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More "Affirmation" Quotes from Famous Books



... proposition, an object is the same with itself, if the idea expressed by the word, object, were no ways distinguished from that meant by itself; we really should mean nothing, nor would the proposition contain a predicate and a subject, which however are implyed in this affirmation. One single object conveys the idea of ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... had it ever inwardly suspect." Sir Thomas goes on to affirm, "that he does not relate the story after every way that he had heard, but after that way that he had heard it by such men and such meanes as he thought it hard but it should be true." This affirmation rests on the credibility of certain reporters, we do not know whom, but who we shall find were no credible reporters at all: for to proceed to the confutation. James Tirrel, a man in no secret trust with the king, and kept down by Catesby and Ratcliffe, is recommended as a proper person ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... of the fact that the Christian Scientists, e.g., would reply to this that the bodily state (there is no body, according to them, but we let that pass, for the moment) is cured at the same time; that, by the mere affirmation that the body is whole, we thereby make it whole; we do not suppress symptoms, we remove causes as well. This I deny, at least in many cases. I have seen too many of such "cures" and relapses not to know whereof I speak. A patient goes ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... that life is motion and is an attribute of matter; yet that is something wholly different from what is understood by the term. Thus far science has pointed out no distinction between dead and living protoplasm, and the affirmation that the primordial cells are the source of life is not tenable, since the cell is an organization that presupposes life, and so, at most, the original cell could be designated as but the first expression of life. For a short time it was assumed that life came to the earth through meteors or ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... affirmation of what had been, after all, but a sadly- humourous proposal, I had attired myself in a Greek costume—quickly made by my steward, who had been a tailor—and was about to leave my cabin, when Hungerford entered, and exclaimed, as he took his pipe from his mouth in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... moral oneness with God, the divineness of his spirit, the ideal perfectness of his life. The strength of this position being realized, the world begins to hear from Christian thinkers the innovating affirmation that belief of the miraculous birth can no longer be deemed essential to Christianity; else it would not have been left unmentioned in two of the four Gospels, and in every extant Apostolic letter. And now we hear theologians saying: "I accept ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... subscribe to the doctrine that the Constitution expressly affirms the right of property in slaves. We may be wrong; it may be a mere misapprehension. But with their present opinions, the people of the North will hesitate long before they make this express affirmation a part of ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... do not use two negative words so that they shall contradict each other. [Footnote: Not infrequently we use two negatives to make an affirmation; as, He is not unjust; ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... all by the way. Let them debate that will, for it leads nowhere unless indeed there be sharp revelation, positive declaration and very certain affirmation to go upon by way of Basis or First Principle whence to deduce some sure conclusion and irrefragable truth; for thus the intellect walks, as it were, along a high road, whereas by all other ways it is lurching and stumbling and ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... opposing negative thought vibrations generated within ourselves, or thrown into our minds by others. This can be done by resolutely substituting a health thought for a diseased one; no matter how fast negative thoughts crowd in upon the mind, they can be antidoted by the strong positive affirmation of HEALTH. ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... the place, because even now it has not been fully explored, and he bound me by a solemn promise that I would not divulge it to a single soul, actually going to the length of insisting on my adding a formal oath to my affirmation. This I consented to because I knew that my friend was a humorous man, and also because otherwise he positively refused to inform me where the streams were about which he had been telling such fabulous fish stories. "No," he said, "some of those ——— cattle who think they own the ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page

... the fact without choice and without limitation. The fact was that he was always choosing, and always limiting. Even a map chooses and limits, far more a picture. Yet this delusion of Zola's and its affirmation resulted in no end of misunderstanding. People said the noises of the streets, which he supposed himself to have given with graphophonic fulness and variety, were not music; and they were quite right. Zola, as far as his effects were voluntary, was not giving them ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Moses seems to have fixed a cross for the grammarians and the rabbins; for they crucify this passage in various ways. Lyra recites the opinions of some who see in this passage an affirmation, considering it to mean that in his despair Cain claimed his sin to be greater than could be pardoned. This is our rendering. Augustine likewise retained this view of the passage, for he says, "Thou ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... well-beloved. And let this Henceforth be led unto thy feet, to make Thee slow in motion, as a weary man, Both to the 'yea' and to the 'nay' thou seest not. For he among the fools is down full low, Whose affirmation, or denial, is Without distinction, in each case alike Since it befalls, that in most instances Current opinion leads to false: and then Affection bends the judgment to her ply. "Much more than vainly doth he loose from shore, Since he returns not such as he set forth, Who fishes for the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... the new-born infant in ancient Mexico, the mother thus addressed the Sun and the Earth: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child, and guard it as your son." A common affirmation with them was: "By the life of the Sun, and of our Lady, the Earth" ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible. Perhaps! I like to think my summing-up would not have been a word of careless contempt. Better his cry—much better. It was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory! That is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond, when a long time after I heard once more, not his ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... safe directory to determine upon matters of faith declared in the Lamb's book." (Spaeth, 1, 336.) Accordingly Dr. Jacobs interprets the Gettysburg pledge as follows: "It was a pledge to a distinctively Lutheran position. Such an affirmation could never have been enforced in the proposed Lutheran-Reformed seminary which the ministerium [of Pennsylvania] had had in mind. It could not have been exacted of those who believed the confession to be in error on those points which divide the Lutherans from the ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... asked: Is there a Mission architecture? It is not my intention here to discuss this question in extenso, but merely to answer it by asking another and then making an affirmation. What is it that constitutes a style in architecture? It cannot be that every separate style must show different and distinct features from every other style. It is not enough that in each style there are specific features that, when combined, form an appropriate and harmonious relationship ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... correction of the defect by adjustment, repair or replacement at Radio Shack's election and sole expense, except there shall be no obligation to replace or repair items which by their nature are expendable. No representations or other affirmation of fact, including but not limited to statements regarding capacity, suitability for use, or performance of the equipment, shall be or be deemed to be a warranty or representation by Radio Shack, for any purpose, nor give rise ...
— Radio Shack TRS-80 Expansion Interface: Operator's Manual - Catalog Numbers: 26-1140, 26-1141, 26-1142 • Anonymous

... expression. To find the equal of these faces—after having stated their classic descent—one would have to turn to the beautiful things by Ingres, and certainly Degas is, with Ingres, the most learned, the most perfect French draughtsman of the nineteenth century. An affirmation of this nature is made to surprise those who judge Impressionism with preconceived ideas. It is none the less true that, if a series of Degas's first portraits were collected, the comparison would force itself upon one's mind irrefutably. ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair

... the quality of their relief, their modulation of surface, their handling of material, and their choice of ornament. Seek, and you will be handsomely rewarded; in these things the niggers have never been surpassed. Only when you begin to look for that passionate affirmation of a personal vision which we Europeans, at any rate, expect to find in the greatest art will you run a risk of being disappointed. It will be then, if ever, that you will be tempted to think that these exquisitely gifted black artists are perhaps as much like ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... in the hands of men the voice of the romantic realist and poetic ironist, Joseph Conrad, sounds a dynamic masculine bass amid the shriller choir. He is an aboriginal force. Let us close with the hearty affirmation of Walt Whitman: "Camerado! this is no book, who touches this, touches ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... That the owner, master or factor of each and every foreign ship or vessel, clearing out for any of the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, or suspected to be intended for the slave-trade, and the suspicion being declared to the officer of the customs, by any citizen, on oath or affirmation, and such information being to the satisfaction of the said officer, shall first give bond with sufficient sureties, to the Treasurer of the United States, that none of the natives of Africa, or any other foreign country or place, shall be taken ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... Touroulde makes this affirmation.[64] The Duke of Alencon declares that the Maid was apt alike at wielding the lance, ranging an army, ordering a battle, preparing artillery, and that old captains marvelled at her skill in placing ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... sit in deep attention, shielding their faces from the fire, and responding to enunciations directly contrary to their convictions with an occasional 'yes-seh,' or 'ceddenly,' or 'of coze,' or,—prettier affirmation still,—a solemn ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... understood before its related negative can be intelligible. Bichat defined life as the sum of functions by which death is resisted. It is an identical proposition in verbal disguise, with the fault that it makes negation affirmation, passiveness action. Death is not a dynamic agency warring against life, but simply an occurrence. Life is the operation of an organizing force producing an organic form according to an ideal type, and persistently preserving that form amidst the incessant molecular activity ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... lassitude were stealing through his limbs. When she had gone, a single memory clung to him—the memory of the wonderful texture of her skin. He had read in a child's book of physiology that our skin breathes. The affirmation had meant nothing to him beyond mechanics; now, suddenly, it meant much. He had seen, felt, this woman's skin breathe, and its breath had been like the fragrance ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... none by her gift, nor by her power (which she hathn ot) to the place of a laufull magistrat. And therfore who soeuer receiueth of a woman[148], office or authoritie, are adulterous and bastard officers before God. This may appeare straunge at the first affirmation, but if we will be as indifferent and equall in the cause of God, as that we can be in the cause of man, the reason shall sodeinlie appeare. The case suposed, that a tyranne by conspiracie vsurped the royall seat and dignitie of a king, and in the ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox

... blessed affirmation, the organ pealed out its noble symphony, and men and women lifted wet faces heavenward, until to the ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... to send up to the scuttle before the dusk. The pilot, less out of complaisance to the Father, than out of his desire to undeceive him, went up himself, and could discover nothing. Xavier, without any regard to the affirmation of the pilot, instantly desired the captain to lower the sails, that the chalop might more easily come up with the ship. The authority of the holy man carried it, above the reasons of the pilot; the sail-yard was lowered, and a stop ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... other [matter] that I refrain from saying, I have already said why I kept silent. I do not speak so, neither [do I say] that I make a threefold affirmation in all that I have ever said or written nor that I am at the source.[412-2] The Genoese, Venetians and all other nations that possess pearls, precious stones, and other articles of value, take them to the ends of the world to exchange them for gold. Gold is most excellent; gold is treasure, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... world must know and feel the humanity of Jesus. But it makes the greatest difference in result whether the ground of the common humanity is in Him or in us. To borrow the expressive language of Paul, was He 'created' in us? Or are we 'created' in Him? Grant the right of the affirmation that 'there is no difference in kind between the divine and the human'; allow the interchange of terms so that one may speak of the humanity of God and the divinity of man; appropriate the motive which lies in these attempts ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue—this question—is precisely what the text declares our fathers ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... and brace hard. If you haven't any nerve, then getting square is too strenuous a game for you? Now, what can that gang prove? They can suspect, and they can charge, but my denial is fully as good as any other man's affirmation. Go before the Board of Education? Of course I will. And I'll make any accuser of mine look mighty small before that august ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... and enforced by a common will." We have to recognise that there is such a thing as public right; that there is such a thing as international morality, and that the United States of Europe have to keep as their ideal the affirmation of this public right, and to enforce it by a common will. That creation of a common will is at once the most difficult and the most imperative thing of all. Every one must be aware how difficult it is. We know, for instance, how the common law is enforced in any specified state, ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney

... really indicates its value. We live before we can interpret our life, and what is already achieved by those in the forward ranks shows what all may yet become. We are not left to chance or imagination or to argument or affirmation of principles to visualize the family as it is or as it may be. We may look about us and see what it is and can do for men and women. Few, perhaps, are standing on the heights of their own being when they build the ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... resolution was introduced into the Senate declaring that the abolition of slavery in the District would be "a violation of good faith," &c. What said Mr. Webster? "I do not know any matter of fact, or any ground of argument, on which this affirmation of plighted faith can stand. I see nothing in the act of cession, and nothing in the Constitution, and nothing in the transaction, implying any limitation on ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock

... United States requires that all legislative, executive, and judicial officers in the United States, and in the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. The Constitution of each of the several states requires a similar oath or affirmation; and some of them further provide that, in addition to the oath of office, all persons appointed ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... symbols, taken alone, could express. More absolute than the Absolute, more personal than the human mind, Brahma therefore exceeds whilst He includes all the concepts of philosophy, all the passionate intuitions of the heart. He is the Great Affirmation, the font of energy, the source of life and love, the unique satisfaction of desire. His creative word is the Om or "Everlasting Yea." The negative philosophy which strips from the Divine Nature all Its attributes and defining Him only ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... of stages or stories (French, etages, ESTAGES, STAGES), and that this and other similar repetitions, in the development of the one, of all the facts and features of the development of THE OTHER, is what is meant by the Analogy of one with the other, and by the affirmation implied in the title of this article, that Language is a Type ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the escape from self. The doctrine of Christ is a negation of life, that of Nietzsche an affirmation; it seems to me much easier to attain ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... that he has no true idea of God." It has taken all the philosophical and spiritual travail of the centuries to discover that there may be a concrete Infinite, an organic Absolute, an immanent Reality, and that the way to share in this comprehending Life is at least as much a way of affirmation as of negation, a way that leads not into "the Dark" but into the Light, and not into a "fathomless nothing," but into an abundant and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... received from Paris; and this general report, Galileo asserted, was all he knew of the subject. Fuccarius, in a disparaging letter, says that one of the Dutch telescopes had been brought to Venice, and that he himself had seen it. This statement is not incompatible with Galileo's affirmation that he had not seen the original instrument, and knew no more about it than what had been communicated to him in the letters from the French capital. It was insinuated by Fuccarius that Galileo had seen the telescope ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... pleasure to repeat so striking an affirmation of the innocence of so high, so injured I believe, a character. The queen eagerly declared I should go again ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... the debate. The weather was beautiful, and we had dinner on the ground. Each affirmed for three days. My affirmation closed Saturday afternoon. The President Moderator announced that the debate would be resumed at 10 o'clock Monday, on the polity of the Methodist Church, Mr. Fitch affirming. Monday, Mr. Fitch declined to discuss the polity of his church, giving as a reason that it was of no consequence, and he ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... plunge at random into my subject, and immediately encounter the following letter from a Protestant clergyman in the north of Ireland, written in response to a suggestion that he might with advantage study Mr. Gladstone's magnificent speech on the Second Reading of the Affirmation Bill in 1883:— ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... awkward truth. In the empty hours, when he remembered that time was passing, his work neglected, the future lost, he was frozen with terror. But there was no reaction: and his cowardice found excuses in desperate affirmation of the void in which he lived: he took a bitter delight in abandoning himself to it like a wreck on the waters. What was the good of fighting? There was nothing beautiful, nor good; neither God, nor life, nor being of any sort. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... answer given me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... or indicate that he has received a favor, while the third and supreme degree is when a man fails to recognize the reception of a favor, whether by forgetting it or in any other way. Moreover, since opposite affirmation includes negation, it follows that it belongs to the first degree of ingratitude to return evil for good, to the second to find fault with a favor received, and to the third to esteem kindness as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... devisees, in as full and ample manner, and under the same conditions, limitations, and restrictions, as the same was held, or might have been claimed or enjoyed, by such person in his or her lifetime; and when application for a patent shall be made by such legal representatives, the oath or affirmation shall be so varied as to be applicable to them."—Act ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various

... few words more in this and that direction; I am willing. Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human affirmation, '93 is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir; but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit; but what name do you give to Montrevel? Fouquier-Tainville is a rascal; but what is your opinion as to Lamoignon-Baville? Maillard is terrible; but Saulx-Tavannes, if you please? ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Napier's War in the Peninsula.[220] It is written in the spirit of a Liberal, but the narrative is distinct and clear, and I should suppose accurate. He has, however, given a bad sample of accuracy in the case of Lord Strangford, where his pointed affirmation has been as pointedly repelled. It is evident he would require probing. His defence of Moore is spirited and well argued, though it is evident he defends the statesman as much as the general. As a Liberal and a military man, Colonel Napier finds it difficult to steer his course. The former ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... of shame, not dreading what she may find there. She is always arguing with herself, and the answers are inflexible, the answers of a clear intellect which rebels but accepts defeat. Her doubt is itself an affirmation, her defiance would be an entreaty but for the 'quenchless will' of her pride. She faces every terror, and to her pained apprehension birth and death and life are alike terrible. Only Webster's dirge might have been said ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... shade of inquiry about words which might have seemed rude as a mere affirmation. Then she appeared to answer for herself, still with the same tinge of sadness faintly colouring her pride. "For this reason I cannot tell you how ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... noses, the dogs answered each cry with a single keen yap of preoccupied affirmation. Almost at once Charmer came to the spot pointed out to me, reared her full length upon the rails and let out a new note; long, musical, fretful, overjoyed. Hardy mounted breast-high to the fence's top, wreathed two fingers in the ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... is, in effect, a deliberate and unqualified re-affirmation of every fact as alleged, and every inference as drawn, in his original libel—a deliberate and contemptuous re-affirmation of the whole system of elaborate misrepresentation which constitutes it one tissue of libel from beginning to end. Nothing whatever in the substance of ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... would inquire how things were going with him, whether any clients were coming in. The signal he had heard meant, "Is business good to-day?" And M. Joyeuse had replied, obeying only an instinct without any knowledge, "Fairly well for the season." Although young Maranne was very red as he made this affirmation, M. Joyeuse accepted his word at once. Only this idea of frequent communications between the two households made him afraid for the secrecy of his position, and from that time forward he cut himself off from what he used to call ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... the sin of blasphemy is not in this way divided into three species: since to affirm unfitting things, or to deny fitting things of God, differ merely as affirmation and negation. For this diversity does not cause distinct species of habits, since the falsehood of affirmations and negations is made known by the same knowledge, and it is the same ignorance which errs in either way, since negatives are proved by affirmatives, according to Poster. i, 25. Again ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... [ROSE nods a hearty affirmation.] Well, I'm glad of that, at least! I hoped it would be so. Then at least we can keep something that's harmonious in our memories. Ah, Rose, it was ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... A masonic document of great celebrity, but not of unquestioned authenticity. It is a declaration or affirmation of the design and principles of Freemasonry, issued in the year 1535, by a convention of masons who had assembled in the city of Cologne. The original is in the Latin language. The assertors of the authenticity of the ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only, have you any other name by which to ...
— Sophist • Plato

... a heart since, welled to his lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much heightened by the frequent recurrence of the word which is variously translated "truly," "surely," and "only." It carries the force of confident affirmation, like the "verily" of the New Testament, and is here most significantly prefixed to the assertions of his patient resignation (ver. 1); of God's defence (ver. 2); of the enemies' whispered counsels (ver. 4); to his exhortation ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... himself did not intend. The doctrine that rules out the human nature of Christ rules out the divine nature also, by confusing it with the personality. The monophysite affirms the divine nature while denying the human. Such affirmation is purely verbal. It is completely void of significance. The contrast between the divine and human natures is needed to throw personality into relief. Take away the human nature, and that contrast ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce

... indirectly, under any pretense or cause, in judgment or out of it, under the express obligation of all our possessions, patrimonial and fiscal, and all other possessions whatsoever of our vassals, subjects, and natives, real and personal, acquired or to be acquired. In affirmation of the above we have caused this our letter of authorization to be given, and we sign the same with our names and order it sealed with our seal.... [Signatures of the King, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... already noted in his mind the curious historical coincidence which so soon followed the foregoing speculative affirmation. On the day before Lincoln's first inauguration as President of the United States, the "Autocrat of all the Russias," Alexander II., by imperial decree emancipated his serfs; while six weeks after the inauguration, the "American masters," headed by Jefferson Davis, began the greatest ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... deserts, they came vnto a certaine countrey, wherein (as it was reported vnto vs in the Emperours court, by certaine clergie men of Russia and others, who were long time among them, and that by strong and stedfast affirmation) they found certaine monsters resembling women who being asked by many interpreters, where the men of that land were, they answered, that whatsoeuer women were borne there, were indued with the shape of mankinde, but the males were like vnto dogges. And delaying the time, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... use, by the intellect, of negation as a mode of passage towards a higher kind of affirmation, there is correlated the subtlest of moral counterparts in the sphere of the personal will. Since denial of the finite self and its wants, since asceticism of some sort, is found in religious experience to be the only doorway to the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... General Stuart, claiming, on this evidence, to be a legitimate descendant of the prince, died about 1852. As Charles, late in life, legitimatized his daughter by Clementina Walkinshaw (a thing needless had he been married to her mother), and made affirmation that he never had any other child, all these legends are manifestly absurd. (The affirmation is among documents in possession of Lord Braye, and is published by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... a flock of ducks, but she perceived that it was given for affirmation. She followed Ruth's glance to where the backs of the young men's heads were visible, bending over some coins they were apparently matching. . . . Johnny Byrd's head was flaming in the sunshine. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... may imitate any rhythmic sounds or melodic figure occurring in nature, hardly needs affirmation. Such devices may be accepted almost as quotations, and not be further considered here. The songs of birds, the sound made by galloping horses' feet, the moaning of the wind, etc., are all things which are part and parcel of the musical vocabulary, intelligible ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... Accordingly, it is using extreme understatement, to say that every pure original thought has a genesis equally ancient, earnest, vital with any product in Nature,—has present relationships no less broad and cosmical, and an evolution implying the like industries, veritable and precious beyond all scope of affirmation. Even if we quite overlook its pre-personal ancestry, still the roots it has in its immediate author will be of unmeasured depth, and it will still proceed toward its consummate form by energies and assiduities that beggar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... other hand, this affirmation or acceptance of a moral idea implies the quietude of the will; just that state of harmony, of repose, which we have found to be the mark of the aesthetic on the lower planes of being. In so far, then, as we accept the moral ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... logic was white-hot, and we must read the formula into all their parliamentary and legal formulae. When we read, "The Puritan party demanded reforms in the church," we must understand, "The Puritan party demanded fuller and clearer affirmation that men are created to be lost and saved." When we read, "The Army selected persons for their godliness," we must understand, "The Army selected those persons who seemed most convinced that men are created to be lost and saved." It should be added that ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... which he appeared to have carried with him to the Placide, was regarded by those who knew him best as proving the truth of the affirmation elicited from him in the pauses of his delirium of the genuineness of the stone which had passed from his hands to those of his wife at the time of their separation; and, further despatches coming in, some private and some ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... expectancy through the crowd? Did any realize the unearthly beauty and spiritual power of his presence? We know not. Scripture is silent, only telling us that on the following day, when, with two disciples, he looked on Jesus as He walked, and repeated his affirmation, "Behold the Lamb of God," those two disciples followed Him, never to return to their old master—who knew it must be so, and was content to decrease if ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... about his person, whom they now took not to be the Messiah, because he had been condemned to death, and crucified; he, observing their disbelief of his resurrection, which had been reported to them by "certain women of their acquaintance," upon the credit of the affirmation of angels, said unto them, "O Fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ (i.e. the Messiah) to have suffered these things, and to enter into his Glory? and beginning at Moses, and all the Prophets, ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading; whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is inspiring—is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... finite existence involves a partial negation, and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of the given nature, it follows (solely from Prop. vii.) that every substance ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... are a fly on the wheel. That sense of an impersonal machine going on with endless reiteration is an experience that imaginative politicians face. Often as not they disguise it under heroic phrases and still louder affirmation, just as most of us hide our cowardly submission to monotony under some word like duty, loyalty, conscience. If you have ever been an office-holder or been close to officials, you must surely have been appalled ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... impulse is the most complete expression of the will to live, in other words, it is the concentration of all volition." And in another passage: "The affirmation of the will to live concentrates itself in the act of procreation, which is its most positive expression." Mainlaender gives utterance to the opinion when he says: "The sexual impulse is the centre ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... circles. Hegel, the philosopher of the present, himself dimorphous, for both a 'left'-minded and a 'right'-minded Hegel can always be quoted, has best explained the contradictions of life, of history and of the spirit, with his own magic formula. Thesis: affirmation; Antithesis: negation; Synthesis: comprehension! Young man, or rather, comparatively young man! You began life by accepting everything, then went on to denying everything on principle. Now end your life by comprehending everything. Be exclusive ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... profound qualities, had begun unconsciously, but, once brought to her attention by Anthony's fascinated discovery of it, it assumed more nearly the proportions of a formal code. From her conversation it might be assumed that all her energy and vitality went into a violent affirmation of the negative ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... suppose so," answered Rashleigh, with an affectation of denial which was contrived to convey the strongest affirmation the case admitted of: "friendship—only friendship—formed the tie betwixt us, and the tender affection of an opening mind to its only instructor—Love came not near us—I told you I was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... they who will be foremost and furious in denial and resentment of my statements regarding the morals of their class. They do not know the whole truth, thank Heaven, but they know enough for a deprecation too deep to find relief in a cheap affirmation of woman's purity, which is, and always has been, the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that if—I noted the if—"if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire, and it was a violation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... (love) amo. Affectionate aminda. Affectionately aminde. Affinity (relationship) parenceco. Affiliate aligi, anigi. Affiliated, to become aligxi, anigxi. Affirm (attest) atesti. Affirm (assure) certigi. Affirmation atesto. Affirmation certigo, jeso. Affirmative jesa. Affix afikso. Afflict malgxojigi. Affluence ricxeco. Affluent ricxega. Afford, to give doni. Affray batigxo. Affright timigi. Affront insulto. Afloat flose, nagxe. Afraid timigita. Aft posta parto. After post. Aftermath ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... them." His lips had drawn firmly with this affirmation of will, but the next instant he was amending the statement "That is, I mostly do. But what gets me is the things you mustn't do when they're not wrong and they won't ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... pictures of a person printed from the same negative photograph; you do not say they are like each other, they are the same. It is most dangerous to fasten on any point of the depicted human procedure, and found on it the affirmation that the divine must be precisely ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... among those who think about it and especially those who doubt about it. To take an example, there is no saying which the humanitarians of a broad religion more commonly offer as a model of simplicity than that most mystical affirmation "God is Love." And there is no theological quarrel of the Councils of the Church which they, especially Mr. Wells, more commonly deride as bitter and barren than that at the Council of Nicea about the Co-eternity of the Divine Son. Yet the subtle statement is simply a metaphysical explanation ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... the original for that variation of tenses, and both clauses obviously refer to the same period and the same deliverance. Therefore we must read: 'Thou hast delivered my soul from death: hast Thou not delivered,' etc.; the question being equivalent to a strong affirmation, 'Yea, Thou hast delivered my feet from falling.' This reference of both clauses to the same period and the same delivering act, is confirmed by the quotation of these words in a very much later psalm, the 116th, where we read, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... took everything?" questioned the other, still suspicious. The earnestness of the dwarfs affirmation made him so. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... and return to Paris in the autumn and settle down comfortably for the winter. "Madame de Cintre will keep," she said; "she is not a woman who will marry from one day to another." Newman made no distinct affirmation that he would come back to Paris; he even talked about Rome and the Nile, and abstained from professing any especial interest in Madame de Cintre's continued widowhood. This circumstance was at variance with his habitual ...
— The American • Henry James

... Renaissance and Reformation, [Sidenote: Renaissance vs. Reformation] he shows that the former was naturalism, the latter an intensification of religion and of a convinced other-worldliness, that while the ethic of the former was based on "affirmation of life," that of the latter was based on "calling." Even as compared with Catholicism, Troeltsch thinks, supererogatory works were abolished because each Protestant Christian was bound to exert himself to the utmost at all times. The learned professor hazards the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... impossibility. Its evil influence extended to the election, and it put in jeopardy the success of General Hayes. At the end, Mr. Conkling did not accept the judgment of the Electoral Commission as a just judgment, and he declined to vote for its affirmation. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... whether or no the interesting happened to filter through his guide, strained now to its limits his brief opportunity. Waymarsh hadn't come with them; he had seen plays enough, he signified, before Strether had joined him—an affirmation that had its full force when his friend ascertained by questions that he had seen two and a circus. Questions as to what he had seen had on him indeed an effect only less favourable than questions as to what he hadn't. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... his calmer judgment whispered to him an indulgence of such a sentiment was selfish and useless. If such an attachment, or even engagement (he thought to himself), did exist, and of that, from his friend's affirmation, he had no doubt, it must have been entered into with her consent, and evident approval; for by her cousin's account she was immovable, even to his entreaty; why, therefore, should he, almost a stranger, attempt to ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... certain, port Admiration is the foundation of all philosophy Advantageous, too, a little to recede from one's right Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort Affect words that are not of current use Affection towards their husbands, (not) until they have lost them Affirmation and obstinacy are express signs of want of wit Affright people with the very mention of death Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... what is written, and believe that every one, infant or adult, who has been born of the flesh, must be born of the Spirit. Listen to the earnest words of Jesus as he emphasizes them with that solemn double affirmation, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." He repeats this sweeping declaration a second time. In the Greek it reads, Except any one be born again. The assertion is intended to embrace every human ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... under one or other of these heads. How any sane man, not being a professed enemy of public liberty, could put his hand to so monstrous a catalogue passes my understanding. Had a comparatively definite and innocent clause been added forbidding the affirmation or denial of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the country would have been up in arms at once. Lord Ribblesdale made an effort to reduce the seven categories to the old formula "not to be fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum, or the public peace"; but this proposal ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... the Trinity,—and this by "notions,"—and not to the assertion of the adorable acts implied in the terms both of the Evangelists and Apostles, and of the Church before as well as after Christ's ascension; nor to the assent of the pure reason to the truths, and more than assent to, the affirmation ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... made the affirmation then stopped, abruptly. Rebuild the chapel? And Judith not there? Put up the big fight for old Fowler, and Judith never returning to Lost Chief? Where now was all the zest for the fight? Why the chapel, why the ranch, why the big dream for the children ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... the entire Old Testament, and until the time of the Babylonian captivity, no trace of an evil spirit is to be found, and that, hence, it cannot be conceived that his existence is here presupposed. But this assertion may now be regarded as obsolete and without foundation. Closely connected with the affirmation, to which allusion has just been made, is the opinion which assigns the Book of Job to the time of the captivity, an opinion which is now almost universally abandoned. This book must necessarily have been written before the time of the captivity, because Jeremiah ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... it. It is the Law OF the Law, and so, like any other law, it cannot be broken, but its action can be inverted. We cannot deprive the Word of its efficacy, but our denial of it as the Word of Expansion is equivalent to an affirmation of it as the Word of Contraction, and so the Law acts towards us as a Limitation. But the fault is not in the Law, but in the way we use the Word. Now if the reader grasps this, he will see that the less we trouble ourselves about what ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... a mooted question with Ensal as to whether he did or did not sleep the night of Tiara's call at his residence. But he has ever stood ready to take oath or affirmation that, whether waking or sleeping, Tiara was constantly in his thoughts that night. And when turning his face toward the window the following morning he saw streaks of golden sunshine stretched across the floor, and realized that there was a nameless something within him ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... have believed, though not without some difficulty, that stones had in them "certaine proper vertues which are given them of a speciall influence of the planets." The unicorn's horn, he thought, had certain curative properties. And he had heard "by credible report" and the affirmation of "many grave authors" that "the wound of a man murthered reneweth bleeding at the presence of a deere freend, or ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... last, the sovereign and supreme Reality. Upon the threshold of its Lodges every man, whether prince or peasant, is asked to confess his faith in God the Father Almighty, the Architect and Master-Builder of the Universe.[175] That is not a mere form of words, but the deepest and most solemn affirmation that human lips can make. To be indifferent to God is to be indifferent to the greatest of all realities, that upon which the aspiration of humanity rests for its uprising passion of desire. No institution that is dumb concerning the meaning of life and the character of the universe, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... sure, Philip?" she asked, wishing for an affirmation. "How could you become so sure that the child you ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri

... therefore, of their opinions is worthless—their denial of religion or their affirmation of ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... of the metropolis, they are levied as with us by valuations, agreed on and fixed, according to the laws of the province; and by assessments formed by the assessors, who are yearly chosen by the people, and whose office obliges them to take either an oath or an affirmation. Two thirds of the magistrates they have here are of ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... Sallenauve, uttering that affirmation with the curt intonation and shrill voice peculiar to the relics of the ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... Sufficient affirmation on both sides, conflict again precipitated. One combatant gets overwhelming advantage, and follows it up from the way the other combatant screams bloody murder. Bloody murder gurgles and dies out, undoubtedly ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... of his impromptu verse died away, the moon, looking through the rifted clouds, beamed an affirmation, and I said: ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... misery at Exbury, the place to which he had retired—quite as much misery indeed as Grace, could she have known of it, would have been inclined to inflict upon any living creature, how much soever he might have wronged her. Then a sudden hope dawned upon him; he wondered if her affirmation were true. He asked himself whether it were not the act of a woman whose natural purity and innocence had blinded her to the contingencies of such an announcement. His wide experience of the sex had taught him that, in many cases, women who ventured on hazardous matters did ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... asking him to deliver the chief oration at the annual reunion, to be held at Mineral Springs on the twelfth day of the following month; an official notice from the clerk of the Court of Appeals concerning the affirmation of a judgment that had been handed down by Judge Priest at the preceding term of his own court; a bill for five pounds of a special brand of smoking tobacco; a notice of a lodge meeting—altogether quite a sizable ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... may be translated either as a question or as an affirmation. It makes comparatively little difference to the substantial meaning whether we read 'believest thou?' or 'thou believest.' In the former case there will be a little more vivid expression of surprise and admiration at the swiftness of Nathanael's faith, but in neither ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own affirmation. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... our author has, I do not know whether to call it the good or ill fortune to agree with whatever is most seditious, factious, and treasonable in this country,—we are told by many dealers in speculation, but not so distinctly by the author himself, (too great distinctness of affirmation not being his fault,)—but we are told, that the French have lately obtained a very pretty sort of Constitution, and that it resembles the British Constitution as if they had been twinned together in the womb,—mire sagaces fallere hospites discrimen obscurum. It may be so: but I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... carriers. I will not give the native words but will translate into English the questions and answers as they were hurled back and forth. By way of explanation let me say beforehand that there is no word in any of the Congo dialects for "yes." Affirmation is always expressed by a grunt. Here ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... my friend, then!" he added suddenly, with a note of question sounding through the affirmation, and she answered quickly, looking away with an air of petulant reproach. "Why, you know I was, Captain Kerissen. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... Indicative Mood expresses affirmation, and is used in affirmative propositions only, as, Do bhuail mi I struck, bha mi ag ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... Egeria; others, that he frequently consulted one of the Muses, and was instructed by her in the art of government. Numa was desirous to confirm the people in this opinion; but because some hesitated to believe his bare affirmation, and others went so far as to call his alleged converse with the Deities a fiction, he took an opportunity to give them such proofs of it, that the most sceptical among them should have no room left for suspicion. This he effected ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... amendment proposes to strike out, is untrue. Senators, will you unite in a statement which you know to be contradicted by the history of the country? Will you incorporate into a public statute an affirmation which is contradicted by every event which attended or followed the adoption of the compromise acts? Will you here, acting under your high responsibility as Senators of the States, assert as a fact, by a solemn vote, that which the personal recollection of every Senator who was here during the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... have so frequently referred, it is mentioned, that a "certain market is secured to the inhabitants by the demand for provisions for the other settlements." If by "settlements" the miserable trading posts be meant, as it must be, I know not on what grounds such an affirmation is made. A sure market, forsooth! A single Scotch farmer could be found in the colony, able alone to supply the greater part of the produce the Company require; there is one, in fact, who offered to do it. If a sure market were ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... their public banquets and private parties;—but if we can believe the positive testimony of Herodotus, such was the case: and the summons of Vashti to the annual festival, and the admission of Haman to the queen's table, are facts which support the affirmation of that historian. The doubts upon the subject appear to have arisen from confounding the manners of Assyrians, Medes, and Parthians, with those of the more Scythian tribes of Persis. We read in Xenophon that the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various

... "quicker unto good" from the hallowed symbol through which she receives a divine truth. Many who flatter themselves that they have outgrown the need of a human embodiment of the Father's love have only induced a plasticity of mind which prevents the life from taking shape in any positive affirmation. "It is a strong help to me," writes a Congregational minister, "to find a man, standing on the extreme verge of liberal theology, holding so firmly, so tenaciously, to the one true religion, love to God and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... to him!" The words were like a passionate prayer rather than an affirmation. "I'm going to follow like I followed long ago!" She clutched the ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... which the word LIE stands for is made of these simple ideas:—(1) Articulate sounds. (2) Certain ideas in the mind of the speaker. (3) Those words the signs of those ideas. (4) Those signs put together, by affirmation or negation, otherwise than the ideas they stand for are in the mind of the speaker. I think I need not go any further in the analysis of that complex idea we call a lie: what I have said is enough to show that it is ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... or of accuracy. "The accent of sincerity" is the appearance of conviction; an orator, an actor, an habitual liar will put more of it into his lies than an undecided man into his statement of what he believes to be the truth. Energy of affirmation does not always mean strength of conviction, but sometimes only cleverness or effrontery.[147] Similarly, abundance and precision of detail, though they produce a vivid impression on unexperienced readers, do not guarantee the ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... judgments of God! The ordeal consisted of various kinds: walking blindfold amidst burning ploughshares; passing through fires; holding in the hand a red-hot bar; and plunging the arm into boiling water: the popular affirmation—"I will put my hand in the fire to confirm this," was derived from this custom of our rude ancestors. Challenging the accuser to single combat, when frequently the stoutest champion was allowed to supply their place; swallowing a morsel of consecrated bread; sinking or swimming in a river ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... and listen closely now; for, in reply to your suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. So now let me supplement these two statements ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... attention to the fact that his letter conveys no information not heretofore made public in circular but that my inquiry was directed to the particular transaction alluded to in Everybody's, and requesting a flat affirmation or denial. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... insistence upon the importance of society should provoke an equally one-sided emphasis upon the worth of the individual, and that as a protest against the demands of Socialism there should arise a form of subjectivism which aims at complete self-affirmation. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... what the affirmation implied. Taking it to be a sort of request for a more definite description, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... of thinking as regards life and death was that it made them know more certainly, or so it seemed, about the latter than about the former. Who knows, Euripides had long ago asked, if life be not death, and death life? and the new religion answered his question with an emphatic affirmation that it was so; that this life was momentary and shadowy, was but a death, in comparison of the ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... and date back to the time of his grandfather or other distant relative. Thus he may say that his opponent's great uncle owed his grandfather a human life and that this blood debt has never been paid nor revenge obtained. Such an affirmation as this will be corroborated by his relatives and they may immediately break out into menaces of vengeance. Again, he may aver that his opponent was reputed to have had a charm by which death might be caused, and that his son had died as a result of this ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... spheres in which this general vow is to be exercised and fulfilled. Not all Christians have the same office at the same calling. When one answers a divine call directing him to some specific form of Christian service, the vow made in response to such call is only the re-affirmation and application to a peculiar relation of the ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... feel the disgrace, the degradation of disfranchisement precisely as I should if my fellow-citizens had conspired to deprive me of my right to vote." Although I am a Quaker and take no oath, yet I have made a most solemn "affirmation" that I will never again beg my rights, but will come to Congress each year and demand the recognition of them under the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... "the congruities of material forms to the laws of the soul are divine allurements." Ever welcome is the perception of this truth,—as the sublime audacity of Paracelsus, that "those who would understand the course of the heavens above must first of all recognize the heaven in man"; and the affirmation, that "the laws of Nature are the same as the thoughts within us: the laws of motion are such as are required by our understanding." It remains to say that Kepler, too, had intuition of this lofty thought. At the conclusion of his early ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... endeavoured to cool the ardour of Mary's new friends, in her cause, by representing her as an abandoned and worthless woman, ungrateful towards him, and undeserving of sympathy from others; allegations which he supported by the ready affirmation of some of his West India friends, and by one or two plausible letters procured from Antigua. By these and like artifices he appears completely to have imposed on Mr. Manning, the respectable West India merchant whom Dr. Lushington had asked to negotiate with him; and he ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... characteristic nasalised eh of Italian affirmation, and accompanying it by the characteristic Italian ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... Rigdon's affirmation of his belief in Smith as a prophet and the Mormon Bible when he returned to Pennsylvania was proclaimed by the Mormons as proof that there was no truth in the Spaulding manuscript story, but it carries ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... thousand different ways and prove it too. The requisite qualities that form valuable adjuncts to Will-power are: 1. Determination. 2. Stick-to-it-ive-ness. 3. Perseverance. 4. Invincible and indomitable courage. 5. Non-attachment. 6. Faith in yourself. 7. Faith in God. 8. I can and I will. Repeat this affirmation often till it becomes a constant ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... on Pratinas; "I have always had the greatest respect for the three nihilistic propositions of that philosopher. To read him one is half convinced of the affirmation that nothing exists; that if anything existed, the fact could not be known, and that if the fact were known, it could not be communicated; although of course, my dear madam, there are very grave objections to accepting such views in ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several STATE LEGISLATURES, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the SEVERAL STATES, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Chatillon, in so low a voice that though the two friends were listening eagerly they could hardly hear this affirmation. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... on her own solemn affirmation, is as plain as words can be. In the first place, she owes no money privately to any living creature. In the second place, the Diamond is not now, and never has been, in her possession, since she put it into her ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... lxxvii. 7-9. And all the while they run in my mind, methought I had still this as the answer, 'Tis a question whether He hath or no: it may be He hath not. Yea, the interrogatory seemed to me to carry in it a sure affirmation that indeed He had not, nor would so cast off, but would be favourable: that His promise doth not fail, and that He had not forgotten to be gracious, nor would in anger shut up tender mercy. Something also there was upon my heart at the same time, which I cannot now call to mind, which, with ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... sudden pain recalling old disease to one who has lulled himself with dreams of cure. The feeling of fellowship with men grew weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink once more from my kind. I still believed myself happy, but happiness seemed to need constant affirmation, as though it could make no way in my favour without display of token or credential to confirm its truth. There were pauses in the clatter and jangle of life; the revolutions of the great wheels sometimes slowed into silence; and as these interludes grew more frequent, ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... the 4th article requires certain officers, both of the United States and of the several states to be "bound by oath or affirmation to support this constitution." Binding the conscience of public officers by oath or solemn affirmation, has ever been considered necessary to secure a faithful performance of their duties. They are generally required ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... Federal agency, of all information, documents, reports, answers, records, accounts, papers, and other data and documentary evidence necessary to performance of the responsibilities of the senior official under this section; and (D) administer to or take from any person an oath, affirmation, or affidavit, whenever necessary to performance of the responsibilities of the senior official under this section. (2) Enforcement of subpoenas.—Any subpoena issued under paragraph (1)(C) shall, in the case of contumacy or refusal to obey, be ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... was said in homely phrase some years ago, he 'always keeps bobbing up again.' What is the secret of this wonderful capacity of revival? How is it that Mr. Gladstone seems to find even his blunders help him, and the affirmation of principles that seem to be destructive to all chance of the success of his policy absolutely helps him ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... strengthened by the fact, that at a subsequent period in his history, a little display of courage, when acting in accordance with the wishes of his people, gained for him a marked degree of approbation, and gave rise to the affirmation, "the stain fixed upon his character, was thus wiped away by his good conduct in the field." [Footnote: ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... of these terms, in and by itself, involves an affirmation; it is by the combination of such terms that positive or negative statements arise. For every assertion must, as is admitted, be either true or false, whereas expressions which are not in any way composite such ...
— The Categories • Aristotle

... army could not remain. No one familiar with maritime affairs will deny the impossibility of wholly suppressing all furtive movement of small coasters, but it is equally certain much can be done to impede that full course of supplies which constitutes security of communication. To Chauncey's affirmation, Drummond gives an incidental reply, September 2: "The enemy's blockading squadron not having been seen for some days, I sent the 'Vincent' across to York, where she has arrived in safety, and Captain Dobbs has directed the 'Charwell' to ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... Mill ran for re-election he was defeated, it having leaked out that he was an "infidel," since he upheld Charles Bradlaugh in his position that the affirmation of a man who does not believe in the Bible should be accepted as freely as the oath of one who does. In passing it is worth while to note that the courts of Christendom have now accepted the view of Bradlaugh and of Mill ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... would! Why, I'd go in—in—in anything!" was the fervent affirmation. "Somehow, Ma, it just seems as if I couldn't give up the idea of going. I feel as if something must happen so ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... between her and Lovelace; and the scene where Colonel Marden goes to Mr. Hall, with Lord M. trying to compose matters, and the Colonel with his eternal "finest woman in the world," and the inimitable affirmation of Mobray—nothing, nothing could be better! You will bless me when you read it for this recommendation; but, indeed, I can do nothing but recommend Clarissa. I am like that Frenchman of the eighteenth century who discovered Habakkuk, and would give no one peace about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the rotation of a semicircle - which assertion would be false, if it were not associated with the conception of a sphere, or of a cause determining a motion of the kind, or absolutely, if the assertion were isolated. (6) The mind would then only tend to the affirmation of the sole motion of a semicircle, which is not contained in the conception of a semicircle, and does not arise from the conception of any cause capable of producing such motion. (72:7) Thus falsity ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]

... decidedly; but the words had been an affirmation and not a question. It seemed clear that for some cryptic reason I ought to have been an artist. Accordingly, I thought it ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. So now let me supplement these two statements ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... of each and every foreign ship or vessel, clearing out for any of the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, or suspected to be intended for the slave-trade, and the suspicion being declared to the officer of the customs, by any citizen, on oath or affirmation, and such information being to the satisfaction of the said officer, shall first give bond with sufficient sureties, to the Treasurer of the United States, that none of the natives of Africa, or any other foreign country or place, shall be taken on board ...
— Minutes of the Proceedings of the Second Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States • Zachariah Poulson

... secret, has a certain pleasure in it. And when anything meets us which appears likely, our minds are filled with pleasure thoroughly worthy of a man. Both your wise man and ours, then, will inquire into these things; but yours will do so in order to assent, to feel belief, to express affirmation; ours, with such feelings that he will fear to yield rashly to opinion, and will think that he has succeeded admirably if in matters of this kind he has found out ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... their duties the returning officer and the assessors shall be required to make oath or affirmation before the Speaker that they will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of their offices according to the rules laid down herein, or such other rules as may be ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... the outset, qualify an expression I made use of, which seems to have incurred the censure of all your four correspondents on the subject; I mean the sentence, "The translation of the authorised version of that sacred affirmation is unintelligible." It seems to be perfectly intelligible to MESSRS. BUCKTON, JEBB, WALTER, and S. D. I qualify, therefore, the assertion. I mean to say, that the translation of the authorised version of that sacred affirmation was, and is, considered unintelligible to many ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various

... voyage to no certain, port Admiration is the foundation of all philosophy Advantageous, too, a little to recede from one's right Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort Affect words that are not of current use Affection towards their husbands, (not) until they have lost them Affirmation and obstinacy are express signs of want of wit Affright people with the very mention of death Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind, everything wicked, tyrannical, predatory and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite."[220] To ignore altogether the affirmation of that opposing morality, it may be, would be to breed a race of weaklings, fatally doomed to succumb helplessly to the ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... "certain market is secured to the inhabitants by the demand for provisions for the other settlements." If by "settlements" the miserable trading posts be meant, as it must be, I know not on what grounds such an affirmation is made. A sure market, forsooth! A single Scotch farmer could be found in the colony, able alone to supply the greater part of the produce the Company require; there is one, in fact, who offered to do it. If a sure market were secured to the colonists ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that if—I noted the if—"if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire, and it was a violation of ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... Of course, in this affirmation of belief that one hundred years of popular government in this country is a real progress for humanity, and not merely a change from the rule of the fit to the rule of the cunning, we cannot forget that men are pretty ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... necessary in consequence of the failure of the philosophical. Now I contend that the historical is the necessary complement of the philosophical argument, and that both are equally requisite to completeness in dealing with the subject. The preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. The counter-allegation is that, although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. It is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... Is there no substantial truth seen in this picture of what will, must and shall be, as the logical outgrowth of the Divine affirmation that of one blood he created all men to dwell upon the earth, and of the Declaration of Independence that "we hold these truths to be self-evident:—That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... the Lord Buddha declared in prophecy that in India, in the Southern Parts, should arise a great Teacher, trampling upon the false teachings of affirmation ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin

... and swearing was awfully fashionable in Bunyan's days. This led many pious persons to denounce oaths altogether; and the time is fast coming when the world will agree with the Quakers that an affirmation is the best test of truth. It is like the controversy of the teetotallers; some who would be ashamed of taking intoxicating liquors, except as medicine, will soon throw such physics to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and grandfather, had paid rent to Ducconius Furfur. He claimed that the court decision by which Ducconius had had to refund to my uncle all the rents received from the farm in dispute since the first decision of the lowest court had awarded it to a Ducconius had been, in effect, an affirmation that his ancestors and he had always been, constructively, tenants of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... objects alike in material elements, but separated by that mighty and mysterious thing, life, is that the height of wisdom, or the depth of folly? And how such a central paralysis of the mental retina spreads its darkness, as, for example, in the affirmation that as oxygen and hydrogen are reciprocally convertible with water, so are water, ammonia, and carbolic acid convertible into and resolvable from living protoplasm!—a statement said to be as false in chemistry as it ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... an intolerable atmosphere of derogation and disrepute, the humble and humiliated American Negro sought the exaltation of international honor. Denied and disavowed at home, through vicissitude of international war, he hoped for affirmation of a new world dictum in acknowledgment of his human qualities and worth. He did not, like Toussaint, long for the high honors of the continental emperor. He sought democratic equality, and he would as lief think of bringing the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... these things we are creatures of education. Simple or single ideas, like simple words, represent simple thoughts or realities, and compound ideas represent compound thoughts or realities. Therefore it follows that every thought comes from a corresponding reality. To deny this is equal to the affirmation that we can clearly see objects in a vacuum, that we can see something where ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various

... Besides, in the Chew philosophy, where novelty was treason, improvements or discoveries could never exist. Here the Aristotelian made his stand; and at length, gently hooking Glanvill between the horns of a dilemma, the entrapped virtuoso threw himself into an unguarded affirmation; at which the Vicar of Great Chew, shouting in triumph, with a sardonic grin, declared that Glanvill and his Royal Society had now avowed themselves to be atheistical! This made an end of the interview, and a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... an affirmation or series of affirmations about a real World distinct from the Knower. It was surely now obvious that the warrant for such affirmations and the source of their validity must come from somewhere beyond the cognitive faculty itself. The ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... lead. Even to other physical senses that unreality was present; and once more he remembered his dream, thankful that that horror at least was absent. But silence seemed other than a negation of sound, it was a thing in itself, an affirmation, unruffled by the sound of footsteps, the thin barking of dogs, the murmur of voices. It appeared as if the stillness of eternity had descended and embraced the world's activities, and as if that world, in a desperate attempt to assert its own reality, was braced ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... this is to a certain extent doubtful; however it enforces an affirmation: Example: ina muggi' ki this is VERY little : it is frequently used after pronouns: Example: arri ki kabspakai we SHALL ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... it, involves the error of presuming that in its principles the war was unconstitutional, and in its objects was finally defeated. Whereas the subsequent Revolution of 1688-9 was but a resumption of the very same principles and indispensable purposes under more advantageous auspices—was but a re-affirmation of the principle votes from 1642 to 1645. The one capital point of a responsibility, virtual though not formal, lodged in the crown, and secured through a responsible ministry—this great principle, which Charles I. once conceded in the case of Lord Strafford, but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilac blend into a highly respectable color, and a black necktie tied into a bow over spotless linen. Probably therefore a man whose social position needs constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate: one who would dress thus for the middle of the Sahara or the top of Mont Blanc. And since he has not the stamp of the class which accepts as its life-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... manoeuvres, he adroitly endeavoured to cool the ardour of Mary's new friends, in her cause, by representing her as an abandoned and worthless woman, ungrateful towards him, and undeserving of sympathy from others; allegations which he supported by the ready affirmation of some of his West India friends, and by one or two plausible letters procured from Antigua. By these and like artifices he appears completely to have imposed on Mr. Manning, the respectable West India merchant whom Dr. Lushington had asked ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... contending that the Declaration applied only to "the white people of the United States;" while Mr. Lincoln, in reply, asserted that "the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration." The contention of Mr. Douglas had recently again made its appearance in the press as something too indisputable to admit of discussion. It is asserted that, in penning the Declaration, ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... hear you, as you brought a battery that could never reach them—fired upon them the reproach of Diogenes to an effeminate—"If he was offended with nature for making him a man, and not a woman;" and the affirmation of the Pedasians, from your friend Herodotus, that, whenever any calamity befell them, a prodigious beard grew on the chin of the priestess of Minerva. You ever thought a man in woman's disguise a profanation—a woman in man's a horror. The fair ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... can swim with perhaps little less agility. Lamarck, indeed, denies this, and says that these can only trail themselves along the bottom by means of the suckers. This is probably their usual mode of proceeding; that it is not their only one, we have the positive affirmation of other observers."[8] Serviceable as these arms undoubtedly are to the Cuttle-fish, Blumenbach thinks it questionable whether they can be considered as organs of touch, in the more limited sense to which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various

... and that I am forbidden to doubt upon pain of execrable injuries; a new way of persuading! Thank God, I am not to be cuffed into belief. Let them be angry with those who accuse their opinion of falsity; I only accuse it of difficulty and boldness, and condemn the opposite affirmation equally, if not so imperiously, with them. He who will establish this proposition by authority and huffing discovers his reason to be very weak. For a verbal and scholastic altercation let them have as much appearance as ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... nodding his head in affirmation. Apparently he was too disturbed in mind to reply verbally; besides, like most of his kind, he was a poor sailor, and he did not enjoy the speed at which the Arrow was now sailing. It upset his mental balance as well as his ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler

... philosophical and spiritual travail of the centuries to discover that there may be a concrete Infinite, an organic Absolute, an immanent Reality, and that the way to share in this comprehending Life is at least as much a way of affirmation as of negation, a way that leads not into "the Dark" but into the Light, and not into a "fathomless nothing," but into ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... trying to conceal his disturbance under what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; but the edges of his lips were blue. "He thinks me mad; but I'm not mad," she reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way of justifying her strange affirmation. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... deliver the chief oration at the annual reunion, to be held at Mineral Springs on the twelfth day of the following month; an official notice from the clerk of the Court of Appeals concerning the affirmation of a judgment that had been handed down by Judge Priest at the preceding term of his own court; a bill for five pounds of a special brand of smoking tobacco; a notice of a lodge meeting—altogether quite a sizable batch ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... STRANGER: When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only, have you any other name by which to ...
— Sophist • Plato

... meet the eye of one alone, and carry no meaning to any other! You do not disapprove of a more gentle and mysterious way of saying, 'I love you,' than looking full in one another's face, and declaiming it like a Quaker upon affirmation? You do ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... the Union upon the basis of surrender of principle were held throughout the free States, while a word of manly resistance to the aggressive disposition of the South, or in re-affirmation of principles so long contended for, met no popular response. Even in Boston, Wendell Phillips needed the protection of the police in returning to his home after one of his eloquent and defiant harangues, and George William Curtis was advised by the Republican mayor ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... Standing in the triangular opening which formed the door of the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within the last two or three minutes. A dead silence followed his affirmation. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... my goals, and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our Nation's continuing moral strength and our belief in an ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... singular affirmation of what had been, after all, but a sadly- humourous proposal, I had attired myself in a Greek costume—quickly made by my steward, who had been a tailor—and was about to leave my cabin, when Hungerford entered, and exclaimed, as he took his pipe from his mouth in surprise: "Marmion, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... public print, of the beautiful and chaste painting "September Morn," that it was "lewd, filthy, and suggestive of unclean things." This type of woman is intrusted with the task of teaching youthful minds; polluting them with the blasphemous affirmation that the Creation of the Father-Mother God of the universe is ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... native words but will translate into English the questions and answers as they were hurled back and forth. By way of explanation let me say beforehand that there is no word in any of the Congo dialects for "yes." Affirmation is always expressed by a grunt. Here is ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... dialectical use, by the intellect, of negation as a mode of passage towards a higher kind of affirmation, there is correlated the subtlest of moral counterparts in the sphere of the personal will. Since denial of the finite self and its wants, since asceticism of some sort, is found in religious experience to ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... probably, nothing clear and definite in their belief in an omnipotent God, which is said to have been the leading dogma of Druidism; but their simple minds had evidently a leaning toward the doctrine, which induced them to approve of it, as soon as it was presented to them with a solemn affirmation. In order to elucidate this point, we add a short description of the labors and success of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... like a flock of ducks, but she perceived that it was given for affirmation. She followed Ruth's glance to where the backs of the young men's heads were visible, bending over some coins they were apparently matching. . . . Johnny Byrd's head was flaming in the sunshine. ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... the blessed affirmation, the organ pealed out its noble symphony, and men and women lifted wet faces heavenward, until to the last majestic ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Behmen there have been no such remarkable series of mystic writings as are contained in the two volumes called "The Perfect Way" and "Clothed with the Sun," by Doctor Anna Kingsford. Her belief and her illuminations were crystallized in the affirmation, "Life is the elaboration of soul through the varied transformations of matter." She saw the entire purpose of creation to be the evolution and elaboration of the soul. Very little is generally known of Doctor ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... Content, which has been called the Catholic, nor in Progress, more questionably styled the Protestant virtue. His often excellent practical rule to "do the duty nearest to hand" may be used to gag the intellect in its search after the goal; so that even his Everlasting Yea, as a predetermined affirmation, may ultimately result in ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... can only come from the depths of the religious consciousness itself; and if summoned from thence, they will not be found wanting. The "impregnable rock" is neither an institution nor a book, but a life or experience. Faith, which is an affirmation of the basal personality, is its own evidence and justification. Under normal conditions, it will always be strongest in the healthiest minds. There is and can be no appeal from it. If, then, our hearts, duly prepared for ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... say the public safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as struggling for an arbitrary prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide, what the public safety does require in cases of ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... the translation which appears in the Prayer-book Service for Baptism, in the Resurrection of the Flesh. The plain man may be tempted, brushing aside such a doctrine in its plain and literal acceptation as a manifest impossibility, either to hold aloof from a Church which retains such an affirmation in her creed, or else to conclude hastily that the words are meant only as a picturesque way of expressing a belief in the immortality of the soul. Either attitude would be a mistake. It is true that a literal resuscitation ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... bound to be many who in any case find it subtle, among those who think about it and especially those who doubt about it. To take an example, there is no saying which the humanitarians of a broad religion more commonly offer as a model of simplicity than that most mystical affirmation "God is Love." And there is no theological quarrel of the Councils of the Church which they, especially Mr. Wells, more commonly deride as bitter and barren than that at the Council of Nicea about the Co-eternity ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... as the glorified Christ, thrown a light of affirmation on the "opinions" of the days of His flesh? The glorified Christ sent down the Paraclete. And the first and abiding work of the Paraclete was to illuminate the Apostles with a new understanding of the truth and glory of ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... than their elders. To John Bunyan the stealing of gold and the mere refusal to say where he got it were two distinct and separate things; that the negation of the second proposition meant the affirmation of the first he could not accept. But then children are also imitative, and fearful of the older intellect. It struck Johnny that his mother might be right, and that to her it really meant the same thing. So, after a ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... this for a moment or two. Then, after lighting the cigar which Fullaway had offered him, he shook his head—in grim affirmation. ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher

... struck by the fact that this affirmation of the universal validity of the principle of truth is made in a chapter on "Cases of Conscience," in a chapter concerned with what seem to be conflicts between duties; and this chapter is followed by one which treats of "Cases of Necessity," i.e. cases in which a man is to be regarded ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... suggested with intense earnestness. The result was, as I shall always think, the sermon of a lifetime. The text was, There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. (Job xxxii. 8.) That mighty discourse was a demonstration of the truth of the affirmation of the text. I will not attempt to reproduce it here, though many of its passages are still vivid in my memory. It tore to shreds the sophistries by which it was sought to sink immortal man to the level of the brutes that perish; it appealed to the consciousness of his hearers in red-hot ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... latter, by going on all fours, could become a deer. (3) That the regulative side of the spirit world was the natural outcome of the clan social system and the tribal government in each tribe. Even one's personal name had reference to the world of ghosts. The affirmation that American aborigines believed in an all-pervading, omnipotent Spirit is entirely inconsistent with the very nature of the case. (4) Worship was everywhere dramatic. Only here and there among the higher tribes were bloody sacrifices in vogue, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... be angry," appears to have been the maxim which inspired Democratic and Whig orators alike; and what reason there was on either side was submerged in the lies and libels, in the calumnies and caricatures, in the defamations and execrations, which accompanied the citation of facts and the affirmation of principles. Webster, during all this time, was selected as a shining mark, at which every puny writer or speaker who opposed him hurled his small or large contribution of verbal rotten eggs; and yet Webster was almost the only Whig statesman who preserved sanity of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... this and other similar repetitions, in the development of the one, of all the facts and features of the development of THE OTHER, is what is meant by the Analogy of one with the other, and by the affirmation implied in the title of this article, that Language is a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... commit crimes. 'It is unhappily a fact,' says Mr. Francis Galton ('Inquiries into Human Faculty'), 'that fairly distinct types of criminals breeding true to their kind have become established.' And he gives extraordinary examples, which fully bear out his affirmation. We may safely say that, in a very large number of cases, the worst crimes are perpetrated by beings for whom the death penalty has no ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... be," Uncle Amos nodded his head in affirmation. He looked at the hired girl, who did not appear to notice him. "I just wish I was twenty ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... life, and I would gladly persuade all artists intending greatness in any kind among us that the recognition of the fact pointed out by Mr. Arnold ought to be a source of inspiration to them, and not discouragement. We have been now some hundred years building up a state on the affirmation of the essential equality of men in their rights and duties, and whether we have been right or been wrong the gods have taken us at our word, and have responded to us with a civilization in which there is no "distinction" perceptible to the eye that loves and values ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... other names—men do things. If you give me the five hundred sovereigns, which you have in that bag, at once—in five minutes it will be too late—I will promise—I will not swear; if you do not credit my simple promise, you will not believe my solemn affirmation—I will promise that, possibly within an hour, certainly within an hour and a half, the Duchess of Datchet shall return to you absolutely uninjured—except, of course, as you are already aware, with regard to a few of the hairs of her head. I will promise this on the understanding that ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... never heard him speak with such energy of affirmation. His habitual touch was that of the eclectic, who lightly turns over and compares; and she was moved by this sudden glimpse into the laboratory ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... read a book with more pleasure or even with more ease, if it is written in fairer characters. Therefore every man will also listen more readily to what is spoken, if it is signified by appropriate and becoming words. We must not say then that there is no faculty of expression: for this affirmation is the characteristic of an impious and also of a timid man. Of an impious man, because he undervalues the gifts which come from God, just as if he would take away the commodity of the power of vision, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... such an inspiration as attaching to the spiritual truths and doctrines delivered in these Scriptures. And he places this theory in a striking light, equally for what it affirms and for what it denies, by these two arguments—first (in affirmation of the real spiritual inspiration), that a series of more than thirty writers, speaking in succession along a vast line of time, and absolutely without means of concert, yet all combine unconsciously ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... will now come to understand that the Soviet government is not a passing phenomenon, but a permanent fact of the supremacy of the workers, soldiers and peasants. Kerensky's repulse was the repulse of the middle class, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovites. Kerensky's repulse means the affirmation of the people's rights to a free, peaceful life, to land, food and power. The Pulkovsky division, by their brilliant charge, is strengthening the cause of the proletarian and peasant revolution. There ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... organisms, which go without them and in spite of them. The multiplication of them among ourselves will bring about the ruin of our little countries, for small states only live by faith and will. Woe to the society where negation rules, for life is an affirmation; and a society, a country, a nation, is a living whole capable of death. No nationality is possible without prejudices, for public spirit and national tradition are but webs woven out of innumerable beliefs which have been acquired, admitted, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... gravely, "our predecessor never said, never would have dared to say, that anything is certain. Every affirmation is ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... honest? [ROSE nods a hearty affirmation.] Well, I'm glad of that, at least! I hoped it would be so. Then at least we can keep something that's harmonious in our memories. Ah, Rose, it was a good, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... to affirm, "that he does not relate the story after every way that he had heard, but after that way that he had heard it by such men and such meanes as he thought it hard but it should be true." This affirmation rests on the credibility of certain reporters, we do not know whom, but who we shall find were no credible reporters at all: for to proceed to the confutation. James Tirrel, a man in no secret trust with the king, and kept down by Catesby and Ratcliffe, is recommended ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... gospel unless the Father drew them to the Son; and none save those who were receptive, willing, and prepared, could be so drawn.[730] Yet belief in the Son of God is an indispensable condition to salvation, as Jesus indicated in His affirmation: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... to the Virginian and the Northerners. All nodded in affirmation. Then he turned to the two scouts, Thrale ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the affirmation ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... are such Books as contain the Demonstrations of Consequences of one Affirmation, to another; and are commonly called Books of Philosophy; whereof the sorts are many, according to the diversity of the Matter; And may be divided in such manner as I have divided them in ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... the common legacy of Christendom. As the years go on, the value of that legacy will be more and more felt; not so much, perhaps, in doctrine as in spirit, in those utterances of a devout soul which are above and beyond the affirmation ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... by extreme democracy, deifies man by denying the dogma of the fall, and consequently dethrones God, henceforth useless to the perfection of his creature, this same socialism, through mental cowardice, falls back upon the affirmation of Providence, and that at the very moment when it denies the providential authority ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... ever have need of discretion, understand that there are two sorts of discretion—the active and the negative. Negative discretion is that of fools who make use of silence, negation, an air of refusal, the discretion of locked doors—mere impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. Suppose at the club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my word of honor the golden-eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody would exclaim when I was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make us believe that he has already had the girl of the golden ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... criticized, so were those of the scholars. Matthew Arnold's definition of culture was that of a man of books. It was the knowledge of the best that had been said and known in the past. Emerson's lines entitled "Culture" begin with a characteristic question and end with an equally characteristic affirmation. The question is— ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... words were like a passionate prayer rather than an affirmation. "I'm going to follow like I followed long ago!" She clutched ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... existence involves a partial negation, and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of the given nature, it follows (solely from Prop. vii.) that ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... his lips and shook his head in negation—then pointed to the sun and the tree, and shook his head again—then once more to the sun and slowly upward to the top of the tree, and nodded in affirmation. ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... experience; which neither cosmic nor anthropomorphic symbols, taken alone, could express. More absolute than the Absolute, more personal than the human mind, Brahma therefore exceeds whilst He includes all the concepts of philosophy, all the passionate intuitions of the heart. He is the Great Affirmation, the font of energy, the source of life and love, the unique satisfaction of desire. His creative word is the Om or "Everlasting Yea." The negative philosophy which strips from the Divine Nature all Its attributes and defining Him only by that which He is not—reduces Him to an ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... And on this affirmation Alcide, tearing his handkerchief, made lint of one piece, bandages of the other, took some water from a well dug in the middle of the enclosure, bathed the wound, and skillfully placed the wet rag on Harry ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... planetary folks cannot fathom. At all events, they amuse us and don't harm themselves. They are uniformly happy and contented with themselves. Of them assuredly is true, and without the limitation he appends, Horace's affirmation, Dulce est desipere, which Mr. Theodore Martin translates, "'Tis pleasing at times ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... as their latest commentator justly remarks (Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 624), these new ideas are fairly overwhelmed in the old mythology. The mysteries of Isis and Serapis seemed to offer a revelation that had been a presentiment for a long time, and the affirmation of a truth ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... most obvious lessons to be learned from a study of church history is a lesson teaching the necessity of the positive note in the pulpit. The great ages of Christianity have been those in which affirmation has been clear and definite and strong. The great preachers of the past have ever been positive preachers, men whose assurance concerning their message was heard in every tone of their voices, who knew in whom they had believed. Especially has this ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... alone and in disgrace, and only his unimpeachable character for truth caused the acceptance of his affirmation that the yell was an impromptu fraternal compliment, and that he had nothing to do with the noises in the mullion chamber. He had been supposed to be perfectly unconscious of anything of the kind, and to have never so ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... have no great faith, yet grant it probable, and have had from some chemical men (namely, from Sir George Hastings and others) an affirmation of them to be very advantageous: but no more of these, ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... never took part again in any debate upon this once famous struggle. He supported Mr. Gladstone's view in favour of allowing affirmation, but he did so without heartiness, disliking 'the trade of living on blatant atheism,' and finding in himself tendencies which led him to fear that he was 'clerically minded.' He had always an extreme dislike of talk or writing that ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... description of other relatives, all correct as far as names and such identification could go; but to this kind of demonstration I could never attach any importance as to personality, which is indeed a point as to which I have found that reliance can rarely be placed on affirmation, and as to which absolute proof can scarcely be given. As in the case of Mrs. Brown, she replied with lucidity and promptness to every interrogation, and I then began a series of mental questions, being sure at least ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... random and from running off on side tracks. In keeping powers at work upon their relevant ends, there is sufficient opportunity for genuine inhibition. To say that inhibition is higher than power, is like saying that death is more than life, negation more than affirmation, sacrifice more than service. ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey

... The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... it." [Footnote: New York Times, Sept. 27, 1914.] "But the destiny of consciousness is not bound up with the destiny of cerebral matter." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 285 (Fr. p. 293).] "Although the data is not yet sufficient to warrant more than an affirmation of high probability," [Footnote: Louis Levine's interview with Bergson, New York Times, Feb. 22, 1914. Quoted by Miller, Bergson and Religion, p. 268.] yet it leaves the way open for a belief in a future life and creates a presumption in favour of a faith in immortality. "Humanity," ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... spiritual individuality, and as such entirely free from subjection to any conditions, and consequently as voluntarily externalizing the conditions most expressive of the vitality and intelligence which pure spirit is. Thinking of him thus, we then make mental affirmation that he shall build up outwardly the correspondence of that perfect vitality which he knows himself to be inwardly; and this suggestion being impressed by the healer's conscious thought, while the patient's conscious thought is at the ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... excitement raged, silently for the most part, in the breasts of the two parties, but sometimes breaking out in furious affirmation and denial at such points of common meeting as the store, the tavern, and the postoffice. There the unbelievers outnumbered the believers, who met for mutual support and comfort at one another's houses, ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells









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