicable the difference and progress of individual intelligences. The declaration that there is but one intellect is an error subversive of the merits of the saints, it is an assertion that there is no difference among men. What! is there no difference between the holy soul of Peter and the damned soul of Judas? are they identical? Averroes in this his blasphemous ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... commendation," continued Mr. Parasyte; "and I would gladly remit the penalty I have imposed upon him without any conditions whatever; but I feel that such a course, after the extraordinary events of this day, would be subversive of the discipline and good order which have ever characterized the Parkville Liberal Institute. I shall, however, impose a merely nominal condition upon Thornton, his compliance with which shall immediately restore him to the full enjoyment of his rights and privileges as a member of this academy. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... one, "unless on the presentment or indictment of a grand jury." This is to save people from the vexation and expense of arrest and trial unless there is reasonable presumption of their guilt. On the other hand, a grand jury should aid in bringing to justice persons who indulge in practices subversive of public peace, but which individuals are disinclined to prosecute, such as gambling. Incidentally the grand jury examines into the condition of the ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... 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 and laboring classes, a due regard for their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... with fire and sword; cast to the dogs; eradicate &c. 301. Adj. destroyed &c. v.; perishing &c. v.; trembling to its fall, nodding to its fall, tottering to its fall; in course of destruction &c. n.; extinct. all-destroying, all-devouring, all-engulfing. destructive, subversive, ruinous, devastating; incendiary, deletory|; destroying &c. n. suicidal; deadly &c. (killing) 361. Adv. with crushing effect, with a sledge hammer. Phr. delenda est Carthago[Lat]; dum Roma deliberat Saguntum ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz 'as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.' A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he 'has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... together reading and discussing the books which he bought for her by the armful at a shop in Charing Cross Road, where, open to the street, were piles of books almost blatantly subversive of society—Nietsche, Havelock Ellis, Shaw, Ibsen, Anarchist tracts, Socialist and Labour journals, R.P.A. cheap reprints, every sort and kind of book that in an ordinary shop would only be procured upon a special ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... teachers were brought before a committee of the House of Commons, for promulgating, in different ways, these and similar opinions, which were justly regarded as subversive of all morality.—Gataker's "God's Eye on his Israel",—preface, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... dignity was conferred by these novel doctrines on universal mankind, which the lowly shared equally with the mighty. The Christian conception of liberty and equality however, referred more to the moral than to the material order. "The truth shall make you free." It was not subversive of existing mundane conditions, but taught the duty of rendering Caesar his due, and of the servant being subject to his lord, the woman to her husband, and children to their parents. The early Christians too sincerely ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... the design of which is to create a perpetual surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... substitute definite distinctions, which, however considerable they may be, do not point to ulterior unknown differences, would be to replace classes with more by classes with fewer attributes in common; and would be subversive of the Natural Method ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... What is so powerless as poverty? do I not know it—not of yesterday, or the day before, but for many a long year? What so helpless, what so jarring to temper, so dangerous to all principle, and so subversive of all dignity? I can afford to say these things, and you can afford to hear them, for there is a sort of brotherhood between us. We claim the same land for our origin. Whatever our birthplace, we ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... '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 ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... form, while my own opinion in regard to it would remain unchanged I should be very far from again presenting it to your consideration. The Government has originated with the States and the people, for their own benefit and advantage, and it would be subversive of the foundation principles of the political edifice which they have reared to persevere in a measure which in their mature judgments they had either repudiated or condemned. The will of our constituents clearly expressed should be regarded as the light to guide our footsteps, the true difference ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler

... will see he was too hasty: "Much as I love truth in the abstract," he says, "I love my hope of immortality more." * * * He maintained that it is better to close one's eyes to the evidences than to be convinced of the truth of certain doctrines which he regards as subversive of the fundamentals of Christian faith. "If this (is all) is the best that science can give me, then I pray no more science. Let me live on in my simple ignorance, as my fathers lived before me; and when I shall at length be summoned to my final repose, ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... Port Andro during the attack on Belle Isle off the west coast of France. In 1762 he was wounded at Havana in the West Indies. After that he enjoyed four years of quietness at home. Then came the exceedingly difficult task of guiding Canada through twelve years of turbulent politics and most subversive war. ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... encroachment on Serbia's sovereign rights. Austria appears as the policeman, who undertakes to create order in Serbia, because the Serbian Government, according to Austria's claim, is unable to hold in check those 'subversive elements' within its frontiers, which disturb Austria's peace. But only in this manner can Austria protect herself against the criminals who are sent from Serbia to the territories of the Hapsburg monarchy. No consideration whatever ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... 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

... denounce the consumers of animal food with every unpleasant illustration the shambles could be made to supply. In very select companies of sympathizers, as well as in the Graduating Circle of Progressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained a hideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raises the life of man above the life of the wolf ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... 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, ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... anonymous summons an attempt has been made to convene you together. How inconsistent with the rules of propriety, how unmilitary, and how subversive of all order and discipline, let the good sense of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing



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