"Self-defense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Self-defense and carrying out the law will cover you, my boy. Don't worry about that. This city has been kept terror-stricken by these gangsters long enough, because honest citizens have been compelled by a ward politician's law to go without weapons of defense. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... returned the Harvard man. "Our forefathers killed in self-defense. You folks are killing out ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... in whose lives life and death are matters of hourly business—matters of bread and butter and bank-account—acquire in self-defense a certain imperviousness; they learn to shed their responsibilities with facility in favor of digestion and sleep. Dr. Gunstone ate in a leisurely way, relishing his chops and coffee, and participating in the conversation of the family, who joined him one by one at the table. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... 'em both," said Madge. "I'll sw'ar th' killin' was in self-defense; I'll sw'ar that Holton owned, before me, that he saw Joe leave th' stable afore ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... so-called reconstruction acts, though as plainly unconstitutional as any that can be imagined, were not believed to be within the class last mentioned. The people were not wholly disarmed of the power of self-defense. In all the Northern States they still held in their hands the sacred right of the ballot, and it was safe to believe that in due time they would come to the rescue of their own institutions. It gives me pleasure to add that the appeal to our common ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... entered and robbed in business hours; and by night, men were murdered in the streets; and thefts escaped punishment. Then it was that men, caught in the commission of crime, were hanged in the open streets, and combinations were formed for self-defense. But when a new Legislature gave efficiency to the laws, the community yielded a willing obedience to the magistrate. From an early day there had been "miners' courts," which, with their alcaldes, had conciliated differences. But when magistrates were elected, these courts disappeared. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... and foppish, I know," pursued the young gentleman; "but you force me to it in self-defense. I never made love to Lady Louise, as Lady Louise can tell you, if you choose ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... desolation through the land. "What a scene," he exclaimed, "does this open! Every man, prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defense; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another until society is involved in tumult and blood." He did more than attack the writ itself. He said that Parliament could not establish it because it was against the British constitution. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... So they arrested Zianow and got him to confess the whole thing, and he was sent up for life, because it turned out his wife had stabbed him four times the week before he poured the lead into her while she slept, and frightened him so that he did it in self-defense, in a way. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... reverent, although not exactly religious, turn of mind, he took considerable interest in religious ministration, though he steadily and persistently refused, in his later years, to go to church. He had St. James's formula to quote in self-defense, which insists that "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Often, when pressed too close, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... time, and at about 5:30 in the afternoon of July 29th they were both conveyed in carriages, strongly guarded, to the execution grounds. Hetherington had previously proclaimed his innocence, claiming that the Doctor had shot first and he had simply shot in self-defense, but his previous record was bad, he having killed a Doctor Baldwin in 1853 and had run a gambling joint on Long Wharf, and eye witnesses claimed that he not ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... the primary social institution, it will be due to its intelligent effort at self-defense, and not to any inherent right which it has to such a position. Originally the family was but a biological group. Until modern times the agricultural family was chiefly an economic unit. Only with the ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... agencies stimulate an excessive stream of sexual desire, with all its physical accompaniments, in boys and men: the natural and inevitable result is an overwhelming impulse toward illicit satisfaction in self-abuse or sexual immorality. Society in self-defense and the interest of its youth must wage war upon this mercenary exploiting of the sex impulse. Licentious thinking is the great foe of continence; the saying of Jesus may be paraphrased thus with ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... Quakers gave me details of their own so-called sect, which for more than two hundred years has actually professed the teaching of Christ on non-resistance to evil by force, and does not make use of weapons in self-defense. The Quakers sent me books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allowing war ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... all this was changed. The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to the small employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness over against the great corporation, while at the same time the way upward to the grade of employer was closed to him. Self-defense drove him to union with ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... is there of me? For if he once has overcome Brunhild, The second time he surely will not fail; And self-defense is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... I thought it was a reflection on my appetite because "Cha Cha" is pronounced "Chew Chew." Subsequently, in the Upper Congo and the Kasai I was called "Mafutta Mingi," which means "Much Fat." I must explain in self-defense that in the Congo I ate much more than usual, first because something in the atmosphere makes you hungry, and second, a good appetite is always an indication of health in ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... what circumstances may human life be lawfully taken? A. Human life may be lawfully taken (1) In self-defense, when we are unjustly attacked and have no other means of saving our own lives; (2) in a just war, when the safety or rights of the nation require it; (3) by the lawful execution of a criminal, fairly tried and found guilty of a crime punishable by death ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... loaded to the danger point with morbid matter, it may arouse itself in self-defense to an acute eliminative effort in the shape of cold, catarrh, fever, inflammation, skin eruption, etc. In these instances, the disease conditions bring about the crisis and the organism is on the ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... was said to be very trifling. In a moment of rage, his young master, John Piper, plunged the blade of a small knife into Perry's groin, which resulted in his death twenty-six hours afterwards. For one day only the young master kept himself concealed, then he came forward and said he "did it in self-defense," and there the matter ended. The half will never be told of the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... shortly. "No, but then I have merely done as you wished, have I not, sir? I have focused on myself the enmity of a dangerous man, and now you hope I shall be forced, in self-defense, to remove ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... to me solely by sound, had scarcely come to an end when a noise of creaking boards drew my eyes to the other window. The shutter suddenly flew around, and a human figure swung in at the open casing. Astonishment at this singular proceeding did not dull the instinct of self-defense. The survey of my surroundings and the incident of the bar-room row had in a measure prepared me for any desperate doings, and I had swung a chair ready to strike a blow before I ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... round cast-iron stoves, and seen "tall" stories grow taller without toppling over, and his own imagination had learned the trick of piling up consistent wonders. Bellegarde's regular attitude at last became that of laughing self-defense; to maintain his reputation as an all-knowing Frenchman, he doubted of everything, wholesale. The result of this was that Newman found it impossible to convince ...
— The American • Henry James
... Their first hatchet. The narrow neck of land. The Rose of Jericho. The resurrection plant. The Australian kangaroo. The exiled people. The Chief's son tells about them. Explains they do not believe in killing except in self-defense. The upas tree. Its flowering branch. Valuable mineral in the hills. Description of the convict's home. Banishment one of the most serious forms of punishment for crimes. The survey of the mountains. Hunting for caves. How the parties, were organized. The influence of odors ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... that," said Brother Morris, the man of the good brow and shaved face. "I tell you, Brethren, that our hand is too heavy in this valley, and that there will come a point where in self-defense every man will unite to crush us out. James Stanger is an old man. He is respected in the township and the district. His paper stands for all that is solid in the valley. If that man is struck down, there will be a stir through this ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... find inhabited—and by two charming women!" I bowed. "Your presence here is even less satisfactorily explained than mine. If I denied the knowledge of French it was because I wasn't sure of my surroundings. It was done in self-defense rather than in the desire to play a trick. And in this language you speak of witnesses, of papers, of the coming of a man you do not trust. It looks very much like a conspiracy." I gathered up my gloves and riding-crop. I believed that I ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... a contemptible part; but being as certain as he wanted to be that Beardsley was trying to get a hold upon him for some purpose of his own, the boy thought himself justified in adopting heroic measures for self-defense. The ship-keeper was not the Union man he pretended to be, and Marcy would tell Beardsley nothing new when he revealed the plot at which Tierney had hinted the night before. This was what Marcy believed, and the manner in which he was greeted ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... they read between the lines; and if they should meet now to form a creed, they might fail to agree; and the creed is now so that they can say as they please, except in public. Whenever they do so in public, the church, in self-defense, must try them; and I believe in trying every minister that doesn't preach the doctrine as he agrees to. I have not the slightest sympathy with a Presbyterian preacher who endeavors to preach infidelity from his pulpit and receive Presbyterian ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... admitted the man who had dropped into a good thing, "They all want to delve into the secrets of my mission here. You, of all men," he meaningly said, "cannot blame me for throwing the dust into their eyes. I detest this intrusion, and so in sheer self-defense I am going to give a formal dinner to a lot of these bores, and then cut the whole lot when I've once done the decent thing." Circling and circling, and yet never daring to approach the subject, old Hugh Johnstone warily returned to ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... rest of the furniture." So the rehabilitation of the cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of lounging in at Stumpy's to see "how 'The Luck' got on" seemed to appreciate the change, and in self-defense the rival establishment of "Tuttle's grocery" bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors. The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to produce stricter habits ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... is the French word for understanding or agreement. In the recent history of Europe it refers to that friendly grouping of nations which was formed in self-defense against the Triple Alliance. The war of 1870 had left France not only humiliated but weakened and isolated. The formation of the Triple Alliance put out of question the idea of a successful war against Germany to right the wrong which France had suffered. In fact it seemed ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... already written the governor to assure him that in taking up arms he was acting only in self-defense and for the country's safety. But now he sent another letter reiterating that he had no evil intentions to him or the government. "I am now going out to seek a more agreeable destiny than you are pleased to design me," he added. As to the money he owed him ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... or not at all. For example one of my first patients, Christine, believed that I was trying to electrocute her. Though she would not talk, she repeatedly drew pictures depicting this. She had, quite logically within her own reality, decided to kill me with a butcher knife in self-defense before I succeeded in killing her. I had to disarm Christine several times, hide all the household knives, change my sleeping spot frequently, and generally stay sufficiently awake at night to respond to slight, creaky sounds that could ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... American lads, were large and strong for their ages, which were within a year of each other, seventeen and eighteen now. In the rough lumber camps of the north, the two had had considerable experience in the use of firearms and the art of self-defense—fists. Also, during the school term each had practiced the use of the sword until, though by no means experts, they could give a fair account of themselves with this weapon—as each had done more ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... go, if he started his journey by recognizing a blood brotherhood with anything living he would meet on the way; and I have heard Enos Mills say that when he was snow inspector of Colorado he traveled the crest of the Rockies from one end of the state to the other without a gun or any means of self-defense." ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... life depends on the word of a judge, who may err in the case of capital punishment; and society cannot end the life of a man, unless the necessity of legitimate self-defense demands it. On the other hand, solitary confinement came in with the second current of the classic school of criminology, when at the same time, in which Beccaria promulgated his ideas, John Howard traveled all over Europe describing the unmentionable ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... of the steamboat Caroline and the necessity of self-defense and self-preservation under which Her Majesty's subjects acted in destroying that vessel would ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... them here or makes them afraid. They are far tamer than are domestic fowls in America, for they are never killed and eaten like hens and chickens. A Singhalese's religion will not permit him to kill anything, except wild beasts in self-defense. The vegetation is what might be expected within so few miles of the equator: beautiful and prolific in the extreme. The cinnamon fields are so thrifty as to form a wilderness of green, though growing but four or five feet in height, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... the memory of her touch on his arm, even though the touch had been a thrusting of her hands in self-defense and her eyes had been big ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... fulfill the treaty, ought not to expose the United States to other and greater injuries. When the authority of Spain ceases to exist there, the United States have a right to pursue their enemy on a principle of self-defense. In this instance the right is more complete and obvious because we shall perform only what Spain was bound to have performed herself. To the high obligations and privileges of this great and sacred right of self-defense will the movement of our troops ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... pacific in its desires and aims, it is not a "pacifist." It is willing and able, though not always at the moment ready, to take up arms in self-defense. In its broadening vision of a fraternity of mankind, which shall be in the good future not only intranational but also international, it is willing also to FIGHT for the safety of its principles everywhere, and for the security of all the peoples in a true and orderly liberty. That is the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... irrigation supply actually was. We country folks have to be self-reliant: I am my own sanitation department, I maintain my own 800-foot-long driveway, the septic system puts me in the sewage business. A long, long response time to my 911 call means I'm my own self-defense force. And ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... impulsion of circumstances that led to it, it seems to have been in some sort thrust upon him by the same perverse fate that dogged our steps. He had meant the king no harm—indeed it may be argued that, from whatever motive, he had sought to serve him—and save under the sudden stress of self-defense he had done him none. The king's unlooked-for ignorance of his errand, Herbert's honest hasty zeal, the temper of Boris the hound, had forced on him an act unmeditated and utterly against his interest. His whole guilt lay in preferring the king's death to his own—a crime perhaps in ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... think it was so much to ask a person to have a cup of tea!" Martie stammered, with a desperate attempt at self-defense. She felt tears pressing against her eyes. Lydia would have been meek, Sally would have been meek, but Martie's anger was her nearest weapon. It angered ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... the other day. He did strike me, but I showed him that I believed in self-defense, and he desisted. He has beaten me often. I did not like the looks of an elder brother licking a younger one, and so I put myself in a position to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... the Prussian statesman bent on dynastic enterprise will conjure in the name of the dynasty and of culture and efficiency; or, if worse comes to worst, an outbreak will be decently covered with a plea of mortal peril and self-defense. Among English-speaking peoples much is to be gained by showing that the path of patriotic glory is at the same time the way of equal-handed justice under the rule of free institutions; at the same time, in a fully commercialised ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... even a pretext of police regulations. Passion, therefore, ran comparatively a free course, and the personal redress of private wrongs was only held in check by the broad and acknowledged right of self-defense. Since 1849 and 1850, when the gold fever was at its height, emigration across the plains had slackened, and the eagerness for a revival of this local traffic undoubtedly exerted its influence in procuring ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... democratic beast, He knows that his unmerciful drivers seek Their profit, and not his. He hath not learned That pigs were made for man,... born to be brawn'd And baconized: that he must please to give Just what his gracious masters please to take; Perhaps his tusks, the weapons Nature gave For self-defense, the general privilege; Perhaps,... hark, Jacob! dost thou hear that horn? Woe to the young posterity of Pork! Their enemy is at hand. Again. Thou say'st The pig is ugly. Jacob, look at him! Those eyes have taught the lover flattery. His face,... nay, Jacob! Jacob! were it fair ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... reply: "The smaller a man's brain the more enveloping his mere male arrogance. Instinct of self-defense like the turtle's shell or the porcupine's quills or the mephitic weasel's extravasations." But she never quarreled with Morty, and to have shared with him her opinion of his endowments would have been to deprive herself of a good deal ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... a northern girl, trained to self-defense. As he freed her, her strong, slender arm swung out and up—with really startling force. Her half-closed hand struck with a sharp, drawing motion across his lips, a blow that extinguished his laughter as the wind extinguishes ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... for Equality of Human Rights.—When women as mothers have no power of guardianship of their own children; when they as persons have no power of self-defense against cruelty and outrage of their own fathers or husbands; when as members of society they have no contract-power but must suffer all manner of injustice unless highly fortunate in their male representative; when as citizens of a so-called democratic ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... out his boxing-gloves and gave me a lesson in the art of self-defense, in which, I was soon to learn, he was highly accomplished, for we had a few rounds together every day after that. He keenly enjoyed this form of exercise and I soon began to. My capacity for taking punishment without flinching grew ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... job before him. He had always confessed to a great liking for dogs of almost all kinds, and the thought of being compelled to shoot one, even in self-defense, did not appeal to him; though it was a grim necessity that forced him to contemplate ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... from the group ideals. But peoples that, whether from a fortunate geographical situation or because of their marked superiority in numbers and power over their neighbors have escaped this need of perpetual self-defense could afford to relax their vigilance for conformity. And the very notable increase in individual variations in conduct and ideal during the past century has been largely owing to the era of comparative peace. We seem ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... and prove your innocence of robbing that bank and killing the watchman, for I believe your story, and then with Sergeant Mayhew's character proven, you can readily secure pardon for taking his life as you did in self-defense." ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... problem balked me. Lacking the strength to mount and ride in my own proper person, there was nothing for it but to find a messenger; and who would he be in a region at the moment distraught with war's alarums, and needing every man for self-defense? ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... power is not restrained by any laws, but every one is bound to obey it in all things; such is the state of things implied when men either tacitly or expressly handed over to it all their power of self-defense, or in other words, all their right. For if they had wished to retain any right for themselves, they ought to have taken precautions for its defense and preservation. As they have not done so, and indeed could not ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... now. I knew as I entered the house that night that something had happened; that the hope of the early dawn had died, for some cause, with the dusk. The trouble showed in her eyes: mingled doubt, chagrin, self-accusation, self-defense, defeat—familiar symptoms. She had seen something, something ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... fault. It was ME who done it. I went for him in a mean underhanded way jest now, when he hadn't a weppin nor any show to defend himself. We gripped. He got a holt o' my derringer—you see that's MY pistol there, I swear it—and turned it agin me in self-defense, and sarved me right. I swear to God, gentlemen, it's so!" Catching sight of my face, he looked at me, I fancied half imploringly and half triumphantly, and added, "I might hev knowed it! I allers allowed Lacy Bassett was game!—game, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... have lost their fathers, husbands, sons—well, that is the fortune of any war; but they are beginning to understand that they have lost them, not in a war of self-defense, but to gratify the insane ambitions and greed of a dynasty and a military caste that are out of date in the twentieth century. Their parents, when over sixty, have died from the same cause as the ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... effort has been made to discountenance aggressive warfare. The distinction between aggression and self-defense is, however, not a matter of agreement. War is still employed as an instrument of national policy. No nation has, as yet, manifested willingness to relinquish the right to employ armed force in resisting aggression, nor the right to decide what constitutes self-defense. ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... For Lad was anything but a fool. And, like other wise collies, he had sense enough to realize that a swimming dog is one of the most helpless creatures in the universe; when it comes to self-defense. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... to elicit tales of their part in the grim business overseas. This man avoided the cordial clutches of the socially elect by the simple expedient of saying that his people expected him. He uttered this polite fiction in self-defense. He did not want to talk or be fed. He was sick of noise, weary of voices, irritated by raucous sounds. All he desired was a quiet place away from the confusion of which he had been a part for many days, to get speedily ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... man's furtive preparations for self-defense. His rifle lay across his knees, and ostensibly he was in the act of cleaning it, but in reality he was holding it ready for Bill's first offensive move. He had known of Bill of old; in the circle in which he moved—lost utterly ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... esteem and love of friends, the protection of truth, and, above all, and worst of all, her own self-respect. All these in exchange for a baffled, angry, selfish man, at whose mercy she would be, with only one word to speak in self-defense and justification; and it was much to be feared that he would, considering the circumstances, reject and scoff at even that. The one word was—she loved him! and, if there be any redeeming virtue in it, let her, in Heaven's name, have the benefit thereof. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... British vessels till the act of Congress, concerning navigation, of 1818 and the supplemental act of 1820 met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the United States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self-defense, were soon succeeded by an act of Parliament opening certain colonial ports to the vessels of the United States coming directly from them, and to the importation from them of certain articles of our produce burdened ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... a manner civilized, peaceable and industrious. He is brave in self-defense, but never seeks war nor bloodshed. Quite different is his near neighbor, the bloodthirsty Apache, who seems to delight only in robbing and killing people. Cunning and revenge are pronounced traits of his character and the Government has found ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... stood up to the common burden. When she senses this—which is not always—she treats it as prejudice. As a matter of fact, the antagonism of Nature and Society to the militant woman is less prejudice than self-defense. It is a protest against the wastefulness and sacrifice of her career. It is a right saving impulse to prevent perversion of the qualities and powers of women which are most needed in the world, those qualities and powers which differentiate ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... alas! the notes were meaningless to him. Still scanning him by means of her back hair, Jennie knew that in another moment Jim would lay his hand on her shoulder, or otherwise advance to personal nearness, as he had done the night of his ill-starred speech at the schoolhouse—and she rose in self-defense. Self-defense, however, did not seem to require that he be kept at too great a distance; so she maneuvered him to the sofa, and seated him beside her. Now was the time to ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... when I found I was burning my electric lamp by daylight. Listen: A pearl is nothing more or less than nacre, a fluid secretion of a certain variety of oyster—not the eatable kind. A grain of sand gets between the folds of the oyster and its shell and irritates the beast. In self-defense the oyster covers the sand with a fluid which ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... elected; and all rules strict observed. Every night we camped inside a barricade. One of the rules was, no tough old bulls useless for meat should be killed under penalty of twenty-five dollars. I was had up before the council for that; but I proved it was self-defense." ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Homer always takes care to bring his bravest and most daring heroes well armed into battle; and the Greek lawgivers punished those that threw away their shields, but not him that lost his sword or spear; intimating that self-defense is more a man's business than offense. This is especially true of a governor of a city, or a general; for if, as Iphicrates divides it out, the light-armed are the hands; the horse the feet; the infantry the breast; and the general the head; he, when he puts himself upon danger, not ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... scarcely able to walk. The Justice told the Colonel that it seemed to him that he was the one who made the assault; for he snapped a loaded gun at me and attempted to take my life, while what I had done was in self-defense. He told Col. Tucker he would talk with him again. He then beckoned me to follow him, and I did so. We went into a room by ourselves, when he ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... wrong, since Marat, Mirabeau, Robespierre, got their arguments directly from Rousseau, and no one I have ever heard made an appeal to Scripture as a defense for murdering thirty thousand men, women and children. Mirabeau quotes this from Rousseau in self-defense: "No true believer can be a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law inflicted death on an atheist, I should begin to put it into execution by burning the first man who should accuse ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... should carry out our respect for the weaker sex so far as to lend ourselves to every caprice and every enterprise it may please a woman to direct against our peace or our dignity; but our right of legitimate self-defense in such encounters is circumscribed within narrow and delicate limits, which I feared I had over-stepped. It was enough that Madame de Palme should be alone in the world, and without any other protection ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... disclaim responsibility. Thus Servia called the world to witness that her answer to Austria was the limit of submission and conciliation. Austria, through her ambassador to the United States, solemnly declared that her assault upon Servia was a measure of "self-defense." Russia explained her action as "benevolent intervention," and expressed "a humble hope in omnipotent providence" that her hosts would be triumphant. Germany charged France with perfidious attack upon the unarmed border of the fatherland, and proclaimed ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... panic spread so that in a month all industries were in a measure suspended. The wildest schemes for relief were proposed, in and out of Congress. The panic spread to the banks, which were compelled in self-defense to call in their loans, to withhold their circulating notes, and contract their business. As usual on the happening of such a panic, an appeal was made to the treasury for relief, a demand was made for an increase in the volume of the United States notes, and that the Secretary of the Treasury ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... my principal a liar! And then most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I'd get the credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a client—his bounden duty, ain't it, to bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge himself would bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... redemption of your race. Should you destroy the life of your assailant, you will pass into the custody of the criminal Law ... under an indictment for murder; but the verdict of the community, and the verdict of almost any jury will be, justifiable homicide in self-defense.... Or should a different verdict be found, and you be condemned to die as a murderer, your ignominious death shall be luminous with the halo of a martyr, and your sacrifice shall be for the ...
— The Religious Duty of Obedience to Law • Ichabod S. Spencer
... resembling the color of the Malays and Dyaks who live in the Bornean forests. Though very large and powerful, it is a harmless creature, feeding on fruit, and never attacking any other animal except in self-defense. A full-grown male orang-outang is rather more than four feet high, but with a body as large as that of a stout man, and with enormously long and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... like partridges upon the mountains, or like the timid fox by the eager sportsman, were obliged in self-defense to meet cunning with cunning, and to borrow from the birds and animals their mode of eluding their pursuers by any device which in the exigency of the case might present itself to them. They had ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... the mate; "not unless they go for us and it's self-defense. They're not sailors—they don't know where they are. We don't want to get into trouble. Sailors don't act that way. We'll wait for the captain or the police." Which, interpreted, and plus the slight shade of anxiety showing in his disfigured face, meant that Mr. Jackson was ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... of classifying all women into the good and the cruel, of which Miss Vost seemed to be among the latter. As a matter of fact, Miss Vost was simply a young woman very far from home, compelled to believe in and on occasion to resort to primitive methods of self-defense. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Chester were both exponents of the manly art of self-defense, and more than once their skill in the fistic art had stood them to good advantage. They were also proficient in the use of the revolver and sword. They had returned from Russia with a dispatch for Sir John French from the Russian Grand Duke, a message so important ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... the twenty thousand people of Toledo could be engaged in these specialties, and I owe myself to blame for not asking more about the local industries; but it is not too late for the reader, whom I could do no greater favor than sending him there, to repair my deficiency. In self-defense I urge my knowledge of a military school in the Alcazar, where and in the street leading up to it we saw some companies of the comely and kindly-looking cadets. I know also that there are public night schools where those so minded may study the arts and letters, as our guide was ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... the guidance of the party; we can no longer be responsible. The men in power do not wish that the party should continue to exist; it is hoped to destroy us—well, no party allows itself to be destroyed, for there is above all things the law of self-defense, of self-preservation, and, if the organized direction fails, you will have a condition of anarchy, in which everything is left to the individual. And do you really believe—you who have so often praised the bravery of the Germans up to the heavens, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... incumbent of the Presidential office. It could only have grown out of the abnormal excitement created by the dissensions between the two great Departments of the Government. The bitterness engendered resembled that which always distinguishes a family quarrel. The measure was resorted to as one of self-defense against the alleged aggressions and the unrestrained power of the Executive Department. But the history of its operation, and of its subsequent modification, which practically amounted to its repeal, is one to which the Republican party ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... consider that they have sent us this reply out of ignorance of our true purpose. Each man must conduct himself as the chiefs dictate. There must be no killing except in self-defense." ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... him, as it is to every human being—was the power of making up his own mind, and acting upon it with that quiet resolution which is quite distinct from obstinacy—obstinacy, usually the last strong-hold of cowards, and the blustering self-defense of fools. ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and leaders: two largest insurgent groups active in Colombia - Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC and National Liberation Army or ELN; largest anti-insurgent paramilitary group is United Self-Defense ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when Sardi Babu came in with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, and that then, and only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot be established—evidently a stranger—seized Babu before he could fire again, and killed him—in self-defense." ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... makes his dogma yield to the facts of life (a saving principle not confined to savages, but acted on to a greater or less extent by all societies). He slays sacred animals for divinatory and other religious purposes, for food, or in self-defense; he fears their anger, but his fear is overcome by hunger; he offers profuse apologies, explains that he acts without ill will and that the bones of the animal will be preserved and honored, or he declares that it is not he but ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... the attendant circumstances that were connected with the act of Nero in murdering his mother, which could palliate or extenuate the deed in the slightest degree. It was not an act of self-defense. Agrippina was not doing him, or intending to do him any injury. It was not an act of hasty violence, prompted by sudden passion. It was not required by any political necessity as a means for accomplishing some great and desirable public end. It was a cool, deliberate, and well-considered ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... consolation in tribulation, and has in it an undercurrent of apology, darkened by a suppressed indignation. Section two is colored by a sorrowful emotion. Section three everywhere teems with a feeling of indignation. Through the whole letter there runs an undercurrent of self-defense. The "key-note" of this book, as well as of First Corinthians, is loyalty ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... that looked as desperate as it proved successful. I hired the Salt Lake Theatre—for a night (February 9, 1899), and announced that I would speak on "Senatorial Candidates and Pharisees"—intending to use the opportunity of self-defense in order to attack the "financial apostles" who were ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... conclusion that writers have somewhat exaggerated the quarrelsome disposition of this bird. I have never, or very rarely, known it to molest or attack any other birds than those which its own instinct prompts it to drive away in self-defense, such as Hawks, Owls, Eagles, Crows, Jays, Cuckoos, and Grackles." That Dr. Coues is a friend of the Kingbird, his language amply proves: "The Kingbird is not quarrelsome—simply very lively. He is the very picture of dash and daring in defending his home, and when he is teaching ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... have the sympathy—though not the approval—of the audience after yielding to temptation.[29] This, of course, does not refer to deeds of violence which are really not only excusable but actually right, in the circumstances—like the killing of an attacking desperado in self-defense. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... the ill-suppressed and heartless satisfaction with which the fellow was about to enter into the details, and accordingly, ere he had time to proceed further, John Purcel turning a hunting-whip, loaded for self-defense, left ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... "Only in self-defense." That was the wrong thing to say. He changed it to, "No; I won't argue with her at all," and then quoted Wade Lucas quoting Thomas Paine. Then he had to assure his mother a couple of times that there really was a Merlin, and then assure her ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... John M. Work, Frederick Krafft and George H. Goebel. These, with Morris Hillquit, were the men who had violently expelled or suspended tens of thousands of members of the party without warrant of the party Constitution and without granting a trial or the right of self-defense to those thus dealt with; who had maintained themselves in office after July 1, 1919, in express violation of the party Constitution, having suppressed announcement of the result of the referendum vote by the rank and ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... the knife that had been so ostentatiously fixed in his door, and carried it about him night and day, with a firm resolve to use it in self-defense, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... ten years older than you in gray hair and the calendar, and infinitely younger in worldly wisdom and intellect. He is an English army officer, who was foolish enough to imagine he loved me, foolish enough to propose every three days for the last three years and foolish enough to bore me until in self-defense I escaped from his clutches. As for myself, at least I am not the young woman who can stand staying in that gaudy theatrical hotel for another day longer. I have done so many bold, unmaidenly things that you may believe it easy ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to the coroner," said the Pilgrim, fighting for self-control. "It was self-defense. My God, boys, I couldn't help it! He pulled a gun on me. Yuh saw it on the ground there, right where ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... two great leaders of opposite schools, Locke and Burke, it is contended that when we enter into society the natural rights of self-defense is surrendered to the government. If any natural right, then, be limited or abridged by the laws of society, we may suppose the right of self-defense to be so; for this is the instance which is always selected to illustrate and confirm the reality of such a surrender of ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... shouting of the men as they tumbled into their saddles cleared his brain. He called to Deputy Bill Dozier, who was kneeling beside the prostrate form of Buck Heath: "Call 'em off, Bill. Call 'em off, or, by the Lord, I'll take a hand in this! He done it in self-defense. He didn't even pull a gun on Buck. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... been ever so from childhood; and at times when I think of him I experience an unwonted sensation—I am afraid of him. He is my deadly enemy, I know it. If I did not thrust him aside, he would do so with me. If I did not kill him, he would kill me. It was a mere act of self-defense to put him out of the way. If it miscarries, I am lost, for I shall not soon have courage for a second attempt. I am a coward in this young man's presence, I am afraid of him! He is my fate, my evil fate! And I can not avert it, can undertake nothing ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the plea of self-defense but he did not return at once to Lost Chief. The attitude of young Jeff did not make an early ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... justifiably disregard this precaution if they deemed that a vessel's movements, designedly or otherwise, jeopardized the safety of the attacking submarine. On this reasoning a submarine commander could excuse a wanton act on the plea of self-defense, which Germany appeared eager to accept, whether the need of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... custom. Wherever there was a big pot just won his rasping voice was always at the elbow of the winner, with his monotonous "Any drinks, gents?" If a table was slow to require his services he never left it alone. He drove the men at it to drink in self-defense. It was a skilful display—though not as uncommon as one might think, even in the best restaurants ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... impossible attitudes; Phosphurous winning the Derby; the Death of Grimaldi (the famous steeple-chase horse, not poor old Joe); an American Trotting Match, and Jem Belcher and Deaf Burke in attitudes of self-defense. Several tandem and riding whips, mounted in heavy silver, and a double-barrelled gun, and fishing rods, occupied one corner, and a polished copper cask, holding about five gallons of mild ale, stood in another. In short, there was plenty of everything except books—the literature ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... what you mean," he cried. "I will not be questioned. If I shoot, it is self-defense. You understand that. Nor will any one be the wiser. She is not my daughter. I know ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Jock's eyes, "that's the puzzler. Now Drew's sister—" Jock spoke in this detached way of Constance Drew for self-defense—"Drew's sister stands for what she is; a good, honest, handsome girl. You own up to that and that's the end of it. This one sets you thinking. Is she, or ain't she pretty? you keep putting to yourself. Do you like her, or don't you? Is she thinking about what you're saying, or ain't ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... time came when, as a matter of self-defense, man must manipulate and control spirits to save himself from destruction, and there were persons particularly adapted to this process, who formed the germs of the great system of priesthood. They stood between the masses and the spirits, and as the system developed ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar |
