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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



... wrong—very much that is wasteful, extravagant, absurd and pernicious, but it is not all base, and the visitor is apt to err in his conclusions, especially if he be of an ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... broad, and about two feet from the ground. This experiment should be performed in dry weather, and the ring must be renewed: as soon as the ants arrive at it, not one of them will attempt to cross over.—Ant hills are very injurious in dry pastures, not only by wasting the soil, but yielding a pernicious kind of grass, and impeding the operation of the scythe. The turf of the ant hill should be pared off, the core taken out and scattered at a distance; and when the turf is laid down again, the place should be left lower than the ground around it, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... better illustrate how pernicious it is to science to have admitted a false principle, on which a chain of reasoning is to proceed in forming a theory. Mineral philosophers have founded their theory upon that deceitful analogy, which they had ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... After the "pernicious activity" of our newspaper work had "put the shutters up" against us in Calhoun Place, we transferred our midnight custom to the Boston Oyster House, on the corner of Clark and Madison streets, which Field selected because of the suggestion of baked beans, brown bread, and codfish in its name. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... support his feudal chief, first and foremost, from all attacks of his enemies. The Duke of Brittany had submitted to his liege. If the Duke of Burgundy would only accept terms equally satisfactory in their way, the pernicious alliance between the two would vanish, to the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... legislation, and was taught that part of valor which, basing itself on greed and cunning and fear, is called discretion, and consists in first running from an enemy and then hiding from pursuit. Altogether, those eight years might have been less pernicious in their influence had Patrick Henry Hanway passed them with the chain gang, and he emerged therefrom, to cast his first vote, treacherous and plausible and boneless and false—as voracious as a pike and ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... defence, I now enter the lists against Falsehood, Ignorance, and Envy! But I am exasperated at length, to drag out this CACUS from the den of obscurity, where he lurketh, to detect him by the light of those stars he hath so impudently traduced, and to shew there is not a Monster in the skies so pernicious and malevolent to mankind as an ignorant ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... Make but the same experiment in the Woollen Manufactory, and its fatal effects upon the poor will soon be felt; for as you cannot increase the quantity of Animal Wool now being brought into the Market, any Invention that has a tendency to diminish Manual Labour is, and must be, pernicious." ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... and fraudulent practice of interested persons. Bread, which is considered to be the staff of life, and beer and ale the universal beverage of the people of this country, are known to be frequently mixed with drugs of the most pernicious quality. Gin, that favourite and heart-inspiring cordial of the lower orders of society, that it may have the grip, or the appearance of being particularly strong, is frequently adulterated with the decoction ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... with Mr. Greenwood. It seemed to him that Fortune, Fate, Providence, or what not, had only done its duty. He believed that he had in truth foreseen and foretold the death of the pernicious young man. But would the young man's death be now of any service to him? Was it not too late? Had they not all quarrelled with him? ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... and we had been at sword points a year ago but for Lord Aberdeen's cowardly, pernicious love of peace. But he is always whining about 'war destroying wealth and commerce'—as if wealth and commerce were of greater worth than national honour and justice ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the year 1656 several of the people called Quakers—led, as they professed, by the inward movement of the spirit—made their appearance in New England. Their reputation as holders of mystic and pernicious principles having spread before them, the Puritans early endeavored to banish and to prevent the further intrusion of the rising sect. But the measures by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy, though more than sufficiently vigorous, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... camp, mosquito bars must be used by men when asleep, and headnets by men on guard and other duty. Also, if in a malarial country, about five grains of quinine should be taken daily, preferably just before supper. In localities where a pernicious form of malaria prevails, daily doses of ten grains of ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... Lord Athol, which, I must affirm, I never saw equaled. I dissent from you in all that you have said—and I confess I did fear the blandishing arguments of the faithless Cospatrick had persuaded you to embrace his pernicious treason. You deny it—that is well. Prove your innocence at this juncture in the field against Scotland's enemies; and John of Badenoch will then see no impending cloud to darken the honor of the name ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Like as it may be that he hath two things that hold him in his temptation; that is, some evil humours of his own body, and the cursed devil that abuseth them to his pernicious purpose, so must he needs against them twain the counsel of two manner of folk; that is, physicians for the body and physicians for the soul. The bodily physician shall consider what abundance of these evil humours the man hath, that the devil maketh his ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... The files of war by Xanthus' gory bed? Or Tuscan Tyber's more illustrious band, Whose conquering eagles flew o'er sea and land? What is renown?—a gleam of transient light, That soon an envious cloud involves in night, While passing Time's malignant hands diffuse On many a noble name pernicious dews. Thus our terrestrial glories fade away, Our triumphs pass the pageants of a day; Our fields exchange their lords, our kingdoms fall, And thrones are wrapt in Hades' funeral pall Yet virtue seldom gains what ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... improvement of the conditions of toil and life among men and women who labor under hard surroundings, and were positively hostile to movements which curbed the power of the great corporation magnates and directed into useful instead of pernicious channels the activities of the great ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Church, and the Russian Chronicles, as well as with 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 holy ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... and at last the heads of a bill were presented by Mr. Le Hunte, the Chairman, which were ordered to be sent to England. Nothing, as far as I can discover, resulted from this proceeding, unless indeed it was a bill passed in 1743 "to prevent the pernicious practice of burning land," which is probable enough, as the heads of this bill were presented to the House by the same Mr. Le Hunte. During the time this Committee was sitting and reporting, and sitting again, Mr. Thos. Cuffe, seconded by Mr. George M'Cartney, presented the heads ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... the breach of solemn public treaties, the merciless pillage and total subversion of the first houses in Asia. But the crimes which are the most striking to the imagination are not always the most pernicious in their effects: in these high, eminent acts of domineering tyranny, their very magnitude proves a sort of corrective to their virulence. The occasions on which they can be exercised are rare; the persons upon whom they can be exercised few; the persons who can exercise them, in the nature ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... monocule he always wore, and then he went over me with a reading-glass, and then he went over me with a microscope, but he couldn't see a speck of tramp disguise on me. Not a speck. 'Keep lookin'!' I says. 'It must be there somewhere, Dook,' I says, 'or I wouldn't act so pernicious.' So he begun again, and all at once I hear him chuckle. He was lookin' in my ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... them a new life. They see that American women generally dress extravagantly; that even their own countrywomen whom they meet on their arrival here are expensively attired; and the power of these pernicious examples is such, that, when aided by that natural fondness for personal decoration which I freely confess to be inherent in my sex, they begin their new career by imitating them. At home, public example taught them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... that a similar struggle would be made by the same classes in the United States whenever an attempt was made to modify or abolish the same unjust system here. The protective policy had been in operation in the United States for a much shorter period, and its pernicious effects were not, therefore, so clearly perceived and felt. Enough, however, was known of these ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... spirit of the crown was so strong that it crushed every healthy, expansive tendency in the new countries. It burdened the colonies with a numerous, privileged nobility, who congregated mostly in the larger towns and set to the rest of the colonists a pernicious example of idleness and luxury. In its zeal for the propagation of the Faith, the Crown constituted a powerfully endowed Church, which, while it did splendid service in converting and civilizing the natives, engrossed much of the land in the form of mainmort, and filled the new world ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... great prince, I had a wanton eye, Would you adde Syrius to the sommer sunne? And whurle hote flaming fire where tow doth lie By which combustion all might be vndone? For loke how mightier greater Kings do run Amisse, the fault is more pernicious, And opens more to shame and obloquy, Then what we erre in, ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... must insist—on your keeping them to yourself whilst under this roof.—Amelia, my dear" (to my cousin, who was gliding quietly into the room)—"Amelia, go back to your music for ten minutes.—I must insist, Miss Coventry, that you do not inoculate my daughter with these pernicious doctrines—this mistaken view of the whole duties and essentials of your sex. Do you think men appreciate a woman who, if she had but a beard, would be exactly like one of themselves? Do you think they like to see their ideal hot and dishevelled, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

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

... and by its own spirit. Midsummer eve of 1850 could clearly make no spiritual change in the king or his people—such they would be on the morning after St. John's day, as on the morning before it—i. e., filled with all elements (though possibly undeveloped) of strife, feud, pernicious ambition, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... against him, that he did, with the variety and power of his discourses and disputatious, withdraw young men from due reverence to the laws and customs of their country, and that he did profess a dangerous and pernicious science, which was to make the worse matter seem the better, and to suppress truth by force ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... United States can not enter the capitol of the nation from any direction without passing depleted and agriculturally abandoned lands. Is it not in order to ask the Congress or the president of the United States how long the American farmer is to be burdened with these pernicious, disproved and condemnable doctrines poured forth and spread abroad by the ...
— The Farm That Won't Wear Out • Cyril G. Hopkins

... aggravated cases of morning sickness are termed pernicious vomiting. The patient emaciates because of the lack of ability to keep food long enough to receive ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... may be their politeness, address, learning, ingenuity, and in other respects integrity and humanity, you have done yourselves honour, and your country service, by publishing and pointing out that avarice and ambition.—These views are so much the more dangerous and pernicious, for the virtues with which they may be accompanied in the same character, and with so much the more watchful ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... those bad influences that are often so fatal at the inception of life, even to the healthiest babes, preserved from an excess or insufficiency of food, sheltered from cold and dampness, protected against clumsy handling and against pernicious microbes, sickly or prematurely born babies soon acquire enough strength in the apparatus to be able, finally, like others, to face the various perils that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... resort." These ladies, however, it may be noted, met with a very unfavourable reception. Prynne's denunciation of them was a matter of course. He had undertaken to show that stage-plays of whatever kind were most "pernicious corruptions," and that the profession of "play-poets" and stage-players, together with the penning, acting, and frequenting of stage-plays, was unlawful, infamous, and misbecoming Christians. He speaks of the "women-actors" as "monsters," ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... the true standard of a proud monarchy, it was more than probable that they might see fit to attempt the "reformation" and re-organization of the Central and South American Colonies, which were following the "pernicious example of the United States," and declaring themselves "free and independent," it being an historical fact, that as soon as the Spanish King was completely reestablished he invited the co-operation of his allies in regard to his provinces in South America, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... uttered in set speeches shall be addressed to the meanest capacity present As a chain can be no stronger than its weakest link, so nothing said by the speakers at a political convention must be above the intellectual reach of the most pernicious idiot having a seat and a vote. I don't know why it is so. It seems to be thought that if he is not suitably entertained he will not attend, as a ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... study has afforded us several new antipyretics and many interesting facts. It has been found, for example, that artificial quinine-like bodies, which fluoresce and give the green color with chlorine water and ammonia, have antipyretic properties like quinine, but their secondary effects are so pernicious as to prevent their use. If, however, such bodies are hydrogenized or methylated they lose their fluorescing property, do not give the green color, and their secondary effects are removed. Knowledge of these facts led to the discovery ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... Mr. Snape again appeared in the passage, going towards Mr. Oldeschole's room. The pernicious old man! He hated Charley Tudor; and, to tell the truth, there was no love lost between them. Charley, afflicted and out of spirits as he was at the moment, could not resist the opportunity of being impertinent to his old foe: 'I'm afraid you'll make yourself very tired, Mr. Snape, if you walk ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... the divorce law, has heaped ignominy on the State of Nevada. A few unscrupulous members of the legal fraternity, little better than outcasts at home, have come to Reno and besmirched the good name of a great State by their activity in converting into pernicious channels a law originally intended to give relief to mismated couples who could not travel the matrimonial highway in peace ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... He had pernicious habits of labor. He never rose until three o'clock in the afternoon, and never began to write until after the lamp was lighted. He wrote until daybreak. If sleep came, if inspiration lagged, he would resort to coffee, and drink it in enormous quantities. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... influence of Musquito enlarged, it became more pernicious. He not only misled his immediate followers, but propagated his spirit. Deeds of great enormity were committed at his direction; several by his own hand. He drew a man from his house at Pittwater, by the cooey, and then speared him to death. A servant of Mr. Cassidy, and another of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... Books is a pernicious thing. I was like to have run mad once, reading Sir John Mandevil;—but to the business,—I went, as you know, to Don Cinthio's Lodgings, where I found him with his dear Friend Charmante, laying their ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... when it excludes greater pain. It must, therefore, not be inflicted when it is 'groundless,' 'inefficacious,' 'unprofitable,' or 'needless.' 'Needless' includes all the cases in which the end may be attained 'as effectually at a cheaper rate.'[408] This applies to all 'dissemination of pernicious principles'; for in this case reason and not force is the appropriate remedy. The sword inflicts more pain, and is less efficient than the pen. The argument raises the wider question, What are the true limits of legislative interference? Bentham, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... in all ages, have never better pleased themselves or satisfied their readers than when they have descanted upon, deplored, and denounced the pernicious influence of money upon the heart and the understanding. "Filthy lucre"—"so much trash as may be grasped thus"—"yellow mischief," I know not, or choose not, to recount how many justly injurious names have been applied to coin by those who knew, because they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... powers and privileges of the warrior caste. And whereas it had been the habit to lavish circles and bars of silver and other metals upon all those who had joined in the war, whether they had sat behind a heap of sand or had been foremost to attack the foe, he broke through the pernicious custom, and he rendered the honour valuable by conferring it only upon the deserving. I need hardly say that, in an inordinately short space of time, his army beat every king and ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... find its end in tyranny, and the confusion of the whole State proved Euripides to have been truly wise and thoroughly acquainted with the causes of disorders in the body politic, when he forewarned all men to beware of Ambition, as of all the higher Powers, the most destructive and pernicious to her votaries. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... Meissonier and worked occasionally with Gerome. His rococo pictures, his Oriental work set Paris ablaze. He married the daughter of the Spanish painter Federigo Madrazo, and visited at Madrid, Granada, Seville, Rome, and, in 1874, London. He contracted a pernicious fever at Rome and died there, November 21, 1874, at the age of thirty-six. His funeral was imposing, many celebrities of the world of art participating. He was buried in ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... nearly so charming as ours—or as ours would be if this modern pestilence were eradicated. Think what a confession you make when you say that women are less and less sought in marriage; what a testimony that is to the pernicious effect on their manners, their person, their nature, of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... that "he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges on the subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to be well acquainted with the principles on which they were established, but had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain in their produce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had been advised by three judges, his most intimate friends, never to venture his money in the funds, but to put it out upon land security, till he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... Universities, dependent largely on the bounty of wealthy capitalist founders and supporters, and assisted by, or in close touch with, town councils and local industries, have been much less willing to sanction political free-thought amongst their undergraduates, and the pernicious influence of wealth, or rather the fear of alarming the wealthy, has at times induced the authorities to interfere with the freedom of the undergraduates to combine for the ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... politics when they shall come to vote. They have come to write, and with the effect to increase the amount of little-digging, which rather superabounded in our literary criticism before. They "know what they like"—that pernicious maxim of those who do not know what they ought to like and they pass readily from censuring an author's performance to censuring him. They bring a stock of lively misapprehensions and prejudices to their work; they would rather have heard about than known about ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... fare 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 well-nigh criminal. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... from the religious, two very different opinions have been held concerning it. One, probably the earlier, was, that it was a book with a good purpose, and fit to stand side by side with Vicar Pritchard's Canwyll y Cymry and Llyfr yr Homiliau; the other, that it was a pernicious book, "llyfr codi cythreuliaid"—a devil-raising book. A work which in any shape or form bore even a distant relationship to fiction, instantly fell under the ban of the Puritanism of former days. ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... called light reading, it is hardly necessary for me to say anything on the subject. I cannot see how a Christian, who has had a taste of "angel's food" can relish the miserable trash contained in novels. The tendency of novel reading is most pernicious. It enervates the mental powers, and unfits them for close study and serious contemplation. It dissipates the mind, and creates a diseased imagination. It promotes a sickly sensibility, and renders its votaries unfit for the pursuits of ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... completely put me without the pale of society. I now said my lessons to the ushers with indifference—if I acquitted myself ill, I was unpunished—if well, unnoticed. My spirits began to give way fast, and I was beginning to feel the pernicious patronage of the servants. They would call me off the play-ground, on which I moped, send me on some message, or employ me in some light service. All this was winked at by the master, and as for the mistress, she never let me know that it occurred to her that I was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... Miss Mott would come to her room and expound to her most beautifully the doctrine of Unitarianism, and then Mrs. Worthington would come and pray with her long and earnestly to counteract the pernicious effect of Miss Mott's heresies. While she was accustomed to the liberal theology of the Hicksite Quakers, this was the first time she ever had heard the more scholarly interpretation ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one will deny. That is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the confiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book is a deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent upon every page. Having placed our judgment thus upon record, let us close ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... 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 ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... extent, in the native market, the fabrics produced in their leisure hours, and at intervals of rest from agricultural labour, by this industrious, frugal, and sober population. It is a pleasing but pernicious fallacy to imagine, that the influence of an intriguing mandarin is to be presumed whenever a buyer shows a preference ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... verified. The pernicious doctrines which we have announced as prevailing in American society have been again illustrated. The name of the city is becoming a reproach. We may have done something in averting its ruin in our resolute exposure of the Great Frauds; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... drudgery, and infected with a fierce thirst both for fame and pleasure, had flung himself upon the literary arena. Although far inferior to Churchill in genius, and indeed little better than a clever copyist of his manner, he exerted a very pernicious influence on his friend's conduct. He borrowed inspiration from Churchill, and gave him infamy in exchange. The poet could do nothing by halves. Along with Lloyd, he rushed into a wild career of dissipation. He became a nightly frequenter of the theatres, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... competition, a competition which enlarges the heart and the mind, a noble and generous competition,—it is emulation; and why should not this emulation have for its object the advantage of all? There is another competition, pernicious, immoral, unsocial, a jealous competition which hates and which ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... again). "Make some allowance for inexperience and want of judgment"—"a pernicious influence which, very possibly, has extended even to matters which for the present we will refrain from publicly discussing or condemning." (Looks at her.) ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen

... savagery in his eye. Should he curse this mountain of pernicious humor—curse him and die? Why ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... persons, whose sense of taste has been impaired or perverted, have formed the disgusting and ruinous habits of smoking and chewing tobacco, and of using stimulating and intoxicating drinks. But these pernicious habits, and all similar indulgences, lessen the sensibility of the gustatory nerve, and ultimately destroy the natural relish for healthful food and drink. By this means, also, the digestive powers become disordered, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... nearly always engaged in hunting the wild animals of the region they inhabit, for the sake of their furs, which they dispose of to the agents of the Hudson Bay Company and other traders, in exchange for blankets, firearms, hatchets, and numerous other articles, as well as too often for the pernicious fire-water, to obtain even small quantities of which they will frequently dispose of the skins which it has cost them many weeks to obtain with much hardship and danger. These Wood Indians are peaceably-disposed, and can always escape the attacks ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... their defence. And this essential defect rendered the nation semi-dependent on its neighbour and adversary and powerless to pursue a policy of its own. For half a century this dangerous flaw in the national edifice and its pernicious effects on Italy's international relations had been patiently borne with, but Baron Sonnino considered that the time for repairing it and strengthening the groundwork of peace had come. And as he had not the faintest doubt that technically as well as essentially ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... put his hand in his pocket, and gave the beggar half-a-guinea, by which a young, strong man, who had only just commenced the trade, was confirmed in his imposition for the rest of his life; and instead of the useful support, became the pernicious incumbrance of society. Sir Christopher had now recovered his spirits. 'What's like a good action?' said he to Clarence, with a swelling breast. The park was crowded to excess; our loungers were joined by Lord St. George. His lordship ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various

... would be far advanced before they could be roused to any exertion in searching for animals beyond what might be necessary for their own support. It is much to be regretted that these poor men, during their long intercourse with Europeans, have not been taught how pernicious is the grief which produces total inactivity, and that they have not been furnished with any of the consolations which the Christian religion never fails to afford. This however could hardly have been expected from persons ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... circumstances, and in the meanwhile to work up, with untiring devotion and energy, not only to this practical autonomy and Sectional Independence within the Union, but also to a practical re-enslavement of the Blacks, and to the vigorous reassertion and triumph, by the aid of British gold, of those pernicious doctrines of Free-Trade which, while beneficial to the Cotton-lords of the South, would again check and drag down the robust expansion of manufactures and commerce in all other parts of the Land, and destroy the glorious prosperity of farmers, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... that country, which, in my opinion, is much superior to that inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as it permits of even more rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate the employment of the pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly, I have scarcely spoken of the domestic and family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are exceedingly quaint, or of their proficiency in the art of smelting and welding ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... things so different as Popery and Infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be always something future."[100] One of the most pernicious tenets of the Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves: "Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows the development of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... of a certain temperature would be the reason why birds are exempt. The microbes are the agents of infectious disease; when these swarm in the blood of an individual they seem to leave there something pernicious for parasites resembling themselves, or to bring away with them something necessary to the life of their successors. A glass of sugar and water, where leaven has already fermented and yielded alcohol, is incapable of producing a second crop of leaven; similarly the blood of an individual, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... ancient Indian burial-places, called The Monks' Mound; in memory of a body of fanatics of the order of La Trappe, who founded a desolate convent there, many years ago, when there were no settlers within a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the pernicious climate: in which lamentable fatality, few rational people will suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... 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

... their religion demands that they should wear garments manufactured in India only and eat food only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food. Lord Curzon set the fashion for tea-drinking. And that pernicious drug now bids fair to overwhelm the nation. It has already undermined the digestive apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men and women and constitutes an additional tax upon their slender purses. Lord Hardinge can set the fashion for Swadeshi, and almost the whole of India forswear foreign goods. ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... Though they thus humbly addressed him, his friends advised him not to pardon these turbulent and ill-conditioned men, but to yield them to the desires of his soldiers, and utterly root out of the commonwealth the ambitious affectation of popularity, a disease as pestilent and pernicious as the passion for tyranny itself. Dion endeavored to satisfy them, telling them that other generals exercised and trained themselves for the most part in the practices of war and arms; but that he had long studied in the Academy how to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... of congress shall not take effect until the President of the government orders their fulfillment and execution. Whenever the said President shall be of the opinion that any act is unsuitable or against public policy, or pernicious, he shall explain to congress the reasons against its execution, and if the latter shall insist on its passage the President shall have power to oppose his veto under his most ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... person possessing the active, persevering spirit requisite to conduct the detail of engagements for a number of small farms, it became convenient to receive a large sum from a great farmer without trouble or deficiency. This system was followed by the most pernicious consequences; these men were above all control, they exacted their own terms, and the districts they farmed were most cruelly oppressed. The revenue of Rohilcund is reduced above a third, and Almas Ali Khan's administration is well known to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... pernicious in cases depending upon the feelings of the heart, I should almost fear that, without very uncommon exertions, you will scarcely be prepared early in the next sessions, for bringing the business into parliament with the greatest advantage. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... thou pernicious Petticoat Prince, are these your vertues? Well, if I do not lay a train to blow your sport up, I am no woman; and Lady ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... from his pernicious interview with Paula and the rest, had descried Captain De Stancy in the public drawing-room, and entered to him forthwith. It was while they were here together that Somerset passed the door and sent up ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... afternoon we took a southerly direction. M. Richefort, then beaming with exultation for having, as he said, saved the Medusa from certain shipwreck, continued to give his pernicious counsels to the captain, persuading him he had been often employed to explore the shores of Africa, and that he was perfectly well acquainted with the Arguin Bank. The journals of the 29th and ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... to be remembered, that, while this dominant conception of Nature as introduced by Rousseau and others into politics was most mischievous and destructive, its place and worth in poetry are very different; because here in the region of the imagination it had the effect, without any pernicious practical consequences, of giving shape and proportion to that great idea of ensemble throughout the visible universe, which may be called the beginning and fountain of right knowledge. The conception of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... storekeepers who can undersell those of other cities; and professional men who know their business. We do not want desperadoes and 'bad men' and faro-dealers and men who are quick on the trigger. A foolish and morbid publicity has cloaked men of this class with a notoriety which cheap and pernicious literature has greatly helped to disseminate. They have been made romantic when they were brutal, brave when they were foolhardy, heroes when they were only bullies and blackguards. This man, Abe Barrow, the prisoner at the bar, belongs to that class. He enjoys and has enjoyed a reputation ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... by transmitted light, is dry in the season of great heat, and the Indians themselves are unable to resist the miasmata rising from the mud. The complete absence of wind contributes to render the climate of this country more pernicious. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... entitled without "let or hindrance" to the equal benefits of all advantages they might confer.[1] Any action, therefore, which tended to restrict to any individual or class the advantages and benefits designed for all, was an illegal use of authority, and an arbitrary act used for pernicious purposes.[2] Their republican system, the minority believed, conferred civil equality and legal rights upon every citizen, knew neither privileged nor degraded classes, made no distinctions, and created no differences between ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... sold by the Government or admitted into Eurasia, as it was recognized by all intelligent people who took a warm interest in human progress that the use of tobacco in the form of cigarettes had an injurious effect on the young, through the pernicious habit of inhaling the smoke. Coffee and tea were put up in three grades at one dollar a package, the packages weighing in proportion to grade, and sugar was made and sold in two grades, viz., common sugar and refined. The common was put up in twenty-five-pound ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... one of the most powerful Kings of the Indies has been in his family above a thousand years. Judge then, my lord, what a collection of admirable precepts he must have upon all parts of government, and yet a Prince, blinded by the pernicious counsels of his favourites, has deposed him, and he passes his days at Balk—days which might be happy if he had not lived in the habit of labour and a hurry of great affairs, which seldom leave the mind at liberty to be satisfied ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... Unfortunately for Ben, his father had a stern, unforgiving disposition, that never made allowances for the impulses of boyhood. He had never condescended to study his own son, and the method of training he had adopted with him was in some respects very pernicious. His system hardened, instead of softening, and prejudiced Ben against what was right, maddening him with a sense of injustice, and so preventing his being influenced towards good. Of course, all this did not justify Ben in running away from home. The thought of his mother ought to ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... the tribes within the limits of the States and Territories has been most rapid. If they be removed, they can be protected from those associations and evil practices which exert so pernicious and destructive an influence over their destinies. They can be induced to labor and to acquire property, and its acquisition will inspire them with a feeling of independence. Their minds can be cultivated, and they can be taught the value of salutary and uniform laws and be made ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... description to protect them, every where occasioned. To be sure, the colonists will have derived this very material advantage from the great quantity of cleared land, now lying waste; that whenever the pernicious policy, which has paralysed their energies, and blasted the general prosperity, shall be relinquished, and a judicious system of encouragement substituted in its stead, they will instantly be prepared to profit by the capabilities which the wisdom and justice of the parent government ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... ordinary vigour of character, will generally insure perseverance; a quality not ranked among the cardinal virtues, but as essential as any of them to the proper conduct of life. Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness: with men of quick minds, to whom it is especially pernicious, this habit is commonly the fruit of many disappointments and schemes oft baffled; and men fail in their schemes not so much from the want of strength as from the ill-direction of it. The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... ungracious. But, on the whole, I thought the precedent good. Playfair tells me he tried to get it done in the case of Faraday and Babbage thirty years ago, and the thing broke down. Moreover a wicked sense of the comedy of advancing such a pernicious ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... one of the pernicious results of an over-developed system of athletics. The more games that people play, the better; but I do not think it is wholesome to talk about them for large spaces of leisure time, any more than it is wholesome to talk about your work or your meals. The result of all the talk about athletics is ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... is an ill-natured nation intermixed with all mankind, that is averse to our laws, and not subject to kings, and of a different conduct of life from others, that hateth monarchy, and of a disposition that is pernicious to our affairs, I give order that all these men, of whom Haman our second father hath informed us, be destroyed, with their wives and children, and that none of them be spared, and that none prefer pity to them before obedience to this decree. And this I will to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... the apothecary avoided him, and would have passed forth quickly, he sternly and authoritatively commanded him to stay, exclaiming, "You stir not hence, till you have accounted to me for my daughter, who, I understand, is dying from your pernicious treatment. What ho, there! Keep strict watch without; and suffer not this man to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... in all forms. The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. It was designed as a control for the people. Other institutions have been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses; and they are, I apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made so. The House of Commons, as it was never intended ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... an amalgamation. The condition of the Indians on the borders of civilization in the United States and in Canada, in their contact with the Anglo-Saxons as well as with the French, testifies equally to the pernicious influence of amalgamation of races. The experience of the Old World points in the same direction at the Cape of Good Hope, in Australia; everywhere, in fact, history speaks as loudly in favor of the mixture of clearly ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... and most illustrate King Cophetua, set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon. And it was he that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomise in the vulgar, (O base and obscure vulgar!) Videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame... Who came? the king. Why did he come? to see. Why did he see? to overcome. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... sterling could be obtained, the high 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

... same—viz: to gain wealth, so that they may obtain a high standing and influence in society. Thousands thus driven into crime, are detected, lose their reputation, and abandon themselves to intemperance. Their evil example has a pernicious influence on the morals of those children and youth, who may, by various circumstances, be placed in their society, and thus the pestilence, in all its frightful horrors, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... order that the individuals charged with such a grand mission should be competent effectually to fulfil it, it was necessary that they should themselves have been always free from the pernicious influence of the errors and corruption, which had already spread almost throughout the world; it was necessary that their minds should have remained unpolluted by the notions of the extravagant and degrading idolatries, which were in practice among almost all the ancient nations; and ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... 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 ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... darling, far From noise and tumults, and destructive war, Committed to the faithless tyrant's care; Who, when he saw the pow'r of Troy decline, Forsook the weaker, with the strong to join; Broke ev'ry bond of nature and of truth, And murder'd, for his wealth, the royal youth. O sacred hunger of pernicious gold! What bands of faith can impious lucre hold? Now, when my soul had shaken off her fears, I call my father and the Trojan peers; Relate the prodigies of Heav'n, require What he commands, and their advice desire. All ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... ill-starred love, insomuch that I have desired of all things that they might have an end. Wherefore, now that, thank God, ended they are, unless indeed I were minded, which God forbid, to add to such pernicious stuff a supplement of the like evil quality, no such dolorous theme do I purpose to ensue, but to make a fresh start with somewhat of a better and more cheerful sort, which perchance may serve to suggest ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... stalks, without chewing it previously to its infusion. They also use the leaves of the plant here, which are bruised, and water poured upon them, as upon the root. Large companies do not assemble to drink it in that sociable way which is practised at Tongataboo. But its pernicious effects are more obvious here; perhaps owing to the manner of preparing it, as we often saw instances of its intoxicating, or rather stupifying powers. Some of us, who had been at these islands before, were surprised to find many people, who, when we saw them last, were remarkable for their size ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... represented. This constitutional difficulty was increased by the secrecy in which parliament shrouded its proceedings. Once useful as a means of securing freedom of debate, this secrecy was maintained as a matter of privilege after it had become useless and, indeed, pernicious. It was carried to an extreme point by the present parliament, the "unreported parliament" as it was called. Strangers were constantly made to withdraw from both houses, specially when a popular member of the opposition rose to speak. This caused a silly quarrel between the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... as they are pernicious, and corrupt youth; so, if they had no other fault, yet they are justly to be declined in respect to their excessive expense of time, and habituating men to idleness and vain thoughts, and disturbing passions, when they are past, as ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... fitted for the highest undertakings of historical painting was limited to the sphere of portraiture. The crowning impediments finally, which hindered the progress of German art, and perverted it from its true aim, were the Reformation, which narrowed the sphere of ecclesiastical works, and the pernicious imitation of the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... schooled the generation, nurtured by their side, into a strong conception of freedom, and the right to be justly dealt with, at the hands of those with whom it is connected by the double alliance of kindred predilection. A pernicious, temporizing policy has of late caused such wounds as may not be healed up very easily, we fear. The upright colonist has seen an unprincipled faction permitted to ride triumphant over those whose intentions are honest, and whose loyalty is proven. Let us hope, that ere long something of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... represented their inability to prevent the ravages made by the savages on the back settlements, and by unanimous vote entreated the lieutenant governor "to use the most pressing instances with Colonel Montgomery not to depart with the king's troops, as it might be attended with the most pernicious consequences." Montgomery, warned that he was but giving the Cherokees room to boast among the other tribes, of their having obliged the English army to retreat, not only from the mountains, but also from the province, shunned the path of duty, and leaving four companies ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... capitals and Indians, one superintending the labors of the field, and the other the search for gold. The only injunction of Bobadilla was, to produce large quantities of ore. He had one saying continually in his mouth, which shows the pernicious and temporizing principle upon which he acted: "Make the most of your time," he would say, "there is no knowing how long it will last," alluding to the possibility of his being speedily recalled. The colonists ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... 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 ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... befal a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... physician who had received several wounds in separating the flesh, continued his operations, having only touched the injured parts with caustic. A drunken invalid having also wounded himself, had an abscess, which doubtless showed the pernicious action of the dead flesh, but the cholera morbus did not attack him. In fine, foreign Savans, such as Moreau de Jonnes and Gravier, who have recognized, in various relations, the contagious nature of the cholera morbus, do not admit its propagation by means of goods and merchandise." (Parl. ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... 1840. Originally from Paris. Copied the old masters with average ability, but unfortunately adopted the pernicious practice of preparing the wood, making his instruments prematurely old without the qualities ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... pronounced on him by his contemporaries; but posterity will be more just. The wild theories and fanciful opinions of Shelley, on subjects too sacred to be approached lightly, carry with them their own condemnation; and so preclude the evil which pernicious doctrines, more logically reasoned, might produce on weak minds. His theories are vague, dreamy, always erroneous, and often absurd: but the imagination of the poet, and the tenderness of heart of the man, plead for pardon for the false doctrines of the would-be philosopher; ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... out, nor the spread of new ideas been associated with Anarchism under the name of Anabaptism. Persecution, which fifteen years later More advocated and practised as the unavoidable remedy for the spread of doctrines which he had come to regard as actively pernicious, was alien to his instincts; in his ideal Commonwealth, men might expound whatever they honestly held, provided they did not deny God and the Future Life. More's nature was tolerant and charitable. But his own convictions were thoroughly orthodox; ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... taxation in both private and public schools, the want of proper ventilation in both families and schools, the want of domestic exercise which is so valuable to the feminine constitution, the pernicious modes of dress, and the prevailing neglect of the laws of health, resulted in the general decay of health among women. At the same time, the overworking of the brain and nerves, and the "cramming" system ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the loss of this essential pin would loosen the whole frame; but it had been hard, if both his life and death were to be pernicious to the Administration. He had engaged to betray the latter to the former, as I knew early, and as Lord Mansfield has since declared. I therefore could not think the loss of him a misfortune. His seals were immediately ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... any public office, magistrate, or officer in the so-called voluntary militia. It was ordered that throughout Spain a solemn service should be celebrated in expiation of the insults offered to the Holy Sacrament; that missions should be sent over the land to combat the pernicious and heretical doctrines associated with the late outbreak, and that the bishops should relegate to monasteries of the strictest observance the priests who had acted as the agents of an impious faction. [341] Thus the war of revenge was openly declared against the defeated ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe



Words linked to "Pernicious" :   noxious, harmful



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