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Justification   /dʒˌəstəfəkˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Justification

noun
1.
Something (such as a fact or circumstance) that shows an action to be reasonable or necessary.
2.
A statement in explanation of some action or belief.
3.
The act of defending or explaining or making excuses for by reasoning.



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"Justification" Quotes from Famous Books



... once charged them with conspiring against the Spaniards after receiving them as friends. They were so amazed at his discovery of their perfidy that they confessed everything, laying the blame on Montezuma. "That pretense," said Cortes, assuming a look of fierce indignation, "is no justification; I shall now make such an example of you for your treachery that the report of it will ring throughout the ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... of effect, of whatever Rubinstein and Liszt could desire? Are not the piano-pieces of M. Rachmaninoff the result of a relationship to the instrument that is fast becoming outmoded? There was some slight justification for the pompous and empty work of his models. The concerti, the often flashy and tinselly pianoforte compositions of Liszt and Rubinstein were the immediate and surface result of that deeper sense of the instrument which arrived during the nineteenth century, and intoxicated folk with the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... gesticulated violently, and delivered himself in short, emphatic sentences, interlarded, I am sorry to say, with rather too many of those objectionable expletives that an ex-slave-overseer may be supposed to be addicted to. Swearing is a vulgar practice, and one for which there is no sort of justification; and yet, I must confess, it is calculated to give a certain savage energy to one's language when he has not a very copious vocabulary of choicer epithets and synonyms at command. Of course I can not do justice to Tom's colloquial style in print, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... principle of conduct dating back to Him who of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is the mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect a body nor desecrate its resting place. The fact that in life it was tenanted by the soul of an enemy is no justification for dishonoring it; for He who is Infinite Truth and Justice declares "Love thy enemy; do good to those who hate you, and bless those who persecute you." This, of course, is not the way of the world; but is the way of Him whose standards ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... in justification of their own course of action in this matter, explained that those who are engaged in imparting religious instruction to the community, taking charge of all their institutions, devoting their time to the interest of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that all is fair in war—and peace. It is no less than blank anarchy, philosophic and practical, and indefinitely less workable as a theory of international life than that of the so long discredited Sermon on the Mount. The honest Briton can find here solid justification of his cause. Perhaps it is not altogether unwholesome that our national withers don't entirely escape wringing. We are a little guilty, but much less guilty than our arch-opponent; so thinks this sober and wide-eyed critic.... Certainly, and the more significantly since ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... my ears; it was attended by some attempt at justification of his very culpable remissness. He assured me, that, according to the laws, social as well as judicial, a person of her class, were she possessed of all the attributes of an angel, could never be received into white society, nor wed with any but a person of colour. The light of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... hopes on this new State, and for an equally long time neither Germans nor foreigners ceased to call it—at first with ridicule, and then with spite—"an artificial structure which cannot endure heavy storms, which has intruded without justification among the powers of Europe." How did it come about that impartial judges finally, soon after the death of Frederick the Great, declared that it was time to cease prophesying the destruction of this widely hated power? ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... can we employ our thoughts more profitably than on the atonement of Christ, and justification through his merits. With wonder we gaze on the love of Deity; with profound awe we behold a God descending from heaven to earth. Unbounded love! Unmeasured grace! And while in deep silence his death ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... shame to take her own life and he at once fell a prey to grief. So much so, that, when he came inside, and was again spoken to and admonished by Madame Wang, he could not utter a single word in his justification. But as soon as he perceived Pao-ch'ai make her appearance in the room, he seized the opportunity to scamper out in precipitate haste. Whither he was trudging, he himself had not the least idea. But throwing his hands behind his back and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... theorem. Extremes meeting, his cold and dispassionate detachment from all that is most attractive to ordinary minds came to have the impressiveness of a great passion. And for the most part, people had loved him; feeling instinctively that somewhere there must be the justification of his difference from themselves. It was like being in love: or it was an intellectual malady, such as pleaded for forbearance, like bodily sickness, and gave at times a resigned and touching sweetness to what he did and ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... South were implicated in the conspiracy; but, as usual, the old drama of the wolf accusing the lamb was enacted over again, and a pretext was laid hold of, that, in the peculiar state of feeling existing in the community, was almost deemed a justification of all that had happened; though, in truth, it was in the last degree ridiculous. It was asserted that colored men had been seen walking arm in arm with white ladies, and that white men had handed colored females out of their ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... the time made it easier for him to forgive himself, and prompted him to defiance when he believed himself criticized by puritan hypocrites. Thus in his utterances we have a curious inconsistency, his feeling ranging from black remorse and melancholy, through half-hearted excuse and justification, to swaggering bravado. And none of them ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... hours agreeably. For, if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the neighbourhood. Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting corners. We forget to some degree the superior loveliness of other places, and fall into a tolerant and sympathetic spirit which is its own reward and justification. Looking back the other day on some recollections of my own, I was astonished to find how much I owed to such a residence; six weeks in one unpleasant country-side had done more, it seemed, to quicken and educate my sensibilities than many years ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... had a reason of the name. If the title and inscription offend your gravity, were it a sufficient justification to accuse others, I could produce many sober treatises, even sermons themselves, which in their fronts carry more fantastical names. Howsoever, it is a kind of policy in these days, to prefix a fantastical title to a book which is to be sold; for, as larks come down to a day-net, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... the lesson of one more case. These details may be tedious; but the justification of their presence here are the importance of the subject they illustrate and elucidate, and the necessity of acquiring a belief of the truth of the facts of ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke

... been looking at the whole thing in its worst light, and for several hours already he had decided upon his wife's guilt in his own mind; this served now as a foundation for his stern conduct. His features remained perfectly impassive as he listened to Clemence's words of justification, which she uttered in a ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... expounded your justification of suicide, Colonel, I believe you have had some cases of suicide laid at ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... are, Nobbs," said Adams, with an approving nod. "Your line of life won't stand justification according to the ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... Lancelot, when the knight was introduced to the queen by Galahault the haughty prince—"Galeotto," as he appears in the most universally known passage of Dante himself. Not merely that unforgettable association, but the charm and grace of the original passage, as well as the dramatic and ethical justification, so to speak, of the fatal passion which wrecked at once Lancelot's quest and Arthur's kingdom, combine to make us regret this exclusion. But Malory's genius was evidently rather an unconscious than a definitely critical one. And though the exquisite felicity of ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... anniversaries, the commemoration of public benefactors, &c., the element of pomp, and you take away their very meaning and life; but, whilst allowing a place for it in the rubric of the logician, it is certain that, sensuously, Lamb would not have sympathized with it, nor have felt its justification in any concrete instance. We find a difficulty in pursuing this subject, without greatly exceeding our limits. We pause, therefore, and add only this one suggestion as partly explanatory of the case. Lamb had the dramatic intellect and taste, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... morality for a large part of the population than the remaining part is judged by, are wise laws; and whether or not the purity of the white race could not be as well preserved by the exercise of virtue, and the operation of those natural laws which are so often quoted by Southern writers as the justification of all sorts of Southern "policies"—are questions which the good citizen may at least turn over in his mind occasionally, pending the settlement of other complications which have grown out of the presence of the Negro on ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... Essays which were written several years ago has no reference to any present controversies. Its justification is the fact that strangers and friends in England and America alike had urged me from time to time to gather them together, that they might be had in a more convenient form, believing that they contained some elements of permanent value which deserved to be rescued from the ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... had no faith in human beings. Jealous of all individuals, democracies have turned to machines. They have tried to blot out human prestige, to minimize the influence of personality. That there is historical justification for this fear is plain enough. To put it briefly, democracy is afraid of the tyrant. That explains, but does not justify. Governments have to be carried on by men, however much we distrust them. Nobody has yet invented a mechanically ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... all thats true on earth, he made his WIDOW the happiest woman in the world; but it was I who made her a widow. And her happiness is my justification and my reward. Now you know what I did and what I thought of him. Be as angry with me as you like: at least you know me as I really am. If you ever come to care for an elderly man, you will know what ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... von Danveld felt the need of justification before Zygfried von Loeve who, although not better than the others, observed the austere laws of the Order, and very often scolded the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... use Lord Elgin's own words in first mentioning it, 'but one which the preceding administration had rendered almost inevitable by certain proceedings adopted by them' in Lord Metcalfe's time. As the justification of the measure is thus rested on its previous history, a brief retrospect is necessary before proceeding with the account of transactions which formed an epoch in the history of the colony, as well as in the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... Philadelphia. It was in due course returned, with cold regrets that the temptation to rearrange it had not been resisted. No Southerner at that time could possibly have had opinions so just or foresight so clear as those here attributed to a young girl. Explanation was not asked, nor justification allowed: the case, tried by one party alone, with evidence seen from one standpoint alone, had been judged ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... in all its original integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... a complete fruit exhibit on behalf of Idaho had its justification in the wide advertising its fruit and agricultural lands would receive from an effective presentation of the products of the many fine orchards of the State. The exhibit contained many surprises, such as the soft-shell ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... that's not it! It was not L., it was me! And I was impatient with those little children. But . . . but they caused impatience within me." Then getting hopelessly mixed up between self-condemnation and self-justification, she gave it up, adding, however, "Next time we play together, give them more grace to play patiently with me," which was so far satisfactory, as at first she had scouted the idea that there could be any need of patience on ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... college at Gratz. During this time the Archduke Ferdinand chose him as his confessor. Not long afterwards he was accused to the General of being a courtier, an imputation so vague as to need a discursive reply. But his long letter of self justification addressed to Father Aquaviva is interesting on account of the vivid scenes it lays before us. Its main contents ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... head. Jeffrey was overcome with contrition. Ah, he had no business to speak so—he had spoiled the devotion of years. Who was he that he should have dared to love her? Silence alone had justified his love, and now he had lost that justification. She would despise him. He had forfeited ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... by summoning to its aid the highest conceptions of literature; but in doing so he seems to me to imply that art needed such conceptions for its justification, that the pure artist mind, careless of these ideas, and only careful to make for itself a beautiful vision of things, was in a lower plane, and had a less spiritual message. Now that I deny. I deny absolutely that art needs to call to its aid, in order to justify or ennoble it, ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... subjects of trivial importance; and that however aggrieved by the intolerance of others, they were alike intolerant themselves. Against these objections, your candid judgment will not require an unqualified justification; but your respect and gratitude for the founders of the State may boldly claim an ample apology. The original grounds of their separation from the Church of England were not objects of a magnitude to dissolve the bonds of communion, much less those of charity, between Christian brethren of the ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams

... Grace causes faith not only when faith begins anew to be in a man, but also as long as faith lasts. For it has been said above (I, Q. 104, A. 1; I-II, Q. 109, A. 9) that God is always working man's justification, even as the sun is always lighting up the air. Hence grace is not less effective when it comes to a believer than when it comes to an unbeliever: since it causes faith in both, in the former by confirming ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... prognosis or any hint of it, and since even some exaggeration of what he might think to be the serious outlook of the case to friends would only lead to greater care of the patient, there is probably much more justification for his suggestion than might be thought at first glance. He says, "When the doctor quits the patient he should promise him that he will get quite well again, but he should inform his friends that he is very ill; in this way, if a cure is affected, the fame of ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... the opposite sex. There has been a transmutation of values, and certain objects, certain acts, have acquired an emotional value which for the normal person they do not possess. Such objects and acts are properly, it seems to me, termed symbols, and that term embodies the only justification that in most cases ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... would do him, when Connie's own will was really engaged! He happened to know that Douglas Falloden was already in Oxford again, and in a few more days Greats would be over, and the young man's energies released. What possible justification had he, Sorell, for any sort of interference in this quarter? It seemed to him, indeed, as to many others, that the young man showed every sign of a selfish and violent character. What then? Are rich and handsome husbands so plentiful? Have the moralists ever had their way with youth and ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... more bound to contend for every mode of evidence to the intention, because in many of the cases the gross fact was admitted, and the prisoner and his counsel set up pretences of public necessity and public service for his justification. No way lay open for rebutting this justification, but by bringing out all the circumstances ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... man, Mr. Austin," Margaret wrote; "and though you have reason to despise me, I do not think you will refuse to receive my testimony in favour of another who has been falsely suspected of a terrible crime, and who has need of justification. Henry Dunbar was not the murderer of my father. As Heaven is my witness, this is the truth, and I know it to be the truth. Let this knowledge content you, and allow the secret of the murder to remain for ever a mystery upon earth, God knows the truth, ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... prophesied my repentance took place on the same road I travelled last night in a car of the same make and same power. The same moon which gazed coldly on you and me, and maybe eavesdropped, beamed sympathetically on me and some one else a few hours ago, and if it had sense, witnessed your poetic justification. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... after-life, and has only an imperfect recollection of his appearance as a boy. The ballad of "Jeanie Morrison" had been published for several years before she became aware that she was the heroine. It remains to be added, somewhat in justification of the poet's juvenile passion, that Mrs Murdoch is a person of the most gentle and amiable manners, and retains, in a very remarkable degree, that personal beauty for which she ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... writing poetry, that even when he has no sense of inspiration he must still write to satisfy a craving, the result will be worthless, as it too often was in the case of Wordsworth. Because such poems become literary instead of poetical; and literary poetry has no justification. ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... affection, the affection with which we see him lifting up his arms about her, satisfied at last, on an old Etruscan metal mirror, has led him from place to place: everywhere he has had his dances and established his worship; and everywhere his presence has been her justification. First of all the towns in Greece he comes to Thebes, the scene of her sorrows: he is standing beside the sacred waters of Dirce and Ismenus: the holy place is in sight: he hears the Greek speech, and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... some action by Congress regarding the overdue installments under the award of the Venezuelan Claims Commission of 1866. The internal dissensions of this Government present no justification for the absence of effort to meet their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... views in this matter from Wordsworth,—not knowing even whether I hold them on the same grounds, since Wordsworth has left his grounds unexplained,—nevertheless I cite them in honor, as capable of the holiest justification. The instruments rise in grandeur, carnage and mutual slaughter rise in holiness, exactly as the motives and the interests rise on behalf of which such awful powers are invoked. Fighting for truth in its last recesses of sanctity, for human dignity systematically ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... and out of the UT building gave the clothes an approving and interested glance as they passed. The justification by utility was obvious. It had cost money to have a pressure suit designed light and flexible enough for comfortable wear, but long ago he had grown irked by the repetitious business of climbing in and out of clothes every time one stepped through a space ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... humiliation and of remediless ruin. If their course was unwise it is not altogether unintelligible. But the action of the Northern Democrats cannot be accounted for and cannot be excused. They stood stubbornly, solidly, without reason, without justification, against a great enlargement of popular rights. It is a matter of wonder that a political organization which claims Jefferson for its founder and Jackson for its exemplar, should have surrendered to its rival the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... by Mr. Phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable. If it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so, because you revert to it. The quarrel scene between the two brothers in the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and impetuosity—which can alone bear out Franklyn, before the bodily eyes of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own brother—is lost. That the two should be parted, and that ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... of the common law, because there are some cases in which a logical justification can be found for speaking of civil liabilities as imposing duties in an intelligible sense. These are the relatively few in which equity will grant an injunction, and will enforce it by putting the defendant in prison or otherwise punishing him unless he complies ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... subject, you need not hesitate to determine upon that line of conduct which you shall think will best promote the good of the service, trusting, if you do err, to the absolute necessity of the measures you may adopt, as your justification for them ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... elevation by reference to the case of Iwa, a daughter of the Takenouchi, whom the Emperor Nintoku had made his Empress. But the Takenouchi family belonged to the Kwobetsu class, and the publication of a special edict in justification could be read as self-condemnation only. Nevertheless, the Fujiwara had compassed their purpose. Thenceforth they wielded the power of the State through the agency of their daughters. They furnished Empresses and consorts to the reigning sovereigns, and took their own ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... the necessity of stating that the dissolution of the Parliament appears to me wholly without justification, either from principle or from policy. They who advise it must needs proceed upon the supposition that a majority will be returned favourable to the continuance of the present Administration and favourable to their lately announced policy. On no other ground ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... of my past worry were removed there were still enough adverse and untoward circumstances surrounding me to give me cause for worry, if I allowed myself to yield to it, so I concluded that my mind must positively and absolutely be prohibited from dwelling upon those things that seemed justification for worry. And I determined to set before me the ideal ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colours, in its light, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... together, "that the fox really enjoys being hunted, and that he feels his occupation gone if there are no hounds to track him, and finally to tear him to pieces. What wonderful stories human nature will tell itself in its own justification! Can one imagine any created thing enjoying being pursued for its life, with all that loud terror of men and horses and savage dogs at its heels? No doubt—if we can imagine even a fox so self-conscious—it would take a certain pride in its own cunning and skill, if the whole thing ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... Quiet! O Solomon, mine ancestor, why did you not prevent me making such an egregious fool of myself? Why, I shall be forced, in self-justification, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... Mysore had, indeed, done much to unite the Mahrattas together. The ever-increasing power of the British was a serious source of alarm for, in addition to Mysore, Lord Wellesley had, without a shadow of justification, obtained the ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... Mr. Polly's being as he sat upon the stile, had other and profounder justification than his quarrel with Rusper and the indignity of appearing before the county bench. He was for the first time in his business career short with his rent for the approaching quarter day, and so ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... perpetrated against men who were not accused of one illegal or criminal act, without any judicial process, without allowing any justification to be recorded. In one word, all this was consummated in the most despotic and savage manner. If such acts had been accomplished in a popular riot, by men blinded by passion, we might perhaps bear them in silence. But, as all such acts have been done ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... said it appears clearly, too, how completely without justification have been the accusations which have been voiced from time to time in the press of countries that enter into either of the belligerent groups—that Sweden, now in one respect and now in another, had shown partiality to the adversary. Thus, suspicion has been cast, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... and Christ, Grace, and free Justification vindicated against the Libertines, in two Books. The first a Breviate of Fifty Controversies. Second upon the ...
— A Little Catechism, 1692 • John Mason

... no use to plead other men's failings in justification of your own. You said the bill should be settled to-day, and I calculated upon it. Now, of all things in the world, I hate trifling. I shall not ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... would walk on between his two guards with a dogged-looking and condemned face; Nancy behind him, with his own cudgel, ready to administer an occasional bang whenever he attempted to slacken his pace, or throw over his shoulder a growl of dissent or justification. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... times of rising economic levels, sheerly for the rise in price or the deliberate manipulation of markets during normal times. These operations are against the common welfare; they can find no moral or economic justification. They are not to be reached by prosecution; they must be reached by prevention. Our great boards of trade in fine patriotic spirit proved their ability during the war to control deliberate manipulation ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... that I look at the publication of your essay as one of the greatest honours ever conferred on me. Nothing can be more profound and striking than your observations on development and classification. I am very glad that you have added your justification in regard to the metamorphoses of insects; for your conclusion now seems in the highest degree probable. (227/2. See "Facts and Arguments for Darwin," page 119 (note), where F. Muller gives his reasons for ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... combining a personal claim to the throne held by Harold the usurper with a crusading summons against the schismatic and heretical English, who refused obedience to the true successor of St. Peter. The success of the idea was its justification: the success of the expedition proved the need that England had of some new leaven to energise the sluggish temperament of her sons. The Norman Conquest not only revived and quickened, but unified and solidified the English nation. The tyranny of the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... censured for their proceedings in the Queen's case, but it was quite an exceptional one; and their treatment of it, however open to objections it may be, is equally open to justification. Their task, from the first, was an up-hill one, which nothing but their devotion to their master's service made them continue; but when a thousand unmistakeable signs foretold a rebellion if they persevered, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... you have said in justification of your fourteen arguments. 'Such as they were,' say you, 'I am willing to stand by them: What I have offered, I have offered modestly: according to the utmost light I had into those scriptures upon which they are bottomed; having not arrived unto such a peremptory ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the girl went about her household duties, or walked in the garden with her long, supple stride, or rode the high-tempered horses from the stable, or drove with him, the fine glow on her face, her magnificent health and honesty and strength radiating from her, she was, for Madeira, a continual justification. ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... distressed. Mr. Majendie's history could not be explained away as too ancient to be interesting. In Scale a seven-year-old event is still startlingly, unforgetably modern. Anne's marriage had saddled her friends with a difficult responsibility, the justification of Anne for ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... Tillotson, and Butler, and Burnet, and Pearson, and Hoadley. I read the writings of Baxter almost continually. I went through, not only the whole of his voluminous practical works, but many of his doctrinal and controversial ones, including his Catholic Theology, his Aphorisms on Justification, his Confessions, and his most elaborate, comprehensive and wonderful work of all, his Methodus Theologiae, in Latin. In Baxter alone I had a world of materials for thought, on almost every religious and moral subject that can engage the mind of man. And on almost ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... head," pursued Fouquet, "and the disfigured features of Louis XIV., which no one could have recognized, would be M. d'Herblay's complete and entire justification." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... increasing material power, which was greatly strengthened by the last French war, did nothing to dull the sense of rights, but it was, on the contrary, a marked stimulus to the mind in formulating a plausible, if theoretical, justification of desired aims. Doubtless no American would say that being able to pay taxes was a good reason for not paying them, or that obligations might rightly be ignored as soon as one was in a position ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... on the habits of thought of the British people, or on that section of the British population which will make up the effectual majority when the war closes. The grave interest that attaches to this question must serve as justification for pursuing it farther, even though there can be no promise of a definite or confident ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... visits. He was millions of leagues removed from Sister Ursula's world—this person with the tall silk hat, the long frock-coat, the light grey trousers, the tiny yellow buttonhole rose, and the marvellous puffed cravat anchored about with black pearl-headed pins—but an imperative need for justification was upon her. Her own mission, the absolute rightness of her own mission, were so clear to herself that she never doubted anyone might misunderstand when she pointed upwards to the skies, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... adopt Mr. Dickinson's petition; and to this measure John Adams submitted. But the Congress also decided to raise a Continental army to assist Massachusetts in driving the British forces out of Boston, of which army it appointed, as Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, Esq.; and in justification of these measures it published a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... done soon, if they could in fact launch it on the top of the returning tide—from the very way that she left me to finish her phrases for her I gathered that they regarded the "Life and Letters" as Wrackham's justification in more ways than one. They proved that he had not left them ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... extend to the creation of flesh and blood. At the same time, he could not but feel to blame for having brought this strenuous spirit of Semitzin once more into the world, and he was fain to admit that her claim was not without justification. His motives had been excellent, but he had not foreseen the consequences in which the act was to land him. Yet he more shrank from wronging Miriam ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... happened after this justification of the Hare, which, if I heard aright, appeared to suggest that by the decree of some judge unknown, the woes of such creatures are not unnoted and despised, or left unsolaced. Of course I had to answer him that ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... not go quietly, I authorise you to use such force as may be necessary to compel him to go. And when you have seen him safe in his cabin, lock him in, and bring me the key. Now, sir,"—very haughtily to me—"be good enough to accompany me to the poop, and let us see what justification there is for all this sudden ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... assail a peaceful Republic in order to crush liberty abroad and at home. History has exposed the falseness of the slander; but a statesman ought not to owe his vindication to research in archives. He needs whole-hearted support in the present more than justification by students. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... justification, and an intelligible one, for considering that the fall of atheistic philosophy in ancient times was a blight upon the hopes of physical science. "Aristotle," he says, "Galen, and others frequently introduce such causes as these:—the hairs of the eyelids ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... Solicitor-General. What it was when they did receive it I never learnt, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long message to the Assembly drawn and signed by Paris, reciting my paper, complaining of its want of formality, as a rudeness on my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if the Assembly would send out some person of candour to treat with them for that purpose, intimating thereby that I was ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... destroy religious and social unity—and the last Christians, who, to preserve society, that is, religion and philosophy, are obliged to brave the principle of toleration. Man of truth! to whom I address, at once, my instruction and my justification, at the time when you shall live, the science of truth no doubt will have advanced a step. Think, then, of all your fathers have suffered, as, bending beneath the weight of their ignorance and uncertainty, they have traversed the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and by the intimation of some that belonged unto him, he was suspected to keep her, as his concubine; and both of them were examined ther upon, but nothing could be proved, and they stood upon their justification; so with admonition they were dismiste. But afterward it appeard she was with child, so he gott a small boat, & ran away with her, for fear of punishmente. First he went to Cap-Anne, and after into y^e bay of y^e Massachussets, ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... The moral substance of the English must have been strong indeed when it admitted of such hardy treatment; but on the whole, the people were ruled as they preferred to be ruled; and if wisdom may be tested by success, the manner in which they passed the great crisis of the Reformation is the best justification of their princes. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... pirates were of this character. Some, not inherently vicious nor absolutely depraved, had adopted this lawless calling by reason of some stigma which deprived them of their social position; others, by reason of their indolence; and others from sheer necessity, who found in their dire distress the justification for the ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann

... left the Come-Outers' meeting with the unpleasant conviction that he had blundered badly. His visit, instead of tending toward better understanding and more cordial relationship, had been regarded as an intrusion. He had been provoked into a public justification, and now he was quite sure that he would have been more politic to remain silent. He realized that the evening's performance would cause a sensation and be talked about all over town. The Come-Outers would glory in their leader's denunciation of him, and his own people would perhaps feel that it ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... people in a social way had a purpose and that was to level up society and cause it to conform to the principles of the kingdom of God. Wherever He went He led the conversation to the better things of this kingdom. The man who quotes Jesus and His relation to society, as a justification of attendance upon numerous social functions, ought also to carry out the purpose of Jesus in bringing others to a better life; he ought also to lead the conversation to the same topics. If society sways any man ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... Leeds, of high crimes and misdemeanors, and that he should be impeached thereupon. Then it was ordered that Mr. comptroller Wharton should impeach him before the lords in the name of the house and of all the commons in England. The duke was actually in the middle of a speech for his own justification, in which he assured the house, upon his honour, that he was not guilty of the corruptions laid to his charge, when one of his friends gave him intimation of the votes which had passed in the commons. He concluded his speech abruptly, and repairing to the lower house, desired ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Communism, would be but as dust in the balance. But, to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best with the regime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The laws of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which the justification of private property rests. They have made property of things which never ought to be property, and absolute property where only a qualified property ought to exist. Private property, in every defense made of it, is supposed to ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... episode is inherent in the story, the appearance of the Sun after the storm following the natural sequence of events and furnishing assurance to the king of his eventual survival. To identify the worshipper with his god and to transfer Ziusudu's material craft to the heavens is surely without justification from the simple narrative. We have here no prototype of Ra sailing the heavenly ocean. And the destructive flood itself is not only of an equally material and mundane character, but is in complete harmony ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... a question for me to solve, now youth exists no more, except in memory, whether this present method of keeping even with one's own needs and the world's has any justification. If it has, it lies in the fact that my real work was mostly done before I knew it. When energy exists devoid of self-consciousness (for self-consciousness is the beginning of death) the individual fulfils himself naturally, obeying the mandate within him. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... deed; then, in completion of the savage task, the same slaves walled up the door, after which they were themselves separated, and sent away never to be heard of more. To save accusation, and, in the event of discovery, to leave himself such justification as might be allowed in a distinction between the infliction of a punishment and the commission of a double murder, Gratus preferred sinking his victims where natural death was certain, though slow. That they might linger along, he selected a convict who had been made blind ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... Explicatio trium illustrissimorum locorum Novi Testamenti, Capitis I. Pauli ad Ephesios posterioris, Capitis II. Jacobi Commatis XIV. & sequentium, Capitis III. Epistolae I. Johannis, in quibus agitur de fide & operibus. This work shews, that faith is not sufficient for Justification; and that if those who have faith live in sin, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... should have wished, mischievously, to put him in the wrong, and that a thoughtless or insulting word on his part, should serve as a justification for ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... not very logical, and set Arctura thinking. She did not forgive the boy because he loved her; but the boy's love to her might make him sure she forgave him! Love is its own justification, and sees itself in all its objects: forgiveness is an essential belonging of love, and must be seen where love ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... great impropriety of the white settlers admitting the native females into their society, so much of the scandalous conduct of captains of ships suffering their men to have sweethearts during their stay in port, and so much urged in justification of the indignation shown by the missionaries when this subject is touched on by them, that I feel it necessary to state one decided benefit which has resulted from that intercourse, and which, in my opinion, far more than counterbalances ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle



Words linked to "Justification" :   justify, vindication, defense, exoneration, cause, explanation, circumstance, account, grounds, self-justification, condition, reason, consideration, defence



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