"Quibble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and movement, and he 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
... that that is a quibble," said Mr. Brooke, dryly. "A talent for music does not confine itself solely to the piano. I presume that you have been told that you have ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... report which reaches us the KAISER is now beginning to quibble. He has pointed out that, when he said he would eat his Christmas dinner at Buckingham Palace, he did ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... contrasting with "hate." As for really caring, beyond a liking for Brook Johnstone, she was sure that it was impossible. But the liking was strong. She exploded her difficulty at last with the bomb of a splendidly youthful quibble. She said to herself that she undoubtedly hated him and despised him, and that he was certainly the very lowest of living men for treating Lady Fan so badly—besides being a black sinner, a point which had less weight. And then she told herself that the cry of something in ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... would be done. They saw enough to convince them that it was not done. They saw an unarmed man shot down and instantly killed in one of the most frequented streets of the city while endeavoring to escape from his pursuer. They saw the forms of trial applied in this clear case, and after every quibble and perversion of law which ingenuity could devise had been tried, the lame and impotent conclusion arrived at of a verdict of manslaughter, and a sentence for a short period to the State Prison. ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... years, what are the 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 does not interfere with the liberty of ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... promised. As, if I 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 not made ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... always answer 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 ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... habit of questioning every thing whenever a quibble can be raised—should continue to advance, where is the law, which, after fighting its way through both houses of the legislature, and, perhaps, escaping the veto, may not be eventually contested and defeated? We know that in many of the states there are Bills of Rights, which are considered ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... not a part of the Atlantic Ocean because it happens to be named in reference to the St. Croix in the same article of the treaty. To show the extent to which such an argument, founded on a mere verbal quibble, may be carried, let it be supposed that at some future period two nations on the continent of North America shall agree on a boundary in the following terms: By a line drawn through the Mississippi from its mouth ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... fateful. We must fight; and no longer over trifles; we cannot now break each other's heads over a quibble, or believe that the whole world hangs on the question whether the instant of death is the last minute of this life or the first of the next. No—what now remains to be decided is whether the old ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Hegel's quibble with this word other exemplifies the same fallacy. All 'others,' as such, are according to him identical. That is, 'otherness,' which can only be predicated of a given thing A, secundum quid (as other than B, etc.), is predicated simpliciter, and made to identify the A in question with ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... a claim and threw it into Chancery. You may object to the word "enemy," but it could certainly not be looked upon as the act of a friend. By every right, in all justice, it belonged to James Channing; but he who put in his claim, taking advantage of a quibble of law, was a rich man and a mighty one. I should not like to take possession of another's money in such a manner. The good, old-fashioned, wholesome fear would be upon me, that it would bring no good either ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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
... there was perhaps no example of in the English language. Towards the conclusion, he has, I think, successfully defended him from the neglect of what are called the unities. The observation, that a quibble was the Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it, is more pointed than just. Shakspeare cannot be said to have lost the world; for his fame has not only embraced the circle of his own country, but is continually spreading over ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... long list 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
... you mean, horrid 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 ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... congregation; neither did a supplicant for the mercy of God look first at the garments of the neighbor next him lest the mercy might lose a virtue because of a patch or a tatter. The Creed was too plain for quibble or dispute; and there was no ambition in the Church except who should best glorify Christ by living most obedient to his commands. Thence came the perfection of unity in faith and works; and all ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Bending, you know the value of such a device as well as I do. You're an intelligent man, and so am I. Haggling will get us nothing but wasted time. We want that machine—we must have that machine. And you know it. And I know you know it. Why should we quibble? ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "Don't quibble with me, sir. I saw, if I did not hear. You passed Miss Wayne a note. I am astonished!" she said, in the tone of a scandalized ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... quibble—a base, dishonorable quibble," said Willy; "my father cared nothing for your politics, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... attempt any quibble. The circumstances under which these articles were found place them sufficiently in your possession. What have you to say that ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... assisting Sulla in the liberation of Italy; 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 ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... power to move them, and though they sometimes relented, it was invariably for reasons of policy and in the best interests of the service. Men clearly shown to be protected they released. They could not go back upon their word unless some lucky quibble rendered it possible to traverse the obligation with honour. Unprotected subjects who were clearly unfit to eat the king's victuals ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... admitted. Those who knew anything of the subject are "the so-called men of science," whose three P's were assailed; prestige, pride, and prejudice: this the author tries to effect for himself with three Q's; quibble, quirk, and quiddity. He explains that the Scribes and Pharisees would not hear Jesus, and that the lordly bishop of Rome will not cast his tiara and keys at the feet of the "humble presbyter" who now plays the part of pope in Scotland. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... definitions by point of view, one might quibble a little; for those who thus define psychology are not always consistent with themselves. In other passages of their writings they do not fail to oppose psychical to physiological phenomena, and they proclaim the irreducible heterogeneity ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... a bill Quite true enough to kill, And then the Owl was call'd,—for, mark, The Owl can witness in the dark. To make the evidence more plain, The Lynx connected all the chain. In short there was no quirk or quibble At which a legal Rat could nibble; The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds. As if the Jury had been packed—of hounds. Reynard, however, at the utmost nick, Is seldom quite devoid of shift and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... 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
... 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 ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... going to sit 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 ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... too, if he had pleased). In the lowest form he places those whom he calls les petits esprits—such things as are our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit; prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression. These are mob-readers. If Virgil and Martial steed for Parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But though they make the greatest appearance in the field, and cry the loudest, the best of it is ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... growling now and then as he read of some new quibble devised by the attorneys for the defense. As softly and as surreptitiously as it begins to rain on a cloudy day, she was crying. He turned ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Variorum. There has been much editing, much comment, but singularly little criticism of Shakespeare; a half-pennyworth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack. The pendulum has swung violently from niggling and insensitive textual quibble to that equally distressing exercise of human ingenuity, idealistic encomium, of which there is a typical example in the opening sentence of Mr Masefield's remarks upon the play: 'Like the best Shakespearean ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... had committed, which 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 ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... did James's. "Well, well—you quibble. I dare say Urquhart has fifteen thousand a year, and even you will know that I haven't ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... His English style was crampt to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[4]—He would laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble about Rex—or at the tristis severitas in vultu, or inspicere in patinas, of Terence—thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have had vis enough to move a Roman muscle.—He had two wigs, both pedantic, but of differing omen. The one serene, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Idaho. Their leaders, Moyer and Haywood, were anarchists like themselves, and although they professed contempt for law, as soon as they were arrested and brought up for trial, they clutched at every quibble of the law, as drowning men clutch at straws to save them; and, be it said to the glory or shame of the law, it furnished enough quibbles, not only to save them from the gallows, but to let them loose again ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... perchance serve to make you think yourself better than others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others' consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples, follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of escaping future punishment?—oh, then, if you proclaim yourself the follower of Buddha, Moses, Mahomet, ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... Tot brought Mary home from Wolf Cove, my sister and the doctor and I went that night by my sister's wish to distinguish the welcome, so that, in all our harbour, there might be no quibble or continuing suspicion; and we found the maid cutting her father's hair in the kitchen (for she was a clever hand with the scissors and comb), as though nothing had occurred—Skipper Tommy Lovejoy meanwhile with spirit engaging the old man in a discussion of the unfailing ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... prolonged controversy re suzerainty forced upon England would be to denote a lack of honour, which is not of unfrequent occurrence when one party to a contract seeks by cavil and legal quibble to evade compliance with some of its conditions, simply because the written terms appear to afford scope for doing so. But the principal reason of the Transvaal contention proceeded from the project of gaining over some strong foreign ally who would see an obstacle, if not scruples, ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... was effected, and the result was a confirmation, beyond doubt or quibble, that death, as Dr. Parkinson had declared, had been solely occasioned by cholera. The assurance company still hesitated; but as this conduct could now only be looked upon as perverse obstinacy, we served them with a writ at once. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... 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 make ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... reasons which 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 do you want ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... doing as he would have him. The meaning of this was, that he would seize the ship as fair prize, and as if she had belonged to French subjects, according to a commission he had for that purpose; though, one would think, after what he had already done, that he need not have recourse to a quibble to ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... quibble over words. Believing me to be dead, you had me impersonated, planning to use my name on the Hudson ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... 