"Argue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very fond ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... with their opportunities of making interest in poor households, constituted a party agency not to be despised. They worked among high and low with an unscrupulous energy to which it is not easy to do justice. Wheedling or menacing—doing everything indeed but argue—they blended the cause of Mr. Welwyn-Baker and that of the Christian religion so inextricably that the wives of humble electors came to regard the Tory candidate as Christ's vicegerent upon earth, and were convinced that their husbands' salvation depended upon ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... he was in, and knowing by myself that he must be both thirsty and hungry, I did not think it prudent to restrain him. It was apparent that the liquor was getting uppermost in his brain, and he began to speak and to argue in company, and to strike his hand upon the table like an angry man; in short, he seemed forgetful of my presence, and those were exhibitions which I had never observed ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... at war. That is what you fellows never would realize. The Hun was at the gate. Our country, our lives, the honor of our wives and mothers and daughters, the tender flesh of our innocent babes, were at stake. Was that a time to argue ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... thoroughly absorbed the older hypothesis are usually far more impressed by the newer one than are those whose allegiance has already been rendered. The acceptance of Natural Selection itself was at first hindered by similar causes, as Darwin clearly recognised: "If you argue about the non-acceptance of Natural Selection, it seems to me a very striking fact that the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which seems to every one now so certain and plain, was rejected by a man so extraordinarily able as Leibnitz. The truth will not penetrate a preoccupied ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... duty, marriage between them was impossible, and would have wrecked both their lives. But our campaign brought about the proper adjustment and tuned them to love again. So it was not duty, but love, and marriage is a joy. Now I hope you are convinced that I am right, and won't argue with me any more. And if I ever had any doubts about that one exception I make in regard to duty, they are all gone now. I am dead sure of my ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... an aria which he had never heard before, and without notes. There were false accords in the first attempt, he acknowledges; but the second was pure. When the music to which Tom plays secondo is strictly classical, he sometimes balks for an instant in passages; to do otherwise would argue a creative power equal to that of the master composers; but when any chordant harmony runs through it, (on which the glowing negro soul can seize, you know,) there are no "false accords," as with the infant Mozart. I wish to draw especial attention to this power of the boy, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... cry but one or two bolder spirits ventured to argue with him. In answer to their questions and objections, he said roughly: "It is a long while before you will reach another station. I have come for your jewels. If you give them to me quietly, I will not hurt any of you; but if not—" and he looked very ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... with you? or did your brother and Col. argue long arguments, till between the two great arguers there grew a little coolness?—or perchance the mighty friendship between Coleridge and your Sovereign Governor, Sir Alexander Ball, might create a kind of jealousy, for we fancy something of a coldness did exist, from the little ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... is certain, that the flying-fish can turn while in the air,— that is, diverge slightly from the direction first taken; and this would seem to argue a capacity something more than that of a mere spring or leap. Besides, the wings make a perceptible noise,—a sort of rustling,—often distinctly heard; and they have been seen to open and close while the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... some Delight thereto. It raiseth Admiration, as signifying a nimble Sagacity of Apprehension, a special Felicity of Invention, a Vivacity of Spirit, and Reach of Wit, more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a rare Quickness of Parts, that one can fetch in remote Conceits applicable; a notable Skill that he can dextrously accommodate them to the Purpose before him; together with a lively Briskness of Humour, not apt to damp those Sportful Flashes of Imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such Persons ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... when he addressed himself to the "destruction of that implicit faith and credulity which is the bane of all reasoning and free inquiry."[136] He refused to acknowledge a Supreme Being, in the following words: "While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular intelligent cause, which at first bestowed and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless, because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... XXVII. Some writers argue, on chronological grounds, that Solon's meeting with Croesus must have been an invention. But I cannot think that so famous a story, which is confirmed by so many writers, and, moreover, which so truly exhibits Solon's greatness of mind and wisdom, ought to be given up because ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... futile for the unhappy uncle to argue the matter. He could only obey the tyrant's pleasure and hope for a speedy return and the release of the terrified passengers. The Plymouth Adventure was ordered to haul her course to the westward and jog under easy sail toward the Charles Town bar. Blackbeard was rowed off to his ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... that engaged the Ville de Paris until the Barfleur came up." But such was the extreme sensibility of Saumarez, that he could not persuade himself to correct the error, from an idea that such an interference might argue a desire to sound his own praise; and, but for the circumstance we have now related, the truth might never have come ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... little of the early history of the Roman see, it would seem that, on the death of Hyginus, there was a vacancy of unusual length; and circumstances, which meanwhile took place, argue strongly in favour of the conclusion that, about this time, the change in the ecclesiastical constitution indicated by Jerome actually occurred. According to some, the interval between the death of Hyginus and the commencement of the episcopate of Pius, his immediate ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... a strict Enquiry, were found guilty of Idolatry and Witchcraft; and this seems to proceed from their Cohabiting, which, as I have noted before, gives Opportunities of Cabals to recal their ancient pristine Infidelity and Superstitions. They never argue against our Religion, but with all imaginable Indifference own, that it is most proper for us that have been brought up ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... of hostile troops should pass at a small distance from Lafayette's flank and gain his rear unobserved seems to argue a want of due vigilance on the part of that officer, but a detachment of the Pennsylvania militia had been posted at a little distance on his left and he relied on them for watching the roads in that quarter. The militia, however, had quitted their station without informing him of their ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... my wife's brought me a little out of the vapours, and I began to consider what I was doing; I corrected my wandering fancy, and began to argue with myself sedately what business I had after threescore years, and after such a life of tedious sufferings and disasters, and closed in so happy and easy a manner; I, say, what business had I to rush into new hazards, and put myself ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... with these he was a person; without them, he is a corpse. If, then, it is these unseen, intangible qualities, and not flesh and bones, muscle and "nerve structure," that constitute human personality, is it not rather childish to argue that, unless God possesses a body of some sort, the Divine Personality is a contradiction in terms? If we can validly affirm in the Deity qualities corresponding to those which in human beings we call consciousness, intelligence, etc., we ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... charmed and transported, that he could not tell what to think of all he saw and heard. "If this is a dream," said he, "it is a long one. But certainly," continued he, "it is no dream; for I can see and feel, walk and hear, and argue reasonably; whatever it is, I trust in God; I cannot but believe that I am the commander of the faithful, for no other person could live in this splendour. The honour and respect that has been strewn ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... (n. 3), how can it be happiness to lead a life which Aristotle says is too good for man? The solution of this paradox is partly contained in the concluding words of Aristotle above quoted, and will still further appear presently (s. iv., n. I, p. 21), where we shall argue that human life is a state of transition in preparation for a higher life of the soul, to be lived, according to the natural order, when the compound of soul and ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... many in Israel, and to a sign Spoken against—that through my very soul 90 A sword shall pierce. This is my favoured lot, My exaltation to afflictions high! Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest! I will not argue that, nor will repine. But where delays he now? Some great intent Conceals him. When twelve years he scarce had seen, I lost him, but so found as well I saw He could not lose himself, but went about His Father's ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... together for certain purposes. The historian of political forms may see in the town meeting a forerunner of direct legislation. But no housewife dare classify the cat and the tiger, the dog and the fox, as the same kind of animal. And no statesman can argue the virtues of the referendum from the successes of the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... of larger knowledge did not argue against this credulity. Antonia was of the provinces, bred out of their darkest hours of superstition and savage danger. But it was easy to see how Jonas Bronck's hand must hold his widow from second ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... sigh and retire, beaten in the argument. He knew his wife too well to argue with her. But he liked Bessie, and he did his best to comfort her when he had the chance, and thought there was no danger of starting ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... ree riddles and can solve ambiguities, and discourse upon geometry and am skilled in anatomy I have read the books of the Shafi'i[FN256] school and the Traditions of the Prophet and syntax; and I can argue with the Olema and discourse of all manner learning. Moreover I am skilled in logic and rhetoric and arithmetic and the making of talismans and almanacs, and I know thoroughly the Spiritual Sciences[FN257] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... argue for some time with the officers of the Brotherhood before he could finally persuade them that it would serve no purpose to arrest Don Quixote, for, being out of his senses, he would in the end be released as a madman. Furthermore, he warned them, Don Quixote ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... came rumbling into Mulberry Street, forming a long line in front of head- quarters. A telegram from Second Avenue demanded immediate help, and the police were bundled into them and hurried off. One driver refused to stir, saying, roughly, he was not hired to carry policemen. Acton had no time to argue the case, and quickly turning to a policeman, he said: "Put that man in cell Number 92." In a twinkling he was jerked from his seat and hurried away. Turning to another policeman, he said: "Mount ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... abundance there is of the contrary sort and how dour a life is his who happeneth upon a woman not well suited unto him. To say that you think, by the manners and fashions of the parents, to know the daughters, wherefrom you argue to give me a wife such as will please me, is a folly, since I know not whence you may avail to know their fathers nor yet the secrets of their mothers; and even did you know them, daughters are often unlike their parents. However, since it e'en pleaseth you ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... notwithstanding) to charge you with having forgotten my reply!! I have even a wild idea that Townshend reproached me, when the last old year was new, with writing to you instead of to him!!! We will argue it out, as well as we can argue anything without poor dear Haldimand, when I come back to Elysee. In any case, however, don't discontinue your annual letter, because it has become an expected and a delightful part of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... her subjects for help.[229] But the move under this aspect was skilful and successful; when Cornwallis and Hastings discharged their commission, Wyatt replied that he would rather be trusted than {p.098} trust; he would argue the marriage with pleasure, but he required first the custody of the Tower, and of the queen's person, and four of the council must place themselves in his ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... idolaters; and Taro says they worship fish, and eels, and all sorts of creeping things. They are also savage and cruel, and constantly fighting among each other. As to their morals, they are undoubtedly superior to the people of Tahiti, yet, from the style of their dances, we cannot argue much ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... upon which the attention has been fixed with a certain degree of intensity and for some perceptible space of time; that the volition, in other words, is too feeble and too rapid to leave any impression on the memory. To argue that there has been no volition, because we do not recollect it, is as absurd as it would be to say that there has been no muscular act, because in many cases we have as little recollection of the muscular act, as we have ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... had brought less than the Mere Bourron had believed, a shrewd possibility, even after a month's bargaining. When both had wiped their plates clean with bread—for nothing went to waste there—the child got up and brought the black coffee and the decanter of applejack. They at last ceased to argue, since the Mere Bourron had had the final word. Pere Bourron sat with closed fists, opening one now and then to strengthen his coffee with applejack. Being a short, thickset man, he generally sat in his blouse after he had eaten, with ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... the tax-gatherer is an unwelcome visitant. Mr. Jefferson relied upon him in 1799 to bring about a change of parties and administrations. But the country was then poor, the parties equally divided, and the political issues matters of temper and theory, on which men delight to differ and to argue, rather than those stern realities in which, at the present time, the very being of the State is wrapt up. Accordingly, it is a most remarkable fact at the present day, and one certainly without example in this country, perhaps in any country, that the unanimous desire of the people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... not argue it further, but went to her room, and remained there alone till Cecilia came to tell her that her brother had returned. What weeping there may have been there, need not be told. Indeed, as I think, there ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... never knew one person in my life that was convinced by argument. Discuss, yes; but not argue. The difference is this: in discussion you are searching for the truth, and in argument you want to prove that you are right. In discussion, therefore, you are anxious to know your neighbour's views, and you listen to him. ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... are standing where I cannot come to argue with you. Pity and justice have their respective duties to perform. Oftentimes pity may be exercised, and the claims of justice waived; in the case of the man you plead for, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... demonstrate by your ingenuity that this fulfilment occurs in Peter or in the pope. You are as mute as a stick when it is time to speak out, and a chatterbox when speech is unnecessary. Have you not learned your logic better than that? You argue your major premises, which no one questions, and assume the correctness of your minor premises, which every one questions, and then you draw the conclusion to ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... pleases them [whether it is in harmony with the Scriptures or out of harmony; whether it is correctly or incorrectly concluded. For they conclude thus:] "Make your calling sure by good works." Therefore works merit the remission of sins. A very agreeable mode of reasoning, if one would argue thus concerning a person sentenced to capital punishment, whose punishment has been remitted: "The magistrate commands that hereafter you abstain from that which belongs to another. Therefore you have merited the remission of the penalty, because you are now abstaining ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... argue that the materials and instruments of all production should be exempt from taxation; but these, when they do not enter into the production of necessaries, seem as proper subjects of taxation as the finished article. It is chiefly with reference ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... of my days measur'd, here I rest, That is, my Body; but my Soul, his Guest, Is hence ascended, whither, neither Time, Nor Faith, nor Hope, but only Love can clime; Where being now enlightned, she doth know The Truth of all men argue of below: Only this Dust doth here in pawn remain, That, when the world dissolves, she ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... could have been the wittiest of all the flaneurs; who could have made epigrams like diamonds and drunk music like wine. He has instead laboured in a mill of statistics and crammed his mind with all the most dreary and the most filthy details, so that he can argue on the spur of the moment about sewing-machines or sewage, about typhus fever or twopenny tubes. The usual mean theory of motives will not cover the case; it is not ambition, for he could have been twenty times more prominent as a plausible and popular humorist. It ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... seem to be able to stand it to have a guy argue with me," he replied, not abashed ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... steps of a ladder by which she must climb to the realization of the abstract good. Dogmas and observances apart, I felt that her religion was so much loftier than my own that, though it would have been impossible for me to profess acceptance of it, it was equally impossible to argue with her about it,—that it was so woven into the fibre of her existence that to move it in the least would be impossible, or, if possible, only at the cost of mental and spiritual dislocation. But, with all this, there was not in her a trace of the assumption of a religious superiority which ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... a real island," murmured Perry. Ossie was about to argue the matter when footsteps approached and they moved off again. A flight of steps led to a stone-floored verandah and they went up it and perched themselves on the parapet, to the probable detriment of the ivy growing across it, and watched the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... grew older, in Latin also; and even in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa [905], whom he calls "his great and noble disciples." Some historians state that Cneius Pompey resumed the practice of declaiming even during the civil war, in order to be better prepared to argue against Caius Curio, a young man of great talents, to whom the defence of Caesar was entrusted. They say, likewise, that it was not forgotten by Mark Antony, nor by Augustus, even during the war of Modena. Nero also declaimed [906] even after ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... does in anything we can say. I am glad to have your confidence, mother. My plan is to allow father to do as he wills, so that he may run the full length of his folly. To me, it is most foolish and absurd; but why argue with father if we would convince him? You know all we can do is to let him act as he pleases. He shall not make you uncomfortable, mother. I will let him storm and rage, but he must not send you to some horrible hotel to live away from your friends. ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... specially attached to man be deemed worthy of any exceptional privilege? When we reason about such a subject, almost at once we degenerate into nonsense. It is a passing thought which has no real hold on the mind. We may argue for the existence of animals in a future state from the attributes of God, or from texts of Scripture ('Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing?' etc.), but the truth is that we are only filling up the void of another world with our own ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... in that voluminous letter of mine to Uncle Max; he might argue and shake his head over it, thereby proving himself a wise man, but he could not but know that I was absolutely under my own control, as far as a woman could be. I need ask no one's advice in the disposal ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... be—I can hardly think it still exists—a class of persons who prided themselves on their disbelief in the reality of any such distinct disease as hydrophobia. I never thought it worth while to argue with them, for I have noticed that this disbelief is only a special manifestation of a particular habit of mind. Its advocates will be found, I think, most frequently among "the long-haired men and the short-haired women." Many of them dispute the efficacy of vaccination. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... his pleasure, have I or will I communicate the secret union which combines our hearts and our destinies. I will see him, and receive from his own lips the directions for my future conduct. Do not argue against my resolution, Janet; you will only confirm me in it. And to own the truth, I am resolved to know my fate at once, and from my husband's own mouth; and to seek him at Kenilworth is the surest way to attain ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... wise to argue further. He had obtained the object of his errand, and that was enough for the present. "Sorry you are not ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... earnest cake and the dirty inside blotter, argue it and sign the best way of standing. Supposing fifty are nineteenthirteen, supposing they are is that the reason that the trimmings are shorter. Why any wonder when the color of the sand is so dark and raisins are fig ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... Walcote widow could never have taught him." Esmond had his own opinion about the countrified Walcote widow, who had a quiet grace, and serene kindness, that had always seemed to him the perfection of good breeding, though he did not try to argue this point with his aunt. But he could agree in most of the praises which the enraptured old dowager bestowed on my lord viscount, than whom he never beheld a more fascinating and charming gentleman. Castlewood had not wit so much as enjoyment. "The lad ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... captain," said my uncle, "we will not argue about that. You land us and our boat where ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... at the St. Albans had tried to argue with Lemuel about his not taking the fees he refused, and he knew that they talked him over. One day, when he was showing a room to a transient, he heard one of them say to another in the next apartment, "Well, I did hate to offer it to him, just as if he was a common ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... as it was," said Davenport. "I think there were brave men enough in our army." It was clear that Davenport was disposed to argue the respective merits of the generals of the revolution. Hand thought argument might check the flow of good-feeling, and therefore suggested that they should have more drum and fife music. Brown and Hanson agreed, and ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... the following paragraph from the same source: "Western Australia has emerged into the full glare of the world's light and renown, and not to know its golden wonders is to argue oneself unknown," I ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... in question is of such an involved and serious character as to make it dangerous for the accused one to enter the house, he remains hidden till he ascertains how his relatives and friends are progressing. In other cases he personally attends and may argue in his own defense.[1] ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... argue that no one suffered more from the freezing atmosphere than they did. In many records I find that they were forced to preach and pray with their hands cased in woollen or fur mittens or heavy knit gloves; and ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... looked at his son in silence. He did not seem to follow the hasty argument. He had the placid air of a child or a very old man, who will not argue. ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... throw us back into all the embarrassments which characterized our former situation." Such was the low repute of the state legislatures that the only way in which this argument could be met was to argue that "Congress shall have power, in its fullest extent, to correct, reverse, or affirm, any decree of a state court." This high assertion of federal authority was made by Jackson of Georgia in the course of a long legal argument. The debate did not follow sectional lines, and in general it was ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... He drove it in at last. And that was nothing. He had to devise the means. He devised them—an audacious plan; and his task was only half done. He had to inspire with his own confidence a lot of people who had hidden and absurd reasons to hang back; he had to conciliate imbecile jealousies, and argue away all sorts of senseless mistrusts. Without the weight of Doramin's authority, and his son's fiery enthusiasm, he would have failed. Dain Waris, the distinguished youth, was the first to believe ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... arms. Marshal de l'Hopital, governor of Paris for the king, said to me, 'You are aware, Mdlle., that if your troops had not approached this city, those of the king would not have come thither, and that they only came to drive them away.' Madame de Nemours did not like this, and began to argue the point. I broke off their altercation. 'Consider, sir, that, whilst time is being wasted in discussing useless matters, the prince is in danger in your faubourgs.'" She carried with her the aid of the Duke of Orleans' troops, and immediately ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of his melodious harp, Made music with my Mephistophilis? Why should I die, then, or basely despair? I am resolv'd; Faustus shall ne'er repent.— Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again, And argue of divine astrology.[100] Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon Are all celestial bodies but one globe, As is the ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... to do his worst, and promised him, if he did, that he should bitterly repent it. Perhaps if he had worn this proud front from the first, instead of beginning with a sense of entertainment and then going on to argue, the thing might have turned otherwise; for even at this eleventh hour the Commissary was visibly staggered. But it was too late; he had been challenged; the proces-verbal was begun; and he again squared his elbows over his writing, and the Arethusa was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was really thinking how charming a girl Helen Cresswell was. She fascinated him. For his sister Taylor had a feeling of superiority that was almost contempt. The idea of a woman trying to understand and argue about things men knew! He admired the dashing and handsome Miss Easterly, but she scared him and made him angrily awkward. This girl, on the other hand, just lounged and listened with an amused smile, or asked ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... silent. He talked apart with the captain for a time,—seemed to argue with him. Then they went ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... looked at him with such a frank, arch smile,—so like the memory he cherished of the college-boy, Maverick,—that he could argue the matter no further, but only patted her little hand, as it lay upon the cushion of the carriage, as much as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... it has been asserted by men who have written about Columbus that the most important event during his Lisbon days was his correspondence with a learned astronomer named Paolo Toscanelli. Columbus, they argue, having formed the plan of sailing west to discover a route to the Indies (which Columbus never thought of doing at that early day), wrote to ask Toscanelli's advice, and the wise Florentine approved most heartily. It appears from the astronomer's ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... Chicago Board of Trade"—it is the same apologist who speaks—"is a world-renowned commercial organisation. It exercises a wider and a more potential influence over the welfare of mankind than any other institution of its kind in existence." This assurance leaves you dumb. You might as well argue with a brass band as with a citizen of Chicago; and doubtless you would wave the flag yourself if you stayed long enough ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... counter thereto, and how grievous a life he leads who chances upon a lady that matches ill with him. And to say that you think to know the daughters by the qualities of their fathers and mothers, and thereby—so you would argue—to provide me with a wife to my liking, is but folly; for I wot not how you may penetrate the secrets of their mothers so as to know their fathers; and granted that you do know them, daughters oftentimes resemble neither of their parents. However, as you are minded to rivet ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... good grounds for his suspicions. He stole along the gallery and down the stairs to the office, just in time to see the two enter, much the worse for drink. Mallow was boisterous, and Craig was sullen. The former began to argue with the night manager, who politely shook his head. Mallow grew insistent, but the night manager refused to break the rules of the hotel. Warrington inferred that Mallow was demanding liquor, and his inference was correct. He moved ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... called, however falsely, the cause of liberty, made no scruple to lay the nation prostrate at the feet of a monarch, without a single provision in favour of that cause; and if the promise of indemnity may seem to argue that there was some attention, at least, paid to the safety of his associates in arms, his subsequent conduct gives reason to suppose that even this provision was owing to any other cause rather than to a generous feeling of his breast. For he afterwards not only acquiesced in the insults so meanly ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... uniform wonderfully like my ideas as given to the rajah in conversation, I felt as if I must retreat and go back to the other tent and announce my determination, but I had several thoughts to combat now—shame and inclination among others, for I felt as if I could go back to the rajah and argue with him again; and I tried to convince myself that wearing the clothes spread out before me need make no difference. I should no doubt be armed, and that would help me in my escape; besides, he had promised me that I should go with him only as ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... have recourse to these simple devices. They retain the doctrine as a protest against materialism, but purposely retain it in the vaguest possible shape. They say that this life is not all; if it were all, they argue, we should be rightly ruled by our stomachs; but they scrupulously decline to give form and substance to their anticipations. We must, they think, have avowedly a heavenly background to the world, but our gaze should be restricted habitually ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... breaking. Again a plunge into the icy river, again a fight with the racing current, again a safe landing, this time on the British bank. So the escapade ended, but it enabled those interested to form a fair idea of the lack of organisation among the Dutch, and to argue that if once they should leave their naturally strong fortifications and intrenchments, the first united and sustained attack on the part of the British ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... mistake, and two days later stated that the prince put forward no claim of right; both sides agreed that he must be regent and that before he assumed the office he must be invited to do so by parliament; his right was an abstract question upon which it was no use to argue. Pitt was too good a tactician to allow him to minimise the point at issue; he denied "that the prince had any right whatever". The difference between an irresistible claim, which Pitt acknowledged, and an inherent right was not one merely of words; if the prince could ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... dissembled favours of his affection. It is a singular piece of wisdom to apprehend truly, and without passion, the works of God, and so well to distinguish his justice from his mercy as not to miscall those noble attributes; yet it is likewise an honest piece of logick so to dispute and argue the proceedings of God as to distinguish even his judgments into mercies. For God is merciful unto all, because better to the worst than the best deserve; and to say he punisheth none in this world, though it be a paradox, is no absurdity. To ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... appearance in the Palatinate had broken the strength of German Protestantism, and set the League free to crush Frederick at Prague. They found only demands for supplies, and a persistence in the old efforts to patch up a peace. Fresh envoys were now labouring to argue the Emperor into forgiveness of Frederick, and to argue the Spaniards into an evacuation of Frederick's dominions. With such aims not only was no war against the Spaniard to be thought of, but his good-will ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... do you. No need to argue—your face tells me that. But we'll have the time of our life before they gather us in. Anyhow, we'll want to go back. The whole world is crazy, but ashamed to acknowledge it. We are not. Pascal said men are so mad that he who would not be is a madman of a new kind. To escape ineffable dulness is ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... might happen on a ship that would take us away from the land where we had suffered so much. More than three weeks elapsed, however, before we could get away from the Northwest River. It was about 325 miles over the ice to Battle Harbour, and Mackenzie and the others continued to argue against the feasibility of my plan. For a time it did seem as if it would be impossible to carry it out. First of all, I had trouble with Hubbard's coffin. When we received the body, the plain spruce box that had been made for it was found not to ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... that I was going to argue for the offensive, fell in roundly with me to second me; but I stopped him short by telling him he mistook ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... may now seem, these appeals were successful in their object; they did create a popular panic, and stir up popular passion and fury to the uttermost height. Not even Walpole attempted any longer to argue down the monstrous misrepresentations of his policy. The fury against him and his excise scheme grew hotter every day, and at one time it was positively thought that his life {319} was in danger. Tumultuous ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... commentators on the question of St. Declan's period—and they happen to be amongst the most weighty—argue strongly in favour of the pre-Patrician mission (Cfr. Prof. Kuno Meyer, "Learning Ireland in the Fifth Century"). Discussing the way in which letters first reached our distant island of the west and the ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... said Socrates, 'to argue that being, if it is many, must be both like and unlike, which is a contradiction; and each division of your argument is intended to elicit a similar absurdity, which may be supposed to follow from the assumption that ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... ancient world. A pauper population is a disease peculiar to the modern or Christian world. Various causes latent in the social systems of the ancients prevented such developments of surplus people. But does not this argue a superiority in the social arrangements of these ancients? Not at all; they were atrociously worse. They evaded this one morbid affection by means of others far more injurious to the moral advance of man. The case was ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... hence I must shut the door on anything like an entelechy, and, that being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course, we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that, by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to prove, the existence ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... grave. And last, my Polyneices, unto thee I paid due rites, and this my recompense! Yet am I justified in wisdom's eyes. For even had it been some child of mine, Or husband mouldering in death's decay, I had not wrought this deed despite the State. What is the law I call in aid? 'Tis thus I argue. Had it been a husband dead I might have wed another, and have borne Another child, to take the dead child's place. But, now my sire and mother both are dead, No second brother can be born for me. Thus by the law ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... gauze. "Shall we talk of rags at such a solemn moment?" she retorted; and then proceeded with her direct plea for Magdeburg. In the midst of her eloquence, when the Emperor seemed almost overcome by her importunity, her meddling husband most inopportunely entered the room. He began to argue and reason, citing his threadbare grievance, the violation of Ansbach territory, and endeavoring to prove himself to be right. Napoleon at once turned the conversation to indifferent themes, and in a few moments took his leave. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the knights of his Round Table fell asleep. The anti-negro slavery object of my paper seemed to be lost sight of, both by friends and foes of human progress, in the surprise at the innovation of a woman entering the political arena, to argue publicly on great questions of national policy, and while men were defending their pantaloons, they created and spread the idea, that masculine supremacy lay in the form of their garments, and that a woman dressed like a man would be as potent ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... her stepmother for that. Lil had acted like a fool, and Mrs Partridge, with her insatiable greed for gossip, had gathered hints and rumours from the four corners of Sydney, and Lil had bolted rather than argue it out with her father. That and the death of Pinkey's mother had soured his temper, and his wits, never very powerful, had grown childish under ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... her the gates of a material paradise—the kind of paradise in which a young woman enjoys a constant flow of ready money. Though she was quite unaware of it, it was those fifteen weeks spent on the Riviera, for the most part at Monte Carlo, which had gradually caused Enid to argue herself into the belief that she was justified in doing anything—anything which might contribute to the renewal of that delicious kind of existence—the only life, from her point of ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... would have preferred to argue the question in a general way, but felt the necessity of satisfying her scruples, as far as might be. He had liked Tryon from the very beginning of their acquaintance. In all their intercourse, which had been very close for several months, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and shallows such as, it was thought, no frigate could pass. Outworks were thrown up. A battery was planted with some small guns taken from the ships. The command of the fort was most unwisely given to Elphinstone, who had already proved himself much more disposed to argue with his commanders than to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... no use. Jerry could not argue himself into even innocent housebreaking. As he was swinging his legs off the windowsill, he heard music, familiar music, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." While he had been fussing and fretting at the cellar ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... "Yes, argue with me, convince me, guide me—Heaven knows that, impetuous and haughty as I am, I need a guide,"—and Lady Florence's eyes swam with tears. Ernest's prejudices against her were greatly shaken: ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... story of laughter or tears, of shock or depression. It has no manufactured gloom. It preaches no reform. It has not a single social problem around which the characters move and argue and agonize. No reader need lie awake at night wondering what the author meant; all she intends to convey goes over the top with the first sight of the printed words. The story invites the reader to be thrilled, and dares him (or ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... common sense rules either but which force an immediate issue in a maneuver of a kind that ordinarily does not occur in an opening but is characteristic of the middle game. This is a point which the majority of Chess players overlook. They argue that—granted the value of general principles of strategy, which will greatly help to build up a safe position—cases occur in which a move may win which is not according to principles, and that, therefore, following the trend of a certain combination which seems profitable, is ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... instance, or "gravitation"), are just the most inexplicable, logically unexpected, seemingly arbitrary, certainly supernatural - miraculous, if you will; for no natural and physical cause whatsoever can be assigned for them; while if anyone shall argue against their being miraculous and supernatural on the ground of their being so common, I can only answer, that of all absurd and illogical arguments, this is the most so. For what has the number of times which the miracle occurs to do with the question, save to increase ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... do hope and pray, Evelyn, that you are not going to argue with me," cried Aunt Emmeline, with a sudden access of energy which was positively startling. "It's ridiculous saying that because there is only one mistress instead of two, expense will therefore ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... You argue that France is overburthened with taxes, and deduce thence the conclusion that it is necessary to protect such and such an article of produce. But protection does not relieve us from the payment of these taxes. If, then, individuals devoting themselves to any one object ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... as these assisted to argue me out of all apprehensions of its being the Devil; and I presently concluded then, that it must be some more dangerous creature, viz. that it must be some of the savages of the main land over against me, who had wandered out to sea in their canoes, and either ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... free States are often told that they cannot argue fairly upon the subject of slavery because they know nothing about its actual operation; and any expression of their opinions and feelings with regard to the system, is attributed to ignorant enthusiasm, fanatical benevolence, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Alderman McGuire said, and shot the other, unhypnotized bandit and killed him. But when he reported the entire incident to the station—I was on duty that night—the captain wouldn't believe it, and tried to argue McGuire into saying it was a accident, and that the gun had gone off accidentally and killed the unhypnotized bandit. But the alderman stuck to his story, and it was true, because the hypnotized bandit told me privately all about it when I took ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... LONG'S indisposition, the Bill was postponed. Besides, the fact that every day brings news of policemen murdered, barracks burned, tax-collectors assaulted and mail-bags stolen, while to one class of mind it may argue that the present is a most inopportune moment for a great constitutional change, may to another suggest that only such a change will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... this not only because 1970 marks the beginning of a new decade in which America will celebrate its 200th birthday. I say it because new knowledge and hard experience argue persuasively that both our programs and our institutions in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Richard Nixon • Richard Nixon
... reason, sir, that I have decided upon going to sea; and if you do remain on board, I hope to argue the point with you, and make you a convert to the truth of equality and the rights of man. We are all born equal. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... must not be profaned by marriage. In such an event, also, his cherished hope that she might complete the quadrangle of St. George's Hall was likely to be frustrated forever. These fears moved him to argue with a bitterness that served only to defeat ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... fifteen Franklin had avowed himself a deist, or theist, which must have grieved his parents, who were people of positive Christian faith. He loved to argue, and when he had learned the Socratic art of asking questions so as to lead one to confuse himself, and of answering questions in the subjunctive mood, he sought nothing more than disputations in the stanch Puritan town. His intimate friends were deists, but ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... angrily, and the hollow-eyed, dishevelled maniacs who worked doggedly with set teeth as though they had not already gone without two nights' sleep. North had often to order ashore intruders, until his temper shortened to the vanishing point. One big hulking countryman attempted to argue the point. North promptly knocked him overboard into the shallow water between the driver and the bank. He did not rise; so North fished for him in the most matter-of-fact way with a boat hook, threw him on the bank unconscious, and went on driving piles! The incident raised ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... each one of these involuntary innervations—an instant too brief to be revealed by the experimental conditions employed above. The seeming continuity of the sensation during reflex movement would of course not argue against such successive instants of anaesthesia, since no discontinuity of vision during voluntary movement is noticeable, although a relatively long ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... Denry could argue with any one save his mother. Always, when he was about to reduce her to impotence, she fell on him thus and rolled him in the ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... sings not, indeed, of Chaos and Eternal Night. But as one inspired by a heaven-born Muse, he echoes the chorus of the Angelic Song, when on the utterance of the first fiat the Morning Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we argue, that Poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its intellectual and emotional embodiment, is heaven-conceived, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... prompt. So she sent fer Mr. Evans and he took real long to git dar, but when he do come, Missus, she 'low—'Mr. Evans, us does not need yo' services on dis plantation no mo', Sir!' He 'low Marse aint here. Missus 'low—'I does not want to argue de point wid ye, Mr. Evans, fer yo' services has come to an end on dis plantation!' Wid dat ole man Evans go off wid his head a-hanging in shame. Us niggers went out and tole de news wid gladness shining out from our eyes, kaise us was dat glad ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... married to her, and shall, without further delay, receive the crown, for my successor must certainly be married." The Prince considered that he had earned the kingdom fairly twice over but still he was too well bred to argue about it, so he just went back to his gorgeous chariot, and, surrounded by his escort, returned to the White Cat faster than he had come. This time she was expecting him, the path was strewn with flowers, and a thousand braziers were burning scented woods which ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... in her own mind that he did go out as she was of her own existence, and was little less certain that he did not return. She felt too disturbed to argue with him, and let the subject drop as though she must have been mistaken. When she was walking down Longpuddle street later in the day she met Jim Weedle's daughter Nancy, and said, "Well, Nancy, you ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... serious, undisturbed consideration of the matter, I came to the final conclusion that it was not love but pity that had driven me to such abnormal activity. It was nonsense to even argue the point. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... said of those who delight in such studies. As for his part, he meditated chiefly on what is useful and proper for man, and took delight to argue of piety and impiety, of honesty and dishonesty, of justice and injustice, of wisdom and folly, of courage and cowardice, of the State, and of the qualifications of a Minister of State, of the Government, and of those who are fit to govern; in short, he enlarged on the like subjects, ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... To those who argue that the grants of the Constitution are fatal to the reservation of sovereignty by the States, the Constitution furnishes a conclusive answer in the amendment which was coeval with the adoption of the instrument, and which declares that ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... and are subject to change. Hence God's knowledge would be subject to change and disappearance, which is impossible. If God knows particulars how is it that there is often a violation of right and justice in the destinies of individual men? This would argue in God either inability or indifference, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... received a telegram from Madame, informing him that she would be with him at one o'clock. He awaited her impatiently, determined to confess at once and afterward to argue with her, to tell her that he could not remain a bachelor indefinitely, and that, as M. de Marelle persisted in living, he had been compelled to choose some one else as a legal companion. When the bell rang, his heart ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... note in this connection that Canon Isaac Taylor, and Professor Sayce have but very recently awakened great interest in this question, in Europe especially, by the reading of papers before the British Philological Association, in which they argue in favor of the Finnic origin of the Aryans. For this new theory these scholars present exceedingly strong evidence, and they conclude that the time of the separation of the Aryan from the Finnic stock must have been more than five ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... consulted upon this? and if he was, upon what, but the most romantic affection on the part of Lord Elmwood, had Miss Milner to depend? and his Lordship was not a man to be suspected of submitting to the excess of any passion." Thus did Miss Woodley argue, lest her friend should be misled by her wishes; yet, in her own mind, she scarce harboured a doubt that any thing would thwart them. The succeeding circumstance proved ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... about and told the story of his boy coming back, and expecting to be taken on again, as a curious instance of the mysterious working of the Oriental mind, as another example of the extraordinary way Easterns argue. 'Just to think,' said the officer, 'he was not ashamed of having been in prison!' And the boy? Well, he probably said nothing, but went away and did not understand, and kept the matter to himself, for they are very dumb, these people, very long-suffering, very ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... that? Then I failed to make myself clear. I wished merely to argue that the well-meaning ladies who suggested it were not intending a social union at all. In fact, such a union in our present condition of things, with its division of classes, is impossible—as ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... I made him half-define these hints; they amounted to crafty Jesuit-slanders. That night M. Paul and I talked seriously and closely. He pleaded, he argued. I could not argue—a fortunate incapacity; it needed but triumphant, logical opposition to effect all the director wished to be effected; but I could talk in my own way—the way M. Paul was used to—and of which ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... argue with Brian was only to call into action the slumbering fires of his fatal malady, I turned the conversation by asking him why he called ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... dinner the guests, instead of being put to shame by the sight of the newspapers, actually sputtered with pleasure, and fell on them and unfolded them and opened them at the financial pages. And then the men began to shout, and argue, and perspire, and fling quotations about the table, and the women got very shrill, and said they didn't know what they would do if the wretched market kept up, or rather if it didn't keep up. And nobody admired the new furniture or the pictures, or the old ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris |
