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Pernicious   /pərnˈɪʃəs/   Listen
Pernicious

adjective
1.
Exceedingly harmful.  Synonyms: baneful, deadly, pestilent.
2.
Working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way.  Synonyms: insidious, subtle.  "A subtle poison"



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"Pernicious" Quotes from Famous Books



... Jews the old religion had become a rigid temple ritual, which offered but little comfort and hope to the weak heart of man. In the eyes of the majority of the philosophers of the age every religion was only pernicious superstition, good enough for the masses, but scarcely worth consideration by the cultured. That Celsus made the Christian religion the object of serious treatment and refutation, not only implies a subtle and unprejudiced view of his age, but shows us at the same time how ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... was, of course, an awkward meal at the best. There was an initial difficulty about grace, not easily surmounted. And when the Rev. Mr. Dumfarthing sternly refused tea as a pernicious drink weakening to the system, the Anglican rector was too ignorant of the presbyterian system to know enough to give ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... have been cheap! Bakkan is one of the most vulnerable outposts of the Empire. It is a terrible danger-zone. If certain powers can usurp our authority—and, mark you, the whole blamed place is already riddled with this new pernicious doctrine—you know what I mean—before we know where we are the whole East will be in a blaze. India! My God! This contract we were negotiating would have countered this outward thrust. And you, you blockhead, you come here and insult ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... material one, and that any discussion of it could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing friends. As yet, whatever it may become, the question is bad as the basis of a controversy—a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the Government is to get them back into their proper practical relation. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... people of whom he knew nothing! Should his brother die,—and his brother's health was bad,—what steps should he take? Would it be for him to accept this Italian brat as the heir to everything, or must he ruin himself by a pernicious lawsuit? Looking forward he saw nothing but family misery and disgrace, and he saw, also, inevitable difficulties with which he knew himself to be incapable to cope. "It is true," he said to his wife very gloomily, when he first met her after ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... Their naked tools in open field; As stout ARMIDA, bold TRALESTRIS, And she that wou'd have been the mistress Of GUNDIBERT; but he had grace, 395 And rather took a country lass; They say, 'tis false, without all sense, But of pernicious consequence To government, which they suppose Can never be upheld in prose; 400 Strip nature naked to the skin, You'll find about her no such thing. It may be so; yet what we tell Of TRULLA that's ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... actually written stories!—stories that were not true! They haven't seemed to care a button whether they told the truth or not! Where can they have contracted the deadly heresy that imagination, feeling, and affection, are good things, deserving encouragement? Mark the effect of these pernicious teachings! Hundreds and thousands—nay, fellow mortal, millions of children,—now walk the earth, believing in fairies, giants, ogres, and such-like unreal personages, and yet unable (we blush to say it!) to tell why the globe we live on is flattened at the poles! Is it not a serious question ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various

... speaks, the anger of the son of Peleus comes boiling over his lips. He does not describe Agamemnon as overbearing and haughty; but the pride of the king of men is continually appearing in his words and actions, and it is the evident moral of the Iliad to represent its pernicious effects on the affairs of the Helenic confederacy. Ulysses never utters a word in which the cautious and prudent counsellor, sagacious in design but prompt in execution, wary in the council but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... a conversation or a song, what once he could not, because he brings a larger experience to bear upon it. Criticism of others in the home, the lapses from Christ-like living, the scenes of the street, things pernicious as well as helpful have greater significance in character building than ever before. This gives still graver emphasis to the work of nurture in guarding these wide-open doorways ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... the time being with this solution, he turned over on to his right side—for, to his disgust, he found that he had been lying on his back, a most pernicious position where dreaming is concerned—and went to sleep. Half an hour later he was awakened by another heaven-shaking crash ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... crusty old gentleman who owns the estate into granting permission. He doesn't like orphans, he says, and if he once lets them get a start in his grounds, the place will be infested with them forever. You would think, to hear him talk, that orphans were a pernicious ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude that the Mongol Emperor was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. If some partial disorders, some local oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timur, the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by his abominable trophies—by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... that country people are much attracted to the sea, and the story of a shipwreck known to be true easily tempts the sixpences from their pockets. Dream-books and ballads sell as they always did sell, but for the rest the pedlar's bundle has nothing in it, as a rule, more pernicious than may be purchased at any little shop. Romantic novelettes, reprints of popular and really clever stories, numbers of semi-religious essays and so on—some only stitched and without a wrapper—make ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... bide in the north alley of the cloisters. Stay! Bid the sub-chancellor send out to them Thomas the lector to read unto them from the 'Gesta beati Benedicti.' It may save them from foolish and pernicious babbling." ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to quit his French literatures and pernicious practices, one and all. His very flute, most innocent "Princess," as he used to call his flute in old days, is denied him ever since he came to Custrin;—but by degrees he privately gets her back, and consorts much with her; wails forth, in beautiful adagios, emotions ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... who followed the so-called Stoic system made themselves prominent, among whom was Demetrius the cynic. These men, abusing the title of philosophy, kept teaching their disciples publicly many pernicious doctrines, and in this way were gradually corrupting [Footnote: Reading [Greek: hypodiephtheiron] (Dindorf).] some. Under these circumstances Mucianus, influenced more by anger than by fondness for speaking, uttered many charges against them and persuaded ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... mentioned in preceding chapters. It does, in common with these theories indeed draw attention to certain fundamental economic relationships. These Judge Brown has expressed well in one of his decisions which reads, "The element of truth in the 'Theory of the Pernicious Circle' is that, at a given stage in the history of a particular society, there is a limit to the amount which should properly be awarded for wages,—both wages and profits have to be paid out of the price paid by the consumer. ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... that of my neighbors, yet the works of the garden and orchard at this season are fascinating, and will eat up days and weeks; and a brave scholar should shun it like gambling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from these pernicious enchantments. For the present I stay in ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... suppress what he doubtless regards as a pernicious doctrine, Mr. Hutton could not wait until I had explained myself, it might have been expected that he would use whatever information was to be had concerning it. So far from seeking out such information, however, he has, in a way for which I cannot ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... condemn the parents who would bring their children up in a dark ignorance of the woes and vices of the world in which they must pass their lives. I think, as Mabel has been permitted to look at the pernicious exhibition of this afternoon, she should also be encouraged to look with calmness upon it, if only to teach her what ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... young ferocity," said the Cavalier, laughing. "But don't look like that; you alarm me. Here, young Markham, you had better come and deal with this pernicious enemy; he is too ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... to believe, that this exalted man was actually of a gambling spirit. So difficult is it entirely to eradicate the rank but fertile growth of once disseminated calumny; which, sown in darkness, by the arch-enemy of mankind, springs up, and spreads it's pernicious influence, to check the fairer growth, and defeat the just hopes of the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... fund he employed one half of the thieves to recover stolen cattle, and the other half of them to steal, in order to make this agreement and black-mail contract necessary. The estates of those gentlemen who refused to contract, or give countenance to that pernicious practice, are plundered by the thieving part of the watch, in order to force them to purchase their protection. Their leader calls himself the Captain of the Watch, and his banditti go by that name. And as this gives them a kind of authority ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... nation recognises as the most eminent for virtue, talents, and property, and, if you please, birth and standing in the land. They guide opinion; and, therefore, they govern. I am no leveller; I look upon an artificial equality as equally pernicious with a factitious aristocracy; both depressing the energies, and checking the enterprise of a nation. I like man to be free, really free: free in his industry as well as his body. What is the use of Habeas Corpus, if a man may ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... we hope they soon will be, will find themselves compelled to acquiesce in the policy of the Government, and, in the end, will acknowledge the wisdom of the proceeding which substitutes paid and educated labor for that pernicious system of slavery which has blinded and deluded them to their own destruction. Eventually, though gradually, it may well be anticipated, white labor will be employed in the growth of cotton. The Africans will find their advantage in removing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... their dinner in the churchyard, and others inquiring how best to get up Loughrigg,—"evidently, quite puzzled, and not knowing where to go." My reply, "that they would know next time," was not at all sympathized in. The effect of this exclusive temper was pernicious in the neighborhood. A petition to Parliament against the railway was not brought to me, as it was well known that I would not sign it; but some little girls undertook my case; and the effect of their parroting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... general history. Abbot Kozma had complained to the Tzar concerning the conduct of certain great nobles who had become inmates of his monastery, some voluntarily, others by compulsion, as exiles from court, and who were exerting a pernicious influence over the monks. Ivan seized the opportunity thus presented to him, to pour out all the gall of his irony on the monks, who had forsaken the lofty, spiritual traditions of the great ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... both gentle and straightforward in spite of the fact that they have been whipped in their youth, but it is in spite of, and not because of it. In their homes other good qualities must have counteracted the pernicious effect of ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne

... and upwards. The population on the St. John river was small, and men and oxen were in demand both in winter and summer. The cultivation and improvement of farms was retarded and a spirit of speculation introduced into the country, destined ere long to bear pernicious fruit. Francklin sent from Windsor some skilled hewers of timber. Nevertheless the masting operations were carried on after a primitive fashion, and Mr. Peabody was constantly obliged to write for articles needed by his workmen. A few sentences ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... Ministry, the Opposition, and Lord George Gordon. Parliament had seen before, and has seen since, many a politician fighting thus like Hal o' the Wynd for his own hand, but no one so influential for a season or so pernicious in his ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... sort of man who will learn little in any occupation because he is wholly bent upon being original. The past is all wrong, full of errors, absurdities, iniquities. To serve apprenticeship is to indoctrinate one's self with pernicious orthodoxies. We must rebel. We must begin at the beginning. We must do something entirely new and revolutionary. We must rely upon our free souls to see and to do the right, as it has never been seen or done before. Some such declaration of independence, some such combination ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... me more particulars; how her Lord, finding her and the Duke of York at the King's first coming in too kind, did get it out of her that he did dishonour him, and so bid her continue..., which is the most pernicious and full piece of revenge that ever I heard of; and he at this day owns it with great glory, and looks upon the Duke of York and the world with great content in the ampleness of his revenge. Thence (where the place was now by the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... filtration, and yet they do not filter. Hence some other factor must join itself to the physico-mechanical process of filtration and affect or destroy it, and this factor can be found only in the protoplasm, the vital element of the cells; for we know that the sublimate acts with pernicious effect on it and in such a manner that it destroys its entire power of reaction; it kills ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... of Tetzel to Wittenberg roused Luther to more decided action. He now wrote out ninety-five propositions in which he set forth in the strongest language his reasons for opposing and his view of the pernicious effects of Tetzel's doctrine of indulgences. These he nailed to the door of the Castle church of Wittenberg. The effect produced by them was extraordinary. The news of the protest spread with the greatest rapidity and within a fortnight copies ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... pursuit. It was known that, having lost the toes from one foot by a steel trap, she made one track shorter than the other, and by this vestige the pursuers, in a light snow, recognized and followed the trail of this pernicious animal. Having followed her to the Connecticut River and found she had turned back toward Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten o'clock the next morning their bloodhounds had driven her into a den, about three miles distant from the house of Mr. Putnam. The people soon collected, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... was true. The very next day he convoked an assembly of clerks and nobles to judge the two women. Both of them were condemned to be burnt. The mistress contrived to escape, but promises and persuasions having failed to turn the maiden from the pernicious error of her ways, she was delivered up to the executioner. She died without shedding a tear, without uttering ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... so many questions, Mr Carbury. Mr Melmotte wishes to get into Parliament, and if there would vote on the side which you at any rate approve. I do not know that his object in that respect is pernicious. And as a seat in Parliament has been a matter of ambition to the best of our countrymen for centuries, I do not know why we should say that it is vile in this man.' Roger frowned and shook his head. 'Of course Mr Melmotte is not the sort of gentleman whom you have been accustomed to regard as a ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... governors of villages or ranches on the system adopted in the subdued districts. According to Father Ferrando (63 years ago), the form of oath taken in his presence by the newly-elected headman on receiving the staff of office was the following, viz.:—"May a pernicious wind touch me; may a flash of lightning kill me, and may the alligator catch me asleep if I fail to fulfil my duty." The headman presented himself almost when he chose to the nearest Spanish Governor, who gave him his orders, which were only fulfilled ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... to hear from men advanced in years, who feel the necessity of counteracting growing weakness incident to their age, and who know the worse than folly of resorting to pernicious secret preparations, the effect of which is to give unnatural stimulation for a brief time, to be followed by a ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord. All the other passions, besides this of interest, are either easily restrained, or are not of such pernicious consequence, when indulged. Vanity is rather to be esteemed a social passion, and a bond of union among men. Pity and love are to be considered in the same light. And as to envy and revenge, though pernicious, they operate only by intervals, and are directed against particular ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... magician had a younger brother, who was equally skillful as a necromancer, and even surpassed him in villainy and pernicious designs. As they did not live together, or in the same city, but oftentimes when one was in the East, the other was in the West, they failed not every year to inform themselves, by their art, each where the other resided, and whether they stood in ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... be joined with him, and Sir J. Minnes for the other, and Sir G. Smith to be joined with him. But I did order it so that my Lord Bruncker and Sir J. Minnes were ordered, but I did stop the merchants to be added, which would have been a most pernicious thing to the King I am sure. In this I did, I think, a very good office, though I cannot acquit myself from some envy of mine in the business to have the profitable business done by another hand while I lay wholly imployed in the trouble of the office. Thence back again by my Lord's coach to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... by BRUNO, KANT and LAPLACE, of the nebular origin of the spheres, and the deductions consequent thereupon, in regard to the progressive stages through which the earth in its developments has passed, was pernicious in its influence in diverting the minds of investigators from other and truer channels. To the blind confidence with which that hypothesis has been universally accepted and perpetuated, and to the fallacious theories thus directly and indirectly engendered, ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... after having betrayed its liberties to a king? All these mischiefs you saw attendant on that luxury, which some modern philosophers account (as I am informed) the highest good to a state! Time will show that their doctrines are pernicious to society, pernicious to government; and that yours, tempered and moderated so as to render them more practicable in the present circumstances of your country, are wise, salutary, and deserving of the general thanks of mankind. But lest you should think, from the ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... "let your worship send all such oaths to the devil, for they are very pernicious to salvation and prejudicial to the conscience; just tell me now, if for several days to come we fall in with no man armed with a helmet, what are we to do? Is the oath to be observed in spite of all the inconvenience and discomfort it will be to sleep in your clothes, and not ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... superstitious notions and prejudices which are held by their attendants? While saying this, I must urge parents at home never—if they value the eternal happiness of their children—if they wish them to imbibe right principles, and to avoid pernicious ones—to commit them to the charge of persons, however decent in their behaviour, who are not likely, from their want of education, to be able to instil them. Parents, children were given you by God; and at your hands he will require them. On your care, on your exertions, on your prayers, it depends ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... day since Lazarus had left the grave. Ever since then many had experienced the pernicious power of his eye, but neither those who were crushed by it forever, nor those who found the strength to resist in it the primordial sources of life,—which is as mysterious as death,—never could they ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... are still more formidable, inasmuch as they are grounded in their moral feelings and religious principles, which had been alarmed and shocked by the impious and pernicious tenets defended by Hume, Priestley, and the French fatalists or necessitarians; some of whom had perverted metaphysical reasonings to the denial of the mysteries and indeed of all the peculiar doctrines ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... evidence, prejudice, and persecution! In addition to all this, the infidel must believe that the men who were engaged in the compilation of these monstrous fictions, chose them as the vehicle of the purest morality; and, though the most pernicious deceivers of mankind were yet the most scrupulous preachers of veracity and benevolence! Surely of him, who can receive all these paradoxes—and they form but a small part of what might be mentioned—we may say, 'O infidel, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... people are guilty of, in keeping the bungs out of the casks. Nothing is more pernicious to fermented liquors, than their being exposed to the open air, whereby they lose their strength and flavour. Take a bottle of wine, draw the cork, and let it stand exposed to the open air for twenty-four hours only, ...
— The Cyder-Maker's Instructor, Sweet-Maker's Assistant, and Victualler's and Housekeeper's Director - In Three Parts • Thomas Chapman

... child in the night recognizes the mother's breast, so your people, held in the darkness of error by your pernicious doctrines and religious ceremonies, have recognized instinctively their Father, in the ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... drought, and our teeth just fallen from our jaws; for though we had tried, by placing all the dead men's jackets and shirts one over another, to strain some of the sea-water through them by small quantities, yet that would not deprive it of its pernicious qualities; and though it refreshed a little in going down, we were so sick, and strained ourselves so much after it, that it came up again, and made us more miserable than before. Our corpse now stunk so, what was left of it, that we could no longer bear it on board, and every man began ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... moral health must not be deferred. It is safe to say that no child, no boy at least in these days of excitement and unrest, reaches the age of ten years without getting some idea of nature's laws regarding parenthood. And ninety-nine chances to one, those ideas will be vile and pernicious unless they come from a wise, loving and pure parent. Now, we entreat you, parents, mothers! do not wait; begin before a false notion has had chance to find lodgment in the childish mind. But remember this is a lesson of life, it cannot ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... when the seeding is made. The plants find competition with grass and other weeds keen under eastern skies where moisture favors plant-life. In their first season this is markedly true. There should be plenty of available plant-food for the young plants. Stable manure that is free from the seeds of pernicious weeds makes an excellent dressing. It is good practice to plow down a heavy coat of manure for corn and then to replow the land for alfalfa the next season. A top-dressing of manure is good, affording excellent physical condition of the surface for ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... unmistakably when it did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the winter season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to be by dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by "wuzzes and flames" (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... enough to wish I had," growled Dr Brown. "That woman, sir, is enough to ruin any practice, with her pernicious example of disgusting health. How is Rejoice this morning, Vesta? Does ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... concealed this gold, I had perhaps in peace grown old! But there is neither gold nor price To recompense the pang of vice. Bane of all good—delusive cheat, To lure a soul on to defeat And banish honour from the mind: Gold raised the sword midst kith and kind, Gold fosters each, pernicious art In which the devils bear a part,— Gold, bane accursed!" In angry mood Plutus, his god, before him stood. The ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... away Proserpine, did all that lay in his power to obstruct the endeavors of Ceres, and hinder the restoration of her daughter, on which Proserpine had him privately destroyed; to screen which deed the Fable was invented; the pernicious counsels which he gave his master being signified by the seeds of the pomegranate. It has also been suggested that the story of his change into an owl was based on the circumstance that he was the overseer of the mines of Pluto, in which ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... Pelagian and Arminian errors appear again upon the stage, the merit of the creature, free will and good works[15] being taught from press and pulpit almost every where, to the utter discarding of free grace, Christ's imputed righteousness, and the power of true godliness.—All which pernicious errors were expunged and cast over the hedge by our reforming forefathers: And is it not highly requisite, that their faithful contendings, orthodox and exemplary lives, should be copied out before us, when walking so repugnant to acknowledging the God of our fathers, and walking ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... bitterly and violently, particularly after the promulgation of the opinion of the Attorney-General. These agitators condemned everybody and everything connected with the Congressional plan of reconstruction; and the pernicious influence thus exerted was manifested in various ways, but most notably in the selection of persons to compose the jury lists in the country parishes it also tempted certain municipal officers in New Orleans to perform illegal acts that would seriously have affected the credit of the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... period of his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed, and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in order ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... of man is man: my disposition changed from listening constantly [to their pernicious advice.] Wine, dancing, and gaming occupied my time. At last matters came to such a pitch, that, forgetting my commercial concerns, a mania for debauchery and gambling came over me. My servants and companions, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... that I differ from certain modern philosophers of our own country, for whom, for the most part, I entertain the highest veneration. I would not deprive life of a single grace, or a single enjoyment, but I would counteract whatever is pernicious in whatever is elegant; if among my flowers there is a snake, I would not root up my flowers, I would kill the snake. Thus, who are they that derive from fiction and literature a prejudicial effect? We have seen already—the light and superficial;—but ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to nature: for nature is never to be got the better of. But our minds are infected by sloth and idleness, and luxury, and languor, and indolence: we have enervated them by opinions, and bad customs. Who is there who is unacquainted with the customs of the Egyptians? Their minds being tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to bear any torture, rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile: and should any one inadvertently have hurt any of these animals, he will submit to any punishment. I am speaking of men only. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... in London hotels rests with those who patronise the hotels," says a contemporary. In other words, the pernicious practice which had grown up before the War of ordering German waiters with one's dinner must be abandoned before the hotel managers will remove them permanently from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various

... enemy of the fuchsia indoors is the pernicious red spider. For details of the proper reception to be ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... cannot be, and colours are by no means to be sacrificed on that account, cleanliness and avoiding the habit of putting the brush unnecessarily to the mouth, so common in water-painting, are sufficient guards against any possibly pernicious effects from the use of any pigment. No colour which is not imbibed by the stomach will in the slightest degree injure ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... good sense there was in Hezekiah's "Answer him not."—No, no,—keep your temper.—So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled his left fist and looked at it as if he should like to hit something or somebody a most pernicious punch with it. ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... and visible members of this church are under the awful accusations and imputations of being the instruments of Satan in his mischievous actings. It cannot but be matter of deep humiliation, to such as are innocent, that the righteous and holy God should permit them to be named in such pernicious and unheard-of practices, and not only so, but that he who cannot but do right should suffer the stain of suspected guilt to be, as it were, rubbed on and soaked in by many sore and amazing circumstances. And it is a matter of soul-abasement to all that are in the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... at any rate, that the Puritan citizens entertained a deep and sincere hatred of anything connected with plays and actors, and if it had been in their power to do what they liked, the world would once for all have been relieved of such pernicious and wicked vagabonds as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... when the fathers bade me bow, I bow'd; Their forms I follow'd, whether well or sick, And was a most obedient Catholic. But I had money, and these pastors found My notions vague, heretical, unsound: A wicked book they seized; the very Turk Could not have read a more pernicious work; To me pernicious, who if it were good Or evil question'd not, nor understood: Oh! had I little but the book possess'd, I might have read it, and enjoy'd my rest." Alas! poor Allen—through his wealth was seen Crimes ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimed lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... question to you," resumed the student, more and more excited. "I have hitherto been joking, but now listen to this. On the one side here is a silly, flint-hearted, evil-minded, sulky old woman, necessary to no one—on the contrary, pernicious to all—and who does not know ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... thinking from the understanding about things of the church or of religion, believe that they are saved by immediate mercy and hence that salvation is instantaneous, and yet this is contrary to the truth and in addition is a pernicious belief, it is important that it ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... want of some assistance in the rudiments of legal knowlege, has given birth to a practice, which, if ever it had grown to be general, must have proved of extremely pernicious consequence: I mean the custom, by some so very warmly recommended, to drop all liberal education, as of no use to lawyers; and to place them, in it's stead, as [Transcriber's Note: at] the desk of some skilful attorney; in order to initiate them early in all the depths ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... excessive legislation. The most striking illustrations of this fact are furnished by the enactments of the past three years upon the question of reconstruction. After a fair trial they have substantially failed and proved pernicious in their results, and there seems to be no good reason why they should longer remain upon the statute book. States to which the Constitution guarantees a republican form of government have been reduced to military dependencies in each of which the people ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... vowed nothing on earth would persuade him to sleep in that room again. But sunlight soon restored his courage, and by the evening he was quite eager to go on with the next test. He had some difficulty in persuading any one to allow him the use of an oven for so pernicious a mixture as nightshade and hemlock; but at last he over-ruled the objections of some good-natured woman—the mother of one of the office boys at his former employer's—and test four proved as successful ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... such as companionship (good or bad), literature (wholesome or pernicious), places of amusement (elevating or debasing), special opportunities ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them. The worst of charity is that ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... nations, notably Germany, are based on exactly the opposite premise—that the strength of a state depends on the economic development of its people, on its wealth-producing power. Germany has been the most convinced, the most conscious, the most relentless exponent of the pernicious belief that the ultimate welfare of the state depends primarily on the wealth-getting power of its citizens. She has exalted an economic theory into a religion of nationality with mystical appeals. She has taught her children to go singing into the jaws of death in order ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... determined to make abstinence a permanent rule, and have stuck to my determination ever since, with decided benefit. I shall certainly never resume smoking. I never use any stimulants whatever when writing, and believe the use of them to be most pernicious; indeed, I have seen terrible results from them. When a writer feels dull, the best stimulant is fresh air. Victor Hugo makes a good fire before writing, and then opens the window. I have often found temporary dulness removed by taking a turn out of doors, or simply by adopting Victor Hugo's plan. ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... summary, in your own words, of the author's discussion, not a duplication of it. Students sometimes acquire the habit of reading single sentences at a time, then of writing them down, thinking that by making an exact copy of the book, they are playing safe. This is a pernicious practice; it spoils continuity of thought and application. Furthermore, isolated sentences mean little, and fail grossly to represent the real thought of the author. A better way is to read through an entire paragraph or section, then close the book and reproduce in your own words what you have ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... certain meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned research, goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its monuments, and marring and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to vindicate great names from such pernicious erudition.—WASHINGTON IRVING. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... thought to find, and that he had put a good order, and that it was not well done to distroy in that manner a Country, and to wrong so many Inhabitants. He advised me to leave my Brother, telling me that his designs were pernicious. Wee see ourselves frustrated of our hopes. My Brother told me that wee had store of merchandize that would bring much profit to the french habitations that are in the Cadis. I, who was desirous of nothing but new things, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... of this species of originality. His stock of striking things on the side of truth was soon expended; notoriety had meanwhile become as essential to his comfort as ardent spirits to that of the dram-drinker, or his pernicious drug to that of the inveterate opium-eater; and so, to procure the supply of the unwholesome pabulum, without which he could not continue to exist, he launched into a perilous ocean of heterodoxy and extravagance, and made shipwreck of ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... C., chap. iv. ] At first, the conservative party was in the ascendancy. In 1820 the House of Representatives of South Carolina passed a resolution which deprecated the system of protection as premature and pernicious, but admitted that Congress possessed the power of enacting all laws relating to commerce, and lamented the practice "of arraying upon the questions of national policy the states as distinct and independent ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... and steeped his senses. The desire to sleep was intoxicating, delicious, irresistible; and with it ran delicious, restful thrills through all his limbs, the narcotism of the blood. It was partly, no doubt, the effect of inhaling that pernicious air; partly that hibernation of the bear which in the freezing man precedes dissolution; and possibly more than that, something more than any mere physical cause—life perhaps preparing to lay this tired body down, its future ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... it was utter darkness; and, excepting a sorrowful, scattered, and persecuted remnant, the pulpits were abandoned to Presbyterians, and, he feared, to sectaries of every description. It should be his duty to fortify his dear pupil to resist such unhallowed and pernicious doctrines in church and state as must necessarily be forced at times upon his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... that best should teach us, Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little, Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling The whole realm, by your teaching and your chaplains, For so we are inform'd, with new opinions Divers and dangerous, which are heresies And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious. ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]

... cost of manufacture, certain of the organ-builders, chiefly in America and in Germany, have adopted the pernicious practice of making the combination pedals, pistons or keys bring the various ranks of pipes into or out of action without ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller

... exchange would enable Congress, by drawing on that fund, to call so large a quantity of paper presently out of circulation, as to appreciate the rest, and give time for taxation to work a radical cure. Without this remedy of the evil, very pernicious consequences ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... are the dullest of dull reviewers, but the most pernicious are the wielders of cliches and platitudes. Is there somewhere a reviewer's manual, like the manual of correct social phrases which some one has recently published? I would believe it from the evidence of a hundred ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... against them any other impeachment, either of their mode of life or of their conduct in office, save that, to gratify the patricians, they had protested against the tribunitian law. The resentment of the commons, however, prevailed over the influence of the senate; and by a most pernicious precedent these men, though innocent, were condemned [to pay a fine of] ten thousand asses in weight. At this the patricians were very much incensed. Camillus openly charged the commons with gross violation of duty, "who, now turning their venom ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... disturbing elements. It thereby told its members that spirits were conjurable: of course really the minds of the members were strengthened, but the toleration of the idea of spirits, whether lazy and trifling, pernicious or beneficial, is of course wrong. However, as they were considered the servants of sorcerers, the idea was in some respects ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris

... the soil, but these fangs remain in the earth without decaying for an incredible space of time. This long endurance of immersion is one of the valuable properties of these cypress roots; but though excellent binding stuff for the sides of a canal, they must be pernicious growth in any land used for cultivation that requires deep tillage. On entering the Altamaha, we found the tide so low that we were much obstructed by the sand banks, which, but for their constant shifting, would presently ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... Whether that trade should not be accounted most pernicious wherein the balance is most against us? And whether this be not the ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... Records, All sawes[4] of Bookes, all formes, all presures past, That youth and obseruation coppied there; And thy Commandment all alone shall liue Within the Booke and Volume of my Braine, Vnmixt with baser matter; yes, yes, by Heauen: [Sidenote: matter, yes by] [Sidenote: 168] Oh most pernicious woman![5] Oh Villaine, Villaine, smiling damned Villaine! My Tables, my Tables; meet it is I set it downe,[6] [Sidenote: My tables, meet] That one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine; At least I'm sure it ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... twopence. A check was placed upon this habit by imposing a tax of 5s. on every gallon of gin. This was in the year 1735 and in 1750 about 1,700 gin shops were closed. Since then the continual efforts made to stop the pernicious habit of dram drinking have greatly reduced the evil. But it was not only the drinking of gin: there was also the rum punch which formed so large a part in the life of the Georgian citizen. Every man had his club to which he resorted in the evening after the day's work. ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... most pernicious compounds used for the hair at the present day is that which is sold in the shops as a depilatory. It is usually a mixture of quicklime and arsenic, and is wrongly used and recommended at this time by many physicians to remove hairy moles ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... enraged author. It is a curious specimen of one who evidently wished to burn his brother with his book. In this curious proclamation, which has been preserved as a literary curiosity, Bayle's "Critique" is declared to be defamatory and calumnious, abounding with seditious forgeries, pernicious to all good subjects, and therefore is condemned to be torn to pieces, and burnt at the Place de Greve. All printers and booksellers are forbidden to print, or to sell, or disperse the said abominable book, under pain ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Particularly pernicious in tending to prevent marriage is the influence of certain professional schools, some of which have come to require a college degree for entrance. In such a case the aspiring physician, for example, can hardly hope to obtain a license to practice until he has reached the age of ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... not be racial or political in character, but between capital on the one hand and labor on the other, with the odds largely in favor of nonproductive wealth because of the undue advantage given the latter by the pernicious monopoly in land which limits production and forces population disastrously upon subsistence. My purpose is to show that poverty and misfortune make no invidious distinctions of "race, color, or previous condition," but that wealth unduly centralized oppresses all alike; ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... would, Rowland could not think of Roderick's theory of unlimited experimentation, especially as applied in the case under discussion, as anything but a pernicious illusion. But he saw it was vain to combat longer, for inclination was powerfully on Roderick's side. He laid his hand on Roderick's shoulder, looked at him a moment with troubled eyes, then shook his head mournfully ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... much rivalry and pride often showed itself, not only among the students of the academy, but even among the masters or teachers themselves. This feeling at the time to which we allude, prevailed to an unusual extent, and its pernicious effects had been the cause of one or two duels of fatal termination. Carlton had long since been obliged to leave the academy from want of means, and even while there, he labored under great disadvantage in not being able to keep up the appearance ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... refuse to follow in their fathers' steps; they destroy idolatry, and endeavour to redeem Israel from its iniquity. But whenever this is the case you do not look far without discovering the cause. A good mother has been at work—woman's gracious influence has counteracted against the pernicious example of the father. And, on the other hand, we have a long list of vile and idolatrous kings, whose fathers were either comparatively worthy, or full of downright godliness, and then, invariably, there is some evil-minded ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... not disposed to credit all that my friends said, but others who had obtained the book from them were pleased with it and I lived for some months under intoxicating, but I trust not perilously pernicious, flattery. Several editions of the book were printed to meet the request for copies. Some notices of it and extracts got into the papers, and finally Charles Scribner's Sons asked to publish it for the market. So "Round the World"[36] ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... thus: "The rest, both gods and horse-arraying men, slept all the night; but Jove sweet sleep possessed not; but he pondered how he might destroy many at the Greek ships, and honor Achilles. But this device appeared best to his mind, to send a fatal dream to Agamemnon. And he said, 'Haste, pernicious dream, to the swift ships, and bid Agamemnon arm the Achaeans to take wide-streeted Troy, since Juno has persuaded all the gods to ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... digestion, that the stomach may have chance for rest after the process of digestion is complete, before the dinner hour. The custom of using fried potatoes or mushes, salted fish or meats, and other foods almost impossible of digestion, for breakfast dishes, is most pernicious. These foods set completely at variance all laws of breakfast hygiene. They are very difficult of digestion, and the thirst-provoking quality of salted foods makes them an important auxiliary to the acquirement of a love of intoxicating ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... Mendelssohn," said Schumann. "To say that poverty is the proper stimulus of genius is to talk pernicious nonsense. Poverty slays, it does not nourish; poverty narrows the vision, it does not ennoble; poverty lowers the moral standard and makes a man sordid. You can't get good art out ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson

... be diligent in outward good works, and to serve our calling. In these things consist the true perfection and the true service of God. It does not consist in celibacy, or in begging, or in vile apparel. But the people conceive many pernicious opinions from the false commendations of monastic life. They hear celibacy praised above measure; therefore they lead their married life with offense to their consciences. They hear that only beggars are perfect; therefore they keep their possessions and do business with offense to their consciences. ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various

... out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently thinking my words pernicious to ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... levied where there is no justice, occasion is offered for many parts of these islands—which, on account of their great distance, are beyond its reach—to become turbulent and rebellious as soon as they realize that they are released from tribute which is now collected from them. Most pernicious consequences [would follow (?) —illegible in MS.] and many other districts would be disloyal and rebellious; and it would be necessary, when they should have sufficient religious instruction, to go ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... proportion so essential to a great critic. On more than one occasion Mr. Ruskin has frankly admitted that his views and opinions were erroneous owing to being based on a partial appearance or influenced by pernicious ideas. A notable illustration of his thought being biassed by preconceived ideas is found in the religious opinions put forward in the early edition of parts I and II of "Modern Painters." And in a preface written in 1871 for a revised edition of his works, the philosopher ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... not experienced the evil of gold thieving from reduction mills can have any idea of the pernicious element it is, and the difficulty, once that it has got 'well hold,' of rooting it out. It permeates every class of society in the district connected with the industry, and managers, amalgamators, assayers, accountants, aye, even ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... received from your Commanding Officer, or having left Minorca exposed to the risk of being attacked, without having any naval force to protect it." To this measured rebuke was added some common-sense counsel upon the pernicious practice of jeopardizing the personnel of a fleet, the peculiar trained force so vitally necessary, and so hard to replace, in petty operations on shore. "Although in operations on the sea-coast, it may frequently be highly expedient ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... reformation is effected. But who will present remonstrances against slavery? The Hon. John Q. Adams was intrusted with fifteen petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; yet clearly as that gentleman sees and defines the pernicious effects of the system, he offered the petitions only to protest against them! Another petition to the same effect, intrusted to another Massachusetts representative, was never noticed at all. "Brutus is an honorable man:—So are they all—all honorable men." ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... haste with this plain, human reform, for the animosity against Jews is on the increase in our country, and if we do not make an attempt to arrest the growth of this blind hatred, it will prove pernicious to our cultural development. We must bear in mind that the Russian people have hitherto seen very little good, and therefore, believe all the evil things that man-haters whisper in their ears. The Russian peasant does ...
— The Shield • Various

... Subject. Every Person needs some Recreation. General Rules. How much Time to be given. What Amusements proper. Those should always be avoided, which cause Pain, or injure the Health, or endanger Life, or interfere with important Duties, or are pernicious in their Tendency. Horse-racing, Circus-riding, Theatres, and Gambling. Dancing, as now conducted, does not conduce to Health of Body or Mind, but the contrary. Dancing in the Open Air beneficial. Social Benefits of Dancing considered. Ease and Grace of ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... without having a waiting-woman at her heels. "I am no Queen, to need such honours," she once said to him; and he had answered that a man who has a treasure does not leave the key in the lock when he goes out. "Then take me with you," she urged; but to this he said that towns were pernicious places, and young wives better off at ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... single instance proves that arbitrary rules of grammar have little to do in the regulation of language. Its barriers are of sand, soon removed. It will not be said that this is an unimportant mistake, for, if an error, it is pernicious, and if a grammarian knows enough to say that a becomes an, he ought to know that he tells a falsehood, and that an becomes a under certain circumstances. Mr. Murray gives the following example to illustrate the use of a. "Give me a book; that is, any book." How ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... trench warfare will remember that in the line by day it was impossible to surmise correctly one item of what was happening a hundred yards away in hostile trenches; certainly one knew well enough when shells were falling, and 'minnies,' rifle-grenades and snipers' bullets argued that a pernicious, almost verminous, form of life was extant not far away: but despite all this, stared a sentry never so vigilantly, through his periscope he could hardly predict whether two, ten, or a hundred of the enemy tribe were hidden below earth almost within a stone's throw. At night ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... their ancient faith were scattered over different parts of the kingdom of Castile, where they had been long resident before the surrender of their capital. The late events seemed to have no other effect than to harden them in error; and the Spanish government saw with alarm the pernicious influence of their example and persuasion, in shaking the infirm faith of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... re-established liberty of bequest in its most pernicious form, granting almost limitless discretionary power to the wealthy, while restricting or denying it to the poor.[166] Fortunately for his reputation in France, the suggestion was rejected; and the law, as finally adopted, fixed the disposable share as one-half of the property, if ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... and a troubled expression appeared on the seaman's face as he listened. He was thinking of the last conversation he had had with the youth, and the hearty way in which he had agreed with him as to the pernicious action of malt and other agreeable liquors on the human frame. He remembered that he had committed himself to the statement that wild horses could not make him drink before six in the evening, and then ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs

... vanguard of an aggressive and victorious host that quickly overran our open, hospitable country, as if to give vent to revenge for long years of persecution at the hands of Europeans. "It is a fact that all our more pernicious weeds, like our vermin, are of Old-World origin," says.John Burroughs. "...Perhaps the most notable thing about them, when compared with our native species, is their persistence, not to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; they plant colonies here and there, and ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... Suffenus, gather all their poison-trash And with such torments pay thee for thy pains. 20 Now for the present hence, adieu! begone Thither, whence came ye, brought by luckless feet, Pests of the Century, ye pernicious Poets. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... Incas - that a parent might feel for his young and impotent offspring. The laws were carefully directed to their preservation and personal comfort. The people were not allowed to be employed on works pernicious to their health, nor to pine - a sad contrast to their subsequent destiny - under the imposition of tasks too heavy for their powers. They were never made the victims of public or private extortion; and a benevolent forecast watched carefully over their necessities, and provided for their relief ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... complain that my last letter reached them in small type, most pernicious to English eyes, and half hidden among the rubbish of your editorial remarks, literary notices, and chit-chat with your million butterfly correspondents. Unless I am better served in future, I shall be compelled to transfer my patronage to the post-office, dangerous ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... their intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people. In their room it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily be suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new and pernicious sect of Galilaeans, which was capable of the most horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galilaeans, two distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had embraced ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... just quitted the observations of my favourite Bolingbroke upon history. I cannot agree with him as to its utility. The more I consider, the more I am convinced that its study has been upon the whole pernicious to mankind. It is by those details, which are always as unfair in their inference as they must evidently be doubtful in their facts, that party animosity and general prejudice are supported and sustained. There is not one abuse—one intolerance—one remnant of ancient barbarity and ignorance ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... let me get a word in edgeways? Our older children, too, he is simply ruining. He teaches them the most pernicious and hurtful doctrines. He told Johnny the other day that Madagascar was an island in the Peruvian Ocean off the coast of Illinois, and that a walrus was a kind of a race horse used by the Caribbees. And our oldest ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... difficult as he felt it to take a prominent part in such a contest, he was the less able to decline their overtures, since other Churchmen were reproaching him with having furthered by his earlier writings the pernicious movement. He chose a subject which would enable him, at any rate, while attacking Luther, to represent his own personal convictions, and to reckon on the concurrence not only of Romish zealots but also of a number of his Humanist friends, and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... them part of our goods to permit us to carry away the rest; and after this troublesome adventure arrived at a place something more commodious than that which we had quitted, where we met with bread, but of so pernicious a quality that, after having ate it, we were intoxicated to so great a degree that one of my friends, seeing me so disordered, congratulated my good fortune of having met with such good wine, and was surprised when I gave him an account of the whole affair. He then offered ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... unspeakably beneficial to mankind, their bodies as well as souls, and souls as well as bodies; the reflection that the essence of mathematical science consists in discovering the absolute properties of forms and proportions, and how pernicious a bewilderment was produced in this 'sublime' science by the wild attempt of the Platonists, especially the later (though Plato himself is far from blameless in this respect,) to explain the 'final' cause of mathematical 'figures' and of numbers, so as to subordinate them to a principle ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... specified period, extending even to the end of his life. Property was often declared to be "corban" for other purposes than dedication to ecclesiastical use. The result of such established though utterly unlawful and pernicious traditions was, as Jesus emphatically stated to the Pharisees and scribes, to make the word of God of none effect, and, He added, "Many such like things ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... ill or well. The Archbishop certainly did not belong to this latter class,—indeed he considered too much thought as mischievous in itself, and when thought appeared likely to break forth into action, he denounced it as pernicious and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... Hence, the study of books makes them worse than they ever were before. But it isn't the books that ruin them; the misfortune is that they make improper use of books! That is why study doesn't come up to ploughing and sowing and trading; as these pursuits exercise no serious pernicious influences. As far, however, as you and I go, we should devote our minds simply to matters connected with needlework and spinning; for we will then be fulfilling our legitimate duties. Yet, it so happens that we too know a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... impossible to chalk out the line of conduct that ought to be followed; and before any plan that should be approved of in Spain could be carried into execution, the situation of the parties, and the circumstances of affairs, might alter so entirely as to render its effects extremely pernicious." ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... Mohammed, after his flight, accommodated his doctrines to the customs and tastes of his countrymen,—blending with the sublime truths he declared subtile and pernicious errors. The Jesuit missionaries did the same thing in China and Japan, thinking more of the number of their converts than of the truth itself. Expediency—the accepted Jesuitical principle of the end justifying the means—is seen in almost everything in this ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... a man have exerted a pernicious influence on many since, is, we fear, undeniable. He had been taught, by the lives of the "wits," to consider aberration, eccentricity, and "devil-may-careism" as prime badges of genius, and he proceeded accordingly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the nature of the circle which makes his world. But we all agree in one thing,—the worldliness of the world. Now, no man's world is so void of affection as ours—the polished, the courtly, the great world: the higher the air, the more pernicious to vegetation. Our very charm, our very fascination, depends upon a certain mockery; a subtle and fine ridicule on all persons and all things constitutes the essence of our conversation. Judge if that tone be friendly to the seriousness of the affections. Some poor dog among ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... free: yet I became more and more unhappy, and my nervous complaints returned. I was not aware that I was taking the very means to increase my own disease. The philosophical Dr. Cullen observes, that "whatever aversion to application of any kind may appear in hypochondriacs, there is nothing more pernicious to them than absolute idleness, or a vacancy from all earnest pursuit. It is owing to wealth admitting of indolence, and leading to the pursuit of transitory and unsatisfying amusements, or exhausting pleasures only, that the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... to give in a brief and condensed form, the most useful and interesting intelligence of passing events,—not omitting a small portion of serious matter, suitable for Sunday reading, but avoiding the disgusting and pernicious details of crime, with which too many of our public journals abound, and which evidently produces a deleterious effect on the morals of the community. With regard to political and sectarian subjects, however, we feel much inclined to change our ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various

... observed the Countess, 'it must indeed be pernicious for any youth to associate with that class of woman. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... desire paled and self died down; in the white light of this love all others faded in smoke, except the love of heaven, of which it was a part. By heaven he meant not only the future state of the soul, but the earth on which he trod, and the only thing likely to become pernicious during the years that followed was his obsession with the one idea and his certainty that he had found the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... truth. We substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which there is no appeal to the dramatis personae, his peers. We have been spoiled with—not sentimental comedy—but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it, the exclusive and all devouring drama of common life; where the moral point is every thing; where, instead of the fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy) we recognise ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... studying her, little knowing what issues—far-reaching, it might be, in their consequences—hung upon the truth or falsehood of his strange theory. They were talking earnestly, and presently it occurred to me that he might be imbuing Margot with his pernicious doctrines, that he might be giving her a knowledge of her own soul which now she lacked. The idea was insupportable. I broke off abruptly the conversation in which I was taking part, and hurried over to them with an impulse which must have astonished anyone ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... an eastern town, where one, Mr. Lyman Beecher, had stirred up against him the foremost divines of New York and Boston. They had asserted that Finney's doctrine, that the Spirit of God could suddenly turn men from following evil to pursuing good, was false and pernicious; that his method stirred up the people to unholy excitements which were productive of great evil. Now the accusations of these divines (who, thinking that a man's change of mind must needs be so slow a thing, some of them, gray-haired, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... again disclose me such a sight As met my gaze, when first I looked, on that accursed night! I've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams - Hyenas—cats—blood-loving bats—and apes with hateful stare - Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls—the lion, and she-bear - Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite - Detested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light! Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs - All phantasies and images that flit in midnight ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... appearance of Christ this help became accessible to all men. The dominion of demons and revelation are the two correlated ideas. If the former did not exist, the latter would not be necessary. According as we form a lower or higher estimate of the pernicious results of that sovereignty, the value of revelation rises or sinks. This revelation cannot do less than give the necessary assurance of the truth, and it cannot do more than impart the power that develops and matures the inalienable ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... however humiliating and pernicious they are in their effects, are not open to the tribes living in a district almost exclusively occupied by the sheep or cattle of the settler, and where the very numbers of the stock only more completely drive away the original ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre



Words linked to "Pernicious" :   harmful, noxious



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