"Disprove" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... communication. In the evening we stood off to seaward, and during the night, while trying to avoid it, probably passed over the assigned position of a reef laid down on one of the charts as having been seen in 1804, but without being able to confirm or disprove its existence.** ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... Artevelde claimed descent from William of Orange. He had no genealogy to prove it, but on Venus there was no one who could disprove ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay
... crime—unpardonable even in that corrupt society, when crimes of far deeper dye passed almost unreproved—Clodius was, after some delay, brought to public trial. The defence set up was an alibi, and Cicero came forward as a witness to disprove it: he had met and spoken with Clodius in Rome that very evening. The evidence was clear enough, but the jury had been tampered with by Clodius and his friends; liberal bribery, and other corrupting ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... himself. Though it would, indeed, be a mistake to suppose that Saint-Simon was always furious—the wonderful portraits of the Duchesse de Bourgogne and the Prince de Conti are in themselves sufficient to disprove that—yet there can be no doubt that his hatreds exceeded his loves, and that, in his character-drawing, he was, as it were, more at home when he detested. Then the victim is indeed dissected with a loving hand; then the details ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... Mesquite County, his thoughts were busy with what he had learned from the sheriff. He knew the official had been right when he said that it would react in Rathburn's favor if he gave himself up. Some of the counts on which he would be indicted undoubtedly would be quashed; others he might disprove. There was a chance that he might get off lightly; in any event he would have to spend a number ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... arbitrary one, as might appear on first thought; for interest follows the invariable law of attaching to the activity for which the organism is at that time ready, and which it then needs in its further growth. That we are sometimes interested in harmful things does not disprove this assertion. The interest in its fundamental aspect is good, and but needs more healthful environment or more wise direction. While space forbids a full discussion of the genetic phase of interest here, yet we may profit by a brief statement ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... the voice is frequently observed, even among singers of very high standing. At first sight the condition here described seems to disprove the statement that the voice normally obeys the ear. But there is no real contradiction of the psychological law of vocal command in the case of a stiff-throated singer. For one thing, whatever degree of command the singer possesses is obtained in accordance with the ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... wherein the love of God is positively commended to the whole of a Christian church[68]; or wherein the want of it[69], or wherein its not being the chief and ruling affection, is charged on persons professing themselves Christians, as being sufficient to disprove their claim to that appellation, or as being equivalent to denying it[70]. Let not therefore any deceive themselves by imagining, that only an absolute unqualified renunciation of the desire of the favour of God is here condemned. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... Hungary—nay, in the cabinet of the Emperor himself—to reiterate assurances of that which I have advanced as true. If you will not believe me, I can but refer to the course of events. A day or two days' patience will prove or disprove what I have averred concerning the young Scot, and I will be contented to die on the wheel, and have my limbs broken joint by joint, if your Majesty have not advantage, and that in a most important degree, from the dauntless conduct of that Quentin Durward. But if I were to die under such tortures, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... he saw that, all along, he had thought she would be able to disprove it! A smothering blackness closed in on him, and he had a physical struggle for breath. Then he forced himself to his feet and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... go huntin' fer trouble. Try an' make White Slides one place thet'll disprove your name. All the same, don't shy at sight of anythin' suspicious ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... what her conception of 'niceness' may be; it didn't fit mine. She had got it into her head that I 'pitied' her, which seemed to be a crime. I didn't see how to disprove ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his note-books old forms of speech lingering amongst isolated communities, and legends and folk-lore stories still remembered by the aged but not much repeated nowadays; always keen to add to his store or to verify or disprove some etymological conjecture that has occurred to his fertile mind. His work is recognised by the ethnological societies of Europe, and much of his collected material has been printed in ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... been making him capable of receiving the gift for which he prayed. He saw that intellectual difficulty encompassing the highest operations of harmonizing truth, can no more affect their reality than the dulness of chaos disprove the motions of the wind of God over the face of its waters. He saw that any true revelation must come out of the unknown in God through the unknown in man. He saw that its truths must rise in the man as powers ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... him that "they had already redressed their grievances." To contend that Bacon was not interested in laws which he himself had so passionately urged and which had obviously been passed to conciliate him and his followers is merely to attempt to disprove the obvious. ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... moment, will you, Arthur?' said I, 'and listen to me—and don't think I'm in a jealous fury: I am perfectly calm. Feel my hand.' And I gravely extended it towards him—but closed it upon his with an energy that seemed to disprove the assertion, and made him smile. 'You needn't smile, sir,' said I, still tightening my grasp, and looking steadfastly on him till he almost quailed before me. 'You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... land; but, as the principal calumny employed by their adversaries was that all the provinces and leading personages intended to change both sovereign and religion, at the instigation of his Excellency, it was desirable to disprove such fictions. They therefore very earnestly requested the Prince to make some contrary demonstration, by which it might be manifest to all that his Excellency, together with the estates of Holland and Zealand, intended faithfully ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... present and future, to the king of Spain, disinheriting by this unnatural act her own schismatic son. The further charge of having concurred in the late plot for the assassination of Elizabeth, she strongly denied and attempted to disprove; but it stood on equally good evidence with all the rest; and in spite of some suggestions of which her modern partisans have endeavoured to give her the benefit, there appears no solid foundation on which an impartial inquirer can rest any doubt of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... attributes as they do possess: e.g. any men infinitely wise or infinitely strong, any horses infinitely swift, any stones infinitely hard. Such concrete real objects appear to us not admissible, because experience not only has not certified their existence in any single case, but goes as far to disprove their existence as it can do to disprove anything. All the real objects in nature known to us by observation are finite, and possess only in a finite measure their respective attributes. Upon this is founded the process of Science, so comprehensively ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... improvements in mounting and fitting, it was adapted to the finest micrometrical work, and thus offered unprecedented facilities both for the examination of double stars (in which Struve chiefly employed it), and for such subtle measurements as might serve to reveal or disprove the existence of a sensible stellar parallax. Fraunhofer, moreover, constructed for the observatory at Koenigsberg the first really available heliometer. The principle of this instrument (termed with more propriety a "divided object-glass micrometer") is the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... advanced with positiveness by the highest authority, puzzled Mr. Lincoln. They seemed very strange, yet he could not disprove them, and was therefore obliged to face the perplexing choice which was mercilessly set before him: "either to go into winter quarters, or to assume the offensive with forces greatly inferior in number" to what was "desirable and necessary." "If political considerations ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... one chooses to say that the creative work took place in the Cambrian or Laurentian epoch, in exactly that manner which Mr. Gladstone does, and natural science does not, affirm, natural science is not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the statement. Only one cannot have one's cake and eat it too, and such safety from the contradiction of science means ...
— The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature - Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... minutes to the subject of any man's good qualities. You always have discoursed upon men's faults and vices, and upon their tendency, since the beginning of time, to tyrannize over woman. I was unable to disprove many of your statements, for I know the weight of argument is upon your side, even while I boldly confess my admiration and regard for men, as a class, is ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... shall select. In their eyes, it appears, I hold the position of an unprincipled impostor. I write essays; and, with deliberate forgery, sign to them my pupils' names, and boast of them as their work. You will disprove this charge." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... got a second volume of Bower'S(143) History of the Popes, but it is tiresome and pert, and running into a warmth and partiality that he had much avoided in his first volume. He has taken such pains to disprove the Pope's supremacy being acknowledged pretty early, that he has convinced me it was acknowledged. Not that you and I care whether it were or not. He is much admired here; but I am not good Christian enough to rejoice over him, because turned Protestant; nor honour his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... of opinion," Mr. Grimm remarked. "It would be useless, even tedious, to attempt to disprove a burglar theory, but against it is the difficulty of entrance, the weight of the gold, the ingenious method of opening the safe, and the assumption that not more than six persons knew the money was in the safe; while a person in the ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... especially in the eyes, the traces, more or less modified, of some evil passion, a something unhallowed and almost fiendish.' Struck by this observation, all present looked at the picture: it was impossible to deny the justice of the criticism. My father rushed furiously forward eager to deny and disprove the unfavourable judgment. But he saw for the first time, with feelings of intense horror, that he had given to almost all his countenances the eyes of the money-lender. They all looked out of the canvass with such a devilish and abominable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... at once to the Athenians. The previous suspicions of his fidelity to Greece do not seem to have been kept alive even by the virulence of party; and it is natural to suppose that it must have been some act of his own, real or imagined, which tended to disprove the plausible accusations against him, and revive the general enthusiasm in his favour. What could that act have been but the last of his life, which, in the lines of Aristophanes referred to above, is cited as the ideal ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Artificial Tangent-line be the true Meridian-line, yea or no? And if he do not, that then he will loose, and transport to the other Party the whole benefit of the last mentioned invention. But if, on the contrary, he do prove or disprove the Identity of the said two lines, to the Judgment of some able Mathematicians, That then so much money be paid him by the other Party, as ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... adduced to prove the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL the acts of the other. But a man would have been regarded as frantic who should have attempted at Rome to disprove their existence. It will be readily understood that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former, in which the people voted by centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... cry of the primal man beneath all the culture of the schools that disprove Hell; the cry of human red-blooded manhood against all the white-corpuscled sickly sentimentality that ever sacrifices innocence on ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... he did from the Hydes. Lies of that sort always propagate themselves, like noisome weeds; it is the part of the wise to neglect them until they are established by proof.] were still large. There is not a tittle of evidence to disprove Clarendon's assertion, that he confined himself to those revenues of his office which were strictly legal; and to suppose otherwise would be to suppose him false to all those ideals which were the foundation of his character, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... all welcomed with hardy reliance, All the lovely unfoldings of luminous Science, All that Logic can prove or disprove be avowed: Is there room for no faith — though such Evil intrude — In the dominance still of a Spirit of Good? Is there room for no hope — such a handbreadth we scan — In the permanence yet of ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... to make love to me, and it isn't like you to be stupid." She leaned back, sipping her tea with an air so enchantingly judicial that, if they had been in her aunt's drawing-room, he might almost have tried to disprove ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... us the thing is inexplicable; but the miners need no explanation. To them it is obvious. It rests with us to disprove the ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... "I intend to disprove the assertion of Alice, that there is only one Sir Philip Sydney. Who was that other equally valiant knight, and much sweeter poet, who used to sing his own verses, accompanying himself upon the harp; and could thereby soothe the most troubled spirit? On one occasion, this brilliant ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... hope you do!" declared Thad. "I'd hate to learn that Owen had any hand in taking those spoons. The sooner we find out the truth, the better for all concerned. It'll not only relieve our minds, as well as that of the old lady; but either prove or disprove the suspicions we're right now entertaining ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... out its case against Mr. Motley. I will not parade the two old women, whose untimely and unseemly introduction into the dress-circle of diplomacy was hardly to have been expected of the high official whose name is at the bottom of this paper. They prove nothing, they disprove nothing, they illustrate nothing—except that a statesman may forget himself. Neither will I do more than barely allude to the unfortunate reference to the death of Lord Clarendon as connected with Mr. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... disprove this. The diligences had invariably been pillaged by masked, men, and, apart from Madame de Montrevel and Sir John Tanlay, no one had ever seen the faces ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... measure. The old aunt calmly stated that he had joined the army, been rapidly promoted, and had resigned. People laughed a little, but not to her face. Besides, she had stated that Arthur was a very rich man, and much thought of among the Yankees, and nobody was in a position to disprove that. Certainly when the feminine Carrolls visited in the old place, their appearance carried out the theory of riches. They were very well dressed, and they looked well fed, with that placid, assured air which usually comes only from the sense ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... writers from Forster onwards.[68] Addison has been less studied; and his likeness has consequently been less questioned. Concerning Steele there has been rather more discussion. That Thackeray's sketch is very vivid, very human, and in most essentials, hard to disprove, must be granted. But it is obviously conceived under the domination of the "poor Dick" of Addison, and dwells far too persistently upon Steele's frailer and more fallible aspect. No one would believe that the flushed personage in the full-bottomed ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... forth from an exhaust vent to expand instantly, frictionlessly and impotently to the ends of the universe? In my story, "The World Behind the Moon," I assumed that would occur. And no man living is in a position positively to disprove it. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... gentleness—by their own confessions. For, remark now, gentle boy, all we are prisoners and therefore guiltless of every offence—indeed, where is the prisoner, but who, according to himself, is not more sinned against than sinner, and where the convicted rogue but, with his tongue, shall disprove all men's testimony? So here sit three guileless men, spotless of soul and beyond all thought innocent of every sin soever. Yonder is Rob, a robber, and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... evidently been sedulously circulated throughout Germany relative to the alleged mal-treatment and torture of German military prisoners by the British. Unfortunately, no steps apparently were taken to disprove these deliberate lying statements for which we had to pay ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... might say in her most private moments. We are told that the Duke of Bedford made use of the opportunity in a still more revolting way, and was present, a secret spectator, at the fantastic scene when Jeanne was visited by a committee of matrons who examined her person to prove or to disprove one of the hateful insinuations which were made about her. The imagination, however, refuses to conceive that a man of serious age and of high functions should have degraded himself to the level of a Peeping Tom in this way; all the French ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... be of interest to state that Professor Lowell still maintains the accuracy of the discovery made at Flagstaff that the existence of water vapour on Mars is demonstrated by the photographic spectrum of the Martian atmosphere; and he asserts that the attempt to disprove it has failed. A further discovery has since been made at the same observatory, viz. that oxygen also is present in the atmosphere ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... without its aid. It is equally beyond doubt that bad luck has prevented other men from achieving their ambitions. Of course such successes and failures do not fall within any rules. They are altogether exceptional, and neither prove nor disprove ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... to prove or disprove Tom's theory that a fellow ought to feel most at home in his old working ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... butterflies, with delicate appreciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since it secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that it can fertilize itself without insect aid—a theory which closer study of its organs goes far to disprove—or that the carrion-scent, so repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to certain insects needful for cross-pollination. Which are they? Beetles have been observed crawling over the flower, but without ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... upon things, opportunities, persons, ideas, and facts tending to promote the objects thought of. The man who is looking for facts to prove certain theories, invariably finds them, and is also quite likely to overlook facts tending to disprove his theory. The Optimist and the Pessimist passing along the same streets, each sees thousands of examples tending to fit in with his idea. As Kay says: "When one is engaged in seeking for a thing, if he keep the image of it clearly before the mind, he will be very likely ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... sufferers whom he has met in England, or from intemperate and utterly untrustworthy party speeches and pamphlets, whose assertions he receives as gospel;" yet Dr. Manning has given statements of facts, and the writer has not attempted to disprove them. Second, he says: "Dr. Manning echoes the thoughtless complaints of those who cry out against emigration as a great evil and a grievous wrong, when he might have known, if he had thought or inquired at all about the matter, not only that this ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... your readers can't disprove it.—"'Coridon,' said he, surveying his attendant from head to foot, and ultimately assuming a severity of countenance, 'Coridon, you are becoming gross, if not positively what the people call fat.' The Swiss attendant fell back in graceful ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... had never got any money from you; that she had asked you about two years ago for 1s,, when there was about 5s. 6d. due to her; that you refused it; and that she had never asked you for any since?-I have no evidence either to corroborate or to disprove that statement. I have not the least recollection of it; but I don't believe ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 9.—Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, pp. 390 et seq.—Mendez, Typographia Espanola, p. 261.—The authors of the three last-mentioned works abundantly disprove Asso y Manuel's insinuation, that Montalavo's code was the fruit of his private study, without any commission for it, and that it gradually usurped an authority which it had not in its origin. (Discurso Preliminar ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... equally honor the intelligent minority of American women who protest against the artificial disabilities by which their freedom is limited and their development arrested? That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real, only proves their apathy and deeper degradation. That a majority of the women of the United States accept, without protest, the disabilities ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... his former friends he declared them in substance unaltered, it was impossible any longer to distinguish them from the most uncompromising orthodoxy; and his sermon of that morning had tended neither to the love of God, the love of man, nor a hungering after righteousness—its aim being to disprove the reported ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... custom with him to scan a patient and diagnose a complaint at long range, and to subsequently confirm or disprove his first opinion more intimately at closer quarters. Being a shrewd and observant man, he not infrequently hit a bull's-eye at the first shot. Scrutinising the three who were coming up the path, ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... a unique opportunity and obligation—to prove the success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and abroad who question our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively at the South, following in the wake of "Uncle Tom." Not one fact or statement in it has been disproved as yet. I have yet to learn of even an attempt to disprove. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... whole army, Bragg would have contended for rigid adherence to military law. When Bragg's order was reported to Calhoun, hope began to revive. Surely Morgan would give him a fair hearing. Every act he had done in the army would disprove the monstrous ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... thing for a man to project his personality across the grave. In making their wills and providing for the carrying on of their pet enterprises a number of our richest men have endeavored from time to time to disprove this; but, to date, the percentage of successes has not been large. So far as most of us are concerned the burden of proof shows that in this regard we are one with the famous little dog whose name was Rover—when we die, we die all over. Every big success represents the personality of a living ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... of Scripture, and on the truth which God therein revealed to him and brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities. The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed to him particularly poor. In confident words Luther assures his friends ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... incidents because I think they help to disprove the notion that modern music has less power over the actions and feelings of men than primitive and ancient music. It was the wild enthusiasm inspired in me by Wagner's earlier operas that led me irresistibly to Bayreuth, and I really would ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... but I, who know nothing, am not equally convinced that I am. This is one way of refuting him; and he is refuted also by the authority which he attributes to the opinions of others, who deny his opinions. I am not equally sure that we can disprove the truth of immediate states of feeling. But this leads us to the doctrine of the universal flux, about which a battle-royal is always going on in the cities of Ionia. 'Yes; the Ephesians are downright mad about the flux; they cannot stop to argue with you, but are in perpetual ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... directly the complaints made against them, and of justifying their acts and laws. He therefore, in the Royal letter given above, dated April 6, 1666, required them within six months to send five of their number to England to answer and to disprove if they could complaints made against them, and to furnish proof of the professions and statements they had made in their address and petition. They could no longer evade or delay; they were brought face to face with the authority of King and Parliament; they could adduce nothing ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... false, they will not be able to persevere in one regular, consistent story "; whereas, if no advantage be taken of such particularity in the charge to detect the falsehood thereof, and if no attempt to disprove it, and no defence whatever be made, a presumption justly and reasonably arises in favor of the truth of such charge. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of offering anything in his defence, declared that he would not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... crime against a member of another, it can of its own motion proceed only to retaliation. To prevent retaliation, the gens of the offender must take the necessary steps to disprove the crime, or to compound or punish it. The charge once made is held as just and true until it has been disproved, and in trial the cause of the defendant is first stated. The anger of the prosecuting gens ...
— Wyandot Government: A Short Study of Tribal Society - Bureau of American Ethnology • John Wesley Powell
... came down to visit the people of the earth in their own home, the writer did not have the advantage of the discoveries made by the doctor and myself, and it is well for me that the doctor's friend, Mona, is not here to disprove any of my statements. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... southward from the Valois cut the highway from Paris to Rheims and Champagne. The roads at that hour made ghostly white ribbons, and the fore-court of dusty grasses seemed of a verdure which daylight would disprove. Weary horses nuzzled at a watertrough, and serving-men in a dozen liveries made a bustle around the stables, which formed two sides of the open quadrangle. At the foot of the inn signpost beggars squatted—here a leper whining monotonously, there lustier vagrants dicing ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... Lord Bacon owns that it was whispered every-where, that at least one of the children of Edward the Fourth was living. Such whispers prove two things; one, that the murder was very uncertain: the second, that it would have been very dangerous to disprove the murder; Henry being at least as much interested as Richard had been to have the children dead. Richard had set them aside as bastards, and thence had a title to the crown; but Henry was himself the issue of a bastard line, and had no title at all. Faction ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... unfounded. Its uses are said to be threefold, to convince in affairs of the world, to serve as the basis of action for business men, and to prevent opportunity for false witness. Yet it is not admissible in a court of justice to prove or disprove either a cause or a defence. The rules of evidence have been worked out by centuries of experience of courts in jury trials, and are admirably adapted to avoid the danger of error as to fact. I fully ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... posing as the champion of our canals, nevertheless lends himself, through connivance at fraudulent contracts and the appointment of needless officials, to the squandering of the moneys set apart for their use. We invite you to disprove your complicity in the wasting of the state's ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... to mention that; you can call witnesses to his having been seen within these few months. It would rest with the prosecution to disprove his existence in the body, especially as the bones in the vault cannot ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they went was made up of a dozen or so hovels," continued the doctor, resuming his nervous walk. "There was no one there who could talk or understand their language but these two. The consequence—conditions were right. They would be constantly together. They would either prove or disprove my theory that men and women were but machines of passion. I knew that they would stay at this place during the three months I had allotted for my experiment, for I paid them a high price. The girl, ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... toes touch the woodwork. At the same time the forehead should meet the upper portion of the door, when it may be assumed that a perfect standing posture has been taken. The poise will seem at first to be a little forward of a straight line, but to disprove this it will be found that a plumb line dropped from the ear will fall through shoulder, hip and ankle. The head will be poised as if to carry a burden steadily on the crown and the weight of the body will rest on the ball of the foot, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Contemporary Review contained worse blunders than any he had attributed to Froude, as, for instance, the allegation that Henry VIII., who founded bishoprics and organised the defence of the country, squandered away all that men before his time had agreed to respect. Easy also was it to disprove the charge of "hatred towards the English Church at all times and under all characters" by the mere mention of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and Hooper. The statement that Froude had been a "fanatical votary" of the mediaeval Church was almost delicious in the extravagance ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... it without any moral doubt. If an eclipse of the sun had once occurred in connection with the appearance of a certain new insect, they mighty universally regard that insect as a god causing it; and ages might pass without anything arising to disprove their belief. There would be no social or religious problem; and the view of one man would be the view of all men; and all would be more or less in harmony with the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... good reason that the editor was solicitous to disprove Chatterton's frank confession, respecting this poem; for he perceived clearly that the style, the colouring, and images, are nearly the same in this, and the second poem with the same title, and that every reader of any discernment ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... named as wearing a corslet, but he remarks that he has plenty of corslets (XIII. 264); and in this and many cases opponents of corslets prove their case by cutting out the lines which disprove it. Anything may be demonstrated if we may excise whatever passage does not suit our hypothesis. It is impossible to argue against this logical device, especially when the critic, not satisfied with a clean cut, supposes that some late enthusiast for corslets ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... and learning. When Bekker was deposed from his office, his adversaries caused a medal to be struck representing the devil clad in a priestly robe, riding on an ass, and carrying a trophy in his right hand; which was intended to signify that Bekker had been overcome in his attempt to disprove demoniacal possession, and that the devil had conquered in the assembly of divines who pronounced sentence on Bekker's book. The author was supposed to resemble Satan in the ugliness of his appearance. Another coin was struck in honour of our author: on one side is shown the figure of Bekker ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... cries "enough!"—the human mind Would drain all sources of intelligence, Yet ne'er is filled, and never satisfied. And theory succeeds to theory As regular as tides that ebb and flow. This treatise will disprove the last I read. Shade of Hippocrates! what creeds are formed, What antics practiced with your "Healing Art!" I will not sport with fate, nor tamper thus With man's credulity and nature's strength. No: I will gently coincide with nature, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... Canning, who had just succeeded in keeping the fabric of English government in India together during the most terrible trial ever imposed on it by fate." The matter was taken up by Parliament. Lord Shaftesbury moved that the Lords disprove the sending of the dispatch. In the Commons the ministry were arraigned. But Lord Ellenborough took upon himself the sole responsibility of the dispatch, and resigned. Mr. Gladstone was invited to the vacant place, ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... had the certificates of the marriage and of the birth of the child for a long time, but international law requires much. I have living witnesses. In Carolina, in looking up the matter," he spoke the word vaguely, "I failed to find anything which would disprove the points I have just placed before you. I was awaiting some letters from France before explaining the case to you, when Katrine demanded that her debt to you be paid immediately. There are many reasons ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... an identity (Orton among others), and yet Sydenham saw no reason for suspecting a communicable property. It might have been more to the point had Dr. Macmichael, instead of quoting old authorities on small-pox, measles, &c. quoted some authorities to disprove that Orton and others are wrong when they state it as their belief that some of those old epidemics in Europe, about which so much obscurity hangs, were nothing more or less than the cholera spasmodica. Mead's short sketch of the "sweating sickness" does not seem ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... he assume a primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe. On the other hand, if the teleologist assert that this, that, or the other result of the working of any part of the mechanism of the universe is its purpose and final cause, the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... has been last said leads to a further remark. I observe, then, that if two or three men in the fourth century are sufficient, against the general voice of the Church, to disprove one doctrine, then still more are two or three of an earlier century able to disprove another. Why should protesters in century four be more entitled to a hearing than protesters in century three? Now it so happens, that as Aerius, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... leg of a heavy table that stood near his sofa, he swung it round, and pushed it away. 'There's strength, there's strength,' he murmured; 'everything's here still, and I must die!... An old man at least has time to be weaned from life, but I ... Well, go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that's all! Who's crying there?' he added, after a short pause—'Mother? Poor thing! Whom will she feed now with her exquisite beetroot-soup? You, Vassily Ivanovitch, whimpering too, I do believe! Why, if Christianity's no help ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the points of difference, and, if possible, to show that these do not go to disprove the doctrine of continuity which the points ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... how you can disprove my argument on the immortality of the soul, which, being contained in the best of my dialogues, and being often asked for among my friends, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... to be, "Unravel the superstition, disprove the possibility of miracle, and let the ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... or southern side, and the meteors are less frequent. With this general explanation we shall close. If what we have advanced be an approximation to the truth, the theory itself affords ample indications of what observations are requisite to prove or disprove it; and, on this account, a theory is of great benefit, as suggestive of many questions and combinations of facts which otherwise might never ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... uniquely, it is possible to trace the precise manner in which songs and cycles of song—obviously analogous to those surviving from older and antique times—have come into being. The facts which are still available concerning the ballads of our own Southwest are such as should go far to prove, or to disprove, many of the theories advanced concerning the laws of literature as evinced in the ballads of the ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... "was Mr. Beechtree's suggestion—only, of course, a suggestion, based on various facts which had come to his knowledge. You can, doubtless, disprove these facts, sir, or account for them in some other way. No one will be more delighted than the committee over ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... as in a controversy; but your accusation is supported by so many reasons, and you have invested those reasons—pardon me for saying so—with so specious an appearance of truth, that I have no choice left me but to disprove them by other reasons. I had no thought of being placed in the necessity of maintaining a discussion here, and of sharpening my poor wits for that purpose; but you compel me to do so, unless I ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... Fildes', which is so pathetic that one cannot bear to look at it? Surely a picture should make one want to see it! Of course I do not mean that an artist cannot paint pathetic and sentimental subjects. The great painters of the Passion would disprove that with reference to the former and Watteau with reference to the latter. But a power to achieve beauty of color and line and to objectify pathos and sentiment through them was possessed by these painters to a degree to which ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... the Komorn Court, one of the most interesting trials is that of Athalie Brazovics. The woman's defense was masterly; she denied everything, knew how to disprove everything, and when they thought they had caught her, she managed to throw such mystery over it all, that her judges knew not where to have her. Why should she murder Timea? She was herself engaged, and had good prospects, while Timea was her benefactress, and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Man that passes for valiant in a Battel, were to give an account how he gained his Reputation, the World wou'd be but thinly stock'd with Heroes; I'll say he was a great War-Captain, and that I kill'd him hand to hand, and who can disprove me? ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... feeble race what ills await: Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Night, and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky; Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... went far beyond the discoveries of previous investigators. Not only did he conceive new tests for old hypotheses, but he posited new hypotheses, as well as collected the data that would prove or disprove them. Thus, while he no doubt made much use of previous facts, he went far beyond that and succeeded in enlarging the confines of knowledge. That is a task that can be accomplished only by the most mature ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Physical Journal for August 1827, and have not passed altogether unnoticed by my professional brethren[1], some of whom have done me the honour to speak of them in flattering terms, while no one, I believe, has attempted to disprove the existence of the important fact I was ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... and discuss, and disprove. There came a time when he had to think of fighting otherwise than with the pen. His life, the lives of his flock, were threatened. He had to see to the bodily defence of his country and city. The fact was, that some time before the great drive ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... to the fact of the applicability of my experiments to the construction of the telegraph; but not being familiar with the history of the attempts made in regard to this invention, I called it "Barlow's project," while I ought to have stated that Mr. Barlow's investigation merely tended to disprove the possibility ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... been a steady increase in saucer sightings. Most of them have been authentic reports, which Air Force denials cannot disprove. In January, mystery ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... have brought you hither, at my peril, Against their written warning, to disprove, By justice, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... Edward White faces the deeper problems and speculations of life. He wants to know about things here and hereafter. With the same zest and simplicity of motive he faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove or disprove, but to see and find out. And when he comes to the Last Door he will go through without fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered country what there is to be seen and to show that the heart of a brave and unshrinking man, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... anxious for Egerton; and as to the more important explanation relative to Peschiera, surely what had satisfied Violante's father ought to satisfy a man who had no peculiar right to demand explanations at all; and if these explanations did not satisfy, the onus to disprove them must rest with Harley; and who or what could contradict Randal's plausible assertions,—assertions in support of which he himself could summon a witness in Baron Levy? Thus nerving himself to all that could task his powers, Randal Leslie crossed the threshold of Lansmere House, and in the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The sky that morning was clear enough, and there was a pleasant autumnal breeze. But the Florentines just then thought very little about the land breezes: they were thinking of the gales at sea, which seemed to be uniting with all other powers to disprove the Frate's declaration that Heaven took special ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... concur" in the impeachment of Laud. There is nothing, we believe, but the general statement of Clarendon that his friend regarded with horror the storm gathering against the archbishop, which the words of Falkland himself, just quoted, seem sufficient to disprove. Mr. Arnold tells us that "Falkland disliked Laud; he had a natural antipathy to his heat, fussiness, and arbitrary temper." He had an antipathy to a good deal more in Laud than this, and expressed his ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... fleetness of foot. On my honour, it will work. Try it some time. It is done every day. Mr. Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled the sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes. No, no, Mr. Burroughs; you can't disprove that animals reason by proving that they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you have at the same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have set up a straw man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent belief ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... credit is given by footnote reference. In all cases where it has been possible to do so, however, statements of historical facts have been verified by independent research. Not a few items have required months of tracing to confirm or to disprove. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... history. Critics ambitious to say something new may rake out slanders from the archives of enemies, and discover faults which derogate from the character we have been taught to admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we cannot disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness, which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness,—but this we know, that, whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, and that he now shines ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... fruit; in another, in England, the plate of fruit is changed into a casket of jewels; in a third, at Madrid, Lavinia is Herodias, and bears a charger with the head of John the Baptist. A 'Violante'—as some say, the daughter of Titian's scholar, Palma, though dates disprove this—sat frequently to Titian, and is said to ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... F.L. as that of their decline, namely, in the reign of Edward VI., they were in reality increasing in wealth and dignities. If the Sir Richard Baker whose monument is referred to by F.L. was the son of the Sir John above mentioned, the circumstances of his life disprove the legend. He was not the sole representative of the family remaining at the accession of Queen Mary. His father was then living, and at the death of his father his brother John divided with him the representation of the family, and had many descendants. The family estates were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... the peach area there is probably not much use in trying to grow the pecan or Persian walnut. Yet it must always be remembered that nut growing in the North is, at present, almost entirely experimental and that anybody may be able to disprove the authorities. We are all experimenting now. By and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... disparity in convenience of proof and opportunity for knowledge, * * *" Whereas, accordingly, under the terms of the section previously upheld, the defendant could prove his citizenship without trouble, and the State, if forced to disprove his claim, could be relatively helpless, the background of the accused party being known probably only to himself and close relatives, the alleged Japanese defendant, in the last mentioned case, would have suffered hardship and injustice if compelled to ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... his shop, two large doors open into a roomy, glass-roofed hot house, containing a very unique collection of potted plants, which, under the skillful hands of this young enthusiast, are undergoing the different stages of experimental treatment, such as he may deem necessary, to prove or disprove his many pet theories or fancies, in regard to care, growth, insect enemies, and to application of electric light, sun light, heat, moisture and fertilizers. Each plant bears a fruitful crop of cards, giving a summary of results and conclusions. Each one of these cards ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... common sense. He made few experiments to disprove Lamarck's hypothesis. True, he cut off the tails of some mice for a few generations but got no tailless offspring and while he gives no exact measurements with coefficients of error he did not observe that the tails of the descendants had shortened one whit. The combs ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan |
