"Valid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... favour, Signorina, and as the laws of entail no longer exist, His Excellency may have left you his whole estate, real and personal, though his titles and dignities will in any case pass to his brother. I must warn you, however, that such a will might not prove valid in law, since His Excellency did not even legally acknowledge you as his child. So far, no trace of a will has been found with his late Excellency's notary, nor with his lawyer, nor deposited with his securities at his banker's. It is barely possible that some paper may exist ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... always ready, even with no valid excuse, to be insolent and overbearing to people, so that after hearing the news and being furthermore instigated by Chia Se, he speedily rushed into the schoolroom and cried out "Chin Jung;" nor did he address him as Mr. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... during luncheon, to be at once ordered out of the room, and severely punished afterwards. We all know that "what the soldier said" is not legal evidence; in this painful fashion I also learnt that "what the trumpeter said" is not held to be a valid excuse for the use of bad ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... treatment of the adults is almost worse in many typical cases. An Indian will skin a hare alive and gloat over his quivering death-agonies. The excuse is, "white man have fun, Indian have fun, too." And it is a valid excuse, from one point of view. When "there's nothing in caribou" except the value of the tongue, the tongue has been cut out of the living deer, whose only other value is considered to be the amusement afforded ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... Holy Ghost, are no more sacred than my feelings on any other subject. I have no quarrel with persons, and I recognise how many are hurt by satire. But the world is not to be regulated by their feelings, and much as I respect them, I have a greater respect for truth. Every mental weapon is valid against mental error. And as ridicule has been found the most potent weapon of religious enfranchisement, we are bound to use it against the wretched superstitions which cumber the path of progress. Intellectually, it is as absurd to give quarter as it ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... times, or design among the leaders who might have fears for the result, the constitution was never submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection; but, no questions ever being raised on account of this informality it was acquiesced in as valid and binding.] ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... as he pleases. The commission, being under the Great Seal, gives all the parties named therein the right to be styled esquires, and the name once in the commission remains, unless removed for any valid reason. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... clear, and is so far valid as to excuse, if not to justify, such works as the present. The novel, as soon as it is legibly written, exists, for what it is worth. The page of black and white is the sole intermediary between ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Professionally he did so in the case of Metaphysic: and out of the great original claim which he here established there emanates a separate claim, in each particular science of the order already indicated, to a sublime dictatorship. And chiefly is this claim valid in Moral Philosophy; for it was his province, the first of all men, clearly to reveal, as a scientific fact certified by demonstration, the divine eminence of the practical above the merely speculative powers of man,—the fulfilment of which mission justly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... remain in the hands of the mortgagee in order to be valid. It can be sold like bonds, stocks or other property, and there are men who deal only in that ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... came before us, sometimes we heard them pro forma, but all falls to dirt. The terrible Bill against Conventicles is sent up to the Lords; and we and the Lords, as to the Scotch busyness, have desired the King to name English Commissioners to treat, but nothing they do to be valid, but on a report to Parliament, and an act to confirm. We are now, as we think, within a week of rising. They are making mighty alterations in the Conventicle Bill (which, as we sent up, is the quintessence ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... formally annulled, and having already been resumed, were pronounced by the English lawyers to be in full force.... The English lawyers held that the judgment which Massachusetts had persisted in braving was binding and valid in law, until renewed by a writ of error, of which there was little or no hope." (History of the United States, Chap, xviii., ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... considered by the Hopi as like Zuni, and is sometimes called by the Hano people, Sionimone, "Zuni court," because to the Tewan mind it resembles Zuni; but the term is never applied to Walpi.[107] The distinction thus recognized is, I believe, architecturally valid. The inclosed court or plaza in Tusayan is an intrusion from the east, and as eastern colonists built both Hano and Sichomovi, they preserved the form to which they were accustomed. The Sikyatki builders drew their architectural ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... cautious suggestions from other commanding officers, and with only the ambiguous instructions of the Navy Department to justify his action. It was not that the objections raised were trivial. They were of the most weighty and valid character, and in disregarding them Farragut showed not only the admirable insight which fastened upon the true military solution, but also the courage which dared to accept on his sole responsibility the immense risks of disaster which ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the deceased and that of the two witnesses. In vain Owen looked for the handsome bequest to "the faithful secretary." This was a bitter disappointment, and he considered for a moment the advisability of destroying the will. This would make valid one of the earlier wills in which he knew ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... magnitude of the creature, which would seem to have an easier life while floating in water, than when painfully lifting its huge bulk, and moving with slow steps along the ground. But neither of these arguments is valid. The ancient earth was trodden by larger quadrupeds than our elephant; and the biconcave character of vertebrae, which is not uniform along the column in Cetiosaurus, is perhaps as much a character of ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... partiality of many pious parents prevent their fidelity to their children. We must not think that all pious parents are faithful to their duty to their children. The above objection, however, assumes this ground; and, therefore, it is not valid. It is often said that the children of ministers and pious parents are usually more wicked than other children. This is false. The opposite is true. We admit, some have bad children; but it is the fault of the parents; ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... system of primogeniture, although the father may have been able to favour his oldest child to the extent of one-half of his possessions. In ancient Rome (215. 4-16), at first, a will was an exception, made valid only by the vote of a lex curiata; but afterwards the absolute freedom of testamentary disposition, which was approved in 450 B.C. by the Law of the Twelve Tables,—Uti legassit super pecunia tutelage suce rei, ita jus esto,—appears, and the father could even pass ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... rate, we simply registered all the possible causes with the Master Computer, threw in this circuit marked Validity Selector. Out of all those causes The Computer picked the one that was most valid. The Hydroburgh tragedy was due to lack of foresight on the part of Hydroburgh's planners. If they'd had a proper stockpile of basic carbon the ...
— Two Plus Two Makes Crazy • Walt Sheldon
... memories; but they have seldom been taught to appreciate them in all their bearings, or to reduce them to practice in the various and minute ramifications of their conduct. Besides, although every rational means were employed for training the youthful mind till the age above named, no valid reason can be assigned why regular instruction should cease ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... world,—ay, and honestly too; I am no longer spending heedlessly; I am saving for my debts, and I shall live, I trust, to pay off every farthing. First, for my debt to you I send an order, not signed in my name, but equally valid, on Messrs. Drummond, for 250 pounds. Repay yourself what the boy has cost. Let him be educated to get his own living,—if clever, as a scholar or a lawyer; if dull, as a tradesman. Whatever I may gain, he will have his own way ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Ordinance the original identity of Bishop and Presbyter is asserted, and consequently the right of Presbyters, without any so-called Bishop among them, to ordain; nevertheless the ordinations by the late Bishops are recognised as valid. Directions are then given to Presbyters for the examination of candidates for the ministry in future, and for the formalities to be observed in their ordination. Every candidate must be twenty-four years of age at least, and must be tried not only in respect ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... England and his subjects. He pretended that these seas belonged to the King of Portugal, and no one ought to come there without his licence. I told him, that the seas of India were as free to subjects of England as to those of Spain, and that the licence of the King of England was as valid as that of the King of Spain, and whoever pretended otherwise was a liar and a villain; and desired him to tell his captain-major, that in abusing the King of England he was a base villain, and a traitor to his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... to think of some reason for saying "no," such as a draught, or an immediate departure for upstairs; but even if the excuse had been valid enough, it would have been of no use, for without awaiting permission, which she took as a matter of course, the weird creature had whipped off her green pancake and was throwing back her cloak. "Not that my dress isn't nearly as bad," she apologized, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to go the whole length, and give up the Resurrection. There is the turning point. The question is, Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, or do you not? If your objections to the supernatural are valid, then Christ is not risen from the dead; and you must face the consequences of that. If He is risen from the dead, then you must cease all your talk about the impossibility of miracle, and be willing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... you may choose, but you can also make him sign a promise, draw up a bill of exchange, or any other kind of agreement. You may make him write an holographic will (which according to French law would be valid), which he will hand over to you, and of which he will never know the existence. He is ready to fulfill the minutest legal formalities, and will do so with a calm, serene and natural manner calculated to deceive the most expert law officers. These ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... Only one valid military excuse can be put forward for imprisoning a great field army for three years in the Salonika area, a plan to which the General Staff was consistently opposed from the outset. It enabled our ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... of coordinates relative to which the fixed stars do not move in a circle. A system of co-ordinates of which the state of motion is such that the law of inertia holds relative to it is called a " Galileian system of co-ordinates." The laws of the mechanics of Galflei-Newton can be regarded as valid only for a Galileian ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... of those promises to capitulate at the end of a given time. They were not uncommon in those days, and they ceased to be valid if the fortress were relieved before the day fixed ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... each was by a simple letter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in four States, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and if not in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because the existence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of this extraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will be done in every Rebel State, we shall then have eleven military governors, all deriving their authority ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... forms a part," Mr. Shovelin answered, with a smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the other's calm abandonment. "You will find me prompt and proud to claim her, as soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and that I shall ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Detailing the standards that individual countries use to assess the ability to read and write is beyond the scope of the Factbook. Information on literacy, while not a perfect measure of educational results, is probably the most easily available and valid for international comparisons. Low levels of literacy, and education in general, can impede the economic development of a country in the ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to a Cabinet at half-past three. We had a great deal of conversation as to the course to be pursued. The Chancellor said that in the event of a minor succeeding to the throne, all the minor's acts would be valid, and under the responsibility of ministers the Great Seal might be put in the minor's name by the minor's sign manual to an ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... of interest should have sufficed to change the current of that life. I can marvel that a creature whose sole merit was her beauty should have been permitted by the Creator to swing my destiny to such an unforeseen direction. The monastery at whose doors I knocked had the most valid reasons for doubting the stability of my vocation. What the world loses in such fashion it often calls back as readily. In short, I cannot blame the Father Abbot for having forbidden me to apply for my army discharge. By his instructions, I asked for, and obtained, permission to be placed on the ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... exile as he had done and live apart from her all these years, while he "slogged away"—that was the Western phrase which came to her mind—to pull himself level with things again? Her feet shuffled unevenly on the floor, and it would have been a joy to shake the in valid there with the rapt look in his face. Unable to bear the situation without some demonstration, she got to her feet and caught up the glass of brandy and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not so obvious, and therefore are less heeded. This impression is enhanced by the sense of utter weakness in the sailing-ship as compared with the steamer, owing to its dependence upon the wind; forgetting that, as the former fought with its equals, the tactical lessons are valid. The galley was never reduced to impotence by a calm, and hence receives more respect in our day than the sailing-ship; yet the latter displaced it and remained supreme until the utilization of steam. The powers to injure an enemy from a great distance, to ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... of your youth, and the temptation to which in tender years you were subjected, the court gives you the lightest sentence,—one year's imprisonment. But let me solemnly warn you against any further steps in the way you have taken. Crime can have no valid excuse. It is evil in the sight of God and man, and leads only to suffering. When you come forth again after your imprisonment, may it be with the resolution to die rather than ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... enormously to the total wealth of the community? And if so, may the State, acting for the general good, take charge of the means of communication between its members, or of the postal and telegraph services? I have not yet met with any valid, argument against the propriety of the State doing what our Government does in this matter; except the assumption, which remains to be proved, that Government will manage these things worse than private enterprise ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... efficiently as a direct loan of money could do. The most he could extort was the king's guaranty for the payment of the interest on $3,000,000, provided that sum could be raised in Holland. The embarrassing fact was that the plea of poverty advanced by the French government was perfectly valid. Turgot said so, and no man knew better than Turgot. He had lately told the king that even on a peace footing the annual expenditures exceeded the annual receipts of the exchequer by 20,000,000 livres; and ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... mid-life, at the age of fifty-three, and this noble inheritance was lost to his heirs. The county became thickly settled, and the Boardman titles though acknowledged valid, were it is said, confiscated by the Legislature of Massachusetts in favor of the actual occupants of the soil, as the shortest though unjust settlement ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... marriage, with the chancellor's daughter, was deficient in none of those circumstances which render contracts of this nature valid in the eye of heaven the mutual inclination, the formal ceremony, witnesses, and every essential point of matrimony, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... by the judges that Bradley was mistaken, and that Arthur's title to command was regular and valid. Bradley, however, continued to maintain that he was the victim of a deep conspiracy, by which Arthur was rescued from the consequences of usurpation. It is certain ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... portfolio in which to carry the manuscripts to Paris; Rousseau says that they had already been in Diderot's possession for six months.[295] As her letters containing this very circumstantial story were written at the moment, it is difficult to uphold the Confessions as valid authority against them. Thirdly, Rousseau told her that he had not taken his manuscripts to Paris (p. 302), whereas Grimm writing a few days later (p. 309) mentions that he has received a letter from Diderot, to the effect that Rousseau's visit had no other object ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... reliance on s. 11 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908 which (notwithstanding an argument to the contrary by Mr Harrison) is in our opinion undoubtedly the only source of any authority for a Royal Commission or a Commission of Inquiry to award costs. If valid it is enforceable by virtue of s. 12 of that Act as a final judgment of the High Court in its civil jurisdiction. Plainly it is the exercise of a statutory power of decision. The jurisdiction of the New Zealand Courts to determine the validity of orders for costs by Commissions is well established: ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... to depart. If he could be of any further use, his brother might command his services; but he was anxious to see that their treaty was registered by the Parliament of Paris, without which it could not be valid. The Duke seemed unwilling to let his prey escape, but could find no pretence for his detention. Next year, said the King, he would come again and spend a month pleasantly with his dear brother in festivities ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... which comes without the violence of the preacher, until after the fact; and, indeed, the effect is wrought more through the sympathies than the reason. In such a case literature, though it conveys moral with other kinds of truth, is not open to the charge of didacticism, which is valid only when teaching is explicit and abstract. The educative power of literature, however, is not diminished because in its art it dispenses with the didactic method, which by its very definiteness is inelastic ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... she could not live without Marius, and that, consequently, that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was valid. All this was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days, this was horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from on high had been gone through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... is quite correct. I sent for a doctor from Etampes, to prove the disease, and no question can be raised on that point. The donation is therefore good and valid in every respect, but I think it best to inform your reverence of what has happened, that you may take measures ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... "has hit our city. Work that requires anything above a modicum of sound has become impossible; in regards to such work people have become lazy. No one can offer any valid suggestions concerning the malady. It merely exists. However, if a stop is not put to it—and soon—our fair city will disintegrate. Something is making us lazy, and that laziness can spell doom, being a compulsive lack of desire to create any ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser
... only must we have better teachers in the country, but we must have more and better supervision. There is no valid reason why country superintendents should be elected on a political platform. It is the custom everywhere to choose city superintendents from among the best men or women anywhere in the field, inside or outside of the state. Such should also be the ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... return, re-assembled the Assembly, which Hill had summoned and adjourned, and proceeded with it to enact laws.[63] Although a later Assembly in 1648 protested against the laws passed by this Assembly, the proprietor recognized them as valid, and wrote in 1649 that it had been "lawfully continued" by his brother "ffor although the first Sumons were issued by one who was not our Lawfull Lieutenant there, yet being afterwards approved of by one that was, it is all one, as to the proceedings ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... a feature in the pre-Columbian voyages to America. In such case we may dismiss it at once, and pretty much all the latter part of the Zeno narrative, relating to what Antonio heard and did, becomes valueless; though the earlier part, relating to the elder Nicolo, still remains valid and trustworthy. ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... its old inmates: learning flourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous Hough; and with learning was united a mild and liberal spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. In consequence of the troubles through which the society had passed, there had been no valid election of new members during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there was twice the ordinary number of vacancies; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it easy to procure for his young friend admittance to the advantages of a foundation then ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... theism, he admitted one only, that it gave the best interpretation and solution of such mysterious actions, and of all others like them. He therefore allowed it to stand as a presumption unsusceptible indeed of theoretical proof, but valid from a practical point of view. I may, however, express my doubts whether he was quite serious about it. For to make morality rest on theism is really to reduce morality to egoism; although the English, it is true, as also the lowest classes of society with us, do not perceive the possibility ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... decisive issue the struggle between the parties of the Centralists and Federalists. The latter claimed that the new constitution must be made by agreement with the territories; the former maintained that the constitution of 1861 was still valid, and demanded that in accordance with it the Reichsrath should be summoned and a "constitutional" government restored. The difference between the two parties was to a great extent, though not entirely, one of race. The kernel of the empire was the purely German district, including Upper ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... of the Almees, has a certain claim upon my wife; how valid I do not know. I need counsel, but first of all I ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... something of an apology, and resumed his book. She worked on in silence, then looking up said, rather as if rejoicing in a valid objection, 'How am I to know that this man is first in the succession? I am not suspecting him of imposition. I believe that, as you say, his mother was a Charlecote, but how do I know that she ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... also recognize persons from their portraits, and pictures of objects familiar to her, a faculty of observation I have tested in numerous little ways. This gift was also possessed by Krall's horses and by Rolf. People seem to have the idea that dogs do not observe much, but there is no valid reason for this. Children in their naivete will show their picture-book to a dog as to a friend: "Look here!" they will cry—it is only the exception when it occurs to a ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... to go back to Scripture for his defense. It is martial law, unwritten but valid, that if a delinquent soldier, fugitive from justice, or breaking prison, reaches the battle-field and takes his place gallantly, no more would be said about the hanging charge, even though it ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as a newcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. He and Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a large majority—though not so large as that which had accepted the new Liturgy—after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... They may be ill-fed, hard-worked, ill-used, and wantonly and barbarously punished. They may be tortured, nay even deliberately and intentionally killed without the means of redress, or the punishment of the aggressor, so long as the evidence of a Negro is not valid against a white man. If a white master only take care, that no other white man sees him commit an atrocity of the kind mentioned, he is safe from the cognizance of the law. He may commit such atrocity in the sight of a ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... Still, I will ask you not to touch those books. I have valid reasons. For one, an evil beast in the form of a spider has dwelt among them. I disturbed it and it fled, looking as though it had grown old in trespasses and sins. It seemed to me a thing ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the reasons which form the justification, in an economical point of view, of property in land. It is seen that they are only valid in so far as the proprietor of land is its improver. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor, generally speaking, ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defense of landed property, as ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... the West. The Nair woman chooses her own husband; he comes to her house, she does not go to his; and, till recently, she could dismiss him as soon as she was tired of him. The law—man-made, no doubt!—has recently altered this, and now mutual consent is required for a valid divorce. Still the woman is, at least on this point, on an equality with the man. And the heavens have not yet fallen. As to the vote, it is not so important or so general here as at home. The people live under a paternal monarchy "by right divine." The Rajah who consolidated the kingdom, early ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... couple, however, are always disturbed towards morning by the women, who assemble to inspect the nuptial sheet, (according to the manners of the ancient Hebrews, as recorded in scripture,) and dance round it. This ceremony is thought indispensably necessary, nor is the marriage considered as valid ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... that in all the faiths of the world there is belief in such manifestations, and that ancient maxim as to truth—that which is as the hall mark on the silver showing that the metal is pure—that ancient maxim is here valid, that whatever has been believed everywhere, whatever has been believed at every time, and by every one, that is true, that is reality. Religions quarrel over many details; men dispute over many ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... of hexameters and pentameters I have not shirked the metre although it is strangely out of favour in English literature while we read it and enjoy it in German. There is little valid reason for our aversion; the rhythm has been made familiar to our ears by long courses of Greek and Latin and the rarity of spondaic feet is assuredly to be supplied by art ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... consciousness," said the parson doggedly, "and my consciousness is as valid as any other man's. But I'll ask you an easier question: who of all men, do you suppose, knew most ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... Mussulmen; and that, if, under such pretences, the natives were to be exempted from taking an oath, when examined by the Governor and Council, all the inquiries pointed out to them by the Company's instructions might stop or be defeated. That no valid reason was or could be assigned why the said Phousdar should not be examined on oath; that the charge was not against himself; and that, if any questions had been put to him, tending to make him accuse himself, he might have declined to answer them. ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of asserting that there is one valid reason, and only one, for either punishing a man or rewarding him in this world; one reason, which ancient piety could well define: That you may do the will and commandment of God with regard to him; that you may ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... the public health services must soon fall into line and consider mental hygiene seriously is obvious. The objection sometimes made that the practical problems are too vague, not sufficiently concrete, to justify attack by public health officials is no longer valid. In no direction, probably, could money and energy be more profitably spent during the period just ahead than in the support of a widely organized campaign for Mental Hygiene.[12] Psychiatrists can count upon internists and general practitioners to aid them in educating the public ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... the first "truth" A, (alpha 1), the second one A2 (alpha 2), the third one A3 (alpha 3), we may suppose that a genius appears who has the faculty to surpass all the other relative truths A1, A2, A3, ... An and gives us an absolute or final truth, VALID IN INFINITY (Ainfinity) say a final definition, that lightning is so ... and so ..., a kind of energy which flows, let us say, through a glass tube filled with charcoal. Then of course this definition would immediately make obvious what use could be made of ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... youth of both sexes"; the author of "Sanford and Merton" has here his literary progenitor. The sub-title, "or Virtue Rewarded," also indicates the homiletic nature of the book. And since the one valid criticism against all didactic aims in story-telling is that it is dull, Richardson, it will be appreciated, ran a mighty risk. But this he was able to escape because of the genuine human interest of his tales ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Stephen is wrong. That is exactly what the dreamer can do, and no one else but he; and Mr. Stephen is himself a dreamer when he writes and feels like this. Why, let me ask him, should the truth be loved? Do the 'perceptions,' which are for him the only valid guides, tell him so? The perceptions tell him, as he expressly says, that the truths of nature, so far as man is concerned with them, are 'harsh' truths. Why should 'harsh' things be loveable? Or ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... origin of worlds, human ancestry—here were high topics, on none of which was there lack of argument; and, in a certain sense, of evidence; and what then? There must be design. The reasoning and the research of all philosophy could not be valid against that conviction. If there were no design, why, it would all be nonsense; and he could not believe in nonsense. And if there were design, there must be intelligence; and if intelligence, pure intelligence; and pure intelligence was inconsistent with any ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Central America, Venezuela, and New Granada constant assurances are received of the continued good understanding with the Governments to which they are severally accredited. With those Governments upon which our citizens have valid and accumulating claims, scarcely an advance toward a settlement of them is made, owing mainly to their distracted state or to the pressure of imperative domestic questions. Our patience has been and will probably be still further severely tried, but our fellow citizens whose interests ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... no definite conclusion. One thing they did decide: It was so to manage matters as to leave Rogers in command of the schooner when the captain himself should be ashore. Unless Ditty were actually deposed, and as yet there was no valid excuse for doing this, the only way they could carry out this plan was to see that Ditty was on shore at the same time ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... conceptions previously entertained regarding the constitution of the sun, leading him to views which, though they may be modified in detail, will, I believe, remain substantially valid to the end of time. The sun, according to Kirchhoff, consists of a molten nucleus which is surrounded by a flaming atmosphere of lower temperature. The nucleus may, in part, be clouds, mixed with, or underlying true vapour. The ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... impartial, just, and most satisfactory way out of the existing difficulty, and, lastly, because one of the parties to a Convention, according to all principles of reasonableness, cannot expect that his interpretation will be respected by the other party as the only valid and correct one. And although this Government is firmly convinced that a just and impartial decision might be obtained even better in South Africa than anywhere else, it wishes, in view of the conflicting elements, ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... bets Mr. Sheridan five hundred guineas that he, Mr. Sheridan, does not write, and produce under his name, a play of five acts, or a first piece of three, within the term of three years from the 15th of September next.—It is distinctly to be understood that this bet is not valid unless Mr. Jones becomes a partner in Drury-Lane Theatre before the commencement ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Affghanistan will probably excite great discussion, and possibly (on the part of the late Government) furious objurgation, in the ensuing session of Parliament. We are so delighted at the achievement which was the subject of that proclamation, that even were there valid grounds of objection to its taste and policy, we should entirely overlook them. If even Lord Ellenborough, in the excitement of the glorious moment in which he penned the proclamation, departed from the style of all previous state documents of that character, was it not very excusable? But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Wit also depends upon transformation and substitution of ideas. It has been said to consist in quick association by similarity. The substitution must here be valid, however, and the similarity real, though unforeseen. Unexpected justness makes wit, as sudden incongruity makes pleasant foolishness. It is characteristic of wit to penetrate into hidden depths of things, to pick out there some telling circumstance or relation, by noting which the whole object ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... not restrict themselves to bald items of information. They presented me with a theory of stellar evolution which I had to accept and which is more nearly valid than anything our own astronomy has ever been able to devise, if we except possible lost theories dating from Beforethewars. Mind you, their theory had a rigidly mathematical development and it predicted just such a Galaxy as they describe. So you see, they have all ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... the age of twenty-one as the age of legal maturity. No matter how precocious a young man be, the presumption of law is against his intelligence until he is twenty-one. He cannot vote; he cannot make a valid deed to a piece of land. Why? His reason is not mature, and yet the moral principles that control his life are implanted before he reaches that age. His ideals come into his life long before the reason can be regarded as a safe guide. Before the reason is mature ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... in a storm of excitement. The returning-boards had done their counting,—but who was to judge the judges? Who was to decide which of the returns of Presidential electors were the valid ones? They were to be passed on by the two Houses of Congress in joint session. But the Senate was Republican, the Representatives were Democratic,—what if they disagreed as to the returns? The ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... influenced others more than others influenced him. Outside of his family connections, the personalities which can be most easily traced in his own are those of Carlyle, Mr. Alcott, and Thoreau. Carlyle's harsh virility could not be without its effect on his valid, but sensitive nature. Alcott's psychological and physiological speculations interested him as an idealist. Thoreau lent him a new set of organs of sense of wonderful delicacy. Emerson looked at nature as a poet, and his natural history, if left to himself, would have been as vague as that of Polonius. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... general stimulation of radical thinking that the War involves, will be a profound acceleration of the feminist movement throughout, at least, the democracies of the world. Already it is being recognized that all valid principles of democracy apply to women equally with men. Regenerated, if chaotic, Russia takes for granted the farthest reaches of feminism. The regime in England, that bitterly opposed suffrage for women, is now voluntarily ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... greatly to his credit that he continued to feel the necessity of being something more than young, and did not sink by rapid degrees into a parallel of that melancholy object, a superannuated youthful phenomenon. Happily he had enough of valid, active faculty to save him from that tragic fate. He had not exhausted his fountain of eloquent opinion in his 'Comparative Estimate,' so as to feel himself, like some other juvenile celebrities, the sad survivor of his own manifest destiny, or like one who has risen too early in the morning, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... expressed himself, confessedly, more from a political than a strategic standpoint. He allowed the military reasons to be sound for an advance, and modestly refrained from putting his opinion against that of men trained to the profession of arms; though all allowed his right to a valid judgment. But he claimed, with some reason, that the political horizon was dark; that success by the Army of the Potomac was secondary to the avoidance of disaster. If, he alleged, this army should be destroyed, it would be the last one the country would raise. Washington might be ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... said impulsively. "There must have been a weak spot somewhere, or he wouldn't be lying here like that!" Somehow his impassiveness surprised me. I had expected that he would find a valid argument in my phrase; but it did not move him, at least not in the way I thought. Something like a smile flickered over his swarthy face as ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... letter to the head censor in Petersburg. I do not recollect the exact terms of that letter, but I know I told him that he had no right to cut the book after granting me leave to receive it intact, without first sending me word that he had changed his mind, and giving valid reasons therefor; that the course he had adopted was injudicious in the extreme, since it was calculated to arouse curiosity instead of allaying it, and that it would be much better policy to ignore the matter. I concluded by requesting him to ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... stands so grandly at head of an immense stream of liberating effort to write an immoral work? Surely the only enduring moral virtue which can be claimed is for that which moves to more power, beauty and delight in the future? The plea that the question of changing customs arises is not valid, for customs ratified by Aristophanes, by Rabelais, by Shakespeare, have no right to change. If they have changed, let us try immediately to return from our disgraceful refinements to the nobler and more rarefied heights of lyric laughter, tragic intensity, and ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... Richard II., the Judges declared unanimously, that such an objection would be fatal to such a pleading in any indictment or information; but the Lords, as on the former occasion, overruled this objection, and held the article to be good and valid, notwithstanding the report of the Judges concerning the mode of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... argument in natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the supposition of the descent of men from chimpanzees and gorillas, since those ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... sharp ringing of the door-bell rang through the house, and Mme. Cantinet and Mme. Sauvage allowed three black-coated personages to pass. First came Vitel, the justice of the peace, with his highly respectable clerk; third was Fraisier, neither sweeter nor milder for the disappointing discovery of a valid will canceling the formidable instrument so ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... decree was published which declares any betrothal or marriage entered into by a Catholic with a Catholic, or by a Catholic with a non-Catholic, to be valid only on condition that either the betrothal or the marriage take place in the presence or with the sanction of a Catholic priest This decree is known as the Ne Temere decree. It is called thus according to a custom prevailing in the Catholic Church by ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... be valid, be worth; concern; es gilt mir it is for me; es gilt uns heut zu ruehren our duty ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... to her tears, and gave her a written acknowledgment of marriage, valid according to Scottish law. Her father's wrath was not appeased thereby. Burns, confessing himself unequal to the support of a family, proposed to go immediately to Jamaica in search of better fortunes. He offered, if this were rejected, to abandon his farm, already a hopeless concern, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... a Hunted man experiences a change of character. If he were able to look upon the Hunt as an abstract problem, he might arrive at certain more or less valid conclusions. But the typical Hunted, no matter how great his intelligence, cannot divorce emotion from reasoning. After all, he is being hunted. He becomes panic-stricken. Safety seems to lie in distance and depth. He ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... Korosko. In these days of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that there were very valid reasons, both of a personal and political nature, for holding it back. The facts were well known to a good number of people at the time, and some version of them did actually appear in a provincial paper, but was generally discredited They have ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... Coleridge's once told him that she admired The Ancient Mariner, but had a serious fault to find with it—it had no moral. Do you think, as you read this stanza, that her objection was a valid one? ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... confiscate the property of all the merchants in Lombard Street, or to attaint any man in the kingdom of high treason, without examining witnesses against him, or hearing him in his own defence. The most atrocious act of confiscation or of attainder is just as valid an act as the Toleration Act or the Habeas Corpus Act. But from acts of confiscation and acts of attainder lawgivers are bound, by every obligation of morality, systematically to refrain. In the same manner ought the British legislature to refrain from taxing the American ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bill directing the Secretary of the Treasury to examine and adjust the claims, and to pay out of the public funds whatever might prove to be due. The Hon. R. J. WALKER, then Secretary of the Treasury, examined the question, adjudged the claim valid, paid the principal sum which he found to be due, amounting to $43,518, and left the question of paying interest upon it to the next Cabinet. In that Cabinet Mr. CRAWFORD held a seat, having first transferred his agency ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the House, he was often indignant at seeing his decrees reversed, while, not being a peer, he was not entitled to support his decisions. In the famous case of Drury and Drury, his decision having been reversed, though the bar then and still pronounced it valid, the lord keeper was very angry; and, in driving home, his coachman checked the horses. He asked—'Why he did not drive on?' The man saying—'My lord, I can't. If I do, I shall kill an old woman.'—'Drive on,' cried Henley; 'if you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... deserve the cruel treatment it experienced." And the actor can assert: "I was not to blame. I did but speak the words that were set down for me. My fate is hard—I have to bear the burden of another's sins." And in each case these are reasonably valid pleas. In the hour of triumph, however, it is certain that the author is apt to be forgotten, and that the lion's share of success is popularly awarded to the players. For the dramatist is a vague, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... essence; but the manner is more painful and less a relief to my own thoughts. Some one conceived he could not be an excellent companion, because he was seen walking down the side of the Thames, passibus iniquis, after dining at Richmond. The objection was not valid. I will, however, admit that the said Elia is the worst company in the world in bad company, if it be granted me that in good company he is nearly the best that can be. He is one of those of whom it may be said, Tell ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... which they could conceive; and then the question of origin assumes this form: how did equality afterwards disappear?)—or else these treaties and agreements were forced by the strong upon the weak, and in that case they are null; the tacit consent of posterity does not make them valid, and we live in a permanent ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... tickets just exactly as valid as my own. Why, you scattered them right and left like sour grape juice. Oho! I see quite well how things stand! I'm not one of your crowd, either, but you want to get me. That's why you came to my house again and again—because you ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... General Assembly shall provide by general laws for the extension and the contraction, from time to time, of the corporate limits of cities and towns, and no special act for such purpose shall be valid. ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... up the steady light of an optimistic conception of the world, and by its means injected new vigour into English ethical thought. In his case, therefore, it is not an immaterial question, but one almost forced upon us, whether we are to take his ethical doctrine and inspiring optimism as valid truths, or to regard them merely as subjective opinions held by a religious poet. Are they creations of a powerful imagination, and nothing more? Do they give to the hopes and aspirations that rise so irrepressibly in the heart of man anything better than an appearance ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... the way of comparison there are many kinds of valid arguments; in this way: "That which is valid in a greater affair, ought to be valid in a less: so that, if the law does not regulate the limits in the city, still more will it not compel any one to turn off the water in the city." Again, on the other hand: "Whatever is ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... probability of increasing it by organization or legislative enactment is not such as to make one enthusiastic. What one believes is very real to himself. In fact it is the only thing that seems right to him, therefore he sees no valid reason why he should change his belief or why others should not believe as he does. This positive element in the human ego is advantageous at times, but it is also responsible for all conflicts from mild disagreements to war ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... we ordain that, with the proper formalities which have been of old provided in this matter[493], you shall be admitted to all the rights of an adult, and that your dispositions of property, whether in city or country, shall be held valid[494]. You must exhibit that steadfastness of character which you claim. You say that you will not be caught by the snares of designing men; and you must remember that now to deny the fulfilment of your promise will become a much more serious matter ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... 1657 none but civil marriages were valid in law, and Justice Filkin is mentioned in the Register as marrying the Rector of Roughton, John Bancroft, to Ann Coulen. Persons were often married in the church, as well as before the Justice; the civil marriage was also ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... at the feet of Reason; and, in the hands of latitudinarian and rationalistic theologians, the despotism of the Bible was rapidly converted into an extremely limited monarchy. Treated with as much respect as ever, the sphere of its practical authority was minimised; and its decrees were valid only so far as they were countersigned by common sense, the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... interpreted by Corot's or Monet's eye and brain and hand. A certain stimulus or "impression," an organism which reshapes impressions, and then an "expression" of these transformed impressions into the terms permitted by some specific material: that is the threefold process which seems to be valid in all of the fine arts. It is nowhere more ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... the meaning of these signs, as determined by experience and reflection, constitutes "the observer of men;" but tacitly to draw from these still further conclusions, and to arrange the separate observations according to grounds of probability, into a just and valid combination, this, it may be said, is to know men. The distinguishing property of the dramatic poet who is great in characterization, is something altogether different here, and which, (take it which way we will,) either includes in it this readiness and this acuteness, or dispenses with both. It ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... a few female germ cells that cross pollinization then took place from a walnut tree. It is only on some such ground as the findings of Loeb that we can explain such a very unusual hybridization as that, which appeared to me a valid one, of a cross between ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... one, for a consideration, pledge a field to another, and then pledge the same field to some one else, also for a consideration—the first act is the valid one. (M.)] ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... his thinking life all over again. Just as, in early days, he had exchanged miracles and folk-tales for facts of natural science; so now he saw political institutions and social codes, literary and artistic canons, and ethical and philosophical systems, no longer as things valid and excellent, having relationship to truth—but simply as intrenchments and fortifications in the class-war, as devices which some men had used to deceive and plunder some other men. What a light it threw upon philosophy, for instance, to perceive it, not as a search ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... statute, and specific duties were assigned to the Secretary. He was, however, appointed by the President, and the question was raised whether he was also removable by the President. The Senate insisted that the removal should not be valid without its approval; the House insisted that the President should be unrestrained by the casting vote of the Vice-President the latter system was adopted. The first Secretary of ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... system of things which provides that another woman should be made rough-handed and kept rough-minded for her sake, but with the enormous diffusion of levelling information that is going on, a perfectly valid objection will probably come from the other side in this transaction. The servants of the past and the only good servants of to-day are the children of servants or the children of the old labour base of the social pyramid, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... died. I hung on at the mills for a time, until the strikes and the general depression gave me valid reasons for withdrawing. To skip details, I sold out my interests, and with my little capital came to Chicago. My income, still dependent in some part upon those Wabash mills, trembles back and forth in ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick |
