"Quibble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presumptuous his position in that church!—this nondescript something seemed to raise a "viewless obstruction" in his throat, and, having thus rendered him the first moment incapable of speaking out like a man, had taught him the next—had it?—to quibble—"like a priest" the lawyer-fellow would doubtless have said! He must go home and study Paley—or perhaps Butler's Analogy—he owed the church something, and ought to be able to strike a blow for her. Or would not Leighton be better? Or a more modern writer—say Neander, or Coleridge, or perhaps ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... of Darwin's survival of the fittest. All this is now "too late to mend:" but I do hope that if ever I go to Engelfield Castle, Sir Richard will be kindly and genial to his far-off cousin, who (but for some legal quibble unknown) ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... I put in, "detective divination is merely minute observation. But why do we quibble over words and definitions when there is much work to be done? When is the formal inquest to ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... short of the case of Prince Michael would have brought him on such a journey in the middle of the night. But the case of Prince Michael, as it happened, was complicated by legalism as well as lawlessness. On the last occasion he had escaped by a forensic quibble and not, as usual, by a private escapade; and it was a question whether at the moment he was amenable to the law or not. It might be necessary to stretch a point, but a man like Sir Walter could probably stretch it as far as ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... cost of the roads as much more as the guarantee would have saved. It was for their interest that the guarantee should not be given. It was withdrawn. The faith of England—till then regarded as something sacred—was violated; and the answer was a criticism on a phrase—a quibble upon the construction of a sentence, which all the world for six months had read one way. The secret history of this wretched transaction I do not seek to penetrate. Enough is written upon stock-books and in the records of courts in Canada to give us the proportions of that {120} scheme of jobbery ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... quite justifiable. But they don't hold good if we are to be brought into conflict with the police. Mr. Duclos told me this morning that if we were driven to speak we must do so with complete honesty and without quibble. What do ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... whatever process, on account of religious opinions, was an act of clemency. The Netherlanders were, however, to be persuaded into this belief. The draft of the new edict was ostentatiously called the "Moderatie," or the "Moderation." It was very natural, therefore, that the common people, by a quibble, which is the same in Flemish as in English, should call the proposed "Moderation" the "Murderation." The rough mother-wit of the people had already characterized and annihilated the project, while dull formalists were carrying it through ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... organism, must be either germinal or acquired. It is impossible to conceive of any other category. But it is frequently hard to say in which class a given character falls. Worse still, many persons do not even distinguish the two categories accurately—a confusion made easier by the quibble that all characters must be acquired, since the organism starts from a single cell, which possesses practically none of the traits ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... children, longed still for the old home town. Austin was firm, nevertheless, in his decision to stay by what he had found. "We have friends here who make us welcome. We need not feel that we are utterly strangers. I have a good job and it would be foolishness for me to look farther. Let us not quibble any more. If we are going to make a home for the children, let us get at it," he said in ending the contention. "If you girls wish to go on down home, or anywhere else, visiting, do it now before ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... but after all the law may say that she is his lawful purchase. I asked six pounds for her, and he gave me six pounds." "Six flints you mean," said I; "no, no, the law is not quite so bad as that either; I know something about her, and am sure that she will never sanction such a quibble. At all events, I'll ride after the fellow." Thereupon turning the horse round, I put him to his very best trot; I rode nearly a mile without obtaining a glimpse of the fellow, and was becoming apprehensive that he had escaped ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... have. Please, please don't quibble. And hidden things are so dangerous. It isn't as if I would not understand. You ought to give me credit for a little knowledge of human nature. I knew perfectly well that when you married me—you would think of Mary. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the Chicago City Council. Once is enough. There are too many others behind them waiting to get their noses in the trough. Go into your respective wards and districts and organize meetings. Call your particular alderman before you. Don't let him evade you or quibble or stand on his rights as a private citizen or a public officer. Threaten—don't cajole. Soft or kind words won't go with that type of man. Threaten, and when you have managed to extract a promise ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Himself. God is all fair, but the central and substantial beauty of the divine nature is that it is a stooping nature, which bows to weak and unworthy souls, and on them pours out the full abundance of its manifold gifts. So the 'beauty of the Lord' means, by no quibble or quirk, but by reason of the essential loveliness of His lovingkindness, both God's loveliness and God's goodness; God's graciousness and God's gracefulness (if I may ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... here and quibble; you're too clever altogether," I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... is (you will say) so extremely, obvious that it must needs hide a fallacy or at best a quibble on a word. I shall try to show that it does not: that it directly opposes plain truth to a convention accepted by the Ordinance, and that the fallacy lies in ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... fell out with each other over just such a questionable enterprise as had wrecked a partnership a hundred years ago. I can see him now as he came hurrying into our office that day full of the plan for his great scheme—just a quibble of the law and the thing was done. We were all to be made rich and successful by it, he explained. There is no use in describing to you the intricacies of his idea; it was one of those shoal waters in which the honesty of young lawyers ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... center attention upon the quibble and then said: "My friend, I first tried, unsuccessfully, to have the United States take Texas as a gift. Not until I threatened to turn Texas over to England did I finally succeed. There may be within ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... was as sure to fight slavery as any man who to-day reveres Channing or Theodore Parker. Those French thinkers threw such heat and light into Jefferson's young mind, that every filthy weed of tyrannic quibble or pro-slavery paradox ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... intelligent self-control and kindly adaptation. Mere codes of rules, whether at home or at school, set the children at work, with all their sharp, unregenerate little wits, to pick flaws, draw distinctions, and quibble on interpretations. They become abominably shrewd in a degrading, casuistical strict-constructionism. In spite of everything, the little, cunning, irresponsible, non-moral beings will be successfully appealing to the letter of the law against the spirit, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... fateful. We must fight; and no longer over trifles; we cannot now break each other's heads over a quibble, or believe that the whole world hangs on the question whether the instant of death is the last minute of this life or the first of the next. No—what now remains to be decided is whether the old gods shall be victorious, whether we shall continue to live free and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him with it, is at least as good as aiming at dulness. A small eater, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The man who's got most will to live is the most cowardly...go on." Andrews's voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... or quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the other ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... that was objected to, but only the form, where are we? We can do nothing else but assume that the German Government objected to the terms employed by Sir Edward Grey, and that for the sake of a mere quibble they wasted time until other events made the catastrophe inevitable. Impartiality will have to judge whether such action was deliberate or not; whether in this case also it is crime or folly which has to be laid at the door of ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... "Do not use such phrases to me. They mean nothing. For some wretched quibble of your miserable conscience—as you still have the assumption to call it—you will ruin us ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... was a correct disguise which mixed him with every one, and yet left him solitary. Jean Valjean had just attained his sixtieth birthday, the age of legal exemption; but he did not appear to be over fifty; moreover, he had no desire to escape his sergeant-major nor to quibble with Comte de Lobau; he possessed no civil status, he was concealing his name, he was concealing his identity, so he concealed his age, he concealed everything; and, as we have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... it's some scientific quibble that I don't understand. I've never had time to go in for intellectual hair-splitting. I've found too many people down in the mire who needed a hand to pull them out. A busy man has to take his choice between helping his fellow-men ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... it perchance serve to make you think yourself better than others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others' consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples, follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of escaping future punishment?—oh, then, if you proclaim yourself the follower of Buddha, Moses, ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people of the West seem to have accepted Charles Lamb's humorous quibble in good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people, they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from the contemplation of the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... revolted solely because of "this cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murder, intended against towns and multitudes." As if they had not revolted already! Their pretext seems to mean that they do not want to alter the sovereign authority, a quibble which they issued for several months, long after it was obviously false. They also wrote to the nobles, to the French officers in the Regent's service, and to ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... a spiritual suicide in his right. He is the master and the victim of a monstrous cleverness which is neither to hold nor to bind, and will not permit him to do things as an honest, simple person of genius would. As Shakespeare, in Johnson's phrase, lost the world for a quibble and was content to lose it, so does Mr. Meredith discrown himself of the sovereignty of contemporary romance to put on the cap and bells of the professional wit. He is not content to be plain Jupiter: his lightnings are less to him than his fireworks; and his pages so teem with ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... utmost frankness that he had been sent to sea, as a wild boy whom it was impossible to keep steady at home; and he quite readily admitted that he had not introduced himself to Zack under his real name. But at this point his communicativeness stopped. He did not quibble, or prevaricate; he just bluntly and simply declared that he would tell nothing more ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... additional distress. But the next morning when Guinea and I were alone at the breakfast table she asked me if I had not met him down the road—said that she had seen him crossing the meadows with his dogs. I began to quibble and she spoke up spiritedly: "Oh, you shouldn't hesitate to tell me. It amounts to ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... But George was always weak and wayward, and he did, in his great passion, marry her. That he should afterwards deny it officially seems to me to have been utterly inevitable. His denial did her not the faintest damage, as I have pointed out. It was, so to speak, an official quibble, rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case. Not to have denied the marriage in the House of Commons would have meant ruin to both of them. As months passed, more serious difficulties awaited the unhappily wedded ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... husband's friend, and to maintain her husband's honor by the discharge of his just debt, though paid out of her own wealth ten times over. It is evident that she would rather owe the safety of Antonio to any thing rather than the legal quibble with which her cousin Bellario has armed her, and which she reserves as a last resource. Thus all the speeches addressed to Shylock in the first instance, are either direct or indirect experiments on his temper ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that from them they blush at from a Woman—But I make a Challenge to any Person of common Sense and Reason—that is not wilfully bent on ill Nature, and will in spight of Sense wrest a double Entendre from every thing, lying upon the Catch for a Jest or a Quibble, like a Rook for a Cully; but any unprejudic'd Person that knows not the Author, to read any of my Comedys and compare 'em with others of this Age, and if they find one Word that can offend the chastest Ear, I will submit to all their ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... a game of chance until it was proven that it was a game of chance. Judge and counsel said that would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job, Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles, to testify; and they unanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturgis by pronouncing that old sledge was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... comedians to entertain me. And I, what can I call myself—pure reason? No, a disgusting title. Rather, Unreason, since I am after all the Indifferent One. But all this is a quibble inspired by modesty. I am God. I am that which men have worshipped—the aloof one, ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... objections what was known as the Homestead Bill. On that occasion Senator Johnson of Tennessee said, 'This idea about poor foreigners somehow or other bewilders and haunts the imagination of a great many. I am constrained to say that I look upon this objection to the bill as a mere quibble on the part of the President, as being hard pressed for some excuse in withholding his approval of the measure. His allusion to foreigners in this connection looks to me more like the ad captandum of the mere politician or demagogue, than ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... crest of Clopton is a falcon clapping his wings, and rising from a tun; and I verily believe the rose clapt on to be the miserable quibble intended."] ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... same translation, as originating from Leod, Lud, or Luyd, which, he says, means "folk or people." [23] Therefore St. Leger seems to signify a folk, a gathering, a legion or "crew" of saints, a holy crowd or crew,—which may have been the quibble extorted by Spenser's "alchemy of wit" from the "upbringing" of Elizabeth Nagle, his wife. He calls her with marked emphasis his "sweet Saint," his "sovereign Saint"; and in the "Epithalamion" the temple-gates are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... song and fence, and quibble and prattle and pun; the gaily dressed ladies; the masques in the great hall of the castle; the pomp and ceremony that attended the queen when she went abroad: all ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... judging, into three classes." [He might have said the same of writers too if he had pleased.] "In the lowest form he places those whom he calls Les Petits Esprits, such things as our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit, and prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression. These are mob readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for Parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But though they made the greatest appearance in the field, and cried ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... civilisation is to obliterate those distinctions which are the best salt of life. All the fine old professional flavour in language has evaporated. Your very gravedigger has forgotten his avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over Ophelia's grave, instead of more appropriately discussing the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition of life, in which everything pointed and characteristic is being rubbed down, till the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her sad calm voice she poured into his ear. It was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr. Smith had been grievously tempted by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a legal quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan-children, joint-heirs to a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he was quite decided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice. As Memory ceased to read Conscience again thrust ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was being charged with all sorts of illegal exercises of power in the interest of the Right (the Government side): among these, with arbitrarily closing an Order of Business before it was finished; with an unfair distribution of the right to the floor; with refusal of the floor, upon quibble and protest, to members entitled to it; with stopping a speaker's speech upon quibble and protest; and with other transgressions of the Rules of the House. One of the interrupters who made himself heard was a young fellow of slight build and neat dress, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "That's a quibble. It isn't her happiness we are talking about,—nor yet your hanging about London. Gird yourself up and go on with what you've got to do. Put your work before your feelings. What does a poor man do, who goes out hedging and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... application it is a small thing. People privileged to receive Punch's Almanack through the post will not quibble over a half-penny. But it is evident that a system which embodies an arrangement that needs only to be stated to have its absurdity demonstrated, wants ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... in your way, when it is in order, and let society quibble. How is the world to be made any better, if each one goes on in the old way ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... after his birth. Then Philip V. seized the crown, his lawyers asserting that, according to the Salic law, 'no part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman,' and that therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the Salian Franks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance of estates, not with the inheritance of the throne of France, which was ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... deserve that I should say yes without a quibble," replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the risk; so I will merely answer,—I would like to do you a favor ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... was either very clever or very foolish (I have never quite determined which) claimed to have solved it in only one straight line, because, as she said, "I have taken care to make all the others crooked!" Who could have anticipated such a quibble? ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... of the young Frenchman flush, but De Galissonniere, as if knowing the truth, and resolved not to quibble over it, climbed steadily. When he was within twenty feet of the crest the hunter called to him to halt, and he did so, leaning easily against a strong bush, while the three waited eagerly to hear what he had ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... double ale, besides three bottles of brandy. My baron-bailie and doer, Mr. Duncan Macwheeble, is the fourth on our list. There is a question, owing to the incertitude of ancient orthography, whether he belongs to the clan of Wheedle or of Quibble, but both have produced persons eminent in ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Johnson says:—'A quibble is intended between as the conditional particle, and ass the beast of burthen.' On this note Steevens remarked:—'Shakespeare has so many quibbles of his own to answer for, that there are those who think it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... hatred to the merchant, entraps him into pledging a pound of his flesh as surety for the loan. Bassanio marries Portia, but misfortune overtakes Antonio, he forfeits his bond, and his life is only saved by a quibble ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the outset: What effect had secession had upon the States guilty of it; was it or was it not an act of state suicide? This question was warmly debated in Congress and out. Although ridiculed in some quarters as a mere metaphysical quibble, it lay at the bottom of men's political thinking on reconstruction, and their views of the proper answer to it ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... difficulty was to be resolved than how to fix the chameleon hue of woman's thought. He had a king to pacify—wayward as a child, fickle as a lady's favour. Unless he could acquit himself by some witty quibble or device, he might bid adieu to the gaieties over which he presided. The time was short, and his wit must needs be ambling. As he passed through the court, revolving many plans for his deliverance, he was aware of a loud dispute between the two household divinities we ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... was every drop of human breath, whilst every eye was fixed upon the judge. The latter spoke. "The exception was conclusive; the prisoner must be discharged." I could not conceive it possible. What were truth, equity, morality—Nothing? And was murder innocence, if a quibble made it so? The jailer approached the monster, and whispered into his ear that he was now at liberty. He held down his head stupidly to receive the words, and he drew it back again, incredulous and astounded. Oh, what a secret he had learned for future government and conduct! What a friend and abettor, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... subject nations, and of giving up an innocent man to death, in order to save himself trouble and to conciliate a howling mob. No washing of his hands will cleanse them. 'All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten that hand. But his words let us see how a man may sophisticate his conscience and quibble ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... into three Classes. [He might have said the same of Writers too, if he had pleased.] In the lowest Form he places those whom he calls Les Petits Esprits, such thingsas are our Upper-Gallery Audience in a Play-house; who like nothing but the Husk and Rind of Wit, prefer a Quibble, a Conceit, an Epigram, before solid Sense and elegant Expression: These are Mob Readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for Parliament-Men, we know already who would carry it. But though they make the greatest ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Preface, he has marked out the character of our great dramatist with such a power of criticism, as there was perhaps no example of in the English language. Towards the conclusion, he has, I think, successfully defended him from the neglect of what are called the unities. The observation, that a quibble was the Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it, is more pointed than just. Shakspeare cannot be said to have lost the world; for his fame has not only embraced the circle of his own country, but is continually spreading over new ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... at Malden, in Essex, in the year 1738, that three horses (and no more than three) started for a L10 plate, and they were all three distanced the first heat, according to the common rules in horse-racing, without any quibble or equivocation; and the following was the solution:—The first horse ran on the inside of the post; the second wanted weight; and the third fell and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... themselves pamphlets and not newspapers, because they only commented upon the news of the day, to be henceforth liable to the stamp duties. This really did good service to the better class of journals, by sweeping away a swarm of newspapers which, by the quibble above mentioned, were enabled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... poorest classes of Southern Europe—are professedly Roman Catholic. The influence of the priesthood, however, owing to various causes, seems to be on the wane, and a habit of abandoning all religious thought is much on the increase. But the realization that our people never attack any Church, or quibble about details of creed and ceremonial, has won their way to the hearts of many, and there can be no doubt that we have a great future amongst these peoples. In Peru the law does not allow any persons not of the Romish Church to offer prayer ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... quibble. Lease at any price. If a show of cash is necessary, let me know. Now I think you'd ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer
... Revolution, and three insurrections, not counting the riots and strikes at Chicago, Homestead, Brooklyn, and in the mountains in the West. Dr. Jacobi said in an article in the "New York Sun," two years ago, "We do not vote for war." That appears like a quibble, for we vote for what brings, or may bring it; but neither is it exact in fact. Three times, at least, in our history men have deposited their ballots in the box, knowing that the result meant peace or war. These were at the second election ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... the fundamental, chief, or great doctrines of their holy religion. Down on all such quibbling! Others have objected to the words 'substantially correct,' as meaning anything or nothing, at pleasure. This, like the other objection, is a quibble. None can err here, unless it be wilfully.... The amount of the whole is, 'In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.' This is as far as the General Synod has gone or could go; ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... As to your quibble about Paul and Apollos, whether they, or others, were the persons, though I am satisfied you are out, yet it weakeneth not my argument; for if they were blame worthy for dividing, though about the highest fundamental principles, as ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... swear. Which being done, he protested, that it might not be constructed to any other sense than the genuine words he delivered in the minute he did subscribe and swear. That which induced him to this, he says, was, "They gave it in his own meaning, and so far was his mind deceived, that by a quibble and nice distinction they thought that the word might bear, That this was not a disowning of that nor no declaration that ever he saw (save one of their pretending) nor that neither but in so far, or if so be; which different expressions he was taught to ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... mentality that he might suggest once too often contempt for Western folk who worked for Eastern potentates. It was true he regarded the difference between a contract and direct employment as merely a question of degree, and a quibble in any case, and he felt pretty sure that the Blaines would not risk the maharajah's unchancy friendship by dismissing himself; but he suspected there were limits. He could not imagine why, but he had noticed that insolence to Blaine himself was fairly safe, Blaine ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... irritable cantankerous nature would have been annoyed at sight of anyone treating his gate with such disrespect, but when he saw who it was that thus made nothing of it—clearing it with as much contempt as a lawyer would a quibble not his own—his displeasure grew to indignation ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the diplomatic corps was increased on the following day, the 25th, by the language addressed to it at the Wilhelmstrasse. Herren von Jagow and Zimmermann said that they had not known beforehand the contents of the Austrian Note. This was a mere quibble: they had not known its actual wording, I grant, but they had certainly been apprised of its tenor. They hastened to add, by the way, that the Imperial Government approved of its ally's conduct, and did not consider the tone of its ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... only that banter, pun, and quibble are the properties of light men and shallow capacities; that genuine humour and true wit require a sound and capacious mind, which is always a grave one. Contemptuousness is not incompatible with them: worthless is that man who feels ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... they and the Scots had joined in the Solemn League and Covenant, and that, therefore, until Scotland assumed the offensive, there was no cause for an invasion. Cromwell's retort, after a preliminary quibble, was practical enough. "War is inevitable. Is it better to have it in the bowels of another's country or in one's own? In one or other it must be." Fairfax's scruple, however, withstood this battery, though it was strongly enforced by Harrison, who, in reply to the Lord-General's question, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... weary of the hard service into which he entered—was made the instrument of its overthrow. That hallowed landmark, which had lifted its awful front against the spread of Slavery for more than an entire generation, was obliterated by a quibble, and the morning sun of the 22d of May, 1854, rose for the last time "on the guarantied and certain liberties of all the unsettled and unorganized region of the American Continent." Everything there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... no doubt you will take advantage of me and of every quibble against me;" and there at last she began to break down; "but if there is justice in heaven or earth my child shall have it, though you and all ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to quibble," he assured her. "I know the trick of escaping from one question by asking another. But I don't want to escape from anything you hold me to answer. If you can show me that I am wrong, I want you to do so. But," and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... for a name, while the light of the lamps burnt thin and the outer dawn came in, a ghost, the last at the feast or the first, to sit within with the two that remained to quibble in flowers and ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... that Ziska was endeavouring to deceive him in the spirit of what he said, but that as regarded the letter, the young man was endeavouring to adhere to some fact for the salvation of his conscience as a Christian. If Anton Trendellsohn could but find out in what lay the quibble, the discovery might be very serviceable to him. "It could have been managed—could it?" he said, speaking very slowly. "Between ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... and by the first early gray had his mules packed. He looked once again towards Tucson, and took the road he had promised not to take, leaving the guitar behind him altogether. His faith protested a little, but the other self invented a quibble, the mockery that he had already "come by Tucson," according to his literal word; and this device answered. It is a comfort to be divided no longer against one's self. Genesmere was at ease in his ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... and applied its enginery to those very parts of our citadel which we would be most likely to defend the longest. Had it contented itself with the mere discussion of minor points, with here and there a quibble about a miracle or a prophecy, we could excuse many of its vagaries on the score of enthusiasm. But its premiss was, "We will accept nothing between the two lids of this Book if our Reason cannot fathom it." Hence, all truth, every book of the Bible, even the sacraments of the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the eyes of their own country. The false position in which these men were placed was, a few weeks later, cruelly emphasized when General Escobedo, after his victory over Miramon at San Jacinto, took advantage of the legal quibble thus offered him, and caused French prisoners to be shot as declared outlaws under Marshal Bazaine's circular. Notwithstanding all this, out of the remainder of the Cazadores a battalion was formed, and eventually placed ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... disappointed. He had hoped for a vigorous denial on Thorpe's part, but this halfway confession seemed to him a mere quibble. He found himself believing the man guilty and that he was using this hypnotism suggestion as a ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... these developments no proposal to exchange Louisiana for the Floridas should be entertained; the President declared himself satisfied that "our right to the Perdido is substantial and can be opposed by a quibble on form only"; and John Randolph, duly coached by the Administration, flatly declared in the House of Representatives that "We have not only obtained the command of the mouth of the Mississippi, but of the Mobile, with its widely extended ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... artist and a businessman. Bentley had no quibble or quarrel with himself, and therefore was at peace with the world; he had eliminated all grouch from his cosmos. Bentley began as Wedgwood's agent, and finally became his partner, and had a deal to do with the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... in the early days that I speak of, was a kind-hearted chairman, and would never allow the quibble of the lawyer to stand in the way of justice to the prisoner. In those days at sessions they were not so nice in the observances of mere forms as they are now, and you could sometimes get in something that was not exactly evidence, strictly ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... to agree to this formula. They took the ground that they, as the representatives merely of the Continental Congress, had not the right to bind the individual states in such a matter. The argument was a quibble. Their real reason was that they were well aware that public opinion in America would not support them in such a concession. A few enlightened men in America, such as John Adams, favoured a policy of compensation to the ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... American general to quit this position; and having failed in various expedients, on the 19th of June he ordered his main body to retire to Amboy. This succeeded. Washington abandoned what had cost him so much trouble to create, and advanced to Quibble Town. The mass of the British troops now moved back by different routes, in order to get on the American general's flank and rear, and by intervening between him and the hills, to force him to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the Crown, that the Natives' Land Bill would be class legislation of a kind that would never be allowed by His Majesty's Government. The originators of the Bill, however, were determined so to circumvent the constitutional quibble raised by the legal advisers as to seal our doom; and by adroitly manipulating its legal phrases, it seems that it was recasted in such a manner as to give it a semblance of a paper restriction on European encroachment ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... capacity of judging, into three classes (he might have said the same of writers, too, if he had pleased). In the lowest form he places those whom he calls les petits esprits—such things as are our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse, who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit; prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression. These are mob-readers. If Virgil and Martial steed for Parliament-men, we know already who would carry it. But though they make the greatest appearance in the field, and ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... explanation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind,) it is impertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking the sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. That manufacturer of, quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear his name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins in fact, and suffers by proxy; the other who sins by proxy, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a Chine-ponim, or droll, having that inextinguishable sense of humor which has made the saints of the Jewish Church human, has lit up dry technical Talmudic, discussions with flashes of freakish fun, with pun and jest and merry quibble, and has helped the race to survive (pace Dr. Wallace) by dint of a ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... diagnosed as green, or maybe blue, or possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... do," Burris said. "Put the whole thing on the expense account. You don't think I'm going to quibble about ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... eloquent; and he knew that on great occasions, when great speeches are wanted, great guns like to have the fire to themselves. Neither did he split upon the opposite rock of "promising young men," who stick to "the business of the house" like leeches, and quibble on details; in return for which labour they are generally voted bores, who can never do anything remarkable. But he spoke frequently, shortly, courageously, and with a strong dash of good-humoured personality. He was the man whom a minister could get to say something ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he didn't write it. Sir William declares—a mere quibble! He has it from several people that Barrington was at Tallyn two days before the article appeared, and that he spoke to one or two friends next day of an 'important' conversation with Marsham, and of the first-hand information he had got from it. Nobody was so ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of shares. You thought the vendor's shares would play a part in the game. Ah! I see I've hit the mark! That was the way of it!—And now here, Thorpe! Let all that's been said be bye-gones! I don't want any verbal triumph over you. You don't want to wrong me—and yourself too—by sticking to this quibble about vendor's shares. You intended to be deuced good to me—and what have I done that you should round on me now? I haven't bothered you before. I came today only because things are particularly rotten, financially, just now. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... his love in this world and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man had touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was young; the time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose time or to quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was on the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which would have taught her to value ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... at any rate," old Hector answered, "and I can do no good puttering round the hospital to-night. Neither would I alarm his mother and the girls. Send for the best medical brains in the country, Andrew, and don't quibble at the cost. Pay them what they ask. 'Twill be cheap enough if they save him. Good-night, Andrew, and thank you kindly." He stood up and laid his hand affectionately upon the shoulder of his faithful servant and walked with him thus to the door. "My good Andrew," he murmured, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... fact, his tones if anything is some low-sperited. "I takes it," he says, when he's able to command his feelin's, "that you declines them proffers with your winchester at the time when made." But the lady dismisses this as a quibble, an' merely sayin' that she won't be paltered with no farther, orders Oscar an' the Bible sharp who's ridin' inside to assemble by the edge of the trail. The Bible sharp attempts to lay the foundations of fresh objections by askin' Oscar does he do this of his own free ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... always answer him; but there is an old saying, Nelly: 'Everyone knows where his own shoe pinches!' He'll say that I want moral courage, and strength of character, and power of endurance, and it's all true; but I'm sure I ought not to remain here, if I have nothing better to put forward than a quibble: so, Nelly, we shall have to ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... was suddenly in no mood to quibble with Izzy's personal code. "So you paid it. Now show me where I signed any agreement saying I'd ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian's own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner working of one among the many new ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... would have him. The meaning of this was, that he would seize the ship as fair prize, and as if she had belonged to French subjects, according to a commission he had for that purpose; though one would think, after what he had already done, he need not have recourse to a quibble to ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... cried, exasperated. "Don't quibble. Let's get down to facts. Does your bringing her here mean that you've ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... doing it before. A sufficiently inane story, and by no means certainly true; but there is enough character in this little feat, ponderous, deliberate, pompous, ostentatious, and at bottom a trick and deceitful quibble, to make it accord with the grandiloquent public manner of Columbus, and to make it easily believable of one who chose to show himself in his speech and writings so much more meanly and pretentiously than he showed himself in the true acts ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... "Don't quibble, my boy," said Sir Henry smiling. "You call my sovereign the Pretender, and that is what I call the man you serve. Good heavens, boy! how could you devote your frank young life to such ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... Roy Glenister?" His voice, like his manner, was jealously eager, and he watched her carefully as she replied, without quibble or deceit: ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... should soon be at the bottom of the Thames. How the foul fiend can it interest the peasants and mechanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sitting down to dinner? But my father looks our way—we must not be late for the grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you will forgive a quibble which would have made his Majesty laugh. You will find us all of a piece, and, having been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed you should witness our larded capons, our mountains of beef, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... quibble of the sophist, who singles out instances of law violated in civilized communities, and holds them up as the criterion by which to judge civilization, and triumphantly exclaims, Lo! the fruits of civilization—of that civilization which arrogates ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... not so bad as your fears have represented him; it is true that he is Bury'd, altho' he is not dead; to understand this quibble you must know that he is at Bury St. Edmunds, relaxing, after the fatigues of lecturing and Londonizing. The little Rickmaness, whom you enquire after so kindly, thrives and grows apace; she is already a prattler, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... he was informed that a stranger who was at the inn called the "City of Rome" wished to see him. He went at once to the place with no misgivings, but on his arrival there found the devil, who had come to claim the fulfillment of the contract. Provoked at the quibble, he resolved to employ a ruse himself, and just as the devil was about to take possession of him he seized the infant child of the innkeeper from its cradle and held it up before him, its innocence being a sure defence against Satan's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... is not a part of the Atlantic Ocean because it happens to be named in reference to the St. Croix in the same article of the treaty. To show the extent to which such an argument, founded on a mere verbal quibble, may be carried, let it be supposed that at some future period two nations on the continent of North America shall agree on a boundary in the following terms: By a line drawn through the Mississippi from its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico to its source; thence a parallel of latitude until ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... longer tied to giving Italian lessons,—tied to coming here three times a week to teach me literature." Hedwig smiled a strange icy smile, and sat down by the window. Nino was still utterly astonished, but he would not allow the baroness's quibble to go ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... it is, the faults seem not to be very few. Why part should be Latin, and part English, it is not easy to discover. In the Latin the opposition of immortalis and mortalis, is a mere sound, or a mere quibble; he is not immortal in any sense contrary to that in which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... course, we shall be given to understand," said others, "for the sake of the honor of the two families, that the difficulties did not come from either side, but the chancellor refused to consent; you may be sure it will be some quibble about that entail ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... pernicious or a very ridiculous Creature. I shall here confine my self to that petty kind of Ambition, by which some Men grow eminent for odd Accomplishments and trivial Performances. How many are there whose whole Reputation depends upon a Punn or a Quibble? You may often see an Artist in the Streets gain a Circle of Admirers, by carrying a long Pole upon his Chin or Forehead in a perpendicular Posture. Ambition has taught some to write with their Feet, and others to walk upon their Hands. Some tumble into Fame, others grow immortal by throwing themselves ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... indigenous to the soil, and shoots out with native, happy, unchecked luxuriance. Absurdity has every encouragement afforded it; and nonsense has room to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by the churlish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The poet runs riot in a conceit, and idolizes a quibble. His whole object is to turn the meanest or rudest objects to a pleasurable account. The relish which he has of a pun, or of the quaint humour of a low character, does not interfere with the delight with which ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... offer to the fates, and when she had examined the larder and the store cupboard she found that the household was in immediate need of things which must be brought from the town. She laughed at her own quibble, but it satisfied her and, refusing Miriam's company, she ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... think the passage and rejection of this bill a fortunate incident. Every State will certainly concede the power; and this will be a national confirmation of the grounds of appeal to them, and will settle for ever the meaning of this phrase, which, by a mere grammatical quibble, has countenanced the General Government in a claim of universal power. For in the phrase, 'to lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare,' it is a mere question of syntax, whether the two last infinitives are governed by the first, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... declared was but a quibble, and that I would not hear of the captain being told; and then it was that Ballantrae made me a witty answer, for the sake of which (and also because I have been blamed myself in this business of the Sainte-Marie-des-Anges) I have related the whole conversation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as possible, and the beginning is made; watch for and utilize all such opportunities, as they come, and the main road of the task is marked out; shock is minimized, if not eliminated, mutual confidence is engendered, and a priceless reward may be won. But if at that first question we falter, quibble, blush, lie, jest, or repel, we have entered the wrong road which leads eternally astray. Let no question ever be either ignored or neglected, least of all repelled. It is the golden opportunity for parent, teacher, or friend. To guarantee against the child seeking promiscuous and ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... "Don't quibble!" retorted the cat, sharply. "A king is known by his deeds. If you have seen the way he's been beheading people right and left, I think you'd call him something more than a general. What few he has left alive have fled from the palace and are ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... Homer Crawford. "I'm not here to quibble with self-confessed malcontents. I've been sent to represent the State Department, to report to them, and, above all, to do what I can to prevent your activities from redounding to the further advantage of the Soviet Complex. I assume you can ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... and hits where he did not aim. He has a foolish sleight of wit that catches at words only and lets the sense go, like the young thief in the farce that took a purse, but gave the owner his money back again. He is so well versed in all cases of quibble, that he knows when there will be a blot upon a word as soon as it is out. He packs his quibbles like a stock of cards; let him but shuffle, and cut where you will, he will be sure to have it. He dances on a rope of sand, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... James's. "Well, well—you quibble. I dare say Urquhart has fifteen thousand a year, and even you will know that I haven't half ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... they all amount to? You amused yourself with me and you're ready enough to continue so long as I pour my devotion at your feet. Well, I won't do it. If you loved me truly you wouldn't refuse to marry me. Isn't that so? True love isn't afraid, it doesn't quibble and temporize and split hairs the way you do. No, it steps out boldly and follows the light. You've had your fun, you've—broken my heart." Phillips' voice shook and he swallowed hard. "I'm through; I'm done. I shall never love another woman as I love you, but if what you said about that ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... elective term, so that the third term custom did not apply to me; and I wished to repudiate this suggestion. I believed then (and I believe now) the third term custom or tradition to be wholesome, and, therefore, I was determined to regard its substance, refusing to quibble over the words usually employed to express it. On the other hand, I did not wish simply and specifically to say that I would not be a candidate for the nomination in 1908, because if I had specified the year when I would not ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... endless,) there are many,—and, we fear, a daily increasing number of persons,—who, admitting Inspiration in terms, yet so mutilate the notion of it, that their admission becomes a practical lie. "St. Paul was inspired, no doubt. So was Shakspeare." He who says this, intending no quibble, declares that in his belief St. Paul was not ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon |
