"Ambiguous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed difficult to guess from the sutras the extent of their significance, or how far the discussions which they gave rise to in later days were originally intended by them. The sutras of the Vedanta system, known as the S'ariraka-sutras or Brahma-sutras of Badaraya@na for example were of so ambiguous a nature that they gave rise to more than half a dozen divergent interpretations, each one of which claimed to be the only faithful one. Such was the high esteem and respect in which these writers of the sutras were held by later writers ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... us revert to episteme (knowledge) and observe how ambiguous this word is, seeming rather to signify stopping the soul at things than going round with them; and therefore we should leave the beginning as at present, and not reject the epsilon, but make an insertion of an iota instead of an epsilon ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... hast contrived thine own utter ruin, driven thereto, I ween, by fate, surely thou hast made thy tongue as sharp as thy wits. Hence thou hast uttered these vain and ambiguous babblings. Had I not promised, at the beginning of our converse, to banish Anger from mid court, I had now given thy body to be burned. But since thou hast prevented and tied me down fast by my words, I bear ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... and courteous manners of Carlos had won so powerfully on the affections of the Neapolitans, who distrusted the dark, ambiguous character of Ferdinand, Alfonso's heir, that a large party eagerly pressed the prince to assert his title to the vacant throne, assuring him of a general support from the people. But Carlos, from motives of prudence ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... his account to Philip (explanatory of what he, in advance of his brother's slower judgment, thought to be a necessary step), that the Fosters had for some time received anonymous letters, warning them, with distinct meaning, though in ambiguous terms, against a certain silk-manufacturer in Spitalfields, with whom they had had straightforward business dealings for many years; but to whom they had latterly advanced money. The letters hinted at the utter insolvency of this ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... indicate more or less directly a relation in thought between the phrase or sentence in which they occur and some preceding one. If the reader cannot readily determine to what they refer, the meaning becomes obscure or ambiguous. The pronominal adjectives and the personal pronouns are especially likely to be used in such a way as to cause ambiguity. Care must be taken to use them so as to keep the meaning clear, and your own good sense will help you in this more than rules. Notice in your reading ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... of these words rejected by Protestants? Is it because the text is in itself obscure and ambiguous? By no means; but simply because they do not comprehend how God could perform so stupendous a miracle as to give His body and blood for our ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... in tune as to be able to preserve the harmony, all are equally out of tune; so because offences differ from what is right, they will differ equally; therefore they are equal: now here we are being mocked with an ambiguous expression. For it equally happens to all the lyres to be out of tune, but not to them all to be equally out of tune. Therefore, that comparison does not help you at all. For it would not follow if we were to say that every avarice is ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... This was ambiguous, as there were more than a score of desks about, each tenanted by a busy man, more often than not accompanied ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... old acclaimed thee God and man, So, Death, our tongue acclaims thee: yet wast thou Hailed of old Rome as Romans hail thee now, Goddess and woman. Since the sands first ran That told when first man's life and death began, The shadows round thy blind ambiguous brow Have mocked the votive plea, the pleading vow That sought thee sorrowing, fain to bless ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... does thy gift create, Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate: The myrtle, ensign of supreme command, Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand; Not less capricious than a reigning fair, Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, In myrtle shades despairing ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... to make more generally possible a relationship of communication and interchange, that for want of a less battered and ambiguous word I must needs ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... need revision. Those sections relating to persons residing within the limits of the United States in 1795 and 1798 have now only a historical interest. Section 2172, recognizing the citizenship of the children of naturalized parents, is ambiguous in its terms and partly obsolete. There are special provisions of law favoring the naturalization of those who serve in the Army or in merchant vessels, while no similar privileges are granted those who serve in the Navy or ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... man has called himself a king it seems to me that so ambiguous a word is not sufficient to condemn him. For it is openly taught among the Romans that every wise man is a king. But you have brought forward no facts to prove that he has usurped ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... first thing we have to do is both clearly to define and understand the meaning of that word "unity." I distinguish the unity of comprehensiveness from the unity of mere singularity. The word one, as oneness, is an ambiguous word. There is a oneness belonging to the army as well as to every soldier in the army. The army is one, and that is the oneness of unity; the soldier is one, but that is the oneness of the unit. ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Jakeman of the necessity in which he found himself of sending her to a distance, upon a business which would not fail to detain her several weeks; and, though the errand by no means wore an artificial or ambiguous face, the two friends drew a melancholy presage from this ill-timed separation. Mrs. Jakeman, in the mean time, exhorted her ward to persevere, reminded her of the compunction which had already been manifested by her kinsman, and encouraged her to hope every thing from her courage ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... hour I would have wished to 'die'—Lest—aught more mean might stamp me 'mortal';"—the bull never struck me till Charles Lloyd mentioned it. The sense is evident enough, but the word is ridiculously ambiguous. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Russian, Chinese, Turkish, and Western systems of law that combines aspects of a parliamentary system with some aspects of a presidential system; constitution ambiguous on judicial review of legislative acts; has not accepted ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... telling what the defendant's attorney told me. He has taken up the case with zeal and interest. Aside from some ambiguous lines which this young man wrote to a young woman before departing for Europe, they have found no proof to sustain the accusation. In these few lines, the officers saw a plan and ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... aright from any teacher, we must first of all, like a historical artist, think ourselves into sympathy with his position and, in the technical phrase, create his character. A historian confronted with some ambiguous politician, or an actor charged with a part, have but one pre- occupation; they must search all round and upon every side, and grope for some central conception which is to explain and justify the most extreme details; until that is found, the politician is an enigma, or perhaps ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quick; imagination is still quicker; and Joyce was giving the reins to both. Her mistress's gloomy and ambiguous words were crowding on her brain. Three o'clock and she had not been in bed, and was not to be found in the house? A nameless horror struggled to Joyce's face, her eyes were dilating with it; she seized and threw on a large flannel ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... by wear, reappearing as the threads that knot together the situations in a comedy? Let us, then, start with the games of a child, and follow the imperceptible process by which, as he grows himself, he makes his puppets grow, inspires them with life, and finally brings them to an ambiguous state in which, without ceasing to be puppets, they have yet become human beings. We thus obtain characters of a comedy type. And upon them we can test the truth of the law of which all our preceding analyses gave an inkling, a law in accordance ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... odious epithet is frequently used, applying it without discrimination to the brightest ornaments and to the darkest specimens of humanity, is calculated to engender far more heat than light. Indeed, under this very ambiguous term, three distinct schemes of doctrine, widely different from each other, are set forth; schemes which every candid inquirer after truth should be careful to distinguish. The first is that scheme of fatalism which rests on the fundamental ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... the House, then, are they prepared to overthrow the existing Government on the question which the right hon. Gentleman has brought before us—a question which he has put in such ambiguous terms? Are they willing in overthrowing that Government to avow the policy of this Proclamation for India? Are they willing to throw the country into all the turmoil of a general election—a general election at a moment when the people are but just ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... delays absolutely unavoidable. An answer, however, though refused by Downing, was sent over to London; with an ambassador extraordinary, who had orders to use every expedient that might give satisfaction to the court of England. That court replied, that the answer of the Hollanders was ambiguous and obscure; but they would not specify the articles or expressions which were liable to that objection. The Dutch ambassador desired the English ministry to draw the answer in what terms they pleased; and he engaged to sign it: the English ministry ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... practice of distributing the Filipino laborers, as allowed by the aforesaid laws of the Indies, under all circumstances, is the only alternate left. Even if, against the adoption of this measure, it should be attempted to urge the ambiguous sense of the concluding part of the second clause, it would be easy to comprehend its true intent and meaning, by referring to Law 1, Title 13, Book ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... ever I do return to England ... I will write a poem to which English Bards, etc., shall be New Milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar." Hence the somewhat ambiguous title. The word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem, which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver" (see Sir W. Jones, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... a second time, cannot signify to return to life, but in a metaphorical sense; but we see continually mistakes of this kind result from the ambiguous meaning of the words made use of in ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... slender, shapely ash trees in yonder emerald copse. The whole plain is changing from a vast arena of golden splendour to a mysterious shadowy land of dreams. A fierce light still reveals every object on the hill towards the east; but westwards beneath yon purple ridge all is wrapped in dim, ambiguous shade. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... adoption lends great weight to any utterance of yours on public matters. Your interview on the war in THE TIMES of Nov. 22 will everywhere have influence for its gravity and fineness of feeling. It is with compunction that I call your attention to the fact that your statement is ambiguous on precisely those issues of the conflict which your ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Collect Patr. p. 55.) If Patavius, Bull, and others, who censure Marcellus, had seen this confession, they would have cleared him of the imputation of Sabellianism, and expounded favorably certain ambiguous expressions which occurred in his book against the Arises, which is now lost, and was compiled against a work of Asterius the Sophist, surnamed the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... "the enormities towards which precedents travel." And the people of the United States, as we have seen, appealed to the last argument, rather than acquiesce in their authority. Could it have been the purpose of Washington and his illustrious associates, by the use of ambiguous, equivocal, and expansive words, such as "rules," "regulations," "territory," to re-establish in the Constitution of their country that fort which had been prostrated amid the toils and with the sufferings and sacrifices of ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... of Soviet, German, and US systems that combine "continental" or "civil" code and case-precedent; constitution ambiguous on judicial review of legislative acts; has not accepted ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the object to be "to guard the plantations, and protect the inhabitants from captivity and murder." This was the first clear authority ever given by the Government to raise a negro regiment in this war. There were, indeed, some ambiguous words in the instructions of Secretary Cameron to General Sherman, when the original expedition went to Port Royal, authorizing him to organize the negroes into companies and squads for such services as they might be fitted for, but this not to mean ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Morris, in conversation with him to-day on the scene which is passing, expressed himself thus. 'How comes it,' says he, 'that Burr, who is four hundred miles off (at Albany), has agents here at work with great activity, while Mr. Jefferson, who is on the spot, does nothing?' This explains the ambiguous conduct of himself and his nephew, Lewis Morris, and that they were holding themselves free for a price; i.e. some office, either to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the low broad forehead straight nose and arched eyebrows—so pure and firm in outline, so classically antique in the modelling—might have come from some Syracusan coin. The expression of the eyes and that of the mouth were in singular contrast, giving her that passionate, ambiguous, almost preternatural look that only one or two master-hands, deeply imbued in all the profoundest corruption of art, have been able to infuse into such immortal types of woman as the Mona Lisa ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the loadstone, which is less like? Why in all diversities of things there should be certain participles in nature which are almost ambiguous to which kind they should be referred? But there is a mere and deep silence touching the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of them in speech or argument. Therefore, because in a writing of this ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... admitted, of perversity and Scottish "thrawnness." He had both kinds of physical courage—the active, delighting in danger, and the passive, unshaken in endurance. In the moral courage of facing situations and consequences, of readiness to pay for faults committed, of outspokenness, admitting no ambiguous relations and clearing away the clouds from human intercourse, I have not known his equal. The great Sir Walter himself, as this book will prove, was not more manfully free from artistic jealousy or irritability under criticism, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the equivocal or metaphorical use of the word is justified by custom (like the use of other words which at first referred only to the body, and then by a figure have been transferred to the mind), still, why should we make an ambiguous word the corner-stone of moral philosophy? To the higher thinker the Utilitarian or hedonist mode of speaking has been at variance with religion and with any higher conception both of politics and of morals. It has not satisfied ...
— Philebus • Plato
... man, may go out thence {but} half a man, and that he may suddenly become effeminate in the waters when touched." Both parents, moved, give their assent to the words of their two-shaped son, and taint the fountain with drugs of ambiguous quality. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... introductory there 53. Shall and will 54. Principal parts. List 55. Tense, mode, auxiliaries: a Tense in dependent clauses or infinitives; b The past perfect; c Present tense for a general statement; d Mode; e Auxiliaries 56. Adjective and adverb: a Adjective misused for adverb; b Ambiguous cases; c After verbs pertaining to the senses 57. A word in a double capacity 58. List of the terms of grammar 59. EXERCISE A. Case of pronouns B. Agreement C. Shall and will D. Lie, lay; sit, set; rise, raise E. Principal parts of ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... conveys the information that begging for money on the main street is fair; number two, that the police will not bother hoboes; number three, that one can sleep in the round-house. Number four, however, is ambiguous. The north-bound trains may be no good to beat, and they may be no good to beg. Number five means that the residences are not good to beggars, and number six means that only hoboes that have been cooks can get grub from the restaurants. Number seven bothers me. I cannot make out whether the ...
— The Road • Jack London
... inconsistent and impossible things that come to your knowledge concerning the Village. That is its special and sacred privilege: to be unexpected and always—yes, always without exception—in the spirit of its irrational and sympathetic role. It needs Kipling's ambiguous "And when the thing that couldn't has occurred" for a motto. And yet—and yet—like all true nonsense, this nonsense is rooted in a beautiful and disconcerting compromise ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... forests, and who, in their firm belief, holds communication with spirits of another world. For, be it observed, Smith possesses all the qualities and exercises all the tricks of the necromancers during the middle ages. His speech is ambiguous, solemn, and often incomprehensible—a great proof to the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... [final s invisible] Here all was solemn and silent [s in "was" invisible] Its appearance was tall and robust, wrapped in a tattered white robe [a in "and", r in "robe" invisible] By the fate of war, he replied [r in "war" invisible] he was worn to a skeleton [spacing in this line is ambiguous; the word "a" may be either missing or invisible] I find by your father's letters that [final t invisible] they projected scenes of connubial bliss [t in "they" invisible] reflected in the glassy lake [l in ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... hand I dislike the use of the term fire, as a constituent principle of natural bodies, because, in consequence of the use that has generally been made of that term, it includes another thing or circumstance, viz. heat, and thereby becomes ambiguous, and is in danger of misleading us. When I use the term phlogiston, as a principle in the constitution of bodies, I cannot mislead myself or others, because I use one and the same term to denote only one ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... confoundedly picturesque, too rich and brilliant, too sharp and smart and glib, too—well!—theatrical; like characters from the cast of what your American theatre calls a crook melodrama. And then, if their intentions were so blessed pure and praiseworthy, what right had they to make so many ambiguous gestures?" ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... was told me by his lawyer, who looked after the case with interest and zeal. Outside of some ambiguous lines which this youth wrote to a woman before he left for Europe, lines in which the government's attorney saw a plot and a threat against the government, and which he acknowledged to be his, there wasn't anything found to ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Bishop of Durham's house till July 11th. And the King, who was then at St. John's house, removed to the Bishop of London's palace, and thence to his house at Rotherhithe."[287] But the Chronicle suggests no reason for these movements and ambiguous proceedings. Thus, too, on the 23rd of September, the mere fact is stated that "Prince Henry came to the council with a huge people," supplying no clue as to the meaning and intention of the concourse. It cannot, moreover, escape observation, that, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... few words of distrust and indifference, but it was plain that the ambiguous language of the juggler, as usual, had succeeded in awakening interest. With the affectation of a mind secretly conscious of its own infirmity, he pretended to be indifferent to what the other professed a readiness to reveal, while with the rapacity of a grasping spirit he betrayed ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... these secrets is significant, but at the same time ambiguous. The initiate is convinced that it would be a sin to tell what he knows and also that it would be sinful for the uninitiated to listen. Plutarch speaks of the terror of those about to be initiated, and compares their state of mind to preparation ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... and daughter? How would they regard him if he maintained an obstinate and ambiguous silence towards them? They were no longer little children, scarcely separate from their father, seeing through his eyes, and touching life only through him. They were separate individuals, living souls, with a personality of their own, the more free from his influence because of his long ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... last the band-master was moved to Woolwich, he hoped that the effect of such prosaic surroundings would put an end to Ted's mooning, and that he would settle down to a career more likely to reward him in this world rather than in that ambiguous world beyond to which his dreams aspired. Edward, who was by this time seventeen and who had so far submitted to his father's wishes as to be working in a solicitor's office, found that the effect of being banished from ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... if I was old enough I wouldn't be gittin' married," said fourteen-year-old Hiram, in a somewhat ambiguous burst ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... Dr. Opimian. There is an ambiguous present, which somewhat perplexes me, in an epigram of Rhianus, 'Here is a vessel of half-wine, half-turpentine, and a singularly lean specimen of kid: the sender, Hippocrates, is worthy of all praise.'{2} Perhaps this was a doctor's present to a patient. Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Nonnus could not ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Captain Murray, it was agreed that a proclamation should be issued at the different settlements, requiring the attendance of the people at the respective posts on the same day; which proclamation would be so ambiguous in its nature, that the object for which they were to assemble could not be discerned, and so peremptory in its terms, as to insure implicit obedience. This instrument having been drafted and approved, was distributed according to the original plan. That which was ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... London looked forward to having a good old summer time with Handy and his all-star company the following Saturday evening, they were wofully out in their reckoning. Though "Pinafore" was announced with due managerial formality, perhaps somewhat ambiguous, for that particular occasion, when the time for presentation arrived there was not a vestige of either tent or performers. After the entertainment on the night of the fair the company went aboard the Gem of the Ocean. Handy alone remained ashore. As he had been manager, advance and press ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... recommended. There was a muffin, too, identified and labelled, but without any Latin name, a captured crumpet, a collection of buns, a dinner-roll, and a something novel to us, called Pumpernickel, that we had rather be without, or rather—for the expression is ambiguous—that we had rather not be without, but altogether remote from. And all these things have been tested by an analyst, with the most painful results. Nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and the like nasty chemical things seem indeed to have occurred in everything he touched. Those sturdy ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... beloved Havanas, retailing the latest news, discussing the chances of a change of ministry, or the most recent and interesting scandalous anecdote current in that gallant metropolis. It would be wrong to infer, from his somewhat ambiguous appellation, that the student's skin had the copper hue of a Pawnee or an Osage, or his hair the ruddy tint usually deemed detrimental and unbecoming. The name implied no sneer—it was given and taken as a compliment; and Federico was at least as proud of it as of the abundant golden curls to which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... is an AFFECTED OBSCURITY; by either applying old words to new and unusual significations; or introducing new and ambiguous terms, without defining either; or else putting them so together, as may confound their ordinary meaning. Though the Peripatetick philosophy has been most eminent in this way, yet other sects have not been wholly clear ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... on civil law system; derived from Soviet and continental civil code legal principles; legislature retains power to interpret statutes; constitution ambiguous on judicial review of legislation; has ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... appears in looking at an {253} "ambiguous figure", drawn so as to represent equally well a solid object in either of two different positions. The transparent cube, showing near and far edges alike, is a good example. Look steadily at such a drawing, and the cube ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... authority and discipline. But when he accepted an archbishopric he sold his honour; his servility to Charles and Lauderdale was disgusting; fear made him cruel; his conduct at Mitchell's last trial is, at best, ambiguous; and the hatred in which he was held is proved by the falsehoods which his enemies told about his private life and ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... shown in the ambiguous trametes (Trametes ambigua), a white shelving fungus which occurs in the Southern States. It is shown in Fig. 16. At the upper right hand is shown the normal plant in the normal position. At the upper left hand is shown an abnormal one with the large and first formed cap also in the ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distempered state. Times and occasions and provocations will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... he had not seen the firmest of believers overwhelmed with grief by a like loss, and as completely inconsolable. Hume may have thrown off Mr. Boyle's "principles of religion," but he was none the less a very honest man, perfectly open and candid, and the last person to use ambiguous phraseology, among his friends; unless, indeed, he saw no other way of putting a stop to the intrusion of unmannerly twaddle amongst the bitter-sweet memories stirred in his affectionate nature ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... Xenophanes used ambiguous language, applicable to the material as well as to the mental, and exclusively appropriate to neither. In other words, he availed himself of material imagery to illustrate an indefinite meaning. In announcing the universal being, he appealed to the heavens ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... one malicious, and has led others to say, 'God is a superfluous hypothesis, and to believe in Him brings more enigmas than it solves,' and has led still others to say, 'Why, if there is a God, does it look as if either He was not all- powerful, or was not all-merciful?' Nature has but ambiguous evidence to give ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... vain and futile reasonings, derived from the scattered passages of some early writers, from the ambiguous silence of others—and, above all, from the dreams of etymological analogy or mythological fable, I believe the earliest civilizers of Greece to have been foreign settlers; deducing my belief from the observations of common sense rather than from obscure and unsatisfactory ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw In hillocks; the swift stag from underground Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose As plants; ambiguous between sea and land, The river-horse and scaly crocodile. At once came forth whatever creeps ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is. But let me try to make plain to myself what is the essential quality that gives to Art the power of exciting this unconscious vibration, this impersonal emotion. It has been called Beauty! An awkward word—a perpetual begging of the question; too current in use, too ambiguous altogether; now too narrow, now too wide—a word, in fact, too glib to know at all what it means. And how dangerous a word—often misleading us into slabbing with extraneous floridities what would otherwise, on its own plane, be Art! To be decorative where decoration is not suitable, to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that not Apollo, but my own vanity had been the cause of my ruin. How could 'the kingdom to be destroyed' possibly mean mine, the mighty realm of the powerful Croesus, the friend of the gods, the hitherto unconquered leader? Had a friend hinted at this interpretation of the ambiguous oracle, I should have derided, nay, probably caused him to be punished. For a despotic ruler is like a fiery steed; the latter endeavors to kick him who touches his wounds with intent to heal; the former punishes him who lays a hand on the weak or failing points of his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... committed rashly to improper hands. If the rhetoricians of Newmarket, who may be supposed likely to conceive in its full strength the dignity of the subject, should undertake to express it, there is danger lest they admit some phrases which, though well understood at present, may be ambiguous in another century. If posterity should read on a publick monument, that the lady carried her horse a thousand miles in a thousand hours, they may think that the statue and inscription are at variance, because one will represent the horse ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... word "first" because Scott's language is ambiguous. In the list of the bookseller's collection in 3 vols. 4to, advertised in Amphitryon (1690), "Mac-Flecknoe" and the Cromwell poem do not appear. The later plays, however, soon gave material for another volume, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... look of inexpressible contempt, and then turning with ambiguous courtesy to the strange miner, said: "You are a man of experience and knowledge, as it seems; nevertheless your well-meant advice will hardly meet with acceptance here. For first the old man of the mountain will never have anything to do with ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... their friends on their way to the oratory, where they went to worship, were met by a female slave who was possessed with a spirit of divination and uttered ambiguous predictions. She had acquired great reputation as an oracle or fortune-teller and for making wonderful discoveries. By this practice she brought her masters considerable gain and was very valuable to them. When Paul cast out the evil spirit and restored the maiden to her ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... hee) why linger you in this ambiguous thought, Open thine eyes, no longer blinded bee, those wounding lookes, thy Louer, deere hath bought. Vnbolt thy harts strong gate of hardest steele, O let him nowe the ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... recites the separate pretensions and attributes of the great deities, first, of Hutasa, a name of Agni, the god of fire. The sense here is extremely obscure. Bopp renders it literally. 'Qui hanc terram totam contraxit,' seems ambiguous. It may refer to the agency of fire in compacting the world and again consuming it, or simply shrivelling it up, while ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... office Matthews ran into Ganz himself. The Swiss was a short, fair, faded man, not too neat about his white clothes, with a pensive mustache and an ambiguous blue eye that lighted at sight of the young Englishman. The light, however, was not one to illuminate Matthews' darkness in the matter of news. What news trickled out of the local wire was very meager ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... bounds could be described. This fact disturbed the upright and conscientious Marbois, who thought that "treaties of territorial cession should contain a guaranty from the grantor." He was especially anxious, moreover, that no ambiguous clauses should be introduced in the treaty. He communicated his troubles on this point to the First Consul, advising him that it seemed impossible to construct the treaty so as to free it from obscurity on the important matter of boundaries. Far from exhibiting any sympathy with his faithful ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of building or equipment) nor purchased unless an appropriation be first made by law therefor." The building of the two cutters under contract can not be said properly to have commenced, although preparations have been made for building; but even if the construction be ambiguous, it is better that all ambiguity should be removed and thus the hazard of violating the pledged faith of the country be ...
— 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
... having drunk of the waters of a spring within it, he delivers answers in verse upon what the persons have in their thoughts, though he is often ignorant, and knows nothing of composing in measure. It is said, that he foretold to Germanicus his sudden death, but in dark and ambiguous terms, according to the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... to a room where they first made each other's acquaintance. Then two bridesmen led them to the nuptial chamber where they watched over them until after the first conjugal union. This last usage was not universal, and after some experience of its ambiguous character it was abolished. The purpose was that there might be witnesses to the consummation of the marriage, not merely to the wedding ceremony. The whole proceeding was a domestic and family affair, in which no priest or other outsider had any part, except as witness, and there ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Europe." "I frequently visited her," he writes, "and after passing regularly the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return to ——, I wrote her in the same terms. Miss, construing my remarks farther than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning; and wrote me an answer which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... magistrate!—on men, the guiltiest of whom were pure as the spotless snow, when compared with his own conscious guilt; and Catiline to glide through dark streets, visiting discontented artizans, debauched mechanics, desperate gamblers, scattering dark and ambiguous promises, and stirring up that worthless rabble—who, with all to gain and nothing to lose by civil strife and tumult, abound in all great cities—to violence and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the original book were ambiguous: text ended at mid-line, but the following line was not indented. These are shown as single blank lines. Unambiguous paragraph breaks are shown with two blank lines. Sidenotes are shown in ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... expressions used is inquired into, as if it were in the definitive statement of the case, in which it has been placed. Wherefore, the first kind is that concerning the written document and the intention of it; the second arises from the laws which are contrary to one another, the third is ambiguous, the fourth is argumentative, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... her she has potent charms within the house which will rid her of the malady without danger to her good name or her life. Phaedra suspects her plan and absolutely forbids her to speak with Hippolytus. The answer is ambiguous: ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... written on the leaf of his pocket-book, but they were of by far too indistinct and ambiguous a nature to lead ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... out at the door as the servant opened it, but neither of us had seen it do so; and we were every one of us in such a state of nervous excitement, that even this incident was something in the catalogue of our ambiguous experiences. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... comes out with bloody hands. Warned however by the chorus of the approach of Aegisthus, he hastily re-enters the house in order to take him by surprise. Aegisthus inquires into the story of Orestes' death, and from the ambiguous language of Electra is led to believe that his corpse is in the palace. He commands all the gates to be thrown open, immediately, for the purpose of convincing those of the people who yielded reluctant obedience to his sovereignty, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... has seen much of interest, and feels hopeful aspirations of young manhood. Many clear-cut, positive views are expressed in courteous, deferential manner, but in no uncertain or ambiguous phrase. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... pleading their rival claims before Pompey, ambassadors from the Pharisees had made their appearance in Damascus to petition for the abolition of the kingship; this object had now to some extent been gained. Less ambiguous than the victory of the Pharisees was the fall of the Sadducees, who in losing the sovereignty of the Jewish state lost all real importance. But the intervention of the foreign element exercised its most powerful influence upon the temper of the lower ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... been implied in the text, at this place, and also in the preface, that the "historic method of study" is the great feature of this century. The term is ambiguous. The meaning of it however is, that each problem ought to be approached from the historic side. Whether the problem be a fact of society, or of thought, or of morals, in each case the questions are asked—What are its antecedents? how did it happen? ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... element at the commencement of the reign of a prince, he pretended to foretel the events that would take place and the length of its continuance; but, at the same time, he was cautious enough to wrap them up in such ambiguous and mysterious expressions that, like most prophecies of the kind, they might admit of a variety of interpretations. This manner of expounding the lines of Fo-shee by Confucius, the supposed system of binary arithmetic by Leibnitz, laid the foundation of consulting future destiny, at this ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... the United States, probably on account of pressure brought to bear on it by the "Left Wing," stated that the party repudiated the Berne Conference, but, at the same time, was not yet affiliated with the Communist Conference of the Bolshevists at Moscow. The phraseology of this ambiguous announcement is ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... you, at such times seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As "Well, well, we know," or "We could, an if we would," Or "If we list to speak," or "There be, an if there might," Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note That you know aught of me: this not to do, So grace and mercy at your most ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... intent whereof being to instruct men in so necessary a point of faith as that relating to the Messiah, it is reasonable to think they would be delivered in the most perspicuous and intelligible terms. Since ambiguous expressions (capable of such strange meanings as they pretend,) would be too slippery a foundation to build such a point of faith upon; would be of no use, or worse than none; would be unable to teach the clear truth, and apt to ensnare men into dangerous errors, by leaving too great a latitude ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... undressed, showing exquisite underclothing, she followed her ambiguous remark by pouring out information concerning herself, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Germany. Aggression upon Germany is not the subject and forms no part of any treaty, understanding, or combination to which Britain is now a party, nor will she become a party to anything that has such an object." There is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about that. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... that the conduct of congress in this emergency has given little satisfaction. They affect to give a declaration of the national will, and are as ambiguous as the Delphic Oracle; and it is said that their half- measures, and determination not to see that public opinion is against them, and that a thorough change can alone undermine this military revolution, will contribute more than anything to its ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... it even so? then this ambiguous doubt No man can better than myself decide; That compound powder was of poppy made and mandrakes, Of purpose to cast one into a sleep, To ease the deadly pain of him whose leg Should be saw'd off; That powder gave I to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; Reason is the Pace; Encrease of Science, the Way; and the Benefit of man-kind, the End. And on the contrary, Metaphors, and senslesse and ambiguous words, are like Ignes Fatui; and reasoning upon them, is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... fin-spine—most primitive of spear-heads—Ulysses was slain; and again, he may learn not a little about that ναρκη {narkê}, or torpedo, to which Meno compared his master Socrates, in a somewhat ambiguous compliment. ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... movements, or steps, is, for every one of them to be distinct; not huddled and running into one another, so as that one should begin before the precedent one is finished. This so necessary avoidance of puzzled or ambiguous motion, can only be compassed by an attention to significance and justness of action. This simplicity will arise from sensibility, from being actuated by feelings. No one has more than one predominant actual feeling at a time; when that is expressed clearly, the effect ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... to select his terms with care, to define them with accuracy, and to abide by them with steadiness; thus he will make a philosophical vocabulary for himself. Persons who want to puzzle and to deceive, always pursue a contrary practice; they use as great a variety of unmeaning, or of ambiguous words, as they possibly can.[14] That state juggler, Oliver Cromwell, excelled in this species of eloquence; his speeches are models in their kind. Count Cagliostro, and the Countess de la Motte, were not his superiors in the power of baffling the understanding. The ancient ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... think the best thing for Myra to do will be to marry, so as to get rid of the ambiguous position in which she is placed. Wife to a convict serving his time. Poor child, it gives me a shudder every time I think of it. There, I will not think of it any more. I've made my mind ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... you refer to ours in that ambiguous And filmy phrase, why then you lie; And if to yours—we hope to be contiguous To our objective by-and-by, But for the present, though the end ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... stated that the Duke Barnim gave an ambiguous answer to Otto upon the subject; but the knight, after his visit to Wolgast, was so certain of seeing his daughter in a short time Duchess of Pomerania, that he already looked upon the Jena dues ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... principles, which will be established now sufficiently for our purposes when we have examined the nature of that form of government last on the list in Sec. 105,—the purely "Magistral," exciting at present its full share of public notice, under its ambiguous title of "slavery." ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... a good sailer and solid in its timbers; it had no need to fear a gale of wind, and it ought, according to the calculation of D'Artagnan, to have either returned to Brest, or come back to the mouth of the Loire. Such was the news, ambiguous, it is true, but in some degree reassuring to him personally, which D'Artagnan brought to Louis XIV., when the king, followed by all ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mood. She broached the subject of grouse, addressing to Otway an ambiguous remark which led March to ask, with veiled surprise, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... in this Lecture, many idealistic writers who insist upon the necessity of God as a universal, knowing Mind to explain both the existence of the world and our knowledge of it, are more or less ambiguous about the question whether the divine Mind is to be thought of as willing or causing the world, though passages occur in the writings of most of them which tend in this direction. 'God {57} must be thought of as creating the ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... days then. It was useless to upbraid her mother. She always posed as the injured one, and could not see that in robbing her child of a real home she was strewing her path with dangers as well, by placing her in an ambiguous, comfortless position, from which ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Canada, New South Wales, and other places. Interspersed with these, are the advertisements of Jewish clothesmen, informing the judicious seamen where he can procure of the best and the cheapest; together with ambiguous medical announcements of the tribe of quacks and empirics who prey upon all seafaring men. Not content with thus publicly giving notice of their whereabouts, these indefatigable Sangrados and pretended Samaritans ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Heartsick, I ventured at the last to tell Unto my sire these visions of the dark. Then sent he many a wight, on sacred quest, To Delphi and to far Dodona's shrine, Being fall fain to learn what deed or word Would win him favour from the powers of heaven. But they came back repeating oracles Mystic, ambiguous, inscrutable, Till, at the last, an utterance direct, Obscure no more, was brought to Inachus— A peremptory charge to fling me forth Beyond my home and fatherland, a thing Sent loose in banishment o'er all the world; And—should he falter—Zeus should launch ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... any undue squeamishness. . . . I spoke of AEschylus. I am sorry, Philip, that you are not familiar with ancient Greek life. There is so much I could tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta, and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom those old Grecians fabled—oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of course—to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we blunder about. I think I could explain much which now seems mysterious—yes, and ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... had been a complete misunderstanding, which I think, as it was, might have been cleared up if there had been less precipitation and more openness and further endeavours to explain what was doubtful or ambiguous, I began to turn in my mind whether something could not be done to avert the impending danger, and renew the negotiation with Peel while it was still time. Labouchere had had a conversation with Graham, who had enlightened him, much as Wharncliffe had me; we came home ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Unfortunately, Aristotle says very little more about his [Greek: nous poietikos], and does not explain how the two Reasons are related to each other, thereby leaving the problem for his successors to work out. The most fruitful attempt to form a consistent theory, on an idealistic basis, out of the ambiguous and perhaps irreconcilable statements in the De Anima, was made by Alexander of Aphrodisias (about 200 A.D.), who taught that the Active Reason "is not a part or faculty of our soul, but comes to us from without"—it is, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... startling omen appeared, in a much milder but ambiguous communication from General La Fayette. He stated that he was on his march from Paris with the national guard, and part of the people, coming to make remonstrances; but he begged Her Majesty to rest assured that no disorder ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... learned the language himself sufficiently to rebuke them in their own tongue. His next position was at Dresden in 1816, and here he remained nine years until his death. His position at first was somewhat ambiguous. There were two troupes of singers in the opera—an Italian and the German. The grand operas were given in Italian by the Italian company, and the light operas in German by the German company. It was Weber's task to change this, by producing new works of a distinctly higher character ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... he wanted. Or, if he wanted anything, it was to be rid of a scrivener's table altogether. Among the manifestations of his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from certain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his clients. Indeed, I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little business at the Justices' courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... same,' says Boggs, 'them outcries of theirs makes me feel a heap ambiguous. I'm drawin' kyards to a pa'r of fours that first howl they emits, an' I smells bad luck an' thinks to myse'f, "Here's where you get killed too dead to skin!" But as I takes in three aces, an' as the harvest tharof is ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... language and definitions can be instruments of investigation as well as of thought, but lest, as too often happens, we should waste time over trash. There are many books to which one may apply, in the sarcastic sense, the ambiguous remark said to have been made to an unfortunate author, "I will lose no time ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... noted at the time but afterward widely commented upon. "Our title to the country of the Oregon," said he, "is clear and unquestionable." The text of the Baltimore platform read, "Our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable." Did President Polk mean to be ambiguous at this point? Had he any reason to swerve from the strict letter of ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... troubles, she was now fourteen, and, according to the laws of her race, a woman. I do not think the most romantic fancy would have called her pretty. Her complexion defied most of those ambiguous similes through which poets unconsciously apologize for any deviation from the Caucasian standard. It was not wine nor amber colored; if anything, it was smoky. Her face was tattooed with red and white lines on one cheek, as if a duo-toothed comb had been drawn from cheek-bone to jaw, and, but for ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... too and cast me a startled look which I met with a smile possibly as ambiguous as the feeling which ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... this as on most other occasions, was even more strongly conservative. The two brothers adopted their usual superstitious practice of opening their Bibles at random, under the belief that the texts on which their eyes first fell would guide them in their decision. The texts were ambiguous and somewhat ominous, relating for the most part to violent deaths; but on drawing lots the lot determined them to go. It was on this slender ground that they resolved to give the weight of their example to this most important development of the movement. They went to Bristol, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... it became one of the great questions in the history of this century which would first arrive on the field. Napoleon believed that Grouchy was at hand. Wellington in his desperation breathed out the wish that either night or Bluecher would come. The ambiguous result of the principal conflict made it more than ever desirable to both of the commanders to gain their reinforcements, each before the other. The event showed that the arrival of Buelow's contingent was really the signal for the oncoming of the whole Prussian ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... been most violent.[6] It was a harsh and continuous invective. It is probable that he did not remain quite a stranger to politics. Josephus, who, through his teacher Banou, was brought into almost direct connection with John, suggests as much by his ambiguous words,[7] and the catastrophe which put an end to John's life seems to imply this. His disciples led a very austere life,[8] fasted often, and affected a sad and anxious demeanor. We have at times glimpses of communism—the rich man being ordered to share all that ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... for "the Virgin" in the Hebrew text is ha-almah. It is an ambiguous word, and does not necessarily imply, though it certainly does not necessarily exclude, the idea of virginity. Etymologically it means puella nubilis—a maiden of ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... produce the extracts which make up these pages to show what is the meaning of the clauses above cited. For no man or party, of any authority in such matters, has ever pretended to doubt to what subject they all relate. If indeed they were ambiguous in their terms, a resort to the history of those times would set the matter at rest for ever. A few persons, to be sure, of late years, to serve the purposes of a party, have tried to prove that the Constitution makes no compromise with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Voltaire, "than to read and to converse to no purpose. In history, in morals, in law, in physic, and in divinity, be careful of equivocal terms." One of the ancients wrote a book to prove that there was no word which did not convey an ambiguous and uncertain meaning. If we possessed this lost book, our ingenious dictionaries of "synonyms" would not probably prove its uselessness. Whenever the same word is associated by the parties with different ideas, they may converse, or controverse, till "the crack of doom!" This with a little ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear decision, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... proposed in Oregon, and in 1905 rejected. Illinois follows New York in abolishing the common-law marriage, and raises the age to eighteen in a woman and twenty-one in a man. As is often the case, it does not appear from the ambiguous wording of the statute whether this invalidates the marriage or merely subjects the offenders, or the minister or the magistrate, to a penalty; probably the latter. Minnesota forbids the marriage of imbecile or epileptic persons; Nebraska that ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... possessed almost absolute power at Geneva; and he exerted himself vigorously in establishing the Presbyterian form of church government. The reformer, who so loudly exclaimed against the tyranny of Rome, directed the whole torrent of his persecution against Servetus, a physician, who had in an ambiguous style written upon the Trinity; and his vengeance was not appeased till the unfortunate heretic had expired in the flames. He died May 26, 1564; and, though he had long enjoyed a high reputation and exercised ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... they may do their friend the service of protesting their disbelief of it. More reputations are thus hinted away by false friends, than are openly destroyed by public enemies. An if, or a but, or a mortified look, or a languid defence, or an ambiguous shake of the head, or a hasty word affectedly recalled, will demolish a character more effectually, than the whole artillery of malice when ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... less a giddy fool. Are people to be run against without warning? No! And have I any right to go and peep under their cloaks to see what is not there? He would have pardoned me, he would certainly have pardoned me, if I had not said anything to him about that cursed baldric—in ambiguous words, it is true, but rather drolly ambiguous. Ah, cursed Gascon that I am, I get from one hobble into another. Friend d'Artagnan," continued he, speaking to himself with all the amenity that he thought due himself, "if you escape, of which there is not much chance, I would ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all kinds. Of the more important he sends home interesting sketches to his superiors in Whitehall, Vischnegradsky, the 'wizard of finance', who raised the value of the rouble 30 per cent., became one of his intimate friends. When that ambiguous figure, Witte, his rival and successor, tried to discredit him, Morier vindicated with warmth the honesty and patriotism of his friend. Baron Jomini of the Foreign Office was of a different kind, witty, volatile, audaciously outspoken, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... he does not mention their visit in a letter in which he tells Temple that he is lame, and that his 'spirits sank to dreary dejection;' and utters what the editor justly calls an ambiguous prayer:—'Let us hope for gleams of joy here, and a blaze hereafter.' This letter, by the way, and the one that follows it, are both wrongly dated. Letters of Boswell, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Lenthall was once more in the chair, and the journals were resumed without the least notice of past occurrences. Monk, having reached London amidst great excitement, went down to the House and delivered an ambiguous speech. Up to the last Monk seems to have remained uncertain what to do. The temper of the City, which was fiercely anti-Rump, may have decided him. At all events he invited the secluded, that is the expelled, members ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell |
