"Equivocate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 7th; and it is known of him further only, that, like almost all leaders of slave insurrections, he showed a courage which his enemies could not gainsay. "When he was apprehended, he manifested the greatest marks of firmness and confidence, showing not the least disposition to equivocate or screen himself from justice,"—but making no confession that could implicate any one else. "The behavior of Gabriel under his misfortunes," said the Norfolk "Epitome" of September 25th, "was such as might be expected from a mind capable of forming the daring project ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... go back to Memphis first," he said grimly. "Mayhap Kenkenes hath returned. If Asar-Mut should question him, he would not evade nor equivocate, so I shall send him away that he may not meet his uncle. I would not have him lie, but he shall not accomplish his ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... dark and fleeting clouds, that I yet have a friend." "A friend," said a low, whispering voice. "I am thy unchanging, thy aged, and thy disappointed mother. Why brandish in that hand of thine a javelin of pointed steel? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand times to equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into thy soul, and no longer persist in that which may be your destruction and ruin. Come, my dear child, retract your steps, and bear me company to your welcome home." Without ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... antagonistic, and so far-reaching in their consequences that all personal considerations and contemporary squabbles become as contemptible in appearance as they always are in reality. However General McClellan may equivocate and strive to hide himself in a cloud of ink, the man who represents the party that deliberately and unanimously adopted the Chicago Platform is the practical embodiment of the principles contained in it. By ignoring the platform, he seems, it is true, to nominate himself; but this, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... mobs, in publishing in Boston on January 1, 1831, the first number of the Liberator. In it he said: "I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. I will be as hard as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard." This was the beginning of the new Abolitionist movement. The Abolitionists, in the main, were impracticable people; Garrison in the end proved otherwise. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... a vile heretic; indeed, it was soon made plain that if he was a bold, intrepid man, he needed to be so. Officials from the Pope, who was then at Constance, desired him, as an interdicted priest, to abstain from the Church services; but he declined to comply. Had he chosen even to equivocate, he might have escaped; but Huss was not the man to trim. Such a course was formally proposed to him; but though he was far from being buoyed up by false hopes, he resolutely and without hesitation declined all underhand suggestions: ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... enraged at my freedom, talked a great deal about his quality and honour, and began to make some comparisons which I thought so injurious to mine, that I demanded an explanation with great warmth, and he was mean enough to equivocate, and condescend in such a manner that I left him with a ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... light. And sure enough, when we had passed out of the Gulf Stream and the sea had smoothed itself out, I made a speedy and satisfactory recovery; but if it had been seasickness I should have confessed it in a minute. I have no patience with those who quibble and equivocate in regard to their ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... the best of my knowledge, sir, the—er—Prodigal Son sought his own father. To be frank, sir,—and Ged, sir, if Culpepper Starbottle has a fault, it is frankness, sir. As Nelse Buckthorne said to me in Nashville, in '47, "You would infer, Col. Starbottle, that I equivocate." I replied, "I do, sir; and permit me to add that equivocation has all the guilt of a lie, with cowardice superadded." The next morning at nine o'clock, Ged, sir, he gasped to me—he was lying on the ground, hole through his left ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... voc'ative, the case of a noun in which the subject is called, or addressed; ad'vocate to plead for; convoca'tion, an assembly, a meeting; equivocate (Lat. adj. e'quus, equal), to use words of doubtful meaning; equivoca'tion; evoca'tion, act of calling forth; invoca'tion; ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... was strongly excited; but he was too honourable to listen or to equivocate with conscience: so to warn them that some one was within hearing, he began to whistle clear and strong. Both the old woman and the young ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... criminal tendencies, and an alarmingly large percentage of our men and women are sexually impure. The Negro Academy should stand and proclaim this over the housetops, crying with Garrison: I WILL NOT EQUIVOCATE, I WILL NOT RETREAT A SINGLE INCH, AND I WILL BE HEARD. The Academy should seek to gather about it the talented, unselfish men, the pure and noble-minded women, to fight an army of devils that disgraces our manhood and our womanhood. There ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
... "Don't equivocate, man!" Superintendent Galloway produced the pocket-book Colwyn had recovered from the pit, and held it at arm's length in front of the innkeeper. "I mean the L300 in Treasury notes in this pocket-book, which Mr. Glenthorpe drew from the bank, and ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... time to be lost. Either the Union is to be made stronger, or it is to perish; and the sooner every man's position is defined, the better. If you are opposed to the war, say so, and step over to Secession, but do not falter and equivocate, croak and grumble, and play the bat of the fable. The manly, good, old-fashioned Democrats, at least, are above this, and are rapidly dividing from the copperheads. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, a staunch ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... duty as well as of honour, and he would not equivocate to his mother. "I do care very much for Sibylla West," he said in a low tone; "and, please God, I hope she will sometime be my wife. But, mother, this confidence is entirely between ourselves. I beg you not to speak of it; it must not be suffered to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... done, or nearly done, within those walls last night. Within those walls no good was ever done; but daily, unmitigated evil, whose results were reaching on to torture unborn generations. He had consented to it all! He could not falter, or equivocate, or evade, or excuse. His dead friend's words rang in his conscience like the trump of the judgment ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... certainly, we will suppose, that the servant has not satisfied your reasonable expectations. This truth you would have no difficulty in declaring; here, as much as anywhere else, you would feel it unworthy of your own integrity to equivocate—you open your writing-desk, and sit down to tell the mere truth in as few words as possible. But then steps in the consideration, that to do this without disguise or mitigation, is oftentimes to sign a warrant for the ruin of a fellow-creature—and ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... try to equivocate, you shining idiot! For now you see for yourself you are talking nonsense. And I repeat that such unheard-of nonsense ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... nature active causes without contact, continuity, or proximity; and, even in our days, continue to extort worship towards the unseen and occult powers of attraction or sympathy, and of repulsion or antipathy! It is true, they say that such words only express results or phenomena, and others equivocate by saying there is in no case any contact:—but I reply, that to give names to proximate causes does not correspond with my notions of the proper business of philosophy; and that, in thousands of instances, there is sensible contact, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... chair lies a file of the Liberator, which suggests the iron will of the man in his conflict with slavery, and the strength of his purpose is further shown in the following inscription on the side of the pedestal "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retire a single inch; I ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... his coat may be, yet will he never stoop to renew its pristine youth and gloss by the price of any book. No man — no human, masculine, natural man — ever sells a book. Men have been known in moments of thoughtlessness, or compelled by temporary necessity, to rob, to equivocate, to do murder, to commit what they should not, to "wince and relent and refrain'' from what they should: these things, howbeit regrettable, are common to humanity, and may happen to any of us. But amateur bookselling ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame |
