"Equivocate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remains in the clouds, he need not fear to equivocate. Nevertheless, I would like him to define these ABUSES of property, to show their cause, to explain this true theory from which no abuse is to spring; in short, to tell me how, without destroying property, it can be governed for the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... I will no equivocate that there was, in this notion, an appearance of taking more on me than the laws allowed; but then my motives were so clean to my conscience, and I was so sure of satisfying the people by the methods ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... may be, yet will he never stoop to renew its pristine youth and gloss by the price of any book. No man — no human, masculine, natural man — ever sells a book. Men have been known in moments of thoughtlessness, or compelled by temporary necessity, to rob, to equivocate, to do murder, to commit what they should not, to "wince and relent and refrain'' from what they should: these things, howbeit regrettable, are common to humanity, and may happen to any of us. But amateur bookselling is foul and unnatural; ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... me shroud a tale of horror. Harriet was my victim! Ask not how. I triumphed! She fell! An angel might have fallen as she did, and lost no purity. But her stainless heart was too proud in virtue to palter and equivocate with circumstances. She never rose from what she deemed her bridal bed. And ere twenty summers had fanned her cheek, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... deny it, equivocate, or seek subterfuges. The evidence was there, and it was irrefutable. While appearing to occupy himself solely with the objects lying upon his table, M. Daburon did not lose sight of the prisoner. Albert ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... fortune are strange, look at them from any point of view. Surprising as it may seem, a like encounter happened on the following day and—aye, on the day after and every day for a week or more. Occasions there were when Penelope was compelled to equivocate shamefully in order to escape the companionship of the duke, the count, or others of their ilk. Once, when the guardian of the road was late at his post, she rode far into the enemy's country, actually thrilled by the joy of adventure. When he appeared far down the road, she turned and ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... surprised," said Mr. Gryce, glancing curiously towards the key. "Now, I ain't. A woman does not thrill, blush, equivocate, and faint for nothing; especially such ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... soon made plain that if he was a bold, intrepid man, he needed to be so. Officials from the Pope, who was then at Constance, desired him, as an interdicted priest, to abstain from the Church services; but he declined to comply. Had he chosen even to equivocate, he might have escaped; but Huss was not the man to trim. Such a course was formally proposed to him; but though he was far from being buoyed up by false hopes, he resolutely and without hesitation declined all underhand suggestions: he would uphold the truth, but that ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... [Note 126: /palter:/ equivocate, quibble. The idea is of shuffling as in making a promise with what is called a "mental reservation." "Palter with us in a double sense" is the famous expression in Macbeth, V, viii, 20, and it brings out clearly the meaning ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... This is (to equivocate on Dante's words) in truth the nobile volgare eloquenza. Indeed it is profoundly true that there is a natural, an almost irresistible, tendency in the mind, when immersed in one strong feeling, to connect that feeling with every sight and object around it; especially if there be opposition, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... we temporize and equivocate," cried the empress, with fervor, "Russia will annihilate the Poles, who, if they have gone too far in their thirst for freedom, have valiantly contended for their just rights, and are now about to lose them through the evils of disunion. It grieves me to think that we are about ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the same strange tone, but she fixed her eyes savagely on Trenta, so as to be able to convince herself how far he might dare to equivocate. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... forehead, and cast at her a look so full of pathetic appeal that she felt the tears come into her eyes. It was the look of a hunted creature which sees no way of escape, yet which has not the fury of resistance, which pleads its own weakness. She knew that Philip could not equivocate and that the secret of his heart lay bare before her. She shrank from what she had done, and a flood of pity ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... He might equivocate about the House, but he had the sense of things to be done awaiting him in London. He telegraphed to his servant and spent that night in Rosedale Road. The things to be done were apparently to be done in his studio: ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... set up by the two parties represent principles utterly antagonistic, and so far-reaching in their consequences that all personal considerations and contemporary squabbles become as contemptible in appearance as they always are in reality. However General McClellan may equivocate and strive to hide himself in a cloud of ink, the man who represents the party that deliberately and unanimously adopted the Chicago Platform is the practical embodiment of the principles contained in it. By ignoring the platform, he seems, it ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... to answer. But she did not dare to equivocate as to her precarious state. And where the use, when a few hours would probably see ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... is known of him further, only, that, like almost all leaders of slave insurrections, he showed a courage which his enemies could not gainsay. "When he was apprehended, he manifested the greatest marks of firmness and confidence, showing not the least disposition to equivocate, or screen himself from justice,"—but making no confession that could implicate any one else. "The behavior of Gabriel under his misfortunes," said the Norfolk Epitome of Sept. 25, "was such as might be expected from a mind capable of forming the daring project ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... upon the antislavery struggle. In this "irrepressible conflict" Massachusetts led the van. Garrison had written in his Liberator, in 1830, "I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard." But the Garrisonian abolitionists remained for a long time, even in the North, a small and despised faction. It was a great point gained when men of education and social standing ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... like Br'er B'ar, eh, darling! You want to see the other side of the mountain." He pressed her to him lovingly. "Of course" (with masculine inconsistency Bob was beginning to equivocate) "I may not be able to sell my water-right and the enemy may elect to play a waiting game and starve me out. In that case, it would not be fair to you to burden you with a husband whose sole assets are his dreams and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "Don't equivocate with me, Skinner! Let's argue this question calmly, coolly and deliberately. Don't lose your temper. Now then. Peasley said he'd throw his successor ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... deemed it lawful to deny anything calculated to bring reproach on his church; and that he did not scruple to give a false name on his examination. From the manner in which he speaks, there can be no doubt, that he believed he might lawfully equivocate. And from whom had he learned this monstrous doctrine? From the church and ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... become of all our legal and judicial proceedings? which are confined to this way of proof: and so it was by God appointed, and hath been by all nations practised. 2. There be some that pretend Liberty of Conscience to equivocate in an oath even before a magistrate, and to elude all examinations by mental reservations. Will you grant them this liberty; or can you, without destroying all bonds of civil converse, and wholly overthrowing of all human judicature? ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson |
