"Quibble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impossible, but merely because no one had ever thought of doing it before. A sufficiently inane story, and by no means certainly true; but there is enough character in this little feat, ponderous, deliberate, pompous, ostentatious, and at bottom a trick and deceitful quibble, to make it accord with the grandiloquent public manner of Columbus, and to make it easily believable of one who chose to show himself in his speech and writings so much more meanly and pretentiously than he showed himself in the true acts and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... dare not openly acknowledge an acquaintance with you, with your sister. It rests with you that we meet again, for my sake, for your own sake, for your sister's sake. I cannot lose you for a mere quibble." ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... called for such rigorous treatment. His answer was this—"He served the government faithfully and zealously, as a soldier; he advanced money for them upon some foreign station; but the government was ungrateful and ungenerous to him, and in consequence of some quibble, they have refused to repay him what he advanced on their account. He complained and remonstrated, he became importunate for justice, he was considered troublesome, and for complaining they have sent him to prison, under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, as the only effectual ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... passion, marry her. That he should afterwards deny it officially seems to me to have been utterly inevitable. His denial did her not the faintest damage, as I have pointed out. It was, so to speak, an official quibble, rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case. Not to have denied the marriage in the House of Commons would have meant ruin to both of them. As months passed, more serious difficulties awaited the unhappily wedded pair. ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... succeeded in having the proprietary lands taxed equally with the lands of the colonists. But the proprietors attempted to construe this provision so that their best lands were taxed at the rate paid by the people on their worst. This obvious quibble of course raised such a storm of opposition that the Quakers, joined by classes which had never before supported them, and now forming a large majority, determined to appeal to the Government in England to abolish the proprietorship and put the colony ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... punster. Miss Caroline Ticknor tells us how he used to lie on a couch in a back room at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, at a very early hour, and amuse the boys who were sweeping and dusting the store until one of the partners arrived. I believe he never lost a chance to indulge in a verbal quibble. "In the meantime, and 'twill be a very ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... Chapelles. They laughed at the law: they fought defiantly in broad daylight. Nobody dreamed that the law would be carried out against them. The Cardinal would, they thought, deal with them as rulers have dealt with serf-mastering lawbreakers from those days to these—invent some quibble and screen them with it. But his method was sharper and shorter. He seized both, and executed both on the Place de la Greve—the place of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... while Agesilaus obtained the throne in defiance of both human and divine laws, for he declared Leotychides to be a bastard, although his brother had publicly recognised him as his own son, and he also by a quibble evaded the oracle ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... endeavouring to deceive him in the spirit of what he said, but that as regarded the letter, the young man was endeavouring to adhere to some fact for the salvation of his conscience as a Christian. If Anton Trendellsohn could but find out in what lay the quibble, the discovery might be very serviceable to him. "It could have been managed—could it?" he said, speaking very slowly. "Between ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Chicago, the garment-makers' homes in New York, the silk mills and potteries of New Jersey, the fruit farms of California, the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and the hop industries of Oregon. The author calls for legislation regardless of constitutional quibble, for a shorter work-day, a higher wage, the establishment of residential clubs, the closer cooeperation between existing organizations ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... is a reproach to any Christian establishment if every man cannot claim the benefit of it who can say that he believes in the religion of Jesus Christ as it is set forth in the New Testament. You say the terms are so general that even Deists would quibble and insinuate themselves. I answer that all the articles which are subscribed at present by no means exclude Deists who will prevaricate; and upon this scheme you would at least exclude fewer ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... Catholic. The influence of the priesthood, however, owing to various causes, seems to be on the wane, and a habit of abandoning all religious thought is much on the increase. But the realization that our people never attack any Church, or quibble about details of creed and ceremonial, has won their way to the hearts of many, and there can be no doubt that we have a great future amongst these peoples. In Peru the law does not allow any persons not of the Romish Church to offer prayer in public places, but when it was found that ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... of civilisation is to obliterate those distinctions which are the best salt of life. All the fine old professional flavour in language has evaporated. Your very gravedigger has forgotten his avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over Ophelia's grave, instead of more appropriately discussing the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition of life, in which everything pointed and characteristic is being rubbed down, till the whole world begins to slip between ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I'm not going to quibble over words. Believing me to be dead, you had me impersonated, planning to use my name on the ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Earl of Lennox, Darnley's elder brother. Her father had died in 1576, soon after her birth. About 1588 she had come up to London to be presented to Elizabeth, and on that occasion had amused Raleigh with her gay accomplishments. The legal quibble on which her claim was founded was the fact that she was born in England, whereas James as a Scotchman was supposed to be excluded. Arabella was no pretender; her descent from Margaret, the sister ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... quibbling or punning—but I think this is call'd punning—Is this Gentlemans humour—if so, being a Soldier, I don't see it calls his sense in question at all—but now pray let's see, how our Critick manages a quibble, with a blunder tack'd to the Tail on't, in the page before, there, in the aforesaid Play, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... you sit here now and quibble over what you think in your wisdom is possible or not. Get outside those doors—there's an open park beyond—and I'll knock ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... of God hath the witness in himself." I suddenly realized that that had been made true to me. I have the witness in my own heart that Christ is the Son of God, my Saviour! That His Presence is on earth and manifest to me at many times. No seeming variance of science, no quibble of the intellect, can ever disturb this faith on which my soul rests. It is more than a conviction; it is a perfect satisfaction! I KNOW! I may not be able to explain all mysteries, but I can never doubt again, because I know. The more I meet with modern skepticism, the more ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... never to attempt an explanation of this word proximate, but to use it on both sides without saying what it means?’ And to this the Jacobin assented. I saw at once into their plot, and rising to quit them, I said, ‘Of a truth, my fathers, this is nothing, I fear, but a quibble; and whatever may come of your meetings, I venture to predict that when the censure is passed, peace will not be restored. . . Surely it is unworthy, both of the Sorbonne and of theology, to make use of equivocal and captious terms without giving any explanation of them. Tell me, I entreat ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... we thought quite justifiable. But they don't hold good if we are to be brought into conflict with the police. Mr. Duclos told me this morning that if we were driven to speak we must do so with complete honesty and without quibble. What ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Marcus Aurelius' request, by Alexander to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian's own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner working ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... friend, and to maintain her husband's honor by the discharge of his just debt, though paid out of her own wealth ten times over. It is evident that she would rather owe the safety of Antonio to any thing rather than the legal quibble with which her cousin Bellario has armed her, and which she reserves as a last resource. Thus all the speeches addressed to Shylock in the first instance, are either direct or indirect experiments on his temper and feelings. She must be understood from the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... cant, the lawyer's sophistry, Lord's quibble, critic's jest, all end in thee, All rest in peace at last, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... you say, for 'there has not been any life in the child.' Do not attempt to evade, even to man, a crime which cannot be hidden from the All-seeing. The poor mother has not herself felt the life of the child perhaps, but that is a quibble only of the laws of man, founded indeed upon the view, now universally recognized as incorrect, that the child's life began when its movements were first strong enough to be perceptible. There is, in fact, no moment after conception when it can be said that ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... it. I do not see any difference between reading a book in manuscript or in print. I don't pretend to quibble on a point like that. After looking at it, I felt that it was desirable I should read the whole. You may remember, Hester, that I showed you my Modern Dissent. If I did not ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... law are inadequate to trap this organisation. The law has too wide a mesh to deal with the terror which this man exercises. Such men are the only justification of lynch law, the quick, sharp justice which is administered without subtlety and without quibble." ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... The only quibble we have about the way Cassell's laid out the book is the amazing amount of inconsistency in the hyphenation, but we believe we have detected most of the instances, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... laughed in my face. 'How so?' it queried. 'You used to quibble me upon my dull wits; must I now return the compliment? Ha! There's blood on your hands. Blood! I will lick it up.' And with a mocking ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... back to Homer Crawford. "I'm not here to quibble with self-confessed malcontents. I've been sent to represent the State Department, to report to them, and, above all, to do what I can to prevent your activities from redounding to the further advantage of the Soviet Complex. I assume you can assign ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... and of these seventy times, only three times in the way of prohibition of the exercise of a power. In fact, it is full of statehood. Leave out all mention of the States—I make no mere verbal point or quibble, but mean the States in their separate, several, distinct capacity—and what would remain would be of less account than the play of the Prince of Denmark with the part ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... shipped to Ireland or to Cadiz, Valencia, Alexandria or Morocco with no difficulty whatever unless some one got wind of the fact. As for the Irish King, a man who had the sort of record he had, was not likely to quibble over the means used by Biterres in getting himself a bride. And before the captives within the castle could reach even the nearest of their friends and bring help, the whole troop would have left ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... than done! The plausibility of the solution in Macaulay's mouth is due to the fundamental assumption that everything except morality is hopeless ground of inquiry. Once get beyond the Ten Commandments and you will sink in a bottomless morass of argument, counterargument, quibble, logomachy, superstition, and ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... other category. But it is frequently hard to say in which class a given character falls. Worse still, many persons do not even distinguish the two categories accurately—a confusion made easier by the quibble that all characters must be acquired, since the organism starts from a single cell, which possesses practically none of the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... at Malden, in Essex, in the year 1738, that three horses (and no more than three) started for a L10 plate, and they were all three distanced the first heat, according to the common rules in horse-racing, without any quibble or equivocation; and the following was the solution:—The first horse ran on the inside of the post; the second wanted weight; and the third fell ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... fundamental, chief, or great doctrines of their holy religion. Down on all such quibbling! Others have objected to the words 'substantially correct,' as meaning anything or nothing, at pleasure. This, like the other objection, is a quibble. None can err here, unless it be wilfully.... The amount of the whole is, 'In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.' This is as far as the General Synod has gone or could go; but it ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... her playful retort as a mere light-hearted quibble. It annoyed her, a young person of much consequence, to have her ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... a feverish investigation that day, and found no one who cared to quibble with him. From the captain, never jealous of his dignity, to the roly-poly sutler, there was a very outrush of facts. As they came, he received them with pitchfork sharpness, examined them and tossed them aside, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... type of man, not overbalanced and erratic, without quirk or quibble of temperament. He was efficient, but not brilliant. His was a general all-round efficiency. He was efficient at the law; he was efficient at college; he was efficient as a sailor; he was efficient in the matter of pride, when that pride was no more ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... laboured out an aukward panegyric on the important duties he had to fulfil, and on the blessing it was to a nation, when worthy persons were chosen to fill such high offices. Thus endeavouring to quiet my conscience by a quibble, and with a half faced lie make him believe what it ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... had nothing to do with it, for it was not begun till after his death. But it was a cruel fate that what professed to be a new edition of his "Shakespeare" should really be founded on Theobald's. The knowledge of Theobald's use of the Quartos and Folios led Warburton to commit a detestable quibble on his title-page. There is said to be no evidence that Warburton himself had consulted them. Yet the statement that his text is "collated with all the former editions" is not absolutely without the bounds of truth: Theobald had consulted them, and Warburton does ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... in which a royal Governor of the Stuart school dealt with a people filled with patriotic concern for their country. It is the dealing of a small man. If he can escape the charge of deliberate falsehood, it is only, on demurrer, by the plea of a contemptible quibble. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... imagines that all admire who applaud, and that all who laugh are pleased. He therefore returns every day to the charge with increase of courage, though not of strength, and practises all the tricks by which wit is counterfeited. He lays trains for a quibble; he contrives blunders for his footman; he adapts old stories to present characters; he mistakes the question, that he may return a smart answer; he anticipates the argument, that he may plausibly object; when he has nothing to reply, he repeats the last words ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... here and quibble; you're too clever altogether," I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... sinister comedians to entertain me. And I, what can I call myself—pure reason? No, a disgusting title. Rather, Unreason, since I am after all the Indifferent One. But all this is a quibble inspired by modesty. I am God. I am that which men have worshipped—the aloof one, the pitiless ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... durst not refuse doing as he would have him: The meaning of this was, that he would seize the Ship as fair Prize, and as if she belonged to French Subjects, according to a commission he had for that purpose; tho', one would think, after what he had already done, that he need not have recourse to a quibble to give his actions ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... that time, read earnestly "The Spirit of the Laws" was as sure to fight slavery as any man who to-day reveres Channing or Theodore Parker. Those French thinkers threw such heat and light into Jefferson's young mind, that every filthy weed of tyrannic quibble or pro-slavery paradox ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... that I should say yes without a quibble," replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the risk; so I will merely answer,—I would like to do you ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... to-day? Is man the last word of evolution? These are amongst the commonest questions put to me. Whether man is or is not the last word of evolution is merely a verbal quibble. Now that language is invented, and things have names, one may say that the name "man" will cling to the highest and most progressive animal on earth, no matter how much he may rise above the man of to-day. But if the question is whether he WILL ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... leaves you with his own notion of a private and distinguished appreciation of nature. In this sense he leads one to Renoir's way of considering nature which was the pleasure in nature for itself. It was all too fine an adventure to quibble about. ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... inspired by Paul's quibble, "If the dead rise not from the grave, then is our religion vain." Lincoln once referred to this kind of reasoning by saying, "I object to the assumption that my ambition is to have my son marry a negress, simply because ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... quibble upon the Word Instinct, if you will; but I think 'tis better out than in, ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... pities and gives Himself. God is all fair, but the central and substantial beauty of the divine nature is that it is a stooping nature, which bows to weak and unworthy souls, and on them pours out the full abundance of its manifold gifts. So the 'beauty of the Lord' means, by no quibble or quirk, but by reason of the essential loveliness of His lovingkindness, both God's loveliness and God's goodness; God's graciousness and God's gracefulness (if I may use such ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... assemble at the command of the consul, and would not depart without his permission. We therefore publish an order that all of you, who have sworn, attend to-morrow under arms at the Lake Regillus." The tribunes then began to quibble, and wanted to absolve the people from their obligation, asserting that Quinctius was a private person at the time when they were bound by the oath. But that disregard of the gods, which possesses the present generation, had not yet gained ground: nor did every one ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... priest aided in outlining the draft which the Jesuits substituted for the Archbishop's form. There is no mention of evasions or mental reservations and Rizal's renunciation of Masonry might have been qualified by the quibble that it was "the Masonry which was an enemy of the Church" that he was renouncing. Then since his association (not affiliation) had been with Masons not hostile to religion, ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... BLACKBOROUGH. That's a quibble. [Poor HORSHAM gasps.] I'm not going to pretend either now or in a month's time that I think Trebell anything but a most dangerous acquisition to the party. I pay you a compliment in that, Trebell. Now, Horsham proposes that we should go to the country ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... marauders. He was surprised with his coat and arms off, and taken prisoner. A few moments later, he was facing a scaffold, where, as sheriff, he had lately hung a man. The law had no delays. No court could quibble here. Not all Plummer's wealth could save him now, nor all ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... his head in hopeless despair. The major was too enthusiastic to quibble over how the knowledge was gained. It was there in overflowing abundance. That was enough. Besides, his nephew's word was his bond. He would as soon think ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... should be offered? that a sensible man like Antonio should sign it? that all his ships should be wrecked within three months? that the court should really consider taking the life of a noble citizen on such a pretext? and that a quibble like the failure to mention a drop of blood should ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, as it were, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... quibble, sir," said the Rector sternly. "Do you receive any financial support from any source whatever in your ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... turn to quibble. Tell me: until you were attracted to this young man—attracted, no doubt, because he was so unlike the European of your long experience—had you deviated from the conclusion, arrived at many years before, that you had had enough of love—of sex—to satisfy any woman? You implied ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the face of the young Frenchman flush, but De Galissonniere, as if knowing the truth, and resolved not to quibble over it, climbed steadily. When he was within twenty feet of the crest the hunter called to him to halt, and he did so, leaning easily against a strong bush, while the three waited eagerly to hear what ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... probably, his being sent for from his studies to be exposed at his uncle's marriage as his chiefest courtier, and being thereby placed too much in the radiance of the king's presence; or, perhaps, an allusion to the proverb, "Out of Heaven's blessing, into the warm sun:" but it is not unlikely that a quibble is meant between son ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... play a part in the game. Ah! I see I've hit the mark! That was the way of it!—And now here, Thorpe! Let all that's been said be bye-gones! I don't want any verbal triumph over you. You don't want to wrong me—and yourself too—by sticking to this quibble about vendor's shares. You intended to be deuced good to me—and what have I done that you should round on me now? I haven't bothered you before. I came today only because things are particularly rotten, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... that flash fire, changing their color with the mood of the man—a radiant, happy man, the cheeriest, sunniest nature that ever dwelt in human body, with a sympathy that went out to everybody and everything—children, animals, the old, the feeble, the fallen—a man too big to be jealous, too noble to quibble, a man so manly that he would accept guilt rather than impute it to another. If he had been possessed of less love he would have been a stronger man. The generous nature lies open and unprotected—through its guilelessness it allows concrete rascality ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... he saw that this showed more capacity than could have been shown by the parrying of a thousand witticisms. We have seen S——, a remarkably intelligent boy of nine years old, stand with the most puzzled face imaginable, considering for a long half hour the common quibble of "There was a carpenter who made a door; he made it too large; he cut it and cut it, and he cut it too little; he cut it again, and it fitted." S—— showed very little satisfaction, when he at length discovered the double meaning of the words "too little;" but simply said, "I did not know you ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Austrian and Russian Governments'.[76] But, if it was not the principle that was objected to, but only the form, where are we? We can do nothing else but assume that the German Government objected to the terms employed by Sir Edward Grey, and that for the sake of a mere quibble they wasted time until other events made the catastrophe inevitable. Impartiality will have to judge whether such action was deliberate or not; whether in this case also it is crime or folly which has to be laid at the door of ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... allowed to fail: it is a process of Darwin's survival of the fittest. All this is now "too late to mend:" but I do hope that if ever I go to Engelfield Castle, Sir Richard will be kindly and genial to his far-off cousin, who (but for some legal quibble unknown) might have ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sell a calf, I may not object to his removal because, forsooth, some portion of earth from my land clingeth to his hoofs. So blood is included in the word 'flesh' where 'twere impossible to deliver the flesh without some blood. As for that quibble of nor more nor less, why, 'tis the debtor's place to deliver his promise. If he himself cut off too much, he injures himself, if too little he hath ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... says there is a quibble here with asses as beasts of charge or burden. It is probable enough, seeing, as Malone tells us, that in Warwickshire, as did Dr. Johnson himself, they pronounce as hard. In Aberdeenshire the sound of the s ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... C., who, from his slender neck, shrillness of voice, and his ever-ready quibble and laugh at himself, was for some time taken for a lawyer, with which folk the Buildings were then, as now, much infested. But on careful inquiry he turned out to be a patent-medicine seller, who at leisure moments had studied Blackstone ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... fearful responsibility rested upon Congress. The sad fate of a family from his own State, which had moved to California, had brought home to him the full measure of his responsibility. He was not disposed to quibble over points of law, while American citizens in California were exposed to the outrages of desperadoes, and of deserters from our own army ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... In fact, his tones if anything is some low-sperited. "I takes it," he says, when he's able to command his feelin's, "that you declines them proffers with your winchester at the time when made." But the lady dismisses this as a quibble, an' merely sayin' that she won't be paltered with no farther, orders Oscar an' the Bible sharp who's ridin' inside to assemble by the edge of the trail. The Bible sharp attempts to lay the foundations of ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict accountability"—whatever that may mean. France does not want our army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... girl, don't dare to quibble! You are going nowhere, and you know it. Nobody has invited you for Christmas Day; that's why you were crying just now—because you had nowhere to go. And you would have gone away this morning, and said nothing, and sat alone in your rooms... I call it mean! Talk ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... particularly advantageous field for Grady's endeavors. Men who were trying to accomplish the impossible feat of completing, at any cost, the great hulk on the river front before the first of January, would not be likely to stop to quibble at paying the five thousand dollars or so that Grady, who, as the business agent of his union was simply in masquerade, ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... it would prove that riddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of the creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more reverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from the nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and indulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler intelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to exercise withal their keen ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... better to take your chances with even an inferior melody maker who is as much interested as you are in a final success. And when you have found a composer, do not quibble about changing your words to fit his music. And don't fear to ask him to change his melody, wherever constant work on the song proves that a change is necessary. It is only by ceaselessly working over both words ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... would have saved. It was for their interest that the guarantee should not be given. It was withdrawn. The faith of England—till then regarded as something sacred—was violated; and the answer was a criticism on a phrase—a quibble upon the construction of a sentence, which all the world for six months had read one way. The secret history of this wretched transaction I do not seek to penetrate. Enough is written upon stock-books and in the records of courts in Canada to give us the proportions of that {120} scheme ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... higher law, upon those who persisted in the use of oaths and vows, the lesser and evidently just requirement of strict fidelity to the terms of self-assumed obligations was to be enforced, without unrighteous quibble or ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... here attempt to juggle with the quibble of 'Revolution or Evolution,'—or to meet the contention of some of those under consideration that it is not Revolution that is wanted. 'You cannot change the world and yet not change the world.' Revolution is the means of, not the ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound casuistical quibble ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sorry, to hear thee say that. Thee can go if thee likes; but it grieves me to hear thee quibble so. Thee will not prosper, my son, if thee follows this course in life.' And the moisture came into the old man's eyes as he spoke. It filled mine, and rolled in large drops down my ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... him; but there is an old saying, Nelly: 'Everyone knows where his own shoe pinches!' He'll say that I want moral courage, and strength of character, and power of endurance, and it's all true; but I'm sure I ought not to remain here, if I have nothing better to put forward than a quibble: so, Nelly, we shall have to ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... artists, it is a pity he is no longer tied to giving Italian lessons,—tied to coming here three times a week to teach me literature." Hedwig smiled a strange icy smile, and sat down by the window. Nino was still utterly astonished, but he would not allow the baroness's quibble to ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Bacchus, Tyndarus quibbles, and says, "I did not assert that I am Liber, but that I am Philocrates." In consequence of the idiom of the Latin language, his answer (non equidem me Liberam, sed Philocratem esse aio) will admit of another quibble, and may be read as meaning, "I did not say that I am a free man, but that Philocrates is." This maybe readily seen by the Latin scholar, but is not so easily ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... quibble—a base, dishonorable quibble," said Willy; "my father cared nothing for your politics, your ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... exclaimed Matilde. "Do not use such phrases to me. They mean nothing. For some wretched quibble of your miserable conscience—as you still have the assumption to call it—you will ruin us in ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Report [The Annual Report of the Examiners in Physiology under the Science and Art Department, which, being still an Examiner he had to sign.] and have nothing to suggest except a quibble at page 4. If you take a stick in your hand you may feel lots of things and determine their form, etc., with the other end of it, but surely the stick is properly said to be insensible. Ditto with the teeth. I feel very well with mine (which are paid for) but they are surely not sensible? ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Steele gave me to understand," says Cuyler. "In my case, however, the reparation comes a little late. The fact is, Gentlemen, that I—well, why quibble? I may be good for another ten or a dozen years. But I shall go on just as I've been going on, following my daily routine in the department, at my club, at my bachelor quarters. You get into it, you know,—bath, breakfast, desk, dinner, a rubber or two of bridge, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... quibble," I cried angrily. "Science is aspiration. There's all the difference in the world between aspiration and pleasure. I have scarcely known what pleasure is. I have worked like a slave all my life, with the sole ambition of leaving something permanent ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... government steals, a constitutional one borrows or receives free offerings. The fact that the despot pays interest on a part of what he steals raises him to the position of the magnanimous brigand who leaves his victims just enough money to carry them to the nearest town. Possibly it is after all a quibble of definitions, and the difference may not be so great as it seems at first sight. But then, all morality is but the shadow cast on one side or ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... they went, and Mr. Maynard, with some little quip or quibble, made each word of special interest, and so fixed it in Marjorie's memory. At the end of a half-hour she was perfect in the lesson, and had thoroughly enjoyed the learning ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... quibble. You know, and I know, that you are keeping something back; and I ask you, in her behalf, and in the cause of justice, to ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... she is his lawful purchase. I asked six pounds for her, and he gave me six pounds." "Six flints you mean," said I; "no, no, the law is not quite so bad as that either; I know something about her, and am sure that she will never sanction such a quibble. At all events, I'll ride after the fellow." Thereupon turning the horse round, I put him to his very best trot; I rode nearly a mile without obtaining a glimpse of the fellow, and was becoming apprehensive that he had escaped me by turning down some by-path, two or three of which I had passed. Suddenly, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... mouth, the green complexion of the bilious. They do not live under the sky, they avoid the light. Hidden in their cellars, they pore over treaties, cite newspaper articles, grow pale over maps, measure angles, quibble over texts or traces of frontiers." "The Pangerman is a propagandist and a revivalist." "But," M. Bourdon adds, "when he shouts we must not think we hear in his tones the reverberations of the German soul." The organs ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... great and prosperous by violating the laws of justice. To those laws, enjoin what they may, I am prepared to submit. But I will not palter with them: I will not cite them to-day in order to serve one turn, and quibble them away to-morrow in order to serve another. I will not have two standards of right; one to be applied when I wish to protect a favourite interest at the public cost; and another to be applied ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ten years from date, and be given away by him within one month's time after his acquisition of the same. Lawyer Means, without objection, filed carefully all Basset's precautionary conditions; then he proceeded to make it clearly evident, with no danger of quibble, that "in case the said Jerome Edwards should comply with all the said conditions, the said Doctor Seth Prescott and Simon Basset, Esquire, of Upham Corners, do covenant and engage by these presents to remise, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is the master and the victim of a monstrous cleverness which is neither to hold nor to bind, and will not permit him to do things as an honest, simple person of genius would. As Shakespeare, in Johnson's phrase, lost the world for a quibble and was content to lose it, so does Mr. Meredith discrown himself of the sovereignty of contemporary romance to put on the cap and bells of the professional wit. He is not content to be plain Jupiter: his lightnings ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... many others behind them waiting to get their noses in the trough. Go into your respective wards and districts and organize meetings. Call your particular alderman before you. Don't let him evade you or quibble or stand on his rights as a private citizen or a public officer. Threaten—don't cajole. Soft or kind words won't go with that type of man. Threaten, and when you have managed to extract a promise be on hand with ropes to see that he keeps his word. I don't like to advise ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... found a page which with her sad calm voice she poured into his ear. It was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr. Smith had been grievously tempted by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a legal quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan-children, joint-heirs to a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he was quite decided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice. As Memory ceased to read Conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and would have struck ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bottom-stone all dripping, Cleghorn promptly declared that in the sense of the contract it was a bucketful; hence his first go at the now uncovered pots. So heated grew the debate, that finally the grimy excavators climbed to the upper air and appealed to Mayhew, who promptly denied the quibble, deciding that stones and pots were not interchangeable. The diversion drew attention from the great perforated disc itself, and as the sullen Cleghorn let the exultant Webb down upon the ancient pots, it lay badly bestowed near the curb ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Michael would have brought him on such a journey in the middle of the night. But the case of Prince Michael, as it happened, was complicated by legalism as well as lawlessness. On the last occasion he had escaped by a forensic quibble and not, as usual, by a private escapade; and it was a question whether at the moment he was amenable to the law or not. It might be necessary to stretch a point, but a man like Sir Walter could probably stretch it as far as ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... law and brute force, maximum of intelligent self-control and kindly adaptation. Mere codes of rules, whether at home or at school, set the children at work, with all their sharp, unregenerate little wits, to pick flaws, draw distinctions, and quibble on interpretations. They become abominably shrewd in a degrading, casuistical strict-constructionism. In spite of everything, the little, cunning, irresponsible, non-moral beings will be successfully appealing to the letter of the law against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... doubt, every quibble that it offers will be twisted to the best purpose for your interest. You're a dabster at chicane, or ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... ruffled, the lace about her throat in disorder; at the window, his back turned to her, he flung over his shoulder: "Look here—you can go. I won't hold you any longer. I suppose your uncle can fix it up; some damned legal quibble will get you out of ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... 1680, by Du Moulin, called "Moral Reflections upon the Number of the Elect," affirmed that not one in a million, from Adam down to our times, shall be saved. A flaming execration blasted the whole heathen world, 22 and a metaphysical quibble doomed ninety nine of every hundred in Christian lands. Collect the whole relevant theological literature of the Christian ages, from the birth of Tertullian to the death of Jonathan Edwards, strike the average pitch of its doctrinal temper, and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger |
