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Opposition   Listen
noun
Opposition  n.  
1.
The act of opposing; an attempt to check, restrain, or defeat; resistance. "The counterpoise of so great an opposition." "Virtue which breaks through all opposition."
2.
The state of being placed over against; situation so as to front something else.
3.
Repugnance; contrariety of sentiment, interest, or purpose; antipathy.
4.
That which opposes; an obstacle; specifically, the aggregate of persons or things opposing; hence, in politics and parliamentary practice, the party opposed to the party in power.
5.
(Astron.) The situation of a heavenly body with respect to another when in the part of the heavens directly opposite to it; especially, the position of a planet or satellite when its longitude differs from that of the sun 180°.
6.
(Logic) The relation between two propositions when, having the same subject and predicate, they differ in quantity, or in quality, or in both; or between two propositions which have the same matter but a different form.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Opposition" Quotes from Famous Books



... abrupt in manner, stern, and, in his present mood, forbidding both in look and speech. The one preserved a calm and placid smile; the other, a distrustful frown. The new-comer, indeed, appeared bent on showing by his every tone and gesture his determined opposition and hostility to the man he had come to meet. The guest who received him, on the other hand, seemed to feel that the contrast between them was all in his favour, and to derive a quiet exultation from it which put him more at ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... our store open on Sunday from sheer necessity, but after a little while, when stores in abundance were established at Kadikoi and elsewhere, and the absolute necessity no longer existed, Sunday became a day of most grateful rest at Spring Hill. This step also met with opposition from the men; but again we were determined, and again we triumphed. I am sure we needed rest. I have often wondered since how it was that I never fell ill or came home "on urgent private affairs." I am afraid that I was ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... dreadful annoyance of servants, an almost unvarying subject of discourse at Mr. Armitage's, after the conclusion of nearly every badly cooked, illy served meal.—A discourse too often overheard by some one of the domestics and retailed in the kitchen, to breed confirmed ill-will, and a spirit of opposition towards the ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... was at least possible that the difference of conducting power between the earth and the wire might give one an advantage over the other, and that thus a residual or differential current might be obtained. He combined wires of different materials, and caused them to act in opposition to each other, but found the combination ineffectual. The more copious flow in the better conductor was exactly counterbalanced by the resistance of the worst. Still, though experiment was thus emphatic, he would ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Court of Vienna, to congratulate the Emperor Joseph on his accession to the crown. Shortly after his return to England, Sunderland, notwithstanding the opposition of Queen Anne, who always entertained a great antipathy for him, was made one of the Secretaries of State, an office which he held until June 1710, when he was dismissed by the Queen, who wished, however, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... Not expecting any opposition to speak of, and confident that the ship they were attacking carried no guns—for how could even the most astute of the Malays have supposed, with all their prying and peeping, that the Hankow Lin had a set of Armstrongs on board her, headed up in hogsheads?—the pirates were stupefied ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Shakespeare," prefixed to the edition of his Works I saw through the press three of four years ago, I necessarily entered into the deer-stealing question, admitting that I could not, as some had done, "entirely discredit the story," and following it up by proof (in opposition to the assertion of Malone), that Sir Thomas Lucy had deer, which Shakespeare might have been concerned in stealing. I also, in the same place (vol. i. p. xcv.), showed, from several authorities, how common and how venial offence it was considered in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. Looking ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various

... great matter," she replied. "I don't want you to do anything that you don't feel like doing. Only," she sighed, "there's so much opposition to married women's teaching, and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... been formerly noticed, that, frigates, in these early navigators, were only small barks, in opposition to tall ships, galleons, and caraks: These frigates, and those frequently mentioned as belonging to the Portuguese and Moors in India at this time, could only be grabs, or open sewed vessels, already frequently mentioned in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... therefore for his hero a youth nourished in dreams of liberty, some of whose actions are in direct opposition to the opinions of the world; but who is animated throughout by an ardent love of virtue, and a resolution to confer the boons of political and intellectual freedom on his fellow-creatures. He created ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... felt, was big guns. The House of Commons caught his eye and reminded him of politicians. He recalled a slight acquaintance with one of the more important of these and went round to call upon him personally. It was not his idea to obtain any such authority as would demolish all opposition at the W.O.; he just hoped to get a personal chit, which would act as a smoke barrage and at least cover his advance right into the middle of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various

... over it spread a film of confusion that robbed it of its potency. In him, in his mood, in his words, in his manner, was something that called out in direct appeal the more primitive instincts hitherto dormant beneath her sense of maidenhood, so that even at this vexed moment of conscious opposition, her heart was ranging itself on his side. Overpoweringly the feeling swept her that she was not acting in accordance with her sense of fitness. She knew she should strike, but was unable to give due force to the blow. In the confusion of such a discovery, her eyelids ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... no means clear, however, as he walked away from the cottage, that he had succeeded in doing so. What was the good of trying to make friends with these fellows? Neither in agreement nor in opposition had he any common ground with them. Other people might have the gifts for managing them; it seemed to him that it would be better for him to take up the line at once that he had none. Fontenoy was right. Nothing but ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. It may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element, one which, on aesthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival—an element that acts in opposition to its purely scientific behaviour. Philology is composed of history just as much as of natural science or aesthetics: history, in so far as it endeavours to comprehend the manifestations of the individualities of peoples in ever new images, and the prevailing law in the disappearance ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche

... looked round the table, and almost all the men were of his opinion. Contarini flushed angrily, but he knew himself to be in the wrong and though he was no coward, he had not the sort of temper that faces opposition for its own sake. He therefore began to rattle the dice in the box as a hint to all that the discussion was ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... foreseen his opposition, but he felt sure he could overcome it. He had the advantages of the alliance pointed out more clearly, and also the disadvantages which might result from a refusal; on one hand was Ferrara's safety and advancement, and on the other the hostility of Caesar and the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... very careful all day to keep Raymond off her lips, but now intentionally she spoke of him. It was done with care and she only named him casually in the course of general remarks. Thus she hoped that, in time, he would allow her to mention his father without opposition. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... helpless protest. His whole life seemed to rise up and confront her with the contrast between their reality—his relation and hers—and the relative triviality of this new episode in his life. And there was his error, and there her inexorable opposition; the episode was one no longer; he must not treat it as trivial, a matter for mutual musings and conjectures. His 'With you!' shook Helen's heart; but, looking past him and hard at the fire, she only moved her head in slow, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... encouraging letters and the arts, and you therefore must be a religious poet and a Royalist poet at the same time. Not only is it the right course, but it is the way to get on in life. Do the Liberals and the Opposition give places and rewards, and make the fortunes of men of letters? Take the right road and reach the goal of genius. You have my secret, do not breathe a syllable of it, and prepare to follow me.—Would you rather not go?" ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... had been the intimated attitude of Mrs. Stringham, the elder of the companions, who had her own view of the impatiences of the younger, to which, however, she offered an opposition but of the most circuitous. She moved, the admirable Mrs. Stringham, in a fine cloud of observation and suspicion; she was in the position, as she believed, of knowing much more about Milly Theale than Milly herself knew, and yet of having to darken her knowledge as well as make it active. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... had accomplished their dread designs. Though we have no doubt he was very hardly dealt with in the deprivation of his liberty, we strongly suspect our friend had a predilection for visiting the domiciles of his fellow citizens, slightly in opposition to their wishes; and dropping in at most unseasonable hours, by means of some instrumental application of his own, detrimental to the locks and fastenings of such dwellings. In addition to this, he ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... formally defining, the internal relations of the Cabinet. On the one hand, while each Minister is an adviser of the Crown, the Cabinet is a unity, and none of its members can advise as an individual, without, or in opposition actual or presumed to, his colleagues. On the other hand, the business of the State is a hundred-fold too great in volume to allow of the actual passing of the whole under the view of the collected Ministry. It is therefore a prime office of discretion for each Minister ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... continued burghership of the new-comers was made to depend upon the resolution of the first Raad, so that should the mining members propose any measure of reform, not only their Bill but they also might be swept out of the house by a Boer majority. What could an Opposition do if a vote of the Government might at any moment unseat them all? It was clear that a measure which contained such provisions must be very carefully sifted before a British Government could accept it as a final ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... imploring him for his aid, and her eyes were full of tears, and her lips were apart as though still eager with the energy of expression, and her hands were clasped together. She was very lovely, very attractive, almost invincible. For such a one as Frank Greystock opposition to her in her present mood was impossible. There are men by whom a woman, if she have wit, beauty, and no conscience, cannot be withstood. Arms may be used against them, and a sort of battle waged, against which they can raise no shield,—from which they can retire into no ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... impossibility of finding finances, and called for reforms which would have struck at the estates of the nobility and the revenues of the clergy; he exposed his designs too openly, and was overwhelmed by a torrent of opposition; to show the enemy your plan of attack is half to give them the victory. Calonne, equally alive to the danger, but seeing no way of escape, gave way to it. He completely carried with him the king and queen, who implicitly believed in his system, and this is, ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... Queen's conduct was to be investigated, though the mode adopted was denounced as unconstitutional by the Opposition (for, not greatly to their credit, the leading Whigs made her guilt or innocence a party question), it does not seem to deserve the epithet, though it may be confessed to have been unsupported by any direct precedent. Isabella, the faithless wife ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... was fairly worn out now; and she offered no opposition when I asked her to let me pillow her head on something softer than my shoulder. So I folded, a great thick shawl she was too well cloaked to need, and she made that ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... such a sudden burst of sound, as made him start and stare, with marks of indignation and disquiet. He had recollection enough to send his servant with some money to silence those noisy intruders; and they were immediately dismissed, though not without some opposition on the part of Tabitha, who thought it but reasonable that he should have more music for his money. Scarce had he settled this knotty point, when a strange kind of thumping and bouncing was heard right over-head, in the second story, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... one comfortable circumstance in this universal opposition to Mr. Wood, that the people sent over hither from England to fill up our vacancies ecclesiastical, civil and military, are all on our side: Money, the great divider of the world, hath by a strange revolution, been the great uniter of a most ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... Why wouldn't it do? To live in a beautiful big house in the country, and have everything a boy could want! Why wouldn't it do?" cried Lady Beauleigh, excited by opposition to a feverish desire to compass the end on which her heart had been set for ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... Dave reached those who blocked him he seemed to falter. It was Dan Dalzell who bumped in and received the opposition alone. Dan went down under it, all ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... land, as a most dangerous plague and infection to any well-polished state or commonwealth. What I have told you of dice, I say the same of the play at cockall. It is a lottery of the like guile and deceitfulness; and therefore do not for convincing of me allege in opposition to this my opinion, or bring in the example of the fortunate cast of Tiberius, within the fountain of Aponus, at the oracle of Gerion. These are the baited hooks by which the devil attracts and draweth unto him the foolish souls of silly people ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... at length arranged, sufficiently spicy to entertain the girl portion of the audience, but select enough not to offend the easily shocked susceptibilities of Miss Gibbs, whose ideas of songs suitable for young ladies ran—in direct opposition to most of her theories—on absolutely Early ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... itself around this point, battering down the startled opposition. With fast-coming breath Dave's comrades pushed him along breaking down all opposition—until Dave, with a sudden, wild dash, was over the line for ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... and Prohibition set his face sternly against the growth and traffic in the plant, which opposition knew no alteration and continued till his death, which occurred in 1625. James was succeeded by his son Charles I. On ascending the throne Charles manifested the same hostility towards the plant which his father had. He prohibited the importation of all tobacco excepting that grown ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... certain general ideas of life and thought as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that is, seems to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the opposition of the One and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the Actual, all these oppositions express a certain structural and essential duality in the activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... had come and it was evident that it was to be permanent. It had only been necessary to arouse the government to the situation in order to secure intervention. He had hoped to secure this intervention without being forced to a hostile clash with the opposition, but his first meeting with Dunlavey had spoiled that. Subsequent events had widened ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... man in the world ever imagined yet. It is only now that the Hapsburgian tyrant professes an intention to melt Hungary into the German Confederation; but you know this intention to be in so striking opposition to the European public law, that England and France solemnly protested against it, so that it is not carried out even to-day. The German Empire having died, its late Emperor Francis, also King of Hungary, chose to entitle himself ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... "Augustinus," and his doctrines generally, were condemned by Popes Urban VIII. and Innocent X., as heretical (1641 and 1653).—Ed. [6] Arnauld.—This was Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, and one of the Arnaulds famous among the Port Royalists, who were Jansenists in opposition to the Jesuits. He was born in 1612, and died a voluntary exile in Belgium, 1694. Boileau wrote his epitaph.—Ed. [7] Escobar.—A Spanish Jesuit, who flourished mostly in France, and wrote against the Jansenists. Pascal, as well as La Fontaine, ridiculed his convenient ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... Fax, the Squire's right hand man, requested to be informed, "why ef a man was poor didn't he dress as though he felt so,—and why ef he warn't rich did he act as though he war?" And thus by degrees, there was quite an opposition party in Pattaquasset—if that could be opposition which the object of it never opposed. By degrees too, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... others have omitted in their system. And the truth is, these "unnatural philosophers," as Lord Shaftesbury expressively terms them, are by no means the monsters they tell us they are: their practice is therefore usually in opposition to their principles. While Hobbes was for chaining down mankind as so many beasts of prey, he surely betrayed his social passion, in the benevolent warnings he was perpetually giving them; and while he ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... exact state of her mind when three months after her first meeting with Prince Amede d'Orleans, she plighted her troth to him and promised to marry him in secret and in defiance of her guardian's more than probable opposition. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... for in that case it would have met with decided censure and rebuke: but, making its commencement under a fair disguise, so gradually was one practice after another introduced in connection with it, that the church had become deeply steeped in practical idolatry, not only without any efficient opposition, but almost without any decided remonstrance; and when at length an endeavor was made to root it out, the evil was found too deeply fixed to admit of removal.... It must be traced to the idolatrous tendency of the human heart, and its ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... upon his companion. It seemed like a determined opposition to any undue influence of sentiment or emotion. Brady could not have defined the attitude of his friend's mind; but he felt it, and resented it to the extent of keeping silence after they had taken their seats in the ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... because of certain isolated hysterical components, deserves to be considered as hysterical in nature, is by no means solved. The mere presence of physical, so-called hysterical, stigmata, is not sufficient to call a disorder hysterical. Bonhoeffer, who, in opposition to such authors as Wilmanns, Birnbaum, Siefert, and others, insists that this so-called prison-psychotic-complex in its narrower sense is of hysterical nature, does so because he claims to be able to see in these patients the dominance of a wish factor, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... talking about the subject which was uppermost in our minds—municipal reform. That day I had had considerable talk with two or three fellow-members of the Council who belonged to the opposite party, and as a result I showed to Wallingford that opposition to our plans was growing more concentrated, determined and bitter. He laughed a little satirically. 'It's gone beyond even that stage with me, personally, Epplewhite,' he said. 'Don't you ever be surprised, my friend, if you hear of my being found with a bullet through my ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... had had such an admiration for the fair sex as a whole, that he could not concentrate his attention on the individual one. He had been trying to extract a cinder from the eye of the opposition when he could not see properly owing to having a large obstacle in his own eye. However, he proceeded to "get busy." But what vision would he "get busy" on? Every woman had an attraction peculiar to herself, ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... see the blackest villains have had, at least, some years of peace and innocence to offer in opposition to their long years of crime and blood. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... and Mr. CHURCHILL repeated Lord INVERFORTH'S defence, but put a little more ginger into it. Incidentally he mentioned that a prolonged search for the nonagenarian pensioner had produced nobody more venerable than a comparative youngster of sixty-five. Deprived of this prop the Opposition felt unequal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... highest to lowest;"—fact being that the King has important improvements and new drillings in view (to go on at Strehlen), Cavalry improvements, Artillery improvements, unknown to Hyndford and the Opposition; and will not be ruined next campaign. "I hope the news we have here, of the taking of Carthagena, is true," ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... to look sharp, a bye-word when a bailiff passes. Hawk also signifies a sharper, in opposition to pigeon. See PIGEON. See ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... people to assemble for petitioning the crown and the legislature, and for discussing political subjects, and which were therefore almost sufficient to provoke and create the evils they were intended to prevent, met with a warm opposition in all their stages and in both houses; but they were carried by very large majorities. Many members at this time connected a meeting which had taken place in June, in Copenhagen-fields, with the outrages offered to his majesty; while others were of opinion that the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... names probably do not exhaust the various kinds of 'magicians' that were to be found among the Babylonian priests. In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, no less than eleven classes of magic workers are enumerated, and there can be little doubt but that the Pentateuchal opposition against the necromancers, sorcerers, soothsayers, and the like is aimed chiefly against Babylonish customs. We have seen in previous chapters how largely the element of magic enters into the religious rites and literature of ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... still frowning, but a half frightened expression had replaced the one of scornful raillery. For he, too, knew that his eccentric brother-in-law was likely to propose any preposterous thing, and then carry it out in spite of all opposition. But to take Patsy to Europe would be like pulling the Major's eye teeth or amputating his good right arm. Worse; far worse! It would mean taking the sunshine out of her old father's sky altogether, and painting it a grim, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... his left—last but one in the row of the ministerial chiefs—Randal watched Audley Egerton, his arms folded on his breast, his hat drawn over his brows, his eyes fixed with steady courage on whatever speaker in the Opposition held possession of the floor. And twice Randal heard Egerton speak, and marvelled much at the effect that minister produced. For of those qualities enumerated above, and which Randal had observed to be most sure of success, Audley Egerton only exhibited to a marked ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... direct their devotions to her, I offer mine to God, and rectify the errors of their prayers, by rightly ordering mine own. At a solemn procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts, blind with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter. There are, questionless, both in Greek, Roman, and African churches, solemnities and ceremonies, whereof the wiser zeals do make a Christian use, and stand condemned by us, not as evil in ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte

... CONQUERED ALL OPPOSITION. The physical difficulties were as nothing, it consumed and licked up all. Flesh, stone, wood, and water alike were wrapped in flame, and appeared no more. Difficulties are fuel to the heaven-sent fire! Opposition is opportunity to omnipotence. Does not ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... inaccessible and incomprehensible. All these religions are trying to tell something they do not clearly know—of a relationship between these two, that eludes them, that eludes the human mind, as water escapes from the hand. It is unity and opposition they have to declare at the same time; it is agreement and propitiation, it is infinity ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... stated respecting the gun-brig, it will be seen that all things were in readiness to meet and repel opposition, should such be offered. Her broadside being pointed directly towards the village, whilst it hindered the enemy from bringing down troops in that direction, gave to our people an opportunity of forming, and being able to meet, in good order, whatever force ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... free like the rest; he had no longer the same inducement to play straight if his interest seemed to him to clash with the general. Yet it was not easy to see how such a clashing could occur. Like the others he was lost at sea; until land was reached, at any rate, he could have no motive for opposition or mutiny. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... yours of last night, and also a fragment[1] from Mrs. Hedley's herein enclosed, a full and complete certificate, ... that you may know ... quite know, ... what the real and only reason of the obstacle to Wednesday is. On Saturday perhaps, or on Monday more certainly, there is likely to be no opposition, ... at least not on the 'cote gauche' (my side!) to our meeting—but I will let you ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... by some divergence of thought or feeling, which meant, in the woman's case, neither quality nor defect in any strict sense of the word, but simply a nature trained to different points of view, an element of perplexity entered into his probable opposition. When the difference presented itself in a neutral aspect, it affected him like the casual peculiarities of a family or a group, or a casual disagreement between things of the same kind. He would say to a woman friend: 'You women are so different from men!' in the tone in which he might have ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... fragment of their powers; and such was the theory accepted at the allied head-quarters down to the time when Austria proffered its mediation and support. Then everything changed. The views of the Austrian Government upon the future system of Germany were in direct opposition to those of Stein's party. Metternich dreaded the thought of popular agitation, and looked upon Stein, with his idea of a National Parliament and his plans for dethroning the Rhenish princes, as little ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... replied that there were only girls there. The thought of going to college took root in my heart and became an earnest desire, which impelled me to enter into competition for a degree with seeing and hearing girls, in the face of the strong opposition of many true and wise friends. When I left New York the idea had become a fixed purpose; and it was decided that I should go to Cambridge. This was the nearest approach I could get to Harvard and to the fulfillment ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... slowly. "None. This is the only one that works. We've eliminated the other ones, remember? I can't blame you for finding it hard to believe, since it is in direct opposition to everything you've understood to be true in the past. It's like altering a natural law. As if I gave you proof that gravity didn't really exist, that it was a force altogether different from the immutable one we know, one you could get around when you understood how. You'd want ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... Cortez in 1533, and Upper California by Cabrillo eleven years later. In the beginning the missionaries encountered great opposition, but after 1697 the Jesuit Fathers were very successful. They formed the natives into permanent settlements or reductions, and so rapidly did the work of evangelisation proceed that in 1767, the year in which the Jesuits were expelled by Spain, nearly all the Indians ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... Moral faith is still strong among us. There are powerful women, as well as strong, pure, and self-governed men, of the real old Anglo-Saxon type. It was in England then, which adopted last the hideous slavery, that there arose first a strong national protest in opposition. English people rose up against the wicked law before it had been in operation three months. English men and women determined to carry abolition not at home only, but abroad, and they promptly carried their standard to every country ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... jealous of his influence as a foreigner, and had, besides, their misgivings as to the safety of his projects. As his influence extended, their animosity increased. D'Aguesseau, the chancellor, was unceremoniously dismissed by the regent for his opposition to the vast increase of paper money, and the constant depreciation of the gold and silver coin of the realm. This only served to augment the enmity of the parliament, and when D'Argenson, a man devoted to the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... not pay much attention to Florence Grace Hallman and her studied opposition. They were pretty busy attending to their own affairs; Andy Green was not only busy but very much in love, so that he almost forgot the existence of Florence Grace except on the rare occasions when he met her riding ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... far the shortest, would prove to be also technically preferable had been verified. Nor in any other respect had any serious difficulty been encountered within about 125 miles from Kenia. But from thence to the coast the Galla tribes offered to the expedition such a stubborn and vicious opposition that the hostilities had not ceased at the end of two months, and several conflicts had taken place, in which the Galla tribes had always been severely punished; but this did not prevent the expedition from having to carry out its thoroughly peaceful mission in perpetual readiness to fight. A ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... service. The Queen did not swerve from her policy even when Henry IV saw himself compelled, and found it compatible with his conscience, to go over to Catholicism. For he was clearly thus all the better enabled to re-establish a France that should be politically independent, in opposition to Spain and at war with it; and it was exactly on this opposition that the political freedom and independence of England herself rested. Yet as his change of religion had been disagreeable to the Queen, so was also the peace ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... prove. The clericals and the republicans have sketched the outline of an understanding, which looks as if it might be approved by Leo XIII. The danger of this union between the parties will lead King Humbert back to a more national, a more peninsular, policy. The strong opposition that it has to face is useful, in that it will oblige the country's rulers to pay more attention to home affairs and to the nation's interests than to the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... aback. He had expected opposition and here was the inn-keeper quite friendly, in fact almost fawning on him. "I wanted to cart some things ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... speculator, the suggestion that all living things arose from the mud of the Nile, from a primeval egg, or from some more anthropomorphic agency, afforded a sufficient resting-place for his curiosity. The myths of Paganism are as dead as Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should revive them, in opposition to the knowledge of our time, would be justly laughed to scorn; but the coeval imaginations current among the rude inhabitants of Palestine, recorded by writers whose very name and age are admitted by every scholar to be unknown, have unfortunately not yet shared their fate, but, even at this day, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... and dislikes, most of us men-of-war's-men harmoniously dove-tail into each other, and, by our very points of opposition, unite in a clever whole, like the parts of a Chinese puzzle. But as, in a Chinese puzzle, many pieces are hard to place, so there are some unfortunate fellows who can never slip into their proper angles, and thus the whole puzzle becomes a puzzle ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... instantly blown up the flame of hope so brightly, that objects distant and difficult to be reached seemed by that light to be close at hand—"I should have thought, from what I have seen and what I suspect, that you could have commanded a sufficient force at any moment to set all opposition at defiance, especially when you were engaged in a lawful and ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... but properly and submissively waited the decision of their elders. Mr. Geoffrey Langford, who did not know how ill his daughter had been behaving, would have been very sorry to interfere with the plan, and easily reconciled his mother to it, in his own cheerful pleasant way. Indeed her opposition had been entirely caused by Beatrice herself; she had not once thought of objecting when it had been first mentioned the evening before, and had not Beatrice not first fidgeted and then argued, would only have regarded it as a pleasant ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... replace his patron. Some said that he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to expose unless the business were given up to him as the price of his silence; others averred, that having drawn a prize in the lottery, he had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no doubt by Monsieur Bonelle's misfortune—endeavored ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various

... dismissal bell, "you made rather a mistake, Tallente, years ago, in dabbling at all with the Labour Party. At first, I must admit that I was glad. I felt that you created, as it were, a link between my Government and a very troublesome Opposition. To-day things have altered. Labour has shown its hand and it demands what no sane man could give. We've finished with compromise. We have to ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... his chief out through the door. He returned to his desk and sat thinking. He saw, with pitiless clearness, the storm gathering over the "Clarion": the outburst of public hostility, the depletion of advertisers and subscribers, the official opposition closing avenues of information, the disastrous probabilities of the Pierce libel suits, now soon to be pushed; and his undaunted spirit of a crusader rose and lusted for ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... one. Number two, more exhaustive of audience, followed when BONAR LAW, having concluded his speech, shook from off his feet the dust of the House and walked out, accompanied by entire body of Opposition. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various

... erected by Elizabeth, in consequence of an act of parliament passed in the beginning of her reign: by this act it was thought proper during the great revolution of religion, to arm the sovereign with full powers, in order to discourage and suppress opposition. All appeals from the inferior ecclesiastical courts were carried before the high commission; and, of consequence, the whole life and doctrine of the clergy lay directly under its inspection. Every breach of the act of uniformity, every refusal of the ceremonies, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... those who profess to believe an infallible authority in the Church make that infallibility to depend on so many conditions, that they may always maintain that the Church, dispersed or assembled, has never come to any decision in opposition to their errors. ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... comfortable within himself about the particular individual end he is there to serve. It's there I get them. They pursue their own ends bitterly and obstinately I admit, but they are bitter and obstinate because they pursue them against an internal opposition—which is on my side. They are terrified to think, if once they stopped fighting me, how far they might not ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... now answer the inquiry, whether our former assertion that every one who has not the practice of reason, may, in the state of Nature, live by sovereign natural right, according to the laws of his desires, is not in direct opposition to the law and right of God as revealed. For as all men absolutely (whether they be less endowed with reason or more) are equally bound by the Divine command to love their neighbor as themselves, it may be said that they cannot, without ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... strong-mindedness as a term of rebuke," she said. "I am willing to acknowledge that people who are eager for reforms are apt to develop unpleasant traits, but it is only because they have to fight against opposition and ignorance. When they are dead and the world is reaping the reward of their bravery and constancy, it no longer laughs, but makes statues of them, and praises diem, and thanks them in every way it can. I ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... looked much stronger in the way of beef and brawn. It was undoubtedly true that, taken as a whole, the home players did outweigh the visitors. This might prove of advantage to them in certain mass plays, where their machine could mow down all opposition through sheer avoirdupois. But, on the other hand, it is not always given to the heaviest team to win. Speed counts for more than heft in many of the fiercest struggles that take place on the gridiron; and a fellow who can run like ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... married. He was the pupil of R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, R. Jochanan ben Chanania, and Nahum of Gimzo. He espoused the cause of Bar Kochba, acknowledging him as the Messiah, and is said to have travelled throughout the land stirring up opposition to Rome. At the fall of Betar, he was captured by the Romans, and most cruelly put to death, expiring with the Shema upon his lips. R. Akiba definitely fixed the canon of the Old Testament. He compiled ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text

... study the work of Joseph Addison in close relation to the time in which he lived, for he was a true child of his century, and even in his most distinguishing qualities he was not so much in opposition to its ideas as in advance of them. The early part of the eighteenth century was a very middle-aged period: the dreamers of the seventeenth century had grown into practical men; the enthusiasts of the century before had sobered down into reasonable beings. We no longer have the wealth of detail, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... to be thought of. Even the very best bat in the world may fail to score, and it might so happen that I was dismissed (owing to some defect in the pitch) before my silver shield had time to impress the opposition. Or again, I might (through ill-health) perform so badly that quite a wrong impression of the standard of the Hampstead Polytechnic would be created, an impression which I should hate to be the ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed that they should send the child to Red Dog,—a distance of forty miles,—where female attention could be procured. But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce and unanimous opposition. It was evident that no plan which entailed parting from their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained. "Besides," said Tom Ryder, "them fellows at Red Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us." A disbelief in the honesty of other camps prevailed ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... before him were great, those behind were greater. Accordingly, leaving the cavalcade of the princess, her maids and attendants, the free baron of Hochfels, surrounded by his own trusted troops, dashed forward arrogantly into the valley, bent upon sweeping aside even the opposition of Charles himself. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... like a charm. The ice was broken, and the current became free. Without more ado, as if in opposition to the self-constituted authority from the high-backed chair, the guests, with one exception only, commenced with a vigorous discharge of "airy missiles," which by degrees subsided into a sort of desultory sharp-shooting; but their words were neither ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... is its belief in unity, and its refusal to admit opposition or division anywhere. We found Heraclitus saying "good and ill are one"; and again he says, "the way up and the way down is one and the same." The same attitude appears in the simultaneous assertion of contradictory propositions, such as: "We step and ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... close to them. At times the shouts became so threatening and near that the whole force was called to its feet to repel attack, but in the morning all was quiet. As before, they were attacked as soon as they moved forward. No serious opposition was offered to the columns of spearmen, but the light armed troops who covered the advance and formed a connection between the columns were exposed to ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... corroborative association is woven round it, by the powerful agency of the external sanctions. This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilization goes on, is felt to be more and more natural. Every step in political improvement renders it more so, by removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those inequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes, owing to which there are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still practicable to disregard. In an improving state of the human mind, ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... In opposition to these remarks, it is strenuously argued by Bloch that neither the passage in the Mishnic treatise Yadayim, nor any other, refers to the canonical character of the books to which Jewish elders raised several objections. ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson

... complete infinity." Ingenuously, is it possible for man to form any true notion of such a quality? The theologians themselves acknowledge he cannot. Further, the Doctor allows, "That as to the particular manner of his being infinite, or every where present, in opposition to the manner of created things being present in such or such finite places, this is as impossible for our finite understandings to comprehend or explain, as it is for us to form an adequate idea of infinity." What is this, then, but that which no man can explain or comprehend? If it cannot be comprehended, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... guilty!" Collins fired back. Evidently something which Luckstone had told him flashed across his mind, for he seemed to come out of his bewildered state, and again he adopted an air of resolute opposition. ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... moment he composed it. The very fact that in it Debussy was composing music for the theater made it certain that his artistic sense would produce itself at its mightiest in the work. For it entailed the statement of his opposition to Wagner. The fact that it was music conjoined with speech made it certain that Debussy, so full of the French classical genius, would through contact with the spoken word, through study of its essential quality, be aided and compelled to a complete realization ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... in the 27. and 28. verses of the same Chapter, they were accused of it, and Joshua advised Moses to forbid them, as not knowing that it was by Moses his Spirit that they Prophecyed. By which it is manifest, that no Subject ought to pretend to Prophecy, or to the Spirit, in opposition to the doctrine established by him, whom God hath set ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... Vicksburg to communicate with Porter, arriving there on the 20th. On the way the ships engaged a battery of four rifled pieces at Grand Gulf, losing 2 men killed and 6 wounded, but met with no other opposition. Porter was absent in Deer Creek, one of the bayous emptying into the Yazoo, when Farragut's messenger arrived, but communication was held with General Grant, Captain Walke, the senior naval officer ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... as the fruit of our institutions. These ideas, entwined with the very roots of our Republic, shooting through every fibre, running into every limb, bind us to a recognition of human brotherhood; to sympathy with Liberty wherever it struggles; and to stedfast opposition to whatever crushes the rights, hinders the development, or denies the humanity of man. If these symbols of the Republic mean anything, they mean just this; and whatever is inconsistent with this, is inconsistent with the terms of our national birthright. Depend upon it, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... miserable and tragic history. In the early flush of his genius and industry, with its just crown of fame and success, he conceived a passion for a beautiful but worthless woman, whom, in spite of the opposition of his friends, he married. She rendered his home degraded and wretched, and his friends and scholars fell off from him. In disgust he quitted Florence, and entered the service of Francis I, of France; ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... puzzled, as many more learned savages have been before him, to find that the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of God had made every thing good, and that good it would have continued had not been for the opposition of the Devil. 'Why God not kill Debbil?' asks poor Friday. On which says Robinson, 'Though I was a very old man, I found that I was but a young doctor in divinity.' Ah! if all doctors in divinity had been equally candid, the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... painful truth, sir, that these men who appeal most to facts, and pretend to take them for their exclusive guide, are the very persons who most disregard the light of experience when it refers them to the mightiness of their own inner nature, in opposition to those forces which they can see with their eyes, and reduce to figures upon a slate. And yet, sir, what is history for the greater and more useful part but a voice from the sepulchres of our forefathers, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... been pure and elevated. He has done well by his boys; and has aided many young men to places of usefulness and profit. He strangely and violently opposed the exodus of his race from the South, and thereby incurred the opposition of the Northern press and the anathemas of the Colored people. It was not just the thing, men said—white and black,—for a man who had been a slave in the South, and had come North to find a market for his labor, to oppose his brethren ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... that the verdict of guilty had concluded the criminality of the intention, though the consideration of that question had been by the judge's authority wholly withdrawn from the jury at the trial. The bill met with opposition in the House of Lords, especially from Lord Thurlow, who procured the postponement of the second reading until the opinion of the judges should have been ascertained. They, on being appealed to, declared that the criminality ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... duchess might be proud to wed. But he had succumbed at last to Jerrie's beauty, and sprightliness, and originality, and now his love for her had become the absorbing passion of his life, and he would have made her his wife at any moment, in the face of all his mother's opposition. By some subtle intuition, he felt that Harold was his rival, though he could not fathom the nature of Harold's feeling for Jerrie, so carefully did the latter ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... parliament. Violent measures taken to prevent its execution. The assembly of Carolina study ways and means of eluding the act. Their resolutions respecting the obedience due to the British parliament. The people become more violent in opposition to government. The merchants and manufacturers in England join in petitioning for relief. The stamp-act repealed. Which proves fatal to the jurisdiction of the British parliament in America. And gives occasion of triumph to ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... no further opposition, he only said gently and sadly, "Don't let them stay away too long. I want them here part of the summer. I miss them terribly—and you must remember my time on earth is ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... exceedingly to like, and being so thrust that the theory of it seemed to publish one as idiotic or incapable—this WAS a predicament of which the dignity depended all on one's own handling. What was supremely grotesque, in fact, was the essential opposition of theories—as if a galantuomo, as HE at least constitutionally conceived galantuomini, could do anything BUT blush to "go about" at such a rate with such a person as Mrs. Verver in a state of childlike innocence, the state of our primitive parents before the Fall. The ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... place on a statue of Priapus, and which was the symbol of generativeness. The tone of the conversations was ordinarily of a surprising coarseness, and the Precieuses, in spite of their absurdities, did a very good work in setting themselves in opposition to it. The worthy Chevalier de La-Tour-Landry, in his Instructions to his own daughters, without a thought of harm, gives examples which are singular indeed, and in Caxton's translation these are not omitted. The Adevineaux Amoureux, printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... so pessimistic nor does life appear to me so perilous in my country," said Ibarra with a smile. "I believe that those fears are somewhat exaggerated and I hope to be able to carry out my plans without meeting any great opposition in that quarter." ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... of pieces which, considered merely as carols, were gems of the first water. But no sooner did I set them among our finer lyrics than, to my dismay, their colours vanished; the juxtaposition became an opposition which killed them, and all but half a dozen had to be withdrawn. There are few gems more beautiful than the amethyst: but an amethyst will not live in the company of rubies. A few held their own— the exquisite 'I sing of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... long, and we will never leave it as long as it lasts!" exclaimed the doctor. "Just at this time it points like a long arrow out in the direction of Mars. It is moving gradually as the Earth moves and hourly correcting its aim. At opposition time it will point directly and unerringly at Mars. Therefore it is a way prepared, surveyed, and marked for us through the all-enveloping sunlight, which otherwise would ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... is denounced is like the savour of forbidden fruit; we rush to eat it. Besides, applause which irritates some one, especially if that some one is in authority, is sweet. To perform, whilst passing a pleasant evening, both an act of kindness to the oppressed and of opposition to the oppressor is agreeable. You are protecting at the same time that you are being amused. So the theatrical caravans on the bowling-green continued to howl and to cabal against the Laughing Man. Nothing could be better calculated ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... a chance encounter. Emerson came, also, to talk and walk with a man who was so firm-set in his own ways, being attracted to him by the subtleties of personality, for he never could read Hawthorne's tales then or afterwards, so profound was the opposition of their genius. If visitors stayed at the manse, it would be George Bradford, whom Hawthorne respected in the highest degree which his appreciation of others ever reached, or Frank Farley, the half-crazy Brook Farmer, whom he gave himself to in a more self-sacrificing ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... that the introduction of a really graceful fashion is generally met with ridicule and opposition, while ugly modes are adopted with grave acquiescence ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... was not backward in showing how completely it was acting under the influence of the shadow. Virtue began to be estimated by rent-rolls. The affluent, without hesitation, or, indeed, opposition, appropriated to themselves the sole use of the word respectable, while taste, judgment, honesty, and wisdom, dropped like so many heirlooms quietly into the possession of those who had money. The ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper



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