"Cogent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an additional and cogent reason for making this request, and that is, that the rule of exclusion, although it might be applied in terms to both belligerents, would not operate equally and justly upon them both. It is well known to your Excellency that the Northern United States (which are now making an aggressive ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... inimitable short stories it is difficult to speak with measured praise; it is dangerous to quote them, they are so perfect that a word added or omitted might spoil them. His so-called digressions have always some cogent reason in them; they are his means of including in the panorama a scene essential to its completeness. The narrow type of history writing has been tried for some centuries; all that it seems able to accomplish is to go on narrowing itself until it cannot enjoy for recording ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... might have a pernicious influence on future negotiations, or produce immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and mischief, in relation to other powers. The necessity of such caution and secrecy was one cogent reason for vesting the power of making treaties in the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, the principle on which that body was formed confining it to a small number of members. To ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... would be—slavery is a divine institution. He quoted largely from the Old and New Testaments—from Moses and St. Paul, to prove the divinity of slavery, and said the sermon on the Mount had been mistranslated. His argument is cogent to prove that monarchy and aristocracy should favor slavery as the best means of keeping down, the working classes, now clamoring in England for the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not agree either in theology or in politics. "I meant to say," Froude wrote to his wife's brother-in-law in 1851, "that the philosophical necessity of the Incarnation as a fact must have been as cogent to the earliest thinkers as to ourselves. If we may say it must have been, they might say so. And they might, and indeed must, have concluded, each at their several date, that the highest historical person known to them must have been the Incarnate God; so that unless the Incarnation ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... in his crisp military voice, "His Majesty, and all England, are greatly pleased at the work of the South Atlantic fleet. In the report of our recent victory, the commander of the Panther had an extremely cogent reason to commend very heartily the action of a former officer of this vessel. To be exact and fair, it was an act upon which the safety of this ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... fellow-travellers, I have been by a singular accident carried by the police. From scraps of information I have gained while here, I believe I am correct in asserting that we have fallen into a trap, cunningly prepared for us by an unscrupulous fellow-countryman of ours, who has cogent reasons for wishing us out of the way, and has accordingly caused me and my friends to be arrested as coiners. The person in question is named Herbert Murray, but I am unable to say under what alias he is at present known in this part of the world. I mention this that you may ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... claim to secede from the Union; but no fair-minded man can deny that a plausible constitutional case could be made out in favour of Secession, nor that the citizens of the Southern confederacy demonstrated their wish and determination to secede by far more cogent evidence than the return of eighty-six Secessionists to Congress. The prima facie arguments which may be alleged in favour of Secession were tenfold stronger—unfounded as I hold them to have been—than the prima facie arguments ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... sign this salute over the sea, And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long; And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my love, And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them, For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods of it. O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... devil-devil house, had held otherwise. That departed wise one had believed that the Red One came from out of the starry night, else why—so his argument had run—had the old and forgotten ones passed his name down as the Star-Born? Bassett could not but recognize something cogent in such argument. But Ngurn affirmed the long years of his long life, wherein he had gazed upon many starry nights, yet never had he found a star on grass land or in jungle depth—and he had looked for them. True, he had beheld shooting stars (this in reply to Bassett's contention); but ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... concourse of three benevolent millionaires with the person to whom poverty can do no more is so pleasant and possible that I marvel it does not occur more frequently. I am prepared to believe on the very lightest assurance that these things do happen, but are hushed up for reasons which would be cogent enough ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... but his friend advised their progress. This, however, was not easy; and Popanilla, animated for the moment by his natural aristocratic disposition, and emboldened by his superior size and strength, began to clear his way in a manner which was more cogent than logical. The chimney-sweeper and his comrades were soon in arms, and Popanilla would certainly have been killed or ducked by this superior man and his friends, had it not been for the mild remonstrance of his conductor and the ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... bodily form, nor has he any power save that granted him by God for vengeance. This being true, the whole belief in the Devil's intercourse with witches is undermined. Such, very briefly, were the philosophic bases of Scot's skepticism. Yet the more cogent parts of his work were those in which he denied the validity of any evidence so far offered for the existence of witches. What is witchcraft? he asked; and his answer is worth quoting. "Witchcraft is in truth a cousening art, wherin the name of God is abused, prophaned ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... very condition of the possibility of Progress, it is obvious that the idea would be valueless if there were any cogent reasons for supposing that the time at the disposal of humanity is likely to reach a limit in the near future. If there were good cause for believing that the earth would be uninhabitable in A.D. 2000 or 2100 the doctrine of Progress would lose its meaning and would automatically ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... more cogent reason why old men are neither respected nor honoured in a democracy. Here is yet another efficiency formally denied and formally set aside. An interesting treatise might be written on the rise and fall of old men. Civilization has ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... the existing world have been derived by a process of gradual modification from pre-existing forms. It is undeniable, for example, that the evidence in favour of the derivation of the horse from the later tertiary Hipparion, and that of the Hipparion from Anchitherium, is as complete and cogent as such evidence can reasonably be expected to be; and the further investigations into the history of the tertiary mammalia are pushed, the greater is the accumulation of evidence having the same tendency. ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... after all, no virtue in itself in mere themal interrelation,—in particular of lesser phrases. One cogent theme may well prevail as text of the whole. As the recurring motives are multiplied, they must lose individual moment. The listener's grasp becomes more difficult, until there is at best a mystic maze, a sweet ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... the authority quoted above. The reason for this is assigned by some to the fact that by continency man overcomes a foe within himself, or to the fact that by continency man is perfectly conformed to Christ in respect of purity of both body and soul. But this reason does not seem to be cogent since the goods of the soul, such as contemplation and prayer, far surpass the goods of the body and still more conform us to God, and yet one may be dispensed from a vow of prayer or contemplation. Therefore, continency ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Jesus, in opposition to whose growth it was not right or within reason (with due respect) to have the question decided through the expenditure of money, and that the petty amount of two thousand pesos. Because of the harm to the public welfare and the service of your Majesty, besides other cogent reasons, any similar proposal should be regarded with disfavor and refused a hearing. Moreover, it [i.e., the Jesuit college] was sought for and granted on the fiat of the Conde de Castrillo, through whose agency this grant was secured, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... cogent. It is a scheme of representation, which would make a specious appearance in a political romance, but cannot be brought into practice among us, who see every day the towering head of speculation bow down ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... own disclamation, that the stranger was really a supernatural being; others believed him an inspired champion, transported in the body from some distant climate, to show us the way to safety; others, again, concluded that he was a recluse, who, either from motives of piety, or other cogent reasons, had become a dweller in the wilderness, and shunned ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the truth of spiritual teaching given in attestation of it. I will merely remark that to any one who has really appreciated the meaning of biblical criticism, it is scarcely conceivable that the evidence for miracles could seem sufficiently cogent to constitute such an attestation. In proof of that I will merely appeal to the modest, apologetic, tentative tone in which {140} scholarly and sober-minded theologians who would usually be classed among the ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... association demands. With that secured, many other advantages, now denied, will surely and speedily follow. I can see no valid objection to the right of suffrage being conferred, while there are many and very cogent reasons in favor of it. As has been said, you may go on election day to the most degraded elector you can find at the polls, who would sell his vote for a dollar or a dram, and ask him what he would take for his right to vote and you couldn't ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of commerce, and the lie of malice, the motive is so apparent, that they are seldom negligently or implicitly received; suspicion is always watchful over the practices of interest; and whatever the hope of gain, or desire of mischief, can prompt one man to assert, another is by reasons equally cogent incited to refute. But vanity pleases herself with such slight gratifications, and looks forward to pleasure so remotely consequential, that her practices raise no alarm, and her stratagems ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... would have the various Protestant denominations throw down the bars that separate them and mark off their theological bailiwicks "with little beds of flowers." The idea is a good one—and I can but wonder where Slattery stole it. Still I can see no cogent reason for getting all the children together in happy union and leaving their good old mother out ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Control of the wayward is not to be sought in reduction of restraints, but in their multiplication. One who cannot be curbed by reason may be curbed by fear, a familiar truth which lies at the foundation of all penological systems. The argument for exemption of women is equally cogent for exemption of habitual criminals, for they too are abnormally inaccessible to reason, abnormally disposed to obedience to the suasion of their unregulated impulses and passions. To free them from the restraints of the fear of punishment would be a bold innovation which has ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... one federal government, vested with sufficient powers for all general and national purposes. The more attentively I consider and investigate the reasons which appear to have given birth to this opinion, the more I become convinced that they are cogent and conclusive. Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their SAFETY seems to be the first. The SAFETY of the people doubtless has relation to a great variety of circumstances and considerations, and consequently ...
— The Federalist Papers
... acquaintance in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?—I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... the whole, the Catholics do humbly petition (without the least insinuation of threatening) that upon this favourable juncture their incapacity for civil and military employments may be wholly taken off, for the very same reasons (besides others more cogent) that are now offered ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... long time; I fought off their invitation as well as I could: I couldn't bear thus to quarter myself upon utter strangers. But they both were so pressing, and brought up so many cogent arguments why I couldn't go alone to the one village saloon—a mere whisky-drinking public-house, they said, of very bad character,—that in the long run I was fain almost to acquiesce in their kind plan for my temporary housing. Besides, after my horrid experience at Quebec, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... powerful method of stimulating human progress. The world has been lagging behind in its sense of brotherhood, and we now have the Socialists knit together in a fighting friendship as fierce and narrow in its motives as Calvinism, pricking us to reform, asking the cogent question: ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... darling child is a painful imposition. For a youth in his Blossoming Season, who fancies himself a poet, to be requested to destroy his first-born, without a reason (though to pretend a reason cogent enough to justify the request were a mockery), is a piece of abhorrent despotism, and Richard's blossoms withered under it. A strange man had been introduced to him, who traversed and bisected his skull with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... degree of probability that is presented by the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology, comprising an examination of the Theistic objection to the scientific train of reasoning on account of its symbolism, and showing that a no less cogent objection lies against the metaphysical train of reasoning on account of its embodying the supposition of unknowable causes. Distinction between "inconceivability" in a formal or symbolical, and in a material or realisable sense. Reply of a supposed Atheist to the previous pleading ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... inquiries. The Prince Consort' said that the drawings opened up quite a new subject to him, which he had not before had the opportunity of considering. It was as much as I could do to answer the numerous keen and incisive questions which he put to me. They were all so distinct and cogent. Their object was, of course, to draw from me the necessary explanations on this rather recondite subject. I believe, however, that notwithstanding the presence of Royalty, I was enabled to place all the most striking and important features of the Moon's surface in a clear and satisfactory ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... asked for and received much good counsel, and in the end determined to withdraw the United States troops from the immediate vicinity of the State House in Louisiana. The Packard government fell, and the Democrats took possession. The lawyers could furnish cogent reasons why Packard was not entitled to the governorship, although the electoral vote of Louisiana had been counted for Hayes; but the Stalwarts maintained that no legal quibble could varnish over so glaring an inconsistency. Indeed, it was one of ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... expected to concede; and among this section of recent writers on Irish politics three stand out prominently by reason of their position and of their proposals:—Mr. T.W. Russell, in "Ireland and the Empire," preached with cogent force the need for the last step in the expropriation of the Irish landlords, the one great obstacle, in his eyes, to a prosperous and contented Ireland. In the economic field Sir Horace Plunkett has pleaded, in "Ireland in the New Century," for the salvation of the ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... dislike of prefaces is unmistakeably evidenced by their uncut leaves, and as unknown readers could scarcely be induced to read a book by the most cogent representations of an unknown author, and as apologies for "rushing into print" are too trite and insincere to have any effect, I will merely prefix a few explanatory ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... delighted to hear the Leader of the Opposition say, in a concise and cogent sentence, that he could easily conceive many sweated trades in which the wages of the workers could be substantially raised without any other change except a diminution of price. Sir, the wages of a sweated worker bear no accurate relation to the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the principal in the supposed transaction, who had retracted his original statement over and over again, whom the Court refused to confront with the man he accused. Had the allegations been ever so consistent, cogent, credible, and corroborated, they proved nothing, except that Ralegh might, not would, have accepted foreign gold if it had been proffered to him. Cecil accepted it for years to come, and died at once Prime Minister and pensioner of Spain. Northumberland had recently ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... from that time has not come under my cognizance." (Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 401). Even as it stands in his book, Sparks says: "The application, it must be confessed, was neither pressing in its terms, nor cogent in its arguments." ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... and was making his terms with the enemy. Allcraft cursed himself a thousand times for his folly in placing himself at the mercy of so unstable a character, and immediately became aware that there had never been any cogent reason for such a step, and that his danger would have been infinitely smaller had he never spoken to a human being on the subject. But it was useless to call himself, by turns, madman and fool, for his pains. What could be done now to repair the error? Absolutely nothing; and, at the best, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... power, confer power, exercise power &c. n.; empower, enable, invest; indue[obs3], endue; endow, arm; strengthen &c. 159; compel &c. 744. Adj. powerful, puissant; potential; capable, able; equal to, up to; cogent, valid; efficient, productive; effective, effectual, efficacious, adequate, competent; multipotent[obs3], plenipotent[obs3], omnipotent; almighty. forcible &c. adj. (energetic) 171; influential &c. 175; productive &c. 168. Adv. powerfully &c. adj.; by ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "That's the most cogent thought you ever had, but setting the date is the bride's business." He glanced at his Oman wristwatch. "It's early yet; let's skip over. I wouldn't mind seeing her a minute ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... of such an army of Orpheuses, in which every third soldier shouldered a fiddle-case as a pendant to his musket, must have been curious to behold; suggesting the idea that the melodious warriors designed subduing their foes by the soothing strains of jotas and cachuchas, rather than by the more cogent arguments of sharp steel and ball-cartridge. Great must have been the tinkling at eventide, exceeding that of the most extensive flock of merinos that ever cropped Castilian herbage. Was it because ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... of the Constitution, requiring a jury trial to determine the question of slavery, when an alleged fugitive is seized. This letter has elicited a reply from Hon. HORACE MANN, of the House, also from Massachusetts, which enforces the contrary opinion, with abundant and vehement rhetoric and cogent argument. Prof. STUART, of Andover, has also published a pamphlet in support of Mr. Webster's views on the general subject.—The convention of delegates intended to represent the slave-holding states, called some months since, met at Nashville, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Revolution, and of the events leading to the birth of the new nation. While Washington was the animating spirit of the struggle in the colonies, Franklin was its ablest champion abroad. To Franklin's cogent reasoning and keen satire, we owe the clear and forcible presentation of the American case in England and France; while to his personality and diplomacy as well as to his facile pen, we are indebted for the foreign alliance and ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... from the philosophy of the matter, which I must confess to passing over very superficially at the time, there were other and more cogent reasons for wanting to go from Venice to the Big Venetian. It was the first of July, and the city on the sea was becoming tepid. A slumbrous haze brooded over canals and palaces and churches. It was difficult to keep one's conscience awake to Baedeker ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... mother-in-law before returning to Holland; in short, was so plausible in his arguments, so specious and pressing, pleading so eloquently the violence of his love and inutility of delay, and overruling objections with such cogent reasoning, that he achieved a complete triumph, and it was agreed that in one week Van Haubitz should lead his adored Emilie to the hymeneal altar. In the interval, he would have abundant time to obtain his father's consent and the necessary papers from Amsterdam—all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... adviser, it was immediately acted upon, and English agents were despatched into Germany, Italy, and France, carrying with them all means of persuasion, intellectual, moral, and material, which promised to be of most cogent ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the bloody sword, her courage fails her, and, most affectingly, she holds up to him the breast at which she had suckled him. Hesitating in his purpose, he asks the counsel of Pylades, who in a few lines exhorts him by the most cogent reasons to persist; after a brief dialogue of accusation and defence, he pursues her into the house to slay her beside the body of Aegisthus. In a solemn ode the chorus exults in the consummated retribution. The doors of the palace are thrown open, and disclose ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... parents to limit their offspring are sometimes selfish, but more often honourable and cogent. The desire to marry and to rear children well equipped for life's struggle, limited incomes, the cost of living, burdensome taxation, are forcible motives; and, further, amongst the educated classes there is the desire of women ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson
... articles of a treaty which obscured all the glories of the war, surrendered up the interests of the nation, and sacrificed the public faith by the abandonment of long-tried and faithful allies. Fox, supported by George Grenville, replied in a less eloquent; tone, but with more cogent arguments, and the ministers obtained a large majority. In the house of lords, Bute undertook the defence of the measure, and in his speech, the clauses of which fell from his lips like so many minute-guns, he detailed the rise and progress ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... obliterate the deepest impressions. Grief the most vehement and hopeless, will gradually decay and wear itself out. Arguments may be employed in vain: every moral prescription may be ineffectually tried: remonstrances, however cogent or pathetic, shall have no power over the attention, or shall be repelled with disdain; yet, as day follows day, the turbulence of our emotions shall subside, and our fluctuations be finally succeeded ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... your religious treatise with infinite pleasure and satisfaction. The style is fine and clear, the arguments close, cogent, and irresistible. May the King of Kings, whose glorious cause you have so well defended, reward your pious labours, and grant that I may be found worthy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, to be an eye-witness ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... sufficiently verdant. Our guides told us, that the horses could not travel all day without rest or meat, and intreated us to stop here, because no grass would be found in any other place. The request was reasonable and the argument cogent. We therefore willingly dismounted and diverted ourselves as the place gave ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... brought up. But it is more important to recognise the immense real value of his doctrine. Briefly, I should say, that there is hardly an argument in Bentham's voluminous writings which is not to the purpose so far as it goes. Given his point of view, he is invariably cogent and relevant. And, moreover, that is a point of view which has to be taken. No ethical or political doctrine can, as I hold, be satisfactory which does not find a place for Bentham, though he was far, indeed, from giving a complete theory of his subject. And the main reason of this is that which ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... believe it will be a fine day to-morrow, but that does not justify me in condemning a man to death on the assumption that it will be a fine day. The question is whether the jury are justified in coming to their verdict by cogent and decisive evidence. In this case I can see nothing of the sort. An eccentric old lady, with a mania for hoarding jewels, has disappeared in the night, carrying her jewels with her. A hand, identified as hers, because of the rings on it, was ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... to the serene hill-tops of thought, to awaken sublime sensations in all present such as the spectacle of some noble mountain panorama will summon up in the meditations of the most phlegmatic. Mr. Churchill, ever lucid, ever cogent, ever earnest, ever forceful, was wont to be so convincing that he would almost cause listeners to forget for the moment that, were the particular project which just then happened to be uppermost in his mind to be carried ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... in chagrin and defeat to the parties employing it, for the simple reason that it does violence to reason, nature, and all the laws of man's being. Science cannot be turned aside in her strenuous and ever-successful progress by any such impediments thrown in her way. The clear, calm, cogent facts and inferences of the philosopher cannot be met successfully by the half-suppressed shriek of the mere Biblicist. And it must be at once perceived that any such treatment of science, any such half-concealed fear of the progress of science, any such unfair and spiteful bearing ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... To this cogent argument of the honourable member, I had no reply; and this was the first and last time that I broached the subject when at Washington; but after many conversations with American gentleman on the subject, and examination into the real merits of the case, came to the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... upon its observance, during the governorship of Don Fernando de Silva, and later during that of Don Juan Nio de Tabora—who, recognizing that the motives that influenced their predecessors were more cogent than before, because of the greater decline in which they found that commerce, the poverty of the inhabitants, and the loss in their business, conformed to the earlier decisions. Licentiate Don Francisco de Roxas put forth more diligent efforts for the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... earth, and sobbed, audibly even at the spot where I was standing. I was in doubt whether to wait longer or to proceed; my way lay just by him, and it might be dangerous to interrupt so substantial an apparition. However, my curiosity was excited, and my feet were half frozen, two cogent reasons for proceeding; and, to say truth, I was never very much frightened by any ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... on earth? He declares, that whatever we bestow upon them he will esteem it as given to himself; and pledges his sacred word that he will reward our alms with an eternity of bliss. Such motives, says St. Chrysostom, would be sufficient to touch a heart of stone: but there is something still more cogent, continues the same holy father, which is, that the same Jesus Christ, whom we refuse to nourish in the persons of the poor, feeds our souls with his precious body and blood. If such considerations move not our hearts to commiserate and assist the indigent, what share of mercy and relief ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... born at E. Windsor, Connecticut; graduated at Yale; minister at Northampton, Mass.; missionary to Housatonnuck Indians; was elected to the Presidency of Princeton College; wrote an acute and original work, "The Freedom of the Will," a masterpiece of cogent reasoning; has been called the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... problems touching the theory and practice of music. He had meditated deeply concerning the art of which he was always a tireless student—had come to conclusions concerning its actual and assumed records, its tendencies, its potentialities. He was a vigorous and original critic, and he had shrewd, cogent, and clear-cut reasons for the particular views at which he had arrived; whether one could always agree with them or not, they invariably commanded respect. Yet his erudition was seldom displayed. One came upon it unexpectedly in conversation with him, through the accident of some reference ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... refused him for two reasons—that she already had one husband somewhere or other, and the more cogent reason that though she admired Mr. Fein, found him as cooling and pleasant as lemonade on a July evening, she did not love him, did not want to mother him, as she had always wanted to mother Walter Babson, and as, now and ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... are there. What we do press is this—that when an authority comes forward to assure us that all the processes of life, including man's highest as well as his lowest attributes, can be explained on chemico-physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more cogent proof of it than the demonstration, however complete, of the germination of an egg, caused by artificial stimulus and not by the ordinary method of syngamy, even though that germination may lead to the production of a perfect adult form. We are entitled to ask him to make clear ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... very sorry, good Senor; for my part, I can very well conceive that a prudent man has cogent reasons to ponder and reflect more than a philosopher, when he is on the point of being entangled in the labyrinth of matrimony. Yes, Sir, I allow it is a most dangerous experiment: it is a voyage menaced with all sorts of foul weather, and surrounded with shoals, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... form, educationally, a special class, very small in most communities, who have to be reached by unusual methods. To them the large institution offers advantages not likely to be had outside. For this reason the case against the institution, however cogent and logical it may be in general, ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it—unless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... vagrant propensities by a ring-fence of forts or military posts; to say nothing of the still readier plan for securing their fidelity (a plan already talked of in all quarters) by exacting a large body of hostages selected from the families of the most influential 30 nobles. On these cogent considerations, it was solemnly determined that this terrific experiment should be made in the next year of the tiger, which happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771. With respect to the month, there was, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... Very many of us who have daily to do with the problems and perplexities of our social life and to give counsel to the anxious or the penitent or the perturbed will thank you for these clear and cogent chapters. To arguments based on moral and religious principle you add the weight of ripe experience and of technical scientific knowledge. Your words will gain access to the commonsense of many who would perhaps regard the opinions of clergy as likely ...
— Conception Control and Its Effects on the Individual and the Nation • Florence E. Barrett
... fall of dusk the Librarian was fairly beaten. So cogent were Cho's arguments, so loud and warm his eloquence, so entirely convincing his facts adduced—his modern instances, as you may say—that there really was nothing for the old man to answer. Ghosts were not; genii were ridiculously unthinkable; supernatural beings ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... I can see no reason why Mohammed and his Bedouins in the desert should not have made the same observation as the Vedic poets in India, though I must admit at the same time that Colebrooke has brought forward very cogent arguments to prove that, in their scientific employment at least, the Arabic Manzil were really borrowed ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... controversy on the subject in the nineties between Herbert Spencer and myself. I should like to return to the matter in detail, if the space at my disposal permitted, because it seems to me that the arguments I advanced at that time are equally cogent to-day, notwithstanding all the objections that have since been urged against them. Moreover, the matter is by no means one of subordinate interest; it is the very kernel of the whole question of the reality and ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... coming there, that idea was preposterous. Why every boy for miles around would feel at liberty to call upon her pupils and they would be simply besieged. She had conducted her school successfully for many years under its present methods and until she saw more cogent reasons for changing she should ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... forms of life, none of which could survive if these habitats were reversed. Now, I think that our imaginary inquirer would be a dull man if, as the result of all this study, he failed to conclude that the evidence of Design furnished by the marine bay was at least as cogent as that which he had previously found in his ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... shores of Rhine and Rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old vintages! oh, cobwebs in the Pyramids! oh, dust on Pharaoh's tomb!— all, all recur, as I bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents cogent as Tokay, itself as old as Mohi's legends; more venerable to look at than his beard. Whence came it? Buried in vases, so saith the label, with the heart of old Marjora, now dead one hundred thousand moons. Exhumed ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... here put forward, there is much in its favour, and it shows a considerable degree of keen argument and cogent reasoning that, in any case, is a valuable contribution to this department of literature. Moreover, it may be the incentive for further exploration of the locality mentioned at some future time, with the view of solving the secrets of the strange carving and ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous care. To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost seem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... higher controversial criticism. Its literary style is good, its controversial manner excellent, and its writer's emphasis does not escape in italics and notes of exclamation, but is all reserved for lucid and cogent reasoning. Altogether a book of an excellent spirit, written with freshness and ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... those who gained admission, and through him sought to be put into touch with departed friends, received a courteous but firm refusal, accompanied by the explanation: "God having for wise and good purposes separated the world of spirits from ours, a communication is never granted without cogent reasons." When, however, his visitors satisfied him that they were imbued with something more than curiosity, he made an effort to meet their wishes, ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... distress to the lord chamberlain and his majesty. A solemn declaration is drawn up, in which James I. most gravely laments that the archduke's ambassador has taken this offence; but his majesty offers these most cogent arguments in his own favour: that the Venetian had announced to his majesty that his republic had ordered his men new liveries on the occasion, an honour, he adds, not usual with princes—the Spanish ambassador, not finding himself well for the first day (because, by the way, he did not care ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... ought to have known better, adopted the saying of Mr. Howells in a wider sense than he ever intended it to carry, and, partly as a result of this, we have arrived at a certain tacit depreciation of the greatest emotional master of fiction. There are other and more cogent reasons for the temporary obscuration of that brilliant light. It may aid our present purpose to ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... advancement of the sciences, and that notwithstanding all this the far greater part of them remains full of darkness and uncertainty, and disputes that are like never to have an end, and even those that are thought to be supported by the most clear and cogent demonstrations contain in them paradoxes which are perfectly irreconcilable to the understandings of men, and that, taking all together, a very small portion of them does supply any real benefit to mankind, otherwise ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... Fascination. And it was not a mere retort for the sound's sake, but was a cheerful cogent consequence of the refusal; for if Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it would have been so heavily visited, in Fledgeby's opinion, as to demand abstinence from bread, on his part, for the remainder of that meal ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... very evident that the victories of Constantine the Great, and both the fear of punishment and the desire of pleasing the Roman emperors, were cogent reasons, in the view of whole nations as well as of individuals, for embracing the Christian religion. Yet no person well informed in the history of this period will ascribe the extension of Christianity wholly to these ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Nathaniel—not Daniel at all." Irascibly, the Judge's, "What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?" Shamefaced and yet irritably, "I didn't, my lord." "You did, sir!"—with great indignation, topped by this cogent reasoning,—"How could I have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?" Nothing at all was said about it in the Reading; but, again and again, Mr. Winkle, as there impersonated, while endeavouring to feign an easiness of manner, was made to assume, in his ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... genius, roughened, no less than strengthened by the asperities of the experience out of whose ireful plenitude he writes. Rough and disorderly in arrangement, it is lofty, striking, eloquent in style—cogent, daring, powerful in matter. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the Bishops of Raphoe and Down and Connor; the Lord Mayor of Cork and Lord Mayor of Belfast were together; Mr. Devlin was with Mr. Barrie. This list represented no unity except a common refusal to agree to any compromise. Those who voted in it followed one or other of two trains of cogent reasoning; but the reasonings led to opposite conclusions. These men were beyond doubt as honest in their convictions as those who went the other way; but they took the easier course, whether they were Nationalist or Unionist: they swam ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... not to disturb the congregation. We are catechising and converting our proselytes, and there should be no row. As we get older we must digest more quietly still, our appetite is less, our gastric juices are no longer so eloquent, they have lost that cogent fluency which carried away all that came in contact with it. They have become sluggish and unconciliatory. This is what happens to any man when he suffers from an ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... to be sure that Robert Louis Stevenson will make a more cogent appeal for a place in English letters as a writer of fiction than as an essayist. But had he never written essays likely to rank him with the few masters of that delightful fireside form, he would still have an indisputable claim as novelist. The claim in ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... skill to separate it from a base alloy. As regards the nightmare anomaly of perfect art arisen in times of moral corruption, those unconscious analogies I have spoken of, and which perhaps are our most cogent reasons, have taught us that such anomalies are but nightmares and horrid delusions. For, taking the phenomenon historically, we shall see that although art has arisen in periods of stress and change, and therefore ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... years among his herds and flocks; and that, though you appear to be travelling for amusement, you are, in fact, a political exile. All these are grounds for a reduced ransom. At present he believes nothing that I say, because his mind has been previously impressed with contrary and more cogent representations, but what I say will begin to work when he has experienced some disappointment, and the period of re-action arrives. Re-action is the law of society; it is inevitable. All success depends upon ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Public opinion at Troy condemned her marriage. As Miss Limpenny neatly asked, "If we were all to marry beneath us, pray where should we stop?" "We should go on," replied the Admiral, "ad libitum." I am inclined to think he meant "ad infinitum;" but the argument is quite as cogent as ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... American ballad-monger? He was full of gay irresponsibility. Ever since, on returning to his rooms after some tedious lecture, he announced to his friends that he had lost an umbrella but preserved, thank God, his honour, they augured a brilliant future for him. So, for other but no less cogent reasons, did ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Barbarians, their want of Stirpes, as he calls them, or hereditary rank[1248]. Do not let your mind, when it is freed from the supposed necessity of a rigorous entail, be entangled with contrary objections, and think all entails unlawful, till you have cogent arguments, which I believe you will never find. I am ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... two very cogent arguments in favour of selling. The Dona Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now regarded herself as a woman of wealth, and was always after him for money. Her ambition was to build a house in the Highlands and serve tea at four o'clock (although it was thick chocolate she liked) and break ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... of physics, it may be urged, are apparently adequate to explain everything that happens to matter, even when it is matter in a man's brain. This, however, is only a hypothesis, not an established theory. There is no cogent empirical reason for supposing that the laws determining the motions of living bodies are exactly the same as those that apply to dead matter. Sometimes, of course, they are clearly the same. When a man falls from a precipice ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... submission to the royal will in a way which excited both merriment and compassion. "I have," he said, "fourteen reasons for obeying His Majesty's commands, a wife and thirteen young children." [353] Such reasons were indeed cogent; yet there were not a few instances in which, even against such reasons, religious and patriotic ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... universal free grace of God to all mankind," to which he opposed the Calvinistic tenet of particular and personal predestination; in defence of which indefensible notion he found himself more at a loss than he expected. Edward Burrough said not much to him upon it, though what he said was close and cogent; but James Naylor interposing, handled the subject with so much perspicuity and clear demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible; and so I suppose my father found it, which made him ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... the preponderating tendency among scholars favours the traditional authorship. On the other hand the most recent scrutiny asserts: "Although many critics see no adequate reason for accepting the tradition which assigns the book to the Apostle John, and there are several cogent reasons to the contrary, they would hardly deny that nevertheless the volume is Johannine—in the sense that any historical element throughout its pages may be traced back directly or indirectly to that Apostle and ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... complains, That men do more inquire what Comets signifie, then what they are, or how they are generated and moved; professing himself to be of the mind of those that would have Comets rather admired then feared; there appearing indeed no cogent reason, why the Author of Nature may not intend them rather as Monitors of his Glory and Greatness, then of his Anger or Displeasure; especially seeing that some very diligent Men (among whom is Gemma Frisius) take notice of as great a number of good as ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... distressed parents anxious for this. But very seldom indeed—except the deformity be very great, and implicating other parts beside the lip—will the operation be required, or ought it to be resorted to, before the second year and a half of the infant's life; and for this very cogent reasons exist. For instance, convulsions may thus be ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... detached hand moved into ripples of the air. Only he was irritated and alarmed by the abiding sense of some surrounding danger, which stayed with him, which he fought against in vain. His common sense had not deserted him. On the contrary, it was argumentative, cogent in explanation and in rebuke. It strove to sneer his distress down with stinging epithets, and shot arrows of laughter against his aimless fears. But the combat was, nevertheless, tamely unequal. Common ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... together, he would pour forth a stream of reasoning so lucid, out of depths so profound and reach conclusions so cogent, that he seemed fairly inspired. At other times he would develop a line of argument so outworn, and arrive at conclusions so inane, that I could not but look into his face closely to see if he could be really in earnest; but it always bore that same expression—forbidding the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... woman should take part in the affairs of government which so vitally affect her, that I point to the actual conditions now existing as a complete vindication of the efforts of equal suffragists, and as the most cogent of all reasons why woman should have the right to aid in nominating ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... parents and seemingly a healthy child and properly looked after succumbs unaccountably in early childhood (though other children of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet's words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... practising in the metropolis, and so I became acquainted with him. He knows Sir Francis Varney, and, if I mistake not, has found out the cause of that mysterious personage's great attachment to Bannerworth Hall, and has found the reasons so cogent, that he has got up an affection for ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... principle asserted: that propositions, the negation of which is inconceivable, or in other words, which we cannot figure to ourselves as being false, must rest upon evidence of higher and more cogent description than any which experience can afford. And we have next to consider whether there is any ground for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... certain varieties were making almost as great a sensation as the Sharpless. They are now regarded as little better than weeds in most localities." Now that my publishers ask me to attempt this work of revision, I find that I shrink from it, for reasons natural and cogent to my mind. Possibly the reader may see them in the same light. The principles of cultivation, treatment of soils, fertilizing, etc., remain much the same; My words relating to these topics were penned ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... just seen that the martyr-journey of Ignatius to Rome is, for cogent reasons, declared to be wholly fabulous, and the Epistles purporting to be written during that journey must be ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... hazard the united resentment of the body intrusted with it, while this body was possessed of the means of punishing their presumption, by degrading them from their stations. While this ought to remove all apprehensions on the subject, it affords, at the same time, a cogent argument for constituting the Senate a court for the trial of impeachments. Having now examined, and, I trust, removed the objections to the distinct and independent organization of the Supreme Court, I proceed to consider ...
— The Federalist Papers
... of clearest bugles, full of encouragement, hope, inspiration, unfaltering defiance; Those magnificent editorials! they never flagg'd for a fortnight. The "Herald" commenced them—I remember the articles well. The "Tribune" was equally cogent and inspiriting—and the "Times," "Evening Post," and other principal papers, were not a whit behind. They came in good time, for they were needed. For in the humiliation of Bull Run, the popular feeling north, from its ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... speak of hope' he says, 'especially as we are not vain promisers, nor are willing to enforce or ensnare men's judgments; but would rather lead them willingly forward. And although we shall employ the most cogent means of enforcing hope when we bring them TO PARTICULARS, and especially those which are digested and arranged in our Tables of Invention, the subject partly of the SECOND, but—principally—mark it, principally of the FOURTH part of the Instauration, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of the war until the end of his life, by official message and by letter, Washington urged the importance of military instruction. In his message to Congress in 1796 he said: "The institution of a military academy is recommended by cogent reasons. However pacific the general policy of a nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies. In proportion as the observance from the necessity of practicing the rules of the military art, ought ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... men, too, unused to campaigning on the frontier, would not be able to endure a winter in the wilderness, with no better shelter than a tent; especially in their present condition, destitute of almost every thing. Such are a few of the cogent reasons urged by Washington in a letter to his friend William Fairfax, then in the House of Burgesses, which no doubt was shown to Governor Dinwiddie, and probably had an effect in causing the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... religious in character—a second lich-gate, for example, a stained-glass window, a monument of marble, or, if possible, all three. So far, however, nothing had been done, partly because the memorial committee had never been able to agree, partly for the more cogent reason that too little money had been subscribed to carry out any of the proposed schemes. Every three or four months Mr. Bodiham preached a sermon on the subject. His last had been delivered in March; it was high time that his congregation had ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... on the detention of the Morocco treaty is inexpressible. However cogent and necessary the motives which detain you, I should be deemed inexcusable were I to let such a safe opportunity as that by Colonel Blackden pass without sending the papers on to London. Mr. Jay complained that a treaty signed ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... there is fitness in the preaching to produce the sense of guilt. But this is to preach the law, in its fullest extent, and the most tremendous energy of its claims. Such discourse as this must necessarily analyze law, define it, enforce it, and apply it in the most cogent manner. For, only as the atonement of Christ is shown to completely meet and satisfy all these legal demands which have been so thoroughly discussed and exhibited, is the real virtue and power of the ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... compelled to this conduct by reasons, public as well as personal, of the most cogent nature. I know that I have been an object of uniform opposition from Mr. Jefferson, from the moment of his coming to the city of New York to enter upon his present office. I know from the most authentic ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... born in Moscow about forty-five years ago. Like Lenine, he is of bourgeois origin, his father being a wealthy Moscow merchant. He is a Jew and his real name is Bronstein. To live under an assumed name has always been a common practice among Russian revolutionists, for very good and cogent reasons. Certainly all who knew anything at all of the personnel of the Russian revolutionary movement during the past twenty years knew that Trotzky was Bronstein, and that he was a Jew. The idea, assiduously disseminated by a section ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... my great hope, and then you will understand how little it has to do with the bloody holocausts we are so unfortunately associated with." And then this strange creature began to unfold a scheme of policy which seemed to me the maddest my ears had ever listened to, and yet with cogent method in its madness. Briefly, he wanted to produce diamonds in huge quantities, and sow them broadcast over the globe. As gems they would then be no longer valuable. Castes would cease to exist. And then governments could be ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Constitution, making what is regarded as one of America's greatest books, it is doubtful how much immediate influence they had. Certainly in the New York convention itself Hamilton's personal influence was a stronger force. His arguments were both eloquent and cogent, and met every objection; and his efforts to win over the opposition were unremitting. The news which came by express riders from New Hampshire and then from Virginia were also deciding factors, for New York could not afford to remain out of the new Union if it was to ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... "arbitrarily asserted" to exist by Professor Semper, he is again presuming on the ignorance of his readers. Professor Semper's agencies are in no way more undemonstrable than Mr. Darwin's are. Mr. Darwin was perfectly cogent as long as he stuck to Lamarck's demonstration; his arguments were sound as long as they were Lamarck's, or developments of, and riders upon, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and almost incredibly silly when they were his own. Fortunately the greater part of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... legality governments that were violent in their commencement. All those who have affections which lead them to the conservation of civil order would recognize, even in its cradle, the child as legitimate, which has been produced from those principles of cogent expediency to which all just governments owe their birth, and on which they justify their continuance. But they will be late and reluctant in giving any sort of countenance to the operations of a power which has derived its birth from no law and no necessity, but which, on the contrary, has ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... deepest moment; but still apparently thinking how he can declaim like a practised rhetorician in the London Cockpit, which he used to frequent. Yet you must, at the same time, imagine his declamation to be chaste and precise in its language and cogent, logical and learned in its argument, free from the artifice and affectation of his manner, and in short, opposite to what you might fairly have expected from his first appearance and tones. And when ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Thus all that is revealed of them from beginning to end (and scriptures might be multiplied on the point) furnishes the most cogent reason why all should be keenly awake to their existence and their work, and be ever watchful against ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... our tale, we were a divided people, and Sarah thought it was no more than her duty to cherish the institutions of that country to which she yet clung as the land of her forefathers; but there were other and more cogent reasons for the silent preference she was giving to the Englishman. His image had first filled the void in her youthful fancy, and it was an image that was distinguished by many of those attractions ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... thing to keep from the shadowy hunting ground of dogs who have lived a conscientious life. I had wondered at first what his reason could have been for not coming forward, according to his custom, to meet that troop of robbers. But his reason, alas! was too cogent to himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute, and declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... manner was sufficiently easy at ordinary times, he could only say, "I'm very glad I happened to be by." The girl was not sophisticated enough to regard him with anything like humour. She smilingly accepted his remark as cogent, and replied, "Yes. Old Trumbull has funny notions about fitting on latches, hasn't he?" Here was a distinct opportunity for further pleasing conversation, and the unfortunate Mr. Ellington was feeble. "Oh, you know ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Blinkhampton in a state of intellectual satisfaction marred by a sense of emotional emptiness. He had been very active, very energetic, very successful. He had new and cogent evidence of his power, not merely to start but to go ahead on his own account. This was the good side. But he discovered and tried to rebuke in himself a feeling that he had so far wasted the time in that he had seen nobody and nothing beautiful. Men of ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... difficulty with speakers who may be sufficiently clear in statement and cogent in argument is that turn in their discourse when their language labors to become figurative. Imagery makes palpable to the bodily eye the abstract thought seen only by the eye of the mind; and all orators aim at giving vividness ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Nelson at seventeen married John Hathaway, she had the usual cogent reasons for so doing, with some rather more unusual ones added thereto. She was alone in the world, and her life with an uncle, her mother's only relative, was an unhappy one. No assistance in the household tasks that ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... after day upon the principles on which their defence was made. My great object now is an examination of those principles, and to illustrate the effects of these principles by examples which are not the less cogent, the less weighty, and the less known, because they are articles in this charge. Most assuredly they are not. If your Lordships recollect the speeches that were made here, you know that great merit was given to Mr. Hastings for matters that were not at all in the charge, and which would ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... nothing is left but resignation. The face of a physician, like that of a diplomatist, should be impenetrable. Nature is a benevolent old hypocrite; she cheats the sick and the dying with illusions better than any anodynes. If there are cogent reasons why a patient should be undeceived, do it deliberately and advisedly, but do not betray your apprehensions through ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... certain that in the spring of '89, Condorcet held hereditary monarchy to be most suitable to 'the wealth, the population, the extent of France, and to the political system of Europe.'[24] Yet the reasons which he gives for thinking this are not very cogent, and he can hardly have felt them to be so. It is significant, however, of the little distance which all the most uncompromising and most thoughtful revolutionists saw in front of them, that even Condorcet should, so late as the eve of the assembly of the States-General, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... cogent, they should be proposed and insisted on separately; if weak, it will be best to collect them into a body. In the first case, being persuasive by themselves, it would be improper to obscure them by the confusion of others: they should appear in their due light. ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... On these cogent grounds I reiterate my well-founded solicitation, and feel the more confident of a favorable answer, as the welfare of my nephew alone guides my steps ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... time so stale that his speech could hardly make much impression, but it appears to-day an extraordinarily clear, strong, upright presentment of the complex and unpopular case against the war. His other long speech is elevated above buffoonery by a brief, cogent, and earnest passage on the same theme, but it was a frank piece of clowning on a licensed occasion. It was the fashion for the House when its own dissolution and a Presidential election were both imminent to have a sort of rhetorical ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... moment as he spoke, and showing plainly by the tone of his voice how dismayed he was, how indignant he had been made, by so indecent a proposition. Was he giving up his pulpit to a stranger for any reason less cogent than one which made it absolutely imperative on him to be silent in that church which had so ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... sometimes months or years interviewing a patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort the relevancies from the vast amount of chaff. We are able now, with the help of the serum, to confine our discourses to matters cogent to the patient's trouble." ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... Most cogent to our purpose is a text, described for the first time by Wiedemann,[20] in which al-Biruni explains how a special train of gearing may be used to show the revolutions of the sun and moon at their relative rates and to demonstrate the changing phase of the moon, ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... fame, for we shall have plenty of matter to employ talent upon." A later letter, which was written from 7 Museum Street (8th January), told how he had "been obliged to decamp from Russell St. for the cogent reason of an execution having been sent into the house, and I thought myself happy in ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Maundrell, and more minutely described by Richardson and Buckingham. He is inclined to identify the site of the ancient Samaria with the high ground on which stands the castle of Santorri; but his reasoning is not sufficiently cogent to satisfy the mind even of the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell |