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 alternative to, Evolution. I simply ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... itself. We can lay hold of the continued personality of the egg and the moth into which the egg develops, but it is less easy to catch sight of the continued personality between the moth and the eggs which she lays; yet the one continuation of personality is just as true and free from quibble as the other. A moth becomes each egg that she lays, and that she does so, she will in good time show by doing, now that she has got a fresh start, as near as may be what she did when first she was an egg, and then a moth, before; and this I take it, so far as I can gather from looking ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... to day it wore on his nerves after a while. Added to the something he sometimes thought he caught glimmering in her tip-tilted eyes, it made him more than a little uncomfortable. He fell back upon a quibble to ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... "Don't quibble!" A faint smile smoothed away the hard lines about the young mouth. "Please sing that little tune for me. I have heard you so often in the garden and that seems quite a favorite of yours, but I can never ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... "Don't quibble," said Allen with energy; "it's not like you. That man is so bad, so unsavory, so vile, that you simply mustn't have ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... "Well, I won't quibble any more. But, after all, if I understand your project, there is little specially new in it, further than the magnifying of ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... ride over to Barnstaple at once, and get them. Don't come back without them, or, mark my words, there'll be some quibble or hindrance thrown in the way. Make quite sure of the place ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... literal or grammatical, but the conventional. Much indifferent humour is made of question and answer;—the reply being given falsely, as if the interrogation were put in a different sense from that intended, an occasion for the quibble being given by some loose or perhaps literal meaning of the words. Thus, "Have you seen Patti?" A. "Yes." Q. "What ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... 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 fresh objections by askin' ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... 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 ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... the air of a quibble have often this advantage—they put our knowledge to the test. The obligation to find a complete answer clears up our own conceptions. The observations which Mr Mill makes on this point, we shall quote at length. They are taken from his chapter on the Evidence of the Law of Universal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... translation, as originating from Leod, Lud, or Luyd, which, he says, means "folk or people." [23] Therefore St. Leger seems to signify a folk, a gathering, a legion or "crew" of saints, a holy crowd or crew,—which may have been the quibble extorted by Spenser's "alchemy of wit" from the "upbringing" of Elizabeth Nagle, his wife. He calls her with marked emphasis his "sweet Saint," his "sovereign Saint"; and in the "Epithalamion" the temple-gates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... back to Broadway, when she said, That one more journey that night she'd lead him, Before she'd let him go home to bed. And he, not caring to quibble or question, At once fell in with the lady's suggestion, Not thinking she'd "one more" ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... and obeyed in silence. The King's question was not one which called for an answer; or rather he understood that Amboise must give the answer, give it emphatically and without a quibble. Once outside the door he paused. Between Saint-Pierre, Leslie, and himself no love was lost, but the bond of a united watchfulness against a common danger ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Shylock? that so strange a bond 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 ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... 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 on business terms, but she has looked in vain for our affirmation as a nation of our belief ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... was disappointed. He had hoped for a vigorous denial on Thorpe's part, but this halfway confession seemed to him a mere quibble. He found himself believing the man guilty and that he was using this hypnotism suggestion as a last resort ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... himself trouble and to conciliate a howling mob. No washing of his hands will cleanse them. 'All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten that hand. But his words let us see how a man may sophisticate his conscience and quibble about his guilt. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the author remarks that, supposing happiness impossible, the prevention of unhappiness might still be an object, which is a mode of Utility. But the alleged impossibility of happiness is either a verbal quibble or an exaggeration. No one contends for a life of sustained rapture; occasional moments of such, in an existence of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a predominance of the active over the passive, and moderate expectations ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... may be blue, or possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... were goin' together." He nodded in acceptance of the quibble. "Well, if you wanted me once, a girl like you, you'll want me ag'in. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... would plough a lengthy furrow straight from end to end. Nor could I help bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the simple warriors whose hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and honesty; and who only learned in course of time from white men how to break their faith, and quibble out of forms and bonds. I wonder, too, how many times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had put his mark to treaties which were falsely read to him; and had signed away, he knew not what, until it went and cast him ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... to put me off with the same Jesuit's quibble which that false knave Parson Fletcher invented for one of Doughty's men, to drug his conscience withal when he was plotting against his own admiral. No, Jack, I hate one of whom you know; and somehow that hatred of him keeps me ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... quibble about it? If you smile at him it's a plot. If you put a rose in your hair it's a deep-laid scheme, deeper than you perceive—the scheme the universe is built on. We wouldn't have lent ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we had been consulted; we're naturally ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... not eloquent; and he knew that on great occasions, when great speeches are wanted, great guns like to have the fire to themselves. Neither did he split upon the opposite rock of "promising young men," who stick to "the business of the house" like leeches, and quibble on details; in return for which labour they are generally voted bores, who can never do anything remarkable. But he spoke frequently, shortly, courageously, and with a strong dash of good-humoured personality. He was the man whom a minister could get to say something which ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... might have said the same of writers too if he had pleased.] "In the lowest form he places those whom he calls Les Petits Esprits, such things as our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit, and prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression. These are mob readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for Parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But though they made the greatest appearance in the field, and cried the loudest, the best of it is they ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... adversary would gain nothing but shame and confusion of face. Nevertheless, there was a necessity for postponing the trial, on account of a material evidence, who, though he wavered, was not yet quite brought over; and the attorney found means to put off the decision from term to term, until there was no quibble left for further delay. While this suit was depending, our hero continued to move in his usual sphere; nor did the report of his situation at all operate to his disadvantage in the polite world; on the contrary, it added a fresh plume to his character, in the eyes of all those who ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... been loyal, have I not? Juste ciel!" Rising, he walked about the great room, his hands clasped behind him. "My conduct was magnificent, was it not? Don't quibble with words, Brigit. In plain language, I was a scoundrel, a beast, and now I am trying to behave—not like a gentleman, but like a decent man. And why you won't ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... Christian princes, and their Queen in France, that they have revolted solely because of "this cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murder, intended against towns and multitudes." As if they had not revolted already! Their pretext seems to mean that they do not want to alter the sovereign authority, a quibble which they issued for several months, long after it was obviously false. They also wrote to the nobles, to the French officers in the Regent's service, and to ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... 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. ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... 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 you, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... the dry 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 of the party seemed few and unimportant. The party ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... "I won't quibble with you, Hermia," he said in a moment. "You've paid me a pretty compliment by coming with me out here. But I'm not going to let it blind my judgment. You were hopelessly bored—back there. You've admitted it. You felt the need ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... 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 of one among the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... liable to almost ludicrous interruptions and diversions upon the most trivial hint of involuntary association. I am ready to grant that Shakespeare sometimes allows his characters to spend time, that might be better employed, in carving some cherry-stone of a quibble;[130] that he is sometimes tempted away from the natural by the quaint; that he sometimes forces a partial, even a verbal, analogy between the abstract thought and the sensual image into an absolute identity, giving us a kind of serious pun. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... 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 the child has not life, and ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... gruffer fellow on the big bay questioned with some heat. I made no quibble on his manner, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Called by some women who once loved him Lapinello, Lappinaccio, little Lappo. Called now in God as a good religious should be, Lappentarius, from a sweet saint myself discovered—or invented; need we quibble?—in an ancient manuscript. And it is my merry purpose now, in a time when I, that am no longer merry, look back upon days and hours and weeks and months and years that were very merry indeed, propose to set down something of my own jolly ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... your quibble about Paul and Apollos, whether they, or others, were the persons, though I am satisfied you are out, yet it weakeneth not my argument; for if they were blame worthy for dividing, though about the highest fundamental principles, as you say, how ought you to blush for carrying ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ordinary processes of the 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
... up and looked squarely into the priest's eyes. Dissimulation, hypocrisy, quibble, cant—nothing but fearless truth could meet ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... "Don't quibble, my boy," said Sir Henry smiling. "You call my sovereign the Pretender, and that is what I call the man you serve. Good heavens, boy! how could you devote your frank young life to ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... richest win: the less pertinacious and the poorer are 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 ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the 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 ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... accomplishment. You realize, captain that you are probably signing our death warrants—the two of us. But," he added, glancing only casually at the display on the console, "I can understand the need to sign that warrant, and I shall not quibble." ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... son, who died a week after his birth. Then Philip V. seized the crown, his lawyers asserting that, according to the Salic law, 'no part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman,' and that therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the Salian Franks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance of estates, not with the inheritance of the throne of France, which was not at that time in existence. The quibble, however, was used on the right side. What Frenchmen ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... believe that marriages are known in Heaven?" Leone asked. "Do you believe that if a marriage had been contracted in the presence of Heaven, witnessed by the angels, do you suppose that a mere legal quibble can set it aside?" ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... said, "a quibble. But tell me, wasn't it NIETZSCHE who taught the Germans to think they were supermen or ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... 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
... Edmund, very 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 cheeks, as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Netherlanders were, however, to be persuaded into this belief. The draft of the new edict was ostentatiously called the "Moderatie," or the "Moderation." It was very natural, therefore, that the common people, by a quibble, which is the same in Flemish as in English, should call the proposed "Moderation" the "Murderation." The rough mother-wit of the people had already characterized and annihilated the project, while dull formalists were carrying it through ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is that it is not an "ism" at all, despite the last syllable in its name. It is a living soul or consciousness; it is the soul or consciousness of the Jewish people. We are not interested in names, and we should not quibble about terms; it is reality that we are after. We want to know what is involved in being a Jew and living a Jewish life. The main reason for our finding fault with the usual presentation of Judaism ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... went to the stable, and by the first early gray had his mules packed. He looked once again towards Tucson, and took the road he had promised not to take, leaving the guitar behind him altogether. His faith protested a little, but the other self invented a quibble, the mockery that he had already "come by Tucson," according to his literal word; and this device answered. It is a comfort to be divided no longer against one's self. Genesmere was at ease in his thraldom to the demon with whom he had wrestled ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Bastille of England, one day perhaps to fall like that Parisian one, for a libel which he never wrote, because he would not betray his cowardly contributor. He had twice pleaded his own cause, without help of attorney, and showed himself as practised in every law-quibble and practical cheat as if he had been a regularly ordained priest of the blue-bag; and each time, when hunted at last into a corner, had turned valiantly to bay, with wild witty Irish eloquence, "worthy," ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... "A quibble, when all is said." He stepped to Lionel's side, and looked down at the pale handsome face over which the dark shadows of death were already creeping. "If he would but speak in the interests of this justice that is to do! If we might but have the evidence ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... "That's a quibble. It isn't her happiness we are talking about,—nor yet your hanging about London. Gird yourself up and go on with what you've got to do. Put your work before your feelings. What does a poor man do, who goes out hedging and ditching with a dead child lying in his house? If you ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... the jingling of morris-dancers and other profanities. These fooleries put the king into such good humour, that he was more witty in his speech than ordinary. Some of these sayings have been recorded, and amongst the rest, that well-known quibble which has been the origin of an absurd mistake, still current through the county, respecting the sirloin. The occasion, as far as we have been able to gather, was thus. Whilst he sat at meat, casting his eyes upon a noble ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... a quibble. I speak for her, yes, my dear sir. Her action in defiance of her family and her friends proved the strength of what she felt for the man she married; that she have remained with him three years—until it was impossible—proved ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... by his opponents for alleged undue exercise of arbitrary authority. The Supreme Court, established on the Mexican model, was reproached with seeking to overstep the limits of its functions. Every legal quibble was adjusted by a dilatory process, impracticable in a colony yet in its infancy, where summary justice was indispensable for the maintenance of order imperfectly understood by the masses. But the fault lay less with the justices than ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... statehood bill, he was for the Walker amendment. A 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 ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... traced to his advice to Henry to appeal to the decision of universities whether or not he could be legally divorced from Catharine, since the Pope—true to the traditions of the Catholic Church, or from fear of Charles V.—would not grant a dispensation. All this business was a miserable quibble, a tissue of scholastic technicalities. But it answered the ends of Cranmer. The schools decided for the King, and a great injustice and heartless cruelty was done to a worthy and loyal woman, and a great insult offered to the Church and to the Emperor Charles of Germany, who was a nephew of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... practised writer, You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, As if it held but the might of a child; You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. Tell him — No, you may quibble there, For it would split his heart to know it, And then you and I ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... resentment, "but what do they all amount to? You amused yourself with me and you're ready enough to continue so long as I pour my devotion at your feet. Well, I won't do it. If you loved me truly you wouldn't refuse to marry me. Isn't that so? True love isn't afraid, it doesn't quibble and temporize and split hairs the way you do. No, it steps out boldly and follows the light. You've had your fun, you've—broken my heart." Phillips' voice shook and he swallowed hard. "I'm through; I'm done. I ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... playful retort as a mere light-hearted quibble. It annoyed her, a young person of much consequence, to ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... germs of the same kind of creature always go through the same stages? If the germ of any animal now living is, in its simplest state, but part of the personal identity of one of the original germs of all life whatsoever, and hence, if any now living organism must be considered without quibble as being itself millions of years old, and as imbued with an intense though unconscious memory of all that it has done sufficiently often to have made a permanent impression; if this be so, we can answer the above questions perfectly well. The creature goes ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... 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 the ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... crucifixion than before: and with respect to the second explanation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) it is impertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking the sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. That manufacturer of, quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear his name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins in fact, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine |
