"Pugnacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if they did not actually terrify Oscar, were at least the sort of people he could not control, and whom he feared as possibly able to coerce him. You suggest that the Queensberry pugnacity was something that Oscar could not deal with successfully. But how in that case could Oscar have felt quite safe with you? You were more pugnacious than six Queensberrys rolled into one. When people asked, 'What has Frank Harris been?' the usual reply was, 'Obviously ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... a peaceable man, Captain Lingard, but when put to it, I could fight as well as any of them flat-nosed chaps we have to make shift with, instead of a proper crew of decent Christians. Fighting!" he went on with unexpected pugnacity of tone, "Fighting! If anybody comes to fight me, he will find me ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... I still have a good deal of a reputation"—she turned upon him with more directness and a little laughing pugnacity—"as though I were the same terrible child, up to the same riotous tricks as ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... account, they will more readily respect you, although you are neither Sikh nor yet Pathan but are supposed to be a Punjabi Mussulman. Therefore, sahib, you must take a middle course between peace and pugnacity, pretending on the one hand to restrain my quarrelsomeness, yet on the other depending for safety on my readiness to take offense—as a man who is accustomed ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... lay a clenched fist of fearful dimensions, that in color and protuberances bore a good deal of resemblance to a freshly unearthed Jerusalem artichoke. Its sinews seemed to be cracking with tension, and the whole knob was so expressive of intense pugnacity that my eyes involuntarily sought its owner's face. I had unconsciously taken my seat directly opposite a man whose stature was nearly double that of the compact, bustling sputtering, and sturdy little fellows who were bawling on every side of us, and whose skinny lips, instead of joining in ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... see that mere instinctive curiosity, pugnacity, and honor may make life on a purely naturalistic basis seem worth living from day to day to men who have cast away all metaphysics in order to get rid of hypochondria, but who are resolved to owe nothing as yet to religion and its more positive gifts. ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... all-soothing medium of a mint-julep, transpose himself from a mass of passion and bad English into a child of perfect equanimity? If not, perhaps you have witnessed in our halls of Congress the sudden transition through which some of our Carolina members pass from a state of stupidity to a state of pugnacity? (We refer only to those members who do their own "stumping," and as a natural consequence, get into Congress through abuse of the North, bad whiskey, and a profusion of promises to dissolve the Union.) And if you have, you may form some ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... fell back beaten, every vestige of optimistic pugnacity gone from his face. Edgington laid his hand on ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... must I acknowledge that much of the enmity felt towards our family, and the disrepute into which our good old name fell, was caused by the elixir. The majority of Ueberhells were accused of presumption and arrogance, of opiniativeness and pugnacity. Many had made themselves disagreeable to their neighbours by their caustic criticisms and ill-natured complaints, at the same time bringing misfortune upon themselves by a most curious exhibition of their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... where Abraham, says Berosus (Josephus, Ant. I. 7, Sec. 2, and II. 9, Sec. 2) was "skilful in the celestial science." He notices the Akarana-Zaman (endless Time) of the Guebres, and the working dual, Hormuzd and Ahriman. He brands the God of the Hebrews with pugnacity and cruelty. He has heard of the beautiful creations of Greek fancy which, not attributing a moral nature to the deity, included Theology in Physics; and which, like Professor Tyndall, seemed to consider all matter ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... left by an orderly in uniform notifying me that I was expected to report at the quarters of the commanding-general the next day at ten o'clock. Conscious of my innocence of treason or any other crime against the Government or society, my pugnacity was roused by this summons. Before the hour set for my appearance at the military headquarters, I was ready for martyrdom or any thing else except Alcatraz. I didn't like that. The island was too small, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... am so glad to see you,' replied Job Trotter, gradually releasing Mr. Weller, as the first symptoms of his pugnacity disappeared. 'Oh, Mr. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... instinct for self-preservation, which, by the way is often overshadowed by their great sexual eagerness, no discriminating characters have been acquired and transmitted, other than those which have been the result of passion, namely, pugnacity and perseverance." Again the italics are mine. What we have here is merely the old, old delusion of masculine enterprise in amour—the concept of man as a lascivious monster and of woman as his shrinking victim—in brief, the Don Juan idea in fresh ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the way of Charles Hadley as he made to follow. There was some pugnacity on her fair face. "It's mighty kind of Mr. Hadley ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... of despair over the probable results of the Revolutions of 1848-49; and it is impossible to guess what would have happened to him if he had survived to witness the Second of December. Never was there such a case, at least among Englishmen, of timorous pugnacity and plucky pessimism. But it would be by no means difficult to parallel the temperament in France; and, indeed, the comparative frequency of it there, may be thought to be no small cause of the political and military ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... and comparison and argument. They come and go, coalesce and are forgotten, never organizing perfectly the emotion of the whole group. There is, after all, just one human activity left in which whole populations accomplish the union sacre. It occurs in those middle phases of a war when fear, pugnacity, and hatred have secured complete dominion of the spirit, either to crush every other instinct or to enlist it, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... indescribable look that projects itself not only through you but beyond. It is not exactly preoccupation but a highly developed concentration. This look seemed to be enhanced by the ordeal through which he was then passing. In his springy walk was a suggestion of pugnacity. His whole manner was that of a man in action and who exults in it. Roosevelt had the same characteristic but he displayed it with much more animation ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... object of our study. The baiting of Jews, the hunting of Albigenses and Waldenses, the stoning of Quakers and ducking of Methodists, the murdering of Mormons and the massacring of Armenians, express much rather that aboriginal human neophobia, that pugnacity of which we all share the vestiges, and that inborn hatred of the alien and of eccentric and non-conforming men as aliens, than they express the positive piety of the various perpetrators. Piety is the mask, the inner force is tribal instinct. You believe as little as I do, in ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... his happy home. But his services as a diplomatist were needed in England. No more suitable representative of the young republic, it was thought, could be found, in spite of his impatience, restlessness, pugnacity, imprudence, and want of self-control; for he was intelligent, shrewd, high-spirited, and quick-sighted. The diplomatists could not stand before his blunt directness, and he generally carried his point by eloquence ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... the twilight sky of a summer evening. But he is strong and hearty on the whole; although the excitement of continuous writing keeps him in a perpetual fever, deranges his liver, and makes him at times acrid and savage as a sick giant. Hence his increased pugnacity of late,—his fierceness, and angry hammering of all things sacred and profane. It is but physical and temporary, however, all this, and does not affect his healthy and serene moments. For no man lives who possesses greater kindness and affection, or more good, noble, and humane qualities. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... cried the negro, with sudden energy, seizing his wife's face between his hands, and giving her lips a smack that resounded over the place—to the immense delight of several little Gaucho boys, who, clothed in nothing but ponchos and pugnacity, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... say not!" breathed Teddy, who had considerable pugnacity in his makeup, although not really what you would call a ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... self-forgetfulness. Sometimes the conversation strayed into politics, and then Mr. Grey, an eager politician, would throw back his head, and talk with more sparkle and rapidity, flashing occasionally into grim humour which seemed to throw light on the innate strength and pugnacity of the peasant and Puritan breed from which he sprang. Nothing could be more unlike the inspired philosopher, the mystic surrounded by an adoring school, whom Robert had been picturing to himself in his walk up to the house, through the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a strange bond between the big yellow man and this little green bird. The bird did not suspect it, but the man knew. The pluck, the pugnacity and the individuality of the feathered comrade had been an object lesson to the man, at a time when he had been on the point of ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... minutes the person recently attacked suddenly becomes possessed of a certain amount of rage-inspired courage, and he in turn commences a vigorous assault upon somebody, probably his late assailant; this worthy, having become a little cooler, has mysteriously lost his late pugnacity, and now likewise retreats without once attempting to raise his own stick in self-defence. The lower and commercial class Persians are pretty quarrelsome among themselves, but they quarrel chiefly with their tongues; when ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... undertake the systematic cultivation and change of character by such processes in the young; but when I see how quickly and completely the condition of a patient may be changed, and all cloudy, depressed conditions of the brain removed,—how easily I can produce a state of insanity, idiocy, or pugnacity, and as quickly remove it entirely,—I cannot doubt that a little perseverance in cultivating the nobler qualities until they become by habit a second nature will change even the most depraved, if the process be begun in childhood or youth and steadily maintained, unless there be a great organic ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... many duller and blunter, like the pilot in the absence of a storm. And no doubt it is from having noticed this that legislators try to excite in states ambition and emulation among their townsmen, and stir up and increase their courage and pugnacity against enemies by the sound of trumpets and flutes. For it is not only in poems, as Plato says, that he that is inspired by the Muses, and as it were possessed by them, will laugh to shame the plodding artist, but ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... one of these. David Culross had been in the penitentiary twenty years. Now, with that worm-eaten heart, he came out into liberty and looked about him for the habiliments with which he had formerly clothed himself,—for hope, self-respect, courage, pugnacity, and industry. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a superlative dolt, and a common mark of scorn and contempt ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... argument as of a battle with fists, and thought that manliness required him to be determined and unflinching. But this, in my experience of him, was not his ordinary manner, which was calm and companionable, without rudeness of any kind, unless some difference occurred to provoke his pugnacity. I have witnessed instances of his care to avoid wounding feelings needlessly. He never kept back his opinions which, on some points, were shallow and even absurd; and when his antagonist was as persistently positive as himself, he was apt to be over vehement in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... American at all, but a German shipping millionaire from Bremen—was coming down, with an "expert." Hang the expert! Falloden, who was to deal with the business, promised himself not to be intimidated by him, or his like; and amid his general distress and depression, his natural pugnacity took pleasure in the thought of wrestling with ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was Mr. Philip Bommaney, recently self-entitled the 'Solitary of Gable Inn.' He was eight-and-twenty years of age or thereabouts, a broad-shouldered, deep-chested, manly-looking fellow, with curling brown hair, and a face expressive of pugnacity, good-humour, and many capacities. He was a little weary now, after a long day of satisfactory work. He watched the mounting shadows, and listened to the weird gamut of the wind among the telegraph lines, until the outer voices made his own ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... apparently begun to recover from his astonishment, had changed his ankus from one hand to the other, and was in the act of drawing his kris, when Peter yelled at him again and made so fierce a thrust with his spear that all the little fellow's pugnacity died out, or, as it were, passed away in a ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... males are almost always the wooers; and they alone are armed with special weapons for fighting with their rivals. They are generally stronger and larger than the females, and are endowed with the requisite qualities of courage and pugnacity. They are provided, either exclusively or in a much higher degree than the females, with organs for vocal or instrumental music, and with odoriferous glands. They are ornamented with infinitely diversified appendages and with the most brilliant ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... the site of some of the great shops on the south side of the High Street, opposite the Town Hall. His grounds bordered on those of Scarsdale House, and he established in them a seed garden in which to carry out his practical experiments in agriculture. His pugnacity and sharp tongue led him into many a quarrel, and he was never a favourite with those who were his neighbours. He advocated Queen Caroline's cause with warmth, and was the real author of her famous letter to the King. But he will always be remembered best by ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... were left alone over their wine, Mr Harding told his tale of woe. But even this, sad as it was, did not much diminish the archdeacon's good humour, though it greatly added to his pugnacity. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... have been agreeing. In differing from them, however, I wish to proceed with the utmost caution and diffidence. The smallness of my own acquaintance with the disciplines of natural science is ever before my mind, and I am fearful of doing these disciplines an injustice. The ability and pugnacity of the partisans of natural science make them formidable persons to contradict. The tone of tentative inquiry, which befits a being of dim faculties and bounded knowledge, is the tone I would wish to take and not to depart from. At present it seems to me, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... did not die that night. He had no mind to die: he was a man of stubborn pugnacity and he fought ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... knowledge and artistic power, while at the same time they called forth all the highest qualities in the reciter. Even in Pulci, accordingly, we find no parody, strictly speaking, of chivalry, nearly humour of his paladins at times approaches it. By their side stands the ideal of pugnacity—the droll and jovial Morgante—who masters whole armies with his bellclapper, and who is himself thrown into relief by contrast with the grotesque and most interesting monster Margutte. Yet Pulci lays no special stress on ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... portion of the Town Guard on duty the previous night had just settled down to slumber when they were obliged to jump out of "bed" and betake themselves in hot haste to their posts. But the Boers were only joking; they retired after an out-of-range demonstration of pugnacity. The citizen soldiers went back to "bed," but ere their winks had totalled forty they were again roused by the sacred goose-cackie of the hooters and again running to their trenches. The scenes in the streets were pretty similar to the pictures of the day before. We waited six ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... which would have to be ratified by "Pet" hereafter. Terms being settled and agreement signed, the lawyers fell to at the linked sweetness of deducing title. The abstract of the Yordas title was nearly as big as the parish Bible, so in and out had their dealings been, and so intricate their pugnacity. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... was brought up to look upon justice as the first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested in the portraits of the great commoner. But he found comfort in the reflection that "Dada," mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very clean-looking ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... the upper scaffolding of the steadily rising walls, or down below on the ground in front of his men, his hands behind his back, his face screwed into a quizzical expression, his whole body bearing a look of bristling content and pugnacity which was too delicious for words. Since things were going especially well he could not say much, but still he could look his contentiousness, and did. Even now he would occasionally manage to pick a quarrel with ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... motives to be without guile. He would say, "Always believe a person right until proved otherwise. Take people at face value. I am a fool, but that is the only way to begin." Such were the tenets of his quiet pugnacity of faith in human beings. It is no wonder that a working-man called him, "The greatest Christian in shoe-leather I ever met; a Christian capitalist worthy of anyone's emulation"; or that his faithful colored sexton, who waited on him, shined his shoes, ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... share my ardent affection for him, they all, with one exception, liked him. The exception was a middle-aged little Talmudist with a tough little beard who held everybody in terror by his violent temper and pugnacity. He was a pious man, but his piety never manifested itself with such genuine fervor as when he exposed the impiety of others. He was forever picking quarrels, forever challenging people to debate with him, forever offering ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... methods of ornament and of merchandise, and stimulate in them the worst conditions of pugnacity, bigotry, and rapine. That is the broad geographical and political relation of races. Next, you must consider the conditions of ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... is the case of Mr. Wallace's Malayan orioles, two species of which exactly copy two pugnacious honey-suckers in every detail of plumage and coloration. As the honey-suckers are avoided by birds of prey, owing to their surprising strength and pugnacity, the orioles gain immunity from attack by their close resemblance to the protected species. When Dr. Sclater, the distinguished ornithologist, was examining Mr. Forbes's collections from Timorlaut, even his experienced eye was so taken in by another of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... advancing boldly against the slight fortifications of the post, frightened him into surrender. Hull had been set an impossible task, to conquer upper Canada with no sure means of getting reinforcements or supplies through a region swarming with Indians; but his conduct indicated no spark of pugnacity, and his surrender caused the loss of the entire north-west. Tecumseh and his warriors now advanced against the Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio frontiers; and the nameless horrors of Indian massacre and ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... Schenck, a soldier of fortune, a man of ferocious activity, who began his career in the service of tyranny, and ended it by chance in that of independence. He changed sides several times, but, no matter who he fought for, he did his duty well, from that unconquerable principle of pugnacity which seemed to make his sword a part ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Fotheringham, was not content to listen. Diana's impressions of the country-side, which presently caught her ear, evidently roused her pugnacity. She threw herself on all the girl's rose-colored appreciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the "locals," according to her, were stupid or snobbish—bores, in fact, of the first water. And to Diana's discomfort and amazement, Oliver Marsham joined in. He showed himself possessed ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... offer a superficial description, favourable or hostile, but not one that would account for all his actions. Perhaps the best analysis would begin by showing him as half the aboriginal Westerner and half the Washington politician. In many ways he was very Western. He had a Westerner's pugnacity, and at the same time a Westerner's geniality and capacity for comradeship with men. He had to the last a Westerner's private tastes—especially a taste for gambling—and a Westerner's readiness to fight duels. Above all, ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... of their plate and jewels. Indeed Verronax shrank from the treasure of the Church being thus applied. Columba might indeed weep for him exultingly as a martyr, but, as he well knew, martyrs do not begin as murderers, and passion, pugnacity, and national hatred had been uppermost with him. It was the hap of war, and he was ready to take it patiently, and prepare himself for death as a brave Christian man, but not a hero or a martyr; and there was little hope either that a ransom so considerable as the rank ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... coops, so as to be safe from their natural enemies, the rats and foxes; which, obeying, I suppose, the law of supply and demand, abound in this neighbourhood. The old ganders are allowed their liberty, being of such age, discretion, sagacity, and pugnacity that they can be trusted to fight ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... said Nancy, recovering some of her natural pugnacity; "for we are all tarred with the same stick, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... said, not thinking his pugnacity in need of such respectable examples. 'It would be more to the purpose to ask Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy's pardon ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... masculine scholarship and masculine authority in school. They talk of the emasculation of the staff as a future danger. They do not seem to talk of their natural reluctance to cede important posts to women, but this must, of course, strengthen their pugnacity and in some cases ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... 'Gladstone was far the most considerable of the rising generation, having besides his abilities an excellent disposition and great strength of character.' James Stephen thought well of him, but doubted if he had pugnacity enough for ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... this story is post-Revolutionary. Ichabod Crane, a lean, awkward schoolmaster, has been courting the village belle, Katrina Van Tassel, his rival being Brom Bones, a powerful fellow, noted for his pugnacity. He has frequently threatened Ichabod for aspiring to the charming Katrina. Here, Ichabod, at a late hour, is leaving the Van Tassel home after a "quilting frolic" where he took occasion to propose to Katrina. Judge of ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... very good man at the head of his own dinner-table, and the party went off pleasantly in spite of sundry attempts at clerical pugnacity made by Mr. Groschut. Every man and every beast has his own weapon. The wolf fights with his tooth, the bull with his horn, and Mr. Groschut always fought with his bishop,—so taught by inner instinct. The bishop, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... the merely intelligent, educated, and good, but the energetic, the self-asserting, the aggressive. Nor will mere passive strength of will prevent subjection; for how often do we see a spirit, whose only prominent characteristic is a restless and tireless pugnacity, hold in complete subserviency those who are far superior in actual strength of mind, purely through the apathy of the latter, and their indisposition to live in a state of constant effort! It is because this petty domineering temper ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... cognisant of the tailor's triumph, might have illustrated the principle on which he succeeded; as to ourselves, we can only conjecture it. Our own opinion is that they were both animated with a congenial spirit. Biddy was the very pink of pugnacity, and could throw in a body-blow or plant a facer with singular energy and science. Her prowess hitherto had, we confess, been displayed only within the limited range of domestic life; but should she ever find it necessary to exercise it upon a larger scale, there was no doubt whatsoever, in ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... lord; go forth and fight," she cried to Viscount Auberley, when the doubtful combat of Edgehill was firing new pugnacity; "if I were a man, think you that I would let ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... the Treaty of Tilsit the British troops which had once been so anxiously expected by the Czar landed in the island of Ruegen. The struggle in which they were intended to take their part was over. Sweden alone remained in arms; and even the Quixotic pugnacity of King Gustavus was unable to save Stralsund from a speedy capitulation. But the troops of Great Britain were not destined to return without striking a blow. The negotiations between Napoleon and Alexander had scarcely begun, when secret intelligence of their purport was sent to the British Government. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... were not restored in the palace of Meneptah. The unrest that precedes a national crisis had developed into irritability and pugnacity. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... horsemen approaching them. These drew up when they reached them, Harry having previously warned his comrades to offer no resistance, as the party were too strong for them, and his mission was too important to allow the king's cause to be hazarded by any foolish acts of pugnacity. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... this chorus of admiration was being sung in all keys and tones of the whole gamut, that the bridegroom came out of the house, a little bit tipsy, perhaps, from the many toasts he had been obliged to drink, and bristling with pugnacity to the ends of his fingers and the tips of his hair. Every word of praise that he heard sounded in his ears like a jeer and an insult to himself. With ruthless thrusts he elbowed his way through the throng ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention. ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... expression of everything, is a perfect example of the conservation of energy. It is very difficult to come to the end of him. Add to this unimaginative, practical, tenacious moderation an inherent spirit of competition—not to say pugnacity—so strong that it will often show through the coating of his "Live and let live," half-surly, half-good-humored manner; add a peculiar, ironic, "don't care" sort of humor; an underground but inveterate humaneness, and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... thing about the weeds that have come to us from the Old World, when compared with our native species, is their persistence, not to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; they plant colonies here and there, and will not be rooted out. Our native weeds are for the most part shy and harmless, and retreat before cultivation, but the European outlaws follow man like vermin; they hang to his coat-skirts, his sheep transport ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... pack-horse, and, before starting, I see to fastening it securely on top of the load. This pack-horse is a powerful black stallion that puts in a good share of his time trying to attack the other horses. Owing to this uncontrollable pugnacity, he is habitually led along at some considerable distance from the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... up their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... grievance-monger and hunter-up of abuses. The magnates of the county began to look coldly upon him, and even, in some instances, to array themselves in open opposition to him. This only tended still further to arouse the native pugnacity of his disposition, and his attacks upon local abuses and those who upheld them became more and more violent. Now, in all this there can be no doubt that Mr. Gourlay was from first to last chiefly actuated by genuine philanthropy. He certainly had no selfish or pecuniary purpose ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... remarks, [268] is quite in accordance with his historical character; his niggardliness is shown in the saying, 'The Meo will not give his daughter in marriage till he gets a mortar full of silver'; his pugnacity is expressed in, 'The Meo's son begins to avenge his feuds when he is twelve years old'; and his toughness in, 'Never be sure that a Meo is dead till you see the third-day funeral ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... to punish any nation which fails to act in accordance with it. Nothing but an Areopagus of the nations can furnish such a sanction, but with the present arrangements for balancing power in Europe, to say nothing of the ineradicable pugnacity, greed, and ambition of human nature, such an Areopagus seems very like an impossibility. Time, however, may bring it about. If it should, and the Golden Age begin to dawn, an epoch of new activities and new horizons, quite possibly more novel and interesting ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... my pugnacity costs me very dear sometimes. But to our story. As soon as Bartja had opened his eyes, Gyges sent me off to Sardis to fetch a good physician and an easy travelling-carriage. That ride won't so soon be imitated. An hour before I reached the gates my third horse knocked ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct spirit in which to approach ancient ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... is the inborn pugnacity of the bete humaine. Our species is the most cruel and destructive of all that inhabit this planet. If the lower animals, as we call them, were able to formulate a religion, they might differ greatly as to the shape of the beneficent Creator, but they would nearly all agree that the devil ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... however, to paint Keats as a man without vitality, without pugnacity, without merriment. His brother declared that "John was the very soul of manliness and courage, and as much like the Holy Ghost as Johnny Keats"—the Johnny Keats who had allowed himself to be "snuffed out by an article." As a schoolboy he had been fond of fighting, and as a man he had his ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife rushing on like a meteor. He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with an authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the case to a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon wheels, and manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little donkey in such a manner that the cabman ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... far as we know there is no reason why in the future these creatures should not increase in size and terrestrial capacity. In the past we have the evidence of the fossil Paradoxides that creatures of this kind may at least attain a length of six feet, and, considering their intense pugnacity, a crab of such dimensions would be as formidable a creature as one could well imagine. And their amphibious capacity would give them an advantage against us such as at present is only to be found in the case of the alligator or ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... strong conviction. He is too good a partisan to admit that there may be another side to the question which might be worth considering. With magnificent ruthlessness he plunges ahead, and with a truly old Norse pugnacity he stands in the thick of the fight, rejoicing in battle. Only combat arouses his Titanic energy and calls all his splendid ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... trying to humiliate me," said D'Artagnan, in whom his native pugnacity began to speak louder than his peaceful resolutions. "I come from Gascony, it is true; and since you know it, there is no need to tell you that Gascons are not very patient, so that when they have asked pardon once, even for a folly, they think they have done at least as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Pugnacity, declares my uncle, is a form of sentimentalism, and all sentimentalism is despicable. This is a practical world. Determine the value of what you are after and count the cost. And wherever you can, reduce all items to dollars ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... traditions of the Evangelical school, but in the heat of its controversial warfare. His heart, when he was a boy, was set on entering the army; and one of his most characteristic points through life, shown in many very different forms, was his pugnacity, his keen perception ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... husband's poems as if they were so many bombs, hurled in the face of the enemy, her public. There was nothing like the pugnacity of the Kiddy in ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... trousses, gregues, culottes, pantalons, &c. These wandering people had other reasons for preferring the short and close-fitting garments to those which were long and full, and these were their innate pugnacity, which forced them ever to be under arms, their habit of dwelling in forests and thickets, their love of the chase, and their custom of ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... this continual and pretty accompaniment to life was deep. The woman's quietism and piety passed on to his different nature undiminished; but whereas in her it was a native sentiment, in him it was only an implanted dogma. Nature and the child's pugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the back stable lane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a considerable decline in the number of his front teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prompt pugnacity. "Oh, yes, I am," said she; "devoted. But he has a weakness, you must own. He ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Arrian or Raleigh may now be referred to by those who wish to know the real merit of Alexander as a general, and how far the commonplace assertions are true that his successes were the mere results of fortunate rashness and unreasoning pugnacity. Napoleon selected Alexander as one of the seven greatest generals whose noble deeds history has handed down to us, and from the study of whose campaigns the principles of war are to be learned. The critique of the greatest conqueror of modern times on the military ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... different from his own rather folded and subtilised countenance, her little lithe figure, when he and most of the Forsytes were tall. And he would dwell on the origin of species, and debate whether she might be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he thought, from her pugnacity, and her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It was not too much to say that he preferred her to the Age with which she was surrounded, youthful though, for the greater part, it was. She took, however, too much interest in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... (Dicrurus longicaudatus). At most hill stations both species occur. The note of the ashy drongo differs considerably from that of the king-crow: otherwise the habits of the two species are very similar. Take thirty-three per cent. off the pugnacity of the king-crow and you will arrive at a fair estimate of that of the ashy drongo. The latter looks like a king-crow with an unusually long tail, a king-crow of which the black plumage has worn grey like an ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... without any padding—strength in the lean lithe figure; but it was always brute strength. There was no moral strength whatever in the restless fidgeting—the savage winding and unwinding of his left foot around the saber scabbard, or the attitude, leaning forward over the table, of petulant pugnacity. And the cruel voice was as weak as the hand was strong with which he ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... speculation, and the figures flowed from him by the page. A lively imagination and a ready though inaccurate memory supplied his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat that made him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction; had a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity and fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness. He was a kind of Pinkerton in play. I have called ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... fight. He stood happily trading blows with Slashaway Tommy, his lean-fleshed torso gleaming with sweat. He preferred to work the pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor ...
— The Sky Trap • Frank Belknap Long
... are love and war connected that not only is individual pugnacity greatly increased at the period of sexual maturity, when animals acquire or develop horns, fangs, claws, spurs, and weapons of offense and defense, but a new spirit of organization arises which makes ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... The pugnacity of the swordfish has become a byword. Without any special effort on my part, numerous instances of their attacks upon vessels have in the last ten years found their way into ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... hat in hand, tormented with a dozen crosscurrents of feeling. He was forcibly struck with the blind and comparatively motiveless pugnacity of the squire's conduct. There was an extravagance in it which for the first time recalled to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. Sellers belonged to the latter class. When Annette, meek, penitent, with all her claws sheathed, came to him and grovelled, he forgave her with a repulsive magnanimity which in a less subdued mood would have stung her to renewed pugnacity. As it was, she allowed herself to be forgiven, and retired with a dismal conviction that from now on he would ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... once more, and immediately Dandy, in order to gratify his master, gave him a pretty smart blow upon the end of his nose. He hoped this would satisfy the grumbler, and bring the sport to a happy termination. As usual, the blow excited the pugnacity of Master Archy; and setting the rules of the art at defiance, he rushed upon his companion with all the impetuosity ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... honest friends of mine—and true friends I know they are—who nevertheless by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement and the loss of the treasure which I guard.—I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... complex original tendencies such as sucking, chewing, sitting up, and gurgling. Among the more general unlearned responses of children are fear, anger, pugnacity, envy, jealousy, curiosity, constructiveness, love of festivities, ceremonies and ordeals, sociability and shyness, secretiveness, etc. Thorndike, who quotes this list at length, has sought to give definiteness to its descriptions by clearly defining and distinguishing ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... The more he drank, up to a certain point, the steadier he got on his legs, and the more necessary it seemed for him to fight somebody. The tide of his pugnacity that night took a straight set ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... man's predominance over woman in size, strength, courage, pugnacity, and even energy was acquired in primeval times, and that these advantages have been subsequently augmented chiefly through the contests between men for women. Even man's intellectual vigour and inventiveness are probably due to natural selection, combined with inherited ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... between Prometheus Unbound and The Ring are as interesting as the likenesses. Shelley, caught in the pugnacity of his youth and the first impetuosity of his prodigious artistic power by the first fierce attack of the New Reformation, gave no quarter to the antagonist of his hero. His Wotan, whom he calls Jupiter, is the almighty fiend into whom ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... readily be killed on foot; though, as they are very active, absolutely fearless, and inflict a most formidable bite, it would usually be safest to have two men go at one together. Peccaries are not difficult beasts to kill, because their short wind and their pugnacity make them come to bay before hounds so quickly. Two or three good dogs can bring to a halt a herd of considerable size. They then all stand in a bunch, or else with their sterns against a bank, chattering their teeth at their antagonist. When angry and at bay, ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... canvass in 1864. I sympathized with him in his struggles with the leaders of the Rebellion and admired his courage during the war, when, as Governor of Tennessee, he reorganized that state upon a loyal basis. The defect of his character was his unreasoning pugnacity. He early became involved in wordy warfare with Sumner, Wade, Stevens and others. In his high position he could have disregarded criticism, but this was not the habit of Johnson. When assailed he fought, and could be ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... profess exactly as other people do. The second is by leading the herd to war, which immediately and infallibly makes them forget everything, even their most cherished and hardwon public liberties and private interests, in the irresistible surge of their pugnacity and the tense pre-occupation of ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... dusk of the evening. She had a presentiment of what was to happen. They both appeared at the appointed place wrapped up in the same gloomy silence, and threw off their coats. Their eyes flaming with the bloodthirsty light of pugnacity, they were about to begin their contest when Clara burst through the garden door. Sobbing, she screamed, "You savage, terrible men! Cut me down before you attack each other; for how can I live when my lover has slain my brother, or my brother slain my lover?" Lothair let his weapon fall and gazed ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... by the following tendencies: Fear, anger, sympathy, affection, play, imitation, curiosity, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, self-assertion (leadership), self-abasement, rivalry, envy, jealousy, pugnacity, clannishness, the hunting and predatory instincts, the migratory instinct, love of adventure and the unknown, superstition, the sex instincts, which express themselves in sex-love, vanity, coquetry, modesty; and, closely allied with these, the ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... look with favor upon them. Yours is a mischievous profession, the members of which are always seeking the demolition of useful sciences.' This the parson said in so angry a tone that it excited the pugnacity of the doctor, who was scrupulous of his profession, and declared he would not stand ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the same inches, but the angler was the elder, and a man of more powerful build and massive frame than his younger opponent. His blue eyes and full, broad face spoke a pugnacity not less pronounced than the keeper's own finer features indicated; and thus these two, destined for long years to bulk largely each upon the life of the other, stood eye to eye for the first time. Will's temper was nearly gone, and now another sneer ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... caterpillars, which sparrows do not eat and which used to be extensively consumed by other birds, are now greatly on the increase, probably the only creatures, at present, enjoying the domestication of the sparrow in this country.... I have also to remark that the sparrows here betray much less pugnacity than in Europe.—E.M., M.D. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... hurled back several feet, only to spring up and charge again. His squealing could be heard for a mile. After a long time the porters succeeded in capturing it and they conveyed it back to camp strung on a pole. If that little rhino was any criterion of rhino pugnacity, then surely the rhino is born with the instinctive impulse to charge and to fight as savagely as any ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... in one of his brilliant essays published in The Popular Science Monthly for October, 1910, tells us that history is a bath of blood; we inherit the war-like type; our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow; showing the irrationality and horror of war does not prevent it; but a moral equivalent can be found by enlisting an army to toil and suffer pain in doing the hard and routine work of the world. It is doubtful, however, ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... ideas of pugnacity, and conceived myself bound to indulge them on the first head and shoulders I should meet. This spirit brought me at once into the thick of the fight, and, before I was well aware of my proximity, I found myself fast anchored ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... this reason, and partly because I look upon it as a remnant of our predatory antecedents and of animal pugnacity, I have no extravagant admiration for mere combativeness or physical courage. Honoured and rewarded as one of the noblest of manly attributes, it is one of the commonest of qualities, - one which there is not a mammal, a bird, a fish, or an insect even, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... draw upon other men. Any public task that he has in hand looks like a load that challenges other men to help him lift. A really intelligent camera would show in his face a mixture of wholesome pugnacity, concentration of thought and feminine tenderness. He feels like a big intellectual boy who unless mother looks after him will get indigestion or neurasthenia. Sometimes men pity their leaders. Meighen, with his intensity and his thought before action looks such a frail wisp ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... found on the Atlantic coast of North America. It is a species remarkable for its pugnacity during the mating season; in size and appearance it is about like the Upland Plover, with the exception of the "ruff" which adorns the neck and breast of the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... with all its sufficiency, his philosophy seems too Fabian in its counsels; it is always withdrawing, passing by on the other side, avoiding battle—so that as a preparation for the uttermost ordeal it will often prove inferior to the reckless pugnacity of a ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... single combat, monomachy[obs3], satisfaction, passage d'armes[Fr], passage of arms, affair of honor; triangular duel; hostile meeting, digladiation[obs3]; deeds of arms, feats of arms; appeal to arms &c. (warfare) 722. pugnacity; combativeness &c. adj.; bone of contention &c. 713. V. contend; contest, strive, struggle, scramble, wrestle; spar, square; exchange blows, exchange fisticuffs; fib|!, justle[obs3], tussle, tilt, box, stave, fence; skirmish; pickeer[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good, (and who but fools couldn't?) then do it; push at it together: you can't quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that even the best men stop pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, and if's all over. I will not speak of the crimes which in past times have been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the follies which are at this hour held to be consistent with obedience to Him; but I will speak of the morbid corruption and waste of vital power in religious ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... week-end to see him board the Manchester express at Euston would have been able to predict from his appearance that he would leave the train at Knype. He was an undersized man, with a combative and suspicious face. He regarded the world with crafty pugnacity from beneath frowning eyebrows. His expression said: "Woe betide the being who tries to get the better of me!" His expression said: "Keep off!" His expression said: "I am that I am. Take me or leave me, but preferably leave me. I loathe fuss, ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... having heard the matter mentioned once, they have surrendered themselves to the guidance of some one individual. But, I know not how it is, most people prefer being in error, and defending with the utmost pugnacity that opinion which they have taken a fancy to, to inquiring without any obstinacy what is said with the ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... to be that famous war between Great Britain and the republic of Patagonia, and Hugh Stanbury had been sent out as a special correspondent by the editor and proprietor of the Daily Record. His letters had been much read, and had called up a great deal of newspaper pugnacity. He had made important statements which had been flatly denied, and found to be utterly false; which again had been warmly reasserted and proved to be most remarkably true to the letter. In this way ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope |
