"Contradiction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the comedy: the theatre is within the circuit of the inn. The performers were not intolerable, and the piece, which was what they call a proverb (a fable constructed so as to give a ludicrous verification or contradiction to an old saying), was amusing. I thought I had some obscure recollection of a face amongst the female performers, and learned afterwards, that it was one of the maids of the inn; a lively brisk girl, and a volunteer, from her ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... conglomerate," as he used to say; but these generally turned out such atrocious compounds that he was ultimately induced to give up his attempts in extreme disgust—not forgetting, however, to point out to Jack that his failure was a direct contradiction to the proverb which he (Jack) was constantly thrusting down his throat—namely, that "where there's a will there's a way." For he had a great will to become a cook, but could by no means find a way ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... so perfectly true that I could not say a word in contradiction; and I stood staring at him, quite at a loss for words, and he was staring at me, when there was a shout and a rush along the loft floor, and I saw Burr major and Dicksee coming toward us fast, and half a dozen more boys crowding up through ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... justice there is contradiction; and as error exists where contradiction lies, it is precisely in that contradiction that we must seek the means of refuting error and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Army the first day of the War was also, I think, a tender spot in the conscience of Kew. A Victoria Cross would have been practically unbearable, and even to be mentioned in despatches would have been a most upsetting contradiction of that commonplace and unprincipled past of which he boasted. He thought he was such a simple soul that he had no motives or principles in anything that he did, but really he was simpler than that. He was so simple that he did his best without thinking about it. It certainly ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... a tragic catastrophe like the wreck of the Titanic to bring out the absolute contradiction between this ideal and all the counsels of materialism ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... that if such be the case, neither honour nor conscience will allow us to resist his rights. He is so obstinate in this matter; his nerves so ill bear reasoning and contradiction, that I know not ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me flat contradiction," said Lottie, dejectedly. "There are the words, 'I am glad I was not there '; and there is the fact that He let Lazarus die; and there also are the facts of His weeping and raising Lazarus: and, now I think of it, He performed many miracles equally kind, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... zephyrs; she had forgotten her rose-coloured ribbons; she was no more conscious of her limbs than if her childish soul had passed into a water-lily, resting on a liquid bed and warmed by the midsummer sun-beams. It may seem a contradiction, but Arthur gathered a certain carelessness and confidence from his timidity: it was an entirely different state of mind from what he had expected in such a meeting with Hetty; and full as he was of vague feeling, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the presence of foreigners on the tokaido at such times as an insult. This circumstance is also rendered more galling by foreigners sitting coolly on their horses by the road-side as the great man passes, generally in a low norimon, on which they must necessarily look down—in contradiction to Japanese etiquette, which permits no inferior to look down upon a superior—while the people of the country are either abjectly kowtowing to him or patiently waiting in their closed houses until his passing shall set ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... Gibney, "your fin. We've fought, but we'll let that go. We wipe the slate clean and start in all over again on the Maggie II, and I'm free to state, without fear of contradiction, that in the last embroglio you showed up like four aces and a king with the entire company standin' pat. Scraggsy, you're a hero, and what you propose proves that you're considerable of a singed cat—better'n you look. We'll go freebootin' down on the Gold Coast. There's war, red war, breakin' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... does," he admitted. "Sounds like a contradiction. But I think you know what I'm trying to get at, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... science. Science deals only with finite events in finite time and space, and the farther we pass onward in space or time, the more uncertain becomes the scientific reasoning, until, in trying to approach the infinite, we are lost in the fog of unreasonable contradiction, ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... classification upon which this whole argument reposes is as purely hypothetical and as little accepted as his own doctrine. If both are pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to extinguish the one by the other. If there is no real contradiction between them, there is no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Cardan at all, but by Giovanni Colla. Colla, he declared, had sent him one of these questions for solution some two years ago. Another, he (Tartaglia) had given to Colla, together with a solution thereof. Juan Antonio replied by way of contradiction—somewhat lamely—that the questions had been handed over to him by Cardan and no one else, wishing to maintain, apparently, that no one else could possibly have been concerned in them, whereupon Tartaglia replied that, supposing ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... can only explain himself by an interrogation. Not wishing to say, I do not know, he can only ask, What do I know? He has made this his device, putting it under a pair of balances, which, weighted in each scale by a contradiction, hangs in perfect equilibrium. In other words, he is pure Pyrrhonist. This is the point round which turn all his discourses and all his essays. This is the only thing which he leaves fixed, although he may not always keep it before ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... Christ's forcible clearing of the temple is a contradiction of the traditional conception of Him as of One so gentle and unassertive in demeanor as to appear unmanly. Gentle He was, and patient under affliction, merciful and long-suffering in dealing with contrite sinners, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... her blunt but honest father was no match at all for the deep hypocrisy and deceitful plausibility of Sir Robert Whitecraft, the consequence was, that she allowed her father to take his own way, without either remonstrance or contradiction. She knew very well that on this occasion, as on every other where their wits and wishes came in opposition, Sir Robert was always able to outgeneral and overreach him; she therefore resolved to agitate herself as little as possible, and to allow ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of Domenichino and Guido, there is apt to arise rivalry between the masters, with no correlative advantages, unless the masters are all of one mind. And the only successful idea of an academy has been where the practice was consistent, and where there was no contradiction. Considering the knowledge we now have, and the means we now have of comparing all the works of the greatest painters, though, as you suggest by your question, it is not easy to adopt an authoritative ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Leibnitz, and to most others who have devoted their attention to the origin of evil. On the one hand, exaggerated views concerning the divine agency, or equally extravagant notions on the other, respecting the agency of man, have frequently converted a seeming into a real contradiction. In general, the work of God has been conceived in such a relation to the powers of man, as to make the latter entirely disappear; or else the power of man has been represented as occupying so exalted and independent a position, as to exclude the Almighty from ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... Albemarle, told them her determination, and in their presence had these papers burnt; she assured them that everything was destroyed, and if after her death any pretended letters or documents were produced, they might give the most authoritative contradiction to their authenticity. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... never to believe a single word a woman says to me—that's the only means of not being duped; the other is to find what interest she has in doing the opposite of what she says, and behaving in contradiction to the facts she pretends to confide to me. I think that you and ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... teeth seemed to promise permanence, came to an end through some fault of heart or lungs; that the monsters annihilated one another in succession, that all the faulty (vicieuses) combinations of matter disappeared, and that those only survived whose mechanism implied no important mis-adaptation (contradiction), and who had the power ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... to be chaperoned by Mrs. Curtis. As to Rachel, she had resolved against youthful gaieties for this winter and all others, but she felt that to show any reluctance to accept the Keith invitation might be a contradiction to her indifference to the Colonel, and so construed by her mother, Grace, and Bessie. So all she held out for was, that as she had no money to spend upon adornments, her blue silk dinner dress, and her birthday wreath, should and must do duty; and as to her mother's ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at him. The old man threw back his head, spread out the last page in the book which he had just written, and said defiantly, as though expecting contradiction to his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... reference to a far more important and brilliant destiny than often falls to the lot of the young sons of even Grand Ducal houses. He was well instructed in many branches of science, in languages, in music and literature, in politics, and what seems a contradiction, in ethics,— his moral development being most carefully watched over, while his physical training was a pendant to that which made his cousin Victoria one of the healthiest and hardiest of modern Englishwomen. With a delicate constitution and a sensitive, nervous temperament, Prince ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... 31st December 1883 (p. 1432), says: "Several years ago, in the Christmas number of The Publishers' Circular, we described the original Christmas card, designed by Mr. J.C. Horsley, R.A., at the suggestion of Sir Henry Cole, and no contradiction was then offered to our theory that this must have been the real and original card. On Thursday, however, Mr. John Leighton, writing under his nom de plume, 'Luke Limner,' comes forward to contest the claim of priority of ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... especially weigh it against its possible alternatives. One should also try to apply it first to one instance, and then to another to see how it will work. It seems to me that it is emphatically not a case for instant execution, by conviction of intrinsic absurdity or of self-contradiction, or by caricature of what it would look like if reduced to skeleton shape. Humanism is in fact much more like one of those secular changes that come upon public opinion overnight, as it were, borne upon tides 'too deep for sound or foam,' that ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... new solution of the problem as to present, in a vivid and impressive form, certain invigorating and consoling truths which relieve the weight of its burden. The most comprehensive definition of evil, to all minds which are forced, by the contradiction involved in the affirmation of two Infinites, to deny its essential existence, is that which declares it to be imperfect good. But as this definition implies that evil characterizes all grades of created being, and includes the saint singing in heaven as well as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Evans, or he was more credulous than even any follower of the Welsh prophet, if he really had any. But the truth is, that Warburton was always writing for a present purpose, and believed, and did not believe, as it happened. "Ordinary men believe one side of a contradiction at a time, whereas his lordship" (says his admirable antagonist) "frequently believes, or at least defends both. So that it would have been no great wonder if he should maintain that Evans was both a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... fellow-beings, should take a generous interest in public causes, and try to act justly; and that at another moment I am so selfish and base? How can there be this oscillation from one pole to the other of human character? It is the contradiction that makes the tragedy. Am I, too, not "truly one but truly two"; am I, too, a Jekyll and a Hyde, both dwelling under the same skin? The answer is: You are neither the Hyde nor the Jekyll unless you elect to be. The true self is a principle in you superior to both these natural characters, ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... irrespective of all theories. Good done from any other source or motive is necessarily self-seeking. It is a common remark, with reference to the sanctions of a future life, that they create purely self-regarding motives. Any proposal to increase disinterested action by moral obligation contains a self-contradiction; it is suicidal. The rich may be made to give half their wealth to the poor; but in as far as they are made to do it, they are not benevolent. Law distrusts generosity and supersedes it. If a man is expected to regard the happiness of others as an end in itself, and not as means to his own happiness, ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... two or three mouths before they are supposed to come with sufficient ceremony to his ears. This in fact has more the air of adding to his own importance and dignity than to that of the guest; but it is not in Sumatra alone that respect is manifested by this seeming contradiction. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps, enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... in direct contradiction to her words, the door at that moment opened, and an elderly lady made her appearance. She walked slowly with the aid of a cane, but it was evident that she had seen the intruders on her property, and was coming to tackle them. Swift and hasty flight seemed the only ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... as a river in flood devours its tributaries; her spirits quenched Mrs. Fazakerly's as a blaze licks up a spasmodic flicker. It pleased Durant to look at her, the abandonment of her manners was in such flagrant contradiction with the Roman regularity of her Tancred face. Owing, perhaps, to some dash of the Tancred blood in her, she was neither pretty nor witty; yet she contrived to get her own way with everybody. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Edautenan are brought to market, and other grapes from the Arab countries, of exquisite quality and flavour, infinitely superior in richness, size, and flavour to those of Spain and Portugal, or any part of Italy; indeed, I have no hesitation in declaring, (without fear of contradiction,) that this country produces the finest grapes, oranges, and pomegranates in the world, and in the greatest abundance. I have myself tasted at Marocco, at a Hebrew Rabbi's table, excellent imitations of burgundy, claret, champagne, madeira, and rhenish, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... and the prisoner, proud of his innocence, as they call it, comes out with much that a sensible man would keep back! then, from these answers the inquisitor proceeds to put new questions, and is on the watch for the slightest contradiction; there he fastens his line; and, let the poor devil lose his self-possession, say too much here, or too little there, or, Heaven knows from what whim or other, let him withhold some trifling circumstance, or at any ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... adopt whatever is demonstrated or concede whatever is rendered highly probable, however new and uncommon the points of view may be in which objects the most familiar may thereby become placed. Almost all its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar observation, and with what appears to everyone the most positive evidence of ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... in history more replete with horrors than that which records the "Revocation of the Edict of Nantes." The facts given are beyond all possibility of contradiction. In the contemplation of these scenes the mind pauses, bewildered by the reflection forced upon it, that many of the actors in these fiend-like outrages were inspired by motives akin to sincerity ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the slightest blame from any one. He wanted to pass for the first captain of his age, and spoke with indecent contempt of Prince Eugene and all the others. The faintest contradiction would have been a crime. The soldier and the subaltern adored him for his familiarity with them, and the licence he allowed in order to gain their hearts; for all which he made up by excessive haughtiness towards whoever was elevated by rank ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the one which has so often been mooted in the press and the pulpit, as to the utility and propriety of novel reading. But while this question is one on which there are great differences of opinion, there are a few things which may be said on it without diffidence or the fear of successful contradiction. Of this kind is the remark that good juvenile books must have something positively good about them. They should be not merely amusing or entertaining and harmless, but instructive and stimulating to the better nature. Fortunately such books are not so rare as they have been. Some of the best ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... notice the relationship existing between the Negro and the nation. For two hundred and seventy-six years we have inhabited this country, and, whether as slaves or as freemen, I say here, without fear of successful contradiction, that we have done more to enhance the wealth of this country, in proportion to our numbers, than any other race in America. The Negro as a slave was docile and obedient. He was harmless to his master—yea, one white woman was not afraid to live alone on her farm with a hundred Negro men as her ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... joke, coming down the drive to greet him; that never again would he have her for his untiring companion on his walks or upon the plateau where he was wont to lie and look into her wise eyes and talk to her without fear of contradiction, receiving that full measure of admiration and belief that only a dog gives. So much was his grief, but overpowering that simpler emotion was a sick rage. The knowledge that rough, brutal hands must have carried out this outrage, that in an agony ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the truth of the matter for which it is adduced. Now a thing is said to be apparent when its truth is already manifest. Therefore it seems to imply a contradiction to speak of "evidence of things that appear not": and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... often essential. In dealing with this subject, however, I think we tread upon uncertain ground. There is a great deal of apparent accuracy of figures and analyses, carried carefully into decimals, but a wonderful deal of vagueness, uncertainty, and contradiction in the experiences and ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... little helps. Say—Mr. Scott, which would you say—'We can state without fear of successful contradiction,' or, 'On the whole it can be ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... which protected the frontier on the side of the Sinaitic Peninsula, and he built or enlarged the strongholds along the Nile at those points most frequently threatened by the incursions of nomad tribes. Ramses was the royal builder par excellence, and we may say without fear of contradiction that, from the second cataract to the mouths of the Nile, there is scarcely an edifice on whose ruins we do not find his name. In Nubia, where the desert approaches close to the Nile, he confined himself to cutting in the solid ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... did I die? Isn't there some contradiction?" Sri Yukteswar's eyes were twinkling with ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... whose people seldom go five miles from their own doors; in such places, I say, I have seen work so delicate, so careful, and so inventive, that nothing in its way could go further. And I will assert, without fear of contradiction, that no human ingenuity can produce work such as this without pleasure being a third party to the brain that conceived and the hand that fashioned it. Nor are such works rare. The throne of the great ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... "civilization" at the same time that they have increased the dependence of one part of the world upon another part. Oddly enough, this interdependence has been intensified under a system of society that deified competition. The conflicts, inevitably resulting from such a contradiction, have taken a terrible toll in life and well-being, and have left Europe ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... goes for little if not supported by evidence. Was it possible, with this new theory for a basis, to reconstruct the story of this crime without encountering the contradiction ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... that we no sooner receive any thing for truth, but we presently ascend the chair of infallibility with it, as though in this we could not err; hence it is we are impatient of contradiction, and become uncharitable to those that are not of the same mind; but now a consciousness that we may mistake, or that if my brother err in one thing I may err in another—this will unite us in affection, and engage us to press after perfection, according to that of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fortification now followed in our service we must decline expressing any opinion; the time has not yet arrived for subjecting it to a severe and judicious criticism. But of the system pursued previous to 1820, we may say, without much fear of contradiction, that a worse one could scarcely have been devised. Instead of men of talent and attainments in military science, most of our engineers were then either foreigners, or civilians who owed their commissions to mere political influence. The qualifications of the former were probably ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... ruin from the rise of them. Israel and Athens died, not natural, but violent deaths, in which manner the world itself is to die. We are speaking of those causes of dissolution which are natural to government; and they are but two, either contradiction or inequality. If a commonwealth be a contradiction, she must needs destroy herself; and if she be unequal, it tends to strife, and strife to ruin. By the former of these fell Lacedaemon, by the latter Rome. Lacedaemon ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... work from any particular version of an event which he may have himself met. Of many minor events there are more than one version, and many scenes and assertions which he may think of importance would yet, by being related, cause inconsistency and contradiction. Of the nature of the work in which all should be introduced I have already ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... one, is the only foundation for this assertion. As the idea, however, is not only one of the commonest, but also one of the greatest errors in etymology, the following three statements are given for the sake of contradiction to it. ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... the full plenitude of his forces at less than fifty four years of age, and I can say, without fear of contradiction, that he was universally and sincerely regretted by all those who had worked at his side. Still at the present time when a few of us old colleagues of Goschenen, Airolo or Altorf meet, it is not without emotion that we recall the old days, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... the fact that a man of barbarian blood was the real, and in a certain sense the supreme, ruler of his country. Ricimer might be looked upon as an eminent servant of the Emperor who had the misfortune to be of barbarian birth. Odovacar and Theodoric were, without all contradiction, kings; if not "kings of Italy", at any rate "kings in Italy", sometimes actually making war on the Caesar of Byzantium, and not caring, when they did so, to set up the phantom of a rival Emperor in order to legitimise their opposition. But in a ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... toward an exaggeration of whatever they adopted. This fine fellow, with ardent but rather heavy voice and look, with his regular features as if marked with a stamp imposed, was more pronounced in his convictions than was needful, and violent in contradiction. According to him, all that was necessary was a crusade made by the democracies to deliver the nations and extinguish war. Four years of the philanthropic slaughterhouse had not convinced him. He was one of those who will never accept the flat contradiction of facts. He had a twofold pride, ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... Northerners were—his weakening two years later could not point to an unwillingness to do injustice, but only to the operation of fear or fatigue as deterrents from action believed to be just. Moreover, the ordinary "Copperhead" position was so plainly in contradiction of known facts that it must be pronounced either imbecile or dishonest. If these men had urged the acceptance of disunion as an accomplished fact, a case might be made out for them. But they generally professed the strongest desire to restore the Union, accompanied by vehement ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... which was not longer than a few seconds by the clock, gave him time to remember that as his mother's and his sisters' incomes were inalienable he was by so much the more free. He was by so much the more free to do the mad, romantic, quixotic thing, which might seem to be a contradiction of his past, but was not so much a contradiction of himself as people who knew him imperfectly might suppose. He was taken to be ambitious, calculating, shrewd; when all the while he knew himself to be—as most Englishmen are at heart—quixotic, romantic, and even ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... strenuous age, and no section of the country has progressed more rapidly than this, the Eighth District of our great and glorious State. I may say without danger of contradiction that the people I have the honor to represent in the State Legislature, and expect to have the honor of representing the next term, are the most intelligent, the most thoughtful and the most prosperous to be found in any like district in the United States. (Cheers.) Who, then, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... change in our habits. To others not under such an influence the position seems impossible. This discussion occurred. Beauchamp opened the case in a couple of sentences, and when the turn came for Renee to speak, and she shrank from the task in manifest pain, he spoke for her, and no one heard her contradiction. She would have wished the fearful impetuous youth to succeed if she could have slept through the storm ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... glad look for a moment, then he stooped and kissed her. He remained moving his hand in the pool, ashamed, and full of contradiction. He was at the bitter point of farewell; could see, beyond the glamour around him, the ugly building ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... completely as his predecessors had done to recognise the elementary character of impressions of relation; and, when he discusses relations, he falls into a chaos of confusion and self-contradiction. ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... dragging it out again. "Don't believe it. A boy who don't want money is a monster, not fit to be trusted with it. Here you are, boy. Five guineas. Don't fool it away, but buy anything with it you like."—A strange contradiction, by the way, though the old admiral did not notice it.—"Put it in your pocket, and—Pst! Syd," he whispered, "whenever you want any more, write to me. Don't bother the dad. Our secret, eh, ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... a latent state in all minds, and that it needed only patience, dexterity, and skillful investigation to bring them to light. Elsewhere, he interrogated in a captious fashion in order to set the interlocutor in contradiction to himself and to make him confess that he had said what he had not thought he had said, agreed to what he had not believed he had agreed to; and he triumphed maliciously over such confusions. In short, he seems to have been a witty and teasing Franklin, and to have taught true ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... it took a brief moment for the blankness in his eyes to fade into life. "Hello Kennedy, you on already? Seems like I just got here." He muttered in self-contradiction, "Or that I've ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... this quarrel arose as they sat at breakfast. The lady very innocently observed, she believed the tea was made with Thames water. The husband, in mere contradiction, insisted upon it that the tea-kettle was filled ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... no moral unless it be an indirect moral to be derived from contemplation of a strange contradiction in our modern life, to wit: That practical burglary is by law sternly discouraged and practical ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... in the inmost recesses of his own heart, Mr. Grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that Oliver's appearance and manner were unusually prepossessing; but he had a strong appetite for contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the orange-peel; and, inwardly determining that no man should dictate to him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved, from the first, to oppose his friend. When Mr. Brownlow admitted that on no ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... language in this way—to make a word mean one thing to serve the purposes of a doctrinal idea, and to make it mean something essentially opposite, when that idea is not involved? Does anyone imagine that the translators would have introduced this contradiction, and have translated the Greek of Mark xiii. 29, as they have done, unless they had gone to this text with the preconceived idea that a certain sin can never be forgiven, and therefore that the passage must be strained and contorted to endorse the idea? ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... blasphemies, sins and follies were the offspring of that adulterous union between the Church and the State, which began in the days of Constantine the Great. For of all the evils under Heaven, the greatest, said Peter, was that contradiction ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... conclusion because if I arrived at that which would seem most logical after the premise, I should be called a worse savage than those I have held up to public admiration and if I arrived at any other I should be accused (and with reason) of contradiction. ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... and Tuum and the Henrietta had been sold, and the separation between Posh and his "guv'nor" final, so far as herring fishing was concerned. The last paragraph, in which FitzGerald writes that so long as Posh goes on he will stand by him, seems in flat contradiction to what happened in 1874. But Colonel Leathes puts the date as 1875, and Dr. Aldis Wright has been kind enough to look up old almanacs in his possession and corroborates this view. It speaks with extraordinary eloquence ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... lost in the grave, and from whom nothing now can be hoped or feared. Yet, to rouse the zeal of a true antiquary, little more is necessary than to mention a name which mankind have conspired to forget; he will make his way to remote scenes of action through obscurity and contradiction, as Tully sought amidst bushes and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... will I be," says the false light. "The more like one is to God, the better one is; I therefore will be like God and will be God, and will sit and stand at His right hand." This is what Lucifer the Evil Spirit also said. Now God in eternity is without contradiction, suffering, and grief, and nothing can injure or grieve Him. But with God as He is made man it is otherwise. The false light thinks itself to be above all works, words, customs, laws, and order, and above ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... his face, lost all fear of personal assault. He was neatly but shabbily dressed, pale, and with a slight red moustache. He had a somewhat broad forehead, eyes with more than an ordinary lustre, and, in somewhat striking contradiction to the rest of his features, a large sensitive mouth with a distinctly humorous curve. Even now its corners were receding into a smile, which had in it, however, other elements ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... where the opposites meet, and are one and identical; as between the coldest and hottest and the hotter and colder, in the middle point is that which you may call hot and cold, or neither hot nor cold, without contradiction. In that way whoso is least content and least joyful is in the degree of indifference, and finds himself in the habitation of temperance, where the virtue and condition of a strong soul exist, which bends not to the south wind nor to the north. This, then, to return to the point, is how ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... though for our purpose sufficiently accurate, demarcation of the regions of the real and the illusory seems to coincide with the line which common sense draws between what all normal men agree in holding and what the individual holds, whether temporarily or permanently, in contradiction to this. For our present purpose the real is that which is true for all. Thus, though physical science may tell us that there is nothing corresponding to our sensations of colour in the world of matter and motion which it conceives as surrounding us; yet, inasmuch as ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... course, what Richardson did). De Freval continues to speak of the work entirely as of creative writing. The epistolary style is aptly devised; the book will become a pattern for this kind of fiction; it is contrived for readers of all tastes. But, quite in contradiction, de Freval also implies that the editor has shown him the author's original work, together with certain editorial changes necessary to protect the real Pamela and ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... restricted interpretation, and exclude the larger, we offend reason. All consistency is at an end. Individual responsibility for moral turpitude will be taken from man. Crimes, clearly marked and defined in the page of Christianity, will cease to be crimes at the will of princes. One contradiction will rush in after another; and men will have two different standards of morality, as they adhere to the commands of the Gospel, or to the customs of governments or of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... attention except on the side of its connection with the surrounding organic world, and consequently what this nucleus is in itself as an experience recedes into the background, and descriptions and explanations in scientific or philosophical form step into the foreground. But a contradiction is imbedded in this very account. Some kind of experience of life, apart from, and higher in its nature than, the connection of the spiritual nucleus with its [p.41] physical history, persists in the life. The man of science is ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... judge of those who give up themselves to walk in the imaginations of their own hearts, who slight and lay aside the Scriptures, counting them but empty and uncertain things, and will live every day in open contradiction to what is contained, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nauseate, unless they are associated with more sprightly qualities. The chief use of sugar is to temper the taste of other substances; and softness of behaviour, in the same manner, mitigates the roughness of contradiction, and allays the bitterness of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... man, that the absence of system, either explicit or implicit, in Emerson, strikes us as a defect. And yet truth has no system, nor the human mind. This philosopher maintains one, that another thesis. Both are true essentially, and yet there seems a contradiction between them. We cannot bear to be illogical, and so we enlist some under this banner, some under that. By so doing we sacrifice to consistency at least the half of truth. Thence we come to examine our intuitions, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... explained; 'there is no such thing as feeling: therefore, to speak of a non-existent thing as existent as a contradiction. Matter has no existence; nothing exists but mind; the mind cannot feel pain, it can ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... indeed. The wise man seeks the loopholes in the law, and loopholes are caused by other laws which counteract—not defy!—the given law. A balloon full of hydrogen "falls up" in obedience to the Law of Gravity. A contradiction? A paradox? No. It is the Law of Gravity which causes the density and pressure of a planet's atmosphere to decrease with altitude, and that decrease in pressure forces the balloon upwards until the balance point between atmospheric density and the internal ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... territory, where in every part new and interesting matters will arrest their attention, and give delight to men who, in many cases, have but lately realised our resources. Their words, biassed by no interests other than the desire for knowledge, and founded on personal observation, will find no contradiction when they assert that in the lifetime of the babes now born, the vast fertile regions of Canada will be the home of a people more numerous than that which at the present time inhabits ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... it? When was it I was hit? It was—wasn't it in May? Rivers says it was July—I do not like contradiction." His appreciation of time and recognition of locality were alike disordered, as Rivers had observed with distress and a too constant desire to set him right. With better appreciation of his condition, Ann ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... not always when we tell ourselves that we are well off that we are happiest: that self-addressed assertion often implies some tacit contradiction. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... so far shalt thou be able to enter into Me. As to desire no outward thing worketh internal peace, so the forsaking of self inwardly joineth unto God. I will that thou learn perfect self-denial, living in My will without contradiction or complaint. Follow Me: I am the way, the truth, and the life.(1) Without the way thou canst not go, without the truth thou canst not know, without the life thou canst not live. I am the Way which thou oughtest to follow; the Truth which thou oughtest to believe; the Life which thou oughtest ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... with copper ornaments, were seen or heard of by the Pilgrims, either at that time or afterward. In 1602, Brereton, or any other writer employed to write in such a way as would promote emigration, could tell such stories, and romance freely concerning the Indians, without fear of contradiction. Afterward, when the actual barbarism of the Indian tribes in New England and other parts of the country had become generally known, no one could describe any of these Indians as successful miners and flax-growers, and assert gravely that they had such stores of copper that "none of them" lacked ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... demanded the complete emancipation of women. Conservatives laughed, and many friends of our movement trembled for the cause. Ably seconded by Mancini, he succeeded in securing for women the right to testify in civil actions, a dignity which they had not previously enjoyed, although, by an absurd contradiction they could be witnesses in criminal cases, convict of murder by a single word and send the criminal to the scaffold. One of Morelli's last acts was a divorce bill which was examined by the Chamber. Guardasigilli Tomman Villa, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... from the bonds of the individual; and yet, also, as the most awful among natures, having a conscious personality. He is diffused through all things, present everywhere, and yet not the less present locally. He is at a distance unapproachable by finite creatures; and yet, without any contradiction, (as the profound St. Paul observes,) 'not very far' from every one of us. And I will venture to say, that many a poor old woman has, by virtue of her Christian inoculation, Sir Isaac's great idea lurking in her mind; as for instance, in relation to any of God's attributes; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... communication comes in when we are told by the medium, caught in a contradiction, that spirits are awful liars. On this point all mediums agree: many disembodied spirits are much given to untruth, and the man who is a liar here will be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... these riches with more avidity, and his eyes were still further dazzled by them. After having thoroughly considered the magnificent apartment of the diamonds, in which they then were, "You are sensible," said he to the old man, "that this is, without contradiction, the most valuable, and that it is not natural I should yield up to you the lawful right ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... as he was dressed he had his wise men summoned to him. King Olaf had ever about him twelve of the wisest men; they sate with him over judgments and counselled him in difficulties; and that was no easy task, for while the King liked it ill if judgment was perverted, he yet would not hear any contradiction of himself. When they were met thus in council, the King took the word, and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... of that monopoly, delivered his opinion, that with regard to the Company's trade the monopoly was advantageous, but as sovereigns of the country they must be losers by it. These two capacities in the Company are found in perpetual contradiction. But much doubt may arise whether this monopoly will be found advantageous to the Company either in the one capacity or the other. The gross commodity monopolized for sale in London is procured from the revenues ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was wondering why the old arguments sounded so different, so much more convincing, from your lips," murmured Esther. "Now I know; because he wears a white tie. That sets up all my bristles of contradiction when he ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Chretien's version is here very marked, and, so far, seems to have been neglected by critics. The point is also of importance in view of the curious parallels which are otherwise to be found between this version and Perlesvaus; here the two are in marked contradiction with one another. ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... commerce are ordinarily property within the jurisdiction of some State or other, the task before the Court in drawing the line between the immunity claimed by interstate business on the one hand and the prerogatives claimed by local power on the other has at times involved it in self-contradiction, as successive developments have brought into prominence novel aspects of its complex problem or have altered the perspective in which the interests competing for its protection have appeared. In this field words of the late Justice ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... attainments than is implied in a merely personal achievement is shown in his statement that he considered "this negro as a fresh proof that the powers of the mind are disconnected with the color of the skin, or, in other words, a striking contradiction to Mr. Hume's doctrine, that the negroes are naturally inferior to the whites, and unsusceptible of attainments in arts and sciences?" "In every civilized country," said he, "we shall find thousands of whites, liberally educated ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... persevering in its practice. He has often said, that "he never knew any statement tell, or any argument, however powerful, attain the desired end, if only once repeated;" and on this principle he acts. He repeats and repeats again, in the teeth of contradiction and disproof, what he wishes to have believed; and the result shows the wisdom of his proceeding. Those who contradict soon get tired, while, by perseverance, he is left in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... figuring or may hereafter figure on the great political theatre of our country. Through life, Colonel Burr committed an error, if he did not display a weakness, in permitting his reputation to be assailed, without contradiction, in cases where it was perfectly defensible. His enemies took advantage of the sullen silence which he was known to preserve in regard to newspaper attacks. Under these attacks he fell from the proud eminence ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... world of colour, sound, taste, and smell. But we must also remember that the Upani@sads do not represent so much a conceptional system of philosophy as visions of the seers who are possessed by the spirit of this Brahman. They do not notice even the contradiction between the Brahman as unity and nature in its diversity. When the empirical aspect of diversity attracts their notice, they affirm it and yet declare that it is all Brahman. From Brahman it has come forth and to it will it return. He has himself created it out of himself ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... range and of his one thing needful. From Maine to Florida, and back again, all America Hebraises. Difficult as it is to speak of a people merely from what one reads, yet that, I think, one may, without much fear of contradiction say. I mean, when, in the United States, any spiritual side in a man is wakened to activity, it is generally the religious side, and the religious side in a narrow way. Social reformers go to Moses ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... one of the greatest merits of the artist, and of the greatest desiderata of the beholder, is precisely the reduction of real cubic existence by avoiding all projection beyond a unified level, that is to say by making a solid block of stone look as if it were a representation on a flat surface. This contradiction explains the origin of the theory giving supreme pictorial importance to the Third Dimension. For art criticism though at length (thanks especially to the sculptor Hildebrand) busying itself also with plastic art, has grown up mainly in connexion with ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... subject of the Essay on Man is not, considered in itself, one unfit for poetry. Had Pope had a genius for philosophy there was no reason why he should not have selected a philosophical subject. Didactic poetry is a mistake if not a contradiction in terms. But poetry is not necessarily didactic because its subject ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... frost. The American government was a rickety experiment go to pieces presently; American institutions an alternative between fallacy and absurdity, the fruit of raw minds and precocious theories; American liberty a contradiction; American character a compound of quackery and pretension; American society (except at Mrs. Evelyn's) an anomaly; American destiny the same with that of a cactus, or a volcano a period of rest followed by a period of excitement; not, however, like the former, making ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... at this disclosure, and looked to the regent for explanation. Pushed to the extreme, the regent avowed that Law had emitted bills to the amount of twelve hundred millions beyond what had been fixed by ordinances, and in contradiction to express prohibitions; that the thing being done, he, the regent, had legalized or rather covered the transaction, by decrees ordering such emissions, which ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... manner of expression not unusual amongst the Greeks and Latins, for any eminent degree of happiness. Unless we adopt this explanation of the words, says Dacier, we shall make Horace guilty of a manifest contradiction, since a few lines farther he tells his Patron, that his suffrage, not the ivy crown is that, which will exalt him to the skies. The judicious emendation of the late Bishop of Chichester, who for Me doctarum, reads ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... his severe face. He could not make up his mind whether to like or dislike this young man, but Madame Midas had seemed so impressed that he had half made up his mind to dislike him out of a spirit of contradiction. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... America, torn by the sight of her sons in conflict, found blessed relief in songs of love, of peace, of home, of beauty,—of all the lovely and immortal ideals to which every war offers violent but impotent contradiction. And this may be the simple explanation of the fact that the most cherished poems produced by any period of war are almost invariably its songs ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... probably already determined that, unless there be in reserve some other independent, or at least auxiliary source of evidence, the palpable contradiction and manifest confusion reigning through this part of the MS., together with the high degree of improbability thrown over the whole statement by the undoubted records of the very parliament in question, justify ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they have come out of the loins of Abraham; (6)but he whose descent is not reckoned from them has taken tithes of Abraham, and has blessed him who had the promises. (7)And without any contradiction, the less is blessed by the better. (8)And here indeed men who die receive tithes; but there, one of whom it is testified that he lives. (9)And so to speak, Levi also, who receives tithes, has paid tithes in Abraham; (10)for he was yet in the loins of his father, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... imprecations. It was deemed impossible to allow this man to go at large; accordingly M. de la Vrilliere issued a , which sent him that night to seek a lodging in the Bastille. It was afterwards deemed advisable to put him to the torture, but the agonies of the rack wrung from him no deviation from, or contradiction of, what he had previously alleged. The affair had now become mysterious and inexplicable. However, a speedy termination was most imperatively called for; if it were permitted to become generally known, it could not fail of reaching the ears of the king, whose ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... been "betrayed into a warmth which," and on the whole to repudiate, as untenable, the idea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate contradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to have gone ahead ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... contradiction of her name, Victoria joined with Flint, seemed to proclaim that she did not belong to her father or to the Rose of Sharon. Austen permitted himself to dwell, as he descended the mountain in the gathering darkness, upon the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... occupied by Ottocar, in contradiction to the rights of Philip, Archbishop of Salzburg, brother of Ulric, the last duke, the claims of Philip were acknowledged by Rudolph, and he took his seat at the Diet of Augsburg as Duke of Carinthia. On the conquest of that duchy he petitioned for the investiture, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... sensations, longings, thoughts, fancies—the great devil take them all—fresh ones every moment, and each at war tooth and nail with all the rest; and then on the strength of this infinite multiplicity and contradiction, of which alone I am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up, and say, "I by myself I," and swear stoutly that I am one thing, when all I am conscious of is the devil only knows how many things. Of all quaint deductions from experience, that is the quaintest! Would it not ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... blemish in every part of it, and perfectly in line with her forehead to the end. Nearer and nearer, and fairer and fairer she came, in the glow of the morning light—the most startling, the most unanswerable contradiction that eye could see or mind conceive to the description ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... stand and witness such a horrible eight. Miranda's dark, piercing glance fell as haughtily and disdainfully on him as it had on the rest; and his heart sank as he thought that whatever sympathy she had felt for him was entirely gone. It might have been a whim, a woman's caprice, a spirit of contradiction, that had induced her to defend him at first. Whatever it was, and it mattered not now, it had completely vanished. No face of marble could have been colder, of stonier, or harder, than hers, as she looked at him out of the depths of her great dark eyes; and with that look, his last ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... provinces, let the churches retain their privileges. And this is to be universally understood, that if any one be made bishop without the consent of his metropolitan, the great synod has declared that such a man ought not to be bishop. If, however, two or three bishops shall, from natural love of contradiction, oppose the common suffrage of the rest, it being reasonable and in accordance with the ecclesiastical law, then let the choice of ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... might be led to the charge, and that they might profit by so fair an opportunity. The colonel answered, "I have no such orders." Trenck then demanded permission to charge the Turks only with his own squadron; but this was refused. He became furious, for he had never been acquainted with contradiction or subordination, and cried aloud to the soldiers, "If there be one brave man among you, let him follow me." About two hundred stepped from the ranks; he put himself at their head, routed the enemy, made a horrible carnage, and returned intoxicated with joy, accompanied by prisoners, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... wind came South, and wee bare with the land all that night, Westnorthwest, contrary to the mind of master Cox: neuerthelesse wee followed the Admirall, depriued of power to preuent a mischiefe, which by no contradiction could be brought to hold other course, alleaging they could not make the ship to worke better, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... faintest breath of scandal should touch his wife, Marie, during the absence of Morales, always kept herself secluded. This time her retirement was stricter than ever; and great, then, was her indignation and astonishment, when about a fortnight before her husband's expected return, and in direct contradiction to her commands, Don Luis Garcia was admitted to her presence; and nothing but actual flight, for which she was far too proud and self-possessed, could have averted the private interview which followed. The actual ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... the hatred he bore to Michelangelo inspired him to commit the act. The loss of the Cartoon to the city was no slight one, and Baccio deserved the blame he got, for everybody called him envious and spiteful." This second version stands in glaring contradiction to the first, both as regards the date and the place where the Cartoon was destroyed. It does not, I think, deserve credence, for Cellini, who was a boy of twelve in 1512, could hardly have drawn from it before that date; and if Bandinelli was so notorious for his malignant vandalism as Vasari ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... the fatal mistake of Catholic and Protestant philosophy by assuming an impersonal deity in three modes of manifestation, while Christian thinkers have played around the logical contradiction of one personality in three equal persons for fifteen hundred years. We must utterly break with the idea of a personal God, and accept that of one impersonal essence behind all phenomena." ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... except Fawzi, who began an indignant contradiction and then subsided. Tom Brangwyn lit ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... men who can do them best. What a power is this, to say three things every morning to a whole nation,—to say them with all the force which genius, knowledge, and practice united can give,—and to say them without audible contradiction! Fortunate for England is it that this power is no longer concentrated in a single man, and that the mighty influence once wielded by an individual will henceforth be exerted ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... vigorous, joyous, eager little creatures, and their voracious appetite for life, it shook my previous ideas so thoroughly that they have never been re-established. The steady level of good health gave them all that natural stimulus we used to call "animal spirits"—an odd contradiction in terms. They found themselves in an immediate environment which was agreeable and interesting, and before them stretched the years of learning and discovery, the fascinating, endless ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... my lady," said Widow Thrale, apologetic for contradiction from her duty to conscience on the one hand, and her reluctance to correct her superiors on the other, but under compulsion from the former. "Quite correct. He's chattering about my grandfather's model of his mill. He doesn't mean water-cart. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every revolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the State—such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... enough. Determined to have this cock-and-bull story contradicted at once, I went down to the House and saw Mr. John Burns, who expressed to me his regret that he should have invented the story, and he left me to go to the writing-room, and promised I should have from him a written contradiction. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... surprised at her obstinacy on this point; but it seemed, since Henri had been there, as if she were not quite herself. Renee fancied at times that Noemi was not the same with her now, and that her friendship had cooled. She was surprised to see a spirit of contradiction in her which she had never known before, and she was quite hurt at Noemi's manner to her brother. She was very cool with him, and treated him with a shade of disdain which bordered on contempt. Henri was always ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... with the officers in Harrison's room, employed in "prayer or discourse," it has been objected that his name does not occur among the names of those who were proved to have been there at the trial of the regicides. But that is no contradiction. The witnesses speak of what happened before, Herbert of what happened during, the execution. See also Ellis, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... whether to chide or laugh at this declaration — He foresaw much contradiction on the side of Tabby; and on the other hand, he could not but be pleased with the gratitude of Clinker, as well as with the simplicity of his character — 'Suppose I was inclined to take you into my service (said he) what are your qualifications? what are you good for?' 'An please ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... very important rule, for all our perspective drawing depends upon it. When we say that parallels are drawn to the same point on the horizon it does not imply that they meet at that point, which would be a contradiction; perspective parallels never reach that point, although they appear to do so. Fig. 40 ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... successful contradiction that there never was and never will be such a case unless it is made so by the worst sort ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... does not mean republican simplicity in the king; a citizen king is doubtless a contradiction in terms anywhere out of France, and even there Louis Philippe found the part difficult. But there is no doubt that the King of Italy means to be the best sort of constituional king, and, as he is in every way an uncommon man, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... eyes nothing could be more unfitting than that you should be staying in London—during a time of particularly violent agitation—under the chaperonage of Miss Marvell, who is already committed to this agitation. If I agree to such a direct contradiction of your father's wishes, I must at least have your assurance that you will do nothing violent or illegal, either down here or in London, and that in this house above all you will take some pains to respect Sir Robert's wishes. That I am sure ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... successively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God, and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... moth-eaten tradition upon my head. I was for the hard, bright world, and the future; there in that cedar-scented room, sat the two ladies, forever guarding the faded furniture and the crumbling past. The pathetic contradiction of Miss Matoaca returned to me, and I laughed aloud. Miss Matoaca, who worked for the emancipation of women, while she herself was the slave of an ancestry of men who oppressed women, and women who ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... curious to observe, on the countenance of Ammalat, the blush with which his features are covered at the least contradiction; the fire with which he is filled at any dispute; but as soon as he finds that he is in the wrong, he turns pale, and seems ready to weep. "I am in the wrong," says he; "pardon me: takhsirumdam ghitch, (blot out my fault;) forget that I am wrong, and that you have pardoned me." He has a good heart, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... such beauty as that brig among them. No; if you care for my opinion, Grenvile, it is that yonder fellow is a slaver that is not too tender of conscience to indulge in a little piracy at times, when the opportunity appears favourable, as it does at present. I have heard that, in contradiction of the adage that 'there is honour among thieves', there are occasionally to be found among the slavers a few that are not above attacking other slavers and stealing their slaves from them. It saves them the bother of a run in on the coast, with ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... in the way of contradiction; he gazed steadfastly at the aviary in front of him as though exotic pheasants were for the moment the most absorbing study in the world. As a matter of fact, his mind was centred on the image of Elaine de Frey, with her clear untroubled eyes ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... which would enable him to await the result of his law-suit by satisfying the demands of the most exacting of the creditors. The demonstrative perfumer, who told his dear Constance, with his head on her pillow, the smallest thoughts and feelings of his whole life, looking for the lights of her contradiction, and gathering courage as he did so, was now prevented from speaking of his situation to his head-clerk, his uncle, or his wife. His thoughts were therefore doubly heavy,—and yet the generous martyr preferred to suffer, rather ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... of memoirs in which there is so little dispraise of individuals, such an absence of what can be characterized as depreciation either in the way of direct remark or of insinuation. There will be no call for contradiction of any slurs upon character through perversion of facts or the repetition of hearsay calumny in its pages. Nor does this seem to proceed from either a mere distaste for the chatter of gossips or an unwillingness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... fugitive, and because each one is liable to influence by every condition of time, place, and circumstance, that the chemist's theory is opposed as often to the painter's practice as the experience of artists themselves varies. This may explain the charges of inconsistency and contradiction which have been brought against writers on pigments, faults that lie rather with the nature of the subject than with ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... only silly little children that we expect will dispute and quarrel. I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you says something that the other thinks is not true, let it pass without contradiction; it is foolish to dispute about it. And so if one has any thing that the other wants, it is generally much better to wait for it than to quarrel. It is hateful to quarrel. Besides, it spoils your beauty. When children are quarrelling they look ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... assistance of the light and power of Christ is indispensably necessary for all true ministry, and that this holy influence is not at our command, or to be procured by study, but is the free gift of God to chosen and devoted servants. Hence arises our testimony against preaching for hire, in contradiction to Christ's positive command, 'Freely ye have received, freely give;' and hence our conscientious refusal to support such ministry ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward |
