"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... neither coin money nor emit bills of credit. The Federal government has exclusive control of foreign affairs, so that no state may individually enter into any agreement with a foreign power. The Federal Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and no state action may contradict it. Unity has given us strength, and great crises, such as the Civil War and the World War, have ended by ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... it," said Kenyon, "yet cannot utterly contradict you, as regards the actual state of the art. But as long as the Carrara quarries still yield pure blocks, and while my own country has marble mountains, probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly believe that future sculptors ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there for half an hour. Mine hostess related how an "English milord" had stayed there for six months with his wife, in a tent, without even a servant—"Qu'ils sont droles ces Anglais!" was the landlady's final comment; and it was not for me to contradict ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... capacity to emit thought and sentiment; but as form, colour, light, life, and beauty; and who shall settle the claims between thought and beauty? But art has beauties of its own, which neither impair nor contradict the beauties of nature; but which are not of nature, and yet are, inasmuch as art itself is but part of nature: and of such, the beauties of the nature of art, is the feeling for constructive beauty. It interferes not with truth or sentiment; it is not the cause of unlikely order and improbable ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... solution of which is difficult, because by no strain of the imagination is it easy to place ourselves in their position. One half of their written utterances seem to be at variance with the other half. Their actions often contradict their most brilliant and emphatic precepts; while contemporaries disagree about their private character and public conduct. All this confusion, through which it is now perhaps impossible to discern what either Guicciardini or Machiavelli really was, and what they really felt and thought, is due ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... a violent dislike to Presbyterianism, and with his experiences of it the dislike was not unnatural. It was not, he told Burnet, a religion for gentlemen, and he found few among his court to contradict him. Scarcely had he settled himself in his capital when the Presbyterians were upon him. Sharp had already been some months in London as ambassador of the moderate party, the party of the old Resolutioners. But an easy ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... pore—with a swelling outline of black-waistcoated stomach, with a lofty forehead, with a smooth double chin resting pulpily on a white cravat. Everything in harmony about him except his eyes, and these were so sharp, bright and resolute that they seemed to contradict the bland conventionality which overspread all the rest of the man. Eyes with wonderful intelligence and self-dependence in them; perhaps, also, with something a little false in them, which I might have discovered immediately under ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... youthfulness as is compatible with continued existence. Add some flattering masters, and a distaste for games. Season with the idea that he is born for a great career. Let him be, if possible, verbose and argumentative, and inclined to contradict his elders. Eliminate more youth and transfer hot to a University. Add more verbosity, and a strong extract of priggishness. Throw in a degree, and two speeches at the Union. Set him to simmer for two years in a popular constituency, and serve ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... evidence of the so-called physical 12 senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the 15 material ...
— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker G. Eddy
... from me to contradict everybody. But for me New York has the ideal climate. Isn't it the best of any great city in the world? You see, we have the air of the sea in our streets. And when the sun shines, which it does more ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... follow centuries later. The Greeks of the great period had kept the structural parts of their building free of ornament. It would never have occurred to them to interfere with the lines of the column in any way that would contradict its purpose; but the Greek architects of Ephesus not only placed their columns on pedestals (making them so far less stable in appearance), but they adorned the lower part of their Ionic columns with figures, of admirable execution, but perfectly inappropriate ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... persons still exist somewhere and somehow apart from their bodies, of the decay or destruction of which he may have had ocular demonstration. How could he see dead people, he asks, if they did not exist? To argue that they have perished like their bodies is to contradict the plain evidence of his senses; for to the savage still more than to the civilised man seeing is believing; that he sees the dead only in dreams does not shake his belief, since he thinks the appearances of dreams ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... the Penguins and the Porpoises filled the close of this period. It is extremely difficult to know the truth concerning these wars, not because accounts are wanting, but because there are so many of them. The Porpoise Chronicles contradict the Penguin Chronicles at every point. And, moreover, the Penguins contradict each other as well as the Porpoises. I have discovered two chronicles that are in agreement, but one has copied from the other. A single fact ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... have had a sad time of it here, ma'am, with my poor son's illness, having no conveniencies about me, and much ado to make him mind me; for he's all for having his own way, poor dear soul, and I'm sure I don't know who could contradict him, for it's what I never had the heart to do. But then, ma'am, what is to come of it? You see how bad things go! for though I have got a very good income, it won't do for every thing. And if it was as much again, I should want ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Do not contradict this too quickly. Don't say that nursing gets your chief consideration because it is, of necessity, your profession; but that you love your music infinitely more, and look forward to that through all your hours on duty. If this merely proves that music is distracting your attention, you are ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... said Aspasia; "for you hear me allude to your beauty without affecting to contradict me, and apparently ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... News was news in those days! You didn't get it at all till you got it altogether, and then you got it like a thunderbolt. There was no dribbling of advance telegrams; no daily papers to spread the news (or lies), and contradict 'em next day, in the same columns with commentaries or prophetic remarks on what might or should have been, but wasn't, until news got muddled up into a hopeless entanglement, so that when all was at last cleared up you'd been worried out of all your ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... unlocking the door. She expressed herself as very glad to see the caller, ushered him into the sitting room and disappeared, returning in another moment with her brother, whom she unblushingly said had been taking a nap. Abishai did not contradict her; instead, he merely ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... frequently have quarrelled with her: if he had loved her with tenderness, he must have treated her with a degree of violence in the hope of amending her failings. But having neither personal nor mental affection towards her sufficiently interesting to give himself the trouble to contradict her will in anything, he passed for one of the best husbands in the world. Lady Clementina went out when she liked, stayed at home when she liked, dressed as she liked, and talked as she liked without a word of disapprobation from ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... the recent date of his publication, must have known all these incidents, excepting the last, has converted some of them, by insinuating sarcasm, into charges that blurr their virtue. We should say that he has omitted, where he could omit—where he could not, he is compelled to contradict himself; for it is impossible that the insinuations, and the facts, and occasional acknowledgments, should be together true of one and the same man. We shall offer some specimens of this illiberal style:—A neighbour of Reynolds's first advised ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... idealists too: so I mounted the high horse for once to gratify him. He will never forget that, nor cease to respect me accordingly: he thinks I was serious then, and joking at all other times. You and I of course understand that Life is but a series of appearances; and if I seem to contradict myself, to say one thing on one page and its opposite on the next, I am only reporting the various phases assumed by facts without and moods within. 'The shield is gold.' 'No, it is silver.' Well, shall ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... upon you a certain melancholy which is depressing you. Your regard to me is worth now more than any other possession or gift that the world can bestow. And I had taken pride to myself in saying that it had been given." Yes;—her regard! She could not contradict him as to that. "And have you thought of your own position? After all that has passed between us, you can hardly go on living here ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... "there is an element of uncertainty about that which will not do for me. I have tried editor after editor, and have invariably had my articles returned. I will venture to say—and I do not think you will contradict me—that they are all thorough, sound, and accurate pieces of work, far more reliable than much of the stuff which appears every day; all I want is just the personal touch with an editor or two; but, of course, if you will not help me, I must try ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... they could not have helped it; but ever since you have been in the house you have only felt miserable and wished that they would let you go your own way, and they—well they have done so; and now you find it ill to bear the lot you chose for yourself. It is so indeed, child, you need not contradict me. This once we will put the matter plainly: Who can hope to win love that gives none, but turns away morosely from his fellow-creatures? If each of us could make his neighbors after his own pattern—then indeed! But life requires us to take them just ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mind general laws which are fatal to all pamphlets as pamphlets, without consideration of their particular merits. "There are," he says, "examples of thought having been influenced by books. But such books have been scientific, not rhetorical." If it were not rude to contradict, we should have said that the influence exercised in politics by scientific treatises had been as nothing in the aggregate compared with that exercised by pamphlets, speeches, and, in later times, by the newspaper press. What does Mr. Pattison say to Burke's "Reflections ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... arrangement he made during your aunt's lifetime was quite a different matter. If you attempt to take Cecilia from his control you commit an illegal action," said Mrs. Rainham—hoping she was on safe ground. To her relief Bob did not contradict her. English law and ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... the weight on that side will not be sufficient to keep it upright and firm against its opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries to the Constitution the language is that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are but a few who lend their sanction ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... testifies, almost in the same language as Captain Smith, that the Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred miles of them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they were born white." [Footnote: Roger Williams's Key, 52.] Thus the authorities flatly contradict the statement of black Indians existing in North Carolina, and a difference of color between the people of the two sections claimed to have been visited ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... air of probability about this terse statement of the case, that it has satisfied the insatiable curiosity of infantile minds for long ages. Little girls never doubt it, and little boys never contradict it. If Paterfamilias has any thoughts upon the subject, he probably thinks this expenditure of snaps and snails was a great waste of raw material. Girls may be romps and hoydens, vixens and scolds, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... not contradict him. Her hands were in her lap, her eyes on the worn boards of the piazza floor. She did not see a man pass on the other side of the street, cast a searching glance across and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... had told them, he said, was with so many circumstances, that he could sooner die than contradict it. And still he insisted upon the propriety of appearing to be married, for the reasons he had given before—And, dearest creature, said he, why this high displeasure with me upon so well-intended an expedient? You know, that I cannot wish to shun ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of his killing Pomponio was not believed when he told it at the mission and the presidio. No one, however, could contradict him, and as time went on, and nothing farther was heard of the neophyte, and the marauding at the mission became less, until it ceased altogether, his assertion came, in time, to be regarded as the true account ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... astonished at the awfulness and majesty of his voice; but recovering myself in a short time, I related to him everything from the beginning, how desirous I was of knowing sublime truths, how I went to the philosophers, and hearing them contradict one another, and driven to despair, thought on the scheme of making me wings, with all that had happened in my journey quite up to heaven. I then delivered the message to him from the Moon, at which, softening his contracted ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... in the summer-house after the arrival of the sportsmen, these two held a meeting, "I have called you back to tell you of a very terrible thing which has been said of my dear brother Duncan, and which you must contradict at once, and then find out how it was that the false report arose, and have the matter ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... condition of moral power being the only force in the universe. The very grandeur of his subject ministered a difficulty to Milton. The statement of a being of high intellect, warring against the supreme Being, seems to contradict the idea of a supreme Being. Milton precludes our feeling this, as much as possible, by keeping the peculiar attributes of divinity less in sight, making them to a certain extent allegorical only. Again, poetry implies the language of excitement; yet how to reconcile ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... argue with you, sir, or contradict. You hold the power. I only say, for mercy's sake let that poor suffering invalid and his sister come. We will then push off and leave ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... obvious its meaning may really be." Horne's Introduct., vol. 2, p. 265, edit. of 1860. This language is not too strong. It is by a neglect or perversion of the scope that the meaning of the inspired writers is perverted, and they are made to contradict one another. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Confederate States to cultivate friendly relations with other powers, and to pay particular respect to neutral property and rights; and the better to satisfy him that he might supply me with coal without a departure from neutrality, and to contradict the false sentiments of the United States Consul, I exhibited to him a newspaper from Trinidad, setting forth the fact that the question of the propriety of supplying me with coal in that island, had been formally submitted to the law officers of the Crown, and decided ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... and not before, the Prince was thought fully to be instal'd, and the forme of government fully established, in-so-much that none might or durst contradict anything which was appoynted by himself, or any ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... care, of responsibilities and trusts, and if the guest gained the idea that Mr. Daniels was a very capable and prosperous lawyer indeed—if he gained such an idea and did not express it, how could Heman be expected to contradict? ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "will ye contradict each other before our very face. Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty accounts have I had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two varlets, sent expressly to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Randolph, Earl of Murray, Regent of Scotland in 1329. I have heard tradition to the effect that when Mary Queen of Scots was fleeing towards England, she paused to rest here. Can any of your readers confirm or contradict this tradition? ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... the prevalence of this opinion. It was to no purpose that the accused Roman Catholic appealed to the integrity, humanity, and loyalty which he had shown through the whole course of his life. It was to no purpose that he called crowds of respectable witnesses, of his own persuasion, to contradict monstrous romances invented by the most infamous of mankind. It was to no purpose that, with the halter round his neck, he invoked on himself the whole vengeance of the God before whom, in a few moments, he must appear, if ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whence did it spring? and what are its effects today in India? Whatever story I tell about its origin, some great authority will flatly contradict it. The beginning of caste, like that of most existing institutions, is lost in obscurity; but the most likely guess to my mind is that which founds caste upon this natural train ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... how you can call our Church the Church of Ireland, and in the same breath say that there is no room for a Nationalist in her. Don't the two things contradict each other.' ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion that any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting the tympany, had disappeared, or that the disorder itself had become milder in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Royalism sees itself verging towards sad extremities; nearer and nearer daily. From over the Rhine it comes asserted that the King in his Tuileries is not free: this the poor King may contradict, with the official mouth, but in his heart feels often to be undeniable. Civil Constitution of the Clergy; Decree of ejectment against Dissidents from it: not even to this latter, though almost his conscience rebels, can he say 'Nay; but, after two months' hesitating, signs ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... remarking on the account Waterton gives of the campanero, observes: "This single bird then has a voice of more power than the belfry of a cathedral ringing for a new dean. It is impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the forests of Cayenne; but we are determined, as soon as a campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... violence as well as wrath upon me. The guilt of a slave is always, and everywhere, presumed; and the innocence of the slaveholder or the slave employer, is always asserted. The word of the slave, against this presumption, is generally treated as impudence, worthy of punishment. "Do you contradict me, you rascal?" is a final silencer of counter statements from ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... sound enough," she answered, "the Churchills—I know you're a friend of his—haven't a stauncher ally than I am, and I should only be too glad to be able to contradict. But it's so difficult. I assure you I go out of my way; talk to the most outrageous people, deny the very possibility of Mr. Churchill's being in any way implicated. One knows that it's impossible, but what can one do? I have ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... She knew all the recent gossip of fashionable society, and retailed it glibly. She had met this celebrity at a ball and that one at a reception, and she described them minutely, realizing that Aunt Jane would never be in a position to contradict any assertion she ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... were amusing yourself enormously without her, with your lord and master, His Majesty the King of the Coleoptera; that I was sure that you were at this time one of the happiest women in the world; and I hope that Gringalet, on whom I drew this bill of exchange, will not contradict me. I have four tolerably strong attractions to bring forward against the thought of you: 1st, the Conservatoire; 2nd, the Opera; 3rd, the Italian Opera; 4th, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... together to the king, made a speech to the king to the following effect: "That the granting of this licence would be the ruin of all his majesty's sea-ports and people, as his majesty had been already certified by several of his subjects: That it was not consistent with the king's honour to contradict what he had granted to the Portuguese, his ancient friends: And that whoever solicited in favour of the English knew not what they were about; or, if they knew, were not friends to his majesty." Upon this speech my business was again quite overthrown, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... case is plain: you would reserve All to yourselves, while others starve. Such laws from base self-interest spring, Not from the reason of the thing—" He was proceeding, when a swain Burst out,—"And dares a wolf arraign His betters, and condemn their measures, And contradict their wills and pleasures? 80 We have establish'd laws, 'tis true, But laws are made for such as you. Know, sirrah, in its very nature A law can't reach the legislature. For laws, without a sanction join'd, As all men know, can never bind; But sanctions reach not us the makers, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Religion teaches that we cannot be pleasing to God unless we look upon all mankind as children of our Father in heaven. And they who order and compel a man because he is colored to betake himself to a corner marked off for his race, practically contradict the principles of justice and of equal rights established by the God of Mercy, who lives on the altar. Let Christians act out their religion, and there is no more race problem. Equality for the colored man is coming. The colored people are showing ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... changes cause not so much a breach with Christianity as with its traditional form, and that they seek to bring about a fundamental renewal of Christianity. For when we penetrate beyond the motives and dispositions of men to their spiritual basis, all the changes are unable to contradict what is essential to Christianity, but they even promise to assist this essential element in its new, freer, and more energetic development. But we have to bear in mind that all this will not descend upon us like a shower of rain, but will have to be brought forth through immense labour and toil. ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... send home the land-forces, and all such ships as want of victualls, leaks sickness, or anie thing els had made vnfit to staie out at sea. But first the L. Admirall and Sr. Wa[l]ter Rawligh did directlie by attestation vnder their hands contradict the first proposition that I made, that some ships should attend that seruice. And when we came to the hypothesis, which were fitt and their captaines content to staie out in all the fleet, except the Low ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... van Koopman told her anxious friends that she had received such assurances from Rhodes that she could not disbelieve him, and that the best thing which they could do would be to contradict all statements on the subject of a raid on the Transvaal that might come to their ears. This occurred on an after-Christmas evening of ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... have no word for home in their language, but they have homes in fact, which is much more worth while. We Americans have the lovely word "Home," but we haven't as a nation the article in fact. Americans have houses, but in truth we are a homeless race. Only the unenlightened will contradict me for saying that, and for the opinion of the unenlightened I ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... it over. It didn't contradict the first one; it only changed a suggestion to a command, as if someone were growing more frantic by the hour. (And a picture of near-chaos in government wasn't attractive, was it?) The bit about "proper channels" underlined that speech was not free on Earth, and that the ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... we were split up in a great number of unions in each plant, with little or no contact with one another. The advantages of the one big union idea are so apparent that no honest worker will, in earnest, contradict us." ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... the three strange phases of it: To be a mediocre Englishman with no special talent; to die in horrible despair; and to leave behind a glorious legend. And for all these three things to contradict one another in the same life is unequaled in ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... religion to please neither party is made; On husbands 'tis hard, to the wives most uncivil; Still I can't contradict, [vii] what so oft has been said, "Though women are angels, yet ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the Marchese Donghi, who in the Fortnightly Review of June 1922 says: "It is superfluous to add that everything which has to do with navigation [in Dalmatia] is entirely in the hands of the Italians." But I think it is superfluous to contradict a gentleman who ingenuously believes that Dalmatia is largely Italian because on our maps we have hitherto used Italian place-names. Will he say that the population of Praha is not Czech because on our maps that capital is commonly called Prague? It pleases the Marchese to be ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... "Even if we contradict the statement," pursued Cornish, with a sudden coldness in his manner, "the contradiction will probably fail to reach many of the readers of this article, and as matters at present stand, I do not see that we are in ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... less than the teachings of Christianity. This contention is discussed in the following pages, where the conclusion will be reached that, far from being in agreement, socialism and Christian economics contradict each other on many fundamental points. It is, however, not the aim of the discussion to appraise the relative merits of either system, or to applaud one and disparage the other. All that it is sought to do is to distinguish between ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... to contradict you—in justice to yourself. You cannot be willing to let me regard you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... usual rules for dividing [words into] syllables, are not only arbitrary but false and absurd. They contradict the very definition of a syllable given by the authors themselves. * * * * A syllable in pronunciation is an indivisible thing; and strange as it may appear, what is indivisible in utterance is divided in writing: when the very ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Dale. "So go on, Carruthers, and tell me about him—I dare say I may have heard of him, since you are so distressed about it, but my memory isn't good enough to contradict anything you may have to say about the estimable ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the troglodyte, the morals of necessity; and that the morals of mankind had kept pace with necessity, whereas those of the Lord had remained unchanged. It is hardly necessary to say that no one ever undertook to contradict any statements of this sort from him. In the first place, there was no desire to do so; and in the second place, any one attempting it would have cut a puny figure with his less substantial arguments and his less vigorous phrase. It was the part of wisdom and immeasurably the part of happiness ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "Oh, I didn't contradict him. I called him general. He treated me tip-top. He is going to make me Minister of France, when he is ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... cold, and this one's on my chest. And then they tell you to speak up. They bait you—and bait you, and bait you. It's torture. The strain of it. You can't remember what you said. You're bound to contradict yourself. It's like Russia, George.... It isn't fair play.... Prominent man. I've been next at dinners with that chap, Neal; I've told him stories—and he's bitter! Sets out to ruin me. Don't ask a civil question—bellows." He broke down again. "I've been bellowed at, I been bullied, I been treated ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... not possible for the heart to stand still and a human being live, and, as I am not a doctor, I do not like to contradict their dogma, otherwise I could positively declare my heart did cease beating as I listened, looking out into the night with the shadow of that darkness projecting itself upon my mind, to the impatient tapping, which was now distinctly audible ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... and she could read and do coarse crocheting without spectacles. All her skin, especially round about the eyes, was yellowish brown and very deeply wrinkled indeed; a decrepit, senile skin, which seemed to contradict the youth of her pose and her glance. The cast of her features was benign. She had passed through desolating and violent experiences, and then through a long, long period of withdrawn tranquillity; and from end to end ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... greatly afflicted, and had received much consolation from my sister, imagined that her affection would make her remain with him at least a year. . . . He spoke to her on the subject, but in such a manner as to convey the impression that she would not so far contradict him for fear of redoubling his grief. This led her to dissemble her intention till our arrival. Then she told me that her resolution was fixed to adopt a religious life as soon as our respective shares [of the father’s property] were arranged. She would, however, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... pound a week wage. He can't afford to live in apartments, unless he's come in for a fortune. If he has I must look out for another man. Men with fortunes get a trifle above themselves, you know. Besides he'd naturally not wish to stay on. But of course the whole thing's merely a rumour. I'd contradict it if I were you. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... is just what all development depends upon, this attainment of novelty, which is consistent with older knowledge and supplementary to it. But suppose a man have thoughts which are not true, which do not fit the topic of their application, which contradict established knowledges, or which result in bizarre and fanciful combinations of them; to that man we deny the name genius; he is a crank, an agitator, an anarchist, or what not. The test, then, which we bring to bear upon the intellectual variations ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... "devil" needs yet to be learned. Its definition as an individual is too limited and contradictory. When the Scripture is understood, [15] the spiritual signification of its terms will be understood, and will contradict the interpretations that the senses give them; and these terms will be found to include the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... country is everything. In a nation like ours this popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a change in the public mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who can contradict it. Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be plastered on layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal with the negro everywhere as with the brute. If public ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... the ladies accepted with an inclination of the head, and a touch of the wine at their lips, his tacit toast. "Oh, I think I do know you," said Celia Madden, calmly discursive. "Up to a certain point, you are not so unlike other men. If people appeal to your imagination, and do not contradict you, or bore you, or get in your way, you are capable of being very nice indeed to them. But that isn't a very uncommon quality. What is uncommon in you—at least that is my reading—is something which according to circumstances may ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... at liberty to give a true description of those around. Though not so gloomy as the truth, it is perhaps as much so as people will accept without calling it exaggerated, and feeling the desire to doubt and contradict it. I have seen two reviews of it. One of them sums it up as "a life of poverty and self-suppression," the other has nothing to the purpose at all. Neither of them seems to think it a strange or wrong state of things that a woman ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... probable condition of the luckless effigy at that moment, nobody was inclined to contradict me; and the Philosophers relapsed into gloomy silence, and eventually ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... going to explain with a wet finger. Everybody is aware that to be material is the very opposite of being trivial. What is 'material' in a chain of evidence, or in an argument, can never be trifling. Now, therefore, if you can find a word that will flatly contradict this word material, then you have a capital term for expressing what is trivial. Well, you find in the word immaterial all that you are seeking. 'It is quite immaterial' will suit Mr. Touts's purpose ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Association had their correspondent to the Voice of Industry, and also a press committee to take note of and contradict false statements appearing in the papers concerning factory operatives. They had most modern ideas on the value of publicity, and neglected no opportunity of keeping, the workers' cause well in evidence, whether through "factory tracts," letters to the ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... writings of contemporaneous chroniclers. The author has taken liberty with accepted history in the age of Meneptah's first-born and in placing Hebrews in the quarries at Masaarah. The escape of Kenkenes in the Passover is not intended to contradict the biblical statement that not one of the eldest born was spared. Rather, it is offered, as an hypothesis, that the Angel of Death would have passed over any true believer in Jehovah, regardless ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... "odd sort of small wit," "without manners or breeding." In controversy he would bluntly contradict, and he never spoke the truth. When in his "club," in order to be thought a man of intrigue, he would steal out quietly, and then in disguise return and call for himself, or leave a letter for himself. He not unfrequently mistook impudence and malice for wit, and looked upon a modest blush in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... dreaded disease—the fever and delirium of love. What was that little yellow-haired girl to him? Nothing! nothing! Yet her kisses burned upon his lips, and every drop of blood in his body seemed to contradict his nonchalant nothing with a passionate everything! Yes, she was in truth the lamp of his life, but in that radiant light how pitiful his life appeared. How pitiful, and yet how beautiful, for in the tender illumination of her imagined love rough places became smooth, dark ways bright, ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... attention had been drawn—he wrote—to an absurd bit of gossip connecting his name with that of a lady whose friend he was, and absolutely nothing more. Would Miss Derwent, if occasion arose, do him the kindness to contradict this story in her circle? He would be ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... I love is charming, beautiful and good, like yourself. You surely will not contradict me, for it is ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... arose to contradict that speech, which appears to have rung true, seeing that four of those present had proposed to her (again) that same evening. "So I give you," cried Tappingham, gallantly, "the health of Miss Betty Carewe, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... Pentateuch was empowered and commissioned to teach us scientific as well as other truth, that the account we find there of the creation of living things is simply and literally correct, and that anything which seems to contradict it is, by the nature of the case, false. All the phenomena which have been detailed are, on this view, the immediate product of a creative fiat and consequently are out of ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... was growing perhaps a little languid in their tenure and was glad to have his grasp strengthened by her faith. Socially as well as politically Eriecreek was almost a perfect democracy, and there was little in Kitty's circumstances to contradict the doctor's teachings. The brief visits which she had made to Buffalo and Erie, and, since the colonel's marriage, to Milwaukee, had not sufficed to undeceive her; she had never suffered slight save from the ignorant and uncouth; she innocently expected that in people of culture she should ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... which stands before the cathedral at Basel. The front presents an archaic sweet smile, but the back is covered with toads and snakes. Dream-analysis reverses things and allows the back side to be seen. That this correct picture of reality possesses an ethical value is what no one can contradict. It is a painful but very useful operation, which demands a great deal from the physician as well as from the patient. Psychoanalysis seen from the standpoint of therapeutic technic consists chiefly of numerous analyses of dreams; these in the course of treatment, little by little, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... combs of lead, Whispers that Sappho's hair is red: Aura, whose tongue you hear a mile hence, Talks half a day in praise of silence; And Sylvia, full of inward guilt, Calls Amoret an arrant jilt. Now voices over voices rise, While each to be the loudest vies: They contradict, affirm, dispute, No single tongue one moment mute; All mad to speak, and none to hearken, They set the very lap-dog barking; Their chattering makes a louder din Than fishwives o'er a cup of gin; Not schoolboys at a barring out ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... made up his mind to give full credit to the officer, eliminating himself as much as possible. There was no reason why the actual facts should be made public, so far as he could see, and, once an artfully colored account of the exploit had gained currency, Rock could not well contradict it. He might, undoubtedly would, make a truthful report to his superiors, but 'Poleon determined that in the eyes of the hero-worshiping people of Dawson the fellow should still remain a hero and stand for one hundred per cent. efficiency. That was ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... look of doubt came into it, for Juanna's mode of life, every detail of which was known to him, seemed to contradict her statement. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... best), wh'h in exchange for the sphere of Macculloch, Mill and Co. is a mighty improvement! Since that, I have seen the little green book, too; reprint of your Cornhill operations,—about 2/3 of wh'h was read to me (known only from what the contradict'n of sinners had told me of it);—in every part of wh'h I find a high and noble sort of truth, not one doctrine that I can intrinsically dissent from, or count other than salutary in the extreme, and pressingly needed in Engl'd ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... before she regained consciousness; but her appearance was as changed as if she had suddenly aged by twenty years. Monsieur d'Enjalran tried to continue the examination, but she answered only in incoherent words; she did not know; it was possible; she did not wish to contradict. Bastide Grammont had resumed his seat in the prisoner's dock; immeasurable distress and consternation were pictured on his countenance. His counsel bade Clarissa, since she had spoken, to continue. "I adjure you, Madame, make yourself clear," ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... of conditions of life among the peasantry. But the fact that the control over these institutions, even in the cooperative movement (so far as independent control was allowed by the bureaucracy of the old regime), was secured to the less democratic elements of the community, did contradict the idea of coalition, of the bringing together of all interests and forces. These institutions had been permitted to exist and develop only because they were controlled by the more conservative groups. The cooperative societies represented more truly the idea of ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... leaned against a pillar of cloth, like one requiring support in a very painful situation. It was agony for him to contradict Sir Peter. But truth is ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... between two bungalows on either side of Tank Road, we drove with Mrs E. to see the lake and her favourite views of the Pagoda; and—I was about to contradict myself! Have I not said India was the most perfectly fascinating country for picturesque scenes of people and streets, and trees and parks and colour! Now, I withdraw; for Burmah puts India quite in ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Not only does it contradict fact and experience, it contradicts reason. If you listen to the voice of reason, you can no more believe that the greater came from the less than you can believe that something came from nothing. ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... felt bound in conscience to continue the dreams which had made him a personage of so much importance. The mischief of it was, that, like many other liars, he had a very bad memory, and he contrived to make his dreams contradict each other in the most palpable manner. St. John one night appeared to him, and told one tale; while, a week after, St. Paul told a totally different story, and held out hopes quite incompatible with those of his apostolic brother. The credulity ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... proportion. It has already been noted, however, that hydrogen and oxygen combine in two different ratios to form water and hydrogen dioxide respectively. It will be observed that this fact does not contradict the law of definite composition, for entirely different substances are formed. These compounds differ from each other in composition, but the composition of each one is always constant. This ability of two elements to unite in more than one ratio is ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... tidy, and their dress-parades, held in the main street, were handsome affairs. I have never seen better disciplined columns, and the youthful faces of the soldiers, with the staid locality of the exhibition,—young women, negroes, dogs and babies, and old men looking on,—seemed to contradict the bloody mission of the troops. The old men, referred to, were villagers of such long standing that had the Court of Saint James, or the Vatican, or the battle of Waterloo been moved into their country, they would have still been villagers ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of Borodino fulfilled his office as representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his role of appearing to command, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... particular tests and forms, are not proportionably zealous for the "weightier matters of the law." It is easier for men to impose and enforce law upon others than to observe it themselves. But when a man's words and actions contradict each other, the argument of his actions is the more forcible, as well as the more honest ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... will by violence teare him from your Pallace, And torture him with grieuous lingring death. They say, by him the good Duke Humfrey dy'de: They say, in him they feare your Highnesse death; And meere instinct of Loue and Loyaltie, Free from a stubborne opposite intent, As being thought to contradict your liking, Makes them thus forward in his Banishment. They say, in care of your most Royall Person, That if your Highnesse should intend to sleepe, And charge, that no man should disturbe your rest, In paine of your dislike, or paine of death; Yet ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... insurmountable became the obstacles which confronted us. They said they had agreed to go on a journey of exploration, but surely I was taking them direct to Hades—if we had not got there already. I could not well contradict them, for certainly that particular spot was the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... will contradict the previous ones, and something like this may be the result: "A boy," "very dark complexion," "long yellow hair," "wearing a black velvet jacket," "with a dark green dress," "five feet high," "about six years old," etc. When the player guessing gives the game up, the joke is explained ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... uttered by a Federalist President. So far did Jefferson lean in holding out the olive branch that he ran the risk of minimizing the revolution of 1800. To say that "every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," was to contradict his often expressed conviction that his party had saved the country ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... was a pause and a hush, and then Nelly said, "It's easy to say that when she isn't here to contradict you; ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... mind to prepare the public in such a way for the performance, upon which I had resolved, and for the work itself, that at least the sensation caused would lead to a full hall and thus, in a very favourable manner, guarantee satisfactory returns, and contradict their belief that the fund was menaced. Thus the Ninth Symphony had, in every conceivable way, become for me a point of honour, for the success of which I had to exercise all my powers to the utmost. The committee ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... The one thing above another, if there is such, that I like about you is that your beauty of heart and soul corresponds to your beauty of face—No; don't contradict. You have the ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... done in the practice of single words or short sentences. Take some such word as "come" or "go," "forward" or "away," practising with different attitudes, and it will be seen at once that it is almost impossible to make tone and dramatic action contradict each other. ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... increasing by his repeated professions, and animated by the necessity of silencing a love which too successfully solicited a return of affection, she assumed a sufficient command over herself to conceal her sentiments, and with averted eyes, lest her heart should through them contradict her words, she told him, he distressed her to the greatest degree; that the respect she had for him on account of his own merit, and not less for the relation he bore to Lady Lambton, made her extremely concerned that he should have conceived a passion for her, which it was not in her power ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... Edmund's sake, if not for your own.' And as this last speech convulsed Albinia, and rendered her incapable of reply, Miss Meadows became pathetic. 'I am sure the pains I have taken to trace out and contradict—and so nervous as grandmamma has been—"I'm sure, Mrs. Drury," said I, "that though Edmund Kendal does lock his study door, nobody ever thought anything- -the housemaids go in to clean it—and I've been in myself when the whitewashers were about the house—I'm sure Mrs. Kendal is a most ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as to prevent the practicability, even if my inclination led me to dispose of it. But as such a report may render my tenants uncomfortable, I will feel very much obliged if you will be good enough to contradict the rumour, should it come to your ears, on my authority. I rather conjecture it has arisen from the sale of some copyholds of mine in Norfolk. [2] I sail for Gibraltar in June, and thence to Malta when, of course, you shall have the promised detail. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... question. The alphabet may have originated as Dr Evans thinks, but at present the proof is not conclusive. The Greek names of the letters, their forms, and the order of the symbols show that the Greek alphabet as we know it must have been imported by or from a Semitic people, and there is no evidence to contradict ancient tradition that this people was the Phoenicians. The view propounded by Deecke7 in 1877, that the Phoenician alphabet had developed out of the late Assyrian cuneiform, never met with much acceptance and has really no evidence ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... no choice. Besides, it is too late. There's a knock. Oh, one word more! Whatever I may say, don't contradict me. Nor ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... process here is always the same. The individual has a stock of old opinions already, but he meets a new experience that puts them to a strain. Somebody contradicts them; or in a reflective moment he discovers that they contradict each other; or he hears of facts with which they are incompatible; or desires arise in him which they cease to satisfy. The result is an inward trouble to which his mind till then had been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... Socrates insisted that it didn't matter, because conduct was three-fourths of life. Plato retorted that it did matter, and he invented an archetypal universe of which this was a faint and distorted copy. Naturally Aristotle must contradict him by founding empirical science, which concerns itself only with this world. On his heels came the Stoics, who would have nothing to do with science except in so far as it made men virtuous, and ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... member or a peer. Now, really, after Clary had danced fifteen dances, and was about to dance other five, without stopping, with a portrait painter, of her own free will, this was drawing a longish and very unnecessary bow. But then Sam Winnington did not take it amiss or contradict her. He said she was right, and he had no doubt she would keep her word, and there was a quick, half-comic, half-serious gleam from the depths of his grey eyes which made Clarissa Gage look more bashful and lovelier than any man had ever yet beheld her. Pity the member or ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... sir; but my feelings are so deeply enlisted, that I cannot stop to choose and pick phrases, in talking to the person who caused that child to be shut up here. She thinks you are the most vindictive and dangerous enemy she has; and I had no reason to contradict her. Don't be offended, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... I think so," said La Mere Bauche, who, now that the capitaine was right, no longer desired to contradict him. ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... threats, the persons, who dispatched those messengers from England, resorted to other means to force Charles into the enterprise. They appointed the day for the outbreak: he was not able 'to send orders to contradict it:' so he felt constrained, 'with little noise,' to quit Cologne for Middleburg, to await ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... at least the all important relations which bound the two nations together. But Langerac was a mere picker-up of trifles, a newsmonger who wrote a despatch to-day with information which a despatch was written on the morrow to contradict, while in itself conveying additional intelligence absolutely certain to be falsified soon afterwards. The Emperor of Germany had gone mad; Prince Maurice had been assassinated in the Hague, a fact which his correspondents, the States-General, might be supposed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... rather strong language on the part of a young lady, but was thought by those other young ladies at Castle Richmond to show the very essence of becoming young-ladyhood. They pronounced Clara to be perfect in feeling and in judgment, and Herbert could not find it in his heart to contradict them. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... current notions of Oriental peoples in antiquity. What is strange and anomalous is the fact that the Oriental dreamings thus expressed could have been supposed to represent the acme of scientific knowledge. Yet such a hold had these writings taken upon the Western world that not even a Galileo dared contradict them openly; and when the church fathers gravely declared the heliocentric theory necessarily false, because contradictory to Scripture, there were probably few people in Christendom whose mental attitude would permit them justly to appreciate the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Plotinus nor any of the great Teachers of the past believed in metempsychosis, as it has been described; all their disciples have affirmed if, and these affirmations, set over against a line of teaching which seems to contradict them, because it is incomplete and intended for the less intelligent portion of society at that time, ought to have reminded its opponents that there might be hidden reasons capable of explaining ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... lighter and more entertaining point of view. Again, as to the River Thames, one must really grant that a considerable amount of self-complacency and internal sunniness would result from the ability to contradict your friends as to the length in miles of some of its minor tributaries. In science, too, you are no Kepler or Linnaeus, and there is something satisfactory when pedants talk of orbits, planes, bulbs, or beetles, in being ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... did not contradict her at the time. But she thought that if there was any strength in faithful affection and earnest prayers, the peace of a useful life, spent, not in barren solitude, but in the fruitful garden of God's world, should be Christal's ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the Sadducees, and those called Pharisees. The Pharisees do not yield to luxury but despise that kind of life; and they follow the guidance of reason, and what that prescribes to them as good, they do. They also pay respect to those advanced in years nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced. While they believe that all things are done by predestination, they do not take away from a man the choice of acting as he deems proper, for they believe that it is God's will that an event be decided for good or evil both ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent |
