"Affirmation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this is short: Christianity teaches the rights of God, not the rights of man or woman. You may search the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and not find one clear, strong, bold affirmation of human rights as such; yet it is on human rights as such—on the equality of all individuals, man or woman, with respect to natural rights—that the demand for woman suffrage must ultimately rest. I know I stand nearly alone in this, but ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... on Pratinas; "I have always had the greatest respect for the three nihilistic propositions of that philosopher. To read him one is half convinced of the affirmation that nothing exists; that if anything existed, the fact could not be known, and that if the fact were known, it could not be communicated; although of course, my dear madam, there are very grave objections to accepting ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the fact that this affirmation of the universal validity of the principle of truth is made in a chapter on "Cases of Conscience," in a chapter concerned with what seem to be conflicts between duties; and this chapter is followed by one which treats of "Cases of Necessity," i.e. cases ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... the absence of any other defense, even at the expense of the life of the assailant. To deny this doctrine of the right of self-defense, it is only necessary that we deny that a man can forfeit the right of life. To do this is equal to the affirmation that God is the author of coexisting and conflicting rights. Such rights can exist only at the expense of the destruction of all governments, both human and Divine, as well as all healthy influences of social institutions. It is essential ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... silk bat, trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilac blend into a highly respectable color, and a black necktie tied into a bow over spotless linen. Probably therefore a man whose social position needs constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate: one who would dress thus for the middle of the Sahara or the top of Mont Blanc. And since he has not the stamp of the class which accepts as its life-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate tailoring and millinery, he looks vulgar ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... the United States;" while Mr. Lincoln, in reply, asserted that "the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration." The contention of Mr. Douglas had recently again made its appearance in the press as something too indisputable to admit of discussion. It is asserted that, in penning the Declaration, Mr. ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... [ROSE nods a hearty affirmation.] Well, I'm glad of that, at least! I hoped it would be so. Then at least we can keep something that's harmonious in our memories. Ah, Rose, it was a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... purely mechanical and acquired by rote. He thought he perceived this defect in the concrete verb, in which the deaf and dumb, seeing only a single word, were unable to distinguish two ideas which are comprehended in it, that of affirmation and that of quality. He thought he perceived also that defect in the expression of the qualities, always presented, in all languages, out of the subjects, and never in the noun which they modify; ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the public safety when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as struggling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide, what the public safety does require in ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... West Africa, except the Gold Coast and about Accra, where the natives have learnt something better. The principal affirmation is 'Enh,' pronounced nanny-goat fashion, and they always answer 'Yes' to a negative question: e.g. Q. 'Didn't you go then?' A. 'Yes' (sub-audi, I did not), thus meaning 'No.' 'Na,' apparently an interrogative in origin, is used pleonastically on all occasions: ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... to Ducconius Furfur. He claimed that the court decision by which Ducconius had had to refund to my uncle all the rents received from the farm in dispute since the first decision of the lowest court had awarded it to a Ducconius had been, in effect, an affirmation that his ancestors and he had always been, constructively, tenants of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the United States requires that all legislative, executive, and judicial officers in the United States, and in the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. The Constitution of each of the several states requires a similar oath or affirmation; and some of them further provide that, in addition to the oath of office, all persons appointed to places of profit or trust shall, before entering ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... ground with hungry noses, the dogs answered each cry with a single keen yap of preoccupied affirmation. Almost at once Charmer came to the spot pointed out to me, reared her full length upon the rails and let out a new note; long, musical, fretful, overjoyed. Hardy mounted breast-high to the fence's ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... is written, and believe that every one, infant or adult, who has been born of the flesh, must be born of the Spirit. Listen to the earnest words of Jesus as he emphasizes them with that solemn double affirmation, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." He repeats this sweeping declaration a second time. In the Greek it reads, Except any one be born again. ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... in the pale moonlight. Then, slowly, and with the Muscovite indifference which her father, Prince Tchereteff, might have displayed when ordering a spy or a traitor to be shot, she retraced her steps to the house, where all seemed to sleep, murmuring, with cold irony, in a sort of impersonal affirmation, as if she were thinking not of herself, but ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... a toleration of their religion, and for a dispensation from taking the oaths, which they held unlawful, not from any disaffection to the government, or a belief that they were less obliged by an affirmation, but from a persuasion that all oaths were unlawful; and that swearing upon the most solemn occasions was forbidden in the New Testament. Their petition was rejected, and instead of granting them relief, an act was passed against them, the preamble to which set forth, "That whereas several ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... or single ideas, like simple words, represent simple thoughts or realities, and compound ideas represent compound thoughts or realities. Therefore it follows that every thought comes from a corresponding reality. To deny this is equal to the affirmation that we can clearly see objects in a vacuum, that we can see something where there ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... those happy days when my first thought in seeing an adventure poindre a l'horizon was of the pleasure I should have in relating it to the great Prosper. As I tell thee, I am happy; decidedly, I am happy, and from this affirmation I fancy you can construct the rest. Shall I help thee a little? Take three adorable girls . . . three, my good Prosper—the mystic number—neither more nor less. Take them and place thy insatiable little Leon in the midst of them! Is the situation sufficiently indicated, and do you apprehend ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... From this positive affirmation of unbelief Butler wilted somewhat at the approach of death. The day before his execution he spent half an hour playing hymns on the church organ in the prison; and on the scaffold, where his agitation ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the chief justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... this affirmation.[64] The Duke of Alencon declares that the Maid was apt alike at wielding the lance, ranging an army, ordering a battle, preparing artillery, and that old captains marvelled at her skill in placing cannon.[65] The Duke quite understands that all these gifts were miraculous ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... and testament, bearing the date of November 20, 1798, and written throughout, as he says, "with my own hand," he chose to insert a touching affirmation of his own deep faith in Christianity. After distributing his estate among his descendants, he thus concludes: "This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... the Union upon the basis of surrender of principle were held throughout the free States, while a word of manly resistance to the aggressive disposition of the South, or in re-affirmation of principles so long contended for, met no popular response. Even in Boston, Wendell Phillips needed the protection of the police in returning to his home after one of his eloquent and defiant harangues, and George William ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... imitating the characteristic nasalised eh of Italian affirmation, and accompanying it by the characteristic ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... produced in court, it would have told heavily against Putney's theory of a defence on the ground of insanity, it was so clear, and just, and reasonable; though perhaps an expert might have recognized a mental obliquity in its affirmation of Northwick's belief that Matt's father would yet come to see his conduct in its true light, and to regard him as the victim of circumstances ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... which the kernel lay in the words: "Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in State or Territory"; and to this they would now add only a clause referring doubtful constitutional points to the Supreme Court. But the Southern party would accept nothing short of an affirmation that in the Territories until organized as States, the right of slave-holding was absolute and indefeasible, and Congress was bound to protect it. On this issue the dispute in the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... absolutely impossible without this presupposition; and suppose, at the same time, that speculative reason had proved that liberty was incapable of being thought at all. It would then follow that the moral presupposition must give way to the speculative affirmation, the opposite of which involves an obvious contradiction, and that liberty and, with it, morality must yield to the mechanism of nature; for the negation of morality involves no contradiction, except on the presupposition of liberty. Now morality does not require the speculative cognition ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... be understood before its related negative can be intelligible. Bichat defined life as the sum of functions by which death is resisted. It is an identical proposition in verbal disguise, with the fault that it makes negation affirmation, passiveness action. Death is not a dynamic agency warring against life, but simply an occurrence. Life is the operation of an organizing force producing an organic form according to an ideal type, and persistently preserving that form amidst the incessant molecular ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... elbowed his way through the crowd and adroitly wormed himself into the front place; and not for a moment did his vivid quick eye remain at rest. At the examination of Jesus before Caiaphas, in order not to lose a word, he hollowed his hand round his ear, and nodded his head in affirmation, murmuring: ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... to be dragged into so sensational a trial. The consequences one cannot measure beforehand. The unpleasantness lives after all the parties are dead. Since I can prevent it I am going to do it. As far as I am concerned Mrs. Endicott must be content with a simple denial, or a simple affirmation rather, that I am Arthur Dillon, and therefore not her husband. It is more than she deserves, because there is not a shred of evidence to warrant her making a single move against me. She has not been able to find in me a ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... crews landing on some desolate portion of the coast to avoid immigration laws and steamer fares. Generally they were rounded up after their perilous, daring crossing of the Pacific. Tamada's story held the elements of truth. Even Lund nodded in reserved affirmation. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... look she gave her. If Milly could have been impolite, she would have told her that it was all very well to say so, but how were they going to make him? And she too felt that something more was required of her than that irritating affirmation. She had got to make him. His case, his piteous case, cried out for ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... Kit nodded affirmation, and chanced to glance at Mrs Breck. Her eyes were fixed upon him, and he knew that if ever he had seen prayer in a woman's eyes he was seeing it then. Shorty followed his gaze and saw what he saw. They looked at ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... head in affirmation. Apparently he was too disturbed in mind to reply verbally; besides, like most of his kind, he was a poor sailor, and he did not enjoy the speed at which the Arrow was now sailing. It upset his mental balance as well ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... unanimous consent of the populations; the more so that, the King being looked upon simply as the chief of the Republic, there was no monarchical bond, no dynastic fidelity to control and guide the sentiment of the nations, and their union remained as a pure affirmation of the national will." The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Ruthenian Provinces retained their statutes, their own administration, and their own political institutions. That those institutions in the course of time tended to assimilation ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... the General Assembly, before taking his seat, shall take an oath or affirmation, that he will support the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of North Carolina and will faithfully discharge his duty as a member of the Senate or House ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... affirm, do not use two negative words so that they shall contradict each other. [Footnote: Not infrequently we use two negatives to make an affirmation; as, He is not unjust; No man ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... tent. While he held the crowd spellbound with his eloquence, his confederates loosed the horses in the woods and got them to a safe place. Oratory is one of the cheapest tricks ever played on man, but an everlastingly effective one, because it is based on affirmation. Any man who is too hard-headed and honest to affirm a thing he don't know and can't know never leads a mob. They will only follow a man who speaks with the sublime authority of knowledge he ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... belief in an omnipotent God, which is said to have been the leading dogma of Druidism; but their simple minds had evidently a leaning toward the doctrine, which induced them to approve of it, as soon as it was presented to them with a solemn affirmation. In order to elucidate this point, we add a short description of the labors and success ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... in the best of all possible worlds," I said, devoutly; and it struck me that, if ever we came to have a national church, some such affirmation as that concerning our economical conditions ought to be in ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... in Nature never a negation, but ever an affirmation. Commonly, indeed, the shape of a body seems a confinement; but could we behold the creative energy it would reveal itself as the measure that this energy imposes upon itself, and in which it shows itself ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... [31] The affirmation of Madame des Ursins was no doubt true, since in a letter of hers to Orry, dated in 1718, she begs him to present her friendly remembrances to M. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... sir, that you seem to doubt my affirmation," said the young priest, mildly, while he repressed a movement of impatience, "I assure you that ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... as "an ancient Protestant Episcopal Church and a sober and quiet industrious people," and, being such, were hereby encouraged to settle in the American Colonies. Next, in response to their own request, they were allowed to affirm instead of taking the oath. The form of affirmation was as follows: "I, A. B., do declare in the presence of Almighty God the witness of the truth of what I say." Next, they were allowed to pay a fixed sum instead of rendering military service, and were also exempted ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel in those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save their ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... sober account than 'cutting off an article.' Thus Battell's statement that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast," is rendered by Buffon "qu'il ne peut parler 'quoiqu'il ait plus d'entendement que les autres animaux'"; and again, Purchas' affirmation, "He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them," stands in the French version, "un pongo lui enleva un petit negre qui passa un 'an' entier dans ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... may be as quick as lightning when the master is great—one of the sons of the giants; or it may be slow and timid: but the process is always gone through, no touch or form is ever added to another by a good painter without a mental determination and affirmation. But when the hand has got into a habit, leaf No. 1. necessitates leaf No. 2.; you cannot stop, your hand is as a horse with the bit in its teeth; or rather is, for the time, a machine, throwing out ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Paris, considering that the Church of Notre Dame de Paris is a monument of superstition, a symbol of divine tyranny, an affirmation of fanaticism, a denial of human rights, a permanent insult offered by believers to atheists, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great principles of the Commune, namely, the ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... his lips and shook his head in negation—then pointed to the sun and the tree, and shook his head again—then once more to the sun and slowly upward to the top of the tree, and nodded in affirmation. ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Is she honest?" "As the day, ma'am," says Jane. "And is she willing?" "Oh, as willing as the rising sun, ma'am." "And is she clean?" "Clean, ma'am," says Jane, raising her black gloved hands to emphasise the affirmation, "she's ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... warrant for the change of identity between Wendot and Griffeth, and for the escape and reinstatement of the former in the halls of Dynevor; but there are traditions which point to a possibility that he did escape from prison, in spite of the affirmation of the chroniclers, as there have been those who claim descent from him, which they would hardly have done if such had not been the case, for there is no record that he was married before he was ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... (formerly at any rate) the concept is the simple and primitive element; next comes the judgment, uniting two or several concepts; then ratiocination, combining two or several judgments. For the psychologists, on the contrary, affirmation is the fundamental act; the concept is the result of judgment (explicit or implicit), of ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... but the words had been an affirmation and not a question. It seemed clear that for some cryptic reason I ought to have been an artist. Accordingly, I ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... him, that men who have no belief in the divine revelation are not the men to govern this nation, be they whigs or radicals.' Long, extraordinary, and not inglorious, was the ascent from such a position as this, to the principles so nobly vindicated in the speech on the Affirmation ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... lady objects to being examined; but as far as I can judge, she has no limbs broken." Everybody ordered me to confess at once my injury; but how was I to inform a whole crowd that I had probably broken the tip of my backbone, and could not possibly sit down? So I adhered to my first affirmation, and made no objection when they piled the cushions up and made Gibbes put me down; for I ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... close with the offer)—Ver. 1048. "Firmas." This ratification or affirmation would be made by Menedemus using the formal word "Accipio," ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... you? you ask me; and I reply with Obermann, "For the universe, nothing; for myself, everything!" Pride? Is it pride to want to be immortal? Unhappy men that we are! 'Tis a tragic fate, without a doubt, to have to base the affirmation of immortality upon the insecure and slippery foundation of the desire for immortality; but to condemn this desire on the ground that we believe it to have been proved to be unattainable, without undertaking the proof, is merely supine. I ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... relieve, has yet reached, shall think to put back,—as if we had no need of it,—this great gift of light and healing,—this gift of power, which the scientific ages are bringing in; this gift which the ages of 'anticipation,' the ages of inspiration and spontaneous affirmation, could only divinely—diviningly—foresee and promise;—this gift which the knowledge of the creative laws, the historic laws, the laws of kind, as they are actual in the human nature and the human life, puts into our hands? Who shall think himself competent to oppose ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... insisted. "Does he not say that, in spite of all his proof, he will not even hazard an affirmation of the phenomena?" ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... trying to conceal his disturbance under what he imagined to be an expression of indulgent commiseration; but the edges of his lips were blue. "He thinks me mad; but I'm not mad," she reflected; and suddenly there flashed upon her a way of justifying her strange affirmation. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... men was his natural air; despondency the element of his own self-created folly. Neither could it be otherwise. For, besides that, it would be too immeasurable a draught of woe to say in one breath that this only was the crux or affirmation of man's fate, and yet that this also was wretched per se; not accidentally made wretched by imprudence, but essentially and irrevocably so by necessity of its nature. Besides all this, which has a lurking dependency ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... of memory or imagination. If we attempt the inquiry on the wider field of universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of mind in humanity are lost in the border-land of mystery, of which history furnishes no authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation must, therefore, be unjustifiable. The assertion that religious feeling precedes all cognition,—that "the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being, and the instinct of worship" are developed first in the mind, before the reason is exercised, is utterly groundless. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... dialectical use, by the intellect, of negation as a mode of passage towards a higher kind of affirmation, there is correlated the subtlest of moral counterparts in the sphere of the personal will. Since denial of the finite self and its wants, since asceticism of some sort, is found in religious experience to be the only doorway to the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... parties;—but if we can believe the positive testimony of Herodotus, such was the case: and the summons of Vashti to the annual festival, and the admission of Haman to the queen's table, are facts which support the affirmation of that historian. The doubts upon the subject appear to have arisen from confounding the manners of Assyrians, Medes, and Parthians, with those of the more Scythian tribes of Persis. We read in Xenophon that the Persian ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... words were like a passionate prayer rather than an affirmation. "I'm going to follow like I followed long ago!" She clutched the basket and ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... understand that there are two sorts of discretion—the active and the negative. Negative discretion is that of fools who make use of silence, negation, an air of refusal, the discretion of locked doors—mere impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. Suppose at the club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my word of honor the golden-eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody would exclaim when I was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make us believe that he has already had ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... these words, the very sound of which has calmed many a heart since, welled to his lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much heightened by the frequent recurrence of the word which is variously translated "truly," "surely," and "only." It carries the force of confident affirmation, like the "verily" of the New Testament, and is here most significantly prefixed to the assertions of his patient resignation (ver. 1); of God's defence (ver. 2); of the enemies' whispered counsels (ver. 4); to his exhortation of his soul to the resignation which it ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... curiosity; and looks closely into the eyes of shame, not dreading what she may find there. She is always arguing with herself, and the answers are inflexible, the answers of a clear intellect which rebels but accepts defeat. Her doubt is itself an affirmation, her defiance would be an entreaty but for the 'quenchless will' of her pride. She faces every terror, and to her pained apprehension birth and death and life are alike terrible. Only Webster's dirge might have been ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... their classic descent—one would have to turn to the beautiful things by Ingres, and certainly Degas is, with Ingres, the most learned, the most perfect French draughtsman of the nineteenth century. An affirmation of this nature is made to surprise those who judge Impressionism with preconceived ideas. It is none the less true that, if a series of Degas's first portraits were collected, the comparison would force itself upon one's mind irrefutably. ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... there is nothing in it that is irreconcilable with the doctrines it has claimed to replace, even with that of special creations, to which it is usually opposed. For this reason we think the language of transformism forces itself now upon all philosophy, as the dogmatic affirmation of transformism forces itself ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... no true idea of God." It has taken all the philosophical and spiritual travail of the centuries to discover that there may be a concrete Infinite, an organic Absolute, an immanent Reality, and that the way to share in this comprehending Life is at least as much a way of affirmation as of negation, a way that leads not into "the Dark" but into the Light, and not into a "fathomless nothing," but into an ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... the riddle of final destiny? Psychologists had wrangled for ages over the question of 'ideas.' Were infants born with or without them? Did ideas arise or develop them selves independently of experience? The affirmation or denial of this proposition alone distinguished the numerous schools, which had so long wrestled with psychology; and if this were insolvable, how could human intellect question further? Could it bridge the gulf of Death, and explore ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... had begun walking back and forth in the path, and once, as they turned, they looked at each other fixedly for the first time. It was the deliberate frank scrutiny of old acquaintances who seek affirmation of fading memories after ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... how things were going with him, whether any clients were coming in. The signal he had heard meant, "Is business good to-day?" And M. Joyeuse had replied, obeying only an instinct without any knowledge, "Fairly well for the season." Although young Maranne was very red as he made this affirmation, M. Joyeuse accepted his word at once. Only this idea of frequent communications between the two households made him afraid for the secrecy of his position, and from that time forward he cut himself off from what he used to call his "artistic days." Moreover, the moment was approaching ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... moral doctrines of Christianity and of Buddhism, between which he traced great resemblance. In the following Dialogue he applies himself to a discussion of the practical efficacy of religious forms; and though he was an enemy of clericalism, his choice of a method which allows both the affirmation and the denial of that efficacy to be presented with equal force may perhaps have been directed by the consciousness that he could not side with either view to the exclusion of the other. In any case his practical philosophy was touched with the spirit of Christianity. It was more than artistic ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... neither can it be kept healthily alive without the popular audience. Tolstoy's use of the unspoiled peasant as the test of art may lead to absurdities, if carried too far. But at least it is an error in the right direction. It is an affirmation of the fact that every man is potentially an artist just as Christianity is an affirmation of the fact that every man is potentially a saint. It is also an affirmation of the fact that art, like religion, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... in so low a voice that though the two friends were listening eagerly they could hardly hear this affirmation. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... involves a partial negation, and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of the given nature, it follows (solely from Prop. vii.) that every substance ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... all sincere and profound qualities, had begun unconsciously, but, once brought to her attention by Anthony's fascinated discovery of it, it assumed more nearly the proportions of a formal code. From her conversation it might be assumed that all her energy and vitality went into a violent affirmation of the negative ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer,—nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... tittle-tattle. And at a period when the distaff of fiction is too often in the hands of men the voice of the romantic realist and poetic ironist, Joseph Conrad, sounds a dynamic masculine bass amid the shriller choir. He is an aboriginal force. Let us close with the hearty affirmation of Walt Whitman: "Camerado! this is no book, who touches this, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... handiwork, each artifact, tool and machine is an expression of man's wish and will. Each transcends nature and is an affirmation that takes its place in the vast ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... these questions can be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the ranks of hypotheses into those of proved theories; but, so long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of enforcing that affirmation, so long, to our minds, must the new doctrine be content to remain among the former—an extremely valuable, and in the highest degree probable, doctrine, indeed the only extant hypothesis which is worth anything in a scientific point of view; but still a ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... upon such an inspiration as attaching to the spiritual truths and doctrines delivered in these Scriptures. And he places this theory in a striking light, equally for what it affirms and for what it denies, by these two arguments—first (in affirmation of the real spiritual inspiration), that a series of more than thirty writers, speaking in succession along a vast line of time, and absolutely without means of concert, yet all combine unconsciously to one end—lock like parts of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... the new-born infant in ancient Mexico, the mother thus addressed the Sun and the Earth: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child, and guard it as your son." A common affirmation with them was: "By the life of the Sun, and of our Lady, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of such person, at least so far as its effect upon and power over yourself is concerned. The stronger and more positive is your mental attitude of immunity to such power, and your assertion and affirmation of that immunity, the greater is your own power of psychic resistance, and the less does his possible power over you become. The average person, not knowing this, is more or less passive to psychic influences of other persons, and may be affected ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... attribute to it reality for all men and for all time, that is, universality and necessity. Feeling can only say: "That is true for this subject and at this moment," and there may come another moment, another subject, which withdraws the affirmation from the actual feeling. But when once thought pronounces and says: "That is," it decides forever and ever, and the validity of its decision is guaranteed by the personality itself, which defies all change. Inclination can only say: "That is good for ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Consequent phrase is a complete affirmation of its Antecedent, agreeing in its melodic form with the latter until the cadence is nearly due, when an extra measure is inserted (as extension), and the usual digression into the necessary perfect cadence is made. The condition of Unity predominates, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... wood good for seelings, Chests, Boxes, Bedsteedes, Lutes, Virginals, and many things els, as I haue also said before. Some of our company which haue wandered in some places where I haue not bene, haue made certaine affirmation of 'Cyprus' which for such and other excellent vses, is also a wood of price and ...
— A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land Of Virginia • Thomas Hariot
... directory to determine upon matters of faith declared in the Lamb's book." (Spaeth, 1, 336.) Accordingly Dr. Jacobs interprets the Gettysburg pledge as follows: "It was a pledge to a distinctively Lutheran position. Such an affirmation could never have been enforced in the proposed Lutheran-Reformed seminary which the ministerium [of Pennsylvania] had had in mind. It could not have been exacted of those who believed the confession to be in error on those points which divide the Lutherans from the Reformed. In justice, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... and from running off on side tracks. In keeping powers at work upon their relevant ends, there is sufficient opportunity for genuine inhibition. To say that inhibition is higher than power, is like saying that death is more than life, negation more than affirmation, ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... and smiled!" * * * * Like some weird strain of music, spent In one full chord, the sweet voice ceased; A faint white glow smote up the east, Like wings uplifting—and a cry Of winds went forth, as if the night Beneath the brightening firmament Had voiced, in hollow prophecy, The affirmation: "By and by!" ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... three facts, the knowledge of which came to me as the direct result of experimental tests. One may place confidence, therefore, in the procedure which I have based upon these premises, for at no point, I think, in the following argument will mere affirmation be found to have usurped the place of sound induction. Without anticipating further, then, let me specify as briefly as may be the nature ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind, everything wicked, tyrannical, predatory and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite."[220] To ignore altogether the affirmation of that opposing morality, it may be, would be to breed a race of weaklings, fatally doomed to succumb helplessly to ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... before noticed as being partial to a drowsy life, now put in his word, and gave his affirmation as to the lenity of the police. His beat as he called it, was between the foot of Ludgate Hill and Blackfriars Bridge, "and neither the man who formerly looked about for the people there, nor his predecessor, ever once interrupted him in ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... no authority in the original for that variation of tenses, and both clauses obviously refer to the same period and the same deliverance. Therefore we must read: 'Thou hast delivered my soul from death: hast Thou not delivered,' etc.; the question being equivalent to a strong affirmation, 'Yea, Thou hast delivered my feet from falling.' This reference of both clauses to the same period and the same delivering act, is confirmed by the quotation of these words in a very much later psalm, the 116th, where we read, with an addition, 'Thou hast delivered my ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue—this question—is precisely what the text declares our ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... conversation that went on that afternoon between my carriers. I will not give the native words but will translate into English the questions and answers as they were hurled back and forth. By way of explanation let me say beforehand that there is no word in any of the Congo dialects for "yes." Affirmation is always expressed by a ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... At this affirmation Ardan shook his red mane; he understood that a struggle was coming with this man on the real question. He looked at him fixedly in ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... this essay, with its naive license of affirmation, would make a modern anthropologist shudder. It begins with a description of the original paradise, from which the infant man was to be led forth into life by Providence, his watchful nurse. To ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... whether prince or peasant, is asked to confess his faith in God the Father Almighty, the Architect and Master-Builder of the Universe.[175] That is not a mere form of words, but the deepest and most solemn affirmation that human lips can make. To be indifferent to God is to be indifferent to the greatest of all realities, that upon which the aspiration of humanity rests for its uprising passion of desire. No institution that is dumb concerning the meaning ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... the body and die with it." [Footnote: New York Times, Sept. 27, 1914.] "But the destiny of consciousness is not bound up with the destiny of cerebral matter." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 285 (Fr. p. 293).] "Although the data is not yet sufficient to warrant more than an affirmation of high probability," [Footnote: Louis Levine's interview with Bergson, New York Times, Feb. 22, 1914. Quoted by Miller, Bergson and Religion, p. 268.] yet it leaves the way open for a belief in a future life and creates a presumption in ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... document of great celebrity, but not of unquestioned authenticity. It is a declaration or affirmation of the design and principles of Freemasonry, issued in the year 1535, by a convention of masons who had assembled in the city of Cologne. The original is in the Latin language. The assertors of the authenticity of the document claim that it was found in the chest ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... development through a succession of stages or stories (French, etages, ESTAGES, STAGES), and that this and other similar repetitions, in the development of the one, of all the facts and features of the development of THE OTHER, is what is meant by the Analogy of one with the other, and by the affirmation implied in the title of this article, that Language is a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that if—I noted the if—"if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire, and it was a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heir in the direct line has the power to alienate from his successors. Even I, with my limited perspective, think it doubtful if the conversion of the Jew to any alien belief or disbelief is ever thoroughly accomplished. What positive affirmation of the persistence of Judaism in the blood my descendants may have to make, I may ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... the glimpses that we get in the New Testament of the relation of perfect souls in heaven to Him, none of them pierces deeper, rises higher, and speaks more boundless blessing, than such words as these. Well might Christ think it necessary to preface them with the solemn affirmation which always, upon His lips, points, as it were, an emphatic finger to, or underlines that which He is about to proclaim. 'Verily I say unto you,' if we had not His own word for it, we might hesitate to believe. And while we have His own word for it, and do not hesitate ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... report of the cannon is heard which announces the taking of the oath, those of the Parisians who have remained at home, men, women, and children, raise their hands in the direction of the Champ de Mars and likewise make their affirmation. In every principal town of every district, department, and commune in France there is the same oath on the same day. Never was there a more perfect social compact heard of. Here, for the first time in the world, everybody beholds a veritable legitimate society, for it is founded on ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pang. "But thou hast kept the good wine until now." "The best wine!" The young man's heart responded in a craving, in a triumph, although the knowledge that it was not true in fact bit at him like a weasel in his heart. Which was stronger, the pain of the denial, or the desire for affirmation? He was stubborn in spirit, and abode by his desire. But he would not any more affirm the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... theories as incontrovertible facts, or flatly contradict the assertions of those whose very position enabled them to be well informed. When Mrs. Turner was confronted with the proof of her error, and gently upbraided by the placid captain for being so positive in her affirmation or denial, that pretty matron was wont to shrug her lovely shoulders, and petulantly set aside the subject with the comprehensive excuse, "Oh, well! ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... a surface, and also a solid. As to the interval thus existing between monads, some considered it as being mere aerial breath, but the orthodox regarded it as a vacuum; hence we perceive the meaning of their absurd affirmation that all things are produced by a vacuum. As it is not to be overlooked that the monads are merely mathematical points, and have no dimensions or size, substances actually contain no matter, and ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... there was but one affirmation. He believed absolutely in the Devil. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was red, and cloven-footed and that his tail ended in a hard, sharp, spike, like Mammy Flathers' ice-pick. He also knew that when he breathed, it was in groans and hisses, such as he was ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... back to the time of his grandfather or other distant relative. Thus he may say that his opponent's great uncle owed his grandfather a human life and that this blood debt has never been paid nor revenge obtained. Such an affirmation as this will be corroborated by his relatives and they may immediately break out into menaces of vengeance. Again, he may aver that his opponent was reputed to have had a charm by which death might be caused, and that his son had died as a result of this use of evil ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... intelligible, is our own work; of the reality "in itself" we know nothing and never shall know anything, since we only get its refraction through the forms of our faculty of perceiving. So that if we claim to affirm something of it, at once there rises the contrary affirmation, equally demonstrable, equally plausible. The ideality of space is proved directly by the analysis of knowledge indirectly by the antinomies to which the opposite theory leads. Such is the governing idea of the Kantian criticism. It has inspired Kant with a peremptory refutation ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... by other demands, is not exempt from danger. We may be carried away by the attraction peculiar to these noble studies, withdraw into antiquity and fall into a species of historical mysticism which ends in the affirmation, that whatever has been is true, absolutely, and which, instead of confining itself to the explanation of transitory phenomena, invests them with all the dignity of principles. We shall endeavor ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... barely time to make a sign of affirmation, when the King hurried him on. 'I grieve to balk you of your family tidings, but delay will be ill for one or other of us; so fare thee well, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... affirmation is given by Mr IBSEN'S declaration in the Storthing, that the negotiations fell through in consequence of Mr BOSTROeM'S opposition to the request of the Norwegian delegates that in the Communique it should be mentioned that the identical laws were to be valid only "so long as the present ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... but it may be safely affirmed, notwithstanding, that the English know less of the Americans than the Americans know of the English. We are in the way of meeting with our transatlantic cousins very frequently, and never without having our present affirmation abundantly confirmed. This mingled ignorance and indifference on the part of Englishmen to what is going on in Yankeedom, besides being discreditable, will soon be injurious, as any one may satisfy himself by a perusal of a couple ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... not just my goals, and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our Nation's continuing moral strength and our belief in ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Royce is, in effect, a deliberate and unqualified re-affirmation of every fact as alleged, and every inference as drawn, in his original libel—a deliberate and contemptuous re-affirmation of the whole system of elaborate misrepresentation which constitutes it one tissue of libel from beginning to end. Nothing whatever ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... a speaker intends to convey when he uses certain words; for often the same words may carry two or three different meanings according to the inflection. The simple word "Yes," with an abrupt downward slide, expresses decided affirmation. When spoken with an upward slide, it expresses interrogation and is equivalent to "Is that really so?" When it has a combination of the downward and upward slide or a rising circumflex inflection, the meaning ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... have left us little life to spend Upon your engines, gorged with pangs already— Ye lose the public spectacle, with which You would appal your slaves to further slavery! Groans are not words, nor agony assent, 50 Nor affirmation Truth, if Nature's sense Should overcome the soul into a lie, For a short respite—must we ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... "what" without the "how" in speech. The same written sentence becomes two diametrically opposite ideas, given opposing inflection and accompanying voice-effect. "He stood in the front rank of the battle" can be made praiseful affirmation, scornful scepticism, or simple question, by a simple varying of voice and inflection. This is the more unmistakable way in which the "how" affects the "what." Just as true is the less obvious fact. The same ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... said, "you can trust me; be the secret one of life or death, it is safe with me as with you." And he gave her his hand by way of affirmation. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... these heads. How any sane man, not being a professed enemy of public liberty, could put his hand to so monstrous a catalogue passes my understanding. Had a comparatively definite and innocent clause been added forbidding the affirmation or denial of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the country would have been up in arms at once. Lord Ribblesdale made an effort to reduce the seven categories to the old formula "not to be fitting for ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... sarcastic laugh; "on this diamond-mounted cross! No, sir," he added, with a proud curl of the lip, as he cast the jewel contemptuously aside, "oaths are made for men who need laws to keep them to their promises; I need no more than the clear and unequivocal affirmation of a gentleman." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... question I had long ago made up my mind, as a member of this house, to take a particular course. It may be thought peculiar as a matter of taste; but, for many years, I have acted upon the determination never to vote for the affirmation of this question until the Government, acting as a Government, should propose it to the legislature. My noble relation (Lord Longford) knows, that ever since the year 1810, the several successive Governments of this country have been formed upon a principle which prevented their ever proposing, ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... records, accounts, papers, and other data and documentary evidence necessary to performance of the responsibilities of the senior official under this section; and (D) administer to or take from any person an oath, affirmation, or affidavit, whenever necessary to performance of the responsibilities of the senior official under this section. (2) Enforcement of subpoenas.—Any subpoena issued under paragraph (1)(C) shall, in the case of contumacy or refusal to obey, be enforceable by order of any appropriate ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... real clash between two principles; not shades of principles as these may subsist between Germany and her western foes, but principles in all their essential features; not between different tints of gray, but between black and white, between affirmation and negation; affirmation of the principle of human dignity, liberty, safety, and negation of the same; ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... result was, as I shall always think, the sermon of a lifetime. The text was, There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. (Job xxxii. 8.) That mighty discourse was a demonstration of the truth of the affirmation of the text. I will not attempt to reproduce it here, though many of its passages are still vivid in my memory. It tore to shreds the sophistries by which it was sought to sink immortal man to the level of the brutes that perish; it appealed to the consciousness of his hearers in red-hot logic ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... [Sidenote: Renaissance vs. Reformation] he shows that the former was naturalism, the latter an intensification of religion and of a convinced other-worldliness, that while the ethic of the former was based on "affirmation of life," that of the latter was based on "calling." Even as compared with Catholicism, Troeltsch thinks, supererogatory works were abolished because each Protestant Christian was bound to exert himself to the utmost at all times. The learned professor hazards ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the towering rock, the wide ocean, the running river, the green trees of the forest, the tiny insect, the lordly elephant, all animals, plants, and our own physical body, all are composed of matter, either in solid, liquid or gaseous form. Therefore when we affirm that Aether is matter, the affirmation is strictly in accordance with the elementary principles of Philosophy, and in no way violates their rules or laws. To affirm that Aether is not matter, is to affirm something contrary to all experience, unless it be affirmed that Aether is motion, for which ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... the moment his deformities, and Mr. Fox made us laugh until our sides ached again. His Lordship told many a capital yarn, and my own wit was afterwards said to be astonishing, though I can recall none of it to support the affirmation. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... intensity. He held her a long moment in his embrace. Then he gazed into her eyes searchingly. "Everything is all right," he said—the words being an affirmation rather than a question. He had read an expression of dread in ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... these privileges, which confer consequence upon him, he looses others of another kind. He cannot marry in the society. His affirmation will be no longer taken instead of his oath. If a poor man, he is no longer exempt from the militia, if drawn by submitting to three months imprisonment; nor is he entitled to that comfortable maintenance, in case of necessity, which the society ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. So now let me supplement these two statements ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... about it in the newspaper when I was younger. I know they had a lot of them California Indians come up there but they couldn't understand him. I'll bet a Washo could have understood him." I asked if he thought it had been a wild man and he nodded in affirmation. ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs |
