"Controvert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... convert, invert, pervert, advertize, inadvertent, verse, aversion, adverse, adversity, adversary, version, anniversary, versatile, divers, diversity, conversation, perverse, universe, university, traverse, subversive, divorce; (2) vertebra, vertigo, controvert, revert, averse, versus, versification, animadversion, vice versa, controversy, tergiversation, obverse, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of art and poetry, in the abstract, holds good as to their various kinds; and we may apply what has been advanced to the subject of tragedy. In this department it is still necessary to controvert the ordinary notion of the natural, with which poetry is altogether incompatible. A certain ideality has been allowed in painting, though, I fear, on grounds rather conventional than intrinsic; but in dramatic works what is desired ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... you, and I made no conditions concerning what amount of income I was to receive, but still I left him in entire possession of my business when he married you. I trusted to your fair, young face, that you would not controvert my wishes—that you would join me in my ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... at breakfast there was neither sense nor justice in the way Grandpa always has acted and she said she would wager all she was worth that he would live to regret it. She said it wasn't natural, and when people undertook to controvert—ain't that a peach? Bet there isn't a woman in ten miles using that word except Ma—nature they always hurt themselves worse than they hurt their victims. And I bet he does, too, and I, for one, don't care. I hope he does get a good jolt, just to ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... you mustn't believe, because he talks loud, and in italics every other word, that he wants to do all the talking and won't be interfered with. That's the way he's apt to strike folks at first—but it's their mistake, not his. Talk back to him—controvert him whenever he's aggressive in the utterance of his opinions, and if you're only honest in the announcement of your own ideas and beliefs, he'll like you all the better for standing by them. He's quick-tempered, and perhaps a trifle sensitive, so share ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... think me at this moment the very princess of apologies and excuses and depreciations and all the rest of the small family of distrust—or of hypocrisy ... who knows? Well! but you are wrong ... wrong ... to think so; and you will let me say one word to show where you are wrong—not for you to controvert, ... because it must relate to myself especially, and lies beyond your cognizance, and is something which I must know best after all. And it is, ... that you persist in putting me into a false position, with respect to fixing days and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the Smith, testifies to these things in his own clerkly script. He adds particularly that his brother Laurence, being at the time but a boy, had little knowledge of many of the actual facts, and is not to be believed if at any time he should controvert anything which he (Sholto) has written. So far, however, as the present collector and editor can find out, Laurence MacKim appears to have been entirely silent on the subject, at least with his pen, so that ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the man's defence could be," he wrote, in part, "but my evidence a mere denial could hardly controvert. The whole countryside knows the man is crooked; they know he was investigated; they are now awaiting with full confidence the punishment for well-understood peculation. I can hardly exaggerate the body blow to the Service ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... for Mr. Crewe to say any more than that—no need for the admirable discussion of railroad finance from an expert's standpoint which followed to controvert Mr. Ridout's misleading statements. The reading of the words on the slip of paper of which he had so mysteriously got possession (through Mr. Hamilton Tooting) was sufficient to bring about a disorder that for a full ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... assure himself that it was her dangerous laxity of principle that blinded her to the nobility and sanctity of asceticism; but it was impossible to feel that such was the case. He was teased by a wish which he would not acknowledge that she might advance arguments which he could not controvert; though to himself he said that she would be his temptation in tangible form, and that he would struggle against it with ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... adopt the other alternative, and to suppose the diurnal movements were due to the rotation of the earth. Here Ptolemy saw, or at all events fancied he saw, objections of the weightiest description. The evidence of the senses appeared directly to controvert the supposition that this earth is anything but stationary. Ptolemy might, perhaps, have dismissed this objection on the ground that the testimony of the senses on such a matter should be entirely subordinated to the interpretation which our intelligence would place upon the facts to which the ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... this Welsh derivation of Wrexham, which I did not attempt to controvert. After we had had some further discourse John Jones got up, shook me by the hand, gave a sigh, wished me a "taith hyfryd," and departed. Thus terminated my last ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... requirements are often very unequal as applied to different individuals. The equalization of educational opportunity does not at all mean the same duplicated method or content for all. That interpretation will controvert the very spirit and purpose of the principle stated. Any inflexible scheme which attempts to fashion all children into types, according to preconceived notions, and whose perpetuity is rooted in a psychology based on the uniformity of the human mind, simply must ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... Ashburner's surprise his friend made no attempt to controvert his argument. He only turned ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... with himself - here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to be successful. There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted. It is so in every art and study; it is so above all in the continent art of living well. Here is a pleasant thought for the year's ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even employing them to educate classes in English, formed of the young men of the country. Some writers have lately spoken of an organized persecution of Christians as existing in Japan to-day. This we cannot absolutely controvert, but it was a subject of inquiry with us in different sections of the country, and an entirely different conclusion was the result of all we could learn. There can be no doubt that an inclination to conform to the American model in government and habits ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... you have never realized the force of the word indissoluble as applied to the contract binding man and woman! I have no wish to controvert what has been laid down by philosophers or legislators—they are quite capable of doing this for themselves—but, dear one, in making marriage irrevocable and imposing on it a relentless formula, which admits of no exceptions, they have rendered ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... honored and admired, the decay of mental powers is peculiarly trying, and every effort should be made to lessen the trial by courteous attention to their opinions, and by avoiding all attempts to controvert them, or to make evident any weakness or fallacy in ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he knew not how to controvert these words, and it seemed as if Uzza had won his suit. But the Lord Himself espoused the cause of Israel, and He said to Uzza: "The duty of serving thy nation was laid upon My children only on account of an unseemly ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... well to be witty," returned Thuillier; "but you can't controvert what I say. I am logical, if I am not brilliant. It is very natural that I should console myself by seeing that public opinion decides in my favor, and by reading in its organs the most honorable assurances of sympathy; but do you suppose ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... books would tell me—for practical purposes, for applied science, the best science, the only science, I'd rather take the thing up and go through with it myself. I'd find out more about it than any one could tell me, and I'd be sure of what I know. That's the thing. Professor this or that will controvert you out of the books, and prove out of the books it can't be so, though you have it right in the hollow of your hand all the time and could ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... work on the ceremonies of the Imperial Court, amounted to one-third of the Mito revenues, a sum of about 700,000 ryo. There can be little doubt that Mitsukuni's proximate purpose in undertaking the colossal work was to controvert a theory advanced by Hayashi Razan that the Emperor of Japan was descended from the Chinese prince, Tai Peh, of Wu, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... thing signified." Now if the Papists in the sacrament kneel to the sign, then they have idolatrously abused kneeling, even in the participation; for the Bishop dare not say that, in the elevation or circumgestation, there is either sacrament or sign. 2. Why do our divines controvert with the Papists, de adoratione euchuristiae, if Papists adore it not in the participation? for the host, carried about in a box, is not the sacrament of the eucharist. 3. In the participation, Papists think that the bread is already transubstantiate into ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... raw fish and crabs after the manner of the fabled Ichthyophagi, laughing, kissing, saying nice things about God, and combing out each other's long tow-coloured hair. Madame Steynlin, a spectator by necessity if not deliberate choice of these patriarchal frolics, disdained to controvert certain frivolous folk who resorted to the same beach to gratify a morbid curiosity, under the pretext that it was a delectable entertainment and one of the sights of Nepenthe. She disdained, nowadays. It had not ever been thus. Things were different before Peter the Great came ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... of the alleged conspiracy and save the Emperor inconsistent with their slow progress from Britain towards Rome. Never having been in Britain and knowing little of it from such reports as I had heard, I could not controvert their assertion that the state of the roads and weather there had made impossible greater speed than they had achieved from their quarters to their port, yet I suspected that men really systematically in earnest might have accomplished in twenty ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... court; and if it shall be found that it has not, the case is at end, so far as this court is concerned; for our power to review the case upon its merits has been made, by the twenty-fifth section, to depend upon its having jurisdiction; when it has not, this court cannot criticise, controvert, or give any opinion upon the merits of a case ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... their lives. Indeed, it is contrary to all experience to believe that any man remembers all the things he has once known, and the observed fallaciousness and evanescence of memory would thus tend to substantiate rather than to controvert the idea that various members of a tribe had been alive ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... position, my lords, I have no intention to controvert; as it is not to violate justice, but to preserve it from violation, that this bill has been projected or defended. But, my lords, it is to be observed, that they who so warmly recommend the strictest adherence to justice, seem not fully to understand the duty which they urge. To do justice, my ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... can scarcely be said to have been the first to controvert the humus theory, he certainly dealt it its death-blow. He reasserted de Saussure's conclusions, and by some simple calculations showed very clearly that it was wholly untenable. One of the most striking of the arguments he brought ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... speak seriously) that is what I stand here to controvert: and I derive no small encouragement when—as has more than once happened—A, a scientific man, comes to me and complains that he for his part cannot understand B, another scientific man, 'because the fellow can't express himself.' And the need to study precision ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... abolished grand juries in whole or part. To review a capital sentence for murder in one of these States, a writ of error was prayed out from the Supreme Court of the United States in 1883. The constitutionality of the State law was sustained. In disposing of the case the court did not controvert the position that by the English common law no man could be tried for murder unless on a presentment or indictment proceeding from a grand jury. But, said the opinion, while that is due process of law which had the sanction of settled usage, both in England and in this country, at ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... the same situation which you would be if he adhered. You claimed that General Grant finally said in that Saturday's conversation that you understood his views, and his proceedings thereafter would be consistent with what had been so understood. General Grant did not controvert nor can I say that he admitted this last statement. Certainly General Grant did not at any time in the Cabinet meeting insist that he had in the Saturday's conversation either distinctly or finally advised ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... at that period, sailors enjoyed a high pre-eminence in feeling. I have heard that the spirit was encouraged by those in command, and that narratives of French perfidy, treachery, and even cowardice, were the popular traditions of the sea-service. We certainly could not controvert the old adage as to "listeners," for every observation and every anecdote conveyed a sneer or an insult on our country. There could be no reproach in listening to these, unresented, but Santron assumed a most indignant air, and more than once affected ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... surely it is possible to controvert your opinion! Besides, we are somewhat exposed where we stand. Even an arrow might reach us from the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... works of nature, and not of art. But when one generation had passed away, and another, not compromised to the support of antiquated dogmas, had succeeded, they would review the evidence afforded by mummies more impartially, and would no longer controvert the preliminary question, that human beings had lived in Egypt before the nineteenth century: so that when a hundred years perhaps had been lost, the industry and talents of the philosopher would be at last ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... in these lines corroborative of Durand's opinion, but as I do not know the age of the lines I cannot controvert his opinion, but if it was believed that the tolling of a bell could drive away pestilence, well can it be understood that its sound could be credited with being inimical to Evil Spirits, and that it sent them away to other places ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... as these they endeavoured to controvert the PARROCO who, being a fighter to the death, a resourceful ascetic of unbending will, never admitted defeat. He bethought him of other shifts. On one celebrated occasion he actually induced the bishop—tired as the old prelate was, after ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... architectonic functions ascribed by Wolf to Peisistratus and his associates, in reference to the Homeric poems, are nowise admissible. But much would undoubtedly be gained towards that view of the question, if it could be shown, that, in order to controvert it, we were driven to the necessity of admitting long written poems, in the ninth century before the Christian aera. Few things, in my opinion, can be more improbable; and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian hypothesis, admits this no ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... arbitrary assertions of the Lombrosists have been contradicted, especially through the efforts of German investigators. But others, like Debierre in Lille, Sernoff in Moscow, Taine, Drill, Marchand have also had occasion to controvert the Italian positivists. At the same time, the problem of heredity is not dead, and will not die. This is being shown particularly in the retort of Marchand concerning the examinations he made with M. E. Koslow, in the asylum for juvenile offenders founded by the St. Petersburg Anthropological ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... was brief, and, to sharp legal ears, vague and unconvincing. Although he pointed out that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that in the absence of direct testimony the accused was entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt, he did not attempt to controvert the statements of the Crown witnesses, or suggest that the Crown had not established its case. His address, combined with the fact that he had not cross-examined any of the Crown witnesses, suggested to the listening lawyers that he had either ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... can be more ridiculous than this fancy of the Americans being descended from the Jews: Without stopping to controvert this absurd opinion, it need only be noticed that the Jews, at least after their return from captivity, have uniformly rejected the use of images, even under the severest persecutions; except perhaps in Spain, where the modern ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... been made at the one "inconspicuous" place where the orator would be sure of a warm welcome, and asking why Manchester or Liverpool had not been chosen. In fact, however, the Times was attempting to controvert "our ancient enemy" Bright as an apostle of democracy rather than to fan the flames of irritation over the Trent, and the prominence given to Bright's speech indicates a greater readiness to consider as hopeful an escape from the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... not presume to controvert this censure, which was tinctured with his prejudice against players[1181]; but I could not help thinking that a dramatick poet might with propriety pay a compliment to an eminent performer, as Whitehead has very happily done in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... this explanation, and are grateful for the deliverance it works for us, we must also admit, (and we are not aware that Mr Mill would controvert this admission,) that there is a large class of cases in which our reasoning betrays no reference to this anterior experience, and where the usual explanation given by teachers of logic is perfectly applicable; cases where our object is, not the discovery of truth for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Bowles has, I find, addressed to you a letter in which he attempts to controvert two statements of mine by the simple expedient of omitting essential ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... again till the day was near a close; and the things that he strove most to inculcate on my mind were the infallibility of the elect, and the preordination of all things that come to pass. I pretended to controvert the first of these, for the purpose of showing him the extent of my argumentative powers, and said that "indubitably there were degrees of sinning which would induce the Almighty to throw off the very elect." But ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... objects with which they have been associated, but that they should actually be seen. And then he must maintain that no power of association can enable us to see an object which can only be touched—a position which, certainly, no one will controvert. The simple answer to all which, is, that we never do see tangible objects—that the theory never requires we should, and that no power of association is necessary to account for a phenomenon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... was a prohibition in Holy Writ, against the use of any other language in addresses made to the Deity. This was in the year 1070. But though the Bohemians yielded so far to an authority which they knew not how to controvert, their firmness, in reference to the celibacy of the clergy, was not so easily overcome. The legate who brought to Prague a bull to this effect in 1197, was set upon by the ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... has, at one time or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems probable that the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal line of mental evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, such as this, cannot be held to controvert the view that regards phallicism as in this normal line. Nor was the attitude of mind that not only accepts sex at face-value as an obvious fact, but uses the concept of it to explain other facts, a merely transitory one. We may, ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... blind to the faults of its offspring is a fact so obvious that in attempting to prove or controvert it time and logic are both wasted. Ill temper in a child is, alas! too often mistaken for an indication of genius; and impudence is sometimes regarded as a sign of precocity. The author, however, ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... respected. That there was cause for just indignation on the part of the people towards the British soldiers, there is no doubt. But there is reason to question the time and manner of the assault made by the citizens. Doubtless they had "a zeal, but not according to knowledge." There is no record to controvert the fact of the leadership of Crispus Attucks. A manly-looking fellow, six feet two inches in height, he was a commanding figure among the irate colonists. His enthusiasm for the threatened interests of the Province, his loyalty to the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... finished his exposition, and the sergeant-at-law was about to conclude a case which Nigel could in no way controvert, when help came to him from an unexpected quarter. It may have been a certain malignity with which the sacrist urged his suit, it may have been a diplomatic dislike to driving matters to extremes, or it may have been some genuine impulse of kindliness, for Abbot ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his opponents much time to oppose or controvert with argument the discoveries made by him with the telescope before his announcement of a new one attracted public attention from those already known. He, however, exercised greater caution in disclosing the results of his observations, as other persons laid claim to having made ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... constrain'd, I come. For who would, voluntary, such a breadth Enormous measure of the salt expanse, Where city none is seen in which the Gods Are served with chosen hecatombs and pray'r? 120 But no divinity may the designs Elude, or controvert, of Jove supreme. He saith, that here thou hold'st the most distrest Of all those warriors who nine years assail'd The city of Priam, and, (that city sack'd) Departed in the tenth; but, going thence, Offended Pallas, who with adverse ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... man. "In England," continued he, "the merchant governs the cabinet; and the cabinet governs the parliament; and the sovereign governs both; but," said he, "the capitalists, (by which he meant the mercantile interest) govern the whole." I did not choose to controvert his opinions; but, "thinks-I-to-my-self," ah! Sawney, thou art mistaken; America, democratic America, has proved that the most democratical government upon the terraqueous globe, has gone steadily on to greatness, to victory and to glory, with the capitalists or mercantile interest, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... monuments of his reign. But why did he wish to stamp false initials on things with which neither he nor his reign had any connection; as, for example the old Louvre? Did he imagine that the letter, "N" which everywhere obtruded itself on the eye, had in it a charm to controvert the records of history, or alter ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... that he spent some years of his life in the lunatic asylum at Warm Springs, in the adjoining commonwealth of Missouri. This cuckoo cry—raised though it is by dogs of political darkness—we shall not stoop to controvert, for it is accidentally true; but next week we shall show, as by the stroke of an enchanter's wand, that this great statesman's detractors would probably not derive any benefits from a residence in the same institution, their mental ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... maxims to a boy, and afterwards, when these maxims became adult in his mature age, of abandoning both the disciple and the doctrine, Mr. Burke never attempted, in any one particular, either to criminate or to recriminate. It may be said that he had nothing of the kind in his power. This he does not controvert. He certainly had it not in his inclination. That gentleman had as little ground for the charges which he was so easily provoked to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... could not surprise her in the commission of a sin: and he returned from his pursuit of her, ridiculous when he should have been triumphant. He took his revenge at last. And now that he might tell his story and find no one to controvert it—how he came to claim his wife and child, and found no child, but the lover by the wife's side; was attacked, defended himself, struck right and left, and thus did the deed—she survives, by miracle, to confute him, to condemn him, and worst ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... "A bank-robber, and what you call a murderer, likewise, has his rights, which men of enlightened humanity and conscience should regard in so much the more liberal spirit, because the bulk of society is prone to controvert their existence. An almost spiritual medium, like the electric telegraph, should be consecrated to high, deep, joyful, and holy missions. Lovers, day by, day—hour by hour, if so often moved to do it,—might send their heart-throbs from Maine to Florida, with some such words as ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to controvert this diagnosis. Mr. Queed had in fact impressed her as the most frankly and grossly self-centred person she had ever seen in her life. But unlike West, her uppermost feeling in regard to him was a strong sense of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison |
