"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... listened to you!" she went on; "but my spiritual self-will blinded me. I despised my work. Oh, Esther! you cannot contradict me; you know how bitterly I spoke of the little Thornes; how I refused to take them into my heart; how scornfully I spoke of my ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... interesting expressions in Cusanus' writings which contradict most of the impressions commonly entertained with regard to the scholars of the Middle Ages. It is usually assumed that they did not think seriously, but speculatively, that they feared to think for themselves, neglected the study of nature around them, considered ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... dear," purred Grace, too happy at the prospect before them to contradict anything or anybody on earth. "We are deeply appreciative and inordinately grateful to you for ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... Catholic minds of each age some strange conjunctions and compromises with the Zeitgeist. Thus the morality of chivalry and war, the ideals of foppishness and honour, have been long maintained side by side with the maxims of the gospel, which they entirely contradict. Later the system of Copernicus, incompatible at heart with the anthropocentric and moralistic view of the world which Christianity implies, was accepted by the church with some lame attempt to render it innocuous; but it remains ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... consideration of miracles; the scientific is briefly as follows:—We are told that the phenomena of nature are so many links in a chain of causes and effects, and to suppose that God breaks through this chain, is to make God contradict Himself. To this it may be answered that apart from any question of miracles, there are already flaws in this chain of causation, or rather, powers from without that can shake it, as, for instance, the outbreak of a war rendering a country, which should have been fertile, barren and wasted. Holy ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... chains that held men's souls in bondage. That there has been progress needs no other demonstration than that you may now reason with men, and urge upon them, without danger of the rack or stake, that no doctrines can be apprehended as truths if they contradict each other, or contradict other truths given us by God. Long before the Reformation, a monk, who had found his way to heresy without the help of Martin Luther, not venturing to breathe aloud into any living ear his anti-papal ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Granville protested. Meanwhile the rebel army was defeated at Antietam, September 17, and driven out of Maryland. Then Gladstone, October 7, tried to force Palmerston's hand by treating the intervention as a fait accompli. Russell assented, but Palmerston put up Sir George Cornewall Lewis to contradict Gladstone and treated him sharply in the press, at the very moment when Russell was calling a Cabinet to make Gladstone's words good. On October 23, Russell assured Adams that no change in policy was now proposed. On the same day he had proposed it, and was voted down. Instantly Napoleon ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... constitutional developments, and so are led to admit the reasonableness of tackling history from a lighter and more entertaining point of view. Again, as to the River Thames, one must really grant that a considerable amount of self-complacency and internal sunniness would result from the ability to contradict your friends as to the length in miles of some of its minor tributaries. In science, too, you are no Kepler or Linnaeus, and there is something satisfactory when pedants talk of orbits, planes, bulbs, or beetles, in being able to say that you have a big book at home ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... say that an intelligent king is a very rare, even an abnormal thing. I readily agree. Except in a very few instances, which history records with amazement, a king has exactly the same reasons as the people for selecting as his favourites men who will not eclipse nor contradict him, and who consequently seldom turn out to be the best of citizens either in respect of intelligence or character. Elective socialism and despotic socialism have the same faults as democracy as we understand ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... him indignantly from beneath a little mushroom hat lined with pink, challenging him to contradict her by look or word. But he swallowed her dare without a quiver.... Good heavens, what girl worth her salt would endure apologies on behalf of her own father, from one so much, much worse than a stranger to her? It may be that V. Vivian liked ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... but rather the fashion of this folk, had left the monuments of generations to be thus resumed by nature. Yet, knowing nothing of the history of this burial-ground, I dare not affirm so much. There is one outlying piece of the cemetery which seems to contradict my charitable interpretation. It is not far from San Nicoletto. No enclosure marks it from the unconsecrated dunes. Acacia-trees sprout amid the monuments, and break the tablets with their thorny shoots upthrusting from the soil. Where patriarchs and rabbis sleep for centuries, the fishers ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... to contradict my Prince, A Prince to whom I've been so late a Traitor; But, Sir, 'tis I alone am criminal, And 'twas I, Justly I thought provok'd him to this hazard: 'Tis I was rude, impatient, insolent, Did like a Madman animate his Anger, Not like a generous Enemy. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... assumed a repressed cheerfulness. "You may be right, dear!" she said. "I shouldn't go to contradict your blessed mother's darter, not if she told me to get a hull supper, let alone a cup o' tea, as is warming to the innards, let him deny it who will. There! I feel it a leetle better now a'ready," she announced. "Ah, it's a blessed privilege ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... to be also in His own substance the chiefest good." "Most rightly," quoth I. "But it is granted that the chiefest good is blessedness?" "It is," quoth I. "Wherefore," quoth she, "we must needs confess that blessedness itself is God." "I can neither contradict," quoth I, "thy former propositions, and I see this illation followeth ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... children," she said, "but I must contradict this. Becket was killed at five o'clock on a dreary December afternoon of 1170. Four years later, the cathedral was entirely destroyed by fire. Therefore, it is not possible that they can show visitors the exact spot ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... morning when you re-read my letters. I add that you must have been in a bad humor to undertake their criticism. Some brilliant engagement, some flattering rendezvous was wanting. But I do not care to elude the difficulty. So I seem to contradict myself sometimes? If I were to admit that it might very well be; if I were to give you the same answer that Monsieur de la Bruyere gave his critics the other day: "It is not I who contradict myself, it is the heart upon which I reason," could ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... To contradict the charge of prepossession to Lovelace, you offer never to have him without our consents: and what is this saying, but that you will hope on for our consents, and to wheedle and tire us out? Then he will always be in expectation while you ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... let the young fail not to make these sacred pages their constant study. Nor should they dream they will find there any contradiction to the lessons read on the broad pages of Nature's book. These are but different methods in which the same God reveals himself to his creatures. He will not contradict himself. His revealed word as plainly asserts his power, wisdom, and goodness, as his works shadow forth these glorious perfections. While the Scriptures do not contradict the voice uttered by nature, they lead us to higher departments of religion, and to ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... narrow shape, ran in no single groove. It covered the Orders, the Faith, the Worship of the Church of God, and it took in with them the ideal of the Christian Life. It was no narrower than that; and they who assume that it was, contradict the conclusions of reason and the testimony of history. The pioneers of our Church were sometimes, in their own days, called by their opponents "covenant-breakers." If, however, they withdrew from covenants entered into by men with each other, it was only that they might attain the fulness of ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... the Owl, "to be obliged to contradict the Crow, my illustrious friend and colleague; but, in my opinion the puppet is still alive; but, if unfortunately he should not be alive, then it would be a sign that he is ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... his actions, and, therefore, animated by an immaterial substance. This is the third article of the curate's faith. Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voices of the body. Immortality of the soul is a pleasing doctrine and there is nothing to contradict it. "When, delivered from the illusions caused by the body and the senses, we shall enjoy the contemplation of the Supreme Being, and of the eternal truths whose source He is, when the beauty of order shall strike all the powers of our soul, and we shall ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... evening by telling us how he met his bishop lately at a Church Congress or something, and the bishop said, "There's a report that you've been seen once or twice lately at the Up-to-Date Variety Theatre, Piccadilly Square, London. You're able to contradict it, of course?" "Oh, that's quite all right, bishop," answered the dear rector; "I have run up to town several times in order to go to the Up-to-Date, but it was for business, not amusement. I'm responsible for the new ballet there, 'Fun, Frills and Frocks.'" So of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... word from Rivers to a passing European, to a policeman, to any one whose word carries in the Settlement, was sufficient. He had but to explain that one of these impertinent yellow pigs had tried to extort three times the legal fare, and his case was won. No coolie could successfully contradict the word of a foreigner, no police court, should matters go as far as that, would take a Chinaman's word against that of a white man. He was quite secure in his bullying, in his dishonesty, in his brutality, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... contradict you, my gracious lady," retorted the captain. "Last year's did not turn ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... a result in which a majority agree will be right. Truth is consistent with itself, but error, in such a case, never is. This the teacher can at any time show by comparing the answers that are wrong; they will always be found, not only to differ from the correct result, but to contradict ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion that any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting the tympany, had disappeared, or that the disorder ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... by Nora's misplaced confidence; but she did not contradict her, for she wished to soothe, not to ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... very paragon of unity, space in its parts contains an infinite variety, and the unity and the variety do not contradict each other, for they obtain in different respects. The one is the whole, the many are the parts. Each part is one again, but only one fraction; and part lies beside part in absolute nextness, the very picture of peace and non-contradiction. It is true ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... for her, to appear in a room was to be its queen; but, like sovereigns, she had no friends, though she was everywhere the object of attentions to which a finer nature than hers might perhaps have succumbed. Not a man, not even an old man, had it in him to contradict the opinions of a young girl whose lightest look could rekindle love in the ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... all possible gravity, but I thought I could see a twinkle at the corner of his eye. I smiled politely, as I did not want to contradict him, and, at the same time, did not wish him to believe that I swallowed ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... it was not an uncommon thing for the hearers, at the close of the sermon, to put questions to the preacher, sometimes to elicit truth, or to express a cordial union of sentiments, or to contradict what the minister had said. Upon one occasion, Mr. Bunyan, after his sermon, had a singular dispute with a scholar. It is narrated by Mr. C. Doe, who was a personal friend and great admirer of our author, and who probably heard it from his own mouth, and will be found ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... because the words offered a way of escape of which she was not sorry to avail herself—Chris did not seek to contradict him. She pressed her cheek to Cinders' alert ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... of the La Bassee road and they was in it on the other? Strewth! When I remember the wiping they got crossing the open, and the way they stuck it and plugged through that mud, and tore the barbed wire up by the roots, and sailed over into the German trench, I'm not going to contradict anybody that calls 'em brave. But it sounds rum to 'ear 'em call ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... maliciously misrepresented us in books, which never die; alledging that we sell our wives and children for the sake of procuring a few kegs of brandy. No! We are shamefully belied, and I hope you will contradict, from my mouth, the scandalous stories that have been propagated; and tell posterity that we have been abused. We do, indeed, sell to the white men a part of our prisoners, and we have a right to do so. Are ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... laws of Romulus, termed by many historians "The Double Decalogue of Romulus." Article XV of this law, as well as Articles IX and X, seem to be directed against the life of these androgynes. In Roman history, however, we have an event which would seem to contradict that there existed any laws in actual force against this unfortunate class. It happened during the existence of the Punic wars, when the people were more or less laboring under fear and excitement, which would readily prepare them to accept ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... affect every tchinovnik in the place. Also, in addition to the great divergency of views expressed thereat, there was visible in all the speakers an invincible tendency to indecision which led them at one moment to make assertions, and at the next to contradict the same. But on at least one point all seemed to agree—namely, that Chichikov's appearance and conversation were too respectable for him to be a forger or a disguised brigand. That is to say, all SEEMED to agree on the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... this it is. Howe'er unworthily I have bestowed my love so long upon thee, That wilt so manifestly contradict me, Yet, that thou may'st perceive how I esteem thee, I make thyself the guardian of thy love, That thine own fancy may make choice for thee. I have persuaded with my Lord of Kent To leave to love thee: now the peevish doctor Swears that his int'rest he will ne'er resign; Therefore ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... and I shook my head at him. I thought what was said foolish and ignorant, but it became not men as young as we to contradict the doctor. It was Rush who, in '77, with Adams and others, sustained Gates, and put him in the Board of War, to the bewilderment of affairs. How deep he was in the scheme of that officer and Conway ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... business with Col. Sellers about Napoleon, you've always told me so," answered Laura, with a look intended to contradict her words. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... public in such a way for the performance, upon which I had resolved, and for the work itself, that at least the sensation caused would lead to a full hall and thus, in a very favourable manner, guarantee satisfactory returns, and contradict their belief that the fund was menaced. Thus the Ninth Symphony had, in every conceivable way, become for me a point of honour, for the success of which I had to exercise all my powers to the utmost. The committee ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... decided to deny whatever told against herself, trusting to Eleanore's generosity not to be contradicted. Nor was her confidence misplaced. Though, by the course she took, Eleanore was forced to deepen the prejudice already rife against herself, she not only forbore to contradict her cousin, but when a true answer would have injured her, actually refused to return any, a lie being something she could not utter, even to save ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... expressing of his thankfulness to God. 4. Did not the apostles' receiving this sacrament from Christ himself well enough express their thankfulness to God? yet they kneeled not, but sat, as is evident, and shall be afterwards proved against them who contradict everything which crosseth them. 5. God will never take a ceremony of men's devising for a better expressing of our thankfulness than a gesture which is commended to us by the example of his own Son, and his apostles, together with the celebration of ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... defenders of the syllogistic doctrine, respecting the limits to which its functions are confined. They affirm in as explicit terms as can be used, that the sole office of general reasoning is to prevent inconsistency in our opinions; to prevent us from assenting to any thing, the truth of which would contradict something to which we had previously on good grounds given our assent. And they tell us, that the sole ground which a syllogism affords for assenting to the conclusion, is that the supposition of its being false, combined with the supposition that the premises are true, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... young guest, haughtily, "we must do our best to contradict the starry evils by our own internal philosophy. We can make ourselves independent of fate; that independence is better than prosperity!" Then, changing his tone, he added,—"But you imagine that, by the power of other arts, we may control and counteract the ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not so much as the ghost of a long-perished Roman mule in this hamlet," I said despondently, hoping that Molly would contradict me. But she, too, looked anxious, now that the great moment had come, for we were driving into a town, at the mouth of a deep gorge already dusky with purpling shadows, and there was no doubt ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Ironmonger Row, for then we should have seen Johnson in a new light. Johnson in an alehouse club, with a metaphysical tailor on one side of him, and an aged writer on the other side of him, 'who spoke English with the city accent and coarsely enough,'[1370] and whom he would never venture to contradict, is a Johnson that we cannot ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... hundred and fifty of these are known to exist. They have been called "guesses at truth;" they are more so than formal solutions of great questions. Many of them are unintelligible rhapsodies; others rise almost to sublimity. They frequently contradict each other; the same writer sometimes contradicts himself. One prevailing characteristic is all-important; their doctrine is pantheism. The pantheism is sometimes not so much a coldly reasoned system as an aspiration, ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... may be sure, in profiting by these rumours. Every one thought I had a share in the Brady marriage; though no one could prove it. Every one thought I was well with the widowed Countess; though no one could show that I said so. But there is a way of proving a thing even while you contradict it, and I used to laugh and joke so apropos that all men began to wish me joy of my great fortune, and look up to me as the affianced husband of the greatest heiress in the kingdom. The papers took up the matter; the female friends of Lady Lyndon remonstrated with her and cried ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will not try to understand her husband's ideas, or at least to believe that they are of more value than she can understand—if she is to join anybody who happens to be against him, and suppose he is a fool because others contradict him—there is an end of our happiness. That is all ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... no wind, and the ivy doesn't grow so high up, and the ivy could not have croaked," thought Jeanne to herself again, though she was far too well brought up a little French girl to contradict ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... expert in human nature, "I'd convict that fellow of murder any time, on the strength of his looks. Never were the worst passions of our nature more prominently shown than in that bad face." Having said which, the speaker looked about for somebody to contradict him, and was disappointed in finding ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... against its opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries to the Constitution the language is that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are but a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one come forward with his particular explanation, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... of late generally maintained that a concrete arch is not an arch at all, but a lintel, without thrust, and that the common form, flat above and arched beneath, is objectionable, as it gives least material at the centre, where a lintel is most strained. The Erfurt experiments directly contradict this view, and it remains for some students of architecture to render the profession a service by repeating them, and, at the same time, actually determining the thrust, for a given load, of arches of particular ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... Councillors—your own Cabinet Ministers—your M. de Calonne!—respecting whom I have often given you my opinion, which, unfortunately, has always been attributed to mere female caprice, or as having been biassed by the intrigues of Court favourites! This, I hope, Your Majesty will now be able to contradict!' ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... not before, the Prince was thought fully to be instal'd, and the forme of government fully established, in-so-much that none might or durst contradict anything which was appoynted by himself, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you. But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... agreed could never be certainly known; which Bacon declared that King Henry in vain endeavored to substantiate, a brave and politic monarch lost his crown, life, and historic fame! Nay, it is a curious fact that Richard could not safely contradict the report of the princes' deaths when it broke out with the outbreak of civil war, because it would have been furnishing to the rebellion a justifying cause and a royal head, instead of a milksop whom he despised and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the conviction can scarcely be resisted that the nuclei of comets not only emit their own light, which is that of a glowing gas, but also, together with the coma and the tail, reflect the light of the sun. There seems nothing, therefore, to contradict the theory that the mass of a comet may be composed of minute solid bodies, kept apart one from another in the same way as the infinitesimal particles forming a cloud of dust or smoke are held loosely together, and that, as the comet approaches the sun, the most ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... contradict, Master Robin," said Sarah; "and if you do I shall tell her. I know well enough who the old gentleman is, and perhaps I might tell you, only you'd go straight off ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... he had an opinion that he had better not contradict the old gentleman as he was accustomed to do ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... westward stream of human activity on this planet had its rise? Is it unreasonable to picture, on an earth spinning eastward, a treadmill rush of feet to follow the sinking light? The history of man's life in this world does not, at any rate, contradict us. Wisdom, discovery, art, commerce, science, civilisation have all moved west across our world; have all in their cycles followed the sun; have all, in their day of power, risen in the East and set ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... manner it was preserved uncorrupted through all the ages of darkness. It bore not the stamp of man, but the impress of God. Men have been unwearied in their efforts to obscure the plain, simple meaning of the Scriptures, and to make them contradict their own testimony; but like the ark upon the billowy deep, the word of God outrides the storms that threaten it with destruction. As the mine has rich veins of gold and silver hidden beneath the surface, so that ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... "I really dislike to contradict you, Mr. Watson," remarked Tom Ruger, as he very carefully readjusted his hat. "Very sorry, Mr. Watson, and I do hope you'll pardon me when I repeat that ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... must decidedly contradict you, Fitz, and I shall appeal confidently to the members of the Society when they come to know him, as they soon will, for I am sure no one else shares your ridiculous prejudices. Harry Walton, in my opinion, is a true ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... "He didn't contradict me, but it has made him watchful and suspicious. If I'd got the money, I was ready to make tracks, and leave them to find their way as ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... Lethueillier's sister for ten guineas. She hesitated, the Bishop died, I thought no more of them, and they may be what Lord Bute has. There is another assertion in Mr. Gough, which I can authentically Contradict. He says Sir Matthew Decker first introduced ananas, p. 134. My very curious picture of Rose, the royal gardener, presenting the first ananas to Charles II. proves the culture here earlier by ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... list, which there was pretty good reason to suppose was accurate, for it was written down in his presence by this friend, who enumerated each article aloud, and had some of them mentioned to him by Mr. Levett, in concert with whom it was made out; and Johnson, who heard all this, did not contradict it. But when I shewed a copy of this list to him, and mentioned the evidence for its exactness, he laughed, and said, 'I was willing to let them go on as they pleased, and never interfered.' Upon which ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... and false ideas, automatically know that fasting is nature's method of healing. Contrary to popular understanding, digestion, assimilation, and elimination require the expenditure of considerable energy. This fact may contradict the reader's experience because everyone has become tired when they have worked a long time without eating, and then experienced the lift after eating. But an ill body cannot digest efficiently so instead of providing energy extracted from foods, the body is further burdened by yet ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... going to contradict you, Caudle; you may say what you like— but I think I ought to know my own feelings better than you. I don't wish to upbraid you neither; I'm too ill for that; but it's not getting wet in thin shoes,—oh, no! it's my mind, Caudle, my mind, that's killing me. Oh, ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... opened this year, altogether in an unusual manner—and therefore I put little faith in her words; but as for saying aught of me or mine, in town or country, Holland or America, that can shake my credit, why I defy her! Still, I would not willingly have any idle stories to contradict; and I shall conclude by saying, you will do well to stop ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... against the representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to censure the behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was pronounced, without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity the distress of the province, was publicly executed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and so I did not dwell on the feelings and interests of others as much as I perhaps ought to have done. There is one point about which I am especially anxious. It never occurred to me before I went that people might say that my going was Ned's fault, and that he had treated me badly. You must contradict this with all your might and main if you hear it ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... conclude this argument. Aristotle says, that anger sometimes serves for arms to virtue and valour. That is probable; nevertheless, they who contradict him pleasantly answer, that 'tis a weapon of novel use, for we move all other arms, this moves us; our hand guides it not, 'tis it that guides our hand; it holds ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... merely human attachments uselessly preoccupy the mind. I warn them that they will be employed in lowly occupations, which are painful to nature; that they will be sent on missions with a Sister who will be charged to contradict them in many things, and treat them like little children—in one word, to humble and mortify them on every occasion. I desire that they learn to obey promptly any one who may be appointed their superior; that they be poor in spirit; that their words, gestures, and whole deportment be neither ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, says: "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the word of God in various passages both of the old and new testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... cannot give himself the lie, so he cannot overthrow his own order of working, nor yet contradict that testimony that his servants, by his inspiration, hath given of his order of working with them. But he must do the first, if he saith to us—and that after we have received his own testimony, that we are under ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the young woman, acquiring by degrees that ascendency over her interrogator which her beauty and her nervous nature conferred; "young as I am, I have already suffered humiliation, and have endured disdain here. Oh! do not contradict me, sire," she said, with a smile. ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a demand so far-reaching involved the disruption of the empire, and ended the connection between Canada and England. To this general objection the British minister added a subtler point in constitutional law. To yield to colonial reforming ideas would be to contradict the existing conventions of the constitution. "The power for which a minister is responsible in England," he wrote to his new governor, "is not his own power, but the power of the crown, of which he is for the time the organ. It is obvious ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... have you never given it a serious thought, dear? To begin with, you are fifty years old. Then you have just the sort of face to put on a fruit stall; if the woman tried to sell you for a pumpkin, no one would contradict her. You puff and blow like a seal when you come upstairs; your paunch rises and falls like the diamond on a woman's forehead! It is pretty plain that you served in the dragoons; you are a very ugly-looking old man. Fiddle-de-dee. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... surmount. So she asked my other relations to persuade me to remain. I yielded to their importunities on condition that they would never interfere with my beliefs. To accomplish this end they got a priest with whom they were intimate to say that I had changed my views once more, and I did not contradict the report. It was a great sin on my part, and I deeply repent it. I must add, however, that whenever anyone has asked me the question your Excellency asked me just now I have ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... has to turn for a living, or to keep ennui at bay. But I, no, the inimical sex may possess their souls in peace, as far as I am concerned. They might retort that they never had felt nervous, but a letter has the same advantage as the pulpit: the adversary can never get up and contradict. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... has pledged his head and soul That he has seen my nephew Tristram, Lord Of Lyonesse within my realm, and so, If none stand forth to contradict, Iseult ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... The cipher and the desirability you expressed of a means of communication unreadable save by you two,—all this was enough to start the suspicion; your own manner has done the rest. Mr. Steele, you are both a villain and a bastard, and have no right in law to this woman. Contradict me if you dare." ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... that "If the Scriptures of the Brahmans and the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians, widely separated as they are by age and nationality, are but different names for one and the same truth, who can then say that the Scriptures contradict each other? A careful and reverent collation of the two sets of Scriptures will show forth the conscious and intelligent design of revelation." The fact that the Bhagavad Gita is thoroughly pantheistic, while the Bible emphasizes ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the word has gone round:—"Let us get the bill, let us get the bill, and then!" But enough remains to show the general tone. Addressing the Irish National Literary Society, of Loughrea, Miss Gonne said that she must "contradict Lord Wolseley in his statement that England was never insulted by invasion since the days of William the Conqueror. It would be deeply interesting to the men and women of Connaught to hear once again how a gallant body of French troops, fighting in the name of Liberty and Ireland, had conquered ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... explained, rather pleased than otherwise to be the sole narrator of the interesting tale. Needless to say, she and Bill Farnsworth figured as the principal actors in her dramatic version of the motor adventure, and, naturally, Bill could not contradict her. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... this, that even if he didn't like the man, and if he were tired of this sort of life, he would go on just the same because he thinks it a fine thing not to give way." This was so true that Phineas did not dare to contradict the statement, and therefore said nothing. "I had some faint hope," continued the Earl, "while Laura could always watch him; because, in his way, he was fond of his sister. But that is all over now. She will have enough to do ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... not permit adherence to the truth to obstruct the path to a complete alibi. Mary-'Gusta, who had been taught by the beloved Mrs. Bailey to consider lying a deadly sin, regarded her companion's lapses with alarmed disapproval, but she was too loyal to contradict and more than once endured reproof when the fault was not hers. She had had few playmates in her short life and this one, though far ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cartridges, if I can't get a pair of trousers and shoes, then my name's not Anastasio Montanez! Look here, Quail, you don't believe it, do you? You ask my partner Demetrio if I haven't half a dozen bullets in me already. Christ! Bullets are marbles to me! And I dare you to contradict me!" ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... getting his own way, his petulant sulks resembled those of a spoilt child put in a corner, only they lasted longer. There was one shop in Riversford which he had not entered for ten years, because its owner had ventured, with trembling respect, to contradict him on a small matter. Occasionally he could be quite the 'dear darling old man' his lady admirers judged him to be,—but after all, his servants knew him best. To them, 'Sir Morton was a caution.' And that is precisely what he was; the definition entirely summed ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... seen him bullyrag and browbeat a judge of our Supreme Court in a way that made me shudder, though I admit that the judge in question owed his appointment entirely to the friend of my son who happened to be giving the dinner; and he will contradict in a loud tone men and women older than myself, no matter what happens to be the subject under discussion. They seem to like it—why, I do not pretend to understand. They admire his assurance and good nature, and are rather afraid ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... what I'm talking about, Thor. Don't contradict. Seems your uncle Sim has had his eye ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... good justice left off speaking, and no one could contradict the truth of what he had said. Weston humbly submitted to his sentence, but he was very poor, and knew not where to raise the money to pay his fine. His character had always been so fair, that several farmers present kindly agreed to advance a trifle each, to prevent ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... how it can? There are crowds of arguers who contradict this; and those not only Epicureans, whom I regard very little, but, somehow or other, almost every man of letters; and, above all, my favorite Dicaearchus is very strenuous in opposing the immortality ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... that morning, but they came in course in speaking on Exodus xii., on which chapter I had spoken four times before. After I had finished, I was going to pray at the close, when I was interrupted by brother—, the principal and teaching elder (as to outward authority). He stated that he must contradict me, for I had said: 1, The bread and wine in the Lord's supper meant the body and blood of our Lord, whilst, as he believed, and as the word said, it was the real body and blood of our Lord. 2, He believed that as circumcision made a man an Israelite, ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... readiness, although, in so doing, I was obliged to be very circumspect not to commit him: therefore, I passed my days in the double fear of appearing ignorant, and of having my ears cut off in case I happened to be too wise. However, as none among our own countrymen could contradict us, we were listened to as oracles, and we exemplified what the poet Al Miei has so justly remarked: 'That in the country of the dumb the sound of one voice, be it even that of an ass, would ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... said Frances, and by this time Lady Myrtle's attention was fully caught. 'Of course I don't mean to contradict you, Aunt Alison, but I do know they're the same family, and so they are relations of Lady Myrtle's. And it's not only that I like them. I'm so very sorry for them, so very sorry. They are all so good, and they have so very, very many troubles,' ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... efficiency of God."- One or both of these Mr. Darwin (being, as Dr. Hodge says, a theist) must needs hold to in some form or other; wherefore he may be presumed to hold the fourth proposition in such wise as not really to contradict the first or the third. The proper antithesis is with the second proposition only, and the issue comes to this: Have the multitudinous forms of living creatures, past and present, been produced by as many special and independent acts of creation at ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... it had," rejoined Charles, gallantly. "I will not contradict you, my lord," said Amabel; "it is possible you may have loved me, though I find it difficult to reconcile your professions of regard with your conduct—but this is not to the purpose. Whether you ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... protested that the public would cry shame, would say John Massingbird had no human right to Verner's Pride, would suspect he had obtained it by fraud, or by some sort of underhand work. Mr. Verner replied that I—Matiss—could contradict that. At last the ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... elected grand master; he required an oath of fealty from all those places which had been pledged to his father by the Elector George William. He also issued his mandates in Berlin, and toward magistrates and judiciary he assumed the attitude of Stadtholder in the Mark. And nobody ventured to contradict him, no court had the spirit to oppose him, for the young count stood at the head of a host of powerful and influential friends; the courts were weak and powerless, and as yet no instructions had been received from the Elector ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... to know, but in nine cases out of ten they don't know," declared Owlett. "And if you contradict their lies, they're so savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the more rather than confess them. That will ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... in which Plotinus (following Plato) bids us mount by means of the beauty of the external world, do not contradict those other passages in which he bids us "turn from things without to look within" (Enn. iv. 8. 1). Remembering that postulate of all Mysticism, that we only know a thing by becoming it, we see that ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... illustrate: A student comes for his first lesson. I "try his voice." His tone is harsh, white, throaty and unsympathetic. It is not the singing tone and I tell him it is "all wrong." He does not contradict me but places himself on the defensive and awaits developments. I question him to find out what he thinks of his own voice, how it impresses him, etc. I find it makes no impression on him because he has no standard. He says he doesn't ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... found his name, and that he had been discharged in the West Indies on the 2nd of February. I determined, therefore, to see him. I cross-examined him in the best manner I could. I could neither make him contradict himself, nor say anything that militated against the testimony of Ormond. I was convinced, therefore, of the truth of the transaction; and, having obtained his consent, I sent him to London to stay with the latter, till he should hear further from ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... house of Terah, followed by the other magicians, some of whom now said they also had seen a star swallow four others. They did not think it wise to contradict their chief, although he had drunk a great deal of wine and could ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... agreed the American. "Sorry I can't contradict you. But these gorgeous Koras and Phrynes remind me of a wild blossom in our country; it is exquisite in form, beautiful to the eye, but poison if touched to the lips. It is called ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... cathedral at Basel. The front presents an archaic sweet smile, but the back is covered with toads and snakes. Dream-analysis reverses things and allows the back side to be seen. That this correct picture of reality possesses an ethical value is what no one can contradict. It is a painful but very useful operation, which demands a great deal from the physician as well as from the patient. Psychoanalysis seen from the standpoint of therapeutic technic consists chiefly of numerous analyses of dreams; ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... look down on such miserable translators, who make doggerel of his Latin, mistake his meaning, misapply his censures, and often contradict their own? He is fixed as a landmark to set ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... policy consists in selecting some dish from every course, and recommending it to the company, with an air so decisive, that no one ventures to contradict him. By this practice he acquires at a feast a kind of dictatorial authority; his taste becomes the standard of pickles and seasoning, and he is venerated by the professors of epicurism, as the only man who understands the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... "I know it isn't polite to contradict a lady but if you'll tell me how you are goin' to get 'em out without killin' 'em, I'll be ever so much obliged. You can't ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... said I was ill; and I did not contradict you, because you tell me that in the world, as you call it, it is not always right to give the real reason for what we do; and therefore I thought, perhaps, that though of course you wished me to come away, you liked to put it upon my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... only in washing and dressing itself, but in opinions and conduct; yet as nothing is so exasperating and so unlovable as an uppish child, it is useless to expect parents and schoolmasters to inculcate this uppishness. Such unamiable precepts as Always contradict an authoritative statement, Always return a blow, Never lose a chance of a good fight, When you are scolded for a mistake ask the person who scolds you whether he or she supposes you did it on purpose, and follow the question ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... in those happy days when parents make astounding assertions to other parents about the intelligence and certain future brilliancy of their offspring, and the other parents, however much they may pity such self-deception, can't contradict, because after all it just possibly may be so, the most foolish people occasionally producing geniuses,—in those happy days of undisturbed bright castle-building, the mother, who was English, of the two derelicts now huddled on the dank deck of the St. Luke, said to the father, ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... at me for a moment as if slightly hurt in his feelings. Then: 'Don't contradict,' he said sharply, and laughed as I stared in my turn. 'Expression of yours,' he said. 'Sounds rude; but all depends how you say it. I reckon I've caught up the accent—eh?—by the quick way you looked up. . . . I hadn't much school ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... peculiarly to the church of Corinth only? Or was the world, life, death, things present and to come, given to the wicked in the church of Corinth? 3. That the apostles are made the first subject of all apostolical power. But then, how doth this contradict the former assertion, that a particular congregation is the first subject of all offices with their gifts and power? Are there two first subjects of the same adjuncts? Or is apostleship no office? Are apostolical gifts no gifts, or power no power? ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... like a wall on each side, to guard their path, appealing to them at the same time in proof of my testimony; it would be impossible, I say, to convince those people it were true, provided the event had not happened. Every person would be at hand to contradict me, and consequently it would be impossible that such an imposition could be put upon them against the direct ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Moran, who cling to the Scotch theory of St. Patrick's birth, all contradict the Scholiast, who asserts that St. Patrick was born in Dumbarton; whilst those who hold fast to the Dumbarton theory make frantic efforts to convert the Crag ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... scolded. At Vevay, Laurie was never idle, but always walking, riding, boating, or studying in the most energetic manner, while Amy admired everything he did and followed his example as far and as fast as she could. He said the change was owing to the climate, and she did not contradict him, being glad of a like excuse for her own ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Jean dejectedly. He waited until the priest sauntered away. It was not for him to contradict a priest. But watching humid darkness grow over the place where Kaskaskia had been, he told himself ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... li'ble to cold, and this one's on my chest. And then they tell you to speak up. They bait you—and bait you, and bait you. It's torture. The strain of it. You can't remember what you said. You're bound to contradict yourself. It's like Russia, George.... It isn't fair play.... Prominent man. I've been next at dinners with that chap, Neal; I've told him stories—and he's bitter! Sets out to ruin me. Don't ask a civil question—bellows." ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... with his old friends and his ideas of earlier times. M. de Villele and M. de Martignac lent themselves to his views in this difficult work; and after their fall, which he scarcely opposed, Charles X. found himself left to his natural tendencies, in the midst of advisers little disposed to contradict, and without the power of restraining him. Two fatal mistakes then established themselves in his mind; he fancied that he was menaced by the Revolution, much more than was really the fact; and he ceased to believe in the possibility of defending himself, and of governing by the legal course ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... is some sense in that, boy; always contradict ill report by personal merit. But what think you of her ladyship? 'Gad, you know what old Bellair said of Emilia. 'Make much of her: she's one of the best of your acquaintance. I like her countenance and behaviour. Well, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would be likely to respond that neither of them belonged to the laboring class, and he could not contradict her. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... Gideon. He's a Gentile by religion, by the way; an ordinary agnostic. Aunt Cynthia, don't go on spreading that nonsense, if you don't mind. You might contradict it ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... not out of fear that I refrain from giving the names of the German princes who appear in this work, but because, having discovered the secret springs of their actions, I should too often have to contradict their lying, flattering, ignorant historians; and men who willingly allow themselves to be deceived, might perhaps doubt the truth of my assertions. Hercules himself could not clear away all the ordure which these ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... Gen. Early's corps arriving. The papers contradict the report that Howlett's Battery has been taken. The opinion prevails that a battle will ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... those days! You didn't get it at all till you got it altogether, and then you got it like a thunderbolt. There was no dribbling of advance telegrams; no daily papers to spread the news (or lies), and contradict 'em next day, in the same columns with commentaries or prophetic remarks on what might or should have been, but wasn't, until news got muddled up into a hopeless entanglement, so that when all was ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... precocious piece of work. At the time it was first shown it was considered especially good in its harmonious and original colouring, nor did a sight of it in 1896 at the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy contradict the generous verdict of contemporary critics. At Brussels he painted a portrait of himself, a notable thing of its kind, wherein we see a slight, dark youth, with a face of much charm and distinction, whose features one easily sees to be like those of later portraits. ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... it worth while to contradict single cases nor is it worth while arguing against those who do not attend to what I state. A moment's reflection will show you that there must be (on our doctrine) large genera not varying (see page 56 on the subject, in the second edition of the 'Origin'). Though I do not there ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... would thus answer the double purposes of show and utility; and, as soon as the supper and card tables should be removed, the sofa-bed might be let down. She asserted that the first people in London manage in this way. Leonard could not contradict his lady, because she had a ready method of silencing him, by asking how he could possibly know any thing of life who had lived all his days, except Sundays, in Cranbourne-alley? Then, if any one of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth |
