"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aware that this sounds impossible and contradictory. But it is the facts that contradict themselves. It seems clear that the deceased did not commit suicide. It seems equally clear that the deceased was not murdered. There is nothing for it, therefore, gentlemen, but to return a verdict tantamount to an acknowledgment of our incompetence to come to any adequately grounded ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's service—I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... languid in their tenure and was glad to have his grasp strengthened by her faith. Socially as well as politically Eriecreek was almost a perfect democracy, and there was little in Kitty's circumstances to contradict the doctor's teachings. The brief visits which she had made to Buffalo and Erie, and, since the colonel's marriage, to Milwaukee, had not sufficed to undeceive her; she had never suffered slight save from the ignorant and uncouth; she innocently expected that in people of culture she ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... would be thought very strange, if to confirm the truth of this account of human nature, and make out the justness of the foregoing comparison, it should be added that from what appears, men in fact as much and as often contradict that part of their nature which respects self, and which leads them to their own private good and happiness, as they contradict that part of it which respects society, and tends to public good: that there are as few persons who attain the greatest satisfaction ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... husband, a private hoard amounting to several lacs of rupees. We are the more inclined to give credit to this story, because Mr. Gleig, who cannot but have heard it, does not, as far as we have observed, notice or contradict it. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grossly underrated their fighting powers. Most people in England—I, among them—thought that the Boer ultimatum was an act of despair, that the Dutch would make one fight for their honour, and, once defeated, would accept the inevitable. All I have heard and whatever I have seen out here contradict these false ideas. Anger, hatred, and the consciousness of military power impelled, the Boers to war. They would rather have fought at their own time—a year or two later—when their preparations were still further advanced, and when the British were, perhaps, involved ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... "Do not contradict it, sir," she said, rising from her seat now with her face ablaze with indignation. "I was watching you. I had heard that story, and had heard another story of how the boat of an antagonist of yours at Henley had ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... affronts (which he keenly bestowed upon the minor courtiers that came on that errand) as then; for he sent them away with fleas in their ear. And he was seriously angry with his own brother, Sir Dudley North, because he did not contradict the lie in sudden and direct terms, but laughed as taking the question put to him for a banter, till, by iteration, he was brought to it. For some lords came, and because they seemed to attribute somewhat to the avowed positiveness of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... science; and yet science does not contradict it, in my opinion. Human life on Mercury, Venus or Mars may need bodies taller, shorter, heavier, lighter, more fragile or more solid than ours. The organs will differ from ours, perhaps, but not materially so. The senses will ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... I'm right! Because when we came back from Languedoc in June there was not a word of any such thing. And Lord Ancester never breathed as much as a hint. And he certainly would have, under the circumstances. Why don't you speak and agree with me, or contradict me, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... children gentleness, And mercy to the weak, and reverence For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less The selfsame light, although averted hence, When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, You contradict the very things ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... business with Col. Sellers about Napoleon, you've always told me so," answered Laura, with a look intended to contradict her words. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time, that when she first came to London she was such a savage that she went to dinners and evening entertainments barefoot. This was but one of the many strange tales that appeared from time to time concerning her, all of which she refused to contradict, no matter how false or malicious they might be, for she felt that the name she bore was not to be lowered by appearing in stupid or ridiculous controversy; for that reason she would never see newspaper reporters, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... Johnson, that little is to be learned from lectures. For the most part those who do not already understand the subject will not understand the lecture, and those who do will learn nothing from it. The latter will hear many things they would like to contradict, which the bienseance of the lecture-room does not allow. I do not comprehend how people can find amusement in lectures. I should much prefer a tenson of the twelfth century, when two or three masters of the Gai ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... say Uncle Alf, Nick. You know better than that. Say Uncle Alfred, but don't say it too often. As for making a noise, you can relieve yourself when away from the house, but I do not want you to talk when others are talking, and, above all, do not contradict them, no matter what ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... high, and she supposed it was natural that he should wish for another companion. Perhaps he believed her dead, and Ethie's heart gave one great throb of joy as she thought of going in to him, and by her bodily presence contradict that belief, and possibly win him from his purpose. But Ethie was too proud for that, and her next feeling was one of exultation that she had not permitted Aunt Barbara to write, or herself taken any measures ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... will hear endless things to my disadvantage—things that I cannot contradict if you ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... black at over seventy; her eyes were black and glowing, and she could read and do coarse crocheting without spectacles. All her skin, especially round about the eyes, was yellowish brown and very deeply wrinkled indeed; a decrepit, senile skin, which seemed to contradict the youth of her pose and her glance. The cast of her features was benign. She had passed through desolating and violent experiences, and then through a long, long period of withdrawn tranquillity; and from end to end of her life she had consistently thought ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... in the least to blame in the matter! He has not done the slightest thing that could harm or discredit the Riis's—not the slightest thing! He is a man of honour, who has given Miss Riis his promise and has kept it. Will any one dare to contradict that? Or to suggest that he will not keep his promise? If any one doubts him, it is an insult. Dr. Nordan! In this matter the alternatives are either an apology and peace—or war. For I am not going to put up with this sort of thing; ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... come a time when the ledger and counting-house ceased to be all-sufficient, and that moment of decay would witness the triumph of American literature. "Ben Jonson, Goldsmith, and those fellows," he asked, "lived in a degenerate age, didn't they?" I assented hastily. How could I contradict so agreeable a companion, especially as he was going, as fast as the train could carry him, to take a ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... contradict a universally current opinion is not generally to be taken "neat," but watered with the ideas of common-sense and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted to waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... a doctrine; as a picture of man's life it is incomplete and misleading, although eminently cheerful. This he is himself the first to acknowledge; for if he is prophetic in anything, it is in his noble disregard of consistency. "Do I contradict myself?" he asks somewhere; and then pat comes the answer, the best answer ever given in print, worthy of a sage, or rather of a woman: "Very well, then, I contradict myself!" with this addition, not so feminine ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... If people contradict themselves, can I Help contradicting them, and everybody, Even my veracious self?—But that's a lie: I never did so, never will—how should I? He who doubts all things nothing can deny: Truth's fountains may be clear—her streams are muddy, And cut through such canals of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Valdo has been telling me that I am very gay," she answered, not so much to give the duke the information as to contradict him. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... has, and you needn't contradict me. She's a very clever girl, is Elma. I don't say that she's always as straight as a die—I don't pretend that she is; but she is a clever girl, and she is fond of her books, and she's likely to get on—that is, if you don't ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... their kingdom. [FN [y] Gloss. in verb. JUDICIUM DEI. The author of the MIROIR DES JUSTICES complains, that ordinances are only made by the king and his clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king, but study to please him. Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener dictated by will, than ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... ourselves and baggage between two bungalows on either side of Tank Road, we drove with Mrs E. to see the lake and her favourite views of the Pagoda; and—I was about to contradict myself! Have I not said India was the most perfectly fascinating country for picturesque scenes of people and streets, and trees and parks and colour! Now, I withdraw; for Burmah puts India ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... true, I contradict him as little as possible, and never without due consideration. Whatever is given or permitted him is done unconditionally and at the first instance; and in this we are indulgent enough; but he never gets anything by importunity, neither ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion that any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting the tympany, had disappeared, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "that may be true; it is rash to contradict, otherwise I should say that thou wast lying, my son. However, I dare to say that 'She-who-must-be-obeyed' will meet thy wishes in ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... was nothing as a host; but I will not claim to have been a perfect guest. Nor indeed was I. I was a good one, but, looking back, I see myself not quite in the centre—slightly to the left, slightly to the churlish side. I was rather too quiet, and I did sometimes contradict. And, though I always liked to be invited anywhere, I very often preferred to stay at home. If any one hereafter shall form a collection of the notes written by me in reply to invitations, I am afraid he will gradually suppose me to have been more in request than ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... "What do you wish to do?" If your holiness pleases, that I teach in the school of Ain Warka, I will do that. "No, I cannot have you go to Ain Warka, to corrupt the minds of those who are studying science, and to contradict my opinions." But I will instruct in grammar. "No, the youths of the college are now attending to moral science." Well, I only beg you will let me know what I am to do, and if you have no employment for me, I wish to return home. The bishop here broke in upon ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... ready to libel yourself in order to contradict me." Zinaida Fyodorovna was offended and got up. "I am sorry I ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Douglas, the Burleighs, Garrison, and others. Sometimes the Hutchinsons would sing—very fine. Sometimes there were angry rows. A chap named Isaiah Rhynders, a fierce politician of those days, with a band of robust supporters, would attempt to contradict the speakers and break up the meetings. But the Anti-Slavery, and Quaker, and Temperance, and Missionary and other conventicles and speakers were tough, tough, and always maintained their ground, and carried out their programs fully. I went frequently to these ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... is rather uncommon, though treated as a beloved, never a spoiled child; was never permitted, while under paternal inspection, to play in the street with other children; never had any occasion to contradict or indulge those fantastical humors which are usually attributed to nature, but are in reality the effects of an injudicious education. I had the faults common to my age, was talkative, a glutton, and sometimes a liar, made no scruple of stealing sweetmeats, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the public eye. "It is not the letters of my friends which give me trouble," he wrote to one correspondent; to another he said, "I began with telling you that I should not write a lengthy letter but the result has been to contradict it;" and to a third, "when I look back to the length of this letter, I am so much astonished and frightened at it myself that I have not the courage to give it a careful reading for the purpose of correction. You must, therefore, receive it ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... as dry and cold and impersonal as an abstract principle. A ludicrous premonition assailed her that in a little while he would begin to talk about his public duty. This lack of genuine emotion, which had at first appeared to contradict his sentimental point of view, was revealed to her suddenly as its supreme justification. Because he felt nothing deeply he could afford to play brilliantly with the names of emotions; because he had never suffered his duty would always lie, as Gideon ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... there. The old count and countess, and the young counts and all the little countesses her sisters. Counts! every one of these wretches says he is a count. Guiscard, that stabbed Mr. Harvy, said he was a count; and I believe he was a barber. All Frenchmen are barbers—Fiddle-dee! don't contradict me—or else dancing-masters, or else priests;" ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a popular man, and have to thank me for it. How angry would he be if he knew the service I have rendered him, and how quickly would he contradict all I said in his favour! —— reminds me of the Englishman of whom it was said, that so great was his love of contradiction, that when the hour of the night and state of the weather were announced by the watchman beneath his window, he used to get out of bed and raise both his casement ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... grouped as to represent consciousness generate some second motive power distinct from, at variance with, and often stronger than, the original impetus? Clearly no scientific thinker can admit this. To do so would be to undermine the entire fabric of science, to contradict what is its first axiom and its last conclusion. If then the motion of our six billiard balls has anything, when it corresponds to consciousness, distinct in kind from what it always had, it can only derive this from one cause. That cause is a second cue, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... a process. Evolution as a partial process may be within Christianity." In 1915, in his book, Trends of Thought, Dr. J.A.W. Haas wrote: "If evolution as a biological theory remains within its limits and knows its sphere, it will not contradict the claims of Christianity. If we avoid a materialistic philosophy in biology, and if we do not make nature all-controlling, we can accept evolution as not in disagreement with Christianity." "But, on the other hand, Christianity must be careful not to demand as Biblical ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... tempt me—don't—don't! You know what my plain duty is. You know what our duty to our dead son is. Your father must be appealed to. We will go to him on our bended knees, and beg forgiveness. The bank people must be told the truth, and they must contradict ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... been carried out, to the very letter, by a group of men who, for their reward, have been assailed with the most scurrilous abuse which I ever recollect seeing issue from the public press. I have, therefore, thought it due to them to contradict the directly false statements which have been made respecting their works; and to point out the kind of merit which, however deficient in some respects, those works possess beyond the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... incipient, specific, and generic characters. That minute, fortuitous, and indefinite variations could have brought about such special forms and modifications as have been enumerated in this chapter, seems to contradict not imagination, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... 'You'—the ladies will excuse me, I'm sure—'You lying rascal,' s' I, 'don't you dare to contradict me! You're all tarred with the same pitch,' s' I. 'Everything you touch turns corrupt and rotten. Look at Henry G. Surface,' s' I. 'The finest fellow God ever made, till the palsied hand of Republicanism fell upon him, and now cankering and rotting ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that prophet. That there is a prophet still, or apostle, or messenger, or teacher, or whatever he is to be called, seems evident by our believing in a visible Church. Now common sense tells us what a messenger from God must be; first, he must not contradict himself, as I have just been saying. Again, a prophet of God can allow of no rival, but denounces all who make a separate claim, as the prophets do in Scripture. Now, it is impossible to say whether our Church acknowledges or not ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... who hold the pen on the other side; you are sure to be celebrated and caressed by all your party, to a man. You may affirm and deny what you please, without truth or probability, since it is but loss of time to contradict you. Besides, commiseration is often on your side, and you have a pretence to be thought honest and disinterested, for adhering to friends in distress. After which, if your party ever happens to turn up again, you have a strong fund of merit towards making your fortune. Then, you ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... commit herself to his plot by not recognizing him. If she did that—Yet he hoped she wouldn't. If she did recognize him he would say that it was through Miss Desmond's relatives that he had heard of Madame Gautier. Betty could not contradict him. He would invent a niece whose parents wished to place her with Madame. Then he could ask as many questions as he liked, about hours and studios, and all the details of the ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... this office of secret diplomacy he assumed all the airs of an ambassador, while Henry took great pains to contradict the reports which were spread as to the true nature of this mission ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... accosted us were not discourteous, but spoke quite decidedly, as if they did not expect to be contradicted. We did not care to contradict them, either. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... have your way. You are king here, you know; nobody to contradict you. So I'll smoke instead of you, if these ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... dust some of the links of the chains that held men's souls in bondage. That there has been progress needs no other demonstration than that you may now reason with men, and urge upon them, without danger of the rack or stake, that no doctrines can be apprehended as truths if they contradict each other, or contradict other truths given us by God. Long before the Reformation, a monk, who had found his way to heresy without the help of Martin Luther, not venturing to breathe aloud into any living ear his anti-papal and treasonable doctrines, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to it," said the captain, "as it may seem to contradict the opinion of madame la duchesse; yet I am afraid that we shall have to regret this fete as one of the most disastrous events to the king." He stopped. But the interest of the time overcame all other considerations. "Ah, gallantry apart, let us hear!" was the general voice; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... contractor's agent, and I recommended him to get a small trial machine made. This he had done in a few months, and then he claimed the whole idea as his own. The system has since been carried out (see Times, 4th April 1863) by compressed air instead of steam. I call your attention to this, as you may contradict, if you think proper, the assertion in the article above mentioned, that ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... absurd on its face that it went far to quiet apprehension by reawakening doubts of Cosmo's sanity—the more especially since he made no attempt to contradict the assertion ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... she could scarcely breathe, she rose and went towards a looking-glass. "I am frightful to-night," she said. Debray rose, smiling, and was about to contradict the baroness upon this latter point, when the door opened suddenly. M. Danglars appeared; Debray reseated himself. At the noise of the door Madame Danglars turned round, and looked upon her husband with an astonishment ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... on an island stand the ruins of a church, and an old lady told me it was built in 1604. I did not contradict her, but I laughed all ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... wish to make me contradict you," said the Baroness, "vous vous y prenez mal. In certain moods there is nothing I am not capable of agreeing to. Boston is a paradise, and we are ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... suppose, is as much as befalls any book, the Bible, the Almanac, and the State Laws excepted. I remember Sir John well, and shall gainsay nothing he testifies to, for the reason that friends should not contradict each other. I was also acquainted with the four Monikins he speaks of, though I knew them by different names. Miss Poke says she wonders if it's all true, which I wunt tell her, seeing that a little unsartainty makes a woman rational. As to my navigating ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... contradict the good character your master gives you?" said the lady, with a smile and a look right ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... no great trust to be placed in a frail and mortal man, even though he be useful and dear to us, neither should much sorrow arise within us if sometimes he oppose and contradict us. They who are on thy side to-day, may to-morrow be against thee, and often are they turned round like the wind. Put thy whole trust in God and let Him be thy fear and thy love, He will answer for thee Himself, ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... ship, I found his name, and that he had been discharged in the West Indies on the 2nd of February. I determined, therefore, to see him. I cross-examined him in the best manner I could. I could neither make him contradict himself, nor say anything that militated against the testimony of Ormond. I was convinced, therefore, of the truth of the transaction; and, having obtained his consent, I sent him to London to stay with the latter, till he should hear further from ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... nothing would displease her ladyship more than chattering on such subjects, and many's the match as good as finished, that's gone off by no worse means than the chitter-chatter of those who should hold their tongues. Therefore she should say no more; but if her ladyship wished her to contradict it, why she could, and ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... there was not some way by which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardly worth considering. Principles are like logic, which never yet made a good reasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if they did not invariably contradict each other whenever there is any temptation to appeal to them. They are like fire, good servants but bad masters. As many people or more have been wrecked on principle as from want of principle. They ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... believe that the writer of the Pentateuch was empowered and commissioned to teach us scientific as well as other truth, that the account we find there of the creation of living things is simply and literally correct, and that anything which seems to contradict it is, by the nature of the case, false. All the phenomena which have been detailed are, on this view, the immediate product of a creative fiat and consequently are out of the domain ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... by a tempest, he were thrown upon an island of savages, he would not think that those savages, when they came to reflect, would be able to discover that the axioms of our geometry are false, or to make elements of logic which would contradict our own. We believe in a general reason, everywhere and always the same, and in which the reason of each individual participates. We believe therefore that there is a principle of truth which exists in itself, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... not mean however to impute all the faults I have mentioned to the marquis of San Severino. He is probably in the vulgar sense of the word good-natured. As you have already expressed it, he knows not how to refuse the requests, or contradict the present inclinations of those with whom he is connected. You say rightly that his gallantries are such as you can by no means approve. He is, if I am not greatly misinformed, in the utmost degree loose ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... angry sometimes now; then he throws the goblet on the ground and rushes from the room into the fields. Then he comes back smiling, and laughs at his anger. You know him! If one does not contradict him, you cannot find a better man ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... surprise and disappointment; but he reflected that the Demon ought to know what he was talking about, so he did not venture to contradict him. ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... this verdict, which had to be repeated to her, and which her bright and lively complexion and brilliant eyes seemed to contradict, the marquise turned all her thoughts towards holy things, and thought only of dying like a saint after having already suffered like a martyr. She consequently asked to receive the last sacrament, and while it was being sent for, she repeated her apologies ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... discoursing of his travels, and mentioning some things he had seen in France, a gentleman who imagined he spoke too favourably of the chevalier St. George, and pretended he had also been there, took upon him to contradict almost all he said concerning that place and person: Natura knowing himself in the right, and being a little heated with wine, maintained the truth of what he alledged, with more impetuosity than policy perhaps ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... same transactions; but in scarcely a single instance where he differs from either writer does his narrative seem to be worthy of credit. The cuneiform monuments, while they generally confirm Herodotus, contradict Ctesias perpetually. He is at variance with Manetho on Egyptian, with Ptolemy on Babylonian, chronology. No independent writer confirms him on any important point. His Oriental history is quite incompatible with the narrative of Scripture. On every ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... ever believe such a story as that. Your enemies will pretend to believe it, and for a time the people who love to gossip will repeat it to each other. But you will live it down. Every act of your life will contradict the lie, and Tandy's reputation is not of a kind to lead sensible people to believe his falsehood when you have set the truth against it. You are depressed and despondent now. The ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... No one could ever contradict Skim, though he couldn't even write his own name legibly. His monthly reports were actually works of art. "Seenyor Inspekter of constabulery," he would write, "i hav the honner to indite the following report. i hav bin having trubel with the ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... one contradict the veracity of one's own wife? And what is strength fit for if not to yield to weakness? The poor husband hung his head, and did not utter another word. But to keep still is not to acknowledge defeat, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... this fashion. Also, there are two other books that feature the characters of the D'Artagnan Romances that are, however, falsely attributed to Dumas. These two titles are D'Artagnan and the King-Maker and The Son of Porthos. Not only do these novels outright contradict the earlier books in the series, but they were clearly not written by Alexandre Dumas. Many catalogues, however, list them among Dumas's works. Most commonly, though, the entire D'Artagnan Romances are found in five books, with The Vicomte de Bragelonne being split into three ...
— Dumas Commentary • John Bursey
... this year, altogether in an unusual manner—and therefore I put little faith in her words; but as for saying aught of me or mine, in town or country, Holland or America, that can shake my credit, why I defy her! Still, I would not willingly have any idle stories to contradict; and I shall conclude by saying, you will do well to stop ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... contradict you," said the Abbe Plomb. "Now that we have studied the series of types placed on St. Anne's left hand, let us consider the prophetic series on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... it sometimes. Hence Augustine says (Ep. liv): "If one says that the Eucharist should not be received daily, while another maintains the contrary, let each one do as according to his devotion he thinketh right; for Zaccheus and the Centurion did not contradict one another while the one received the Lord with joy, whereas the other said: 'Lord I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof'; since both honored our Saviour, though not in the same way." But love and hope, whereunto the Scriptures constantly urge us, are preferable ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once and spoke: "Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able or willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am with you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for in cases like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... have to contradict him). Not so, my lord. From that hairpin we could have made a needle; with that needle we could, out of skins, have sewn trousers of which your lordship is in need; indeed, we are ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... conditions of life among the peasantry. But the fact that the control over these institutions, even in the cooperative movement (so far as independent control was allowed by the bureaucracy of the old regime), was secured to the less democratic elements of the community, did contradict the idea of coalition, of the bringing together of all interests and forces. These institutions had been permitted to exist and develop only because they were controlled by the more conservative ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... wonderful degree, and this, together with great obstinacy and tenacity, gained for him his world-wide reputation. 'Sitting Bull' claimed in his statement to me that he directed and led in the Custer fight; but all the other Indians with whom I have talked contradict it, and said that 'Sitting Bull' fled with his family as soon as the village was attacked by Major Reno's command, and that he was making his way to a place of safety, several miles out in the hills, when overtaken ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... Mr. Palmer did not contradict the assertion, nor did he assent to it, but waited, with a pinch of snuff arrested in its way, to have ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Eleanore's generosity not to be contradicted. Nor was her confidence misplaced. Though, by the course she took, Eleanore was forced to deepen the prejudice already rife against herself, she not only forbore to contradict her cousin, but when a true answer would have injured her, actually refused to return any, a lie being something she could not utter, even to save one especially ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... any scandal being made. Such was the Queen's reply to the amours of this Grey Friar; and thus was my aunt well avenged on him for the way in which he had so often importuned her. In those times it was not allowable, under divers penalties, either to contradict or to refuse to speak to such people, who, so it was thought, conversed only of God and ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... two tendencies need not precisely contradict one another, as the ultimate result may not always be very remote from what would have been the case if the line had ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... should be made—with blank cartridge only. Therefore the Regent, after getting up, and while she was breakfasting with Jacques, who called himself the legitimate Lord of Azay, seized the occasion of this insufficiency to contradict her esquire, and pretend, that as he had not gained his wager, he ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... intended settlement, any act of cruelty to the natives being contrary to his Majesty's most gracious intentions, the offenders would be subject to a criminal prosecution; and they well knew that the natives themselves, however injured, could not contradict their assertions. There was, however, too much reason to believe that our people had been the aggressors, as the governor on his return from his excursion to Broken Bay, on landing at Camp Cove, found the natives there who had before frequently come up to him with confidence, unusually ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... hand to anything so unjust. He protested that the public would cry shame, would say John Massingbird had no human right to Verner's Pride, would suspect he had obtained it by fraud, or by some sort of underhand work. Mr. Verner replied that I—Matiss—could contradict that. At ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... combats." The explanation has been suggested that for once the "John Bull" Borrow, with his patriotic exaltation of all things English, gave way before the proselytising agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It would be hard to find a writer who does not contradict himself at times, and Borrow was so much a man of "moods" that it would be uncharitable to set him down as a hypocrite, as Caroline Fox does, because all his sayings and doings do not tally ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... but others superincumbent on these, have had their origin at the bottom of the sea, by the collection of sand, gravel, shells, coralline, and crustaceous bodies, and of earths and clays variously mixed, separated, and accumulated. He then adds, "Various geological observations contradict this conclusion. There are many stratified mountains of argillaceous slate, gneiss, serpentine, jasper, and even marble, in which either sand, gravel, shells, coralline, or crustaceous bodies are never, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... have thought that coolness on the ice was an almost unavoidable consequence of the surrounding conditions, yet Lawrence seemed to contradict the idea, for his face appeared unusually warm as he laughed ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of his hair, and was not refused by the amiable virtuoso. After that Berenice was the acknowledged leader of her class. The teachers trembled before her sparkling, wrathful black eyes. At home she ruled the household, and as she was an heiress no one dared to contradict her. Her contempt for her stepfather was only matched by her impatience in the company of young men. She pretended—so her intimates said—to loathe them. "Frivolous idiots" was her mildest form of reproof when an ambitious boy would trench upon her pet art theories or attempt to flirt. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... "that your generalisations do not lead you astray, and that your insistence on the rule of nine does not contradict your own definition of small and large cattle: for how can all your principles be applied to mules and to shepherds, since those with respect to breeding certainly cannot be followed so far as they are concerned. As to dogs I can see their application. I admit even that men may be ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... are due to Mr. Long and to his publisher. Tchehkoff's stories are really remarkable. If any one of authority stated that they rank him with the fixed stars of Russian fiction—Dostoievsky, Tourgeniev, Gogol, and Tolstoy—I should not be ready to contradict. To read them, after even the finest stories of de Maupassant or Murray Gilchrist, is like having a bath after a ball. Their effect is extraordinarily one of ingenuousness. Of course they are not in the least ingenuous, as a fact, but self-conscious ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... here dispute about words, neither do we question if the 195 formulae mean these things absolutely, but we use them loosely, as I said before. Yet I think it is evident that these formulae express Aphasia. For certainly the formula "Perhaps it is" really includes that which seems to contradict it, i.e. the formula "Perhaps it is not," because it does not affirm in in regard to anything that it is really so. It is the same also in regard to ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... nothing conspicuous about a girl's judging a few dogs," said Sylvia, merely from an irritable desire to contradict. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... opinion, the metaphor, or the expression, remained, consecrated into a proverb! Such was the origin of those memorable sentences by which men learnt to think and to speak appositely; they were precepts which no man could contradict, at a time when authority was valued more than opinion, and experience preferred to novelty. The proverbs of a father became the inheritance of a son; the mistress of a family perpetuated hers through her household; the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... strategy for surrounding me in every direction, and a simple young fellow like myself might have been ensnared with much less trouble. But for all this I love Him, and am persuaded that He has done all for my good, much as facts may seem to contradict it. We must take an optimist view for individuals as well as for humanity, despite the perpetual evidence of facts telling the other way. This is what constitutes true courage; I am the only person ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... their own characters and that of the Town under whose appointment they act, as well as for the sake of the said sufferers, who depend upon the continual beneficence of their friends for necessary relief; think themselves obliged, in this public manner, to contradict a slanderous report raised by evil minded persons, spread in divers parts of this Province, and perhaps more extensively through the continent. The report is, that "each Member of the Committee is allowed six shillings, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... age," Miss Allison finished. Her smile held a faint amusement. Stella, momentarily silenced, if not abashed, by this explicit voicing of her thought, did not contradict, and Miss Allison continued, "The technic of a Paderewski would be small compensation for lost youth, I fear." She said it without sentimentality, but, as she spoke, lightly touched the delicate theme ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... it to you. God says, 'Vengeance is mine: I will repay'; and you say, 'Not so, I will avenge myself.' And whenever we contradict God, we take up with ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... considered an antidote for poison. Sir Thomas Brown was not prepared to contradict it: he says, that "Lapis Lasuli hath in it a purgative faculty, we know: that Bezoar is antidotal, Lapis Judaicus diuretical, Coral antipileptical, we will not deny."—"Vulgar Errors," edit. 1658, p. 104. He also (p. 205) calls it the Bezoar nut, "for, being broken, it discovereth ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... and he was sometimes cruel in his impatience of stupidity and wrong-headedness. Scarcely any continuance in folly could have inspired most men to the retorts he occasionally made. He wrote to one unfortunate: 'Sir,—You have ventured to contradict me on a question with regard to which I am profoundly learned, where you are ignorant as dirt.' It was quite true, but another kind of man would have found another ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... such a way for the performance, upon which I had resolved, and for the work itself, that at least the sensation caused would lead to a full hall and thus, in a very favourable manner, guarantee satisfactory returns, and contradict their belief that the fund was menaced. Thus the Ninth Symphony had, in every conceivable way, become for me a point of honour, for the success of which I had to exercise all my powers to the utmost. The committee had misgivings regarding the outlay needed for procuring the orchestral ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... contradict yourself so soon? Then know, sir, I did intend to do it; and I am glad you have given me advice so agreeable ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... the early offers of marriage from the man who eventually became her husband because his rank in the army was too low to suit her taste, but that she finally relented when he became a General. I am able to contradict this statement as Mrs. Scott told me with her own lips that she never made his acquaintance until he was a General, in spite of the fact that they were both natives of the same State. This did not by any means, however, indicate a marriage late in life, as General Scott ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... this subject, that employers must be made responsible for all cases, since children cannot take care, and adults will take care in their own interest. But the gentlemen who write the report are bourgeois, and so they must contradict themselves and bring up later all sorts of bosh on the subject of the culpable temerity of ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... conduct. As among ourselves, the ethical ideal, with its theological sanction, is probably rather above the moral standard of ordinary practice. What conclusion we should draw from these facts is uncertain, but the facts, at least, cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the statement of Mr. Huxley. He was wholly in the wrong when he said: 'The moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from theological dogmas,'[7] It reposes, for its origin and ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... glimpses at pocket-pieces as proof; if I was doubted I fought. The elder boys shook their heads, and could make nothing of it. The ushers made what inquiries they dared, and found nothing which they could contradict positively, but much upon ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... headlong and idiotic," she said impulsively. "I've put you in an intolerable position. You must write at once and contradict ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the house-chum of Henry Mayhew, "his companion from morning to night," and George Hodder, in his oft-quoted "Memories of My Time," agree in according undivided credit to Henry Mayhew; but they unfortunately disagree in essentials, and contradict each other, and indirectly confirm my own conclusions. Hodder further declares that Mayhew invented the paper and its name simultaneously, which sprang Minerva-like, full-titled, from his brain—which we know to be untrue, as the name was not decided ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Dick Smithson made me swear as I'd keep my mouth shut about him, and I give him my word; and, all respeck to you, sir, I'm going to keep it; but I can't contradict what you said, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... Know that if I desired that you should read the letter, it was only to contradict everything I stated in it; to unsay a hundred times all that you read there in your favour. ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... embarrassed. She was going to escort them to the station, she declared, conscious, perhaps, that both of them would be glad of her company; she said that she wished, she could come with them all the way, but that, of course, they did not want her. And neither of them dared to contradict her, though secretly Jimmy and Christine would both have given a great deal had she suddenly changed her mind and insisted on ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... destruction of the two first-rates, Real Carlos and San Hermenegildo, in the engagement of the 12th July last, to red-hot balls from his Majesty's ships under my command, I take this present opportunity to contradict, in the most positive and formal manner, a report so injurious to the characteristic humanity of the British nation, and to assure your Excellency that nothing was more void of truth. This I request ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... States. You came to a prepared banquet, and had seats assigned you at table just as honorable as those which were filled by older guests. You have been and are singularly prosperous; and if any one should deny this, you would at once contradict his assertion. You have bought vast quantities of choice and excellent land at the lowest price; and if the public domain has not been lavished upon you, you yourself will admit that it has been appropriated to your own uses by a very liberal hand. And yet in some of these States, not in all, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... late Viceroy of Peru would shortly embark at Acapulco, with her Family and Riches, and stop at Payta to Refresh; and that about eight months ago there was a Galleon with 200,000 pieces of Eight on board, that passed Payta on her way to Acapulco. They continued, however, to Lie and Contradict themselves when questioned; and so (as they howled most dismally on deck while under Punishment) they were had down to the Cockpit, where the Boatswain and his Mates had their Will of them, and I don't know what became of them afterwards. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to her as a hero, as a man who had looked upon the face of death without a quiver. Instead, he had been presented to her as a patient, just one of the long procession that passed through that office. The doctor had said nothing to contradict the heroic picture, but he had said nothing to contribute to it. And surely, if Farron had stood out in his calmness and courage above all other men, the doctor would have mentioned it, couldn't have helped doing so; he certainly would not have spent so much time ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... that the weight on that side will not be sufficient to keep it upright and firm against its opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries to the Constitution the language is that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and all the requisite precautions in favor of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are but a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one come forward with his particular explanation, and scarce any ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... prove my refinement," said Tob, "and not contradict." He picked up my hand in his huge, hard fist, and pressed it. "By the Gods, Deucalion, you may be a great prince, but I've only known you as a man. You're the finest fighter of beasts and men that walks this world to-day, and I ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... questions about her poor jewels and her cheap trinkets, which were modest enough as presents, but she could not in every case explain how she came to receive them. One may say anything one pleases, of course, but one may contradict oneself, and get into trouble, and that assuredly is not worth while. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... do that ours is the Catholic Church, they contradict their own belief in the said creed; and not only this, but the ancient Fathers, and the Holy Scriptures agree that the Church of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... too coarse to afford any such subtile inferences as they commonly draw from them. The first principles are founded on the imagination and senses: The conclusion, therefore, can never go beyond, much less contradict these faculties. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... work for your friends, who are (some of them) weary even unto death of the uses of this life. And now, you who are generous, be generous, and take no notice of all this. I speak of myself, not of you so there is nothing for you to contradict or discuss—and if there were, you would be really kind and give me my way in it. Also you may take courage; for I promise not to vex you by thanking you against your will,—more ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... they ought to know, but in nine cases out of ten they don't know," declared Owlett. "And if you contradict their lies, they're so savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the more rather than confess them. That will do, Prindle! You ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and even if I should have had the worst Opinion in the World of my Pretentious Young Ladies before they appeared upon the Stage, I must now believe them of some Value, since so many People agree to speak in their behalf. But as great ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... a collective capacity, shows whether they have made any progress in intelligence, in virtue, in piety, and in happiness, since their liberation. Again he says: 'We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self-respect, or to the respect of others.' It is painful to contradict so worthy an individual; but nothing is more certain than that this statement is altogether erroneous. We have derided, we have shunned, we have neglected them, in every possible manner. They have had to rise not only under the mountainous weight of their own ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... it might puzzle a plain man to answer. But opinion in such matters is not determined by arguments, but by instincts. God, in his wrath, has not left this world to the mercy of the subtlest dialectician; and all arguments are happily transitory in their effect, when they contradict the primal intuitions of conscience and the inborn sentiments of the heart. And if wicked institutions, laboriously organized by dominant tyranny and priestcraft, and strong with the might, not merely of bad passions, but of perverted learning and prostituted logic,—if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... in doing so I challenge either Tory or Liberal to contradict me, that no Tory Government could have done what the Liberal Government did yesterday in bombarding those forts. If such a thing had been proposed, what would have happened? We should have had Sir William ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... my five senses and my intuitions contradict yours? Who is to decide? If I loved him on sight——If I looked into his eyes and saw the soul of my mate? If their cold fires thrill me with inexpressible passion? If I see in his massive neck and jaw the strength ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... perceived that these devices were as much diversified in the sense of the words as in the hues of the letters, and that the sentences differed one from the other in such sort that there was never a single one did not flatly contradict every other. ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... expressed herself as very glad to see the caller, ushered him into the sitting room and disappeared, returning in another moment with her brother, whom she unblushingly said had been taking a nap. Abishai did not contradict her; instead, he merely looked apprehensively at ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nature makes me man. Sin is just to act in defiance of and in opposition to that nature. Sin, then, is the only possible case in the universe, falling under our observation, in which a creature can contradict the law of its being. Science has at least given the final refutation of the devil's lie that sin is natural to man. It is the only unnatural thing in the world. It is not non-human, like the actions of animals. The age- long history of the race can never be reversed. ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... inspired by that public spirit and public virtue of which it has been well said that they are the brightest ornaments of the mind of man. Bacon is right, as he generally is, when he bids us read not to contradict and refute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and to consider. Yes, let us read to weigh and to consider. In the times before us that promise or threaten deep political, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... a sudden pity. Her Aunt Ann Eliza Dix had been lying in her grave for ten years, but she could not contradict the poor man. "Of course," she ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the foundation of the Institutes of Justinian, were discovered in this library palimpsested. A rumour had been spread that the author of the Pandects had reduced the "Institutes of Caius" to ashes, that posterity might not discover the source of his own great work. Gibbon ventured to contradict the scandal, and to point to the monks as the probable devastators. His sagacity was justified when Niebuhr discovered in the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona these very Institutes beneath the homilies of St. Jerome. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... persons still exist somewhere and somehow apart from their bodies, of the decay or destruction of which he may have had ocular demonstration. How could he see dead people, he asks, if they did not exist? To argue that they have perished like their bodies is to contradict the plain evidence of his senses; for to the savage still more than to the civilised man seeing is believing; that he sees the dead only in dreams does not shake his belief, since he thinks the appearances of dreams just as real as the appearances of his waking hours. And once ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... General Laurance carried himself as erectly as the son he left in Paris, and his proud bearing and handsome face seemed to contradict the record of years that had passed so lightly over him. A profusion of silver threads streaked the black locks that scorned all artificial colouring, and his moustache and beard were quite grizzled; but as he stood tracing triangles on the sand with the point of his ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the 2Oth Instant, this young Prince was as well as ever he was known to be since the Day of his Birth. As for the other, they are now sending his Ghost, we suppose, (for they never had the Modesty to contradict their Assertions of his Death) to Commerci in Lorrain, attended only by four Gentlemen, and a few Domesticks of little Consideration. The Baron de Bothmar having delivered in his Credentials to qualify him as an Ambassador to this State, (an Office to which his greatest Enemies will acknowledge ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... strange to say that even the "singleness" of the marble is relative to us; but extremely simple experiments will show that such is veritably the case, and that our two most trustworthy senses may be made to contradict one another on this very point. Hold the marble between the finger and thumb, and look at it in the ordinary way. Sight and touch agree that it is single. Now squint, and sight tells you that there are two marbles, while touch asserts that there is only one. Next, return the eyes to their ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... "Fanny," said Rose, "don't contradict her. She says that on purpose to be contradicted. A middle-aged look, is it? I dare ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... countenance took on a fine expression of contempt. "Suppose white man no got money?" he asked. "Eh! suppose he no got money—him dam fool!" And Napoleon glared upon us, his passengers, as though he wondered if either of us would venture to contradict so ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... exceptions of all kinds, and that the influence of language is at all times liable to be overruled by other influences. But all the exceptions confirm the rule, because we specially remark those cases which contradict the rule, and we do not specially remark those cases which do not conform ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... "Oh, I didn't contradict him. I called him general. He treated me tip-top. He is going to make me Minister of France, when he is ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... civilization was crossed by local variations, but these do not contradict its Roman character. If the provincial felt sometimes the claims of his province and raised a cry that sounds like 'Africa for the Africans' he acted on a geographical, not on any native or national idea. He was demanding individual ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... occupied in the vain attempt to make Gubbins contradict himself, there had been a slight commotion in the court-room. On looking round afterwards, I was astonished to behold my friend Strachan seated in the magistrate's box, next to a very pretty and showily-dressed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... nothing more, and as she made no rejoinder they sat some time in a stillness which seemed to contradict his promise of entertainment. It seemed to him she was preoccupied, and he wondered what she was thinking about; there were two or three very possible subjects. At last he spoke again. "Is your objection to my society this evening caused by your ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... a very close natural monopoly of a talent not only for play-writing but for satirical polemics. And since every interest has its opposition, all these influences had created hostile bodies by the operation of the mere impulse to contradict them, always strong in ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... astonishment, he entered the room shivering, and his teeth chattering—laid down on the bed, and died. Considering myself as the cause of his death, I kept this a secret, for fear of what might be done to me. Though I could contradict all the story of the ghost, I dared not do it. I knew, by what had happened, that it was he himself who had been in the club-room (perhaps recollecting, in his delirium, that it was the night of meeting): but I hope God and the poor ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... that he was lying, but she did not contradict him, for he was entirely indifferent to her. She felt a deep contempt for him, but could not break with him entirely because there still lingered deep down in her consciousness a memory of the happy hours they had spent together. She treated ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont |
