Invective may be a sharp weapon, but over-use blunts its edge.
The orator who is known to have at his command all the weapons of invective is most formidable when most courteous.
It is said that during this celebrated invective the members of the council laughed with exultation; none preserving a decent gravity, except Lord North.
He dipped his pen in gall for this purpose, attacking the Duke of Grafton's administration with virulent invective and energetic eloquence, if haply he might effect its overthrow.
Both houses adjourned to the 17th; but before the commons separated, a debate took place on the presentation of the London petition, which for boldness of invective and declamation was scarcely ever surpassed.
Here again he launched forth in bitter invective against the practice of employing the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the Indians in the war.
Fox replied to this invective in the words which Lord Chatham had used at the commencement of the dispute: he "thanked God that America had resisted the claims of the mother country!
This was a constant theme of invective among the opposition, and, it would seem, not without good reason.
The eloquence of invective and vituperation was carried by O'Connell to a very inglorious perfection.
Loaded abuse and unmeasured invective color the refutation, but Apion apparently deserved it.
The more incongruous is it that after this invective he puts into Eleazar's mouth two long speeches, calling on his men to kill themselves rather than fall into the hands of the Romans, which sum up eloquently the Zealot attitude.
His rage and gloom increased as the years moved on, and in penning his lines of savage invectiveagainst the Irish House of Commons, the Dean had a fit and wrote no more verse.
The position of the Democracy was dissected to the separation of every fibre; its character and future effects denounced and exposed in a strain of invective eloquence which thrilled to every heart.
His sarcasm and invective upon such occasions was withering, and his vehemence daring and terrible.
His oratory was playful, awakening wild mirth in his auditors, and again it was impetuous and sarcastic, overwhelming with invective and denunciation.
The most eminent public service only makes their vituperation and invective more eager and more unscrupulous, when he who has done such service presents himself as a candidate for the people's suffrages.
What impetuous invective this: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
The three eventful years of the ministry of Jesus afforded many opportunities for the display of temper and for the use of invective in the Evangelical writings.
Finally, he relies too much upon sarcasm and personal invective as agents.
And were not Mr. Phillips among the most genial and sunny of human beings, really incapable of any malign passion, he would fool the reactive sting of this invective in his own bosom, and so become fearful of indulging it.
It is just where personal invective begins to be used as matter of theory and system that it begins to be used amiss.
Losing now all mastery over themselves, they pour out a torrent of mere extravagant invective and baseless falsehoods, which in the calmer outset they would have blushed to think of.
To make an end of this topic, one may ask why Pitt, so fertile of invective himself, was not the subject of execration when he joined the Court.
But Stanhope proceeded with an invective against Cobham's young patriots, so violent as to be checked by the Speaker.
However imperfectly his speech may be reported, it has much of that energy of declamatory invective which is part of the tradition connected with his name.
Still, invectivemust necessarily have an object, and, by aiming at the King's confidential Foreign Minister, Pitt was able to wound the King as well.
Was everything to be called invective that had not the smoothness of a court compliment?
They tiptoed up the stairs and got behind a pile of crates in the shadows, while invective roared around them.
But the new gun was only a diversion, while the stream of invective against horseflesh went on like the brook for ever.
Their conduct stirred our invectivepowers to rich depths of condemnation.
Carlyle's delight in the disciple's diatribes probably encouraged the younger man in a vehemence of invective to which his love of dogmatic assertion already rendered him too prone.
When later, Carlyle and Ruskin battered the economists into silence with invective and irony they were voicing the dumb protest of the humane people of England.
They know that no attack is so disastrous as silence, that no invective is so blasting as the wise and indulgent smile of the people who do not care.
It was remarked of him that even in party gatherings, where invective against political opponents is apt to be expected and relished, he argued fairly, and never condescended to abuse.
More than one slave champion encountered during its delivery his attention, and must have recoiled from the panther-like glare and spring of his invective and rejoinder.
In fact the Italian aptitude for invective seems in North Italy, allied with the study of Archilochus, to have created a new type in Latin literature--a type which Horace essays not very successfully in the Epodes and some of the Odes.
The invective of Catullus has no humbug of moral purpose.
In portraying that character, he has brought into exercise all those powers of invective and merciless ridicule which give such a savage relish to his delineation of Barrere.
The hostile press made the most of popular prejudice against a woman stump speaker and attempted by ridicule and invective to drive her from the stage.
At the name of Cleveland, Senator Tillman leaped to his feet and delivered himself of characteristicinvective against the President, the "tool of Wall Street," the abject slave of gold.
And all this tornado of passion and invective arose just because he had unexpectedly met in the court-room the patient face and beseeching eyes of a woman, married and forsaken, loved and lost, long ago!
Oh, Doctor Rocke, I could not tell you the avalanche of abuse, insult and invective that he hurled upon my defenseless head.
We read in the treatise of Plutarch against the Epikurean Kolotes, an acrimonious invective against Epikurus and his followers, for recommending a scheme of life such as to withdraw men from active political functions (Plutarch, adv.
Upon this Anytus breaks out into a burst of angry invective against the Sophists; denouncing them as corruptors of youth, whom none but a madman would consult, and who ought to be banished by public authority.
I only give this as a small specimen; but his invective against Lord Grey was stronger and more violent than I can possibly repeat.
Mobs are the trite topic of declamation and invective among all the ministerial people far and near.
If I had taken up my pen perhaps some unbecoming invective might have fallen from it.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "invective" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
