"Arrogate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presbyteries or synods was vested in the Prelates, and the King could prevent any Assembly from being held, as long as he thought proper. But the Presbyterian Church, though overborne, was not destroyed, nor was its free spirit wholly subdued. When, in 1617, the King attempted to arrogate to himself and his prelatic council the power of enacting ecclesiastical laws, he was immediately met by a protestation against a measure so despotic. By an arbitrary stretch of power, he banished the historian Calderwood, the person who presented to ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... letters are burned, the poor letters of a stupid mistress, confiding in her lover who is overcome with weariness, and who is only thinking of deserting her, while she is still intoxicated in yielding to him—and because I adored you—yes, truly—because I was your mistress, do you arrogate to yourself the right of preventing me from marrying as I wish, and of drawing myself out of the bog into which, perhaps, by your selfishness, I have fallen? Ah, my dear fellow, really I am somewhat surprised at you, I swear!—I said nothing because of those scraps of paper, that you would ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the King... It is the King's authority they flout... They arrogate to themselves the whole sovereignty in Brittany. The King has dissolved them... These insolent nobles defying ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... illusion that the world is governed by reason. But there were many such in France: and numbers of people were amazed from day to day to see the vehement Gallophobia of the German Press becoming rampant with the usual quasi-unanimity. Certain of those newspapers which, in the two countries, arrogate to themselves a monopoly of patriotism, and speak in the nation's name, and dictate to the State, sometimes with the secret complicity of the State, the policy it should follow, launched forth insulting ultimatums to France. There was a dispute between Germany and England; and Germany did ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... beasts can not be the objects of its justice and kindness? Mortals consider fortunate or unfortunate events, health or sickness, life and death, abundance or famine, as rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of the liberty which they arrogate to themselves. Do they reason on this principle when animals are taken into consideration? No; although they see them under a just God enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live and die, like themselves, it does ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... the wane. The establishment and operation of a musical or athletic club, a debating society, or a Boy Scouts company, are surely quite as educational as the activities themselves in which their members engage. Do not let us arrogate to ourselves such opportunities as these. I should be inclined to take this attitude also with regard to the public playgrounds, were they not somewhat without the province of this paper; and I take it very strongly with regard to the public school. Throw open ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... in their progress, and which, in the present instance, deserved even less credit than usual, on account of their vagueness and improbability. What motive could there be, for example, to induce Sir Christopher to arrogate a title which did not belong to him, when there was every chance of detection, and no important advantage to be gained? He had never noticed in the Knight any assumption of superiority, but, on the contrary, rather a careless cordiality, amounting almost to bonhommie. Everything which ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... directly, wicked woman, who I am." "I do not believe, son," replied she, looking at him tenderly, and without fear, "that you are so abandoned by God as not to know your mother, who brought you into the world, and to mistake yourself. You are indeed my son Abou Hassan, and are much in the wrong to arrogate to yourself the title which belongs only to our sovereign lord the caliph Haroon al Rusheed, especially after the noble and generous present the monarch made us yesterday. I forgot to tell you, that the grand vizier Jaaffier came to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... themselves or talked of by their acquaintances, that I am not alluding to them in the slightest degree, but merely to the class to which they belong. They therefore (it is to be hoped) will not arrogate to themselves any little passages of private histories they may happen to find in these pages; for, if they do, I shall assuredly hold them up to public ridicule, by saying, "as the shoe fits them they are ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... frequently outwits itself. Napoleon already, through the weakness of the king and the treachery of his minister, had all the resources of Spain at his disposal. But, not content with the reality, he resolved to arrogate the title; and he thus eventually lost the Peninsula. Under the pretext of settling the disputes of the royal family, the Emperor, in 1808, marched ninety thousand men into Spain, obtained possession of its principal fortresses, and established a garrison in the capital. The Spanish ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... bear much bodily fatigue, wet, and cold, without appearing to suffer by it, much less to complain of it. Whatever labour they have gone through, and with whatever success in procuring game, no individual ever seems to arrogate to himself the credit of having done more than his neighbour for the general good. Nor do I conceive there is reason to doubt their personal courage, though they are too good-natured often to excite others to put that quality to the test. It is true, they will recoil with horror at the tale ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... interest (as I flatter myself) would have opened the gates of Elleray to you even at midnight; for I am so old a friend of Mr. Wilson that I take a pride in supposing myself the oldest; and, barring relations by blood, arrogate the rights of dean in the chapter of his associates: or at least I know of but one person whose title can probably date earlier than mine. About this very month when I am writing, I have known Professor Wilson for a ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... been in the navy. Though neither the Federal nor the State Government has power to confer titles, the magnates do so. They see that dukes and other peers are created in Europe, and that the partners in the big, wealthy firms over there, are called "merchant princes", and so to outdo them, they arrogate to themselves a still higher title. Hence there are railroad kings, copper kings, tobacco kings, etc. It is, however, manifestly improper and incongruous that the people should possess a higher title than their President, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... good for Gustavus; and that whether he were to stand or fall in the hour of temptation, he had better have lived his time and done his work. We, with our small philosophy, can make allowance for the greater dangers of the higher sphere; and shall we arrogate to ourselves a larger judgment and ampler sympathies than we allow to God? Yet Gustavus was happy. Among soldiers and statesmen, if there is a greater, there is hardly a purer name. He had won not only honour but love, and the friend and comrade was as ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... animated countenance and flashing eyes of my companion, and wondered what sort of a peasant it was I had met with. "Wild and beautiful as the scene is," I said, "you will find, even among those who arrogate to themselves the praise of wisdom and learning, men who regard such scenes as mere errors of nature. Burnet would have told you that a Dutch landscape, without hill, rock, or valley, must be the perfection of beauty, seeing that Paradise itself ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... superior physical strength, which became more pronounced as civilization advanced, and which is only noticeable in the human family. Among all animals, with the possible exception of cattle, the female is quite as large and as well endowed as the male. It is easy for bigger and stronger people to arrogate to themselves a general superiority. Christ came to rebuke the belief that brute strength is the dominant force ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... are to conduct you to Paris. Your will was not taken into consideration. I know not how the Queen would have me act, seeing your reluctance; it may be that she would elect to leave you here, as you desire. But it is not for me to arrogate to determine the Queen's mind. I can but be guided by her orders, and those orders leave me no course but one—to ask you, mademoiselle, to make ready immediately to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... which General Washington had run, civil and military, the services he had rendered, and the space he therefore occupied in the affections of his fellow-citizens, take from his examples the weight of precedents for others, because no others can arrogate to themselves the claims which he had on the public homage. To myself, therefore, it comes as a new question, to be viewed under all the phases it may present. I confess, that I am not reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate parading himself ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... papa, 'I don't want you to believe I am not grateful for this sort of proof of your friendship; and you mustn't think, because I have strong convictions, that I arrogate any superior, virtue to myself. Every man must be a law to himself. I have never ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... that He had no need of works or sufferings to be just and saved—for all these things He had from the very beginning—yet was not puffed up with these things, and did not raise Himself above us and arrogate to Himself power over us, though He might lawfully have done so, but, on the contrary, so acted in labouring, working, suffering, and dying, as to be like the rest of men, and no otherwise than a man in fashion and in ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... "You arrogate a little too much to yourselves," I observed, "in considering the United States as all America. At the time these brilliant deeds were achieved, which this monument is intended to commemorate, the Spaniards owned a very much greater portion of the transatlantic continent than you now do, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... sucked her blood for gain. We have carried on wars, that we might fill the pockets of stock-jobbers. We have revised our Constitution, and by a great and united national effort, have secured our Protestant succession, only that we may become the tools of a faction, who arrogate to themselves the whole merit of what was a national act. We are governed by upstarts, who are unsettling the landmarks of our social system, and are displacing the influence of our landed gentry by that of a class of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... seat ourselves securely thereon beyond the surf. We all remember how it fared with the quaint old monarch and moralist when he tried the plan of the immortals, and commanded the sea to obey him—we perish if we arrogate too much when the surges sweep around us; but we can, we must avoid them if we hope to escape their force, and plant ourselves beyond them firmly on ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... carefully pursued. He did not hazard a single syllable which might draw on him a rejection of his claims; but at the same time no lover could be more constant, more devoted, in attentions. In the presence of others, there was an air of familiar intimacy that seemed to arrogate a right, which to her he scrupulously shunned to assert. Nothing could be more respectful, nay, more timid, than his language, or more calmly confident than his manner. Not having much vanity, nor any very acute self-conceit, he did ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... except in the matter of secrecy. On that point I can never be released and never seek to be; but in respect to the statements I am about to make, my former associates,—deeming their publication might serve to correct some of the erroneous opinions that are put into circulation by individuals who arrogate to themselves a knowledge, of which they have not the slightest iota,—not only sanction, but command me to present to the candid inquirer the following brief definition of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place, to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due to the sound discretion ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... with Sir W. Batten, by coach to St. James's, where by the way he did tell me how Sir J. Minnes would many times arrogate to himself the doing of that that all the Board have equal share in, and more that to himself which he hath had nothing to do in, and particularly the late paper given in by him to the Duke, the translation of a Dutch print concerning the quarrel between us and them, which he ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... man's brow drew dark; tumultuous thoughts filled his brain; Caillette's words, Brusquet's rhymes, confirming his own conviction, rankled in his mind. This king dared arrogate a law absolute unto himself; its statutes, his own caprices; its canons, his own pretensions? The duke remembered the young girl's outburst against the monarch and a feeling of hatred arose in his breast; his hand involuntarily sought his sword, the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... by clouds above the impassible horizon, his reflections turned more gloomy and deadly. Was it impious for him to arrogate the right to substitute his justice for that supreme, and wield its dreadful sword? But he shrank from acting as his father had done, and mainly because he saw that, if ever the world knew that he loved Rebecca, it would say that he had slain his wife ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... taken over by Japan. Tsingtao and the port of Kiaochow should belong to Japan, as well as the Tainan railway. Japan would co-operate with the Allies in maintaining order in Siberia, but no Power should arrogate to itself a preponderant voice in the matter of obtaining concessions or other interests there. Lastly, the principle of the open door was to be upheld in China, Japan being admittedly the Power which is the most interested in the establishment and maintenance ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... after him, instead of being called Columbia, as in all justice it should have been, but with this Vespucius had nothing to do. He was for a long time charged, though most unjustly, with impudence, falsehood, and deceit, it being alleged that he wished to veil the glory of Columbus and to arrogate to himself the honour of a discovery which did not belong to him. This was an utterly unfounded accusation, for Vespucius was both loved and esteemed by Columbus and his contemporaries, and there is nothing in ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... engineer was at work; he mentioned in private his suspicions to the general, who gave orders in consequence; the old mine was discovered, cleared out, and by these means the town was taken the day before the time appointed. Basile did not arrogate to himself any of the glory of this success—he kept his general's secret and his confidence. Upon their return to Paris, after a fortunate campaign, the general was more grateful than some others have been, perhaps because more room was given by Basile's prudence for the exercise ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... to reclaim the kingdom to Popery. Among other things he brought troops over from Ireland to enforce his will, some of his English troops having made it abundantly plain that they could not be counted on to obey the mandates of one who wished to arrogate to himself unlimited power, and showed an utter disregard of the rights of the people. Indeed, on all hands the King's friends began to forsake him, and even his own children fell away from him ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sir, if after all this injustice, and impiety on your parts, you have prosecuted that with the extreamest madness, which you esteemed criminal in your enemies, viz. To arrogate the supream power in a single person;{3} condemn men without Law; execute, and proscribe them with as little: Imprest for your Service, violate your Parliaments, dispense with your solemn Oaths; in summe, to mingle Earth and ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... audience remained fixed upon the speaker and the girl, who sat in rapt admiration of his periods. After the hush, the Colonel continued in a lower and sadder voice: "There are, perhaps, few of us here, gentlemen—with the exception of the defendant—who can arrogate to themselves the title of regular churchgoers, or to whom these humbler functions of the prayer-meeting, the Sunday-school, and the Bible class are habitually familiar. Yet"—more solemnly—"down ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... of health, as he thinks, or social arrangements, cannot recognize it as his duty to forswear drink altogether. When a man claims his liberty to be the arbiter of his habits in his home, or in society, for me to arrogate the right to censure him may be impertinence; and, so far as I am concerned, to read him out of Christian consistency may be to make myself, as St. James puts it, a judge of evil thoughts. When a man has reached fifty years of age, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... their generation the advantage of the children of God (Lk 16, 8) with reference to the first promise. The spiritual seed of the woman indeed possess the spiritual blessing, but the seed of the serpent arrogate to themselves the corporal, or temporal, blessing, and they bruise the heel of the blessed seed. In this respect the temporal has precedence ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... boys in those old days very much longer than they do now. The smartness of children like my grandsons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, for instance, who at the age of two hundred and fifty arrogate to themselves all the knowledge of the universe, was comparatively unknown when I was a child. To begin with we were of a different breed from the boys of to-day, and life itself was more simple. We were surrounded with none of those luxuries which ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... they help us to express our physical sensations, but which with further research must be pronounced illusions?[1] Monistic naturalism, which would explain all psychical experiences in terms of cerebral action, must not be allowed to arrogate to itself powers which it does not possess, and quietly brush {86} aside facts which do not fit into its system. The moral sanctions so universally and deeply rooted in the consciousness of mankind, ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... world is a struggle between "the spirit" which is entirely good and "the flesh" which is entirely evil. To the philosophy of the complex vision this doctrine appears false and misleading. It detects in this doctrine, as I have hinted, an attempt of the conscience to arrogate to itself the whole field of experience and to negate all the other attributes, especially emotion and the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... more sacred charm. But while they continue to enforce obedience to arbitrary commands, to encourage love of admiration and a desire for frivolous amusements; while they crush the powers of the mind, by opposing authority and precedent to reason and progress; while they arrogate to themselves the right to point us to the path of duty, while they close the avenues of knowledge through public institutions, and monopolize the profits of labor, mediocrity and inferiority must be our portion. Shall we accept it, or shall ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... I don't arrogate too much in saying this, and in saying we have contributed not a little to the glory of the nation and the American arms. I find by a Parliamentary Register, that there were 18,000 troops and upwards, in the Southern department last year, besides the militia which acted with the enemy, ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... times been misunderstood and misapplied. No human authority can bind the conscience, nor set rules and regulations for the soul of man. The prerogative of final direction belongs to God alone. No man may arrogate it—no pastor for people, no husband for wife, no wife for husband, no parent for child. The sadness of the world has been, that men have not always been spiritually free. Freedom has been a social growth—a phase of progress. It has taken ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... such affairs; but they went on urging me until I resolved to do it. I had already many times remarked, that in these grants of offices, which unfortunately were regarded as matters of favor, the mediation of my grandmother or an aunt had not been without effect. I was now so advanced as to arrogate some influence to myself. For that reason, to gratify my friends, who declared themselves under every sort of obligation for such a kindness, I overcame the timidity of a grandchild, and undertook to deliver a written application that ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the urgency of the very reproaches by which, he aimed at goading the oppressed into rebellion against the oppressor. Looking at him still more fixedly than I had yet done, I saw written in his eye and mien a resolution to arrogate to himself a freedom so unlimited that it might often trench on the just liberty of his neighbours. I rapidly ran over these thoughts, and then I laughed a low and involuntary laugh, moved thereto by a slight inward revelation of the inconsistency ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... now," madame Wang rejoined with due respect, "kindred with outside family names, such as Mrs. Hseh, ne Wang, Pao-ch'ai, and Tai-y waiting for your commands; but as they are distant relatives, and without official status, they do not venture to arrogate to themselves the right of entering into your presence." But the Chia consort issued directions that they should be invited to come that they should see each other; and in a short while, Mrs. Hseh and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and perhaps many of them, I shall not deny. I should esteem myself, as the world also would, vain and empty, were I to arrogate perfection. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... alternative. Thus the jury, in those cases in which it is most severely condemned, provides a corrective for the injustice of the criminal legislation. Occasionally, it is true, they go a little too far in this direction and arrogate to themselves a right of pardon, but cases of that kind are, I believe, very rare. I know of only one well-authenticated instance. The prisoner had been proved guilty of a serious crime, but it happened to be the eve of a great religious festival, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Mr. Jefferson, slowly, "if 'tis ever fitting that a king should arrogate to his sole use the wealth, the toil, the bounty of an empire. I confess I never look at this stately palace, at these magnificent gardens, but I shudder to think of the hundred millions of francs this ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Consequently, we infer that, the fusion and continuity of our ranks being perfect, it is not possible to suppose, with respect to a great patriotic interest, any abrupt pause in the fluent circulation of our national sympathies. We, therefore, cannot be supposed to arrogate for the nobility any separate privilege of patriotism. But still we venture to affirm, that, if the total numbers of our nobility and their nearest connexions were summed; and if from that sum were subtracted all officers, being brothers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Holiness is thinking that I arrogate to myself a miraculous clairvoyance. No. It I is something which I see in your face, which I hear in your voice; poor, common, man that ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... for the time, entirely frustrated their intentions. The more educated and intelligent of the brown party listen with disapprobation to the tone in which the Baptist ministers and their adherents arrogate to themselves exclusively the title of friends and leaders of the black population. Many persons of this class have already embarked in public life; some, as members of Assembly, have taken part in those transactions ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... banks of the Niger. The Moors have likewise introduced many common useful trades into Central Africa. But above all, the Mohammedans have introduced the knowledge of the one true God! and destroyed the fetisch idols. Let us then take care how we arrogate to ourselves the right and fact of civilizing the world. Nay, there cannot be a question, if we would abandon Africa to the Mohammedans, and leave off our man-stealing trade and practices on the Western Coast, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... often think a salesman is more truly a creative artist than many of those who arrogate the title to themselves. He uses words, on one hand, and the receptivity of prospects on the other, to mold a cohesive and satisfying whole, a work of Art, signed and dated on the dotted line. Like any such work, the creation implies thoughtful and careful preparation. So it was that ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... error. It has been assumed that the startling feat accomplished by that man of deep revenge, who is not alone in his bitter hatred and contempt for the base among those who, like spaniels, crawl and kiss the dust at the instigation of their superiors, and yet arrogate to themselves a claim to be considered gentlemen and men of honor and independence—it has, I repeat, been assumed that the feat attributed to him in connection with the flag-staff of the fort was impossible. No one who has ever seen these erections ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... to the Proximate. When these two departments of thought overlap, interference results, and we find confusion. Therefore it was that when the religious theory of final causes intruded upon the field of scientific inquiry, it was passing beyond its logical domain; and seeking to arrogate the function of explaining this or that phenomenon in detail, it ceased to be a purely religious theory, while at the same time and for the same reason it blocked the ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... and the testimony is commandment, and we have to keep it, as well as to confess it. Let me put the few things that I have to say, under this last division of my subject, the practical issue, into the shape of three exhortations, not for the sake of seeming to arrogate any kind of superiority, but for the sake of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... characteristic of all the saints:[34] whence the Holy Ghost cries out, Approach him not with a double heart.[35] That worldly wisdom is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be.[36] Its intoxication blinds men, and shuts their eyes to the light of divine revelation. They arrogate to themselves the exclusive privilege of learning and clear understanding: but the skepticism, the pitiful inconsistencies, and monstrous extravagances, which characterize their writings and discourses, make us blush to see so strong an alliance of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... London, and be within a stone's throw of it, and yet never have its existence brought to your mind; and it had a life all its own. The ecclesiastical lawyers were called doctors and proctors, instead of barristers and attorneys; and although the former did not arrogate to themselves a higher rank socially and professionally than that of barrister, a proctor considered himself a great many cuts above an attorney, and indeed was, for the most part, the equal of the best class of attorneys. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... of a power transcending our present human understanding. In this field, science has not yet advanced far enough to analyze and explain. To deny the actuality of miracles on the ground that, because we cannot comprehend the means, the reported results are fictitious, is to arrogate to the human mind the attribute of omniscience, by implying that what man cannot comprehend cannot be, and that therefore he is able to comprehend all that is. The miracles of record in the Gospels are as fully supported by evidence as are many of the historical events which call ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... grounds even, were mankind deserving of the title "rational," which they arrogate to themselves, there can be no question that they would consider, as the most necessary of all branches of instruction for themselves and for their children, that which professes to acquaint them with the conditions ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... waste is daily becoming more odious, and that simplicity of manners, a benevolent economy, a vigorous munificence, and a comprehensive philanthropy, can alone redeem them; and preserve that social order which every lover of the human race delights to contemplate, but of which they arrogate to themselves the merit of being ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... folk like you and me, that we should arrogate to ourselves a place in that grand company? Not so! What we should do on All Saints' Day is to place ourselves, with all humility, if but for an hour, where we can look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are like, and what ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... little republic. For such Virginia was and must continue to be until there should appear in England some fixed government to which it could submit. "I am," Berkeley wrote Governor Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam, "but a servant of the assembly's; neither do they arrogate any power to themselves, further than the miserable distractions of England force them to. For when God shall be pleased in his mercy to take away and dissipate the unnatural diversions of their native country, they will immediately return to their ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Emancipation, the extension of the franchise, the freedom of the Press, and popular education? "Can it, in a general view," he asks, "be good that an infant should learn much which its parents do not know? Will not a child arrogate a superiority unfavourable to love and obedience?" He shuddered again at the likelihood that Mechanics' Institutes would "make discontented spirits and insubordinate and presumptuous workmen." He opposed the admission ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... inspired or incarnate type of man-god. In it the human body is merely a frail earthly vessel filled with a divine and immortal spirit. On the other hand, a man-god of the magical sort is nothing but a man who possesses in an unusually high degree powers which most of his fellows arrogate to themselves on a smaller scale; for in rude society there is hardly a person who does not dabble in magic. Thus, whereas a man-god of the former or inspired type derives his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide his heavenly radiance behind a dull mask of earthly mould, a man-god of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... attack the Bible; and I as steadfastly deny that "hatred of Christianity" is a feeling with which I have any acquaintance. There are very few things which I find it permissible to hate; and though, it may be, that some of the organisations, which arrogate to themselves the Christian name, have richly earned a place in the category of hateful things, that ought to have nothing to do with one's estimation of the religion, which they have perverted and disfigured out of all likeness to ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... sees life as a whole, sees how its seeming inconsistencies and injustices blend into a harmony. Your mistake—pardon an old woman's criticism of experience upon inexperience—your mistake is that you arrogate to yourself divine wisdom and set up a personal opinion ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... when used to deceive and mislead, to trick and cozen mankind, and to persuade them out of their lawful property, become the most dangerous possessions, and are as mischievous as plagues, pestilence, and famine. How can you dare to arrogate to yourself that part of philosophy which teaches you to look upon the luxuries of life with indifference, while your heart must tell you that you have not the least claim to it, and that you sacrifice your character and reputation to obtain ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... and it was evident that a party, already formed, took possession of the tribune, and was about to arrogate to itself the dominion of the Assembly. Brissot was its conspirator, Condorcet its philosopher, Vergniaud its orator. Vergniaud mounted the tribune, with all the prestige of his marvellous eloquence, the fame of which had long preceded him. The eager looks of the Assembly, the silence that prevailed, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... possible; this yere miscreant is a gov'ment official an' wears the gov'ment brand, an' even the Stranglers, of whatever commoonity, ain't strong enough, an' wouldn't be jestified in stackin' in ag'in the gov'ment. Captain Moon's only show is a feud. He oughter caper over an', as private as possible, arrogate to himse'f the skelp of this yere agent who abandons his relatif ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... were blue as heaven; and the hair, of which there was a great wealth, loosed from all restraint and sweeping back on her shoulders, was of that delicate and almost impalpable blonde so seldom met (even among the English, who arrogate to themselves the purest blonde hair in the world) and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... he had gained the ear and approval of the gallery, Lenoir seemed, as it were, to spread himself out, to arrogate to himself the leadership of this band of malcontents, who, disappointed in their lust of Deroulede's downfall, were ready to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to understand that, in putting forward the peculiar power with which my childish eye detected a grandeur or a pomp of beauty not seen by others in some special instances, I am not arrogating more than it is lawful for every man the very humblest to arrogate, viz., an individuality of mental constitution so far applicable to special and exceptionable cases as to reveal in them a life and power of beauty which others (and sometimes ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Secondly, the romance lies precisely in the freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues; and here I think the reviewer showed himself dull. Lastly, if Otto's speech is offensive to him, he is one of the large class of unmanly and ungenerous dogs who arrogate and defile the name of manly. As for the passages quoted, I do confess that some of them reek Gongorically; they are excessive, but they are not inelegant after all. However, had he attacked me only there, he ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... masses are slow to reason, and each principle, to acquire moral force, must come to us from the fire of the crucible; the fire may inflict unjust punishment, but then it purifies and renders stronger the principle, not in itself, but in the eyes of those who arrogate judgment to themselves. When the war of the Revolution established the independence of the American colonies, an evil was perpetuated, slavery was more firmly established; and since the evil had been planted, it must pass through certain ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... Foxe's most trusted helpers, and exercised a powerful influence. By some of the more enthusiastic devotees of the sect he was honoured with such blasphemous titles as "the Lamb of God," which, however, he did not arrogate to himself, but asserted that they were ascribed to "Christ in him." He was found guilty of blasphemy, pilloried, whipped, and branded, and cast into prison, from which he was not released until after the death of Cromwell, when he made public confession and resumed preaching. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... towards her husband; the husband is her master, to whom she owes obedience. If the woman is "disobedient," then, according to the law of Prussia, the husband of "low" estate has the right of "moderate castigation." Men of "high" estate also there are said to be who arrogate such a right to themselves. Seeing that nowhere is the force or number of the blows prescribed, the husband is the sovereign judge. The old city law of Hamburg declares: "For the rest, the right of moderate castigation of the wife by her husband, of children by their parents, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Parliament-house under the style of "leave imports free, and the exports will take care of themselves," may chance to meet with many strange facts to confound their arbitrary theorems on the banks of the Neva. Absolute of wisdom, however, as they arrogate to be, and casehardened as they are, against assaulting results which should destroy their self-willed principle—a principle, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, proclaimed to be unchanged and unchangeable—in face of which facts are powerless and adverse experience contumeliously scouted, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Christ disrobes himself of the divine form wherein he existed, to assume that of a servant, which did not express his essential character; but we lay aside the servant form of our real being and take upon ourselves, or arrogate to ourselves, the form of God to which we are not fitted by what ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... objective realities, must be treated in a purely scientific, and not in a poetic or didactic spirit. Let the poet sing the beauty of a consummate flower; and, if such things are required, let the moralist preach its lessons. But neither should arrogate the prerogative of the botanist, whose special function it is to inform us of its genesis and development, and its true relations to other forms of vegetable life. So with man. The poet may celebrate his passions and aspirations, his joys and sorrows, his laughter and tears, ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... and after some small talk Matt said good-bye and hung up. When he left the telephone booth, however, he was a happier young man than when he had entered it, for he had now satisfied himself that while Cappy Ricks might arrogate to himself the right of proposing, his daughter could be depended upon to attend to the disposing. He went to his boarding house, paid his landlady, packed his clothes and sent them down to the Gualala, rubbing her blistered sides against Howard ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... the negro slave trade; who, while they professed to execrate white man slavery, perpetrated the same barbarities upon their brethren of a different colour and caste. How strangely does sin pervert the understandings of men, who arrogate to themselves the highest grade ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Johnson,] as I said the other day, is one of the ablest lawyers, and, I believe, the ablest living lawyer in the land. I have seen gentlemen sometimes so much the lawyer that they had to abate some of the statesman [laughter]; and I am not certain, I would not say it was so—I will not arrogate to myself to say so—but sometimes a suspicion flashes across my mind that that is precisely the predicament ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... It is just as original; i. e., not original at all. Mother Earth is still spinning through space at the gait originally imparted to her by the sun's superior force. Mankind on her outer rind spins with her. Because we have invented steam and electric cars, we must not arrogate to ourselves the discovery of speed. What has speed to do with painting on a flat surface, painting in two dimensions of space? Wait a bit! We are coming to the application ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... principle is still the same. This is the principle that invariably guides the native in his relations with other native tribes around him, and it is generally the same that he acts upon in his intercourse with us. Shall we then arrogate to ourselves the sole power of acting unjustly, or of judging of what is expedient? And are we to make no allowance for the standard of right by which the native is guided in the system of policy he may adopt? Weighing candidly, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... assert his right to what he is willing to contend for; or he may assert in discussion what he is ready to maintain by argument or evidence. To assert without proof is always to lay oneself open to the suspicion of having no proof to offer, and seems to arrogate too much to one's personal authority, and hence in such cases both the verb assert and its noun assertion have an unfavorable sense; we say a mere assertion, a bare assertion, his unsupported assertion; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... following sublime idea of our illustrious countryman, the founder of modern philosophy. "It may not be amiss," says BACON, "to point out three different kinds, and, as it were, degrees of ambition. The first, that of those who desire to enhance, in their own country, the power they arrogate to themselves: this kind of ambition is both vulgar and degenerate. The second, that of those who endeavour to extend the power and domination of their country, over the whole of the human race: in this kind there is certainly a greater dignity, though; at ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... their faith to her beauty, yet already Dora had been preferred before her, though it was only by the head of "Robinson's." Was it possible that now it might be Rose, unsuspecting, unconsulted? Could her own mother and sisters be so unfair as to arrogate to themselves the settlement of her affairs without her consent or knowledge, without so much as admitting her into ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler |
