"Quibble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that some enemy set up a claim and threw it into Chancery. You may object to the word "enemy," but it could certainly not be looked upon as the act of a friend. By every right, in all justice, it belonged to James Channing; but he who put in his claim, taking advantage of a quibble of law, was a rich man and a mighty one. I should not like to take possession of another's money in such a manner. The good, old-fashioned, wholesome fear would be upon me, that it would bring no good ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... general term, well contrasting with "hate." As for really caring, beyond a liking for Brook Johnstone, she was sure that it was impossible. But the liking was strong. She exploded her difficulty at last with the bomb of a splendidly youthful quibble. She said to herself that she undoubtedly hated him and despised him, and that he was certainly the very lowest of living men for treating Lady Fan so badly—besides being a black sinner, a point which had less weight. And then ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... be the dignity or profundity of his disquisitions, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... aide-de-camp was presenting a paper at his elbow, and as he read it his face changed, but by no means cleared. "Hum—ha!" he muttered, "it seems you have some fancy status here—political trick, I suppose—some quibble about Habshiabad lying outside Granthistan. But it's all one. If you ain't under my command, you don't get mentioned in my despatches—see? Eh, how ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... lips but intuition saved that day. It flashed across even his obscene mentality that he might suggest once too often contempt for Western folk who worked for Eastern potentates. It was true he regarded the difference between a contract and direct employment as merely a question of degree, and a quibble in any case, and he felt pretty sure that the Blaines would not risk the maharajah's unchancy friendship by dismissing himself; but he suspected there were limits. He could not imagine why, but he had noticed ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... His boundless mercy He give you a thousand years to search, and spread before you all the books of science and sociology in which you were wont to find excuses for sin, what will it avail you? Will a scoff, or a quibble over a doubtful passage, serve your turn? No. You cannot scoff whilst your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth for fear, and there will be no passage doubtful in all the Scriptures on that day; for the light of the Lord's countenance will be ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... Lord had said "Swear not at all";[1137] but upon such as would not live according to that higher law, upon those who persisted in the use of oaths and vows, the lesser and evidently just requirement of strict fidelity to the terms of self-assumed obligations was to be enforced, without unrighteous quibble or inequitable discrimination. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... to her to doubt, to quibble, or to question, concerning the grounds of this great hope. From the first moment that she comprehended the purport of Paul's argument, she had accepted its conclusion as an indubitable revelation, and only wondered that she had never thought of it herself, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... on which was founded this malignant clique in Richmond was the merest quibble about the date of his commission to the rank of full general. Because its date was later than that of Robert E. Lee he felt himself ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Johnson says:—'A quibble is intended between as the conditional particle, and ass the beast of burthen.' On this note Steevens remarked:—'Shakespeare has so many quibbles of his own to answer for, that there are those who ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... going to quibble over words. Believing me to be dead, you had me impersonated, planning to use my name on ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... proved to be that both they and the Scots had joined in the Solemn League and Covenant, and that, therefore, until Scotland assumed the offensive, there was no cause for an invasion. Cromwell's retort, after a preliminary quibble, was practical enough. "War is inevitable. Is it better to have it in the bowels of another's country or in one's own? In one or other it must be." Fairfax's scruple, however, withstood this battery, though it was strongly enforced by Harrison, who, in reply to the Lord-General's question, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... innocent and I get a lawyer. He would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was— shut my mouth up, tell me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my own way—if you'll excuse my mentioning anything ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... was this—"He served the government faithfully and zealously, as a soldier; he advanced money for them upon some foreign station; but the government was ungrateful and ungenerous to him, and in consequence of some quibble, they have refused to repay him what he advanced on their account. He complained and remonstrated, he became importunate for justice, he was considered troublesome, and for complaining they have sent him to prison, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... principle that was objected to, but only the form, where are we? We can do nothing else but assume that the German Government objected to the terms employed by Sir Edward Grey, and that for the sake of a mere quibble they wasted time until other events made the catastrophe inevitable. Impartiality will have to judge whether such action was deliberate or not; whether in this case also it is crime or folly which has to be laid at the door of the ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... had power to move them, and though they sometimes relented, it was invariably for reasons of policy and in the best interests of the service. Men clearly shown to be protected they released. They could not go back upon their word unless some lucky quibble rendered it possible to traverse the obligation with honour. Unprotected subjects who were clearly unfit to eat the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... the Savings Bank, and the deposit was to be transferred to him when he gave proof of complete and perfect regeneration. When asked to account for a bottle of whisky found in his room, and for a burst of inebriety that represented a good deal in spot cash, Nickie quibbled. The quibble was obvious even to an innocent soul like James. James was hurt, ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... sit here and quibble; you're too clever altogether," I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her hand ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... well aware," said Tarnhorst, "that the Belt Companies not only have the various governors under their collective thumb, but have thus far prevented the formation of any kind of centralized government. Let us not quibble, Mr. Alhamid; the Belt Companies run the Belt, and that means that I must deal with officials of those companies—such ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... perpetuate his love in this world and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man had touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was young; the time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose time or to quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was on the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which would have taught her to value the treasure poured out at her feet, she was playing with ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... on this point is obviated by the admission. But it is still maintained that the Bay of Fundy is not a part of the Atlantic Ocean because it happens to be named in reference to the St. Croix in the same article of the treaty. To show the extent to which such an argument, founded on a mere verbal quibble, may be carried, let it be supposed that at some future period two nations on the continent of North America shall agree on a boundary in the following terms: By a line drawn through the Mississippi from its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico to its source; thence a parallel of latitude until ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... I should say yes without a quibble," replied Fenton, "but your air is so serious that I do not dare run the risk; so I will merely answer,—I would like to do you a ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... volume of the modern Variorum. There has been much editing, much comment, but singularly little criticism of Shakespeare; a half-pennyworth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack. The pendulum has swung violently from niggling and insensitive textual quibble to that equally distressing exercise of human ingenuity, idealistic encomium, of which there is a typical example in the opening sentence of Mr Masefield's remarks upon the play: 'Like the best Shakespearean tragedies, King John ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... The only quibble we have about the way Cassell's laid out the book is the amazing amount of inconsistency in the hyphenation, but we believe we have detected most of the ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... by the first early gray had his mules packed. He looked once again towards Tucson, and took the road he had promised not to take, leaving the guitar behind him altogether. His faith protested a little, but the other self invented a quibble, the mockery that he had already "come by Tucson," according to his literal word; and this device answered. It is a comfort to be divided no longer against one's self. Genesmere was at ease in his thraldom to the demon with whom he had wrestled through the dark ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... so great a province, you will not set yourself up any more haughtily. You will quibble no longer concerning tithes and tolls with ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... to make you think yourself better than others, quibble over texts, wear sour looks, domineer over others' consciences or give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples, follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of escaping future ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... wayward, and he did, in his great passion, marry her. That he should afterwards deny it officially seems to me to have been utterly inevitable. His denial did her not the faintest damage, as I have pointed out. It was, so to speak, an official quibble, rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case. Not to have denied the marriage in the House of Commons would have meant ruin to both of them. As months passed, more serious difficulties awaited the unhappily wedded pair. ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... I not? Juste ciel!" Rising, he walked about the great room, his hands clasped behind him. "My conduct was magnificent, was it not? Don't quibble with words, Brigit. In plain language, I was a scoundrel, a beast, and now I am trying to behave—not like a gentleman, but like a decent man. And why you won't let me, I ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... invaluable gifts of clothing which the Labrador Needlework Guild and other friends send us could never be used at all as love would wish, unless the Strathcona were available to enlarge the area reached. In spite of all this, those who would quibble over trifles claim that she is the only craft on record that rolls at dry-dock! Her functions are certainly varied, but perhaps the oddest which I have ever been asked to perform was an incident which I have often told. One day, after a long stream of patients had ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... "protect and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland as it is established by law." Had the words run "as it may be established by law" (in Parliament) it would not have been a dishonourable quibble—as it was. ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... of the roads as much more as the guarantee would have saved. It was for their interest that the guarantee should not be given. It was withdrawn. The faith of England—till then regarded as something sacred—was violated; and the answer was a criticism on a phrase—a quibble upon the construction of a sentence, which all the world for six months had read one way. The secret history of this wretched transaction I do not seek to penetrate. Enough is written upon stock-books and in the records of courts in Canada ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... sir?" the gruffer fellow on the big bay questioned with some heat. I made no quibble on his manner, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... 'It is all a quibble about a word,' said Alaric. 'What is good? David was a man after God's own heart, and a great man too, and yet he did things which, were I to do, I should be too base to live. Look at Jacob—how did he achieve the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... enough to center attention upon the quibble and then said: "My friend, I first tried, unsuccessfully, to have the United States take Texas as a gift. Not until I threatened to turn Texas over to England did I finally succeed. There may be within the ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... making new treaties or modifying existing treaties is not lodged by the Constitution in Congress, but in the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as shown by the concurrence of two-thirds of that body." Ibid. 4470-4471. The veto would seem to have been based on a quibble. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murder, intended against towns and multitudes." As if they had not revolted already! Their pretext seems to mean that they do not want to alter the sovereign authority, a quibble which they issued for several months, long after it was obviously false. They also wrote to the nobles, to the French officers in the Regent's service, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... Danube during the war with the Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian's own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account gives a graphic description of the inner ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... would gain nothing but shame and confusion of face. Nevertheless, there was a necessity for postponing the trial, on account of a material evidence, who, though he wavered, was not yet quite brought over; and the attorney found means to put off the decision from term to term, until there was no quibble left for further delay. While this suit was depending, our hero continued to move in his usual sphere; nor did the report of his situation at all operate to his disadvantage in the polite world; on the contrary, it added a fresh plume to his character, in the eyes of all those who were ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... birth. Then Philip V. seized the crown, his lawyers asserting that, according to the Salic law, 'no part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman,' and that therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the Salian Franks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance of estates, not with the inheritance of the throne of France, which was not at that time in existence. ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... less strong, your face less fair than theirs? Does the sun shine less often, have the flowers less fragrance, does sleep come less sweetly to you than to them? Nature has been very good, very generous to you, Viva. Be content with her gifts. What you lack is only a thing of man's invention—a quibble, a bauble, a Pharisee's phylactery. Look at the river-lilies that drift yonder—how white they are, how their leaves enclose and caress them, how the water buoys them up and plays with them! Well, are they not better off than the poor rare ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... excited! but I laboured out an aukward panegyric on the important duties he had to fulfil, and on the blessing it was to a nation, when worthy persons were chosen to fill such high offices. Thus endeavouring to quiet my conscience by a quibble, and with a half faced lie make him believe what it was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... read earnestly "The Spirit of the Laws" was as sure to fight slavery as any man who to-day reveres Channing or Theodore Parker. Those French thinkers threw such heat and light into Jefferson's young mind, that every filthy weed of tyrannic quibble or pro-slavery paradox must have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... had a pretty easy time in slavery days. They was good to us. Besides I was a house niggah." (Those who have been "house niggahs" never quibble at the word slave or negro. A subtle social distinction brewed in the black race to separate house servants from field hands as far as wealthy planters from "poor white trash.".) "Once I heard a man say of my mother, 'You could put on a white ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... shelter behind a false quirk of law instead of nestling in the eternal heart of the unchangeable and righteous Father, who is merciful in that he renders to every man according to his work, and compels their obedience, nor admits judicial quibble or subterfuge. God will never let a man off with any fault. He must have him clean. He will excuse him to the very uttermost of truth, but not a hair's-breadth beyond it; he is his true father, and will have his child true as his son Jesus Christ is true. He will impute to him nothing ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... utmost frankness that he had been sent to sea, as a wild boy whom it was impossible to keep steady at home; and he quite readily admitted that he had not introduced himself to Zack under his real name. But at this point his communicativeness stopped. He did not quibble, or prevaricate; he just bluntly and simply declared that he would tell nothing more than ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... to quibble. Tell me: until you were attracted to this young man—attracted, no doubt, because he was so unlike the European of your long experience—had you deviated from the conclusion, arrived at many years before, that you had had enough of love—of sex—to satisfy any woman? ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... "It is a quibble. I speak for her, yes, my dear sir. Her action in defiance of her family and her friends proved the strength of what she felt for the man she married; that she have remained with him three years—until ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... tones if anything is some low-sperited. "I takes it," he says, when he's able to command his feelin's, "that you declines them proffers with your winchester at the time when made." But the lady dismisses this as a quibble, an' merely sayin' that she won't be paltered with no farther, orders Oscar an' the Bible sharp who's ridin' inside to assemble by the edge of the trail. The Bible sharp attempts to lay the foundations of fresh objections by ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "A quibble, when all is said." He stepped to Lionel's side, and looked down at the pale handsome face over which the dark shadows of death were already creeping. "If he would but speak in the interests of this justice that is to ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... censured by his opponents for alleged undue exercise of arbitrary authority. The Supreme Court, established on the Mexican model, was reproached with seeking to overstep the limits of its functions. Every legal quibble was adjusted by a dilatory process, impracticable in a colony yet in its infancy, where summary justice was indispensable for the maintenance of order imperfectly understood by the masses. But the fault lay less with the justices than with the constitution of the Court ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... what was known as the Homestead Bill. On that occasion Senator Johnson of Tennessee said, 'This idea about poor foreigners somehow or other bewilders and haunts the imagination of a great many. I am constrained to say that I look upon this objection to the bill as a mere quibble on the part of the President, as being hard pressed for some excuse in withholding his approval of the measure. His allusion to foreigners in this connection looks to me more like the ad captandum of the mere politician or demagogue, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... we had passed out of the Gulf Stream and the sea had smoothed itself out, I made a speedy and satisfactory recovery; but if it had been seasickness I should have confessed it in a minute. I have no patience with those who quibble and equivocate in regard to ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... daughter of Charles Stuart, fifth Earl of Lennox, Darnley's elder brother. Her father had died in 1576, soon after her birth. About 1588 she had come up to London to be presented to Elizabeth, and on that occasion had amused Raleigh with her gay accomplishments. The legal quibble on which her claim was founded was the fact that she was born in England, whereas James as a Scotchman was supposed to be excluded. Arabella was no pretender; her descent from Margaret, the sister of Henry ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... really acknowledges no hallowed ground. It attacked the most endeared doctrines of our faith, and applied its enginery to those very parts of our citadel which we would be most likely to defend the longest. Had it contented itself with the mere discussion of minor points, with here and there a quibble about a miracle or a prophecy, we could excuse many of its vagaries on the score of enthusiasm. But its premiss was, "We will accept nothing between the two lids of this Book if our Reason cannot fathom it." Hence, all truth, every book ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... proven that it was a game of chance. Judge and counsel said that would be an easy matter, and forthwith called Deacons Job, Peters, Burke, and Johnson, and Dominies Wirt and Miggles, to testify; and they unanimously and with strong feeling put down the legal quibble of Sturgis by pronouncing that old sledge was a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... think fit to live, and do not take refuge in the simultaneous act of suicide recommended under certain conditions by Novalis. When, however, it is thus positively asserted to be impossible that human life should be happy, the assertion, if not something like a verbal quibble, is at least an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... to avoid noticing from the window at which I sit writing the crowds of purchasers streaming in and out of Cannock and Co.'s store, from late in the morning till early in the evening. I use the last words advisedly, for the people of the West seem to have accepted Charles Lamb's humorous quibble in good faith. If they begin work later than any other civilized people, they assuredly leave off earlier. But until evening sets in there is a torrent of customers pouring in over the way, and wooing the eye from the contemplation of the Shannon at the Thomond Bridge. Of the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... Europe—are professedly Roman Catholic. The influence of the priesthood, however, owing to various causes, seems to be on the wane, and a habit of abandoning all religious thought is much on the increase. But the realization that our people never attack any Church, or quibble about details of creed and ceremonial, has won their way to the hearts of many, and there can be no doubt that we have a great future amongst these peoples. In Peru the law does not allow any persons not ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... line contains a quibble on 'rests' and 'restless' discord. 'Nimble notes' was used in the Shakespearian time as we should use the term 'brilliant music.' Lucrece was in no humour for trills and runs, but rather for Dumps, where she could ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... a name of Bacchus, Tyndarus quibbles, and says, "I did not assert that I am Liber, but that I am Philocrates." In consequence of the idiom of the Latin language, his answer (non equidem me Liberam, sed Philocratem esse aio) will admit of another quibble, and may be read as meaning, "I did not say that I am a free man, but that Philocrates is." This maybe readily seen by the Latin scholar, but is not so easily explained to ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... It was a quibble, of course, but the Maynard children were surprised at themselves that they hadn't seen ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... fiend can it interest the peasants and mechanics in the Strand, to know that the Earl of Huntinglen is sitting down to dinner? But my father looks our way—we must not be late for the grace, or we shall be in DIS-grace, if you will forgive a quibble which would have made his Majesty laugh. You will find us all of a piece, and, having been accustomed to eat in saucers abroad, I am ashamed you should witness our larded capons, our mountains of beef, and oceans of brewis, as large as Highland hills and lochs; but ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott |
