"Indefeasible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be ludicrous if it were not so cruel. A crusade against a people which, in the name of Christ, under a banner blessed by the Vicar of Christ, and revered by all the nations, fights to secure its indefeasible rights. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... deep-rooted, ineradicable; inveterate; obstinate &c. 606. transfixed, stuck fast, aground, high and dry, stranded. [movable object rendered unmovable] stuck, jammed; unremovable; quiescent &c. 265; deterioration &c. 659. indefeasible, irretrievable, intransmutable[obs3], incommutable[obs3], irresoluble[obs3], irrevocable, irreversible, reverseless[obs3], inextinguishable, irreducible; indissoluble, indissolvable[obs3]; indestructible, undying, imperishable, incorruptible, indelible, indeciduous[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "aged and wealthy," and "with the bulk of her fortune endowed a Charity, to be called 'Wyndham College,'" [ANNUAL REGISTER (for 1765), viii. 86.]—which I hope still flourishes. Enough on this small Wyndham matter; which is nearly altogether English, but in which Friedrich too has his indefeasible property. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... infinitely—with increase of learning, the grace of a liberal education, like the grace of Christianity, is so catholic a thing—so absolutely above being trafficked, retailed, apportioned, among 'stations in life'—that the humblest child may claim it by indefeasible right, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... whose ignorance of the commonest matters was as dense as it was discreditable to the land of their birth and breeding. Are these people included (on account of having his favourite sine qua non of a fair skin) in the US of this apostle of skin-worship, in the indefeasible right to political power which is denied to Blacks by reason, or ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... reported that our rulers have said, that English diplomacy can no longer recognise "nationalities," but only existing "governments." God grant that they may see in time that the assertion of national life, as a spiritual and indefeasible existence, was for centuries the central idea of English policy; the idea by faith in which she delivered first herself, and then the Protestant nations of the Continent, successively from the yokes of Rome, of Spain, of France; and ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional, and too oppressive to be endured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution—that they may ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... would be far northward and westward of Washington. But the artist keeps right on, firm of heart and hand, drawing his outlines with an unwavering pencil, beautifying and idealizing our rude, material life, and thus manifesting that we have an indefeasible claim to a more enduring national existence. In honest truth, what with the hope-inspiring influence of the design, and what with Leutze's undisturbed evolvement of it, I was exceedingly encouraged, and allowed these cheerful auguries to weigh against a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not entitled to the benefit of the Virginia law. But of this more hereafter. Now they were unconscious of encroaching on any rights of white man or red, and went on with their improvements, confident that they were acquiring an indefeasible title to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... for, as to subordinate and executive rules for applying such principles, these, doubtless, are in part suggested by the local circumstances in each separate case. Now, amongst the political theories of the Bible is this—that pauperism is not an accident in the constitution of states, but an indefeasible necessity; or, in the scriptural words, that "the poor shall never cease out of the land." This theory, or great canon of social philosophy, during many centuries, drew no especial attention from philosophers. It ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... fact, both Tiberius, to whom Christ commanded that tribute should be given, and Nero, whom Paul directed the Romans to obey, were, according to the patriarchal theory of government, usurpers. In the middle ages the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right would have been regarded as heretical: for it was altogether incompatible with the high pretensions of the Church of Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the Church of England. The Homily on Wilful Rebellion had strongly, and indeed too strongly, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... made the modern republic possible. There can be no doubt of that. But there it reached its limit of political benefaction, and began to incline toward the point where extremes meet. . . . To every assertion that the people in their collective capacity of a government ought to exert their indefeasible right of self-defense, it is said you touch the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... deliverance or the triumph of the church. If the judges of Israel were occasional and temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from the royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by their own vices, nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same extraordinary providence, which was no longer confined to the Jewish people, might elect Constantine and his family as the protectors of the Christian world; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of another world, compared to this black domain of poor, laborious Albert. We are not talking of female beauty, so please you, just now, gentlemen, but of engraving. And the merit, the classical, indefeasible, immortal merit of this head of a Dutch girl with all the beauty left out, is in the fact that every line of it, as engraving, is as good as can be;—good, not with the mechanical dexterity of a watch-maker, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... into their work, they sang loud and louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon arose in his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his great song, "Y a des honnetes gens partout!" Never had he given more proof of his artistic mastery; it was his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis formed an exception to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and was peopled exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the first person, no doubt, is a source of relief to a novelist in the matter of composition. It composes of its own accord, or so he may feel; for the hero gives the story an indefeasible unity by the mere act of telling it. His career may not seem to hang together logically, artistically; but every part of it is at least united with every part by the coincidence of its all belonging to ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... of material wealth generally, that "the only truly socialistic scheme" is one which "will absolutely abolish all economic distinctions, and prevent the possibility of their ever again arising." And how would it accomplish this end? "By making," says the writer, "an equal provision for all an indefeasible condition of citizenship, without any regard whatever to the relative specific services of the different citizens. The rendering of such services on the other hand," the writer goes on, "instead of being left to the option of the citizen, with the ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... merely to set forth certain principles for the state's organization, but they seek above all to draw the boundary line between state and individual. According to them the individual is not the possessor of rights through the state, but by his own nature he has inalienable and indefeasible rights. The English laws know nothing of this. They do not wish to recognize an eternal, natural right, but one inherited from their fathers, "the old, undoubted rights ...
— The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens • Georg Jellinek
... every other individual, was ingrained in their minds by the inveterate bitterness of their own experience; when Emily had become a woman, and was gone forth to wrest from the adverse world her own subsistence, her right to what she earned was indefeasible, and affection itself protested against her being mulcted for their advantage. As for the slight additional expense of her presence at home during the holidays, she must not be above paying a visit to her parents; the little inconsistency was amiable enough. Father and mother both held forth ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... 'Will'? Surely it understands some writing that expresses the wish or will of a person as to the disposition of his property after his decease? This writing must be executed with certain formalities; but if it is so executed by a person not labouring under any mental or other disability it is indefeasible, except by the subsequent execution of a fresh testamentary document, or by its destruction or attempted destruction, animo revocandi, or by marriage. Subject to these formalities required by the law, the form of the document—provided that its meaning is clear—is immaterial. ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... am still quite at a loss to understand your rather—well—forcible remarks this evening. I can see, certainly, a great deal of reason in your irritation; and I am not at all disposed to contravene the principle that you have an indefeasible right to be acquainted with the sorrows and trials of your parishioners; but pardon me for saying it, I was only carrying out, perhaps too logically, your own ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the genius of Mr. O'Connell. He himself thought he had found a great and solid basis for future action, and hinted at the prospect of being able to raise upon it a parliamentary structure, having imprescriptible and indefeasible authority, and only requiring the sanction ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... home and the earnings of his most vigorous years to a boomer or speculator for the privilege of living on the earth for there will be no boomer or speculator to sell him the privilege, and the privilege itself will have ceased to be such and become an indefeasible right. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... brief and intelligible a manner as any will can appear, till it is explained by the learned, I have disposed of my real and personal estate: but, as I am an adept, I have by birth an equal right to give also an indefeasible title to my endowments and qualifications; which I do ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... not been long in the camp, before his indefeasible air of integrity and respectability had attracted the attention of no less a personage than the proprietor of the roulette wheel, who invited him to run the wheel on a salary. It was now some three months since he had entered upon this vocation, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... she liked a smart, polite, forward, roguish sort of boy, cap in hand, light of foot, meeting the eye; she liked volubility, charm, a little vice—the promise of a second Doctor Desprez. And it was her indefeasible belief that Jean-Marie was dull. 'Poor dear boy,' she had said once, 'how sad it is that he should be so stupid!' She had never repeated that remark, for the Doctor had raged like a wild bull, denouncing the brutal bluntness of her mind, bemoaning his own fate to be so unequally ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he dug out of the ground and presented to Attila. That magnanimous, or rather that artful, prince accepted, with pious gratitude, this celestial favor, and, as the rightful possessor of the sword of Mars, asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion of the earth. If the rites of Scythia were practised on this solemn occasion, a lofty altar, or rather pile of fagots, three hundred yards in length and in breadth, was raised in a spacious plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the summit of this rustic altar, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... love.... They are illustrious conquerors of the devil, the world and hell; holy spirits loaded with merits and graces, and bearing the precious badge of their dignity and honor by the nuptial robe of the Lamb with which by an indefeasible right they are clothed. Yet they are now in a state of suffering, and endure greater torments than it is possible for any one to suffer, or for our imagination to represent to itself in this mortal ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... revived, while memory is each time hopelessly lost. Widenmann holds that the periods of death are momentary, the soul being at once born again, retaining no vestiges of its past.38 Drossbach, on the contrary, believes that memory is an indefeasible quality of the soul atom, the reason why we do not remember previous lives being that the present is our first experiment. When all atoms destined to become men have once run the human career, the earliest ones will begin to reappear with full memory of their preceding course. It matters ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... right to sell, convey, or manage her own estate than if she were a lunatic or slave, and in case of his death has a life use in only one-third part of the real estate of which he dies possessed, and no indefeasible title whatever in any of his personal estate. As a consequence, a husband may strip his wife, by mere voluntary disposition to strangers, of all claim on his estate after his death, and thus ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of long primer. (Sensation.) He thought that in the circumstances they were entitled to address a modest protest to the Editor, to the effect that the use of "pica" should be reserved for the rarest occasions and not be allowed to prejudice the claims of those who were entitled to exercise the indefeasible privilege of "writing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... to the spirit. For morals are a personal affair; in the war of righteousness every man fights for his own hand; all the six hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake my private judgment; my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge, and my decisions absolute for the time and case. The moralist is not a judge of appeal, but an advocate who pleads at my tribunal. He has to show not the law, but that the law applies. Can he convince ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Carlisle, in his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, having, with much clearness of argument, shewn the duty of submission to civil government to be founded neither on an indefeasible jus divinum, nor on compact, but on expediency, lays ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Cardinal Betoun was in disgrace, and the Archbishop of Glasgow was left alone to protest against it. This Act was the first real victory of the reformed party in Scotland, and it was mainly due to the able and temperate pleading of Alesius that this great boon, or indeed I may say this indefeasible right of Christian laymen, was granted. The same subject had been reverted to by him in his more elaborate treatise, De authoritate Verbi Dei, which was published in 1542 in Latin, and some time ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in common—ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each other a demi-mot. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him—people always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist. She apologised ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... civilized world. When woman's temple of liberty is finished—when freedom for the world is achieved—when she has educated herself into useful and lucrative occupations, then may she fitly expend upon her person her own earnings, not man's. Such women will have an indefeasible right to dress elegantly if they wish, but they will discard cumbersomeness and a useless and ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... being (as some persons have supposed) a wilful and corrupt conspiracy on the part of the evilly disposed, against the peace and prosperity of the realm, may claim a most ancient and indefeasible right to existence. They, with their ancestors and near relatives, constitute Literature,—without which the human race would be little better than savages. For the effect of pure literature upon a receptive mind is something more than can be definitely stated. Like sunshine upon a landscape, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue; and yet I found that, whatever route I took, before long I came to a tall and formidable looking fence. Confident as I might be in the existence of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood the thorny barrier with its comminatory notice-board—'NO THOROUGHFARE. By order. MOSES.' There seemed no way over; nor did the prospect of creeping round, as I saw some do attract me.... The only alternatives ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... Chatterton, to the arms of Kent, a horse salient, argent. As to the cloak of wit, it may possibly be preserved in Somersetshire; but the mantle certainly was not tied as an indefeasible heirloom over the broad shoulders of the county of Kent. No ancient Saxons, or even Britons, ever displayed prowess so stolid as those brave wild-wood savages of Boughton Blean, near Canterbury, who recently fell in battle with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... bore the anti-slavery standard almost alone in the halls of Congress, a unique and picturesque figure, rousing every demon of hatred in his fellow-members, in constant and envenomed battle with them, and more than a match for them all. He fought single-handed for the right of petition as an indefeasible right, not hesitating to submit a petition from citizens of Virginia praying for his own expulsion from Congress as a nuisance. In 1836 he presented a petition from one hundred and fifty-eight ladies, citizens of Massachusetts, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... complain of your publishing Dr. Royce's original article, although it was a most malicious and slanderous one, and undertook (not to put too fine a point upon it) to post me publicly as a quack. If you do not deny my indefeasible right to be heard in self-defence in the same columns, I shall feel that I have no cause whatever to regard you or your committee as a party to the outrage, and shall entertain no feelings towards you or towards them other than such as ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... which your kindness bestowed on me, by my resignation of it. I, at any rate for one, shall look on any successor whom you may appoint as enjoying a clerical situation of the highest respectability, and one to which your Lordship's nomination gives an indefeasible right. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... bill of rights that "all political power is inherent in the people and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit, and therefore they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think proper." The great State of New York is at this moment governed under a constitution framed and established in direct opposition to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... flower if you pull it in pieces Do you know what it is to want what you don't want? Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them Freedom to excel in nothing Had gained everything he wanted in life except happiness Indefeasible right of the public to have news Intellectual poverty Known something if I hadn't been kept at school Longing is one thing and reason another Making himself instead of in making money Mediocrity of the amazing art product Never go fishing without both fly and bait Nothing like it certainly had ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... appertained to the State. If it could not afford the requisite funds, he expounded in an unpublished essay how a few hundred English artificers might teach the Indians to arm themselves against the Spaniards. By an able and generous argument he reconciled the indefeasible right of the natives to their territory with the industrial colony he was planning. As the State could in no shape be induced to interest itself, he maintained the English connexion with Guiana at his private charge. In the January of 1596 he despatched Keymis with the Darling and Discovery. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... say, to take upon their blind side men who were sympathetic to the impatience of control of any crowd resembling themselves but not sympathetic to humanity of another race and colour. The claim to some divine and indefeasible right of sovereignty overriding all other considerations of the general good, on the part of a majority greater or smaller at any given time in any given area, is one which can generally be made to bear a liberal semblance, though it certainly has no necessary ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... work Needham was associated with Buffon, and the results of their experiments fitted in admirably with the great French naturalist's hypothesis of "organic molecules," according to which, life is the indefeasible property of certain indestructible molecules of matter, which exist in all living things, and have inherent activities by which they are distinguished from not living matter. Each individual living organism is formed by their temporary combination. They stand to it in ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know. But, besides this, they have a right, an indisputable unalienable, indefeasible, divine right, to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... belong to the sex at large, as part of the great family of man. We lay it, down as the foundation of our civil theory, that man, as man, has, and by nature is endowed with certain natural, inviolable, indefeasible rights; not that men who have attained the age of majority alone possess those rights; not that the older, the young, the fair, or the dark, are alone endowed with them; but that they belong to all. The rights are not of man's giving; God gave them; and if you deny or withhold them, you place yourself ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Military discipline had not impregnated any of the allied nations, whose ideas of personal liberty and dignity would oppose an insurmountable obstacle to that severe discipline which was essential to military success. Great Britain, they believed, would cling to her ingrained notions of the indefeasible right of the British workman to strike and of the British citizen to hold back from military service. And the telegrams announcing that in the United Kingdom the cries of "business as usual," "sport as ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... full of numerous landlords saddled with land which, owing to mortgages, debts, and incumbrances, was inalienable. Under the Act the Court was empowered, on the petition of any person sufficiently interested, to sell the encumbered estate and give an indefeasible title, so that persons who before had a claim on the estate should now have a claim only on the purchase-money. It was a piece of strong legislation in its disregard of vested rights and in the manner in which it set aside express contracts ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... system supposes consultation and choice, and it would be mockery to maintain that either can exist without entire freedom of thought and speech. If any man prefer a monarchy to the present polity of the nation, it is his indefeasible right to declare his opinion, and to be exempt from persecution and reproach. He who meets such a declaration in any other manner than by a free admission of the right, does not feel the nature ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a rebel against the state, the loyal brotherhood can not expel him from the lodge, and his relation to it remains indefeasible." (Moore's Constitutions, Art. 2.) A Mason may be engaged in a wicked rebellion, and may stain his soul and hands with innocent blood, and still he must be recognized as "a brother" and must continue to enjoy all the ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... not of the age, but they complain of an anomalous injustice in the laws. They complain that authors are deprived of a perpetual property in the produce of their own labours, when all other persons enjoy it as an indefeasible and acknowledged right. And they ask upon what principle, with what equity, or under what pretence of public good they are subjected to this injurious enactment? Is it because their labour is so light, the endowments which are required for it so common, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... man's work rather than in his conduct. It was Mr. Slide's taste to be an advanced reformer, and in all his operations on behalf of the People's Banner he was a reformer very much advanced. No man could do an article on the people's indefeasible rights with more pronounced vigour than Mr. Slide. But it had never occurred to him as yet that he ought to care for anything else than the fight,—than the advantage of having a good subject on which to write slashing ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint; only such overplus as there may be do we account Happiness; any deficit again is Misery. Now consider that we have ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... silence their inauspicious tongues; that they must hold off their profane, unhallowed paws from this holy work; they would have proclaimed with a voice that should make itself heard, that on every country the first creditor is the plow,—that this original, indefeasible claim ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various |
