"Unanswerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the better men gradually but surely slow down their gait to that of the poorest and least efficient. When a naturally energetic man works for a few days beside a lazy one, the logic of the situation is unanswerable: "Why should I work hard when that lazy fellow gets the same pay that I do and does only half as ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... Sir Joseph, I cannot express to you my delight at the happy result of your eloquence. Your argument was unanswerable. SIR JOSEPH. Captain Corcoran, it is one of the happiest characteristics of this glorious country that official utterances are invariably regarded as unanswerable. [Exit SIR JOSEPH. CAPT. At last my ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Eve was fain to go, defeated by the unanswerable dictum, "Women never understand business." She had come with a faint hope, she went back again almost heartbroken, and reached home just in time to receive notice of judgment; Sechard must pay ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... of an old photograph she had shown him of a dark-haired youth sitting on a horse, with a charming, imperious grace of body and feature, in which there was something godlike and unanswerable; and looking at this wreck of a man, toothless, bald and livid, he was struck ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... infallibility,—as ten or twenty, little or big, anti-slavery Doctor-of-Divinity priests, each claiming to give his infallible rendering, however differing from his peer. (Laughter.) I never yet produced this Bible, in its plain unanswerable authority, for the relation of master and slave, but the anti-slavery man ran away into the fog of his Hebrew or Greek, (laughter,) or he jabbered the nonsense that God permitted the sin of slaveholding among ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... an emotion, but adherence to a creed. Instead of being a matter of emotional conviction it becomes a matter of intellectual propositions. And here, very properly, the sceptic steps in and riddles the ad hoc metaphysic of the dogmatist with unanswerable objections. No Cambridge Rationalist can presume to deny that I feel a certain emotion, but the moment I attempt to prove the existence of its object I lay myself open to a bad ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... This was unanswerable, as a matter of fact; and Miss Marlett could not repress a grateful glance in the ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... of the supreme court of the United States, had, while the debate was in progress, drawn up an opinion coincident with the views of Washington and his cabinet. Hamilton also transmitted to the president a long and able paper, in which, with his usual force of unanswerable logic, he sustained the action of the cabinet, and fortified the president's views. In acknowledging the receipt of this paper on the thirty-first of March, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... astonished to hear this straightforward language? Why, the King. Monsieur had never let out to within a thousand leagues of this tone, which was only the more annoying because supported by unanswerable reasons that did not convince. Mastering his embarrassments however, the King answered as a brother rather than as a sovereign; endeavouring, by gentle words, to calm the excitement of Monsieur. But Monsieur was stung to the quick by the King's neglect of M. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... It was impossible not to see it, forty-eight inches long and quarter-inch-wide buckskin. He began seeking for its mate, and found it on the floor where Marette Radisson had been standing. And again the unanswerable question pounded in Kent's brain—why had Kedsty's murderer used a tress of hair instead of a buckskin lace or one of the curtain cords hanging conspicuously at ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... revolution, by giving them a government founded on principles of moderation and rectitude, will be advantageous to all Europe, and more especially to Great Britain, which has so often suffered by wars, the fruit of their intrigues.—This reasoning would be unanswerable could the character of the people be changed with the form of their government: but, I believe, whoever examines its administration, whether as it relates to foreign powers or internal policy, will find ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... empty; sometimes we go out to the Bible-classes for volunteers—and, by the way, it is nearly impossible to find any. I wish you would preach a sermon on that subject. It is so easy to say, 'Oh, please excuse me;' it requires so little courage to do it; and is such a comfortable and unanswerable way of disposing of the whole matter. At the same time there is some degree of excuse for the refusals. Think of the folly of setting a young girl who knows nothing about little children, and has made no ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... came! "The Spring Sun," it is known popularly. But in the book of his collected music it appears as "Allegro in B." It is the throb of joy of young life asking the unanswerable question of God: what does it mean—this new, fair, wonderful world full of life and birth, and joy; charged with mystery, enveloped in strange, unsolved grandeur, like the cloud pictures that float and puzzle us and break and reform and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... strong to be treated with slight. It was by the help of the Jews that Cleopatra had driven her son Lathyrus out of Egypt; they formed a large part of the Egyptian armies, which were no longer even commanded by Greeks; and it must have been by these clear and unanswerable reasons that Ananias was able to turn the queen from the thoughts of this conquest, and to renew the league between ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the front door," replied Mr. Winslow, with unanswerable logic. "There he is now, comin' out from astern of that lilac ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... attempt to defeat it? Bloodshed—violence! He whose every dream had been of a life in which his fellow-men might find encouragement to endure their burdens, and of walking before them an example of love and forbearance, submissive and meek that he might with the more unanswerable grace preach obedience and fraternity to them—Merciful Heaven! And he shuddered and drew the veil hastily over his face, as if, in a bloody tumult, the ideal life, so the ultimate happiness, were ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... comradeship is alive, and the dream survives to light us on the forward path. We must travel that path rightly. We can so travel whatever the enemy's mind. More difficult it will be, but it can be done. That is the great significance and justification of Nationalism: it is the unanswerable argument to cosmopolitanism. If the greatness and beauty of life that ought to be the dream of all nations is denied by all but one, that one may keep alive the dream within her own frontier till its fascination will arrest and inspire the world. If this ultimate dream is still floating far ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... property, and was in fair pecuniary circumstances. From the inner side of his counter he had been in the habit of holding forth to his customers on the political and other questions of the day, and had found that his arguments were accepted by a majority of the unlettered yeomen of Wentworth as being unanswerable. He was looked up to as a man of weight and influence in the community, and the consciousness of this was naturally gratifying to the whilom shop-boy of Dumfries. He felt incited to address larger audiences than any which had hitherto listened to him. The time seemed propitious for the establishment ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... work to which you have already consecrated so much time, with the possibility of self-support. It appears from your letter to your brother that you see no one in Paris; the reason seems to me a sad one, but it is unanswerable, and since you cannot change it, you must change your place of abode and return to your own country. You have already seen in Paris all those persons whom you thought it essential to see; unless you are strangely mistaken in their good-will, you will ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... narrowed the limit of felonies and mitigated the severity of law? My fellow-countrymen, as you yourselves may sometimes have to appeal at the bar of human judgment for justice and for right, give to my people to-night the fair and unanswerable ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... although he interposed nervously at intervals, "Yes, yes, yes." As the minutes passed, Ralph's presence became more and more intolerable to him, since there was so much that he must say to Katharine; the moment he could not talk to her, terrible doubts, unanswerable questions accumulated, which he must lay before Katharine, for she alone could help him now. Unless he could see her alone, it would be impossible for him ever to sleep, or to know what he had said in a moment of ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... we put out of the question the injury inflicted on others, and merely consider the deterioration of feeling and principle with which it operates on ourselves, ought it not to be a sufficient, and, indeed, unanswerable argument, against ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... to his uncle Dean Marlay's house, Cellbridge Abbey, formerly the residence of Swift's ill-fated Vannessa. "Along the banks of that river," he said, many years afterwards, "amid the groves and bowers of Swift and Vannessa, I grew convinced that I was right; arguments, unanswerable, came to my mind, and what I then presaged, confirmed me in my determination to persevere." With an enthusiasm intensified and restrained—but wonderful in the fire and grandeur of its utterance—he rose in his place, on the 19th of the month, to move that "the King, Lords, and Commons ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied upon as unanswerable. The Church teaches that this world, and all that it contains, were created substantially as we now see them, that the grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special creations, and that they sustain ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... logic and terse statement. We heard him make a speech in 1865, which in force of reasoning, purity of language, and propriety of utterance, was not unworthy of comparison with a sermon of Bishop Thomson, or an address of George William Curtis. As he was "a full-blooded Negro," he was a standing and unanswerable proof that the race is capable of all that has distinguished MAN. How much of history and progress could be crowded in a memorial inscription for him! It might be something like this: Born a slave in the country to which his grandfather was stolen away, he competed, under the greatest ...
— 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
... and I knew they would cost him at least four or five to reply. Then just before closing I very seriously advanced the heaviest objection to my opponent's position. I especially called the attention of my audience to this point and declared it to be unanswerable and hoped my opponent would not forget to make a note of it. Then I paused long enough for the audience to see that I gave him full opportunity to get it down—as he did. Then I gathered my threads together ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... and always, Disraeli was keen, ready, and unanswerable; as a satirist, swift, subtle, and finished. His epigrams were among the "jewels that on the stretched forefinger of all time sparkle forever." It was he that said "Destiny is our will, and our will is nature." At another time he said, "The critics—they are those ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... was unanswerable. Baxter did not attempt to answer it. But there remained at the back of his mind a quaint idea that he had caught sight, as he woke, of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood, his face warningly contorted, vanishing through the ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... spirit world, because they have never seen one. I have so often met the argument, "The ghost of a man I might conceive—but I can not conceive the appearance of the ghost of a pair of trousers or of a top-hat," offered as though it were unanswerable. Surely the spirit, aura, shade, ghost, soul, ego—what you will—can permeate and penetrate and pervade clothing and other ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... with myself the unanswerable question of how I should ever have reached down thirty feet to gaff my salmon, had I played him to a standstill. Then, because human nature is weak, I put on a stronger, double leader and dropped another fly into the current. ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... the evils of intemperance in language and eloquence that riveted the attention of the audience, and confirming his statements by unanswerable statistics, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... evinced energy and abilities not unworthy of a great parliamentary occasion. Ferrars particularly distinguished himself. He rose immensely in the estimation of the House, and soon the public began to talk of him. His statistics about the condemned boroughs were astounding and unanswerable: he was the only man who seemed to know anything of the elements of the new ones. He was as eloquent too as exact,—sometimes as fervent as Burke, and always as ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... the resources of the human heart, who counts on the effect of such a reply. It matters not that it is itself unanswerable; it cannot keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for evading duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... obscure the general design; and finally, whether, if we decide to use it, we should do so grossly and notably, or in some conventional disguise: are questions of plastic style continually rearising. And the sphinx that patrols the highways of executive art has no more unanswerable riddle ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mother's grief was sacred to her; and yet it was by her experience of her mother that she recognized the truth of Lydia's remark, and felt that it was unanswerable. She frowned; but the frown was lost: Miss Carew was not looking at her. Then she rose and went to the door, where she ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... gentleman more than to hear William Pitt called by his tardy honors; and yet, unwilling to give up what he thought his political opinions, he exclaimed, with an unanswerable positiveness ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... water, a bouquet of roses, and a bundle of papers and tracts on the table by her side. In the audience were twenty or thirty women and a dozen men, their laps filled, and their pockets bulging, with propaganda. They stood at intervals to ask superfluous or unanswerable questions, upon which Mrs. Grubb would rise and reply, with cheeks growing pink and pinker, with pleasant smile and gracious manner, and a voice fairly surcharged with conviction. Most of the ladies took notes, and a girl ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that ship before you enlisted in the Solar Guard," persisted Walters. "And I read the log of your first trip when you wrote, and I quote, 'There seems to be some mysterious and unanswerable condition aboard this vessel that makes her behave as if ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... did not enjoy one advantage which all founders of sects have duly appreciated, and by which they have been materially assisted. It is a great and an unanswerable argument in favour of a Providence that we constantly perceive that the most beneficial results are brought about by the least worthy and most insignificant agents. The purest religions would never have been established had they not been supported by sinners who felt the burthen of the ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... believed he knew everything He was accused of putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge Monseigneur, who had been out wolf-hunting Never been able to bend her to a more human way of life Spoke only about as much as three or four women Supported by unanswerable reasons that did not convince The most horrible sights have often ridiculous contrasts The nothingness of what the world calls great destinies Whatever course I adopt many people ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... interrogatories, now unanswerable, raise doubts in the mind of sufficient potency to destroy the tradition of centuries, and to prevent us from sharing the conviction of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, and Johnson that Shakespeare was the author of Shakespeare's plays must be left for individual consideration. But, however destructive ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... objections to our following the advice of the Count de Vergennes were unanswerable, I proposed to Dr Franklin, that we should state them in a letter to him, and request his answer in writing, because, as we were instructed to ask and to follow his advice on these occasions, we ought always to be able to show what ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... being forced upon them by one of their own number against a practical compromise to which the good sense of the majority of them assented. No reply was made to the pamphlet when first issued in 1698; and two or three years afterwards Defoe, exulting in the unanswerable logic of his position, reprinted it with a prefatory challenge to Mr. Howe, an eminent Dissenting minister. During the next reign, however, when a bill was introduced to prohibit the practice of occasional conformity, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... industries, stores, and farms, homework in dark and unsanitary tenements is still permitted. Children work in "homes" on artificial flowers, finishing shoddy garments, sewing their very life's blood and that of the race into tawdry clothes and gewgaws that are the most unanswerable comments upon our vaunted "civilization." And to-day, we must not forget, the child-laborer of yesterday is becoming the father or the mother of the child-laborer ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... down is so much waste, for the people will not buy it where coals are so cheap. Had they been oak-wood, the bark would have fetched its value; had they been grown oaks, the sea-ports would have found a market. Had they been [larch], the country demands for ruder purposes would have been unanswerable. The Duke does the best he can to retrieve his woods, but seems to despond more than a young man ought to do. It is refreshing to see a man in his situation give so much of his time and thoughts to the improvement of his estates, and the welfare of the people. The Duke tells me his people in Keeldar ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... different position from that of wealth which is being created from day to day. It can be defended only on two grounds. One is prescriptive right, and the difficulty of disturbing the basis of the economic order. This provides an unanswerable argument against violent and hasty methods, but no argument at all against a gentle and slow-moving policy of economic reorganization. The other argument is that inherited wealth serves several indirect functions. The desire to provide for children ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... and friends; and not always in clean and well ventilated apartments and parts of the city; but, in very many instances, in the filthiest hovels, and alleys, and among the lowest classes of society. Striking and unanswerable facts of the sort have frequently presented themselves to my observation, during our various epidemics. Children have sucked their parents, affected with the fever, and, in one case which fell under my notice, the child continued ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... his committee of thirteen to report some "scheme of compromise". Parting company with Calhoun, March 5, on the thesis that the South could not safely remain without new "constitutional guarantees", Foote regarded Webster's speech as "unanswerable", and in April came to an understanding with him as to Foote's committee and their common desire for prompt consideration of California. The importance of Foote's influence in turning the tide in Mississippi, through ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... almost eerie innocence of the intellect that the great men of the great scientific period, which now appears to be closing, owed their enormous power and triumph. If they had brought the heavens down like a house of cards their plea was not even that they had done it on principle; their quite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident. Whenever there was in them the least touch of pride in what they had done, there was a good ground for attacking them; but so long as they were wholly humble, they were wholly victorious. There were possible answers to Huxley; there was no answer ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Falling silent after this unanswerable proof of Mr. PENDRAGON'S guilt, Mr. SIMPSON mused upon as much of the dear old nutcracker as was not hidden by the vast charity stocking. In her ruffled cap, false front, and spectacles, she was so exactly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... development of the brain through the skull. The attacks upon phrenology have been generally remarkable for their logical feebleness. Any one well acquainted with the science and the phenomena in nature, could have made a much more effective attack,—an attack which would have appeared entirely unanswerable; but no such attack has ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... our principles or standing; the very reasons which they assign for their own secession are variable, indefinite, personal, or trivial. But the reasons which may be assigned for our position and unity are tangible, are definite, are Methodistic, are satisfactory, are unanswerable. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... side. I think the writing of that letter was mainly due to a sense of obligation to Lord Ripon, although the argument used as to the necessity of Candahar being held by any single ruler of Afghanistan was, and is always, unanswerable. But the question at that time was this: Could any such single ruler be found, and was Abdurrahman, recognised in the August of 1880 as Ameer of Cabul, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... when you get there, you will reach the moral of the whole of this discussion, because the moral of it all is that the people of the United States have suspected, until their suspicions have been justified by all sorts of substantial and unanswerable evidence, that, in place after place, at turning-points in the history of this country, we have been controlled by private understandings and not by the public interest; and that influences which were improper, if not corrupt, ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... existence and lived a long life of deep, quiet satisfaction, sane to the end, watching every symptom of approaching dissolution with keen interest, and at the last passing into quiet sleep, his spirit gliding peacefully away, perhaps to answer those two great questions which he said were unanswerable here: "Who am I?" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... to live with Germany after the war," Mr. Shaw points out. Even to embarrass her financially would be a blow to England herself, Germany being one of England's best customers and one of her most frequently visited neighbors. The truth of this is unanswerable. The great object must be to effect a peace with as little rancor ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... the born critic she had divined my one weak point. Other objections raised against me I could have met. But that one stinging reproach was unanswerable. It has made me, as I have explained, chary of tendering advice on matters outside my own department of life. Otherwise, every year, about Valentine's day, there is much that I should like to say to my good friends the birds. I want to put it to them seriously. Is not ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... from making any visit to the bay. 'And even should they consent,' said Toby, 'they would only produce a commotion in the valley, in which we might both be sacrificed by these ferocious islanders.' This was unanswerable; but still I clung to the belief that he might succeed in accomplishing the other part of my plan; and at last I overcame his scruples, and he agreed ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Why not sink the Lusitania and set the waves afloat with the little corpses of children and the beauty of dead women? It is but one more incident of horror in a war which is all horror. Its logic is unanswerable in the Euclid of Hell. ... It is war, and when millions of men set out to kill each other, to strangle the enemy's industries, to ruin, starve, and annihilate him, so that the women may not breed more children, and so that the children shall perish of wide-spread epidemics, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... eyeglasses" frictional problems inevitably arise. Under slavery this adjustment was complete, but the bond of adjustment was quickly burst asunder when the Negro was made a free man and clothed with full political and civil privilege. The one great question which so far remains unanswerable is, can the two be readjusted on terms of equality? The solution of social problems belongs to the realm of statesmanship, philanthropy and religion. The function of education is to develop latent faculties. It was a shallow philosophy which prophesied that a few years of schooling ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... college journal; his high animal spirits brought everybody about him, and his mind seemed ever eager and poised for flight: he was ready in wit; decried trifling subjects, yet would dispute for two hours over an absurdity; was dexterous and unanswerable in his syllogisms; would advance the crudest and most untenable theory, defend it, reducing the arguments of his opponents to meaningless folly, conquer apparently by both wit and reason, then turn his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... weight of a foot. It deranged the balance of our intercourse; there was no use in throwing a fly where a paving-stone had just splashed into the water, and I nodded a good-by to the boy-fighter, thinking how much pleasanter it was for my friend the Captain to address him with unanswerable arguments and crushing statements in his own tent than it would be to meet him upon some remote picket station and offer his fair proportions to the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a bead on him before he had time to say dunder ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... seen quoted in connexion with recent controversies, but which is well worthy of being borne in mind, as teaching us to beware of hastily assuming that objections to Revelation, whether suggested by the progress of science, or from the supposed incongruity of its own contents, are unanswerable. We are not, he says, rashly to suppose that we have arrived at the true meaning of the whole of that book. 'It is not at all incredible that a book which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscerned. For ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... precautionary motive more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... devoted to local government and so influenced by local feeling, to be governed by London? And, therefore, when those speeches are made which gain a cheer for the moment, and are supposed to be so unanswerable as arguments in favor of parliamentary change, I would recommend the house to recollect that this, as a question, is one of the most difficult and one of the deepest that can possibly engage the attention of the country. The fact is this—in the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... authority of Benjulia had no more effect on him than the unanswerable arguments of Mrs. Gallilee. "Recent circumstances" (as his mother expressed it) "had strengthened his infatuated resistance to reason." The dreaded necessity for Teresa's departure had been hastened by a telegram from Italy: Ovid felt for Carmina's distress ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... Now you have played into the hands of two of the most unscrupulous rascals in Colorado. Between you, you've got the men stirred up to a point where a strike is inevitable." For a time, Hartwell was apparently crushed by Firmstone's unanswerable logic, as well as by his portentous forecasts. He could not but confess to himself that his course of action looked very different under Firmstone's analysis than from his own standpoint alone. He drummed his fingers listlessly ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... This was too unanswerable for reply; but it determined me to try at some decided measure for restraining or changing looks and behaviour that excited such comments. And I thought my safest way would be fairly and frankly to tell him this very inquiry. It might put him upon his guard ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... unrighteously dooms to perdition all but the elect! In rejecting such a theory of religion, we reject not the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; we only vindicate them from objections, which, if unanswerable, are fatal; and we hold to the Gospel with a firmer conviction and a livelier faith, when we behold its accordance with the righteousness of the Divine administration and with the moral constitution ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... understandable to me. At that time this belief—my natural and normal state—was clouded over; between me and the goddess of my idolatry had fallen a veil; I wasted my brain tissue in trying to philosophize—cracked my head, and almost my reason over the endless, unanswerable question, Cui bono? that question which may so easily become the destruction of the fool who once allows himself to be drawn into dallying with it. Cui bono? is a mental Delilah who will shear the locks of the most arrogant Samson. ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... to make known some of the innumerable things which the Roman Catholic theologians and moralists have written on this question. It will form one of the most curious books ever written; and it will give an unanswerable evidence of the fact that, instinctively, without consulting each other, with an unanimity which is almost marvellous, the Roman Catholic women, guided by the honest instincts which God has given them, shrink from the snares put before them in the confessional-box; and that everywhere ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... necessary. The Madras cattle are much better for hard work and all climates than those of Bengal, and sufficient could be collected for the occasion by sea. Your Lordship's reasons for not trusting to steamers alone are unanswerable, and it seems impossible for a land and river force to act jointly. In this, we almost realize the contest between the winds and the moschettoes before the court of the genii in the Arabian tale: when the winds appeared, the moschettoes could not, and ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... religions as they did. If they quoted Confucius to contradict the Bible, he would quote Confucius to contradict them. He confounded them by proving that they were not really followers of Confucius, for they did not keep his sayings. And with unanswerable arguments he went on to show that the religion taught by Jesus Christ was the one and only religion to ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... representing the indecency of this, and Fitzherbert saying that many were within call, Stanley observed, that after voting against adjournment, a third part had adjourned themselves, when, instead of being within call, they ought to have been within hearing; this was unanswerable, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... This was an unanswerable argument, and nobody could deny it; consequently, there was a cessation of talk, and the people then came up, as the two first ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... now not so much as looked after in our aspirations? Marcus Antoninus is a scholar; he enacts the philosopher; and he tries conclusions upon the four elements, and upon the nature of the soul; and he discourses learnedly upon the Honestum; and concerning the Summum Bonum he is unanswerable. Meanwhile, is he learned in the interests of the State? Can he argue a point upon the public economy? You see what a host of sabres is required, what a host of impeachments, sentences, executions, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... our tent, and waited for decently clear weather, so that we might survey the ground at our ease and choose the best way. Going forward without an idea of what the ground was like, was not very pleasant. But how long should we have to wait for clear weather? That question was unanswerable; possibly a week, or even a fortnight, and we had no time for that. Better go straight on, then, and take ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the State." Our conviction that such a government as yours is reactionary and incompatible with true liberty, and that it stunts and warps the intellects of its citizens, has been amply confirmed by extended observation in your country, and more particularly by the unanswerable fact that millions of your best blood, including distinguished men of intelligence and wealth, have forsaken Germany to seek true liberty of intellect and action in America, renouncing allegiance to the Fatherland to ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... which one may call unanswerable,' said Rollo with a significant line of lip. 'And how you dare say it, is more than I can understand. How could one manage? Nothing easier. I draw you a cheque, and you write me an order. Unless you prefer to employ ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... fiercely, would even rise from his chair and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view, combating some suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless wisdom which in the end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence. ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... must own to no very profound knowledge of what Lamarck did or did not say), which I have in this volume proposed to make to it. At the same time I admit, that as against the Darwinian view, many of them seem quite unanswerable. ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... the arguments of moralists in favor of the toleration of prostitutes; and if we accept the eternal validity of the marriage system with which prostitution developed, and of the theoretical morality based on that system, this is an exceedingly forcible, if not an unanswerable, argument. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... light. The men, when they made engagements with him and stipulated certain terms for certain work, and other details, never asked for paper, and even refused it when offered. Whatever came from those silent, resolute lips they knew unalterable, unanswerable, final, and absolute; they all trusted his word completely, and it passed amongst ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... Hypatia Hagg) will never be forgotten in the East End, where she did such splendid social work. Her constant cry of "Save the children!" referred to the cruel neglect of children's eyesight involved in allowing them to play with crudely painted toys. She quoted unanswerable statistics to prove that children allowed to look at violet and vermilion often suffered from failing eyesight in their extreme old age; and it was owing to her ceaseless crusade that the pestilence of the Monkey-on-the-Stick was almost swept from Hoxton. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... both sensible and unanswerable, the party scattered to improvise old castles of Ellangowan, and to squabble for what was to them the only wholly desirable part, that of Dirk Hatteraick. The combat between the smuggler and the exciseman was executed with particular zeal and spirit, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Unanswerable as seem these arguments to the Western mind, they were by no means so to the mass of Chinese who are always fearful lest some sudden reshuffling in the relationships existing between foreign Powers exposes them to new and greater calamities. This Chinese ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... diseases from all other sicknesses of our bodies, obscuring the plain and comparatively simple question of cure with the entirely opposed problem of punishment; a confusion and losing of the way that leads inevitably into a forest-tangle of difficulty and unanswerable questions. And this heritage of wrong-thinking has compassed our feet, binding them and throwing us down, as soon as we try to move on, always hindering reform from generation to generation, and, until that entanglement ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... under quite fair conditions, conditions under which it could be judged as an acting play and as a work of art. It is brilliantly clever, with a close, detective cleverness, all made up of merciless logic and unanswerable common sense. The principal characters are well drawn, the scenes are constructed with a great deal of theatrical skill, the dialogue is telling, the interest is held throughout. To say that the characters, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... the only way open to him—the way of crime. Then he proceeds to show him, progressively, the profits and advantages of criminal practises. It is only too easy for the trained crook to overcome the resistance of the unhardened youth; his arguments seem unanswerable; and the wholly justifiable feeling that prison is wrong and an outrage aids the corruptor at every turn. A few months is often enough to turn an innocent boy into a malefactor; a year or more of such instruction leaves him no chance of escape; ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... unanswerable—as indeed was the greater part of the sentiments which he uttered. But he seems to have failed, even more signally than Mr. Fox, in endeavoring to invalidate the masterly view which Burke had ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... movement. Many of them, taken down by some of his hearers, survive in manuscript to the present day. They will not, as a rule, bear printing, because the assumption on which they rest is not now assumed; but if it be granted, they are unanswerable; and it is curious that even now and then, although they are never for a moment anything else than a strict deduction from what we in the latter half of the century consider unproven or even false, they express ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... of the clods as they fall on the coffin lid or the plash of tears, or the choking sob; to allow the living whose hearts are torn and twisted and smashed by the robbery that death brings upon them to stand there and strangle themselves with the unanswered and unanswerable questions: "Whence," "What," and "Whither," and then say all this is the work of a good, a compassionate, a tender and loving God, and that death ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... preservation, and through the decree of Providence, the Popes became Italian sovereigns, both in right and fact." On this very lucid and satisfactory account of the origin of the Papal power, S is convinced at once, and is finally dismissed shamefaced, with the unanswerable interrogation, "whether the real object of the Revolution is not to create new men, new nations, new reason, new humanity, and ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... over on the Mayflower, long before 1792, it doesn't seem so very impossible, if it comes to that," said Mrs. Brimmer, with her usual unanswerable naivete; "provided always that you are not joking, Mr. Crosby. One never ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... old as Engineering; it is the "practical man's" mainstay, his "unanswerable argument." The so-called practical man will construct a building, and test it either with loads or by practical use. Then he will modify the design somewhere, and the resulting construction will be tested. If it passes through ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... point was shrewd. It was an open, unanswerable reply to the unuttered threat which perhaps Hillyard might be prompted ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... letter of the poet's, in which (November 12, 1810) he asks his friend the publisher to send him a "Hebrew essay demonstrating the falsehood of the Christian religion," and which the Christian Observer, he says, calls "an unanswerable but sophistical argument." Have it he must, be it translated into "Greek, Latin or any of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... meal in peace. After repeated games at cribbage" (he is writing to Coleridge), "I have got my father's leave to write; with difficulty got it: for when I expostulated about playing any more, he replied, 'If you won't play with me, you might as well not come home at all.' The argument was unanswerable, and ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... Instead of checking, the execrated judgment augmented enormously the existing excitement. Garrison's bitter taunt that "the Union is but another name for the iron reign of the slave-power," was driven home to the North, by the Dred Scott decision, with the logic of another unanswerable fact. Confidence in the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court was seriously shaken, and widespread suspicion struck root at the North touching the subserviency of that tribunal to the interests and ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... of that smile was unanswerable. Shosshi's mouth opened, but no sound issued from it. He did not even say the Evening Prayer. The moon sailed slowly across the heavens. The water flowed into the cistern with ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... for the necessity of a future state, in order that the justice of the Deity may be satisfied, Hume's argumentation appears unanswerable. For if the justice of God resembles what we mean by justice, the bestowal of infinite happiness for finite well-doing and infinite misery for finite ill-doing, it is in no sense just. And, if the justice of ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... (October 1836 to January 1839.) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the 'Beagle' I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time, i.e. 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The question ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... for, please? Where for? Where for?" Until her turn was reached: "Where for, miss?" and her weak little reply: "Euston"! And more violent blushes! And then the long, steady beating of the train over the rails, keeping time to the rhythm of the unanswerable voice within her breast: "Why are you here? Why are you here?" And then Rugby; and the awful ordeal of meeting Gerald, his entry into the compartment, the rearrangement of seats, and their excruciatingly painful attempts at commonplace conversation in the publicity of the carriage! (She had ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... mistaken, for I do own, I had rather read good than either blank verse or prose, and therefore the author did himself injury, if he like verse so well in plays, to lay down rules and raise arguments only unanswerable against himself." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... article in the same periodical for September, 1779, by L.H. N.,[6] vigorously defending Sterne as a man and a writer. The greatness of his human heart and the breadth and depth of his sympathies are given as the unanswerable proofs of his moral worth. This defense is vehemently seconded in the same magazine by ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... but not by the want of a valid plea. When the sentence shall go forth consigning him to perdition for the deeds done in the body, he will have in readiness, whether allowed to utter it or not, the unanswerable answer: "Lord, the deeds for which I am condemned were in all respects what thou didst predetermine. I have executed from first to last thy wise and holy counsels. Had I acted otherwise, I should have frustrated thy free purposes, formed before the foundation of the world. ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... would be no peace— Naught but a treacherous truce for breeding Of a later, greater, baser-still betrayal!— "No!" ... The spirits of our myriad valiant dead, Who died to make peace sure and life secure, Thunder one mighty cry of righteous indignation,— One vast imperative, unanswerable "No!" ... "Not for that, not for that, did we die!"— They cry;— "—To give fresh life to godless knavery! —To forge again the chains of slavery Such as humanity has never known! We gave our lives to set Life free, Loyally, willingly gave we, Lest ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... leave her quieter: my promise made her look almost like herself again. As for what you say about mentioning Clara and Mrs. Ralph in the same breath, I've been talking and smoking till I have no second breaths left to devote to second-rate virtue. There is an unanswerable reason for you, if you want one! And now let us get to the business that brings me here. I don't want to worry you by raking up this miserable mess again, from beginning to end, in your presence; but I must make sure at the same time that I have got hold of ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Preface must be expunged, although it cost him L30,—the lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness; George is as obstinate as a Primitive Christian, and wards and parries off all our thrusts with one unanswerable fence,—"Sir, it's of great consequence that the world ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... firmness in a personal Devil, and both supported their arguments with quotations from the Bible. But as the believers were able to bring forward more texts than the unbelievers and had in their hands an unanswerable argument in the Witch of Endor, the unbelievers, who dared not contradict the Word of God, were forced to fall back on the theory that the witches suffered from hallucination, hysteria, and, to use the modern word, 'auto-suggestion'. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... in stupefaction: her hands trembled: she thought for a moment of throwing his book at his head: afterwards she did not understand how it was that she did not do so. But she was overwhelmed by Christophe's authority and his unanswerable tone of voice: she began again. She sang the song-cycle, without changing one shade of meaning, or a single movement: for she felt that he would spare her nothing: and she shuddered at the thought ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... The reply was unanswerable, and being too restless to stay below when all was so novel on deck, Mark soon after went to where, by the light of many lanterns, about a third of the crew, supplemented by a gang of men from the dock, were hard at work trying to ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... arrived at the fatal act itself: 'You have been told, gentlemen, that the prisoner was bound by every obligation to avoid the supposed necessity of firing, by leaping behind a house near which he stood at that moment. Had he been attacked with a club, or with stones, the argument would have been unanswerable, and I should feel myself compelled to give up the defence in despair. But surely I need not tell you, gentlemen, how wide is the difference between sticks or stones, and double-triggered, loaded rifles cocked at your breast!' The effect of this terrific image, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... until after a great number of years and dissensions; but all the authors of Benares and Siam agree that mankind lived an infinity of centuries before having the intelligence to make laws; and they prove it by an unanswerable reason, which is that even to-day when everyone plumes himself on his intelligence, no way has been found of making a score of passably ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... unfinished, and the lower part of the towers transformed as Mr Paley has described. Thus we combine the rival theories. For Mr Poole[11] maintains that the point, up to which Benedict's work was carried, must mean the front we now see. One argument he advances appears unanswerable.[12] Of the two chroniclers, Swapham takes his history down to 1246; Abbot John ruled from 1249 to 1262. Both these writers therefore, beyond all question, were alive when the present front was finished. "Here are two people ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... this unanswerable logic, but was as surprised as he was gratified. He recalled the hour when the kinship was, at the best, but coldly recognized, the inscrutable haughtiness, even distrust, with which Miss Arundel listened ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... less than 40,000 scholars, who were actually profiting by the means of instruction thus placed within their reach. But the reasons which induced, or rather compelled, the Legislative Council to stop this system, are clearly stated in the Report of that body, which contains the most unanswerable justification of the course which it pursued. By that it appears, that the whole superintendence and patronage of these schools had, by the expired law, been vested in the hands of the county members; and they had been allowed to manage ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... said that this view cannot be true; that thousands of men selected from the officers of our citizen-soldiery by the unanswerable certificate of disabling wounds and the added prestige of their commander's recommendation, a class of men in physical, intellectual and moral power and attainments far superior to the average of the American people—it may be said that such could not have become all at once infamously ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... unanswerable and conclusive, at least for the time being, and the silk was laid away. We sat talking until late bedtime, Hope and I, telling of our studies and of the many people we had met ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Can she ever?" retorted impertinent youth. "She lacks the supreme faculty—imagination." Which was disrespectful, but unanswerable. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... attempt to indicate some of the modern tendencies to carry out what is illusory in the dogma, perhaps enough has been said of this period. Mr. Morley very well remarks that the doctrine of equality as a demand for a fair chance in the world is unanswerable; but that it is false when it puts him who uses his chance well on the same level with him who uses it ill. There is no doubt that when Condorcet said, "Not only equality of right, but equality of fact, is the goal ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... than by our simple past tense; and that in this particular the A.V. is in scores of instances more correct than the R.V.; the present Translator has contended (with arguments which some of the best scholars in Britain and in America hold to be "unanswerable" and "indisputable") in a pamphlet On the Rendering into English of the Greek Aorist and Perfect. Even an outline of the argument cannot be given in a Preface ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... as that of Suelonius, which gives us a Succession of Absolute Princes, is to me an unanswerable Argument against Despotick Power. Where the Prince is a Man of Wisdom and Virtue, it is indeed happy for his People that he is absolute; but since in the common Run of Mankind, for one that is Wise and Good you find ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... recorded for others also, since, as already mentioned, they but recorded the fact of her presence. But did they hold the same significance for the others? There was the question, and there possibly, nay probably, lay the comfort. Also, what lay on the other side of the page? Unanswerable ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... would settle the business and come to terms before the week was out. I heard that proposition put forward many times by young officers of ours, and as an argument against their own sacrifice they found it unanswerable. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... a suitable text for this chronicle, as well as an unanswerable argument for its carrying out, combined with a sort of premium, I'm sending you to-day, freight paid, a barrel of lily-of-the-valley roots, all vigorous and with many next ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... and arguing about whether there is a God; whether man survives death; whether definite progress is possible for him, and what is his relation to the universe. These questions are ever present in the mind of man as soon as intelligence is awakened. They are not unanswerable, as is frequently supposed; the answers to them are within the reach of anyone who will make proper efforts to find them. The truth is obtainable, and the conditions of its attainment are possible of achievement by anyone who will ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... and modest reply was received in a silence which would have embarrassed any other man than the Abbe Dutheil. The three priests chose to see in it one of those hidden and unanswerable sarcasms which are characteristic of ecclesiastics, who contrive to express what they want to say while observing the strictest decorum. In this case there was nothing of the kind. The Abbe Dutheil never thought of himself and had no ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... the slight unsteadiness of the hand upholding glass or match. Vladimir de Windt, Ivan's acknowledged chum, was doubly concerned and doubly restless. He shuffled his chair from group to group, his eyes asking anxious and unanswerable questions of each comrade with whom he discussed the state of the weather. And, indeed, the great doubt in his mind was echoed in that of every man present: what would be the outcome of Ivan's audacity? If Brodsky took the remonstrance in bad part—and who doubted ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... against Ferris' brutal treatment, announced the policy of a united resistance, a joint appeal to Hugh Worthington, and the demand of an Investigation Committee of Directors. "We will wait for Mr. Worthington's vindication," said Wade, in an unanswerable tone. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... slenderness of his pretext, and alive, as well, to the strength of Peter Rathbawne's case, if it should come to a discussion of the rights and wrongs involved, wherein his business probity and his justice to, and consideration for, his employees, would furnish arguments well-nigh unanswerable. He contented himself, therefore, with standing upon a simple declaration of the will of the Union, which was, in effect, his own; and, strong in his reliance, if not upon the support, at least upon the non-interference of the state authorities, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the license granted, as follows:—"For when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays and holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and win their living in all working days?" Truly, an unanswerable proposition. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... words that they came in sight of the great plains. They went a little way in silence, and then James Turnbull said suddenly, "But I cannot believe in the thing." MacIan answered nothing to the speech; perhaps it is unanswerable. And indeed they scarcely spoke another word to each ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... dignity in such a hat was to be ridiculous and peering down at the cord breeches, stockings and shoes, I knew that these henceforth must govern my behaviour. But how adapt myself to these debasing atrocities? This question proving unanswerable, I determined to buy other clothes ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... have pointed finger-nails. But still, in the back of our mind, the debilitating influence of fall fever was at work. We said to ourself, without the slightest thought of printing it (for it seemed to put us in a false light), that the one triumphant and unanswerable epigram of mankind, the grandest and most resolute utterance in the face of implacable fate, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... when even full weight is given to the strategical pressure of the hour and the uncertainty of the weather, there still remains the unanswerable criticism of the officer of the Conqueror: that by an error of judgment Nelson spoilt his attack by unnecessary haste. The moral advantage of pushing home a bold attack before an enemy is formed is of course very great; but in this case the enemy ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we love, that the motion is in one direction, and, when we hate, that the motion is in the other; but the WHY?' would remain as unanswerable ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... illegal[contrary to law], unlawful, illegitimate; not allowed, prohibited &c. 761; illicit, contraband; actionable. unwarranted, unwarrantable; unauthorized; informal, unofficial; injudicial[obs3], extrajudicial. lawless, arbitrary; despotic, despotical[obs3]; corrupt, summary, irresponsible; unanswerable, unaccountable. [of invalid or expired law] expired, invalid; unchartered, unconstitutional; null and void; a dead letter. [in absence of law] lawless, unregulated Adv. illegally &c. adj.; with a high hand, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... for a moment at what goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his party that unhappy man is, who will ask a question to-day which this day week would be unanswerable. What is that but "playing his card out of time"? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the unlucky "something" being the key-note to his party's politics which he has thus disclosed. What is this but "showing his hand"? Hear that dreary blunderer, who has unwittingly ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... fairly clear to him a few minutes before it had become more deeply mysterious than ever now. Even as the wolf-man rose from his knees, still mumbling to himself in incoherent exultation, the great and unanswerable question pounded in Philip's brain: "Who was this girl, and what was she to Bram Johnson—the crazed outlaw whom she feared and yet whom she did not ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... yet, at the back of his mind was a vague feeling of uneasiness which he was wholly unable to explain. Chevrial had impressed him, and yet one objection to that gentleman's misgivings seemed to him unanswerable: if the Vards had been changed from second-class to first with any ulterior object, the authorities in charge of the ship must be in the plot, and that was ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... children, whom she had to leave behind. Mother and father were again reunited in freedom, while two of their little boys were in slavery. What to do for them other than weep and pray, were questions unanswerable. For over forty years the mother's heart never knew what it was to be free from anxiety about her lost boys. But no tidings came in answer to her many prayers, until one of them, to the great astonishment of his relatives, turned ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... which in 1839 M. Paulin Paris proved that this, the oldest MS. of Joinville, belongs not to the beginning, but to the end of the fourteenth century, seem unanswerable, though they failed to convince M. Daunou, who, in the twentieth volume of the "Historiens de France," published in 1840, still looks upon this MS. as written in 1309, or at least during Joinville's life-time. M. Paulin Paris establishes, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... this. If I warn't a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I hadn't need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the wind,' said the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece of consolation, 'and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... around, beneath, stands firm, continues firm, on a balance of active and tremendous forces somehow harmoniously composed. Theology asks 'by What?' or 'by Whom?' Philosophy inclines rather to ask 'How?' Natural Science, allowing that for the present these questions are probably unanswerable, contents itself with mapping and measuring what it can of the various forces. But all agree about the harmony; and when a Galileo or a Newton discovers a single rule of it for us, he but makes our assurance surer. For uncounted centuries before ever hearing of Gravitation men ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... fantastic chatterer, but truly une bonne douce fille, bold in nothing but kindness, with nothing to blush for but the fault of going too often to church. "Did you never hear that France should be made desolate by a woman and restored by a maid?" she said; and this would seem to have been an unanswerable argument. He had, henceforth, nothing to do but to promote her purpose as best he ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... taste of his tutor. He became a member of a vigorous debating society, and rendered himself remarkable there for humorous energy. Though always in earnest, yet his earnestness was always droll. To be true in his ideas, unanswerable in his syllogisms, and just in his aspirations was not enough for him. He had failed, failed in his own opinion as well as that of others when others came to know him, if he could not reduce the arguments of his opponents to an absurdity, and conquer both by wit and reason. To say that his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... knew Billy Woods well enough to recognise that from Selwoode's new master there were no desirable pickings to be had such as the philanthropic crew had fattened on these four years past. So there came to them, one and all, urgent telegrams or insistent letters or some equally unanswerable demand for their presence elsewhere, such as are usually prevalent among our guests in very dull or very ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... influences entered the mind and soul of the man and aroused a keen joy which almost touched the verge of sadness. Life pulsated about him in such waves of creative passion, that his own heart throbbed uneasily with Nature's warm restlessness; and the unanswerable query which, in spite of his high and spiritual faith had often troubled him, came back again hauntingly to his mind,—"Why should Life be made so beautiful only to end ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli |
