"Refute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hatband to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune, and he was at the same time endeavouring to refute his uncle's opinion that the waste of the whipcord that tied the parcel was the original cause of all his evils, when he was summoned to try his skill with ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... each other's kindly eyes. Industry triumphing in its logic, the minister hunting in his heart for the soft answer that would refute the logic without hurting its author. "Captain," he said, "there was once a wiser than we who went about preaching a new order, spreading discontent with injustice, whose very mother was ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... might trace you chapter by chapter; and at large refute, not only the whole design of your book by a particular replication to them; but also sundry and damnable errors, that like venom drop ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... maintenance of a fundamental principle of government, or the recognition of an essential human right. It does not, however, follow, from this admission, that we are indifferent to our political lot,—occasional contests upon principle refute such a conjecture,—but that men are not anxious concerning those things which appear to be secure. And the differences of political parties of the last fifty years have not been so much concerning the nature of human rights, as in regard to the institutions by which those ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... Scandinavian words as occurred by the assumption that they were Angle as opposed to Saxon, the Angle being the most Danish of all the proper German dialects—transitional, perhaps, to the Teutonic and Scandinavian divisions of the so-called Gothic stock. This was a line of criticism difficult to refute; since the advocate of the Angle origin of Danish words might fairly argue that it was not enough to shew that a word was Scandinavian. It must also be shewn to have been non-existent in the North-German dialects. This brought in the proverbial ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... return, she repeated her former expressions of displeasure; then endeavoured at some length to refute the objections brought against the match; and finally, her "great misliking" of all opposition, and her earnest desire for the marriage, being reported to her faithful council, they agreed, after long consultations, to offer ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... checked his first wild impulse to return. He saw it all now,—the fire had avenged him by wiping out his persecutor, Scranton, but in the eyes of his contemporaries it had only erased HIM! He might return to refute the story in his own person, but the dead man's partner still lived with his secret, and his own rehabilitation could only ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... arguments put forward by the South African Republic,[38] Mr. Chamberlain could only persist in repeating his contention that suzerainty still existed, and did not even attempt to refute the statement that Lord Derby had himself erased the preamble of the Convention of 1881. It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had, through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty in 1884, just as Lord Russell had abandoned the idea of ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... wish to tell you something of his honors during the past few years, also of the munificent patronage of the Kaiser, going far to refute the libel that the Kaiser was ungrateful. The patient Kaiser in truth dealt nobly ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... when, six months afterwards, he was put on his trial and convicted for his participation in the plot and treason, the constable was sufficiently affected by his representations to promise that he would abandon his design and make his peace with the king: but facts refute this assertion. In the latter months of 1523, the stipulations of the treaty concluded at Montbrison on the 18th of July were put into execution by all the contracting parties; letters of exchange from Henry VIII. were sent to Bale for ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... lessening danger would increase, since the moral principle would gain additional strength by exercise, both which things are implied in the notion of virtuous habits." (From the chapter on Moral Discipline m the Analogy, sect. iv.) The purpose of this disquisition is to refute the Necessitarians; it is resumed in the third ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... dispirits: such children think it is in vain to struggle against nature, especially as they do not clearly understand what is meant by nature. They submit to our imputations, without knowing how to refute them. On the contrary, if we treat them with more good sense and benevolence, if we explain to them the nature of the human mind, and if we lay open to them the history of their own, they will assist us in endeavouring to cure their faults, and they will not be debilitated by indistinct, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... world by the freedom of publication? Even that great work, the treatise of Locke on Government, itself, which is justly regarded as the political Bible (I mean no irreverence) of Englishmen, would never have seen the light, but that it was written to refute the base and detestable tenets of Barclay and Filmer. Their political treatises were false and slavish, and even illegal; for they were the same for which Dr. Sacheverel was afterwards impeached by the Parliament; and which he would not have ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... was that while the telegraph delivered messages that were of unchallenged accuracy telephone conversations were liable to errors of misunderstanding. One could not therefore rely so completely on the trustworthiness of the latter as on that of the former. To refute this charge Mr. Bell had insisted that both he and Watson carefully write out whatever they heard that the two records might afterward be compared and verified. 'That is,' Mr. Bell had added with the flicker of a smile, 'if ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... his peculiar kind of intellectual piety lacked the imagination of Pascal. He could play, cleverly enough, with hypothetical infidelity, and refute it, so to say, "in his study" with his eye on the little chapel door; but there was a sort of refined shrinking from the jagged edges of reality in his somewhat Byzantine temperament which throws a certain suspicion of special ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... I were placed in a criminal dock I could, no doubt, bring forward witnesses to refute your absurd accusation. But I am not in a criminal dock, Mr. Audley, and I do not choose to do anything but laugh at your ridiculous folly. I tell you that you are mad! If you please to say that Helen Talboys is not dead, and that I am Helen Talboys, you may do so. If you choose to go wandering ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... on spiritual life, made special reference to the fact that Jesus Christ claimed to be the "Life," and then proceeded to refute this claim by a series of arguments which were altogether too philosophical to be understood ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... that he might refute the charges against him. He flung down the gage to the proud cardinals who had excommunicated him. He ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which we are convincd generally prevail through the province, be as generally expressd, it must refute the insidious misrepresentation so industriously propagated on both sides of the Atlantick, that the people have not Virtue enough to resist the Efforts made to enslave them! It affords us the greatest ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... or his study of Scripture, or something unknown that made him take up the part of a Christian Aristotle; in any case he felt himself called into the field to support the cause of St. Augustine against infidelity, and to refute the "anile fable" of the Antipodes. Cosmas referred men back to Revelation on such matters, and his system was "demonstrated from Scripture, concerning which a Christian is not allowed to doubt." Man by himself could not understand the world, but in the Bible it was all clear enough. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... to fortify herself against them by a published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained her knowledge. Late in the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... inferring, that beyond the region of the Knowable Mind does not exist, it remains logically possible to institute a metaphysical hypothesis that beyond this region of the Knowable Mind does exist. There being a necessary absence of any positive information whereby to refute this metaphysical hypothesis, any one who chooses to adopt it is fully justified in doing so, provided only he remembers that the purely metaphysical quality whereby the hypothesis is ensured against disproof, likewise, and in the same degree, precludes it from the possibility of proof. ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... "Lawyer Cole says most American names are corrupted, and how do you know that yours ain't?" Mulrady, who would not swear that his ancestors came from Ireland to the Carolinas in '98, was helpless to refute the assertion. But the terrible Nemesis of an un-Spanish, American provincial speech avenged the orthographical outrage at once. When Mrs. Mulrady began to be addressed orally, as well as by letter, as "Mrs. Mulraid," and when simple amatory ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... interstice between his boot (he wears top boots) and small clothes, the fashion of his cravat, which is rolled round a stiffner two inches in diameter, and tied in a bow, besides a variety of other more minute characteristics, decidedly refute all suspicion of an attempt at attaining the appearance of a man of fashion. The end of a Spitalfields silk-handkerchief just appearing from the pocket hole at the top of his skirt, shews at once his regard for good things and native manufactures; while the dignity of his tread declares ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... sent to Colorado by the Outlook to prepare an article on woman suffrage, which it published. The statements in it were universally repudiated by the press and the people of that State. Mrs. Grenfell said of it at this convention: "It is as absurd to refute her assertions as to reply to Baron Munchausen or to insist that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland never happened. Such conditions as she describes do not ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... to a persecution scarcely less severe in England. The mildest measure adopted towards these refugees was banishment from the kingdom, and a large number suffered at the stake. It was easier to burn Anabaptists than to refute their arguments, and contemporary writers were struck with the intrepidity and number of their martyrs. Thus Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579), a Polish cardinal and bishop of Warmie, wrote (Opera, Venice, 1573, p. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... meaning is, 'I will convince his chamberlains with wine'—i. e., will refute by means of the confusion belonging to the tragedy itself, when aided by intoxication, all the arguments (otherwise plausible) which they might ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... prices and looked at rooms, and if he pronounced any apartment unsuitable, Kitty was despatched by Mrs. Ellison to view it and refute him. As often as she confirmed him, Mrs. Ellison was sure that they were both too fastidious, and they never turned away from a door but they closed the gates of paradise upon that afflicted lady. She began to believe that they should find no place ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... blasphemes what he does not understand. He rails at the doctrines of Christianity, without really knowing what these doctrines are. He sneers at the doctrines and practices of religion, because he cannot refute them. He speaks with the utmost gravity of the fine arts, the fashions, and even matters the most trivial, and he turns into ridicule the most sacred subjects. In the midst of his own circle of fops and silly women, he utters his shallow conceits with all the ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... arguments which had arisen in her own mind to confound the intuitive belief of which she had been conscious since that moment of inward revelation on Crabtree Moor—putting them forward in all their repulsive ugliness of fact, in the desperate hope that Herrick might find some way to refute them. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... sufficient to refute some singular assertions, e. g., that all the newly-born must see objects reversed, as even a Buffon ("Oeuvres completes," iv, 136; Paris, 1844) thought to be the fact. My boy, when I had him write, in his fifth year, the ordinary figures after a copy that I set ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... knows whether it be so or not? You believe him to be an adventurer, I believe he is a gentleman, and we have nothing to refute ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... of antiquity and the Middle Ages were better off than was the case before the plagues. His sound judgment would at once reject this singular notion; and if I showed myself to be obstinate, he could speedily refute me out of the old chronicles which describe in such vivid colours the fearful misery of those times. But since it is the population question which is under consideration, and some of the shreds of that veil of which our honoured President spoke ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... destructive of many favorite theories. The new doctrine, therefore, as may well be supposed, was received by most of the anatomists of the period with distrust, and by all with surprise. Some of them undertook to refute it, but their objections turned principally on the silence of Galen, or consisted of the most frivolous cavils; the controversy, too, assumed the form of personal abuse even more speedily than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... allegation ever made against an officer of the regiment is made against you, the senior lieutenant of my company, and the evidence furnished me by the colonel and by Captain Chester is of such a character that, unless you can refute it and clear her name, you will have a settlement with me to start with, and ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... chemist, by discovering the laws of nature, do not bind unconnected phenomena; but they refute the hasty conclusion of sensuous thought, that the phenomena ever were unconnected. Men of science do not introduce order into chance and chaos, but show that there never was chance or chaos. The poet does not make the world beautiful, but finds the beauty that is dwelling there. Without him, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... ne'er at all have heavier from above Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes Which cause those divers motions, by whose means Nature transacts her work. And so I say, The atoms must a little swerve at times— But only the least, lest we should seem to feign Motions oblique, and fact refute us there. For this we see forthwith is manifest: Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go, Down on its headlong journey from above, At least so far as thou canst mark; but who Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve At all aside from ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... may be objectively in the right, and nevertheless in the eyes of bystanders, and sometimes in his own, he may come off worst. For example, I may advance a proof of some assertion, and my adversary may refute the proof, and thus appear to have refuted the assertion, for which there may, nevertheless, be other proofs. In this case, of course, my adversary and I change places: he comes off best, although, as a matter of fact, he is ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... matter. Now Pascal's method is, on the whole, the method natural and right for the Christian; and the opposite method is that taken by Voltaire. It is worth while to remember that Voltaire, in his attempt to refute Pascal, has given once and for all the type of such refutation; and that later opponents of Pascal's Apology for the Christian Faith have contributed little beyond psychological irrelevancies. For Voltaire has presented, ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... poisoned pellet in a bottle of plain ones, and letting the result happen when it might. His argument was, that the murderer would be far from the scene at the time death took place. These statements I submit, and if Christopher Shelby can deny or refute them, none will ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... experience, I cannot understand. Nor can I understand it a bit better by your saying that it, is in conformity with the vague something you are pleased to call a law. It is a safe phrase, however; for as neither you nor any one else can interpret it, no one can refute you. This law is a most convenient thing! It repeals, it appears to me, all other laws,—even those of logic. Perhaps would be better to say that miracles are no miracles when they are 'lawful' miracles. No! let us keep our principle intact from all ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... brows. What tantalizing half-memories it awakened! Could this flower of evident civilization be the little Arab Meriem, daughter of The Sheik? It was impossible, and yet that locket? Meriem knew it. She could not refute the conviction of her memory. She had seen that locket before and it had been hers. What strange mystery lay buried ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... communism."[24] This is, of all Bakounin's criticisms of socialism, the one that has had the greatest vitality. It has gone the round of the world as a crushing blow to socialist ideals. The same thought has been repeated by every politician, newspaper, and capitalist who has undertaken to refute socialism. And every socialist will admit that of all the attempts to misrepresent socialism and to make it abhorrent to most people the idea expressed in these words of Bakounin has been the most effective. To state thus the ideal of socialism is sufficient ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... political, social, domestic life so minutely, that the whole rope, as it were, has to untwisted before he can be free from error, and the very admixture of truth in their book makes it harder in some respects to refute than if, like the heathen doctrines, it was all wrong throughout. Perhaps the intense self-righteousness of Moslems is after all the hardest point about them; their notion that in the end all who are Islam are safe strengthens them in this belief." [2] Nevertheless, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... seemed to him fruitful when he was reading or was himself seeking arguments to refute other theories, especially those of the materialists; but as soon as he began to read or sought for himself a solution of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he followed the fixed definition of obscure words such as spirit, will, freedom, essence, purposely letting ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... otherwise. They drank Mr. Burke's health with "thanks to him for the discussion he had provoked." And the student of history, who may read Paine's opening sketch of the French Revolution, written to refute Burke's narrative of the same events, will not deny Paine's complete success. He will even meet with sentences that Burke might have composed. For instance: Paine ridicules, as Quixotic, the fine passage in the "Reflections on the Decay of Chivalry"; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... should continue the war; nor so dishonest, to give counsels contrary to the interest of Sweden and of the High Chancellor, to whom he owed every thing; and that if his Eminence would put it in his power to do some service to France, he would much more chearfully refute these calumnies by his actions, than by his words. The Cardinal resumed an air of serenity, said several obliging things, and assured him that for the future he would behave to him with more openness. ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... lectures to analyse as fully as I can what it is that really takes place when we, e.g. believe or desire. In this first lecture I shall be concerned to refute a theory which is widely held, and which I formerly held myself: the theory that the essence of everything mental is a certain quite peculiar something called "consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or as a pervading quality of ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... intelligence. We talked upon the "Jew's Letters," which he had lent me. Have I mentioned them? They are a mighty well written defence of the Mosaic law and mission, and as orthodox for Christians as for Jews, with regard to their main tenor, which is to refute the infidel doctrine of Voltaire up to the time of our ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... tragedy can he be in after-years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth—often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... excitement of the mirthful organs, which some philosophers assert to be, after all, the distinguishing trait of mankind. Some call man a "thinking animal," but this is so self-evident a slander upon the great majority of the species, that no words are needed to refute it: one attempted to define him as "a biped without feathers," but when a plucked fowl was brought forward as a specimen of his man, he was obliged to give up that definition. Others again describe him as "a cooking animal," but ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... has been proclaimed the best in the world, a proposition that none can successfully refute. Its qualities are becoming known in quarters where it would naturally be expected its superiority would be admitted reluctantly, if at all. It is now sent to New York and Ohio, and even to Pennsylvania—an agency for its ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... the untiring industry, patience, and humility of this great artist. Passeri attributes his grand achievements more to his amazing study than to his genius; and some have not hesitated to deny that he possessed any genius at all—an opinion which his works abundantly refute. Lanzi says, "From his acting as a continual censor of his own productions, he became among his fellow pupils the most exact and expressive designer, his colors most true to nature, and of the best impasto, the most universal master ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... that of being worthy to be honored as a philosophical poet. His theory that the poet's function is limited to an exact representation of the real and the natural, a heresy which his own best poems triumphantly refute, often led him to triviality and meanness in the choice both of subjects and diction, and marred the beauty of many otherwise fine poems. A fascinating airiness and delicacy of conception prevail in these poems, and the tender sweetness of expression is often wonderfully touching. They were the effusions ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... musingly. "I can divorce you! There will be no defense possible,—as you know. If witnesses are needed, they are to be had in the persons of our own domestics. The co-respondent in the case will not refute the charge against him,—and I, the plaintiff, must win my just cause. Do you realize it all, Clara? You, the well-known leader of a large social circle—you, the proud beauty and envied lady of rank and fashion,—you ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... labours of Mons. LICQUET, as my translator, cease; and I will let him take leave of his task of translation in his own words. "Ici se termine la tache qui m'a ete confiee. Apres avoir refute franchement tout ce qui m'a semble digne de letre, je crois devoir declarer, en finissant, que mes observations n'ont jamais eu la personne pour objet. Je reste persuade, d'ailleurs, que le coeur ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... it, because you have not religion, and religion alone teaches us what Nature is, wherein it is good, and how it has been made evil. However, you must not expect me to answer you; God has vouchsafed me, to refute your errors, neither eloquence nor force of intellect. I should only be afraid, by my inadequate replies, of giving you occasion to blaspheme and further reasons for hardening your heart. I feel a strong desire to help you; yet the sole fruit of my ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... work "Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten", gives the literary man the place of priest in the world, continually unfolding the Godlike to man. This was also Beethoven's aim. Haydn charged him with being an atheist, but his works as well as his life refute this charge. The Kyrie and the Agnus Dei of the Mass in D, could never have been produced had he been other than a devout, religious man. In his journals he continually addresses the Godhead. Outwardly, however, he gave no sign. "Religion and general-bass," he said ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... provost marshal or commander of a guard shall refute to receive or keep any prisoner committed to his charge by an officer belonging to the forces of the United States, provided the officer committing shall, at the time, deliver an account in writing, signed by himself, of the crime or offense charged against the prisoner. ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... down and see men toiling to build the railway, that already reached Nyanza after the unfinished fashion of work whose chief aim is making a showing. Profits, performances were secondary matters; that railway's one purpose was to establish occupation of the head waters of the Nile and refute the German claim to prior rights there. At irregular intervals trains already went down to the lake, and passengers might ride on suffrance; but we deluded ourselves with the belief that by marching we threw enemies off the scent. It was pure delusion, but extremely pleasant ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... been launched and lost, the survivors stated (the men who had seized the long-boat, to the exclusion of the women and children); the sea had swallowed all the remainder. A later statement might refute the first, but even then none could know the truth with regard to my identity, for would not Basil Bainrothe control the publication as he pleased, and make me dead if he listed—dead even ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... see something new to you in art, or hear a proposition in philosophy you never heard before, do not make haste to ridicule, deny or refute. Possibly the trouble is with ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... concludes by voting the maintenance of a hundred thousand soldiers, for reasons drawn from the necessity of the service, and from economical considerations. It is these considerations only that I have to refute. ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... Whose judging voice and eye alone direct The boundless power to cherish or reject; If e'er frivolity has led to fame, And made us blush that you forbore to blame— If e'er the sinking stage could condescend To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend— All past reproach may present scenes refute, 60 And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute![42] Oh! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws, Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause; So Pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers, And Reason's voice ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... a note and a tract persuasive of my remaining in his church. The latter I think the most bigoted thing I ever read. He said he would call and see me on the subject. I trust and believe God will give me words whereby to refute his arguments. Brother Tom sanctioned my change, for his liberal mind embraces all classes of Christians in the arms of charity and love, and he thinks everyone right to sit under that minister, and choose that form, which makes the deepest impression on the heart. I feel that I have ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... calling him to account. Ned had a hard task before him; for the charge you made against him was that of harboring evil thoughts and of cherishing unfair designs against your child. It was a serious charge, and one that he could not refute; for a man's thoughts are not susceptible of proof; all that he can do in justification, is to point to his past life and say: 'Judge by that;' and unless Ned could impeach the character of his traducer, of whom he was then ignorant, but who ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... of the first hundred letters showed a trend that later mail confirmed. Less than 5 per cent of the readers ridiculed the article. Between 15 and 20 per cent said they were not convinced; a few of these admitted they could not refute the evidence. About half the readers accepted the possibility; most of these said they saw no reason why other planets should not be inhabited. The remainder, between 25 and 30 per cent, said they ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... the cause. This gave his scholar an insight into the subject; who, living besides in the land where both the Slave Trade and slavery were established, obtained an additional knowledge of them, so as to be able to refute many of those objections, to which others, for want of local observation, could never ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... matter together, and do you either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear friend, from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the Athenians: for I highly value your attempts to persuade me to do so, but I may not be persuaded against my own better judgment. And now please to ...
— Crito • Plato
... to recommend the discredited cause, and sustain the fainting interests of Religion, to furnish to her friends matter of sound and obvious argument, and of honest triumph; and if your best endeavours cannot conciliate, to refute at least, and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... seasons all may be reduced to one uniform condition; let fire rage everywhere, followed by dull night, and let the bottomless abyss swallow up all the gods." Is it worth while to destroy all this merely in order to refute you? Even though you do not wish it, they do you good, and they wheel in their courses for your sake, though their motion may be due to some earlier and ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... not refute this solution of her sadness. She knew it was true. And when he looked into her eyes, the blue was troubled with a mist as of ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... without due consideration, in mere dreams or systems, based on a few facts, that are overruled by hundreds of other facts, unknown to them, or neglected when known. It would be useless and tedious to refute again such false systems, that have been refuted and upset by each other. It may, however, be needful, perhaps, to mention three of the most absurd, in order to warn against them, or show their improbability ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque
... it was never steadied by a healthy divergency of opinions and the presentation of conflicting arguments. It was not even a debating society, for all represented practically the same interests, held the same views, made the same speeches, which there was no one to question or to refute. Hence the monotony of the proceedings, the sameness of the speeches, sometimes marked with great ability, and generally delivered with much eloquence and fervour, at the short annual sessions. The proceedings were usually controlled by a small caucus who drew up long-winded resolutions, often embodying ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... been told you that convinced you I am not a fit client. Is that it? And, instead of telling me what it is, and giving me a chance to refute the charge or explain, you simply take the easiest course and believe my enemies. Do you call that an ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... very long letter, my dear count, but you know how long all letters must be which are intended to refute opinions and to rectify judgments. M. de Lamartine has the excellent habit of listening to your advice, and that is why I have had at heart to let you know the truth about Byron. The present work will adduce the proofs of the appreciations contained in this letter. I know ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Baron of Peddlington was guilty of this traitorous effusion no one, not even the king, could ever really make up his mind. The charge was never fully proven, nor was De Herbert ever able to refute it successfully, although he made frantic efforts to do so. The king, eminently just in such matters, gave the baron the benefit of the doubt, and inflicted only half the penalty prescribed, confiscating his estates, and ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... sometimes credited him with such a use.[8] Nevertheless we should remember that precisely this kind of symbolism was very popular in Spain in the seventeenth century, and gave rise to the splendid literary art of the autos sacramentales. Galds then goes on to refute the allegation of certain critics that he ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... "evasiveness of life," would have to take its place. Attempts are indeed being made at this very hour to "start fresh" with a new aesthetic sense and only the winnowing process of time and the pressure of personal experience can refute such attempts. Meanwhile all we can do is to note the rejection of such attempts by the verdict of the complex vision; a rejection which indicates that if such attempts are to be successful they must imply the substitution of a new complex vision ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... course, many drawbacks to the amenities of the place as a residence for a European; but these were not of a nature that my readers would perhaps imagine. There was scarcely any danger from wild animals— it seems almost ridiculous to refute the idea of danger from the natives in a country where even incivility to an unoffending stranger is a rarity. A jaguar, however, paid us a visit one night. It was considered an extraordinary event, and so much uproar was made by the men who turned out with ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... that there took place at Liberty the first of a long string of bank and train robberies, all of which were usually attributed either to the Younger brothers, or to some of their friends, and which we were unable to come out and successfully refute for two reasons, first the bringing down of a storm about the heads of those who had sheltered us; and second, giving such pursuers as Judy and his posse fresh clues ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... of an hour,[8] no animalcules ever made their appearance within them. It must be admitted that the experiments and arguments of Spallanzani furnish a complete and a crushing reply to those of Needham. But we all too often forget that it is one thing to refute a proposition, and another to prove the truth of a doctrine which, implicitly or explicitly, contradicts that proposition; and the advance of science soon showed that though Needham might be quite wrong, it did not follow that Spallanzani was ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Socrates was indeed excellent in exciting men to virtue, but that he did not push them forward to make any great progress in it, let such reflect a little on what he said, not only when he endeavoured to refute those that boasted they knew all things, but likewise in his familiar conversations, and let them judge afterwards if he was incapable to advance his friends in the paths ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... As if to refute this cautious statement, the gondola quietly glided out again upon the Grand Canal, in full face of a great white dome, rising superbly from a sculptured marble octagon against a radiant sky. Sky and dome and sculptured figure, each cast its image deep down in the tranquil waters at its base, where, ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... he regarded his triumph as complete. He cared little what became of Giovanni—whether he was able to refute the evidence brought against him or not. There had been nothing in the matter which was dishonest, and properly made out marriage-certificates are not easy things to annul. Giovanni might swim or sink—it ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the Bible in my debate with Dr. Berg were true; but they amounted to nothing. Dr. Berg thought they were serious charges, and that if they were not refuted, they would destroy the credit and power of the Book. He was mistaken. And he never did refute them. If I were in the place of Dr. Berg, and an opponent were to bring forward those things in proof that the Bible was not of God, I should say, Your statements may be true, or they may be false, and I do not care much which they are; but they are good for nothing as ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... the mother explained in the same breath—that she might reveal the degree of intercourse which had taken place between them, and, if possible, account for the absence of her lover. That, in short, she might refute the malice of enemies and establish the falsehood of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... images of external things, was shown even in that treatise. Though throughout the same the contrary be supposed true of tangible objects—not that to suppose that vulgar error was necessary for establishing the notion therein laid down, but because it was beside my purpose to examine and refute it in a discourse concerning VISION. So that in strict truth the ideas of sight, when we apprehend by them distance and things placed at a distance, do not suggest or mark out to us things ACTUALLY existing ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... attend the Parliament. Indeed the supporters of the old religion, relying on the help of the queen, seemed to think that any religious settlement made by Parliament was of no importance. Their refusal to discuss the confession of faith was taken, however, as a sign of their inability to refute it, and the confession was passed with but few dissentients. Later on (24th August) three other acts were formulated with the object of uprooting Catholicism in Scotland. The jurisdiction of the Pope was abolished, and the bishops were forbidden to act under his instructions; all ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... contriving, more by accident than skill, to break it. The cartridges, of course, fitted into the empty cylinder. But before inserting them she closed the pistol once more, cocked it, and held it out. Her arm trembled violently as she pulled the trigger. Could she do it? As though to refute this doubt of her ability to carry out an act determined upon, she broke the weapon once more, loaded and closed it, and thrust it in the pocket of her coat. Then, washing the grease from her hands, she put ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... art had been prospering, and went to William of Champeaux, my instructor, distinguished at the time in this particular by his work and reputation as a teacher. Staying with him for a while, I was at first acceptable, but shortly after was very annoying to him, namely, when I tried to refute some of his opinions, and often ventured to argue against him and, not seldom, seemed to surpass him ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... accordant as possible with the whole of the data already possessed; and the science, being thus enabled to move forward freely, always ends by leading to new consequences capable of observation, which either confirm or refute, unequivocally, the first supposition." Neither induction nor deduction would enable us to understand even the simplest phenomena, "if we did not often commence by anticipating on the results; by making a provisional supposition, at first essentially ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... Man of the Iron Mask, there grew upon him more and more the sense of a mighty loss. Nora's sweet loving face started from the shadows of the forlorn walls. Her docile, yielding temper, her generous, self-immolating spirit, came back to his memory, to refute the idea that wronged her. His love, that had been suspended for awhile by busy cares, but which, if without much refining sentiment, was still the master passion of his soul, flowed back into all his thoughts,—circumfused the very atmosphere ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... debate by making it read: "The aeroplane is destined to supplant the railroad as a carrier of mail," or "The aeroplane is destined to be used increasingly as a carrier of transcontinental mail." In arguing you may propose for ourself either of two objectives: (1) to silence your opponent, (2) to refute, persuade, and win him over fairly. The achievement of the first end calls for bluster and perhaps a grim, barbaric strength; you must do as Johnson did according to Goldsmith's famous dictum—if your pistol misses fire, you must knock your ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... acknowledging the English law, which had never afforded her protection, and which had constantly abandoned her to the rule of force. But seeing that they proceeded none the less, and that every calumny was allowed, no one being there to refute it, she resolved to appear before the commissioners. We quote the two interrogatories to which Mary Stuart submitted as they are set down in the report of M. de Bellievre to M. de Villeroy. M. de Bellievre, as we shall see later, had been specially sent by ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fits his bones into a skeleton for medical purposes. 'There never was a public hanging,' says a late advocate of the abolition of capital punishment, 'that was productive of any thing but evil.' There is an anecdote recorded of WHITFIELD, however, which seems to refute this position, in at least one instance. This eloquent divine, while at Edinburgh, attended a public execution. His appearance upon the ground drew the eyes of all around him, and raised a variety of opinions as to the motives which led him to join in the crowd. The next day, being ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... character which the popular imagination had given him. Strangers—criminals—in certain towns in the Territory and out of it must have heard with considerable satisfaction that their depredations had been charged to Harlan. Only once had Harlan been able to refute the charge of rumor. That was when, having passed a night in the company of Dave Hallowell, the marshal of Pardo, word was brought by a stage-driver that "Drag" Harlan had killed a man in Dry Bottom—a town two hundred miles north—and that Harlan had escaped, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... is perhaps not less keen than that I must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis that all dreams are the fulfillments of wishes is raised by my patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of the dream material which is offered me to refute this position. ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... a hundred essays on Balzac and not exhaust him. One might write a volume on his women, a volume to refute the charge that his bad men are better drawn than his good, a volume to discuss Mr. Henry James's epigrammatic declaration that a five-franc piece may be fairly called the protagonist of the 'Comedie humaine.' In short one might go on ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... susceptible organ of its kind that she had ever encountered, related examples of its want of susceptibility, and at last declared that for her the Italians were a people of ice. The prince became flame to refute her, and his visit really proved charming. Newman was naturally out of the conversation; he sat with his head a little on one side, watching the interlocutors. The duchess, as she talked, frequently looked at ...
— The American • Henry James
... conversation, still, the meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall say it in such a tone of voice as to make you understand that he conceives ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... permission to the public to read what they choose, and still more because I like to think that there are so many intelligent people in the world who are wearisomely familiar with ideas which have only slowly and gradually dawned upon myself. I have no intention of trying to refute or convince my critics, and I beg them with all my heart to say what they think about my books, because only by the frank interchange of ideas can we ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... agitated followers are beginning to ask. "Has he broken his word? Has he smirched Gunther's honour?" Gunther, Gutrune, the vassals, all a little shaken in their faith in Siegfried by the assurance of his accuser, press him to refute her charge, clear himself, take the oath which shall silence the disgraceful accusation. He unhesitatingly asks for a weapon upon which to swear. Hagen craftily offers his spear. Siegfried placing his right hand on the point, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... eye upon the guide. But Reuther's face was still alight. She felt very happy. Their journey had not been for naught. He would have six hours' start of his pursuers; he would be that much sooner in Shelby; he would hear the accusation against him and refute it before ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... We the people—they refute last week's television commentary downgrading our optimism and our idealism. They are the entrepreneurs, the builders, the pioneers, and a lot of regular folks—the true heroes of our land who make up the most uncommon nation of doers in history. You know they're ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... twelve lashes, after which two of them were discharged. But the third, in a singular strain of morality, insisted upon it, that it was no crime in an Englishman to plunder an Indian plantation. The method taken by our commander to refute his casuistry, was to send him back to his confinement, and not, permit him to be released, till he had been punished with ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... that cause assigned for the outrage offered to him as ten times worse than the outrage itself. There is such a strange confusion of ideas on this subject, that it is far more difficult to understand the nature of the charge than to refute it when understood. Mr. Fox's friends were, it seems, seized with a sudden panic terror lest he should pass for a republican. I do not think they had any ground for this apprehension. But let us admit they had. What was there in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... imagination includes judgment, celerity, and innovation. All three functions are basic to the imaginative act. It is the last, however, which he most emphasizes; and it is apparent, I think, that one intention of his argument is to refute the assumption that the sublime is the principal object of the poetic imagination. It is clear also that Ogilvie is attentive to the excesses of imagism, even as he makes the variety of a poet's images (along with the boldness of his transitions and the picturesque vivacity of ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... captain demanded. "You have made a definite charge against a wireless operator on the ship. He ought to be placed in the position to be able to refute it if he can." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... expounder of Marxian theories, also repeats this assertion that, from the psycho-physiological point of view, woman is the equal of man, and he attempts to refute, without success, the scientific objections that have been ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... fancied that there was; [Footnote: Recupero. See Brydone's Travels, some sixty or seventy years ago. The canon, being a beneficed clergyman in the Papal church, was naturally an infidel. He wished exceedingly to refute Moses: and he fancied that he really had done so by means of some collusive assistance from the layers of lava on Mount Etna. But there survives, at this day, very little to remind us of the canon, except an unpleasant guffaw that rises, at times, in solitary ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... referred to statistics. But when they claimed he was pro-German, he stripped for action. World war, and France, prostrate amid its terrors, offered the Negro the great opportunity of the centuries to refute the broadcast ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... his brother, Lord John Berkeley, of the hostility of the commissioners, and charged him to defend his conduct and character. And Lord Berkeley, who was a member of the Privy Council and a man of great influence, did his best to refute their evidence and to discredit them before the King.[834] Their entire report, he declared, was "a scandalous lible and invective of Sir William ... and the royal party in Virginia".[835] His brother's conduct had been always prudent and just, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... of those who hold that all phenomena and all existence originate in Chance or a blind fortuitous concourse of atoms. To state such a doctrine is to refute it. No one possessed of reason can believe in his heart that Intelligence did not create and organise matter, or that the material universe, with all its adaptation of parts, was evolved, and is governed, by chance or accident. This theory, if it is worthy of the ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... you can not find two individuals in the whole of sectism that see "eye to eye" upon the whole truth. To mention all the erroneous teachings of apostates would be almost impossible. However we believe it to be compatible with this work and to the glory of God to mention and refute a few of the false doctrines that have been most effectual in obscuring the light of ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... her. Even thus, and not otherwise, would she have desired him to refute the slander. It was a test she had promised herself; she could have laughed for joy. Her ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the same time provide the institutions in question with useful workers. Why should men be the only ones to perform obligatory social service? I expect," says Madame Schmid, "many adverse criticisms on this proposal, one of which I will refute at once. The ladies of the middle classes will strongly object because their daughters will see and hear so many things which ought to be hidden till they marry! But why should they be hidden? In order to prepare our daughters for marriage, is it not ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... advocate of Persia's prestige can find little to support his claims in pre-Buddhistic Brahmanic literature, though such claims have been made, not only in respect of the position of secondary divinities, but even as regards eschatological conceptions. It is not so easy to refute an improbable historical theory as it is to propound it, but, on the other hand, the onus probandi rests upon him that propounds it, and till now all arguments on this point have resulted only in increasing the number of unproved hypotheses, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... to Hurt's sense of honour and justice against the piracy, that Defoe came into collision with the law. His new organ was warmly loyal. On the 14th of August it contained a highly-coloured panegyric of George I., which alone would refute Defoe's assertion that he knew nothing of the arts of the courtier. His Majesty was described as a combination of more graces, virtues, and capacities than the world had ever seen united in one individual, a ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... indeed he appears to be so in his writings. It has been remarked, as a proof of his singular fairness, that he not only candidly states the opinions of an opponent, but even sometimes confesses his inability fully to refute them. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... against the measure. Sir Francis Burdett expressed his regret that he was compelled to act against his former associates in politics, but he could not support the measure. Mr. Shiel endeavoured to make the honourable baronet refute himself by quoting extracts from his former speeches on the same subject. He spoke, however, of the honourable baronet in terms of the highest respect, as "a venerable relic of a temple dedicated to freedom, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... historical facts. This is what I hope to point out in these pages, the object of which is to describe Byron as he was, and to substitute, without any derogation to his sublimity of character, the reality for the fiction created by M. Taine. To refute so brilliant and so powerful a writer, my only means is to proceed in this work with the help of positive proofs of the statements which I make, and by invoking unimpeachable testimonies. These alone constitute weighty arguments, since ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... in the guilt of calumny is its uncontrollable character: "the tongue can no man tame." You cannot arrest a calumnious tongue, you cannot arrest the calumny itself; you may refute a slanderer, you may trace home a slander to its source, you may expose the author of it, you may by that exposure give a lesson so severe as to make the repetition of the offence appear impossible; but the fatal habit is incorrigible: to-morrow the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... came to listen, not to speak. But when such words as these from impious lips Fall lightly, I must rise here to refute Their poisonous message. Three days since, I stood With this man in the sacred halls of God, And witnessed in his heart the glory grow Of God's bright hope. Then suddenly from Hell, Or from his own deep, labyrinthine heart, Sprang fiends to snatch him ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... faithfully maintain the customs and usage of his court, who never failed to obey his law, whatever the result might be, tell me if there is anything that pleases because of love without causing us to tremble and grow pale. If any one oppose me in this, I can at once refute his argument; for whoever does not grow pale and tremble, whoever does not lose his senses and memory, is trying to filch and get by stealth what does not by right belong to him. The servant who does not fear his master ought not to remain in his employ nor do his service. He who does ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... labours of Mons. LICQUET, as my translator, cease; and I will let him take leave of his task of translation in his own words. "Ici se termine la tache qui m'a ete confiee. Apres avoir refute franchement tout ce qui m'a semble digne de letre, je crois devoir declarer, en finissant, que mes observations n'ont jamais eu la personne pour objet. Je reste persuade, d'ailleurs, que le coeur de M.D. est tout-a-fait innocent des ecarts de son esprit. Si l'on peut le condamner ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... striking similarity in phenomena at so great a distance apart, in connection with active or dormant volcanoes, would seem to be enough to prove the connection in any candid mind, and utterly refute the idle theory that all this heat may be produced by the chemical action of water on beds of sulphates or phosphates just below the surface. The temperature of the water should be sufficient to show that it comes from great depths. The writer was unable, from want of a thermometer, to verify ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mistaken in their former view, when such men as ex-Governor Brown, of Georgia, convinced by the examinations of our Atlanta University, publicly declares, "I was wrong; I am converted," that ought to be enough. But if not, the men of recognized ability and success among the blacks refute the old misrepresentation, now being revived in some quarters. When our Government sends its ministers abroad, Frederick Douglass and John M. Langston; when Senator Bruce and Representative Lynch are regarded as peers of their white brethren in the ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... passage is sufficient to refute the arguments of Mr. Mitford, and men more learned than that historian, who, in taking for their premises as an indisputable fact the extraordinary assumption, that Homer never once has alluded to the return of the Heraclidae, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two opinions exactly alike." And the practical comment was, not as one might have expected, towards the determination of some common standard of truth amid that infinite variety, but to this effect rather, that we are not bound to receive every opinion we are not able to refute, nor to accept another's refutation of our own; these diversities being themselves ultimate, and the priceless pearl of truth lying, if anywhere, not in large theoretic apprehension of the general, but in minute vision of the particular; ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... stumbled over the wreck-encumbered deck, and bore it to the state-room she had occupied on the outward voyage. Percival was too busy attending to wounded sailors to be interrupted. His services, I knew, were useless now, but I wanted him to refute or corroborate a conviction which my own medical knowledge had forced upon me. The thought was so repellent, I clung to any hope which might lead to its dispersion. I waited ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... lord of the bedchamber or Government Aristarchus, and how they imprudently associate themselves with men of mere popular talent or independence of feeling!—It is the same in prose works. The Editor scorns to enter the lists of argument with any proscribed writer of the opposite party. He does not refute, but denounces him. He makes no concessions to an adversary, lest they should in some way be turned against him. He only feels himself safe in the fancied insignificance of others: he only feels himself superior to those whom he stigmatizes as the lowest of mankind. All persons ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... bring home to the American people a clear realization of the threatening calamity, we ourselves must not only be thoroughly equipped with knowledge of the Socialistic teachings and their evil consequences, but must also be able to refute the alluring and deceptive arguments of the revolutionists. We must acquire a thorough knowledge of Socialism. But to do this, it almost goes without saying that we should carefully read and study the excellent and ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... the unity of dogmatic and natural religion. So moderate and philosophical was the temper displayed by Cudworth in his "Intellectual System of the Universe," that the bigots of his day charged him with the atheistic principles which he was endeavouring to refute. But the change of tone in the theologians of the Reformation was itself an indication of the new difficulties which theology had to meet. The bold scepticism of Hobbes was adopted by courtiers and politicians. Charles himself was divided between superstition and Hobbism. Shaftesbury was a Deist. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... right when he transfers the seat of thought from the heart to the head. What a wild tumult is raging here behind my brow, and how one voice drowns another! The medley baffles description. I could more easily count with my blind eyes the cells in a honeycomb than refute with my bewildered brain even one shrewd objection. It seems to me that we need our eyes to understand things. We certainly do to taste. Whatever I eat and drink—langustae and melons, light Mareotic wine and the dark liquor of Byblus my tongue can scarcely distinguish it. The ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... immemorial, pigeon-fanciers have had essentially similar methods of treating their pets, which have been housed, fed, protected and cared for in much the same way in all pigeonries. In fact, there is no case better adapted than that of the pigeons to refute the doctrine which one sees put forth on high authority, that "no other characters than those founded on the development of bone for the attachment of muscles" are capable of variation. In precise contradiction of this hasty assertion, Mr. Darwin's researches ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... loue of God who gouerneth the world: and as a man was honorable or noble in this life, so his soule after death, entreth into the body of some excellent beast or other, but the soules of simple and rusticall people do possesse the bodies of more vile and brutish creatures. Then I began to refute that foule error: howbeit my speach did nothing at all preuaile with him: for he could not be perswaded that any soule might remaine without a body. [Sidenote: Chilenso.] From thence I departed vhto a certaine citie named Chilenso, the walls whereof ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the turning of his career, was selected by the Consistory to make once for all a refutation of Coornhert's dangerous writings. He, however, became so impressed, as he studied the works which he was to refute, that he shifted his own fundamental points of belief, accepted many of Coornhert's views, and became himself a greater "heretic" and a more dangerous opponent of Calvinism than the man whom he was ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... in themselves, are valuable in that they refute the charges made against General Bonaparte at this time— first, that he returned from Egypt with a fortune, and, second, that he carried himself with a hauteur which rendered ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... confidence in US? When you relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie,—had not reason been there you would have continued to rely on us. Well, nay there not exist some other judge SUPERIOR to reason who, if he appeared, would refute the judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted us? The non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence. ... I strove to answer this objection, and my difficulties increased when I came to reflect on sleep. I said to myself: During sleep you give to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... character, and lives of Washington drawn mainly from this source are apt to make the great man seem unnaturally cold, dignified, remote, and impressive. So usual has this view of Washington become, that there is a common belief that he never laughed aloud—a belief which there are many stories to refute. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... employment; that I had since come into a large fortune, and had resumed my station in society. How far the false was blended with the true, those who have read my adventures will readily perceive. For my part, I cared little what they said, and I gave myself no trouble to refute the various assertions. I was not ashamed of my birth, because it had no effect upon the Drummonds; still I knew the world too well to think it necessary to blazon it. On the whole, the balance was in my favour; there was a degree of romance in my history, with ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... stones, water, etc., at another he asserted that certain individuals possessed a greater degree of susceptibility for this power than others. It must be owned, however, that many of his contemporaries made it their business to encounter his extravagant pretensions, and refute his dogmatical assertions with the most convincing arguments. Yet, he long enjoyed the triumph of being supported by blind followers, and their increasing number completely ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... pleasantry [a]. I have often heard you, my friend Messala, in the same humour. According to you, the present age has not a single orator to boast of, though your own eloquence, and that of your brother, are sufficient to refute the charge. But you assert roundly, and maintain your proposition with an air of confidence. You know how high you stand, and while in your general censure of the age you include yourself, the smallest tincture of malignity cannot be supposed to mingle in ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... for the first time takes cognizance of the contents of these formidable volumes, is overwhelmed by the amount of attestations they present him with, by his own inability to refute them, or by counter statements substitute a truer appreciation of what did really occur. The dry narrative of mere fact is thus, but the impression it should produce as of a fact ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... has been experimentally determined that the ease with which one memorizes one set of facts may be very greatly improved without a corresponding improvement in ability to memorize in some other field. How would you use this fact to refute the argument that we possess a ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... Lady Burton was stricken down with an incurable disease. Death with its icy breath hung over her as her pen flew along the paper, and the questions constantly on her lips were "Shall I live to complete my task? Shall I live to tell the world how great and noble a man my husband was, and to refute the calumnies that his enemies have so industriously circulated?" She did complete it in a sense, for the work duly appeared; but no one recognised more clearly than herself its numerous shortcomings. Indeed, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the middle ages resided for the most part in the cloister, the member's of the junta were principally clerical, and combined to crush Columbus with theological objections. Texts of Scripture were adduced to refute his theory of the spherical shape of the earth, and the weighty authority of the Fathers of the Church was added to overthrow the "foolish idea of the existence of antipodes; of people who walk, opposite to us, with their heels upwards ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... swept over the handsome face of the minister. The professor had intimated that he thought personal motives were being used to persecute the squatter. This tried the patience of Elias Graves as he sat gathering an argument to refute the accusation. He had even persuaded himself that it was for the good of the town to remove one after another of the loathsome fishermen either by the rope or imprisonment. Without their men the squatter women also would ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Americans need to be told, And it never'll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in choler At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn such eye-dollar-try's what very few do, And John goes to that church as often as you do, No matter what John says, don't try ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... rising to his feet, denounced his ingratitude in language which was seldom allowed to pass unchallenged in the presence of his wife, while that lady contributed examples of deceitfulness in the past of Mr. Heard, which he strove in vain to refute, Meanwhile, her ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... capital on the preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which were everywhere the answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated Liszt, and seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave two private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both of which were crowded, the latter being attended by more than four hundred people. The result was a brilliant victory, and henceforth ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Mr. Jerold thinks," replied the attorney. "It nettled him to hear me repeat that story. 'Why, it's incredible,'" he said. "'There are documents I drew up last fall that refute it completely.'" Mr. Bromley paused, then went on slowly: "Last fall you were in a hospital, Mr. Tisdale, beginning a long, all but hopeless fight for your life, and it was natural you should have called in Mr. Jerold to settle your affairs. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... he discussed the product from passing water over heated charcoal. He had been endeavoring to refute certain statements made by Cruikshank. There is no question but that he had carbon monoxide in hand, and had it as early as 1799, and that he had obtained it in several different ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith |
