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Subversive   /səbvˈərsɪv/   Listen
Subversive

noun
1.
A radical supporter of political or social revolution.  Synonyms: revolutionary, revolutionist, subverter.



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"Subversive" Quotes from Famous Books



... let him have the benefit of the doubt. I am perfectly willing to take it that he has done nothing worse than to stick a knife into somebody—with extenuating circumstances—French fashion, don't you know. But that subversive sanguinary rot of doing away with all law and order in the world makes my blood boil. It's simply cutting the ground from under the feet of every decent, respectable, hard-working person. I tell you that the consciences of people who have them, like you or I, must be protected in some way; ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... in closing the era of revolutions, by satisfying the legitimate needs of the People, and by protecting them from subversive passions. It consists, above all, in creating institutions which survive men, and which shall in fact form the foundations on which something durable ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... admirers,[10:1] that "the Reformation did not at first carry with it much cleansing force of moral enthusiasm." In the hands of men more logical or of a less healthy moral fibre, Luther's favourite dogma, of justification by faith alone, led to conclusions subversive of all morality. However this may be, enemies and friends alike have to admit that the immediate effects of the Reformation were a dissolution of morals, a careless neglect of education and learning, and a general relaxation ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... It is no man's property. It cannot be let, like a paltry farm, to those who shall bid the highest, in vain compromises and delusive hopes of liberty. Should the Roman people, of their own free will, pretend to give themselves away,—to sell themselves to a faction whose subversive principles they abhor, their forefathers of all preceding ages would protest against their base degeneracy; the children of the generations to come would curse their memory; all reflecting men of the present time would accuse them of black ingratitude,—ingratitude ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... superimpose the self-contradictory dreams of our imagination upon the dictates of a sane reason. And a sane reason tells us that nothing can be built up without foundations, and that it is not merely an idle but a subversive task to fill the void of the unknown ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... and the supervision of the Grand Lodge, while the placing in the hands of the craft so powerful, and at times, and with bad spirits, so annoying a privilege as that of immediate appeal, would necessarily tend to impair the energies and lessen the dignity of the Master, while it would be subversive of that spirit of discipline which pervades every part of the institution, and to which it is mainly indebted for its prosperity ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... severe silence, listening with a frowning disapproval to Eliza Provost's tranquil, subversive utterances. Howat Penny couldn't think what her father was about, permitting her to harangue loafers by the streets and saloons. She was, in a cold way—she had Peter Jannan Provost's curious grey colouring—a handsome piece of a girl, too. "A ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... subversive of Evan Blount's ideas touching the manner in which the political affairs of a free country should be conducted, but he was willing ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... any people, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of their history, including their mythology, legends and folk-lore: customs, habits and traits of character, which to a superficial observer of a different nationality or race may seem odd and strange, sometimes even utterly subversive of ordinary ideas of morality, but which can be explained and will appear quite reasonable when they are traced back to their origin. The sudden rise of the Japanese nation from an insignificant position to a foremost ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... result was that of every other delegate,—no more and no less. Neither he nor they, whether more or less opposed to slavery, saw in it a system so subversive of the rights of man that no just government should tolerate it. That was reserved for a later generation, and even that was slow to learn. To the fathers it was, at worst, only an unfortunate and unhappy social condition, which it would be well to be rid of if this could be done ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... and what strenuous efforts the churches must employ to continue, in spite of all these tendencies subversive of the faith, to build churches, to perform masses, to preach, to teach, to convert, and, most of all, to receive for it all immense emoluments, as do all these priests, pastors, incumbents, superintendents, abbots, archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... policy which deals with one of the most difficult and dangerous problems confronting civilized mankind, his views and his acts assume public importance and invite and compel attention and discussion. Therefore, believing as I do that Mr. Ford is primarily responsible for a propaganda which is subversive of the best traditions and institutions of this Republic, and which has everywhere and at all times resulted in shameful crimes against humanity, and in resistance to every progressive and humane movement, ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo

... took a sick man's pleasure in speculating as to the dwellers on the unseen worlds of those incredibly remote suns, to haunt whose houses of light, life came forth, a shy visitant, from the rayless crypts of matter. He could no more apprehend limits to time than bounds to space. No subversive radium speculations had shaken his steady scientific faith in the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. Always and forever must there have been stars. And surely, in that cosmic ferment, all must be comparatively alike, comparatively of the same substance, or substances, ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... by lawless pirates, lassoed by wild Guachos, and plundered of their loose cash by irresistible broom and orange girls, they were fain to make an early retreat, with as good a grace as might be assumed, under circumstances so subversive of all due gravity. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... unwilling player never makes a 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 ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... bears the Gospel a grudge because the Gospel condemns the religious wisdom of the world. Jealous for its own religious views, the world in turn charges the Gospel with being a subversive and licentious doctrine, offensive to God and man, a doctrine to be persecuted as ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... reader will often find that crystals of a mineral determined to be the same by physical characters, crystalline form, and optical properties, have been declared by skilful analysers to be composed of distinct elements. This disagreement seemed at first subversive of the atomic theory, or the doctrine that there is a fixed and constant relation between the crystalline form and structure of a mineral and its chemical composition. The apparent anomaly, however, which threatened to throw the whole science of mineralogy ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... 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, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... circumstance of his conduct. He had been calumniated, cruelly calumniated, and could he discover the author of the aspersion, he would vindicate his honour with his sword. In fine, he explained the whole business in such a manner, as, though I could not entirely approve, yet evinced it to be by no means subversive of the general amiableness of his character. How deplorable is the situation in which we are placed, when even the generous and candid temper of my St. Julian, can be induced to think of a young nobleman in a light he does ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... Emperor made his remarkable confession of religious faith to his friend, Admiral Hollmann. He had just heard a lecture by Professor Delitzsch on "Babel und Bibel," and as he considered the Professor's views to some extent subversive of orthodox Christian belief, he took the opportunity to tell his people his own sentiments on the whole matter. In writing to Admiral Hollmann he instructed him to make the "confession" as public as possible, and it was published in the October number of the Grenzboten, a Saxon ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... January 14, 1791, by the Pennsylvania Assembly in a series of resolutions which are supposed to have been drafted by Mr. Gallatin, and to have been the first legislative paper from his pen. They distinctly charged that the obnoxious bill was "subversive of the peace, liberty, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... hardly have understood it from his words, they were so rapid and vehement. And yet they were tender, too; spoken in a loving tone, and containing ever and anon assurances of respect, and a resolve to be guided now and for ever by her wishes,—even though those wishes should be utterly subversive of his happiness. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... words to tell her strange impossible story, if not to that dear old silver hair—to those grave peaceful eyes,—at least to one whose measure of her whole life must perforce be changed by it. What would it mean, to Widow Thrale, to have such a subversive fact suddenly ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... In one of the lectures woman suffrage by Federal Amendment was discussed and the theory was advanced that the attempt to bring about the right of suffrage by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States was opposed to the genius of the Constitution and subversive of the principle of local self-government. In his opinion, woman suffrage by Federal Amendment is contrary to the rightful demarcation of the powers of the Federal and State governments under the Constitution ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various

... poser to March. It was so totally subversive of all his preconceived ideas, that it reduced him ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... courses, Nature with her subversive forces, Time, too, the iron-toothed and sinewed, And the edacious years continued. Thrones rose and fell; and still the crescent, Unsanative and now senescent, A plastered skeleton of lath, Looked forward to a day ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... encouragement which were, at this moment 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

... though the ceremonies were occasionally intermitted, or even discontinued altogether. These sceptical doubts would naturally be repelled by the other with scorn and indignation as airy reveries subversive of the faith and manifestly contradicted by experience. "Can anything be plainer," he might say, "than that I light my twopenny candle on earth and that the sun then kindles his great fire in heaven? I should be glad to know whether, when I have put on my green robe in spring, the trees do not afterwards ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... was the cause of his undoing. In this book he defended the opinion of Copernicus concerning the motion of the earth round the sun, which was supposed by the theologians of the day to be an opinion opposed to the teaching of Holy Scripture and subversive of all truth. The work was brought before the Inquisition at Rome, and condemned by the order of Pope Urban VIII. Galileo was commanded to renounce his theory, but this he refused to do, and was cast into prison. "Are these then my judges?" he exclaimed when ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... felt that the inclusion of critical notes in these little books intended for elementary school children would be not only superfluous, but, in the degree in which critical comment drew the child's attention from the text, subversive of the desired result. Nor are there any notes on methods. The best way to teach children to love a poem is to read it inspiringly to them. The French say: "The ear is the pathway to the heart." A poem should be so read that it will ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... constant disregard of thought, Americans of the mid-twentieth century have added positive opposition. Critical ideas are apt to make any critic suspected of being subversive. The Southwest, Texas especially, is more articulately aware of its land spaces than of any other feature pertaining to itself. Yet in the realm of government, the Southwest has not produced a single spacious thinker. So far as the cultural ancestry of the region goes, the South has been arid of ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we, whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V, humbly relying on the God whom our fathers ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... program, and one which can be carried out, as soon as public opinion is educated on the subject, without any great sociological, legal or financial hindrances. We suggest nothing more than that individuals whose offspring would almost certainly be subversive of the general welfare, be prevented from having any offspring. In most cases, such individuals are, or should be, given life-long institutional care for their own benefit, and it is an easy matter, by segregation ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... is illogical, and the request inopportune. Our friend Mr. Banks is put down as an ally of the Government and an objectionable business rival of that eminent patriot and well-known drover, Senor Martinez, who just called upon me. Mr. Crosby's humor is considered subversive of a proper respect for all patriotism; but I cannot understand why they have added YOUR ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... substantial political opposition groups exist, although the government has identified the Falungong spiritual movement and the China Democracy Party as subversive groups ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... house, a learned female friend from the 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 ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... 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 ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... unsuccessful attempt at Spartan and Roman republican manners; the citizen succeeding to Monsieur; the blasphemous, incredulous, atheistical principles instilled into the then growing generation of all classes; the system of equality, subversive of courtliness, and the obliging attentions and suavities of society, poisoned at once the source 220of morals and of manners; for there can be nothing gentlemanlike in atheism, radicalism, and the level, ling system. To this state of things succeeded a ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... only publicly preached, but otherwise openly advocated the doctrine called "the higher law," a doctrine which is unauthorized by the Bible, at war with the principles, precepts and examples of Christ and his Apostles, subversive alike of civil government, civil society, and the legal rights of individual citizens, and in effect constitutes, in the opinion of this Board, a species of ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... scanty allowance the 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 ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... This system, subversive of all efficient service, and leading inevitably to the worst evils of misappropriation of the national funds, had perhaps its worst aspects in the colonies. A Government berth in Cuba was a recognised means of making a fortune, or of rehabilitating a man who had ruined himself by gambling ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... assemblages of oligarches the full power to modify the organic laws of their States—an assumption without precedent and without repetition in the history of State constitutions in this country, and utterly subversive of the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... have had occasion recently to correct a certain tendency on your part to employing War Department property and the servants of the Crown for your own special use. I need hardly point out to you that such conduct on your part is subversive to discipline and directly contrary to the spirit and letter of regulations. More especially would I urge the impropriety of utilizing government telegraph lines for the purpose of securing information regarding your gambling transactions. ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... adequate to the danger. Influential persons would have been justly submitted to question on their allegiance, and insufficient answers would have been interpreted as justifying suspicion. Not the expression only, of opinions subversive of society, but the holding such opinions, however discovered, would have been regarded and treated as a crime, with the full consent of what is called the common sense and educated judgment of ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... destruction of the Government, and the dismemberment of the nation. They must lay down their arms in unconditional submission before they can be constitutionally treated with. Any other doctrine would be subversive of the Constitution, of the principles that lie at its basis, of the principles of all government, all national existence, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... policy of investigation and research was pursued. Solemn warning was given that freedom of speech and assembly must be respected rigidly but that neither must become the instrument of license nor of subversive speech or conduct. At the time when the situation reached a critical stage ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... tent, then, if you think the name's more appropriate. I believe she's likely to favour you as a messenger, and she hasn't gone to bed, for her tent's lit up. Tell her from me, I find it subversive of discipline in this caravan for a woman to set her will up against the leader and live apart from her husband. Entirely for that reason and not because I want anything to do with her, after the way I've been treated, I've made ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... 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

... wisdom decide whether any change ought to be made, and, if any, in what respect. If this basis is unjust or unreasonable, surely it ought to be abandoned; but if it be just and reasonable, and any change in it will make concessions subversive of equality and tending in its consequences to sap the foundations of our prosperity, then the reasons are equally strong for adhering to the ground already taken, and supporting it by such further regulations as may appear ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... seditious activities, filed April 24, 1920, in the Senate of the state of New York. This comprises four stout volumes (over 4,200 pages in all) divided into two parts, dealing, respectively, with "Revolutionary and Subversive Movements at Home and Abroad" and "Constructive Movements and Measures in ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... of 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 God Himself ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... iii. p. 791.] By Davis's direction, Johnston at once telegraphed Hardee to arrest the delegation and to permit no intercourse with us except under proper military flag of truce. [Footnote: Ibid.] Vance was of course informed by Hardee, and replied that he intended nothing subversive of Davis's prerogative or without consulting him. He also said that Johnston was aware of his purpose. [Footnote: Id., p. 792.] In saying further, however, that the initiative had been on Sherman's part, he was dissembling. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... be given by a grading of diplomas as is now being done in many high schools and colleges. I hold that to add to the marks now in common use what may be called a monetary fringe is both unnecessary and really subversive of the true ends of the school work. As teachers we should seek to elevate ideals, not to lower them; to furnish right motives, not wrong ones; to place before the developing youth high incentives, not ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... 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 ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... supernatural description. Coleridge himself shrank from his own wonders, and wanted to call the piece "A Poet's Reverie." "It is as bad as Bottom the weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of all credit—which the tale should force upon us—of its truth?" Lamb himself was forced, by the temper of the time, to declare that he "disliked all the miraculous part of it," as if it were not all miraculous! Wordsworth wanted the Mariner "to have a character and ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... holiness which he has learned to apprehend; and as the public ritual does not meet these needs, he seeks for new religious associations and perhaps appears to preach a doctrine contrary to patriotism, as it is subversive of the established religion of his country, and to be wilfully destroying what his countrymen revere, and wilfully breaking through old ties and obligations. Thus the individualist stage of religion succeeds the national. But the individualist stage is also, in part at least, the universal ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... said 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

... feel this deficiency at an epocha like the one in question: when means so despotic were daily adopted to curb the growing spirit of enquiry that despot ministers might pursue measures so tragical; so subversive of the order which they pretended to maintain, and so destructive to the happiness they were appointed to guard? Alas! the topics were so numerous, so melancholy, so almost maddening, that the man who ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Personal Liberty laws of the free states "are hostile in their character, subversive of the Constitution, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... virtuous state? For in the line from which we spring The eldest is anointed king: No monarchs from the rule decline, And, least of all, Ikshvaku's line. Our holy sires, to virtue true, Upon our race a lustre threw, But with subversive frenzy thou Hast marred our lineal honour now, Of lofty birth, a noble line Of previous kings is also thine: Then whence this hated folly? whence This sudden change that steals thy sense? Thou shalt not gain thine impious will, O thou whose thoughts are bent on ill, Thou from whose ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... absolutely necessary, and that it matters little whether it be the authority of a French monarch or an English parliament. The Whig he thought objected to authority on principle, and was therefore simply subversive. Something of the same opinion was held by Johnson's circle in general. They were conservative both in politics and theology, and English politics and theological disputes did not obviously raise the deeper issues. Even the devil-descended Whig—especially the variety represented ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... called Girondist, and which in the revolution only formed an intermediate party between the middle class and the multitude. It had then no subversive project; but it was disposed to defend the revolution in every way, and in this differed from the constitutionalists who would only defend it with the law. At its head were the brilliant orators of the Gironde, [Footnote: The name of the river Garonne, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... disclosures, unseasonable, harmful, and wrongful. But, it will be said, does not a man forego his right to reputation by doing the evil that belies his fair fame? No, his right remains, unless the evil that he does, either of its own proper working or by the scandal that it gives, be subversive of social order. If he has committed a crime against society, he is to be denounced to the authorities who have charge of society: they will judge him, and, finding him guilty, they will punish him and brand him with infamy. If, again, he does evil, though not immediately ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... Freedom for All, regardless of race or color; with the Harmony of God's works; with Peace and Goodwill to all Mankind. That conviction is this: that to make taxation the incident of protection to special interests, and those engaged in them, is robbery to the rest of the community, and subversive of National Morality and National Prosperity. I believe that taxes are necessary for the support of government, I believe they must be raised by levy, I even believe that some customs taxes may be more practicable and economical than some internal taxes; but I am entirely ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... the administration have for some time been, and now are violently pursuing, are opposed to every principle of natural justice; whilst much abler heads than my own have fully convinced me, that they are not only repugnant to natural right, but subversive of the laws and constitution of Great Britain itself. ... I shall conclude with remarking that, if you disavow the right of Parliament to tax us, unrepresented as we are, we only differ in the mode of opposition, and this difference principally ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... the tug which was to take him out to the spot where the disaster had taken place. The Admiral was a naval officer of the old school—of the school who called their men "my children"—and who detested the Republican form of government as being subversive of discipline. ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... 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 ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... and without any apparent method. For without proposing any point for discussion, he kept by that which chance first presented. Like one who himself wished information, he first put a question, and then, profiting by the concessions of his respondent, brought him to a proposition subversive of that which in the beginning of the debate had been considered as a first principle. He spent one part of the day in conferences of this kind, on morals. To these everyone was welcome, and according to the testimony of Xenophon, none departed from them without becoming ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... the ingenuous young man from the pitfall of so serious a social solecism. It would be fatal to accost him. For, mark you, no matter how gentlemanly and well-tailored a stranger may look, you can never be sure nowadays (in these topsy-turvy times of subversive radicalism) whether he is or is not really a gentleman. That makes acquaintanceship a dangerous luxury. If you begin by talking to a man, be it ever so casually, he may desire to thrust his company upon you, willy-nilly, in future; and when ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... last to be appreciated, and Miss Alcott's first novel did not meet with an encouraging reception from the public. Some tender critics even complained that the story was subversive of conservative morality. "I cannot help that," Louisa remarked in her emphatic manner, "I did not make morality or human nature, and am not responsible for either: but people who are given to moods act as I have described; sometimes they like ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... certain of my agents," said Gallo, fingering his various papers, "that there is and has been for some time a subversive movement amongst the ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... twelve fools bamboozled by a knave, you have heard a friend of yours grossly insulted, and you ask me what's the matter." The car swung round a corner, and Lady Touchstone, who was unready, heeled over with a cry. "I wish Mason wouldn't do that," she added testily, dabbing at her toque. "So subversive of dignity. What was I saying? Oh yes. A change. We'd better go ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... 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 last degree repulsive ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... pleasant, pompous, and rather childish way of speaking, with a chest like the Farnese Hercules, (he was a fair hand at boxing and singlestick), was the most timid of men. If he took a certain pride in being taken for a man of a subversive temper by his own people, in his heart of hearts he used to tremble at the boldness of his friends. No doubt the little thrill they gave him was by no means disagreeable as long as it was only in fun. But their fun was becoming dangerous. His fervent ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... whom it was his business to bring into court. He regarded a verdict of acquittal as hardly less than a personal insult. He denied that there were ever two sides to any case. But his very narrowness now confounded him here. This girl's story was true. It was astounding, impossible, subversive of all things. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... immorality—it would be unjust to say that he encourages it. He neither deals in highly-coloured and meretricious scenes a la Sue and Dumas; nor supports, with the diabolical talent and ingenuity of a Sand, the most subversive and anti-social doctrines. His works are not befouled with filth and obscenity, such as that impure old reprobate Paul de Kock delights and wallows in—or disgraced by the irreligion, and contempt of things holy, found in the writings of scores of French authors whom we could name, were they worth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... lightly over her acquaintanceship with Phillips. He would regard it as highly undesirable, she told herself, and it would trouble him. He was reading her articles in the Sunday Post, as also her Letters from Clorinda: and of the two preferred the latter as being less subversive of law and order. Also he did not like seeing her photograph each week, displayed across two columns with her name beneath in one inch type. He supposed he was old- fashioned. She was getting rather tired ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... all the greater from the fact that a multitude of other subversive conclusions are appended to this fundamental theory: While sinners lose all lordship, the good possess all lordship; to man, in a state of "gratia gratificante," belongs the whole of what comes from God; "in re habet omnia bona Dei."[716] But how ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... intellectual cages; there is in all of us a strange tendency to yield and have done. Thus the impertinent colleague of Aristotle is doubly beset, first by a public opinion that regards his enterprise as subversive and in bad taste, and secondly by an inner weakness that limits his capacity for it, and especially his capacity to throw off the prejudices and superstitions of his race, culture anytime. The cell, said Haeckel, does not act, it ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... contended, that "every addition made to the grandeur of the senate was a diminution of the dignity of the people; and that all such distinctions as set the orders of the state at a distance from each other, were equally subversive of liberty and concord. During five hundred and fifty-eight years," they asserted, "all the spectators had sat promiscuously: what reason then had now occurred, on a sudden, that should make the senators disdain to have the commons intermixed with them in the theatre, or ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... been accepted. But at length the Dominicans, the rivals of the 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 doctrine denies creation, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... and so we mused upon the whims of Fate That had degraded Tragedy from its old, supreme estate; And duly, at the Morton bar, we stigmatized the age As sinfully subversive of the interests of the Stage! For Jack and I were actors in the halcyon, palmy days Long, long before the Hoyt school of farce became the craze; Yet, as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago That we were Roman soldiers with ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... said Cerizet, "you'll have married Celeste and got your foot into the stirrup. You are lucky, you are, not to have sat, like me, in the prisoners' dock. I've been there twice: once in 1825, for 'subversive articles' which I never wrote, and the second time for receiving the profits of a joint-stock company which had slipped through my fingers! Come, let's warm this thing up! Sac-a-papier! Dutocq and I are sorely in need of that ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... sacerdotalism on the one hand, he had as little sympathy with Broad Churchism on the other. The non-natural sense in which the narratives of the New Testament miracles are understood and interpreted by some of the modern critics he rejected as subversive of Christian truth, a common saying of his being, "If the Gospel is not true historically, it is not true at all: 'If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain'"; and while he mellowed with advancing years, he never wavered in his deep religious ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... conceived as possible,[K] but of which, on the principles of contradiction and excluded middle, one must be admitted as necessary. On this opinion, therefore, our faculties are shown to be weak, but not deceitful. The mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions, subversive of each other, as equally possible; but only as unable to understand as possible either of the two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. We are thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... he should remember, that his views are, perhaps, the same as those which I too once held, and which I have abandoned, because, after a wider range of study, I found them unsupported by solid proof, subversive of the interest of Man, and fatal to the progress of his knowledge. To examine the notions in which we have been educated, and to turn aside from those which will not bear the test, is a task so painful, that ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... speaking at meetings in Pullman, with apparent success, and his mind had been full of "the industrial war," as he called it. Sommers recalled that the man had been allowed to leave Exonia College, where he had taught for a year on his return from Germany, because (as he put it) "he held doctrines subversive of the holy state of wealth and a high tariff." That he was of the stuff that martyrs of speech are made, Sommers knew well enough, and such men return to their ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... demonstrate the half-heartedness on this matter of the North, as represented by its President Lincoln, and the hypocrisy or truckling of Lincoln himself, by the omission of such a sealing of their professed faith,—not caring to reflect how utterly subversive these notions must be of that favorite catchword of Southern partisans; "State rights." It may be objected, "These people can have been only the extremely ignorant." That, however, is my own conviction: but such childish assumptions were not the less prevalent for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... Briton (1763) Wilkes rudely accused the King of having deliberately uttered a falsehood in his speech to Parliament. [3] The libel was contained in a letter written to the newspapers by Wilkes. [4] The resolution was finally stricken out, on the ground that it was "subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors." [1] The publication of Division Lists (equivalent to Yeas and Nays) by the House of Commons in 1836 and by the Lords in 1857 completed this work. Since then the public have known ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... the past concerning the particular form which marriage ought to take. Many theorists have exercised their ingenuity in inventing and preaching new and unusual marriage-arrangements as panaceas for social ills; while others have exerted even greater energy in denouncing all such proposals as subversive of the foundations of human society. We may regard all such discussions, on the one side or the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... tended to the abolition of a custom or principle so subversive of marriage and of the legitimacy ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various

... acquired a new character, a devouring zeal, a reckless courage. At last in 1524 the peasants rose demanding redress for their grievances. What they asked was indeed bare justice according to any intelligent modern view; yet the granting of their demands would have been completely subversive of the existing social order. The upper classes were united against them, Luther and his associates denounced them. The fiercest passions broke loose: there were ghastly massacres and ghastly reprisals, ending in the slaughter of scores ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... "You hold subversive views, Burleigh—views to which the public mind is not educated up, nor will be in this generation," said Mr. Chiverton. "The old order of things ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... Party; the Falungong spiritual movement note: no substantial political opposition groups exist, although the government has identified the organizations listed above as subversive groups ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the Barred Pass, whence we came, and there left to shift for ourselves; Fray Antonio must be without delay surrendered—that the dreadful sin that he had committed by preaching vile doctrines, subversive of the true faith, might be punished in so signal a manner that the gods whom he had outraged would ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... the people that subversive or mistaken doctrines had their rise. A Father of the Church said that property was theft many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops, and of the theory that the State owed every man a living. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... but not the Reformation. The sword was returned to its scabbard, but Church and State did not return to their Covenant God. Into sympathy and fellowship with institutions founded on principles subversive of those they had vowed to maintain, the faithful followers of the Reformers and Martyrs could not enter. The banner for Christ's Crown and Covenant had waved over the fields of Scotland when the storms of persecution had raged most fiercely, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... high with both hands, hurl it down the slope. Heavily it would strike with a dull thud, and hesitate for a moment; then resolutely it would make a first leap, and each time it touched the ground, gathering from it speed and strength, it would become light, furious, all-subversive. Now it no longer leapt, but flew with grinning teeth, and the whistling wind let its dull round mass pass by. Lo! it is on the edge—with a last, floating motion the stone would sweep high, and then quietly, with ponderous deliberation, fly downwards in a ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... Don't attempt to control 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 ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage

... Transportation—controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr—the Facilities Protection Service is a source of funding and jobs for the Mahdi Army. One senior U.S. official described the Facilities Protection Service as "incompetent, dysfunctional, or subversive." Several Iraqis simply referred ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... tenderness of a father's feeling had made a considerable progress in a heart from which they had been long banished. Far different from all this was the history of his wife since her perception of an event so delightful. In her was no bitter and obstinate principle subversive of affection to be overcome. For although she had in latter years sank into the painful apathy of a hopeless spirit, and given herself somewhat to the world, yet no sooner did the unexpected light dawn upon her, than her whole soul was filled with ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... makes for exact knowledge, and that he fled from his Latin teacher, the celebrated Puoti, on account of his somewhat exclusive love of grammatical rules. None the less, though con-genitally averse to the materialistic and subversive theories that were then seething in Naples, he became entangled in the anti-Bourbon movements of the late thirties, and narrowly avoided the death-penalty which struck down some of his comrades. At other times his natural piety laid him open to the accusation ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... be one in which there is activity. If it is also to be a useful life, the activity ought to be as far as possible creative, not merely predatory or defensive. But creative activity requires imagination and originality, which are apt to be subversive of the status quo. At present, those who have power dread a disturbance of the status quo, lest their unjust privileges should be taken away. In combination with the instinct for conventionality,[1] which man shares with the other gregarious animals, those who profit by the existing ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... occur in which they are disregarded, and a few instances may be found where slaves may have learned to read; but such are isolated cases, and only prove the rule. The great mass of slaveholders look upon education among the slaves as utterly subversive of the slave system. I well remember when my mistress first announced to my master that she had dis{340} covered that I could read. His face colored at once with surprise and chagrin. He said that "I was ruined, and my value as a slave destroyed; ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... regarded any criticism of the actions of capital as dictated by envy, as "unpatriotic," aimed at the efforts of the most energetic and respectable element in the community; moreover, "socialistic," that is, subversive of the established order, etc. According to John the ablest men would always "get on top," no matter what laws were made. And getting on top meant that they would do what they wished with their own, i.e. capital. Thus without thinking about it Isabelle had ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... harsh or stern," answered Arthur, who was feeling his way carefully, trying to combine truth and policy, but erring distinctly on the side of the latter. "But those later books which were found in your hiding place and Radley's room, which are more dangerous and subversive than any that have gone before, are to be cast solemnly out of the place; and, in truth, I think with cause. See, I have brought you one or two to look at, to show you how even Martin Luther contradicts himself and blasphemes. How ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... faded into a shadow; yet, notwithstanding this, its preeminence as a court has remained intact. Were a similar clash to occur in America no such result could be anticipated. Supposing a President, supported by a congressional majority, were to formulate some policy no more subversive than that which has been formulated by the present British Cabinet, and this policy were to be resisted, as it surely would be, by potent financial interests, the conflicting forces would converge upon the Supreme Court. The courts are always believed to tend toward conservatism, therefore ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... behind my chair, roasting, as usual, his posterior before a blazing fire, with soldierly devotion to duty. Conversation fell a little flat. The arrival of the evening newspapers, half an hour belated, created a diversion. The war is sometimes subversive of nice table decorum. I read out the cream of the news. Discussion thereon lasted us until coffee and cigarettes were brought in and the servants left us ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... I mean money. 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 are ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... 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 despised the prizes of this world—including the greatest of all, liberty—to ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... begged her counsel 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 well as he was able; but old, near-sighted, and possessed of anything but a clear enunciation, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... after the expiration of that period they may prohibit the traffic altogether. The census in the constitution was intended to introduce equality in the burdens to be laid on the community.—No gentleman objected to laying duties, imposts, and exercises, uniformly. But uniformity of taxes would be subversive of the principles of equality: For that it was not possible to select any article which would be easy for one state, but what ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... died, which had proved entirely practical, and strong enough to conquer all resistance, with the sanction and encouragement of Europe. It displayed to France a finished model of revolution, both in thought and action, and showed that what seemed extreme and subversive in the old world, was compatible with good and wise government, with respect for social order, and the preservation of national character and custom. The ideas which captured and convulsed the French people were mostly ready-made for them, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... thousand persons. Resolutions were passed declaring that "to all acts of tyranny and injustice, resistance is just and therefore necessary," and "that the construction given to the law in the case of the journeymen tailors is not only ridiculous and weak in practice but unjust in principle and subversive of the rights and liberties of American citizens." The town was placarded with "coffin" handbills, a practice ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... may do to another is of any moment, since he cannot touch his soul which is eternal and beyond the reach of any human power! In the destiny of a soul what can the destruction of one of its bodies signify? This is an argument which is subversive of morality ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... certain favourite appendages. The Gnostics called themselves believers; and their most celebrated teachers would willingly have remained in the bosom of the Church; but it soon appeared that their principles were subversive of the New Testament revelation; and they were accordingly excluded from ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... of the measure were of three classes: first, those who looked upon the proposal as radical and subversive; secondly, those who because a reduction is suggested in one quarter invariably consider it the correct thing to propose it in another; and lastly, the owners of the established newspapers of the day. The arguments of the first class assumed ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... will for the deed, the sincere intention for the achievement, or the yearning of the heart for the practical accomplishment, is subversive of all our standards of conduct. No business could be run on the basis of paying men in accordance with their readiness to work, irrespective of the service rendered, as is the case in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. But God seems to be able to run the universe on that basis. ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones

... weariness that is crushing me to some extent the fault of the Abbe Gevresin? By compelling me to much repetition he has exhausted in me the soothing and, at the same time, subversive virtue of the Sacrament; and the most evident result of this treatment is that my soul has collapsed and has no spirit to ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... 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 its terror at the idea of losing its most sacred ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... the community the King's speech to Parliament. This state-paper, which was read the world over, represented the people of Boston as being "in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and to have proceeded to measures subversive of the Constitution, and attended with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off their dependence upon Great Britain"; and it contained a pledge "to defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious persons who, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints, to force from a particular species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be employed in it, is, in reality, subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote. It retards, instead of accelerating the progress of the society towards real wealth and greatness; and diminishes, instead of increasing, the real value of the annual produce of its ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... theory of a "Jewish mission" sprang into life, not as a spontaneous growth of Jewish tradition, but as a forced hothouse product of practical life—a theory which proclaimed that an isolated Jewish existence in Palestine was subversive of the very essence of Judaism, that the mission of the Jewish people was to propagate monotheism among the nations of the earth, and that this mission could only be carried out in the Dispersion, in the midst of the nations which were to be ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

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

... 15th of April he sent to the Senate a formal protest, characterizing the action of the body as "unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary to its spirit and to several of its express provisions," and "subversive of that distribution of the powers of government which it has ordained and established." Aside from a general defense of his course, the chief point that the President made was that the Constitution provided a procedure in cases of this kind, namely impeachment, ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... figure of which affected him intimately, disheartened him or allured and, whether alluring or disheartening, filled him always with unrest and bitter thoughts. All the leisure which his school life left him was passed in the company of subversive writers whose jibes and violence of speech set up a ferment in his brain before they passed out of it into his ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... England was denounced.... Citizens of these States expressed an abhorrence of France, and of its rule, and protested against the contemplated introduction of French troops on this continent, which, under the pretext of subduing or seducing the French-Canadians, might prove to be subversive of their own liberties. ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... under their rule and to the scrupulous observance of foreign treaty rights. At critical moments they did not hesitate to memorialize the Throne, urging the protection of the legations, the restoration of communication, and the assertion of the Imperial authority against the subversive elements. They maintained excellent relations with the official representatives of foreign powers. To their kindly disposition is largely due the success of the consuls in removing many of the missionaries from the interior to places of safety. ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... full of holy indignation, and will have rejected far from you this guilty and shameful provocation. Notwithstanding, that none of you may say he has been deluded by fallacious seductions, and by the preachers of subversive doctrines, or ignorant of what is contriving by the foes of all order, all law, all right, true liberty, and your happiness, we to-day again raise and utter abroad our voice, so that you may be more certain of the absoluteness with which ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... me they'd given me two to five years for carrying a dangerous weapon and subversive literature. Now what would I get if I went out and really messed some ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole

... honestly. Still, there were occasions when, under the stress of temptation, fair-dealing was lost sight of, and immediate prospect of gain was allowed to lead to the commission of acts destructive of all feeling of security, subversive of commercial morals, and calculated to effect a rupture of commercial relations, which it may often have taken a long term of years to re-establish. Herodotus tells us that, at a date considerably anterior to the Trojan war, when the ascendancy over the other ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... 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 to ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... therefore, by our forefathers to designate those who "delated" them to the cruel persecutors in Scotland by the name of "Ziphites," or to call the archtraitor Sharp,—"a Judas." The Lord Jesus "hates the doctrine" as well as "deeds of Nicolaitans," which are subversive of truth and godliness. Those who oppose the doctrines of Balaam and the Nicolaitans in any age when these are popular, must expect persecution. But when "troubles abound for Christ's sake, consolations much more abound by Christ." ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... enjoined submission and obedience even to the tyranny of Nero, and Seneca fosters no ideas subversive of political subjection. Endurance is the paramount virtue of the Stoic. To forms of government the wise man was wholly indifferent; they were among the external circumstances above which his spirit soared ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... unchecked by a broad sense of humanity, full of subversive wilfulness, and not only untrained in moderation, but degenerating into crass exaggeration, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... reasonable treatment of them impossible. It would require saints, not men, to deal without occasional lapses from strict equity with such infuriating folk. Mr. BEGBIE'S book is unfair in its emphasis, but it is not fanatical or subversive, and I can see no decent reason why it should have been banned. I certainly commend it to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various

... 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 the army decide. In the moment of this summons, another anonymous production was sent into circulation, addressed more to the feelings and passions than to the reason and judgment of the army. The author of the piece ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... heresy, took hold of the Serbs' imagination and made as rapid and disquieting progress in their country as it had already done in the neighbouring Bulgaria; inasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teaching to be socialistic, subversive, and highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical supremacy of Constantinople, all of which indeed it was, adherence to it became amongst the Serbs a ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... continued to unburden himself, during the walk home, regarding the heresies in 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 lightened of its burden, but withal seriously impressed ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... 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 intentions of the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... ready to adopt, (of which Mr Adams received an account through Mr William Lee, and which he immediately transmitted to me, and, probably, to Congress also) that, if I mistake not, the effect of it will be quite of another kind. It will be seen to be subversive of the very principles upon which it is pretended to be established, and so revolting in its nature, that it is utterly impossible the United States could ever comply ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... observed to me. "My chieps no 'peak—do what I talk." He looked at the missionary, and what did he see? "See Kanaka 'peak in a big outch!" he cried, with a strong ring of sarcasm. Yet he endured the subversive spectacle, and might even have continued to endure it, had not a fresh point arisen. He looked again, to employ his own figure; and the Kanaka was no longer speaking, he was doing worse—he was building a copra-house. The king ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Dictator—was a man whose genius would have made him conspicuous even among Anglo-Saxons, had not that genius been intermixed with other traits that were petty and subversive. He had some of the lofty patriotism of Washington (the man he most admired), the force of Napoleon, and much of the wisdom of the sages. These characteristics might have justified him in the assumption of the title ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... I do," he said, smiling. "Decidedly not. As Mr Reardon would say, it would be totally subversive of discipline. It couldn't be done. But one gentleman can of course apologise to another, and I do so most heartily. My dear Mr Herrick, I beg your pardon for ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... Bible. Innumerable copies of these tracts were printed, and gratuitously circulated in France and other countries. As they were adapted to the capacity of all classes of persons, they were eagerly sought after, and read with avidity. The doctrines inculcated in them were subversive of every principle of morality and religion. The everlasting distinctions between virtue and vice, were completely broken down. Marriage was ridiculed—obedience to parents treated as the most abject slavery—subordination to civil government, the most ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... were pursuing exactly the same tactics which had led to the extinguishing of the faith in parts of France and Italy,—namely, the dissemination of pornographic literature. They know well that there is but one thing that can destroy Irish faith, and that is the dissemination of ideas subversive of Catholic morality. Break down the earthworks that guard the purity of the nation, and the citadel of faith is taken. He was very silent all that evening, as I notice all Irish priests grow grave ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan



Words linked to "Subversive" :   Comte de Mirabeau, seditious, Mirabeau, Jose Julian Marti, Karl Marx, Jean Paul Marat, subvert, subversiveness, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, dynamiter, Pancho Villa, Robespierre, Corday, counterrevolutionist, Maxmillien Marie Isidore de Robespierre, Mao Zedong, Georges Jacques Danton, Guevara, Girondin, Marx, villa, counterrevolutionary, Ernesto Guevara, subversive activity, Marat, Zhou En-lai, radical, Marti, Francisco Villa, Emiliano Zapata, disloyal, insurgent, Leon Trotsky, Chou En-lai, mao, Zapata, dynamitist, Che Guevara, rebel, insurrectionist, Charlotte Corday, Danton, Marie Anne Charlotte Corday d'Armont, Doroteo Arango, Honore-Gabriel Victor Riqueti, Girondist, Mao Tsetung, counter-revolutionist, Trotsky, freedom fighter



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