"Contradiction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... truth) motion number'd out his time And like an engine moved with wheel and weight, His principles being ceased, he ended straight. Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm, Too long vacation hasten'd on his term. Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd, Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd; "Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretch'd, "If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd, But vow, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... explained; 'there is no such thing as feeling: therefore, to speak of a non-existent thing as existent as a contradiction. Matter has no existence; nothing exists but mind; the mind cannot feel pain, it can only ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there is no saying with what clear and beneficent lustre might have shone that light of aspiration which during his turbid youth burned somewhat luridly, and veiled its radiance in the smoke of mere rebelliousness and contradiction. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... her lover's defeat, threw him a glance of intense contradiction, then lowered her eyes, for she felt her face ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... that his statue is still to be seen in front of the great church. He rejoiced, while living, in the name of Laurentius Castero; and, however much you may be surprised at the claims advanced in his favour, you are hereby strictly cautioned to offer no contradiction to the boastings of his overjoyed compatriots—they are prouder of his glory than of their beer. But his merits did not stop short at casting types. In addition to his enormous learning and profound information, he possessed an almost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... advantage of the statistical method. It establishes beyond all possibility of contradiction the thing you want to establish. But if you do not want to establish anything, if you merely want to find out something, statistics are no use at all. You are driven to other ways of getting at the truth, ways much less ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... if God has ever abrogated the law of the Sabbath? If he has it can easily be found. We undertake to say without fear of contradiction, he has not made any such record in the bible; but to the contrary, he calls it a perpetual covenant, a "sign between me and the children of Israel forever," for the reason that he rested on the seventh day. Exo. xxxi: 16, 17. Says ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates
... nobody, not even a genius, can be simultaneously vulgar and distinguished, or beautiful and ugly, or precise and vague, or tender and harsh. And common-sense will therefore tell you that to try to set up vital contradictions between matter and style is absurd. When there is a superficial contradiction, one of the two mutually-contradicting qualities is of far less importance than the other. If you refer literature to the standards of life, common-sense will at once decide which quality should count heaviest in your esteem. You will be in no ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... poverty and turn the fool into a man of sense. I hear thou governest with all discretion; and that, nevertheless, thou retainest the humility of the meanest creature. But I would observe to thee, Sancho, that it is often expedient and necessary, for the due support of authority, to act in contradiction to the humility of the heart. The personal adornments of one that is raised to a high situation must correspond with his present greatness, and not with his former lowliness. Let thy apparel, therefore, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... self-elected corporations, whatever might be their defects in other respects, care was taken to elect persons of wealth and respectability. In opposing the amendment, Lord John Russell, Sir J. C. Hobhouse, Mr. Blackburne, and other members, argued, that it was in contradiction to the spirit of the bill, not agreeable to the provisions of the original charters, incapable of being generally and fitly applied, and not productive of any practical benefit. It was lost by a majority of two hundred and sixty-seven against two hundred and four. On the same day Lord Stanley ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... house; but it was only within his own family circle, and to his most familiar friends, that he was wont to open his heart, and complain of his ill-fortune, at being the first childless father of his race—for so, in his contempt for the poor girls, whom he still, strange contradiction! loved fondly and affectionately, he was accustomed in his dark hours to style himself; as if forsooth an heir male were the only offspring worthy to be called the child of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... be shown immediately, this course of events seems to be in contradiction with the facts of savage society at the present day and with all probability. Apart from that however, how does Mr Morgan suppose his eugenic diathesis to be transmitted? It can hardly be maintained that this was the result of the different social conditions of the ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... always look well at a ball but are not especially appropriate (unless universally in fashion) on other occasions. A lady in a ball dress with nothing added to the head, looks a little like being hatless in the street. This sounds like a contradiction of the criticism of the vulgarian. But because a tiara is beautiful at a ball, or a spray of feathers, or a high comb, or another ornament, does not mean that all of these should be put on together and worn in a restaurant; which is just what the vulgarian would do. Whether, to wear a head-dress, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... an emotion of pity for myself of wild regret; of sorrow, Oh, infinite for a fate so desolate, a doom so dreary, so heart-sickening! You may laugh at the contradiction if you will, sir, but I felt that I could sacrifice my own life on the instant, to redeem another fellow-creature from such a place of horror, from an end so piteous. My soul and my vital spirit seemed in that desperate moment to be separating; while one in parting grieved over the deplorable ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman
... the study of words, would be to lay bare the secrets of religion and life—it is beyond human competence. Nevertheless a brief and diffident consideration of the matter may bring thus much comfort, that the seeming contradiction is no discredit cast on letters, but takes its origin rather from too narrow and pedantic a view of the scope ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... king-crabs, or the inductive process, or any other topic which cannot possibly affect you one atom. Then is the time to drop all these merely selfish interests, and to champion the cause of truth. Fall upon him in a fine glow of indignation, and bring your contradiction across his face—whack!—so that all the table may hear. Tell him, with his pardon, that the king-crab is no more a crab than you are a jelly-fish, or that Mill has been superseded these ten years. Ask: "How can you say ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... mediumship was the result of illness, it is strange that her recovery should have favoured the development and perfecting of this same mediumship. There appears to be a contradiction here. I am not competent regarding the question, but, on examining the facts, I can hardly believe that mediumship is a mere neurosis. After all, are there not famous men of science who declare that genius itself is only a neurosis? In their eyes the bandit ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... he owes me the Hint of his Ballad, or that I am obliged to his Friendship and Learning for Communications of a much more important Nature. — I am, Sir, your's etc. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.' ('St. James's Chronicle', July 23-5, 1767.) No contradiction of this statement appears to have been offered by Percy; but in re-editing his 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry' in 1775, shortly after Goldsmith's death, he affixed this note to 'The Friar of Orders Gray:— 'As the foregoing song has been thought to have suggested to our late ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... this quarrel arose as they sat at breakfast. The lady very innocently observed, she believed the tea was made with Thames water. The husband, in mere contradiction, insisted upon it that the tea-kettle was filled out of the ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... come to get something for the Colonel's breakfast," said I, pushing past the slave, through the open doorway. Swein Poulsson followed, and here I struck another contradiction in his strange nature. He helped me light the fire in the great stone chimney-place, and we soon had a pot of hominy on the crane, and turning on the spit a piece of buffalo steak which we found ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the contradiction between that liberty which they enjoyed and the slavery which existed around them, they did not see a means whereby the ideal that all men were created equal could become a practical reality. Unlike later generations, however, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... difficult to realize that Sir Charles is a young man of twenty-six, as it is to feel that his antithesis, the adorable Pepys of the "Diary," was of that precise age. Sir Charles might be borne with good-naturedly for a short time as an old gentleman who had become garrulous from want of contradiction, but in any other aspect he would be shunned conscientiously. Yet Richardson is not content with putting into his mouth lengthy discourses tending chiefly, though expressed with mock humility, to his own glorification; but he keeps all the other characters ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... Nokes. But he had no one with whom he could converse freely—none whom he had not been accustomed to treat as the mere ministers of his will— except his wife and his wife's sister; and now he was disjoined from them by their sympathy with Medlicot! He had chosen to manage every thing himself without contradiction and almost without counsel; but, like other such imperious masters, he now found that when trouble came the privilege of dictatorship brought with it an ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... the title of a proselytizing religion. The Brahmanic Scriptures have not a word of welcome for converts, quite the contrary; and as long as these Scriptures are recognized as the highest authority by the Hindus themselves, we have no right to ascribe to Brahmanism what is in direct contradiction with their teaching. The burning of widows was not enjoined in the Vedas, and hence, in order to gain a sanction for it, apassage in the Veda was falsified. No such necessity was ever felt with regard to gaining converts for the Brahmanic faith, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... seems a curious contradiction, at first glance, to place the return of Charles II at the beginning of modern England, as our historians are wont to do; for there was never a time when the progress of liberty, which history records, was more plainly turned backwards. The Puritan regime had been too severe; ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... only "cut off" from natural sources, as Ruskin says of Oriental design—the plaid is not only cut off from nature, and cut off from nature by the yard, for it is to be measured off in inorganic quantity; but it is even a kind of intentional contradiction of all natural or vital forms. And it is equally defiant of vital tone and of vital colour. Everywhere in nature tone is gradual, and between the fainting of a tone and the failing of a curve there is a charming analogy. But the tartan insists that its tone shall be ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... debasing of all the acts of the Bureau, in the eyes of those who love to term themselves "the South," was the fact that its officers and agents, first of all, allowed the colored man to be sworn in opposition to and in contradiction of the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... actual mood, which is really too vacant of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision, the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual insistence on what they call Duerer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his engravings, so many are there of which ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... lists, the Germans declare, to defend western ideals and western democracy. Yet Russian government is Prussian in its organization, and it is on the side of the ideal of western democracy that she is explicitly aligned. The contradiction is striking, and it is still more striking when we recall that in her armies are over a quarter of a million of Jews, and that in the other armies there are half as many more. For the Jews the war is more than civil; it is fratricide. ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... And by miracle I do not merely mean something new, strange, and not very easy of comprehension—I mean something which violates every canon of thought which in the palpable world we are accustomed to respect; something as alien to, and inconceivable by, us as contradiction in terms, the destructibility of force or matter, or the creation of something out of nothing. This, which when writ large maddens and kills, writ small is our meat and drink; it attends each minutest and most impalpable detail of the ceaseless fusion and diffusion in which change appears ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... explicit upon this point, obviously referring to a middle state of suffering and expiation, and thus refuting by anticipation the objections of those who claim that the primitive Christians prayed indeed for the dead, but knew nothing of Purgatory: a contradiction, it would seem, as prayer for the dead, to be available, supposes a place or state of probation. But, even where the mention made by the Fathers of prayer for the dead does not refer expressly to a place of purgation, it is no more a proof ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... felt sin, Christie; but I reckon He knew as well as any of us what it is to be wearied and troubled, when matters went not to His comfort. 'The contradiction of sinners' covereth ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... miss a single change of feature, and, swiftly understanding her mute contradiction, went on gaily: "Look! look! So, fairest of the fair, you refuse to acknowledge our glorious victory? That bears witness to a specially independent comprehension of things. But we, how are we to explain such a denial of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is done yet. The advice of the Admiralty proposed today to the States of Holland is in contradiction with itself. They annul in truth their famous resolution of the 18th of November, as to the restriction of convoy, (from which they wished then to exclude ship timber) but would suspend the adoption of the resolution as to the extension of these convoys, until the time when they would assign ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... teach the following five Tropes 164 of [Greek: epoche]: first, the one based upon contradiction; second, the regressus in infinitum; third, relation; fourth, the hypothetical; fifth, the circulus in probando. The one 165 based upon contradiction is the one from which we find, that in reference to the thing put before us for investigation, ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... what does 'thing' mean? Itself, that is, the 'ing', or inclosure, that which is contained within an outline, or circumscribed. So likewise to 'think' is to inclose, to determine, confine and define. To think an infinite is a contradiction in terms equal to a boundless bound. So in German 'Ding, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... has not the spirit to regain; the other seems only to regret that he had ever been king, and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of a voluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes; the effeminacy of the other is that of an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass his time in monkish indolence and contemplation.—Richard ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... lens or combination of lenses, which the eye looks directly into, being kept in line with it by means of a string and manoeuvred about near the ground (Plate III., p. 112). The idea of a telescope without a tube may appear a contradiction in terms; but it is not really so, for the tube adds nothing to the magnifying power of the instrument, and is, in fact, no more than a mere device for keeping the object-glass and eye-piece in a straight line, and for preventing the observer ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... grounds were very large; the gardens on either side extending from the first houses of Montreuil to the thatched cottages near the barrier, so that the owner could enjoy all the pleasures of solitude with the city almost at his gates. By an odd piece of contradiction, the whole front of the house itself, with the principal entrance, gave directly upon the street. Perhaps in time past it was a tolerably lonely road, and indeed this theory looks all the more probable when one comes to think of it; for not so very far away, on this same road, Louis Quinze built ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... which these reflections suggest is that the uncritical application of biological principles to social progress results in an insuperable contradiction. The factors which determine the survival of physical organism, if applied as rules for the furtherance of social progress, appear to conflict with all that social progress means. A sense of this conflict is no doubt responsible for the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the prerogative, that they must be often sent for to Court, that the king may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point: for if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... contradiction. There was no doubt about it, for she was perfectly truthful. But she might be mistaken; she ought to make quite sure. This suggestion, too, shocked him; but he agreed that she should come and talk things over with ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... and criticism. Mistakes will be made and mischief done, but in the long run the effect of a keen competition, and an advancing public taste will tell. I don't hesitate to assert, without fear of contradiction, that critical art has improved rapidly during the last twenty years in this country, where a man is free to start a critical review, and to write about anybody, or anything, and in any manner, provided he keeps within ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... melodies in which he sought to improvise his warm affection. The absurdity of the proceeding was manifest, but it needed yet another point of emphasis. There was a grand wedding in Venice in 1595, at which the music consisted of madrigals, all in slow time and minor key. The contradiction between the doleful music and the festive occasion was too plain to be ignored, and led, presently, to the invention of a totally different style of song of which later there ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... eternal, immutable, and independent of all attributes. The affirmance of attributes with respect to the Soul directly leads to the inference of its destructibility, and hence the assertion of its permanency or indestructibility under such conditions is a contradiction in terms, according to what is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... towards proving that other organs and other seemingly less explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift deposits, prove design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations to use in animals and vegetables do not a fortiori ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... upright, and that the delicate ornamentation, of which some traces survive, would never have been lavished on marble doomed to gradual destruction. No general rule can be laid down, but undoubtedly most of these slabs were meant to be recumbent. There are few cases where some contradiction of emplacement with pose cannot be detected. But two examples may be noted where the slabs were clearly intended to be placed in walls. An unnamed bishop at Bologna lies down, while at either end of the slab an angel stands, at right angles to the recumbent ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... factor in the durability of the commutator. Besides this, the commutator is sustained by supports carried in flanges upon the shaft, which flanges, as an additional safeguard, are coated all over with hard rubber, one of the finest known insulators. It may be stated, without fear of contradiction, that no other commutator made is so thoroughly insulated and protected. The three commutator segments virtually constitute a single copper ring, mounted in free air, and cut into three equal pieces by slots across ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... for his Church; as indeed there was, though not according to their construction. For 4thly, contrary to their expectation, that railing spirit did not only not further, but extremely disgrace and prejudice their cause, when it was once perceived from how low degrees of contradiction, at first, to what outrage of contumely and slander, they were at length proceeded; and were ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... part that she thought the meeting accidental; and though in her heart she had a fear of the man and knew how bitter an enemy he was of Michel's, his urbane power, his skilful diplomacy of courtesy had its way. These complicated lives, instinct with contradiction, have the interest of forbidden knowledge. The dark experiences of life leave their mark and give such natures that touch of mystery which allures even those who have high instincts and true feelings, as one peeps over a hidden depth and wonders ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this article, the Catholic Primate contradicted Mr. O'Connell's assertion respecting the rescript, and laid rescript and contradiction before the public. "I was surprised and sorry," he writes, "to find that you had ventured to assert that a letter sent to me some time past from the Propaganda was not a canonical document." He adds that he laid the document before the assembled prelates, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten punctually; muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will you come?" ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... members uttering very unguarded opinions, and reflecting injuriously upon the navy itself, as though upon it depended having more or fewer ships." The Minister of Marine, replying in the Cortes, paraphrased as follows, without contradiction, the words of this critic, which voiced, as it would appear, a popular clamor: "You ask, 'Why, after reaching Santiago, has the squadron not gone out, and why does it not now go out?' Why do four ships not go out to fight twenty? You ask again: 'If it does not go out, if it does not ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... functions of the consul, whose institution is for those two objects only, nor within the powers of a commissioner, authorized to treat and conclude a convention, solely for regulating the powers, privileges, and duties of consuls. The arrest and detention of passengers, moreover, would often be in contradiction to our bills of rights, which, being fundamental, cannot be obstructed in their operation by any law or ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not that we may plunge into the crucial controversy of a science that is not identical with ours, but in order to make my drift clear by the defining aid of express contradiction. No political dogma is as serviceable to my purpose here as the historian's maxim to do the best he can for the other side, and to avoid pertinacity or emphasis on his own. Like the economic precept Laissez-faire[38] which the eighteenth ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... no contradiction between romanticism and Heimatkunst; for it was romanticism that in its time aroused the Germans to a real sense of what their native heath meant for them; neither is Heimatkunst opposed to naturalism. In both Heimatkunst and naturalism nature is the watchword, but with ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... elated by his success; and early in 1752 he wrote to the Governor and Intendant: "It is a great miracle that, in spite of envy, contradiction, and opposition from nearly all the Indian villages, I have formed in less than three years one of the most flourishing missions in Canada. I find myself in a position to extend the empire of my good masters, Jesus Christ and the King, even to the extremities of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... times a lofty idea of his own dignity as an artist, and never would stoop either to flatter a patron or to conciliate a rival. Julius II., though now seventy-four, was as impatient of contradiction as fiery in temper, as full of magnificent and ambitious projects as if he had been in the prime of life; in his service was the famous architect, Bramante, who beheld with jealousy and alarm the increasing fame of Michael Angelo, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... talking seriously at intervals, for the periodic workings of her conscience were ever open to view. But whatever special seriousness of purpose was now perturbing her, this matter-of-fact return to the roof they shared seemed to give it contradiction,—did not at least suggest that any immediate breach in their present relations was to ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... are no dreams we shall try to show gradually, in detail, and as clearly as possible, we shall call attention particularly to a contradiction in which the moderns are often involved. They call the ancients their teachers, they acknowledge in their works an unattainable excellence, yet they depart both in theory and practice far from the maxims which the ancients continually observed. In starting from ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... subtleties, we may perhaps suggest a cause for this apparent contradiction. But the more we admire the wise dispositions of the author of nature, in the laws he has prescribed to the industry of animals, the greater reserve is necessary in admitting any theory adverse to this beautiful system, and the ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... and his partisans were at least as resourceful as their opponents. The Cretan had never been able to bear contradiction. If his greatness had created him {45} many enemies, his pettiness had created him more. His tone of prophetic and impeccable omniscience was vexatious at all times, but particularly galling at this agitated period. It was now his constant cry that the situation called ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... On the other hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high intellectual distinction occurs the statement: "I affirm that, of all sexual acts, fellatio is most an affair of imagination and sympathy." It must be pointed out that there is no contradiction in these two statements, and that each is justified, according as we take the point of view of the ordinary onlooker or of the impassioned lover eager to give a final proof of his or her devotion. It must be added that from a scientific point of view we are not ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... arch expression on her face just bordering on a mocking smile, will say, "What a sophisticated child to be sure!" He would be quite wrong unless we can say that the female child is born sophisticated, which sounds rather like a contradiction in terms. That appearance of sophistication, common in little girls even in a remote rustic village hidden away among the Wiltshire downs, is implicit in, and a quality of the child's mind—the female ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... affairs any longer, but were plainly lords of the nation, and had thrust him out of his authority; that this was the case when Herod slew so many men without his giving him any command to do it, either by word of mouth, or by his letter, and this in contradiction to the law of the Jews; who therefore, in case he be not a king, but a private man, still ought to come to his trial, and answer it to him, and to the laws of his country, which do not permit any one to be killed till he ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... bring sad news to your Majesty. There can be no doubt that the prince has completely lost his senses. He declares that he saw a lady sleeping on his couch last night, and the state you see me in proves how violent contradiction makes him." He then gave a minute account of all the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... rattled plenty To suffice for mornings twenty; And I must not toss you longer On this torrent waxing stronger. Other things, past contradiction, Here would prove I spoke no fiction, Did I lead them up, choragic, To reveal their nature magic. There is that machine, glass-masked, With continual questions tasked, Ticking with untiring rock: It is called an eight-day clock. But to me the thing appears ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... say that there are no fatal accidents except those from a spin, but, like all general statements, that is open to contradiction. A nose-high side-slip may be fatal, but generally the pilot pulls himself out of it. There may have been men killed in landing accidents, but one seldom hears of them. Men have been killed trying to loop off the ground, and Vernon Castle was killed doing an Immelmann turn at fifty feet to avoid ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... it were moral, still more than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness and righteousness. His intellect spurned the subtleties by which men attempt to blind themselves to this open contradiction. The Sabaean, or Manichaean theory of a Good and an Evil Principle, struggling against each other for the government of the universe, he would not have equally condemned; and I have heard him express surprise, that no one ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Phillips argued that the time was ripe for striking the word "white" out of the New York constitution, at its coming convention, but not for striking out "male." Mr. Tilton supported him, in direct contradiction to all he had so warmly advocated only a few weeks before, and said what the women should do was to canvass the State with speeches and petitions for the enfranchisement of the negro, leaving that of the women to come afterward, presumably ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... but that they might avail themselves of every engine in their favor, they united fraud to force, and set up an idol which they called Divine Right, and which, in imitation of the Pope, who affects to be spiritual and temporal, and in contradiction to the Founder of the Christian religion, twisted itself afterwards into an idol of another shape, called Church and State. The key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury became quartered on one another, and the wondering ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Point, making it necessary to transmit messages a part of the way by boat. It took from twenty-four to thirty-six hours to get dispatches through and return answers would be received showing a different state of facts from those on which they were based, causing confusion and apparent contradiction of orders that must have considerably embarrassed those who had to execute them, and rendered operations against the enemy less effective than they otherwise would have been. To remedy this evil, it was evident to my mind that some person should have the supreme command of all the forces ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... superlinita lucida fit et decora, ac omnino durabilis."—"Every picture smeared over with this gluten becomes lucid and beautiful, and altogether durable." It might be thought almost impossible to mistranslate this. But the varnishing over, or smearing over, being a direct contradiction to the mixing with the pigments, with the view of rendering it according to the writer's prejudice, the passage is thus translated—"Pictures prepared with this varnish are brilliant, and remain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... felt towards the Court began to abate as soon as the Court was manifestly unable to offer any resistance. The panic which Godfrey's death had excited gradually subsided. Every day brought to light some new falsehood or contradiction in the stories of Oates and Bedloe. The people were glutted with the blood of Papists, as they had, twenty years before, been glutted with the blood of regicides. When the first sufferers in the plot were brought to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... savage, who fears to send the praying murderer to heaven. There is no solution of these anomalies: the very state of Shakspere's consciousness, working in his subjective way on the old material, made inevitable a moral anachronism and contradiction, analogous in its kind to the narrative anachronisms of his historical plays. But none the less, this tragedy, the first of the great group which above all his other work make him immortal, remains perpetually ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... might appear to resemble it, but which would, in fact, be essentially different; I mean where the exercise of a concurrent jurisdiction might be productive of occasional interferences in the POLICY of any branch of administration, but would not imply any direct contradiction or repugnancy in point of constitutional authority. These three cases of exclusive jurisdiction in the federal government may be exemplified by the following instances: The last clause but one in the eighth section of the first article provides ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... really cannot justify it to my conscience to carry about my person any such loose and reckless document as a blank check. There's a total disregard of the first claims of prudence and economy implied in this small slip of paper which is nothing less than a flat contradiction of the principles that have governed my whole life. I can't submit to flat ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... vehicle for industriously circulating said maniac calumny. Why did not this base Plebeian, anterior to his giving publicity to the tartaric nausea that rankled at his gloomy heart, forward the corroding philippic, and bid defiance to my contradiction? No, no; he knew full well that with his scanty stock of English ammunition scattered over the sterile floor of his literary magazine, he could not have the effrontery, impudence, or presumption to enter the list of philosophical and scientific disputation with one who has traversed ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... in Provence and he died in Paris; he began as a poet and he ended as a veritist; and in each case there was logical evolution and not contradiction. The Parisian did not cease to be a Provencal; and the novelist was a lyrist still. Poet though he was, he had an intense liking for the actual, the visible, the tangible. He so hungered after truth that he was ready ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... every affliction should be attributed to the anger of some offended god, and restoration to health most certainly procured by conciliating his power. So far, then, as such interests were concerned, any contradiction of those doctrines, any substitution of the material for the supernatural, must needs have met with reprehension. Yet such opposition seems in no respect to have weighed with this great physician, who developed his theory and pursued his practice without giving himself any concern ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... at London in 1608. Among Smith's other books, the most important is perhaps his General History of Virginia (London, 1624), a compilation of various narratives by different hands, but passing under his name. Smith was a man of a restless and daring spirit, full of resource, impatient of contradiction, and of a somewhat vainglorious nature, with an appetite for the marvelous and a disposition to draw the long bow. He had seen service in many parts of the world, and his wonderful adventures lost nothing in the telling. It was alleged against him that the evidence of his prowess ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... had I room to explain it, an immense furtherance. [Preuss, iii. 75; OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 84.] Friedrich, many tell us, was as great in Peace as in War: and truly, in the economic and material provinces, my own impression, gathered painfully in darkness, and contradiction of the Dismal-Science Doctors, is much to that effect. A first-rate Husbandman (as his Father had been); who not only defended his Nation, but made it rich beyond what seemed possible; and diligently sowed annuals into it, and perennials which ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that as a society we cannot be too careful how we minimise the fact itself. To us, as a society, it is the fact itself that matters, and not what Mrs. Coombe said about it. That, to a certain extent, may be her own affair. But I hold, and I say it without fear of successful contradiction, that no member of a community can disregard the Sabbath in a public way without affecting the community at large. That is why I feel justified in criticising Mrs. Coombe's behaviour. And I hope," here she raised a piercing eye and let it range triumphantly over ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... no contradiction. It is true that your daughter might represent to you that marriage is a more serious affair than people are apt to believe; that the happiness or misery of a whole life depends on it, and that an engagement which is to last till death ought not to be ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... to the conclusion that she was in love with my uncle; and perhaps the sense that he was indifferent to her save after a brotherly fashion, combined with the fear of betraying herself and the consciousness of her unattractive appearance, to produce the contradiction between her looks ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... labor—benevolence—is so out of their line of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. May we have grace to follow ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... dowager in a tone, admitting of no contradiction; "the women who live alone from choice are cold and selfish; or have hurts to hide and are heart-sick of a world in which their illusions have been destroyed; or else they have never known companionship, and so never feel the lack of it. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... accentuated. Her face, with its tightly, almost rigidly closed lips, would have been quite in keeping with the impression of conscious calm which her entire presence suggested, had it not been that when she raised her eyes a strange contradiction to this idea was afforded. They were large gray eyes, unusually bright and rather startling in effect, for they seemed the only live thing about her. Gleaming from her still, set face, there was something almost ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... singular contradiction of terms, brother Ned gave Tim Linkinwater a slap on the back, which made him look, for the moment, almost as apoplectic as the butler: and tossed off the contents of his glass in ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the light and power of Christ is indispensably necessary for all true ministry, and that this holy influence is not at our command, or to be procured by study, but is the free gift of God to chosen and devoted servants. Hence arises our testimony against preaching for hire, in contradiction to Christ's positive command, 'Freely ye have received, freely give;' and hence our conscientious refusal to support such ministry ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... perverse opening of arenas for the humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, even of those titled members of the "black sheep" family—bankrupt peers! As we have seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation have been considerately furnished by the same objector in this same volume, as in his praises of the governor ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... ploughshare breaks the reluctant clod. Hold not Thy hand till the work be fully accomplished, and the earth be ready for the sowing which makes for harvest. Give me back the beloved of my youth, the beloved of my life, if only for an hour. Teach me to submit. Show me, beyond all dread of contradiction that vows, truly made, hold good even in that mysterious world beyond the grave. Show me that though the body—dear home and vehicle of love—may die, yet love in its essence remains everlastingly ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the greatest and most useful Minister that ever filled the same situations in England, the acts and registers of the Admiralty proving this beyond contradiction. The principal rules and establishments in present use in these offices are well known to have been of his introducing, and most of the officers serving therein since the Restoration, of his bringing- up. He was a most studious promoter and strenuous ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... himself near the new-found shrine, and mechanically took up a book, like one who watches by a sick-bed. But his eyes gathered no thoughts from the page before him. His intellect had been stunned by the bold contradiction, to its face, of all its experience, and now lay passive, without assertion, or speculation, or even conscious astonishment; while his imagination sent one wild dream of blessedness after another coursing through his soul. How long he sat he knew not; but at length ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... sitting-room for the first time, there is one feature in the arrangement of the furniture that impresses itself upon him at once, and it may be stated without fear of serious contradiction that this same peculiar feature in its arrangement will continue to face him, as he enters different homes, about as certainly as he ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... imagine, that early sufferings, that a number of small inconveniences, habitual severity of reproof, and frequent contradiction and disappointment, inure children to pain, and consequently improve their temper. Early sufferings, which are necessary and inevitable, may improve children in fortitude; but the contradictions and disappointments, which arise ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... his coffee vigorously and puffed at his cigar until it glowed red again. When he resumed he spoke in brief decisive sentences as though forbidding question or contradiction until he ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... our canes and discussing philosophy. Rare jargon we made of it; talking of cosmothetie idealism or hypothetical dualism, of noetic and dianoetic principles, of hylozoism and hypostasis, and demonstrating the most undemonstrable propositions by appeals to the law of contradiction or of excluded middle. I fancied then that I was growing very learned—wondered whether Beulah here would be able to keep up with me, and really thought I understood what ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... sad, that in this republic of redskins, and so-called savages, should exist the same political contradiction as among some other republican communities, having the name of civilised. For although themselves individually free, the Tovas Indians do not believe in the doctrine that all men should be so; or, at all events, they do not act up to it. Instead, their practice is the very opposite, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... there is a chivalric deference to women far exceeding that usually paid to the sex at the North, and her appearance, temperament, and position evoked that element to the utmost. He knows little of human nature who cannot guess the result. Yet, by a common contradiction, the one among her many suitors who won such love as she could give was a Northern man as proud as herself. He stood alone in his manner of approach, made himself the object of her thoughts by piquing her pride, and met her varying moods by a quiet, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation; as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the nature of the subject, they oppress, with the same insuperable weight, the philosophic and the theological disputant; but we may observe two essential and peculiar circumstances, which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Dartmouth College, to recite badly; to make a poor recitation. From the substantive bull, a blunder or contradiction, or from the use of the word as a ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... The contradiction started to give him a headache. He hurried from the scanning room, overtaxed eyes blinking at the ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... palsied beldame Angela—these and a thousand quaintnesses of phrase moved him to a gush of glorious mirth. It was not that he did not appreciate the poet, but the unearthly strangeness of it all, the delicate contradiction of laws and behaviours known to freshmen, tickled his keen wits and emotions until they brimmed into puzzled laughter. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... practically all Northerners were—his weakening two years later could not point to an unwillingness to do injustice, but only to the operation of fear or fatigue as deterrents from action believed to be just. Moreover, the ordinary "Copperhead" position was so plainly in contradiction of known facts that it must be pronounced either imbecile or dishonest. If these men had urged the acceptance of disunion as an accomplished fact, a case might be made out for them. But they generally professed the strongest desire to restore the Union, ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... cannel-coal, and a salad of gun-cotton, with a mayonnaise dressing of alcohol and a pinch of powder, topped off with a demi-tasse of benzine and a box of matches to keep the fires of his spirit going, is one of the most moving things I have ever read, and yet it may be said without fear of contradiction that until this guide-book was prepared very few of the Stygian tourists have imagined that there was such a sight to be seen. I have gone carefully over Dante, Virgil, and the works of Andrew Lang, and have found no reference whatsoever in the pages of any of these talented persons to this marvellous ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... mood which was not amiable. And Muller knew also the cause of the mood. It was his own last remark, the words he addressed to Bormann. Muller himself recognised the fact that this remark was out of place, that it was almost an impertinence, because it was in direct contradiction to a statement made a few moments before by his superior officer. Also he realised that his remark had been quite unnecessary, because it was a matter of indifference to the young man, who was only obeying his employer's orders in reporting what he had seen, whether his report ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... in England to confute this report; and by accounts lately received, it appeared that no such public collection had ever been made; at Mr. Johnson's request, therefore, the governor published a contradiction of the above report in the general orders of the settlement. The convicts had hitherto imagined that they had a right to the articles which had from time to time been distributed among them; but Mr. Johnson now thought it necessary that they ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... ruler. And it is seriously true to say of a woman, in education and domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat appears to be necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I confidently appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights The reason is very simple: that something female is endangered much ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... naturally impatient, and piqued a little at the princess's contradiction, as soon as he saw Mesrour, "Vile slave," said he, "is this a time to laugh? Why do not you tell me which is dead, the husband or ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... then no other master from whom he received instructions than Jesus Christ; nevertheless, an author quoted by Wading, assures us that he sometimes consulted the Bishop of Assisi. We may here say, in order that there may be no seeming contradiction between the two, that he received instructions from Jesus Christ only because he was inspired by Him, but that he communicated with the bishop on the points on which he had been inspired; and we ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... of no use to oppose her. For my part, I think her papa has acted wisely in permitting the engagement. Contradiction would embellish her hero; while, left to him, she will soon find him out. I do not concern myself, for Miss Martindale can get over a little ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... contradiction to what has been said by others about Chopin's physical condition, states that when the latter came on the platform, he walked upright and without feebleness; his face, though pale, did not seem greatly altered; and he played as he had always played. But M. Comettant was ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... rising of 1381, and the heresy of Wyclif, that later on will give birth to the Cavaliers and Puritans, is contained in essence in Langland's work; we divine, we foresee her. Chaucer's book is, undoubtedly, not in contradiction to that England, but it screens and allows her to be forgotten. In their anger Chaucer's people exchange blows on the highway; Langland's crowds in their anger sack the palace of the Savoy, and take the Tower ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... people who were at the livery-stable were too seductive, I suppose—he denies he ever did the horse injustice—would rather have wanted his own dinner, he says. In this I believe him, as Roan Robin's ribs and coat show no marks of contradiction. However, as he will meet with no saints in the inns we frequent, and as oats are sometimes as speedily converted into ale as John Barleycorn himself, I shall keep a look-out after Master Sam. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... impossible to see it; and what Joseph T. Maston had seen, or thought he saw, could not have been the projectile of the Columbiad. Second, errors of theory on the fate in store for the said projectile; for in making it a satellite of the moon, it was putting it in direct contradiction of all mechanical laws. ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... this singular contradiction between the actions of men alike animated by a strong and disinterested desire to promote the welfare of their ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... forthcoming to people whom he was not likely to see again. But he was particularly pleased to find himself next to the ship's doctor, Dr. Heinrich Stahl, for the man both attracted and antagonized him, and they had crossed swords pleasantly on more voyages than one. There was a fundamental contradiction in his character due—O'Malley divined—to the fact that his experiences did not tally as he wished them to do with his beliefs, or vice versa. Affecting to believe in nothing, he occasionally dropped remarks ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... society into which she was born had not smiled on propositions of marriage from a sickly man to a girl less than half his own age—on modes of education which make a woman's knowledge another name for motley ignorance—on rules of conduct which are in flat contradiction with its own loudly asserted beliefs. While this is the social air in which mortals begin to breathe, there will be collisions such as those in Dorothea's life, where great feelings take the aspect of error, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... write to the minister of marine, protesting against it and demanding a new trial. The minister, acknowledging his protest, replied in the name of the king. After commenting upon the pamphlets that had been so widely issued, and the entire contradiction of their statements by the testimony before the Court, he concluded with ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... manuscript play, but denied that he had mentioned Earl Sheerwit's name. When I informed him of the circumstances of the affair, he said, he had no engagement with any author; that he would read my tragedy forthwith; and did not believe he should venture to reject it in contradiction to his lordship's opinion, for which he had the utmost veneration, but put it into rehearsal without loss of time. I was so much intoxicated with this encouragement, that I overlooked the mysterious conduct of Mr. Marmozet, and attended the manager at the time appointed, when, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... first place, it purports to be signed and sealed by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, (though the Earl at that time was in Northumberland,) Henry Percy, his first-born son, and Thomas Earl of Worcester, styling themselves Procurators and Protectors of the kingdom. Should this apparent contradiction be thought to be reconciled with the truth by what Hardyng mentions, that the document was made by good advice (p. 161) of the Archbishop of York, and divers other holy men and lords; it must be answered that it could not have been drawn up for the purpose of being used whenever an opportunity ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... given the Reader, of this seeming contradiction, to offer that to the World which I dislike myself: and, in all things, I have no greater an ambition than to be believed [to be] a Person, that would rather be unkind to ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... felt he was the friend I wanted. We soon became intimate. Our tastes were not the same, and we constantly disputed. Both opinionated, we never could agree about anything. Nevertheless we could not separate; and, notwithstanding our reciprocal and incessant contradiction, we neither of us wished the other to be ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... contradiction in the picture of Chesterton the philosopher pondering on the Logos and Chesterton the child offering trinkets to Our Lady, we may remember the Eternal Wisdom "playing in the world, playing before God always" whose delight is to be with ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... satisfied either him or the students. For himself he was clear that the fault lay in the system, which could lead only to inertia. Such little knowledge of himself as he possessed warranted him in affirming that his mind required conflict, competition, contradiction even more than that of the student. He too wanted a rank-list to set his name upon. His reform of the system would have begun in the lecture-room at his own desk. He would have seated a rival assistant professor opposite him, whose business should be strictly limited to expressing ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... term of the ultimatum would render nugatory the proposals made by the Austro-Hungarian Government to the powers, and would be in contradiction to the very bases of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... government of the United States to the arming of French vessels must be an attempt on the rights of man, upon which repose the independence and laws of the United States; a violation of the ties which unite France and America; and even a manifest contradiction of the system of neutrality of the president; for, in fact, if our merchant-vessels or others are not allowed to arm themselves, when the French alone are resisting the league of all the tyrants against the liberty of the people, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Malone said. "A static explosion is a contradiction in terms. If something is static, it doesn't move— whoever heard ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... lilies. Thus saith also St. Peter, I. Peter iv, "Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind." [1 Pet. 4:1] And St. Paul, Hebrews xii, "Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... he spoke with great pride. The young Onondaga did not believe his religion resembled the white man's but that the white man's resembled his. Robert respected him though, and knowing the reasons for his pride, said nothing in contradiction. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... you will see, was in open contradiction of my former statements that I had seen an unknown party, thus attired, driving away through the upper gateway just as I entered by the lower. But it was a contradiction which while noted by Mr. Moffat, failed to injure me with the jury, and much less with ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the flat contradiction given to Buckhurst's proceedings in the matter of peace, that statement could scarcely deceive any one who had seen her Majesty's letters and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... suggestions from Blake, cross-questioned the witness searchingly, ever more searchingly, pursued him in and out, in and out, till at length, snap!—Katherine's heart stood still, and the crowd leaned forward breathless—snap, and he had caught the engineer in a contradiction! ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... good deal nettled at the minister's attitude, for, instead of seconding his propositions, Dr. Morrison had sat with a faraway, indifferent look, as if the pending discussion was entirely out of his range of interest. John could have borne contradiction better. An argument would have gratified him. But to have the speech and statistics which he had so carefully prepared fall on the minister's ear without provoking any response was a great trial ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... one and many originated in the restless dialectic of Zeno, who sought to prove the absolute existence of the one by showing the contradictions that are involved in admitting the existence of the many (compare Parm.). Zeno illustrated the contradiction by well-known examples taken from outward objects. But Socrates seems to intimate that the time had arrived for discarding these hackneyed illustrations; such difficulties had long been solved by common sense ('solvitur ambulando'); the fact of the co-existence of opposites ...
— Philebus • Plato
... it, set it down to be a trick of rumour such as we are well used to in the islands. But others were not so sure. Others considered that the rumour (even if unfounded) was of an ill example, might bear deplorable fruit, and, from all points of view of morality and policy, required a public contradiction. Eleven of these last entered accordingly into the annexed correspondence with the President. It will be seen in the crevice of what quibble that gentleman sought refuge and sits inexpugnable. In a question affecting his humanity, his honour, and the wellbeing of the kingdom which he serves, he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mr Ponsonby, stopping, and turning to his nephew, after a rapid walk up and down the room with his hands behind him under his coat, so as to allow the tails to drop their perpendicular about three inches clear of his body, 'I may say, without contradiction, be the finest property in the country—five ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... contradiction, he had expected his mother to oppose his desire of returning home, and he was slightly piqued to find that so far from opposing him, she seemed to fall into the idea as though it were the ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... usual progress of pretty women, particularly coquettish women; she passed from caprice to contradiction;—the gallant had undergone the caprice, the courtier must bend beneath the contradictory humor. Buckingham bowed, but ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and that it would be in vain to urge any thing in contradiction to an inclination she found she was resolved to indulge; but she secretly trembled for the consequence, the count having said many amorous things to herself before he pretended any passion for Melanthe; and tho' he had of late desisted on finding ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... were thrown in mainly for the edification of the Court, but Queen Selina had almost brought herself to believe them, and, in any case, none of her own family was at hand just then, so she was safe from contradiction. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... "Insolent beggar! contradiction always confirms my half-formed resolutions. Years ago I swore to possess that woman, and I will do it, if it be only to keep my oath and humble her insolence. She is very handsome still; she ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... continuing and carrying out their thought. Otherwise, with the purest moral intentions, they will still be drawn down again by their understanding, and their whole being will remain a continued and insoluble contradiction. For such, that philosophy, which I now first entirely understand, is the power by which Psyche first strips off her chrysalis, unfolds the wings on which she then hovers above herself, and casts one glance on the slough she has dropped, thenceforth ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... toward emancipation. And they think themselves able to give unanswerable reasons for the bitterness with which they note everything which is expressed by the word 'abolitionism.' They assume it for a fact, which admits no contradiction, that the natural increase of the negro race in this country is more rapid than that of the white man. So far as my observation extends, the great majority of the people believe this with an undoubting faith. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and theistic evolution, as the latter is subject to the fundamental objections urged against evolution in general, and is, like atheistic evolution, without a single fact to support it and in direct contradiction of all that is known of the laws in operation now, and as far back as knowledge penetrates. Moreover, so-called "theistic" evolution is universally approved by infidels and skeptics and is used by them as a favorite means of assault on ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... closing his eyes and giving his head a most vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis, a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt, a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present instance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression, our ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... very pertinent question (seeing the force of this), whether she had transactions with the prisoner after this alleged stealing. You will remember for yourselves, gentlemen, and I point to it without fear of contradiction, that at first she stated the ear-rings were taken on the 19th of October, but, seeing, with a woman's keen perception, the fatal error she had made in stating that admission, seeing that you, as common-sense men, would have ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... our own personal property. There is something inconsistent, isn't there, in educating a girl in high thinking and fine ideals, if she is willing to live in a room that for uncleanliness many a woman in some crowded quarter of a city would consider a disgrace? Such contradiction in mind and surrounding is out of harmony with all one's ideal ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... Massa Nadgel," said the negro, the edge of whose flat contradiction was taken off by the extreme ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... told you, Meno, just now that you were a rogue, and now you ask whether I can teach you, when I am saying that there is no teaching, but only recollection; and thus you imagine that you will involve me in a contradiction. ...
— Meno • Plato
... and joys of the world, so that I may hear and have altogether the message of salvation sent by Christ." You must hold fast to it and know that it alone gives eternal peace and joy; that it must receive your faith in spite of all apparent contradiction; that you must not be governed by your reason or your feelings, but must regard that as divine, unchangeable and eternal truth which God has spoken and commands to be proclaimed. Such is Paul's exhortation addressed primarily to the Jews to accept this message ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... more barbarous or unnatural than to ask a woman to sacrifice the man she loves to the man she does not love? Religious beliefs may be in contradiction with one another, but they all agree upon the same ethics, that marriage is based upon love. What then is matrimony? It is either something inviolable and essentially holy when resting upon such a basis, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... for me to give a formal contradiction to the silly fiction, which is assiduously circulated by the fanatics who not only ought to know, but do know, that their assertions are untrue, that I have advocated the introduction of that experimental discipline which is absolutely ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the face of the man who was the possessor of twenty million dollars. He was a tall, spare man, with a fringe of reddish-brown hair encircling a bald spot. His blue eyes, fixed just now in a steady gaze upon a row of ponderous law books across the room, were friendly and benevolent in direct contradiction to the bulldog, never-let-go fighting qualities of the square jaw below ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... any broad human basis is to destroy the caste spirit, and this the club has done for women more than any other influence that as yet has come into existence. A club that is narrowed to a clique, a class, or a single object, is a contradiction in terms. It may be a society, or a congregation of societies, but it is not a club. The essence of a club is its many-sided character, its freedom in gathering together and expressing all shades of difference, its ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... her and grinned. She was cute as a pixie, and there were no two ways about that. He wondered for a moment what kind of a wife she'd make. And then shuddered inwardly. Life would be one big contradiction of anything he'd managed to get out ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... or took slaves from them. Slaves were taken from Portuguese alone. I never hunted the Ajawa, or took the part of Manganja against Ajawa. In this I believe every member of the Mission will support my assertion." Livingstone declined to write a contradiction to the public prints, because he knew the harm that would be done by a charge against a clergyman. In this he showed the same magnanimity and high Christian self-denial which he had shown when he left Mabotsa. It was only when the Portuguese claimed the benefit of Rowley's testimony ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... but they were forbidden to work for or among the peasants. The adventure was not ended when this story was told. Whether the students were satisfied with the permission to work I do not know. Probably not; their fellow-disciple would not have scorned them as the peasants did, and contradiction, that spice of life to enthusiastic worshipers of impracticable ideas, would have been lacking. In my opinion, the authorities committed an error in judgment. They should have shown more faith in the peasants, the toil, and the girls' unhardened frames. All three elements combined ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... internal evidence in this essay which points so infallibly to Nietzsche's real but still subconscious opinion of his hero, may even be content to regard his later attitude as the result of a complete volte-face, and at any rate a flat contradiction of the one revealed in this paper. Let us, however, examine the internal evidence we speak of, and let us also discuss the purpose and spirit of ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... an astonishing state of things then appears! Self-development involves a kind of contradiction in terms. How can I build if at present there is no I? Why should I build if at present there is an I? Whichever alternative we take, we fall into what looks like absurdity. Yet on that absurdity personal life is based. ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... the statement that Germany has a highly trained army she has not used for nearly half a century and that her people are so obsessed with admiration for it that they longed to test it on their neighbours, is to accept as an explanation a stultifying contradiction. It is of course much easier to put the blame on the Kaiser. This line of thought is highly popular: it accords, too, with a fine ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement |
