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Factious

adjective
1.
Dissenting (especially dissenting with the majority opinion).  Synonyms: dissentious, divisive.






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"Factious" Quotes from Famous Books



... than all the feeble rays Of sun or moon; taught us to know those days Bright TITAN makes; follow'd the hasty sun Through all his circuits; knew th' unconstant moon, And more unconstant ebbings of the flood; And what is most uncertain, th' factious brood, Flowing in civil broils: by the heavens could date The flux and reflux of our dubious state. He saw the eclipse of sun, and change of moon He saw, but seeing would not shun his own: Eclips'd he was, that he might shine more bright, And only chang'd to give a fuller light. ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... of this state, Our strange protractions and unkind delays Where weighty wars doth call us out to fight, Our factious wits, to please aspiring lords, (You see) have added power unto our foes, And hazarded rich Phrygia and Bithinia, With all our Asian holds and cities too. Thus Sylla seeking to be general, Who is invested in our consul's pall,[101] Hath forced murders in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... and we who marched by land were there seven days before we could learn what had become of our commander. We were afraid his ship had been lost among the shoals of Los Jardines, and it was proposed to send three ships in search of him: But there was no one to command, and factious disputes arose about the choice of a lieutenant or substitute during his absence, in which intrigues Diego de Ordas was particularly busy. At length Cortes arrived, his ship having grounded on a shoal, but fortunately near the shore, so that they got her off by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... surpriz'd and overthrown his Army, and cut them in pieces, before they had known who had hurt them. Upon the Sense of this Danger, he takes up a pretence of necessity for the being always ready to resist the Factious Crolians, as he call'd them, and by that Insinuation hooks himself into a standing Army in time of Peace; ——- nay, and so easy were the Solunarian Church to yield up any point, which they did but imagin would help to crush their Brethren the Crolians, that they not only consented to this unusual ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... and the relations in which he was at this time placed with some over-zealous champions of popular reform, and some unreasonable exponents of popular grievances. That his conduct on this occasion was extravagant and even factious, he afterwards heartily regretted. Yet as a memorable illustration of the power and earnestness with which he fought for what seemed to him to be right, as well with word as with sword, its details, as reported at the time, may be here set ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... the pressure of popular feeling might make itself felt, directly, in the halls of legislation, our history, instead of being that of a great and advancing nation, would have been only a chronicle of factious and unstable violence. It does not follow, that one who is qualified to lead voters at the polls, or, as they say here, "on the stump," will be able to embody, in enlightened enactments, the sentiment ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... according to their duties, meet him in that, especially in this exigent when his kingdom and person are in apparent danger, the world might see he is forced, contrary to his own inclination, to use extraordinary means rather than, by the peevishness of some few factious spirits, to suffer his state and ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... pick'd For an inducement to a greater ill; But we will call the council of estate, At which the Mother Queen shall present be: Thither by summons shall Prince John be call'd, Leicester, and Lacy, who, it seems, Favour some factious purpose ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... were an ancient family of great influence, from their possessions at Leith and Restalrig. The factious person to whom Knox alludes was Robert Logan, who was arrested by order of the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and committed to prison, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... gods of the earth? Call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth? Reduce to subjection a warlike and discontented nation, by means of a mutinous army? Command a mutinous army by means of seditious and factious officers? Be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would be pleased, at the rate of millions a year, to be hired as master of those who had hired him before to be their servant? Have the estates and lives of three nations as much at his disposal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... virtually a party matter, and were binding themselves to oppose it tooth and nail. The statemonger always assumes that the public take his pledges (which he never boggles over breaking for some purely factious object) seriously. The public may be silly, but they are not quite so ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... occasions to express his opinion in the most courteous language, that his right honourable friend, sitting opposite to him on the Treasury bench, has been, is, and will be wrong in everything that he thinks, says, or does in public life; but that, as anything like factious opposition is never adopted on that side of the House, the Address to the Queen, in answer to that most fatuous speech which has been put into her Majesty's gracious mouth, shall be allowed to pass ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... Mahmud with Elak are these: It has already been mentioned that an uncommon friendship had existed between this Elak, the Usbek king of Kashgar, a kingdom in Tartary, and Mahmud. The Emperor himself was married to the daughter of Elak, but some factious men about the two courts, by misrepresentations of the princes to one another, changed their former friendship to enmity. When Mahmud therefore marched into Hindustan, and had left the field of Khorassan almost destitute ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... be as well to have these men shot instantly," continued the alcalde; "if they are not the two pretenders, they are at any rate two of the factious." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... their noble zeal, Who had with flaming tongue and pen Maintain'd the public weal; But e'er a month or two had pass'd, I found myself betray'd, 'Twas self and party, after all, For a' the stir they made; At last I saw the factious knaves Insult the very throne, I cursed them a', and tuned my pipe ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... their place, and calmly in their place; so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm. Steel sharpens steel; so one glory perfecteth another: and I am of belief, that they who are glorious, must have been factious. Yet are there degrees in honour, and amongst the first of them I should rank founders of commonwealths, or even states, such as we ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... he was always for assembling the people of Paris together, thinking that he made a great figure at the head of them. The Cardinal, who was factious enough, was wise enough at the same time to avoid gathering the people together, except when there was occasion, and when he had something particular for them to do. However, he could not always check Monsieur de Beaufort; who having assembled them once very unnecessarily, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... letter. Here was a despised thought of the past become a proud fact of the present. Here had the Autocrat reared a monument to our great Democrat,—gaining praise for Jefferson long after his enemies and their factious laughter had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... to this presidential aspiration of Mr. Douglas that we must look as the explanation of his agency in bringing about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. As already said, after some factious opposition the measures of 1850 had been accepted by the people as a finality of the slavery question. Around this alleged settlement, distasteful as it was to many, public opinion gradually crystallized. Both the National Conventions of 1852 solemnly ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... cunning, deceptive, overbearing, and disloyal; he called the clergy proud, ignorant, imperious, and inclined to sedition; and he denounced those in authority as "inconsiderable mechanicks, packed by the prevailing party of the factious ministry, with a fellow-feeling both in the command and the profits." His picture of the colony, containing much that was near the truth, was at the same time distorted, out of proportion, and in parts almost a caricature. ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... adopted the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed on his deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the arts of factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued this course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation and impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his children in good ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... reasonable moderation[10]; and we may honour the guest who, warmed by wine, talks of such noble deeds and instances of virtue as his memory may suggest. But let him not tell of Titan battles, or those of the giants or centaurs, the fictions of bygone days, nor yet of factious quarrels, nor gossip, that can serve no good end. Rather let us ever keep a ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton

... mayor, at which they declared, with great unanimity, that 'the people of Chauny had never, in fact and of their own free will, adopted the impious and seditious principles introduced in France by a factious minority, and that they regarded the death of the most Christian king, Louis XVI., as the most ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... them? Punch believes you, boys, And store them 'midst our choicest treasures! In these fierce days of factious noise The Sage experiences few pleasures So genuine as this outburst frank Of "true Canadian opinion." He hastens heartily to thank The loyal hearts ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various

... us instances enough of powerful ministers anxious, for the public good, to get rid of conquered, but expensive and useless possessions, but deterred from proposing the measure by the dread of popular odium, which ambitious and factious rivals are always ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... what the managers wanted, and so his trouble began: for, on the 30th of July following, "the lords of council order letters to be directed, to charge William Gordon of Earlstoun to compear before them—to answer for his seditious and factious carriage:" that was, his refusing to comply with prelacy, and hear the curates, and for his favouring and hearing the outed ministers. And further, Nov. 24th, same year, "The council being informed, that the laird of Earlstoun kept conventicles and private meetings in his ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... let them produce the official document on which their judgement professed to be founded. It was vain for them to rely upon a majority of forty-six, vain for them to call a motion for information factious. The only sufficient answer would be the production of the documents. But the noble lord said it was extremely clear that the money was to be paid to Russia for past services performed; why, then, did the noble lord ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... doings. Those who were more honest had insufficient power to check the evil practices that were leniently, if not favourably, regarded by the colonial community, while their time was fully occupied in combating the factious opposition of the colonial legislatures, and in protective measures against the French and Indians. The English Government, absorbed in the French war, had no ships in the Indian seas; but the straits to which English trade in the East had been reduced, and the enormous ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... of the untried parvenu was rudely interrupted at an early period of the debate. Marius knew that he had the people and the tribunician college with him, and that even the most perverse ingenuity could never construe the measure as a factious opposition to the interests of the State. Obedience to the senate would in this instance mean the sacrifice of a reputation for political honesty and courage; it might be better to burn his boats and to trust for the future to the generosity of the people for the gifts which the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... indirectly the King himself, and the insolent subject was a fugitive, a broken, powerless man. The young King might well be pleased with the success of his policy. In pursuance of that policy he had reduced the great fabric of the Whig party to a ruin, and had driven the factious demagogue who opposed him into an ignominious obscurity. To a temper flushed by two such triumphs opposition of any kind was well-nigh welcome for the pleasure of crushing it, and was never less likely to be encountered in a spirit ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... this A preparation in the wond'rous depth Of thy sage counsel made, for some good end, Entirely from our reach of thought cut off? So are the' Italian cities all o'erthrong'd With tyrants, and a great Marcellus made Of every petty factious villager. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... and the infatuation of fortune. So little moderation in prosperity, coupled with the most luxurious habits, a passion for gaming, a craving appetite for pleasures, and excessive expenses, which reduced him to receive from every hand, excited against him both envy and animosity in the austere and factious court of Philip II.; and, on the first opportunity, inevitably prepared his downfal. This event, too, he himself hastened by serving too well the distrustful passions of Philip, and, perhaps, even by exciting them beyond measure against ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... are insolent and factious persons; but whoever they may be, if your majesty prefers to listen to them, I have nothing further to say. In such a case, that which we have fixed to take place ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... parties traduced. De Foe lay friendless and distressed in Newgate, his family ruined, and himself without hopes of deliverance, till Sir Robert Harley, who approved of his principles, and foresaw that during a factious age such a genius could be converted to many uses, represented his unmerited sufferings to the Queen, and at length procured his release. The treasurer, Lord Godolphin, also sent a considerable sum to his wife and family, and to him money to pay his fine and the expense of his discharge. Gratitude ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... a factious, seditious old Rogue, that's neither Whig, nor Tory, but an Enemy to his own Country; he hates the Government, because the Government don't like him; repines at all our Successes; and his Bosom Friends are Minters, ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... John Russell. The picture he draws is lively, unflattering, but instructive. 'I am satisfied that the mass of the people are sound—moderate in their demands and attached to British institutions; but they have been oppressed by a miserable little oligarchy on the one hand and excited by a few factious demagogues on the other. I can make a middle reforming party, I am sure, that will put down both.' The record of seventy-five years and of two wars shows the attachment of the Canadians to British institutions, and how justly the governor-general appraised the 'mass of the people.' Not less clearly ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... the nobles of the sword and the red-heeled slipper the only outraged class. The magistracy of the provincial parliaments were inflamed with resentment against changes that stripped them of the power of exciting against the new government the same factious and impracticable spirit with which they had on so many occasions embarrassed the old. The clergy were thrown even still more violently into opposition. The Assembly, sorely pressed for resources, declared the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... finally gave up his opposition, and acquiesced in the opinion of every other member of the cabinet, remarking on this result: "The administration are placed in a dilemma, from which it is impossible for them to escape censure by some, and factious crimination by many. If they avow and approve Jackson's conduct, they incur the double responsibility of having made a war against Spain, in violation of the constitution, without the authority of Congress. If they disavow him, they must give offence to his friends, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... one of our lieutenants, and he ejaculated, with emphasis, "Yes, that is true." I cannot tell how far these opinions were the result of prepossession in those from whom they derived. There had been hard and factious division in the navy of Decatur's day, culminating in the duel in which he fell; and the lieutenant, at least, was associated by ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... barren of results is proved by the fact that O'Brien entered Parliament in 1826 as an Anti-Repealer, and exerted himself to prevent the return of O'Connell at the memorable election for Clare. But O'Brien was no factious opponent of the national interests; even while he acted thus, he had the welfare of his country sincerely at heart; he steered according to his lights, and when time and experience showed the falseness of his views, he did not hesitate ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... predecessors had been granted to the nobility. The prosecution of this plan for the perfect subversion of the feudal aristocracy was unfortunately interrupted by her death; her imprudent and weak successor having no power to restrain the turbulent spirit of a factious nobility. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... seek, that you forfeit two hundred denarii immediately for each and every such offense." The treaty was signed upon these terms, and we laid down our arms. It seemed well to wipe out the past with kisses, after we had taken oath, for fear any vestige of rancor should persist in our minds. Factious hatreds died out amidst universal good-fellowship, and a banquet, served on the field of battle, crowned our reconciliation with joviality. The whole ship resounded with song and, as a sudden calm had ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... Denmark, Princess Amelia, and the proud monuments of Lord Chatham's services, now enshrined there, then anathematized there, and now again commanding there, with the temple of Friendship, like the temple of Janus, sometimes open to war, and sometimes shut up in factious cabals—all these images crowd upon one's memory, and add visionary personages to the charming scenes, that are so enriched with fanes and temples, that the real prospects are ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... Colonies, and he thought that it was right they should be made in Boston, the only place where there had been actual crime; for "they," his words are, "would be enough to carry terror to the wicked and factious spirits all over the continent, and would show that the subjects of Great Britain must not rebel with impunity anywhere." The King and Parliament stood pledged to make arrests; Lord Hillsborough, in his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... turbulent or factious in his disposition: his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he succeeded so well as to become the richest subject in Christendom: yet his attention to gain threw him sometimes into acts of violence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... in a high state of excitement. He immediately got upon horseback, that he might be seen and heard the better, and exclaimed: "General Buonaparte, and you, soldiers of France, the President of the Council of Five Hundred announces to you that factious men with daggers interrupt the deliberations of the senate. He authorises you to employ force. The Assembly of Five Hundred ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... sparkling in his eyes, He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies: "Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state With wrangling talents formed for foul debate, Curb that impetuous tongue, nor, rashly vain, And singly mad, asperse the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... dangerous combination was insensibly formed against Edward and his ministry. While this cloud was gathering at home, Edward endeavored to secure himself against his factious nobility by entering into foreign alliances. But whatever ambitious schemes the King might have built on these alliances, they were soon frustrated by intestine commotions, which engrossed all his attention. These disorders probably ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... have gone very differently. The farmers of that region were more scattered, more rude and uneducated, and more prone to factious dissensions than those of the Free State proved to be after 1854; and while the latter were compressed within definite boundaries on three sides, the Transvaal Boers were scattered over a practically limitless area. During the next twenty-five years ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... the 20th of March was not the work of a few factious persons, who might have been repressed; but a grand national act, against which the efforts and volitions of individuals would ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... thus lend to it the sanction of their name. The party have always praised each other most highly—have invariably opposed all improvements in the Society, all change in the mode of management; and have maintained, that all those who wished for any alteration were factious; and, when they discovered any symptoms of independence and inquiry breaking out in any member of the Council, they have displaced him as soon as they ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... producing a race who added the turbulence and restlessness of the south to the formidable tenacity of the north. Strong vitality and violent ambitions produced feuds and rivalries worthy of medieval Italy, and the story of the factious little communities is like a chapter out of Guicciardini. Disorganisation ensued. The burghers would not pay taxes and the treasury was empty. One fierce Kaffir tribe threatened them from the north, and the Zulus on the east. It is an exaggeration of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Toleration; the Contra-Remonstrants, a national Synod, in which they were sure of a majority. Both these opinions were laid before the States, who declared for a toleration: this was the cause gained to the Arminians; but the Gomarists were favoured by the People, and grew very factious. The Grand-Pensionary, imagining that by making themselves masters of the election of the ministers, the States would insensibly appease these troubles, proposed the revival of an obsolete regulation, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... meanwhile of but few of their well kept secrets. He that pencils the lily and paints the rose and gives to every blade of grass its own bright drop of dew, has been pleased to say: "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further." And there is great unwisdom in setting up factious opposition to the fiat of Omnipotence. Possess your souls in patience, O friends! wait, as we must wait, before knowing all, or even knowing much. If you can not be Odd-Fellows, you can at least be ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... until loyalty became an abrogation of free citizenship; law and justice with him went hand in hand with reform, and rectitude, not impulse, gave consistency to his course. Such a man lays himself open to factious criticism far more than reckless politicians, who are restrained by no sense of responsibility; but, on the other hand, in the last analysis, they stand forth the most pure because the most patient, just, and truly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... this disagreement in the councils of the gods might give him. He was quite content, he said, to vote for the Address, as, he believed, would be all the gentlemen on his side of the House. No one could suspect them or him of giving a factious opposition to Government. Had they not borne and forborne beyond all precedent known in that House? Then he touched lightly, and almost with grace to his opponents, on many subjects, promising support, and barely hinting that they were totally and manifestly ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... S, as factious, precious, anctious, conscience, sho, fashion, Je[h]oschua, these wi the help ov the Frenh, as quelque hose, and old Authors ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.

... this very desirable end is, to obtain a clear notion of what that letter signifies, and what that spirit implies; or, in other words, what the clauses of the Act are intended to enjoin and to forbid. So that it is really not admissible, except for factious and abusive purposes, to assume that any one who endeavours to get at this clear meaning is desirous only of raising quibbles and ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... court-life of a dynastic principality produced the castle of Urbino, so diverse in its style and adaptation from the ostentatious mansions of the Genoese merchants. It is not fanciful to say that the civic life of a free and factious republic is represented by the heavy walls and narrow windows of Florentine dwelling-places. In their rings of iron, welded between rock and rock about the basement, as though for the beginning of a barricade—in their ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... Walpole, Pulteney, whom a peerage had condemned to obsolescence, published his Seasonable Hints from an Honest Man on the new Reign. Pulteney urged the sovereign no longer to be content with the "shadow of royalty." He should use his "legal prerogatives" to check "the illegal claims of factious oligarchy." Government had become the private possession of a few powerful men. The king was but a puppet in leading strings. The basis of government should be widened, for every honest man was aware that distinctions of party were now merely nominal. The Tories ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... the Low Countries. But at the moment when ruin seemed certain the older faith rallied to a new resistance. While Protestantism was degraded and weakened by the prostitution of the Reformation to political ends, by the greed and worthlessness of the German princes who espoused its cause, by the factious lawlessness of the nobles in Poland and the Huguenots in France, while it wasted its strength in theological controversies and persecutions, in the bitter and venomous discussions between the Churches which followed Luther and the Churches ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... cultivation of the minds of the common people would destroy their industry in ordinary employments, their contentment with their station, and their respectful demeanor to their superiors; and would render them arrogant, disorderly, factious, liable to be caught by wild notions, misled by declaimers and impostors, and, in short, all the worse for being able to understand their duty and interest the better, ought to go far toward convicting that objection of great folly,—not to ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... Manicheans; the death sentence was inflicted only upon criminals who confessed their murders, robberies, and acts of violence. The Albigenses were treated with kindness. The Catholic Church deplores all acts of vengeance, however strong the provocation given by these factious mobs."[1] ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... by public opinion, that wonder is excited at the serious notice which it took of some attempts made by a few factious demagogues of creating popular commotion, and of raising themselves into an unenviable celebrity. Among this class John Horne Tooke stood pre-eminently forward. Horne Tooke was first the supporter, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... shalt be call'd thy Countries Patriot For quenching out a fire now newly kindling In factious bosomes; and shalt thereby save More Noble Spanyards lives than thou ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... Lord, what madnesse rules in brainesicke men, When for so slight and friuolous a cause, Such factious aemulations shall arise? Good Cosins both of Yorke and Somerset, Quiet your selues (I pray) and be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... people;" that we set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us; that with a malignant insanity we oppose the measures, and ungratefully vilify the persons, of those whose sole object is our own peace and prosperity. If a few puny libellers, acting under a knot of factious politicians, without virtue, parts, or character (such they are constantly represented by these gentlemen), are sufficient to excite this disturbance, very perverse must be the disposition of that people amongst whom such a disturbance ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... lately dead, and we into new mourning for her. We have been lately frighted with a great plot, and many taken up on it, and the fright not quite over. The Parliament, which had done all this great good to the King, beginning to grow factious, the King did dissolve it December 29th last, and another likely to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... said, with a pleased look, as he returned his friend's grasp; "but I fear you won't find many of our way of thinking in this unhappy country. You are aware, no doubt, that it is frequently—I might almost say every three or four years—disturbed by factious quarrels which too often end in riot and bloodshed, though these are not often on so large a scale as to be styled civil war. Well, there is a party of peace-lovers even here, who do their best to bring about a better state ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... the greater part of the Madrilenian Carlists capable of bearing arms departed long ago to join the ranks of the factious in the Basque provinces. Those who remain are for the most part grey-beards and priests, good for nothing but to assemble in private coffee-houses, and to prate treason together. Let them prate, Don Jorge; let them prate; the destinies of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... time, says Wood, Neville was "esteemed to be a man of good parts, yet of a factious and turbulent spirit." On the restoration he "sculk'd for a time," and, arrested for a supposed connection in the Yorkshire rising of 1663, he was released for want of evidence against him, retiring from all participation in politics. For twenty years before his ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... Cause, and assert his Right, without the fear of a taste of the Old Sequestration call'd a Fine; Guard the Illustrious Pair, good Heaven, from Hellish Plots, and all the Devilish Machinations of Factious Cruelties: and you, great Sir, (whose Merits have so Justly deserv'd that glorious Command so lately trusted to your Care, which Heaven increase, and make your glad Regiment Armies for our safety. May you become the great Example of Loyalty and Obedience, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... trade of the colonies with the mother country and with each other. I yield to them also the same right of interference which they now exercise over colonies and over English incorporated towns; whenever a desperate case of factious usage of the powers confided, or some reason of state, affecting the preservation of peace and order, ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... criticism, he had in the preceding session brought to the bar of the House of Commons, under his warrant as Secretary of State, fourteen printers and publishers. In the beginning of 1712, the Queen's message had complained that by seditious papers and factious rumours designing men had been able to sink credit, and the innocent had suffered. On the 12th of February a committee of the whole house was appointed to consider how to stop the abuse of the liberty of the press. Some were for a renewal of the Licensing Act, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... hallucination—pursuing it as men of one idea do every thing, with the single purpose of establishing your own view of it—gathering your information from discharged seamen, disappointed speculators, factious politicians, visionary reformers and scurrilous tourists—opening your ears to every species of complaint, exaggeration and falsehood, that interested ingenuity could invent, and never for a moment questioning the truth of any thing that could make for your cause—can you suppose that all this has ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... seemed to be set, as one man, against these measures; but Clive declared that if the functionaries in Calcutta refused obedience, he would send for some civil servants from Madras to aid him in conducting the administration. As he evinced the strength of his resolution by dismissing the most factious of his opponents, the rest became alarmed and submitted to what ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... carry the estimates by his casting-vote, before they refused to pass or had examined them; that the governor claimed power to borrow and spend without legislative consent; and finally, that discussion and enquiry were denounced as factious, unconstitutional, and disloyal: under these circumstances they resigned their seats, as the only open course, and submitted their conduct to the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... courtesans, it would furnish me; Nay, laundress three armies. That in so little paper Should lie th' undoing of so many men! 'Tis not so big as twenty declarations. See the corrupted use some make of books: Divinity, wrested by some factious blood, Draws swords, swells battles, and o'erthrows all good. To fashion my revenge more seriously, Let me remember my dear sister's face: Call for her picture? no, I 'll close mine eyes, And in a melancholic thought I 'll frame [Enter Isabella's Ghost. Her figure 'fore me. Now I ha' 't—how strong ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... recovery hath been perfect. Yet much mischief is already done, or rather the basis of mischief is already and irremoveably laid. In future times, designing, ambitious and profligate men may start the idea that what has been may be, and in the desperate effort of factious opposition, even venture to arraign the temper and health of mind, though it shows its perfect state, and the wise measures of Government should put ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... send you a pamphlet (which you are welcome to, if you will accept of it) called "The Head of Nile, or the Turnings and Windings of the Factious since Sixty, in a dialogue between Whigg and Barnaby," London, 1681. In this dialog, Whigg, as might be expected, is the exponent of all manner of abominable opinions, whilst Barnaby is represented as the supporter ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... penman of this narrative, know that he was a divine, and at the time of those things acted, which are here related, the minister and schoolmaster of Woodstock; a person learned and discreet, not byassed with factious humours, his name Widows, who each day put in writing what he heard from their mouthes, (and such things as they told to have befallen them the night before,) therein keeping to their own words; and, never thinking that what he had writ ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... such ingredients make a man write "in earnest." And, in Walpole's case, the dislike which he naturally felt towards those who had overthrown his father's administration by what, at a later day, they themselves admitted to have been a factious and blamable opposition, was sharpened by his friendship for his cousin Conway. At the same time we may remark in passing that his opinions and prejudices were not so invincible as to blind him to real genius and eminent ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... the shortest, and most direct and convenient road to I-tsi-nay.... I-tsi-nay, or Echine, is properly the name of a lake. Khubilai, disquieted by his factious relatives on the north, established a military post near lake I-tsi-nay, and built a town, or a fort on the south-western shore of this lake. The name of I-tsi-nay appears from that time; it does not occur in the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... first part of your late publication, which is no less an invective against me, than it is a defence of yourself, you have, with sufficient art, insisted on my remarkably contentious, factious,[D] and jealous spirit, which suffers no man, undisturbed, to enjoy his well-earned fame; a circumstance in my character you expected to derive considerable benefit from in the controversy between us. For this point being once gained, every suggestion, every article of charge ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... by the Hollanders, as unfortunate, and the chief command restored to Van Trump, great preparations were made for retrieving their reputation, and repairing those losses. Their endeavours were assisted by the English themselves, now made factious by success; the men, who were intrusted with the civil administration, being jealous of those whose military commands had procured so much honour, lest they who raised them should be eclipsed by them. Such is the general revolution of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... precipice of telling unbiassed truth, he must expect martyrdom from both sides. This resignation of the simple single-minded patriot to the pains and penalties of honesty, naturally added to the rage of the party with whose factious proceedings he would have nothing to do; and yet it has always been thought an extraordinary instance of party spite that the Whigs should have instituted a prosecution against him, on the alleged ground that a certain remarkable series of Tracts were written in favour ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... point, one word: we have seen nothing more grossly factious in the conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, that these magistrates ought not to have been dismissed. Well might the Chancellor say, that the discussion had been conducted by petty lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... Hernando to accompany him to Almagro's quarters, and make some acknowledgment for his uncourteous behavior.2 But, notwithstanding this show of reconciliation, the general thought the present a favorable opportunity to remove his brother from the scene of operations, where his factious spirit more than ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... who accuse us most severely of cowardice, would assist us in raising the levies; we shall proceed according to the resolution of the most intrepid amongst you, since it so pleases you." They return to their tribunal, and on purpose commanded one of the most factious of the people, who stood in their view, to be called upon by name. When he stood mute, and a number of men stood round him in a ring, to prevent his being seized, the consuls sent a lictor to him. He being repulsed, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee) Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, 95 And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves! And there I felt thee!—on that sea-cliff's verge, Whose pines, scarce travelled ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... learning will not do so much for a man as formerly. There are other ways of getting preferment. Few bishops are now made for their learning. To be a bishop, a man must be learned in a learned age, factious in a factious age; but always of eminence. Warburton is an exception; though his learning alone did not raise him. He was first an antagonist to Pope, and helped Theobald to publish his Shakspeare; but, seeing Pope the rising man, when ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... ever be the voice of peace. Aided by science, and sanctified by religion, it should be the all-powerful stimulant to universal amity. The honest and honorable merchant is the natural antagonist of the factious politician, the ambitious statesman, the glory-seeking warrior. [Applause.] While the merchant is the most ardent of patriots, commerce is the unifier of nations, whereby is to be fulfilled the dream of poets and the vision ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... authority, and with my attachment to his person. Such, Sire, were the grounds of my letter to the National Assembly; such shall be those of my conduct to the nation and your Majesty, amidst the storms raised around to by hostile or by factious combinations. ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... man be persuaded and convinced; and therefore, I say, should not call upon your faithful and upright counselor to move a resolution for war: [Footnote: He deprecates here, as elsewhere, the factious proceedings of certain opponents, who sought to fasten the responsibility of a war on the orator, by forcing him to propose a decree. This (argues Demosthenes) was unnecessary, as they were at war already.] such were the part of men seeking ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... Clyde harbours, yielding L1,200,000; and Leith, yielding L589,000, are as nothing? Or is it that this extraordinary exemption is the reward of tumult, disaffection, and treason; of turbulent demagogues and factious priests, and an indolent people; of active and incessant combination for the purposes of evil, and total inability to combine for the purposes of good? And is it the first fruits of the regeneration of government by the Reform Bill, that it can raise ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... her from the destruction to which she would inevitably be exposed; that he was ready to throw himself at the King's feet, to implore his forgiveness also, and to assure him of his profound penitence, and his determination to renounce forever the factious ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... seldom accompanied by a willingness to relinquish power; and it will excite no surprise that the late president saw, with regret, another placed above him. As unworthy minds most readily devise unworthy means, he sought, by intriguing with the factious, and fomenting their discontents, to regain his lost authority; and when these attempts were disconcerted, he formed a conspiracy with some of the principal persons in the colony, to escape in the bark, and thus to desert the country. The vigilance of Smith detected these machinations, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... variety of shapes Than you, to please and satisfy mankind, And seem (almost) transform'd to water, flame, and air, So well you answer all phenomena there: Though madmen and the wits, philosophers and fools, With all that factious or enthusiastic dotards dream, And all the incoherent jargon of the schools; Though all the fumes of fear, hope, love, and shame, Contrive to shock your minds with many a senseless doubt; Doubts where the Delphic God would grope in ignorance and night, The God of learning and of light Would ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... Gillespie's character and conduct completely misunderstood and misrepresented, (vol. iii. pages 160-162), and in a subsequent passage an assertion that the proceedings of that party in the church called the Protestors were, in the year 1650, "directed by Gillespie, a factious minister, whose name has been frequently mentioned," (page 196). George Gillespie was the only person of whom mention was made, or could be made, in the previous portion of the history, as his brother had not then began to take any active part in public affairs; but he was dead nearly two ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... tribune; it is asserted in the journals; it is announced from the pulpit; it is demonstrated by the sensitiveness of the public funds at the least prospect of disturbance, and their firmness the instant it is made manifest that the Executive is far superior in wisdom and power to the factious ex-officials of ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... of statemanship was set up and followed: popular grievances were allowed to remain unredressed; the discontent and violence engendered by those grievances were used from time to time for party purposes; the people were hung and bayoneted when their roused passions exceeded the due measure of factious requirement; and the state patronage was employed to stimulate and to reward a staff of demagogues, by whom the masses were alternately excited to madness, and betrayed, according to the necessities of the English factions. When Russells and Greys were out or in danger, there were free promises ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... relieve the picture. For the crash of the war period had been even greater than the foregoing pages have shown. Nothing has been said about the troubles at Nelson, where the earnest and faithful Bishop Hobhouse broke down under the factious opposition of his laity; nothing of the depression which stopped the building of Christchurch Cathedral, and led to the proposal for the sale of the site for government offices; nothing of the closing of St. John's College at Auckland, as well through ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... enthusiastically supported; of the Minister who, in fine, looked, and made the country look, a frightful danger full in the face—till it turned and fled. In spite of all that could be done by his bitter unscrupulous factious opponents in the House of Commons, and of the eloquent and conscientious opposition of Lord Brougham in the House of Lords, backed, all the while, by the immediate self-interest of those who were to smart under the tax, Sir Robert Peel carried his great and salutary measure in triumph through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... great and accomplished prince. But am I, therefore, to pronounce Demosthenes profligate and insincere? Surely not. Do we not perpetually see men of the greatest talents and the purest intentions misled by national or factious prejudices? The most respectable people in England were, little more than forty years ago, in the habit of uttering the bitterest abuse against Washington and Franklin. It is certainly to be regretted that men should err so grossly ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... To return to the purpose: I think that the first party to whom the accommodation is proposed will snatch at it eagerly; that the other will be ashamed to reject an offer to rest the cause on the swords of their bravest men; that the national vanity, and factious hate to each other, will prevent them from seeing our purpose in adopting such a rule of decision; and that they will be more eager to cut each other to pieces than we can be to halloo them on. And now, as our counsels are finished, so far as I ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... this would have been a worse surrender for the North than any mere acknowledgment that the South could not be reconquered; for national unity from that day to this would have existed on the sufferance of a factious or a foreign majority in any single State. Lincoln had faced this. He was there to restore the Union on a firm foundation. He meant to insist to the point of pedantry that, by not so much as a word or line from the President ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... the approval of men whose friendly sympathy he had always inwardly desired. Sustained by the best men in the party, he could afford to disregard the small body of irreconcilable and quarrelsome fault-finders, who went over to Fremont, factious men, who were perhaps unconsciously controlled more by mere contradictoriness of temperament than by the higher motives which ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... thousand horrid prodigies foretold it: A feeble government, eluded laws, A factious populace, luxurious nobles, And all the maladies of sinking states. When public villany, too strong for justice, Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin, Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders, Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard? ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and in manufactures with the same rapidity in the same period. Her progress is now retarded, and it is a heart-breaking spectacle to every man who loves the country to see it arrested only by the perverse and factious folly of the people, stimulated and encouraged ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous



Words linked to "Factious" :   faction, discordant, divisive



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