"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... nice,' she continues. 'I had to keep lecturing myself, or I'd have been sorry for him. He told me it was his love for me that had shown him what a wretch he had been. He said he knew I didn't care for him two straws—and there I didn't contradict him—and that he respected me all the more for it. I can't explain to you how he worked it out, but what he meant was that I was so good myself that no one but a thoroughly good fellow could possibly have any chance ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... squire. "Now dry your eyes and be sensible! Miss Moore will go for me like mad if she finds you crying again. If we don't pull together we shall have that girl running the whole show before we are much older, and neither of us will ever dare even to contradict the other in her presence again. We ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... who took for granted that I was a tramp," he smiled at her. "If I remember rightly I was hardly in a condition to contradict you. Not but that it was a natural conclusion. I am curious to know why you ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... this statement, and yet unable to contradict it, Pruyn continued his march for a minute or two in silence, while Miss Lucilla waited nervously for him to speak again. It was one of the few points in the round of daily existence on which she was prepared to give him battle. It was part ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... on," I explained in my desire to contradict him—to aggravate him. It wasn't quite so mean as he imagined it to be, in his huckster head. Naturally, I didn't keep the money; that could never have entered my head. I, for my part, scorned to derive any benefit from it—that was opposed to my ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... thought Vera; not to her, who thought herself to be cold, and not easily moved. There must be surely many women to whom this wonderful thing of love never comes. In all her experience of life there was nothing to contradict this. It was not as if she had been a girl who had never left her native village, never tasted of the pleasures of life, never known the sweet incense of flattery and devotion. Vera had known it all. Many men had courted her; one or two had loved her dearly, but she had not ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... don't know how that report got out, but if people chose to think I had gone to take a hand in the fighting over there, I saw no need to contradict a harmless rumor. I took a horse and beat it up into the coast mountains. I tell you, Dick, I wanted to think! And I found out before I was through thinking that I was sick of the old life, that I was sick of ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... will not allow you to contradict me!' exclaimed Mrs. Gould; and she grew purple to the roots of her white hair. 'I said the Brennans looked too high, that they wanted gentlemen, eldest sons of county families; but if they'd been content to marry in their own position of life they would have been ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... thrive, till Mrs. Frost took them out walking, and, when in the loneliest lane, conceived a wish to inquire the price of poultry at the nearest farm, and sent the others to walk on. Long did she talk of the crops, discourse of the French and Bohemian enormities, and smilingly contradict reports that the young lord was to marry the young lady, before the lovers reappeared, without the most distant ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drew the fire of several batteries. But at this juncture, unfortunately for the Federals, a Union prisoner, recaptured from Jackson, declared that he had "heard the rebel officers say that their army was retiring to unite with Longstreet." So positively did the indications before him contradict this statement, that Porter, on sending the man to Pope, wrote: "In duty bound I send him, but I regard him as either a fool or designedly released to give a wrong impression. No faith should be put in what he says." If Jackson employed ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... what he had let himself in for. If there was one subject the two ladies were rabid on it was politics. They proceeded to pounce upon, devour, and annihilate the unlucky head classic without mercy. They made him contradict himself twice or thrice in every sentence; they proved to him clearly that he knew nothing at all of what he was talking about, and generally gave him to understand that he was an impertinent, conceited puppy for presuming to have an opinion of his ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... 'inconsistency,' the accusation of change. 'Speak your opinions of to-day,' says Carlyle, 'in words hard as rocks, and your opinions of to-morrow in words just as hard, even though your opinions of to-morrow may contradict your opinions of to-day.' There is a fund of true wisdom in this beautiful maxim, if men would appreciate it. It would correct a vast deal of error in politics, in religion, in philosophy, in the social relations of life. Times change, and struggle against it as they may, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... opinion about this. Many try it, but most men give it up. It appears as if it were only bona-fide labouring men who can make it answer. The number of farms in the neighbourhood of Christ Church seems at first to contradict this statement; but I believe the fact to be, that these farms are chiefly in the hands of labouring men, who had made a little money, bought land, and cultivated it themselves. These men can do well, but those who have to buy labour cannot make it answer. The difficulty lies ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... immediately before their disembarkation. "The people," he then said, "with whom we are about to live, are Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not contradict them: deal with them as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muphtis and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere.... The Roman legions protected all religions. You ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... shift for itself more and more not only in washing and dressing itself, but in opinions and conduct; yet as nothing is so exasperating and so unlovable as an uppish child, it is useless to expect parents and schoolmasters to inculcate this uppishness. Such unamiable precepts as Always contradict an authoritative statement, Always return a blow, Never lose a chance of a good fight, When you are scolded for a mistake ask the person who scolds you whether he or she supposes you did it on purpose, and follow ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... the things which he names: but how can he have learnt things from names before there were any names? 'I believe, Socrates, that some power more than human first gave things their names, and that these were necessarily true names.' Then how came the giver of names to contradict himself, and to make some names expressive of rest, and others of motion? 'I do not suppose that he did make them both.' Then which did he make—those which are expressive of rest, or those which are expressive of motion?...But if some names are ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... is common to-day. Never mind consistency, find fault with Christianity on all its sides, and with all its preachers, though you have to contradict yourself in doing so. Object to this man that he is too learned and doctrinal; to that one that he is too illiterate, and gives no food for thought; to this one that he is always thundering condemnation; to that one that he is always running over with love; to this one that he is perpetually harping ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... pigeons and rides steeple-chases! And the worst of Chiltern is this, that even if he didn't like the man, and if he were tired of this sort of life, he would go on just the same because he thinks it a fine thing not to give way." This was so true that Phineas did not dare to contradict the statement, and therefore said nothing. "I had some faint hope," continued the Earl, "while Laura could always watch him; because, in his way, he was fond of his sister. But that is all over now. She will have enough ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... door, and comes back.) We surely can't afford Another scene like that we had just now; Was ever anyone so caught before! Damis did frighten me most terribly On your account; you saw I did my best To baffle his design, and calm his anger. But I was so confused, I never thought To contradict his story; still, thank Heaven, Things turned out all the better, as it happened, And now we're on an even safer footing. The high esteem you're held in, laid the storm; My husband can have no suspicion of you, And even insists, to ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... should be more likely to push on than dwell on what was before them at the moment. I should be the last to complain of him merely on the ground that he could not escape contradiction in terms: who can? When facts conflict, contradict one another, melt into one another as the colours of the spectrum so insensibly that none can say where one begins and the other ends, contradictions in terms become first fruits of thought and speech. They are the basis of intellectual ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... seventeen hundred years ago. The amount of all this talk is only that 'the great Doctor Teufelsdroeck' or 'the learned Professor Von Baum' has hazarded a guess, and made an assertion, which every other 'great doctor' and 'learned professor' will contradict, and displace with another guess just as probable, in three months' time. There are men just as learned and just as honest who have examined their guesses, and find them poor inventions indeed. And we have a right to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that, therefore, such definitions of the said Sovereign Pontiff are unalterable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. But if any one—which may God avert—presume to contradict this our definition, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... of his narrative. It was interrupted by frequent questions; but Black Bill told a coherent tale, and did not contradict himself. There was not the slightest doubt in the minds of his hearers that he was one of the greatest scoundrels that ever lived, but at the same time there was not the slightest doubt that on this occasion he had not taken part willingly ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... say so; I was quite prepared for it; I only answered, it was not for me to contradict ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... "will ye contradict each other before our very face. Oh Oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! Fifty accounts have I had of Rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two varlets, sent expressly to behold and report, these ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... interesting expressions in Cusanus' writings which contradict most of the impressions commonly entertained with regard to the scholars of the Middle Ages. It is usually assumed that they did not think seriously, but speculatively, that they feared to think for themselves, neglected the study of nature ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... in the United States that it is not easy to make a man understand that his presence may be dispensed with; hints will not always suffice to shake him off. I contradict an American at every word he says, to show him that his conversation bores me; he instantly labors with fresh pertinacity to convince me; I preserve a dogged silence, and he thinks I am meditating deeply on the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... his hand down heavily on the lid of the piano, and glared at Maurice as if he expected the latter to contradict him. Then, noisily clearing his throat, he began anew to pace ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of judging of an author's credibility is sometimes furnished, by learning whether any of his alleged facts have been contradicted by persons acquainted with them, especially if they are such as these persons would be glad to contradict. If a person is charged with being an accomplice in a crime, and he fails to rebut the accusation, we may infer that he is unable to do so. Or, if the narrator give place and date to certain memorable transactions, which, if false, might easily ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... clouded for a moment as he recalled Kate's strange reserve and shrinking at his morning visit. Would she, womanlike, at the last moment contradict herself and withhold the full surrender of life? It was impossible, and yet he felt a vague fear. At any rate, he had burned the bridges behind. His way was clear. He would bring to bear every power he possessed to win her, and in the vanity of his powerful manhood he laughed ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... mortify, or in any way wound the feelings of another. To notice personal defects; to allude to others' faults, or the faults of their friends; to speak disparagingly of the sect or party to which a person belongs; to be inattentive when addressed in conversation; to contradict flatly; to speak in contemptuous tones of opinions expressed by another; all these are violations of the rules of good-breeding, which children should be taught to regard. Under this head comes the practice of whispering and staring about, when a teacher, or lecturer, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Mr. Badman give his wife when she, as she would sometimes, reprove him for his pride. We shall have, says he, great amendments in living now, for the devil is turned a corrector of vice; for no sin reigneth more in the world, quoth he, than pride among professors. And who can contradict him? Let us give the devil his due, the thing is too apparent for any man to deny. And I doubt not but the same answer is ready in the mouths of Mr. Badman's friends; for they may and do see pride display ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not seem inclined to contradict him, but Pelle made up his mind that some day he would teach his father to read and write—much ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... "That the granting of this licence would be the ruin of all his majesty's sea-ports and people, as his majesty had been already certified by several of his subjects: That it was not consistent with the king's honour to contradict what he had granted to the Portuguese, his ancient friends: And that whoever solicited in favour of the English knew not what they were about; or, if they knew, were not friends to his majesty." Upon this speech my business was again quite overthrown, and all my time and presents ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the first one, that of Aristotle, cannot be true. Dreams, divination, and especially prophecy contradict it flatly. All these are given to the individual for his protection (cf. above, p. 342). The second opinion, namely, that God's providence extends to every individual, is likewise disproved by reason, by experience ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... that no promises on his part were necessary, but he took good care not to contradict her in set terms, because he had had much to do with excited women, and he was inclined in general to let his experience guide his conduct in preference to applying his sagacity to each special case. His sagacity in this case was busy in other directions. Women's ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... image of itself; and thus affords a fresh point of departure from which it can work specifically, just as in the cosmic process it works generically. From this new standpoint it does not in any way contradict the laws of the cosmic order, but proceeds to specialize them, and thus to bring out results through the individual which ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error, in both theory and practice, prevents one from healing scientifically, and makes the last state of one's patients worse than the first. If disease is real it is not illusive, and it certainly would contradict the Science of Mind-healing to attempt to destroy the realities of Mind in ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... an inclination of the head, and a touch of the wine at their lips, his tacit toast. "Oh, I think I do know you," said Celia Madden, calmly discursive. "Up to a certain point, you are not so unlike other men. If people appeal to your imagination, and do not contradict you, or bore you, or get in your way, you are capable of being very nice indeed to them. But that isn't a very uncommon quality. What is uncommon in you—at least that is my reading—is something which according to circumstances may be nice, or very much the other way ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to him in order to have Vincent presented 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 ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... Felony Act, given by Chief Baron Pigot and Baron Pennefather, on Mr. O'Doherty's first trial, to the effect that the jury should be satisfied of the publisher's felonious intent; a construction which the present judges 'Crampton and Torrens' would not dare to contradict. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... grudgingly; and it was open to anyone to hear in his words the further meaning; "but, on the other hand, there are many more studious and more deserving." The fact is, the little man was irritated that Radley should have tried to contradict him before the Head. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... of his old but powerful hand on the top of the table before him, he seemed about to utter an oath or some angry invective. But again he controlled himself, and eying me without any show of shame or even of desire to contradict any of my assertions, he ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... against Austria, and that Bartenstein and one Bessel, a pillar of the Church, were concerned in it.] Possible? "But you will lose your soul!" said the Parson once to a poor old Gentlewoman, English by Nation, who refused, in dying, to contradict some domestic fiction, to give up some domestic secret: "But you will lose your soul, Madam!"—"Tush, what signifies my poor silly soul compared with the honor of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... he gave thought to the other world, always that he knew the ways of this. May liked him in spite of the rather ponderous deference he showed to her; with Quisante, on the other hand, he was familiar, seeming to say that he could tell the younger man a thing or two; Quisante's manner did nothing to contradict this implied assumption. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... too much taken aback at so providential an interposition to contradict this highly imaginative statement. My highwayman had turned into a protecting knight-errant of injured innocence. I let the policeman go his way; then I glanced at my preserver. A very ordinary modern St. George he looked, with no lance to speak of, and no steed ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... right, sir. But in other ways he shows up more extraordinarily. His mind is so retentive that nothing ever escapes from it. Any date, or fact, or figure that he has ever heard, may be instantly and accurately recalled. Why, sir, I would as soon contradict an encyclopedia! He is truthful ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... affection and veneration had been given to women—Miranda, Miss Arundel, Evelyn. She had an innocent conviction that men knew more about everything, except perhaps the youngest babies, and she was anxious for masculine good opinion. Alas, to contradict her nephew several times running was not the ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... four-penny calico, or six-penny delaines will wash, say 'yes, ma'am, beautifully; I've tried them, or seen them tried;' and if they say, 'are these ten cent flannels real Shaker flannels? or the ninepence hose all merino?' better not contradict them; say 'yes, ma'am, I've tried them, seen them tried, know they are,' or similar appropriate answers to the various questions that may be asked," ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... criticism. His military joviality (he had served in the Royal Guard) seasoned conversation with so much point that women without any intellects proclaimed him witty, and the rest did not dare to contradict them. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition. Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate. You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the Theseia ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... infers that these 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 Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... in a tremble; 'cause, you know, she didn't want to contradict the minister, and she was afraid she should laugh—' I never heard that a tom-turkey ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... Reviewer. The truth is, we have no particular knowledge of the machinery, or its operations, at these executions. A "halter," a "ladder," a "gallows," a "hangman," are spoken of. The expression used for the final act is, "turned off." There is no shadow of evidence to contradict Calef. The probabilities seem to be against the supposition of a structure, on a scale so large, as to allow room for eight persons to be turned off at once. The outstretching branches from large trees, on the borders of the clearing, would have served the purpose, and a ladder, connected ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... do not use two negative words so that they shall contradict each other. [Footnote: Not infrequently we use two negatives to make an affirmation; as, He is not unjust; ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... authorities do not deny that noncombatants were systematically killed in large numbers during the first weeks of the invasion, and this, so far as we know, has never been officially denied. If it were denied, the flight and continued voluntary exile of thousands of Belgian refugees would go far to contradict a denial, for there is no historical parallel in modern times for the flight of a large part of a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... circumstance, the governor visited the working gangs at Toongabbie. On his return to Parramatta, he met the prophetess upon the road, a very old Scotch woman, who, as soon as she discovered the governor, held up her hands, and begged that he would listen to her for a few minutes, while she would endeavour to contradict the malicious reports which had been propagated in her name. She said, that she had heard that he was offended with her; which he assured her depended upon the truth of the information which he had received. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Legend. The author is a Belgian sociologist.] The existence of atrocity stories is itself not remarkable, nor that the German people gladly believed them. But it is remarkable that a great conservative body of patriotic Germans should have set out as early as August 16, 1914, to contradict a collection of slanders on the enemy, even though such slanders were of the utmost value in soothing the troubled conscience of their fellow countrymen. Why should the Jesuit order in particular have set out ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... own historians assume, or whether they arrived there from abroad, as some foreign scholars have pretended, cannot be proved to the satisfaction of historical critics. Indeed, anthropological arguments seem to contradict the idea of any connexion with Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, or Indians. The earliest hieroglyphics of the Chinese, ascribed by them to the Shang dynasty (second millennium B.C.), betray the Mongol character of the nation that invented ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... yielded implicit obedience to her authority. It was lamentable to see such a fine soldierlike man afraid even to speak before this woman; but he was completely under her thraldom, and never dared to contradict. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... was," replied Mr. Darling; "and such an agreement cannot be binding. Indeed, I will at once compel Mr. Batty to contradict the report which is afloat. What a shame ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... vehemently to herself, "it is that poor, dear old lady I am thinking of." She remembered that sudden stab at her heart at the old lady's broken words, "He will be going away, lassie," and her cheek flamed hot again. "It is all nonsense," she repeated angrily, and there being no one to contradict her, she said it again with even greater emphasis. But suddenly she sat down, and before long she found herself smiling at the memory of the old lady's proud cry, "Could not? Ay, he could." And now she knew why her heart was so full of happy pride. ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... just unlocking the door. She 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
... different individuals as are the corresponding ideas among the average adherents of more highly developed forms of religion; and perhaps no two men will agree exactly on these matters, and any one man will freely contradict his own statements. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... above ordinary women," said Aspasia; "for you hear me allude to your beauty without affecting to contradict me, and apparently ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... things run smoothly and without contradiction. In a more noble sense, manners and courtesy prescribe conduct in order to proscribe offense to the self-valuation of others. Convention says, "Address people as if they were your equals at least; don't contradict brusquely because that implies their inferiority or stupidity; avoid too controversial topics since bitterness and humiliation may thus arise; do not notice defects or disabilities for the same reason; do not brag or be too conspicuous, since to boast of ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... eagle-like eye; on either side auburn hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, after the fashion of the time, to his coat collar. And this collar and his shoulders were decorated with gold lace and the insignia of rank; the uniform was of fine Confederate gray, which seemed to contradict the general impression that he was but a free-lance or a bushwhacker and operated on his own responsibility. The impression increased the terror his name excited throughout the countryside with his high-handed and eccentric methods ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in her voice, and he did not contradict her. Had he not sworn that while she needed him he ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... that "Repale" would make every man the owner of the land he lived on, or of that which he wished to live on; and the great Dan did not disabuse them. Those were the days when poor men believed that "Repale" would release every one from the debts he owed; and Dan did not contradict it. When Dan was dead, the consequence of his not contradicting it was that a literal-minded fellow here and there shot the creditor who asked for payment of the coat, or the pig, or the meal. For all this delusion Patrick was sorry. He was sorry to hear Protestant shopmen wishing for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Luc. Do you contradict yourself so soon? Then know, sir, I did intend to do it; and I am glad you have given me advice ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... the room when you said that you had burnt it," she exclaimed. "You can't contradict yourself like that before him. Besides, I'm sure he has had nothing ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... Many times she has worn it, in great state, in her treacherous bosom, my father always supposing that I loaned it as a special token of affection,—such, at least, was the story she told him, and I have never dared contradict her." As Leah finished this incident, her dark eye seem to kindle with a new light and a quiver ran through her frame. She added, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... not like to contradict him, because they felt he ought to know the nature of foxes better than men did; so they sat still and watched the play, and Button-Bright became so interested that for the time he forgot he wore ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... and Perrotin then changed his attitude, showing a keen interest in the judicious remarks of his good friend, nodding his head at every word, answering direct questions by vague phrases, assenting amiably as one does to someone whom one cannot contradict. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... conclude that which is the beginning of all things to be also in His own substance the chiefest good." "Most rightly," quoth I. "But it is granted that the chiefest good is blessedness?" "It is," quoth I. "Wherefore," quoth she, "we must needs confess that blessedness itself is God." "I can neither contradict," quoth I, "thy former propositions, and I see this illation followeth ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... your palace And torture him with grievous lingering death. They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died; They say, in him they fear your highness' death; And mere instinct of love and loyalty, Free from a stubborn opposite intent, As being thought to contradict your liking, Makes them thus forward in his banishment. They say, in care of your most royal person, That if your highness should intend to sleep And charge that no man should disturb your rest In pain of your dislike ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... of mirth and conversation that ensued, there was a little man with a puffy Say-nothing-to-me,-or-I'll-contradict-you sort of countenance, who remained very quiet; occasionally looking round him when the conversation slackened, as if he contemplated putting in something very weighty; and now and then bursting into a short cough of inexpressible grandeur. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Collar of SS.—Though ARMIGER (Vol. ii., p. 194.) has not adduced any facts on this subject that were previously unknown to me, he has advanced some misstatements and advocated some erroneous notions, which it may be desirable at once to oppose and contradict; inasmuch as they are calculated to envelope in fresh obscurity certain particulars, which it was the object of my former researches to set forth in their true light. And first, I beg to say that with respect to the "four inaccuracies" with which he charges me, I do not plead guilty ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... please do not contradict me, Eleanor! If there is one characteristic more plainly developed in me than another it is my unerring taste. This butter is not fresh. But do not mind. I am not complaining. Do not think that. I merely passed the remark. And if you are really going to get me my ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Germans showed that he was, at least, a brave man. There was a great deal of good and even of talent in De Plonville. This statement is made at the beginning, because everyone who knows De Plonville will at once unhesitatingly contradict it. His acquaintances thought him one of the most objectionable young men in Paris, and naval officers, when his name was mentioned, usually gave themselves over to strong and unjustifiable language. This was all on account of De Plonville's position, which, although ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... Indian's face, but it was gone instantly. Desmond was nonplussed. It was useless to contradict the merchant; he was clearly not disposed to give any information; Diggle was gone. All he could do was to return and report the matter to ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Lucian was considerably startled by the discovery of this important evidence so confirmative of Diana's suspicions. Yet the knowledge which Link had gained relative to Mrs. Vrain's remaining at Berwin Manor to keep Christmas seemed to contradict the fact; and he could by no means reconcile her absence with the presence on the fence of the fragment of gauze; still less with the supposition that she must have climbed over a tolerably difficult obstacle to enter the yard, let alone the necessity—by ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... battle, there is required one of those powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is better than Vandermeulen; Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at three o'clock. Geometry is deceptive; the hurricane alone is trustworthy. That is what confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, that there is a certain instant when the battle degenerates into a combat, becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats, which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, "belong rather to the biography of the regiments ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... lead to ruin, and this lie of pride above all. It is as it were the root lie of all lies. The very lie by which, as old tales tell, Satan fell from heaven, and when he tried to become a god in his own right, found himself, to his surprise and disappointment, only a devil. For pride and self-conceit contradict the original constitution of man and the universe, which is this—that of God are all things, and in God are all things, and for God are all things. Man depends on God. Self tells him that he depends on himself. Man has nothing but what he receives from God. Self tells him that ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of these and other qualities the Talmudic commentaries of Rashi without doubt outweigh his Biblical commentaries. I should be inclined flatly to contradict the opinion ascribed to Jacob Tam, Rashi's grandson: "So far as my grandfather's commentary on the Talmud is concerned, I might do as much, but it would not be in my power to undertake his commentary upon the Pentateuch." The Biblical commentary ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... view is the descent of the first of the three emperors—Constantius. He was not born in either Gaul or Britain. On the contrary, his father was a high official in the Diocese of Illyricum, and his mother, a niece of the Emperor Claudius;[10] circumstances which, at the first view, seem to contradict the inference from the name. They do so, however, in appearance only. The most unlikely man to have been high in office in Illyricum was a native Illyrian; for it was the policy of Rome to put Kelts in the Slavonic, and Slavonians in the Keltic, provinces; ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... no choice. Besides, it is too late. There's a knock. Oh, one word more! Whatever I may say, don't contradict me. Nor you, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... of Eminent Persons. See also a fragment of a letter written by the Earl of Ailesbury, which is printed in the European Magazine for April, 1795. Ailesbury calls Burnet an impostor. Yet his own narrative and Burnet's will not, to any candid and sensible reader, appear to contradict each other. I have seen in the British Museum, and also in the Library of the Royal Institution, a curious broadside containing an account of the death of Charles. It will be found in the Somers Collections. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the structure of the process, we can no longer be satisfied with the vague reference to ideas and their opposites. What does it mean after all if we speak of opposite ideas? Can we not entertain any ideas peacefully together in our consciousness? From a logical standpoint, ideas may contradict each other, but that refers to their meaning. As mere bits of psychological experience, I may have any ideas together in my consciousness. I can think summer and winter or day and night or right and left or black and white or love ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... very common but very foolish habit of depreciating your own rooms, furniture, or viands, and expressing uncalled-for regrets that you have nothing better to offer, merely to give your guests an opportunity politely to contradict you. But you need not go to the other extreme and extol the meats you set before them. Say nothing ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... commoner amongst men than women: and then that the male sex also furnishes an undue proportion of the insane—as if there were no unequal incidence of alcohol and syphilis, the great factors of insanity, upon the two sexes. Nevertheless, observant members of either sex will either contradict one another on this point according to their particular opportunities, or will, on further inquiry, agree that women vary surely no less generally than men, at any rate within considerable limits, whatever may be the facts of colossal ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... could have been lighted, drippings from a flare, or anything that shouldn't have been in a deserted area of woods. We looked at the trees; they hadn't been hit by lightning. The blades of grass under which the UFO supposedly hovered were not burned. We found nothing to contradict the story. We took a few photos of the area and went back to town. On the way back we talked to the constable and the deputy. All they could do was ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... enormously without her, with your lord and master, His Majesty the King of the Coleoptera; that I was sure that you were at this time one of the happiest women in the world; and I hope that Gringalet, on whom I drew this bill of exchange, will not contradict me. I have four tolerably strong attractions to bring forward against the thought of you: 1st, the Conservatoire; 2nd, the Opera; 3rd, the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... was made to settle their order of succession, [331:1] the result was by no means satisfactory. Some of the earliest writers who touch incidentally upon the question are inconsistent with themselves; [331:2] whilst they flatly contradict each other. [331:3] In fact, to this day, what is called the episcopal succession in the ancient Church of Rome is an historical riddle. At first no one individual seems to have acted for life as the president, or moderator, of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... is a "righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all that have faith: for there is no difference," that all that have faith are equally certain of salvation, "for there is no difference." To join the expression, "there is no difference," with what follows makes it clearly contradict our Saviour, who said plainly that there is a difference,—"He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin,"—there is a difference in sin, ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... that it all alluded to the portrait of James Brownrigg—imagined that Sally agreed with him, yet did not like to contradict his sister, and he laughed with amusement at the smartness of her retort. But Sally returned to her seat, conscious that she had made an enemy. She could think of no reply that had not a lash of bitterness in it and, clinging to the dignity of silence, rather than the vigour ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... language on the part of a young lady, but was thought by those other young ladies at Castle Richmond to show the very essence of becoming young-ladyhood. They pronounced Clara to be perfect in feeling and in judgment, and Herbert could not find it in his heart to contradict them. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... She was found by Admiral Heredia (who was going to the Pintados), on a beach, and he reared her as his own daughter. It was the mercy of God, and when it pleases Him to employ that mercy toward any of His creatures, there is no power to contradict it, nor any danger from which it does ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... he desired in the little dock, and a constable standing there obligingly clamped down a rail behind me to keep me there. Then the doctor, who, it turned out, was some official in the town, gave a garbled version of the whole affair, which I found it useless to try and contradict, as I was told to hold my tongue. The inspector's version of the affair was even more insulting than the doctor's. He did not hesitate to express his opinion that I was a very suspicious person, probably a lunatic at large. When asked ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... from Cyrus Robinson, he had said nothing about his wife's working upon them, but he knew that was the inference, and he did not contradict it. He forbade Belinda to mention the matter in one way or another. "The sarpent has got to feed the widows an' the orphans," he said, "an' that's a good ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working against me, and was about to quench all my interest in duns. On September 5th, 1907, I determined to take Dr. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... which consists in quotations from the Christian books ("Evidences," pages 33-52) cannot be admitted without evidence of the authenticity of the books quoted. The Acts and the Pauline epistles so grossly contradict each other that, having nothing outside themselves with which to compare them, they are mutually destructive. "The epistle to the Romans presents special difficulties to its acceptance as a genuine address ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... on to contradict, or at least to modify, her reluctant charge. "Oh, I know you are a great influence here. You're known all over the state. Men follow you wherever you lead. Why should I criticize you—I, who have done nothing all my life ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... in spite of my precautions, he had received any more anonymous letters. 'No,' replied he, with a gloomy air; 'but leave me, my friend. I am now better. It has done me good to see you. Good—night, old comrade! go downstairs to bed.'—I took care not to contradict him; but, pretending to go down, I came up again, and seated myself on the top stair, listening. No doubt, to calm himself entirely, the marshal went to embrace his children, for I heard him open and shut their ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... failed; and it was industriously spread abroad that the locomotive engines, having been found useless and highly dangerous on the Liverpool and Manchester line, were immediately to be abandoned in favour of horses—a rumour which the directors of the Company thought it necessary publicly to contradict. ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... and tell me truly, Haven't you been rather hasty? Haven't you been rash unduly? Am I quite the dashing sposo That your fancy could depict you? Perhaps you think I'm only so-so? (She expresses admiration.) Well, I will not contradict you! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... hat; and the swoop of the head he made to avoid the entanglement of the curtain was supposed to do double duty, and serve as a bow to the inmate of his state-room as well, for his I supposed it to be at the time, and he did not contradict me. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... does vex me; but I am not in a state of health at present to be deeply vexed at anything. Whenever this matter comes into discussion, I authorize you to contradict the infamous reports which (I am informed) have been given out, that this paper had been circulated through the ministry, and was intended gradually to slide into the press. To the best of my recollection I never had a clean copy of it but one, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... into thy mind, That blessed spirit may not lie; since near The source of primal truth it dwells for aye: And thou might'st after of Piccarda learn That Constance held affection to the veil; So that she seems to contradict me here. Not seldom, brother, it hath chanc'd for men To do what they had gladly left undone, Yet to shun peril they have done amiss: E'en as Alcmaeon, at his father's suit Slew his own mother, so made pitiless Not to lose pity. On this point bethink thee, That force and will are blended in such ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... your pedantic Philistinism. Is Truth really in the cold white light, or in the shimmering interplay of the rainbow tints that fuse in it? Bah! Your Philistine critic will sum me up after I am dead in a phrase; or he will take my character to pieces and show how they contradict each other, and adjudge me, like a schoolmaster, so many good marks for this quality, and so many bad marks for that. Biographers will weigh me grocerwise, as Kant weighed the Deity. Ugh! You can only be judged by your peers or by your superiors, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... you would never contradict what I say, nor make an incorrect statement, nor draw a wrong conclusion, nor object to being contradicted when I think you are ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Philip. "That is extraordinary enough, I should think. I am not aware that it is usual for subjects to contradict the King. What have you ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... thoughts to contradict any of these conclusions; and therefore it rested upon me with the greater force, that it must needs be, that God had appointed all this to befal me; that I was brought to this miserable circumstance by his direction, he having the sole power, not of me only, but ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... cross-examined by an old lawyer, because I said I thought the Portuguese troops inferior to the French, still more to the British. 'Inferior to the British, sir! I have read Lord Wellington's last despatch, and he says the Portuguese fought as well as the British; and I suppose you won't contradict him?' I saw it was vain to convince this pugnacious old man of the necessity of saying these civil things, and we parted mutually dissatisfied with each other; he taking me, no doubt, for a forward young puppy, and I looking upon him as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Mr. Darwin himself, indeed—whose mantle seems to have fallen more especially and particularly on Mr. Romanes—could not contradict himself more hopelessly than Mr. Romanes often does. Indeed in one of the very passages I have quoted in order to show that Mr. Romanes accepts the phenomena of heredity as phenomena of memory, he speaks of "heredity as playing ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... loth to give, but there was no remedy, so I told him my name was Mary Flanders, that I was a widow, my husband being a sea captain, died on a voyage to Virginia; and some other circumstances I told which he could never contradict, and that I lodged at present in town with such a person, naming my governess; but that I was preparing to go over to America, where my husband's effects lay, and that I was going that day to buy some clothes to put myself into second mourning, but had not yet been in any shop, when that fellow, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... She would tease him, contradict him, and make him listen to long pieces of scientific music as she played them on the piano, when she knew he always said that music to him was nothing but a disagreeable noise; she would laugh at his thanks when a final chord, struck with her utmost force, roused ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... got to contradict you. Lips can tell lies but eyes can't. You're a good many other things ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... investigations and such researches as time alone can bring to perfection. While real progress moves with slow and measured foot-steps, the inspirations of consciousness and the inferences of logic prepare the popular mind for cerebral analysis. No true system can contradict the facts of our inner experience; it can only furnish a more complete explanation of their relation to the bodily organs. It should be expected that such careful and pains-taking experiments, as are necessary to establish a science, will be preceded by intuitive judgments ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... exactly what I mean,' answered Mrs. Rushmore angrily. 'Don't take me up at every word! Contradicting isn't reasoning. Anybody can contradict.' ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... in an Inglese! Ah—I see how it is—you are in the opposizione, and find it necessary to say this. It is most extraordinary, good Vito Viti, that these Inglese are divided into two political castes, that contradict each other in everything. If one maintains that an object is white, the other side swears it is black; and so vice versa. Both parties profess to love their country better than anything else; but the one that is out of power abuses even power itself, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... manifest upon sufficient evidence no one shall make public or declare for truth; and in short, whatever is secret should be allowed to remain secret, or, at any rate, should be secretly reproved, as we shall hear. Therefore, if you encounter an idle tongue which betrays and slanders some one, contradict such a one promptly to his face, that he may blush thus many a one will hold his tongue who else would bring some poor man into bad repute from which he would not easily extricate himself. For honor and a good name are easily taken away, but not ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... manner in which the Antwerp deputies were to be answered, by giving them, namely, assurances that to transplant the Spanish inquisition into the provinces would be as hopeless as to attempt its establishment in Naples. He renewed his desire that Philip should contradict the story about the half dozen heads, and he especially directed him to inform Montigny that Berghen had known of the new bishoprics before the Cardinal. This, urged Granvelle, was particularly necessary, because ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... perception of a quality in the thing he has to say which requires for its delivery the beat and lift of a rhythm which crosses and penetrates the rhythm of sense and logic. This is true even of the poetry which seems, at first, to contradict it. Pope's Essay on Man, for example, which at first seems no more than a neater prose than the prose of Addison, is really not prose at all. In addition to the cool sense of what appears to be no more than a pentametric ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... gives the means of glory that they should be used.' 'But for what, old veteran,' said the monk, with a penetrating look, 'should we exchange our cowl for the helmet? knowest thou anything of the Joshua who would lead us to the field?' There was something in the young priest's eyes that seemed to contradict his pacific words; they flashed as impetuous fire. My reply was short: 'Are you a Scot?' 'I am, in soul and in arms.' 'Then knowest thou not the chief of Ellerslie?' As I spoke, for I stood close to the bier, I perceived the pall shake. The monk answered my ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter |
