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Subservient   /səbsˈərviənt/   Listen
Subservient

adjective
1.
Compliant and obedient to authority.
2.
Serving or acting as a means or aid.  Synonyms: implemental, instrumental.
3.
Abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant.  Synonyms: slavish, submissive.  "A slavish yes-man to the party bosses" , "She has become submissive and subservient"



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"Subservient" Quotes from Famous Books



... pretty generally adopted by scientific men, and does not seem liable to any valid objection. The astonishment it may excite, is quite analogous to what is experienced on any discovery of the important ends to which the instinctive labours of other creatures are subservient, and is great, merely because of the conceived magnitude of the object to which it relates. But this affords no presumption against the truth of the theory; rather indeed, if the doctrine of final causes be allowed any credit, may be held, as in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... or torpedo, for instance, has been provided with a battery which, while it closely resembles, yet in the beauty and compactness of its structure, it greatly exceeds the batteries by which man has now learned to make the laws of electricity subservient to his will. In this battery there are no less than 940 hexagonal columns, like those of a bee's comb, and each of these is subdivided by a series of horizontal plates, which appear to be analogous to the plates of the batteries used in automobiles. The whole is supplied with an enormous amount ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... hunger. But again—for this pleasing panorama is not yet closed, the happy Catholics, who must have danced with delight, under the privileges of such a Constitution, were deprived of the right to occupy and possess all civil offices—their enterprise was crushed—their industry made subservient to the rapacity of their enemies, and not to their own prosperity. But this is far from being all. The sources of knowledge—of knowledge which only can enlighten and civilize the mind, prevent crime, and promote the progress of human society—these sources ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Mallin on his crutches, keeping in the vicinity of the shrubbery that screened the stable from the house. How Marta longed to talk with him! But he was always attended by a soldier, and under the rigorous discipline that held all her impulses subservient to her purpose she passed by him without a word lest she ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... for Hutchins at once. She was always respectful, but never subservient. She stood in the doorway while ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... brother, husband, father, master, friend, he moves with firm yet light steps, alike unostentatious and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure religion and of liberty, of national independence and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... name ranks with the names of the first painters of any time or country, though his work as a painter was, as in the case of William Hogarth, subservient to his work as an engraver. With the knowledge of a later generation to that of the earliest Italian and Flemish painters, Albrecht Duerer had much of their singleness of purpose, assiduity of application, and profound ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity, neediness, that prevails, and bends a degraded humanity under its iron yoke. Utility is the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all subjects are subservient. In this great balance of utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time. The very spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination of one promise after another, and the frontiers ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... structures, in opposition to the principle of Final Causes: Morphology has been opposed to Teleology. But in nature there is no such opposition; on the contrary, there is a beautiful co-ordination. The same bones, in different animals, are made subservient to the widest possible diversity of functions. The same limbs are converted into fins, paddles, wings, legs, and arms. "No comparative anatomist has the slightest hesitation in admitting that the pectoral fin of a fish, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... I am here, of course, speaking of the treatment of the subject as a landscape only; many mighty examples of its conception occur where the sea, and all other adjuncts, are entirely subservient to the figures, as with Raffaelle and ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... what had been for many, many hours—for more than twenty miles of pressing forward—an exaltation worthy of the influence that bred it. Then came on me again, after the full march, a necessity for food and for repose. But these things, which have been the matter of so much in this book, now seemed subservient only to the reaching of an end; they were left aside in ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... proved fatal had it not been re-enforced by the determination of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother-country to crush what they feared was becoming a rival power beyond seas. They insisted upon full enforcement of the Navigation Laws, which made America's foreign trade in a cruel degree subservient to English interest. So incorrigible was the colony, it was found that this end could be compassed only by the abrogation of the charter, so that English law might become immediately valid in Massachusetts, colonial laws ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... of the Government is beneficial, although the individuals who conduct it are frequently unskilful and sometimes contemptible. There is indeed a secret tendency in democratic institutions to render the exertions of the citizens subservient to the prosperity of the community, notwithstanding their private vices and mistakes; whilst in aristocratic institutions there is a secret propensity which, notwithstanding the talents and the virtues of those who conduct the government, leads them to contribute ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... incalculable rapidity of movement with which electricity was disseminated. The idea suggested itself to the active mind of the artist, that this wonderful and but partially explored agent might be rendered subservient to that system of intercommunication which had become so important a principle of modern civilization. He brooded over the subject as he walked the deck, or lay wakeful in his berth, and by the time he arrived at New York, had so far matured his ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... is the case with the tree-kangaroos (Dendrolegus) and the Phalangers (Cuscus) of that country. We have a specimen of the Halmaturus in the British Museum, from the Leyden collection, but like many of the specimens in that collection, where the zoological specimens are made subservient to the anatomical predilections of the conservator, it has no skull, and false claws, which renders it impossible for me to define its characters. The tail has rings of scales under the hair, but this is also the case with ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... Napoleon himself communicated the cruel determination. With what abandonment of self she was wont to cast her whole dependence on Napoleon, may be seen in a letter addressed to Pope Pius VII. In it she says: "My first sentiment—one to which all others are subservient—is a conviction of my own weakness and incapacity. Of myself I am but little; or, to speak more correctly, my only value is derived from the extraordinary man to whom I am united. This inward conviction, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... fact in Swiss politics to-day is its peace. Especially is this true of the contents and tone of the press. In Italy and Austria, on the south and east, the newspapers are comparatively few, mostly feeble, and in general subservient to party or government; in Germany, on the north, where State Socialism is strong, the radical press is at times turbulent and the government journals reflect the despotism they uphold; in France, on the west and southwest, the public writers ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... obtain my recall forthwith, and lay my plans before the Admiralty. They must listen to me; they can scarcely refuse to consider my plans. They won't do it for love; they never do love a man who has got brains in his head, unless those brains are subservient to their will ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... patrons or patronesses, when your hostess or host may ask you if you would like to go to the Assembly or the Patriarchs'. If you have no other engagement for that evening—and I think it would be policy for you to make others subservient to this—you should reply that you would be delighted to do so. Your host or hostess will then say that he or she will send you a ticket. This may be one way, or you may receive a note asking if you are free for that particular date, whether ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain

... with the Magnetic Crescograph life becomes subservient to the will of the experimenter. The rate of growth is indicated by the speed with which a spot of indicating light moves across the scale. The actual rate of growth is fifty thousandth part of an inch per second; this under magnification is seen by the indicating ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... infected. Hence what has been called the classical and domestic drama. Addison's Cato is a specimen of the one; and would it were not superfluous to cite examples of the other! To such purposes poetry cannot be made subservient. Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it. And thus we observe that all dramatic writings of this nature are unimaginative in a singular degree; they affect sentiment ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... you, Amine, that those who are not of this world have feelings of kindness, gratitude, and ill-will, as we have? Can they be made subservient?" ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... pride of her own glance. It might be said that her head was surrounded by her first husband's halo of glory, his name reechoing around her like a homage or a reproach. The other one, seated a little behind her, with the subservient physiognomy of one ready for every abnegation in life, watched each of her movements, ready to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... is signified an elevation of the affection of truth: 'And her damsels'—hereby are signified subservient affections: 'And they rode upon camels'—hereby is signified the intellectual principle elevated above ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... switches round at the angle, embracing the minute figure of the bishop, and terminates in a spray reaching nearly to the head of the large figure. You will observe how beautifully that figure is thus pointed to by the spray of rose, and how all the leaves around it in the same manner are subservient to the grace of its action. Look, if I hide one line, or one rosebud, how the whole is injured, and how much there is to study in the detail of it. Look at this little diamond crown, with a lock of the hair escaping from beneath it; and at the beautiful way in which the ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... saturation'[87] with the objects of desire, either for king or aristocracy. It is a 'grand governing law of human nature' that we desire such power as will make 'the persons and properties of human beings subservient to our pleasures.'[88] This desire is indefinitely great. To the number of men whom we would force into subservience, and the degree in which we would make them subservient, we can assign no limits. Moreover, as pain is a more ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... pause, during which a dog's yelp might have been heard by any less occupied. The sound was such as is the yelp of a foxhound drawing a cover. The chief's face had changed its expression; his passion was subservient to his native ferocity, and his ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... the popular newspapers were alone in denouncing the judge for favoritism and in pointing out that the judiciary were "becoming subservient to the rich and the powerful in their rearrangements of their domestic relations—a long first step toward complete subservience." Herron happened to have among his intimates the editor of an eminently respectable newspaper that prides itself upon never publishing private ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... and man can do no more. He has authority over all things on earth, and yet he is made to depend upon all. His authority extends no farther than a privilege, under wholesome restrictions, of making the whole subservient to his real good. When he goes beyond this, he usurps a power which belongs not to him, and the destruction of his happiness pays the forfeit of his imprudence. The injured power rises triumphant over the ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... individual, a higher utility or social dominance must always be influenced by any change in the environment. As the wheel of life slowly revolves, that which was lowest comes continually uppermost, and that which was dominant becomes subservient. ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... opalescent light upon his congregation, but so as always to show the secret fire at the heart of it. In the third epoch, best illustrated by his sermons on Evolution and Theology, the philosophic quality of his mind predominates; his imagination is subservient to and the instrument of clear statement, his dramatic quality shows itself chiefly in his realization of mental conditions foreign to his own, and his style, though still rich in color and warm with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... will desire to render the person and property of another subservient to his pleasures, notwithstanding the pain or loss of pleasure which it may occasion to that other individual, is," according to Mr Mill, "the foundation of government." That the property of the rich minority can be ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the most formidable of the malcontents were the Puritans, who reckoned many of the first nobility, and the ablest members of the House of Commons among their chiefs; the restoration of episcopacy, and the declaration by the subservient Parliament of Scotland, that no General Assembly should be called without the King's sanction, had laid the sure foundations of a religious insurrection in the North; while the events, which we have already described, filled the minds of all orders of men in Ireland with agitation ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... the College and Camlachie to attend to the type-foundry, and petitioned the Senate to build him a founding-house in the College grounds, basing his claim on their custom of giving accommodation to the arts subservient to learning, on his own services to the University in the matter of the Greek types before mentioned, and on his having undertaken, in spite of the discouraging results of that speculation, to cast a large and elegant Hebrew type for the University ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... delinquents have appreciated the justice of the proceeding, only one or two making any fuss at all, and the others were very much ashamed of them. C. says he thinks that school has improved the children, too, their manners are improved, as have the grown people's,—less cringing and subservient, but more respectful and manly. Tim does not pull his forelock at every word he speaks, as he did last year, looking like a whipped dog, but looks you full in the face and speaks out as if he were not ashamed of himself, and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... ability.[30] They constituted a hopeless minority, however, for the liberal element saw their hopes completely blasted in the triumph of the slave party in the Convention of 1835, which made everything subservient to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... it should have been in the main her urgency that led to the acquisition of Maggie. During the last year she had begun to be seriously uneasy. Things were not what they had been. Mrs. Constantine and others in the parish were challenging her authority, even the Choir boys were scarcely so subservient as they had been, and, worst of all, Paul himself was strangely restive and unquiet. He talked at times of getting married, wondered whether she, Grace, wouldn't like some one to help her in the house, and even, on one terrifying occasion, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... to be made, calculates the quantity of embankments required to fill up hollows, and the number of cuttings to level obstructions, in which latter calculations he estimates that the cutting down of elevations will be made subservient as far as may be, to the elevation of depressions. All this involves very nice and exact calculation as to quantity of material, masonry, etcetera, and the sinking of "trial shafts" to ascertain the nature of the various strata to be excavated or tunnelled. Then the cost of ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... personal inadequacy to his task, and were not the result of his chronological position. It need not be said that this remark does not refer to many books which are called histories, but are really contemporary memoirs and original authorities subservient to history proper. The works of Clarendon and Burnet, for instance, can never lose a certain value on this account. The immortal book which all subsequent generations have agreed to call a possession ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... that government must necessarily assume only one form; for, being thus subservient to human use, to manly culture, to complete social state, it must infallibly assume forms precisely proportioned to the human conditions to which applied; hence, we must understand the laws of the human mind, which display its varied conditions in the course of its evolution from ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... upon the clothing of your lackeys, through vanity. And I endured all this; I made myself insignificant and humble; buffeted upon one cheek, I offered the other. I must live—I must have food. And you, Blanche, how often, to make me subservient to your will, have you said to me: 'You will do thus-and-so, if you desire to remain at Courtornieu?' And I obeyed—I was forced to obey, since I knew not where to go. Ah! you have abused me in every way; but ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... to make some protestation—perhaps even to claim some reward. But the instinct which made him forbear even in thought to take advantage of the duty laid upon him, which dominated even his miserable passion for her, and made it subservient to his exaltation of honor; this epaulet of the officer, and blood of the gentleman, this simple possession of knighthood not laid on by perfunctory steel, but springing from within—all this, I grieve to say, ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... required to take his trick at the wheel—he was now the officer in command of the starboard watch—but Sibylla did not allow that circumstance to interfere in the least with her plans; on the contrary, she rather made it subservient to them. For, whereas she had before been obliged to wait for her lesson until Ned's trick came round, she now simply watched her opportunity, and whenever she saw that the young man had nothing very particular to do, she would go up to him and say, "Mr Damerell, ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... weather the heat ought to be counteracted by means of a cooling diet. To this purpose cucumbers, melons, and juicy fruits are subservient. We ought to give the preference to such alimentary substances as lead to contract the juices which are too much expanded by the heat, and this property is possessed by all acid food and drink. To this class belong all sorts of salad, lemons, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... strong feelings, Mr. Adams was fortunately able to vote for acquittal. He regarded this measure, as well as the impeachment of Judge Pickering at the preceding session, as parts of an elaborate scheme on the part of the President for degrading the national judiciary and rendering it subservient to the legislative branch of the government. So many, however, even of Mr. Jefferson's stanch adherents revolted against his requisitions on this occasion, and he himself so far lost heart before the final vote was taken, that ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... worked he always knew what others about him were doing. If they were poor workmen, he encouraged them in a friendly way; if they were beyond him and out of his class, like Michelangelo, he was subservient; but if they were on his plane he hated them with a hatred that was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... fall, it is certain that an abundant supply does fall; and the hand of man alone is wanting to preserve that supply and regulate its use. In such a clime, and under such a sun, that most important of elements in cultivation, water, could thus be rendered much more subservient to man's use than it is in other warm regions, where, if the general vegetation be more luxuriant, the air is less salubrious. Sufficient water for all purposes of cultivation, health, and enjoyment, is quite at the command of art and industry in this most ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... first time the drawn-faced, hungry-eyed giant turned his gaze upon Duane. He had intelligence which was not yet subservient to passion. Moreover, he seemed the kind of man Duane would care to have judge him in a critical moment ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... the lowest point of national degradation recorded in her history. The disasters of her fleets and armies abroad were the natural fruits of almost universal corruption at home. The admirals and generals, chosen by a German king and a subservient ministry, proved worthy of the mode of their selection. An obsequious Parliament served but to give the apparent sanction of the people to the selfish and despotic measures of the crown. Many of the best blood and of the highest chivalry of the land still held loyal devotion ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... after reading Shelley's Revolt of Islam, all he has found to say is, "Poor Shelley, I think he has his quota of good qualities!" But, for the rest, he is not attracted to any kind of knowledge which cannot be "made applicable and subservient to the purposes of poetry,"—his own poetry. For his one desire is to win an immortal name—and he has begun life "full of hopes, fiery, impetuous, and ungovernable, expecting the world to fall at once beneath his pen. Poor fellow!" ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron

... I was copying documents for the Vatican then,—and I thought of the Holy Father,—how he was imprisoned in Rome, when he should be Emperor of all the Emperors,—King of all the Kings! I remembered how it was that he had no temporal power,—though all the powers of the earth should be subservient to him!—and my heart beat almost to bursting, and my brain seemed on fire!—but the Blessed Virgin's picture still smiled;—and I knelt down before it and swore that I,—even I, would help to give the whole world back to Rome, even if I died ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... were merely accepting an already accomplished fact at the meeting in 1784. Dr. Paul A. W. Wallace says that this would have been expected from the subservient, pacified Indian. Regardless, the Provincial leadership made no effort to settle the lands in what some called "the disputed territory" until after the later agreement at Stanwix; in fact, they discouraged it.[37] The simple desire for legitimacy gives us very little to go on in the light ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... legends familiar to the audience; and whatever freedom might be allowed to the poet in his treatment of the theme, whatever the reflections he might embroider upon it, the speculative or ethical views, the criticism of contemporary life, all must be subservient to the main object originally proposed, the setting forth, for edification as well as for delight, of some episodes in the lives of those heroes of the past who were considered not only to be greater than their descendants, but to be the sons of gods and worthy ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... that you speak it well, but in that well there are gradations. He, who in the provinces might be reckoned to speak correctly, would at Paris be looked upon as an ancient Gaul. In that country of mode, even language is subservient to fashion, which varies almost as ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... apostles. The study of profane history, when entered upon with judgment and maturity, must lead us to these reflections, and point out to us the manner in which the Almighty makes the empires of the earth subservient to the establishment of the kingdom ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... and sneaking cheat, Subservient unto man's deceit! Disgrace unto thy honest race, Unto the race of dogs disgrace; Who ere to men they bent the knee Were ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... boys be encouraged. For your married belles like to have men about them younger than themselves—it makes them appear younger, or at least they think so; and besides, such youths are more easily managed and more subservient. But, still worse, the more these boys usurp the place of men in society, the more boyish and retrograde will the few men become who continue to divide the honors of society with them. When Plato enumerated among the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... already established in England, he gave a voice in this assembly to the "Third Estate," the common folk or "citizens," as well as to the nobles and the clergy. So even in France we find the people acquiring power, though as yet this Third Estate speaks with but a timid and subservient voice, requiring to be much encouraged by its money-asking sovereigns, who little dreamed it would one day be strong enough to demand a reckoning of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... up its corners that day after my love adventure in the orchard under the chaperonage of Mother Cow, and I had laughed as I imagined Pan's face when he discovered that I had been so entirely unfemininely subservient to his command about light traveling. Suddenly I swept the bundle together and back in the chest, while a note of genuine fear swept into the song in ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... whose creative brain, With eddying impulse, built new Drury Lane; Not to the labours of subservient man, To no young Wyatt appertains the plan - We mortals stalk, like horses in a mill, Impassive media of atomic will; Ye stare! then Truth's broad talisman discern - 'Tis demonstration ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... at her feet. Nevertheless, in a certain way he dominated her. In hard mental power he was much her superior, and her mind became gradually subservient to his in many subtle ways. It was in his day that she developed that noticeable and almost reckless egoism which is summed up by the laconic saying, "after me the deluge." For Lord Sellingworth's atheism was not of the type which leads to active humanitarianism, but of the ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... 'Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence', which were edited by Lord John Russell, in 1853. Moore was an excellent son, a good husband, an affectionate father, and to Byron a loyal friend, neither envious nor subservient. Clare, Hobhouse, and Moore were (Lady Blessington's 'Conversations', 2nd edition, 1850, pp. 393, 394) the only persons whose friendship Byron never disclaimed. He spoke of Moore ('ibid'., pp. 322, 323) as "a delightful companion, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... to those Beings only which are endowed with Perception, and is in a manner thrown away upon dead Matter, any further than as it is subservient to Beings which are conscious of their Existence. Accordingly we find, from the Bodies which lie under our Observation, that Matter is only made as the Basis and Support of Animals, and that there is no more of the one, than what is necessary for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... thing, which is moveable upon the surface of the land, tends to the sea, however slowly in its pace, we are now to examine, what comes of those materials deposited within the regions of the waves, still however within the reach of man, and still subservient more immediately to that soil on which plants grow, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... of virtue, he besought his captive in the most importunate manner, to remain with him for a time, to confirm his wavering rectitude, to instruct him in duty, and thus to gain one human being to the standard of integrity, and to render so extensive possessions subservient to the happiness of mankind. All this he expressed with that ardour, which is congenial to the simplicity of truth; and with that enthusiasm, which in all ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... never made a boast, as some men do, Of my superior virtue, nor denied The weakness of my nature, that hath made me Subservient to the will of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... window, as large as many modern rooms; in which some few panes of stained glass, emblazoned with fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and patched, and shattered, yet remained; attesting, by their presence, that the former owner had made the very light subservient to his state, and pressed the sun itself into his list of flatterers; bidding it, when it shone into his chamber, reflect the badges of his ancient family, and take new hues and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... protest. The postal director and his secretary refused to sign the order and resigned. No less obnoxious was the order forbidding public meetings and directing the governors of the different provinces of Finland to appoint only such men to fill municipal rural offices as will be subservient to the Governor-General. The governor of the province of Ulrasborg resigned, while several other provinces were already governed by pliant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... historical knowledge of the sacred writings. Not that the two things are in the least degree incompatible. Far from it, indeed! All I mean to insist on is, that such teachers will perceive what are the great objects of culture: and how subservient even the best knowledge is to the apprehension of duty. They will see, too, more clearly the necessity of bearing in mind the pre-eminence of moral and religious culture, when they reflect that many of their pupils come from places which cannot be called homes, where scarcely anything ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... with that part of my story in which the reverend Enoch Ellis takes a share, it is necessary to remark that there has sprung up in modern times a clerical order of men, very distinct in manners and character from the subservient curate, or the lordly parish priest. Houses in London have lately been built much faster than churches. Yet, though the zeal of these times does not equal that of ancient days, when our cities were divided into numerous small ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... "he cannot conceive what aid the ventriloquist could derive in the exercise of his art from such an extraordinary power, if it were really in his possession." He expresses himself "fully satisfied, that the imagination alone of the spectators, when skilfully managed, may be rendered subservient in a considerable degree to the purposes of the ventriloquist;" and he is rather inclined to think, that "when seconded by such powers of imitation as some mimics possess, it is quite sufficient to account for all the phenomena of ventriloquism ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various

... the list of customs was that which made Freshmen subservient to all the other classes; which obliged those who were not employed by the Immediate Government of the College to go on any errand, not judged improper by an officer of the government, or in study hours, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... this time conceived the idea of publishing a book somewhat similar to that which had been gotten out against the Constitution of Cadiz. "Captain Juan" was its name; it was in catechism form, and told of an old municipal captain who deserved to be honored because he was so submissively subservient to all constituted authority. He tries to distinguish between different kinds of liberty, and the especial attention which he devotes to America shows how live a topic the great republic was at that time in the Islands. This interest ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... of money than in any other country. But you can all be bribed by power." Lastly (to quote Mr Hichens yet once more), "Strong pressure is being brought to bear to commercialise our education, to make it a paying proposition, to make it subservient to the God of Wealth and thus convert us into a money-making mob. Ruskin has said that 'no nation can last that has made a mob of itself.' Above all a nation cannot last as a money-making mob. It ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... was no more inclined than Caesar to be subservient to Sylla, as he took an early opportunity of showing. It was to the cause of the constitution, and not to the person of the Dictator, that Cicero had attached himself, and he, too, ventured to give free expression to his thoughts when ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... reminded that for seven months, while on the brink of ruin, they are to stand without representation; also reminding them of all that may be done in that time to undermine their hopes, and to obtain a pliable and subservient Parliament, if, indeed, any Parliament at all be convoked at the ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... of the Lawes, has been made in divers manners, according to the different methods, of those men that have written of them. For it is a thing that dependeth not on Nature, but on the scope of the Writer; and is subservient to every mans proper method. In the Institutions of Justinian, we find seven sorts of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... She has built her national organization on the idea that the national welfare is better promoted by a popular loyalty which entails popular immobility, than by the exercise on the part of the people of a more individual and less subservient intellectual and moral energy. In so doing she has for the time being renounced one of the greatest advantages of a national political and social organization—the advantage of combining great popular ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... Infinitely more wretched! English philanthropy cuts a very suspicious figure, when, not content with neglecting the welfare of those whom she undertakes to protect, she thus attempts to made them subservient to national aggrandizement. The fate of the rescued slaves is scarcely better than that of the crews of the captured slave-vessels. The latter are landed on the nearest point of the African coast, where death by starvation or fever almost certainly ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... compete for the front page of the newspapers. So everybody was talking about the prospective wedding. The fact that the Southern belle had caught the biggest prize among the city's young millionaires was enough to establish precedence with the city's subservient newspapers, which had proceeded to robe the grave and punctilious figure of the bridegroom in the garments of King Cophetua. The fact that the bride's father was the richest man in his own section did not interfere with this—for how could metropolitan editors be expected ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... Moses the god of the prophet. This had become a permanent institution; there was regularly associated with the king of the Getae such a god, from whose mouth everything which the king ordered proceeded or appeared to proceed. This peculiar constitution, in which the theocratic idea had become subservient to the apparently absolute power of the king, probably gave to the kings of the Getae some such position with respect to their subjects as the caliphs had with respect to the Arabs; and one result of it was the marvellous ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... because there is a common interest between such on the subject, and both governments may be presumed to authorize any measures conducing to give effect to their arms, and to consider each others ports as mutually subservient.[104] ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson

... disappeared; had conjugal confidence only been allowed its natural growth, all might have been passably well in the end, in spite of such serious drawbacks; for, from the necessity of his nature, the husband would in time have become completely subservient to the sterner spirit of his wife, which, in turn, might have been mollified in some degree amid the peaceful duties of home;—a state of things that has existed in many families, which have, nevertheless, enjoyed a fair share of domestic happiness in spite of this inversion of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... and with thunder Of many winds as one, To where the keen sea-current grinds and frets The black bright sheer twin flameless Altarlets That lack no live blood-sacrifice they crave Of shipwreck and the shrine-subservient wave, Having for priest the storm-wind, and for choir Lightnings and clouds whose prayer and praise are fire, All the isle acclaimed him coming; she, the least Of all things loveliest that the sea's love hides From strange men's insult, walled about with tides That bid strange guests ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... acquisitions and attainments of the intellect ought, indeed, to hold a very inferior rank in our estimation, opposed to moral worth, or even to professional and specific skill, prudence, and industry. But why should they be opposed, when they may be made subservient merely by being subordinated? It can rarely happen, that a man of social disposition, altogether a stranger to subjects of taste, (almost the only ones on which persons of both sexes can converse with a common interest) should pass through ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... conveyed! The necessity of the absolute subjection of the mind to God's written Word—making churches, creeds, ministers, books, religious opinion, all subordinate and subservient to this—"How readest thou?" rebuking the philosophy, falsely so called, that would distort the plain statements of Revelation, and bring them to ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... racked with pain? Her soul inhales the pang; and freely drinks at the same fount of agony, and breathes over them the prayer of mercy. Love is that attribute in her nature to which all the others are subservient. It is the shrine at which they all bow, the centre to which they all gravitate. If her children do wrong, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... made this sting, as you call it, keener to you is—pardon me—is in some silly words of your mother, who, in showing you the letters, has hinted to you that that heir you might be, if you were sufficiently pliant and subservient. Am ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ludicrously long legs and abbreviated tails were scratching a precarious living from amid the litter. On the sunny expanse of sidewalk before Buck Walker's meat market a long-eared mongrel lay stretched out luxuriously in the physical contentment of the subservient unmolested; but from one end of the single street to the other not a human being was in sight; save the present spectator, not a single disturber of the all-pervading quiet. Landor had seen the spot where the town now stood when it was virgin prairie, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... unless they are very thoughtless, know that the heaviest burden of war, its squalor and its tediousness, is borne on the devoted shoulders of the infantryman. All other arms, even ships of war themselves, in many of their uses, are subservient to the infantry. Man must live, and walk, and sleep on the surface of the earth, and there, in the few feet of soil that have been fertilized by contact with the air, he must grow his food. These are the permanent conditions, and they give the infantry ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... instances of violent efforts to relieve pain, those efforts are at first voluntary exertions; but after they have been frequently repeated for the purpose of relieving certain pains, they become associated with those pains, and cease at those times to be subservient to the will; as in coughing, sneezing, and strangury. Of these motions those which contribute to remove or dislodge the offending cause, as the actions of the abdominal muscles in parturition or in vomiting, though they were originally excited by volition, are ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... however, will appear in the sequel in the form of a legitimate inference—and our belief that Reason governs the world and has consequently governed its history. In relation to this independently universal and substantial existence all else is subordinate, subservient to it, and the means for its development. The union of universal abstract existence generally with the individual—the subjective—that this alone is truth belongs to the department of speculation and is treated in this general ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... of the Sioux nation," observes Lieutenant Pike, "I do not hesitate to pronounce them the most warlike and independent nation of Indians, within the boundaries of the United States, their every passion being subservient to that of war. Their guttural pronunciation, high cheek bones, their visages, and distinct manners, together with their own traditions, supported by the testimony of neighboring nations, put it in my mind beyond ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... Eaton has indeed learned to "build stately," and "garden finely;" and has thus made the personal fruition of his wealth subservient to its ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... am always ready, but what do's he intend to do with Miranda? Is she to be sold in private? or will he put her up by way of Auction, at who bids most? If so, Egad, I'm for him: my Gold, as you say, shall be subservient to ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... saw there was annoyance, and turned the subject before her sister could open on it. With all her quiet ways, Jane had the mastery over the impetuous Georgina, whom she apparently flattered and cherished as a younger sister, but in reality made subservient to her own purposes. Indeed, Jane was like the Geraldine of Christabel; without actually speaking evil she had the power of insinuating her own views, so that even the lofty and sincere nature of Theodora was not proof against her. Poor Violet! ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... keen, swift comparisons: he sports with truths, like a king tossing up his crown-jewels or Vishnu worlds in the 'Cosmogony of Menu,' and he dares do this because they are no longer his masters, because he has made them subservient to an end—the great end of the amelioration of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... various regions for them do we not contribute a yearly sum for our very bodies? How much better it would have been to be sold to masters once and for all than to ransom ourselves annually and possess empty names of freedom! How much better to have been slain and perish rather than go about with subservient heads! Yet what have I said? Even dying is not free from expense among them, and you know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead. Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... necessary; and it is only by the matured exercise of his knowledge and his virtue, that he can attain to civil freedom. Of all things, the existence of civil liberty is most the result of artificial institution. The proclivity of the natural man is to domineer or to be subservient. A noble result, indeed, but in the attaining of which, as in the instances of knowledge and virtue, the Creator, for his own purposes, has set a limit ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... government should be fulfilled by officers of various grades, whom she was herself to appoint and to sustain, and who, since they would know that they were dependent on Agrippina's influence for their elevation, would naturally be subservient to her will. Nero being so young, she thought that he could easily be led to acquiesce in such management as this, especially if he were indulged in the full enjoyment of the luxuries and pleasures, innocent or otherwise, which his high station would enable ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott



Words linked to "Subservient" :   instrumental, slavish, subserve, subservience, subordinate, subservientness, servile, helpful, submissive



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