"Pugnacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... either Arrian or Raleigh may now be referred to by those who wish to know the real merit of Alexander as a general, and how far the commonplace assertions are true that his successes were the mere results of fortunate rashness and unreasoning pugnacity. Napoleon selected Alexander as one of the seven greatest generals whose noble deeds history has handed down to us, and from the study of whose campaigns the principles of war are to be learned. The critique of the greatest conqueror ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... and argument. They come and go, coalesce and are forgotten, never organizing perfectly the emotion of the whole group. There is, after all, just one human activity left in which whole populations accomplish the union sacre. It occurs in those middle phases of a war when fear, pugnacity, and hatred have secured complete dominion of the spirit, either to crush every other instinct or to enlist it, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Undoubtedly, some day or other Gryphus will attack me in a manner painful to my self-respect, or to my love, or even threaten my personal safety. I don't know how it is, but since my imprisonment I feel a strange and almost irresistible pugnacity. Well, I shall get at the throat of that old ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird of ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... that man's predominance over woman in size, strength, courage, pugnacity, and even energy was acquired in primeval times, and that these advantages have been subsequently augmented chiefly through the contests between men for women. Even man's intellectual vigour and inventiveness ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... the expression of everything, is a perfect example of the conservation of energy. It is very difficult to come to the end of him. Add to this unimaginative, practical, tenacious moderation an inherent spirit of competition—not to say pugnacity—so strong that it will often show through the coating of his "Live and let live," half-surly, half-good-humored manner; add a peculiar, ironic, "don't care" sort of humor; an underground but inveterate humaneness, and an ashamed idealism—and you get some notion of the pudding of English character. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... dared ride into this camp of thieving assassins shows what risks he could force himself to run when he thought it necessary. He was not physically a very brave man; he had no pugnacity and no adventurous love of danger for its own sake; but when he was resolved on an enterprise, he ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... astrologer in Chaldaea; where Abraham, says Berosus (Josephus, Ant. I. 7, Sec. 2, and II. 9, Sec. 2) was "skilful in the celestial science." He notices the Akarana-Zaman (endless Time) of the Guebres, and the working dual, Hormuzd and Ahriman. He brands the God of the Hebrews with pugnacity and cruelty. He has heard of the beautiful creations of Greek fancy which, not attributing a moral nature to the deity, included Theology in Physics; and which, like Professor Tyndall, seemed to consider all matter everywhere alive. We have adopted ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... on the Natural History of Bees, avers that the moth called the Sphynx atropos invades and plunders with impunity a hive containing thousands of bees, notwithstanding the watchfulness, pugnacity, and formidable weapons of those insects. To account for this phenomenon, he states that the queen bee has the faculty of emitting a certain sound which instantly strikes the bees motionless; and he conjectures that this burglarious moth, being endowed with the same property, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... hostile, but not one that would account for all his actions. Perhaps the best analysis would begin by showing him as half the aboriginal Westerner and half the Washington politician. In many ways he was very Western. He had a Westerner's pugnacity, and at the same time a Westerner's geniality and capacity for comradeship with men. He had to the last a Westerner's private tastes—especially a taste for gambling—and a Westerner's readiness to fight duels. Above all, from the time that ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... exactly the same rules. The males are almost always the wooers; and they alone are armed with special weapons for fighting with their rivals. They are generally stronger and larger than the females, and are endowed with the requisite qualities of courage and pugnacity. They are provided, either exclusively or in a much higher degree than the females, with organs for vocal or instrumental music, and with odoriferous glands. They are ornamented with infinitely diversified appendages and with the most brilliant ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... feel any profound interest as to his future. He has compared himself to a dog,—but, on behalf of that faithful and valued companion of man, we protest against the similitude. He has the kind of pugnacity which prompts a cur or a puppy to attack a Newfoundland or a mastiff. He has not the fidelity and many other good qualities of the canine race. At any rate, he has become a mischievous dog,—and a dull dog,—and will soon be a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... deep. The woman's quietism and piety passed on to his different nature undiminished; but whereas in her it was a native sentiment, in him it was only an implanted dogma. Nature and the child's pugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the back stable lane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a considerable decline in the number of his front ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with cruel and ignorant criticisms, the great composers would, no doubt, have been amiable in their public relations, as they appear to have been almost invariably toward their friends. Wagner's pugnacity and frequent ill-temper, for instance, arose simply from the fact that, while he was toiling night and day to compose immortal master-works, his contemporaries not only refused to contribute enough for his daily bread, but assailed him on all sides with malicious ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... gracious—had in fact rarely seen her shy or dry, her marked thin-lipped smile, intense without brightness and as prompt to act as the scrape of a safety-match; the protrusion of her rather remarkably long chin, which in her case represented invitation and urbanity, and not, as in most others, pugnacity and defiance; the penetration of her voice to a distance, the general encouragement and approval of her manner, were all elements with which intercourse had made him familiar, but which he noted today almost as if ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... highest qualities in the reciter. Even in Pulci, accordingly, we find no parody, strictly speaking, of chivalry, nearly humour of his paladins at times approaches it. By their side stands the ideal of pugnacity—the droll and jovial Morgante—who masters whole armies with his bellclapper, and who is himself thrown into relief by contrast with the grotesque and most interesting monster Margutte. Yet Pulci lays no special stress on these two rough and vigorous characters, and his story, long after they ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the Evangelical school, but in the heat of its controversial warfare. His heart, when he was a boy, was set on entering the army; and one of his most characteristic points through life, shown in many very different forms, was his pugnacity, his keen perception of ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... enough to arrest his progress in that way. Then he tried to seize him by the neck, but a few strong blows with his fore feet made that a difficult and dangerous task, and so Sam had to let go. This seemed to interest the calf, and so from being the one attacked he became the aggressor. The pugnacity of the calf, and the lively way in which he butted his opponent, caused great amusement to the onlookers. Sam could not stand this, and so he threw himself desperately on the animal, and hugging him around his neck, ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... and dangerous talking too; but here was plainly a man to be humoured; he looked round him with a suffused face and the eye of a cock, and a little white plume on his forehead increased his appearance of pugnacity. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... a senior colleague. And with all its sufficiency, his philosophy seems too Fabian in its counsels; it is always withdrawing, passing by on the other side, avoiding battle—so that as a preparation for the uttermost ordeal it will often prove inferior to the reckless pugnacity of a narrow zealot. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... point,—he won his cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a superlative dolt, and a common mark of scorn and contempt of every ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... of strong conviction. He is too good a partisan to admit that there may be another side to the question which might be worth considering. With magnificent ruthlessness he plunges ahead, and with a truly old Norse pugnacity he stands in the thick of the fight, rejoicing in battle. Only combat arouses his Titanic energy and calls all his ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a strange bond between the big yellow man and this little green bird. The bird did not suspect it, but the man knew. The pluck, the pugnacity and the individuality of the feathered comrade had been an object lesson to the man, at a time when he had been on the point of ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... these. David Culross had been in the penitentiary twenty years. Now, with that worm-eaten heart, he came out into liberty and looked about him for the habiliments with which he had formerly clothed himself,—for hope, self-respect, courage, pugnacity, and industry. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... the words were inscribed: "Be just and fear not"; and Eloquent, who was brought up to look upon justice as the first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested in the portraits of the great commoner. But he found comfort in the reflection that "Dada," mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very clean-looking little tradesman, with trim ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... her husband's poems as if they were so many bombs, hurled in the face of the enemy, her public. There was nothing like the pugnacity of the Kiddy in these ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... beneath my eyes, lay a clenched fist of fearful dimensions, that in color and protuberances bore a good deal of resemblance to a freshly unearthed Jerusalem artichoke. Its sinews seemed to be cracking with tension, and the whole knob was so expressive of intense pugnacity that my eyes involuntarily sought its owner's face. I had unconsciously taken my seat directly opposite a man whose stature was nearly double that of the compact, bustling sputtering, and sturdy little ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... species, occasionally found on the Atlantic coast of North America. It is a species remarkable for its pugnacity during the mating season; in size and appearance it is about like the Upland Plover, with the exception of the "ruff" which adorns the neck and breast ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... their being killed by ill treatment was so unequivocal that the verdict would certainly have been one of wilful murder had the prejudice of the coroner's jury been on the other side, their tormentors were gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; and its law was ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... profound mistake. It seemed to me that the average Chinaman, even if he is miserably poor, is happier than the average Englishman, and is happier because the nation is built upon a more humane and civilized outlook than our own. Restlessness and pugnacity not only cause obvious evils, but fill our lives with discontent, incapacitate us for the enjoyment of beauty, and make us almost incapable of the contemplative virtues. In this respect we have grown rapidly worse during the last hundred years. I do not deny ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... the breeding season, are taken by decoying them into nets or snares by tame or wild birds of the opposite sex; in fact, advantage was wont to be taken of the pugnacity or devotion of the Ruffes when "hilling," by previously setting springes or nets on their battle-ground, into which said snares they danced, when courting or fighting (see ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... as I read the note left by an orderly in uniform notifying me that I was expected to report at the quarters of the commanding-general the next day at ten o'clock. Conscious of my innocence of treason or any other crime against the Government or society, my pugnacity was roused by this summons. Before the hour set for my appearance at the military headquarters, I was ready for martyrdom or any thing else except Alcatraz. I didn't like that. The island was too small, and too foggy and windy, for my taste. I thought it best to obey ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... had apparently begun to recover from his astonishment, had changed his ankus from one hand to the other, and was in the act of drawing his kris, when Peter yelled at him again and made so fierce a thrust with his spear that all the little fellow's pugnacity died out, or, as it were, passed away in a ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... honest friends of mine—and true friends I know they are—who nevertheless by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement and the loss of the treasure which I guard.—I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... petticoat and flung it defiantly in the air. Who had cut away the signal—McDonald or the detective? We had planned to investigate the nameless lake that afternoon, Tish being like Colonel Roosevelt in her thirst for information, as well as in the grim pugnacity that is her dominant characteristic; but at the last minute ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of things; to observe what thoughts and passions have occupied men's minds, what opinions and manners they are of. In this view it becomes of no mean importance to notice and record the strangest ignorance, the most putid fables, impertinent, trifling, ridiculous disputes, and more ridiculous pugnacity in the defence and retention of the subjects disputed." (Publisher's preface to the reader in Lightfoot's ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... combat, battle, engagement, struggle, encounter, fray, affray, melee, scrimmage (Colloq.); pugnacity, belligerence. Associated words: militant, combative, combativeness, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... to talk; yet every now and then, as some jolt of the carriage made George open his eyes, he saw the broad-shouldered figure beside him, sitting in the same attitude, erect and tireless, the same half-peevish pugnacity giving expression ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... psychologist, in one of his brilliant essays published in The Popular Science Monthly for October, 1910, tells us that history is a bath of blood; we inherit the war-like type; our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow; showing the irrationality and horror of war does not prevent it; but a moral equivalent can be found by enlisting an army to toil and suffer pain in doing the hard and routine work of the world. It is doubtful, however, if the "gilded youths" ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... put up by a dozen frats, and landing the bunch in a crowd that it had never heard of two weeks before, is as bad as trying to herd a bunch of whales into a fishpond with nothing but hot air for gads. It took diplomacy, pugnacity and psychological moments, I tell you; and it took more: it took ingenuity and inventiveness and cheek and second sight and cool heads in time of trouble and long heads on the job, from daybreak to daybreak. I'd rather ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... conversation strayed into politics, and then Mr. Grey, an eager politician, would throw back his head, and talk with more sparkle and rapidity, flashing occasionally into grim humour which seemed to throw light on the innate strength and pugnacity of the peasant and Puritan breed from which he sprang. Nothing could be more unlike the inspired philosopher, the mystic surrounded by an adoring school, whom Robert had been picturing to himself in his walk up to the house, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Teddy, who had considerable pugnacity in his makeup, although not really what you would call ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... We may classify the instinctive modes of behaviour and their accompanying modes of instinctive experience under as many heads as may be convenient for our purposes of interpretation, and label them instincts of self-preservation, of pugnacity, of acquisition, the reproductive instincts, the parental instincts, and so forth. An instinct, in this sense of the term (for example the parental instinct), may be described as a specialised part of the primary tissue of experience differentiated in relation to some definite ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... that time, the slight wound in the latter's arm where the vein had been opened had practically healed. Dirty Dan continued to improve, passed the danger-mark, and began the upward climb to his old vigor and pugnacity. Port Agnew, stirred to discussion over the affray, forgot it within three days, and on the following Monday morning Donald returned to the woods. The Laird of Tyee carried his worries to the Lord in prayer, and Nan Brent frequently ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Pathan would demean himself by being servant to a man of no account, they will more readily respect you, although you are neither Sikh nor yet Pathan but are supposed to be a Punjabi Mussulman. Therefore, sahib, you must take a middle course between peace and pugnacity, pretending on the one hand to restrain my quarrelsomeness, yet on the other depending for safety on my readiness to take offense—as a man who is accustomed to a ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... not content to listen. Diana's impressions of the country-side, which presently caught her ear, evidently roused her pugnacity. She threw herself on all the girl's rose-colored appreciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the "locals," according to her, were stupid or snobbish—bores, in fact, of the first water. And to Diana's discomfort and amazement, Oliver Marsham joined in. He showed ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said Nancy, recovering some of her natural pugnacity; "for we are all tarred with the same stick, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the synagogue, if they did not share my ardent affection for him, they all, with one exception, liked him. The exception was a middle-aged little Talmudist with a tough little beard who held everybody in terror by his violent temper and pugnacity. He was a pious man, but his piety never manifested itself with such genuine fervor as when he exposed the impiety of others. He was forever picking quarrels, forever challenging people to debate with him, forever offering to show that their interpretation of this passage or that was all wrong. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... (1699), which spread his fame through Europe. After receiving various preferments, including the Boyle lectureship and the Keepership of the Royal Library, he was, in 1700, appointed Master of Trinity, and afterwards was, largely owing to his own pugnacity and rapacity, which were almost equal to his learning, involved in a succession of litigations and controversies. These lasted for 20 years, and led to the temporary loss of his academic preferments and honours. In 1717, however, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... fellow. The more he drank, up to a certain point, the steadier he got on his legs, and the more necessary it seemed for him to fight somebody. The tide of his pugnacity that night took a ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... while his wedge-shaped beak and cruel spurs are ever ready to support his defiant crow. It is no wonder that the breed is not plentiful—first, on account of the few eggs laid by the hen; and, secondly, from the incurable pugnacity of the chicks. Half fledged broods may be found blind as bats from fighting, and only waiting for the least glimmer of sight to be at it again. Without doubt, the flesh of game fowls is every way superior to that of every chicken ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... all; seeing that in the musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct spirit in which to approach ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... characterized by the following tendencies: Fear, anger, sympathy, affection, play, imitation, curiosity, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, self-assertion (leadership), self-abasement, rivalry, envy, jealousy, pugnacity, clannishness, the hunting and predatory instincts, the migratory instinct, love of adventure and the unknown, superstition, the sex instincts, which express themselves in sex-love, vanity, coquetry, modesty; and, closely allied with these, the love of nature and of solitude, and the ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... to proceed, sir?" he said. "It is very interesting, indeed. You were talking about the pugnacity ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... Swiss or Belgian giants. The general physiognomy was good, mostly high-featured, often commanding, sometimes remarkable for massive beauty of the Jovian type, and almost invariably distinguished by a fearless, open-eyed frankness, in some instances running into arrogance and pugnacity. I remember one or two elderly men, in particular, whose faces would help an artist to idealize a Lacedaemonian general, or a baron of the Middle Ages. In dress somewhat careless, and wearing usually ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... considerable canvassing of the matter, "Freckles" had received a majority vote. Freckles had long ceased to impress the observer as a pathetic object. He was an energetic, pin-feathery creature, noted equally for his appetite and his pugnacity. Dorothy who had not hesitated to bestride Farmer Cole's boar, and was absolutely fearless as far as Hobo was concerned, retreated panic-stricken before Freckles' advances. For owing to reasons not apparent, Freckles found an irresistible temptation ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Hunger, Fear and Rage). In time, it may become possible, by physiological means, to alter the whole emotional nature of a population. It will then depend upon the passions of the rulers how this power is used. Success will come to the State which discovers how to promote pugnacity to the extent required for external war, but not to the extent which would lead to domestic dissensions. There is no method by which it can be insured that rulers shall desire the good of mankind, and therefore ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... Pugnacity and determination were revealed in the short thick-set figure of John Adams; the round bald head, the firm mouth, the set eyes of the Braintree patriot, gave the idea that he was grimly and terribly in earnest. Square-headed old Roger Sherman was another ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... contest, tug of war. naval engagement, naumachia[obs3], sea fight. duel, duello[It]; single combat, monomachy[obs3], satisfaction, passage d'armes[Fr], passage of arms, affair of honor; triangular duel; hostile meeting, digladiation[obs3]; deeds of arms, feats of arms; appeal to arms &c. (warfare) 722. pugnacity; combativeness &c. adj.; bone of contention &c. 713. V. contend; contest, strive, struggle, scramble, wrestle; spar, square; exchange blows, exchange fisticuffs; fib|!, justle[obs3], tussle, tilt, box, stave, fence; skirmish; pickeer[obs3]; fight &c. (war) 722; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... processes in the young; but when I see how quickly and completely the condition of a patient may be changed, and all cloudy, depressed conditions of the brain removed,—how easily I can produce a state of insanity, idiocy, or pugnacity, and as quickly remove it entirely,—I cannot doubt that a little perseverance in cultivating the nobler qualities until they become by habit a second nature will change even the most depraved, if the process be begun in childhood or youth and steadily ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... hypnotism we find the promise of a possibility of superseding old inherent instincts by new suggestions, grafting upon or replacing the inherited fixed ideas. Very much indeed of what we call moral education, he said, is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion. And the great difference between man and monkey is in the larynx, he continued,—in the incapacity to frame delicately different ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... Antwerp. Locke or Dugald Stewart, indeed, had they been cognizant of the tailor's triumph, might have illustrated the principle on which he succeeded—as to ourselves, we can only conjecture it. Our own opinion is, that they were both animated with a congenial spirit. Biddy was the very pink of pugnacity, and could throw in a body blow, or plant a facer, with singular energy and science. Her prowess hitherto had, we confess, been displayed only within the limited range of domestic life; but should she ever ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... were not restored in the palace of Meneptah. The unrest that precedes a national crisis had developed into irritability and pugnacity. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... least like his father when he came racing home from school, hair tousled, books dangling from a strap. Tommy would raid the pantry with unthinking zest, invite other boys in to look at the Westerns on TV, and trade black eyes for marbles with a healthy pugnacity. ...
— The Calm Man • Frank Belknap Long
... more complex original tendencies such as sucking, chewing, sitting up, and gurgling. Among the more general unlearned responses of children are fear, anger, pugnacity, envy, jealousy, curiosity, constructiveness, love of festivities, ceremonies and ordeals, sociability and shyness, secretiveness, etc. Thorndike, who quotes this list at length, has sought to give definiteness to its descriptions by clearly defining ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... but a German shipping millionaire from Bremen—was coming down, with an "expert." Hang the expert! Falloden, who was to deal with the business, promised himself not to be intimidated by him, or his like; and amid his general distress and depression, his natural pugnacity took pleasure in the thought of wrestling ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... assertive when threatened. He will fight to the last gasp to keep what he really does not want very much, if only he supposes that his enemy wishes to take a bit of it. It was in that spirit of pugnacity that he stretched a large muscular hand over the whole map of Australia, and defied his foes to touch it. Before the great struggle it would have been quite possible to think of colonising schemes in the southern hemisphere without seriously contemplating the danger ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... dinner abstractedly, and responded only in monosyllables to her sweet attempts at conversation. The fact was that the day had been a perplexing one; he was engaged in one of his big fights, a scheme that aroused all his pugnacity and taxed all his resources. He would win—of course; he would smash everybody, but he would win. When he was in this mood Carmen felt that she was like a daisy in the path of a cyclone. In the first year of their marriage he used to consult her about all his schemes, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... him. Then there had come to be that famous war between Great Britain and the republic of Patagonia, and Hugh Stanbury had been sent out as a special correspondent by the editor and proprietor of the Daily Record. His letters had been much read, and had called up a great deal of newspaper pugnacity. He had made important statements which had been flatly denied, and found to be utterly false; which again had been warmly reasserted and proved to be most remarkably true to the letter. In this way the correspondence, and he as its author, became so much talked about that, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... English literature. Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam concentrated into an immortal poignancy all the dark and drifting hedonism of our time. Of the literary splendour of that work it would be merely banal to speak; in few other of the books of men has there been anything so combining the gay pugnacity of an epigram with the vague sadness of a song. But of its philosophical, ethical, and religious influence which has been almost as great as its brilliancy, I should like to say a word, and that word, I confess, one of uncompromising hostility. There ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... but the energetic, the self-asserting, the aggressive. Nor will mere passive strength of will prevent subjection; for how often do we see a spirit, whose only prominent characteristic is a restless and tireless pugnacity, hold in complete subserviency those who are far superior in actual strength of mind, purely through the apathy of the latter, and their indisposition to live in a state of constant effort! It is because this petty domineering temper is found much oftener in women than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... constituted, the sphere of morality, destined, who knows how soon, to include the whole of mankind in one beneficent alliance, began with what Professor McDougal has called "the replacement of individual by collective pugnacity." The first clear stage in this progress is the tribe or clan, the smallest organised community, sometimes no larger than the self-contained village or camp, which can still be found in the wild parts of the earth. Tribe against tribe is the formula ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... feeling. Their aspect thus becomes the recognised expression for the feeling which really accompanies it. So in hand-to-hand fighting: the intention and passion which each imputes to the other is what he himself feels; but the imputation is probably just, since pugnacity is a remarkably contagious and monotonous passion. It is awakened by the slightest hostile suggestion and is greatly intensified by example and emulation; those we fight against and those we fight with arouse it concurrently and the universal ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... His mind was in a mingled condition of amazement and satisfaction at his escape, triumph at the success of his plan, and indignation at the cowardly wickedness of the savages. A rollicking species of mad pugnacity took possession of him, and the consequence was, that the sounds which issued from his leathern throat ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention. ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... a change began to come over Jim. He left his younger brothers in unhectored peace. He had not much to say, but ever he watched Andy from the corner of a jealous eye, and listened for him to speak. All his pugnacity was engaged in what seemed to be a profitless struggle with the speech of the grammar. "I will larn it yet," he repeated over and over. And even while the words were in his mouth, if he had had less obstinacy in his make-up, he would have yielded himself to despair. ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... The popular idea of the Mina, Mr. Crooke remarks, [268] is quite in accordance with his historical character; his niggardliness is shown in the saying, 'The Meo will not give his daughter in marriage till he gets a mortar full of silver'; his pugnacity is expressed in, 'The Meo's son begins to avenge his feuds when he is twelve years old'; and his toughness in, 'Never be sure that a Meo is dead till you see the third-day ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Senator Fields of New York quietly left his seat and came to me. He was a most devoted servant of Tammany, but was what was known in those days as a War Democrat. His native pugnacity caused him to feel that the struggle must be fought out, whereas Democrats of a more philosophic sort, like Allaben, known in those days as "Copperheads,'' sought peace at any price. Therefore it was that, while Senator Allaben was pouring out with the deepest ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... natural pugnacity was always easily aroused, returned the compliment with the most evident sincerity; but the Borzoi, having flung down the gage of battle and asserted her dignity, retired gracefully from the contest, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... physical strength, and still agile and lithe for his age; but his hair was an ugly straw colour and his clean-shorn, pale face lacked any sort of distinction save an indication of moral purpose, character, and pugnacity. It was a face well suited to his own requirements, for he could disguise it easily; but it was not a face calculated to charm or challenge any woman—a ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... the faintest hint of any speculation, and the figures flowed from him by the page. A lively imagination and a ready though inaccurate memory supplied his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat that made him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction; had a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity and fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness. He was ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... all-soothing medium of a mint-julep, transpose himself from a mass of passion and bad English into a child of perfect equanimity? If not, perhaps you have witnessed in our halls of Congress the sudden transition through which some of our Carolina members pass from a state of stupidity to a state of pugnacity? (We refer only to those members who do their own "stumping," and as a natural consequence, get into Congress through abuse of the North, bad whiskey, and a profusion of promises to dissolve the Union.) ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... William Cobbett, who signed himself Peter Porcupine, adopting for his literary alias a nickname bestowed by his enemies. This remarkable writer, who, like Paine, figured in the political conflicts of two nations, must have come into the world bristling with pugnacity. A more thorough game-cock never crowed in the pit. He had been a private in the English army, came to the United States about 1790, and taught French to Americans, and English to Frenchmen, (to Talleyrand among others,) until 1794, when the dogmatic Dr. Priestley arrived ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... thread of connection may be established between the second and third proverbs. The latter, like the former, commends peacefulness and condemns pugnacity. Men talk of 'glory' as the warrior's meed, and the so-called Christian world has not got beyond the semi-barbarous stage which regards 'honour' as mainly secured by fighting. But this ancient proverb-maker had learned ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... justice which he really deserved, there was in him as much of love for Elise as his nature was capable of harbouring for any one outside himself. He looked upon her as his own, and he was defending this idea of possession with the same pugnacity that he would protect his dollars from a thief. Morrison had been forced to the conclusion that Elise was lost to him. Hitherto Firmstone had been an impersonal obstacle in his path. Now—The eyes narrowed ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... an unlucky aptitude for saying the wrong word or keeping silence when speech was demanded. With the men of his acquaintance he could relieve his sense of awkwardness and deficiency by becoming aggressive; in fact, he had a reputation for cantankerousness, for pugnacity, which kept most of his equals in some awe of him, and to perceive this was one solace amid many discontents. Nicely dressed and well-spoken and good-looking women above the class of domestic servants he worshipped from afar, and only in vivacious moments pictured ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... own window, was Mr. Philip Bommaney, recently self-entitled the 'Solitary of Gable Inn.' He was eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered, deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a little weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the mounting shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among the telegraph lines, until the outer voices made his own dull room seem homely. One ruddy tongue ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... she pleased Cedric Bloxam quite so well. She insisted upon his standing for the county. Bloxam demurred at first, and, as usual, in the end Lady Mary had her own way. He threw himself into the fight with all the pugnacity of his disposition, and, while his blood was up, revelled in the fray. He could speak to the farmers in a blunt homely way, which suited them; and they brought him in as one of the Conservative Members ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... fury. The portion of the Town Guard on duty the previous night had just settled down to slumber when they were obliged to jump out of "bed" and betake themselves in hot haste to their posts. But the Boers were only joking; they retired after an out-of-range demonstration of pugnacity. The citizen soldiers went back to "bed," but ere their winks had totalled forty they were again roused by the sacred goose-cackie of the hooters and again running to their trenches. The scenes in the streets were pretty similar to the pictures of the day before. We waited six hours, in ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... dirge," mumbled this provoking individual, with something about the form of his cheek that being taken by Rachel for a derisive smile, made her exclaim vehemently, "You do not mean to undervalue an action like that in comparison with mere animal pugnacity in an advance." ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be absurd, however, to paint Keats as a man without vitality, without pugnacity, without merriment. His brother declared that "John was the very soul of manliness and courage, and as much like the Holy Ghost as Johnny Keats"—the Johnny Keats who had allowed himself to be "snuffed out by an article." As ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... is, not how he'll look, but how he'll behave. He's a delightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacity in him that breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You may have forgotten the affair of the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... rising from his knees with an air of reckless pugnacity] I ain't afraid of you. With your Louisa! Louisa! Miss Straker is good enough for you, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... two or three honest friends of mine—and true friends, I know, they are—who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think ...
— A Rill From the Town Pump (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... me. I am a peaceable man, Captain Lingard, but when put to it, I could fight as well as any of them flat-nosed chaps we have to make shift with, instead of a proper crew of decent Christians. Fighting!" he went on with unexpected pugnacity of tone, "Fighting! If anybody comes to fight me, he will find ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... trying to humiliate me," said D'Artagnan, in whom his native pugnacity began to speak louder than his peaceful resolutions. "I come from Gascony, it is true; and since you know it, there is no need to tell you that Gascons are not very patient, so that when they have asked pardon once, even for a folly, they think they have done at least as much again as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... and had a good time, being more hampered by the curiosity of the unattached fish than by the pugnacity of those under our immediate attention. So we killed three, and by preconcerted signal warned the watchers on the lofty points ashore of our success. As speedily as possible off came four boats from the shore stations, and hooked on to two of our fish, while we were ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... disregarded refinements of speech. The word culture, for instance, is marked by him [c-]ul'ture, while in the latest edition it appears as [c-][)u]lt'[u]re (k[)u]lt'y[u:]r). He had a few antipathies, as to the tsh sound then fashionable in such words as tumult, and with a certain native pugnacity he attacked the orthoepists who at that time had elaborated their system more than had the orthographists; he did not believe that nice shades of sound could be represented to the eye by characters, and he appears to have been ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... now chanced at a week-end to see him board the Manchester express at Euston would have been able to predict from his appearance that he would leave the train at Knype. He was an undersized man, with a combative and suspicious face. He regarded the world with crafty pugnacity from beneath frowning eyebrows. His expression said: "Woe betide the being who tries to get the better of me!" His expression said: "Keep off!" His expression said: "I am that I am. Take me or leave me, but preferably leave me. I loathe fuss, pretence, flourishes—any ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... thousand pities if the coming of Peace had deprived us of anything so cheerfully stimulating as the tales of "SAPPER" (CYRIL MCNEILE). His Bull-Dog Drummond (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) shows all the old breathless invention as active as ever, while the pugnacity—to give it no stronger term—is wholly unrestrained, even by what might seem the unpromising atmosphere of Godalming in 1919. It would, of course, be utterly beyond my scope to give in barest outline any list of the wild and whirling events that begin when Captain Hugh Drummond selects ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... walls for the Bridal city of Science, in which no man will care to identify the particular stones he lays, rather than complying farther with the existing picturesque, but wasteful, practice of every knight to throw up a feudal tower of his own opinions, tenable only by the most active pugnacity, and pierced rather with arrow-slits from which to annoy his neighbours, than windows to admit light ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... rest,—what is the business of "the rest" to be? Naturally, according to the existing state of things, one supposes they are to belong to some of the gentlemanly professions; to be soldiers, lawyers, doctors, or clergymen. But alas, I shall not want any soldiers of special skill or pugnacity. All my boys will be soldiers. So far from wanting any lawyers, of the kind that live by talking, I shall have the strongest possible objection to their appearance in the country. For doctors, I shall always entertain a profound respect; but when I get my athletic education fairly established, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... love and war connected that not only is individual pugnacity greatly increased at the period of sexual maturity, when animals acquire or develop horns, fangs, claws, spurs, and weapons of offense and defense, but a new spirit of organization arises which makes teams possible or more permanent. Football, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... down the upper scaffolding of the steadily rising walls, or down below on the ground in front of his men, his hands behind his back, his face screwed into a quizzical expression, his whole body bearing a look of bristling content and pugnacity which was too delicious for words. Since things were going especially well he could not say much, but still he could look his contentiousness, and did. Even now he would occasionally manage to pick a quarrel with some lusty mason or other, which resulted in the customary ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... once more, and immediately Dandy, in order to gratify his master, gave him a pretty smart blow upon the end of his nose. He hoped this would satisfy the grumbler, and bring the sport to a happy termination. As usual, the blow excited the pugnacity of Master Archy; and setting the rules of the art at defiance, he rushed upon his companion with all the impetuosity of ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... For though it certainly is amusing to hear of a kingdom no bigger than Stirlingshire with the half of Perthshire, standing erect and maintaining perpetual war with all the rest of Scotland, a little nucleus of pugnacity, sixty miles by twenty-four, rather more than a match for the lazy lubber, nine hundred miles long, that dandled it in its arms; yet, as the trick was done, we cease to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... The baiting of Jews, the hunting of Albigenses and Waldenses, the stoning of Quakers and ducking of Methodists, the murdering of Mormons and the massacring of Armenians, express much rather that aboriginal human neophobia, that pugnacity of which we all share the vestiges, and that inborn hatred of the alien and of eccentric and non-conforming men as aliens, than they express the positive piety of the various perpetrators. Piety ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... card played, fell back beaten, every vestige of optimistic pugnacity gone from his face. Edgington laid his hand on ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... of ornament and of merchandise, and stimulate in them the worst conditions of pugnacity, bigotry, and rapine. That is the broad geographical and political relation of races. Next, you must consider ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... from his own rather folded and subtilised countenance, her little lithe figure, when he and most of the Forsytes were tall. And he would dwell on the origin of species, and debate whether she might be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he thought, from her pugnacity, and her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It was not too much to say that he preferred her to the Age with which she was surrounded, youthful though, for the greater part, it was. She took, however, too much interest in his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for long years of persecution at the hands of Europeans. "It is a fact that all our more pernicious weeds, like our vermin, are of Old-World origin," says.John Burroughs. "...Perhaps the most notable thing about them, when compared with our native species, is their persistence, not to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; they plant colonies here and there, and will not be rooted out. Our native weeds are for the most part shy and harmless, and retreat before civilization.... We have hardly a weed ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... references; if they were all left, such was the man's temper, they would not represent one hundredth part of what he suffered, for he was never given to complaint. But indeed he had met this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart circumstance of life, with a certain pleasure of pugnacity; and suffered it not to check him, whether in the exercise of his profession ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... haut-de-chausses, trousses, gregues, culottes, pantalons, &c. These wandering people had other reasons for preferring the short and close-fitting garments to those which were long and full, and these were their innate pugnacity, which forced them ever to be under arms, their habit of dwelling in forests and thickets, their love of the chase, and their custom of ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... that time that Belfast's devotion—and also his pugnacity—secured universal respect. He spent every moment of his spare time in Jimmy's cabin. He tended him, talked to him; was as gentle as a woman, as tenderly gay as an old philanthropist, as sentimentally ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... jest. There could not be a better spirit in which to face the long delays and the bitter disappointments of the war. Two outstanding features in their character are, to my mind, practically universal, whatever form they happen to take. An inherent pugnacity, and a whole-hearted belief in and love of their county, which amounts to something more than clannishness. They know everything about every one in Northumberland, and with others they do not trouble themselves much. They do not talk about ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... invited all hands down to their boat for a dance, and by flaring torches to the notes of accordion and fiddle, the evening would pass in rude and harmless jollity, unless too many tin cups or gourds of fiery liquor excited the always ready pugnacity of the men. They were ready to brag of their valor, and to put their boasts to the test. They were "half horse, half alligator," according to their own favorite expression, equally prepared with knife or pistol, fist, or the trained ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the 'Society for Constitutional Information,' of which Major Cartwright—afterwards the revered, but rather tiresome, patriarch of the Radicals—was called the 'father.' Horne Tooke (as he was now named), by these and other exhibitions of boundless pugnacity, became a leader among the middle-class Whigs, who found their main support among London citizens, such as Beckford, Troutbeck and Oliver; supported them in his later days; and after the American war, preferred Pitt, as an advocate of parliamentary reform, to Fox, the favourite ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... should have failed to give adequate support to our allies. The cause is not selfishness but ignorance and want of imagination; and what have we done to tap the sources of an intelligent patriotism? We are being saved not by the reasoned conviction of the populace, but by its native pugnacity and bull-dog courage. This is not the place to go into details about English studies; but can anyone doubt that they could be made the basis of a far better education than we now give in our schools? We have especially to remember that there is a real danger of the ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... part of the day's hunt; lay down side by side under one blanket, with the upturned canoe partially covering them; dreamed at first of Okematan, gazing in wonder at their load, and, afterwards, of being knocked head over heels by an enormous grey goose whose persistent pugnacity was only equalled by its strange incapacity ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Zealand a line on the map, and left it an Archipelago, a feat which many generations of her colonists will value above the shaping of sentences. The feature of his experiences which most strikes the reader now, is the extraordinary courage and pugnacity of the natives. They took the Endeavour for a gigantic white-winged sea-bird, and her pinnace for a young bird. They thought the sailors gods, and the discharge of their muskets divine thunderbolts. Yet, when Cook and a boat's crew landed, a defiant war-chief at once threatened ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... "Yes, yes, my pugnacity costs me very dear sometimes. But to our story. As soon as Bartja had opened his eyes, Gyges sent me off to Sardis to fetch a good physician and an easy travelling-carriage. That ride won't so soon be imitated. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
