"Affirmation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a partial negation, and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of the given nature, it follows (solely from Prop. vii.) that every ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... pleasure in it. And when anything meets us which appears likely, our minds are filled with pleasure thoroughly worthy of a man. Both your wise man and ours, then, will inquire into these things; but yours will do so in order to assent, to feel belief, to express affirmation; ours, with such feelings that he will fear to yield rashly to opinion, and will think that he has succeeded admirably if in matters of this kind he has found out anything ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... neither cosmic nor anthropomorphic symbols, taken alone, could express. More absolute than the Absolute, more personal than the human mind, Brahma therefore exceeds whilst He includes all the concepts of philosophy, all the passionate intuitions of the heart. He is the Great Affirmation, the font of energy, the source of life and love, the unique satisfaction of desire. His creative word is the Om or "Everlasting Yea." The negative philosophy which strips from the Divine Nature all Its attributes and defining ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... wish to affirm, do not use two negative words so that they shall contradict each other. [Footnote: Not infrequently we use two negatives to make an affirmation; as, He is not unjust; No ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... to them, and they render them beautifully. It will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading; whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is inspiring—is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... dangers to Winston's peace of mind—a persuasion that the birds of the air and the restless air itself might bear to him the news she still withheld. Mammy had averred, upon her cross-examination, that "not a living soul had ever seen the wallet" since it fell from the dying man's pocket—an affirmation Mabel could not decide whether to believe or discredit. If she could but be certain that the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... time, sir, that you seem to doubt my affirmation," said the young priest, mildly, while he repressed a movement of impatience, "I assure you that ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... fifty yards on the western side of it is the place at which Caesar crossed the Thames. The reader who has read Stukeley's reasons for fixing on Chertsey as the place of this celebrated passage, may startle at the positive affirmation here made. Stukeley says that the name of Chertsey is all Caesar; so also is Chelsea, by analogies equally natural. London, or Lyn-dyn, was then the chief town in South Britain, and would, as matter ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... safety, whenever I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as struggling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an affirmation that no one shall decide, what the public safety does require in cases ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... upon our attention one truth which, on the principle that an inch of fact is worth a yard of theory, is, if well in the mind, more useful than acres of metaphysics which leave us very much where we were. His broad affirmation is, that temptation does not, and cannot, put sin into a man's mind or heart. Temptation does not make, it only finds. "The prince of this world cometh," said our Lord, "and hath, or findeth, nothing in Me." And His Apostle takes his stand on the position, that temptation does no ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... your Nobility!" These words, the ordinary form of affirmation used by soldiers to their officers, were pronounced in a loud, metallic, monotonous tone, as if the speaker had been an automaton conversing with a brother automaton at a distance of twenty yards. As ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... would have been worse than what I did say. Remember that he asked me the question point-blank, and that no reply would have been equal to an affirmation. I should have confessed that ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... officers, executive and judicial, elected or appointed after this Constitution goes into effect, shall, before they enter on the performance of their public duties, severally take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... diamond-mounted cross! No, sir," he added, with a proud curl of the lip, as he cast the jewel contemptuously aside, "oaths are made for men who need laws to keep them to their promises; I need no more than the clear and unequivocal affirmation of a gentleman." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... sure," went on Pratinas; "I have always had the greatest respect for the three nihilistic propositions of that philosopher. To read him one is half convinced of the affirmation that nothing exists; that if anything existed, the fact could not be known, and that if the fact were known, it could not be communicated; although of course, my dear madam, there are very grave objections to accepting such views ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... parents. Attempts were made to distract her mind. A young man who had courted her was induced to say that he had a promise of marriage from her, and to claim the fulfilment of it. Joan went before the ecclesiastical judge, made affirmation that she had given no promise, and without difficulty gained her cause. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... look—fearlessly and trustfully—she knew that the question which she had thus put to him was really an affirmation of what she felt must be the truth. But already Andor had raised his voice ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... (2) the doctrine of perfection, i.e., of a Christian Maturity, on attaining which, he that is (in the Wesleyan sense) "born again," "born of God," sinneth not. If, however, we take into view Wesley's own persistent affirmation in later times, "I have uniformly gone on for fifty years, never varying from the doctrine of the Church at all;" and many other such passages, we cannot escape the inevitable conclusion that the very doctrine on which his modern followers have built their separation from the Church, ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... culture was that of a man of books. It was the knowledge of the best that had been said and known in the past. Emerson's lines entitled "Culture" begin with a characteristic question and end with an equally characteristic affirmation. The question is— ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... before noticed as being partial to a drowsy life, now put in his word, and gave his affirmation as to the lenity of the police. His beat as he called it, was between the foot of Ludgate Hill and Blackfriars Bridge, "and neither the man who formerly looked about for the people there, nor his predecessor, ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... God's creation is a perfect work. The world in which we live is the best possible world on the whole; not the best possible to the individual at any given moment, but the best possible on the whole, all creatures considered and all the ages of man taken into the account. This is the affirmation ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... must be," Uncle Amos nodded his head in affirmation. He looked at the hired girl, who did not appear to notice him. "I just wish I was twenty ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... those persons are Christians on whose behalf we move, I confidently affirm, and you will back me in my affirmation, that if instead of being Christians they were themselves Mohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists, or Confucianists—they would have precisely the same claims upon our support; and the motives which have brought us here to-day would be incumbent upon us with the same force and with the same ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the slightest shade of inquiry about words which might have seemed rude as a mere affirmation. Then she appeared to answer for herself, still with the same tinge of sadness faintly colouring her pride. "For this reason I cannot tell you how we came ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... STRANGER: When the affirmation or denial takes Place in silence and in the mind only, have you any other name by which ...
— Sophist • Plato
... to be the judgments of God! The ordeal consisted of various kinds: walking blindfold amidst burning ploughshares; passing through fires; holding in the hand a red-hot bar; and plunging the arm into boiling water: the popular affirmation—"I will put my hand in the fire to confirm this," was derived from this custom of our rude ancestors. Challenging the accuser to single combat, when frequently the stoutest champion was allowed to supply their ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... too, the one point on which she could form an articulated thought. She was Olivia Guion still! In this slipping of the world from beneath her feet she got a certain assurance from the affirmation of her identity. She was still that character, compounded of many elements, which recognized as its most active energies insistence of will and tenacity of pride. She could still call these resources to her aid to render her indestructible. Sitting slightly crouched, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... The affirmation of Madame des Ursins was no doubt true, since in a letter of hers to Orry, dated in 1718, she begs him to present her friendly remembrances to M. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... child's need to find himself as an autonomous person by making allowance for his protest and exercise of freedom. The next stage in the dialogue between them is the reassurance which the child experiences and reflects in his behavior in response to his parent's affirmation of him as a person. He may show this by a more realistic acceptance of the parent's authority. This in turn may reassure the parent, so that he feels more relaxed in the exercise of his authority. Gradually the parent and the child begin to experience ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... "explain" the Trinity,—and this by "notions,"—and not to the assertion of the adorable acts implied in the terms both of the Evangelists and Apostles, and of the Church before as well as after Christ's ascension; nor to the assent of the pure reason to the truths, and more than assent to, the affirmation of ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... by others. This can be done by resolutely substituting a health thought for a diseased one; no matter how fast negative thoughts crowd in upon the mind, they can be antidoted by the strong positive affirmation of HEALTH. ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... either of good faith or of accuracy. "The accent of sincerity" is the appearance of conviction; an orator, an actor, an habitual liar will put more of it into his lies than an undecided man into his statement of what he believes to be the truth. Energy of affirmation does not always mean strength of conviction, but sometimes only cleverness or effrontery.[147] Similarly, abundance and precision of detail, though they produce a vivid impression on unexperienced readers, ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... handiwork, each artifact, tool and machine is an expression of man's wish and will. Each transcends nature and is an affirmation that takes its place in the vast storehouse ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... COLOGNE. A masonic document of great celebrity, but not of unquestioned authenticity. It is a declaration or affirmation of the design and principles of Freemasonry, issued in the year 1535, by a convention of masons who had assembled in the city of Cologne. The original is in the Latin language. The assertors of the authenticity of the document ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... not attain at first this high affirmation of himself. But it is probable that, from the first, he regarded his relationship with God as that of a son with his father. This was his great act of originality; in this he had nothing in common with his race.[1] Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman has understood this delightful ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... in the gap which some people seem to see yawning between East and West. It is deplorable that the world should think that there is such a complete difference between East and West. It is usually said that self-denial, asceticism, sacrifice, negation are opposed to self-affirmation, individualism, self-realisation; but I do not believe in such a gap. I wish to destroy the idea of a gap. It is an idea which was obtained analytically. The meeting of East and West will not be upon a bridge over a gap, but upon the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... velvet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, about, within it all, was the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every side of him towered the glaring affirmation ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... phrases out of the gospels, those older expressions of the hope and misery of another society in decay. That is the spirit that, for good or evil, is stirring throughout Europe to-day, among the poor and the hungry and the oppressed and the outcast, a new affirmation of the rights and duties of men. Baroja has felt this profoundly, and has presented it, but without abandoning the function of the novelist, which is to tell stories about people. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... during the century, I should think. He stood over me while I read them, and convinced myself that his "Yay Bogu" (God is my witness) was accurately placed. The price of relays was, in reality, fixed by law; but though over-affirmation had now aroused my suspicions, in my ignorance of the situation I could not espy the loophole of trickery in which I was to be noosed, and I agreed once more. More quibbling. He would not stir unless he were allowed to drive the same horses the whole distance, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... secure bail for him. But, as the news had arrived at their houses before her, she found none of them at home, except an honest Quaker, whose servants durst not tell a lie. However, she succeeded no better with him, for unluckily he had made an affirmation the day before that he would never be bail for any man. After many fruitless efforts of this kind she repaired to her husband, to comfort him at least with her presence. She found him sealing the last of several letters, which he was despatching ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... averment of the bill, which my amendment proposes to strike out, is untrue. Senators, will you unite in a statement which you know to be contradicted by the history of the country? Will you incorporate into a public statute an affirmation which is contradicted by every event which attended or followed the adoption of the compromise acts? Will you here, acting under your high responsibility as Senators of the States, assert as a fact, by a solemn vote, that which the personal recollection of every Senator ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... to suppose so," answered Rashleigh, with an affectation of denial which was contrived to convey the strongest affirmation the case admitted of: "friendship—only friendship—formed the tie betwixt us, and the tender affection of an opening mind to its only instructor—Love came not near us—I told you I was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... respectfully, and simply answers, 'Then repeat after me, "I hereby solemnly declare that the words read out to me just now are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."' The conscientious witness having no objection to a simple affirmation, the words are promptly repeated, the business is completed, and the party are all ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... denouement is not the same; and the fundamental difference of temperament between the two artists is strongly marked. M. d'Indy finishes with the renouncement of a Christian, and Herr Richard Strauss by a proud and joyous affirmation ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... they would be purportless, because then they could not possibly be connected with something to be shunned or endeavoured after.—Perhaps it will here be objected that sometimes a mere statement about existent things has a purpose, as, for instance, the affirmation, 'This is a rope, not a snake,' serves the purpose of removing the fear engendered by an erroneous opinion, and that so likewise the Vedanta-passages making statements about the non-transmigrating Self, have a purport of their own (without reference to any action), viz. in so ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much heightened by the frequent recurrence of the word which is variously translated "truly," "surely," and "only." It carries the force of confident affirmation, like the "verily" of the New Testament, and is here most significantly prefixed to the assertions of his patient resignation (ver. 1); of God's defence (ver. 2); of the enemies' whispered counsels (ver. 4); to his exhortation ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... spheres in which this general vow is to be exercised and fulfilled. Not all Christians have the same office at the same calling. When one answers a divine call directing him to some specific form of Christian service, the vow made in response to such call is only the re-affirmation and application to a peculiar relation of the one obligatory ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... failure of the philosophical. Now I contend that the historical is the necessary complement of the philosophical argument, and that both are equally requisite to completeness in dealing with the subject. The preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. The counter-allegation is that, although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. It is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... luminous epistle, which, if it meant any thing, meant a reluctant affirmation to the demand of the Prince for the royal consent, the Regent and Granvelle proceeded to summon William of Orange, and to catechise him in a manner most galling to the pride, and with a latitude not at all justified ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... believer and each of the pastors."—Read this in the Latin: each word, through its ancient root and through its historic vegetation, contributes to strengthening the despotic and Roman sense of the text; the language of the people which invented and practiced dictatorship had to be employed for the affirmation of dictatorship with that precision and that copiousness, with that excess of energy ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... underestimated; but there is a wider and perhaps more fruitful field whose soil is as yet scarcely broken. It may even be asserted with only seeming paradox that the best religious intelligence of the country is to be found in the camp of negation rather than in that of affirmation; among Broad Churchmen, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and Positivists, rather than among those who seek rest in the unstable position of a modified Catholicism. The very instability and difficulty of that position elicits much ingenuity ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... carriers. I will not give the native words but will translate into English the questions and answers as they were hurled back and forth. By way of explanation let me say beforehand that there is no word in any of the Congo dialects for "yes." Affirmation is always expressed by a grunt. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... fancy picture? Is there no substantial truth seen in this picture of what will, must and shall be, as the logical outgrowth of the Divine affirmation that of one blood he created all men to dwell upon the earth, and of the Declaration of Independence that "we hold these truths to be self-evident:—That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... unconsciously, but, once brought to her attention by Anthony's fascinated discovery of it, it assumed more nearly the proportions of a formal code. From her conversation it might be assumed that all her energy and vitality went into a violent affirmation of the negative principle ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... unflinchingly, with an austere curiosity; and looks closely into the eyes of shame, not dreading what she may find there. She is always arguing with herself, and the answers are inflexible, the answers of a clear intellect which rebels but accepts defeat. Her doubt is itself an affirmation, her defiance would be an entreaty but for the 'quenchless will' of her pride. She faces every terror, and to her pained apprehension birth and death and life are alike terrible. Only Webster's dirge might have ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... at last and glanced at him with a friendly smile of affirmation, fingering the leaves of the book nervously. It was Cranswick's History of Printing. One day, a fortnight earlier, while George Cannon, in company with her, was bargaining for an old London Directory ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... have also authority to examine any person on oath or affirmation on any matter pertinent to any investigation you may make; and such oath or affirmation may be administered by you to any person you ...
— General Instructions For The Guidance Of Post Office Inspectors In The Dominion Of Canada • Alexander Campbell
... were my friend, then!" he added suddenly, with a note of question sounding through the affirmation, and she answered quickly, looking away with an air of petulant reproach. "Why, you know I was, Captain ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... recognized the inevitable in the disparity of years and in his wife's early training, and that he chose to cover her failings with a self-abnegation that was not without nobility. Upon such a tacit affirmation he set a final seal in a codicil to his will, well calculated to silence those who saw scandal in the association between his wife and his friend. "The copy of Madam Le Brunn's picture of Emma, in enamel, by Bone, I give to my dearest friend ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... had heard meant, "Is business good to-day?" And M. Joyeuse had replied, obeying only an instinct without any knowledge, "Fairly well for the season." Although young Maranne was very red as he made this affirmation, M. Joyeuse accepted his word at once. Only this idea of frequent communications between the two households made him afraid for the secrecy of his position, and from that time forward he cut himself ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... nothing clear and definite in their belief in an omnipotent God, which is said to have been the leading dogma of Druidism; but their simple minds had evidently a leaning toward the doctrine, which induced them to approve of it, as soon as it was presented to them with a solemn affirmation. In order to elucidate this point, we add a short description of the labors and success of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... "The atheist does not say, 'There is no God'; but he says, I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... willing to utter falsehood without an oath. In courts of justice, the pains and penalties of perjury undoubtedly prevent a great deal of false swearing; but precisely the same penalties are attached to the affirmation of persons who, on the ground of religious scruples, are excused from swearing, and they certainly are none too severe for false testimony, in whatever way it may be given. Notwithstanding this check, however, it is well known that before a corrupt or incompetent tribunal, an unprincipled ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... pictures of a person printed from the same negative photograph; you do not say they are like each other, they are the same. It is most dangerous to fasten on any point of the depicted human procedure, and found on it the affirmation that the divine must ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... unearthly beauty and spiritual power of his presence? We know not. Scripture is silent, only telling us that on the following day, when, with two disciples, he looked on Jesus as He walked, and repeated his affirmation, "Behold the Lamb of God," those two disciples followed Him, never to return to their old master—who knew it must be so, and was content to decrease if only ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... The affirmation solemnly made in the cry of herrings, is directly against all truth and probability, "Herrings alive, alive here." The very proverb will convince us of this; for what is more frequent in ordinary speech, than to say of some neighbour for whom the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... the construction of a modern steam engine. The injustice which he encountered during life, seems to have followed Worcester for two centuries after death; for Lord Orford declares that the bill granting the marquis such advantages as his invention might give birth to, was passed on a simple affirmation of the discovery that he (the marquis) had made. 'His lordship's want of candour in this statement will be apparent when it is known that there were no less than seven meetings of committees on the subject, composed of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "what" without the "how" in speech. The same written sentence becomes two diametrically opposite ideas, given opposing inflection and accompanying voice-effect. "He stood in the front rank of the battle" can be made praiseful affirmation, scornful scepticism, or simple question, by a simple varying of voice and inflection. This is the more unmistakable way in which the "how" affects the "what." Just as true is the less obvious fact. The same written sentiment, spoken by a Lord ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... affirmation, the cultivation of the propensity to believe that which has been affirmed many times, let us call affirmatization. If the world's opinions were governed only by the principles of mythologic philosophy, affirmatization ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell
... the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... trust in our freedom, and to fancy that in itself it is good, uncircumcision is nothing. You are no more a Christian for your rejection of forms than another man is for his holding them. Your negation no more unites you to Christ than does his affirmation. One thing alone does that,—faith which worketh by love, against which sense ever wars, both by tempting some of us to place religion in outward acts and ceremonies, and by tempting others of us to place it in rejecting the forms which ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... well-beloved. And let this Henceforth be led unto thy feet, to make Thee slow in motion, as a weary man, Both to the 'yea' and to the 'nay' thou seest not. For he among the fools is down full low, Whose affirmation, or denial, is Without distinction, in each case alike Since it befalls, that in most instances Current opinion leads to false: and then Affection bends the judgment ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... indeed mysteries, in evidence of which no reasons can be brought. But it has been my endeavor to show that the true solution of the problem is, that these mysteries are reason, reason in its highest form of self-affirmation."[147] ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... there was but one affirmation. He believed absolutely in the Devil. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was red, and cloven-footed and that his tail ended in a hard, sharp, spike, like Mammy Flathers' ice-pick. He also knew that when he breathed, it was in groans ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... turned to the Virginian and the Northerners. All nodded in affirmation. Then he turned to the two ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have divested himself entirely of the old, heedless irresolution. His speech expressed little of doubt or hesitancy. It was full of a bold, bright affirmation; and his step, in these days, had none of the ordinary slow, smiling, philosophical Wallencamp shuffle. He brought to my weariness and dejection such an atmosphere of vigorous, tireless life; he was so confident, helpful, unselfish; I was so faithless and disheartened a burden-bearer; that I ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... and clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that if—I noted the if—"if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire, and it was ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... of elation, no exclamation of surprise, no revealing remark of any kind. Simply a non-committal "Yes!" It might have been the indifferent acceptance of information which she knew must eventually come to her; it might have been the meaningless affirmation of ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... beyond all scrutiny of memory or imagination. If we attempt the inquiry on the wider field of universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of mind in humanity are lost in the border-land of mystery, of which history furnishes no authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation must, therefore, be unjustifiable. The assertion that religious feeling precedes all cognition,—that "the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being, and the instinct of worship" are developed first in the mind, before the reason is exercised, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... from subjection to any conditions, and consequently as voluntarily externalizing the conditions most expressive of the vitality and intelligence which pure spirit is. Thinking of him thus, we then make mental affirmation that he shall build up outwardly the correspondence of that perfect vitality which he knows himself to be inwardly; and this suggestion being impressed by the healer's conscious thought, while the patient's conscious ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... this affirmation, which shed a little light on the gloomy farrago of fury he was loosing among us, Volpatte began to speak in fragments across the ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... or comparison, is an affirmation that one agent, object, or act, is like, or as, another,—there being a real or imaginary resemblance. Sometimes only the mere fact of a resemblance is affirmed. At others, the nature of the ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... perception asserts the rotation of a semicircle - which assertion would be false, if it were not associated with the conception of a sphere, or of a cause determining a motion of the kind, or absolutely, if the assertion were isolated. (6) The mind would then only tend to the affirmation of the sole motion of a semicircle, which is not contained in the conception of a semicircle, and does not arise from the conception of any cause capable of producing such motion. (72:7) Thus falsity consists only in ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... insisted. "Does he not say that, in spite of all his proof, he will not even hazard an affirmation of the phenomena?" ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... and smiled!" * * * * Like some weird strain of music, spent In one full chord, the sweet voice ceased; A faint white glow smote up the east, Like wings uplifting—and a cry Of winds went forth, as if the night Beneath the brightening firmament Had voiced, in hollow prophecy, The affirmation: ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... that his shirt sleeve was sprinkled with blood. In vain he asserted his innocence, and showed that the blood stains were the result of a bandage having become untied where he had bled himself a few days before. The words and groans overheard, the blood, the affirmation of the dying woman, every damning circumstance constrained the jury to convict him of the murder. He was hung in chains, and his body left swinging from the gibbet. The new tenant, who subsequently rented the room, was ransacking the chamber in which the girl died, when, in a cavity of the chimney ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... selective, and that his own fictions were not selective, but portrayed the fact without choice and without limitation. The fact was that he was always choosing, and always limiting. Even a map chooses and limits, far more a picture. Yet this delusion of Zola's and its affirmation resulted in no end of misunderstanding. People said the noises of the streets, which he supposed himself to have given with graphophonic fulness and variety, were not music; and they were quite right. Zola, as far as his effects were voluntary, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... She nodded vigorous affirmation of the statement. "So I'm told, at least; so Walter tells me; and he ought to know; he claims to have been the moving spirit in the affair. When he found out his mistake, of course, he posted off after me to rectify the hideous error, and ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... substance of all M. Neufchateau's argument is the slight assumption, that every allusion to a man eminent for wit and genius, must be intended for a Frenchman. Of this nature is the affirmation that Triaquero is meant for Voltaire; and the still more intrepid declaration, that Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca are cited, not as Spanish authors, but as types by which Corneille and Racine are shadowed out. It is true that the passage ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the affirmation in it. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... change. The other, in the symbol of suffering and death, points to the denial of the will to live, to redemption from this world, the domain of death and devil. And in the question between the affirmation and the denial of the will to live, Christianity is in the last ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... an imitator of his manner, but she reflects the mystical faith. Her little volume, The Living Chalice, is full of the beauty that rises from suffering. It is not the spirit of acquiescence or of resignation, but rather dauntless triumphant affirmation. Her poems of the Christ-child have something of the exaltation of Christina Rossetti; for to her mind the road to victory lies through the gate of Humility. Here is ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... translated either as a question or as an affirmation. It makes comparatively little difference to the substantial meaning whether we read 'believest thou?' or 'thou believest.' In the former case there will be a little more vivid expression of surprise and admiration ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Tricasse gravely, "our predecessor never said, never would have dared to say, that anything is certain. Every affirmation is subject to ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... myself saying, "That is very interesting," from a certain force of habit, which you have noted in me, when confronted with a novel instance of any kind. "But," I suggested, "why not act upon the reverse of that principle, and create the fact by affirmation which ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... these remarkable words, "And the Lord spake unto Moses"? Jehovah himself, in some incomprehensible way, amid the lightnings and the wonders of the sacred Mount, communicated His wisdom. Now, if we disbelieve this direct and impressive affirmation made by Moses,—that Jehovah directed him what to say to the people he was called to govern,—why should we believe his other statements, which involve supernatural agency or influence pertaining to the early history of the race? Where, then, is his authority? What is it worth? He has ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... have occasion to see how much such a surrender signifies; for the moment it suffices to say plainly that Pantheism, the doctrine which denies the transcendence of God, is by no means the same as that which affirms His immanence, nor does it logically follow from that affirmation. The mistake so frequently made lies in regarding the Divine immanence and the Divine transcendence as mutually exclusive alternatives, whereas they are complementary to one another. A one-sided insistence on ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... is in Nature never a negation, but ever an affirmation. Commonly, indeed, the shape of a body seems a confinement; but could we behold the creative energy it would reveal itself as the measure that this energy imposes upon itself, and in which it shows itself a truly intelligent force; for in everything is the power of self-rule ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... rarely that these latter depend on one decision alone, even when they are presented under the form of a single negation or affirmation. ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... in a state of great spiritual exaltation, seeing things that others might not have seen, and he distinctly saw the six wise heads of the brutes, dumb but knowing so much, nod in affirmation. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... this affirmation.[64] The Duke of Alencon declares that the Maid was apt alike at wielding the lance, ranging an army, ordering a battle, preparing artillery, and that old captains marvelled at her skill in placing ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the affirmation that, the avowal of the possession of the Philippines as a responsibility without end would be a peace measure, and anything else make for war, does not take into account the attitude of the Philippine Dictator, by proclamation, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... sanctuary-rail) that he had committed the sin whereof he was accused. A perceptible shiver of sensation swept over the church, although everybody in it was sure, before he had uttered a word, what that word ought to be. Indeed he had never denied it; but not to deny is different from bold affirmation. The prior, whose avowal had also been tacit, looked pained: avowals are painful things. The bishop, more used to avowals, did his best to look shocked; the archdeacon (professionally enough) thought avowal the most indecent part of an indecent business. The Dominicans looked at each ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... "the hope of France." The scene is laid in the apartments of D'Allarege, about five o'clock in the afternoon. All three are smoking. The day is declining; they comprehend each other in silence. At intervals, they alternately allow a monosyllable to fall, which is as the affirmation of ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... and subsequent similar declarations, were widely quoted, and, therefore, though casual visitors may refer to the "Bayport Hotel," to us natives the Bangs residence is always "Keturah's perfect boarding house." As for the sign's affirmation of Mr. Bangs proprietorship, that is considered the cream of the joke. The idea of meek, bald-headed little Bailey posing as proprietor of anything while his wife is on deck, tickles ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... present case, moreover, there is even a stronger necessity for such a vindication. By an express provision of the Constitution, before the President of the United States can enter on the execution of his office he is required to take an oath or affirmation in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... Verb, as such, is not recognised by logic, but is resolved into predicate and copula, that is to say, into a noun which is affirmed or denied of another, plus the sign of that affirmation or denial. 'The kettle boils' is logically equivalent to 'The kettle is boiling,' though it is by no means necessary to express the proposition in the latter shape. Here we see that 'boils' is equivalent to the ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... lightning when the master is great—one of the sons of the giants; or it may be slow and timid: but the process is always gone through, no touch or form is ever added to another by a good painter without a mental determination and affirmation. But when the hand has got into a habit, leaf No. 1. necessitates leaf No. 2.; you cannot stop, your hand is as a horse with the bit in its teeth; or rather is, for the time, a machine, throwing out leaves to order and pattern, all alike. You must stop that hand of yours, however painfully; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Trirodov. "There appears to be a great resemblance at the first glance; but actually these two systems are as opposite as the poles. They are the affirmation and the denial of life, its Yes and its No, its irony and its lyricism. The affirmation, Yes, is Christianity; the ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... comparing some of the Mid[-e]/ songs presented in connection with the ritual of initiation and preparation of medicines. The first of the songs given herewith (Pl. IX, A) pertains to a request to Ki/tshi Man/id[-o] that clear weather may be had for the day of ceremonial, and also an affirmation to the candidate that the singer's words are a faithful rendering ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... Sallenauve, uttering that affirmation with the curt intonation and shrill voice peculiar to the ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... turned simultaneously toward Mr. Jervis for a confirmation of this statement. Mr. Jervis smiled in affirmation. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... misery of labor. Socialism is already on its way to the conquest of Europe. And it may be that we shall yet behold that glorious uprising of the universal peoples which is to begin man's real history, and the world's real creation—that united affirmation of the world's workers which Socialism foretells, knowing boundaries neither of nations nor sects nor factions, speaking one voice and working together as one man for one purpose, filling and cleansing the world with one glad revolutionary cry. When the peoples ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... this, and says that these can only trail themselves along the bottom by means of the suckers. This is probably their usual mode of proceeding; that it is not their only one, we have the positive affirmation of other observers."[8] Serviceable as these arms undoubtedly are to the Cuttle-fish, Blumenbach thinks it questionable whether they can be considered as organs of touch, in the more limited sense to which he has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... good wine until now." "The best wine!" The young man's heart responded in a craving, in a triumph, although the knowledge that it was not true in fact bit at him like a weasel in his heart. Which was stronger, the pain of the denial, or the desire for affirmation? He was stubborn in spirit, and abode by his desire. But he would not any more affirm ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... familiar with maritime affairs will deny the impossibility of wholly suppressing all furtive movement of small coasters, but it is equally certain much can be done to impede that full course of supplies which constitutes security of communication. To Chauncey's affirmation, Drummond gives an incidental reply, September 2: "The enemy's blockading squadron not having been seen for some days, I sent the 'Vincent' across to York, where she has arrived in safety, and Captain Dobbs ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of the question, "Do colored folks retain their complexion when they go to heaven?" is obvious. The concession which the committee of the Diocesan Convention make is but a re-affirmation of the Charleston brethren's aversion to anything that smacks of an approach to association of the two races on terms of equality. If there are colored saints in Paradise, it will be utterly impossible ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... smile flitted over his face. "You've been too busy getting married, eh?" And I then thought that the grim smile was associated with his remark. I was soon to know that it was an affirmation of my shrewd ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... the desires of the soul, instead of subjecting the soul to external things." There could never be presented a subject less calculated to be wound up with a rhetorical flourish or to close in pompous affirmation than that which I have so temerariously brought before you this afternoon. I hope that you will not think that your time has been wasted while we have touched, lightly and erratically, like birds on boughs, upon some of the probable or possible features of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of the new-born infant in ancient Mexico, the mother thus addressed the Sun and the Earth: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child, and guard it as your son." A common affirmation with them was: "By the life of the Sun, and of our Lady, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the public affirmation of class, if it were imaginable, could not be imaginable except upon the terms of a mutinous protest in the spectators which would not have been less real for being silent. But again I say the thing would not have been possible with ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... claim, which appears always to have been cheerfully acknowledged; and an instance of the rising consideration in which he was held appears in his being admitted to plead, before a committee of the House of Commons, the request of the Quakers that their solemn affirmation should be admitted in the place ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... not just my goals, and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our Nation's continuing moral strength and our belief in ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... reflection of the reality? This question is called in philosophical language the question of the identity of thinking and being, and is affirmed by the great majority of philosophers. According to Hegel, for example, its affirmation is self-evident, for that which we know in the actual world is its content, according to our thought, that which compels the world to a progressive realization as it were of the absolute Idea, which absolute idea has existed somewhere, unattached from the ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... he appeared to have carried with him to the Placide, was regarded by those who knew him best as proving the truth of the affirmation elicited from him in the pauses of his delirium of the genuineness of the stone which had passed from his hands to those of his wife at the time of their separation; and, further despatches coming in, some private and some official, but all insisting upon the fact that it would be weeks ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... who migrated there with a tent. While he held the crowd spellbound with his eloquence, his confederates loosed the horses in the woods and got them to a safe place. Oratory is one of the cheapest tricks ever played on man, but an everlastingly effective one, because it is based on affirmation. Any man who is too hard-headed and honest to affirm a thing he don't know and can't know never leads a mob. They will only follow a man who speaks with the sublime authority of knowledge he ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... thinke, 'twas a contention in publicke, which may (without contradiction) suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last night, where each of vs fell in praise of our Country-Mistresses. This Gentleman, at that time vouching (and vpon warrant of bloody affirmation) his to be more Faire, Vertuous, Wise, Chaste, Constant, Qualified, and lesse attemptible then any, the rarest of our ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... all that serves for the production of wealth has developed among the masses. It is a fact, and he who, like ourselves, wishes to share the popular life and follow its development, must acknowledge that this affirmation is a faithful summary of the people's aspirations. The tendency of this closing century is towards Communism, not the monastic or barrack-room Communism formerly advocated, but the free Communism which places the products reaped or manufactured in common ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... effect upon us. It is "blotted out," and from this new standpoint has never been at all; so that to continue to contemplate it is to give a false sense of existence to that which in effect has no existence. It is that Affirmation of Negation which is the root of all evil. It is the inversion of our God-given creative power of thought, calling into existence that which in the Perfect Life of the Spirit never had or could have any existence, and therefore it creates ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... emotions. She quivered as before, but this was a long, shuddering thrill shot over her by that spoken affirmation. What she had whispered shyly and fearfully to herself when alone and hidden—what had seemed a wonderful and forbidden secret—her father had spoken out. Lenore gasped. Her anger fled as it had never been. Even in ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... herself to be, and to have always been, demon of the nature of the Succubus, which is a female devil whose business it is to corrupt Christians by the blandishments and flagitious delights of love. To this the speaker has replied that the affirmation would be an abominable falsehood, seeing that she had always felt herself to be a ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... the Union upon the basis of surrender of principle were held throughout the free States, while a word of manly resistance to the aggressive disposition of the South, or in re-affirmation of principles so long contended for, met no popular response. Even in Boston, Wendell Phillips needed the protection of the police in returning to his home after one of his eloquent and defiant harangues, and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... last will and testament, bearing the date of November 20, 1798, and written throughout, as he says, "with my own hand," he chose to insert a touching affirmation of his own deep faith in Christianity. After distributing his estate among his descendants, he thus concludes: "This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... great promise of my text, introduced again by the solemn affirmation, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you,' substantially appeared in a former part of these discourses with a very significant difference. 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name that will I do.' 'If ye shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... that which must be. Logicians are beginning to see that the notion of horse is inseparably connected with that of non-horse: that the first without the second would be no notion at all. And it is clear that the positive affirmation of that which contradicts mathematical demonstration cannot but be accompanied by a declaration, mostly overtly made, that demonstration is false. If the mathematician were interested in punishing this indiscretion, he ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... surveys the cabinet between the curtains, illuminating it occasionally with an electric pocket-lamp. Which do you prefer, passive admiration, of which you must have had more than enough already, or the calm affirmation of physicists who are accustomed to extort from Nature secrets which she hides from physical eyes? 'In this way,' adds the master, 'Eusapia's irritation was softened; she rebelled no further, but yielded with docility to the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... Political parties and leaders: Affirmation for an Egalitarian Republic or ARI [Elisa CARRIO]; Front for Victory or FV [Nestor KIRCHNER]; Interbloque Federal or IF (a broad coalition of approximately 12 parties including PRO); Justicialist Front or FJ [leader NA]; Justicialist Party or PJ (Peronist umbrella political organization); ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... those orders, to which all else belongs, as to render it abstractedly impossible that the latter can produce the former—if we can prove this, we have likewise proved the existence of a Deity. But this is just the point in dispute, and to set out with a bare affirmation of it is merely to beg the question and to abandon the discussion. Doubtless, by the mere act of consulting their own consciousness, the fact now in dispute appears to some persons self-evident. But in matters of such high abstraction as this, even the evidence ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... tracks with his uncle Ozias, heard perfectly their last remarks, and lagged behind to hear no more, though his heart leaped up to second with fierce affirmation the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... dare confidently say," he affirms, "that, if comparisons be rightly made, presbyterial government is the most limited and the least arbitrary government of any other in the world."[267] And, after entering into details to make good this affirmation in regard to the papal and prelatical forms of government, he proceeds to maintain that Independents "must needs be supposed to exercise a much more unlimited or arbitrary power than the presbyterial churches do," because they exempt individual congregations from all ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... the House of Commons itself, when Charles Bradlaugh, after being duly elected M.P. for Northampton, was by the action of the House excluded from his seat. Bradlaugh was a frank disbeliever in Christianity, and the House of Commons refused to allow him either to take the oath or make an affirmation. For five years (1880-5) the struggle lasted—a Liberal Government being in power all the time—and three times during that period the electors of Northampton triumphantly returned Charles Bradlaugh as their member, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... hand and made a most solemn affirmation that she would speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to the best of her knowledge and belief, concerning them young tigers and the duel they were ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the recognition of our ignorance and of a becoming modesty of affirmation, over against the mystery into which all our thought runs out, we cannot reject the correction which agnosticism has administered. It is a fact which has had disastrous consequences, that precisely the ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore |
