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Refute   /rɪfjˈut/   Listen
Refute

verb
(past & past part. refuted; pres. part. refuting)
1.
Overthrow by argument, evidence, or proof.  Synonym: rebut.
2.
Prove to be false or incorrect.  Synonyms: controvert, rebut.



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"Refute" Quotes from Famous Books



... person who has ever been born of an earthly mother. Certainly it does, the theologian may declare, and rightly so, for that gulf exists; He assumed human nature, but He was eternally divine before He did so, and we are not. I do not need to refute this argument; the trend of modern thought is already doing so most effectually. It is a gratuitous assumption without a shred of evidence to support it. Besides, unfortunately for this kind of statement, the scientific investigation of Christian ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... of the League would fill a volume, for Marten especially is particularly clever. He leapt into fame in Berlin by going to Belgium "at his own risk," as he says, to refute the charges of German cruelty there. His book on Belgium, and a later one claiming to refute the Bryce report, are unimpressive since they fail to introduce facts, and the writer contents himself for the main part ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... many drawbacks to the amenities of the place as a residence for a European; but these were not of a nature that my readers would perhaps imagine. There was scarcely any danger from wild animals— it seems almost ridiculous to refute the idea of danger from the natives in a country where even incivility to an unoffending stranger is a rarity. A jaguar, however, paid us a visit one night. It was considered an extraordinary event, and so much uproar was made by the men who turned out with guns and bows and ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... being her peers, and not acknowledging the English law, which had never afforded her protection, and which had constantly abandoned her to the rule of force. But seeing that they proceeded none the less, and that every calumny was allowed, no one being there to refute it, she resolved to appear before the commissioners. We quote the two interrogatories to which Mary Stuart submitted as they are set down in the report of M. de Bellievre to M. de Villeroy. M. de Bellievre, as we shall see later, had been specially ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... publish, to abuse the world, such stories, which they themselves know to be lies, as well as they whom they believe. Next, what wisdom is among them, who knew well enough there are thousands of honest people to refute their calumnies!" (p. 194)—Provoked by an insulting reference to the book under review, an able controversial writer of that period says "Thou hast, by the bye, mentioned the Presbyterian Eloquence. Every body knows that book to be a forgery ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... arrangements of Washington, as disclosed in his letters to Mr. Lear. These details are not only curious and entertaining, as showing the style of living half a century ago, but as exhibiting the modest and economical style in which Washington chose to live; and they refute the calumnies of his political enemies, who, a little later, charged him with anti-republican state and splendor in his style of living. One of his letters to Mr. Lear relates to the servants. "The pressure of business," he writes, "under which I labored for several days before I left New York, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... inwardly provoked to the point of murder, Kenny threatened to break away from the goad of his tongue. Always then Adam appealed to his habits of pity and treacherously on the strength of it wheedled him into other tales of folk lore merely to refute them. And always he blamed the brandy. Kenny knew now that he lied. Drunk, the old man was stupid; sober, he was satanic ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... himself, he found his most useful levers in the humble labourers whose characters he had studied, whose condition he sought to make themselves desire to elevate. Unconsciously his whole practice began to refute his theories. The abuses of the old Poor Laws were rife in his neighbourhood; his quick penetration, and perhaps his imperious habits of decision, suggested to him many of the best provisions of the law now called into operation; but he was too wise to be the Philosopher ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to suggest a difference between the subject of revelation and the discoveries which have been made by men in the powers and properties of nature. But when you have contended successfully for this (which by no means has any power to refute his argument) you seem not to realize that there must be as great a difference in the evidences by which these different subjects are communicated to the mind, as there are in the subjects themselves. ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... of abandoning a friend, and much more one who had come to mean so much to him as did Boris, seemed terrible to Fred. And yet it was impossible for him to refute Boris's argument. His cousin was right. And now he could hear the voices of approaching men. Naturally, if the Germans on the culvert thought that a car containing two German officers had been wrecked, they would ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... returned Sir William, "to console me; but my regret, that any of the name of Waverly should be seen, in what severe people will call actual rebellion, is too acute for such soothing consolation. I have only to take care that the rectitude of my own behaviour shall refute every suspicion that I am conniving at, or even apologizing for Henry's errors. And though I know the poor fellow's feelings were too keen for his peace, and though, in my own exquisite susceptibility of kindness, I could find motives to mitigate his fault, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... objection—but it missed the mark. A woman bent on her marriage is a woman who can meet the objections of the whole world, single-handed, and refute them all. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... including Walter White, pressed for the creation of an experimental integrated division of volunteers. White argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a tremendous psychological effect upon white America," and refute the enemy's charge that "the United States talks about democracy but practices racial discrimination and segregation."[2-28] The NAACP organized a popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many important individuals and organizations.[2-29] Yet this experiment ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... If e'er frivolity has led to fame, And made us blush that you forbore to blame— If e'er the sinking stage could condescend To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend— All past reproach may present scenes refute, 60 And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute![42] Oh! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws, Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause; So Pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers, And Reason's voice be echoed ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... speaks of the New as the "Testament."—Editor.] to refer to, though I was writing against both; nor could I procure any; notwithstanding which I have produced a work that no Bible Believer, though writing at his ease and with a Library of Church Books about him, can refute. Towards the latter end of December of that year, a motion was made and carried, to exclude foreigners from the Convention. There were but two, Anacharsis Cloots and myself; and I saw I was particularly pointed at by Bourdon de l'Oise, in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... a regular time allowed for rebuttal. This is, however, not the only time at which it may be introduced. In the debate, put in refutation wherever it is needed. One of the best plans is, if possible, to refute with a few sentences at the opening of each speech what the previous speaker of ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon

... had been made without due examination of the facts of the case, and that the conduct pursued by the right honourable baronet was in exact, permanent, and perfect consistency with the principles of free trade as laid down by Mr. Pitt. His [Sir R. Peel's] reason for saying this much was to refute the accusation brought against the Government, that they had put forward their present views in order to get into power.' These sentiments I find attributed to Mr. D'Israeli. I do not know whether they are of sufficient importance to mention them in the House; but this I know, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... in perfect health being much affected by such a charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. But were it true, to what does it amount?—to an impeachment of a liver complaint. 'I will tell it to the world,' exclaimed the learned Smelfungus: 'you had better (said I) tell it to your physician. 'There ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... be a formidable antagonist who could not be put down or kept refuted. Jacobus Arminius, at the turning of his career, was selected by the Consistory to make once for all a refutation of Coornhert's dangerous writings. He, however, became so impressed, as he studied the works which he was to refute, that he shifted his own fundamental points of belief, accepted many of Coornhert's views, and became himself a greater "heretic" and a more dangerous opponent of Calvinism than the man whom he was chosen ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... startled her. She roused herself to refute what she felt to be an unworthy accusation. "No, Charles," she said, looking at him steadily. "God is my witness that at no time did I think of living at the Eype! Such a wish never came ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... brilliantly heterodox view—thought it the least susceptible organ of its kind that she had ever encountered, related examples of its want of susceptibility, and at last declared that for her the Italians were a people of ice. The prince became flame to refute her, and his visit really proved charming. Newman was naturally out of the conversation; he sat with his head a little on one side, watching the interlocutors. The duchess, as she talked, frequently looked at him with a smile, as if to intimate, in the charming manner of her nation, that ...
— The American • Henry James

... with such a use.[8] Nevertheless we should remember that precisely this kind of symbolism was very popular in Spain in the seventeenth century, and gave rise to the splendid literary art of the autos sacramentales. Galds then goes on to refute the allegation of certain critics that he ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos

... not an agreeable task to refute such errors; but believing them equally destructive, in their tendency, to piety and morality,—corrupting the Christian life at its centre, and weakening its chief source of power,—we feel it a ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... he might refute the charges against him. He flung down the gage to the proud cardinals who had excommunicated him. He besought ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Labor," issued in 1891, and addressed "to our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the Catholic World in Grace and Communion with the Apostolic See." The purpose of the letter is "to refute false teaching," and the substance of its ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... long legal struggle, I was most anxious that the division should voluntarily be extended to all of the teachers who had experienced a loss of salary although they were not members of the Federation. It seemed to me a striking opportunity to refute the charge that the Federation was self-seeking and to put the whole long effort in the minds of the public, exactly where it belonged, as one of devoted public service. But it was doubtless much easier for me to urge this altruistic policy than it was for those who had borne the heat and ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... the position of the country visited by De Gonneville, it is necessary to refute here the various opinions expressed on the subject which refer to countries other than the Australian Continent. The most ancient is that brought forward by tile geographers, Duval and Nolin, and the navigator, Bouvet, who place those lands almost immediately to the south of the Cape ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... of denying that there is some analogy between the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages, is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influence of geographical and climatic conditions, of social and national institutions, and especially of education, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... grace, etc., are above reason and infinitely exceed it. How, then, can one believe? By will, aided by the grace of God. Then henceforth must no appeal be made to reason? Yes, indeed! Reason serves to refute the errors of the adversaries of the faith, and by this refutation to confirm itself in belief. The famous Credo ut intelligam—I believe in order to understand—is therefore true. Comprehension is only possible on condition of belief; but subsequently comprehension helps to believe, ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... and many others, which so fruitful a subject might easily suggest, it is not difficult to refute; and, if we were to judge by the impression made on the mind by tragedies and comedies of equal excellence, perhaps, when we examine those impressions, it will be found that a sally of pleasantry, which diverts all the world, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... too, but his peculiar kind of intellectual piety lacked the imagination of Pascal. He could play, cleverly enough, with hypothetical infidelity, and refute it, so to say, "in his study" with his eye on the little chapel door; but there was a sort of refined shrinking from the jagged edges of reality in his somewhat Byzantine temperament which throws a certain suspicion of special ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... is evident, concludes by voting the maintenance of a hundred thousand soldiers, for reasons drawn from the necessity of the service, and from economical considerations. It is these considerations only that I have to refute. ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... with which to refute the argument he had just heard, and Tai-yue went on to say. "This offence can, anyhow, be condoned; but, what is more, why did you also wink at Yuen Erh? What was this idea which you had resolved in your mind? wasn't it perhaps that if she played with me, she would be demeaning herself, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... old man, always so reliant before, had served to fire all his latent energy. He was now voluble with plans for the future; not only determined to reassure Uncle Peter that the family would be provided for, but not a little anxious to justify the old man's earlier praise, and refute his calumnies of the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... had leaked out was cruelly self-evident, and the worst part of it was that the malicious gossip was founded on so much actual fact that it was difficult—almost impossible, in fact—to combat or refute it. She felt helpless in the face of the detestable scandal which had reared itself upon a foundation of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... as he made reply. "I think I can guess. But you are not going to be poisoned by her venom. Why don't you tell Everard, have it out with him? Say you don't believe it, but it hurts you to hear a damnable slander like this and not be able to refute it! You are not afraid of him, Stella? Surely you are not ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... the notable circular of Lord Sidmouth for the prosecution of libels by magistrates. "It is a singular fact," observes an acute historical writer,[5] "that Lord Grey, on this occasion, made an able and erudite law argument; which all the law lords, including Lord Ellenborough, made vain efforts to refute; and which Lord Ellenborough had the manliness to eulogize;" notwithstanding which Lord Grey's motion for a copy of the opinion of the law officers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 555, Supplement to Volume 19 • Various

... the post-office for several months, and, there being no claimant, I frequently had an opportunity to read it. One of its features was frequent letters from volunteer writers on scientific subjects. Among these was a long letter from one G. W. Eveleth, the object of which was to refute the accepted theory of the universe, especially the view of Copernicus. For aught I knew Mr. Eveleth held as high a position as any one else in the world of science and letters, so I read his article ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... public amusement known, a few years since, to the late-roaming youth of London by the name of the Snuggery, affords, among hosts of other instances which might be cited, a notable example to refute the assertion of the ancient poet. The place was principally devoted to the exhibition of musical talent, and opened at a period of the night when the performances at the theaters were over. The orchestral arrangements were comprised in ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... think there is a limit, and a highly legitimate limit, to this process. I think a man may praise Pindar without knowing the top of a Greek letter from the bottom. But I think that if a man is going to abuse Pindar, if he is going to denounce, refute, and utterly expose Pindar, if he is going to show Pindar up as the utter ignoramus and outrageous impostor that he is, then I think it will be just as well perhaps—I think, at any rate, it would do no harm—if he did know a little Greek, and even had read a little ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... incite the youth of this commonwealth to high aspirations; let wise and judicious counsellors continue their helpful suggestions, sure of being heard with grateful consideration; let skilful writers, avoiding captionsness on the one hand and compliment on the other, uphold or refute or amend the tenets here announced; let the guardians of the press diffuse widely a knowledge of the benefits which are here provided; let men of means largely increase the usefulness of this ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner

... Ursa Major should never be likened to that of the Sage of Chelsea. Carlyle vented his spleen on the nearest object, as irate gentlemen sometimes kick at the cat; but Johnson merely sparred for points. When Miss Monckton undertook to refute his statements as to the shallowness of Sterne by declaring that "Tristram Shandy" affected her to tears, Johnson rolled himself into contortions, made an exasperating grimace, and replied, "Why, dearest, that is because you are a dunce!" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... come on. I won't refute you. It would be a very stupid world, after all, if we always knew what women ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... again plans did miscarry—arrests were made by the Mounted, men were caught "with the goods," or arrested upon evidence that even Lapierre's intricate alibi scheme could not refute. But, upon conviction, the unlucky prisoner always accepted his sentence—for at his shoulder stalked a spectre, and in his heart was the fear lest the thin lips ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... the old man and lead a new life, he changed his name of Samuel to that of Peter. Some time passed, during which he strengthened and instructed himself in his new religion. Very soon he arrived at the point of searching for objections to refute, and adversaries to overthrow. Bold and enterprising, he went at once to the strongest, and Bossuet was the first Catholic author that he set himself to read. He commenced with a kind of disdain; believing that the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... account therefore my soul, having heard their voice, flutters, and already seeks to discourse subtilely, and to quibble about smoke, and having pricked a maxim with a little notion, to refute the opposite argument. So that now I eagerly desire, if by any means it be possible, to see ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... I did not want any money, and was equally obliged to her. But the affair had already made a great noise. It was at first really supposed that Mammy Crissobella had poisoned them as well as herself, and I was obliged to refute it, or the authorities would have taken it up. As the admiral sent down to make inquiries, I went up to him and told him the whole story; I was obliged to do the same to the governor, and it was the occasion of ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... was presented; he was young—perhaps at the moment regardless of the result, the penalty of the crime; he did not resist, but yielded; and as to the argument of the learned counsel, that Mr. S. did not see what he testifies to have seen, it is useless to refute such an unfounded allegation. Can you suppose Smith to be benefited by this prosecution further than to see justice have its dues? Settle it then in your minds that Mr. Smith did actually see all he says he did. We come next to the description given by Smith of ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... thought otherwise. They drank Mr. Burke's health with "thanks to him for the discussion he had provoked." And the student of history, who may read Paine's opening sketch of the French Revolution, written to refute Burke's narrative of the same events, will not deny Paine's complete success. He will even meet with sentences that Burke might have composed. For instance: Paine ridicules, as Quixotic, the fine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... to the arguments put forward by the South African Republic,[38] Mr. Chamberlain could only persist in repeating his contention that suzerainty still existed, and did not even attempt to refute the statement that Lord Derby had himself erased the preamble of the Convention of 1881. It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had, through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty in 1884, just as Lord Russell ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... conducting in your presence and which will be continued later by the examining-magistrate; and I wished above all to explain to you the very serious reasons for which I asked you to interrupt your journey and to come back here with Madame de Gorne. You are now in a position to refute the truly distressing charges that are hanging over you. I therefore ask you to tell ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... something tangible, and Knight went to work with a will to refute the terrible charge brought by the invisible accuser. As reported in The Daily Gazetteer, which had promised that "the reader may expect to be enlightened from time to time to the utmost of our power ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... speaking on spiritual life, made special reference to the fact that Jesus Christ claimed to be the "Life," and then proceeded to refute this claim by a series of arguments which were altogether too philosophical to be understood ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... extension: though at first sight that science seems rather favourable to the present doctrine; and if it be contrary in its DEMONSTRATIONS, it is perfectly conformable in its definitions. My present business then must be to defend the definitions, and refute ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... not undertake to refute these arguments to the full extent in which this is possible. Besides, Renan, who has put the case for both sides of the question with equal vigour, definitively closed the debate in the following words: "It ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... her obvious embarrassment. "Should I have been sent to you if I had not first secured the confidence of the sender? You know the scandal attached to my name, some of it just, some of it very unjust. If you will grant me an interview to-morrow, I will make an endeavour to refute certain charges which I have hitherto let go unchallenged. Will you do me this favour? Will you listen in your own house to ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... Christians, the aged John of Patmos has been secretly conveyed, by some faithful disciples, to a cave in the desert, where he is dying. Revived temporarily by the tender ministrations of his disciples, he is enabled to tell over his past labors in the service of his beloved Master, to refute the Antichrist already in the world, and to answer the questions which, with his far-reaching spiritual vision, he foresees will be raised in regard to Christ's nature, life, doctrine, and miracles, as recorded in the Gospel ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... professoriate,—Wittich, Clauberg and Geulincx. Christoph Wittich (1625-1687), professor at Duisburg and Leiden, is a representative of the moderate followers who professed to reconcile the doctrines of their school with the faith of Christendom and to refute the theology of Spinoza. Johann Clauberg (q.v.) commented clause by clause upon the Meditations of Descartes; but he specially claims notice for his work De corporis et animae in homine conjunctione, where he maintains that the bodily movements are merely procatarctic causes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... room must hear it. Her own hand trembled on the bandage. She had forgotten her danger—the all but inevitable scandal—until Raoul brought it back to her, and in the same breath saved her by his heroic lie. She could not profit by it, though. Her lips parted to refute it, and for the first time she gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with sudden love, gratitude, pride, even while they entreated against the sacrifice. He was smiling down with an air of faint amusement; yet beneath the lashes she read a command which mastered her will, imposed silence. ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of patience, all right," Allen admitted, "but it's simply because he can't refute my arguments. He talks about what he was doing at my age, but I tell him my record is a whole lot better than his. He couldn't afford to go to college, while I could, and at the same proud point in our careers I was successfully touching him for five hundred a month, while he was with great difficulty ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... created by anything other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. xiv.), that besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the infinite attributes of God. However, in order to explain more fully, I will refute the arguments of my adversaries, which all start from the ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... repeated her former expressions of displeasure; then endeavoured at some length to refute the objections brought against the match; and finally, her "great misliking" of all opposition, and her earnest desire for the marriage, being reported to her faithful council, they agreed, after long consultations, to offer her ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... experienced loch-fisher can "spot" a bay or promontory, where trout are likely to be lying, with as much certainty as his brother angler can calculate on the lie of fish in a stream. Then there are objections to loch-fishing on the score of expense. These we are not prepared to refute; for there is no doubt whatever that loch-fishing means money. But what has made it so? The same reason that makes all other things of more or less value—the common law of supply and demand. Time was, and that not so long ago, when a boatman who used to get 3s., or at most 4s. ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior

... shortly after the peace of 1814 and the re-establishment of Louis XVIII, partisan spirit and the desire for information about the terrible events of the Russian campaign gave it so much credence that no one tried to refute it, and the public came to accept its contents as ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... should be understood that my argument applies solely to the English language, I think I might fairly take exception to a string of instances with which A.E.B. endeavours to refute me from a vocabulary of a language very expressive, no doubt, yet commonly called "slang". The words in question are not English: I never use them myself, nor do I recognise the right or necessity for any one else to do so; and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... a very grave expression upon her face, while Alicia gently wiped her eyes and ardently wished that her honest Rudolph was here to defend his character and refute these baseless insinuations. At length her mother said ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... is in existence, you shall have it,' he said. 'You say that my actions have borne evidence against me. I shall trust to action and not to words to refute that evidence. But you must give me time—will you ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... When yet a mere child he suggested to his father the convenience of saying grace over the whole barrel of salt fish, in bulk, as the mercantile phrase would be. By the time that he was sixteen, Shaftesbury and Collins, efficiently aided by the pious writers who had endeavored to refute them, had made him "a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine;" and while he was still his brother's apprentice in Boston, he fell into disrepute as a skeptic. Apparently he gathered momentum in moving along this line of thought, until in England his disbelief took on for a time ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... had been the matter. In the midst of the history of his disaster, he was just proving to Patty that his taking the hatband to spin his top had nothing to do with his misfortune, and he was at the same time endeavouring to refute his uncle's opinion that the waste of the whipcord that tied the parcel was the original cause of all his evils, when he was summoned to try his skill with his ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... the one hand; as well as by mistaken zeal and devotion on the other. The indirect evidence respecting Dunstan and Aelfric is as curious as that concerning Plegmund; but the discussion of it would lead us into a wide and barren field of investigation; nor is this the place to refute the errors of Hickes, Cave, and Wharton, already noticed by Wanley in his preface. The chronicles of Abingdon, of Worcester, of Peterborough, and others, are continued in the same manner by different hands; partly, though not exclusively, by ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... not a word more to say to refute her arguments with. "If Madame Wang loves you," she simply responded, "there's still more reason why you should have drawn us into her favour. (Instead of that), all you think about is to try and win Madame Wang's affections, and you forget ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... better, and he entrusted to me the King's correspondence, which I told him I should not mention to Madame de Pompadour, according to her injunctions. He sent several memorials to M. de Choiseul, containing accusations of him, addressed to the King. This timely information enabled him to refute them triumphantly. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... the people preferred the authority of Xavier above theirs, and not knowing how to refute their adversary, made a cabal at court, to lessen the Christians in the good opinion of the king. They gave him jealousies of them, by decrying their behaviour, and saying, "They were men of intrigue, plotters, enemies of the public safety, and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... no more of them, nor of your suspicions, which I do not refute one by one, because they are all equally devoid of probability. And to make amends for the unpleasant commencement of this letter, I will tell you something which ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... wishes to stand well with his court. Love without fear and without dread is fire without flame and without heat; daylight without sun; honeycomb without honey; summer without flowers; winter without frost; sky without moon; a book without letters. Thus do I wish to refute such an opponent; for where fear is lacking there is no love worth mentioning. It behoves him who wishes to love to fear also; for if he does not he cannot love; but let him fear her only whom he loves; and in her ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... refute the statements too often made that "men won't work," and "there's work enough if men are only willing to do it." Such is not the truth. I can find you many instances where good, steady workmen have offered to the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... obvious romance of very modern fabrication. It appears to have been compiled from such information as to the alchemical and mystical writers of the seventeenth century as was within the reach of Albert Pike and the brothers Vaughan about the year 1870.[35] It is always better to explain than to refute an error; and the nature of the Luciferian tradition of Thomas Vaughan is pretty clearly shown by the fact that it is not corroborated in a single particular by any of the new facts about him that have come to light since this probable date of its composition.[36] The fabricator put Thomas Vaughan's ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... as the two representations are simultaneous, he easily thinks that he imagines and feigns a corporeal soul: thus confusing the name with the thing itself. (2) I here beg that my readers will not be in a hurry to refute this proposition; they will, I hope, have no mind to do so, if they pay close attention to the examples given and to what follows. [61a] (1) Though I seem to deduce this from experience, some may deny its cogency because I have given no formal proof. (2) I therefore append the following ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]

... sucre. Mrs. Somers, on the contrary, took the cause of Shakspeare, or any other cause that she defended, seriously to heart. The wit or raillery of her adversary, if she affected not to be hurt by it at the moment, left a sting in her mind which rankled long and sorely. Though she often failed to refute the arguments brought against her, yet she always rose from the debate precisely of her first opinion; and even her silence, which Mad. de Coulanges sometimes mistook for assent or conviction, was only the symptom of contemptuous pity—the proof ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... from such a source is of itself most refreshing, as an indication that a life of earnest devotion to material pursuits is not inconsistent with an ardent appreciation of the surpassing importance of speculative inquiries. One such example as this is enough to refute the oft-repeated assertion that in America all philosophy must of course give way before the absorbing interest in the pursuit of wealth. A few years since we chanced to send a copy of an American edition of Plato's "Phaedo" to a German Professor. "Eine wirkliche Erscheinung," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... Mr. Reitz, returned to the question in a long despatch described by Dr. Kuyper as "crushing" (foudroyante), and which proves, at least, that the Suzerainty Question had been raised before 1898, since it endeavours to refute Mr. Chamberlain's despatches of March ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... man and the mother explained in the same breath—that she might reveal the degree of intercourse which had taken place between them, and, if possible, account for the absence of her lover. That, in short, she might refute the malice of enemies and establish the falsehood of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... shall then be delighted to resign the championship which till then I shall continue, as for some years past, to have much pleasure in sustaining. Heretofore my satisfaction has mainly lain in the fact that more of our prominent men of science have seemed anxious to claim the theory than to refute it; in the confidence thus engendered I leave it to any fuller consideration which the outline I have above given may incline the reader to bestow ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... conduct mean and dastardly? Does it not look as if we were afraid that, with equal opportunities, they would rival us in intelligence, and examine and refute ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... she said, "that you require the very thing which I would myself propose. It will please me well to show the falsehood of this accusation, which has been so thoroughly aired that I shall be disgraced if I cannot refute it." ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... the seamen meanwhile not only serving without reward, but being content with my monopolizing the portion of the prize-money known by them to have been awarded for the expulsion of the Portuguese in the preceding year, and notoriously in my possession! Their forbearance being so improbable as to refute itself, being contrary to common sense; even in the absence of the vouchers, which were transmitted to the Brazilian Government, but never acknowledged—I am able however to account for the whole from documents no less convincing than ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... supporters except that to which the famous Robert Hall was reduced, as he says, by "the Society of Doctors of Divinity." He sent a message to Dr. Clarke, in return for a pamphlet against tobacco, that he could not possibly refute his arguments and could not possibly give ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... Sophisms. When Laplace described what, up to his time, was known of the movements of celestial bodies, he dissipated, without even naming them, all the astrological reveries of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Hindoos, much more certainly than he could have done by attempting to refute them directly, through innumerable volumes. Truth is one, and the work which expounds it is an imposing and durable edifice. Error is multiple, and of ephemereal nature. The work which combats it, cannot bear in itself a principle ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after-years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth—often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you can not get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... at the scar thus revealed, still incredulous, yet unable to refute the evidence of its existence. Roberts touched it with his fingers to better ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... Accepting a recent offer of Rigdon in one of his sermons to give his reasons for his new belief, Mr. Campbell offered to meet him in public discussion, even outlining the argument he would offer, under nine headings, that Rigdon might be prepared to refute it, proposing to take his stand on the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, Smith's bad character, the absurdities of the Mormon Bible and of the alleged miraculous "gifts," and the objections to the "common property" plan and the rebaptizing of believers. Rigdon, after glancing ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... subjected to a persecution scarcely less severe in England. The mildest measure adopted towards these refugees was banishment from the kingdom, and a large number suffered at the stake. It was easier to burn Anabaptists than to refute their arguments, and contemporary writers were struck with the intrepidity and number of their martyrs. Thus Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579), a Polish cardinal and bishop of Warmie, wrote (Opera, Venice, 1573, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... were examined at great length and with conscientious minuteness by the Commission whose award is under discussion." He admitted, with diplomatic courtesy, that "Mr. Evarts' reasoning is powerful," but still in his judgment, "capable of refutation." He did not, however, attempt to refute it, but based his case simply on the ground that the award gave the $5,500,000 to England. In all frankness his Lordship should have said that Mr. Delfosse, in his grace and benevolence, gave the large ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained her knowledge. Late in the winter ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... his own business, and to let me look after mine." [386] It soon began to be whispered that Johnson was mad. He accused Burnet of being the author of the report, and avenged himself by writing libels so violent that they strongly confirmed the imputation which they were meant to refute. The King, therefore, thought it better to give out of his own revenue a liberal compensation for the wrongs which the Commons had brought to his notice than to place an eccentric and irritable man in a situation of dignity and public trust. Johnson was gratified with a present of a thousand pounds, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of the Mississippi, lay formerly under water. The soil of all the former states has the appearance of an alluvial deposit; and isolated rocks have been found, of a nature and in situations which render it difficult to refute the opinion that they have been transferred to their present beds by floating ice. This theory assumes that the Great Lakes were the deep pools of one immense body of fresh water, which lay too low to be drained by the irruption ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Mr. Falconer was perfectly certain that Miss Gryll was not yet well enough to be removed. No one was anxious to refute the proposition; they were all so well satisfied with,"the place and the company they were in, that they felt, the young lady included, a decided unwillingness to go. That day Miss Gryll came to dinner, and the next day she came to breakfast, and in the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... disrespecters of the departed and unreasoning apologists for the police. These wiseacres did not hesitate to bring a dead man back to life because they knew of no living one capable of such feats; it is their heedless and inconsequent calumnies that the present paper is partly intended to refute. As a matter of fact, our joint innocence in this matter was only exceeded by our common envy, and for a long time, like the rest of the world, neither of us had the slightest clew to the identity of the person who was following in our steps ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... the paper mean its readers to understand by its account? Was it a jealous rivalry between herself and Madame Strahlberg?—Was M. de Cymier meant by the cock? And Fred had heard all this—he had drawn his sword to refute the calumny. Brave Fred! Alas! he had been prompted only by chivalric generosity. Doubtless he, also, looked ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... that great work, the treatise of Locke on Government, itself, which is justly regarded as the political Bible (I mean no irreverence) of Englishmen, would never have seen the light, but that it was written to refute the base and detestable tenets of Barclay and Filmer. Their political treatises were false and slavish, and even illegal; for they were the same for which Dr. Sacheverel was afterwards impeached by the Parliament; ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... of Athanaric also, Athanaric, regarding this as a violation of the privileges of the religion of his ancestors, subjected many of the Christians to severe punishments, so that many of the Arian Goths of that time became martyrs. Arius, indeed, failing to refute the opinion of Sabellius the Libyan, fell from the true faith and asserted that the Son of God was a new God; but the barbarians, embracing Christianity with greater simplicity, despised this present life for the faith ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... objection, that the minutiae of the creation are so multifarious as to confuse the mind of God, we are content to let it refute itself in every mind which has any just sense of divine knowledge and wisdom. The second objection, that some things are beneath God's notice, if it be not a captious cavil, must result from pushing too far the analogy between earthly kings and the King of kings. It ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... before him, but it did not obscure the dark flush that swept over the handsome face of the minister. The professor had intimated that he thought personal motives were being used to persecute the squatter. This tried the patience of Elias Graves as he sat gathering an argument to refute the accusation. He had even persuaded himself that it was for the good of the town to remove one after another of the loathsome fishermen either by the rope or imprisonment. Without their men the squatter women also would disappear ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... carrying no proof to support his theory; the opinion of one doctor, which the opinion of another doctor may refute and destroy. And then, to prove that there was no struggle; Doctor Saniel will say that Caffie was surprised. Who could surprise Caffie? To open Caffies door when the clerk was away, it was necessary to ring first, ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... mass is used in Article XXIV., distinctively for the mass, is evident from the fact that the Romanists so understood it, and in their answer to the Confession attempt to refute the Protestant rejection not of the Lord's Supper, but of the private masses, the closet masses, and the sacrificial and vicarious nature of the mass in general whilst they applaud the retention of ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... too,—be procured to demolish this flimsy compound of dogmatism and unbelief? to disperse these cloudy doubts, and to analyse and repel these many ambiguous statements?—Once more. A fool can assert, and in a moment, that 'There is no GOD.' But it requires a wise man to refute the lie; and his refutation will probably demand a volume.—I say, it was in vain to urge such considerations as these. "Why does no one reply to these 'Essays and Reviews?'" was asked,—till, I apprehend, pens enough ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... particularly noticed as the daughter of Phanuel, of whom we have no other information; and as belonging to the tribe of Asher, which was situated in Galilee. This, whether recorded for that purpose or not, might serve to refute the charge, that "out of Galilee ariseth no prophet," since from that quarter proceeded the very first inspirations upon the revival of the prophetic spirit. Asher was a very inferior tribe, and one of the ten carried captive ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... more at heart than to convince you I am incapable of forgetting, or neglecting the friendship I made at college, now begin that correspondence by letters, which you and I agreed, at parting, to cultivate. I begin it sooner than I intended, that you may have it in your power to refute any idle reports which may be circulated to my prejudice at Oxford, touching a foolish quarrel, in which I have been involved on account of my sister, who had been some time settled here in a boarding-school. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... scandal could not come near him. He crossed himself repeatedly and muttered prayers. But these misgivings were secreted from the world, before which he appeared as the intrepid champion of his absent nephew, prepared to refute the story ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... that all this is only a perhaps. Very well; it is only a perhaps, but that is all we want in order to refute the logic of the article just quoted. The scientific sceptic says, "I will not believe that Jesus was really seen after death, because that would be a violation of a law of nature." We reply, "No, not necessarily. It ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... meeting of Parliament, on the 31st of January 1854, the Ministry were able triumphantly to refute the charge of illegitimate interference in State affairs which had been made by a section of the Press against Prince Albert; they were, however, severely attacked for not acting with greater vigour in Eastern affairs. In February, the Russian Ambassador left London, the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... aeroplane is destined to supplant the railroad as a carrier of mail," or "The aeroplane is destined to be used increasingly as a carrier of transcontinental mail." In arguing you may propose for ourself either of two objectives: (1) to silence your opponent, (2) to refute, persuade, and win him over fairly. The achievement of the first end calls for bluster and perhaps a grim, barbaric strength; you must do as Johnson did according to Goldsmith's famous dictum—if your pistol misses fire, you must knock your adversary down with the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... together to resist its adoption. They reproached him for his want of education, more especially for his ignorance of Latin and Greek; and they assailed him with quotations from ancient writers, which he was unable either to verify or refute. But the best answer to his assailants was the success of his practice. The wounded soldiers called out everywhere for Pare, and he was always at their service: he tended them carefully and affectionately; and ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... them, Archibald and John Hamilton, soon after apostatised, betook themselves to the Continent, and rose to high office in the Universities of Louvain and Paris, where the one in not inelegant Latin, and the other in courtly Scotch, sought to vindicate their conduct, and to traduce and refute their former co-religionists. Some of the masters of the Old College also, as Bannatyne has recorded, hated the plain-speaking reformer, though "be outward gesture and befoir his face thei wald seime and apeir to favore and love him above the rest."[233] ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... discovering the laws of nature, do not bind unconnected phenomena; but they refute the hasty conclusion of sensuous thought, that the phenomena ever were unconnected. Men of science do not introduce order into chance and chaos, but show that there never was chance or chaos. The poet does not make the ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... nobility laid upon the lower classes gradually disappeared, and the power of wealth displayed itself in spite of all their efforts to suppress it. In fact, occasions were not wanting in which the bourgeois class was able to refute the charge of unworthiness with which the nobles sought to stamp it. When taking a place in the council of the King, or employed in the administration of the provinces, many of its members distinguished themselves by firmness ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... magousaioi or pyrethes (firelighters) were scattered over the Levant. Like the Jews, they retained their national customs and traditional rites with such scrupulous loyalty that Bardesanes of Edessa cited them as an example in his attempt to refute the doctrines of astrology and to show that a nation can retain the same customs in different climates.[19] We know their religion sufficiently to be {145} certain that the Syrian author had good grounds for attributing that conservative spirit to them. The ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... what Mr. Jerold thinks," replied the attorney. "It nettled him to hear me repeat that story. 'Why, it's incredible,'" he said. "'There are documents I drew up last fall that refute it completely.'" Mr. Bromley paused, then went on slowly: "Last fall you were in a hospital, Mr. Tisdale, beginning a long, all but hopeless fight for your life, and it was natural you should have called in Mr. Jerold to settle your affairs. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... danger, no trouble, no nor death it selfe, the same thing (I say) hath also enforced me, not indeed to vndergoe voluntarie death, or freely to offer my selfe vnto the slaughter, but yet to assay that which I am able for the good of my countrey: namely, that I may gather together and refute the errors, and vaine reports of writers, concerning the same: and so take vpon me a thing very dangerous, and perhaps subiect to the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... very frequently relied on between the freedom and the licentiousness of the press, which it is proper to examine. This seems to me to refute every other argument which is used on this subject; it amounts to an admission that there are some acts of the press which Congress ought not to have power to restrain, and that by the amendment they are prohibited to restrain these acts. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... at first treated with disdain, continually repeated had their effect, not only upon the sultan, but upon the people; and Muda Hassan, who was informed of what had been going on, and had not deigned to notice it, now considered that it was advisable to repair to Borneo, and refute ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... the labours of Mons. LICQUET, as my translator, cease; and I will let him take leave of his task of translation in his own words. "Ici se termine la tache qui m'a ete confiee. Apres avoir refute franchement tout ce qui m'a semble digne de letre, je crois devoir declarer, en finissant, que mes observations n'ont jamais eu la personne pour objet. Je reste persuade, d'ailleurs, que le coeur de M.D. est tout-a-fait innocent des ecarts de ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... were to be seen with the Bible in their hands, defending the doctrines of the Reformation. The papists who had left the study of the Scriptures to the priests and monks, now called upon them to come forward and refute the new teachings. But, ignorant alike of the Scriptures and of the power of God, priests and friars were totally defeated by those whom they had denounced as unlearned and heretical. "Unhappily," said a Catholic writer, "Luther had persuaded his followers to put no faith in ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... on the authority of a writer in the Gardener's Chronicle, that the travels of Messrs. Huc and Gabet in Thibet, Tartary, &c., was a pure fabrication, concocted by some Parisian litterateur. Can any of your readers confirm or refute ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various

... have been horrible, revolting, sacrilegious. Fortunately it does not even amount to a truth untruly told; and well would it be if all the lies against the Borgias were as easy to refute. True, Pinturicchio did paint Giulia Farnese as the Madonna; true also that he did paint Alexander kneeling in adoration—but not to the Madonna, not in the same picture at all. The Madonna for which ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... creation of animals and plants, therefore, it is clear that Suarez, so far from "distinctly asserting derivative creation," denies it as distinctly and positively as he can; that he is at much pains to refute St. Augustin's opinions; that he does not hesitate to regard the faint acquiescence of St. Thomas Aquinas in the views of his brother saint as a kindly subterfuge on the part of Divus Thomas; and that he affirms his own view to be that which is supported by the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... unknown; we frame on the subject an hypothesis as accordant as possible with the whole of the data already possessed; and the science, being thus enabled to move forward freely, always ends by leading to new consequences capable of observation, which either confirm or refute, unequivocally, the first supposition." Neither induction nor deduction would enable us to understand even the simplest phenomena, "if we did not often commence by anticipating on the results; by making a provisional ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... wish to hear the gossip and speculation that were going on in the village. Some of it was very hard for a wife to bear, and she resented it indignantly; yet never received a word from father with which to refute it. At this time, as nearly as I can judge, she was a recluse, and subject to periods of profound melancholy, but nothing worse. Then she took that winter journey to her sister's deathbed, brought home the boy, and, hastened by exposure and chill ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... home. When he reached the opposite curb he slipped and fell, bruising his hands. ... Deny it? Deny it when convicted without trial? There are never any proofs to refute a letter written by an unknown enemy. There is never any guard against the stab in the back. ... He and Kate! It was monstrous. And John? Did John know? Did John see that letter? No, Patty surely had not shown ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... young friend having done aught which could merit such ungenerous treatment as he had received from government, but because it was right and seemly that the Baron of Bradwardine should be, in point of trust and in point of power, fully able to refute all calumnies against the heir of Waverley-Honour, whom he had so much right to regard ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... which was afterwards published by the A.A.S. Society. He was now revising it for a new edition. It made many converts to emancipation. Among them was the Rev. Dr. Brisbane of South Carolina, a slave-owner, who, after reading it, sat down to answer and refute it; but, before proceeding half way, he became convinced that he was wrong, and Weld right. Acting upon this conviction, he freed his slaves, went to Cincinnati, joined the abolition ranks, and became one of ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... apologetic reasons. Carpzov writes: "The sole reason why our Church appealed to these symbols was to declare her agreement with the ancient Church in so far as the faith of the latter was laid down in these symbols, to refute also the calumniations and the accusations of the opponents, and to evince the fact that she preaches no new doctrine and in no wise deviates from the Church Catholic." (Isagoge, 37.) For like reasons Article I of the Augsburg Confession declares its adherence to the Nicene Creed, and the first ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... notions analogous to that of faith are occasionally perceptible; not stated or expanded indeed into propositions, but influencing the course of the reasoning; while the belief of infinite attributes is never kept steadily in view, except when it is called in as requisite to refute the Manichean doctrines. Some observers of the controversy have indeed not scrupled to affirm that those of whom we speak are really Manicheans without knowing it; and build their systems upon assumptions secretly borrowed from the disciples of Zoroaster, without ever stating those assumptions ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... falling accidentally upon our ears, and giving us truthful, artless impressions, such as labored statements and solemn depositions would not so well convey, and which theories, counter-statements, arguments, and invectives never can refute. Our senior pastor would say that the letter is like the Epistles of John,—not a doctrinal exposition, but a breathing forth of the spirit which the evangelical history had inspired. I have come to know more, however, than I ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... Veda, to the great epic poems of the Hindus, to their philosophical treatises and their Puranas. I know a good deal of what has been said to show that the characteristics of the Bible may be accounted for on merely human principles, but the certain facts of the case refute, to my mind, the arguments adduced. Max Mueller says in one of his writings—I cannot quote his exact words—that we are not to look in the songs of the Veda for anything so advanced as we find in the Psalter. Why not? Had not the Pundits of India far more cultured ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... driven out by a greater thing that came upon it like a strong and mighty wind—the memory of that lie, in which he had enclosed his friend's life for years, that lie on which her spirit had rested, on which it was resting still. And his sense of truth did not permit him to try to refute her accusation. Indeed, he was filled with a desire that nearly conquered him—there and then, brutally, clearly, nakedly, to pour forth to his friend all the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... Enciso, a bachelor-at-law, addressed to the emperor a learned dissertation intended to refute the doctrine that the Indians were born free, maintaining that the right of conquest of the New World granted by the Pope necessarily included the right to reduce the ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... reflection, and his own ambition was that of being worthy to be honored as a philosophical poet. His theory that the poet's function is limited to an exact representation of the real and the natural, a heresy which his own best poems triumphantly refute, often led him to triviality and meanness in the choice both of subjects and diction, and marred the beauty of many otherwise fine poems. A fascinating airiness and delicacy of conception prevail in these poems, and the tender sweetness of expression is often wonderfully touching. They were the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... during the many years I have had the honor to lecture in this Institution, I have not once allowed myself to indulge in any personal remarks, or attacked those who, being absent, cannot defend themselves. Even when I had to answer objections, or to refute false theories, I have always most carefully avoided mentioning the names of living writers. But as Professor Blackie has directed his random blows, not against myself, but against a friend of mine, Mr. Cox, the author of a work on Aryan Mythology, I ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... negligently or implicitly received: suspicion is always watchful over the practices of interest; and whatever the hope of gain, or desire of mischief, can prompt one man to assert, another is, by reasons equally cogent, incited to refute. But vanity pleases herself with such slight gratifications, and looks forward to pleasure so remotely consequential, that her practices raise no alarm, and her stratagems are not ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... it not blue? Is not blue a cold color; is it not the negative to the warmth, the balance to the scales, the one thing needed on which to rear the glorious fabric that Naychure reveals to the undimmed vision of man? I know your answer, and I refute it. I have studied Art from its roots, and now I'm in the branches, and I grasp the fruit. My manner is peculiar—I have no patent for it—I ask for none. The illimitable passes the legitimate, and the sw-word is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... marshal or commander of a guard shall refute to receive or keep any prisoner committed to his charge by an officer belonging to the forces of the United States, provided the officer committing shall, at the time, deliver an account in writing, signed ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... prebendary of Salisbury by his friend Hoadley. He published in the same year the first part of a tractate entitled The Foundation of Moral Goodness, and in the following year a second part, Illustrating and enforcing the Principles contained in the former. The aim of the work is two-fold—to refute the theory of Hutcheson regarding the basis of rectitude, and to establish the theory of Cudworth and Clarke, that virtue is conformity to reason—the acting according to fitnesses which arise out of the eternal and immutable relations of agents to objects. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... but he bitterly condemned the worldly, inconsistent life of multitudes in the church who do more to confirm unbelievers than all their sophistries. But as she went on, seemingly having the argument all her own way, his whole soul burned to meet and refute her fatal views. For her own sake and the others' as well as for the dishonored name of his Lord, he must in some way turn the tide. Though regarded as a humble servitor, having no right to take part in ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... and letting the result happen when it might. His argument was, that the murderer would be far from the scene at the time death took place. These statements I submit, and if Christopher Shelby can deny or refute them, none will be ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... be in Force. By this Salogastus, they tell us, that Law was invented, which from his Name is to this Day called the Salick Law; and the most noble of the Franks, called Salici, observe it at this time."—Thus say the old Chronographers. By which we may refute the Error of such as derive the Salick Law, a Sale, that is, Prudence; or what is called corruptly Lex Salica, instead of Gallica; than which nothing can be more absurd. But much greater Errors spring from the same Fountain: First, That People are so ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... system, that it cannot be assailed but by prostrating the Constitution, and substituting the supremacy of military force in lieu of the supremacy of the laws. In fact, the advocates of this bill refute their own argument. They tell us that the ordinance is unconstitutional; that it infracts the Constitution of South Carolina, although, to me, the objection appears absurd, as it was adopted by the very authority which adopted the Constitution ...
— Remarks of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on the bill to prevent the interference of certain federal officers in elections: delivered in the Senate of the United States February 22, 1839 • John C. Calhoun

... of Edward J. Handley, an ex-newspaperman of Newark, and gave him a suite of offices in the Wise building with several clerks. His "publicity" kept the amendment on the front pages of the papers and the suffragists were always able to refute and disprove his statements. The intensive campaign carried on among the editors for the past two or three years bore fruit and 80 per cent. of the newspapers by actual canvass favored the amendment, and frequently when the front page carried ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... establishing the present theory, to refute that most unscientific hypothesis, adopted by some eminent philosophers, of mountains and valleys being the effect of currents in the ocean; it is necessary to see what is their proper cause, and to show that by no other cause known could the general effect, which ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... Youth"; through Love and Death it is not a long way to climb to God. We would not expect this young poet to be thinking much in this direction, but he does just the same. I have even found those who say that he was not a God-man, but these poems refute that slander on a dead man and poet. I find him ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger

... his great shoulders, throwing back his closely cropped head. Then he sprang to refute the terrible aspersion against the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... the first in its proper form, is to refute it. It amounts to this: the President would have an improper influence over the Senate, because the Senate would have the power of restraining him. This is an absurdity in terms. It cannot admit of a doubt that the entire ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... hand; himself he moves amid the squadrons a full head over all. Catching him up (for that was easy amid the rout), she runs him through, and thus cries above her enemy: 'Thou wert hunting wild beasts in the forest, thoughtest thou, Tyrrhenian? the day is come for a woman's arms to refute thy words. Yet no light fame shalt thou carry to thy fathers' ghosts, to have fallen under the weapon of Camilla.' Next Orsilochus and Butes, the two mightiest of mould among the Teucrians; Butes she pierces in the [692-725]back with her ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... as marble in its soft rays. For a moment he hesitated, overwhelmed by a sudden realization of her attractiveness. He had just been saying that the law of nature was the law of change, and nature itself stood up to refute him. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... and Castile," he said, "sends, with all courtesy, his royal greeting to Donna Marie Henriquez Morales, and forthwith commands her attendance at the solemn trial which is held to-morrow's noon; by her evidence to confirm or refute the charge brought against the person of Arthur Stanley, as being and having been the acknowledged enemy of the deceased Don Ferdinand Morales (God assoilize his soul!) and as having uttered words of murderous import in her hearing. ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... entirely so far as his speech was concerned. He had just enumerated the wealth of the colonies as represented by their commerce. He knew that the war party would argue, "If America is so wealthy, it is worth fighting for." That was the place, then, to refute them. To introduce his material he had to make clear the transition from the colonial wealth to his arguments. Notice how plainly the first paragraph quoted here does this. Having given his four reasons against the use of force, notice that he must bring ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... extremely useful for future wives, and would at the same time provide the institutions in question with useful workers. Why should men be the only ones to perform obligatory social service? I expect," says Madame Schmid, "many adverse criticisms on this proposal, one of which I will refute at once. The ladies of the middle classes will strongly object because their daughters will see and hear so many things which ought to be hidden till they marry! But why should they be hidden? In order to prepare our daughters for marriage, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel



Words linked to "Refute" :   answer, oppose, confute, refutation, renounce, disown, repudiate, contradict, disprove



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