"Contradict" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one thing above another, if there is such, that I like about you is that your beauty of heart and soul corresponds to your beauty of face—No; don't contradict. You have the highest ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... hastily at every bait that is held out," replied Britz, emphasizing each word. "All the evidence seems to contradict the theory that Collins is the murderer. He may have betrayed this woman. She may be yearning for revenge. But it does not ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... enough for me before I left Dartmouth and came back to Albert in London. The big things were all, not there to be shaken. The picture was fogged at certain points, but I had no doubt as to what it represented, and even the incredible details that seemed to contradict reason were composed and cleaned up when Michael Pendean's own temperament was brought ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... the old dame, in a tone which seemed to contradict my assertion. She then settled herself in her chair, and, after shaking her foot awhile, and fixing her piercing eyes upon me for some minutes, she commenced the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... escort supplies; but with his excitable brain we must remember that what he thought he saw and what he actually did see may be two very different things. A good many other people who were in Dresden at the time have let their pretty fancies run away with them; for their accounts of Wagner's doings contradict one another to such an extent that any attempt to reconcile them is futile. I must confess to a boundless distrust of "recollections" set down or spoken at any length of time after the event. Ask, reader, ask any of your friends to give an account ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... I shall live alone, quite alone as far as the heart is concerned, if those with whom I yearn to ally myself turn away from me. But enough of this; I have called you my friend, and I hope you will not contradict me. I trust the time may come when I may also call your father so. My God bless you, Mrs Bold, you and your darling boy. And tell your father from me that what can be done for his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... his sister; 'but I got so terrible a specimen of my uncle's determination of character, before I had been acquainted with him for much more than a week, that it taught me at what risk I should contradict his humour. I will tell you the circumstances; for it will better teach you to appreciate the romantic and resolved nature of his character, than anything which I could state ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... see the Mother Superior Marfa, who had given each of the visitors a bead purse; he recalled the hot, endless typically Russian arguments in which the opponents, spluttering and banging the table with their fists, misunderstand and interrupt one another, unconsciously contradict themselves at every phrase, continually change the subject, and after arguing for two or three hours, laugh and say: "Goodness knows what we have been arguing about! Beginning with one thing and ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... threats, the persons, who dispatched those messengers from England, resorted to other means to force Charles into the enterprise. They appointed the day for the outbreak: he was not able 'to send orders to contradict it:' so he felt constrained, 'with little noise,' to quit Cologne for Middleburg, to await there the ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... historian, upon condition of moral power being the only force in the universe. The very grandeur of his subject ministered a difficulty to Milton. The statement of a being of high intellect, warring against the supreme Being, seems to contradict the idea of a supreme Being. Milton precludes our feeling this, as much as possible, by keeping the peculiar attributes of divinity less in sight, making them to a certain extent allegorical only. Again, poetry implies the language of excitement; yet how ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... I sat at the social board time and again, grossly misinterprets my public actions; intimates all manner of dishonorable things, which I would fight at two paces rather than be guilty of; and it would be useless for me to write a public letter to explain or contradict. [Applause.] ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... since I came up here I have been told again by several different persons—something that I want you to help me to understand," she jerked herself upright, and stopped him with a swift gesture and the cry of: "I know! I know what you have been told; and I have nothing to say. I cannot contradict it." ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... too readily believed the report of Harry's loss. She resolved, at all events, not to credit it till she had heard directly from Captain Headland, and she fully believed that she should ere long receive intelligence from him, which would either contradict the report altogether, or strengthen their hopes that Harry, though he might have been in danger, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Have I not bidden ye beware of this great evil which should come to pass?—Evil for which there is no remedy,—none,—neither in the earth, nor the sea, nor the invisible comforts of the air! ... for God hath spoken, and who shall contradict the thunder of His voice! Behold the end is at hand of all the pleasant things of Al- Kyris,—the feasting and the musical assemblies, the cymbal- symphonies and the choir-dances, the labors of students and the triumphs of sages,—all these shall seem but the mockery of madness ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... donkey by his side, that there was more staunchness and kindness in little Emlyn than ever they had thought for. Even the ferryman who put them over the river declared that the doctor must have done Master Kenton a power of good, and Stead smiled and did not contradict him. ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... trust and confidence that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me;' for, if I did, I should almost damn all mankind for four thousand years. Such definitiohs of saving faith are, I fear, too narrow to be just, and too unguarded to keep out Solifidianism. To avoid such mistakes; to contradict no Scriptures; to put no black mark of damnation upon any man, that in any nation fears God and works righteousness; to leave no room for Solifidianism, and to present the reader with a definition of faith adequate to the ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... he calls divine, human, and satanical,—this Dr. Saravia had, by the help of Bishop Whitgift, made such an early discovery of their intentions, that he had almost as soon answered that Treatise as it became public; and he therein discovered how Beza's opinion did contradict that of Calvin's and his adherents; leaving them to interfere with themselves in point of Episcopacy. But of these tracts it will not concern me to say more, than that they were most of them dedicated ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... and venerate that which is repugnant to both: whence it is not wonderful that for the sake of increasing the admiration and veneration felt for Scripture, men strive to explain it so as to make it appear to contradict, as far as possible, both one and the other: thus they dream that most profound mysteries lie hid in the Bible, and weary themselves out in the investigation of these absurdities, to the neglect of what is useful. Every result of their ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... manner to make her tremble for such a situation as the present. Procrastination ceased to be possible. What now had happened must demand instant recognition of her rights, and that given, she assured herself the future held no terrors. Now he must marry her, or contradict his own record as a gentleman and a man ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... contradict the following facts, viz.: That the average cost of European roads is much greater than that of American roads; that the number of railroad employes per mile is much greater there than here; that much larger sums are expended for repairing and improving the roads, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... just made his fame, and the short tales were certain of a large welcome; but the account he gives of the failure of the earlier edition to produce a sensation (it had been published in two volumes, at four years apart), may appear to contradict my assertion that, though he was not recognised immediately, he was recognised betimes. In 1850, when The Scarlet Letter appeared, Hawthorne was forty-six years old, and this may certainly seem a long-delayed popularity. ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... that they ought to endeavour to obtain admittance to the edifice above, at any hazard respecting the inhabitants it might harbour; but the darkness, and the dead silence, that surrounded it, appeared to contradict the probability of its ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... from the time when, as a young man in 1585, he took delight in reading the Bible to the Indians of Virginia, down to the time that he made his remarkable will in 1621, not one word has been found in cor-roboration of these statements; but, on the contrary, many passages have appeared to contradict and disprove them. Let any one notice the numerous citations of the various books of the Bible in Raleigh's History, and he will surely fail to discover any evidence of Raleigh's being a Deist, or that Hariot had taught him ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... contradict your modesty there, if you will have it so; but you don't expect us clever Florentines to keep saying the same things over again every day of our lives, as we must do if we always told the truth. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... contradict you, Sieur, but test this lump;" and Cartier, as he spoke, handed him a nugget ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... this statement, and yet unable to contradict it, Pruyn continued his march for a minute or two in silence, while Miss Lucilla waited nervously for him to speak again. It was one of the few points in the round of daily existence on which she was prepared to give him battle. It was part ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... his hand to anything so unjust. He protested that the public would cry shame, would say John Massingbird had no human right to Verner's Pride, would suspect he had obtained it by fraud, or by some sort of underhand work. Mr. Verner replied that I—Matiss—could contradict that. At last ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... substituted. It may be imagined how the people stared, when an old gentleman, and moreover a major, declared upon his honour, that a great horse's tooth was his own; but having done so, politeness forbade they should contradict him, more particularly at the head of his own table, so they smothered their smiles as well as they could, and declared it was the most wonderful tooth they ever beheld: and instead of attempting to ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... formulas of criticism. His military joviality (he had served in the Royal Guard) seasoned conversation with so much point that women without any intellects proclaimed him witty, and the rest did not dare to contradict them. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... supposedly bloodthirsty Dahomey men and amazons, said to be the most peaceful and mild in Africa. The natives contradict themselves and tell a dozen different stories. The Exposition management greatly alarmed, and the investigation being pushed with vigor. Horrifying disclosures supposed ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... to contradict that. I felt that no misery would be equal to that of losing Olivia. But I did my best to comfort my mother, by promising to see Julia the next day and renew my engagement, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... Under its roots, away from the brook, was a hidden and roomy little house with hemlock tips drooping over its doorway for a curtain. "A pretty place for a den," I thought; "for no one could ever find you there." Then, as if to contradict me, a stray sunbeam found the spot and sent curious bright glintings of sheen and shadow dancing and playing under the fallen roots and trunk. "Beautiful!" I cried, as the light fell on the brown mold and flecked it with ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... threats thrown out by the extreme party, Lord Elgin, after a progress in Upper Canada in which he was accompanied by his family, made a short tour in the Western districts, the stronghold of British feeling, attended only by one aide-de-camp and a servant, 'so as to contradict the allegation that he required protection.' Everywhere he was received with the utmost cordiality; the few indications of a different feeling, on the part of Orangemen and others, having only the effect of heightening the enthusiasm ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... and Kreidl (i p. 544) assert, on the contrary, that the whirling of the individuals which they observed bore no definite relation to the time of day and apparently was not influenced in intensity thereby. Since the results of my own observations contradict many of the statements made by the latter authors, I suspect that they may not have watched their animals long enough to discover the truth. The systematic records which I have kept indicate that the mice remain quietly in their nests during the greater ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... has been telling me that I am very gay," she answered, not so much to give the duke the information as to contradict him. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... been thrown over by the lady who had promised to marry him had given a jerk forward to the sales; but when Mr. George Holland had been so idiotically blind to his best interests and (incidentally) the best interests of his publishers, as to contradict this suggestion of incipient martyrdom, and thus an excellent advertisement had been lost, and everyone was, in a week or two, talking about "The Quest of the Meteor-Bird," while only a few continued shaking their heads ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... most popular themes from the overtures of Auber, Donizetti or Flotow, who would be bold enough to point out a definite feeling on the subject of any of these themes? One will say 'love.' Perhaps so. Another thinks it is longing. He may be right. A third feels it to be religion. Who may contradict him? Now, how can we talk of a definite feeling represented when nobody really knows what is represented? Probably all will agree about the beauty or beauties of the composition, whereas all will differ regarding its subject. To represent something is to exhibit it ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... an Inglese! Ah—I see how it is—you are in the opposizione, and find it necessary to say this. It is most extraordinary, good Vito Viti, that these Inglese are divided into two political castes, that contradict each other in everything. If one maintains that an object is white, the other side swears it is black; and so vice versa. Both parties profess to love their country better than anything else; but the one that is out of power abuses ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to contradict my Prince, A Prince to whom I've been so late a Traitor; But, Sir, 'tis I alone am criminal, And 'twas I, Justly I thought provok'd him to this hazard: 'Tis I was rude, impatient, insolent, Did like a Madman animate his Anger, Not like a generous Enemy. Sir, when you weigh my Sorrows with this ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... student comes for his first lesson. I "try his voice." His tone is harsh, white, throaty and unsympathetic. It is not the singing tone and I tell him it is "all wrong." He does not contradict me but places himself on the defensive and awaits developments. I question him to find out what he thinks of his own voice, how it impresses him, etc. I find it makes no impression on him because he has no standard. He says he doesn't know whether he ought to like ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... world without being looked after. I can stay with you no longer; you will please, sir, to provide yourself with another servant."—"But Barton," said I, "I did not follow or watch you; I—"—"I beg your pardon, sir," he replied; "it is not for me to contradict; but you'll forgive me, sir, I would rather ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... pedantic Philistinism. Is Truth really in the cold white light, or in the shimmering interplay of the rainbow tints that fuse in it? Bah! Your Philistine critic will sum me up after I am dead in a phrase; or he will take my character to pieces and show how they contradict each other, and adjudge me, like a schoolmaster, so many good marks for this quality, and so many bad marks for that. Biographers will weigh me grocerwise, as Kant weighed the Deity. Ugh! You can only be judged by your peers or by your superiors, by the minds that circumscribe yours, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... should throw out imagery altogether and attempt to show that all natural thought goes on in terms of sensori-motor processes in the larynx." This view seems to me flatly to contradict experience. If you try to persuade any uneducated person that she cannot call up a visual picture of a friend sitting in a chair, but can only use words describing what such an occurrence would be like, she will conclude that you are mad. (This statement is based upon experiment.) Galton, ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... Valentine asked herself if this was really her mother? The haughty woman, who had always been such a worshipper of honor and duty, to contradict every word she had uttered during her life! Valentine could not understand ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... have treated her with a degree of violence in the hope of amending her failings. But having neither personal nor mental affection towards her sufficiently interesting to give himself the trouble to contradict her will in anything, he passed for one of the best husbands in the world. Lady Clementina went out when she liked, stayed at home when she liked, dressed as she liked, and talked as she liked without a word of ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... stating that a man, tried under the name of John Smith for stealing a watch, is no less a person than Basil Carruthers, Esq., of Ulverston Priory. As the solicitor of that family, and manager of the Ulverston property, I beg to contradict it. Mr. Carruthers, himself, informed me of his intention to go abroad. Without doubt his indignant denial will follow mine. I am, ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... of all. He studies his chief under all conditions, discovers his little foibles and vanities and feeds them sedulously. He masters codes, rules and regulations, standing orders, precedents and past correspondence, till it is dangerous to contradict him and always safe to trust him. In every difficulty he is at hand, clearing away perplexity and refreshing the "swithering" mind with his precision and assurance. He becomes indispensable. The collector ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... little countesses her sisters. Counts! every one of these wretches says he is a count. Guiscard, that stabbed Mr. Harvey, said he was a count; and I believe he was a barber. All Frenchmen are barbers—Fiddledee! don't contradict me—or else dancing-masters, or else priests." And so she ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... was some one who spoke to you of me," she continued calmly. "You need not trouble to contradict me. Hadn't you better hurry away before I have the chance to do you any harm? There is one young man I know, of a melodramatic turn of mind, who persists in looking upon me as a sort of siren, calling my victims on to the rocks. I expect that is the person with ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... To contradict the charge of prepossession to Lovelace, you offer never to have him without our consents: and what is this saying, but that you will hope on for our consents, and to wheedle and tire us out? Then he will always be in expectation while you are single: and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... of the head, and a touch of the wine at their lips, his tacit toast. "Oh, I think I do know you," said Celia Madden, calmly discursive. "Up to a certain point, you are not so unlike other men. If people appeal to your imagination, and do not contradict you, or bore you, or get in your way, you are capable of being very nice indeed to them. But that isn't a very uncommon quality. What is uncommon in you—at least that is my reading—is something which according to circumstances may be nice, or very much ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... little friend there could contradict that, I know," said Dick. "But we didn't come up here to discuss our wants and wishes. Suppose we look about a bit, and see the sights. Look, Miss Inna, that jutting rock yonder, by the sea, is Swallow's Cliff, and behind it is a little bay;" and ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... ago had condemned her brother heartily to his face—feels, as her husband addresses her, a perverse desire to openly contradict all that her honest judgment had led her to say to Beauclerk. That sense of indignation that was burning so hotly in her breast as Baltimore knocked at her door still stirs within her, but now its fire is directed ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and even if I should have had the worst Opinion in the World of my Pretentious Young Ladies before they appeared upon the Stage, I must now believe them of some Value, since so many People agree to speak in their ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... order and drawing his just doom on his own head; or else that pressure of outward forces, that sway of accident, and those blind and agonised struggles, which, taken alone, show him as the mere victim of some power which cares neither for his sins nor for his pain. Such views contradict one another, and no third view can unite them; but the several aspects from whose isolation and exaggeration they spring are both present in the fact, and a view which would be true to the fact and to the whole of our imaginative experience must in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Louis had been defeated, but, for a long time, conflicting reports were in circulation as to the fate of the leaders. The Prince of Orange, meanwhile, passed days of intense anxiety, expecting hourly to hear from his brothers, listening to dark rumors, which he refused to credit and could not contradict, and writing letters, day after day, long after the eyes which should have read the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... you were? But I will regret their absence, if I choose. And I regret the absence of Grouse, regret it very much; and if he did happen to be inextricably engaged in this unfortunate match, I say, and you may contradict me if you please, that he ought to have taken care that Slimsey dined here, to tell me all that ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... you to believe so, simply allowed you to believe so. What could a gentleman do under the circumstances? He couldn't contradict a lady." ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... full benefits of it were not reaped till some time after the Roman conquest. Even in the time of Strabo, the bulk of the trade still passed by Coptus to Myos Hormos. We are aware of a passage in this author, which, at first, sight seems to contradict the position we have laid down, and to prove, that at least in his time, there was a direct and not unfrequent navigation between the Red Sea and India. He expressly states, that in the course of six or seven years, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... sentence remarked that he had "a noble roll of tobacco for grating, very good." And in a later letter to Stella, May 24, 1711, he asked if she still snuffed, and went on to say, in sentences that seem to contradict one another: "I have left it off, and when anybody offers me their box, I take about a tenth part of what I used to do, then just smell to it, and privately fling the rest away. I keep to my tobacco still, as you say; but even much ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... churchly festival. But Ezekiel surely could hardly have had any motive for reproducing Leviticus xxiii. and Numbers xxviii. seq., and still less for the introduction of a number of aimless variations as he did so. Let it be observed that in no one detail does he contradict Deuteronomy, while yet he stands so infinitely nearer to the Priestly Code; the relationship is not an arbitrary one, but arises from their place in time. Ezekiel is the forerunner of the priestly legislator in the Pentateuch; his pence and people, to some ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... "I hate to contradict a lady, but you never murdered him at all. This man here murdered him, and I've got ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... Becky is thought to have added circumstances to the story, so that it came from that cause to be discredited of late. It is almost forgotten now, and we never believed it at all; but it certainly is an odd coincidence that she should have told it of a man who never came back to contradict her, and who really did die, it ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... have always been exceedingly kind to me," he remarked, looking straight between his horse's ears. "Under the circumstances you mention, if you were to assert that Lord Blenavon was at Braster Grange I do not think that I should contradict you." ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which the Antwerp deputies were to be answered, by giving them, namely, assurances that to transplant the Spanish inquisition into the provinces would be as hopeless as to attempt its establishment in Naples. He renewed his desire that Philip should contradict the story about the half dozen heads, and he especially directed him to inform Montigny that Berghen had known of the new bishoprics before the Cardinal. This, urged Granvelle, was particularly necessary, because the seigniors were irritated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the postillion, "if you wish to be thought such, I am far too civil a person to contradict you, especially after ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Catharine's residence. Henshaw therefore announced to the anxious smith that his friend the glover was secure in the Highlands; and though he affected to be more reserved on the subject of Catharine, he said little to contradict the belief that she as well as Simon shared the protection of the Clan Quhele. But he reiterated, in the name of Sir Patrick, assurances that father and daughter were both well, and that Henry would best consult his ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... to meddle with everything. The custom-house may be made to keep him from reading dangerous books, but he'll be sure to take the change out of the laws of the kingdom. He'll begin to inquire whether they are good or bad, whether they accord with or contradict one another, whether they are obeyed or broken. No sooner can he calculate without the help of his fingers, than he'll want to look up the figures of the Budget. But if he has reached the culminating point of knowing how to use his pen, the sight of the smallest bit of paper will ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... (son of the elder Smith,) finds it necessary to contradict the rumor that he is going to the United States. He is fearful lest there may, possibly, be another person of the same name in America; which ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... he at last, sweeping into his pocket the banknotes piled up before him, "Fennimore's twofold ill luck has given the lie to the proverb. I am going to contradict it with my ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... getting close she felt very nervous. How expect a busy man like Mr. Cuthcott to spare time to come down all that way? It would be something, though, if she could get him even to understand what was really happening, and why; so that he could contradict that man in the other paper. It must be wonderful to be writing, daily, what thousands and thousands of people read! Yes! It must be a very sacred-feeling life! To be able to say things in that particularly authoritative way which must take such a lot of people in—that is, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... troops inferior to the French, still more to the British. 'Inferior to the British, sir! I have read Lord Wellington's last despatch, and he says the Portuguese fought as well as the British; and I suppose you won't contradict him?' I saw it was vain to convince this pugnacious old man of the necessity of saying these civil things, and we parted mutually dissatisfied with each other; he taking me, no doubt, for a forward young puppy, and I looking upon him as a monstrous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... consequences of the Press reports. I had called upon the editors to contradict the statements attributed to me as regarded the loafing on the cricket ground, but pointed out at the same time that I had fully meant what I had said with reference to the great waste of time and the ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... candidly confessed that he was wonderfully fond of gold, and said there was nothing like it for giving a person respectability and consideration in the world: to which assertion I made no answer, being not exactly prepared to contradict it. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... reference to ideas and their opposites. What does it mean after all if we speak of opposite ideas? Can we not entertain any ideas peacefully together in our consciousness? From a logical standpoint, ideas may contradict each other, but that refers to their meaning. As mere bits of psychological experience, I may have any ideas together in my consciousness. I can think summer and winter or day and night or right and left or black and white or love and hate in one embracing thought. As mere mental stuff, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... of Lords, and underwent a long examination. He refused to answer several important questions. He said he had been examined already by a committee of the House of Commons, and as he did not remember his answers, and might contradict himself, he refused to answer before another tribunal. This declaration, in itself an indirect proof of guilt, occasioned some commotion in the House. He was again asked peremptorily whether he had ever sold any portion of the stock to any member of the administration, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... to put you on your guard, and lead to a closer observation of the person. The eyes of your understanding, if kept clear, will soon give you evidence as to his quality that cannot be gainsaid. And, believe me, Fanny, though a slight acquaintance may seem to contradict the instinctive judgment, in nine cases out of ten the warning indication will be verified in the end. ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... put the archdeacon out. He could not exactly contradict what his sister-in-law said about her father, and yet he did not at all agree with her. He wanted her to understand that he tendered his assistance because her father was a soft, good-natured gentleman not sufficiently knowing in the ways of the world; but he could not say this to her. So ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... lies. The very lie by which, as old tales tell, Satan fell from heaven, and when he tried to become a god in his own right, found himself, to his surprise and disappointment, only a devil. For pride and self-conceit contradict the original constitution of man and the universe, which is this—that of God are all things, and in God are all things, and for God are all things. Man depends on God. Self tells him that he depends on himself. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... supposed, and seldom supposed falsely, that all would go if they could; to be able to say nothing, when every one is talking; to have no opinion, when every one is judging; to hear exclamations of rapture, without power to depress; to listen to falsehoods, without right to contradict, is, after all, a state of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is rather hardened by stubbornness, than supported by fortitude. If the world be worth winning, let us enjoy it; if it is to be despised, let us despise it by conviction. But the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... had only listened to you!" she went on; "but my spiritual self-will blinded me. I despised my work. Oh, Esther! you cannot contradict me; you know how bitterly I spoke of the little Thornes; how I refused to take them into my heart; how scornfully I spoke of my ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... present some difficulty. They do not necessarily presuppose that Jerusalem is in ruins; for "build Thou the walls" would be no less appropriate a petition if the fortifications were unfinished (as we know they were in David's time) than if they had been broken down. Nor do the words contradict the view of sacrifice just given, for the use of the symbol and the conviction of its insufficiency co-existed, in fact, in every devout life, and may well be expressed side by side. But the transition from so intensely personal emotions to intercession ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... said the Old Residenter. "They would bring a million witnesses to prove that I had been out of my Head for 20 years, and I wouldn't be there to contradict them. I learn that by a singular Coincidence, all the Old People who leave their Money to Hospitals and the like are Mentally Irresponsible. In order to prove that I am in my right Senses, ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... her seat, her face blanching. Not till that moment did she realize how much in her inmost heart she had been relying on the hope that Garth might be able to contradict Black ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... healthy, an strong, though we don't look it, I'll allow. Jaspar is plum crazy. His words las' night proved it. He said we might begin life agen in a marble hall sech as I hed dreamed about. Good land o' Peter! I never dreamed of marble halls in all my life, but I dassn't contradict him." ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... not going to contradict, Ma," returned Caddy. "I was only going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... SIR,—Kindly contradict the rumour, which I find is widely spread and appears to be credited in some quarters, that an extensive sewage farm has been established in front of the most fashionable terrace in Slushborough-on-Sea, and that a Smallpox Hospital is about to be built ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... families in the complete pedigree is thirty-nine affected and thirty-six normals.) It is obvious that these are the conditions which are fulfilled in a simple Mendelian case, and there is nothing in this pedigree to contradict the assertion that brachydactyly, whatever it may be due to, behaves as a simple dominant to the normal form, i.e. that it depends upon a factor which the normal does not contain. The recessive normals cannot ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... direction, and a simple young fellow like myself might have been ensnared with much less trouble. But for all this I love Him, and am persuaded that He has done all for my good, much as facts may seem to contradict it. We must take an optimist view for individuals as well as for humanity, despite the perpetual evidence of facts telling the other way. This is what constitutes true courage; I am the only person ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of a very glowing hue; and the new curtains were of that pale sea-green just coming into fashion. 'Very bright and pretty,' Miss Browning called it; and in the first renewing of their love Molly could not bear to contradict her. She could only hope that the green and brown drugget would tone down the brightness and prettiness. There was scaffolding here, scaffolding ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... are over," she repeated, and looked at him so mournfully that he dare not contradict her. The train was crawling up the last ascent towards the Campanile of Airolo and ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... extended thou didst bless the dwellings of man. The next day, when the people saw thou wert no longer there, a long groan rose to the summit of the discrowned pillar. But Flavian, thy disciple, reported the miracle, and took thy place as the head. But a foolish man, of the name of Paul, tried to contradict the general opinion. He asserted that he had seen thee, in a dream, carried away by the devils; the people wanted to stone him, and it was a miracle that he escaped death. I am Zozimus, abbot of these solitary monks whom thou seest prostrate at thy feet. Like them, I kneel before ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... wish you to have Sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings immediately—before my arrival. I hear that a certain malicious publication on Waltzing is attributed to me. This report, I suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, I am sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and bells. Mr. Hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author for an early copy, which I wish ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... for a few moments. But the compulsion which she had felt upon her a moment ago to speak was gone. She no longer sought to contradict him. Without a word ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet and bearing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Hell and the powers of the air." In the great hall of the Diet Luther bravely faced the princes, nobles, and clergy of Germany. He refused to retract anything he had written, unless his statements could be shown to contradict the Bible. "It is neither right nor safe to act against conscience," Luther said. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... poppies. I would fain believe that no neglect, but rather the fashion of this folk, had left the monuments of generations to be thus resumed by nature. Yet, knowing nothing of the history of this burial-ground, I dare not affirm so much. There is one outlying piece of the cemetery which seems to contradict my charitable interpretation. It is not far from San Nicoletto. No enclosure marks it from the unconsecrated dunes. Acacia-trees sprout amid the monuments, and break the tablets with their thorny shoots upthrusting from the soil. Where patriarchs ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... haranguing on the subject of divorce seemed to be approaching his peroration. His great voice filled the large room with incessant noise, and everybody seemed anxiously waiting for a chance to contradict him. Malipieri was in no danger of ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... interesting expressions in Cusanus' writings which contradict most of the impressions commonly entertained with regard to the scholars of the Middle Ages. It is usually assumed that they did not think seriously, but speculatively, that they feared to think for themselves, neglected the study of nature around ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... sufficient to keep it upright and firm against the opposite propensities. With another class of adversaries to the Constitution, the language is, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in such a manner as to contradict all the ideas of regular government and all the requisite precautions in favour of liberty. Whilst this objection circulates in vague and general expressions, there are not a few who lend their sanction to it. Let each one come ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... they please, accuse my project, but not my progress: so it is, that without anybody's needing to tell me, I sufficiently see of how little weight and value all this is, and the folly of my design: 'tis enough that my judgment does not contradict itself, of which these ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... experience or time-sanctioned rule. But plastic art claims not merely our sympathy, in its highest capacity to emit thought and sentiment; but as form, colour, light, life, and beauty; and who shall settle the claims between thought and beauty? But art has beauties of its own, which neither impair nor contradict the beauties of nature; but which are not of nature, and yet are, inasmuch as art itself is but part of nature: and of such, the beauties of the nature of art, is the feeling for constructive beauty. It interferes not with truth or sentiment; it is not the cause of unlikely ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... out. And when he tells you, from his own knowledge, what every one must presume, from the extreme probability of the thing, whether he told it or not, one such testimony is worth a thousand that contradict that probability, when the parties have a better understanding with each other, and when they have a point to carry that may unite ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Bocchoris, who was by nature very severe, had an asp sent him by Isis, which coiled round his head, and shaded him from above, that he might judge righteously. Bashfulness on the contrary, like a dead weight on languid and effeminate persons, not daring to refuse or contradict anybody, makes jurors deliver unjust verdicts, and shuts the mouth of counsellors, and makes people say and do many things against their wish; and so the most headstrong person is always master and lord ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... has ruled the Universal Church: but what good he has done escapes memory. England, alone of all countries, feels the burden of papal domination. Out of the fulness of his power, the pope presumes to do many things, and neither prince nor people dare contradict him. He reserves all the fat benefices for himself, and excommunicates all who resist him: his legates come and spoil the land: those armed with his bulls come and demand prebends. He has given all the deaneries to foreigners, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... of their respective governments, either slurred over the discoveries of Radisson and Groseillers entirely, or blackened their memories without the slightest regard to truth. It would, in fact, take a large volume to contradict and disprove half the lies written of these two men. Instead of consulting contemporaneous documents,—which would have entailed both cost and labor,—modern writers have, unfortunately, been satisfied ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... coffee-room, it is not for the purpose of meeting an old friend, and to enjoy with him a little rational conversation over his viands, but to ask for every newspaper, and throw them aside without looking at them—to call the Waiter loudly by his name, and shew his authority—to contradict an unknown speaker who is in debate with others, and declare, upon the honour of a gentleman and the veracity of a scholar, that Pope never understood Greek, nor translated Homer with tolerable justice. He considers it a high privilege ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... prospects offered? The cipher and the desirability you expressed of a means of communication unreadable save by you two,—all this was enough to start the suspicion; your own manner has done the rest. Mr. Steele, you are both a villain and a bastard, and have no right in law to this woman. Contradict ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... understands only a new generation of an old humanity to be treated with a fresh dose of the old remedy. We teach the new souls not to steal, not to lie, to save their clothes, to learn their lessons, to economise their money, to obey commands, not to contradict older people, say their prayers, to fight occasionally in order to be strong. But who teaches the new souls to choose for themselves the path they must tread? Who thinks that the desire for this path of their own can be so profound that a hard or even mild pressure ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... letters. I add that you must have been in a bad humor to undertake their criticism. Some brilliant engagement, some flattering rendezvous was wanting. But I do not care to elude the difficulty. So I seem to contradict myself sometimes? If I were to admit that it might very well be; if I were to give you the same answer that Monsieur de la Bruyere gave his critics the other day: "It is not I who contradict myself, it is the heart upon which I reason," could you reasonably conclude from it that everything ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... of authorities that it is impossible to come to a definite conclusion. Nay, not only do the historians differ from one another in regard to the conditions under which Aurelian evacuated Dacia Trajana, or Dacia north of the Danube, but in some cases they even contradict themselves, and, after a careful perusal and comparison of the statements of many of them, we are quite disposed to accept the opinion expressed by our own historian Gibbon, who, after saying that Aurelian withdrew the Roman legions from ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... what's the meaning of what they call 'the response of the Indian Empire'? Are they going to send troops to India or take them away from India? They're going to take them away, of course. Mutiny of India's silent millions? Rubbish! Not because a mutiny would contradict the far-famed 'response of the Indian Empire,' but because India's silent millions haven't got a rifle amongst them. You needn't tell me they've given you forty reasons for getting on with that barracks. I know their reasons. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... thought himself obliged to say something to excuse his keeping me out of a secret which during his absence I had been let into. His excuse was that the Regent had exacted from him that I should know nothing of the matter. You will observe that the account which I have given you seems to contradict this assertion of his Grace, since it is hard to suppose that if the Regent had exacted that I should be kept out of the secret, these women would have dared to have let me into it, and since it is still harder to suppose that the Regent would make this ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... to allude to it," said the captain, "as it may seem to contradict the opinion of madame la duchesse; yet I am afraid that we shall have to regret this fete as one of the most disastrous events to the king." He stopped. But the interest of the time overcame all other considerations. "Ah, gallantry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the greater the riches, the greater the rascal. That the cardinal virtues only endure, In the atmosphere with the "virtuous poor;" That nowhere are found the true Christian graces, Save closely allied to the dirtiest faces. I shall not contradict this delightful tradition, But beg—No, I won't, I will take it—permission, To state, that I think there's a word to be said, From a different text, on the opposite head. And so I'll invent, as well as I'm able, A new home-made, allegorical fable; And my honest ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... the pieces that he received were doing double duty; others might contradict one another; many of them, under color of telling the life of the Saint, had no other object than to oppose the present ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier |
