"Fly in the face of" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we want to make up aboard the yacht. The squadron won't get down from New York for a week yet, and I've come up ahead of it so that we can have a cruise to the Shoals and back before the races. Of course, Miss Lee, you won't fly in the face of Fate, after this providential meeting, by refusing to join our party; at least if you do you will make me wretched to the end of my days. And we will try to make you comfortable on board, sir," he added, politely, turning to Mr. Port. "I have a tolerably fair cook, and ice isn't the only thing ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... Joseph's dying wish to be buried in Canaan, and matured by the tyranny of Pharaoh. Their faith, at all events, grasped the unseen God as their helper, and made Jochebed bold to break the terrible law, as a hen will fly in the face of a mastiff to shield her brood. Their faith perhaps also grasped the future deliverance, and linked it in some way with their child. We may learn how transfiguring and ennobling to the gentlest and weakest is faith in God, especially when it is allied with unselfish human love. These two ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... superstition and nonsense," she used to say, "but in this country, one can't afford to fly in the face of prejudice. It would seriously tell ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... was the average of thirty years previous to the introduction of vaccination. Mr. John Simon, medical officer of Her Majesty's Privy Council, one of the best statisticians in England, has collected a formidable array of figures, 'to doubt which would be to fly in the face of the multiplication-table.' From his mountain-height of statistics Mr. Simon says: 'Wheresoever vaccination falls into neglect, small-pox tends to become again the same frightful pestilence it was in the days before Jenner's discovery; and wherever it is ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... mercy, and to represent the Divine Being as grossly unjust and cruelly vindictive.... Again, if all suffering, however unavoidably incurred, is to be regarded as a punishment from the Divine Legislator, to attempt to alleviate or remove the suffering thus incurred would be to fly in the face of the Divine authority, by endeavoring to set aside the punishment it had inflicted; just as it would be an opposition to the authority of human laws to rescue a prisoner from custody, or deliver ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... such as we have described, we ought, no less for the sake of the Sovereign whom we love, than for our own, to hear arguments convincing indeed, before we depart from the maxims of that reign, or fly in the face of this great body of strong ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... have forever to watch most closely and dance attendance on Nature. Laws which fly in the face of Nature are gently waived or conveniently forgotten. Should Chief Justice Fuller issue an injunction restraining all men from coming within a quarter of a mile of a woman, on penalty of death, we would all place ourselves in contempt in an hour; and should ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... or whither it goeth." Ah, no! it will not do, because you can not see and comprehend all of everything, inside as well as outside, to conclude that it must necessarily be bad. Adopt that theory, and you not only fly in the face of reason, but bump your head against almost everything in nature, in art ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... better of it. You know this sort of first-class opportunity may not occur again. It really may not. If it isn't Providence, I'm sure I don't know what it is. And I believe your only reason for refusing him is because of Bob Kingston. Now, don't fly in the face of Providence just out of a bit of rotten sentiment which you ought to be ashamed of at ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... as if it were Christ's only word about judgment, and interpreted as if it meant that, no matter what else a man was, if only he is charitable and benevolent, he will find mercy. But this is to forget all the rest of our Lord's teaching in the context, and to fly in the face of the whole tenor of New Testament doctrine. We have here to do with the principles of judgment which apply equally to those who have, and to those who have not, heard the gospel. The subjects of the kingdom are shown ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... is this, that if you elect to say that there is no truth under the conditions assumed, because there are no ideas or workings, then you fly in the face of common sense. Doesn't common sense believe that every state of facts must in the nature of things be truly statable in some kind of a proposition, even tho in point of fact the proposition should never be propounded by a ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... all, Rome, being ruled by monarchs who had had no hand in making the disgraceful peace of A.D. 363, and who had no strong feeling of honor or religious obligation in the matter of treaties with barbarians, was preparing herself to fly in the face of her engagements, and, regarding her own interest as her highest law, to interfere effectually in order to check the progress ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... I do? Shall I abandon myself to a dispirited despair, or fly in the face of the Almighty? Surely both are unworthy of a wise man; for what can be more vain than weakly to lament my fortune if irretrievable, or, if hope remains, to offend that Being who can most strongly support it? but are my passions then voluntary? Am ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding |
