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Incentive   Listen
adjective
Incentive  adj.  
1.
Inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulative. "Competency is the most incentive to industry."
2.
Serving to kindle or set on fire. (R.) "Part incentive reed Provide, pernicious with one touch of fire."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Incentive" Quotes from Famous Books



... normally again, after a period of temporary mania from shell-shock. It is true that his memory was left blank, but there doesn't seem to be any organic reason for it to be blank—other than lack of incentive to remember. Catch me up, if you don't follow me. In other words, he has been slowly convalescing since that night: under the proper stimuli I have no doubt that everything would come ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... wrote charming young letters, a patchwork of tongues, with indulgent postscripts in the family Volapuk and, in little squares and rounds and crannies of the text, the drollest illustrations—letters that he was divided between the impulse to show his present charge as a vain, a wasted incentive, and the sense of something in them that publicity would profane. The opulent youth went up in due course and failed to pass; but it seemed to add to the presumption that brilliancy was not expected of him all at once that ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... us. The enemy had not as yet discovered that we had abandoned Shenkursk and he was beginning bright and early the siege of Shenkursk. Though we were well out of range of his guns the boom of the artillery acted as an added incentive to each tired and weary soldier and with anxious eyes searching the impenetrable forests we ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... over the colonists would prove fatal in the long run to the liberties of England itself, those great men were even wiser than they knew. The success of popular government across the Atlantic has been the strongest incentive to the extension of popular government here. We need go no further back than the Reform Bill of 1867 to remind ourselves that the victory of the North over the South, and the extraordinary clemency and good sense with ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... attacked, women did not take active part in war. When the men went forth on a long journey to meet the enemy, the women remained at home, attending to domestic duties. Their thoughts, however, were with the absent ones; and, under the incentive of the belief in will power, they would gather in groups at the lodge of the Leader of the war party, and in the hearing of his family would sing a We'-ton song, which should carry strength to the far-away warriors and help them ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... congregate and have a general frolic in accordance with Negro standards of a good time. In the later years of slavery the towns had established sufficient control of the Negroes gathering in their jurisdiction so that the drink evil was more or less mitigated. The fear of the law was a great incentive to their proper conduct on those rare occasions when they had a whole day in town to themselves without any tasks to perform for their master. As Rothert has well observed, however, the slave sometimes did have to care for his drunken owner and take him home. To the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... myself since I knew you. Qualities of understanding, ability to appreciate, to express myself without employing the commonplaces, subtleties of intercourse—all, maybe, were latent in me, but sterile, until you came into my life. ... And when you go, then, lacking impulse and incentive, the new facility, the new sensitive alertness, the unconscious self-confidence, all will smoulder and die out in me. ... I know it; I realise that it was due to you—part of me that I should never have known, of which I should have remained totally ignorant, had it not blossomed ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... of congestion and will starve. The Coast region's malaria will always keep the black, as well as the white, population thinned down, but if deserted by the trader, and left to the Government official and the missionary, without any longer the incentive of trade to make the native exert himself, or the resulting comforts which assist him in resisting the climate, which the trade now enables him to procure, the Coast native will sink, via vice and degradation, to extinction, and most likely have this ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... that," he said. "I have no thought of either. Alas!" he added, looking into her eyes, "I lack the great incentive!" ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... who will abide with me during the darkness that is coming on—Patience, pale-browed, meek-eyed, sad-lipped Patience. If I can only keep my hold upon her skirts, till the end. To me, no good news can ever come. As long as mother lived, I had an incentive to struggle; now I am alone, and they who thirst for my blood are welcome to take it speedily. I know my mother is dead; I have ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... hundred and thirty of these bodies, and the stream of discovery flows on without abatement through each succeeding year. The detection of Uranus seems, indeed, to have been the prelude to many similar discoveries, and to have offered the incentive to greater diligence and energy on the part of observers in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... are almost invariably committed under the influence of the strongest excitement, even when the incentive is gain, and the murder has been deeply premeditated. That is a remarkable truth in the psychology of murder. But the important fact about the theft of the necklace is that even if Hazel Rath knew where the key of the jewel-case was kept she had not time to obtain it ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... judiciously. It appears to me that the argument to the contrary would be untenable. I should like to see the man who would invest his capital in railways—electric telegraphs, steam ships, and in business of any kind, without hope of reward, pooh! it is the mainspring of human action, the incentive to public service, it rests not in this world but follows us to the next, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord." Ah! but this refers to men, not to children. What are children ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... would be made, and that God would defend the right." With the saving clause adroitly introduced into the last sentence, everyone, except an Atheist, will agree; and, but for this, this speech reads as an incentive to Civil War, intended to stir up brother against brother to fight to the death. Such sentiments may, in the future, be remembered as marked with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various

... of Przemysl marks the most important event of the Russian campaign this year. It finally and irrevocably consolidates the position of the Russians in Galicia. The Austro-German armies are deprived of the incentive hitherto held out to them of relieving the isolated remnant of their former dominion. The besieging army will be freed for other purposes. From information previously published the garrison aggregated ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... yet been obtained to the mysterious Palmer affair, although both the police and detectives are doing their utmost to trace the clever thief. It is most earnestly hoped that they will succeed in their efforts, as such successful knavery is an incentive to even greater crimes." ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... in purchasing the best stock they could find—prices were hoisted to an extravagant height. There is no forming a "knock-out" at a pedigree sale; sturdy competition is the only recognized method of purchase, and the sporting spirit is a strong incentive, especially when the vendor is known as a courageous buyer at the sales of ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... offspring of hell itself. To ensure good behavior, the slaveholder relies on the whip; to induce proper humility, he relies on the whip; to rebuke what he is pleased to term insolence, he relies on the whip; to supply the place of wages as an incentive to toil, he relies on the whip; to bind down the spirit of the slave, to imbrute and destroy his manhood, he relies on the whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the pillory, the bowie knife the pistol, and the blood-hound. These are the necessary and ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... (long ago) written something about Hazlitt, but I have received more than one application for it, in case I can manage to complete my essay. As in the case of Lamb, I am really the only person living who knew much about his daily life. I have not, however, quite the same incentive to carry me on. Indeed, I am not certain that I should be able to travel to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... however, was in a precarious condition. There could be nothing permanent under such a regime, for permanency of government is necessary to the advancement of civilization. The government was non-progressive. It allowed no freedom of the people and gave no incentive to advancement, and it was a detriment many times to the progressive spirit. Closely connected with a religion which in itself was non-progressive, we find limitations set upon the advancement of the civilization of the Arab-Moors ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... filled with the golden aureole of St Rowland of the Postage Stamps. As it is, there it stands at all our street-corners, disguising one of the most beautiful of ideas under one of the most preposterous of forms. It is useless to deny that the miracles of science have not been such an incentive to art and imagination as were the miracles of religion. If men in the twelfth century had been told that the lightning had been driven for leagues underground, and had dragged at its destroying tail loads of laughing ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton

... soul, even as I owe all my music to you." To Dorn he writes that many of his compositions, including the Noveletten, the Kreisleriana, and the Kinderscenen, were inspired by Clara; and it is well known that his love became the incentive to the composition, in one year, of over a hundred wonderful songs—his previous compositions, up to 1840, having all been for the piano alone. In the last letter of this collection he says: "Sometimes it appears to me as if I were treading entirely new paths in music;" and there ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... man who is engrossed with harassing mental occupations, what pleasure and satisfaction is this contemplation; and, as in the case of our immortal novelist, not only giving immediate consolation and happiness, but powerfully incentive to intellectual effort. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various

... lazy, and perhaps intemperate, with no thought beyond the gratification of his bodily wants and desires. Slang words and obscene are his daily vocabulary; selfishness his best-developed trait, and want the only incentive for his labor. His partner is like unto him, or worse, either by nature or association. Without taste, modesty, good sense, or natural refinement, she accompanies her dear Silas in his round of life, sympathizing in his lowness, his common feeling, and his common complaints—slatternly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... captaincy, and declared that no show of efficiency could secure for them the titular rank which they more than once actually exercised. For they were repeatedly in command of their companies through sickness or absence of their captains. They served as officers without the incentive which comes from hope of promotion. They were forced to see the credit of their labors go to others, and to share more than once in discredit for which they were not responsible. They were, and in this lay their chief embarrassment, without the security ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... perfect in order: in the old days it would be for months at a time all the outside world she saw—there had been object enough in keeping it trim. Now it looked, to his fancy, like a woman whose beauty was fading a little because she had lost incentive to be beautiful. He turned from the garden, his heart amazed, fearful, back to ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... rested a moment on this period, as an experienced climber pauses to be overtaken by a less agile companion; but presently she became aware that Kate was still far below her, and perhaps needed a stronger incentive ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... the jury, as to the motive," he went on. "A powerful incentive existed for the commission of this crime. Dr. Earl had been engaged for some time to marry into one of the most prominent and wealthy families in this city and the wedding was to have taken place this month. The advertisement ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... outcry in these latter days against the newly-formed habit of cigarette smoking cultivated by ladies of the West. Condemnation of the practice seems if anything to act as an incentive, so, yielding to the pleasant temptation of palliating faults in pretty women, I would suggest as an excuse that they are but following in the foot-steps of their sisters of the Far East, where, it may be roughly ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... incentive to work than the prospect before them of going to see Fanny. Never had Mr. Middleton had so much accomplished in one week. When Friday night came, it was hard telling which was the favored one. At last it was settled that Ike ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... the mother of superstition, but not of devotion Immorality, legislation against, ineffective an incentive to good conduct Imperium in imperio, doctrine of Independents differences between, and Presbyterians their end Infidelity, its infamy Infidels, their advice interested cannot satisfy the general reason of mankind the fallacy of their arguments against the Trinity ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... about the admirable incentive of ambition," he continued, after a moment. "But you must understand that I meant the ambition for perfection, not at all the ambition for celebrity. The satisfaction of the former may be a deep and exquisite joy—the partial satisfaction, for I suppose it can never be anything more than ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... often likely enough to be insufficient against rare and unusual dangers. But bad as is this system when voluntarily chosen, it becomes far worse when legally and compulsorily imposed. In a sensitive state of the English money market the near approach to the legal limit of reserve would be a sure incentive to panic; if one-third were fixed by law, the moment the banks were close to one-third, alarm would begin, and would run like magic. And the fear would be worse because it would not be unfoundedat least, not wholly. If you say that the Bank shall always hold one-third of its ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... understand Mrs. Maxwell is as much opposed to your marriage as I am to Mary's. That should be a stimulus to both of you. Opposition is a great incentive, but in this case the trouble is with Mary herself. Would you ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... a woman could have compassed the ruin of a man by means of love and temptation, Rallywood was lost from that hour, for the rivalry of Valerie Selpdorf added the one incentive of bitter resolve that drives such slight-brained jealous souls to the last limit of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... women, cold and passionless; the soul appeared to shrivel and sink into induration, and the whole people were growing into a nation of cheats and dastards. Such was the promise for the people of New England, in 1820. Has it not been realized in the years of the recent intestine war? The incentive held out to her people to volunteer into her armies, was the plunder of the South. The world has never witnessed such rapacity for gain as marked the armies of the United States in their march through the South. Religion ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... the time I've heard him vow, with maudlin tears in his eyes, that all his evil habits came upon him as the result of changing his name. If he had continued to be Tulp, he argued, he would have had some incentive to an honorable life; but what self-respecting nigger could have so low-down a name as Eli, and be good for anything? All this warranted my boy in being proud of his name, and, so to speak, living ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... rivers to make life pleasant for him. The unbroken monotony of an arid, uninteresting country has to be faced. Nature everywhere demands his toil. Unless he has within him impulses that give him courage to go on, he will soon return; for he will find nothing in his surroundings to act as an incentive to ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... his return greeting, the minister's telegram to his congregation, but I did not justify his high opinion of my Biblical knowledge. I was obliged to search the Scriptures to unravel the enigma. As there may be others like me, but who have not the incentive I had to look up the reference, I quote from God's word the message I received: "Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... now stands, was the Evans store, where she, the daughter of the store-keeper, lived. Almost under the shadow of the tragically historic old mission, by the park near which Santa Ana had his headquarters, she received the incentive and gathered the material for her first novel, "Inez," written in her own room at night as a gift with which to surprise her father and mother. The work of a girl of fifteen, it did not appeal to many readers, but it contained a vivid description of the inspired heroism and self-sacrifice of the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... movement" which has been inaugurated in certain churches is very important. It had its incentive in the narrative of John (1:40-51), who tells us how Andrew won Peter and Philip won Nathanael by personal appeals to follow Christ. If all the followers of Christ in all the churches would each win one soul for Christ every year there would be no ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice, Dillon ventured to utter a word or ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... friends!" hallaoed Cathelineau, advancing on before the others, "look—look there; there is our 'Marie Jeanne;' hurry then, hurry;" and there, immediately before them, was their own sacred trophy; their favourite cannon: they wanted no further incentive; the men who had followed Larochejaquelin, and the men of St. Florent who had come with Cathelineau, saw it at the same time, and vieing with each other, rushed onwards to gain ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... preparations which would surely follow a declaration of war against England, on which country in peace the merchants of New York, Boston, and the other seaports of the United States principally depend, seemed to be the only incentive for such a war. But while the filibusters of "the greatest nation in creation," were looking for any cause of war, a good cause, in American eyes, arose. The American ships of war were mostly manned by British seamen. Men ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... gained his nickname from the queer habit he had of digging a hole for his left foot, before delivering the ball, opened the contest, and did so well that he was kept in until the game was "in the refrigerator." Then Joe was given his chance, but there was little incentive to try, with ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... officers; but the very indifference of Mr. Dutton gave a value to his admiration, and made her more eager to obtain it than that of the rest. Besides, the vacuity of mind and employment at sea, a brisk flirtation is sure to attract lookers-on, and become a fruitful incentive to malice and envy. Bluebell could not account for the unfriendly interest she excited, as her Canadian education had taught her to regard fraternizing pro tem. with any sympathetic masculinity a very unimportant matter, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... would be added to common labour, I mean ambition. For there would be not only a possibility of greater reward but a possibility of greater service. The competitive motive which socialism is supposed to destroy would be restored in timocracy, and an incentive offered to excellence and industry. The country's resources would increase for the very reason that somebody might conceivably profit by them; and everyone would have at least an ideal interest in ministering ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... prospect of admission to the full privileges of a member of the brotherhood of nations will act as an incentive to improvement. But the subjection of foreigners to Chinese jurisdiction ought not to be conceded without a probation as long and thorough as that through which Japan had to pass. In view of the treachery and barbarism so conspicuous in 1900—head-hunting and edicts to massacre foreigners—a ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... ground now, and a characteristic smile began to lighten his eyes and voice, besides showing upon his expressive mouth. I am not sure that I ever heard him laugh outright; but his chuckle was a choice incentive to merriment, and he had a smile of exceptional sweetness.) 'There'll be a Mrs. Ted presently, you know, and how should I ever win her friendship, as I hope to, if she knew I had helped to prevent her lord ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... involved. Bright, he thought, represented the view of the commonplace shopkeeper, intensified by the prejudices of the Quaker. To him ambition and conquest naturally represented simple crimes. Ambition, reports Fitzjames, is the incentive to 'all manly virtues'; and conquest an essential factor in the building up of all nations. We should be proud, not ashamed, to be the successors of Clive and Warren Hastings and their like. They and we are joint architects of the bridge by which India ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... its far-flung branches, even science, were suffering in these days from a general and paralysing inertia. Life which demanded no sacrifice of anybody was destructive of everything in the nature of aspiration. Sport seemed to be the only incentive to sobriety, the desire to live long in this fat land the only brake upon an era of self-indulgence. He looked eastwards to where his own millions were toiling, with his day-by-day maxims in their ears, and it seemed to his elastic fancy that he was ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... new carpet to match them, and although mother protested against it, she was loud in her admiration when she saw the handsome white Brussels, thickly covered with crimson roses. Helen's introduction proved an astonishing incentive; we set a new value on ourselves. I never saw so much of Veronica as at that time; her health improved with her temper. She threw us into fits of laughter with her whimsical talk, never laughing herself, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... to me so powerful an incentive, my progress toward proficiency as a reader was rapid; and, in a comparatively short time, I felt equal to a renewed effort to sound the depths ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... better plows, better music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons, and better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe him in wealth, and crown him with honor." Every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things. That is the reason the club has been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub to a painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken stone ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... person's relatives. If, however, he withdraws the weapon, the brothers or other male relatives of the deceased have a right and a duty to avenge the deaths. A man who has killed his wife and her lover is allowed to count both on his score towards becoming a magani—a further incentive for him to avenge his wrongs. Cases are known where the husband accepted payment for his wife's affections, but it was considered a sign of weakness, or cowardice, and the man lost caste. Unprovoked murder of one from the same or a friendly ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... spirits in a measure revived, and when on the third day they arrived at the little settlement which they were seeking on the Clinch River, even the tragedy which had befallen them was seldom mentioned. Even the packhorses pricked up their ears and required no incentive to induce them to move ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson

... Under the incentive of such exalted patronage, Shakespeare's activity redoubled, but his work shows none of the conventional marks of literature that is produced in the blaze of Court favour. The first six years of the new reign saw him ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... build up a loftier population making man more manly.' It is evidently our duty to lend a helping hand in the hour of need, either by our wisdom, power, or benevolence. This thought should act as an incentive, more or less powerful, on each person, and make him restless until he becomes satisfied that he is doing something to ameliorate the condition of his fellow men. Men should thus fulfil their mission until called to receive their ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock

... in keeping before you a definite purpose in your study of this book. A well-defined plan will act as an incentive to regular and systematic effort, and incidentally develop ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser

... Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater incentive to men to fight for the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... propositions drawn up (25 May, 1643) by the Common Council of the city to be laid before parliament.(602) A monopoly of the trade in coal, salt and glass with the north of England was to be held out as an incentive for persons to adventure their money in the reduction of the town. A committee, of which one-half of its members was to be nominated by the Commons and the rest by the City, was to have charge of all the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... four or five months of irregular conduct towards the firm employing him, presented himself to the Collector of Customs (as Immigration Agent), informed against himself, and begged to be deported from the Colony. The incentive for this strange proceeding was to secure the informer's reward of $1,000. It was probably the first case in Philippine history of a person voluntarily seeking compulsory expulsion from the Islands. The Government, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... institution, for the discussion and illustration of subjects intimately connected with the end and aim of their studies. In the course of a few years, or even less, many of these young men would be qualified to take a leading part in the establishment, and perhaps there would be no greater incentive to the continuation of studies now frequently abandoned too early, for the sake of some money-getting pursuit, than the hope that the scientific acquirements attained at college might be turned to ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... and mother, looking at their children, feel this as part of their compensation for parenthood. "I shall die and leave some one behind me," means, "I shall die and yet I shall, in another form, live." Part of the incentive to parenthood, in a time which knows how to prevent parenthood and which shirks it as disagreeable, is the fear of death, of personal annihilation. For there is in death a blow to one's pride, an indignity ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... house. Mooch and Weil were acquainted, but had little sympathy with one another. They were too different: Mooch's restlessness and mysticism and revolutionary ideas and "vulgar" manners, which, perhaps, he exaggerated, were an incentive to the irony of Felix Weil, with his calm, mocking temper, his distinguished manners and conservative mind. They had only one thing in common: they were both equally lacking in any profound interest in action: and if they did indulge in action, it was not from faith, but from their tenacious ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... two. He had only just found it in a corner of a cupboard where it had lain for years and years. But oh, the strength of that cigarette! It took me hours to get through, for it would not draw a bit. Nevertheless, with the incentive of a shilling to urge me on, I continued "faint but pursuing" and eventually won the bet. I would not do it again for ten ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren

... excitement to virtue, that exists in the world. But when several hundred thousand of the working classes are suddenly huddled together in densely peopled localities, this invaluable check is wholly lost. Nay, what is worse, it is rolled over to the other side; and forms an additional incentive to licentiousness. The poor in these situations have no neighbours who care for them, or even know their names; but they are surrounded by multitudes who are willing to accompany them in the career of sensuality. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... whose iron and masonry construction is called fireproof, show that some other form of construction is necessary to obtain the desired results of minimizing the annual cost of the maintenance of the invested capital, as represented by insurance, depreciation, interest and taxation. There is little incentive for entering into unusual expenses in the construction of a manufacturing building for the purpose of increasing its resistance to fire, unless the additional interest on such increase in the investment is to be met by a corresponding ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... and even positive enactments are directed against his acquiring the rudiments of knowledge; he is cut off forever from the hope of raising his condition in society, whatever may be his merit, talents, or virtues, and therefore deprived of the strongest incentive to useful and praiseworthy exertion; his physical degradation begets a corresponding moral degradation: he is without moral principle, and addicted to the lowest vices, particularly theft and falsehood; if marriage be not disallowed, it is little better than a state of ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... deliberation. "The fact that Hugh Mainwaring was making final disposition of his property naturally spurred me on to increased action, since, in making final adjustment of his papers, he would be more than likely to destroy the old will. This incentive, together with the fact that opportunity was given me for a more thorough search than I had been able to make prior to that time, combined to bring about the discovery ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... offered to it, if the parent himself had not thought so. And, therefore, we can only let the child know his duty in this respect, and that he ought to give a preference to that; and then rest ourselves contented, although we should discern, that the reward is the chief incentive, of it. For this, from whatever motive inculcated, may beget a habit in the child of doing it: and then, as it improves in years, one may hope, that reason will take place, and enable him, from the most solid and durable motives, to give ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... state the alternative. That one of your nephews took this note seems to me to be clear; the crime would be infinitely greater, infinitely more unpardonable in the one case than the other, but the incentive, too, was enormously greater. In the one case the only object for the theft would be to avoid the consequence of a foolish, but, after all, not a serious freak; in the other to obtain a large fortune, and to ruin the chances of a ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... back every time a danger-signal was thrown out," he said lightly, "I wouldn't travel very far. Oh, I'll come back all right; a man may go through fire itself and return if he has the incentive which I have." His tone ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... city. It is made up of every nationality known to man. The majority of the people are very poor. Life with them is one long unbroken struggle, and to exist at all is simply to be wretched. They are packed together at a fearful rate in dirt and wretchedness, and they have every incentive to commit crimes which will bring them the means of supplying their wants. It is a common habit of some European governments to ship their criminals to this port, where they have a new field opened to them. The political system of the city teaches the lower ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... phrases are justified by considerations of dramatic propriety. When Raphael describes the artillery used in Heaven, he speaks of cannon balls as "iron globes" and "balls of missive ruin," and calls the linstock the "incentive reed pernicious," thereby perhaps drawing attention to the strange character of the new invention. No such reason can be invoked for his justification when he tells how ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... with which Mr. Howard prepared for his many tasks, is seen in his extended reading among Civil War records, before writing "Shenandoah." The same "knowledge" sense must have been a constant incentive to Professor Matthews, in ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... Rationalism has upon my country?" And he has given the answer by his life-career. All his productions centre in that thought, and it is not the least of his service that he has written sketches of the old Reformation theologians, as an incentive to the restoration of their spirit. It is not easy to estimate the benefit which his Sin and Redemption has conferred upon the young men of Germany. The Baron von Kottwitz is the real personage represented by the patriarch. Let us hear this venerable saint as he stands upon the border of the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... I worked indeed! To win this girl for my own, to show myself worthy of her innocent faith, supplied me with the most powerful incentive in life. In the quarter they regarded me first with ridicule, then with wonder, and, finally, with respect. For my enthusiasm did not fade. "He has turned over a new leaf," they said, "he means to be famous!" It was understood. No more excursions for Silvestre, no more junketings and recklessness! ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... which you complain, beyond the fair presumption that it comes from General Grant, and that it has an object which, if you understood, you would be loath to frustrate. True, these troops are, in strict law, only to be removed by my order; but General Grant's judgment would be the highest incentive to me to make such order. Nor can I understand how doing so is bad faith and dishonor, nor yet how it so exposes Kentucky to ruin. Military men here do not perceive how it exposes Kentucky, and I am sure Grant would not permit it if ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... historians who have searched eagerly the records of the past with a view to eliciting facts and arguments to support the political views they have severally entertained as regards the present. Even when no such incentive has existed, the temptation to adopt a novel view of some celebrated man or woman whose character and career have floated down the tide of history cast in a conventional mould has occasionally proved highly ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... base, to shift the incidence of the struggle for existence from our lower to our higher emotions, so to anticipate and neutralise the motives of the cowardly and bestial, that the ambitious and energetic imagination which is man's finest quality may become the incentive and determining ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... the much-despised "Almighty Dollar" has been the greatest incentive to the struggling virtuoso in European music centers. Although this may be true in a number of cases, it is certainly unjust in others. Many of the virtuosos find travel in America so distasteful that notwithstanding the ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... vain and ineffectual: for so far from striking terror into those who were appointed to go upon this expedition, it rather acted as an incentive to glory, upon those who had no manner of business in it. Jermyn appeared among the foremost of those; and, without reflecting that the pretence of his indisposition had delayed the conclusion of his marriage with Miss Jennings, he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... he had a very low place in the class lists of the school, and was by no means one of those model school-boys who find favour in the eyes of the school-master by attention to Latin grammar. Isaac's first incentive to diligent study seems to have been derived from the circumstance that he was severely kicked by one of the boys who was above him in the class. This indignity had the effect of stimulating young Newton's activity to such an extent that he not only attained the desired object of passing ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... State were, however, they were not intolerable. It was still lawful for a slave to learn to read, and free persons of color had the privilege of acquiring any knowledge whatsoever.[1] The chief incentive to the education of Negroes in that State came from the rising Methodists and Baptists who, bringing a simple message to plain people, instilled into their minds as never before the idea that the Bible being the revelation of ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... perseverance, and zeal which were admirable. His lessons always lasted a full hour, generally he was so kind as to make them longer. Mikuli says: "A holy artistic zeal burnt in him then, every word from his lips was incentive and inspiring. Single lessons often lasted literally for hours at a stretch, till exhaustion overcame master and pupil." There were for me also such blessed lessons. Many a Sunday I began at one o'clock to play at Chopin's, and only at four or five o'clock in the afternoon ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... "Celtic Renaissance" has been applied to their work, which glows with spiritual emotion and discloses a world of dreams, fairies, and romantic aspiration. As Richard Wagner received from the Scandinavian folk-lore the inspiration for his great music, as Tennyson found the incentive for The Idylls of the Kings in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, so the modern Celtic poets turned back to the primitive legends of their country for tales of Cuchulain who fought the sea, Caolte who besieged the castle of the gods, Oisin, who wandered ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... the ordinance of secession. He gave the influence of his eminent name to the schemes of those who, by every agency, fas aut nefas, were determined to hurl Virginia into secession. The very fact that General Lee had assumed command of the troops in Virginia was a powerful incentive with many to vote against the Union. Jefferson Davis had anticipated and measured the full force of the effect which would be produced upon Virginians by General Lee's identification with the Confederate cause. Whether or not there be ground for making General Lee the subject of exceptional ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... society, and an object of interest to speculating mothers; but his affections still adhered to his old love, Natalie de Bellefonds, whose family now gave their assent to the match,—at least prospectively,—a circumstance which furnished such additional incentive to his exertions, that in about two years from his first brilliant speech he was in a sufficiently flourishing condition to offer the young lady a ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... lasted, bore us through the struggle. Unluckily, in demonstrating the perils of meddling with the structure of the tax, in showing its power and simplicity, the chancellor was at the same time providing the easiest means, if not also the most direct incentive, to that policy of expenditure—it rose from fifty to seventy millions between 1853 and 1859—which was one of the most fatal obstacles to the foremost aims of his political life. It was twenty years from now, as my readers will see, before the effort, now foreshadowed, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... faster. There was always the chance that the other car would come slithering along on our trail. Besides, it was enough just to know that this was real, and that Beryl would marry me just as soon as we found a preacher. There was no incentive to ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... distinction upon their localities. They owe it to those who may come after them, that they so manifest their gratitude that it will inspire succeeding generations with a due sense of patriotism, and be an incentive to them to rise above narrow and sinister purposes to the plane of exalted virtues, and be stimulated to the performance ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various

... hopes," the clear tones rang forth, "that this important event will serve as an incentive to every officer and soldier to act with fidelity and courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of the country depend, under God, solely on the success of our arms and that he is in the service of a state possessed ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... letter proved that the Colonel had not met with Williams, it operated as a renewed inhibition on Dr. Beaumont to prevent Eustace from rushing into the field, for which he had now a fresh incentive in the friendship he had formed with Major Monthault, a young man of birth and fortune, who had been attached, like himself, to the Queen's suite. This youth had seen actual service, and spoke with enthusiasm of the character of Lord Goring, then just appointed general ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... from the dug-out or the cave where in primordial condition he won his food by his own hands from the uncut forests and the unfarmed waters. As family policeman he had no incentive to accumulations of food, clothing, or luxuries. These involved added police responsibilities and enlarged the temptations of his neighbors, both ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... neauxdebla. Inauspicious nefavora. Incalculable nekalkulebla. Incapable nekapabla. Incapacity nekapableco. Incarnate korpigi. Incarnation korpigxo. Incendiary brulkrimulo. Incense bonodorfumo. Incense furiozigi. Incest sangadulto. Incentive kauxzo. Inch colo. Incident okazajxo. Incision trancxo. Incite instigi, inciti. Inclination inklino. Incline inklini. Incline (slope) deklivo. Include enhavi. Incoherent sensenca. Income rento. Incommode gxeni. Incomparable nekomparebla. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... must be strong enough and constant enough, when coupled with the economic appeal, to provide a reason or incentive for continued activity. ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... the scale of civilization, we find a higher and higher conception of Deity, which has flowered here in our Western World in the beautiful Christian religion that now furnishes our spiritual inspiration and incentive to improve. ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... not yet was the storm-cloud that hung over Ireland bigger than a man's hand; east, west, north and south there brooded the peace of the close of a halcyon day, and the amazing doings of the Suffragettes but added a slight incentive to the perusal of the morning paper. The arts flourished, harvests prospered; the world like a newly-wound clock seemed to be in for a spell of serene and orderly ticking, with an occasional chime just to show how ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... Massachusetts, and he realized the difference in the extreme and perhaps beyond it. I tried to make him believe that if a man had one or two friends anywhere who loved letters and sympathized with him in his literary attempts, it was incentive enough; but of course he wished to be in the centres of literature, as we all do; and he never was content until he had set his face and his foot Eastward. It was a great step for him from the Swedenborgian school at Urbana to the young university at Ithaca; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... plane! He lifting her,—no marvel in this; and she—by a magic power of levitation at which she never ceased to wonder—sustaining him. By her aid he would make something of himself which would be worthy of her. At last he had the incentive to enable him to take his place in the world. He pictured their future life at Grenoble until her heart was strained with yearning for it to begin. Here would be duty,—let him who would gainsay it, duty and love ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... incentive to action, as fear: that is the anticipation of good, this of evil."—Inst., p. 265. "The poor want some advantages which the rich enjoy; but we should not therefore account these happy, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... were the only incentive for Nick Carter, to act upon this was the very best course he could have adopted. But Nick was ever one who considered his own safety last. His whole impulse now was to do the best that could be done to get Chick out of the predicament into which he had been thrust; and he considered that ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... was, material, spiritual, was gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night, the old accustomed twilit doubt crept in—the same dull acquiescence—the same uncertainty of self, the familiar lack of will, of incentive, the congenial tendency to drift; and with it came weariness—perhaps reaction from the recent skirmishes ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... were withheld, by shame, from giving way to such considerations. Numbers give power; individually each man might tremble at the thought of resisting Napoleon, but united, the esprit de corps which is, as it ought to be, the most powerful incentive among all Churchmen, taught them to offer an unyielding opposition to all demands inconsistent with the rights of their Church. But there was another circumstance which rendered the assembling of the Council fatal to ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... continue publishing a series of short articles in the columns of the Statesman, but as I proceeded it gradually dawned upon my mind that I could achieve a twofold object by compiling my recollections in book form in aid of the Red Cross Fund. Whether it was due to this new and additional incentive which may perhaps have had the effect of stimulating my mental powers I know not, but as I continued to write on, scenes and events long since forgotten seemed gradually to well up out of the dim and far distant past and visualize on the tablets of my memory. I was thus enabled to extend ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey

... of the accepted codes and compromises of society. He must try to work out a scheme of morality suitable to his own case and temperament, which found the prohibitory law of Moses chill and uninspiring, but in the Sermon on the Mount a strong incentive to all those impulses of pity and charity to which his heart was prone. In early days his sense of social injustice and the inequalities of human opportunity made him inwardly much of a rebel, who would have embraced ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cordiality on other subjects, to which she now adroitly turned the conversation. This was just enough to encourage him, and at the same time leave him in that degree of doubt and suspense which generally operate as the greatest incentive to persevere in the pursuit of an object. It proved so in his case; and, to this natural incentive to persevere, was now added another, that of respect for her character,—a respect which every hour's conversation with her enhanced, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson



Words linked to "Incentive" :   moral force, motivator, incentive scheme, incentive stock option, dividend, inducement, sales incentive, payment, rational motive



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