"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Having, therefore, discarded these notions, her fancy roved in the realms of the beautiful and fantastic, until it settled down upon a costume which, bespangled and with its garland of rushes, she declared to be that of a "mermaid of middle age." Nobody was in a condition to contradict her, inasmuch as nobody recollected ever having seen a "middle-aged" mermaid before. She floated, as a matter of fact, in a cloud of pink and sea-green laces. The capacious bosom this cloud concealed from view rolled ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... to Napoleon's excellences as an administrator, a legislator, a constructor of public works, and a skilful financier, his nephew speaks with much diffuse praise, and few persons, we suppose, will be disposed to contradict him. Whether the Emperor composed his famous code, or borrowed it, is of little importance; but he established it, and made the law equal for every man in France except one. His vast public works and vaster ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not contradict her, but she felt sure in her own mind that it would never come, and she now looked forward to Friday with very mixed feelings. "I only hope I shall have tea in the school-room," she said to herself, "because then I ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... the present cure of Brochow parish church of Zelazowa- Wola; this reverend person consulted records and gave as his opinion that 1810 is authentic. Nevertheless, the biography of Wojcicki and the statement of the Chopin family contradict him. And so the case stands. Janotha continues firm in her belief although authorities do not justify ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... it must be, then it must. But I would swear that what I said is truth, Though all the devils from the deepest pit Should rise to contradict me! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... getting out of his bed, he slipt as speedily as possible into an old brocaded night-gown, and some other necessary garments, clapped on his head his father's gold-laced hat (for though he was seldom seen without it, yet it is proper to contradict the popular report that he slept in it, as Don Quixote did in his helmet), and opening the window of his bedroom, beheld, to his great astonishment, the well-known figure of Jeanie Deans herself retreating from his gate; while his housekeeper, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... watching him very intently, saw this, and wondered at it. It is very usual for a witness, even the most indifferent witness, giving evidence about some trifling matter, to be confused, to falter, and hesitate, and contradict himself, embarrassed by the strangeness of his position. But Henry Dunbar was in nowise discomposed by the awful nature of the event which had happened. He was pale; but his firmly-set lips, his erect ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... does vex me; but I am not in a state of health at present to be deeply vexed at anything. Whenever this matter comes into discussion, I authorize you to contradict the infamous reports which (I am informed) have been given out, that this paper had been circulated through the ministry, and was intended gradually to slide into the press. To the best of my recollection I never had a clean copy of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rumours. Every one thought I had a share in the Brady marriage; though no one could prove it. Every one thought I was well with the widowed Countess; though no one could show that I said so. But there is a way of proving a thing even while you contradict it, and I used to laugh and joke so apropos that all men began to wish me joy of my great fortune, and look up to me as the affianced husband of the greatest heiress in the kingdom. The papers took up the matter; the female friends of Lady Lyndon remonstrated with her and cried 'Fie!' ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in sight, they become ready-made a assistants, docile subjects and more docile than their parents.[6104] Amongst the latter, there are still to many unsubmissive and refractory spirits, too many royalists and too many republicans; domestic traditions from family to family contradict each other or vary, and children grow up in their homes only to clash with each other in society afterwards. Let us anticipate this conflict; let us prepare them for concord; all brought up in the same fashion, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... enrolled voters in my district? Some people guessed that many of them were good Plunkitt men all along and worked with the Cits just to bring them into the Plunkitt camp by election day. You can guess that way, too, if you want to. I never contradict stories about me, especially in hot weather. I just call your attention to the fact that on last election day 395 Citizens' Union enrolled voters in my district were missin' and ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... had been guilty, of an attempt upon the King's person. The Sacred College took fire at the news; but the French Ambassador being at liberty, to give out what he chose, because nobody, appeared here on your part to contradict him, Mazarin extinguished it, and half the Sacred College thought you were abandoned by the whole kingdom." In short, the Pope was so well disposed to me that he thought of adopting me as his nephew, but he sickened ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... persons—something that I want you to help me to understand," she jerked herself upright, and stopped him with a swift gesture and the cry of: "I know! I know what you have been told; and I have nothing to say. I cannot contradict it." ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... condensation of steam in a manner which has been supposed to suggest the alternate action of the piston, the principle of the steam engine, and, finally, 'the great discovery' of and to the Marquis of Worcester. How far all this may be supposed to contradict the lady's story, I will not say. Certain it is, that many a man who has done quite as well in worldly honors, has, after all, come to misery and madness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Britain is a history of present king of Great Britain repeated injuries and is a history of unremitting usurpations, all having injuries and usurpations in direct object among which appears no the establishment of an solitary fact to contradict the absolute tyranny over these uniform tenor of the rest, but states. To prove this let facts all have in direct object the be submitted to a candid establishment of an absolute world. tyranny over these states. To prove this let facts be submitted ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... a cloak and a mask, all, And the greater the riches, the greater the rascal. That the cardinal virtues only endure, In the atmosphere with the "virtuous poor;" That nowhere are found the true Christian graces, Save closely allied to the dirtiest faces. I shall not contradict this delightful tradition, But beg—No, I won't, I will take it—permission, To state, that I think there's a word to be said, From a different text, on the opposite head. And so I'll invent, as ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... had struck me dumb. I stood as still and as stiff as a web of buckram. My tongue was tied, and I could not contradict him. Jamie folded his arms, and went away whistling, turning every now and then his sooty face over his shoulder, and mostly sticking his tune, as he could not keep his mouth screwed for laughing. What would I not have given to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... answers will contradict the previous ones, and something like this may be the result: "A boy," "very dark complexion," "long yellow hair," "wearing a black Eton jacket," "with a dark green dress," "five feet high," "about six years old," etc. When the player guessing gives the game ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... themselves rather fatally to a subtler misconstruction which he also anticipated and tried to remove, but which took a far stronger hold. He was represented—and in the absence of any intimate male friends to contradict the representation, it was certain to obtain some currency—as in his artistic person a sardonic libeler of mankind, who cared only to take foibles and vices for his subjects, and who either left goodness and virtue ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... exotic cadences and mild, familiar laughs, which, as he leaned towards her, almost tickled her cheek and ear. It seemed to her strangely harsh, almost cruel, to have brought her out only to say to her things which, after all, free as she was to contradict them and tolerant as she always tried to be, could only give her pain; yet there was a spell upon her as she listened; it was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborne. She could be silent when people insisted, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... such; a man thinking, a fellow bragging, or a ship sailing fast, is contemplated as performing a particular act; and this must embrace a period of time, whether that time be specified or not. John Locke was a thinking man; but we should directly contradict his own doctrine, to suppose ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... master is a slave; that a tyrant is also a slave. He has found that governments should be administered by men for men; that the rights of all are to be protected; that woman is at least the equal for man; that men existed before books; that all creeds were made by men; that the few have a right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible to himself and to others. True religion must be free; without liberty the brain is a dungeon and the mind the convict. The slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot worship, he cannot ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Ram Lal, "if I venture to contradict you. You do change your mind sometimes. Who was it who lately scoffed at women, their immortality, their virtue, and their intellect? Will you tell me now, friend Abdul, that you have not changed your mind? Do you think of anything, sleeping or waking, but the one woman for whom you have changed ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... your hand. Your position of vantage may be read in a gesture, a look, a tone. Oh! darling, how truly are you the mad wanton your mother called you! You do not question, I fancy, that I am greatly Louis' superior. Well, I would ask you, have you ever heard me contradict him? Am I not always, in the presence of others, the wife who respects in him the authority of the family? Hypocrisy! you will say. Well, listen to me. It is true that if I want to give him any advice which I think may be of use to him, I wait for the quiet and seclusion of our bedroom to ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... of Plato (our almost best), wh'h in exchange for the sphere of Macculloch, Mill and Co. is a mighty improvement! Since that, I have seen the little green book, too; reprint of your Cornhill operations,—about 2/3 of wh'h was read to me (known only from what the contradict'n of sinners had told me of it);—in every part of wh'h I find a high and noble sort of truth, not one doctrine that I can intrinsically dissent from, or count other than salutary in the extreme, and pressingly needed in Engl'd ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... the Indian's face, but it was gone instantly. Desmond was nonplussed. It was useless to contradict the merchant; he was clearly not disposed to give any information; Diggle was gone. All he could do was to return and report the matter to ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the army, issued immediately before their disembarkation. "The people," he then said, "with whom we are about to live, are Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not contradict them: deal with them as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muphtis and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere.... The Roman legions protected all religions. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... postillion, "if you wish to be thought such, I am far too civil a person to contradict you, especially after your kindness to ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... didn't contradict him. I called him general. He treated me tip-top. He is going to make me Minister of France, ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... it over. It didn't contradict the first one; it only changed a suggestion to a command, as if someone were growing more frantic by the hour. (And a picture of near-chaos in government wasn't attractive, was it?) The bit about "proper channels" underlined that speech was not free on Earth, and that the bureaucracy ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... of the so-called physical 12 senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the 15 material ...
— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker G. Eddy
... shop where starved apprentices flayed the faces of those who were boobies enough to trust them, the dame drove a separate and more lucrative trade, which yet had so many odd turns and windings, that it seemed in many respects to contradict itself. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... had commanded himself with difficulty from the first, broke out upon this into an inarticulate noise, and raised one hand with an appearance of real dismay, as if he were about to interfere and contradict. But she checked him at once, looking up at him with a swift glance and an angry flush ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in honor of my ancestors, who were in their day freedmen and citizens of great renown." The Fox replied, "You have chosen a most appropriate subject for your falsehoods, as I am sure none of your ancestors will be able to contradict you." ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... machine made. This he had done in a few months, and then he claimed the whole idea as his own. The system has since been carried out (see Times, 4th April 1863) by compressed air instead of steam. I call your attention to this, as you may contradict, if you think proper, the assertion in the article above mentioned, that the idea originated ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... latter books of Virgil's poem are the four and twenty Iliads contracted: a quarrel occasioned by a lady, a single combat, battles fought, and a town besieg'd. I say not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradict anything which I have formerly said in his just praise: for his episodes are almost wholly of his own invention; and the form which he has given to the telling makes the tale his own, even tho' the original story had been the same. But this proves, however, that Homer taught ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... no longer be satisfied with the vague reference to ideas and their opposites. What does it mean after all if we speak of opposite ideas? Can we not entertain any ideas peacefully together in our consciousness? From a logical standpoint, ideas may contradict each other, but that refers to their meaning. As mere bits of psychological experience, I may have any ideas together in my consciousness. I can think summer and winter or day and night or right and left or black ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... evidence of one witness to be rejected if he contradict himself when questioned about what he has seen and about what he knows; not, however, if he contradict himself when questioned about matters of opinion and report, since he may be moved to answer differently according to the different things ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... was the reply, "there's nature about the jade. Don't contradict me," added she, with sudden fury; "a parcel ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... said Faith. She was surprised at her own boldness. As a rule, she never dared to contradict Peg, but her heart sprang to the defence of this man whom she had so recently married. He was good and generous. She had ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... which seem to contradict each other. There is a time to laugh, and a time to weep,[360] etc. ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... destroyed. Yea, all this hast thou done of envy to my Father, and to godliness; of hatred to me and my people; and that thou mightest destroy others besides (I Chron 21:1). And now, what can this accuser say? Can he excuse himself? Can he contradict our Advocate? He cannot; he knows that he is a Satan, an enemy, and as an adversary has he sown his tares among the wheat, that it might be rooted up; but he shall not have his end; his malice has prevented9 him, and so has the care and grace of our ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... by other evidence, so far as it is susceptible of confirmation. An attempt has been made to impair his testimony, as to his being at the Half-way House on the night of the murder; you have seen with what success. Mr. Babb is called to contradict him. You have seen how little he knows, and even that not certainly; for he himself is proved to have been in an error by supposing Palmer to have been at the Half-way House on the evening of the 9th of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... return to the consequences of the Press reports. I had called upon the editors to contradict the statements attributed to me as regarded the loafing on the cricket ground, but pointed out at the same time that I had fully meant what I had said with reference to the great waste of time and the failure on the part of thousands of young men to fit themselves ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... true picture, loomed out clear enough for me before I left Dartmouth and came back to Albert in London. The big things were all, not there to be shaken. The picture was fogged at certain points, but I had no doubt as to what it represented, and even the incredible details that seemed to contradict reason were composed and cleaned up when Michael Pendean's own temperament was brought as a ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... inadequacy of Mr. Darwin's theory to account for the preservation and intensification of incipient, specific, and generic characters. That minute, fortuitous, and indefinite variations could have brought about such special forms and modifications as have been enumerated in this chapter, seems to contradict not imagination, but reason. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... lived in the first half of the thirteenth century. Toggenburg and Frauenlob were both celebrated minnesingers, the former (plate 7) being the subject of many strange legends. The simplicity and melodious charm of his verses seem to contradict the savage brutality ascribed to him in ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... "Do not contradict it, sir," she said, rising from her seat now with her face ablaze with indignation. "I was watching you. I had heard that story, and had heard another story of how the boat of an antagonist of yours at Henley had been crippled before a race, and I watched you from ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... want; and Marie begged her father not to say a word about giving her a single penny, to help her marriage with Charles; for she saw well that he would never be able to do it. Her poor father could not contradict her. ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... not contradict you," said the Abbe Plomb. "Now that we have studied the series of types placed on St. Anne's left hand, let us consider the prophetic ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... dragged him before a British jury; Temple hanged him in view of an excited multitude. As he boasted that there was the end of Captain Welsh, I broke the rope. But Temple spoiled my triumph by depriving him of the use of his lower limbs after the fall, for he was a heavy man. I could not contradict it, and therefore pitched all his ship's crew upon the gallows in a rescue. Temple allowed him to be carried off by his faithful ruffians, only stipulating that the captain was never after able to release his neck from the hangman's slip knot. The consequence was that he wore a shirt-collar up to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wouldn't like to contradict a newspaper," said Uncle Ike, as he thought the matter over. "It has seemed to me for some time that Dewey had a habit of throwing people overboard that would be liable to get him into trouble when he gets home, if the habit sticks to him. For that reason I would suggest that the house that is ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... business, none is more palpable, or susceptible of detection, than the manner in which it is said they were obtained, by the capture of my mulatto, Billy, with a portmanteau. All the army under my immediate command could contradict this, and I believe most of them know, that no attendant of mine, nor a particle of my baggage, ever fell into the hands of the enemy during the whole ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, and cannot deny Himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. The false appearance of such a contradiction is mainly due, either to the dogmas of faith not having been understood and expounded according to the mind of the church, or to the inventions of opinion having been ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... chin; a face that carried one or two scars of smallpox and a deeper one of a less peaceful suggestion, set in a complexion weather-beaten to the color of Spanish leather. Two small, moist gray eyes, that glistened with every emotion, seemed to contradict the hard expression of the other features. He was dressed in cheap black, like the two deacons, with the exception of a loose, black alpaca coat and the usual black silk neckerchief tied in a large bow under a turndown collar,—the general sign and symbol of a ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... enough—though not, therefore, the less distressing—that Rose should note, with wonder, a tendency in him to revert to the manner which had characterized his first call on her in New York; a tendency to be—of all things—polite. He didn't swear any more, nor contradict. He chose his words, got up when she did, picked up things she dropped. And when she was quite sure she was safe from discovery, she sometimes wept forlornly, for the rough, outrageous, absent-minded, imperious lover ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... eyes; neither did he contradict her. After a moment he said, "I believe Aglauron to be as free from prejudice as any man, and most true and honorable; yet who can judge in this ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... policeman, to any one whose word carries in the Settlement, was sufficient. He had but to explain that one of these impertinent yellow pigs had tried to extort three times the legal fare, and his case was won. No coolie could successfully contradict the word of a foreigner, no police court, should matters go as far as that, would take a Chinaman's word against that of a white man. He was quite secure in his bullying, in his dishonesty, in his brutality, and there is no place on earth where the white man is more secure in ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... has arrived there. The old count and countess, and the young counts and all the little countesses her sisters. Counts! every one of these wretches says he is a count. Guiscard, that stabbed Mr. Harvey, said he was a count; and I believe he was a barber. All Frenchmen are barbers—Fiddledee! don't contradict me—or else dancing-masters, or else priests." ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... were spread by some of the chief officers of the Council, and the most seditious of the speeches complained of was by the commander of their forces; but they were too agreeable to the Court for them even to contradict, much less investigate, although Col. Nichols offered to ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... want to contradict you, Master Fred; but enemies we are by Act o' Parliament, and that you know as ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... one of the privileges of a philosopher was to contradict other philosophers. I may add in the same spirit that one of the fatalities of many philosophers is, sooner or later, to contradict themselves. I do not know that James ever contradicted himself, but I have little doubt that a critical examination of his ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... she was in ignorance, merely understanding, along with the rest of the world, that she was of French extraction. This assumption had probably been founded in the first instance upon her name, and Adrienne never troubled either to confirm or contradict it. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... painful natural infirmities.' Though deaf from his sixteenth year and though labouring under a partial impediment of speech, he held high and important appointments, and was distinguished for his intellectual activities and attainments ... His case seems to contradict the opinion held by Kitto and others, that in all that relates to the culture of the mind, and the cheerful exercise of the mental faculties, the blind have the advantage of the deaf. The loss of the ear, that 'vestibule of the soul,' was to him compensated by gifts and ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... kind occur. A man may tell his interpreter to say that he is a member of the family of the chief of the white men; "YES, YOU SPEAK LIKE A CHIEF," is the reply, meaning, as they explain it, that a chief may talk nonsense without any one daring to contradict him. They probably have ascertained, from that same interpreter, that this relative of the white chief is very poor, having scarcely any thing ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... not presume to dispute or to contradict any conclusion you may have reached," he spoke at length in a low, even voice. "I had not, as I said, intended this last, this most inexcusable intrusion. You have now only one course to pursue—" His gaze turned to ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... right, Lizaveta Mikhailovna," he said "The fault is entirely due to my perpetual thoughtlessness. No, do not contradict me. I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me no slight harm. It makes people suppose that I am ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... to call Mr. Gatherer to prove that but you have come forward in order to contradict Mr. Hamilton's report, and the question I asked is, in what way do your books prove that no such orders have been honoured since 1867?-Mr. Gatherer will prove that since 1867 the men have got their wages paid down ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... somehow apart from their bodies, of the decay or destruction of which he may have had ocular demonstration. How could he see dead people, he asks, if they did not exist? To argue that they have perished like their bodies is to contradict the plain evidence of his senses; for to the savage still more than to the civilised man seeing is believing; that he sees the dead only in dreams does not shake his belief, since he thinks the appearances of dreams just as real as ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Magazine' for January 1876. Mrs White—an actress somewhere in the Shires,—she may have derived from Suffolk, however—addresses her daughter, Mrs Burden, in these words: 'I'll tell you what, Maam, if you contradict me, I'll fell you at my feet, and trample over your corse, Maam, for you're a limb, Maam, your father on his deathbed told me you were a limb.' (N.B.—Perhaps Mr White it was who derived from us.) And again when poor Mrs Burden asks what is meant by a parenthesis, her mother ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... she did not contradict the opinion. She could not eat her dinner—she was too full of poor Richard; she played with it, and then sent away her ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... he would take on for the other. This young man had ravished just at that same tyme a gentlewoman of great condition: now the Lawes of Germany, as also of France, permits to pershue a Ravisseiur, tho the women consent, if her parents contradict, criminelly for his life. On this our scholler Proclus is slain in the streets for him; ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... response of the Indian Empire'? Are they going to send troops to India or take them away from India? They're going to take them away, of course. Mutiny of India's silent millions? Rubbish! Not because a mutiny would contradict the far-famed 'response of the Indian Empire,' but because India's silent millions haven't got a rifle amongst them. You needn't tell me they've given you forty reasons for getting on with that barracks. I know their reasons. All of 'em put together only ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... made you contradict the major at dinner last night?" he asked. "I was not at the table, but some one told me of the incident; and I felt very sorry about it. What could you know of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... contradict, by authority, the report that Colonel Sibthorp was the Guy Fawkes seen in Parliament-street. It is true that a deputation waited upon him to solicit him to take the chair on the 5th of November, but the gallant Colonel modestly declined, much to the disappointment of the young ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... all our tables, let us praise it for its color and fragrance and social tendency, so far as it deserves, and not hug a bottle in the closet and pretend not to know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner! I think you will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent." But a great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because they are partial views of a truth, and may ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... seems to contradict the critical law that what is told, makes a faint impression compared with what is beholden; for it does indeed convey to the mind more than the eye can see; whilst the interruption of the narrative at the very moment when we are most intensely listening for the sequel, and have our thoughts ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... would have been impossible. On the lee side, however, the boat found a sort of temporary harbour. Here they landed, but not altogether without mishap. Isaac Dorkin, who had made himself conspicuous, during the row out, for caustic remarks, and a tendency to contradict, slipped his foot on a piece of seaweed and fell into the water, to the great glee of most of ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... must be unpleasant even to you. For weeks past there has been nothing around me but lies. What you say to me, all that you say to the children, and what you preached here publicly last night. Every word hurts my ears and urges me to contradict you; I am silent and by doing that I ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... recent gossip of fashionable society, and retailed it glibly. She had met this celebrity at a ball and that one at a reception, and she described them minutely, realizing that Aunt Jane would never be in a position to contradict any assertion she might ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... know what a paradox is? It is something which seems to contradict itself. I saw a man hold in his hand something worth one hundred dollars. I would have been willing to give him one hundred dollars for it. He destroyed it right before my eyes; yet his action caused nobody any loss. Now there is a paradox, and it seems quite puzzling, doesn't ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... was indeed the immediate consequence; and silly and bad persons may comfort themselves in their vices by flattering their own hearts that the characters of men are rather owing to accident than to virtue. Now, perhaps the reflections which we should be here inclined to draw would alike contradict both these conclusions, and would show that these incidents contribute only to confirm the great, useful, and uncommon doctrine, which it is the purpose of this whole work to inculcate, and which we must not fill up our pages by ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... bestowed on my infancy, being the darling of the family; and what is rather uncommon, though treated as a beloved, never a spoiled child; was never permitted, while under paternal inspection, to play in the street with other children; never had any occasion to contradict or indulge those fantastical humors which are usually attributed to nature, but are in reality the effects of an injudicious education. I had the faults common to my age, was talkative, a glutton, and sometimes a liar, made no scruple of stealing sweetmeats, fruits, or, indeed, any kind ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... 'troweth.'[153] Truth is what each man thinks. There is no such thing, therefore, as 'eternal, immutable, everlasting truth, unless mankind, such as they are at present, be eternal, immutable, everlasting.' Two persons may contradict each other and yet each may be speaking what is true for him. Truth may be a vice as well as a virtue; for on many occasions it is wrong ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... His Majesty the King of the Coleoptera; that I was sure that you were at this time one of the happiest women in the world; and I hope that Gringalet, on whom I drew this bill of exchange, will not contradict me. I have four tolerably strong attractions to bring forward against the thought of you: 1st, the Conservatoire; 2nd, the Opera; 3rd, the Italian ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... Quaker ideals of righteousness and justice, that he offered no protests, or arguments against his rivals and opponents other than the superiority of his own machine. Only his great genius which produced the superior machine (a fact which no one could possibly contradict) could have saved him from the fierce opposition of his more powerful rivals. One has only to read from some of his own letters reproduced in this narrative, to witness the fairness of his attitude, or to gain a knowledge of ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... questions, but she extricated herself quite well. Sometimes the questioners changed suddenly and passed on to another subject to see if she would not contradict herself. They burdened her with long interrogatories of two or three hours, from which the judges themselves went forth fatigued. From the snares with which she was beset the expertest man in the world could not have extricated himself but with difficulty. She gave ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... English there was from 1,000 to 1,100; they were all sent off in a hurry. At 5 in the evening they received the order, at 7 the next morning the greater part were off, and 24 hours afterward the Allies hovered round the town. The French boast, and nobody can contradict the assertion, that the Allies were never able to take their fortresses; certainly not; for they never attempted. Instead of losing their time in besieging, they left a few to mark the place and went on.... The English prisoners seem to have enjoyed ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... not deceived; but I ought on this occasion to contradict a calumnious report circulated at that time, and since maliciously repeated. It has been said that there existed an understanding between Mack and Bonaparte, and that the general was bought over to deliver up the gates of Ulm. I have received positive proof that this assertion is a scandalous ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... I found you?" says she. She is laughing a little, and looking so content that the professor hasn't the heart to contradict her—though where the ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... to have carried the impetuosity of his character into his conversation. When he had a good cause, he sustained it with grace and amiability. If it was a bad one, however, his eyes flashed, and he became so violent that it was thought prudent not to contradict him. It is related that Boileau, after yielding one day in a dispute, remarked in a low voice to a friend: "Hereafter I shall always be of the opinion of the Prince ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... dress and all the diamonds. It is quite a fuss to persuade her to put them on, she is so nervous about them being lost! She always insists on my locking them up in the safe again before I go to bed. Of course I don't contradict her, but half the time I leave them on my dressing-room table till next morning. Ha! ha! It is always best to humour ladies, even when they ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... he was being assaulted. He also says that he never set eyes on Jenny Saphir; and, as a matter of fact, we can find no one to contradict his assertion. Then again, admitting that the sapphire has been stolen, we have not been able to find it at ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... in general from the harassment which it hitherto has undergone in war. I shall have to try for special clearness here in stating my own views, partly because to some they may appear retrogressive, and also because they may be thought by others to contradict what I have said elsewhere, in more extensive and systematic ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... you are determined to know from your professed friends what you are to depend on. I wish it may answer your desires, you are master, Sir, to take what steps you please, I shall not take upon me to contradict you, I shall only lay before you what I hear and see, if it can be of any service to you, I shall have done my duty in letting you know your true interest, if you think it such. In the first place, I find they [the English adherents] were surprized and mortifyed ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion that any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting the tympany, had disappeared, or that the disorder itself had become milder in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... travelers or the writings of anthropologists without concluding that codes of belief and action arise out of the efforts of groups to understand and to influence nature and that out of this practical effort AND seeking of a harmonious reality arises morality. "Man seeks the truth, a world that does not contradict itself, that does not deceive, that does not change; a real world,—a world in which there is no suffering. Contradiction, deception and variability are the causes of suffering. He does not doubt there is such a thing as, a world as ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... wishes in as satisfactory a manner as possible. Further details on this subject I shall give you by word of mouth towards the end of August. All mere reports about my remaining in Germany for some length of time I beg of you to contradict most emphatically. Some newspapers seem anxious that it should be known that I am about to settle in Hungary. There is nothing whatever in this report beyond the anticipated order for my composing a second "Gran Mass", and perhaps publishing an Hungarian translation of the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... they do that ours is the Catholic Church, they contradict their own belief in the said creed; and not only this, but the ancient Fathers, and the Holy Scriptures agree that the Church ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... continued Josephine. "There is a report—and my father, who, I am sure, knows all, does not contradict it—that Paul Lindhorst was attached to a young girl who resided in the same town, and that his affection was returned. On one occasion, a detachment of French soldiers was quartered in Thun for a short time, and a sub-lieutenant, who had in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... and prayers in the church, consenting only to kneel upon a cushion. And as I resisted, and was indignant that the superior should have granted her request, adding that I formally opposed myself to it, he replied to me that it would have been dangerous to contradict the wishes of my daughter at a time when she was under the influence of a strong nervous emotion; and, besides, he had agreed with Princess Juliana that the poor child should quit the church at the hour of matins to take a little repose, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... in women. It is not so with men. But by degrees she grew more and more familiar with her stern friend; and in that familiarity there was perilous fascination to Maltravers. She could laugh him at any moment out of his most moody reveries; contradict with a pretty wilfulness his most favourite dogmas; nay, even scold him, with bewitching gravity, if he was not always at the command of her wishes—or caprice. At this time it seemed certain that Maltravers would fall in love with Evelyn; but it rested on more doubtful ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... thee to speak, to interrupt, to contradict, to argue. Thy silence betokened indifference. I had rather that thou hadst flown into a temper and bidden me begone than sat mum all the while." Windybank jumped up from the garden seat and began to pace to and fro, to the peril ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... was in the action. This account, which sunk the number of the French to sixteen, and raised that of the allies to twenty thousand men, was so disagreeable to truth, as well as to the laudable partiality of Peregrine, that he ventured to contradict her assertions, and a fierce dispute commenced, that not only regarded the present question, but also comprehended all the battles in which the Duke of Marlborough had commanded against Louis the Fourteenth. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... jingling off in his rattletrap cart, the cloud of dust raised by his old horse's clumsy feet hanging long in the air behind him. Oliver plodded forward, muttering dark threats against the disagreeable stranger, and wishing that he had been sufficiently quick of speech to contradict him. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... the Countess, "who labourest so artificially in recommending the yoke of pleasure, know that you contradict every notion which I have been taught from my infancy. In the land where my nurture lay, so far are we from acknowledging your doctrines, that we match not, except like the lion and the lioness, when the male has ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to contradict this last circumstance: "The bay of Pensacola would be a pretty good port, (says he) if the worms did not eat the vessels in it, and if there was a little more water in the entrance into it; for the Hercules, commanded by Mr. Champmelin, touched upon it." It is not so certain then, that this harbour ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... framing a plain and easy method for any person but of indifferent capacity to learn the art, and instruct himself therein, without any other master than my Introduction; by which means, when many understood it, I should have more partners and assistants to contradict all and ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... as to how you would give an account of her, not being at liberty to give a true description of those around. Though not so gloomy as the truth, it is perhaps as much so as people will accept without calling it exaggerated, and feeling the desire to doubt and contradict it. I have seen two reviews of it. One of them sums it up as "a life of poverty and self-suppression," the other has nothing to the purpose at all. Neither of them seems to think it a strange or wrong state of things that a woman of first-rate talents, industry, and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... went, as etiquette required, to take leave of the king, who made the not very flattering remark that he thought it would be a long while before he called him to power. Cavour must have smiled behind his spectacles, but he naturally left time to verify or contradict the royal forecast. ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... a word here about circumstances, which will seem to contradict some things you will find in this book, if you have interest enough in it to read it through. A Glasgow minister some time ago made a stand against a considerable minority in his church over some matter that, as he said, involved a principle for which he should fight. It ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... She forbore to contradict him any more; he had this maggot in his head, and was so wild to defeat Privy Seal with ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... undue proportion of the insane—as if there were no unequal incidence of alcohol and syphilis, the great factors of insanity, upon the two sexes. Nevertheless, observant members of either sex will either contradict one another on this point according to their particular opportunities, or will, on further inquiry, agree that women vary surely no less generally than men, at any rate within considerable limits, whatever may ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... felt a sudden pity. Her Aunt Ann Eliza Dix had been lying in her grave for ten years, but she could not contradict the poor man. "Of course," she ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you, but pray let her never suspect that it grows less so: that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much sooner than one to her person, is well known; nor will any of us contradict the assertion. All our attainments, all our arts, are employed to gain and keep the heart of man; and what mortification can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained: There is no reproof however pointed, no punishment however severe, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... pull up the man who dares to contradict my judgment!" answered Barthelemy, gazing fiercely at the defiant faces, and closed the door ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... it necessary to enclose to your Lordship a newspaper containing a paragraph which I have marked, and which relates to a pretended transaction in your Lordship's house. I think it necessary and proper to contradict this statement, which I need not say is a gross falsehood, and I wish, therefore, to have the authority of Lady Lyndhurst for contradicting it. 'I am, my Lord, yours ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... that conclusion of Ruskin's, in the new volume, which will most interest his earnest readers, is that the Venetian school is the only religious school that has ever existed. So much has Ruskin's development seemed to contradict itself, that one is scarcely surprised at one conclusion being apparently opposed to the former one; but a change so great as this, from Giotto, Perugino, and Cima, to Tintoret, Titian, and Veronese, as the religious ideals, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... more learned than himself that others may take him for a wise man, only confirms them in his being a fool:—"When a person superior to what thou art engages thee in conversation do not contradict him, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... one seemed inclined to add to his statement. Nor, which was much more remarkable, contradict it. Now that these men had seen the notice with their own eyes the force of all Ju had so recently contended came home to them. There was not one amongst that little gathering who did not realize the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... looked after. I can stay with you no longer; you will please, sir, to provide yourself with another servant."—"But Barton," said I, "I did not follow or watch you; I—"—"I beg your pardon, sir," he replied; "it is not for me to contradict; but you'll forgive me, sir, I would rather go; I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various |
