"Controversial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... always a shining mark for the arrow of the satirist, will outlive all shots with his gray-goose shaft; for it shines with the gleam of tempered steel. An exactness of knowledge that defines all its landmarks, how is it master of the situation. A precision of speech, born of clear thinking, what controversial battlefields of sulphurous smoke and scattering fire might it prevent. He has been called a public benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before. He is as great a benefactor, who in an age of verbiage makes one word perform the function of two. Wonderful is ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... suffers, at the door of this training. His painful elaboration of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, his insistence upon the dialectic, and his continual use of the Hegelian philosophical expressions are due to his earlier controversial experiences. Still, on the other hand, his patient investigation of actual facts, his insistence on the value of positive knowledge as compared with abstract theory, and his diligent and persistent use of blue-books and statistics, ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... his great love for the Church which made him take pen in hand. Varied as were the subjects on which he wrote, his writings, whether controversial, dogmatic, devotional or even light and entertaining, had but one single aim and end—the instruction of mankind and the glorification ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... less judgment than if Mr. Dutton had been at hand. Being without natural taste for intellectual pursuits, unless drawn into them by his surroundings, he had dropped them entirely, and read nothing but the ephemeral controversial literature of his party, and not much of that, for he was teaching, preaching, exhorting, throughout his spare time; while the vicar was in too great need of help to insist on deepening the source from which his zealous assistant drew. As Miss Nugent ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... titles, were condemned to the fire . . . Such books wherein appeared angles were thought sufficient to be destroyed, because accounted Papish or diabolical, or both." A cart- load of MSS., lucubrations of the Fellows of Merton, chiefly in controversial divinity, was taken away; but, by the good services of one Herks, a Dutchman, many books were preserved, and, later, entered the Bodleian Library. The world can spare the controversial manuscripts of the Fellows of Merton, but who knows what invaluable ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... has its compensations, especially for those who unite restless vanity and ambition to a feminine desire for sympathy. It has been much the habit of Mr. Stephens to date controversial epistles from "a sick chamber," as do ladies in a delicate situation. A diplomatist of the last century, the Chevalier D'Eon, by usurping the privileges of the opposite sex, inspired grave doubts ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... numbers are concerned, I believe our clergymen, when called on to make a showing, have never had occasion to blush, if comparisons were drawn between the free and slave States. And although our presses do not teem with controversial pamphlets, nor our pulpits shake with excommunicating thunders, the daily walk of our religious communicants furnishes, apparently, as little food for gossip as is to be found in most other regions. It may be regarded as a mark of our want ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... an appeal to, and a comparison of, various passages in holy writ, the errors and human inventions with which the Church of Rome had defaced the simple edifice of Christianity, as erected by its divine architect, were pointed out. These controversial topics were treated with a spirit of calmness and Christian charity, which might have been an example to the theologians of the period; but they were clearly, fairly, and plainly argued, and supported by the necessary proofs and references. Other ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... discourses upon this subject may be more or less unacceptable to some on account of their controversial aspect. This disadvantage cannot always be avoided. Controversy is not always agreeable, yet it is often necessary. Error must be opposed, and truth defended. What I have to say, is designed chiefly for the benefit of the younger portion of the congregation. ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... subject, he is a singularly forcible writer. In his case more than in any of the others, the journalist born out of due time is perceptible. He had perhaps not much original message for the world. But he had eminently the trick both of damaging controversial argument made light to catch the popular taste, and of easy discussion or narrative. The chief defects of his work would probably have disappeared of themselves if he had had to write not pamphlets, but articles. He did, however, what he could; and he is worthy of a place in the history ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Gladstone appeared in a new light, and commanded immediate attention by the publication of his "Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age,"—a remarkable work in three large octavo volumes, which called into the controversial field of Greek history a host of critics, like Mr. Freeman, who yet conceded to Mr. Gladstone wonderful classical learning, and the more wonderful as he was preoccupied with affairs of State, and without the supposed leisure ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... himself was a great scholar in the languages. He was "so skilled in the seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, that, whichever he spoke, you would suppose it was his native tongue."[1] Nor was his spirit in the work controversial. I say his "spirit in the work" with care. They were controversial times, and Tindale took his share in the verbal warfare. When, for example, there was objection to making any English version because "the language was so rude that the Bible ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... meanwhile his views had undergone a change and when he disapproved of any Vaibhashika doctrine, he criticized it. This enlarged edition by no means pleased the brethren of Kashmir and called forth polemics. He also wrote a controversial work against ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... and the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the choral frogs in Aristophanes; and there was a long sermon a propos to nothing which could possibly interest the congregation,—being, in fact, some controversial homily which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud universal grunt, as if of relief and thanksgiving, and a great clatter of shoes, and the old hobbled, and the young ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... essential perversion, it must obviously fall to the ground; and as a matter of fact, the ideal itself has been sensibly modified during the course of this attempt to give it an historical application. In spite of all these modifications it remains, however, an extremely controversial review. Our political and economic past is, in a measure, challenged in order to justify our political and social future. The values placed upon many political ideas, tendencies, and achievements differ radically from the ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... land and maritime boundary agreement, which would have ceded most of Piran Bay and maritime access to Slovenia and several villages to Croatia, remains controversial, has not been ratified, and has been complicated by Croatia's declaration of an ecological-fisheries zone in the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... to take an interest in subjects of the day—ministries, flat paintings, controversial novels, Cromwell's spotless integrity, etc.—why ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... noticeable in God and the Bible continues, but the apology is illustrated and maintained in an even less attractive manner. The Preface is perhaps the least dead part of the book; but its line of argument shares, and perhaps even exaggerates, the controversial infelicity of this unfortunate series. Mr Arnold deals in it at some length with the comments of two foreign critics, M. Challemel-Lacour and Signor de Gubernatis, on Literature and Dogma, bringing out (what surely could have ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... thought out. We might give an answer offhand, but are less likely to give a reply so. We may give any kind of answer to a question, but if we give a reply, the implication is that we have answered it definitely, perhaps satisfactorily. On the other hand, in controversial matters we may, though we by no means always do, imply a more conclusive meeting of objections through answer than through reply. A response is an expected answer, one in harmony with the question or assertion, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... republic of Venice, the result of the difference between the two states being the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Venetian territories. He succeeded in effecting the union of the Nestorians of Chaldea with the Church of Rome, and in appeasing for a time several controversial differences between members of his own communion. Paul V greatly embellished the city of Rome; and also completed the facade of St. Peter's, and the palace of the Quirinal. He died in 1621, at the age of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... not going to write you a controversial or even an argumentative letter, but simply to put down the heads of a few matters which I wish shortly to converse with you upon, in the most amicable and temperate manner, deprecating the impatience which may sometimes have mixed in our discussions, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... minds, and rendered their whole conversation, which otherwise would have been pleasing and instructive, perfectly disgusting. A spirit of cabal, intrigue, and proselytism pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. And as controversial zeal soon turns its thoughts on force, they began to insinuate themselves into a correspondence with foreign princes,—in hopes, through their authority, which at first they flattered, they might bring about the changes they had in view. To them it was indifferent whether these changes were to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... his works formed a model for Latin theologians as long as that language continued to be habitually used by Western scholars; and to-day both the spirit and the style of the great man have a wide influence on the devotional and the controversial style of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... application of the "principles" of poetry as could tend to sink Pope, on the scale of his art, to any rank below the very first. Such being the middle state of my opinion on the question, it will not be difficult to understand how one of my controversial friends should be as mistaken in supposing me to differ altogether from his views, as the other was in taking for granted that I had ranged myself wholly on ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... sixteenth century raised the question in its modern form, and for many generations it was one of the chief problems of statesmen and the subject of endless controversial pamphlets. Toleration means incomplete religious liberty, and there are many degrees of it. It might be granted to certain Christian sects; it might be granted to Christian sects, but these alone; it might be granted to all religions, but not ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... all important statements of facts in the following pages may be found in the notes; the condensed references are expanded in the bibliography. A few controversial matters ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... answered, 'It is called the Greek Plutarch, and it treats of philosophy.' And I said, 'Read some of it, for it must contain wonderful things.' Then I saw a little book, newly printed, lying on the floor, and I said to him, 'Respected Doctor, what lies there?' He answered, 'It is a controversial book, which a friend in Cologne sent me lately. It is written against me. The theologians in Cologne have printed it, and they say that Johann Pfefferkorn wrote it.' And I said, 'What will you do about ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... newspapers followed, into the details of which it is not necessary to go. The Federalists, with the tide going steadily against them, had the good luck to secure the aid of a pen which had no match in Europe. The greatest master of English controversial prose that ever lived was at that time in America. Normally, perhaps, his sympathies would have been with the Democrats. But love of England was ever the deepest and most compelling passion of the man who habitually abused her institutions so roundly. The Democrats were ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... man's look was plainly not controversial; no, it was as if he were pleased that at last they had tapped a vein of common interest. In one glance Carlisle's trained eye, going over him, took in his sartorial eccentricities: in particular the "shined" shoes, the large brass shirt-studs, and the "full-dress-suit" (exactly ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... was continually designing and redesigning a motor-boat in which one engine should satisfactorily operate twin screws; Tatum learned the thirty-nine articles by heart; but naval architecture and even controversial divinity palled after a while. The equipment and the supplies for the higher region were gone over again and again, to see that all was properly packed and in ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... that is, its purpose was journalistic; practically everything that it printed was related to the thought and the action of the time. So insistent was Page on this programme that his pages were not "closed" until a week before the day of issue. Though the Forum dealt constantly in controversial subjects it never did so in a narrow-minded spirit; it was always ready to hear both sides of a question and the magazine "debate," in which opposing writers handled vigorously the same ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Bridge, whose "Works" (London, 1649) are in the Library, was born at Cambridge, became rector of St. Peter Hungate, Norwich, in 1636, and afterwards settled at Yarmouth. John Collinges, a Presbyterian, who came to Norwich in 1646, published controversial and devotional tracts and sermons. He is only represented by "A Short Discourse against Transubstantiation" (London, 1675), and "On the Intercourse of Divine Love" (1676), but the Local Collection of the Public Library ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... considered in the following pages. Whatever religious significance it may be supposed to possess over and above, as one of the canonical books of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, will, it is hoped, remain unaffected by this treatment, which is least of all controversial. The flowers that yield honey to the bee likewise delight the bee-keeper with their perfume and the poet with their colours, and there is no adequate reason why the magic verse which strikes a responsive chord ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Tyrone, two young Protestant clergymen determined to hold Gospel services in a tent which was pitched in a field the property of Mr. James A. Hamilton, J.P. For about a week beforehand handbills announcing the services for July 21 had been distributed in the town and suburbs, but no controversial topic was mentioned, nor was it intended that the services should be other than strictly evangelical. The tent was erected solely to accommodate the great influx of visitors, after the manner so familiar in England. Here ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... for his people and for his "body" was a special love; and his knowledge of the Secession, through all its many divisions and unions,—his knowledge, not only of its public history, with its immense controversial and occasional literature, but of the lives and peculiarities of its ministers,—was of the most minute and curious kind. He loved all mankind, and specially such as were of "the household of faith;" and he longed for the time ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and meant to finish him. He followed with a simply brutal attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon the development of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of a most extraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a violently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an editorial note witnesses that it was modified. It must have covered Pawkins with shame and confusion of face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in argument, and utterly contemptuous ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... estrange, in spite of the oppositions of argument and the inconsistencies of speculation, they can afford to recognise in him, as in a high example, what they most sincerely believe in and most deeply prize, and can pay him the tribute of their gratitude and honour, even when unconvinced by his controversial reasonings, and unsatisfied by the theories which he has proposed to explain the perplexing and refractory anomalies of Church history? Is it not that with history, inexorable and unalterable behind them, condemning and justifying, supporting ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... destined to teach the rudiments of human knowledge. Most of these books are written in Europe; the Americans reprint them, adapting them to their own country. Next comes an enormous quantity of religious works, Bibles, sermons, edifying anecdotes, controversial divinity, and reports of charitable societies; lastly, appears the long catalogue of political pamphlets. In America, parties do not write books to combat each others' opinions, but pamphlets which are circulated for a day ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... situate in Little Saffron Hill, Farringdon Road, the service being held in a barn-like room, which on weekdays serves for school, and is capable of accommodating a thousand children. No money has been expended in architectural embellishment, and no question of a controversial character is likely to arise in connection with accessories in the shape of altar, surplice, or candles. The Ragged Church avoids these stumbling-blocks by the simple expedient of doing without candles, surplices, or altar. ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... once afterwards. Until 1873 he and his rival, Mr. Fox, were considered inevitable members of almost any combination. Native affairs were in the forefront during that period. Mr. Fox, the most impulsive, pugnacious, and controversial of politicians, usually headed the peace party; Sir Edward Stafford, much more easy going in ordinary politics, was usually identified with those who held that peace could only be ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... folk from the pulpits. Now there used to visit her house a number of students of divinity and [other] persons of learning and culture, who would argue with her upon questions of theology and discuss controversial points with her. I went to her one day, with a friend of mine, a man of education; and when we had taken our seats, she set before us a dish of fruit and seated herself behind a curtain. Now she had a [young] brother, a handsome youth, who stood ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... offensive peculiarities of the party they espoused rather than upon the more mighty things in which we are all agreed." It has been said of him that, after the middle of the century, "his discourses will be searched in vain for any discussions of controversial theology, any advocacy of the peculiar doctrines regarded as orthodox, or the expression of any opinions at variance with those of ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan defended the accused governor with great ability in prose. For the lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued in Simpkin's ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... author's controversial methods, take his observations on my alleged attempt to account for the metamorphosis of Daphne into a laurel tree. When I read these remarks (i. p. 4) I said, 'Mr. Max Muller vanquishes me there,' for he gave no reference to my statement. I had forgotten all about the ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... third expedient for curbing the provinces, was exercised with {71} some freedom down to 1888. In that year a Quebec measure, the Jesuits' Estates Act, with a highly controversial preamble calculated to provoke a war of creeds, was not disallowed, although protests were carried past parliament to the governor-general personally. The incident directed attention to the previous practice at Ottawa under both parties and a new era ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... as it was, he was always called upon, unprofessionally, to settle the neighbors' disputes, and was renowned for making all the love-matches of the neighborhood. In his reading he had rather a peculiar taste; he delighted in theological and controversial books, and I never knew any one who was more thoroughly acquainted with the Bible. He could not only give the precise chapter and verse from which any text was taken, but was able to detect the slightest ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... their genius. But let me see what you have produced; "With all deference to what that very learned and most ingenious person, in his Letter to a Friend in the Country, hath advanced." Very well, sir; for, besides that, it may sell more of the Letter: all controversial writers should begin with complimenting their adversaries, as prize-fighters kiss before they engage. Let it be finished with all speed. Well, Mr Dash, have you ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... knew little or nothing of the Roman Catholic creed; and, as for Darby, we need not say that he was thoroughly ignorant of Protestantism. Yet, nothing could be more certain—if one could judge by the fierce controversial cock of Bob's hat, and the sneering contemptuous expression of Darby's face, that a hard battle, touching the safest way of salvation, was about to be fought ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of joint—words which may be taken as summing up in brief all the passages throughout the poem in which political affairs are touched upon. With this, if we except one bitter jibe at Florence (xxxi. 39) all controversial matters are dismissed, and the last three cantos of the poem are devoted to a description, rising ever in sublimity, of the ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... with him to the end. Moralities of this type aimed at the cultivation of virtue in the spectators, just as the miracle plays had aimed at the strengthening of their faith. Another type of morality dealt with controversial questions. In one of these, King Johan, written about 1538, historical personages are put side by side with the allegorical abstractions, thus foreshadowing the later historical plays, such as Shakespeare's King John. Another comparatively late type ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... has occurred in B.'s. In other words, man is naturally obstinate; and this quality in him is attended with certain results, treated of in the branch of knowledge which I should like to call Dialectic, but which, in order to avoid misunderstanding, I shall call Controversial or Eristical Dialectic. Accordingly, it is the branch of knowledge which treats of the obstinacy natural to man. Eristic is only a harsher name for ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... a mark of splendour, to furnish their shelves with the current literature of the day, without much scrutiny or nicety of discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted to roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and church politics and controversial divinity, together with a love of learned ease, though they did not withdraw his attention at stated times from the progress of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him readily to grasp at any apology for not extending a strict and regulated survey towards his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... your way to St. Teresa's. We don't often get such a strong contingent from the other side." By "the other side" Mr. Reed meant Middlesex, but to Audrey the phrase was insidiously controversial. She determined to take her stand ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... serenely unconscious of the fact as were his hearers. There was no agnosticism in his congregation, for he laid down the law and the gospel in a way that discouraged theological speculation. Nevertheless, among his followers there were controversial spirits who never doubted that they were right, however much they might question his ecclesiastical methods and views. To many, freedom meant the right to have their say, and, as is often true, those having the least weighty matter on their minds ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... remembered, is entirely devoted to a very masterly narrative of the Gunpowder Plot), has accordingly produced a very carefully prepared edition of the Tract in question; introduced by a preface, in which its historical importance is alone discussed, the object of the publication being not controversial but historical. "To obviate," says Mr. Jardine, "any misapprehension of the design in publishing it at a time when events of a peculiar character have drawn much animadversion upon the principles of the Roman Catholics, it should be stated that the Treatise would have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... not for controversial or apologetic reasons, but because it has been the leaven of our western civilization ever since the fall of the Roman Empire. Its constant influence has been to soften and spiritualize individual and national ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... activity. Although strikes had ended in 1994, political unrest and lack of funds prevented the government from taking advantage of the 50% currency devaluation of 12 January 1994. Resumption of World Bank and IMF flows will depend on implementation of several controversial moves toward privatization and on downsizing the military, on which the regime ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to contemplate and realise this responsibility. I was for some time reading Wilberforce's new book, and this involved an examination of the question in other writers; but lately I have laid all controversial works aside almost entirely, and have been reading Pearson, Bull, and the Apostolical Fathers, Clement and Ignatius. I shall probably read Justin Martyr's Apologies, and some treatises of Tertullian before next month is over. I have read some part already. There ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Royal Society) were again given publicity in full in his celebrated volume on natural philosophy, consisting in part of his lectures before the Royal Institution, published in 1807; but even then they failed to bring conviction to the philosophic world. Indeed, they did not even arouse a controversial spirit, as ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Ignatian letters has, from the nature of the case, never been discussed exclusively on its own merits. The pure light of criticism has been crossed by the shadows of controversial prepossession on both sides. From the era of the Reformation onward, the dispute between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism has darkened the investigation; in our own age the controversies respecting the Canon of Scripture ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... check, who, from their numbers and insolence, were most to be feared. With this view, he had tacitly taken into his protection the Lutherans, as the weaker and more peaceable party, having moreover invited for them, from Germany, spiritual teachers, who, by controversial sermons, might keep up the mutual hatred of the two bodies. He encouraged the Lutherans in the vain idea that the king thought more favorably of their religious creed than that of the Calvinists, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... better not to discuss controversial subjects," he said. "If you will allow me, I will keep ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... all his speculations and controversial activities are penetrated with the idea of Progress, which he described as "the railway of liberty"; and his radical criticism on current social theories, whether conservative or democratic, was that they did not take Progress seriously though they ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... nationalise the nation. The Capitalists praise competition while they create monopoly; the Socialists urge a strike to turn workmen into soldiers and state officials; which is logically a strike against strikes. I merely mention it as an example of the bewildering inconsistency, and for no controversial purpose. My own sympathies are with the Socialists; in so far that there is something to be said for Socialism, and nothing to be said for Capitalism. But the point is that when there is something to be said for one thing, it is now commonly ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... is a controversial treatise supported here and there by facts of Negro life and history. The purpose of the work is to increase racial self respect and to diminish racial antagonism. The author has endeavored to combine ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... and that function I feel that words fail. I can not tell you what I think of the nobleness of the inheritance which has descended upon us, of the sacredness of the duty of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood, of my heart and soul. For those ends I have labored through my youth and manhood, and, more than that, till my hairs are gray. In that faith and practise I have lived, and in that ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... strong, self-complacent Luther[517] declares with an emphasis, not to be mistaken, that "God himself cannot do without wise men." Jacob Behmen[518] and George Fox[519] betray their egotism in the pertinacity of their controversial tracts, and James Naylor[520] once suffered himself to be worshiped as the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify himself with his thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. However this may ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... efforts to take an inventory of the slaves so that the claims might be adjusted, they encountered the opposition of Clavelle and Cockburn. It was clearly evident that the efforts of the commissioners would be of no avail. More coercive means were necessary to settle such an extended and controversial question. In a convention of commerce between Great Britain and the United States October 20, 1818, representatives realized that an agreement in regard to the Negroes was hardly possible. The representatives from the United States, therefore, offered to refer ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... races, religious castes and forms of local government are all intimately surveyed; the chapters on the India Office and (especially) the army in India will command wide attention both among experts and the general public. Naturally the word "experts" brings me to the controversial side of the subject, the much discussed Montagu-Chelmsford Report, concerning which the late C.-in-C. holds views that might fairly be described as pronounced. Where authorities differ the honest reviewer can but record impartially. Really ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... into gaol. He was then flogged and degraded from the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were issued ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... Nicolas Herberay des Essarts and his continuators. That Herberay[121] deserves, according to the best and most catholic students of French, a place with the just-mentioned writers among the formers or reformers of the French tongue, is a point of some importance, but, for us, minor. Of the controversial part of the Amadis subject it must, as in other cases, be once more unnecessary for us to say much. It may be laid down as certain, on every principle of critical logic and research, that the old idea of the Peninsular cycle being borrowed direct from any French original ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Home Rule question the present statement has no bearing whatever. That difficult problem lies in an altogether different sphere of politics, and must he judged by considerations which cannot be touched on here. Without, however, trenching in any degree on controversial ground, it may be pointed out that the crucial difficulty of the Home Rule question lies, and has always lain, in the fact that in Ireland a substantial and important minority amounting to about 25 per cent. of the population, and differing from the rest of the country ...
— Ireland and Poland - A Comparison • Thomas William Rolleston
... that this provision is controversial. It is as distasteful to me as I suspect it is to you. In its defence, let me treat the Greek letter and math formula cases separately. Using LaTeX encoding for Greek letters is purely a stopgap until Unicode comes into common use on enough ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... be said to have discharged the functions of the press (a press which was all on one side). When, in 1562, Ninian Winzet, a Catholic priest and ex-schoolmaster, was printing a controversial tractate addressed to Knox, the magistrates seized the manuscript at the printer's house, and the author was fortunate in making his escape. The nature of the Confession of Faith, and of the claims of the ministers ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... is getting upon things controversial, and if there is anything in this world that I ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... versed in the black-letter books, old plays, pamphlets, manuscript records, and catalogues of that age, but also from the fallacious and unsatisfactory nature of the facts and assumptions on which the evidence rests. In that age, when the press was chiefly occupied with controversial or practical divinity,—when the law, the Church, and the State engrossed all honour and respectability,—when a degree of disgrace, levior quaedam infamiae macula, was attached to the publication of poetry, and even ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... he can get me some of the reviewing. And occasional non-controversial articles. But I don't want to be tied up with it; I want to write for other papers too.... You take Johnny's ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... of the freedom of the will furnishes a favorite controversial topic in philosophy. For the interest at stake is no less than the individual's responsibility before man and God for his good or bad works. It bears alike upon science, religion, and philosophy, and is at the same time a question of most fundamental practical ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... the Olympian mien by which men like Waldeck and Radowitz and Gagern dominated and controlled their audience. His own mind was essentially critical; he appealed more to the intellect than the emotions. His speeches were always controversial, but he was an admirable debater. It is curious to see how quickly he adopts the natural Parliamentary tone. His speeches are all subdued in tone and conversational in manner. Many of them were very carefully prepared, for though he did not ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... literature. Luckily, I can judge them without prejudice. Whether in this or that case Whistler was in the right or in the wrong is not a question which troubles me at all. I read the letters simply from the literary standpoint. As controversial essays, certainly, they were often in very bad taste. An urchin scribbling insults upon somebody's garden-wall would not go further than Whistler often went. Whistler's mode of controversy reminds me, in another sense, of the writing on the wall. They who were so foolish ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... while to give any critical appraisement of these pamphlets. They were all controversial and all dealt with the case of Richard Dugdale. Zachary Taylor had the best of it. The Puritan clergymen who backed up Thomas Jollie in his claims seem gradually ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... difference between encounter and marriage enrichment groups raises a somewhat controversial question. Encounter groups are more ready to evoke negative interaction between participants, while we place major emphasis ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... qualifications for the work to which he has devoted the autumn of an eminently useful and honored life. The sinewy fibre of his theme is religion. And he is a religious man of the highest pattern, deeply skilled in its scholarly lore, erudite in its Scriptural and controversial elements, and practised in the sagacity which it imparts for understanding and interpreting human nature. Religion enters into the subject-matter of his narrative, not so much in its philosophical bearings as in its civico-ecclesiastical and institutional relations; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... the Latin Department, greeted him with a distantly polite nod. Pompous old owl; regarded himself, for some reason, as a sort of unofficial Dean of the Faculty. Probably didn't want to be seen fraternizing with controversial characters. One of the younger men, with a thin face and a mop of unruly hair, advanced to meet him as he came in, as cordial as ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... House that that Constitution had about it no element of permanence, that it could not possibly have been maintained as an enduring, or even a workable settlement; and I am bound to say—I do not wish to be controversial this afternoon if I can avoid it—that, when I read the statement that this representative government stage would have been a convenient educative stage in the transition to full self-government, the whole experience of ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... that Rosalind spoke Warwickshire! A little girl who was sitting in the row in front of me had lent me her copy of the play a moment before, and now, absorbed in Dr. Furness's argument, I forgot the book wasn't mine and began scrawling controversial notes in it with my very ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... them so, and the more, if thou hast not only the faith of them in thy heart, but art daily living in the spiritual sense and feeling of them, and of thy interest in them. Neither doth this treatise offer to thee doubtful controversial things, or matters of opinions, as some books chiefly do, which when insisted upon, the weightier things of the gospel have always done more hurt than good: But here thou hast things certain, and necessary to be believed, which thou canst not too much study. Therefore pray, that thou mayest ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... The Works of Andrew Marvell, Esq., Poetical, Controversial, and Political: containing many Original Letters, Poems, and Tracts never before printed, with a New Life. By Captain Edward Thompson. In three ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... right to vote wrong? If a man has a right to choose his wife, has he not a right to choose wrong? I have a right to express the opinion which I am now setting down; but I should hesitate to make the controversial claim that this proves the opinion to ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... that Mr. Potts would have withdrawn from the controversial arena after this painful exposure, but with a persistence worthy of a better cause he rejoins in a long and irrelevant letter in The Tittersham Observer of the 30th May. He undoubtedly scores a point in maintaining that the Nether Wambleton ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... home and social life of various European peoples—a series long needed and sure to receive a warm welcome. Her style is frank, vivacious, entertaining, captivating, just the kind for a book which is not at all statistical, political, or controversial. A special excellence of her book, reminding one of Mr. Whiteing's, lies in her continual contrast of the English and the French, and she thus sums up her praises: 'The English are admirable: the French are lovable.' ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... is at all familiar with this branch of controversial literature, probably knows how that distressing case is put. One is presented with a poor man of inconceivable industry, goodness and virtue; he has worked, he has saved; at last, for the security of his old age, he holds a few shares in ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... was in excellent form. On the Fourteenth Street car a human being was arguing fiercely and loudly with the conductor about some controversial matter touching upon fares and destinations. The clamour was great. Said the doctor, adjusting his eye-glass and gazing with rebuke toward the disputants: "I will be gratified when this tumult subsides." The doctor has been ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... remark, that the Polish theological literature of this period evinced much less of a polemical spirit than might have been expected, in an age when that of the neighbouring countries, Bohemia and Germany, abounded in controversial books and pamphlets, replete with unchristian bitterness and doctrinal rigidity. For productions of this character we have to look in Poland to the following period. The wise moderation of the two Sigismunds, and of ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... striking resemblances between them, in their grammatical remarks, in their survey of previous attempts at an English translation of the Bible, and in their attitude to such a translation, have never been pointed out. Without wishing to intrude myself into controversial matters on which no one is entitled to speak who has not made a special study of the subject, I would fain again draw attention to the fact that whereas we have a definite statement by Caxton[7] that the Polychronicon 'was englisshed by one Trevisa, vicarye ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... also to give information, more or less detailed, about each of Mr. Browning's works; information sufficient to the purpose I have in view, which is to induce those who have hitherto deprived themselves of a stimulating pleasure to deprive themselves of it no longer. Further, my aim is in no sense controversial. In a book whose sole purpose is to serve as an introduction to the study of a single one of our contemporary poets, I have consciously and carefully refrained from instituting comparisons—which I deprecate as, to say ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... work consisted of seven Parts, which were published in series on consecutive Thursdays, between April 21 and June 2. An Appendix, in answer to specific allegations urged against me in the Pamphlet of Accusation, appeared on June 16. Of these Parts 1 and 2, as being for the most part directly controversial, are omitted in this Edition, excepting certain passages in them, which are subjoined to this Preface, as being necessary for the due explanation of the subsequent five Parts. These, (being 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of the Apologia,) are here numbered as Chapters ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... con upon the occasion; and finding that, tho' an elegant preacher, he was but a poor writer, I lent him my pen and wrote for him two or three pamphlets, and one piece in the Gazette of April, 1735. Those pamphlets, as is generally the case with controversial writings, tho' eagerly read at the time, were soon out of vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... Vikarna, and other sons of mine, I do not hear the sounds I used to hear formerly. That great bowman, viz., the son of Drona, who was the refuge of my sons, upon him Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas, and a large number of disciples used to wait, who took pleasure day and night in controversial disputations, in talk, in conversation, in the stirring music of diverse instruments, and in various kinds of delightful songs, who was worshipped by many persons among the Kurus, the Pandavas, and the Satwatas, alas, O Suta, in the abode of that son of Drona no sound can be heard ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her snug library, so eager in her wifeliness to clamber up to her husband's small planks, and if need be, spread her prettily flounced skirts over the rotting places, was memorizing, with more pride than understanding, extracts from the controversial article for quotation at the Woman's Club meeting, Mr. Penfield Evans, with a determination which considerably expanded his considerable chest measurement, ran two at a bound up the white stone steps of Mrs. Gallup's private ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... controversial harangues of the zealot Auguste, my religious teaching was neglected on week days. On Sundays, if fine, I was taken to a Protestant church in Paris; not infrequently to the Embassy. I did not enjoy this at all. I could have done very well without it. I liked the drive, which took about ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... himself speculating on the cause of this extraordinary resolve, but, steadfast to his policy of avoiding controversial matters, said nothing. A few words to the captain procured enough stores to keep the Mahommedan for six months at least, and whilst these were being landed, the question was raised how best to ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... had been lax in his interest during early manhood. This was one of the matters which he had expected marriage to correct, and he had taken up again, not merely with resignation but complacency, the custom of attending service regularly. Dr. White had been a controversial Methodist, but since his wife's death, and especially since the war, he had abstained from religious observances, and had argued himself somewhat far afield from the fold of orthodox belief. Consequently Selma, though she attended ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... peculiar idealism and a careful distinction drawn between the real and the metaphorical sense of the terms which he employs. Baius neglected this precaution and furthermore paid no attention to the controversial attitude of the holy Doctor. Augustine's peculiar task was not to maintain the possibility of naturally good works without faith and grace, but to defend against Pelagius and Julian the impossibility of performing supernaturally good and meritorious works without the aid of grace. It is this essential ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... well used to it. Indeed all conversations with us had a tendency to become controversial. Over and above which there was truth in Keziah's saying, "The young gentlemen argle-bargles fit to deave a body's head; and dear knows what it's ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... circulating libraries, called Six Weeks at Long's. Eaton Stannard Barrett died many years ago in the prime of his life and powers. His brother, Richard Barrett, is still living, and resides in the neighbourhood of Dublin. He is the author of some controversial and political pamphlets, of which the principal were Irish Priests, and The Bible not a Dangerous Book. He afterwards conducted The Pilot newspaper, established for the support of Mr. O'Connell's policy ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... should keep informed of coming events, and see that the library is provided with the books for which there is sure to be a future demand. He should avoid personal hobbies and be impartial on all controversial questions. He should not be overconfident in his knowledge of what will elevate and refine ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... spiritual. There appeared to be a general dissatisfaction with Judaism, but no proper knowledge of Christianity. Poverty and distress were the principal occasions of these calls. A few appeared to be interested in more fundamental truths; and they attentively read McCaul's "Old Paths," a controversial work that exposes the absurdity of rabbinism. The chief difficulty with all was in respect to the divine ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... dusted, which was but a decent thing to do, but in no way polished, extending from the year '98 to the year '20, a thin array (for such a stretch of time) of really innocent attitudes: Conrad literary, Conrad political, Conrad reminiscent, Conrad controversial. Well, yes! A one-man show—or is it merely the show of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... passed the fifteen years yet remaining to him. Death surprised him at last, at Leyden, in the year 1598, while steadily laboring upon his Flemish translation of the Old Testament, and upon the great political, theological, controversial, and satirical work on the differences of religion, which remains the most stately, though unfinished, monument of his literary genius. At the age of sixty he went at last to the repose which he had denied to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... MURCHISON (without committing himself as to the controversial portions of the chapter on the Geology and Mineralogy of Ceylon) has done me the favour to offer some valuable suggestions, and to express his opinion as to the general accuracy of ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... influenced by wise forbearance, and not at all by any fear of the consequences to himself. A dispassionate observer could have seen that behind this moderate, rather deprecatory letter there was an abundant reserve of controversial material held for the moment in check. But his adversaries were not dispassionate; on the contrary they were greatly excited and were honestly convinced of the perfect goodness of their cause. They were men ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... memoirs [Misc. Works, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... so finely endowed as Alexander Pope, could not easily lose his way in the most extensive or ill-digested library. And though he tells Atterbury, that at one time he abused his opportunities by reading controversial divinity, we may be sure that his own native activities, and the elasticity of his mind, would speedily recoil into a just equilibrium of study, under wider and happier opportunities. Reading, indeed, for a person like Pope, is rather ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... probably as powerful as that of any political leaders in ancient or modern times; but as a class they certainly do not take a prominent, or even an active part in business life. This fact is not introduced with any controversial purpose, and I freely acknowledge can be interpreted in a sense altogether creditable to the Nationalist members. The other element of leadership contains all that is prominent in industrial and commercial life, ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... of truthfulness by which we distinguish good workmanship from bad is the only test by which we may conclusively distinguish immoral art from moral. Yet many of the controversial critics never calm down sufficiently to apply this test. Instead of arguing whether or not Ibsen tells the truth about Hedda Gabler, they quarrel with him or defend him for talking about her at all. It is as if zooelogists who had assembled to determine the truth or falsity of some scientific theory ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... convert the Jews, repeatedly had conferences with the rabbis of a controversial character, which often led to quarrels, and aggravated the lot of the Jewish community. If Catholic proselystism succeeded in completely detaching a few individuals or a few families from the Israelitish creed, these ardent converts rekindled the horror of the people against ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... had a sufficiently difficult time of it in the past, and the difficulties might keep on in the future. He was also the ranking officer here and consequently the immediate boss of Joe's enterprise. Today's affair was still highly precarious. The whole thing was controversial and uncertain and might spoil the career of somebody with stars on his collar if it should fail. So nobody in the high brass wanted the responsibility. If everything went well, somebody suitable would take the credit and the bows. Meanwhile ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... our survey of this book by mentioning the literary controversial part chiefly to be found in Chapter IV, but cropping up elsewhere. It refers to interpolations made in the authorised translation of Krause's "Life of Erasmus Darwin." Only one side is presented; and we are not called upon, here or elsewhere, to discuss ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... eminent London bookseller: he happened to be looking over a new biographical dictionary on the day when I was brought into the world; and at the moment when my birth was announced to him, he had his finger upon the name Basil; he read aloud—"Basil, canonized bishop of Caesarea, a theological, controversial, and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... don't come here any more?" said Mrs. Grimes, with a sniff that was one of the keenest-edged weapons in her controversial armory. "When you know how little likely she is to do anything that's not going to be for her benefit in some way. She's mighty particular in everything, but more particular in that ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... the fierce political struggle which the war interrupted—the political history connected with the passage of the Home Rule Bill through Parliament must be outlined in detail, with avoidance, so far as may be, of a controversial tone. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... Shelton felt that commands were being given him, the more controversial he naturally became—apart from the merits of this subject, to which he had hardly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was one of the great wits and satirists of his age. His style was rough and reckless. A vehement and fierce upholder of the doctrines of arbitrary government, he was knighted by James the Second. His controversial writings, having all the attractions of unscrupulous invective and homely but cutting sarcasm, were much patronized by the great, and extensively read by the people. All Nonconformists and Dissenters were the objects of his coarse abuse. He issued an ingenious ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... decorum. This hysterical horror of poor Pope's not very well ascertained, and never fully proved amours (for even Cibber owns that he prevented the somewhat perilous adventure in which Pope was embarking) sounds very virtuous in a controversial pamphlet; but all men of the world who know what life is, or at least what it was to them in their youth, must laugh at such a ludicrous foundation of the charge of "a libertine sort of love;" while the more serious will look upon those ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means it lies in the power of every fine woman to secure at least half-a-dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. The female world are likewise indispensably necessary in the best causes to manage the controversial part of them, in which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to refute them. Arguments out of a ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis |
