"Assertion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Dwyer, many years after, when this letter came to light, alleged it to be a forgery, an assertion whose truth, even to his dying hour, and long after he had apparently ceased to feel the lash of public scorn, he continued obstinately to maintain. Indeed this matter is full of mystery, for, revenge alone excepted, which I believe, in such ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of justice spurred the multitude to Renwed exasperation. Angry demands for justice, for mercy, for rescue, shook the summer air. Unarmed citizens broke into an armourer's shop hard by, and, seizing whatever weapons they could lay their hands upon, flourished them aloft in significant assertion that their words were but the prefaces to deeds. Again Tabarie's bull voice bellowed to ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... his hat toward Desmit, and handed up his canteen at once. The act was full of the audacity of his race, but the news had overthrown all sense of discipline. The officer even lifted the canteen to his lips, and no doubt finding Pat's assertion as to its quality to be true allowed a reasonable quantity of its aromatic contents to glide down his throat, and then handed it to ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... prepared to echo the opinion expressed by Julian Ralph concerning the officers with whom he fraternized:—"They were emphatically the best of Englishmen," said he; "well informed, proud, polished, polite, considerate, and abounding with animal health and spirits." As a whole that assertion is largely true as applied to those with whom it was my privilege to associate. Most of them had been educated at one or other of our great public schools, many of them represented families of historic and world-wide ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... had said that in all probability Ali had been killed, this being of course his surmise, for he had no real reason for such an assertion. He was quite right, though, about having been tricked, for one of Rajah Gantang's cleverest spies after hearing from his hiding-place the plans that had been made, assumed the part of Ali in disguise, and passed unchallenged ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... made our visit here delightful. We drove out to their house at Toorak three or four times; and spent a long afternoon with them; and there I began to make acquaintance with the Antipodean trees and flowers. I hope you will not think it a very sweeping assertion if I say that all the leaves look as if they were made of leather, but it really is so; the hot winds appear to parch up everything, at all events, round Melbourne, till the greatest charm of foliage is more or less lost; the flowers also look withered and burnt up, as yours ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... Despite his assertion to Lady Cantourne, Guy Oscard stayed on in the gloomy house in Russell Square. He had naturally gone thither on his return from Africa, and during the months that followed he did not find time to think much of his own affairs. Millicent Chyne occupied all his thoughts—all his waking ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Government in this regard or in satisfying Sir Charles that the instance brought into notice by His Britannic Majesty's Government of a supposed departure from the rule was not at variance with the assertion of Mr. Livingston repeated by Mr. McLane. The Secretary therefore limited himself to the remark that the line of demarcation referred to by Sir Charles was not established as the true boundary prescribed by the treaty of 1783, but was a conventional substitute for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... He hardly knew me by sight. He thought only of coming to the rescue of an unfortunate lecturer, prostrated on the very threshold of his career; and a friendly hallucination made him for the moment really believe what he said. His unpremeditated assertion must have been set down by the recording angel on the same page with Uncle Toby's oath, and then obliterated in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... mean what you say? Crime sanctioned by the Romish clergy! Impossible! How dare you make such an assertion!" ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... assertion of the inter-State commerce power, sometimes by an assertion of the taxing power, the national government is taking up the performance of duties which under the changed conditions the separate States are no longer capable ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... storm, and how the people left on the top were starved to death because they could not get down,—exists in one form or another among all the tribes in the vicinity, and therefore several men who are versed in Indian lore have refused to believe Professor Libbey's assertion that there were no traces of life to be found on the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... who protected me. I endeavoured to find a middle course, and suggested the impossibility of leaving the country while even a vague report confirmed the belief that some at least of its people were prepared to vindicate her liberty, or die nobly in its assertion. They acquiesced, and the vessel was allowed to sail. I insisted, however, that after nightfall I should leave the house and take up my quarters in some obscure lodging house. Meantime it was arranged that if the next mail confirmed the accounts from Tipperary, I ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... their essays as ninety-nine out of a hundred schoolgirls would do, with a flat and obvious statement of birth, birthplace, and parentage; but Peggy disdained such commonplace methods, and dashed headlong into the heart of her subject with a high-flown sentiment, or a stirring assertion which at once arrested the reader's interest. And it was the same with whatever she wrote; she had the power of investing the dullest subject with charm and brightness. Fraulein could not say too much of Peggy's powers in this ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... a sharpness in Steve's demand that suggested doubt. He did not doubt the woman's story. It was her assertion that Cy had murdered his partner. He saw no evidence for her assumption. He felt that she had given run to her own ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Icarus is recalled from heaven by the run. Love is so startlingly real that it takes rank upon an equal footing of reality with the consciousness of personal existence. We are as heartily persuaded of the identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-assertion, the two gerents of human life on earth; and Whitman's ideal man must not only be strong, free, and self-reliant in himself, but his freedom must be bounded and his strength perfected by the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering love for others. To some extent this is taking away ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tradition of our ancestors, and have been handed down by the Churches of Christ." All the books of the Hebrew canon and of the New Testament are specified. After the list he says, "these are they which the fathers included in the canon, by which they wished to establish the assertion of our faith." He adds that there are other books not canonical, but ecclesiastical—the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, and the books of the Maccabees. Besides the usual New Testament works, he speaks of the Shepherd of ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... with him, had evinced a rather marked tendency toward over-anxiety in all matters relating to sickness—was very particular in his inquiries as to the invalid's condition, and was with difficulty reassured by the professor's assertion that there was certainly nothing worse the matter with him than, possibly, a slight attack of biliousness. The remaining five men, therefore, went away in the boats after breakfast, Sir Reginald taking the precaution to carry his telephone along with him, in order that Lady ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... with the blackberry idea, and having duly impressed me with his theory that true manhood consisted of making one's self unspeakably miserable and sweaty with a shovel and a hoe, Mr. Harland broached his favorite topic, and ventured the assertion that now that I was the possessor of taxable property I would become as rabid a single-tax advocate as Henry George himself. I answered that I already advocated a single-tax system, for the reason that if we could only ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... Poree, and Rollin; he had been then convinced how little Occasion there was for his lamenting the Loss of an Art in this Kingdom, which breathes there in full Maturity of all it's persuasive Charms. This his dogmatical Assertion of the long-lost Art of Oratory, his wild Academical Projects, with the foregoing theatrical Inconsistencies, too much subject that Gentleman to the Character given, by the Roman Satirist, of an assuming ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... suppose he will pay me that respect;" but through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr. Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... this assertion. It did more than anything else to put the boys in a better frame of mind—unless perhaps it might have been the return of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... military organization, and every conceivable courtesy was extended to him. In the addresses which he delivered after his return to England he referred many times to his sojourn in Berlin. He also made the assertion that the relations of England to France were closer and more intimate than ever before, that to Russia they were friendly, and that to Germany they were better than they recently had been. We now know—a fact which the Liberte also divulged at that time—that an English-French military ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... branches, and they thus accidentally provide the rising generation with a virtue or a truth which the present has not: but without going into these considerations, further than to allow them generally, and under circumstances, let us rather contemplate what the author's direct assertion is. He says, "the endeavour to accumulate," the words should be weighed, and for what? "for enjoyment;"—"to accumulate the means of future subsistence and enjoyment, is, to the mass of mankind, the great source," not merely ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... that events bore out the Archbishop's assertion. Everywhere the Puritans were becoming more outrageously disloyal. There were everywhere signs of disaffection and revolt against the authorities of the Establishment, even on the part of the most sincere and earnest men, many of whom were looking forward to the day when the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... his "Lettres Philosophiques," in which it must be confessed there were passages which justified Voltaire's assertion that Maupertius was at one time insane, and was confined for some years in a madhouse at Montpellier. Maupertius proposed in these letters that a Latin city should be built, and this majestic and beautiful tongue brought to life again. He ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... express concurrently the will of the entire legislature. It was not, however, till the reign of Henry VI. that it became customary, as now, to introduce bills into parliament in the form of finished acts; and the enacting clause, regarded by constitutionalists as the first perfect assertion, in words, of popular right, came into general use as late as the reign of Charles II. It is thus expressed in the case of all acts other than those granting money to the crown:—-"Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to allude to the remarkable, and, to say the least, imprudent, article in "The Tatler," No. 37. Such a passage, published by so warm an adherent of Marlborough as Steele, gives credit to Macpherson's assertion, that there really was some intention of maintaining the Duke in power, by his influence in the army. It is even affirmed, that under pretence his commission under the great seal could not be superseded by the Queen's order of dismissal, it ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... great place for carrying on the trade to Newfoundland, I determined to examine the assertion of the Earl of Sandwich in the House of Lords, when he said, in the debate on Sir William Dolben's bill, that the Slave Trade was not more fatal to seamen than the Newfoundland and some others. This assertion I knew at the time to be erroneous, as far as my own researches had been concerned: ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... army. It is this: they have been trained in everything except self-government, in everything except politics. Perhaps their governors know them better than we do. Their progress has come from direction from above, not from assertion from below. The art or arts of self-government, throughout their development as a nation, have been forcibly omitted from their curriculum. Every step in our national progress, on the contrary, has been taken by ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... them to look upon their ancient objects of veneration as less detestable in nature, and dangerous in act, than the devils imported as an integral portion of their adopted faith; and so originated this class of spirits less evil than the other. Sir Walter Scott may be correct in his assertion that many of these fairy-myths owe their origin to the existence of a diminutive autochthonic race that was conquered by the invading Celts, and the remnants of which lurked about the mountains and forests, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... cool depths of the winding little path that led down to the Cove was delicious. Oh! the contrast of it! The noise and ugly self-assertion of the town, flinging its gas-jets against the moon and covering the roll of the sea with the shriek of the gramophone. He crossed through the turnstile at the bend of the road and passed up the hill that led to the Cove. At a bend the view of the sea came to him, the white moonlight lying, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... amounting to less than a hundred words, if words they are, may be called a language, it may be admitted that the Professor has learned it, as his recent experiments show. What he has not proved is his assertion that he has actually conversed with a gorilla, or by signs, or grunts, or any means whatever obtained an insight, as he put it, into its mentality, or, as we should put it, its point of view. This Professor Beek claims to have done; and though he gives us a certain plausible corroboration ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... request by this instrument that all well-disposed persons will abstain from asserting or implying that I am open to any accusation whatsoever touching the said comparison, and, if they have so asserted or implied, that they will have the manliness forthwith to retract the same assertion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... administration of the estate of Smith is drawing near a termination that seems to credit the prophetic assertion of Judge Plunkett. One fact has been evolved in the process of examination, viz., that Smith had discovered the new lead before he was murdered. It was a fair hypothesis that the man who assumed the benefit of his ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... which were illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the snobs of society were severely ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... looking from the one to the other of the speakers with an air of bitter contempt which was fast changing to uncontrollable anger. Some last remaining instinct of prudence kept her from interrupting the conversation by a fresh assertion of her will, and she waited until one of them chose to speak to her. She had lost her head, for she would otherwise never have gone so far as to mention Gouache's name, but, as with all very spontaneous natures, with her to break the first barrier ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... Langdon of the Diplomatic Corps,—"I tell you that there'll be war. It isn't going to be any police-clubbed riot this time. It'll be the real thing." Carter felt a personal affront in Langdon's sceptical laugh at this assertion. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... kernels which are thrown away here (leaving out the whole leeward coast of our possessions) are sufficient to make thirty thousand gallons of oil, more or less. This is not at all a problematical speculation of ours, but we feel authorised to advance this assertion from the fact that one bushel of kernels, completely worked up, will make two gallons of oil. But to work them up is the thing, plentiful as they are; we however, hesitate not to say, that it can be done and probably ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... the wearer is neither a criminal nor a military prisoner. It will be observed, however, that the Commandant declined to recognise these fishermen as being naval prisoners, which somewhat contradicted his assertion concerning their alleged crime. At a subsequent date, I might mention, every civilian prisoner was branded with the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... before, such as never were paid to raise forces against an invader, or imposed by the insolence of victory upon a conquered people. Every gentleman pays to the government more than two thirds of his estate, by various exactions.—This assertion is received, I see, with surprise, by some, whose ample patrimonies have exempted them from the necessity of nice computations, and with an affected appearance of contempt by others, who, instead of paying taxes, may be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... as an instance of the frightful depravity of a certain tribe in the Pacific that they had no word in their language to express the idea of virtue. The assertion was unfounded; but were it otherwise, it might be met by stating that their language is almost entirely destitute of terms to express the delightful ideas conveyed by our endless ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... have been disappointed. Not that you haven't done your work well enough, so far as I know. But you have more than a young man's self-assurance and self-assertion. I have noticed also a note of condescension, of criticism in your bearing to those about you. The critical attitude to society and individuals is a bad one for a successful practitioner of medicine to fall ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... to address his Excellency at Cambridge, after Dinner on the Day of Election, and that the Reason assign'd for it was, because it had been unjustly asserted that his had stood Sponsor at a Christening - The Truth of which Assertion, however, it is also said, might have been made evident by enquiring of a worthy Clergyman of the Church of England in ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... afforded to Christians in all parts of the world; he therefore wrote to the sovereigns of those two countries, inviting them to join him in his crusade against the Mussulman race. A few passages selected from his letter to our Queen will prove the correctness of this assertion. "By his power (of God) I drove away the Gallas. But for the Turks, I have told them to leave the land of my ancestors. They refuse!" He mentions the death of Plowden and Bell, and then adds:—"I have exterminated those enemies (those who killed Bell and Plowden), that I may get, by the power of ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... from his age and his country, and standing in the presence of Nature and of God, with his passions, his doubts, his rare prosperities, and inconceivable wretchedness—will become the chief, if not the sole theme of poetry amongst these nations. Experience may confirm this assertion, if we consider the productions of the greatest poets who have appeared since the world has been turned to democracy. The authors of our age who have so admirably delineated the features of Faust, Childe Harold, Rene, and Jocelyn, did not seek to record the actions of an individual, but to enlarge ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... this point, let us examine the properties of this weed,—the prominent diseases which the use of it induces,—and the experiences of unprejudiced observers. The properties of tobacco are decidedly poisonous. In proof of this assertion, I appeal to ample ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... particularly good, and he tried to recall the special feature of Carson's advertisement of the evening before. There were several different lines, he remembered, to which Carson had called special attention, with the assertion that the values were absolute and ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... Sir Isaac Newton excelled them all. The gentleman's assertion was very just; for if true greatness consists in having received from heaven a mighty genius, and in having employed it to enlighten our own mind and that of others, a man like Sir Isaac Newton, whose equal is hardly found in a thousand years, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... should have accepted that challenge," returned Sir Walter, "And with the deepest respect for your Majesty, I should have ventured to deny the assertion that any country in the world could surpass England for the beauty of its women. But since the rage for masculine sports and masculine manners has taken hold of English girls, I am not at all disposed to defend them. They have, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Though the assertion may seem paradoxical, a study of other men is probably not necessary to the tragic poet. We find some of the great poets have lived a retiring, homely sort of life, without having a chance of witnessing around them an outburst of the passions they have so faithfully depicted. But, supposing ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... doubt, because Mr Ashburner, the {91} drapier, addressing himself to me at this moment, informed me that I had a great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion, by saying, that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where it could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... qualities. In the first place, it is absolutely free from dogmatic assertion; in the second place, it contains copious examples from good authors, which should guide aright the person investigating any word, if he is thoroughly conversant ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the English Gipsies call the Scripture or Bible the Shaster, and I record this with the more pleasure, since it fully establishes Mr Borrow as the first discoverer of the word in Rommany, and vindicates him from the suspicion with which his assertion was received by Dr Pott. On this subject ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... officiating clergyman, is a very able speaker, and made the first attempt at argument in his discourse that I had yet listened to in England. Preaching, in England, like the reciting of prayers, is all so much blank assertion—no more, and no less. I had never before so felt the force of unquestioned authority as I learned to feel and appreciate it in the services of the Episcopal Church of England. The very fact of arguing a question is in itself a ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... unquestioned valour of Edward; what with the effect of his splendid person, towering above all present by the head, and moving lightly, with each impulse, through the mass of a mail that few there could have borne unsinking, this assertion of absolute power in the midst of mutiny—an army marching to the gates—imposed an unwilling reverence and sullen silence mixed with anger, that, while it chafed, admired. They who in peace had despised the voluptuous monarch, feasting in his palace, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... recognition of a moral as well as an intellectual principle in man under the image of an immortal steed; (3) The notion that the divine nature exists by the contemplation of ideas of virtue and justice—or, in other words, the assertion of the essentially moral nature of God; (4) Again, there is the hint that human life is a life of aspiration only, and that the true ideal is not to be found in art; (5) There occurs the first trace of the distinction ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence to other people's, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to dispute this assertion. They talked in low tones of their probable destination, and regarded with some uneasiness the conference going on among the Arabs, which had now ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... worse of 'em for that," says the old woman, twitching her wizard-like head in confirmation of her assertion. "My word for it, Mr. Soloman, to get up in the world, and to be above the common herd, is the grand ambition of our people; and our State has got the grand position it now holds before the world through the influence ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... obliterated, although the older monasteries may present variations in details and honour their own line of teachers. A particular Bodhisattva may be singled out for reverence in one locality or some religious observance may be specially enjoined, but there is little aggressiveness or self assertion among the sects, even if they are conscious of having a definite name: they each tolerate the deities, rites and books of all and pay attention to as many items as leisure and inertia permit. There is no clear distinction between ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... the Casa Grande generally state that it was in ruins at the time of the first Spanish invasion of the country, in 1540, and quote in support of this assertion Castaneda's description of a ruin encountered on the march.[1] Castaneda remarks that, "The structure was in ruins and without a roof." Elsewhere he says that the name "Chichilticale" was given to the place where they stopped because the monks found in the vicinity a house which had been inhabited ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... denied! Less credulous is he as regarded 'William Pen' (with whom he seems to have been on terms of great personal intimacy), since he hints very broadly in one passage, that he put no faith whatever in a certain assertion of 'Pen' as to his own (Penn's) good behavior when amiably smiled on by a belle sauvage, who, as the French would say, was not savage at all. 'Scandal, scandal all,' we doubt not. There are gossipers in every age, tattlers in every corner of history, and who escapes them? ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... unmindful of the showers that fell at short intervals, listened for hours with breathless interest and undisguised envy to the story of his recent adventures. They were happily reassured by his description of the strength of Santiago's fortifications, and his assertion that the Spaniards would put up a good fight before surrendering them; for they had been inclined to think and speak contemptuously of the enemy who they feared would yield ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... congratulate myself especially on my good fortune in having, as it appears, so suitably explained Sallust's meaning, and you on your so careful perusal of that most wise author with so much benefit from the same. Respecting him I would venture to make the same assertion to you as Quintilian made respecting Cicero,—that a man may know himself no mean proficient in the business of History who enjoys his Sallust. As for that precept of Aristotle's in the Third Book of his Rhetoric [Chap. XVII] which you ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... the young man, 'pray be accurate. I distinctly stated that I did not even see him, and should not have known that it was he at all. Adela is responsible for that assertion.' ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... reader may naturally ask why have I not demonstrated this assertion before the scientific world. The reason is, that dogmatism rules in the sphere of natural science, and no communication would receive fair treatment which contravened the opinions of editors or the mass of prevalent opinion in colleges and scientific societies. It would be peremptorily ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... prerogatives of Ruskin's class of the 'well educated, who are learned in the peerage of words; know the words of true descent and ancient blood at a glance, from words of modern canaille;' but I venture the assertion that I am sufficiently sophisticated to plunge into the vortex of public life, and yet keep my ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... 583; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of the Scottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration of the Duke of York are wanting. (1848.) This assertion has been met by a direct contradiction. But the fact is exactly as I have stated it. There is in he Acta of the Scottish Privy Council a hiatus extending from August 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of York began to reside in Scotland in December 1679. He left Scotland, never to return ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... quite true, Mrs. and Miss Arthuret had been duly called upon and invited about by the neighbourhood; but it was a scanty one, and they had not wealth and position enough to compensate for the girl's self-assertion and literary pretensions. It was not a superior or intellectual society, and, as the Rockstone Merrifields laughingly declared, it was fifty years behindhand, and where Bessie Merrifield, for the sake of the old stock and her meek bearing of her success—nay, her total ignoring of her literary honours—would ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... about forty thousand. Now, if you are to credit the Texan Government, it has increased to about seventy-five thousand. Such, however, is not the fact, although it, of course, suits the members of the republic to make the assertion. Instead of the increase stated by them, the population of Texas has decreased considerably, and is not now equal to what it ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... "By Science I understand," says Huxley, "all knowledge which rests upon evidence and reasoning of a like character to that which claims our assent to ordinary scientific propositions; and if any one is able to make good the assertion that his theology rests upon valid evidence and sound reasoning, then it appears to me that such theology must take its place as a part of science." That the assertion has been already made good is claimed ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... card now played by the British Ambassador is, asserting that an accommodation will soon take place, and by some means or other conjecturing my want of powers by my not appearing at Court, he is bold in this assertion, and I find it the greatest difficulty I have to encounter. But I will not enter on a subject, which has well nigh distracted me, and embarrassed and disheartened in a greater or less degree every ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... intellects than your own it is generally sufficient to think once. But if you will think twice or twenty times, it cannot but dawn on you that there is something wrong in the reasoning by which the placing of diamonds in a safe proves that they are "rightly subject" to a burglar. The incessant assertion of such things can do little to spread your superior culture; and if you say them too often people may even begin to doubt whether you have any superior culture after all. The earnest friend now advising you cannot ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... their scanty supper under a shelter tent asserted there were houses some two leagues on, but for hours I hobbled over mountains of pure stone, my maltreated feet wincing at every step, without verifying the assertion. Often the descents were so steep I had to pick each footstep carefully in the darkness, and more than one climb required the assistance of my hands. A swift stream all but swept me off my feet, and in the stony climb beyond I lost both trail ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... human being had told her yesterday that she, Mary Adams, an old-fashioned girl with old-fashioned ideas of the proprieties of life, would have allowed herself to be picked up by an utter stranger in this unceremonious way, she would have resented the assertion as a personal insult—yet the preposterous and impossible thing had happened and she was growing each moment more and more deeply interested in the study of the remarkable ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... place, that effect will gradually occur. Such a result having been once produced, the subject's will-power and power of resistance are considerably weakened, because he is much more inclined than at first to believe the hypnotizer's assertion. This is generally the first step in the process of hypnosis. The method pursued at the school of Nancy is to convince the subject that his eyes are closing by directing his attention to that effect as strongly as possible. However, it is not necessary that we begin with the eyes. According ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... the scene of festivity somewhat earlier than was expected. As a matter of fact, he departed shortly after one. Moreover, being a prince, it did not occur to him to offer any excuse for leaving so early, but gracefully thanked his host and hostess and took himself off without the customary assertion that he had had a splendid time. Strange to say, he did not offer a single comment on the sumptuousness of the affair that had been given in his honor. Mr. Blithers couldn't get over that. He couldn't help thinking that the fellow had not been properly brought-up, or was it possible that he ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... which annoyed ben Nazir, who could not understand a word of it. And from first to last throughout that interview, and subsequently to the point where Jimgrim out-maneuvered and out-played him, he relied on the German philosophy of self-assertion that teaches how to get and keep the upper hand by making yourself believe in your own super-intelligence and then speaking, acting, making plans in logical accord with that belief. It works finely until somebody spoils the whole thing by pricking the super-intelligence bladder and ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... that it is strange there should be any—among which is his mention of the "St. Christopher" of the doges' palace as "the only known fresco of Titian," forgetting the celebrated one in the Scuola del Santo at Padua, of which he has spoken in a previous volume. He occasionally makes an assertion to which many will demur; as, for instance, that "The real glory of the Italian towns consists not in their churches, but in their palaces." The best refutation of this paradox is in his own pages. Most people ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... him in Copenhagen, laboring with an intensity of creative ardor which he had never known before. His striking appearance, the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain naive self-assertion and impatience of social restraints made him a notable figure in the polite and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish capital. There was a general expectation at that time that a great poet was to come, and although ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... versified parts of the dialogue of both The Feast at Solhoug and Olaf Liliekrans are written in that imitation of the tone and style of the heroic ballad, of which Hertz was the happily-inspired originator. There seems to me to be no depreciation whatever of Ibsen in the assertion of Hertz's right to rank as his model. Even the greatest must have learnt from ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... second were decidedly rejected by the unanimous voice of the council, declaring it to be incompatible with their honour as soldiers, or the duty they owed their country, either to surrender or abandon the baggage on the bare statement of Tarleton. They had no certainty of the truth of his assertion, and that it might be only a ruse de guerre to alarm their fears and obtain a bloodless victory. The third was also negatived on the ground, that although they might by this means defend themselves against Tarleton, but as no succour was near, and as Tarleton could, in a short time, obtain ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... The assertion that correct diagrams can be made mechanically is not borne out by the facts. It is easier to avoid precision in oral analysis than in written. The diagram drives the pupil to a most searching examination of the sentence, brings ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... of M. Mendes's books in my life—"Zo Hur" and "La Premiere Maitresse." When I read at Marienbad a little while ago the newspaper notices on the production of "La Femme de Tabarin" I even wrote to you, dear Signor Sonzogno, thinking this was an imitation of "Pagliacci." This assertion will suffice, coming from an honorable man, to prove my loyalty. If not, then I will place my undoubted rights under the protection of the law, and furnish incontestable proof of what I have stated here. I ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... truth of Dick's assertion. The decoy-man never looked healthy, but now he seemed ghastly of aspect and exceedingly weak, as he leaned upon the tall staff he ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... in the room thought of doubting William's assertion. As readers of the preceding volume know, Green had had considerable money when he joined the regiment something more than a year earlier. And William was known to be one who was constantly adding to his money ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... envied—how much to be pitied—are they who consider it a weakness and a sin to laugh, and in the plenitude of their wisdom, tell us that the Saviour of mankind never laughed. When I hear this last assertion, I am always ready to ask, whether the individual who makes it has read a new revelation or a new gospel; for certainly none of the sacred books which I have seen give ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... women answered the young man's rather frivolous assertion for some moments. Then Mrs. Bowring looked at him kindly, but with a far-away expression, as though she were ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... wasteful, corrupt and extravagant in administration, careless of the distress of the masses, and desirous of increasing the authority of the federal government at the expense of the powers of the states. Their own mission they felt to be the constant assertion of the opposite principles of government and administration. They felt that they in particular represented government by the people for the equal good of all classes. In conformity to what they believed to be the principles of Jefferson and Jackson they professed ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... heaven as sweetly fragrant, by far more pleasant than it is perceived in the world by a newly married man during the first days after marriage. From these considerations is manifested the truth of the assertion, that a wife is conjoined to a man by the sphere of her life flowing from the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... originated the controversy by a book in which he ardently supported the opinion in question, affirmed that no Christian bishop before Trimnell ever denied it.[115] Evidently it was a point which had not come very prominently forward for distinct assertion or contradiction, and one in which there was great room for ambiguity. To some it seemed a palpably new doctrine, closely trenching on a most dangerous portion of the Romish system, and likely to lead to gross superstition. To others it seemed ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... have not resented much in your letters which would otherwise call for earnest protest. I feel sure, for example, your assertion that I and my fellow-countrymen derive our opinions of German conduct wholly from corrupt and venal newspapers, or usually from a single newspaper which doles out mental poison in subservience to a single political party, was not intended to be as insulting as it really sounded. Your emotion doubtless ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... instead, which is neither in the original text nor in the thought. Probably Mr. Sawyer's motive for taking this extraordinary liberty was a false delicacy, amounting to prudery; but it ill assorts with his assertion, that his work is not a paraphrase, nor one of compromises, or of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Canada is a formidable creature, and Dr. Richardson contradicts the assertion that it is not swift of foot; he says that it soon outstrips the swiftest runner, and adds, that it climbs as well, if not better than a cat. It feeds on berries, eggs, and roots; but although it does not seek flesh, it does not refuse it when offered. A young bear of this kind roughly handled ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... This assertion made by Great Britain is met by the Memorandum which, when signing the Panama Canal Act, President Taft left to accompany the Act. The President contends that, in view of the fact that the Panama Canal has been constructed by the United ...
— The Panama Canal Conflict between Great Britain and the United States of America - A Study • Lassa Oppenheim
... our hiding-place was discovered, we were all captured, and the stolen property taken from us, with the exception of one ruby of great value, which had disappeared. The king is exceedingly angry that this cannot be found; our assertion that we have lost it is disbelieved, and we are threatened with torture to-morrow, unless we say where it ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... vociferates that in the book of Colloquies there are four passages more than heretical: concerning the Eating of meats and Fasting, concerning Indulgences, and concerning Vows, Although such be his bold and impudent assertion, whoever reads the book in its entirety will find the facts to be otherwise. If, however, leisure be wanting for the reading of trifles of this description, I will briefly lay the matter open. But before I approach it, I think well to make three ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... was preoccupied with a new thought that was taking shape in his mind—what a scientist would have called an hypothesis; a detective, a theory. It might throw an added light, albeit a lurid one, upon such doubt of her sanity as her own assertion had not dispelled. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... recesses, brown old surfaces weathered to silver and mottled roofs that testified not to seasons but to centuries. Two broad terraces commanded the wooded horizon. Our appeal was answered by a butler who condescended to our weakness. He renewed the assertion that Mr. Searle was away from home, but he would himself lay our case before the housekeeper. We would be so good, however, as to give him our cards. This request, following so directly on the assertion that Mr. Searle was absent, was rather resented ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... indeed acted as wisely as she could. The only flaw in her reasoning was her assertion that a few months would decide the fate of Roman affairs. If it were possible to predict a crisis even within a few months, speculation would be a less precarious business ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... deplorable incidents of this period, incidents to which in spite of ourself we have so often alluded, namely the Acts of Secularization of the missions. First, we will mention that some writers accuse Spain of having passed an Act of Secularization of Mission property in 1813, but such an assertion is considered unfounded by good authorities, perhaps it had rise from the fact that disturbances against Spanish rule were felt in Mexico as early as that period and echoes of it reached the small Mexican faction of California, causing much uneasiness to the missionaries. But three Acts of ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... government authority over rights, nor exclusion of any class from their full and equal enjoyment. Here is pronounced the rights of all men, and "consequently," as the Quaker preacher said, "of all women," to a voice in the government. And here, in this very first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for, how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a fatalist—so that one main article of the Mussulman creed pleased him well. He admired Mahomet as one of those rare beings, who, by individual genius and daring, have produced mighty and permanent alterations in the world. The General's assertion of his own belief in the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was often repeated in the sequel; and will ever be appreciated, as it was at the time by his own soldiery—whom indeed he had addressed but the day before in language sufficiently expressive of his real sentiments as to all forms of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart |
