"Special pleading" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her—it might be because of her special pleading—that they had not gone further? Or were they still fighting through the heads, waiting until they got well out to sea before they disposed of him, so there would be no chance of his telltale body washing up along the coast for recognition and search for ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... the course of buying ['ships?'—Arber interpolates] as in former letters specified." If he had not then "ingaged" (as Robinson intimates), as an Adventurer, he surely did later, contrary to the pastor's prediction, and the above may have been a bit of special pleading. Robinson naturally wished to keep their, affairs, so far as possible, in known and supposedly friendly hands, and had possibly some assurances that, as a merchant, Pickering would be willing to invest in a ship for which he ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... le dogme; mais cela est parfaitement compatible avec l'inspiration, attendu qu'un livre peut-être inspiré sans être dogmatique, et que s'il n'est pas dogmatique par son contenu il ne saurait regler le dogme." But this contention savours somewhat of clever special pleading in order to evade the force of opposing evidence. Loisy, however, for a Roman Catholic, is a wonderfully frank and fair ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... the special pleading of a criminal—is it not, colonel? If I had really murdered the poor man, would not this be my method of explaining every thing? You see, I do not deny what several witnesses could prove; the fact that I quarreled with Conway, came to high words, uttered insults, exhibited anger, followed ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Mutineers had Saved in hope to procure his Master to worke their Pardon." Purchas wrote that "this report of Prickett may happely bee suspected by some as not so friendly to Hudson." Being essentially a bit of special pleading, intended to save his own neck and the necks of his companions, it has rested always under the suspicion that Purchas cast upon it. Nor is it relieved from suspicion by the fact that it is in accord with his sworn testimony, and with the sworn testimony of his fellows, before the High ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... then sat to hear the trial: The mastiff pleaded his denial; The cur then, special pleading, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... is," continued Seagrove, "that, as I always have to back Ponsonby's horses, he thought it right that, in this instance, I should back him: he required special pleading, but his uncle tried him for the capital offence, and he was not allowed counsel. As soon as we arrived, and I had bowed myself into the room, Mr Ponsonby bowed me out again—which would have been infinitely more jarring to ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to squint toward special pleading, let it be considered that, as we see things, it is precisely those views that take hold of the issues upon which our very being and all its activities depend, that serve best to train youth to broad views and penetrating thought. Such thinking seems to me to form the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... should do it before the adoption of our present Constitution, it is eminently proper that she should do it now. There are occasions, sir, in the history of nations, when men should rise far above the rules of special pleading. This is one of them. Let the gentleman look into the history of the old articles of Confederation; let him read the debates which arose upon their adoption. Virginia originated measures then, far more important than any before us now; and there were gentlemen then, who took the same ground that ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... What remains of him now is hardly more than his first "fond adventure" the supremely playable "Dame aux Camelias." The other plays are already out of date, since Ibsen; the philosophy of "Tue-la!" was the special pleading of the moment, and a drama in which special pleading, and not the fundamental "criticism of life," is the dramatic motive can never outlast its technique, which has also died with the coming of Ibsen. Better technique, perhaps, than that of "La Femme de Claude," but with less ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... antithetical qualities. They are bloodless frameworks, without life or humanity,—bundles of peculiarities skilfully grouped, and ticketed with such and such a name. No one sees a man within. As biographies they will not be remembered, but as instances of labored learning, of careful special pleading, and of brilliant rhetoric. Elsewhere, however, he has descended from philosophy, and not been above the pedantry of detail. And he has given us, in consequence, charming lives,—successful, in fact, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... idea of letting him off on definitions and general rules, and he plunged at once into special pleading, as presented by Chitty, in his chapter on Replications. No severer test could have been applied, and the young men thought it a little rough. Bart answered the questions with some care, and gave the reason of the rules clearly. Ranney then proposed ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... she had asked herself why she should struggle with love, when, with her heart and her whole nature in revolt, she gave herself to the husband whom she loved no longer. Perhaps, who knows? some piece of fallacious reasoning, some bit of special pleading, lies at the root of all sins, of all crimes. How shall society exist unless every individual of which it is composed will make the necessary sacrifices of inclination demanded by its laws? If you accept the benefits of civilized society, do you ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... was not, I can't trust a page of his special pleading, let it look as clever as the whole ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... thanks," he said, gently. "Take heart of grace, Miss Hastings. God helping us we will save him yet. I had selected him for my subject of special pleading before I knew who ...
— Three People • Pansy
... most frequently in connection with northern mythology, where the line between mythic and historical events gathering round a hero is generally so finely drawn as to be almost imperceptible. But it is so obviously a piece of special pleading on self-created lines that other explanation is needed. And another explanation is to be obtained if only students will rely upon the evidence of tradition itself instead of appealing to every fancy derived from sources which have nothing ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... out," retorted Jupiter. "Besides," he added, with dignity, and a burlesque of marital special pleading which every wife and husband recognised, "I always sit with my feet out so, and I always will, so long as I've ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... enlightened scholar, Simon Karsten, who, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, found a labour of love in collecting and editing the remains of early Greek philosophers, deprecated such a judgment. Yet, while the motives for his special pleading were honourable, seeing the odious misrepresentations of Pantheism still prevalent in the Dutch scholar's native land,—misrepresentations undissipated even by the splendour of Spinoza,—his protest remains ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton |
