"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not write it! we should not record an unhappy circumstance which ought to be forgotten." We came to a man of genius who was much attached to the Queen, and I described him as a man born solely to contradict, showing himself an aristocrat with democrats, and a democrat among aristocrats; but still a man of probity, and well disposed to his sovereign. The Princess said she knew many persons of that disposition, and that she was delighted I had nothing to say against this man, because she herself ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... reason to have suspected, them; but the man showed us a bill of sale for the ship, to one Emanuel Clostershoven, or some such name, for I suppose it was all a forgery, and called himself by that name, and we could not contradict him: and withal, having no suspicion of the thing, we went through with our bargain. We picked up some more English sailors here after this, and some Dutch, and now we resolved on a second voyage to the south-east for cloves, &c.—that ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... and prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy against the representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to censure the behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was pronounced, without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... novelist desires to keep his readers to the point; the detective novelist actually desires to keep his readers off the point. In the first case, every touch must help to tell the reader what he means; in the second case, most of the touches must conceal or even contradict what he means. You are supposed to see and appreciate the smallest gestures of a good actor; but you do not see all the gestures of a conjuror, if he is a good conjuror. Hence, into the critical estimate of such ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... it came to pass that they began to question Amulek, that thereby they might make him cross his words, or contradict the words ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... his eyes then to Pomponia, as if to signify that in presence of her no other divinity could come to his mind: and then he began to contradict what she had said touching ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... to make her tremble for such a situation as the present. Procrastination ceased to be possible. What now had happened must demand instant recognition of her rights, and that given, she assured herself the future held no terrors. Now he must marry her, or contradict his own record as a gentleman and a ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... would not surprise him to find that the Real People of this system were humanoid in shape. That is something new, and he can absorb it. It does not contradict anything he knows. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion that any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... may have been apparent to the court," he said, "that the only effort being put forth by the defence in this case is an effort to learn as much of the truth as possible. We have called no witnesses to contradict the testimony offered, and we expect to call none. But, lest something should occur of which we might wish to take advantage, we ask that the evidence be not closed until the meeting of ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... Smith says it is fifteen; and he is such a big boy, do you think I ought to contradict him? May I say there are differences of opinion about it? No one can be ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... I put little faith in her words; but as for saying aught of me or mine, in town or country, Holland or America, that can shake my credit, why I defy her! Still, I would not willingly have any idle stories to contradict; and I shall conclude by saying, you will do well ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... husbands, or brothers told them, they might believe if they chose; for the rest, to the very large majority of women, history was a sealed book; so that, for want of correct information, they were not in a position to contradict any assertion, however extravagant, untruthful, ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... other observation, which is that of all our witnesses she has attempted to discredit only one. She called two persons to contradict Elizabeth Binfield in regard to a scandalous expression (which she was charged with, but which she positively denied ever to have made use of) in saying "she should be glad to see the prisoner go up the ladder and swing." They first called Ann James; she swore to the expression, and said ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... contradict the story about the ascent in the balloon. It is now very well known that the hero of that headlong adventure was not young Bonaparte, as has been alleged, but one of his comrades, Dudont de Chambon, who was ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Auber, Donizetti or Flotow, who would be bold enough to point out a definite feeling on the subject of any of these themes? One will say 'love.' Perhaps so. Another thinks it is longing. He may be right. A third feels it to be religion. Who may contradict him? Now, how can we talk of a definite feeling represented when nobody really knows what is represented? Probably all will agree about the beauty or beauties of the composition, whereas all will differ regarding its subject. To represent ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... you are in reality nor what foreign name mask under your buffoonery, but I do know on the evidence of these intelligent officers, evidence upon which I fully rely and which you have made no attempt to contradict, you have disgraced yourself and the hall of your kind hosts and employers by the use of language which I shall not characterise save by telling you that it would be comprehensible only in a citizen of the nation to which you have ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a doze. There followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two trickle from Catherine's cheek to the flags. Is she sorry for her shameful conduct?—I asked myself. That will be a novelty: but she may come to the point—as she will—I sha'n't help ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... schoolteachers all over the galaxy would have gotten the textbook they had always wanted—a concise chronicle of everything that had ever happened since the explosion of the primeval atom, a history textbook that no other history textbook could contradict for the simple reason that there were ...
— Collector's Item • Robert F. Young
... in the place. Also, in addition to the great divergency of views expressed thereat, there was visible in all the speakers an invincible tendency to indecision which led them at one moment to make assertions, and at the next to contradict the same. But on at least one point all seemed to agree—namely, that Chichikov's appearance and conversation were too respectable for him to be a forger or a disguised brigand. That is to say, all SEEMED to agree on the point; until a sudden shout ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... society, and we need solitude. But it happens again and again that man gets a surfeit of society—he is thrown with those who misunderstand him, who thwart him, who contradict his nature, who bring out the worst in his disposition: he is sapped of his strength, and then he longs for solitude. He would go alone up into the mountain. What is called the "monastic impulse" comes over him—he longs to be alone—alone ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... No one will contradict this, least of all he who looks for celestial light as one of the rewards promised to virtue—the light which, as Solomon says, is always a light to the righteous, the light which made the apostle say, "Giving thanks unto the Father, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... magic, all that appears to him extraordinary; in his eyes his priests are sorcerers, in whom he supposes an Almighty power; before whom his confused reason humiliates itself, whose oracles are for him infallible decrees, to contradict which would be dangerous. In matters of religion the majority of men have remained in their primitive barbarity. Modern religions are but follies of old times rejuvenated or presented in some new form. If the ancient barbarians ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... of the way, with the young Titus. He calls the Apostle his friend, though worldly prudence forbade his naming him. From these fellow-travellers he must have heard the opinions of the Christians. He was able to contradict or confirm all that they said of the founder of our religion, for he was born only eight years after the crucifixion. But Josephus, when he wrote his history and life, was a courtier, and even a traitor to his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the gods killed Vritra. Arjuna, the son of Pritha, is my brother, and also my friend, and also my preceptor, and is like the second self of Krishna. It is for this that men desire for a worthy son, and that preceptor seeks a pupil who would contradict him not. It is for this that the time is come for that excellent work, which is the best of all tasks and difficult to perform. I shall baffle Duryodhana's volleys of arms by my own excellent weapons. I shall overpower all in the field of battle. I shall in my wrath cut off his head with ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... the fox the reputation of excelling in all tricks of cunning? I have sought for a reason, but cannot find one. Does not the wolf, when he has need to defend his life or take that of another, display as much knowingness as the fox? I believe he knows more, and I dare, perhaps with some reason, to contradict my master ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... little else to do this morning when you re-read my letters. I add that you must have been in a bad humor to undertake their criticism. Some brilliant engagement, some flattering rendezvous was wanting. But I do not care to elude the difficulty. So I seem to contradict myself sometimes? If I were to admit that it might very well be; if I were to give you the same answer that Monsieur de la Bruyere gave his critics the other day: "It is not I who contradict myself, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... where it is supposed, and seldom supposed falsely, that all would go if they could; to be able to say nothing, when every one is talking; to have no opinion, when every one is judging; to hear exclamations of rapture, without power to depress; to listen to falsehoods, without right to contradict, is, after all, a state of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is rather hardened by stubbornness, than supported by fortitude. If the world be worth winning, let us enjoy it; if it is to be despised, let us despise it by conviction. But the world is not to be despised, but as it ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... demolish one entirely, and that the virtuous public was highly indignant that there was no inquest nor trial for manslaughter; but that it was certain that Rachel had been extremely ill ever since. Poor Rachel, there must be some grain of truth in all this, but one would like to be able to contradict it. I wrote to ask Alick the rights of the story, but he has not vouchsafed me a line of reply; and I should take it as very kind in you to let me know whether he is in the land of the living or gone to Edinburgh—as I hear is to be the lot of the Highlanders—or pining ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ditches, about five miles from the city. The nearness of his approach did, indeed, create much terror and disturbance, yet it also ended their dissensions for the present; as nobody now, whether consul or senator, durst any longer contradict the people in ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... is this very paragon of unity, space in its parts contains an infinite variety, and the unity and the variety do not contradict each other, for they obtain in different respects. The one is the whole, the many are the parts. Each part is one again, but only one fraction; and part lies beside part in absolute nextness, the very picture of peace and non-contradiction. It is true ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Theon's son, interrupted him, and said: This discourse smells neither of history nor comment, but is taken out of the common topics of the Peripatetics, and endeavors to persuade; besides, you should, like the tragedians, raise your machine, and fright all that contradict you with the god. But the god, as indeed it is requisite he should be, is equally benevolent to all. Now let us, following Sospis (for he fairly leads the way), keep close to our subject, the palm-tree, which affords us sufficient ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... because he wanted to see her safely through that evening, and he was delighted to find how much self-command she showed. He knew she had not had time to read the letter, but he did not know she was buoyed up by a secret hope that the letter would contradict everything he had said. It was hard work for him to leave her—hard to think that he should not know for days how she was bearing her trouble. But he must go at last, and all he could do was to press her hand gently as he said "Good-bye," and hope she would take that as a sign that if his love could ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... to contradict your lordship; I do hope to get a good price for my discovery. Every one in this world lives by his trade. Mine is to exhume Pharaohs and sell them to strangers. Pharaohs are becoming scarce at the rate at which they are ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... have to contradict him). Not so, my lord. From that hairpin we could have made a needle; with that needle we could, out of skins, have sewn trousers of which your lordship is in need; indeed, we are all in ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... Remember, you do not need to accept unqualifiedly everything you read. A worthy ideal for every student to follow is expressed in the motto carved on the wall of the great reading-room of the Harper Memorial Library at The University of Chicago: "Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider." Ibsen bluntly states the ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... returned Euphemia, half angry at being obliged to contradict herself, "if you are so dull of taste, and cannot understand poetical language, I must tell you he ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... short letters, considering the circumstances of the time; but I hate to send you paragraphs only to contradict them again: I still less choose to forge events; and, indeed, am glad I have so few ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Smritis whose scope again is very wide. If the Vedas be authority for everything, then authority would attach to the Smritis also for the latter are based on the former. When, however, the Srutis and the Smritis contradict each other, how can either be authoritative? Then again, it is seen that when some wicked persons of great might cause certain portions of certain courses of righteous acts to be stopped, these are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... strictly addicted to truth, that I believe every word of it; if it is not written in the fashionable expression, I conclude you will impute it to her manner. She was really concerned very much, that, after she knew you were ill, we were so long before we could get a letter from you: let her contradict this if she can. You tell her you are riding for your life; I fancy she would do it for yours, though she will not for her own. I believe that she will not like that I should say anything more about her; so that I shall leave you to your ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... the head he made to avoid the entanglement of the curtain was supposed to do double duty, and serve as a bow to the inmate of his state-room as well, for his I supposed it to be at the time, and he did not contradict me. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... of it,' she said, with a nonchalance which seemed to contradict her words. 'It is so dreadfully reasonable that we should marry. I wish ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... well stored with book-lore, and who goes and plays the robber! Now is it likely that the imperial laws would look upon him as a man of parts, and that they wouldn't bring against him some charge of robbery? From this it's evident that those, who fabricate these stories, contradict themselves. Besides, they may, it's true, say that the heroines belong to great families of official and literary status, that they're conversant with propriety and learning and that their honourable mothers too understand books and good manners, but great ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the bladder as if to contradict him, giving one sharp movement, and then remaining still ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... contradict you. Twenty-four hours ago that remark would have been plausible enough; but by presenting yourself for confirmation at my hands you have invited my ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... I addressed him in English and in French, while he and Zimmern glanced at each other as do men who see a miracle and strive to hold their reason while their senses contradict their logic. ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... the solemn wheelings of the Miltonic movement, Addison could find a sincere delight. But the sublimities of earthly misery and of human frenzy were for him a book sealed. Beside all which, Milton, renewed the types of Grecian beauty as to form, whilst Shakspeare, without designing at all to contradict these types, did so, in effect, by his fidelity to a new nature, radiating from a ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... if you will. I will speak to her about being late,' replied Miss Courteney, much relieved. She did not want to contradict Miss Briggs's orders; but she did not want Vava to ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... cannot possibly act against itself. Habits dispose the subject to elicit acts of the power wherein they reside. Moral habits induce acts of will and sensitive appetite: intellectual habits, acts of intellect. Will and appetite may act against what the agent knows to be best: but intellect cannot contradict intellect. It cannot judge that to be true and beautiful which it knows to be false and foul. If a musician strikes discords on purpose, or a grammarian makes solecisms wilfully, he is not therein contradicting the intellectual habit within him, for it is the office ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... read it over. It didn't contradict the first one; it only changed a suggestion to a command, as if someone were growing more frantic by the hour. (And a picture of near-chaos in government wasn't attractive, was it?) The bit about "proper channels" underlined that speech ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... "If you believe as you speak in my presence then speak the same way in church, in public lectures, in sermons, and in private discussions, and strengthen your brethren, and lead the erring back to the right way, and contradict the wilful spirits; otherwise your confession is a mere sham and will be of no value whatever." (Walther, 40.) Refusal to confess the truth will ultimately always result in rejection of the truth. Silence here is the first step to ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... attention had been drawn—he wrote—to an absurd bit of gossip connecting his name with that of a lady whose friend he was, and absolutely nothing more. Would Miss Derwent, if occasion arose, do him the kindness to contradict this story in her circle? He would be ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... contradict, Ma," returned Caddy. "I was only going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... parts to offer them congratulations that we were the three most beautiful children ever born. I believe parents always think their children beautiful, and of course no one is ever so impolite as to contradict them. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... little is to be learned from lectures. For the most part those who do not already understand the subject will not understand the lecture, and those who do will learn nothing from it. The latter will hear many things they would like to contradict, which the bienseance of the lecture-room does not allow. I do not comprehend how people can find amusement in lectures. I should much prefer a tenson of the twelfth century, when two or three masters of the Gai Saber discussed questions of ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... companionship under the guidance of those competent to select it. There, I have talked myself out of breath. And you had better decide at once in favour of my advice; for as I am of a contradictory temperament, myself of to-morrow may probably contradict myself ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... presently returned, "that he was unfortunately the one person we hadn't deceived, I can't contradict you." ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... to argue with him. He only nodded his head. It would have been silly, he knew, to contradict Gaddon, to tell him that the English didn't know a thing more about the cosmic rays than the American scientists, that American science had made, and was continually making, exhaustive research into that scientific field of study on as great if not more so ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... enlightened him on the subject. Mr. Cutlar Fergusson explained, and Mr. Poulter protested against the doctrine which stigmatized the conduct of government as intervention. Mr. Grove Price defended the character of Don Carlos from the aspersions which had been cast upon it, but he did not attempt to contradict or justify the fact that the Don had issued the edict of Durango; and that, in virtue of the same, some English soldiers had already been executed. He concluded with a tribute to his virtue and magnanimity: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... throw out imagery altogether and attempt to show that all natural thought goes on in terms of sensori-motor processes in the larynx." This view seems to me flatly to contradict experience. If you try to persuade any uneducated person that she cannot call up a visual picture of a friend sitting in a chair, but can only use words describing what such an occurrence would be like, she will conclude that you are mad. ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... said I thought the Portuguese troops inferior to the French, still more to the British. 'Inferior to the British, sir! I have read Lord Wellington's last despatch, and he says the Portuguese fought as well as the British; and I suppose you won't contradict him?' I saw it was vain to convince this pugnacious old man of the necessity of saying these civil things, and we parted mutually dissatisfied with each other; he taking me, no doubt, for a forward young puppy, and I looking upon him as a monstrous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... that the army needs, without its calling on its abundant reserves. I propose, Sir, to write to you twice a week, to give you the news about His Majesty, and details about the operations of the army. These communications will enable you to contradict the idle rumors which ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She thought, "I will ask Axel"—and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... lawful to slay in order to avoid a blow and an affront, yet are we to be forbidden to refute publicly so grave an error? Are you to be at liberty to say that a judge may conscientiously retain a bribe given him to purchase injustice, yet may we never contradict you? Are you formally to pronounce that a man may be saved without ever having loved God, and yet close the mouths of those who would defend the truth of the faith, on the ground that their defence must wound fraternal charity by attacking you, and must grieve Christian ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... merely to excuse himself for being thrashed by a boy smaller than himself. Mad with his folly, not in having invented the story, but in having neglected to look round, to assure himself that there were no witnesses who would contradict it, he wandered disconsolate about the gardens and park, cursing what he ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... retrospectively the supreme airs of respectability and integrity they individually took on, one would conclude that they were all men of whitest, most irreproachable character. But the official reports contradict their pretensions at every turn; and they are all seen in their nakedness as perjurers, cheats and frauds, far more sinister in their mask than Gould in his carelessly open career of theft and corruption. Many of the descendants of that sordid aggregation live to-day in the luxury of inherited ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... one who spoke to you of me," she continued calmly. "You need not trouble to contradict me. Hadn't you better hurry away before I have the chance to do you any harm? There is one young man I know, of a melodramatic turn of mind, who persists in looking upon me as a sort of siren, calling my victims on to the rocks. I expect that is the person with ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... fireworks could have been lighted, drippings from a flare, or anything that shouldn't have been in a deserted area of woods. We looked at the trees; they hadn't been hit by lightning. The blades of grass under which the UFO supposedly hovered were not burned. We found nothing to contradict the story. We took a few photos of the area and went back to town. On the way back we talked to the constable and the deputy. All they could do was ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... blacks and one of the promoters of the whole trouble — as to what is, or is not, the meaning of the Natives' Land Act. Indeed the various definitions and explanations of the Act, given by the Commissioners and some of the witnesses, contradict those previously given by the Union Government and Mr. Harcourt. And while the ruling whites, on the one hand, content themselves with giving contradictory definitions of their cruelty the native sufferers, on the other hand, give no definitions of legislative phrases nor explanations ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... in the United States that it is not easy to make a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with; hints will not always suffice to shake him off. I contradict an American at every word he says, to show him that his conversation bores me; he instantly labors with fresh pertinacity to convince me; I preserve a dogged silence, and he thinks I am meditating deeply on the truths which he is uttering; at last I ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to contradict me, you villanous little humpback?" screamed Smith. "I'll teach you to do ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... "Don't contradict me! Am I in my dotage, think you? I saw my boy, and he was pale, and had blood on his hands, and it ran down his beard and dripped on his vest. You can't deceive me! What is the matter with my poor boy? I will see him! Give me ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... exercise of walking, too, was very exhausting to me; the bright red mud, to the strange colour of which I could not for a long while get accustomed, becoming caked about my little shoes, and wearying me extremely. I would grow petulant and cross, contradict my Father, and oppose his whims. These walks were distressing to us both, yet he did not like to walk alone, and he had no other friend. However, as the winter advanced, they had to be abandoned, and the habit of our taking a ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the long hall of the Italian masters, when suddenly he found himself face to face with Valentin de Bellegarde. The young Frenchman greeted him with ardor, and assured him that he was a godsend. He himself was in the worst of humors and he wanted some one to contradict. ...
— The American • Henry James
... it extant, that any discription I could give would seem unnecessary; besides, I have neither abilities nor materials sufficient for such an undertaking, for whoever gives a faithful account of this place must in many things contradict all the Authors I have had an opportunity to consult; but this task I shall leave to some abler hand, and only take notice of such things that seem to me necessary for Seamen ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... these things might not have been. If a man's capacities are hinted at or even stated by himself to his fellow-creatures with a certain amount of discretion, and if he does not court failure by putting them to the proof, it does not occur to most people to contradict him, and the possible truth of the contradiction soon sinks out of sight. So Sir William sat on the brink of the river and watched the others plunging into the waves, diving, rising, breasting the current, and was agreeably supported by the consciousness that if Fate had so ordained it, he ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... should happen to contradict my master at this moment," said Mousqueton to himself; "I wouldn't give a farthing ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a woman will not try to understand her husband's ideas, or at least to believe that they are of more value than she can understand—if she is to join anybody who happens to be against him, and suppose he is a fool because others contradict him—there is an end of our happiness. That is all I ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... Club, as to accuse me of having borrowed my theory of universals from Hegel. Hegel's theory of universals is divided from mine by the whole vast chasm between realism and idealism. The two theories contradict each other absolutely, uncompromisingly, irreconcilably: Hegel's is a theory of "absolute idealism" or "pure thought" (reines Denken), that is, of thought absolutely independent of experience, while mine is a theory ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... caught cold that night," he said, as if he had read his friend's thought and hastened to contradict it. Then ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... all her visitors, and asks them to admire the beautiful Shay douver of Giddo's. When I go out to dinner with people that talk pictures and books, and that kind of thing, I don't like to seem behind, so I say, in a critical way, that Giddo was a good painter. None of them contradict me, and one day when somebody asked, "Which of his pictures do you prefer?" I answered straight, "His Shay douver," and no ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... written,' and never can blot out. But Jesus Christ deals with that consciousness. It is true that 'whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,' and the Christian doctrine of forgiveness does not contradict that solemn truth, but it assures us that God's heart is not turned away from us, notwithstanding the past, and that we can write the future better, and break altogether the fatal bond that decrees, apart from Him, that 'to-morrow shall be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... witch could have been more puzzled to seek what to say to reasonable people than he was. He asked us more questions than we did him, and caught at everything we said without discerning that we abused him and said things purposely to confound him; which we did so perfectly that we made him contradict himself the strangest that ever you saw. Ever since this adventure, I have had so great a belief in all things of this nature, that I could not forbear laying a peas-cod with nine peas in't under my door yesterday, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... in Munster Court, now. To tell the truth I am not best pleased that it should be so; but at the last moment I did not like to contradict her. I hate London and everything in it. She likes it, and as there was a kind of bargain made I could not well depart ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... say you do. Don't contradict me. Think I don't know what I'm saying? You do want me. A boy of your years has no business to look like that. What have you been doing? Why, your pulse is galloping nineteen to the dozen, and your head's as hot as fire. You've been eating too much, you voracious ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... And mercy to the weak, and reverence For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less The selfsame light, although averted hence, When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, You contradict the very ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... at dates which contradict the prevailing gossip of last April, that Messrs. Adams, Dayton, Burlingame, Schurz and Co. were detained awaiting Mr. Seward's advices) still more elaborate and masterly instructions are given out to these gentlemen. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was to reduce to reason and obedience his revd. brethren the the chapter of St. Patrick's; in which he succeeded so perfectly, and so speedily, that, in a short time after his arrival, not one member in that body offered to contradict him, even in trifles: on the contrary, they held him in the highest respect and veneration, so that he sat in the Chapter-House, like Jupiter in the Synod ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... I must say I was a little bit disappointed myself- -to tell you the plain truth; but it is of no use to contradict young people in ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... contradict her. She says that on purpose to be contradicted. A middle-aged look, is it? I dare ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... no choice. Besides, it is too late. There's a knock. Oh, one word more! Whatever I may say, don't contradict me. Nor ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... is excluded or made to occupy a corner. Religion teaches that we cannot be pleasing to God unless we look upon all mankind as children of our Father in heaven. And they who order and compel a man because he is colored to betake himself to a corner marked off for his race, practically contradict the principles of justice and of equal rights established by the God of Mercy, who lives on the altar. Let Christians act out their religion, and there is no more race problem. Equality for the colored man is coming. The colored people are showing themselves ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... geologists to assert that the whole continent of America had in like manner been formed by the simultaneous explosion of a train of Etnas laid under the water all the way from the North Pole to the parallel of Cape Horn, I am the last man in the world to contradict them. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... all perpendiculars erected from the earth's surface rendered inexplicable: then also commenced a struggle between the prejudices, which for centuries had sufficed in daily practice, and the unprecedented opinions which the testimony of the eyes seemed to contradict. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... fleet, and offered vpon that condition to send home the land-forces, and all such ships as want of victualls, leaks sickness, or anie thing els had made vnfit to staie out at sea. But first the L. Admirall and Sr. Wa[l]ter Rawligh did directlie by attestation vnder their hands contradict the first proposition that I made, that some ships should attend that seruice. And when we came to the hypothesis, which were fitt and their captaines content to staie out in all the fleet, except the Low Countrie Squadron, there could be found but two, my L. Thom. Howard and my selfe; so as by ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... informed of what passes. You will, of course, hear in Dublin, as you would in Pall Mall, an infinite variety of foolish reports, as is naturally the case when every man has his own speculation. You cannot, I am sure, think it possible that I can even enumerate, much less argue upon, or contradict all these; but I cannot, at this time, after some reflection, call to my mind any point of the smallest consequence in our present situation with which I am myself acquainted, and which I ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... before, sir, I could take my oath I did not see him. And if it wasn't that I don't like to contradict a gentleman, I would say I could also take my oath that this gentleman was quite alone in the carriage the whole way from London to Clayborough. Why, sir," he added, dropping his voice so as to be inaudible to the station-master, who ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... week the house was once again empty, and the rumour getting about that it was haunted, the landlord threatened the Smythes with an action for slander of title. But I do not think the case was taken to court, the Smythes agreeing to contradict the report they had originated. Astute inquiries, however, eventually led them to discover that a lady, answering to the description of the ghost they had seen, had once lived at —— House. Of Spanish descent, she was ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... am forced to contradict you—in justice to yourself. You cannot be willing to let me regard you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... awkward silence. Helen thought it was for Lady Davenant to speak; but Lady Davenant did not contradict Mr. Churchill. Now, the not contradicting a person who is abusing himself, is one of the most heinous offences to self-love that can be committed; and it often provokes false candour to pull off the ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... destruction of the two first-rates, Real Carlos and San Hermenegildo, in the engagement of the 12th July last, to red-hot balls from his Majesty's ships under my command, I take this present opportunity to contradict, in the most positive and formal manner, a report so injurious to the characteristic humanity of the British nation, and to assure your Excellency that nothing was more void of truth. This I request you will be ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... the worse for Milton," she tartly replied. "Look at the Chopin prelude. Will you contradict me if I say that in one prelude this composer crowds the experience of a lifetime? When he expands his idea into the sonata form how diffuse, how ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... "You cannot contradict it," said she. "I see my fate in those tearful eyes. Oh Charlotte! Charlotte! how ill have you requited our tenderness! But, Father of Mercies," continued she, sinking on her knees, and raising her streaming eyes and clasped hands to heaven, "this once vouchsafe to hear a fond, ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... days' journey, he was stopped by a party of Arabs, and murdered. Some persist in saying, that Caillié found Major Laing's papers, and gave them as his own account of Timbuctoo. I should be sorry to attempt either to prove or contradict the charge. All the documents are in possession of the family of the late Colonel Warrington. We must suspend our opinion until they are published, which I trust ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... thunderstruck by this last argument. 'I have nothing more to say. M. Louet, your hand. I will never contradict ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... down heavily on the lid of the piano, and glared at Maurice as if he expected the latter to contradict him. Then, noisily clearing his throat, he began ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... at the speaker with insinuating smiles, as if they would say: "Although conservatives, nevertheless—" Ah! that "nevertheless" was like an act of contrition, a kind of submission. This was so evident that I who am a sceptic as to all party spirit, began to contradict Stawowski, not as a representative of any party, but simply as a man who is of a different opinion. My audacity excited some astonishment. The matter in question was the position of the working-men. Stawowski spoke of their hopeless condition, their ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and kindness in little Emlyn than ever they had thought for. Even the ferryman who put them over the river declared that the doctor must have done Master Kenton a power of good, and Stead smiled and did not contradict him. ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the troglodyte, the morals of necessity; and that the morals of mankind had kept pace with necessity, whereas those of the Lord had remained unchanged. It is hardly necessary to say that no one ever undertook to contradict any statements of this sort from him. In the first place, there was no desire to do so; and in the second place, any one attempting it would have cut a puny figure with his less substantial arguments and his less vigorous phrase. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... decline to admit that the consciousness itself can become unconscious, and yet continue in some way under an unconscious form. This would be, in my opinion, bringing together two conceptions which contradict each other, and thus denying after having affirmed. From the moment that the consciousness dies, there remains nothing of it, unless it be the conditions of its appearance, conditions which are distinct ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... last eighteen months: have you learned in that time to trust us as we have learned to care for you? Do you know us loyal patriots and true Christians, even if of a broad and all-unsectarian faith? If we are too frank, it is because we are certain that truth can never contradict itself, that nature must be one with revelation, that he errs who fears the crucible of the savant or would hold science in leading strings. THE CONTINENTAL seeks the light, condemns to silence no new Galileo, tortures no creative Kepler, has no fires ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... memories so constructed that what they said, and another did not contradict or even answer, seems to them, upon retrospect, to have been delivered by that other person, and received in ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... this cardinal determination of the world's destinies, had its streak of personal motive, its absurd and petty impulses and deflections. One man decided to say this because if he said that he would contradict something he had said and printed four or five days ago; another took a certain line because so he saw his best opportunity of putting a rival into a perplexity. It would be strange if one could reach out now and recover the states of mind of two such ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... abroad with his French wife,—gave to her least action an importance which her shy, if not appealing looks, and a certain strained expression most difficult to characterize, vainly attempted to contradict. I could not understand her, and soon gave up the attempt; but my admiration held firm, and by the time the evening was half over I was her obedient slave. I think from what I know of her now that she would have ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... collective capacity, shows whether they have made any progress in intelligence, in virtue, in piety, and in happiness, since their liberation. Again he says: 'We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self-respect, or to the respect of others.' It is painful to contradict so worthy an individual; but nothing is more certain than that this statement is altogether erroneous. We have derided, we have shunned, we have neglected them, in every possible manner. They have had to rise not ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... to contradict my cousin, but I was brought up in the North," said Christy, hoping Captain Battleton would notice ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... come as so totally unexpected a possibility, something which his every aspect and tone and word up to then had seemed to contradict. Strange, how unmoved he had left her, till that moment! Strange the impression of him, that first time after she had known herself strong enough to stand up and be herself, not the responsive instrument played on by ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... we were split up in a great number of unions in each plant, with little or no contact with one another. The advantages of the one big union idea are so apparent that no honest worker will, in earnest, contradict us." ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... the hand, asked for a lock of his hair, and was not refused by the amiable virtuoso. After that Berenice was the acknowledged leader of her class. The teachers trembled before her sparkling, wrathful black eyes. At home she ruled the household, and as she was an heiress no one dared to contradict her. Her contempt for her stepfather was only matched by her impatience in the company of young men. She pretended—so her intimates said—to loathe them. "Frivolous idiots" was her mildest form of reproof when an ambitious boy would trench ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... view is the descent of the first of the three emperors—Constantius. He was not born in either Gaul or Britain. On the contrary, his father was a high official in the Diocese of Illyricum, and his mother, a niece of the Emperor Claudius;[10] circumstances which, at the first view, seem to contradict the inference from the name. They do so, however, in appearance only. The most unlikely man to have been high in office in Illyricum was a native Illyrian; for it was the policy of Rome to put Kelts in the Slavonic, and Slavonians in the Keltic, provinces; ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... answer the double purposes of show and utility; and, as soon as the supper and card tables should be removed, the sofa-bed might be let down. She asserted that the first people in London manage in this way. Leonard could not contradict his lady, because she had a ready method of silencing him, by asking how he could possibly know any thing of life who had lived all his days, except Sundays, in Cranbourne-alley? Then, if any one of his father's old notions of economy by chance ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... hands were needed to guide so delicate a nature. Mrs. Evelyn came nearer the point. She was very pleasant, and she knew how to do things in a charming way; and there were times, frequently, when Fleda thought she was everything lovely. But yet, now and then a mere word, or look, would contradict this fair promise, a something of hardness which Fleda could not reconcile with the soft gentleness of other times; and on the whole Mrs. Evelyn was unsure ground to her; she could not adventure ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... view, and I found that many of the facts, in the hands of a skilful artist, could be used in both articles. I have often found that plan beneficial. It economizes labor, gives exercise to all the intellectual faculties, and, where one can secure orders for a brace of documents to contradict each other, is, I may say"—and here Mr. Blagg coughed a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... contradict you," says Molly, calmly; "it would be rude, and, considering how near we ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... preventing the fatal mischiefs which might have attended your brother's projects, I have made them think us married, I would not appear to them in a light which you yourself think so shocking. By my soul, Madam, I had rather die, than contradict myself so flagrantly, after I have related to them so many circumstances ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... but my feelings are so deeply enlisted, that I cannot stop to choose and pick phrases, in talking to the person who caused that child to be shut up here. She thinks you are the most vindictive and dangerous enemy she has; and I had no reason to contradict her. Don't be ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... as we can know anything, that there is music and supermusic. Rubinstein wrote music; Beethoven wrote supermusic (Mr. Finck may contradict this statement). Bellini wrote operas; Mozart wrote superoperas. Jensen wrote songs; Schubert wrote supersongs. The superiority of Voi che sapete as a vocal melody over Ah! non giunge is not generally contested; neither can we ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Mistriss; immediately practice, by all means possible, to rule and domineer over her; insomuch that whatsoever the Mistriss orders or commands, she knows how, according to the imagination of her own understanding, to order and do it otherwise. And dare many times boldly contradict them, and say, Mistriss, it would be better if this were done ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... does not mean anything less than popular Sovereignty, it assuredly does mean something more. It must at least mean an expression of the Sovereign will, which will not contradict and destroy the continuous existence of its own Sovereign power. Several times during the political history of France in the nineteenth century, the popular will has expressed itself in a manner adverse to popular political institutions. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... greater the riches, the greater the rascal. That the cardinal virtues only endure, In the atmosphere with the "virtuous poor;" That nowhere are found the true Christian graces, Save closely allied to the dirtiest faces. I shall not contradict this delightful tradition, But beg—No, I won't, I will take it—permission, To state, that I think there's a word to be said, From a different text, on the opposite head. And so I'll invent, as well as ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... Irkutsk, busied themselves in putting the notes and impressions of their journey in order. Thence were sent to London and Paris two interesting articles relative to the Tartar invasion, and which—a rare thing—did not contradict each other even on the ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... a pause and a hush, and then Nelly said, "It's easy to say that when she isn't here to contradict you; but wait, ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... boy should have caused such a curious revolution within him. What did it mean? Had he not lived his life of action? had he not tasted the fruit of knowledge until it had palled on his appetite? Had he not his books for company—books, which could not irritate, and contradict, and bother, as human beings are ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... excellent a chance. And notwithstanding my hand had been pledged to Milando, which was the name of the young painter, my mother insisted, and our nuptials were celebrated, though much against my will. It seems a report, which my mother did not see fit to contradict, had got out that I was the only heir to a large estate, which was the prize Mr. Primrose sought to secure. In two short months the truth was revealed. I had no dowry, which so disappointed him, that he began to cast reflections on my poverty, adding ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... fast throughout the country. A party was formed for the restitution of a monarchical form of government following upon the publication of a pamphlet by Gutierrez Estrada to the effect—and the student of history will scarcely contradict it—that the Mexican people were not fitted to live under ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... 13.] Clarendon, on the discourses against the English in the Scottish Parliament:—This discourse ... was entertained by the rest with so general a reception, that Argyle found it would be to no purpose directly to contradict or oppose it.—Swift. An infamous dog, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... it should clearly be the other way; it should be five hundred times as easy to foretell the last as the first, for, indeed, it is so close by that one uninspired might almost see it. In truth, the law of prophecy doth contradict the likelihoods, most strangely making the difficult easy, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is theoretically free to upset as much of popular belief of the persistent kind as it likes. Nor can science find fault with it so long as it keeps to its own sphere, and does not directly contradict any truth which science, by the methods proper to it, is able to establish. Thus, for example, if philosophy finds that there is nothing real independently of mind, science will be satisfied so long as it finds a ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... Mihalovna," he declared. "It's my everlasting thoughtlessness that's to blame. No, don't contradict me; I know myself. So much harm has come to me from my want of thought. It's owing to that failing that I am thought to ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... return to the consequences of the Press reports. I had called upon the editors to contradict the statements attributed to me as regarded the loafing on the cricket ground, but pointed out at the same time that I had fully meant what I had said with reference to the great waste of time ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon |
