"Contentious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manless time, when all these starry hosts unrolled and marshaled themselves before the attentive eyes of God, and it had not yet entered into his heart to create that swarming, writhing, crawling, contentious mass we call humanity. And I said to myself, "Why should a God condescend to such a ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... both in their ministry and civil administration, ... had lately made Acomenticus (a poor village) a corporation, and had made a taylor their mayor, and had entertained one Hull, an excommunicated person and very contentious, for their minister." Rhode Island, as a seat of separatism and heresy, was not invited and perhaps not even considered. For managing the affairs of the confederation, the main objects of which were friendship and amity, protection and defense, advice and succor, and the preservation ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... the one you want! 'A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentions woman are alike!' I'm not contentious, Solomon!" ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... languishes to be there, away from the hot sun, and the coal-dust, and the steaming docks, and the thick-pated, stubborn, contentious men, with whom I brawl from morning till night, and all the weary toil that quite engrosses me, and yet occupies only a small part of my being, which I did not know existed before I became a measurer. I do think I should sink down quite disheartened ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... of the thirteenth century the bishop had been accustomed to delegate the contentious jurisdiction of his diocese to an ecclesiastical judge, taking the name of vicar, or more commonly official ("vicarius generalis officialis"). The court itself became known as the officialite. Trials for heresy, breach of promise of marriage, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... she obeys! By all obeyed thus, No storms, heats, colds, no soules contentious, Nor civill war is ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... when Newman, who was then himself editor, resigned, and one more humiliating failure was registered. The management of the magazine passed into other hands. The Oratory School at Birmingham, a much less contentious undertaking, was successfully launched in the ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... Romans, after all these mutinies, Seditions, murders and conspiracies, Imagine with impartial hearts at last, What fruits proceed from these contentious brawls. Your streets, where erst the fathers of your state In robes of purple walked up and down, Are strewed with mangled members, streaming blood: And why? the reasons of this ruthful wrack Are your seditious ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... sea, it receives greater and more numerous impurities the farther it gets from its source, until, at last, what was, in its rise, a gentle rilling through snows and over whitest stones, roars into the ocean a muddy and contentious river. Men soon long to touch and taste all that they see; savage-like, him whom to-day they deem a god and worship, they on the morrow get an appetite for and kill, to eat and barter. And thus art is degraded, made ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... as if with indignation that out of its abundant supply of waters separate bathing-places should not be constructed for the two sexes, if they wish to enjoy its bounty[271]. Moreover, those secret caves, the bowels of the mountains from whence it springs, have power even to judge contentious business. For if any sheep-stealer presumes to bring to it the fleece of his prey, however often he may dip it in the seething wave, he will have to boil it before he succeeds in ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... were held by the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, there was nourished and trained a keen, contentious spirit, and an unbridled license of tongue, of which the influence was speedily felt in the serious disturbance, first of domestic happiness, and then of the public peace. The matrons of Boston were transformed into a synod ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... 299 ff. The Mahavamsa (XXXIII. 79 and X. 98-100) says it was built on the site of an ancient Jain establishment and Kern thinks that this tradition hints at circumstances which account for the heretical and contentious spirit of the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Luther's works published at Basel, among which were the "Commentaries on the Psalms," the "Sermon of Good Works," the "Commentary on the Lord's Prayer," and besides these, other Christian books, not of a contentious kind. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... with my looks!" she snapped. "A lot of good they've done me." And, feeling contentious and sad, she got up and left the table. Cowperwood followed her after a time, only to see her dabbing at her eyes and nose with powder. A half-filled glass of whisky and water was on the dressing-table beside her. It gave him a strange feeling ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... upon the platform, and to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and see whether by this self-restraint I ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... judgment of God; (6)who will render to every man according to his deeds; (7)to those who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; (8)but to those who are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, (9)tribulation and distress, upon every soul of man that works evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek; (10)but glory, and honor, and peace, to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... ship moves uneventfully forward, he, perforce, shares the feeling of oneness. There is the humorous unity which will seize the opposing parties in a court of law and make them join in laughter at some feeble judicial joke just to experience the relief of forgetting that they are there to be contentious. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... declares, has been uncertain and unfruitful, and does not advance a step, while the mechanic arts grow daily more perfect; without a firm basis, garrulous, contentious, and lacking in content, it is of no practical value. The seeker after certain knowledge must abandon words for things, and learn the art of forcing nature to answer his questions. The seeker after fruitful knowledge must increase the number of discoveries, and transform them from matters ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... ears; set against, pit against. get into hot water, fish in troubled waters, brawl; kick up a row, kick up a dust; turn the house out of window. Adj. discordant; disagreeing &c. v.; out of tune, ajar, on bad terms, dissentient &c. 489; unreconciled, unpacified; contentious &c. 720. quarrelsome, unpacific[obs3]; gladiatorial, controversial, polemic, disputatious; factious; litigious, litigant; pettifogging. at odds, at loggerheads, at daggers drawn, at variance, at issue, at cross purposes, at sixes and sevens, at feud, at high ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... truth, And truth in legends deep embalmed and spiced; The stars that saw the starlike eyes of Ruth, The grave that heard the clarion call of Christ. And higher than sorrow and mirth The heavenly song of earth Sprang, in such notes as might have well sufficed To still the storms of time And sin's contentious clime With peace renewed of life reparadised: Earth, scarred not yet with temporal scars; Goddess of gods, our mother, chosen ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... actions. The Bible tells us that God will render to every man according to his deeds. "To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil." How careful we should be of our actions in all departments of our being, physical, moral, intellectual! The deeds we do, the words ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... then that a word of cheer to the Old Man and his anxious watchers might not cone amiss. Therefore the Happy Family mounted and rode to the depot to send it, and on the way wrangled over the wording of the message after their usual contentious manner. ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... at changing the laws and public officers every six months, at extending their leveling process to every constituted authority, to all legal pre-eminence and to property. The only regime they long for is the democracy of a contentious rabble... The vilest instruments, professional agitators, brigands, fanatics, every sort of wretch, the hardened and armed poverty-stricken, who, in wild disorder" march to the attack of property and to "universal pillage" in short, barbarians of town ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... another, and to show off in company, like the doctors that perform wonderful cures in the theatres as an advertisement.[469] And independently of the insult, which ought not to be an element in any cure, we must remember that vice is contentious and obstinate. For it is not merely "love," as Euripides says, that "if checked becomes more vehement," but an unsparing rebuke before many people makes every infirmity and vice more impudent. As then Plato[470] urges old men who want to teach the young reverence to act reverently ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... obteined a kingdome among such a mightie people, I beseech thee to grant them victorie, health, and libertie, against these contentious, wicked, and vnsatiable men (if they maie be called men, which vse warme bathings, delicate fare, hot wines, sweet oiles, soft beds, fine musicke, and so vnkindlie lusts) who are altogither giuen to couetousnesse and crueltie, as their dooings doo declare. Let not I beseech ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... compulsive, compulsory, computation, concatenate, concentric, concessive, concomitant, condign, condiment, condolence, confiscatory, confute, congeal, congenital, conglomerate, congruity, connivance, connoisseur, connubial, consensus, consistence, consort, constriction, construe, contentious, context, contiguity, contiguous, contingent, contortion, contravene, contumacious, contumacy, contumelious, convergent, conversant, convivial, correlate, corrigible, corroborate, corrosive, cosmic, covenant, crass, credence, crescent, criterion, critique, crucial, crucible, cryptic, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... is our duty, when we have the desires of the people before us, to pursue them, not in the spirit of literal obedience, which may militate with their very principle,—much less to treat them with a peevish and contentious litigation, as if we were adverse parties in a suit. It would, Sir, be most dishonorable for a faithful representative of the Commons to take advantage of any inartificial expression of the people's ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... hastily about the Chamber, as fearlessly as he always does when he is thinking of something else, I springing up to move one or two Chairs out of his Way. Hearing some high Voices in the Offices, he presently observed, "A contentious Woman is like a continuall Dropping. Shakspeare spoke well when he said that a sweet, low Voice is an excellent Thing in Woman. I wish you good Women would recollect that one Avenue of my Senses being stopt, makes me keener ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... imagination has been developed at the expense of her other faculties, may be said to lead a dreamy, fictitious, contentious and agitated life. This state is rendered still more dangerous by the agreeable forms which it assumes, and which flatter the mind and senses by their rapid and constant changes. Hence it is that women endowed with this doleful gift ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... Isles, ere fruits and delicacies Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces, Or ere these times did chance the noise of war Was from our tines and hearts removed far, Then had the churches rest: as yet, the coals Were covered up in most contentious souls; Freeness in judgment, union in affection, Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection. Then were the times in which our Councils sat, These grave prognostics of our future state; If these be ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... my city-home, through letters from the minister and Colonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wild ferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit there evoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things. My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited with good Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in the vigor which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... former serfs, the mammals—into an apologetic argument, which otherwise would run quite smoothly, is in every way to be deprecated. Still, the wretched creatures stand there, importunately demanding notice; and, however different may be the practice in that contentious atmosphere with which Mr. Gladstone expresses and laments his familiarity, in the atmosphere of science it really is of no avail whatever to shut one's eyes to facts, or to try to bury them out of sight under a tumulus ...
— Mr. Gladstone and Genesis - Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... being "hard." Neither did he try to boastingly minimize them as nothing at all—another wretched pose. From him I learned that throughout his youth he had been carried here and there by the iron woman who was his mother and whom he seemed to adore in some grim contentious way, smothering his comments as though he disliked to say anything at all, and yet describing her at times as coarse and vulgar, but a mother to him "all right," someone who had made marked sacrifices ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... World Wars, Bulgaria fell within the Soviet sphere of influence and became a People's Republic in 1946. Communist domination ended in 1990, when Bulgaria held its first multiparty election since World War II and began the contentious process of moving toward political democracy and a market economy while combating inflation, unemployment, corruption, and crime. The country joined NATO in 2004 and the EU ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... fountain, lest it overboil In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 'Midst a contentious world, striving where none ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State; in the next book he is again superseded, and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... advice, but it was not his custom to rely upon this contingency as a source of income, nor did he in any eventuality return the amount which had been agreed upon (and invariably deposited with him in advance) as the reward of his inspired efforts. To those who sought him in a contentious spirit, inquiring why he did not find it more profitable to secure the prizes for himself, Wang Ho replied that his enterprise consisted in forecasting the winning numbers for State Lotteries and not ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... reign of King James I, described the charlatan of that period as shameless, a mortal hater of all good men, an adept in cozening, legerdemain, conycatching,[223:1] and all other shifts and sleights; a cracking boaster, proud, insolent, a secret back-biter, a contentious wrangler, a common jester and liar, a runagate wanderer, a cogging[223:2] sychophant and covetous exactor, a wringer of his patients. In a word, a man, or rather monster, made of a mixture ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... forehead denoted obstinacy, wickedness, and weakness of intellect, yet conceited and given to mischief. According to Aristotle, a square forehead denoted magnanimity and courage. A person with a forehead without wrinkles showed that he was honest, but at the same time contentious, fond of law, and void of devotion. A forehead pointed at the temples, signified shallow capacity, vanity, and ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... longer confined to demands for "a redress of grievances," in any accurate meaning of these words, but comprehends demands for an exercise by the government of its powers in furtherance of the interests and prosperity of the petitioners, and of their views on politically contentious matters. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... so gay and gorgeous a scene hours might easily pass with the swiftness of unmarked moments. Peals of laughter echoed now and again through the vaulted dome, and excited voices were frequently raised in clamorous disputations and contentious arguments that only just sheered off the boundary-line of an actual quarrel. All sorts of topics were discussed—the laws, the existing mode of government, the latest discoveries in science, and the military prowess of the King—but the conversation chiefly turned ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... point Mrs. Transley arose, and the men moved out into the living-room to chat on less contentious subjects. After a time the women joined them, and Grant presently found himself absorbed in conversation with the old rancher's wife. Zen seemed to pay but little attention to him, and for the first time he began to realize what consummate ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... anything to Mrs. Tarbell's discredit," said the Honorable Pope. "Not a bit of it. Not a bit of it. Her feelings do her infinite honor. In her appearance on our wordy and contentious stage I see the commencement of a new era of things. Let her be guided by her feelings. Let her still preserve that beautiful sympathy which is one of the chiefest ornaments of the female sex. It will bring to her a thousand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the Beacon would want. To give it what it would want and to give it nothing else was not doubtless an inspiring, but it was a perfectly respectable task, especially for a man with an appealing bride and a contentious mother-in-law. I thought Lambert's first letters as charming as the type allowed, though I won't deny that in spite of my sense of the importance of concessions I was just a trifle disconcerted at the way he had caught the tone. The tone was of course to be caught, but need it have been ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... purring chuckle. "Ah, there we get upon contentious ground," he remarked. "Why should 'everybody' be supposed to know anything at all? What business is it of 'everybody's' to know things? The earth was just as round in the days when people supposed ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... into vinegar; for injustice maketh it bitter, and delays make it sour. The principal duty of a judge, is to suppress force and fraud; whereof force is the more pernicious, when it is open, and fraud, when it is close and disguised. Add thereto contentious suits, which ought to be spewed out, as the surfeit of courts. A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills: so when there appeareth on either side ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... Obedience, as Mr. Bagehot has well shewn (5. See a remarkable series of articles on 'Physics and Politics,' in the 'Fortnightly Review,' Nov. 1867; April 1, 1868; July 1, 1869, since separately published.), is of the highest value, for any form of government is better than none. Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected. A tribe rich in the above qualities would spread and be victorious over other tribes: but in the course of time it would, judging from all past history, be in its turn overcome by some other tribe still ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... 'Compendium Compertorum.' There are also reports from private persons, private entreaties for enquiry, depositions of monks in official examinations, and other similar papers, which, in many instances, are too offensive to be produced, and may rest in obscurity, unless contentious persons compel us to bring them forward. Some of these, however, throw curious light on the habits of the time, and on the collateral disorders which accompanied the more gross enormities. They show us, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... patiently, and have had their reward. Think of the mother of St. Augustin! Her husband returned to her penitent after years of depravity. 'Every wise woman buildeth her house; but the foolish pluck it down,' and that is what you are doing. 'A continual dropping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.' For Heaven's sake, my child, do not become a contentious woman. See also Prov. viii. If only you had read your Bible regularly every day, prayed humbly for a contrite heart, and obeyed your parents, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... great NAVARRE, when France and freedom bled, [p] Sought the lone limits of a forest-shed. When DIOCLETIAN'S self-corrected mind [q] The imperial fasces of a world resign'd, Say why we trace the labours of his spade, In calm Salona's philosophic shade. Say, when contentious CHARLES renounc'd a throne, [r] To muse with monks unletter'd and unknown, What from his soul the parting tribute drew? What claim'd the sorrows of a last adieu? The still retreats that sooth'd his tranquil breast, Ere grandeur dazzled, and its cares oppress'd. Undamp'd by time, the ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... afraid of Injuns or somethin' else that threatenin' an' hostile—them sort of countenances you notes carved on the far ends of fiddles. We-all is averse to Ryder. An' this yere Ryder himsc'f is that contentious an' contradictory he won't agree to nothin'. Jest to show you about Ryder: I has in mind once when a passel of us is lookin' at a paper that's come floatin' in from the States. Thar's the picture of a cow-puncher into it who's a dead ringer ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... he is not, like the dramatist, prohibited from representing anything else. In covering this special province, the drama is undeniably more vivid and emphatic; but many momentous phases of human experience are not contentious but contemplative; and these the novel may reveal serenely, without employment of the sound ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it;) not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... the modern social drama has been a theme for bitter conflict; and critics have been so busy calling Ibsen a corrupter of the mind or a great ethical teacher that they have not found leisure to consider the more general and less contentious questions of what the modern social drama really is, and of precisely on what ground its morality should be determined. It may be profitable, therefore, to stand aloof from such discussion for a moment, in order to inquire calmly what ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... liked to look on them, and watch them, listening[21] to their keen, unconnected, and unreasoning, but not unreasonable talk. Men's argument, or rather arguing, and above all debating, he disliked. He had no turn for it. He was not combative, much less contentious. He was, however, warlike. Anything that he could destroy, any falsehood or injustice, he made for, not to discuss, but to expose and kill. He could not fence with his mind much less with his tongue, and had no love for the exploits of a nimble dialectic. He had no readiness ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... for the high colours with which a tale that has grown stale is apt to be daubed, I am forced to admit the inference that a mean, sordid, contentious woman probably did as much as was in her power to harass and fret one of the best men in Germany, or in the world. Luckily for himself, Albrecht was a severe student, had much engrossing work which carried him abroad, and travelled ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... and his eloquence, he never became the hero of the great masses of the West; he appealed rather to the more intelligent—to the men of business and of property."[5] Jackson, however, was the very personification of the contentious, self-confident, nationalistic democracy of the interior. He could make no claim to statesmanship. He had held no important legislative or administrative position in his State, and his brief career in Congress was entirely without ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... work of fiction; I doubt whether the house contained a printed volume, unless its head had had in hand a law-book or so: I to some extent recover Mr. Norcom as a lawyer who had come north on important, difficult business, on contentious, precarious grounds—a large bald political-looking man, very loose and ungirt, just as his wife was a desiccated, depressed lady who mystified me by always wearing her nightcap, a feebly-frilled but tightly-tied and ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... is a deficiency in these holy dispositions. Can it be that the one is ever an object of envy, or jealousy, or ever regarded with distrust, coldness, or still more with hostility, by the other? Let them beware of the first approach of a contentious spirit. Their manners,—as indeed those of all in a family circle,—should never be rude, or careless, but ordered with watchfulness, delicacy, and propriety. The manner between sisters may be such as of itself to enshrine and secure their mutual kindness. It ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... turned Quakers, seem to have retained some of the contentious Cromwellian spirit of their youth. They soon quarreled over their respective interests in the ownership of West Jersey; and to prevent a lawsuit, so objectionable to Quakers, the decision was left to William Penn, then ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... family with the Archdeacon, the strong testimony that Cushman bears against him in his Dartmouth letter of August 17, and the fact that there seems to have been early dissatisfaction with him as "governor" on the ship, a very self-sufficient, somewhat arrogant, and decidedly contentious individual. His selection as treasurer seems to have been very unfortunate, as Bradford indicates that his accounts were in unsatisfactory shape, and that he had no means of his own, while his rather surprising ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... things in reference to herself; striveth and argueth for self; but Grace bringeth back all things to God from whom they came at the beginning; ascribeth no good to herself nor arrogantly presumeth; is not contentious, nor preferreth her own opinion to others, but in every sense and understanding submitteth herself to the Eternal wisdom and ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... this motion is not to cut off debate (for which other motions are provided, see Sec. 37), but to enable the assembly to avoid altogether any question which it may deem irrelevant, unprofitable or contentious.* [In Congress, the introduction of such questions could be temporarily prevented by a majority vote under the 41st Rule of the House of Representatives, which is as follows: "Where any motion or proposition ...
— Robert's Rules of Order - Pocket Manual of Rules Of Order For Deliberative Assemblies • Henry M. Robert
... making witchcraft a capital offence, tells us in reply, in the first place, that this passage is not of the nature of a precept, but merely of an admonition; that it does not enjoin any particular method of proceeding, but simply describes the natural consequences of cruel and contentious conduct; and that it amounts only to this: that quarrelsome, violent, and bloodthirsty persons will be apt to meet the same fate they bring upon others; that the duellist will be likely to fall in private combat, the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... unfriendly, alienated, cold, estranged, indifferent, unkind, antagonistic, contentious, frigid, inimical, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... malestimi. Contemplate rigardadi. Contemporary samtempa. Contempt malestimo. Contemptible malestima. Contend batali. Content kontentigi. Contentedness kontenteco. Contention kontrauxstaro. Contentious malpacula. Contentment kontenteco. Contents enhavo. Contest disputi. Contest disputo. Continence sindetenemo. Continent (geog.) kontinento. Contingent (milit.) kontingento. Contiguity apudeco. Contiguous apuda. Continue (to last) dauxri. Continue (go on) dauxrigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... In the busy, contentious bustle of the competition of the day, the brain, strained too often to its utmost tension, demands the relaxation of some absorbing, pleasure-yielding hobby. Those who have tried it attest the fact that few things more completely ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... actually followed was ludicrously different. The object, as stated by the chairman, was "to avoid raising contentious issues in such a way as to divide the Convention on party lines,"[96] which, to say the least, was a curious method of handling the most contentious problem in British politics. A fine opportunity was offered to amateur constitution-mongers. Anyone was ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... the transports of maternal tenderness, the instants of superstition, the way in which they show epidemic and popular notions, that women amaze us; fair as the seraphin of Klopstock, terrible as the fiends of Milton.... The distractions of a busy and contentious life break up our passions. A woman, on the contrary, broods over her passions; they are a fixed point on which her idleness or the frivolity of her duties holds her attention fast.... Impenetrable in dissimulation, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Bond as apparently his most dangerous enemy and scowling at him with great hostility, "if you want to let the religious life of this place, nearly dead already, pass right away, choose a man like Forsyth. But I don't wish to be contentious; there's been contention enough in this place during these last months, and I'm sick and ashamed of the share I've had in it. I won't say more than this—that if you want an honest, God-fearing ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... adoration to an opinion of his infallibility. To say the truth, the parson had exercised her more ways than one; and the pious woman had so well edified by her husband's sermons, that she had resolved to receive the bad things of this world together with the good. She had indeed been at first a little contentious; but he had long since got the better; partly by her love for this, partly by her fear of that, partly by her religion, partly by the respect he paid himself, and partly by that which he received from the parish. She had, in short, absolutely submitted, and now worshipped her husband, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... concern himself with the matter. It is on this occasion that Buddha says, "Truly, these fools are infatuate," leaves them, and goes into solitude, rejoicing to be free from souls so quarrelsome and contentious. Again these tracts give a picture of how they should live that are truly Buddha's disciples. Buddha finds three disciples living in perfect harmony, and asks them how they live together so peaceably and lovingly. In quaint and yet dignified language they ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... rushed by. The first and comparatively non-contentious sections of the Bill passed with a good deal of talk and delay. George spoke once or twice, without expecting to speak, instinctively pleasing Fontenoy where he could. They had now but little direct intercourse. But George did not feel that his leader had become ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... From contentious people, of all conditions; who are content to waste the greatest part of their own fortunes at law, to be the instruments of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... in our existence spots of time, That with distinct pre-eminence retain A renovating virtue, whence, depressed 210 By false opinion and contentious thought, Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, In trivial occupations, and the round Of ordinary intercourse, our minds Are nourished and invisibly repaired; 215 A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced, That penetrates, enables us to mount, When high, more high, and lifts ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... formalism, I hardly know of a greater trial of patience than he must have had in consenting to circumcise Timothy. He there shut the window-shutters, and lighted an exhausted lamp, for a time, though he knew the sun was up, to gratify some who had not opened their eyes to the morning. How far from a contentious, ambitious spirit, was he, even with his intense convictions. There are many good people, in all communions, who are longing for the time when all the old walls of separation between true Christians will have as many gates in ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... wise man living like a drone, an old man not devout, Youth disobedient, rich men that are charity without, A shameless woman, vicious lords, a poor man proudly stout, Contentious Christians, pastors that their functions do neglect, A wicked king, no discipline, no laws men to direct, Are twelve the foulest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... from the first that so illogical and contentious an agreement could not possibly prove to be a final settlement, and indeed the ink of the signatures was hardly dry before an agitation was on foot for its revision. The Boers considered, and with justice, that if they were ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... deal of his own nature, to the present benefit of every German, has survived in our doctrines and language, in our civil laws and morals, in the thoughtfulness of our people, and in our science and literature. Some of the ideas for which Luther's stubborn and contentious spirit fought, against both Catholics and Calvinists, are abandoned by the free investigation of modern times. His intensely passionate beliefs, gained in the heartrending struggles of a devout soul, occasionally missed an important truth. Sometimes he was harsh, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... numerous occasions for friction, especially with the civil authorities, whose rights and duties often overlapped his own. And he did not escape the danger of such bickerings with their resultant ill-feeling. There is nothing to indicate that he was contentious by nature. But he was no doubt zealous in defending the prerogatives of his office. His temper was quick and somewhat martial. "One could very well," one of his biographers declares, "envision him as a knight in full armor leading a troop in the charge." With the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... river. People came and went in the shop: it is a wonder how many, in the course of an hour, may lift the latch even of an establishment that pretends to no great business. What was all this small, sociable, contentious life but the great Daumier's subject-matter? He was the painter of the Parisian bourgeois, and the voice of the bourgeois ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... orphans—friendless, fortuneless. Yet both have made our way without friends, and commanded our associates, though without fortune. Does not this declare we have that within us which, when we are united, can still exalt or conquer our destiny? And we—we—alone in the noisy and contentious world with which we strive—we shall turn, after each effort, to our own hearts, and find there a comfort and a shelter. All things will bind us closer and closer to each other. The thought of our past solitude, the hope of our future objects, will only feed the fountain of our present love. And ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Apostle does not entirely forbid disputations, but such as are inordinate, and consist of contentious words ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the Old Civilization kept the New subordinate, apologetic and ineffective, but for the last two centuries, the New has fought its way to a position of contentious equality. The two go on side by side, jostling upon a thousand issues. The world changes, the conditions of life change rapidly, through that development of organized science which is the natural method of the New Civilization. The old tradition ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... well observed, "the Church stands upon her own merits, her own divine right; there all the attested grievances of the Dissenters, secular and political, are removed; no tithes, no church-rates, no exclusive state support." And yet there, it may be added, the fierce contentious spirit which rages in England is unchanged in character, and the way of the Church is just as evil spoken of in New South Wales as in the mother country. The only grievance the dissenters can complain of now in Australia is that assistance is afforded ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... beautifully ends in the nature of the good. Very different therefore is it from the merely logical method, which presides over the demonstrative phantasy, is of a secondary nature, and is alone pleased with contentious discussions. For the dialectic of Plato for the most part employs divisions and analyses as primary sciences, and as imitating the progression of beings from the one, and their conversion to it again. It likewise sometimes ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... party, and retiring with genuine humility from the public gaze, might have well hoped to escape that detraction, which is the lot of those who assume the leading stations among their contemporaries, and mingle in the contentious scenes of worldly affairs. Or, at least, it might have been expected that his traducers would only be found among the oppressors of the New World, or the slave-traders of the Old. This felicity has not been his lot; and the evening of his days ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... real object of the descent of this high spirit on to our planet. If the human race had earnestly centred upon that instead of losing itself in vain dreams of vicarious sacrifices and imaginary falls, with all the mystical and contentious philosophy which has centred round the subject, how very different the level of human culture and happiness would be to-day! Such theories, with their absolute want of reason or morality, have been the main cause why the best minds have been so often alienated from the Christian system ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... large and possibly contentious subject of the modifications which such new revelations must produce in Christianity, let us try to follow what occurs to man after death. The evidence on this point is fairly full and consistent. Messages from the dead have been received in many lands at various ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not well escape the sagacity of M. Neckar, that the mode of 1614 would answer neither the purpose of the then government nor of the nation. As matters were at that time circumstanced it would have been too contentious to agree upon anything. The debates would have been endless upon privileges and exemptions, in which neither the wants of the Government nor the wishes of the nation for a Constitution would have been attended to. But as he did ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... many within these walls who need an example of terror to keep them to their duty. They will see that treachery avails not with the noble Hereford, and that, discovered by me, it hath no escape from death. If this man be, as I imagine, in league with other contentious spirits—for he could scarce hope to betray the castle into the hands of the English without some aid within—his fate may strike such terror into other traitor hearts that their designs will be abandoned. Trust me, dearest, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... were virtually recommended by him.) But what does he think of Annual Parliaments, in conjunction with his rectified opinion of Suffrage, co-extensive with direct taxation? Here he leaves us wholly in the dark; but if the turbulent workings of Mr. Brougham's mind, and his fondness for contentious exhibition, manifested on all possible occasions, may be admitted as positive evidence, to corroborate the negative which his silence on this point implies, we are justified in believing that his passions were on that side, whatever might be the bent ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... which ought to be adopted voluntarily, not of compulsion, seeing that sacrifices are required of a willing mind. Thus, even if you compel us to sacrifice, you shall render no sacrifice thereby to your gods, for they will not desire sacrifices from unwilling givers, unless they are contentious; but God is not contentious." [310:2] When, however, the Church obtained possession of the throne of the empire, she soon ignored these lessons of toleration; and, snatching the weapons of her tormentors, she attempted, in her turn, to subjugate the soul by the dungeon, the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... so idle as to waste This Life disputing upon Taste; And most—let that sad Truth be written— In this contentious Land of Britain, Where each one holds "it seems to me" Equivalent to Q. E. D., And if you dare to doubt his Word Proclaims you Blockhead and absurd. And then, too often, the Debate Is not 'twixt First and Second-rate, Some narrow Issue, where a Touch Of more ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... had, perhaps for years, become so set in its contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... discontent to keep the mind Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil[jc][316] In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... up his supper than he went back to his master, while Lisbeth sat down alone to cry over her knitting. Women who are never bitter and resentful are often the most querulous; and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy day, he had not a vixen in his eye—a fury with long nails, acrid and selfish. Depend upon it, he meant a good creature, who had no joy but in the happiness ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... should be aloof and solitary. As the functions of English royalty are for the most part latent, it fulfils this condition. It seems to order, but it never seems to struggle. It is commonly hidden like a mystery, and sometimes paraded like a pageant, but in neither case is it contentious. The nation is divided into parties, but the crown is of no party. Its apparent separation from business is that which removes it both from enmities and from desecration, which preserves its mystery, which enables it to combine ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... in the flame. The Narrinyeri regard the disapprobation of the spirits of the dead as a thing to be dreaded; and if a serious quarrel takes place between near relatives, some of the friends are sure to interpose with entreaties to the contentious parties to be reconciled, lest the spirits of the dead should be offended at unseemly disputes between those who ought to be at peace. The name of the dead must not be mentioned until his body has decayed, lest a want of sorrow should seem to be indicated ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... of the foolish, contentious wife contrasted with the more gracious woman, surely every reader of common sense will try to follow the example of the latter. A complaining woman is worse than a leaky house, because with paint and putty you can stop the dropping; but how ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... view to action at the proper moment. The agitation throughout the province had not affected the {115} position of parties in the legislature which met in February. The government continued to treat federation as a non-contentious subject. No reference to it was made in the governor's speech, and the legislature occupied itself with other business. The agitation in the country, with Howe leading it, and William Annand, member for East Halifax and editor of the Chronicle, as his chief associate, went on. Then the debacle ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... so deceive those employed. But they do it under a pretence. As a scorner reproacheth under a pretence of sport, so they, under other pretences, of wrongs done, of the country's defence, &c. Verses 20, 24, show the way to prevent trouble and keep peace. As a contentious turbulent person would inflame a whole country and put them by the ears, so a person, though not contentious in his own nature, yet having many contentious interests following him, which he will not quit, or commit to God's providence, as our king was. O it is the destruction of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... busie and open Papistes abroad, could not, by their contentious bookes, turne men in England fast enough, from troth and right iudgement in doctrine, than the sutle and secrete Papistes at home, procured bawdie bookes to be translated out of the Italian tonge, whereby ouer many yong willes and wittes allured to wantonnes, do now boldly contemne ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... return to Windsor destitute of all that could solace, compose, or delight ; replete with whatever could fatigue, harass, and depress! Ease, leisure, elegant society, and interesting communication, were now to give place to arrogant manners, contentious disputation, and arbitrary ignorance! Oh, heaven! my dearest friends, what scales could have held and have weighed the heart of your F.B. as she drove past the door of her revered, lost comforter, to enter the apartment inhabited by such ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... captain in command of the corps. To Gordon he seemed exactly like what Cicero must have been, loud, contentious, smashing down pasteboard castles with a terrific din. He was amazingly arrogant and conceited. In the pulpit and on the parade ground he was in his element. The School House had for years been notorious for their slackness on parade. In drill and musketry ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... A worse fair face than witchcraft's, passion-proud, With brows blood-flecked behind their bridal wreath And lips that bade the assassin's sword find sheath Deep in the heart whereto love's heart was vowed: A game of close contentious crafts and creeds Played till white England bring black Spain to shame: A son's bright sword and brighter soul, whose deeds High conscience lights for mother's love and fame: Pure gipsy flowers, and poisonous courtly weeds: Such tokens and such ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... taken for granted in this paper that the young American wife is this kind of a woman—wise and gentle and good-natured—above all things good-natured. For says the Bible, "It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman." But read what is written in the Book of the right kind of a woman—one "in whose tongue is the law of kindness," as the ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... just a month after his second marriage, that Fielding again flung himself into the arena of contentious journalism, 'brandishing' his pen as truculently as ever on behalf of the Protestant and Hanoverian succession, and in despite of the Jacobite cause. He called his new paper "The Jacobite's Journal, by John Trott Plaid Esq're.," and the ironic title was accompanied by a woodcut ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... service, he commenced advocate at the country assizes, followed his fortunes to Rome and there became a leader of the metropolitan bar. He saw gallant military service in Spain and in Greece, commanded an army, held all the curule offices of state and ended a contentious life in the Senate denouncing Carthage and the ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... that was not my only way; every one told me the Epicureans were sensual and self-indulgent, the Peripatetics avaricious and contentious, the Platonists conceited and vain; about the Stoics, on the contrary, many said they had fortitude and an open mind; he who goes their way, I heard, was the true king and millionaire and wise man, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... contentious human reason is the intelligence of the soul, and this soul has in itself a higher part for we become acutely aware of it—that part of it with which we come in contact with God, with which we respond ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... for a line now existing went before Parliament with eighteen competitors, each party relying on the wisdom of Parliament to allow their bill at least to pass a second reading! Nineteen different parties condemned to one scene of contentious litigation! They each and all had to pay not only the costs of promoting their own line, but also the costs of opposing eighteen other bills. And yet conscious as government must have been of this fact, Parliament deliberately abandoned the only step it ever took on any occasion of subjecting ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... and Cypris addressed them both: "Hera and Athena, he will obey you rather than me. For unabashed though he is, there will be some slight shame in his eyes before you; but he has no respect for me, but ever slights me in contentious mood. And, overborne by his naughtiness, I purpose to break his ill-sounding arrows and his bow in his very sight. For in his anger he has threatened that if I shall not keep my hands off him while he still masters his temper, I shall have ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... really was to debase and enfeeble his style, he was little on his guard against those more serious improprieties of manner into which a great orator who undertakes to write history is in danger of falling. There is about the whole book a vehement, contentious, replying manner. Almost every argument is put in the form of an interrogation, an ejaculation, or a sarcasm. The writer seems to be addressing himself to some imaginary audience, to be tearing in pieces a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which permeated the raison d'etre of each noble lord in that great assembly. After the first wave of enthusiasm had passed, each man began to reflect that the best way, after all, for settling the contentious question of the Headship of the Republic, was to rule every one of the "magnificent six hundred" out of the running; and by taking the line of least resistance plump for the unassuming youths ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... Love-a-la-Mode was printed as it was taken down in shorthand by the famous shorthand expert Joseph Gurney. If Macklin had not been required to submit copies of his plays to the Licenser, it is doubtful that as much would have survived. The contentious Macklin had reason for zealously guarding his manuscripts, with such provincial theatre managers as Tate Wilkinson at York always anxious for ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... liquor is an irresponsible being, and Allyne, under the polish of education and training, possessed the nature of a bully—he was tyrannical and contentious. Choosing now to assume that Carnegie's partial turning away and low-voiced conversation were intended to insult him, he straightened up, and looking fiercely across the table, with eyes already watery from the heady fumes of the strong wine, tapped ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... orator, "you do wrong to your liberty by calling it so often in doubt, and in claiming with so much contentious anxiety from your enemies a title-deed for your independence. You hold it by your own public decree. In virtue of that decree, confirmed by the success of your arms, you have enjoyed it long. Nor could ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he may live: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To th' shore, that o'er his[398-18] wave-worn basis bow'd, As[398-19] stooping to relieve him: I not doubt ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... less easily disposed of. It bristled with contentious points bearing upon the most equitable ways and means of raising supplementary imposts to meet the first year's war outlays. As submitted to the House it was designed to raise a revenue of $1,800,000,000; but the barometer ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... himself knows best in all things, who yields to no one and calls good whatever harmonizes with his ideas. The Christian should be more willing to make concession in temporal affairs. Let him not be contentious, but rather yielding, since the Word of God and faith are not involved, it being only a question of personal honor, of friends ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... however, poor Job who fell in for the lion's share. Alas for him! He often found the words of Solomon to be true: "It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman" (Prov. xxi. 19). As there was no wilderness into which he could fly to escape the tongue of his dear Jemima, he would fly away into a solitary room, or into the adjoining garden, or into a neighbour's house, or take a walk in the lonely road,—anywhere to shelter himself from ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... was about to open fire on him, but at that moment our hostess appeared on the staircase, summoned evidently by our high-pitched contentious voices. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for a dark wrapper, removed her ornaments and begun to disarrange her hair, a thick tress of which escaped from the comb. She hurried down with a pale questioning face. Feeling distinctly that, for ourselves, immediate departure was ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... comparisons between Gertie's immobility and Ruth's lightness. He was used to Gertie; was in her presence comfortably understanding and understood; could find whatever he expected in her as easily as one finds the editorial page—or the sporting page—in a familiar newspaper. He merely became mildly contentious and made questioning noises in his ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... is now clear contrary, such contentious Couples, use all the means and indeavours they possibly can rather to be divorced, then reunited; to that end solliciting both the Majestical and Ecclesiastical Powers; to whom are related a thousand sad reasons by each party, because either of them pretendeth to have the greatest ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... through this discipline of suffering. Such as rose in society, were seldom really respectable; they neither regretted their crimes, nor offered atonement. But if the prisoner was injured, the colonist was not less so. Social virtues were discouraged; all classes were contentious and overbearing: the police, ever prying into the business of life, thus intermixed with penal systems, filled the colony with exasperation, from which not even the mildest spirits could escape. He did not propose to abolish ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... He disciplined himself also in the kind of speaking which works upon numbers, considering that, as in a great state, so in political philosophy, there should be nurtured with it something of the contentious quality. Yet he did not practise his exercises in company with others, nor did any one hear him when he was declaiming; but to one of his companions who observed, "Men find fault, Cato, with your silence," he replied, "I only hope they ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... said: The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground: (1) Dispersive ground; (2) facile ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground; (7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground. 2. When a chieftain is fighting in his own territory, it is ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... become entangled in the cordage, and as if there were no other escape, resolve themselves into air. Fisher boats are bringing their owners home from night-work over in the shallows of Indjerkeui. Gulls and cormorants in contentious flocks, drive hither and thither, turning and tacking as the schools of small fish they are following turn and tack down in the warm blue-green depths to which they are native. The many wings, in quick eccentric motion, give sparkling life ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... 'sour grapes' at which they were wont to sneer, contain a powerful stimulant for drooping ambition—the only infallible remedy for damaged honor and wounded pride. When the scales shall have fallen from our eyes in that happy day, politics will become a delightful profession, the contentious spirit of man will cease from its bickerings, the tongue of woman will settle down into a steady and respectable trot, the golden age of duelling will retreat into the shadowy past until it shall seem contemporary ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... train She moved, and when, most graceful of her sex, Where sat the suitors she arrived, between The columns standing of the stately dome, 490 And covering with her white veil's lucid folds Her features, to Antinoues thus she spake. Antinoues, proud, contentious, evermore To mischief prone! the people deem thee wise Past thy compeers, and in all grace of speech Pre-eminent, but such wast never thou. Inhuman! why is it thy dark design To slay Telemachus? and why with scorn Rejectest thou the suppliant's ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... of Ottoman rule. Bulgaria fought on the losing side in both World Wars. After World War II it fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. Communist domination ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, and Bulgaria began the contentious process of moving toward political democracy and a market economy. In addition to the problems of structural economic reform, particularly privatization, Bulgaria faces the serious issues of keeping inflation under control ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency. |
