"Contradiction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sense are too varied, and depend too much on special circumstances, for it to be possible to reduce the art of detecting them to definite rules. Only one general principle can be laid down, and that is, that when the literal sense is absurd, incoherent, or obscure, or in contradiction with the ideas of the author or the facts known to him, then we ought to presume ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... occasionally, I meet those who do not find him amusing, I conceal my own personal opinion that, with the possible exception of Mr. STEPHEN LEACOCK, he is the most rollickingly funny person at present writing the King's English; but now, being in a position to air my private views without fear of contradiction, I make the statement boldly, and put, in as Exhibit A of my evidence, The Complete Sportsman (ARNOLD). Like other earlier volumes from the same source it is compiled from the occasional papers of Reginald Drake Biffin, and the sportsman ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... known as irony and maieutics. The former consisted in leading the pupil to express an opinion on some subject of current interest, an opinion that was apparently accepted by Socrates. Then, by a series of questions adroitly put, he drove his pupil into a contradiction or an absurd position, thus revealing the inadequacy of the answer. This phase of the Socratic method is rarely applicable with young children. Occasionally, in grammar or arithmetic, for instance, an ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... sensations, longings, thoughts, fancies—the great devil take them all—fresh ones every moment, and each at war tooth and nail with all the rest; and then on the strength of this infinite multiplicity and contradiction, of which alone I am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up, and say, "I by myself I," and swear stoutly that I am one thing, when all I am conscious of is the devil only knows how many things. Of all quaint deductions from experience, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... he became blind, but his presence could not then even be spared when any serious difficulty arose—ruling by the moral power of wisdom and sanctity—one of the best and loftiest characters of all antiquity. And nothing was more remarkable than his patience under contradiction, and his eagerness to insure freedom of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... those divine men? Of Homer we know nothing; of Shakspeare and Milton, we have reason to believe the ordinary temperament was constitutionally cheerful. The latter boasts of it. A thousand instances, in contradiction to an assertion it were not worth while to contradict, were it not so generally popular, so highly sanctioned, and so eminently pernicious to everything that is manly and noble in literature, rush to our memory. But we think we have already ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there, and had appointed Monroe in his place. This gentleman, instead of conforming to his instructions, and attempting to reconcile France to Jay's mission, had given them assurance on the subject quite in contradiction of the treaty as made, both the formation and ratification of which he had done his best to defeat. He, in consequence, had been recalled by Washington shortly before the close of his term of office, and C. C. Pickney, a brother of Thomas Pickney, had been appointed ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... contradiction from Dick, who, from ample experience, knew that any demand for funds would have received ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... grass was not more than a foot high, and the ground hard; the giraffes about four hundred yards distant steaming along, and raising a cloud of dust from the dry earth, as on this side of the mountains there had been no rain. Filfil was a contradiction; he loved a hunt and had no fear of wild animals, but he went mad at the sound of a gun. Seeing the magnificent herd of about fifteen giraffes before him, the horse entered into the excitement and needed no spur—down a slight hollow, flying over the dry buffalo holes, now over a dry watercourse ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... summoned to him. King Olaf had ever about him twelve of the wisest men; they sate with him over judgments and counselled him in difficulties; and that was no easy task, for while the King liked it ill if judgment was perverted, he yet would not hear any contradiction of himself. When they were met thus in council, the King took the word, and bade Emund be ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... for Jesus Christ his sake, which is merely a pleonastic one, is the only foundation for this assertion. As the idea, however, is not only one of the commonest, but also one of the greatest errors in etymology, the following three statements are given for the sake of contradiction ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... its zenith. The 'Dramatic Lyrics' were published in 1842, possibly about the time that Dickens was returning from his triumphant American tour. These showed, Chesterton thinks, the two qualities most often denied to Browning, passion and beauty. They are the contradiction to critics, other than ours, who regard Browning as wholly a philosophic poet, which is to say a poet who wrote poetry not for its own sake but for purely utilitarian purpose; not that poetry of the emotions is not useful—it is on a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... dependence of one part of the world upon another part. Oddly enough, this interdependence has been intensified under a system of society that deified competition. The conflicts, inevitably resulting from such a contradiction, have taken a terrible toll in life and well-being, and ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... of truthful contradiction we affirm that the homes, public assemblies, and streets of all our large cities abound to-day with living illustrations and proofs of the widespread existence of this physical and moral scourge. An enervated and stunted manhood, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... To admit to full political rights, in deference to abstract theory, persons who, whether from deficient education or want of experience as citizens of a free country, are obviously unfit to exercise political power is, or may be, dangerous to any commonwealth. Some way out of the contradiction has to be found, and the democratic Southern States of the North American Union and the oligarchical Republic of Hawaii (now (1899) annexed to the United States), as well as the South African Colonies, have all been trying to find such a way. The problem has in 1899 presented itself ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... germs of the strongest passions. These passions, like lentils, grew with time and crept around that heart, until they concealed the noble trunk they clung to and made it their own. Alvira was often crimsoned with the blush of passion; a gentle rebuke or a contradiction was sufficient to fire the hidden mine and send to the countenance the flash of haughty indignation. Whilst yet in her maidenhood she longed for distinction. Fame leaped before her ardent imagination as a gilded ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... register, wrote in the margin, "Pax, pax, inquit Propheta, et non est pax."[26] Charles was soon after allied with the abominable Bernard d'Armagnac, even betrothed or married to a daughter of his, called by a name that sounds like a contradiction in terms, Bonne d'Armagnac. From that time forth, throughout all this monstrous period—a very nightmare in the history of France—he is no more than a stalking-horse for the ambitious Gascon. Sometimes the smoke lifts, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... always in favour of the prerogative; that they must be often sent for to court, that the king may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since, how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point. For if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... only accompanied them to the door, but down-stairs to the street, where he stood for a moment watching them drive down the thoroughfare. Then he slowly returned, breathing heavily—invidious contradiction of his youthful assumption!—and shaking his head, as he mounted to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... inhabitable, the earlier Christian ages valued it only as uninhabitable, as a wilderness repelling society. In the earliest mediaeval landscapes, the effort to represent a wilderness that is there only for the sake of the hermits leads to the curious contradiction of a populous hermitage, every part of it occupied by figures resolutely bent on being alone, and sedulously ignoring the others. Humboldt quotes from the early Fathers some glowing descriptions of natural scenery, but they turn always upon the seclusion from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... in contradiction to what I have said before on the subject of individualism. The two things are so far from combating each other, that I can see how they agree. Equality of conditions, whilst it makes men feel their independence, shows them their own weakness: ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... doctor gravely. "As I heard you read that petition I thought of that. I assure you that I have verified, in another sphere of action, several analogous facts proving the unlimited influence one man may acquire over another. In contradiction to the opinion of my brethren, I am perfectly convinced of the power of the will regarded as a motor force. All collusion and charlatanism apart, I have seen the results of such a possession. Actions promised during sleep by a magnetized patient to the magnetizer have been scrupulously performed ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... became separated, and it was secretly carried away by some sorrowing member of his communion, and its supposed curative power was afterwards discovered and made known.[3] Mr Roby cites no authority for this contradiction of the original tradition. The judge who presided at the trial was Sir Henry Yelverton of the Common Pleas, who died on the 24th ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you says something that the other thinks is not true, let it pass without contradiction; it is foolish to dispute about it. And so if one has any thing that the other wants, it is generally much better to wait for it than to quarrel. It is hateful to quarrel. Besides, it spoils your beauty. When children are quarrelling they look like ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a chain once her father's: but she had never known her father; and the necklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently part with. Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be superstitious and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a romantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most prosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of raising needful money. Gwendolen's dominant ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... contemporary chronicles of the last of the Incas—no historians go more rapidly from fact to fancy, from accurate observation to grotesque imagination; no writers omit important details and give conflicting statements with greater frequency. The story of the Incas is still in a maze of doubt and contradiction. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... few superiors; his men and women talk as they would talk in life and only in special instances are mouthpieces for the author's ideas—in this quite different from so many of Tolstoy's characters. Merejkowski has said without fear of contradiction that Dostoievsky is like the great dramatists of antiquity in his "art of gradual tension, accumulation, increase, and alarming concentration of dramatic action." His books are veritably tragic. In Russian ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... sixteen. But modern usage inclines to reject the use of the verb in the singular number, in these and similar phrases."—Improved Gram., p. 106. Among its many faults, this passage exhibits a virtual contradiction. For what "modern usage inclines to reject," can hardly be the fashion in which any ideas "are usually expressed." Besides, I may safely aver, that this is a kind of phraseology which all correct usage always did reject. It is not only a gross vulgarism, but a plain and palpable ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... that the Company has to pay to the Nawab, is that a trifle? Yes, my dear fellow, for I should like it to have to pay still more, to teach it how to leave this Factory, which is, beyond contradiction, the finest of its settlements, denuded of soldiers and munitions of war, so that it is not possible for us ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... men so often act in contradiction to their known interest; and in particular why they prefer any trivial advantage, that is present, to the maintenance of order in society, which so much depends on the observance of justice. The consequences ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... was not longer than a few seconds by the clock, gave him time to remember that as his mother's and his sisters' incomes were inalienable he was by so much the more free. He was by so much the more free to do the mad, romantic, quixotic thing, which might seem to be a contradiction of his past, but was not so much a contradiction of himself as people who knew him imperfectly might suppose. He was taken to be ambitious, calculating, shrewd; when all the while he knew himself to be—as most Englishmen are at heart—quixotic, romantic, and even ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... streams of fact or tendency which are commonly called undramatic. They were there in Shakespeare's time; but they have scarcely been there since until Shaw. I mean that Shakespeare, being interested in everything, put everything into a play. If he had lately been thinking about the irony and even contradiction confronting us in self-preservation and suicide, he put it all into Hamlet. If he was annoyed by some passing boom in theatrical babies he put that into Hamlet too. He would put anything into Hamlet which he really thought was true, from his favourite ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... What-ever-he-was-called should be dying of adenoids, but after all, here today, gone tomorrow, and all flesh is as grass, and what not, but that wasn't what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was this—and I say it confidently—without fear of contradiction—I say, in short, I am happy to be here on this auspicious occasion and I take much pleasure in kindly awarding the prizes, consisting of the handsome books you see laid out on that table. As Shakespeare says, there are sermons in books, stones ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... a contradiction, that you are!" was the exclamation of Harriet Mannering to her sister. And she continued, "You are not too proud to wear a cotton dress and coarse straw bonnet, and even to be seen in them by the very persons who knew us when we had a carriage; and yet you will ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... to all who listen and his narration or statement may be likened to those fables and myths and fairy tales in which is exemplified the charm of figurative language. When a person says what is false and is convinced that all who hear him know it is false, the contradiction between his mind and its expression is said to be material, and not formal; and in this the essence of a lie ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... to desert him when he wrote verse; and his judgment told him that long romantic poems depend more upon incident than inspiration,—and that, to utter the poetry of romance, lyrics would suffice. Hence his theory, clearly fitted to his own limitations, that "a 'long poem' is a flat contradiction in terms." The components of The Raven are few and simple: a man, a bird, and the phantasmal memory at a woman. But the piece affords a fine display of romantic material. What have we? The midnight; the shadowy chamber with its tomes of forgotten lore; the student,—a modern ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... It is an explicable contradiction of the American birthright that to some of our people the military establishment is at best a necessary evil, and military service is an extraordinary hardship rather than an inherent obligation. Yet these illusions are rooted deep in the American tradition, though ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... what he said, and he knew he was unjust; but the moral atmosphere between Steve and himself had become permeated with distrust and dislike. Unhappy miasmas floated hither and thither in it, and poisoned him. When with Stephen he hardly recognized himself: he did not belong to himself. Sarcasm, contradiction, opposing ideas, took possession of and ruled him by the forces of antipathy, just as others ruled him by the forces of ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... before us are remarkable productions to emanate from a 'journeyman mason.' That this is indeed the case, no one who reads them can doubt; but in characterizing the poetical talent they display, our observations are meant to be quite absolute; and we aver, without fear of contradiction, that the pieces contained in the humble volume before us bear the stamp and impress of no ordinary genius; that they are bespangled with gems of genuine poetry; and that their unpretending author well deserves—what he will doubtless obtain—the countenance ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... be called the nature of the phenomenal world of colour, sound, taste, and smell. But we must also remember that the Upani@sads do not represent so much a conceptional system of philosophy as visions of the seers who are possessed by the spirit of this Brahman. They do not notice even the contradiction between the Brahman as unity and nature in its diversity. When the empirical aspect of diversity attracts their notice, they affirm it and yet declare that it is all Brahman. From Brahman it has come ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... term of the ultimatum would render nugatory the proposals made by the Austro-Hungarian Government to the powers, and would be in contradiction to the very ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Field-marshals, and the only one of that rank who has no crimes to reproach himself with. This man was the soldier of a despot; but was not his action that of a man of honour, which a stanch republican of ancient Rome would have been proud of? Who can explain this contradiction? ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... proportion between the natural and the supernatural, and it would be a contradiction to say that mere nature can span the chasm separating the two orders. To assume the existence of a strict meritum naturae for it, would be to deny the gratuity as well as the supernatural character of grace. To deny these would be to deny grace itself and with it the whole supernatural ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... proceed; fierce and scornful contradiction checked his speech, till a voice of thunder ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nearly, matters continued till a period not far back, when several inquiring minds, chiefly Germans, endeavoured to clear up the misconception, and to give the ancients their due, without being insensible to the merits of the moderns, although of a totally different kind. The apparent contradiction did not intimidate them. The groundwork of human nature is no doubt everywhere the same; but in all our investigations, we may observe that, throughout the whole range of nature, there is no elementary ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... is only a preliminary examination, and I confess that, so far, he comes well out of it, for imagination can hardly understand such a depth of deceit. I watched him closely the whole time, and I could discover no sign of alarm, no contradiction, in either face or language; if guilty, he must be the greatest hypocrite that ever existed. But I shall neglect nothing: if a criminal is allowed to flatter himself with impunity, he frequently forgets to be prudent, and I have seen many betray themselves when they thought they had nothing to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... matter, thinking over the results of certain combinations which he can impose upon it, is himself a living miracle, proving that there is something beyond that mass of dead matter of which he is thinking. His very thought is in itself a contradiction to the idea that there is nothing in existence but dead matter. Science can do little positively towards the objects of this society. But it can do something, and that something is vital and fundamental. It is to show that what we see in the world ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... on; thinking sometimes of the cosy parlor behind; sometimes of the home in front; wondering whether Maggie, in flat contradiction of her father's orders, would be up to welcome them; or whether only Owd Bob would ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... replied, "except where some structural contradiction is involved, like scoring thirteen with one throw of a pair of dice. Yes, he could have. The way the Flemings leave their garage open as long as any of the cars are out, anybody could have sneaked into the house from the garage, and gone up from the library to the gunroom. The ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... circulating said maniac calumny. Why did not this base Plebeian, anterior to his giving publicity to the tartaric nausea that rankled at his gloomy heart, forward the corroding philippic, and bid defiance to my contradiction? No, no; he knew full well that with his scanty stock of English ammunition scattered over the sterile floor of his literary magazine, he could not have the effrontery, impudence, or presumption to enter the list of philosophical and scientific disputation with one who has traversed the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... Oh!" and the Bishop's right hand was elevated to his lips, in the attitude of a person drinking. "Yes, yes. Well, I cannot say I am entirely ignorant of that affair. Sir Jeremy's lady assured me she knew, beyond contradiction, that my Lord Oxford once ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... nobly in their cause, but the Suitors would have triumphed, and the institutional world of Ithaca would have gone to the dogs. At least its rescue could not have taken place through them. Such is the moral contradiction which now rises, and will continue to rise more and more distinctly to view throughout the ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... women," said the dowager in a tone, admitting of no contradiction; "the women who live alone from choice are cold and selfish; or have hurts to hide and are heart-sick of a world in which their illusions have been destroyed; or else they have never known companionship, and so never ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of expressing it could scarcely be called conciliatory; and even the easy humour of the King must have found it hard to brook such plain speaking from his Minister. It was fortunate, however, that Charles's sense of humour was sufficient to save his vanity from suffering under contradiction, except when his own personal ease was at stake. He might resent reflections on his behaviour to a mistress, but his pride was not wounded by being told that his statecraft was folly; it took at least a long course of such plain- speaking from his trusted Minister ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... today is probably better and broader than some of these glorious ancestors to whom so many take off their hats. Some of our forefathers in Europe were little less than pirates and buccaneers. Their descendants today knowing that they can make great claims with little fear of contradiction, extol the virtue of their forefathers and complacently take on a superior air. They have thought over the matter of birth so much that they really think ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... in contradiction of the suggestion, there came to her ears very clearly the sound of the hall door creaking on its hinges, and then a man's voice, shrill ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... for these statements; but I will furnish him with my authorities for the contradiction ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... temporary applause of men, or the expressions of public opinion, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that no true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors which promote the ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... inclining to much rain; yet, strangely enough, it was on such occasions very dry! When mother was "fair," (barometrically speaking, of course), father was naturally down at "changeable"! Yet there was wonderful contradiction in the readings of this barometer; for, when mother's countenance indicated "much rain," father sometimes went down to "stormy," and the tails of his ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... to how God looks. Anything that has not extension is as nothing to our imagination. Yet we know that our minds are real, though we cannot attribute extension to mind. Divisibility is of matter; if the infinite mind has parts, then infinity is divisible—which is a contradiction." ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... be known by the "mind," its secrets cannot be learned through the "mind." The proof is, the ceaseless strife and contradiction of opinion among those who trust in the mind. Much less can the "mind" know itself, the more so, because it is pervaded by the illusion that it truly knows, ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... all passengers, and, as others add, accustomed, out of insolence and wantonness, to stretch forth his feet to strangers, commanding them to wash them, and then while they did it, with a kick to send them down the rock into the sea. The writers of Megara, however, in contradiction to the received report, and, as Simonides expresses it, "fighting with all antiquity," contend that Sciron was neither a robber nor doer of violence, but a punisher of all such, and the relative and friend of good and just men; ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and motion told that. The fine, easy set of her head, the fire in the dark, heavy-lashed eyes, the sweep of dusky chin and cheek and throat certified the same story. She had, too, that coquettish hint of uncertainty, that charm of mystery so fatal in its lure to questing man. Even physically the contradiction of sex attracted. Slender and lissom as a fawn, she was yet a creature of exquisitely rounded curves. Were her eyes brown or black or—in the sunlight—touched with a gleam of copper? There was always uncertainty. But much more was there fire, ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... thoughts upon the work which is to be considered. Mr. Buckle has done a service to my mind, entirely analogous to that which would be done to a locomotive engine by a man who should throw a handful of sand into its polished machinery. I am prepared, from personal experience, to meet with a flat contradiction his statement that a man does you no harm by trying to cast doubt and discredit upon the doctrines you hold most dear. Mr. Buckle, by his article, has done me an injury. It is an injury, irritating but not dangerous. For the large assertions, which if they stated truths, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... The contradiction between the greatness of heart evinced in Sterne's novels and the narrow selfishness of the author himself is repeatedly noted by Lichtenberg. His knowledge of Sterne's character was derived from acquaintance ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... fin. We've fought, but we'll let that go. We wipe the slate clean and start in all over again on the Maggie II, and I'm free to state, without fear of contradiction, that in the last embroglio you showed up like four aces and a king with the entire company standin' pat. Scraggsy, you're a hero, and what you propose proves that you're considerable of a singed cat—better'n you look. We'll go freebootin' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... work with great minuteness, and, as I shall presently explain, he has selected his example with evident care. The idea of illustrating the vast mass of references in these volumes by a single instance is somewhat startling but to insinuate that a supposed contradiction pointed out in one note runs through the whole work, as he does, if I rightly understand his subsequent expressions, is scarcely worthy of Dr. Westcott, although I am sure he does not mean to be unfair. The example ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... the same principles, it appears that excessive salaries and emoluments, at the East India Company's charge and expense, have been lavished by the said Warren Hastings to sundry individuals, contrary to the general principles of his duty, and in direct contradiction to the positive orders of the Court of Directors: particularly, that, whereas by a resolution of the Court of Proprietors of the East India Company, and by an instruction of the Court of Directors, it was provided and ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not so far set his sister at defiance as to act in flat contradiction to her decree. Perhaps he himself did not think it well that the child should be brought downstairs again, after once having been put to bed. But, if Marian might not come down, Marian's father might stay up. As soon as his step sounded ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... be simultaneously vulgar and distinguished, or beautiful and ugly, or precise and vague, or tender and harsh. And common-sense will therefore tell you that to try to set up vital contradictions between matter and style is absurd. When there is a superficial contradiction, one of the two mutually-contradicting qualities is of far less importance than the other. If you refer literature to the standards of life, common-sense will at once decide which quality should count heaviest ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... news of my son?" she asked. The voice was low, but penetrating; and the calm, even tones told the story of a will too strong to tolerate opposition, or even contradiction. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... well. Of your Christianity I do not think much; the Saviour of the world should not desire to be the conqueror of the world. There is a hopeless contradiction in this in which ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... arrive Miss Trueman found herself regarding them even more critically than usual; an argumentative spirit rose in her, and her calm contradiction of Mrs. Ranger, who discussed with great subtlety the notable advantages—even from the artistic point of view—of the approaching spring when experienced in the city, in comparison with that be-rhymed season's vaunted country beauties, startled ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... same moment. Paul expresses it in the words, 'As dying, and, behold, we live; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.' And elsewhere thus, 'When I am weak, then am I strong.' The apparent contradiction has its reconciliation, not only in the union of the two lives, the human and the Divine, in the person of each believer, but specially in our being, at one and the same moment, partakers of the death and the resurrection of Christ. Christ's death was one of pain and suffering, a real and terrible ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... to hear her speaking in her old manner. He had not expected that. Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he should be sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry at the same time to hear her speaking in her old manner. The two ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to the eighth or even ninth century. In this Index we find sources for much of the literature which we have been considering in this chapter; we find the "Acts of Pilate," "Journeys of the Apostles," "Acts of Peter," "Acts of Andrew the Apostle," "The Contradiction of Solomon," "The Book Physiologus."[122] The material which gives the Blickling collection its peculiar character is largely apocryphal, and, in the light ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the most delightful scale; fully realising the prophetic Pott's anticipations about the gorgeousness of Eastern fairyland, and at once affording a sufficient contradiction to the malignant statements of the reptile INDEPENDENT. The grounds were more than an acre and a quarter in extent, and they were filled with people! Never was such a blaze of beauty, and fashion, and literature. There was the young lady who 'did' the poetry in the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... young man. Am I to understand that you only agreed with her from compassion for her invalid state, because you didn't want to irritate her by contradiction?" ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to put all one's Imperial relations, to say nothing of the Court officials, the Lord High Chamberlain, the Keepers of the Pedigree, the Diamond Sticks in Waiting, the Grooms of the Bedchamber, and the Valets Extraordinary—it was not fair to put their poor brains into such a quandary of contradiction and perplexity. And who shall tell the divine wrath of that august figure, obscurely visible in the recesses of ancestral homes, upon whose brow had descended the diadem of Roman Emperors, the crown ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... from their host produced a profound sensation upon the Pagans. The most tolerant of men, he was accustomed to listen to their wholesale denunciations of all things with a good natured smile, contenting himself with a calm contradiction now and then. Proverbial for his patience and good temper, he produced the greater sensation now when he gave vent to his anger upon a subject which not only Fenton but every guest present ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... you may perchance doubt that I can show a man of this city, so bereft of charity, so utterly oblivious to all the better feelings of humanity, but I shall before long call his name, and give such evidence of the truth of my assertions, as will be beyond contradiction ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... back as far as the time of Alexandrinus, and seems to have been held by many of the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries." He attributes this to the corrupting influence of Pagan philosophy (Hist. Theo., Vol. II., p. 374). This is not a direct contradiction to Eadie, but it shows that truth compelled this sturdy Calvinist to admit that non-Calvinistic views were held in the earlier and best period of the Church. The question, however, is one that must be decided by historical evidence, and not by ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... the sight of his house and grounds. But the chief discrepancy between the two reviewers is to be found in their appreciation of the commonplace and silly characters to be found in these novels. On this point the difference almost amounts to a contradiction, such as one sometimes sees drawn up in parallel columns, when it is desired to convict some writer or some statesman of inconsistency. The Reviewer, in 1815, says: 'The faults of these works arise from the minute detail which the author's plan comprehends. Characters of folly or simplicity, such ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... had seen a man insult her,—if he had seen her at that moment in peril of the slightest danger, the slightest bruise, he would have rushed forward like a madman, and died, saving her from that bruise. And he knew that: and with the strange self-contradiction of human nature, he soothed his own conscience by the thought that he loved her still; and that, therefore—somehow or other, he cared not to make out how—he had done her no wrong. Then he blustered again, for the benefit of ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... the philosophy, as fallacious in effect as it is base and cowardly in purpose, which sets the safety of a great nation above the happiness and prosperity of a small one. Within the last few weeks the wheel has turned full circle, and the almost inexplicable contradiction which has existed for so long between Unionism and Imperialism has been illuminated with a frank cynicism rare in our public life. It is being said that the freedom given to Canada cannot be given to Ireland, because the ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... learned from destiny. Already, mindful of the promise he had made de Gery, he exhibited a certain contemptuous coldness for the hungry herd that fawned servilely about his heels, and seemed to have adopted deliberately a system of peremptory contradiction. He called the Marquis de Bois-l'Hery "my good fellow," sharply imposed silence on the Governor, whose enthusiasm was becoming scandalous, and was inwardly making a solemn vow that he would rid himself as speedily as possible of all that begging, compromising horde of bohemians, when an excellent ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... contradiction which appears, relates to the boats which were sent to the assistance of the Hannibal. Captain Ferris says, "The Admiral, having previously made my signal of recall, sent a boat from the Caesar, and another ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... writing, simply, but beautiful writing; hence, to say, "His calligraphy is wretched" is equivalent to saying, "His excellent writing is poor," which is a contradiction of terms. ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... Lord commanded him; and he took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation. And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses." These scriptures furnish a palpable contradiction of the first assumption, that is—that the Lord gave a special permission to enslave the seven nations. The Lord ordered that they ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... whether wrought out through a mixed government, as in England, or wrought out as here by the people themselves, and cast into representative forms. And now we see before us the anomaly, the mortifying contradiction, that it is in Great Britain, and not in the republic of the United States, with our venerated Declaration of Independence, that the great principles of Liberty and Fraternity are practically carried out. I do not mean to reflect upon any person or persons ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... when it has delivered an adverse opinion which by all human lights is subsequently proved to have failed, it is undistinguishable from prejudice, in respect of its determination not to be corrected. Nay, the very possibility of contradiction or disproof, however remote, communicates to this feminine judgment from the first, in nine cases out of ten, the weakness attendant on the testimony of an interested witness; so personally and strongly does the fair diviner connect herself ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... unmerited deprivation of the order of the Bath—it is impossible to speak without emotion. I have but one course now left to pursue, namely, to show that the charge of the Lord Chief Justice, on which he directed the jury to decide, was not only unsupported by, but was in direct contradiction to, the evidence on which it professed to be founded. This is the best course to pursue both in justice to the learned judge and to myself. Either I am unfit to sit in this House, or the judge has no right to his place on the bench. I have courted investigation ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... vehicle in which the poetry is conveyed. There is an ambiguity in the word poetry, which is taken to signify both the talent itself, and the written composition which is the result of it. Thus there is an apparent, but no real contradiction, in saying a poem may be but partially poetical; in some passages more so than in others; and sometimes not poetical at all. We only maintain—not that writers forfeit the name of poet who fail at times to ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... trains the mind to discern true from false; and Ethics, which applies the knowledge thus gained and tested to practical life. The Stoic system of physics was materialism with an infusion of pantheism. In contradiction to Plato's view that the Ideas, or Prototypes, of phenomena alone really exist, the Stoics held that material objects alone existed; but immanent in the material universe was a spiritual force which acted through them, manifesting itself ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Father O'Grady says that you have passed out of our care, that all we can do is to pray for you. But I would like to do something more, and if you happen upon some passages in the books you are reading that seem in contradiction to the doctrines taught by the Catholic Church, I hope you will not conclude that the Church is without an answer. The Church has an answer ready for every single thing that may be said against her doctrines. I am not qualified to undertake the defence of the Church against anyone. ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... authority. The question being settled that the publication of the letters of Cortez as a verity would redound to the glory of the Church and the king, then it was also settled that there should be no contradiction published; and as these marvelous tales were spread abroad throughout Europe, with the masses of silver from the newly-discovered mines, men were prepared to believe almost any thing—even that rich vegetable mould, when saturated with water, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Frontenac, without concealment. As seen by her, he was vain and boastful, even in matters which concerned his kitchen and his plate. His delight in new clothes was childish. He compelled guests to speak admiringly of his horses, in contradiction of their manifest appearance. Worst of all, he tried to stir up trouble between the duchess ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... conclusion that domination by labor is impossible, and a contradiction in terms, seeing that all superiority which manifests itself among a people means cheapness, and tends only to impart force to all other nations. Let us banish, then, from political economy all terms borrowed from the military vocabulary: to fight with equal weapons, to conquer, to crush, to stifle, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... time in the development and enunciation of his ideas, we must remember that he confessed that he was baffled by many of Bergson's notions. James certainly neglected many of the deeper metaphysical aspects of Bergson's thought, which did not harmonize with his own, and are even in direct contradiction. In addition to this Bergson is no pragmatist, for him "utility," so far from being a test of truth, is rather the reverse, a synonym ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... revelation. It was apparently for Sarah to come more into view; he was in that case there at her service. She did however, as meanwhile happened, come more into view; only she luckily came at the last minute as a contradiction of Sarah. The occupant of the balcony was after all quite another person, a person presented, on a second look, by a charming back and a slight shift of her position, as beautiful brilliant unconscious ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... glanced at them, declared that they were not framed by Cardan at all, but by Giovanni Colla. Colla, he declared, had sent him one of these questions for solution some two years ago. Another, he (Tartaglia) had given to Colla, together with a solution thereof. Juan Antonio replied by way of contradiction—somewhat lamely—that the questions had been handed over to him by Cardan and no one else, wishing to maintain, apparently, that no one else could possibly have been concerned in them, whereupon ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... this country is, that when a Mason has been expelled by his lodge, the Grand Lodge may restore him to the rights and privileges, but cannot restore him to membership in his lodge. My own opinion, in contradiction to this, is, that when a Grand Lodge restores an expelled Mason, on the ground that the punishment of expulsion from the rights and privileges of Masonry was too severe and disproportioned to the offense, it may or may not restore him to membership ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... how we minimise the fact itself. To us, as a society, it is the fact itself that matters, and not what Mrs. Coombe said about it. That, to a certain extent, may be her own affair. But I hold, and I say it without fear of successful contradiction, that no member of a community can disregard the Sabbath in a public way without affecting the community at large. That is why I feel justified in criticising Mrs. Coombe's behaviour. And I hope," here she raised a piercing eye and let ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... said that the expectation would not be realized, or denounced the proceedings of those who made the promise? All else, of course, was of secondary importance at the time, in comparison with the expectations and the hopes placed before you; any contradiction appeared to be nothing but sheer obstruction and malignity, while the proceedings described seemed to be of incredible importance ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... She asked who it was in a drowsy voice—she was happily just sinking into slumber. Zillah occupied a chair near her. I was not wanted for the moment—and I was glad, for the first time in my experience at Dimchurch, to get out of the room again. By some contradiction in my character which I am not able to explain, there was a certain hostile influence in the sympathy that I felt for Oscar, which estranged me, for the moment, from Lucilla. It was not her fault—and yet (I am ashamed to own it) ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... nervous, restless, murmuring comment, muttering contradiction, clutching at himself with strange gestures reminiscent of hereditary instinct to rend his garments in moments of tribulation. That was something in recompense for the meditations of yesterday morning. But as one swallow ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... of philosophers to-morrow at ten punctually; muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... great respect is due) was, as far as relates to the point of the case, to this effect:—He had an "unconquerable repugnance" to assuming that the judges had passed sentence on the good counts only; for it was in direct contradiction to the notorious fact, that the judges had pronounced certain counts to be good; and it was also against the common probability of every case. He admitted the general opinion of the profession to have long been, that a general judgment, if supported ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various |
