"Disprove" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and then die, but this does not disprove the truth they expressed, but failed, possibly, to fully live. The great man always thinks further than he can travel—even the rest of us can do that. We can think "Chicago" in a second, but to go there takes ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... you will be able to disprove this dreadful charge, and convince her royal highness that she has ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... many times worked over, before we have received it in its present form. Yet there are accredited professors of English who do not know these facts, and who, if called upon, could neither prove them nor disprove them. They have not worked in the Bodleian, in the British Museum, or in other foreign libraries, on Old English texts and authorities. They think themselves well up in Old English if they can translate the text of Beowulf fairly ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... had been a progress of opinion about him with farther experience. His co-pastor there. M. Jean Long, who had been his firm friend for a while, and had signed some of the testimonials, was now understood to speak of him with absolute detestation. Morus having produced some of these testimonials to disprove Milton's assertion that he had been ejected by the Middleburg church, Milton explains that he had not said ejected, but only turned adrift, and that this was substantially the fact. Now, however, if Durie's report is correct, not only would the single Middleburg church, but nearly ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... ungenerously places them, in common with others, under a degrading necessity which no able grammarian ever felt, and which every man of genius or learning must repudiate. If none of our older grammars disprove his assertion, it is time to have a new one that will; for, to expect the perfection of grammar from him who cannot treat the subject in a style at once original and pure, is absurd. He says, "The greater part of an English grammar must necessarily be a compilation ;" and adds, with ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... him. John of Gaunt enjoined him to be silent. Wyclif was presiding as Doctor of Divinity over some disputations in the schools of the Augustinian Canons when his academical condemnation was publicly read, but though startled for the moment he at once challenged Chancellor or doctor to disprove the conclusions at which he had arrived. The prohibition of the Duke of Lancaster he met by an open avowal of his teaching, a confession which closes proudly with the quiet words, "I believe that in the ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... the plow and would not look back. He had appealed to the law—"the Bureau" and only "the Bureau" should decide it. So Colonel Desmit and his lawyer asked a few hours' delay and prepared themselves to resist and disprove the charge of assault upon Nimbus. The lawyer once proposed to examine the papers in the case, but Desmit said that was useless—the boy was no liar, though they must make him out one if they could. So, at the time appointed, with his lawyer and train of witnesses, he went before "the Bureau," ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... statement because I believe myself to be in a better position to disprove this old and forgotten charge than any man present. As I am a recognised opponent of Mr. Webb's political ambition my testimony to the integrity of his personal honour may be ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... violently expanding gases fly forth from an exhaust vent to expand instantly, frictionlessly and impotently to the ends of the universe? In my story, "The World Behind the Moon," I assumed that would occur. And no man living is in a position positively to disprove it. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... discussed by surveyors on both sides, and supported and disputed by witnesses innumerable on both sides: old men coming up with ancient memories, hedgers and ditchers, farmers and bailiffs and people of all sorts and conditions, to prove and disprove where the boundary line really divides Neighbour Naboth's vineyard ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... of an attempt to prove that energy has a "structure" analogous to the molecular structure of matter, any prediction would doubtless be rash just now. The writer has been unable, up to the present time, to disprove the proposition, but the subject is one of corresponding importance to that of the whole molecular theory of matter and should ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... is an honourable man. 100 You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, 110 And men have ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... was better that honourable gentlemen should do it. He had not been able always to restrain the violence of his men—and for that he needed forgiveness from her dear lips; and it would be easy enough to tell stories against him that it would be hard to disprove; but if she loved and trusted him, and he knew that she did, let her take his word for it that no injustice had been deliberately done, that on the other hand he had been the means under God of restraining many such acts, and ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... disprove that men were not intended to be equal; it only proves that they are not so. Neither does it disprove that everything was not made for the benefit of all; it only proves that the strong will take advantage of the weak, which ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... extent have we in English a dative, an accusative, and instrumental case? Disprove the doctrine that the genitive in -s (the father's son) is formed out of the combination ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... enclosure, meanwhile, that had been in the manuscript elected to disprove the total depravity of inanimate things, and instead of falling face downward, fell face upward on the very top of the heap. Thus it was that Donald Morley, charging desperately about his limited quarters, suddenly spied a word ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... didactic and assertive for it is impossible to prove or disprove any of these postulates. It is for that reason, and the lack of time that I cite no instances. They would be merely illustrative and not probative, for the human intellect is unequal to any adequate inductive study of the subject, and human life ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... sky that morning was clear enough, and there was a pleasant autumnal breeze. But the Florentines just then thought very little about the land breezes: they were thinking of the gales at sea, which seemed to be uniting with all other powers to disprove the Frate's declaration that Heaven took ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... this kind takes place, the believers are no wise dismayed by it. They freely admit that not only the media, but the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to lose sight of the elementary principles of right and wrong; and they triumphantly ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures disprove the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which have not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in this, they unconsciously plagiarise from the churchman, who just as freely admits ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... thousands of others have considered sufficiently proved from ancient prophesy with which our heavenly Father has favoured so many ages and nations and languages. And furthermore, permit me to tell you, that if you are disposed to doubt and to disprove what you acknowledge to be of such vast importance, it is your province to bring forward your strong reasoning, if such you have, by which the prophesies of the old testament, those delivered by Christ and his apostles shall be made to appear either to have no just analogy with the events of which ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... the knights and barons as either love to the king or envy to Warwick could collect. The report was general that Edward was retained against his will at Middleham; and this rumour Hastings gravely demanded Warwick, on the arrival of the latter at York, to disprove. The earl, to clear himself from a suspicion that impeded all his military movements, despatched Lord Montagu to Middleham, who returned not only with the king, but the countess and her daughters, whom Edward, under pretence of proving the complete amity that existed ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a serious letter, if I do not mind, about nothing, and so doubly disprove all I have been saying. I trust C. is getting well, but I am always anxious about that fever. Pray write a word to relieve my [196] solicitude, which my wife shares with me, as in the affectionate regard with which ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... of Socrates still seems to linger over the Attic streamlet, swelling its puny tide to the capacity of the loftiest musings of the humanized; and the memory of Homer is wedded to these waters of Meles. The critics who would disprove the existence of the bard, and assign the different members of his compositions to numerous anonymous authors, or to indefinite traditions, would find this no vantage ground. The influences of the place would abash their contumacy. There is something poetical even now about the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... has been a steady increase in saucer sightings. Most of them have been authentic reports, which Air Force denials cannot disprove. In ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... upon the testimony of accomplices. But, what was more extraordinary than all the rest, was, that, although there was a ROOM FULL of witnesses for the prisoner, many of them most respectable, who were ready and willing to disprove a great deal that the witnesses for the prosecution had sworn, and to prove that several of the principal witnesses were not worthy to be believed upon their oath, yet, to the astonishment of the Court, to the grief and sorrow of the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... have hardly yet, Socrates, found out the real difficulty of maintaining abstract ideas.' 'What difficulty?' 'The greatest of all perhaps is this: an opponent will argue that the ideas are not within the range of human knowledge; and you cannot disprove the assertion without a long and laborious demonstration, which he may be unable or unwilling to follow. In the first place, neither you nor any one who maintains the existence of absolute ideas will affirm that they are subjective.' 'That would be ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... with particulars. Now, the marks of contrivance in the structure of animals used not to be questioned because of their coming in the way of birth and development. It is curious that a further extension of this birth and development should be held to disprove them. It appears to us that all this is begging the question against design in Nature, instead of proving that it ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... that "errors, however trivial, ought, in his opinion, never to be pointed out to the author without meeting with a candid and respectful acknowledgement." Following the example of so great a man, we can only say, that if any gentleman can prove or disprove the assertion of the Squireen O'Donahue, to wit, that the O'Donahues were kings of Ireland long before the O'Connors were heard of; we shall be most happy to acknowledge the favour, and insert his remarks in the next edition. We should be further obliged ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... planet are necessary to the highest forms of life, we still have reason to believe that these same conditions prevail on thousands of other worlds. The fact that we might find the conditions in millions of other worlds unfavorable to life would not disprove the existence of the latter on ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... thinking, except some near relative. Therefore, to relieve this silence which had ceased to be agreeable, I talked about Daddy Ben and his grandsons, and negro voting, and the huge lie of "equality" which our lips vociferate and our lives daily disprove. This took us comfortably away from weddings and cakes into the subject of lynching, my violent condemnation of which surprised him; for our discussion had led us over a wide field, and one fertile in well-known ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... before the moon came down to visit the people of the earth in their own home, the writer did not have the advantage of the discoveries made by the doctor and myself, and it is well for me that the doctor's friend, Mona, is not here to disprove any of my statements. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... call upon the law-makers and law-breakers of the nation, to defend themselves for violating the fundamental principles of the Republic, or disprove their validity. Yes! they stand arrayed before the bar, not only of injured womanhood, but before the bar of moral consistency; for this question is awakening an interest abroad, as well as at home. Whatever human rights are ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... persistently through vast periods of time. Slowly and deliberately does geography engrave the subtitles to a people's history. Neglect of this time element in the consideration of geographic influences accounts equally for many an exaggerated assertion and denial of their power. A critic undertakes to disprove modification through physical environment by showing that it has not produced tangible results in the last fifty or five hundred years. This attitude recalls the early geologists, whose imaginations could not conceive the vast ages necessary in a ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... say nothing of those, I think. If a man disprove his godship out of his own mouth, we shall not be convinced by a coin in a fish's mouth or by his raising Lazarus, four days dead. So long as he says, "I will confess him that confesseth me and deny him that denieth me," we should ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... stated they were, or there has been great fraud committed since. As we are dealing with the greatest national bank in the country, it will be simple for the Government and banking officials at Washington instantly to disprove my statements if they are false; otherwise they must take action, civil and criminal, against the National ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... kinsman, And sue a writ against you. I'll pretend To be her father's friend, and bring the cause Before the judges. Who her father was, Her mother who, and how she's your relation, All this sham evidence I'll forge; by which The cause will turn entirely in my favor. You shall disprove no tittle of the charge; So I succeed.—Your father will return; Prosecute me;—what then?—The girl's ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe." (The "Genealogy of Animals" ('The Academy,' 1869), ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... regard each as distinct from the others. That many men of great intellectual activity, and many men pre-eminent for their moral qualities have harboured a great brain or a noble character in a weakly or deformed body, forms no argument to disprove the general rule that a healthy, vigorous physique is the only sure foundation upon which to build a highly developed intellect and a stable temperament. In childhood the intimate connection between vigour of mind and vigour of body is almost always clearly shown. A child ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... to the arguments whereby we have been accustomed to prove or to corroborate the existence of a Supreme Being, it is plain that, to take these arguments away or to make it impossible to use them, is not to disprove or take away the truth itself. We find every day instances of men resting their faith in a truth on some grounds which we know to be untenable, and we see what a terrible trial it sometimes is when they find out that this is so, ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... preach the opposite doctrine belie it so often by a happy inconsistency; that he who declares self-interest to be the mainspring of the world, can live a life of virtuous self-sacrifice; that he who denies, with Spinoza, the existence of free- will, can disprove his own theory, by willing, like Spinoza, amid all the temptations of the world, to live a life worthy of a Roman Stoic; and that he who represents men as the puppets of material circumstance, and who therefore has no logical right either to praise ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... diversity disprove a fundamental unity? All modern science answers, No. How much of outward resemblance is there between a fish and a philosopher? Is not the difference here as wide as the widest unlikenesses in human belief? Yet Comparative Anatomy, with none to deny its right, includes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... disprove this by an alibi, for at the very time Craven Kyte personated him, and under his name and character married me, Alden Lytton, in a dead stupor, was locked up in his darkened chamber, and no one knew of his whereabouts but myself, who had the key of ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... death Senator Xenophon P. Wilfley, were pledged to the amendment, and Senator Selden P. Spencer, who later was elected, could positively be depended upon. All possible efforts were concentrated upon Senator James A. Reed but to no avail. To disprove his statements that his constituents were not in favor of woman suffrage, the Jackson county campaign committee, with Mrs. J. B. White of Kansas City chairman, sent him the signatures of 47,382 women and 12,583 men from his district, asking ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... pestilential air. These facts of observation support those who say that the odors, effluvia, and exhalations emitted from plants, earths, and ponds, are what give the initiative to such things. That when they have come forth, they are afterwards propagated either by eggs or offshoots, does not disprove their immediate generation; since every living creature, along with its minute viscera, receives organs of generation and means of propagation (see below, n. 347). In agreement with these phenomena is the fact heretofore unknown that there are like ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... husband reap the benefit, Instead of some old maid or senseless chit. Selfish? Of course! I hold all love is so: And I shall love my wife right well, I know. Now there's a point regarding selfish love, You thirst to argue with me, and disprove. But since these cosy hours will soon be gone, And all our meetings broken in upon, No more of these rare moments must be spent In vain discussions, or in argument. I wish Miss Trevor was in—Jericho! (You see the selfishness begins to show.) She wants to see ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... heard, he saw that God had been hearing, had been answering, all the time; had been making him capable of receiving the gift for which he prayed. He saw that intellectual difficulty encompassing the highest operations of harmonizing truth, can no more affect their reality than the dulness of chaos disprove the motions of the wind of God over the face of its waters. He saw that any true revelation must come out of the unknown in God through the unknown in man. He saw that its truths must rise in the man as powers of life, and that only as that life grows and unfolds can the ever-lagging intellect ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Americans may disprove such an opinion," continued Mr Campbell, "remains to be seen; but this is certain, they have commenced their new form of government with an act of such gross injustice, as to warrant the assumption that ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... examine the Freudian system, we find that it is impossible to disprove this theory of dreams. If we demonstrate that a dream has no sexual connection whatever, they have only to say that it is the censor that blinds, and, by resorting to symbolism and other such very present helps in time of trouble, they show plainly that we were ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... of the oldest on record (being attributed by Aristotle to Zeus Eleates, B.C. 500), is one of the most perplexing, upon first presentation to the mind, that can be selected {186} from the most ample list. Its professed object was to disprove the phenomenon of motion; but its real one, to embarrass an opponent. It has always attracted the attention of logicians; and even to them it has often proved embarrassing enough. The difficulty does not lie in proving that the conclusion is absurd, but in showing where ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... says nothing of the passage of the Rubico, but his silence does not disprove the truth of the story as told by Plutarch. The passage of the Rubico was a common topic (locus communis) for rhetoricians. Lucanus (Pharsalia, i. 213) ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... thunderstorm. Ingersoll, when charged with being an atheist, indignantly refuted the charge, saying: "I am not an atheist; I do not say that there is no God; I am an agnostic; I do not know that there is a God." "I thank God that I am an atheist," were the opening words of an argument to disprove the existence of God. A new convert to atheism was once heard to say to a coterie of unbelievers: "I have gotten rid of the idea of a supreme Being, and I thank God ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... not without good reason that the editor was solicitous to disprove Chatterton's frank confession, respecting this poem; for he perceived clearly that the style, the colouring, and images, are nearly the same in this, and the second poem with the same title, and that every reader of any discernment must see at the ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... innocence: alas, my Lords, he's desperate, And talks he knows not what: you must not credit 290] His lunacy; I can my self disprove This accusation: Cassilane, be yet More mercifull; ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... other. "You cannot develop the vice, for these cigarettes are unobtainable in London. Their history serves to disprove the popular theory that the use of tobacco was introduced from Mexico in the sixteenth century. These were known in the ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... mention that; you can call witnesses to his having been seen within these few months. It would rest with the prosecution to disprove his existence in the body, especially as the bones in ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the Aristotelian theory of mechanical causation, necessity of natural law and eternity of the world. And they are all removed at a stroke when we substitute intelligent cause working with purpose, will and design. To be sure, by finding difficulties attaching to a theory we do not disprove it, much less do we prove our own. But we should follow the view of Alexander, who says that where a theory is not proved one should adopt the view which has the least number of objections. This, we shall show, is the case in the doctrine of creation. We have already ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... if she were his sister she would disprove this axiom. "Is she—is she pleasant?" she asked ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... uncovered, diverge widely from the chess-board pattern.[90] One French archaeologist has even declared that most of the towns in Roman Africa lacked this pattern.[91] Our evidence is perhaps still too slight to prove or disprove that conclusion. Few African towns have been sufficiently uncovered to show the street-plan.[92] But town-life was well developed in Roman Africa. It is hardly credible that the Africans learnt all the rest of Roman city civilization and city government, and left out the planning. ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... Colonel, "can you disprove these facts? Can you show that you did not expel M'Evoy from his farm, and put the husband of your illegitimate daughter into it? That you did not receive his rent, decline giving him a receipt, and afterwards compel him to pay ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... repository of guiding experience—would have an equal power of creating superstitions. But if once created they are most difficult to eradicate. If any one said that the amulet was of certain efficacy—that it always acted whenever it was applied—it would of course be very easy to disprove; but no one ever said that the 'pretty fish' always brought luck; it was only said that it did so on the whole, and that if you had it you were more likely to be lucky than if you were without it. But it requires a long table of statistics ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... affirm the identity of animal electricity and animal vitality, the theory of their identification, to my view, best accords with the manifestations under correct therapeutic treatment, and I am unaware of any established fact to disprove it. ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... hard to disprove this position, and they might have a good case if they would only leave it as it stands. But this they will not do; they must have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written word of the child itself as soon as it is ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... excellent seaman, and his veracity stood unimpeached. But in this age of refined liberality, when the most atrocious criminals find their apologists, it is not surprising it should now be discovered, when all are dead that could either prove or disprove it, that it was the tyranny of the commander alone, and not the wickedness of the ringleader of the mutineers of the Bounty, that caused that event. 'We all know,' it is said, 'that mutiny can arise but from one of these two sources, excessive ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... a man's eyes for honesty; around his mouth for weakness; at his chin for strength; at his hands for temperament; at his nails for cleanliness. His tongue will tell you his experience, and under the questioning of a shrewd employer prove or disprove its statements as it runs along. Always remember, in the case of an applicant from another city, that when a man says he doesn't like the town in which he's been working it's usually because he ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... Tangent-line be the true Meridian-line, yea or no? And if he do not, that then he will loose, and transport to the other Party the whole benefit of the last mentioned invention. But if, on the contrary, he do prove or disprove the Identity of the said two lines, to the Judgment of some able Mathematicians, That then so much money be paid him by the other Party, as the ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... White faces the deeper problems and speculations of life. He wants to know about things here and hereafter. With the same zest and simplicity of motive he faces the secret doors of existence; not to prove or disprove, but to see and find out. And when he comes to the Last Door he will go through without fear, with eyes open to see in the next undiscovered country what there is to be seen and to show that the heart of a brave and unshrinking man, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... that of their decline, namely, in the reign of Edward VI., they were in reality increasing in wealth and dignities. If the Sir Richard Baker whose monument is referred to by F.L. was the son of the Sir John above mentioned, the circumstances of his life disprove the legend. He was not the sole representative of the family remaining at the accession of Queen Mary. His father was then living, and at the death of his father his brother John divided with him the representation of the family, and had many descendants. The family estates were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... statement that Verrazzano had been three times on the coast of America, which, if true, would disprove the discovery set up in the letter. That document alleges that the coast explored by him was entirely unknown and HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN SEEN BY ANY ONE before that voyage, and consequently not by him; and that, as regards the residue of the coast ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... The Baron did not believe in the charge, but, nevertheless, he was obliged to send her away. He had his own reputation in the country to think of, and the charge of witchcraft was no light one in those days, and not so easy to disprove. He gave her a handsome pension, and a comfortable house and troubled himself no more ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... of that sort always propagate themselves, like noisome weeds; it is the part of the wise to neglect them until they are established by proof.] were still large. There is not a tittle of evidence to disprove Clarendon's assertion, that he confined himself to those revenues of his office which were strictly legal; and to suppose otherwise would be to suppose him false to all those ideals which were the foundation of his character, and to which his pride, if nothing ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... I said, out of all patience with the fellow. "First he can't marry Rosalie because her uncle's a murderer. Now he can't marry her because her uncle's a liar. Disprove that, and he'd dig ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... with the normal heat loss. Suggestive evidence to support this view comes from the frequency with which the extremities are cyanotic or cold, the skin greasy, sweating profuse or absent, and so on. Further observations are necessary to confirm or disprove this hypothesis, but we feel inclined to accept it tentatively because it is plausible and consistent with the view that stupor is essentially a psychogenic type of reaction. Another physical anomaly, which is presumably ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument—unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... difficult to disprove this. The diligences had invariably been pillaged by masked, men, and, apart from Madame de Montrevel and Sir John Tanlay, no one had ever seen the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... present a thought or image with the three dimensions that belong to every solid,—an unconscious handling of an idea as if it had length, breadth, and thickness. It is a great deal easier to say this than to prove it, and a great deal easier to dispute it than to disprove it. But mind this: the more we observe and study, the wider we find the range of the automatic and instinctive principles in body, mind, and morals, and the narrower the limits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... a powerfully hard thing for a man to project his personality across the grave. In making their wills and providing for the carrying on of their pet enterprises a number of our richest men have endeavored from time to time to disprove this; but, to date, the percentage of successes has not been large. So far as most of us are concerned the burden of proof shows that in this regard we are one with the famous little dog whose name was Rover—when we die, we die all over. Every big success represents the personality of ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... not give himself the Trouble of verbally refuting the Calumnies, and Invectives, with which he was daily loaded, but took Care to disprove them by his Conduct. The publick Finances had been quite exhausted, during the last Years of the great Zokitarezoul, and he took upon himself to restore them. It is true, that his Scheme ruined some Families; but besides that their Number was but small, and their ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... of the primal man beneath all the culture of the schools that disprove Hell; the cry of human red-blooded manhood against all the white-corpuscled sickly sentimentality that ever sacrifices innocence ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... powerful objection to the mundane cold period (334/1. See Letter 49.), viz. that MANY-fold more of the warm-temperate species ought to have crossed the Tropics than of the sub-arctic forms. I really think that to those who deny the modification of species this would absolutely disprove my theory. But according to the notions which I am testing—viz. that species do become changed, and that time is a most important element (which I think I shall be able to show very clearly in this case)—in such change, I think, the result would be as follows. Some of the warm-temperate ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... relation to gravity, which, if we could ascertain or touch it, would greatly enlighten us. It is, whether gravitation requires time. If it did, it would shew undeniably that a physical agency existed in the course of the line of force. It seems equally impossible to prove or disprove this point; since there is no capability of suspending, changing, or annihilating the power (gravity), or annihilating the matter in which the power resides.' The lines of magnetic force may have 'a separate existence,' but as yet we are unable to tell whether these lines 'are analogous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... overgrown with wood, and so traversed by mountains, that it appeared impracticable to penetrate to any distance, so that no account of the interior could be expected. They were, however, in a condition to disprove the relations given by Spanish writers, who have represented this coast as inhabited by a fierce and powerful people, as no such inhabitants were to be found, at least in the winter season; for, during the whole time of their continuance here, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... abridged form. Mr. Tytler, in his History of Scotland,[59] supposes the Extracta to have been written posterior to the time of Fordun, and prior to the date of Bower's Continuation of the Scotichronicon,—a conjecture which one or more passages in the work entirely disprove.[60] If the opinion of Mr. Tytler had been correct, it would have been important as a proof that the story of the royal adventure of Alexander upon Inchcolm was written by Fordun, and not by Bower, inasmuch as the two accounts in the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... Beaton's Abbey of Arbroath and the Abbey of Lindores were also plundered. Clearly it was believed that Beaton was down, and that church-pillage was authorised by Arran. Yet on September 3 Arran joined hands with Beaton! The Cardinal, by threatening to disprove Arran's legitimacy and ruin his hopes of the crown, or in some other way, had dominated the waverer, while Henry (August 29) was mobilising an army of 20,000 men for the invasion of Scotland. On September 9 Mary was crowned at Stirling. But Beaton could not hold both Arran ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... experience, and which, under the same conditions, could distinguish the rectangular box from the circular one, would have chosen the right box with increasing accuracy as the result of such experience. The results are important in my opinion, not because they either prove or disprove the ability of the dancer to discriminate these particular forms, the discrimination of which might fairly be expected of any animal with an image-forming eye, but because they demonstrate an important characteristic of the dancing mouse, namely, its indifference to the straightforward or ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... Komorn Court, one of the most interesting trials is that of Athalie Brazovics. The woman's defense was masterly; she denied everything, knew how to disprove everything, and when they thought they had caught her, she managed to throw such mystery over it all, that her judges knew not where to have her. Why should she murder Timea? She was herself engaged, and had good prospects, while Timea was her ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... testimony that their slaves are kindly treated; that they are well fed, well clothed, well housed, well lodged, moderately worked, and bountifully provided with all things needful for their comfort, we propose—first, to disprove their assertions by the testimony of a multitude of impartial witnesses, and then to put slaveholders themselves through a course of cross-questioning which shall draw their condemnation out of their own mouths. We will ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... became half serious and his changed manner hushed the laughter of the others. "I have always ridiculed the idea of hypnotism and in every experiment where I have been present I have set myself to disprove its effects. But candidly, folks, I was hypnotized. Unconsciously I followed that parade a whole dozen blocks myself, and when I finally came out of the trance, or whatever it was, and started back to the hotel, the entire atmosphere seemed filled with some kind of uncanny dope. ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... Galatians, First and Second Corinthians and Romans. "This group is the great repertory of Paul's doctrinal and ethical teaching. Galatians and Romans deal chiefly with his doctrine of justification by faith. They are designed to disprove the current Jewish teaching (which was invading the churches) that men might be saved by obedience to the Mosaic law. On the contrary Paul maintained that the sole basis of salvation is the grace of God to be appropriated by ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... touched her forehead with his lips. "The past is a silence that gives back no answer," he said. "My mother alone could disprove it, and she is dead to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... have read of in history. Critics ambitious to say something new may rake out slanders from the archives of enemies, and discover faults which derogate from the character we have been taught to admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we cannot disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness, which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness,—but this we know, that, whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... in the age of duodecimos, the system is reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist draws upon his imagination, and not his learning; makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course of 150 pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything. And, to our shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of proselytism—those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment, false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety—I mean our religious tracts, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... player was the author of the PLAYS and POEMS. THAT is the proposition to be established, and THAT the allusions fail, as it appears to me, to prove," says Mr. Greenwood. He adds, "At any rate they do not disprove the theory that the true authorship was hidden under a pseudonym" {136a}—which raises ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... flamelets may spring to life.[136] He then passes by an insensible—because to him very natural—transition from the realities of feeling to those of thought, and to the underlying truth from which both series derive: and combats the idea that in thought, any more than in feeling, the present can disprove the past, the once true reveal itself as delusion. Time—otherwise growth—widens the range as it complicates the necessities of musical, i.e. emotional expression. It destroys the enfolding fictions which shield without concealing the earlier stages of intellectual truth. But ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... fault I have to find with it is that it isn't human," he said, mildly. He had no desire to prove or disprove anything; Athalia was looking better, just because she was interested in something, and that was enough for Lewis. When she proposed to read a book on Shakerism aloud, he fell into her mood with what was, for him, enthusiasm; he declared he would like nothing ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... doors open into a roomy, glass-roofed hot house, containing a very unique collection of potted plants, which, under the skillful hands of this young enthusiast, are undergoing the different stages of experimental treatment, such as he may deem necessary, to prove or disprove his many pet theories or fancies, in regard to care, growth, insect enemies, and to application of electric light, sun light, heat, moisture and fertilizers. Each plant bears a fruitful crop of cards, giving a summary of results and conclusions. Each one of these cards may contain, in skeleton ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... himself as one who had simply shown the proper spirit of revenge. But when he took her hand he said: "My grandfather carried me away from you and your mother in very ungallant fashion yesterday. And he tried to put ungallant words into my mouth. I trust you'll allow me to disprove them. I'd like the privilege of being your obedient squire on ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved earth-worm. It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rustic aid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all fertilizing matters "leached" through it. I tried to disprove their assertion by gorging it with the best of terrestrial nourishment, until I became convinced that I was feeding the tea-plants of China, and then I gave over the attempt. And yet I did love, and do love, that arid patch of ground. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hurt you, really,' she exclaimed. 'You can disprove the charges, and of course you must, I know you hesitate—for my sake—to bring an action and expose the writer. But you must, and I don't think,' she lowered her eyes to the ground, 'you would hurt me by doing that.' ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... important manuscript notes? Eldred would of course show him the book, from which the leaf would already have been removed. He might, perhaps, find traces of the removal—a torn edge of a fly-leaf probably—and who could disprove, what Eldred was certain to say, that he too had noticed and regretted the mutilation? Altogether the chase seemed very hopeless. The one chance was this. The book had left the library at 10.30: it might not have been put into the first possible train, at 11.20. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... the reason, to the prejudices, to the sympathies, nay, even to the worst passions of the twelve men whose opinions he seeks to influence in favour of his client. He may proceed to call witnesses to disprove the facts adduced on the other side, or to show that the character of the accused stands too high for even a suspicion of the alleged clime; he has the utmost liberty of speech and action He may indefinitely protract ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... great merchant, a delicate type of beauty; the last to fascinate a buccaneer, according to the gossips of the time. Rumor had it that he had taken her for the wherewithal to pay the enormous debts contracted in his latest exploit. To disprove this he went to sea in a temper with a frigate and came back laden with the treasure of half a dozen galleons, to find that his wife had died at the birth of a son. He promised himself to settle down for good; but the fog of London choked lungs used to soft ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... sometimes unpractical or altogether blameworthy. These observations are all obvious. Their exactitude cannot be denied. Let us, however, repeat that they are founded on quantitative distinctions and do not disprove, but confirm the fact that an action, however slight it be, cannot really be an action, that is, an action that is willed, unless it be ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce |
