"Disprove" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely asserted that the passages omitted were defamatory, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory. The last insinuation I took the trouble publickly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in 'the lie o'erthrown.' [Prologue to the Satires, l. 350.] As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... formed to explain the tumor, all of them of interest, and they have had great importance in that the attempt to prove or disprove the hypothesis by continued observation and experiment along definite lines has produced new knowledge. The various theories as to cause may be divided ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... didactic and assertive for it is impossible to prove or disprove any of these postulates. It is for that reason, and the lack of time that I cite no instances. They would be merely illustrative and not probative, for the human intellect is unequal to any adequate inductive study of the subject, and human life is too short to classify, master and digest the data ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... punctually discovered. But long he must not walke, lest hee make his newes-presse stand. Thanks to his good invention, he can collect much out of a very little: no matter though more experienced judgements disprove him; hee is anonymos, and that wil secure him. To make his reports more credible or, (which he and his stationer onely aymes at,) more vendible, in the relation of every occurrent he renders you ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... question and disprove the unqualified statement of the Appeal, that "the original settled policy of the United States was non-extension of slavery." Less convincing was Douglas's attempt to prove that the Missouri Compromise was expressly annulled in 1850, when portions of Texas and of the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Medieval Accusations against the Jews," published a refutation of the ritual myth under the title "Do the Jews use Christian Blood?," he was attacked in the Novoye Vremya by the liberal historian Kostomarov who attempted to disprove the conclusions of the defender of Judaism. The paper itself, hitherto liberal in its tendency, changed front about that time, and, steering its course by the prevailing moods in the leading Government circles, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... read of in history. Critics ambitious to say something new may rake out slanders from the archives of enemies, and discover faults which derogate from the character we have been taught to admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we cannot disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness, which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness,—but this we know, that, whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Russia, they were not so successful as in Germany: however, it must be remembered that, if this kind of war is not suitable to all capacities, regions, or circumstances, its chances of success are still very great, and it is based upon principle. Napoleon abused the system; but this does not disprove its real advantages when a proper limit is assigned to its enterprises and they are made in harmony with the respective conditions of the armies and ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... "refuse to concur" in the impeachment of Laud. There is nothing, we believe, but the general statement of Clarendon that his friend regarded with horror the storm gathering against the archbishop, which the words of Falkland himself, just quoted, seem sufficient to disprove. Mr. Arnold tells us that "Falkland disliked Laud; he had a natural antipathy to his heat, fussiness, and arbitrary temper." He had an antipathy to a good deal more in Laud than this, and expressed his dislike in language which showed that he was himself not deficient in heat when ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Scotland,[59] supposes the Extracta to have been written posterior to the time of Fordun, and prior to the date of Bower's Continuation of the Scotichronicon,—a conjecture which one or more passages in the work entirely disprove.[60] If the opinion of Mr. Tytler had been correct, it would have been important as a proof that the story of the royal adventure of Alexander upon Inchcolm was written by Fordun, and not by Bower, inasmuch as the two ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... lullaby himself into the belief that the woodcock is safe from extermination. As sure as the world, it is going! The fact that a little pocket here or there contains a few birds does not in the slightest degree disprove the main fact. If the sportsmen of this country desire to save the seed stock of woodcock, they must give it everywhere five or ten-year close seasons, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the French judges in the time of the trial of the rehabilitation, the fact of Joan of Arc being proved to have been incontestably a virgin was of the highest interest. It was reserved for a countryman of Joan of Arc's (Du Bellay) to invent a legend to disprove the fact; and to the everlasting shame of French literature, Voltaire adopted the lying calumny in his licentious burlesque-heroic poem, ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... undertaken in jest, in order to disprove the assertion made by an acquaintance that Falstaff was a coward; but, inspired by his subject, it was continued and finished in splendid earnest. As his analysis of the character of Falstaff becomes more intimate his wonder grows at the concrete human personality he apprehends. Falstaff ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... and suffer beyond the measure of other men. You can consider that when they hate most causelessly there is a divine love in them somewhere; and that when they see most falsely they are loyal to some ideal light. Forgive this enemy, this accuser, this traducer. Disprove him by your generosity. Let no tear of an admirer of his poetry drop upon your purple. Make an exception of him, as God made an exception of him when He gave him genius, and call him back without condition to his country and his ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... regarded by the victors of that day; and these two accounts, that of Lord George Murray and that of Maxwell of Kirkconnel, written without any mutual compact, and at different times, and even in different countries, disprove the following gross and improbable statement of Henderson's of that which occurred after the day at Preston ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Harley was not sincerely anxious for Egerton; and as to the more important explanation relative to Peschiera, surely what had satisfied Violante's father ought to satisfy a man who had no peculiar right to demand explanations at all; and if these explanations did not satisfy, the onus to disprove them must rest with Harley; and who or what could contradict Randal's plausible assertions,—assertions in support of which he himself could summon a witness in Baron Levy? Thus nerving himself to all that could ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in preparing this article, have been to disprove the absolute and unlimited assertions made by the contributor to the North American Review, that Cotton Mather was opposed to the admission of Spectral Evidence; "denounced it as illegal, uncharitable, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... has been a steady increase in saucer sightings. Most of them have been authentic reports, which Air Force denials cannot disprove. ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... was not one Witness at the Trial who will pretend he even had it in his Power to disprove one of the ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash man stuck to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... article: "I was under the impression that hermaphroditism was the usual character of these hybrids; and it has suggested itself to my mind as a possibility, which I have not, at present, sufficient data either to prove or to disprove, that the sterility of hybrids in general (still a somewhat obscure subject) may perhaps be partly due to hybridism having a tendency ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... life, we still have reason to believe that these same conditions prevail on thousands of other worlds. The fact that we might find the conditions in millions of other worlds unfavorable to life would not disprove the existence of the latter on ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... read to me the records of the commission which is investigating the alleged German atrocities. They are working in a calm and sane way and seem to be making the most earnest attempt to get at the true facts, no matter whether they prove or disprove the charges that have been made. It is wonderful to see the judicial way they can sit down in the midst of war and carnage and try to make a fair inquiry on a matter of this sort. If one one-thousandth part of the charges ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... Hungary—nay, in the cabinet of the Emperor himself—to reiterate assurances of that which I have advanced as true. If you will not believe me, I can but refer to the course of events. A day or two days' patience will prove or disprove what I have averred concerning the young Scot, and I will be contented to die on the wheel, and have my limbs broken joint by joint, if your Majesty have not advantage, and that in a most important degree, from the dauntless conduct of that Quentin Durward. But if I were to die under ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... be noticed in passing that Dame Nelly's ordinary mode of consolation was to disprove the existence of any cause for distress; and she is said to have carried this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who had lost her husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would be better to-morrow, which perhaps might not have proved an appropriate, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... open into a roomy, glass-roofed hot house, containing a very unique collection of potted plants, which, under the skillful hands of this young enthusiast, are undergoing the different stages of experimental treatment, such as he may deem necessary, to prove or disprove his many pet theories or fancies, in regard to care, growth, insect enemies, and to application of electric light, sun light, heat, moisture and fertilizers. Each plant bears a fruitful crop of cards, giving a summary ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... someone spoke up to tell him that "they had already redressed their grievances." To contend that Bacon was not interested in laws which he himself had so passionately urged and which had obviously been passed to conciliate him and his followers is merely to attempt to disprove ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... missionary, and ourselves. All advocated the doctrine of total abstinence. The first speaker, a planter, concluded by saying, that it was commonly believed that wine and malt were rendered absolutely indispensable in the West Indies, by the exhausting nature of the climate. But facts disprove the truth of this notion. "I am happy to say that I can now present this large assembly with ocular demonstration of the fallacy of the popular opinion. I need only point you to the worthy occupants of this platform. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... long as the evidence against him was vague and intangible, it was very hard to disprove. But, in his anxiety, the criminal has drawn the net so closely that one cut ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... would clear up all doubts, and should take place as speedily as possible. Captain Everett at once acceded to Dr. Archer's proposal, at the same time observing that he was quite sure the result would entirely disprove that gentleman's assumption. Mr. Hardyman also fully concurred in the necessity of a rigid investigation; and the post-mortem examination should, it was arranged, take place early on the ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... arguments might have been adduced to prove the unfitness of two such seemingly contradictory authorities, each having power to ANNUL or REPEAL the acts of the other. But a man would have been regarded as frantic who should have attempted at Rome to disprove their existence. It will be readily understood that I allude to the COMITIA CENTURIATA and the COMITIA TRIBUTA. The former, in which the people voted by centuries, was so arranged as to give a superiority to the patrician interest; ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... circumstances were decidedly moderate. Perhaps our senatorial friend may not be aware of the existence of these derogatory reports, and will thank us for giving him an opportunity, now that he knows of their existence, to disprove them.' ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... must be presumed eligible, until the contrary be shown. We have no evidence, that I am aware of, of a prior date to Magna Carta, to disprove that all freemen were eligible as jurors, unless it be the law of Ethelred, which requires that they be elderly [3] men. Since no specific age is given, it is probable, I think, that this statute meant nothing more than that they be more than twenty-one years ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... physiology, and then die, but this does not disprove the truth they expressed, but failed, possibly, to fully live. The great man always thinks further than he can travel—even the rest of us can do that. We can think "Chicago" in a second, but to go there takes time, strength ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... mockery. Intelligently analyzed, therefore, this new revelation amounts to nothing more than a quite striking proof of the remarkable influence of the mind over the nervous system. Beyond this, the craze, in attempting to disprove the existence of disease, and to show that poisons do not kill, is simply running against the plain and inevitable facts of life, and can safely be left to ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... to talk," growled Mr. Baggs. "But talk don't take the place of facts. I say a blackguard's always a blackguard and defy any man to disprove it." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... belief in miracles, however, has never completely vanished from the world. A miracle is an intervention by the deity whereby a natural law is set aside. No a priori reasoning can ever prove or disprove the possibility of miracles—such proof or disproof would involve complete knowledge of the universe or of the divine power in the universe, and this is impossible for man. The indisposition to accept a miracle has ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... most eagerly have quite a little of it left at the end. There are no hard and fast rules for the eating of your cake. One can only find out by eating it; and, as I have said, it may be your luck to disprove the proverb and both eat your cake and ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... the only pathos in life just at present was my inability to disprove, in default of abolishing, the existence of people who bothered me when I was busy. So Charteris went away, just as Byam brought the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... for these fears, yet the neighbouring country was so overgrown with wood, and so traversed by mountains, that it appeared impracticable to penetrate to any distance, so that no account of the interior could be expected. They were, however, in a condition to disprove the relations given by Spanish writers, who have represented this coast as inhabited by a fierce and powerful people, as no such inhabitants were to be found, at least in the winter season; for, during the whole time of their continuance here, they never saw any more than one small Indian family, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... impossible to protect his son from the attacks of the tiger during the appointed term of seven years; and after having snatched him from the first decree of destiny, he might, by carefully watching over his education, beget in him sentiments of wisdom and the love of virtue, and thus disprove the prediction of ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... not so insistently as before. The guide said he had a theory about the cross and the supposed grave, a theory which he proposed to prove or disprove before leaving ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... almost absolutely free from surfeit matter. A rested stomach will get more nutriment out of a small amount of food-stuff than an overworked stomach will get out of a much larger quantity. But experimentation which is sudden and covers a few weeks only, is worse than useless, as it tends to disprove the very principles that a saner method of experimentation would probably establish. And if I can impress this fact upon the reader I shall have performed ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... exclusion of hearsay evidence is equally unfounded. Its uses are said to be threefold, to convince in affairs of the world, to serve as the basis of action for business men, and to prevent opportunity for false witness. Yet it is not admissible in a court of justice to prove or disprove either a cause or a defence. The rules of evidence have been worked out by centuries of experience of courts in jury trials, and are admirably adapted to avoid the danger of error as to fact. I ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... I have brought you hither, at my peril, Against their written warning, to disprove, By ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... from his desk. "See, here is the despatch Mr. Pakenham brought from Lord Aberdeen of the British ministry to Mr. Upshur just two days before his death. Judge whether Aberdeen wants liberty—or territory! In effect he reasserts England's right to interfere in our affairs. We fought one war to disprove that. England has said enough on this continent. And England has ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... to disprove the assertion of Alice, that there is only one Sir Philip Sydney. Who was that other equally valiant knight, and much sweeter poet, who used to sing his own verses, accompanying himself upon the harp; and could thereby soothe ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... the senior day-room, as Stanning had expected. He knew his men. He was perfectly aware that any story which centred round Sheen's cowardice would be believed by them, so he had not troubled to invent a lie which it would be difficult to disprove. He knew that in the present state of feeling in the house Sheen would not be ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... answer to things that I saw and felt to be antiscriptural and destructive; but this "End" was the beginning of my controversy, for I was wholly new to it, and ignorant of the historical and other facts necessary to disprove the reverend author's bold assumptions. At last I burst into tears, and kneeling down, exclaimed, "O Lord, I cannot unravel this web of iniquity: enable me to cut it in twain." I was answered; for after a little more thought, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... vest. The officer seized it in time, and wrested the blade from his grasp. Once arrested for an offence it was impossible to disprove, although the very smallest of which his conscience might charge him, Varney sank into the blackest despair. Though he had often boasted, not only to others, but to his own vain breast, of the easy courage with which, when life ceased ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with blood. "And didst thou thyself kill this terrific dragon?" said he. "Yes," replied Ahrun. "And wilt thou swear to God that this is thy own achievement? It must be either the exploit of a demon, or of a certain Kaianian, who resides in this neighborhood." But there was no one to disprove his assertion, and therefore the king could no longer refuse to surrender ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... not give himself the Trouble of verbally refuting the Calumnies, and Invectives, with which he was daily loaded, but took Care to disprove them by his Conduct. The publick Finances had been quite exhausted, during the last Years of the great Zokitarezoul, and he took upon himself to restore them. It is true, that his Scheme ruined some Families; ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... means which the inferior classes do not use, is open to challenge; that there might exist among the inferior classes causes peculiar to these classes which militate against their increasing naturally, he has failed to notice. There do exist such, and so potent as to disprove entirely his statement that the problem is one for the solution of which we must search deep down in biological truth. The true solution will not be found in biological truth but in sociological truth, and there fairly ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... Court, with the Bishop of Exeter presiding. The Attorney-General for Ireland, turning his sword into a ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution; and Mr. Cobden and the other traversers might adopt any ground of defence they chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without being embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt in ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... there; the Cook Islands, and all the Society Islands except Tahiti. The majority of the Paumotu Group. The coast of North America north of 45 degrees north was unknown, and there was the great, undefined, and imaginary southern Continent to disprove. ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Lutherans] is the pure truth, we cannot deny it,' The Bishop of Mainz is being praised very much for his endeavors in the interest of peace. Likewise Duke Henry of Brunswick who extended a friendly invitation to Philip to dine with him, and admitted that he was not able to disprove the articles treating of both kinds, the marriage of priests, and the distinction of meats. Our men boast that, of the entire Diet, no one is milder than the Emperor himself. Such is the beginning. The Emperor treats our Elector not only graciously, but most respectfully. So Philip writes. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... not afraid of the eminent Mr. Snark. Possession is in reality ten-tenths of the law. The lawyer had cleverly proven his—Garrison's—claim. He would be still more clever if he could disprove it. A lie can never be branded truth by a liar. How could he disprove it? How could his shoddy word weigh against Garrison's, fashioned from the whole cloth and with ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... won my way, waiting patiently till the bosom, pleased with the relief, disgorged itself of all "its perilous stuff,"—not chiding, not even remonstrating, seeming almost to sympathize, till I got him, Socratically, to disprove himself. When I saw that he no longer feared me, that my company had become a relief to him, I proposed an excursion, and did ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... departure began: a Committee was appointed to collect "facts concerning the working of the Poor Law," with special reference to alleged official attempts to disprove "great distress amongst the workers." It does not appear that the Report ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... men who have become shining marks in the annals of history, Morse could not hope to escape calumny, and in later years he was accused of actions, and motives were imputed to him, which it becomes the duty of his biographer to disprove on the broad ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... oftentimes. She says that I am surely strong enough To conquer all the world, but yet to rule The smallest molehill I'm too simple far. And if I do not lose my very eyes 'Tis only that the thing's impossible. Thou may'st believe the half of what she says, The other half though, I can well disprove. For if I once have won thee, I will show The world how I can keep unharmed mine own. Again I ask ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... ignorant sufferers whom he has met in England, or from intemperate and utterly untrustworthy party speeches and pamphlets, whose assertions he receives as gospel;" yet Dr. Manning has given statements of facts, and the writer has not attempted to disprove them. Second, he says: "Dr. Manning echoes the thoughtless complaints of those who cry out against emigration as a great evil and a grievous wrong, when he might have known, if he had thought or inquired at all about the matter, not only that this emigration has been ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... England. Some yellow journals even went so far as to suggest that I had received payment from the Russian Government for "whitewashing" its penal system, but I fancy the following pages should conclusively disprove the existence of any monetary transactions, past or present, between the Tsar's officials and myself, to say nothing of the fact that my favourable account of the prisons of Western Siberia has been endorsed by such reliable and well-known English travellers ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... said Cortlandt, "one would suppose you attributed this to men. The Goliath we picture to ourselves would be a child compared to the man that could cut through these legs, though the necessity of believing him to have merely great size does not disprove his existence here. I think it probable we shall find this is the work of some animal with incisors of such power as it is difficult for us to conceive of." "There is no indication here of teeth," said Bearwarden, "each foot being taken off with a clean cut. Besides, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... by the book readers and then by the general public; but I doubt if anyone among that public would or could actually turn to the music itself and analyze it intelligently, from both an aesthetic and technical standpoint, in order to verify or disprove the assertion. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the duke del Infantado demanded the attack: it was his first campaign, and he was anxious to disprove the royal insinuation made against the hardihood of his embroidered chivalry. King Ferdinand granted his demand, with a becoming compliment to his spirit; he ordered the count de Cabra to make a simultaneous attack ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... a fine chance to prove or disprove Tom's theory that a fellow ought to feel most at home in his ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... attempts to make out its case against Mr. Motley. I will not parade the two old women, whose untimely and unseemly introduction into the dress-circle of diplomacy was hardly to have been expected of the high official whose name is at the bottom of this paper. They prove nothing, they disprove nothing, they illustrate nothing—except that a statesman may forget himself. Neither will I do more than barely allude to the unfortunate reference to the death of Lord Clarendon as connected with Mr. Motley's removal, so placidly disposed of by a sentence or ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Antinous, Thine innocence: alas, my Lords, he's desperate, And talks he knows not what: you must not credit 290] His lunacy; I can my self disprove This accusation: Cassilane, be yet More ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... But we call upon the law-makers and law-breakers of the nation, to defend themselves for violating the fundamental principles of the Republic, or disprove their validity. Yes! they stand arrayed before the bar, not only of injured womanhood, but before the bar of moral consistency; for this question is awakening an interest abroad, as well as at home. Whatever human rights are claimed for man, moral consistency ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... surrounded the old priest, with the strongest assertions that such was the fact, and that nobody would ever have thought of his purchasing it unless he had expressly engaged to take it. The poor old man was entirely put down. He was certain of the truth: but what could he do: resist or disprove a direct falsehood pronounced by the Superior of a Convent, and sworn to by all her holy nuns? He finally expressed his conviction that we were right: he was ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... Question 8.—How would you disprove, experimentally, the assertion that white light passing through a piece of coloured glass acquires colour from the glass? What is ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe." (The "Genealogy of Animals" ('The Academy,' 1869), ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... duodecimos, the system is reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist draws upon his imagination, and not his learning; makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course of 150 pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything. And, to our shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of proselytism—those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety—I mean our religious tracts, which any woman or ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... disprove it. You forget That we are those which chas'd you from the field, And slew your fathers, and with colours spread March'd through the city to ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... to say that the creative work took place in the Cambrian or Laurentian epoch, in exactly that manner which Mr. Gladstone does, and natural science does not, affirm, natural science is not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the statement. Only one cannot have one's cake and eat it too, and such safety from the contradiction of science means ...
— The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature - Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... distinctly occurs, or from which it is most visibly absent. And it will only be in the full and separate discussion of individual works, when we are acquainted also with what is beautiful, that we shall be completely able to prove or disprove the presence of the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... considered her. "Would you? You say she did not understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man, would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure was true and without giving him a chance to disprove ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... him, had the right to say to hint what I was thinking, except some near relative. Therefore, to relieve this silence which had ceased to be agreeable, I talked about Daddy Ben and his grandsons, and negro voting, and the huge lie of "equality" which our lips vociferate and our lives daily disprove. This took us comfortably away from weddings and cakes into the subject of lynching, my violent condemnation of which surprised him; for our discussion had led us over a wide field, and one fertile ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... times worked over, before we have received it in its present form. Yet there are accredited professors of English who do not know these facts, and who, if called upon, could neither prove them nor disprove them. They have not worked in the Bodleian, in the British Museum, or in other foreign libraries, on Old English texts and authorities. They think themselves well up in Old English if they can translate the text of Beowulf fairly well, remember ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... be struck representing the devil clad in a priestly robe, riding on an ass, and carrying a trophy in his right hand; which was intended to signify that Bekker had been overcome in his attempt to disprove demoniacal possession, and that the devil had conquered in the assembly of divines who pronounced sentence on Bekker's book. The author was supposed to resemble Satan in the ugliness of his appearance. Another coin was struck in honour of our author: on one side is shown the figure of Bekker ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... place, the believers are no wise dismayed by it. They freely admit that not only the media, but the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to lose sight of the elementary principles of right and wrong; and they triumphantly ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures disprove the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which have not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in this, they unconsciously plagiarise from the churchman, who just as freely admits that many ecclesiastical ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... it!" exclaimed Laura. "How is Billy to disprove the accusation if he runs away and makes it appear that ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... logical consistency by giving woman the right of representation in the government which she helps to maintain; a voice in the laws by which she is governed, and all the rights and privileges society can bestow, the same as to man, or disprove its validity. We need no other declaration. All we ask is to have the laws based on the same foundation upon which that declaration rests, viz.: upon equal justice, and not upon sex. Whenever the rights of man are claimed, moral consistency ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... not be even suspected". For this crime—unpardonable even in that corrupt society, when crimes of far deeper dye passed almost unreproved—Clodius was, after some delay, brought to public trial. The defence set up was an alibi, and Cicero came forward as a witness to disprove it: he had met and spoken with Clodius in Rome that very evening. The evidence was clear enough, but the jury had been tampered with by Clodius and his friends; liberal bribery, and other corrupting influences ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... in order to show satisfactorily that there is a divine revelation in the record, to prove that the record is itself divine. To disprove that revelation, a man must do something more than point out marks of imperfection in the Book containing it, such marks as would not be expected in a book written directly by the hand of God. If it could be demonstrated that the penmen who ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... genius. Nor do we for a moment believe that the waywardness of a genius or a prophet in boyhood is always a significant adumbration. Shakespeare started as a deer-poacher, and Rousseau as a thief. Yet, neither the one nor the other, as far as we know, was a plagiarist. This, however, does not disprove the contrary proposition, that he who begins as a thief or an iconoclast is likely to end as such. But the actuating motive has nothing to do with what we, in our retrospective analysis, are pleased to prove. Not so far forth are ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... says nothing of the passage of the Rubico, but his silence does not disprove the truth of the story as told by Plutarch. The passage of the Rubico was a common topic (locus communis) for rhetoricians. Lucanus (Pharsalia, i. 213) has ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... done in the 'Rue des Hebdomadiers.' I suppose you don't see, or read, our present Whitechapel Murder—a nasty thing, not at all to my liking. The Name of the Murderer—as no one doubts he is, whatever the Lawyers may disprove—is the same as that famous Man of Taste who wrote on the Fine Arts in the London Magazine under the name of Janus Weathercock, {90a} and poisoned Wife, Wife's Mother and Sister after insuring their Lives. De ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... rumors that do go against my honor and my fealty. God knoweth they be shameful slanders, sir; for the which, besides the desire I have to see the King's Majesty, I pray you let me also be brought straight before the court that I may disprove these ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... grief; it has had its short day, and it is now setting below the horizon of ignominy and subsequent oblivion. The writer of the article in question does not attempt to prove the evolution theory; therefore I need not stop to disprove it. But he makes the following application of it to our subject—an application so shocking to humanity and so revolting to common sense that, if it is logical, it is by itself sufficient to refute the whole theory of Mr. ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... not without good reason that the editor was solicitous to disprove Chatterton's frank confession, respecting this poem; for he perceived clearly that the style, the colouring, and images, are nearly the same in this, and the second poem with the same title, and that every reader of any discernment must ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... fatiguing vitality told me this little story which my friends the Catholic clergy may disprove if they can. He said:—"Mr. McMaster, of the firm of Dunbar, McMaster and Co., of Gilford, County Down, conceived the idea of aiding his fellow-countrymen and women who were starving in the congested ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... suppose the Articles are right. I am not prepared with any arguments to disprove them, and much better, cleverer fellows than I am go in for them entirely. I think it would be rather ridiculous in me to urge scruples of that sort, as if I were a judge," said Fred, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... now—he invariably sought counsel of his old friend. In the present instance—for his own sake, for the sake of Lucy and Lucy's father—he told Graham the whole story of Bishop Pendle's presumed guilt; of Baltic's mission to disprove it; and of Cargrim's underhanded doings. Graham listened to the details in silence, and contented himself with a grim smile or two when Cargrim's treachery was touched upon. When in possession of the facts, he commented firstly on the ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... to disprove this position, and they might have a good case if they would only leave it as it stands. But this they will not do; they must have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written word of the child itself as soon as it ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... no means, Sir, you had much better Have them in your Posteriors: for then the Ladies Can never disprove you; they'll not ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... touch it, would greatly enlighten us. It is, whether gravitation requires time. If it did, it would shew undeniably that a physical agency existed in the course of the line of force. It seems equally impossible to prove or disprove this point; since there is no capability of suspending, changing, or annihilating the power (gravity), or annihilating the matter in which the power resides.' The lines of magnetic force may have 'a separate existence,' but as yet we are unable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... As if to disprove his assertion, all the firing stopped suddenly, and for a long time the forest was silent. Fortunately they had water in their canteens, and they were able to soothe the thirst of the wounded men. They talked also of victory, and, knowing that it was ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sun rose above the rim of the distant mountains my father determined to disprove or verify the rumor. Neighbors sought to dissuade him, but mounting a swift horse he started for Brownsville on the Calapooya. Meantime everything was in readiness for forting up should it become necessary. The day wore on, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... earth; Christ, it is more probable, referred to the people, not their shabby villages of wigwams: he said it would be sad for them at "the day of judgment"—and what business have mud-hovels at the Day of Judgment? It would not affect the prophecy in the least —it would neither prove it or disprove it—if these towns were splendid cities now instead of the almost vanished ruins they are. Christ visited Magdala, which is near by Capernaum, and he also visited Cesarea Philippi. He went up to his old home at Nazareth, and saw his brothers Joses, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... silent, however, naturally enough, as to one important point—his real parentage. The character of his mother was by no means such as to disprove an assertion which gained general belief: this was, that Horace was the offspring, not of Sir Robert Walpole, but of Carr, Lord Hervey, the eldest son of the Earl of Bristol, and the elder brother of Lord Hervey, whose 'Memoirs of the Court of George ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... "Doctor" of Luke Fildes', which is so pathetic that one cannot bear to look at it? Surely a picture should make one want to see it! Of course I do not mean that an artist cannot paint pathetic and sentimental subjects. The great painters of the Passion would disprove that with reference to the former and Watteau with reference to the latter. But a power to achieve beauty of color and line and to objectify pathos and sentiment through them was possessed by these painters to a degree to which few others ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... I should be inclined to endorse the opinion I have heard expressed, that one of the few wants of this country is a proper appreciation and countenance of Art; but the meeting here to-day to inaugurate the reign of Art in Montreal enables me to disprove such an assertion, and to gild over with a golden hue more true than that of many of Turner's pictures this supposed spot upon the beauty of our Canadian atmosphere. Certainly in Toronto, here and elsewhere, gentlemen have already employed their brush ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Scripture, and on the truth which God therein revealed to him and brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities. The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed to him particularly poor. In confident words Luther assures his ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... proposed compromise. He had put his hand to the plow and would not look back. He had appealed to the law—"the Bureau" and only "the Bureau" should decide it. So Colonel Desmit and his lawyer asked a few hours' delay and prepared themselves to resist and disprove the charge of assault upon Nimbus. The lawyer once proposed to examine the papers in the case, but Desmit said that was useless—the boy was no liar, though they must make him out one if they could. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... shall make a serious letter, if I do not mind, about nothing, and so doubly disprove all I have been saying. I trust C. is getting well, but I am always anxious about that fever. Pray write a word to relieve my [196] solicitude, which my wife shares with me, as in the affectionate ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... he had done in his long historical works the false tales about the Jewish past and the Jewish law that were circulated and believed in the hostile Greco-Roman world. He directed himself more particularly to uphold the antiquity of the Jews against those who denied their historical claims and to disprove the charges leveled against the Jewish religious ideas and legislation. These two subjects form the content of the two books commonly known to us as Against Apion. Only the second, however, deals with Apion's ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... the degradations akin to intemperance. That scheme of head, heart, and habitual demeanour, which in his early manhood, and first controversial writings, Milton, claiming the privilege of self- defence, asserts of himself, and challenges his calumniators to disprove; this will his school-mates, his fellow-collegians, and his maturer friends, with a confidence proportioned to the intimacy of their knowledge, bear witness to, as again realized in the life of Robert Southey. But still more striking to ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... some affinity between the demoniac and the animal nature, and though it is easy to ridicule, it is impossible to disprove, the suggestion. We know too little about either to do that, and what we cannot disprove it is somewhat venturesome hardily to deny. There are depths in the one nature, which we cannot fathom though its possessors are close to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... publicly read in the churches, and they were publicly read every Lord's day. Is it credible that an impostor would direct his forgery to be publicly read? If the epistle was publicly read during Paul's lifetime, that public reading in the hearing of the men who could so easily disprove its genuineness, was conclusive proof to all who heard it, that they knew it to be the genuine writing of the Apostle. The primitive churches then had conclusive proof of the genuineness of the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... some weeks later that she saw, and not then without also seeing it was quite impossible to disprove the proposition, that there was something grimly absurd in the idea which had possessed her that night—the thought of stealing to prove a lie, and acting dishonourably to pay a debt of honour. At the ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... counties at Glamorgan, Monmouth, Gloucester, Wells, and Hereford; and that the customary tenants of the manor of Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, had been reputed capable of voting, and even voted at elections for that county. In a word, they continued to examine evidences, argue and refute, prove and disprove, until the twenty-third day of April, when, after some warm debates and divisions in the house, lord Parker and sir Edward Turner were declared duly elected; and the clerk of the crown was ordered to amend the return, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... very assemblymen themselves," came back the answering shout. "Let Derrick speak. Where is he hiding? If this is a lie, let him deny it. Let HIM DISPROVE the charge." "Derrick, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... eyes for honesty; around his mouth for weakness; at his chin for strength; at his hands for temperament; at his nails for cleanliness. His tongue will tell you his experience, and under the questioning of a shrewd employer prove or disprove its statements as it runs along. Always remember, in the case of an applicant from another city, that when a man says he doesn't like the town in which he's been working it's usually because he ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... the sinner"; and (Prov. 24:11): "Deliver them that are led to death"; and (Rom. 1:32): "They are worthy of death, not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them," on which words a gloss says: "To be silent when one can disprove is to consent." In matters pertaining to a man's condemnation, one is not bound to give evidence, except when one is constrained by a superior in accordance with the order of justice; since if the truth of such a matter be concealed, no particular injury is inflicted ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... nation. The act conferring that jurisdiction was approved on the 5th day of February, 1867, with a full knowledge of the motives that prompted its passage, and because it was believed to be necessary and right. Nothing has since occurred to disprove the wisdom and justness of the measures, and to modify it as now proposed would be to lessen the protection of the citizen from the exercise of arbitrary power and to weaken the safeguards of life and liberty, which can never be made ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... given by the Christians of their leader, whose fame is supposed to have spread far and wide, and whose fame most certainly must so have spread had he really performed all the wonderful works attributed to him. But no necessity lies upon the Freethinker, when he rejects Christianity, to disprove the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, although we point to the inadequacy of the evidence even of his existence. The strength of the Freethought position is in no-wise injured by the admission that a young Jew named Joshua (i.e. Jesus) may have wandered up and down Galilee and Judaea ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... The Book has run through several Impressions, and met with innumerable Enemies: Nothing was ever more reviled from the Pulpit as well as the Press. I have been call'd all the ugly Names in Print, that Malice or ill Manners can invent; but not one of my Adversaries has attempted to disprove what I had said, or overthrow any one Argument, I made Use of, otherwise than by exclaiming against it, and saying that it was not true: which to me is a Sign, that not only what I have advanced ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... vogue, made me a welcome guest. The anomaly of my social position often appealed strongly to my sense of humor. I frequently smiled inwardly at some remark not altogether complimentary to people of color; and more than once I felt like declaiming: "I am a colored man. Do I not disprove the theory that one drop of Negro blood renders a man unfit?" Many a night when I returned to my room after an enjoyable evening, I laughed heartily over what struck me as the capital joke I ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... manifest unfairness of some of these who thought that they could glorify Spain only by disparaging the Filipinos aroused his wrath. Few Spanish writers held up the good name of those who were under their flag, and Rizal had to resort to foreign authorities to disprove their libels. Morga was almost alone among Spanish historians, but his assertions found corroboration in the contemporary chronicles of other nationalities. Rizal spent his evenings in the home of Doctor Regidor, and many a time the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... anything, devoid of form, the opposite characteristics of the individual soul are erroneously ascribed; just as ignorant men ascribe blue colour to the colourless ether. In order to remove this erroneous opinion by means of Vedic passages tending either to prove the unity of the Self or to disprove the doctrine of duality—which passages he strengthens by arguments—he insists on the difference of the highest Self from the individual soul, does however not mean to prove thereby that the soul is different from ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... In a noble strain also does the Poet Gray address, in a Latin Ode, the Religio loci at the Grande Chartruise. But before his time, with the exception of the passage from Thomas Burnet just alluded to, there is not, I believe, a single English traveller whose published writings would disprove the assertion, that, where precipitous rocks and mountains are mentioned at all, they are spoken of as objects of dislike and fear, and not of admiration. Even Gray himself, describing, in his Journal, the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... order, he spurns at human laws, and breaks through every barrier opposed to his wickedness." Under such colours is an atheist painted: a short digression must be suffered to examine this picture, and to disprove the assertions so ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... from locating on the claim, or will sell out to him at a good profit. A good deal of money is made by these fictitious claimants. It is rather hard to prevent it, too, inasmuch as it is difficult to disprove that a man intends some time to have a permanent home, or, in fact, that his claim is not his legal residence, though his usual abiding place is somewhere else. Nothing could be more delightful than for a party of young ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... caused themselves to be worshiped under particular forms, and for particular characteristics. To what an extent, and to how very late a period this belief has prevailed, may be learned from a remarkable little work of Fontenelle,[1] in which that pleasing writer endeavors seriously to disprove that any preternatural power was evinced in the responses of the ancient oracles. The Christian belief in good and evil angels is too beautiful to be laid aside. Their actual and present existence can be disproved neither by analogy, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... disprove that men were not intended to be equal; it only proves that they are not so. Neither does it disprove that everything was not made for the benefit of all; it only proves that the strong will take advantage of the weak, which ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... or southern side, and the meteors are less frequent. With this general explanation we shall close. If what we have advanced be an approximation to the truth, the theory itself affords ample indications of what observations are requisite to prove or disprove it; and, on this account, a theory is of great benefit, as suggestive of many questions and combinations of facts which otherwise might never ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... a position to disprove this pretty conceit. But I think of it every time I put my foot in a Badger hole. Such lovely holes, so plentiful, so worse than useless where the Badger has thoughtlessly located them. If only we could harness ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... measured by the demonstrable amount of modification. On the other hand, it must be recollected that the absence of any modification, while it may leave the doctrine of the existence of a law of change without positive support, cannot possibly disprove all forms of that doctrine, though it may afford a sufficient refutation of any ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... been claimed at Washington that the whole thing was a plot to discredit the United States government in the eyes of the nations of Europe, and Ned Nestor and his chums had been sent out to search the wreck for papers which would disprove the statements made. The papers had ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson |
