"Unanswerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this law, a law of life and preservation, and through the decree of Providence, the Popes became Italian sovereigns, both in right and fact." On this very lucid and satisfactory account of the origin of the Papal power, S is convinced at once, and is finally dismissed shamefaced, with the unanswerable interrogation, "whether the real object of the Revolution is not to create new men, new nations, new reason, new humanity, and ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... from making any visit to the bay. 'And even should they consent,' said Toby, 'they would only produce a commotion in the valley, in which we might both be sacrificed by these ferocious islanders.' This was unanswerable; but still I clung to the belief that he might succeed in accomplishing the other part of my plan; and at last I overcame his scruples, and he ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... independent of any prejudice of party or influence of sentiment, are the unanswerable teachings of the sternest of all evidences, the evidences of experiment, of natural fact revealed to man by testing of ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... treason of Dumouriez in 1793, they were doubtless consulting the vital interests of the Commonwealth. But, while striving to avert all possibilities of Caesarism, they now sinned against that elementary principle of strategy which requires unity of design in military operations. Bonaparte's retort was unanswerable, and nothing more was heard of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... unanswerable must needs be convincing. There could be no questioning of this creature's statements without the tacit admission of lack of faith in the omnipotence of Jad-ben-Otho. Ko-tan was satisfied that he was entertaining deity, but as ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... every dream had been of a life in which his fellow-men might find encouragement to endure their burdens, and of walking before them an example of love and forbearance, submissive and meek that he might with the more unanswerable grace preach obedience and fraternity to them—Merciful Heaven! And he shuddered and drew the veil hastily over his face, as if, in a bloody tumult, the ideal life, so the ultimate happiness, were vanishing before his eyes. Taking the confessions of such as have been greatly ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... smiling at his own audacious confidence. Juliet attempted no reply to this very unanswerable statement. She studied the photograph in silence, and he lay watching her. In her blue-and-white boating suit she was a pleasant ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... told, gentlemen, that the prisoner was bound by every obligation to avoid the supposed necessity of firing, by leaping behind a house near which he stood at that moment. Had he been attacked with a club, or with stones, the argument would have been unanswerable, and I should feel myself compelled to give up the defence in despair. But surely I need not tell you, gentlemen, how wide is the difference between sticks or stones, and double-triggered, loaded rifles cocked at your ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... general laws of thought, according to which his mind must act in order to be a mind. Intelligence seems to have no nature, and may be anything. All questions regarding "those apparent other mortals" are consequently unanswerable to the poet. "Knowledge stands on my experience"; and this "my" is totally unrelated ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... objection, whereupon, after some conversation, etcetera, with which we will not weary the reader, he sought out his friend Fred Jenkins, to whom he communicated the good news, and treated him to a good many unanswerable reasons why young people should not delay marriage when there was any reasonable prospect of their getting ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... is because you do not understand ton d'apameibomenos as I do.' Ton d'apameibomenos fell like a hand-grenade amongst Motte's papers, and blew him up effectually in the opinion of the multitude. No matter what he might say in reply—no matter how reasonable, how unanswerable—that one spell of 'No Greek! no Greek!' availed as a talisman to the lady both for offence and defence; and refuted all syllogisms and all eloquence as effectually as the cry of A la lanterne! in the same country some ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... importance of heavenly welfare far exceeded the importance of any conceivable earthly welfare. The fact was that they had no argument. If God took precedence of knowledge and of health, he took precedence of a peddling shop! That was unanswerable. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the midnight of our sorrowing With tidings of good-will and peace to men; And if the star, that through the darkness led Earth's wisdom then, guide not our folly now, Oh, be the lightning Thine Evangelist, With all its fiery, forked tongues, to speak The unanswerable ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... declaring at the peril of their lives their belief in the despised Jesus, the strangely rare unselfishness even in money matters, and the winsome graciousness of spirit that marked, not only the inner circle, but these greatly increased crowds,—all this said one thing in clear unanswerable tones of unmistakable power, Christ is crowned.[4] For the sending down of the Holy Spirit was the act of ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... which swept through the mind of Franklin during the interval would be impossible. He saw that a simple act of carelessness had been committed by Caroline; but he was enough of a lawyer to perceive that the proof against her was singularly striking and unanswerable—and he knew the world too well, not to feel extraordinary alarm at the possible consequences. In London, alone, without friends or acquaintances, a glance into the future almost drove him to distraction. At moments he was half mastered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... our proceeding some miles farther up the stream in the morning, and then returning with the ebb. Nothing during this contention could be more polite than the Pangeran's manner; for he not only expressed but looked his regret, and urged on me his responsibility to the rajah. The plea was unanswerable, though I could not help suspecting the want of tobacco and betel ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Caldigate interest,—and from thence the matter was transferred to the metropolitan columns,—which, with one exception, were strong in favour of such a reversal of the verdict as could be effected by a pardon from the Queen. The one exception was very pellucid, very unanswerable, and very cold-blooded. It might have been written by Judge Bramber himself, but that Judge Bramber would sooner have cut his hand off than have defiled it by making public aught that had come before him judicially ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... in this particular the A.V. is in scores of instances more correct than the R.V.; the present Translator has contended (with arguments which some of the best scholars in Britain and in America hold to be "unanswerable" and "indisputable") in a pamphlet On the Rendering into English of the Greek Aorist and Perfect. Even an outline of the argument cannot be given in ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... This was unanswerable. Ambrose, divided between annoyance and compassion, fumed in silence. He himself had only enough food for a few days. The breed wore him out with ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... not?" It advantageth you every thing until you are dead, although there be nothing afterwards. As long as you live, is it not glory and reward enough to have conquered the beasts at Ephesus? This is sufficient reply to the unbelieving flouters at the moral law. And, as an unanswerable refutation of the feeble whine of sentimentality that without immortal endurance nothing is worth our affection, let great Shakspeare advance, with his matchless depth of bold insight reversing the conclusion, and pronouncing, in ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... flash favouring light on his now impersonal and indiscoverable individuality, seems clear enough when we take into account the double and final disproof of his imaginary identity with Marlowe, which Mr. Dyce has put forward with such unanswerable certitude. He is a clumsy and coarse-fingered plagiarist from that poet, and his stolen jewels of expression look so grossly out of place in the homely setting of his usual style that they seem transmuted from real to sham. On the other hand, he is of all the Pre- Shakespeareans ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... neither of the head, nor of the hand, but of the heart. Passion cares nothing for the mind. Love, hate, ambition, anger, avarice, either make a slave of intelligence to serve their impulses, or break down its impotent opposition with the unanswerable argument of brute force, and tear it to pieces with ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... easiest; there is so much to do and see done, and just the clear, lost, silent-hearted mother's ways to follow. One can manage everything but the twilights with their death of day, their hush of birds, the mind gazing back into the past and the heart asking unanswerable questions of the future. For the evenings there are books, though not all; especially not Herrick, any more; nor Tennyson, for it opens of itself at "Mariana," who wept, "I am aweary, aweary. Oh, God, that I ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... much as all other national expenditures together; in short, it costs seven marks of soldier to protect every one mark of plough. I admit frankly the horror and the absurdity of all this; but as an argument for disarmament, "it does not lie," as the lawyers phrase it. It is a criticism, and an unanswerable one, of our failure as human beings to enthrone reason and to tame our passions; but it is a veritable call to arms to protect ourselves, not a reason for not doing so. Let the international gluttons overeat themselves till they are seriously ill; but it would be madness to starve ourselves ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... did. If they quoted Confucius to contradict the Bible, he would quote Confucius to contradict them. He confounded them by proving that they were not really followers of Confucius, for they did not keep his sayings. And with unanswerable arguments he went on to show that the religion taught by Jesus Christ was the one and only religion to make ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... not because it gives the house a more elegant appearance, though that is not a wholly unworthy motive, but because a beautiful landscape is so much more beautiful when it can be plainly seen. The instinct that prompts us to throw the window wide open in order to get a more satisfactory view is an unanswerable argument in favor of large, clear lights of glass for windows intended ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... to make brutal declaration of authority, and so cut the knot. Monica's unanswerable argument merely angered him. But he made ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... Unanswerable as seem these arguments to the Western mind, they were by no means so to the mass of Chinese who are always fearful lest some sudden reshuffling in the relationships existing between foreign Powers exposes them to new and greater calamities. This Chinese viewpoint, with its ignorance of basic considerations, ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... dusted, and put in order; a bunch of fresh flowers upon the table; others, in pots, upon the window-sill. Their fragrance gave a delicate tone to the atmosphere of the room, and perhaps penetrated more nearly to Bressant's heart than an hour full of unanswerable arguments and exhortations. He turned to the fat servant, who stood smiling, and wiping her ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... a fortnight later than the Dialogue itself, does confess, "My Lord, these reasons, though unhappily the thing seems to have failed, 'appear to me to be solid and unanswerable.'" Much more do they to Tempelhof, who sees deeper into the bottom of them than Mitchell did; and finds that the failure is only superficial. [Mitchell, Memoirs and Papers, ii. 160 (Despatch, "June 30th, 1760"); Tempelhof, iv. 44.] The real success, thinks Tempelhof, would be, Could the King ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stood by, and fearing that we did not comprehend the language, she made a remark to that effect, to which he answered impatiently, 'Nonsense! don't you see they are in tears?' This was unanswerable; we were allowed to hear the poem to the end, and I certainly never listened to anything more feelingly ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... Northerner was vastly superior to his opponent in his handling of the theoretical issues of constitutional law; and in his exposition of the practical difficulties that would attend the operation of the principle of nullification he employed a fund of argument that was simply unanswerable. The logic of the larger phases of the situation lay, too, with him. If the Union for which he pleaded was not the Union which the Fathers intended to establish or even that which actually existed in the days of Washington and ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Impartial View of the Disputes between Great Britain and the Colonies, Intended as a Further Vindication of the Congress." It is not possible to quote these pamphlets, and they can be found in his "Works," but they were remarkable not only for their unanswerable logic, their comprehensive arraignment of Britain, their close discussion of the rights of the colonists under the British Constitution, their philosophical definition of "natural rights," and their reminder that war was inevitable, but for their anticipation of the future resources of the country, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... to you armed with the facts. It is only these unanswerable witnesses that we have wished to oppose to the gratuitous affirmations of our colleagues beyond the Rhine. We might have taken you into the mazes of twenty frightful dramas, for at every place where the German troops have ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... You forget he is swayed by impulses that can enter into no calculation—drawn hither and thither by powers that can never be represented in your algebra. In one generation Christianity reduced Plato's republic to an absurdity. The printing-press has upset the unanswerable ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... reading what was not written in an evening. However, I left Christina's objection unanswered—though I do not allow that it is unanswerable; and waited. She needed a little while to ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... that her arguments were unanswerable, gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... false opinion possible? The Megarian or Eristic spirit within us revives the question, which has been already asked and indirectly answered in the Meno: 'How can a man be ignorant of that which he knows?' No answer is given to this not unanswerable question. The comparison of the mind to a block of wax, or to a decoy of ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... agency, the Alchemist bethought himself whether his original impressions, as to the condition of humanity, might not, in a great measure, have been erroneous. What he had just witnessed assured him, in an unanswerable manner, that overt crimes or overt virtues were merely the good or evil employment of one or other of the five senses; that they were the bright and black spots upon the spiritual nature of man, the faculae and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... I will not 'fly to tears as a means of revenge,' I will not 'condemn the things I once approved without reservation,' I will not 'dog his footsteps with a prying eye'; if he plays truant, he shall not on his return 'see a scornful lip, whose kiss is an unanswerable command.' No, 'my silence shall not be a reproach nor my first word a quarrel.'—I will not be like every other woman!" she went on, laying on her table the little yellow paper volume which had already attracted Lousteau's remark, "What! are you studying Adolphe?"—"If for one day only he should ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... in vain. The conduct of Philip and his Viceroy coincided in spirit with the honest brutality of Vargas. "Non curamus vestros privilegios," summed up the whole of the proceedings. Non curamus vestros privilegios had been the unanswerable reply to every constitutional argument which had been made against tyranny since Philip mounted his father's throne. It was now the only response deemed necessary to the crowd of petitions in favor of the Counts, whether they ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... found in the inimitable manner in which the thoughts are embodied, and in the tenderness, the truth, the profundity of the thoughts themselves: when Lord Edouard says, 'c'est le chemin des passions qui m'a conduit a la philosophie,' he inculcates, in one simple phrase, a profound and unanswerable truth. It is in these remarks that nature is chiefly found in the writings of Rousseau: too much engrossed in himself to be deeply skilled in the characters of others, that very self-study had yet given him a knowledge of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... what he was up to, he quietly made his way to land with his own turn, and then went in search of the runaway, and gave him a sound thrashing; in short, his arguments were so unanswerable and convincing that the culprit returned to his work, and without more ado, set to and persevered at it, till every spar that had been thrown overboard was rafted to shore by the combined ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... front door," replied Mr. Winslow, with unanswerable logic. "There he is now, comin' out from astern of that ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... not be a vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for indubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I will move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if I find him on my new premises I will then proceed ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands; choke the life out of me, for an example! Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your own convenience alone?"—All "revenge" being out of the question, it seems to me the caitiff is unanswerable; and he and the philanthropic platforms have the logic ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... fit to do this would not know the difference between the true answer and the new capitals and diagrams on which the delighted paradoxer would declare {355} that he had crumbled the philosophers, and not they him. Trust him for having the last word: and what matters it whether he crow the unanswerable sooner or later? There are but two courses to take. One is to wait until he has committed himself in something which all can understand, as Mr. Reddie has done in his fancy about the Astronomer Royal's change of opinion: he can ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... doctor as if she were triumphantly sure that she had propounded an unanswerable question. A dull red flush ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... there was written, on an outside scrap which was folded round the full-written sheet of paper, "Make it as smooth at Framley Court as possible." However strong, and reasonable, and unanswerable the body of Mark's letter may have been, all his hesitation, weakness, doubt, and fear, were expressed in this ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... despair; and that men—rash men, if you like—strong and earnest men, will speak to those that hitherto have not been rash, and have not been earnest, and will say, 'You see at last; is this not a proof convincing and unanswerable, that the Imperial Parliament sitting in London is not capable of hearing our complaints, and of doing that justice which we as a people require at ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... illegal [contrary to law], unlawful, illegitimate; not allowed, prohibited &c 761; illicit, contraband; actionable. unwarranted, unwarrantable; unauthorized; informal, unofficial; injudicial^, extrajudicial. lawless, arbitrary; despotic, despotical^; corrupt, summary, irresponsible; unanswerable, unaccountable. [of invalid or expired law] expired, invalid; unchartered, unconstitutional; null and void; a dead letter. [in absence of law] lawless, unregulated Adv. illegally &c adj.; with a high hand, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a sight of Jack? Would she not finally give him a chance to ask forgiveness, or had she lost every trace of affection for him, as her letter seemed to imply? He walked the garden paths, with these and other unanswerable questions, and when he went to his lonely room at night, he held the lamp up to a bit of poetry that he had cut from a magazine and pinned to the looking-glass. If John Hathaway could be brought to the reading of poetry, he might even glance at the Bible in course ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... existence and lived a long life of deep, quiet satisfaction, sane to the end, watching every symptom of approaching dissolution with keen interest, and at the last passing into quiet sleep, his spirit gliding peacefully away, perhaps to answer those two great questions which he said were unanswerable here: "Who am I?" "What ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... commanded Moses." Here is the 8th day Sabbath, which makes 5 Jewish Sabbaths, every one of them differing from the other and the Lord's Sabbath, no more connected with them than in the xxiii of Levit. just named. Here then is an unanswerable argument for a separation of the Jewish from the Lord's Sabbath, and shows conclusively what Paul calls "shadows" in ii Col: 17, and Hosea "her Sabbaths." And in the days of Nehemiah when Ezra had read the law to the people, viii (more than one thousand years after they were promulgated,) ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... good tidings!" he answered on a note of high excitement. "I go at once." And on the instant he departed. Such was his eagerness, indeed, that under the hot spur of it he did not even stay to fetch that parchment which was to be his unanswerable advocate. The ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... plainly enough, and he felt it to be unanswerable. But if he obeyed conscience and published the mistake—good Heavens! what would happen to him? Already, three years ago, the Lord Proprietor had resumed the shipping dues which had made so welcome an addition to his income. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... United States as an ally against Germany, paying at the same time an eloquent tribute to the masterly address of President Wilson to Congress, which stated the case for humanity against military autocracy in such an unanswerable manner, the British premier said, that it placed the seal of humanity's approval on the Allied cause and furnished final justification of the British attitude ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... was unanswerable. Baxter did not attempt to answer it. But there remained at the back of his mind a quaint idea that he had caught sight, as he woke, of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood, his face warningly contorted, vanishing through the doorway. Yet what could the Honorable ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... with recent controversies, but which is well worthy of being borne in mind, as teaching us to beware of hastily assuming that objections to Revelation, whether suggested by the progress of science, or from the supposed incongruity of its own contents, are unanswerable. We are not, he says, rashly to suppose that we have arrived at the true meaning of the whole of that book. 'It is not at all incredible that a book which has been so long in the possession of mankind, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... sword—dispensed saving grace with gallows' ropes and with the bludgeon drove heaven- inspired precepts into the heads of unbelievers. Wisdom could not withstand such logic—the philosopher yielded to the unanswerable argument of the Inquisition. As no one could disprove the comforting doctrine of eternal damnation, and there is a strong vein of superstition in even the best of men, the ignorant populace cowered in terror most pitiful at the feet of a presumptuous priesthood. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Bandini about 1540, "as a cultivated man or a good courtier who does not harbor some heretical opinions." Paul Sarpi, the eminent historian of Trent, reports that Luther's arguments were held to be unanswerable at Rome, but that he was resisted in order that authority might be uphold. For this statement he appeals to a diary of Francis Chieregato, an eminent ecclesiastic who died on December 6, 1539. As the diary has not been found, Lord Acton ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... which ever existed in Christian times, down to the year 1776: for those of Switzerland, Venice, Genoa, Andorra, San Marino, and a host of minor free Commonwealths, which sprang up in the "dark ages." Some of these republics still exist, proud monuments and unanswerable evidences of Catholic devotion to freedom. They are acknowledged by Protestants, no less than by Catholics. I subjoin the testimony of an able writer in the New York Tribune, believed to be Bayard Taylor. This distinguished ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... morning away tutor and pupil went. A great reason urged against Barbara accompanying her youthful husband was that his attentions to her would naturally be such as to prevent his zealously applying every hour of his time to learning and seeing—an argument of wise prescience, and unanswerable. Regular days for letter-writing were fixed, Barbara and her Edmond exchanged their last kisses at the door, and the chaise swept under the archway ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... blurted out. The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable. Angry as she was, she really couldn't think of anything to ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... and according to strict precedence, each man spoke. With great amiability Colonel Starr presented the demands of the English Government; with greater amiability the Maharajah and his officers repelled them. But Colonel Starr was firm, and he had the unanswerable argument of three hundred well-armed men and two nine-pounders, which Maun Rao would have to meet with Petroff Gortschakin's cartridges. After duly and sadly reflecting upon this, the Maharajah concluded that he would give ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... of his occupation. I spent the most miserable night of my life. Where was I to get a messenger who could carry my few chattels and my books? How could I pay him and the porter? Where was I to go? I repeated these unanswerable questions again and again, in tears, as madmen repeat their tunes. I fell asleep; poverty has for its friends heavenly slumbers ...
— The Atheist's Mass • Honore de Balzac
... time that Webster did, and on February 25, proposed his committee of thirteen to report some "scheme of compromise". Parting company with Calhoun, March 5, on the thesis that the South could not safely remain without new "constitutional guarantees", Foote regarded Webster's speech as "unanswerable", and in April came to an understanding with him as to Foote's committee and their common desire for prompt consideration of California. The importance of Foote's influence in turning the tide in Mississippi, through his pugnacious election ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time—i.e. 1836 to 1839—to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... turn out to be mere difficulties, and it has not been understood that "ten thousand difficulties do not make a doubt." Sometimes the difficulties are scarcely real, and come simply from catching up objections which they do not know how to answer, and think unanswerable. Sometimes a spirit of contradiction has been aroused, and a captious tendency, or a love of excitement and sensationalism, with a wish to see the other side. Sometimes imperfect teaching has led them to expect the realization of things as seen, which are only ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... a dogmatical air, as though his arguments were unanswerable, and shortly took his leave, after making us promise to breakfast with him the next day, and go and draw the money which was ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... that it is nonsensical idiotcy to suppose that a woman can be the equivalent of a man either in intellectual gripe, in bodily robustiousness, or in physical courage. Of the last, I shall afford an unanswerable proof from my own person. It is notorious, urbi et orbi, that every feminine person will flee in panicstricken dismay from the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... can't. And I think I owe you an apology for my heat, for the fact is that I've been in much of your position myself. There was a man once upon a time that I felt like thrashing—for much of your reason. But I didn't do it—for what seemed to me unanswerable reason. I did precisely the opposite—I did everything I could to ensure a miserable marriage for the being I loved best in all the world. I loathed the man, I loathed the bondage; but that's what I did. Now mark what follows. I didn't—I couldn't—degrade her; but ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... that upon the surface this all appears to be very sound and almost unanswerable, but I hope to be able to show that there is in reality not the slightest real foundation for the conclusion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... still running. If it were left for the defendant to set up the lapse of the year, that would be due to the circumstance that the order of pleading does not require a plaintiff to meet all possible defences, and to set out a case unanswerable except by denial. The point at which the law calls on the defendant for an answer varies [318] in different cases. Sometimes it would seem to be governed simply by convenience of proof, requiring the party who has ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... Africaner fell asleep, himself having furnished one of the most unanswerable proofs that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.—Arthur T. Pierson, in "The Miracles of Missions," second series, copyright by Funk and Wagnalls ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... have clear views of the doctrine taught by those who believe in entire consecration should peruse this able, decided, and unanswerable volume."—Living Waters. ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Whether these interrogatories, now unanswerable, raise doubts in the mind of sufficient potency to destroy the tradition of centuries, and to prevent us from sharing the conviction of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, and Johnson that Shakespeare was the author of Shakespeare's plays must be left for individual consideration. But, however ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... Had they been oak-wood, the bark would have fetched its value; had they been grown oaks, the sea-ports would have found a market. Had they been [larch], the country demands for ruder purposes would have been unanswerable. The Duke does the best he can to retrieve his woods, but seems to despond more than a young man ought to do. It is refreshing to see a man in his situation give so much of his time and thoughts to the improvement of his estates, and the welfare of the people. The Duke tells me ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... provocation which had been given for it. The chief was much shaken in his resolution, and seemed in doubt: but at length it occurred to him that a barrel of his gunpowder was in a bad state, and that it would not keep much longer. This was brought forward as an unanswerable argument for the necessity of immediately declaring war: the idea of allowing so much good gunpowder to spoil was not to be thought of; and this settled the point. I was told by the missionaries that in the life of Shongi, the chief who visited England, the love ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... earlier period. Each of them in his time appeared to express, though far from old, the lifelong judgment of a Nestor. Each of them extorted from the hearer or reader the feeling: "What this man says is unanswerable. It is the dispassionate utterance of one who knows everything, and has thought it out in the simplest but the most convincing form." Lord Derby could sum up a discussion better, probably, than anyone has ever done, unless it is Sir Edward Grey. Sir Edward Grey's summing up of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... reason which to me is unanswerable—for believing, like our forefathers, that the Old Testament is true. The Old Testament, as well as the New, tells us of the 'noble acts' of the Lord—of certain gracious and merciful and just things which the Lord did to the children of Israel. But if ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... ami! I did leave her quieter: my promise made her look almost like herself again. As for what you say about mentioning Clara and Mrs. Ralph in the same breath, I've been talking and smoking till I have no second breaths left to devote to second-rate virtue. There is an unanswerable reason for you, if you want one! And now let us get to the business that brings me here. I don't want to worry you by raking up this miserable mess again, from beginning to end, in your presence; but I must make sure at ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... himself against the Northern Jingoes, and though his motives may have been sectional, his arguments were really unanswerable. He pointed out that to fight England for Oregon at that moment would be to fight her under every conceivable disadvantage. An English army from India could be landed in Oregon in a few weeks. An American army sent to meet it must either round Cape Horn and traverse the Atlantic ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... certainty of death or dismemberment at the week-end, they would settle the business and come to terms before the week was out. I heard that proposition put forward many times by young officers of ours, and as an argument against their own sacrifice they found it unanswerable. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... with him looked upon it in the same light. The men, when they made engagements with him and stipulated certain terms for certain work, and other details, never asked for paper, and even refused it when offered. Whatever came from those silent, resolute lips they knew unalterable, unanswerable, final, and absolute; they all trusted his word completely, and it passed amongst them as other ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... difference between the original and all that is or can be derived from it; that the former annuls, or is exclusive of, the latter, which has in truth no real or legitimate standing-ground as matter of knowledge; that, in opposite yet equally unanswerable senses, at both ends of experience there is— nothing! Of the most concrete object, as of the most abstract, it might be said, that it more properly is ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... dressed in her very best,—for Marston is proud of the child's beauty, and nothing is withheld that can gratify the ambition of the mother, so characteristic, to dress with fantastic colours: the child gambols at her feet, views its many-coloured dress, keeps asking various unanswerable questions about Daddy Bob, Harry, and the pic-nic. Again it scrambles pettishly, sings snatches of some merry plantation song, pulls its braided hat about the floor, climbs upon the table to see what is in ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... remarks were quite unanswerable—which is the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of the purpose—they changed the current of the conversation, and diverted the general attention to the Veal and Ham Pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... what follows there is not even that poor excuse. "If we might withdraw the veil of his private life and tell what we now know about him, it would be indeed a disgusting picture that we should exhibit, but it would be an unanswerable comment on our text. . .Mr. Shelley is too young, too ignorant, too inexperienced, and too vicious to undertake the task of reforming any world but the little world within his own breast." [Footnote: Quarterly Review, xxi. 460, &c.] For the credit of both Reviews it must be said that it would ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... simply meted out justice, no more. Elihu's words fairly trample on each other's heels, and though only giving a weakened statement of what had been said before, like a strong voice weakened by age, he thinks his is a sledgehammer argument, illuminative, convincing, unanswerable; yet because he thinks he speaks in God's behalf and in God's stead, he rises into eloquence withal, though his words are pitiless; for himself knows not suffering, nor can he compass Job's calamity. Elihu mistakes the sight of his eyes for the truths ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... assertion was felt by Dacres even in his rage. But the very fact that it was unanswerable, and that he was helpless, only served to deepen and intensify his rage. Yet he said nothing; it was only in his face and manner that his rage was manifested. He appeared almost to suffocate under the rush of fierce, contending passions; big distended veins swelled out in ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... is (I hope and believe) destined to do, is to renovate Liberalism, and though Liberalism (like every other party) is often conducted by claptrap, it has never been renovated by claptrap, but by great command of temper and the persistent exposition of persuasive and unanswerable truths. It is while we are in the desert that we have the vision: we being a minority, must be all philosophers: we must think for both parties in the State. It is no good our devoting ourselves to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... held frequent converse, and had listened with horror, but with a species of fascination which she could not resist, to his calm and unanswerable reasoning on the fallacy of the religion of Odin, and on the truth of that of Jesus Christ. At first she resolved to fly from the old man, as a dangerous enemy, who sought to seduce her from the paths of rectitude; but when she ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... to word his denial in a very disagreeable way. He had come home with a stock of travellers' tales, but not one of them was about Lord Byron. He had "sought for no staler subject than St. Ursula." His charges of "impiety," "lewdness," "profanation," and "pollution," had not been answered, and were unanswerable; and as to his being a "scribbler of all work," there were exceptions—works which he had not scribbled, the nefanda which disfigured the writings of Lord Byron. "Satanic ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... unanswerable, or the energy of his voice and manner carried conviction with them, but a brighter glow mantled the maiden's cheek, and with it stole the momentary shame—the wish, the simple words that she had spoken could ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... "I tell you what to do. Hereafter let us act as we choose, without asking." "Then," said I, "we shall be punished." "Suppose we are," said she, "we shall have had our fun at any rate, and that is better than to mind the everlasting 'no' and not have any fun at all." Her logic seemed unanswerable, so together we gradually acted on her suggestions. Having less imagination than I, she took a common-sense view of life and suffered nothing from anticipation of troubles, while my sorrows were intensified fourfold by innumerable ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge Monseigneur, who had been out wolf-hunting Never been able to bend her to a more human way of life Spoke only about as much as three or four women Supported by unanswerable reasons that did not convince The most horrible sights have often ridiculous contrasts The nothingness of what the world calls great destinies Whatever course I adopt ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... The picture was at its best in that setting; and we used to accuse Claydon of visiting Mrs. Grancy in order to see her portrait. He met this by declaring that the portrait was Mrs. Grancy; and there were moments when the statement seemed unanswerable. One of us, indeed—I think it must have been the novelist—said that Clayton had been saved from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy only by falling in love with his picture of her; and it was noticeable ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... Eliot again differs radically from her contemporaries. In her gloomy view of life as an unanswerable puzzle she is like Thackeray; but where Thackeray offers a cultured resignation, a gentlemanly making the best of a bad case, George Eliot advocates self-sacrifice for the good of others. In her portrayal of weak or sinful characters she is quite as compassionate as Dickens, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Philippe's long letter of the 14th of September, printed in the Life of the Prince Consort, vol. i. Appendix B. Queen Victoria's complete and unanswerable reply will ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... Jenny had stumbled upon a question so unanswerable that she was at liberty to answer it for herself. "I don't know whose way you go now; but I do know whose way you'll go soon. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... defeat in 1888 was his tariff-reduction message to Congress one year prior to that election. An abler state paper has rarely been put forth. It was a clear, succinct presentation of existing economic conditions; in very truth an unanswerable argument for tariff reduction. It is not yet forgotten how promptly this message was denounced by the entire opposition press as a "free-trade manifesto," and how this cry increased in voice and volume until the close of the Presidential contest. And yet, in sending this ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... came over on the Mayflower, long before 1792, it doesn't seem so very impossible, if it comes to that," said Mrs. Brimmer, with her usual unanswerable naivete; "provided always that you are not joking, Mr. Crosby. One never knows when ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... unanswerable, but to Mrs. Maroney it was a bitter pill. Without saying a word, she led the way into the house, where they met Cox, just coming up from the cellar. She had informed both Josh. and his wife that she had ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... impatience seemed to be quelled when Hal sat on a stool before the King, with Watch leaning against his knee. The instruction or meditation seemed to be taken up much where it had been left six years before, with the same unanswerable questions, only the youth had thought out a great deal more, and the hermit had advanced in a wisdom which was not that of ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... our intercourse; there was no use in throwing a fly where a paving-stone had just splashed into the water, and I nodded a good-by to the boy-fighter, thinking how much pleasanter it was for my friend the Captain to address him with unanswerable arguments and crushing statements in his own tent than it would be to meet him upon some remote picket station and offer his fair proportions to the quick eye of a youngster who would draw a bead on him before he had time to ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... statement which one may call unanswerable,' said Rollo with a significant line of lip. 'And how you dare say it, is more than I can understand. How could one manage? Nothing easier. I draw you a cheque, and you write me an order. Unless you prefer to ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... Friends, which would have had it flat on the temples. Indeed, I never saw it so, for, whether at the back or at the front, it was wont to escape in large curls. Nor do I think she disliked this worldly wilfulness, for which nature had provided an unanswerable excuse. She had serious blue eyes, very large and wide open, so that the clear white was seen all around the blue, and with a constant look as if of gentle surprise. In middle life she was still pliant and well rounded, with a ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... comradeship is alive, and the dream survives to light us on the forward path. We must travel that path rightly. We can so travel whatever the enemy's mind. More difficult it will be, but it can be done. That is the great significance and justification of Nationalism: it is the unanswerable argument to cosmopolitanism. If the greatness and beauty of life that ought to be the dream of all nations is denied by all but one, that one may keep alive the dream within her own frontier till its fascination will arrest and inspire the world. If ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... committee consisted of Melancton Smith, Peter Ricker, Jonathan Lawrence, Anthony Rutgers, Peter T. Curtenius, Thomas Tucker, Daniel Shaw, Adam Gilchrist, Junr., and John Wiley. Of this committee Melancton Smith was the life and soul. He was the author of the address—a clear, able, and unanswerable exposition of the case. It states the determination of Mrs. Rutgers to carry it up to the Supreme Court, and, if defeated there, to the Senate, which, with the judges of the Supreme Court, constituted the Court ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... irresponsibility and high spirits of youth for its success, and I want to stop before (may I say 'before'?) the high spirits become mechanical and the irresponsibility a trick. Perhaps the fact that this collection is final will excuse its air of scrappiness. Odd Verses have crept in on the unanswerable plea that, if they didn't do it now, they never would; War Sketches protested that I shouldn't have a book at all if I left them out; an Early Article, omitted from three previous volumes, paraded for the fourth time with such ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the greater part of the country, all its old vitality. Nearly every State Legislature condemned the South Carolina pretensions, Democrats as hearty in this as Whigs. Jackson's proclamation against them—impressive and unanswerable—ran thus: "The Constitution of the United States forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same . . . . I consider ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... unanswerable, and have no doubt that it will continue to be so felt. In the case, therefore, of a Regency, all proposals of junction will instantly be negatived as inconsistent with our duty to the King. In the case of a demise, which there is to-day more ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... The only unanswerable connection between this old crime and Oliver lay in the evidence she had herself collected. As she had every intention of suppressing this evidence, and as she had small dread of any one else digging out the facts to which she only possessed a clew, might ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... acquaintance are not so scrupulous or so old-fashioned as to think it an offence; they call it an arrangement, and to this there can be no objection. As a French gentleman said to me the other day, with an unanswerable shrug, "Tout le monde sait que R—— est son amant; d'ailleurs, c'est la femme la ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth |
