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Apologist   /əpˈɑlədʒəst/   Listen
Apologist

noun
1.
A person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution.  Synonyms: justifier, vindicator.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Apologist" Quotes from Famous Books



... omnipotence and omniscience allows this Church to be hated, then how do the religionists assume that their god is a god of love? The author tells us that He is a god of hate, such a god as was conceived of by the barbarians and the Hebrews—cruel, vengeful, and monstrous. Does not this apologist confuse his god with his devil? Then again, has it not occurred to this apologist that he is in all futility attempting to prove something which is a contradiction within itself? If God is, and is benevolent, is it not logical to assume (since the theologians assume ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... fact represent the matter of actual discussions between the two principal interlocutors, celebrated orators of the Flavian period, to which as a young student Tacitus had himself listened. One phrase dropped by Aper, the apologist of the modern school, is of special interest as coming from the future historian; among the faults of the Ciceronian oratory is mentioned a languor and heaviness in narration—tarda et iners structura in morem annalium. ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... laid hold of our adversaries, and made them yield to us, and join with us, and confess to the Truth, before they had any distinct and discursive knowledge of our doctrines."—The Quakers, then, according to this eminent Apologist for them, had, from the first, definite doctrines, which might be distinctly and discursively known. What were they? They hardly amounted to any express revolution of existing Theology. In no essential ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... life which flourish upon it. Finding the supposed sacred and infallible records untrustworthy in one regard, he began to question their veracity at other points. Being of a critical frame of mind, he took the records rather more literally than a sympathetic, allegorical apologist would have done, although it cannot be said that he used much historical insight. After having studied the sacred texts for purposes of writing or having translated other men's studies on Moses, David, the Prophets, Jesus, ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing

... about the country too: he opened art exhibitions, laid the foundation of academies, and acted in a general sense as the spokesman and apologist of art. Hillbridge was proud of him in his peripatetic character, but his fellow-townsmen let it be understood that to "know" Keniston one must come to Hillbridge. Never was work more dependent for its ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... walls, plank and iron truckle beds, rough plank and iron trestle tables, rough plank and iron benches, rough plank and iron boxes clamped to bedsteads, all bore the same uniform impression of useful ugliness, ugly utility. The apologist in search of a solitary encomium might have called it clean—save around the hideous closed stove where muddy boots, coal-dust, pipe-dottels, and the bitter-end of five-a-penny "gaspers"[18] rebuked ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... reality of diabolical interposition. Nor can the most favourable criticism exonerate them from the reproach at least of having witnessed without protestation the barbarous cruelties practised in the name of heaven; and the eminent names of Bishop Jewell, the great apologist of the English Church, and of the author of the 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' among others less eminent, may be claimed by the advocates of witchcraft as respectable authorities in the Established Church. The 'judicious' Hooker affirms that the evil spirits are dispersed, some ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... counteract all the effects of negligence and inadvertence, to guide the pen of every transcriber to infallible accuracy, and to prevent his ever deviating into any casual error! Such miraculous intervention, we need not say, has never been pleaded for by any apologist of Christianity; has certainly never been promised; and, if it had,—since we see, as a matter of fact, that the promise has never been fulfilled,—the whole of Christianity would fall to the ground. But then, from a large induction, we know that the limits within which discrepancies ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... John, the real author of Rector Cop's address, i. 154; his flight from Paris, i. 155; his language respecting Francis I. and Charles V., i. 195; becomes the apologist of the Protestants, i. 198; his birth and training, ib.; studies at Paris, Orleans, and Bourges, i. 199; is a pupil of Melchior Wolmar, ib.; translates Seneca "De Clementia," i. 200; his flight to Angouleme, i. 201; traditions respecting his preaching, ib.; ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... this is an attack by a lower civilization upon a higher one. [Derisive cries.] As a matter of fact, the attack was begun by the civilization which calls itself the higher one. I am no apologist for Russia; she has perpetrated deeds of which I have no doubt her best sons are ashamed. What empire has not? But Germany is the last empire to point the finger of reproach at Russia. ["Hear, hear!"] Russia has made sacrifices for freedom—great sacrifices. Do you remember ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... her the ally, the accomplice, the apologist by turns of all the most sanguinary wretches who grasped at power in her distracted country—of Marat, when in a spasm of unusual energy La Fayette sought to suppress his abominable journal; of Robespierre, whose eventual triumph was to seal her own fate and that of all ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... as the other conspirators, died in that belief. There has not occurred, since that time, the least argument to prove that they were mistaken; can there be any reason at present to doubt the truth of their opinion? Camden, though a professed apologist for Mary, is constrained to tell the story in such a manner as evidently supposes her guilt. Such was the impossibility of finding any other consistent account, even by a man of parts, who was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... not the strength of character to swim, almost alone, against the social current. So I partake of the occasional snort and to that extent stand a self-admitted apologist for an offense which ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... Mr. Macaulay's brilliant history here and there falls into the same snare. No one but those who have tried it can be aware of the extreme difficulty of preventing the dramatic historian from degenerating into an apologist or heating into a sneerer; or understand the ease with which an earnest author, in a case like the present, becomes frantically reckless, under the certainty that, say what he will, he will be called a Jesuit by the Protestants, an ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... still beyond all doubt that Christianity has broken down, and that this breakdown has been brought home to everyone by the terrible catastrophe which has befallen the world. Can the most optimistic apologist contend that this is a satisfactory, outcome from a religion which has had the unopposed run of Europe for so many centuries? Which has come out of it worst, the Lutheran Prussian, the Catholic Bavarian, or the peoples who have been nurtured by the Greek Church? ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... subjects ("exuere patriam," Tacitus, Hist. v. 5), and to be constantly dissatisfied ("quibus praesentia semper tempora cum enormi libertate displicent," Vopiscus, Vit. Saturn. 7). This hostility continued in spite of the protestations of every apologist, and of the submissiveness and sincere patriotism of the early Christians. They were so far from recognising what their enemies so vaguely felt, that the empire could not stand in the presence of the new ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... Restoration, or of Burnet's habits of preserving memoirs of the incidents and characters around him, he might have conjectured their probable honors in after-times. But in poetry he would have classed Dryden the royalist far above Milton the republican apologist of regicide; and might, aping the fashions of the palace, have preferred to either the author of Hudibras together with the lewd playwrights who were the delight of a shameless court—hailing the last as ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... with Israel" (II Chron. 25:7), which was represented in his day by the hated Samaritans. The hatred engendered by the Samaritan feud explains many of the peculiarities of the Chronicler. He was, in fact, an apologist rather than a historian. Thus post-exilic institutions, as, for example, the temple song service with its guilds of singers, are projected backward even to the days of David, and the events of early Hebrew ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... In "l'Ostel de Courtoisie," Maupassant cultivates the usual abstractions of the modern Round Table: Distinction and Moderation; Fervor and Delicacy. We see him inditing love sonnets and becoming a knight of chivalry. The apologist of brutal pleasures has become a devotee of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... lesser nations. Even within the delegations of the Great Powers there were indignant murmurings against this indefensible and unheard-of treatment of allies. No man, whose mind was not warped by prejudice or dominated by political expediency, could give it his approval or become its apologist. Secrecy, and intrigues which were only possible through secrecy, stained nearly all the negotiations at Paris, but in this final act of withholding knowledge of the actual text of the Treaty from the delegates ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... he was no soft-tongued apologist; He spoke straightforward, fearlessly uncowed; The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist, And set in bold relief each dark hued cloud; To sin and crime he gave their proper hue, And hurled at ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... natives of Corinth, and that the command to cover the head and to keep silent in public was warranted, both because veiling the head and face was a Grecian custom, and because the women of Corinth were of notoriously bad character. In support of this theory our modern apologist quotes the testimony of numerous writers of antiquity who denounced Corinthian profligacy. But, setting aside the fact that the men of Corinth must always have been, at least, as bad as the women, and that a sorry case would be made out for Paul, if it were ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... attacking the principle of the Reformation, the passionate opponent of the Puritans and of Maurice, the ardent apologist ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... knowing, but we should say, at a rough guess, it may have 9000 or 10,000. It should be remembered, that from being an anti-sacerdotal journal it has become a priests' paper and the organ of priests; from being an opponent of the executive, it has become the organ and the apologist of the executive in the person of M. L. N. Buonaparte, and the useful instrument, it is said, of M. Achille Fould. Every body knows, says M. Texier, with abundant malice prepense, that Dr. Veron, the chief editor of the Constitutionnel, has declared that France ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... Parliament, busy with speculations on the character of the new Electorate. But, if his parliamentary work had been slight, he had considerable literary reputation, and had taken an active part, in the press, in discussions on the Irish question. The apologist of Danton, the champion of the Jacobin Club, he was the one English political writer who believed himself able to find in the throes of the French Revolution valuable examples of public policy. The figures of that terrible convulsion ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... famous, and perhaps the greatest, of the writers for whom Boileau acted as the apologist and the interpreter was MOLIERE. In the literature of France Moliere occupies the same kind of position as Cervantes in that of Spain, Dante in that of Italy, and Shakespeare in that of England. His glory is more than national—it is universal. Gathering within the plenitude of his genius ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... earnestness, used these arguments, he concluded, by plainly hinting to his wife that she had always been the apologist of the tailor, in all their disputes; and that she could not be so obstinately blind to the irrefragable reasoning he had urged, if she were not influenced by her old hankering after this fellow, and ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... culture, but of a devoted Christian heart; and was privileged with their intimacy to the end. Among them I cannot refrain from naming such noble Missionaries as Perkins, Smith, and Leupolt, French, Stuart, Welland, and Shackell, Owen, Humphrey, Budden and Watt, Hoernle, and Pfander—that grand apologist to the Mahometans—all of whose friendship I enjoyed, as well as that of the Author himself. If some of these were men the like of whom we may not soon look upon again—a galaxy of rare appearance—yet, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... with biographers to speak bitterly of this poor woman, and to pity More for his cruel fate in being united to a termagant. No one has any compassion for her. Sir Thomas is the victim; Mistress Alice the shrill virago. In those days, when every historic reprobate finds an apologist, is there no one to say a word in behalf of the Widow Middleton, whose lot in life and death seems to this writer very pitiable? She was quick in temper, slow in brain, domineering, awkward. To rouse sympathy for such a woman is no easy ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... (1648-1690).—Apologist of the Quakers, s. of Col. David B. of Ury, ed. at the Scots Coll. in Paris, of which his uncle was Rector, made such progress in study as to gain the admiration of his teachers, specially of his uncle, who offered to make ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... whitewashing. extenuation; palliation, palliative; softening, mitigation. reply, defense; recrimination &c 938. apology, gloss, varnish; plea &c 617; salvo; excuse, extenuating circumstances; allowance, allowance to be made; locus paenitentiae [Lat.]. apologist, vindicator, justifier; defendant &c 938. justifiable charge, true bill. v.. justify, warrant; be an excuse for &c n.; lend a color, furnish a handle; vindicate; exculpate, disculpate^; acquit &c 970; clear, set right, exonerate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... taught. Nor was Plato ever punished on account of his unbelief, and though he, as well as his master, Sokrates, became obnoxious to the dominant party at Athens, this was due to political far more than to theological motives. At all events, Plato, the pupil, the friend, the apologist of Sokrates, was allowed to teach at Athens to the end of his life, and few men commanded greater respect in the best ranks of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... Russian ladies unite in their persons great acquirements, combined with amiability and strict morality; also a species of Oriental charm which so much captivated Madame de Stael." It will occur to most that the apologist of the Russian fair "doth protest too much." The poet in all probability wrote the offending stanza in a fit of Byronic "spleen," as he would most likely himself have called it. Indeed, since Byron, poets of his school seem to assume this virtue ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... minor classics of our language. And at his third period, the ruling criticism of the hour was aghast at faults which now entertain us, and was blind to sterling merits which we are now ready to acknowledge. Shortly after his death, perhaps his most brilliant apologist was fain to admit that if Disraeli had been undistinguished as a speaker, his novels would have been "as the flowers of the field, charming for the day which was passing over them, and then forgotten." It is only since the beginning of the present century that a conviction has ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... sole view of instructing capitalists how to get rich at the cost of, or at least in total disregard of, the welfare of their fellow-citizens? I noticed too that quite a common subtitle used for these so-called works on political economy was the phrase 'The Science of Wealth.' Now what could an apologist of private capitalism and the profit system possibly have to say about the science of wealth? The A B C of any science of wealth production is the necessity of co-ordination and concert of effort; whereas competition, conflict, and endless cross-purposes were the sum and substance of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy



Words linked to "Apologist" :   proponent, advocator, advocate, apology, vindicator, exponent



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