"Combativeness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... salient and distinctive quality. Born in a squabble, he dies in a shindy: in his cradle he squeals a challenge; his latest groan is a sound of defiance. Pike and pistol are manifest in his well-developed bump of combativeness; his name is FIGHT, there can be no mistake about it. From highest to lowest—in the peer and the bog-trotter, the inherent propensity breaks forth, more or less modified by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... economical as well as a moral and religious truth; to spread the belief that war between any two nations is a general calamity to the civilized world; that it is as unchristian and inhuman to rouse national combativeness as to rouse individual combativeness, as absurd to associate honor with national wrong-doing as with individual wrong-doing; and that peace among nations, as among individuals, is, and can only be, the product of general reverence for law and general distrust ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... doctrines when I had to do with the transmutationist; and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the orthodox—thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... the head of the wolf: combativeness enormously developed, alimentiveness large, while conscientiousness is entirely wanting. On the other hand, look at this cranium. Here combativeness is a nullity—absolutely wanting—while the fullness of the sentimental organs indicate at once the mild ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... had enough combativeness to fight his way through difficulties. He had great self-reliance, and did not mind obstacles. If he had to take part in disturbances, he was ready, and had tact and tactics. He had a peculiar power ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... of his friends, the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, I have some characteristic recollections of the time. Mr. Davies was a college friend, and remembers his combativeness and his real underlying warmth of feeling. He remembers how, in 1848, Fitzjames was confident that the 'haves' could beat the 'have nots,' 'set his teeth' and exclaimed, 'Let them come on.' Mr. Davies was now engaged in clerical work at the East-end of London. My brother ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... tell in detail what history has told of that tragic night: how the doors at last were forced, and the mob rushed in; how citizens and friends, and many of the monks themselves, their instinct of combativeness overcoming their spiritual beliefs, fought valiantly, and used torches and crucifixes for purposes little contemplated when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... tone was, there was something in it which implied that to strive with Nathanael would be like beating against a marble wall. A great terror came over Agatha—she, who had lived like a wild bird, knowing no stronger will than her own. Then all the combativeness of her nature, hitherto dormant because she had known none worthy to contend against, awoke up, and tempted her to struggle fiercely with ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of everything greed and jealousy, people never knowing ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... showed him the truth, all too clearly, and he longed for the day when he should go, as a sufferer longs for the surgeon's knife that is to relieve him of an aching limb. The hopelessness of the outlook had for the time destroyed nearly all of his combativeness, and had softened his nature almost to apathetic weakness. It would do no good to struggle in a boundless, fathomless sea; so he was ready to sink and was going to New ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... of the reserves in Lloyd George that from the time he took his place among the line of Ministers on the Treasury bench he began to show signs of qualities unsuspected. Gone was his combativeness. He answered questions about his department with urbanity, replied to criticism with courtesy and painstaking detail. Out of the House he devoted himself assiduously to learning the intricacies of his department. ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... enabled to pass fair judgment on the lad. While I hadn't the slightest knowledge of Phrenology, I was more or less familiar with the terms used by them, such as benevolence, veneration, firmness, self-esteem, approbativeness, caution, combativeness, ideality, etc., etc., and began at once to ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... error and sin that crossed his path. It was a practical conception, but it was truly expressed under the similitude of a battle. There was to be resistance, and he could comprehend that, for his bump of combativeness took cognizance of the suggestion. He was to fight; and that was an idea that stood him in better stead than a whole library ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... blasted murtherin' thafe!" exclaimed Kitty, her organ of combativeness, which was very large, becoming terribly excited. "Get into mistress's bed, and the leddy there herself, the omadhoun! The black, murtherin' thafe of ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had lain ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... old spirit of combativeness, "isn't there any room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every family on the block might easily have specimens of ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... conformity, abhorring Prelacy and Popery, and entertaining no very orthodox notions with respect to the divine right of Kings. From them the Quakers drew their most zealous champions; men who, in renouncing the "carnal weapons" of their old service, found employment for habitual combativeness in hot and wordy sectarian warfare. To this day the vocabulary of Quakerism abounds in the military phrases and figures which were in use in the Commonwealth's time. Their old force and significance are ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Combativeness, to use the language of phrenology, is one of the most lively instincts of humanity. The Bible tells us of the struggle between the sons of Adam, and shows us might making right ever since the days of primeval man. History ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... this rule, a man or woman of large combativeness should select a partner equally inclined to antagonism; then we should have—what? the elements of a happy, contented, harmonious life? No; instead, either a speedy lawsuit for divorce, or a continual domestic broil, the nearest approach to a mundane purgatory possible. The selfish, close-fisted, ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... claimed, and established, his right to take part in certain examinations in his faculty,[26] and 'con mucho exceso' thwarted the designs of the famous Domingo Banez, whom he afterwards described as 'enemigo capital'.[27] His combativeness did him no immediate harm, for, in December 1561, he was elected Professor of Theology at Salamanca.[28] He was obviously not disposed to hide his light under a bushel, nor to perform his academic duties in a spirit of humdrum routine. Whatever he did, he did with all his might, and his strenuous ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly |
