"Combativeness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... newspaper. Jonathan Byrne Gulmore, as he always signed himself, was about fifty years of age; his heavy frame was muscular, and the coarse dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous health. There was both obstinacy and combativeness in his face with its cocked nose, low irregular forehead, thick eyebrows, and square jaw, but the deep-set grey eyes gleamed at times with humorous comprehension, and the usual expression of the countenance was far from ill-natured. As he ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... often seen lawyers, whose profession requires of them a good deal of combativeness, shrewdness, a certain degree of skepticism, and a large amount of hard-headed determination to win, no matter what the cost, handicapped by extreme sensitiveness, sympathy, generosity, non-resistance, credulity, humility, and self-consciousness. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... a peculiarity about which there could be no mistake. That was in the matter of music. So, after questioning the Professor about various indifferent points, moral and intellectual, such as reverence, combativeness, secretiveness, language, ideality, etc., I asked incidentally something also about tune and music. The answer was such as might be safely given in regard to ninety-nine out of every hundred persons—some vague, indefinite epithet that would apply to ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... to the minor in the carol, that is always the major strain in Indian life, but we mistake much if we do not hear more jubilant notes in the scale. When Runs-the-Enemy was asked to tell the story of his boyhood days all the fierce combativeness expressed in gesture, voice, and piercing eye gave way to a tender and gentle calm. The warrior became a child, living again the life of a child with all the spontaneous gleefulness of a child. We may now have one ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... course what was sought has been found. Romanes asserts that the lowest order of animals, the annelids, only show traces of fear; a little higher in the scale, in insects, are found social instincts such as industry, combativeness, and curiosity; another step higher, fishes exhibit jealousy, and birds, sympathy; then in carnivorous animals follow cruelty, hate, and grief; and lastly, in the anthropoid apes, remorse, shame, and a sense of the ridiculous, as well as deceit. ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... come to see her? Constance was asking herself. The very insolence of the man seemed to arouse all the combativeness of her nature. The detective had thought to "throw a scare into" her. She turned suddenly and swept out ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... snowstorm of three days' duration, and the brunt of it had fallen by right of seniority on the captain and his second officer. Luke FitzHenry was indefatigable, and, better still, he was without enthusiasm. Here was the steady, unflinching combativeness which alone can master the elements. Here was the true ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... are, and they are calculated in a remarkable degree to reassure and animate his fellow Catholics and their friends, and it is for them in reality, rather than for the Lords of the Council, that the message is composed. If the composition has a fault it is its combativeness; and in effect, though this drawback was not felt at the time, it was later. Subsequent missionaries found it best to adopt a policy of far greater secrecy and silence. If, however, we remember that Campion intended ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... experience, and emotions of an individual soldier may perhaps be interesting to the reader. I have never been a lover of war or of strife, and have never been disposed to seek a fight or quarrel. But when once engaged in or challenged to battle all the combativeness in human nature is at once aroused. It is then difficult, if not morally impossible, to decline the challenge. At all events, that question is not even thought of at times. One of the most difficult lessons a commander ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... unrestrained self-expression in an artistic guise. The boldness and energy with which "he gave voice to his hidden self" were so novel, so surprising, that his melodies at once awoke an echo. This subjectivity is his Jewish birthright. It is Israel's ingrained combativeness, for more than a thousand years the genius of its literature, which throughout reveals a predilection for abrupt contrasts, and is studded with unmistakable expressions of strong individuality. By virtue of his subjectivity, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... words that were in the air when she chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her Northern ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... doing as if he also were going into the schools in May; for Hardy had a way of throwing life into what he was talking about, and, like many men with strong opinions, and passionate natures, either carried his hearers off their legs and away with him altogether, or aroused every spark of combativeness in them. The latter was the effect which his lecture on the Punic Wars had on Tom. He made several protests as Hardy went on; but Grey's anxious looks kept him from going fairly into action, till Hardy stuck the black pin, which represented Scipio, triumphantly in the middle ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Combativeness—The Charibs, King Robert Bruce, General Wurmser, David Haggart, and generally in those who have murdered from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... supposing me familiar with the early history of Poland. I am ashamed to say I know nothing about it, and my zeal for the cause of its people is an ignorant sentimentalism—partly, perhaps, mere innate combativeness that longs to strike on the weaker side, and partly, too, resentful indignation at the cold-blooded neutrality observed by all the powers of Europe while that handful of men were making so brave a stand ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man should continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness, forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with causality, with constructiveness,—so, in short, with every organ, whether representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the Principia of human action, the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... form, was truly so in spirit. I acquired the habit of looking on the characters and capabilities of men as the result of their organism. A hot and impulsive temper was checked by the reflection that it was beneath the dignity of human nature to allow a rush of blood to the organs of "combativeness" and "destructiveness" ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... the military classes, since they inherit the blood and habits of conquerors, naturally love war and their irrational combativeness is reinforced by interest; for in war officers can shine and rise, while the danger of death, to a brave man, is rather a spur and a pleasing excitement than a terror. A military class is therefore always recalling, foretelling, and meditating ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... It was a pleasant relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... The sight of Peter John roused every instinct of combativeness which he possessed, and that was by no means small, but a laugh from Hawley restored a measure of self-possession, and quietly and without a word he seated himself on the table by the side ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... that sort always have courage," observed Gabriella contemptuously, and despised herself for the remark. What was the matter with her this afternoon? Why did this man arouse in her the instinct of combativeness, the fever of opposition? Was it all because she suspected him of a vulgar intrigue with a shopgirl? And why had she decided so positively that Alice was vulgar? Certainly, she, a dressmaker, should be the last ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... points, to teach the brotherhood of man as an economical as well as a moral and religious truth; to spread the belief that war between any two nations is a general calamity to the civilized world; that it is as unchristian and inhuman to rouse national combativeness as to rouse individual combativeness, as absurd to associate honor with national wrong-doing as with individual wrong-doing; and that peace among nations, as among individuals, is, and can only be, the product of general reverence ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... of integrity, with a good deal of combativeness in their make up, and not noted for polished address. The following story is told of one of the Keillor boys: One morning when taking a load of port to the fort, at the time the Eddy rebels were at Camp Hill, he was met by a young man on horseback. The young man, after eliciting from Mr. Keillor ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... elasticity and sympathy are the first of duties, and that if we embark upon the crusade of joy, we must do it expecting to find many kinds of joy at work in the world, and some which we cannot understand. We may of course mistrust destructive joy, the joy of selfish pleasure, rough combativeness, foolish wastefulness, ugly riot—all the joys that are evidently dogged by sorrow and pain; but if we see any joy that leads to self-restraint and energy and usefulness and activity, we must ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... feudal ages disappeared, the soldierly blood retained the fighting instinct, and turned it into moral regions. The sense of adventure is impelled to satiate itself, and the Pilgrim's Progress is a clear enough proof that the old combativeness was all there, revelling in danger, and exulting in the thought that the human being was in the midst of foes. Sin represented itself to the Puritan as a thing out of which he could get a good deal of fun; not the fun of yielding to it, but the fun ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... qualities of the Englishman as I appreciate the vital qualities of the bee, I do not guarantee the Englishman against being, like the bee (or the Canaanite) smoked out and unloaded of his honey by beings inferior to himself in simple acquisitiveness, combativeness, and fecundity, but superior to ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... along!" Washington declared. "I always did want a diamond ring, an' I knows a little colored gal that wants one, too. I'm goin' all right! This suttenly am th' most kloslosterous conjunctivity of combativeness that I ever sagaciated!" and he began to do a ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... Arctomys Spermophilus Parryi, after the great arctic voyager. He says,—"My own experience of those industrious little warriors tended to prove that they possessed a strange combination of sociality and combativeness. Industrious they most certainly are, as is shown by the complicated excavation of their subterranean cities; besides which, every feather and hair of bird and animal found in the vicinity of their dwellings, is made to contribute its iota of warmth and comfort to ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey's combativeness ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... very orthodox notions with respect to the divine right of Kings. From them the Quakers drew their most zealous champions; men who, in renouncing the "carnal weapons" of their old service, found employment for habitual combativeness in hot and wordy sectarian warfare. To this day the vocabulary of Quakerism abounds in the military phrases and figures which were in use in the Commonwealth's time. Their old force and significance are now in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... well,—but what means them stops?" Alas! they meant the rebellion of tongue and lips against every difficult letter, a t, or a p, or a far too current s. And so I came to the wise conclusion that I was not to be a parson. And perhaps it's as well I'm not; for my natural combativeness would never have tolerated my bishop or my rector, or even the parish churchwarden, specially in these days of Ritualism and Romanism. I was thus thrown back upon myself: and I now see gratefully and humbly how I was being schooled and ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sort of combativeness she had, but it was combativeness with the edge taken off. It served to direct her choice of topics, but not to give asperity or polemical form to her discourses. Suddenly introduced to the very heart of Vanity Fair, she had caught her first inspiration by opposition, and this led ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Cynthia and Molly had both spoken of the brothers with familiar regard, implying considerable intimacy; their flowers had been preferred to his on the occasion of the ball; most people spoke well of them; and Mr. Preston had an animal's instinctive jealousy and combativeness against all popular young men. Their 'position'—poor as the Hamleys might be—was far higher than his own in the county; and, moreover, he was agent to the great Whig lord, whose political interests were ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... do with the transmutationists, and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the orthodox—thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness." ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a ready resort to violence. ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... and surprising energy—intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith—and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon—a sort of Young Love among the thorns—when the Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... of combativeness became enlarged. He sprang at the boy, grasped him by the waist, and would have thrown him down stairs, had not a movement the ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... Kao, the nature of man at birth is positively evil. He supports this view by the following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a love of gain for his own personal enjoyment. His conduct is distinguished by selfishness and combativeness. He becomes a slave to envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the influence and guidance of teachers, are absolutely necessary to good government and the well-being of social life. Just as wood must be subjected to pressure in order to make it straight, and metal must ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... three things for a man to guard against: The lusts of the flesh in early years, The spirit of combativeness in middle-age, And ambition as the years go on. There are three things to command your reverence: The ordinances of Heaven, Great men, and the words of the sages. There are three times three things ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... calmly amidst the storm, his eyes fixed on the green cloth. There were shouts of "You were not interrupted," "That's for the umpire to decide," "Play your game, Saunders," "Don't be bluffed." The old man stood up with the rest, and his natural combativeness urged him to take part in the fray and call for fair play. The umpire rose and demanded order. When the tumult had subsided, he sat down. Some of the High Fliers, ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... Instincts.—Among these are placed such instinctive tendencies as bashfulness, sympathy, the gregarious instinct, or love of companionship, anger, self-assertion, combativeness, etc. ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... after 'em,' answered Alfred with a fine spirit, and something in his attitude, in the ring of his voice, awoke that demon of combativeness which lies dormant in ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... many crotchets and too much combativeness to be popular. He spared no opinion or habit he did not like. He struck every angle within reach of him. In the state of society then existing in the mines there were many things to vex his soul, and keep him on the warpath. ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... sex-excitation effect. This series of six chords, which occur in some of the Wagnerian stuff; effect, a combined feeling of godlike isolation and despair. And these consecutive fifths—a sense of danger, anger, combativeness. You know, we could work out a whole range of emotional stimuli to fit the effects of ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... Alfred's combativeness had grown markedly since his making acquaintance with Mutimer. He had never excelled in the suaver virtues, and now the whole of the time he spent at home was devoted to vociferous railing at capitalists, priests, and women, his mother and sister serving for illustrations of the vices ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... satisfaction, passage d'armes[Fr], passage of arms, affair of honor; triangular duel; hostile meeting, digladiation[obs3]; deeds of arms, feats of arms; appeal to arms &c. (warfare) 722. pugnacity; combativeness &c. adj.; bone of contention &c. 713. V. contend; contest, strive, struggle, scramble, wrestle; spar, square; exchange blows, exchange fisticuffs; fib|!, justle[obs3], tussle, tilt, box, stave, fence; skirmish; pickeer[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... then more strongly, out of a chaos of vain, sick regrets, his combativeness, his deep-lying, indomitable determination, asserted itself—he would not fall like an over ripe apple into Simmons' complacent, waiting grasp. But to get, without resources, two hundred and fifty dollars by Saturday, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... He claimed, and established, his right to take part in certain examinations in his faculty,[26] and 'con mucho exceso' thwarted the designs of the famous Domingo Banez, whom he afterwards described as 'enemigo capital'.[27] His combativeness did him no immediate harm, for, in December 1561, he was elected Professor of Theology at Salamanca.[28] He was obviously not disposed to hide his light under a bushel, nor to perform his academic duties in a spirit of humdrum routine. Whatever he did, he did with all his might, and his ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... their entire freedom from affectation and from supernatural machinery. They breathe, too, an open-air spirit of liberty and enjoyment which was pleasing and comprehensible to the dullest intellect, and which made them, in the broadest sense, popular. The good-humored combativeness of the yeoman sympathized with every beating which Robin Hood received, and with every beating which he gave. In Robin's enmity to the clergy, in his injunction ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... their quicker perception and to their lack of egoism. "The man, being more self-absorbed than the woman, is often less alive than she to what is going on around."[1137] The man has a more stable nervous system than the woman. Combativeness and courage produce that stability; emotional development is antagonistic to it. "In proportion as the emotions are brought under intellectual control, in that proportion, other things being equal, will the nervous system become more stable."[1138] Ages of subjection are also ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... killed a large number of the Victory's officers and men who were on deck. The French made an attempt to board, but were thrown back in confusion and with tremendous loss. The instinct of domination and the unconquerable combativeness of our race is always more fiercely courageous when pressed to a point which causes others to take ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... she meant fight, and all his combativeness leapt, as it were, to meet hers. His eyes flashed in the gloom of ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... one with another, than they plainly showed by look, voice, and manner, the contempt they entertained for each other's work,—that men of science were never so happy as when trying to upset each other's theories;—that men of religious combativeness were always on the alert to destroy each other's creeds,—and that, in short, there was a very general tendency to mean jealousies, miserable heart-burnings ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Mr. M'Fadden, who seems preparing for a display of his combativeness, he adds, "Ye see, Mack, ye will lie, and lie crooked too! and ye will steal, and steal dishonourably; and I can lick a dozen on ye quicker nor chain lightnin? I can send the hol batch on ye-rubbish as ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... old spirit of combativeness, "isn't there any room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every family on the block might easily have specimens ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... matter how raw and rude a territory may be when it is admitted as a state into the Union of the United States, it is at once, by the popular belief, invested with all the dignity of manhood, and introduced into a system which, despite the combativeness of certain ardent spirits from the South, every American believes and maintains to be immortal. But how does the case stand with us? No matter how great the advance of a British colony in wealth and civilisation; ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... other sons of Ours. The training to be got here, as elsewhere, developed primarily, indeed, and all unconsciously, the first and greatest of requisites in life, whether for dog or man. And if, in some instances, evil characteristics, such as combativeness, selfishness, and the habit of bad language, became accentuated, in spite of the stern discipline of the place, their opposites—good temper, a light and happy disposition, and a civil tongue—received ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... misrepresentation which, unless I greatly mistake, is in store for you. Depend upon it you have earned the lasting gratitude of all thoughtful men. And as to the curs which will bark and yelp, you must recollect that some of your friends, at any rate, are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often and justly rebuked it) may stand ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin |
