"Controversial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strong interest in anything that interested me at all, and as religion had a supreme interest for me I read all about the Protestant controversy with Rome under Mr. Bardsley's guidance, in books of controversial theology recommended by him. My guardian, with her usual good sense, did not quite approve of this controversial spirit; she was content to be a good Christian in her own way and let the poor Roman Catholics alone, but I was too ardent in what seemed to me the cause of truth to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... for his people and for his "body" was a special love; and his knowledge of the Secession, through all its many divisions and unions,—his knowledge, not only of its public history, with its immense controversial and occasional literature, but of the lives and peculiarities of its ministers,—was of the most minute and curious kind. He loved all mankind, and specially such as were of "the household of faith;" and he longed for the time when, as there was one Shepherd, there ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... choose one of more strenuous temper—Diogenes, Antisthenes, Crates, or yourself, Chrysippus. It is no time now for beauty or literary skill; controversial and forensic resource is what we want. This ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... subject of distaste at best—more likely revulsion—to the vast majority of the reading public? Perhaps the nature of the novel itself led him to consider publishing it anonymously, although we know he was not averse to controversial subjects. In his first book, The Macdermots of Ballycloran, which he thought had the best plot of all his novels, the principal female character is seduced by a scoundrel and dies giving birth to ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... either the saviour or the curse of society—he wasn't clear which: wouldn't commit himself until he'd read your forthcoming treatise on Thirst, Its Cause and Cure. He added that you were mistaken if you thought the topic non-controversial."] ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... flogged and degraded from the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... Keble's; but Keble, Rose, and Palmer, represented distinct parties, or at least tempers, in the Establishment. Mr. Palmer had many conditions of authority and influence. He was the only really learned man among us. He understood theology as a science; he was practised in the scholastic mode of controversial writing; and I believe, was as well acquainted, as he was dissatisfied, with the Catholic schools. He was as decided in his religious views, as he was cautious and even subtle in their expression, and gentle in their enforcement. But ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... like the present, it is desirable to avoid all controversial remarks; but I hope to be excused in offering a few words in regard to what has been considered a serious ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... nation. The Capitalists praise competition while they create monopoly; the Socialists urge a strike to turn workmen into soldiers and state officials; which is logically a strike against strikes. I merely mention it as an example of the bewildering inconsistency, and for no controversial purpose. My own sympathies are with the Socialists; in so far that there is something to be said for Socialism, and nothing to be said for Capitalism. But the point is that when there is something to be said for one thing, it is now commonly said in support of the opposite ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... A.—Much controversial ingenuity has been expended upon the question of the relative merits of the four and six-wheeled engines; one party maintaining that four-wheeled engines are most unsafe, and the other that six-wheeled engines are unmechanical, and are ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... has not read it can conceive how clear, how convincing, and how well adapted to our present needs are these controversial 'leaves.'"—Tablet. ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... Sherwood, and even the ubiquitous Whiston. Collins rejected them, however, to debate in the Scheme with Bishop Chandler, the author of A Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the old Testament, with one who was, in short, the least controversial and yet the most orthodox of ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... of materials. The application of the principles enunciated in the two earlier volumes to the unravelling of the past history of the globe, constituted the chief task undertaken in this part of the great work. But not a few controversial questions were dealt with, and the famous 'metamorphic theory' was advanced in opposition to the Wernerian hypothesis of 'primitive formations.' The volume was appropriately dedicated to Murchison, who had been Lyell's companion in the famous Auvergne excursion, which had produced such ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... definitely called dull. The apologetic tone noticeable in God and the Bible continues, but the apology is illustrated and maintained in an even less attractive manner. The Preface is perhaps the least dead part of the book; but its line of argument shares, and perhaps even exaggerates, the controversial infelicity of this unfortunate series. Mr Arnold deals in it at some length with the comments of two foreign critics, M. Challemel-Lacour and Signor de Gubernatis, on Literature and Dogma, bringing out (what surely ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... feeble health has its compensations, especially for those who unite restless vanity and ambition to a feminine desire for sympathy. It has been much the habit of Mr. Stephens to date controversial epistles from "a sick chamber," as do ladies in a delicate situation. A diplomatist of the last century, the Chevalier D'Eon, by usurping the privileges of the opposite sex, inspired grave ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... illustration of the author's controversial methods, take his observations on my alleged attempt to account for the metamorphosis of Daphne into a laurel tree. When I read these remarks (i. p. 4) I said, 'Mr. Max Muller vanquishes me there,' for he gave no reference to my statement. I had forgotten all about the matter, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... after the typical New Texas politician. He had always worn at least two faces, and had always managed to place himself on every side of every issue at once. Nothing he ever said could possibly be construed as controversial. Naturally, the cause of New Texan annexation to the Solar League had made no ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... more reverence and humility than so solemnly to appeal to God, your judge, that you do it with all the sincerity and seriousness the nature of your engagement commands from you; seeing you were most of you much unstudied in the controversial points of church order and discipline, and yet did not advise with the neighboring churches ... but with a great deal of confidence and freedom, set up by yourselves." The letter then goes on to ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... an education for the ministry he was ordained in 1638, in the Church of England, his first important charge being that of Kidderminster, where he established his reputation as a powerful evangelical and controversial preacher. Altho opposed to Cromwell's extreme acts, he became a chaplain in the army of the Rebellion. His influence was all on the side of peace, however, and at the Restoration he was appointed ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... on and demonstrated his controversial psionic Hieronymus machine, and famous fans sprang from der vood-work out—Sam Moskowitz, James Taurasi, Bob Tucker, Julius Unger, Raymond Van Houten, ...
— Out of This World Convention • Forrest James Ackerman
... manuscript records, and catalogues of that age, but also from the fallacious and unsatisfactory nature of the facts and assumptions on which the evidence rests. In that age, when the press was chiefly occupied with controversial or practical divinity,—when the law, the Church, and the State engrossed all honour and respectability,—when a degree of disgrace, levior quaedam infamiae macula, was attached to the publication of poetry, and even to have sported ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Martha, who had not gone through fifty or a hundred such conflicts without deriving some controversial profit from them—"I do not choose to be sworn at, in your house or the house of any other man. If you were a gentleman, you would not be ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... becomes graver when he thus lightly handles the Khilafat question. There had been occasions when the British have used to their advantage the Muslim idea of associating the Caliph's spiritual power with temporal power. Now this very association is treated as a controversial ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... his approbation of it. It is known, moreover, that Athanasius gave the usual letters of introduction to Timotheus, Apollinaris's intimate friend, and afterwards the most extravagant teacher of his sect, on his going to the Western Bishops, and that, on the ground of his controversial talents against the Arians. ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... second lecture, we have been so involved in the details of the investigation, that, to those who have lost sight of the plan proposed in the commencement, the lectures may have appeared historical rather than controversial, and hardly compatible with the purpose of the founder of the Lecture. We have been like travellers moving in a tangled plain, where the path at times seems lost. Before entering upon it, we took our stand, as it were, on an eminence; and indicated the plan of the route; pointed ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... Note, that that is by far the most powerful agency for winning the world. You can never make men angry by saying to them, 'We have found tho Messias.' You cannot irritate people, or provoke them into a controversial opposition when you say, 'Brother, let me tell you my experience. I was dark, sad, sinful, weak, solitary, miserable; and I got light, gladness, pardon, strength, companionship, and a joyful hope. I was blind—you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... should keep informed of coming events, and see that the library is provided with the books for which there is sure to be a future demand. He should avoid personal hobbies and be impartial on all controversial questions. He should not be overconfident in his knowledge of what will elevate and refine ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... from it altogether, he was as serenely unconscious of the fact as were his hearers. There was no agnosticism in his congregation, for he laid down the law and the gospel in a way that discouraged theological speculation. Nevertheless, among his followers there were controversial spirits who never doubted that they were right, however much they might question his ecclesiastical methods and views. To many, freedom meant the right to have their say, and, as is often true, those having the least weighty matter on their minds were the most ready ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... co-religionists at home. Could Douay College boast only of the 160 martyrs whom it trained and sent into England Cardinal Allen would have had good reason to be proud of his work, but in addition to this the numerous controversial tracts of real merit that were issued from the Douay printing-press, and scattered throughout England, helped to keep alive Catholic sentiment in the country. In Douay too was begun the translation of ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... reply is an unfolding, and ordinarily implies thought and intelligence. A rejoinder is strictly an answer to a reply, tho often used in the general sense of answer, but always with the implication of something more or less controversial or opposed, tho lacking the conclusiveness implied in answer; an answer, in the full sense, to a charge, an argument, or an objection is adequate, and finally refutes and disposes of it; a reply or rejoinder may be quite inadequate, so that one may say, "This reply is not an answer;" ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the cabinet and men out of it, some with ardour, others with acquiescence, approved of war for different reasons, interchangeable in controversial value and cumulative in effect. Some believed, and more pretended to believe, that Turkey abounded in the elements and energies of self-reform, and insisted that she should have the chance. Others were moved by vague general sympathy with a weak power ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... us in his memoirs [Misc. Works, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning would naturally be mentioned, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the controversial treatises, the Elevations sur les Mysteres and the Meditations sur l'Evangile were written at Meaux, drawing the bishop away to the serener regions of supreme faith. There might he have chanced to meet those Reformers, as determined as he in the strife, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... but his Love's Labour Lost, and Titus Andronicus. Politics and abuse have totally corrupted our taste. Nobody thinks of writing a line that is to last beyond the next fortnight. We might as well be given up to a controversial divinity, The times put me in mind of the Constantinopolitan empire; where, in an age of learning, the subtlest wits of Greece contrived to leave nothing behind them, but the memory of their follies and acrimony. Milton did not write his Paradise Lost ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... philosophical treatise; but no man lays down abstract principles more soundly, or better traces their application. All his works, indeed, even his controversial, are so infused with general reflection, so variegated with speculative discussion, that they wear the air of the Lyceum, as well ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... take his part in the conversation and neither speak too seldom nor too little. It is not "good form" for two guests to converse privately among themselves, nor for anybody to dwell on unpleasant or controversial topics. Aristophanes has laid down after his way the proper kind of things to talk about.[*] "[Such as]'how Ephudion fought a fine pancratium with Ascondas though old and gray headed, but showing great form and muscle.' This is the talk usual among refined ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the Titans, who had gathered round Enceladus, shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, and a long and desultory conversation ensued upon the copious and very controversial subject of Re-action. In the meantime Rhoetus, a young Titan, whispered to one of his companions, that for his part he was convinced that the only way to beat the Olympians was to turn them into ridicule; and that he would accordingly commence at ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... would be better not to discuss controversial subjects," he said. "If you will allow me, I will ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... "so skilled in the seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, that, whichever he spoke, you would suppose it was his native tongue."[1] Nor was his spirit in the work controversial. I say his "spirit in the work" with care. They were controversial times, and Tindale took his share in the verbal warfare. When, for example, there was objection to making any English version because "the language was so rude that the Bible could not be ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... lute than her own, in return for her father's help with the idioms. Also he borrowed some of Dom Diego's own works, issued anonymously from the printing presses of Amsterdam; and from his new friend's "Paradise of Earthly Vanity," and other oddly entitled volumes of controversial theology, the young enthusiast sucked instruction and confirmation of his doubts. To Dom Diego's Portuguese fellow-citizens the old gentleman was the author of an erudite essay on the treatment of phthisis, emphatically denouncing the implicit ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Protestants of her train, and even forbore to make any open attempt on her daughter's faith. "Cela viendra," she said to Marie de Courcelles. "The sermons of M. le Pasteur will do more to convert her to our side than a hundred controversial arguments of our excellent Abbe; and when the good time comes, one High Mass will be ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... - a series of dams constructed jointly by Lesotho and South Africa to redirect Lesotho's abundant water supply into a rapidly growing area in South Africa; while it is the largest infrastructure project in southern Africa, it is also the most costly and controversial; objections to the project include claims that it forces people from their homes, submerges farmlands, and squanders economic resources. Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) - represents the 145,000 Inuits of Russia, Alaska, Canada, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... a man who is young enough to be my son. I shall write a carefully-guarded letter to Romayne, on the departure of Penrose; and I shall send him a book to read, from the influence of which I expect gratifying results. It is not a controversial work (Arthur has been beforehand with me there)—it is Wiseman's "Recollections of the Popes." I look to that essentially readable book to excite Romayne's imagination, by vivid descriptions of the splendors of the Church, and ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... much activity is called for on a fast is controversial. Natural Hygienists in the Herbert Shelton tradition insist that all fasters absolutely must have complete bed rest, with no books, no TV, no visitors, no enemas, no exercise, no music, and of course no food, not even a cup of herb tea. In my many years of conducting people through fasts, ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... insect-catcher is really causing the extinction of any exclusively insectivorous species. On her own very high authority we know that the insect supply is not diminishing, that the injurious kinds alone are able to inflict an annual loss equal to 10,000,000 on the British farmer. To put aside this controversial matter, the sparrow with all his faults is a pleasant merry little fellow; in many towns he is the sole representative of wild bird life, and is therefore a great deal to us—especially in the metropolis, in which he most abounds, and where ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... in a controversy. He had no fear of that fiery dragon of scorching breath—the newspaper press—while Vernon was his right hand man; and as he intended to enter Parliament, he foresaw the greater need of him. Furthermore, he liked his cousin to date his own controversial writings, on classical subjects, from Patterne Hall. It caused his house to shine in a foreign field; proved the service of scholarship by giving it a flavour of a bookish aristocracy that, though not so well ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nursing himself, ubiquitous Mr. Holtz reappeared, and stopped a whole month at Mons, where he not only won over Colonel Esmond to the king's side in politics (that side being always held by the Esmond family); but where he endeavoured to reopen the controversial question between the Churches once more, and to recall Esmond to that religion in which, in his infancy, he had been baptized. Holtz was a casuist, both dexterous and learned, and presented the case between the English Church and his own in such a way that those who granted his premisses ought certainly ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... imposing gestures, the Olympian mien by which men like Waldeck and Radowitz and Gagern dominated and controlled their audience. His own mind was essentially critical; he appealed more to the intellect than the emotions. His speeches were always controversial, but he was an admirable debater. It is curious to see how quickly he adopts the natural Parliamentary tone. His speeches are all subdued in tone and conversational in manner. Many of them were very carefully prepared, for though he did not generally write them out, he said them over ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... when Ealer had to stop to cough, I pulled my induction-talents together and hove the controversial lead myself: always getting eight feet, eight and a half, often nine, sometimes even quarter-less-twain—as I believed; but always "no bottom," as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... European peoples—a series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... all my thoughts, though I am not conscious of God's? Would Sherlock endure that I should infer: 'ergo', God is numerically one with me, though I am not numerically one with God? I have never seen, but greatly wish to see, Waterland's controversial tracts against Sherlock. Again: according to Sherlock's conception, it would seem to follow that we ought to make a triad of ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Republic. The results of that conflict have in many instances been oppressive and even disastrous to his freedom. Many things incidental to Emancipation and vital to complete freedom are unfortunately still in the controversial stages. The right of the Negro to cast a ballot on the same qualifications as his other fellow citizens is not yet conceded everywhere. Public sentiment has not yet caught up with the Constitution, nor is it in accord with the principles of true democracy. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... the West, I paid the usual visit to the place, and requested a free expression of views as to the suitability of the books that had been given. One venerable old native, with eyes of fire, called out: "This Paisley Library has one fatal lack: it contains no works on controversial divinity." I ventured to hint that perhaps the omission was intentional, but that he absolutely ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... it," again, in his impulsiveness, snapping at the controversial bait, "and I will confute you there in a trice. ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... innocent English people for their religion pass unregarded by the Eternal God? Dost thou think to escape his fierce wrath and dreadful vengeance for thy ungodly and illegal persecution of his poor children? I tell thee, no. Better were it for thee thou hadst never been born." And so on, in the controversial dialect of the time, calling the vice-chancellor a "poor mushroom," and abusing him generally. Elsewhere, in a retrospect which I shall presently quote at length, he refers to his university experiences: ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... literature. Luckily, I can judge them without prejudice. Whether in this or that case Whistler was in the right or in the wrong is not a question which troubles me at all. I read the letters simply from the literary standpoint. As controversial essays, certainly, they were often in very bad taste. An urchin scribbling insults upon somebody's garden-wall would not go further than Whistler often went. Whistler's mode of controversy reminds me, in another ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... observed that the coarse vituperations which shock the reader in Luther's controversial works were not peculiar to him, being commonly used by scholars and divines of the Middle Ages in their disputations. The invectives of Valla, Filelfo, Poggio, and other distinguished scholars against ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... were entirely hospitable to me now, for my tales of the Indian and the miner had created a friendlier spirit among their readers. My later themes were, happily, quite outside the controversial belt. Concerned less with the hopeless drudgery, and more with the epic side of western life, I found myself almost popular. My critics, once off their guard, were able to praise, cautiously it is true, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... been thought that Mr. Potts would have withdrawn from the controversial arena after this painful exposure, but with a persistence worthy of a better cause he rejoins in a long and irrelevant letter in The Tittersham Observer of the 30th May. He undoubtedly scores a point ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan defended the accused governor with great ability in prose. For the lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid, indisputable ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... or De Mouchy, a doctor of the Sorbonne and an inquisitor of the faith, his controversial pamphlet, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... origin, distinct; they became subsequently still more so. See Plank, Geschichte der Christ. Kirch. Verfassung., vol. i. p. 24.—G. On this extremely obscure subject, which has been so much perplexed by passion and interest, it is impossible to justify any opinion without entering into long and controversial details.——It must be admitted, in opposition to Plank, that in the New Testament, several words are sometimes indiscriminately used. (Acts xx. v. 17, comp. with 28 Tit. i. 5 and 7. Philip. i. 1.) But it is as clear, that as soon as we can discern the form ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... or fifty other things, Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a week To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek, The vibrant accent skipping here and there, Just as it pleased invention or despair; No controversial Hebraist was the Dame; With or without the points pleased her the same; If any tyro found a name too tough. And looked at her, pride furnished skill enough; She nerved her larynx for the desperate thing, And cleared the five-barred ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... consecutive Thursdays, between April 21 and June 2. An Appendix, in answer to specific allegations urged against me in the Pamphlet of Accusation, appeared on June 16. Of these Parts 1 and 2, as being for the most part directly controversial, are omitted in this Edition, excepting certain passages in them, which are subjoined to this Preface, as being necessary for the due explanation of the subsequent five Parts. These, (being 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of the Apologia,) are ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means it lies in the power of every fine woman to secure at least half-a-dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. The female world are likewise indispensably necessary in the best causes to manage the controversial part of them, in which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to refute them. Arguments out of a pretty ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... house, was filled with a miscellaneous-looking collection of volumes, which his curious literary taste had got together from the shelves of all the libraries that had been broken up during his long life as a scholar. Classics, theology, especially of the controversial sort, statistics, politics, law, medicine, science, occult and overt, general literature,—almost every branch of knowledge was represented. His learning was very various, and of course mixed up, useful and useless, new and ancient, dogmatic ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... any of your readers oblige me with the name of the author of a controversial sermon, entitled Whigs no Christians, preached at London, on the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles, in 1712-13, and published in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... each other's company of late, was a silent one. Now that the full bearings of the disaster had been discussed in all its aspects there was nothing more to be said. Any attempt at ignoring the situation, and passing on to less controversial topics would have been a mockery and pretence which neither of them would have troubled to sustain. So the meal went forward with its dragged-out dreary intimacy of two people who were separated by a gulf of bitterness, and whose ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... sign that the time for the Coalition was past, was unkindly reminded that, at any rate, the results of these contests had furnished no encouragement to the party that he adorns. "But I am afraid I am getting controversial," said Mr. LLLOYD GEORGE, to the amusement of the House, which had enjoyed his sword-play for half-an-hour; and with that he turned to the task of defending the new policy in Russia. Having failed to subdue the Bolshevists by force, we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... it at the Seminary," he writes, "for the purpose of exposing the impropriety of it. I do not think any professor ever quoted the statement, without adding that it is untenable. The Andover argument was ——"[5] He adds the proper controversial language, which, it seems, went solidly out of my head. Tenable or untenable, my memory ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... up. Conversation soon found other springs. I never knew the talk to get heated or noisy. Religion and politics rarely came up, and never in any controversial way. The bitterest politician I met at table was a quadruped,—a lady's dog,—who refused a desirable morsel offered him in the name of Mr. Gladstone, but snapped up another instantly on being told that it came from Queen Victoria. I recall many pleasant ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... leadership of Tyndale on the one side and of More on the other the air became dark with a host of controversial tracts. [Sidenote: Controversial tracts] They are half filled with theological metaphysic, half with the bitterest invective. Luther called Henry VIII "a damnable and rotten worm, a snivelling, drivelling swine of a sophist"; More retorted by complaining of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... architecture has long been a controversial point and one which will probably never be definitely settled. Parker, in his "Glossary ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... besides interweaving several controversial matters respecting this voyage, from an account of it by one Betagh, who was captain of marines in the Speedwell, a long series of remarks on the conduct of Shelvocke by that person, are appended. Neither of these appear to possess sufficient interest, at this distance of time, almost a century, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... word for word, summoned to their aid the Rev. Jeremie Ferrier, of Alais, who at the moment was regarded as the most eloquent preacher they had. Needless to say, Alais was situated in the mountains, that inexhaustible source of Huguenot eloquence. At once the controversial spirit was aroused; it did not as yet amount to war, but still less could it be called peace: people were no longer assassinated, but they were anathematised; the body was safe, but the soul was consigned to ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... intended to be controversial, but only to make clear the general sense in which the term Pantheism is here used. Not that it would be possible at the outset to indicate all that is implicit in the definition. I only wish to premise plainly that I am not concerned with any view of the world such as implies or admits ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton
... sources and have much in common it does not follow that they are identical and that his experiments tend to show that there are marked differences which suggest that the "B" type is not a single entity but a group. Mitchell has summarized very well the controversial phases of this question with an impartial review of the facts. One of strongest of the opposition arguments lies in the failure of milk to cure beri-beri except when administered in large quantities. This objection has been partly allayed by data bearing ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy
... genius. But let me see what you have produced; "With all deference to what that very learned and most ingenious person, in his Letter to a Friend in the Country, hath advanced." Very well, sir; for, besides that, it may sell more of the Letter: all controversial writers should begin with complimenting their adversaries, as prize-fighters kiss before they engage. Let it be finished with all speed. Well, Mr Dash, have you done ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... sheet, and then came the pride and delight of crossing. Poor Miss Matty got sadly puzzled with this, for the words gathered size like snowballs, and towards the end of her letter Miss Jenkyns used to become quite sesquipedalian. In one to her father, slightly theological and controversial in its tone, she had spoken of Herod, Tetrarch of Idumea. Miss Matty read it "Herod Petrarch of Etruria," and was just as well pleased as ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... them; and for what have you reserved him? You have given him "a liberty unto" the multitudinous blasphemy of his day; you have made him free of its newspapers, its reviews, its magazines, its novels, its controversial pamphlets, of its Parliamentary debates, its law proceedings, its platform speeches, its songs, its drama, its theatre, of its enveloping, stifling atmosphere of death. You have succeeded but in this,—in ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... The controversial part covered two points—the military value of the raid, and the manner in which the raiders had been treated by the enemy ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... doctrine is the point of union between the old covenant and the new. St. Matthew's representation of the Messiah is the result of very careful reflection, and it shows that the evangelist wrote in a spirit which was philosophical and in one sense controversial. He is philosophic because he is not a mere annalist. He groups incidents and discourses together in a manner which brings out their significance as illustrating the Messiahship of Jesus and the majestic forward movement of the kingdom ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... distribution, communications, education, science. Then what? The question became increasingly interesting following recent visits not only to Moscow and Leningrad but also to various other capital cities of the Soviet complex. A controversial subject? Indeed it is. You can't get much more controversial than this in the world today. But this is science fiction, and here ...
— Revolution • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... position. It only defines our position towards Shakspere. It is he who is fixed; it is we who are unstable. The nearest approach to an English parallel to the Zola case would be furnished if it were proposed to put some savagely controversial and largely repulsive author among the ashes of the greatest English poets. Suppose, for instance, it were proposed to bury Mr. Rudyard Kipling in Westminster Abbey. I should be against burying him in Westminster Abbey; ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... was abundantly endowed, and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned a deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, he replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... remarks of which she held the secret. They were never brilliant, Mrs. Marshall's remarks—but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost always when she had said her brief say? there loomed out of the rainbow mist of her husband's flashing, controversial talk the outlines of the true proportions ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... expected from the Mikado, evidently a man of singular penetration and elevated views; and his eminence looked as if the mission of Yokohama would speedily end in an episcopal see; but he knew where he was and studiously avoided all controversial matter. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... not for rare editions, but for the sheer bread of life, or rather the stale crusts of knowledge. His tastes were not literary in the special sense of the word. For belles-lettres he had no fancy, and fine passages, except in so far as they were controversial, left him cold. His mind was primarily scientific, secondarily philosophic, and occasionally historic. Travels and books of physical science were the finds for which, mainly, he rummaged the stalls. At the moment his pet study was astronomy; and a curious apparatus in one of the corners, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... great majority of the educated classes had ceased to care whether the Christian religion were true or not. The Renaissance had so awakened their interest in the affairs of this world, its artistic beauties and intellectual advance, that they gave no thought to the beyond. But we approach controversial matters scarce within our scope. Suffice it to say that the Reformation brought religion once more into intensest prominence in all men's eyes, and that a large portion of the civilized world broke away from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... great resource. Karstens was continually designing and redesigning a motor-boat in which one engine should satisfactorily operate twin screws; Tatum learned the thirty-nine articles by heart; but naval architecture and even controversial divinity palled after a while. The equipment and the supplies for the higher region were gone over again and again, to see that all was properly packed and in ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... had been lax in his interest during early manhood. This was one of the matters which he had expected marriage to correct, and he had taken up again, not merely with resignation but complacency, the custom of attending service regularly. Dr. White had been a controversial Methodist, but since his wife's death, and especially since the war, he had abstained from religious observances, and had argued himself somewhat far afield from the fold of orthodox belief. Consequently Selma, though she attended church ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... presence; but all this, on his own showing only, and without any supernatural credentials, except some few miracles recorded of him in books of doubtful authority. This shows, at all events, how little the Parsis have been exposed to controversial discussions; for, as this is so weak a point in their system that it would have invited the attacks of every opponent, we may be sure that the Dustoors would have framed some argument in defence, if such defence had ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... Christianity, not for controversial or apologetic reasons, but because it has been the leaven of our western civilization ever since the fall of the Roman Empire. Its constant influence has been to soften and spiritualize individual and national relationships. The bitter controversies, wars, and persecutions which have raged in its ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... judgment than if Mr. Dutton had been at hand. Being without natural taste for intellectual pursuits, unless drawn into them by his surroundings, he had dropped them entirely, and read nothing but the ephemeral controversial literature of his party, and not much of that, for he was teaching, preaching, exhorting, throughout his spare time; while the vicar was in too great need of help to insist on deepening the source from which his zealous assistant drew. As Miss Nugent ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drawn out in a manner as agreeable as it was new. Roger had brought from his native land a collection of books, which, though small in number, seemed to Edith a perfect library; and all were offered for her perusal. Several of them were, of course, on controversial and doctrinal subjects; and these she was able to understand and to appreciate: but among these graver and more abstruse treatises, were some of a more attractive nature—some volumes of foreign travel, and ancient legends, and heart-stirring poetry, in which the soul of Edith reveled, as in a ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... thought the formation of an Academy a matter of great importance. Why then did he deliberately introduce controversial elements and thus make impossible a discussion of his proposal wholly on its merits? I suggest as a possible answer that he wished the Whigs to dissociate themselves from the project and that he used the tactics expected ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... so worthy a theme is marred by the 'ifs' and 'buts' of controversial strife. Alas! that we cannot depress the sectional opposing interests which are but secondary to a condition of political consolidation, and elevate above these distracting and isolated evils, the great and eternal principle, Strength as it alone exists in Unity. Alas! that with ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that of the son of the last mentioned, are written in rhymed prose; some are controversial. Joseph Ibn Caspi writes in 1322: "How can I know God, and that he is one, unless I know what knowing means, and what constitutes unity? Why should these things be left to non-Jewish philosophers? Why should Aristotle retain sole ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... talents fair play, and to ride this race without carrying any superfluous weight; and I am so well acquainted with my old friend the public, that I could bet a thousand pounds to a shilling, that the preface (if that controversial part of it is not cancelled) will greatly prejudice ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... If a man has a right to vote, has he not a right to vote wrong? If a man has a right to choose his wife, has he not a right to choose wrong? I have a right to express the opinion which I am now setting down; but I should hesitate to make the controversial claim that this proves the ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... understood that on the Home Rule question the present statement has no bearing whatever. That difficult problem lies in an altogether different sphere of politics, and must he judged by considerations which cannot be touched on here. Without, however, trenching in any degree on controversial ground, it may be pointed out that the crucial difficulty of the Home Rule question lies, and has always lain, in the fact that in Ireland a substantial and important minority amounting to about 25 per cent. of the population, and differing from the rest of the country in religion, national ...
— Ireland and Poland - A Comparison • Thomas William Rolleston |
