"Disprove" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exclaimed a hireling of hung-dog expression who claimed to have exchanged pledging gifts with a certain maiden who stood, as it were, between us, and falling into the snare, I protested warmly against the insult, and strove to disprove the inference before the paralogism lay revealed. Throughout the whole range of the Odes, the Histories, the Analects, and the Rites what recognised formula of rejoinder is there to the taunt, "Oh, go and put your feet in mustard and cress"; or ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... learning. When Bekker was deposed from his office, his adversaries caused a medal to be struck representing the devil clad in a priestly robe, riding on an ass, and carrying a trophy in his right hand; which was intended to signify that Bekker had been overcome in his attempt to disprove demoniacal possession, and that the devil had conquered in the assembly of divines who pronounced sentence on Bekker's book. The author was supposed to resemble Satan in the ugliness of his appearance. Another coin was ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... my return to England. Some yellow journals even went so far as to suggest that I had received payment from the Russian Government for "whitewashing" its penal system, but I fancy the following pages should conclusively disprove the existence of any monetary transactions, past or present, between the Tsar's officials and myself, to say nothing of the fact that my favourable account of the prisons of Western Siberia has been endorsed by such reliable and well-known English travellers as Dr. Lansdell and Mr. J. Y. Simpson. ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... challenge you to disprove) that the Earth was made to be a Common Treasury of Livelihood for all, without respect of persons, and was not made to be bought and sold.... And this being a truth, as it is, then none ought to be Lords and Land Lords over another, but the Earth ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... has occupied his present position for quite a number of weeks, will succeed Mr. FISHER. Some experts however hold that the PREMIER has a magnificent opportunity for displaying his imagination by the choice of Mr. WELLS, who is burning to disprove the recent astounding allegation of General WILSON that the War could not have been won without the Universities. The chief objection to Mr. WELLS, however, is that he cannot be transferred, because he is not already in office; and this drawback also operates in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... thing is inexplicable; but the miners need no explanation. To them it is obvious. It rests with us to disprove the obvious. Can we ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... statesmen or courtiers. He had married the daughter of a great merchant, a delicate type of beauty; the last to fascinate a buccaneer, according to the gossips of the time. Rumor had it that he had taken her for the wherewithal to pay the enormous debts contracted in his latest exploit. To disprove this he went to sea in a temper with a frigate and came back laden with the treasure of half a dozen galleons, to find that his wife had died at the birth of a son. He promised himself to settle down for good; but the fog of London choked lungs ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... government to the expressed powers and prevented it from encroaching on the young states or on the free movement of personal property." Various phrases in the Constitution were quoted both to prove and disprove the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in a new State. "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states," it was claimed, would permit the migration of slaveholders to Missouri with their property. "The ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... of the same day, Colonel Cooke arrived from Paris, with the extraordinary news of Napoleon's abdication. Soult has been accused of having been in possession of that fact prior to the battle of Toulouse; but, to disprove such an assertion, it can only be necessary to think, for a moment, whether he would not have made it public the day after the battle, while he yet held possession of the town, as it would not only have enabled him to ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... credibility of the witnesses; he may address himself to the reason, to the prejudices, to the sympathies, nay, even to the worst passions of the twelve men whose opinions he seeks to influence in favour of his client. He may proceed to call witnesses to disprove the facts adduced on the other side, or to show that the character of the accused stands too high for even a suspicion of the alleged clime; he has the utmost liberty of speech and action He may indefinitely protract the proceedings, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist draws upon his imagination, and not his learning; makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course of 150 pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything. And, to our shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of proselytism—those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety—I mean our religious tracts, which any woman or man, be ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dismayed by it. They freely admit that not only the media, but the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to lose sight of the elementary principles of right and wrong; and they triumphantly ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures disprove the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which have not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in this, they unconsciously plagiarise from the churchman, who just as freely admits that many ecclesiastical ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... moment, will you, Arthur?' said I, 'and listen to me—and don't think I'm in a jealous fury: I am perfectly calm. Feel my hand.' And I gravely extended it towards him—but closed it upon his with an energy that seemed to disprove the assertion, and made him smile. 'You needn't smile, sir,' said I, still tightening my grasp, and looking steadfastly on him till he almost quailed before me. 'You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... These facts disprove Mr Sadler's principle; and the fact on which he lays so much stress—that the fecundity is less in the great towns than in the small towns—does not tend in any degree to prove his principle. There is not the least reason to believe that the population is more dense, ON A GIVEN SPACE, in London or ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... know what her conception of 'niceness' may be; it didn't fit mine. She had got it into her head that I 'pitied' her, which seemed to be a crime. I didn't see how to disprove ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... reddish-purple ones. Bees and butterflies, with delicate appreciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since it secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that it can fertilize itself without insect aid - a theory which closer study of its organs goes far to disprove - or that the carrion-scent, so repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to certain insects needful for cross-pollination. Which are they? Beetles have been observed crawling over the flower, but without effecting any methodical result. One inclines to accept ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honour justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless, peradventure, there be some one ...
— The Republic • Plato
... import, not only at home, but abroad, as this. The eye of every principality and power on the face of the earth is upon us, anxiously watching and awaiting the success or defeat of our armies to prove or disprove the practicability of a republican form of government. Let us work ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that on the Lupercal, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honorable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause; What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was in a position to disprove this pretty conceit. But I think of it every time I put my foot in a Badger hole. Such lovely holes, so plentiful, so worse than useless where the Badger has thoughtlessly located them. If only we could harness and direct such ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... I won my way, waiting patiently till the bosom, pleased with the relief, disgorged itself of all "its perilous stuff,"—not chiding, not even remonstrating, seeming almost to sympathize, till I got him, Socratically, to disprove himself. When I saw that he no longer feared me, that my company had become a relief to him, I proposed an excursion, and did not tell ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the authority of their science, or to conquer socialism, by robbing it of that which is the secret of its strength, it must be recorded here as the latest and the most serious effort that has been made to disprove the weighty sentence of Rousseau, that democracy is a government for gods, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the strange change which no logician can believe in or disprove. While she stood there, holding her hands over her eyes, trying to accept her fate, it grew too heavy and dark for her to bear. What Helper she sought then, and how, only those who have found Him know. I only can tell you that presently she bared her face, her nerves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reasoning; and the reasoning by which they seem to be disproved only evinces that they are beyond the range and reach of argument. Thus it may be maintained with show of reason that motion is impossible; for an object cannot move where it is, and cannot move where it is not,—a dilemma which does not disprove the reality of motion, but simply indicates that the reality of motion, being an intuitive belief, neither needs nor admits ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... terrific dragon?" said he. "Yes," replied Ahrun. "And wilt thou swear to God that this is thy own achievement? It must be either the exploit of a demon, or of a certain Kaianian, who resides in this neighborhood." But there was no one to disprove his assertion, and therefore the king could no longer refuse to surrender to ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... run through several Impressions, and met with innumerable Enemies: Nothing was ever more reviled from the Pulpit as well as the Press. I have been call'd all the ugly Names in Print, that Malice or ill Manners can invent; but not one of my Adversaries has attempted to disprove what I had said, or overthrow any one Argument, I made Use of, otherwise than by exclaiming against it, and saying that it was not true: which to me is a Sign, that not only what I have advanced is not easy to refute, but ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... in the history of human nature or of nations to disprove that our friends of to-day may be our enemies ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... of life, we still have reason to believe that these same conditions prevail on thousands of other worlds. The fact that we might find the conditions in millions of other worlds unfavorable to life would not disprove the existence of the latter on countless ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... feeble race what life await! Labour and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! The fond complaint, my Song! disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Night and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky, Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... fly forth from an exhaust vent to expand instantly, frictionlessly and impotently to the ends of the universe? In my story, "The World Behind the Moon," I assumed that would occur. And no man living is in a position positively to disprove it. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the Doctor, "from the numerous charges brought against you, and which you do not attempt to disprove, you will, if you do not alter your conduct, be a disgrace to any community in which you may be found. You have been constantly guilty of drunkenness and tyranny, blasphemy and swearing, idleness, and utter negligence ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... not desirable. The grand thing to be done, therefore, was to change the estimation in which the colored people of the United States were held; to remove the prejudice which depreciated and depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher consideration; to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate their capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated, that, in my judgment, a tolerably well conducted press, in the hands of persons of the despised race, by ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... receiving the bodily sensations of its corresponding side. If brain matter really itself thought, we should have two thinking and speaking hemispheres—and this the first case of loss of speech by an apoplectic clot would disprove. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... proved, and the author of Supernatural Religion is unable to disprove it. In the preface to his last edition [179:1] he does indeed devote several pages to my argument; but I confess that I am quite at a loss to understand how any writer can treat the subject as it is there treated by him. Does he ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... measured the air traveled through; and a counter took the number of revolutions made by the propellers. The watch, anemometer and revolution counter were all automatically started and stopped simultaneously. From data thus obtained we expected to prove or disprove the accuracy of ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... a unique opportunity and obligation—to prove the success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and abroad who question our purpose ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities. The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed to him particularly poor. In confident words ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... restore the Pagan service in Constantinople, and "declared himself the implacable enemy of Christ." He assumed the character of Supreme Pontiff, and thus placed himself at the head of the Pagan worship. He labored incessantly to restore and propagate those dragonic rites, and even thought to disprove the predictions of Christ by rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. "He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, as mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... exclusion of hearsay evidence is equally unfounded. Its uses are said to be threefold, to convince in affairs of the world, to serve as the basis of action for business men, and to prevent opportunity for false witness. Yet it is not admissible in a court of justice to prove or disprove either a cause or a defence. The rules of evidence have been worked out by centuries of experience of courts in jury trials, and are admirably adapted to avoid the danger of error as to fact. I fully agree that in American courts the trial judges have not ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... of the United Service Club," i.e. Lord Cardigan, was his), all contributed to the first number. It is an axiom of newspaper conductors that "the first number is always the worst number," and Punch did nothing to disprove the rule. Nevertheless, it was a great success. The tone and quality were far higher in dignity and excellence than was common to an avowedly smart and comic paper—far different from what is suggested by the word ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... only pathos in life just at present was my inability to disprove, in default of abolishing, the existence of people who bothered me when I was busy. So Charteris went away, just as Byam brought the mail ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... in y^e conditions, which as y^ey were delivered me open, so my answer is open to you all. And first, as they are no other but inconveniences, such as a man might frame 20. as great on y^e other side, and yet prove nor disprove nothing by them, so they misse & mistake both y^e very ground of y^e article and nature of y^e project. For, first, it is said, that if ther had been no divission of houses & lands, it had been better for y^e poore. True, and y^t showeth y^e inequalitie of y^e condition; we should more respecte ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... Medicale" very justly remarks,—"The non-appearance of the phenomena at such or such a given moment proves nothing in itself. It is but a negative fact, and, as such, cannot disprove the positive fact of their appearance at another moment, if that be otherwise satisfactorily attested." And the "Gazette" goes on to argue, from the nature of the facts, that it is in the highest degree improbable that they should have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... that, all along, he had thought she would be able to disprove it! A smothering blackness closed in on him, and he had a physical struggle for breath. Then he forced himself to his feet and said: "He was ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... how can that be done? He thinks her remains were lost in the conflagration of Ellerslie; and for fear of precipitating him into the new dangers which might have menaced him had he sought to bring away her body, I did not disprove his mistake." ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... raise a generous incredulity as to an assertion of which no eye-witness attestation is recorded, and which might have been the invention of malignity. There are many statements of history which it is immaterial to substantiate or disprove. Splendid fictions of public virtue have often produced their good if once received as fact; but, when private character is at stake, every conscientious writer or reader will cherish his "historic doubts," when he ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... the sleek attorney. He absolutely quailed before the vehemence and fervour of the usually mild woman. He assured her she was mistaken; that he had not yielded to the point that the will was a forgery; that he never would confess that such was the case; that it should be his business to disprove the charge; that he hoped she did not suppose he yielded to the plaintiff, who was resolved to bring the matter into a court of justice. He would only ask her one little question; had she ever seen her father counterfeit different hands? Yes, she said, she had; he could counterfeit, ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... and De Pauw have drawn of the American Indian, though very humiliating, is, as far as I can judge, much more correct than the flattering representations which Mr. Jefferson has given us. See the Notes on Virginia, where this gentleman endeavors to disprove in general the opinion maintained so strongly by some philosophers that nature (as Mr. Jefferson expresses it) belittles her productions ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... admit anything. By getting constant adjournments he wears out the People's witnesses, induces others to stay away, and when the case finally comes to trial has only the naked accusation of the complainant to disprove. Or, to put it in more technically correct fashion, the complainant has only his own word wherewith to establish his case beyond a reasonable doubt. A bold contradiction is often so startling that it throws confusion into ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... you direct my attention to it. But what can that mean? You, surely, do not suppose that I have mistaken any one for him; for, independent of all else, his knowledge of my family, and my uncle's affairs, would quite disprove that." ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... decidedly moderate. Perhaps our senatorial friend may not be aware of the existence of these derogatory reports, and will thank us for giving him an opportunity, now that he knows of their existence, to disprove them.' ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... at the very time, in another remote place or country; for it was alleged that he was present in the spectral shape in which Satan enabled his spirit to be and to act any and every where at once. It was impossible to disprove the charge, and the last defence ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... climate such as ours is: One pound weight of clothing to every one stone weight of the body.... Thus the clothes of a child weighing 3 stones should be 3lb., and for a man or woman weighing 10 stones the clothes should weigh 10lb. This is a definite statement; at any rate, disprove it who can."—Sir JAMES CANTLIE in "The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... his principal with the air of a man profoundly puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or disprove it? ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more or less; and some people—a few men and not a few women, had either in friendship or in warmer fashion—deeply loved him. Society in general was quite aware of this; nor, it must be confessed, did Major Harper at all attempt to disprove or ignore the fact. He wore his honours—as he did a cross won, no one quite knew how, during a brief service in the Peninsula—neither pompously nor boastingly, but with the mild indifference of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... among my neighbours, that the woman who married the father had been prostituted to the son. Though I never admitted the truth of this aspersion, I believed it useless to deny, because no one would credit my denial, and because I had no power to disprove it. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... dishevelled masses like snakes around his shoulders. "Ah, ha," cried Danglars, "this fellow is more like an ogre than anything else; however, I am rather too old and tough to be very good eating!" We see that Danglars was collected enough to jest; at the same time, as though to disprove the ogreish propensities, the man took some black bread, cheese, and onions from his wallet, which he began devouring voraciously. "May I be hanged," said Danglars, glancing at the bandit's dinner through the crevices of the door,—"may I be hanged if I can ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... charge thee stay, and answer here To one, who, wert thou noble, were thy peer, 450 But as thou wast and art—nay, frown not, Lord, If false, 'tis easy to disprove the word— But as thou wast and art, on thee looks down, Distrusts thy smiles, but shakes not at thy frown. Art thou not he? whose deeds——"[jx] "Whate'er I be, Words wild as these, accusers like to thee, I list no further; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... statue by Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11.) The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraclitus, are alike spurious, (Epistolae Graec. Divers. p. 337.) * Note: Compare Niebuhr, ii. 209.—M. See the Mem de l'Academ. des Inscript. xxii. p. 48. It would be difficult to disprove, that a certain Hermodorus had some share in framing the Laws of the Twelve Tables. Pomponius even says that this Hermodorus was the author of the last two tables. Pliny calls him the Interpreter of the Decemvirs, which may lead us to suppose that he labored with them in drawing ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... called the Widmannstattian figures, from the name of their discoverer. When these figures are strongly developed the meteoric origin of the iron cannot be questioned, but their absence does not necessarily disprove such an origin. Native iron of ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... easy to question and disprove the unqualified statement of the Appeal, that "the original settled policy of the United States was non-extension of slavery." Less convincing was Douglas's attempt to prove that the Missouri Compromise was expressly annulled in 1850, when portions of Texas and of the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... to be made aware of all the facts supposed to be inconsistent with them. As his hypothesis is one which claims acceptance solely as explaining and connecting facts which exist in nature, he expects facts alone to be brought to disprove it, not a priori arguments ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... you disprove, experimentally, the assertion that white light passing through a piece of coloured glass acquires colour from the glass? What ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... I should appear to die, we should not be 164:18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 164:21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality mis- called life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 164:24 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... improbable as it was to mere terrestrial visions, you at once conceived to be quite possible,—to be true. The sceptical idiots of the play pretend to give him a phial nearly full of water. He is assured that this contains Cleopatra's tear. Well; who can disprove it? Munden evidently recognized it. "What a large tear!" he exclaimed, Then they place in his hands a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern gridiron. He touches the chords gently; "pipes ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... of this Act as printed by Archbishop King has been questioned, especially by William Todd Jones in 1793. But we believe its authenticity cannot be successfully contested. Lesley, in his "Reply" to King, makes no attempt to disprove its existence, but, on the contrary, alludes to it and applauds James for having opposed it. King, however, asserts that the Act was kept a secret; and that the persons attainted, or their friends, could not obtain a copy of ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... a translation of a paper which is said to have been found in the shaft above, where the bandits have made their rendezvous. How it came into my possession, matters not. I believe there are now enough of us here to prove or disprove its truthfulness, unless some one ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... his a priori notions were out of all proportion to his experience. He was ready to explain the phenomena of the heavens by the most trivial analogies of earth. The experiments which nature worked for him he sometimes accepted, but he never tried experiments for himself which would either prove or disprove his theories. His knowledge was unequal; while in some branches, such as medicine and astronomy, he had made considerable proficiency, there were others, such as chemistry, electricity, mechanics, of which the very names were unknown to him. He was the natural enemy of mythology, ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... loveliness of virtue—that vice entails suffering, and that happiness is the consequence of a religious conformity to the will of God. That is, setting aside all special refinements by which they attempt to disprove that the present state of man is probationary, they confess that practically mankind are treated as accountable beings whose guilt is punished and their goodness rewarded. This broad and unquestionable fact defies controversy. Although we may not ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Moling was praying in his church, the Devil visited him in purple raiment and distinguished form. On being challenged by the saint, he declared himself to be the Christ, but on Moling's raising the Gospel to disprove his claim, the Evil One confessed that he was Satan. "Wherefore hast thou come?" asked Moling. "For a blessing," the Devil replied. "Thou shalt not have it," said Moling, "for thou deservest it not." ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... main route southward from the Valois cut the highway from Paris to Rheims and Champagne. The roads at that hour made ghostly white ribbons, and the fore-court of dusty grasses seemed of a verdure which daylight would disprove. Weary horses nuzzled at a watertrough, and serving-men in a dozen liveries made a bustle around the stables, which formed two sides of the open quadrangle. At the foot of the inn signpost beggars ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... not a little nervous about the bushrangers, of whose atrocious deeds the young Masons had been telling him—the murders they had committed, the huts they had attacked, and the number of people they had stuck up. I could not disprove the statements, though I believe the accounts greatly exaggerated, and I described to him the way we had driven the fellows off by the exhibition of firmness ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... of this legend, endeavored to disprove it, and his apology for Lucretia was highly gratifying to the patriotic Italians. To it is due the reaction which has recently set in against this conception of her. The Lucretia legend may be analyzed most satisfactorily and scientifically where documents and mementos ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... a word the fause knave Frisbie says. And neither does auld Cuthbert, honest man! But wae's me, me leddy, whate'er our convictions may be, we canna disprove ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... on she remembered how she was going to disprove for herself Louis's allegations, she wondered if he could have found anything to mock at, had he been present, in Kemp's abrupt ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... fact, and that nobody would ever have thought of his purchasing it unless he had expressly engaged to take it. The poor old man was entirely put down. He was certain of the truth: but what could he do: resist or disprove a direct falsehood pronounced by the Superior of a Convent, and sworn to by all her holy nuns? He finally expressed his conviction that we were right: he was compelled to ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... evidence; their only weapon was an appeal to common sense and sentiment combined; their only method was a flat denial of every statement which appeared to point to supernatural powers. They could not disprove the statements; they could not explain them without opposing the accepted religious beliefs of their time, and so weakening their cause by exposing themselves to the serious charge of atheism; therefore they denied ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... out of all patience with the fellow. "First he can't marry Rosalie because her uncle's a murderer. Now he can't marry her because her uncle's a liar. Disprove that, and he'd dig ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... VAUGHAN-SAWYER, speaking before the Fabian Women's Group, in 1910, said: "Fortunately, after the first two or three months, most children will thrive equally well when artificially fed, so long as the milk is good and reliable, and is properly prepared." All of our facts go to disprove this statement. ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... second time he succeeded and Dan brought him to me. I took Tia Juana away to another city, but she was ill for a long time. When I could leave her, I placed her and Jose in the care of Dan's sister whom I summoned from New York, and went West myself to disprove Starr Wiley's story ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... of the child for a long time, but international law requires much. I have living witnesses. In Carolina, in looking up the matter," he spoke the word vaguely, "I failed to find anything which would disprove the points I have just placed before you. I was awaiting some letters from France before explaining the case to you, when Katrine demanded that her debt to you be paid immediately. There are many ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... who say that the odors, effluvia, and exhalations emitted from plants, earths, and ponds, are what give the initiative to such things. That when they have come forth, they are afterwards propagated either by eggs or offshoots, does not disprove their immediate generation; since every living creature, along with its minute viscera, receives organs of generation and means of propagation (see below, n. 347). In agreement with these phenomena is the fact ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... politely, "was Mr. Beechtree's suggestion—only, of course, a suggestion, based on various facts which had come to his knowledge. You can, doubtless, disprove these facts, sir, or account for them in some other way. No one will be more delighted than the ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... an upright and humane man, induced me to write to him. I described the leading circumstances of my voyage, and situation at that time; and said, "I should willingly undergo an examination by the captains of your squadron, and my papers would either prove or disprove my assertions. If it be found that I have committed any act of hostility against the French nation or its allies, my passport will become forfeited, and I expect no favour; but if my conduct hath been altogether consistent with the passport, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... as she rode. The news had stunned her. She had only one thought—to see Hagar Catherson, to confirm or disprove Uncle Jepson's story. She could not have told whether the sun was shining, or whether it was afternoon or morning. But she must see Hagar Catherson at once, no matter what the time or the difficulties. She came to the break in the canyon after an age, and rode through it, down across the ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... with such a character to turn away from all evidence and to reject what she did not wish to believe. In the expressive language of the Bible, she "hardened her heart;" and doubtless, like skeptics of later days, she could ascribe what she could not disprove to the working of natural causes, or ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... devised later by the Church rulers to justify the proceedings of 1632 and 1644. This would make the conduct of the Church worse, but authorities as eminent consider the charge not proved. A careful examination of the documents seems to disprove it. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... money for him, like fiddle playing. Effectiveness of assertion is the Alpha and Omega of style. He who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none: he who has something to assert will go as far in power of style as its momentousness and his conviction will carry him. Disprove his assertion after it is made, yet its style remains. Darwin has no more destroyed the style of Job nor of Handel than Martin Luther destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions get disproved ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... feeble race what ills await: Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! The fond complaint, my song, disprove, And justify the laws of Jove. Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse? Night, and all her sickly dews, Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, He gives to range the dreary sky; Till down the eastern cliffs afar Hyperion's march they spy, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... States. The argument is conclusive, and the defence complete, if the Union is only a firm or copartnership, and the sovereignty vests in the States severally. The refutation of the secessionists is in the facts adduced that disprove the theory of State sovereignty, and prove that the sovereignty vests not in the States severally, but in the States united, or that the Union is sovereign, and not the States individually. The Union is not a firm, a copartnership, nor an artificial or conventional ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... number of people who are content to believe important things on hearsay, because, on the whole, they love or trust the people who teach them. The word 'believing,' when I use it, doesn't mean that a good man says it, and that I can't disprove it, but a sort of vital assent, so that I can act upon the belief almost as if I knew it. It means for me some sort of personal experience, I could not love or hate a man on hearsay, just because people whom I loved or trusted said that they either loved or hated ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... agnostic evolutionists is coming to grief; it has had its short day, and it is now setting below the horizon of ignominy and subsequent oblivion. The writer of the article in question does not attempt to prove the evolution theory; therefore I need not stop to disprove it. But he makes the following application of it to our subject—an application so shocking to humanity and so revolting to common sense that, if it is logical, it is by itself sufficient to refute the whole theory of ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... and Sassanian art, the earlier Buddhist art of north-western India and Chinese Turkestan, some features even of early Mohammedan art, and some, too, of early Mohammedan doctrine and imperial policy, disprove any sweeping assertion that nothing Greek took root beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire. But it was very little of Hellenism and not at all its essence. We must not be deceived by mere borrowings of exotic things or momentary appreciations ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... all, those women! A great deal of doctrine commends and discommends itself by the delivery: and an honest thing may be said so foolishly as to disprove its very honesty. Now after all, what did she mean by that very silly expression about books, but that she did not feel as she considered herself capable of feeling—and that else but that was the meaning of the other woman? Perhaps it should have been spoken earlier—nay, clearly it should—but ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... into the story of the "gol' mines," and the difficulties which had presented themselves in the pathway of the claimant, and the necessity for the production of testimony which would disprove the charge of disloyalty. The detail was not very clear, but it had the effect of carrying Dr. Williams Atkinson back to certain good old days in Delisleville, before his beloved South had been laid low and he had been driven far afield to live among strangers, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... be noticed in passing that Dame Nelly's ordinary mode of consolation was to disprove the existence of any cause for distress; and she is said to have carried this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who had lost her husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would be better to-morrow, which perhaps might not ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... an excellent seaman, and his veracity stood unimpeached. But in this age of refined liberality, when the most atrocious criminals find their apologists, it is not surprising it should now be discovered, when all are dead that could either prove or disprove it, that it was the tyranny of the commander alone, and not the wickedness of the ringleader of the mutineers of the Bounty, that caused that event. 'We all know,' it is said, 'that mutiny can arise but from one of these two sources, excessive folly or excessive tyranny; therefore'—the logic ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... of the primal man beneath all the culture of the schools that disprove Hell; the cry of human red-blooded manhood against all the white-corpuscled sickly sentimentality that ever sacrifices innocence on the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... 1496. The sky that morning was clear enough, and there was a pleasant autumnal breeze. But the Florentines just then thought very little about the land breezes: they were thinking of the gales at sea, which seemed to be uniting with all other powers to disprove the Frate's declaration that Heaven took ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... weeks later that she saw, and not then without also seeing it was quite impossible to disprove the proposition, that there was something grimly absurd in the idea which had possessed her that night—the thought of stealing to prove a lie, and acting dishonourably to pay a debt of honour. At the time she did not think ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... "I am bound to believe what I cannot disprove, and what you so solemnly affirm. If there be no truth in your words, you may yet repent having so solemnly sworn; but whether true or false, I can never repent doing you ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... Crimchan and all, are within the compasse of one quadrangle walke most judiciously and punctually discovered. But long he must not walke, lest hee make his newes-presse stand. Thanks to his good invention, he can collect much out of a very little: no matter though more experienced judgements disprove him; hee is anonymos, and that wil secure him. To make his reports more credible or, (which he and his stationer onely aymes at,) more vendible, in the relation of every occurrent he renders you the ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... lawful and only son of the beneficiary named therein, and as such the sole rightful and lawful heir to and owner of the Mainwaring estate. More than this, we propose at the same time and by the same evidence to forever disprove, confute, and silence any and every aspersion and insinuation which has been brought against the character of the proponent, Harold Scott Mainwaring; and in doing this, we shall at last lift the veil which, for the past five months, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... and someone wanted them!" And I added that John Cumnor was so convinced, and so all the more convinced by Miss Bordereau's tone, that he would have come himself to Venice on the business were it not that for him there was the obstacle that it would be difficult to disprove his identity with the person who had written to them, which the old ladies would be sure to suspect in spite of dissimulation and a change of name. If they were to ask him point-blank if he were not their correspondent it would be too awkward for him to lie; whereas I was fortunately not ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... that Verrazzano had been three times on the coast of America, which, if true, would disprove the discovery set up in the letter. That document alleges that the coast explored by him was entirely unknown and HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN SEEN BY ANY ONE before that voyage, and consequently not by him; and that, as regards the residue of ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... had fired that shot—in fact, all those shots that day—was Pig Head, the back-to-the-lander from the South. Pig Head argued that deer forests are farms lying idle. And the laird had offered to rent him a farm at one-and-nothing-three the acre to disprove it. Pig Head had taken the offer. He disapproved of lairds as unrevolutionaries. He hated red deer because they were too smart for him to kill wholesale, and he loathed golden eagles because they were the pride of the "hills." But he kept his opinions to himself, because he valued his neck. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... nothing to lift Tom's spirits. The next day, hoping to verify or disprove his suspicion, he drove to Shopton Police Headquarters with Harlan Ames. The two talked briefly with Chief Slater, an old friend. Then a turnkey took them to ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... sir. [To WALTER.] I am desirous of giving you, sir, every opportunity to disprove your identity with Captain Armstrong. I chance to know that gentleman's handwriting. There is a desk with pen and ink. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... itself to be one of those many methods, and stakes its existence on the denial; because it arrogates to itself the exclusive revelation of the Divine, and cannot see, in its self-conceit, that its own doctrines disprove that assumption by their similarity to those of all creeds. There is not a dogma of the Galileans which may not be found, under some form or other, in some of those very religions from which it pretends to ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL the acts of the other. But a man would have been regarded as frantic who should have attempted at Rome to disprove their existence. It will be readily understood that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former, in which the people voted by centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority to the patrician interest; in the latter, in which numbers ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... forward. A rash man, once visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash man stuck to his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of Platonism;—'He was Plato's nephew-had seen Plato—was his appointed successor, &c.' But in inspiration the early Christians, as far as I can judge, made no generic difference, let Lardner say what he will. Can he disprove that it was declared heretical by the Church in the second century to believe the written words of a dead Apostle in opposition to the words of a living Bishop, seeing that the same spirit which guided the Apostles dwells in and guides ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ignorant sufferers whom he has met in England, or from intemperate and utterly untrustworthy party speeches and pamphlets, whose assertions he receives as gospel;" yet Dr. Manning has given statements of facts, and the writer has not attempted to disprove them. Second, he says: "Dr. Manning echoes the thoughtless complaints of those who cry out against emigration as a great evil and a grievous wrong, when he might have known, if he had thought or inquired at all about the matter, not only that this emigration has been the greatest ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... it is utterly untenable. In the first place, the facts marshalled in support of it do not prove it, and the analogies drawn from the animal and vegetable world do not countenance it; and, in the second place, there are facts which conclusively disprove it. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... universal mediators and arbiters among the Indian nations. [Footnote: Heckewelder's History of the Indian Nations, p. 56.] That this preposterous story should have found credence is surprising enough. A single fact suffices to disprove it, and to show the terms on which the Delawares stood with the great northern confederacy. Golden has preserved for us the official record of the Council which was held in Philadelphia, in July, 1742, between the provincial ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... and to illustrate it by those pictures in which it most distinctly occurs, or from which it is most visibly absent. And it will only be in the full and separate discussion of individual works, when we are acquainted also with what is beautiful, that we shall be completely able to prove or disprove the presence of the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... evangelists. And to conclude the argument,—Jesus being born in Bethlehem, and riding into Jerusalem, allowing it to be true, would not, we think, frustrate these prophecies of a future fulfillment—for no one can disprove, that if so be the will of God, such a person as the Messiah is described to be, might be born in Bethlehem to-morrow, and ride in triumph into Jerusalem, ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... unable to show them. Is it not possible to suppose a great number of circumstances under which these slaves of Houver left their master's service and came on board the Pearl, without any agency on the part of this prisoner? Now, the government might positively disprove and exclude forty such suppositions; but, so long as one remained which was not excluded, you cannot find a verdict of conviction. The government is to prove that the prisoner enticed and seduced these negroes, and you ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... self-consciousness sometimes carried him. From what is known of his disposition it seems probable that the sarcasms aimed by public writers at his infirmity inclined him to justify their attacks rather than to disprove them by his subsequent demeanor, and that some of his most extravagant outbursts of self-assertion were designed in a spirit of bravado and reckless good-nature to increase the laughter which satirists had raised against him. However this may be, his conduct drew upon him blows ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... 1: Some of the Jews thought that a man could be washed several times in the laver of Baptism, because among them the Law prescribed certain washing-places where they were wont to cleanse themselves repeatedly from their uncleannesses. In order to disprove this the Apostle wrote to the Hebrews that "it is impossible for those who were once illuminated," viz. through Baptism, "to be renewed again to penance," viz. through Baptism, which is "the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and others, to prove there must be something self-existent and eternal, or in other words, "that nothing which once was not can ever of itself come into being," he uses it to disprove a divine creation, and even presents the maxim in an altered form—viz., "nothing is ever divinely generated from nothing;"[787] and he thence concludes that the world was by no means made for us by divine power.[788] Nature is eternal. "The universal ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... my objects was to get a view of the Austrian trenches and barbed wire on the Tamburo, in order to observe from closer quarters than was possible from any of our O.P.'s the effects of our recent bombardments, and to verify or disprove a report that certain new defensive works were being constructed by the enemy at night. Our own trenches here were on a higher level than the enemy's, and the bottom of the valley between the Tamburo and this part of the Volconiac was in ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton |
