"Refute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occasions, to behave yourselves to all persons in a civil and respectful manner, by which you may prevent contention and remove every just occasion of complaint. We beseech you to reflect, that it is by your good conduct alone that you can refute the objections which have been made against you as rational and moral creatures, and remove many of the difficulties which have occurred in the general emancipation of such of your brethren ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... without a preposition, and seldom, if ever, allow any variety in this connecting and governing particle. And yet in no other language has its construction given rise to a tenth part of that variety of absurd opinions, which the defender of its true syntax must refute in ours. In French, the infinitive, though frequently placed in immediate dependence on an other verb, may also be governed by several different prepositions, (as, a, de, pour, sans, apres,) according to the sense.[406] In Spanish and Italian, the construction is similar. In Latin and Greek, the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... it, but the substance of it has been reported to me since I entered the room. I have been told that he said that the merchants in Lerwick buy from second-class houses, and pay for their goods by consignments of hosiery. I wish to refute that, so far as I am concerned; and I refer to Messrs. J. & W. Campbell, Glasgow; Stewart & M'Donald, Glasgow; Arthur & Co., Glasgow; John Clapperton & Co., Glasgow, and Geo. Peek & Co., Manchester, as a proof that I ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... concealing art. Lysias seems to be of the same opinion, which he defends by saying that the most simple and ignorant people possess a kind of rhetoric when they speak for themselves. They find something like an exordium, they make a narration, they prove, refute, and their prayers and entreaties have the force of a peroration. Lysias and his adherents proceed afterward to vain subtleties. "That which is the effect of art," say they, "could not have existed before art. In all times men have known how to speak for themselves ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... formerly lieutenant in the Black mousquetaires, returned to him—so he said—twelve hundred pistoles which he had lent to the marquis for the purpose of emigrating. This event made a sensation; it was used later to refute the sarcasms of the "Constitutionnel," on the method employed by some emigres in paying their debts. When this noble act of the Marquis de Pombreton was lauded before the chevalier, the good man reddened even to his right cheek. Every one rejoiced frankly ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... would never be passed, and a gun would be useless. Because our peasants will not call a bear, should a brave young fellow hang up his gun, and never venture to pursue the animal? I trust, Ireneus, that you will refute the dreams of this girl by success, and bring me home tomorrow a fine skin, to make a ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... enemy of the senate and the most active and eloquent leader of the popular party since Gaius Gracchus; but he was also violent and unscrupulous beyond any of his predecessors, always ready to descend into the street and to refute his antagonist ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... must necessarily be meagre. The work meets a long felt want of statistical information as to exactly what the Negro people are doing. These facts will serve not only as an inspiration to the race itself but to refute so much misinformation often circulated to do Negroes injury. It is earnestly hoped that the managers of this work will find it possible in the near future to publish an annual volume and to this end the public should give the movement unstinted ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... now as desirable and as strongly expected as it was two years ago, I might urge the matter further. As it is, it seems sufficient to overthrow the claims of Southerners, based upon false pretences, and supported only by unblushing effrontery, and to refute the slanders which have been thrown upon an entire section of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... or even from inferring, that beyond the region of the Knowable Mind does not exist, it remains logically possible to institute a metaphysical hypothesis that beyond this region of the Knowable Mind does exist. There being a necessary absence of any positive information whereby to refute this metaphysical hypothesis, any one who chooses to adopt it is fully justified in doing so, provided only he remembers that the purely metaphysical quality whereby the hypothesis is ensured against disproof, likewise, and in the same degree, precludes it from ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... the Bible was thrown down on the floor of the Assembly, as stated. Presently I took up the gauntlet, and made this argument. The challenger never claimed his glove, then nor since; nor has anybody, so far as I know, attempted to refute this speech. Nothing has come to my ears (save as to two points, to be noticed hereafter) but reckless, bold denial of God's truth, infidel affirmation without attempt at proof, and denunciations ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... enough to see that Mr Downie knew more about a watch than he did, held his peace, and took no trouble to refute the imputation on the way in which he ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... would never really part with it without something more or less equivalent in exchange. His mind was essentially equilibristic in material matters, and his way of putting the national situation difficult to refute in a world composed of human beings. Take his own case, for example! He was well off. Did that do anybody harm? He did not eat ten meals a day; he ate no more than, perhaps not so much as, a poor man. He ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... beside him. . . . All this we women of a later day have "resigned"—and I know not if that word be the right one or the wrong; so many lessons have we conned since Gismond fought for a slandered maiden. We have learned that lies refute themselves, that "things come right in the end," that human life is sacred, that a woman's chastity may be sacred too, but is not her most inestimable possession—and, if it were, should be "able to take care of itself." Further doctrines, though not yet fully accepted, are being ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... "Dryden is the greatest poet of England, and of the century," said Atterbury, the translator of "Achitophel." It was about the time when M. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, wrote to Saumaise, who had done the author of "Paradise Lost" the honour to refute and abuse him, "How can you trouble yourself about so mean a thing as that Milton?" Everything was falling into its proper place: Dryden above, Shakespeare below; Charles II. on the throne, Cromwell ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... magistrates. "It is a singular fact," observes an acute historical writer,[5] "that Lord Grey, on this occasion, made an able and erudite law argument; which all the law lords, including Lord Ellenborough, made vain efforts to refute; and which Lord Ellenborough had the manliness to eulogize;" notwithstanding which Lord Grey's motion for a copy of the opinion of the law officers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 555, Supplement to Volume 19 • Various
... my tongue to refute this, to say that everybody had a chance. I could indeed recall many arguments that had been drilled into me; quotations, even, from court decisions. But something prevented me from doing this,—something in his manner, which was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to fix the position of the country visited by De Gonneville, it is necessary to refute here the various opinions expressed on the subject which refer to countries other than the Australian Continent. The most ancient is that brought forward by tile geographers, Duval and Nolin, and the navigator, Bouvet, who place those lands almost immediately to the south of the Cape of Good Hope. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Lloyd knew, as she looked, that should she tell an untruth about that talk at the dinner-table, Mrs. Pierce would repeat and corroborate her story; but Lambert would refute her, and would state veraciously what his master had said. Clearly, it was useless to attempt a false report, and, with a little sigh, Miss Lloyd seemed to resign herself to her fate, and calmly awaited ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... compound man A well-governed stomach is a great part of liberty A word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit Abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances Abominate that incidental repentance which old age brings Accept all things we are not able to refute Accommodated my subject to my strength Accursed be thou, as he that arms himself for fear of death Accusing all others of ignorance and imposition Acquiesce and submit to truth Acquire by his writings an immortal life Addict thyself to the study of letters Addresses his voyage ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... conflict began, Cimon, the banished commander, appeared in the Athenian camp and begged permission to enter the ranks against the enemy. His request being refused, he left his armor with his friends, of whom there were one hundred among the Athenians, with the charge to refute, by their valor, the accusation that he and they were the friends of Sparta. Everyone of the one hundred fell in the conflict. About two months after, in the early part of the year 456 B.C., the Athenians ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... body of the char-a-bancs, and Maruja seated on the box. Much to his own astonishment and that of some others of the party, Captain Carroll was among the riders. Only Maruja and her mother knew that he was recalled to refute a repetition of the gossip already circulated regarding his sudden withdrawal; only Maruja alone knew the subtle words which made that call ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... Even thus, and not otherwise, would she have desired him to refute the slander. It was a test she had promised herself; she could have laughed for joy. Her voice ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... not stop to refute the strange errors and fancies of Sir William Temple (his Works, vol. iii. p. 371-374, octavo edition) and Voltaire (Histoire Generale, c. xxviii. tom. ii. p. 124, 125, edition de Lausanne) concerning the division of the Saracen empire. The mistakes of Voltaire proceeded ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... should boast," and "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life?" To which, however, one might also answer in the words of Scripture, "The Devils also believe," and "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." But without seeming to make text refute text, let us ask rather what the supposed convert possesses at the end of the process. That Christ saves sinners, even blackguards from the streets, is a great fact; and that the simple words of the street evangelist ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... original and office of a critic, as the word is understood in its most noble and universal acceptation, I proceed to refute the objections of those who argue from the silence and pretermission of authors, by which they pretend to prove that the very art of criticism, as now exercised, and by me explained, is wholly ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... curious people in the world, people whose reasoning methods are inexplicable, whose conclusions are not based upon any system of ethics or of logic. They believe what they choose to believe, irrespective of the quality of the testimony which may be advanced to refute their belief. The following incident illustrates this peculiar perversity: A woman patient of mine suffered from an obstinate and harassing cough. Though her general health was rather poor, her lungs were not affected. The ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... in every way made me as comfortable as possible. Being able to speak a little German, I talked to the other wounded, and found that their papers also published dreadful tales of our treatment of prisoners, which I am glad to say I was able to refute. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... Bland's to the school. He was making a personal investigation concerning a report, then current, that public school children were underfed. Bishop Bland was not fond of children, but he was sensitive to any slight put upon the stomach, and he wished very much to be able to refute the disturbing rumor. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... the wound & dry away tears, which will make men live. I will have my brethren love one another; let 2 of you presently goe and invite the familly of the Martins to the feast of amity, and make them accept my presents. If they refute it & seek for blood, it is just I should sacrifice my life for my father, whom I love as I doe all the rest of the Indians our allies, more than I doe my owne selfe, So that I am redy to lay down my head to bee cutt off in case my presents did not ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... of each of them goes without saying, as it was equally so as regarded this more presumptious of the crew "Conrad the Conqueror." There were many, in London especially, who wondered that Apleon did not appear and refute this man's claims, if they had ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... against him for conduct which it was stated rendered him an undesirable member of the club, to the honorary membership of which he had been admitted. The committee, after inquiry, decided to request him to see them, inform him of the charge that had been made against him, ask him if he wished to refute it; if not, it was their intention to cancel his membership. His answer was reported to be as follows: "The charges made against me practically accuse me of behaving like a blackguard. Well, I can be a blackguard—probably a bigger one than any of you are or can be, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... observations are made upon the winds within the district of such extensive storms as sometimes visit the United States, the directions of the wind are found to be so various, that the advocates of either theory, making due allowance for local disturbances, can triumphantly refute their adversaries. In such storms there are doubtless many centres or maxima of rain, and whether the wind move around or toward these centres, it would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the first hundred letters showed a trend that later mail confirmed. Less than 5 per cent of the readers ridiculed the article. Between 15 and 20 per cent said they were not convinced; a few of these admitted they could not refute the evidence. About half the readers accepted the possibility; most of these said they saw no reason why other planets should not be inhabited. The remainder, between 25 and 30 per cent, said ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... have no reason to doubt the fact, that there were 200 British seamen aboard the Constitution." [Footnote: New edition, London, 1837, vol. ii, p. 456.] These statements are mere assertions unsupported by proof, and of such a loose character as to be difficult to refute. As our navy was small, it may be best to take each ship in turn. The only ones of which the British could write authoritatively were, of course, those which they captured. The first one taken was the Wasp. James says many British were discovered among her crew, instancing especially ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Not being able to refute these plausible arguments, Bea contented herself with stubbornly maintaining her point. "But red, Edith, why red? It is a nightmare. Who ever ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... one of Uncle Sam's legends that "he who starts across the continent is most sure to leave his religion on the east side of the Missouri river." Conditions in Nebraska to-day refute the truth of this statement, however. Whatever may be the rule or exception concerning an American traveller's religion, the genuineness of his patriotism and his fidelity to it are rarely questioned. ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... one another of having been her lovers. Vannier had thus made her pay for her hospitality; Langelley and the gendarme Mallet himself, had exacted the same price—accusations it was as impossible as it was useless to refute. She herself well knew her own abasement, and at times disgust seized her. On the evening of September 27th, she did not return to Vannier's; escaping from this hell, she craved shelter from a lacemaker named Adelaide Monderard, who lodged in the Rue du Han, and ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... readily granted that chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... delicate point, which the Sicilian canon, Recupero, fancied that there was; [Footnote: Recupero. See Brydone's Travels, some sixty or seventy years ago. The canon, being a beneficed clergyman in the Papal church, was naturally an infidel. He wished exceedingly to refute Moses: and he fancied that he really had done so by means of some collusive assistance from the layers of lava on Mount Etna. But there survives, at this day, very little to remind us of the canon, except ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... encouragement to insist on them. They were then received with a blind credulity: they have been since rejected with as undistinguishing a disregard. But as it is not in my design nor inclination, nor indeed in my power, either to establish or refute these stories, it is sufficient to observe, that the reality or opinion of such miracles was the principal cause of the early acceptance and rapid progress of Christianity in this island. Other causes undoubtedly concurred; and it will be more to our purpose to consider some of the human and politic ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Hate" is admittedly a purely theoretical account of the crime. But it is closely based upon all the known facts of incidence and of character; and if there is nothing in the surviving records that will absolutely support it, neither is there anything that can absolutely refute it. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... no animalcules ever made their appearance within them. It must be admitted that the experiments and arguments of Spallanzani furnish a complete and a crushing reply to those of Needham. But we all too often forget that it is one thing to refute a proposition, and another to prove the truth of a doctrine which, implicitly or explicitly, contradicts that proposition; and the advance of science soon showed that though Needham might be quite wrong, it did not follow ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... been censured with an asperity which I was as little prepared to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my feelings, assures me is more bitter than just. It is scarcely the province of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and vindicate his own productions; but I may be allowed to make here a few observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition, had I foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... he begun cautiously, "that I have been lately the subject of some anonymous slanders, and Grant has taken the trouble to track them down for me. It is a calumny that goes back as far as Sidon, and I may want your level head and good memory to help me to refute it." He then repeated calmly and clearly, with no trace of the fury that had raged within him a moment before, the substance of ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... word soul, and forms at the same time some corporeal image: as the two representations are simultaneous, he easily thinks that he imagines and feigns a corporeal soul: thus confusing the name with the thing itself. (2) I here beg that my readers will not be in a hurry to refute this proposition; they will, I hope, have no mind to do so, if they pay close attention to the examples given and to what follows. [61a] (1) Though I seem to deduce this from experience, some may deny its cogency because ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... acrimonious charge of the Emperor's personal cowardice running in my head, I felt that this exhibition of SANG FROID, when taken completely unawares, went far to refute the imputation. What happened later in the day strongly confirmed ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... M. de Puttkamer, Minister of the Interior, unable to refute the evidence brought forward by the socialist deputy, Bebel, had then been compelled to confess that the socialist agitators Haupt and Schneider were his agents in Switzerland. On the other hand, at the inquiry into the proceedings of these socialists, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... financially and professionally during this long legal struggle, I was most anxious that the division should voluntarily be extended to all of the teachers who had experienced a loss of salary although they were not members of the Federation. It seemed to me a striking opportunity to refute the charge that the Federation was self-seeking and to put the whole long effort in the minds of the public, exactly where it belonged, as one of devoted public service. But it was doubtless much easier for me to urge this altruistic policy than it was for those who had borne the heat and burden ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... bitter and unjust, and Mrs. McFarlane again declared her intention of returning to help him in his fight. However, Wayland again proved to her that her presence would only embarrass the Supervisor. "You would not aid him in the slightest degree. Nash and Landon are with him, and will refute all these charges." ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... might trace you chapter by chapter; and at large refute, not only the whole design of your book by a particular replication to them; but also sundry and damnable errors, that like venom ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the scandalous romance which appeared under the title of La Vie de Jesus. Among a people moderately familiar with the narratives of St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke, and St John ... there would have been no need to refute it. Every one would have seen, without assistance, its flagrant falsifications, its gross sophisms, its absolute emptiness. This deep-seated and complex evil, this enervation of the Christian spirit, this anaemia ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... to refute that," said Kent. "But afterward, when I called upon the judge with the evidence ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... here present, that during the many years I have had the honor to lecture in this Institution, I have not once allowed myself to indulge in any personal remarks, or attacked those who, being absent, cannot defend themselves. Even when I had to answer objections, or to refute false theories, I have always most carefully avoided mentioning the names of living writers. But as Professor Blackie has directed his random blows, not against myself, but against a friend of mine, Mr. Cox, the author of a work ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... breath hung over her as her pen flew along the paper, and the questions constantly on her lips were "Shall I live to complete my task? Shall I live to tell the world how great and noble a man my husband was, and to refute the calumnies that his enemies have so industriously circulated?" She did complete it in a sense, for the work duly appeared; but no one recognised more clearly than herself its numerous shortcomings. Indeed, it is little better than a huge scrap-book filled ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and lands of inheritance to maintain, as you peers have; you will, I say, no longer have that feeling which you ought to have for the sufferings of a people whom you suppose to be habituated to their sufferings and familiar with degradation. This makes it absolutely necessary for me to refute every one of these misrepresentations; and whilst I am endeavoring to establish the rights of these people, in order to show in what manner and degree they have been violated, I trust that your Lordships will not think ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the contrary, will lead us to refute strongly all the false arguments, which impede thought and would choke it in order to allow unadulterated pleasure to be installed on the ruins of ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... use.[8] Nevertheless we should remember that precisely this kind of symbolism was very popular in Spain in the seventeenth century, and gave rise to the splendid literary art of the autos sacramentales. Galds then goes on to refute the allegation of certain critics that ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... raised his great shoulders, throwing back his closely cropped head. Then he sprang to refute the terrible aspersion against ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... engaged the Imperial Court to communicate to the Court of Versailles and Madrid, the last Memorial of the Court of London, and to exhort them to establish a negotiation under their auspices; that it was easy to refute the unskilful accusation of the British, which he (the Count de Vergennes,) thinks they (the Court of France,) have done with success; that the answer is transmitted; that they had determined, without rejecting the mediation, to pursue the direct negotiation ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... will have to believe it, your majesty," said Metternich, in his gentle, melodious voice. "The facts will refute ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... answer to the arguments put forward by the South African Republic,[38] Mr. Chamberlain could only persist in repeating his contention that suzerainty still existed, and did not even attempt to refute the statement that Lord Derby had himself erased the preamble of the Convention of 1881. It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had, through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... machinery; the existence of elves, fairies, dwarfs, giants, witches, and enchanters; the use of spells, charms, and amulets, and all those highly-gifted objects, of whatever form or name, whose attributes refute every principle of human experience, which are to conceal the possessor's person, annihilate the bounds of space, or command a gratification of all our wishes. These are the constantly-recurring types which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... he so vainly denied in himself, he found his most useful levers in the humble labourers whose characters he had studied, whose condition he sought to make themselves desire to elevate. Unconsciously his whole practice began to refute his theories. The abuses of the old Poor Laws were rife in his neighbourhood; his quick penetration, and perhaps his imperious habits of decision, suggested to him many of the best provisions of the law now called into ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Parliament,—these very trumpeters are now the men that represent the whole as a mere trifle, and choose to date all the disturbances from the repeal of the Stamp Act, which put an end to them. Hear your officers abroad, and let them refute this shameless falsehood, who, in all their correspondence, state the disturbances as owing to their true causes, the discontent of the people from the taxes. You have this evidence in your own archives; and it will give you complete satisfaction, if you are not so far lost to all Parliamentary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we are convincd generally prevail through the province, be as generally expressd, it must refute the insidious misrepresentation so industriously propagated on both sides of the Atlantick, that the people have not Virtue enough to resist the Efforts made to enslave them! It affords us the greatest Satisfaction to find the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... they would acquire a robuster mental habit. They would learn to take dissents for what they are worth. They would be led either to strengthen or to discard their own opinions, if the dissents happened to be weighty or instructive; either to refute or neglect such dissents as should be ill-founded or insignificant. They will remain valetudinarians, so long as a curtain of compromise shelters them from the real belief of those of their neighbours who have ventured to use their minds with some measure of independence. A very brief ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the moment regardless of the result, the penalty of the crime; he did not resist, but yielded; and as to the argument of the learned counsel, that Mr. S. did not see what he testifies to have seen, it is useless to refute such an unfounded allegation. Can you suppose Smith to be benefited by this prosecution further than to see justice have its dues? Settle it then in your minds that Mr. Smith did actually see all he says he did. We come next to the description given by Smith of the man seen. He said he was ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... once attained can never be lost," says Balzac. This for the reason that we find it much easier to admit a man's greatness than to refute it. The safest and most solid reputations are those of writers nobody reads. As long as a man is read he is being weighed, and the verdict is uncertain, which remark, of course, does not apply to the books we read ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... such travellers might be well pleased to be courteously accosted, in a foreign land, by Englishmen of honourable name, distinguished appearance, and insinuating address. It was not to be expected that a lad fresh from the university would be able to refute all the sophisms and calumnies which might be breathed in his ear by dexterous and experienced seducers. Nor would it be strange if he should, in no long time, accept an invitation to a private audience at Saint Germains, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... themselves to the Continent, and rose to high office in the Universities of Louvain and Paris, where the one in not inelegant Latin, and the other in courtly Scotch, sought to vindicate their conduct, and to traduce and refute their former co-religionists. Some of the masters of the Old College also, as Bannatyne has recorded, hated the plain-speaking reformer, though "be outward gesture and befoir his face thei wald seime and apeir to favore and love him above the rest."[233] The Hamiltons especially ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... patience, all right," Allen admitted, "but it's simply because he can't refute my arguments. He talks about what he was doing at my age, but I tell him my record is a whole lot better than his. He couldn't afford to go to college, while I could, and at the same proud point in ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... all his poems may be called poems of sentiment and reflection, and his own ambition was that of being worthy to be honored as a philosophical poet. His theory that the poet's function is limited to an exact representation of the real and the natural, a heresy which his own best poems triumphantly refute, often led him to triviality and meanness in the choice both of subjects and diction, and marred the beauty of many otherwise fine poems. A fascinating airiness and delicacy of conception prevail in these poems, and the tender sweetness of expression is often ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... discredited cause, and sustain the fainting interests of Religion, to furnish to her friends matter of sound and obvious argument, and of honest triumph; and if your best endeavours cannot conciliate, to refute at least, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... hot, from the scarlet fever, and other inflammatory diseases. But at the Orinoco, the banks of which are very insalubrious, the sick blame the mosquitos for all their sufferings. It is unnecessary to refute the fallacy of the popular belief that the action of the mosquitos is salutary by its local bleedings. In Europe the inhabitants of marshy countries are not ignorant that the insects irritate the epidermis, and stimulate its functions by the venom which they deposit in ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... and courage, and inspired by that public spirit and public virtue of which it has been well said that they are the brightest ornaments of the mind of man. Bacon is right, as he generally is, when he bids us read not to contradict and refute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and to consider. Yes, let us read to weigh and to consider. In the times before us that promise or threaten deep political, economical, and social ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... judicious counsellors continue their helpful suggestions, sure of being heard with grateful consideration; let skilful writers, avoiding captionsness on the one hand and compliment on the other, uphold or refute or amend the tenets here announced; let the guardians of the press diffuse widely a knowledge of the benefits which are here provided; let men of means largely increase the usefulness of this work by their ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... and to let me look after mine." [386] It soon began to be whispered that Johnson was mad. He accused Burnet of being the author of the report, and avenged himself by writing libels so violent that they strongly confirmed the imputation which they were meant to refute. The King, therefore, thought it better to give out of his own revenue a liberal compensation for the wrongs which the Commons had brought to his notice than to place an eccentric and irritable man in a situation of dignity and public trust. Johnson was gratified with a present of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... things sometimes myself, but when I hear you say them they make me feel as if I could work twenty years at a sitting, on purpose to refute you!" ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... and common errors which Sir Thomas Browne set himself to refute, were such as these: That dolphins are crooked, that Jews stink, that a man hath one rib less than a woman, that Xerxes's army drank up rivers, that cicades are bred out of cuckoo-spittle, that Hannibal ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the place of Mulrady on her visiting card. "It might be Spanish," she argued with her husband. "Lawyer Cole says most American names are corrupted, and how do you know that yours ain't?" Mulrady, who would not swear that his ancestors came from Ireland to the Carolinas in '98, was helpless to refute the assertion. But the terrible Nemesis of an un-Spanish, American provincial speech avenged the orthographical outrage at once. When Mrs. Mulrady began to be addressed orally, as well as by letter, as "Mrs. Mulraid," and when simple amatory effusions to her daughter rhymed with "lovely maid," ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... debate; and, this not giving the Quaker champion an opportunity to say all that was in his mind, he wrote a pamphlet, called "The Sandy Foundation Shaken." The full title was much longer than this, in the manner of the time, and announced the author's purpose to refute three "generally believed and applauded doctrines: first, of one God, subsisting in three distinct and separate persons; second, of the impossibility of divine pardon without the making of a complete satisfaction; and third, of the ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... a difference between the subject of revelation and the discoveries which have been made by men in the powers and properties of nature. But when you have contended successfully for this (which by no means has any power to refute his argument) you seem not to realize that there must be as great a difference in the evidences by which these different subjects are communicated to the mind, as there are in the subjects themselves. It is acknowledged, without controversy, that we cannot demonstrate ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... human faculties, and to treat Theology as a fond fancy or a waking dream, it were surely well to examine the grounds of such opinions, to expose their fallacy so as to counteract their influence, and to refute those theories which prevent men from judging of the evidence as they would on any other topic of Inductive Inquiry. In adopting this course, we are only following the footsteps of the profound author of ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... the purpose of exciting odium against the king; but I think it impossible to view their conduct in any other light. The popish plot and popish army were fictions of their own to madden the passions of their adherents. Charles, to refute the calumny, as he was about to receive the sacrament from the hands of Archbishop Ussher, suddenly rose and addressed him thus, in the hearing of the whole congregation: "My Lord, I have to the utmost of my soul prepared to become a worthy receiver; and ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... ever harder to refute than falsehood," she replied, softly. "I said that once under great provocation, but if I sought to make Hugh Mainwaring my lover, it was not that I loved him, but through revenge for his having trifled with me only to deceive and desert me. Before I married your father, both he and ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... stuck. Sweetheart. In the hard years that followed—years in which the blood-thirsty and piratical games of his boyhood paled to the mildest of imaginings—the nickname still clung, long after he had ceased to resent it; long after he had stripes and braid to refute it. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... quarrels composed and the plans perfected under the Chamberlin roof. It became a kind of Congressional Exchange with a close White House connection. If those old walls, which by the way are still standing, could speak, what tales they might tell, what testimonies refute, what new lights throw into the vacant corners and dark places ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... color; is it not the negative to the warmth, the balance to the scales, the one thing needed on which to rear the glorious fabric that Naychure reveals to the undimmed vision of man? I know your answer, and I refute it. I have studied Art from its roots, and now I'm in the branches, and I grasp the fruit. My manner is peculiar—I have no patent for it—I ask for none. The illimitable passes the legitimate, and the sw-word is carried by the hero—for me the bruzh, the paint-bruzh. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... afterwards entered my will or a falsity into my thought, I investigated the source of it. I inquired from whom it came. This was disclosed to me, and I was also allowed to speak with those spirits, refute them, and compel them to withdraw, thus to take back their evil and falsity and keep it to themselves, and no longer infuse anything of the kind into my thought. This has occurred a thousand times. I have remained ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... refute this calumny that we find travellers, for the most part, modestly offering some such form of explanation as this, to the reader: "That the matter laid before him was, in the first place, simply letters to ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... quote and then refute, Each modern philosophic doot'— And so he did; but each quotation Seem'd ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... trusty Grijalva, was solicitous on our account. But we would not put off this meeting. We love to meet our good friends, and are not to be kept from them, by slight bodily inconvenience. Men fancy us more ailing than we are. You can refute such reports. What say you, Mexas—and you, Salcedo? Is our aspect so very sickly? We know that many build hopes upon our death; but they are mistaken, and by Our Lady, they shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... face between the double row of gleaming teeth, held it there a moment, and then withdrew it uninjured. Cleek took his chin between his thumb and forefinger and pinched it hard. What he had just witnessed would seem to refute the idea of either costume or make-up having ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... with what intention such airy bursts of malevolence are vented; if such writers hope to deceive, let us rather repel them with scorn, than refute them by disputation. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... willed me To treat of with the king on your behalf, I brake even now with him so far, till he In sudden rage of grief, ere I scarce had My tale out-told, pray'd me to stint my suit, As that from which his mind abhorred most. And well I see his fancy to refute, Is but displeasure gain'd and labour lost. So firmly fixed stands his kingly will That, till his body shall be laid in grave, He will not part from the desired sight Of your presence, which silder he should have, If he had once allied you again In marriage to any prince or peer— ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... the simplicity and ease of the persecutor's method," continued Gregory, mockingly. "A man's head has become full of supposed doctrinal errors. To refute and banish these would require much study and argument on the part of the opponent. It was so much easier to take an obstinate heretic's head off than to argue with him! I think it was the simplicity of the persecutor's method that kept it in ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... that Napoleon had made a violent attack on Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador. So violent was he in his gestures, the Ambassador feared lest the First Consul would strike him. Even Oscar Browning is obliged to refute this unworthy fabrication as being absurd on the face of it, but it has taken ninety years to produce the authentic document from the British Archives which disproves the scandal. Napoleon was too much absorbed in things that ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... the city there are about fifty palm trees which bear dates. At that place, beside a garden, there is a water-course which runs into a lower plain, where the pilgrims are accustomed to water their camels. I had here an opportunity to refute the vulgar opinion that the tomb or coffin of the wicked Mahomet is at Mecca, and hangs in the air without support. For I tarried here three days and saw with my own eyes the place where Mahomet was buried, which is here at Medina, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... their ever being pieced handsomely together again. As to the historical theory of imperial enfeoffment, the States thought it more delicate to glide smoothly and silently over the whole matter. It would have been base to acknowledge and impolite to refute ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... other's kindly eyes. Industry triumphing in its logic, the minister hunting in his heart for the soft answer that would refute the logic without hurting its author. "Captain," he said, "there was once a wiser than we who went about preaching a new order, spreading discontent with injustice, whose very mother was of ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... written to order, to please the narrow-minded set of subscribers upon whom the circulation depends. But he's upset by it. He says it is the misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, though he can stand a fair attack, he can't stand lies that he's powerless to refute and stop from spreading. That's just Trewe's weak point. He lives so much by himself that these things affect him much more than they would if he were in the bustle of fashionable or commercial life. So he wouldn't come ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... a book gives a man a certain standing. I fancy it is the dignity of print that does it, and we all have the print superstition. I find myself accepting statements in books, whereas if someone said the same things to me over a dinner-table I should refute them with scorn. "If it is in John Bull it is so!" Mr. Bottomley is a ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... world. Nor is this all. A relation of them was published and dispersed everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body, supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility, or miraculous nature of the events which they ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... disease, inanition; the notion that "Malthus's Law" no longer holds of civilised man is a foolish delusion. But more sinister than the direct destruction of life is the spectacle of innumerable species profiting by a life, parasitic or predatory, at the expense of others. The parasites refute the vulgar prejudice that evolution is by the measure of man, progressive; adaptation is indifferent to better or worse, except as to each species, that its offspring shall survive by atrophy and degradation. The predatory species flourish as if in ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... not necessary now to refute formally the fond, feeble notion, that this parable proves the sinfulness of dissenting from the Church of England, established by the State and prelatic in its government. Even although we should ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... of ice clearly refute the assertion made by some travellers, that the first real glaciers are found in 19 deg. S. lat. The extensive fields of ice from which the blocks in question are brought are situated in ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... favorably as we could There are plenty to decry it and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack For the arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse publications which Darwin s volume has already called out and especially to those reviews which propose directly to refute it. Taking various lines and reflecting very diverse modes of thought, these hostile critics may be expected to concentrate and enforce the principal objections which can be brought to bear against the derivative hypothesis in general, and Darwins ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... He has devised a complete explanation. To refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... herself against them by a published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained her knowledge. Late in the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Men of Sincerity, who can read, should refuse to give Credit to every Thing that is said by such Ministers. It is easier to speak with Contempt of the recluse Lives of the Carthusians, and to laugh at the Austerities of La Trappe, than it is to refute what might be alledg'd from the Gospel to prove the Necessity there is, that to be acceptable to God, Men should fly from Lust, make War with themselves, and mortify the Flesh. When Ministers of Christ assure their Hearers, that to indulge themselves in all earthly Pleasures ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... Scriptural sanction for women's new freedom. Usually a clergyman appeared on the scene, volubly quoting the Bible to prove that any widening of woman's sphere was contrary to the will of God. But always ready to refute him were Antoinette Brown, now an ordained minister, William Lloyd Garrison, and occasionally Susan herself. To the young Quaker broadened by her Unitarian contacts and unhampered by creed or theological dogma, such debates were worse ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... repeated had their effect, not only upon the sultan, but upon the people; and Muda Hassan, who was informed of what had been going on, and had not deigned to notice it, now considered that it was advisable to repair to Borneo, and refute ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... expressed the piety and resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has braved death too often to shrink at its approach. His farewell to his faithful wife was manly, tender, and most affecting. The accounts of his deportment on the scaffold effectually refute the charges of irreligion and atheism, which some writers have brought against him, unless we make up our minds to believe him an accomplished hypocrite. He spoke at considerable length, and his dying words have been faithfully reported. They contain a denial of all the serious offences ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... army; "Seeing that Marcellus," said he, "after brief exercise in the war, has withdrawn as it might be from the wrestling ground to the warm baths to refresh himself." Marcellus, on hearing this, appointed lieutenants over his camp, and hasted to Rome to refute the charges against him: and there found ready drawn up an impeachment consisting of these calumnies. At the day prefixed, in the Flaminian circus, into which place the people had assembled themselves, Bibulus rose and accused him. Marcellus himself answered, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, [69] who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father accepted from the ministers of christianity the expiation which he had vainly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... point, however, to which Plato directed his attention, was ethics, which, especially in his system, are closely connected with politics. He devotes the Protagoras, and several shorter dialogues, to refute the sensual and selfish theories of some of his predecessors, in order to adopt a more scientific treatment of the subject; and in these dialogues he urges that neither happiness nor virtue are attainable by the ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... and the Carthaginians. We do not request that you should at once believe us respecting one who is absent, and when the cause has not been heard. Let him come; let him hear our charges in person, and refute them himself. If there is any enormity one man can commit against another which he has not committed upon us we do not refuse to suffer all the same cruelties over again, if it is possible we can endure them, and let him be acquitted of all guilt ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... monastery was deeply moved that such great men should speak to him in so friendly and cordial a manner, and he was ready to give up the printing rather than make himself a monster that disturbed the Church. Eagerly he sought to refute the report that the Elector had instigated his quarrel with Tetzel—"they wish to involve the innocent prince in the enmity that falls on me." He was ready to do anything to keep the peace before Cajetan and with Miltitz. One thing he would not do—recant ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and many others, which so fruitful a subject might easily suggest, it is not difficult to refute; and, if we were to judge by the impression made on the mind by tragedies and comedies of equal excellence, perhaps, when we examine those impressions, it will be found that a sally of pleasantry, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... down to sleep, as he was to set off early in the morning. But he was often interrupted; for, whenever he caught a word of false doctrine from the lips of those who continued their conversation, he would rise up, refute them, and again compose himself to rest. One of his uncles, speaking of his going to the patriarch, said in a great rage, "If you don't go off with us peaceably, we will take your life." Asaad replied, "Softly, softly, my dear uncle, don't be hasty. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... origin of the thing, current among the natural philosophers of antiquity, and which only two centuries ago Sir Thomas Browne thought it worth while to place first and foremost among the Vulgar Errors that he undertook to refute, was plainly traceable to a confusion occasioned by the name. Crystal, as men supposed, was ice or snow which had undergone such a process of induration as wholly and for ever to have lost its fluidity: [Footnote: Augustine: Quid est crystallum? Nix est glacie durata per multos ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... people preferred the authority of Xavier above theirs, and not knowing how to refute their adversary, made a cabal at court, to lessen the Christians in the good opinion of the king. They gave him jealousies of them, by decrying their behaviour, and saying, "They were men of intrigue, plotters, enemies of the public safety, and dangerous ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... of arguments finds a place in debate: namely, indirect arguments. It is often as much an advantage to a debater to dispose of objections as it is to establish his own case. This is because a question usually has two alternatives. If one can refute the arguments in favor of the opponent's position, he has by that very process established his own. If the points of the refutation are of minor importance and are related to any division of his own direct argument, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... in nothing was the influence of the stars marked in a more indubitable manner than in the fatal law which determined the destiny of each individual according to the state of the sky at the moment when he came into the world. Cicero, by the very terms which he uses to refute the Chaldeans, shows that the result of these ideas was to consider all infirmities and monstrosities that new-born infants exhibited as the inevitable and irremediable consequence of the action ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... called the "Preaching Friars" and were carefully trained in theology in order the better to refute the arguments of the heretics. The pope delegated to them especially the task of conducting the Inquisition. They early began to extend their influence over the universities, and the two most distinguished theologians ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in existence, you shall have it,' he said. 'You say that my actions have borne evidence against me. I shall trust to action and not to words to refute that evidence. But you must give ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... away as soon as possible from every place where he had stayed since arriving at New York on the St. Paul. In each one he had accomplished an object vital to the interest of the plot. He had been able to refute the story of Harvey Farnham's murder, in person, and having evidently been well grounded in all prominent facts connected with Farnham's life, habits, and trip to England, had made a coup in his interview with the New ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... recommend to you, at all times and upon all occasions, to behave yourselves to all persons in a civil and respectful manner, by which you may prevent contention and remove every just occasion of complaint. We beseech you to reflect, it is by your good conduct alone, that you can refute the objections which have been made against you as rational and moral creatures, and remove many of the difficulties, which have occurred in the general emancipation of such of your brethren ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various |
