"Proposition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come to maturity without a long period of preparation. Here, as elsewhere, the laws of evolution hold, permitting no sudden stupendous leaps. But it required the arduous labours of the archaeologist to prove a proposition that, once proven, seems self-evident. (H. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... science also recognizes in all her fundamental ideas. This, however, is after all little more than a platitude. That our ultimate scientific ideas (i.e. ultimate grounds of experience) are inexplicable, is a proposition which is self-evident since the dawn of human thought. My aim is to carry the 'reconciliation' into much more detail and yet without quitting the grounds of pure reason. I intend to take science and religion in their present ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... to do before the next paper should come out, [this being Thursday, and the paper not to appear before the next Wednesday,] that he was then in a great hurry, and must get home that night, but he would make it his business to immediately attend to it; to which proposition Mr. Bunce readily agreed, and promised Mr. Cowles accordingly. This conversation was in the office of the Saratoga Journal, in the room in which I was at work. The next day however, information was brought to Mr. Bunce in the office, that the certificate of the said Cowles, ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... to Uncle Bob's proposition, and had the gin-house all swept out for him, and had the carpenter to make him some rough benches. And when the next Sunday evening came around, all of the little darkies, with their heads combed and their Sunday clothes on, assembled for the Sunday-school. ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... How lead a people without the power of command? And what is the marshal's baton without the innate power of the captain in the man who wields it? The Faubourg Saint-Germain took to playing with batons, and fancied that all the power was in its hands. It inverted the terms of the proposition which called it into existence. And instead of flinging away the insignia which offended the people, and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the bourgeoisie to seize the authority, clung with fatal obstinacy ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the meat, the party began to suffer for food. They were six days without eating, and, the high precipitous walls running ever on and on, they became disheartened, or, in Western phrase, "demoralised," and proposed to cast lots to find which should make food for the others, a proposition which horrified Ashley, and he begged them to hold out longer, assuring them that the walls must soon break and enable them to escape. They had not expected so long a gorge. Red Canyon is twenty-five miles and, with the three ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... do me the great honour of taking it home, and verifying for yourselves its truth or its falsehood. I do not say that it is altogether true. No proposition concerning human things, stated so broadly, can be. But see for yourselves, whether it is not at least more true than false; whether the ideas, the discoveries, of which we boast most in the nineteenth century, are not really due to the end of the eighteenth. Whether other men did not labour, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Mme. Schroeder-Devrient accepted a proposition made to her by the manager of the Theatre Italiens to sing in a language and a school for which she was not fully qualified. The season opened with such a dazzling constellation of genius as has rarely, if ever, been gathered on any one stage—Pasta, Malibran, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... it, he set to work, with the inquisitorial sagacity which priests acquire by directing consciences and burrowing into the nothings of the confessional, to establish, as though it were a matter of religious controversy, the following proposition: "Admitting that Mademoiselle Gamard did not remember it was Madame de Listomere's evening, and that Marianne did think I was home, and did really forget to make my fire, it is impossible, inasmuch as I myself took down my candlestick this morning, that Mademoiselle Gamard, seeing it in ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... impertinence with which an old idea, folded in a new garment, looks you in the face and pretends not to know you, though you have been familiar friends from childhood. I remember an English author who, in speaking of your German Philosophies, says very wisely; 'Often a proposition of inscrutable and dread aspect, when resolutely grappled with, and torn from its shady den, and its bristling entrenchments of uncouth terminology,—and dragged forth into the open light of day, to be seen by the natural eye and tried by merely human understanding, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... herself, "I give him enough of my heart to content him. I wonder what would content him? I do not care two straws for anybody else in all the world. He would say, if I told him that, he would say it is a negative proposition. Suppose I could go further"—and Diana's cheeks began to burn—"suppose I could, I could not possibly stand up and tell him so. I cannot. He ought to see it for himself. But he does not. He ought to be contented—I think he ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... in the odious dilemma of either taking it or leaving it, for the lady was wise enough not to divulge so ignoble a proposition. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... She would have had time, and time was what she needed—time to remove her mother, to cover her own tracks. And yet she knew now that she could not give Toby up. And yet to give up her ambitions was now a proposition equally impossible. She could not. She would not. She wanted everything. She wanted Toby; but she wanted her opportunity with the business. If Toby would only ... what? She could not bear the idea of his marrying another girl. She ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... 'em mind." He followed Aunt Melvy's advice about asking questions, and wrestled with each new proposition until he mastered it. It did not take him long, moreover, to distinguish the difference between himself and those about him. The words and phrases that had passed current on the street seemed to ring false here. He watched the judge ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... so, Hector," said the Antiquary, who seldom agreed with any person in the immediate proposition which was laid down"it may possibly be so in this and some other instances; but at present the country resembles the suitors in a small-debt court, where parties plead in person, for lack of cash to retain the professed ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... part I have, since 1911, proposed a stellar unit which, both in name and definition, nearly coincides with the proposition of SEELIGER, and which will be exclusively used in these lectures. A siriometer is put equal to 10^6 times the planetary unit of distance, corresponding to a parallax of 0".206265 (in practice sufficiently ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier
... into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall, and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... made man a solitary animal, every one would labor for himself. Individual wealth would be in proportion to the services each one rendered to himself. But since man is a social animal, one service is exchanged for another. A proposition which you can transpose if ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... war to force an entrance into the river, after which to draw up the Portuguese vessels in a line with their bows to the shore, that they might cover the debarkation of the troops for the purpose of assaulting the fort. This proposition was transmitted to Goa and approved by the viceroy, yet Don Luis was persuaded by some gentlemen who wished to disgrace him, to attack on the side of Ariole, under pretence that the passage of the bar might prove fatal. At this time the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... popular Illinois county of Sangamon. Here Lincoln split his famous rails to fence their land, and grew up under the influences of this migration of the Southern pioneers to the prairies. They were not predominantly of the planter class; but the fierce contest in 1824 over the proposition to open Illinois to slavery was won for freedom by a ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... "A take or leave proposition, clean cut," he comprehended promptly. And as promptly he decided to take it. The maid who had brought him the paper was offering pen and ink. He accepted and wrote ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... the Allen estate proposition stands," said he, at last. "To let that sell for less than twenty thousand might cost us ten times that amount in lowering the prevailing standard of values. The old rule that we should buy in the cheapest ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... of Congress to terminate a treaty with a foreign power by expressing the will of the nation no longer to adhere to it is as free from controversy under our Constitution as is the further proposition that the power of making new treaties or modifying existing treaties is not lodged by the Constitution in Congress, but in the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as shown by the concurrence ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... proper to notice here, that at the head of the Friars Minor, who supported the proposition of the Immaculate Conception, was the celebrated John Duns Scotus, so respected in the Church for his penetrating genius, for the solidity of his doctrine, and for his singular piety. He silenced his opponents, and his success was so manifested that all ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... a few minutes later, by being elected (on the Vicar's proposition) a member of the House-to-house Visiting Sub-Committee. "'Twill give her," Farmer Best growled to his wife, later, as they jogged home in the gig, "the chance of her life to poke a nose into other ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... became nearly as excited over the new bonnets as her companion. The picture-shops were marvels of wonder and delight to her, and poor Miss Slowcum was obliged to draw up short on many occasions, or she would have lost the little loiterers, as they stood still to gaze. At last she made a proposition which nearly took her own breath away with the magnitude of its generosity. She would treat the entire party to a drive in the omnibus to St. Paul's Cathedral. Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror. She finally ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... would seem that the object of faith is not something complex by way of a proposition. For the object of faith is the First Truth, as stated above (A. 1). Now the First Truth is something simple. Therefore the object of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... take place very soon. The boys' father suggested, as an objection to an immediate wedding, that since the General was just half his usual size, it would be better to wait until he should regain his former proportions, so that all of him might be married; but the General would not accept the proposition for delay, and Cousin Belle finally consented ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... days, he was just a little less confident than Gaston of the brilliant success that was to attend upon their feats of arms. Still there was much of the fighting instinct in the boy, and there was certainly no hope of regaining Basildene in the present. So that he agreed willingly to his brother's proposition, although he resolved before he left these parts to look once with his own eyes upon the home that had sheltered his mother's ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Messala, not forgetting his drawl. "A new philosophy! What would Seneca say to the proposition that a man must be old before he can hate enough to kill? You have him; and that is his mother; yonder his sister. You have the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... in nut tree grafting to obtain reasonably fair success with the scions in perfect condition, where used in late spring, and it is something of a heart breaking proposition to try it with poor scionwood. To the nurseryman, with his winter grafting of fruit trees, the keeping of the scionwood long enough for his purpose in the cold of the winter season is no problem at ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger, of admitting, or rejecting, an innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of a civilized nation. When that important proposition, so essentially connected with the public safety, was referred to the ministers of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most favorable to the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the teacher be left for discretion and wisdom as an intellectual guide, when his first act must be to recant—and to recant what to the whole body of his hearers would wear the character of a lunatic proposition. Such considerations might possibly induce him not to recant. But in that case the consequences are far worse. Having once allowed himself to sanction what his hearers regard as the most monstrous of paradoxes, he has no liberty of retreat open to him. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... This second proposition of the advocates of female suffrage is of a general character. It does not point to particular abuses, it claims the right of woman to vote as one which she should demand, whether practically needed or not. It is asserted that to disqualify half ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... she might do the same for Marion. It was really a marvel, Mrs. Levering insisted, how she had bewitched both her Carl and Tommy Seldon. They were in a fair way to become as great cranks as the old professor himself. Now this was the proposition he wanted to make. That Mary should take the place of teachers and text-books, for awhile, and devote herself to the task of making Marion forget herself and her imaginary grievances; to interest her in ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... inclines to the introduction of putridity and fever into the system. We believe this; and perhaps a useful theory of the alternate benefit and mischief of cigar-smoking may be offered upon the basis of that proposition. When and wherever the body requires to be dried, cigar-smoking may be salutary; and when and wherever that drying, or desiccation, is injurious, then and there cigar-smoking may be to be shunned. We know that, while ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... languidly. "I hate crowds of that kind. I'd rather stick to our original proposition; it will bore me less. But perhaps you'd ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... had left him, and a deep despondency descended upon the spirit of this man who accounted seriousness a folly. Hitherto his rancor against his father had been a theoretical rancor, a thing educated into him by Everard, and accepted by him as we accept a proposition in Euclid that is proved to us. In its way it had been a make-believe rancor, a rancor on principle, for he had been made to see that unless he was inflamed by it, he was not worthy to be his mother's son. Tonight had changed all this. No longer was his grievance ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... in his criticisms upon Milton, seems to have mistaken the matter, in endeavouring to bring that poem to the rules of the epopoeia, which cannot be done ... It is not an Heroic Poem, but a Divine one, and indeed of a new species. It is plain that the proposition of all the heroic poems of the ancients mentions some one person as the subject of their poem... But Milton begins his poem of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... council was held. The Governor informed them that he was going to build a fort there, to serve principally as a depot for merchandise; and to facilitate the trade that was springing up between them. The chiefs, ignorant of the real intention of the wily Governor readily agreed to a proposition which seemed intended for their advantage. But the object was far from what the Indians expected, and was really to create a barrier against them in ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... bewitching. He half considered himself a fool. But at any rate he thought resentfully she should be thankful to him for having rendered her a great service. However, when he came to consider this proposition he knew that on a basis of absolute manly endeavour he had rendered her little or ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... is," he agreed. "The discovery of oil is the only get-rich-quick proposition that is above reproach. A person can be poverty stricken one day and a millionaire the next and no one suffers by his quick acquisition of wealth. Oil is a treasure of nature bestowed by fate and it is needless for me to add that I hope that fate ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... in the silence, forgetting the misery of my body while I considered this proposition Morrell had advanced. Already, as I have explained, by mechanical self-hypnosis I had sought to penetrate back through time to my previous selves. That I had partly succeeded I knew; but all that I had experienced was a fluttering of apparitions that ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... you like. Combs could be concentrically and variously coloured and dates recorded by giving for a few days wax darkly coloured with vermilion and indigo, and I daresay other substances. You ask about my crossed fowls, and this leads me to make a proposition to you, which I hope cannot be offensive to you. I trust you know me too well to think that I would propose anything objectionable to the best of my judgment. The case is this: for my object of treating poultry I must give a sketch of several breeds, with ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... said, astounded by the very audacity of the rogue's proposition, "you do not flatter yourself that you will ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... taken of the application made by General Burgoyne to congress through the Commander-in-chief, than to pass a resolution "that General Washington be directed to inform General Burgoyne that congress will not receive, nor consider, any proposition for indulgence, nor for altering the terms of the convention of Saratoga, unless immediately ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... The second proposition is that, since we can only know what is akin to ourselves,[8] man, in order to know God, must be a partaker of the Divine nature. "What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we are," says Ruysbroek. The curious doctrine which we find in the mystics ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... seeming niggardly, and the course he had taken made his position more delicate. But his simplicity and truthfulness came to his aid, and he said firmly, although with a crimson face, "I am sorry I cannot accept your generous proposition, but I will give in accordance with my ability. I can give ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... government to send out an expedition to take controlling possession of the Mississippi region. He argued with all his powers, saying that by fortifying the river, the French might control the continent. It was really a grand and brilliant proposition, and the king and his minister gave more than was demanded. Four vessels were prepared, instead of the two that La Salle asked for. The expedition comprised a hundred soldiers, thirty volunteers, many mechanics and laborers, several families and a few ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... had introduced the proposition that representatives of the Soviet Government should be brought to Paris along with the representatives of the ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... has seriously offended the President by making a joke of the proposition; and I must say, it was ill-timed of Muhlenberg, and not what I ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... "Adventure," on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Like most of the early pioneers he was poor and had to work. Tickets were sold at a less price if the passenger would help to wood the boat; my father took advantage of this proposition. On board as a passenger, was the old Indian Chief, Black Hawk. He was much interested in my little sister and gave her a very fine string of beads. The beads, or a part of them, are still in ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... hoard, a few sous laid by during the time she had been in her old mistress's service; and with what he earned they could "grub along" in comfort. He had no doubt of her consent; he was sure beforehand that she would accept his proposition. More than that, her scruples, if she had any, would not hold out against the prospect of marriage which he proposed to exhibit to her at ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... spread both his hands, palm down and flat on the table, a gesture Hume found himself for some unknown reason copying. "You have a proposition?" ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... merely a disagreement, it had been aggravated and developed into a bitter quarrel. The two ladies did not speak to each other. Annette announced her candidacy in meeting, and the very next day Mrs. Lake came to Serena with an amazing proposition. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... about him. The Pilgrim will be the only logical man in the world to send against him—that is, according to your sporting columns. And Dennison, of course, being on the inside, knows he is really nothing but a dub—knows it is simply a plain open and shut proposition. That is ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... to her hand in silence. I felt overwhelmed by the suggestion, by the unselfishness, by the grandeur of it. I saw that the proposition stood before her mind in a totally different light from that in which it would present itself to most women. But, then, the outlook of an artist upon life and all the things in life is entirely different from that of the ordinary person. It takes in the wide horizon, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... a powerful one; your proposition exposes me, in case I am victorious, to their vengeance. Allow me to say that I do not want to exchange this house for a prison. (Vautrin appears.) I will fight to the death—but not ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... her father's story, except that she omitted any reference to the desperate proposition for satisfying ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Palliser replied, with serene mendacity. "No suggestion of that sort has been made. My business proposition was given out on an entirely different basis. You, of course, choose to put your ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the house of one of their number, he who had taken away the decree; they framed an official report, drew up a protest, and recognizing the necessity of filling in the line left blank in their decree, on the proposition of M. Quesnault, appointed as Procureur-General M. Renouard, their colleague at the Court of Cessation. M. Renouard, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... to clap a proposition, As justices do criminals, in prison, And, in as learn'd authentic nonsense, writ The names of all their moods and figures fit; For a logician's one that has been broke To ride and pace his reason by the book; And by their rules, and precepts, and examples, To put his ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... time to time at a skeleton accidence. This, of course, will not do in the case of fools, but Miriam Baske, all appearances notwithstanding, did not belong to that category. On hearing her cousin's proposition, she at first smiled coldly; but she did not reject it, and in a day or two they had made a fair beginning of the 'Inferno.' Such a beginning, indeed, as surprised Eleanor, who was not yet made aware that Miriam worked at the book in private with feverish ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... council of Trent, and agreed to abide by its decisions, even when that council was summoned by the pope, and was to be so organized as to secure an overwhelming majority to the papists. The Protestants, of course, rejected so silly a proposition, and refused to recognize the decrees of such a council as of ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... positively, but they still insisted; and, at length, urgently requested that he would accept the presidency of this new institution until fairly established, if for no longer time. He finally acceded to the latter proposition. But after once getting in, there was no getting out of it; for he found the gentlemen with whom he was there associated so very congenial, and his duties not onerous but pleasant, so that he continued to serve them until the day of his ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... heard him for he continued in that same desperate, pleading voice. "So here is my proposition, Ato. Give me your father's secret. In return, I give you the treasures, the Old Ship, the prisoners, and even Maya. Is not that complete surrender?" He ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... The boys have been riding me, stronger and stronger, to get up a posse and come over here. In fact, they got so strong that I suspected they had something up their sleeves. When I sort o' backed up on the proposition, a lot of them began pulling wires at Washington, so's to make you get orders that'd let us come on the reservation and get ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... Drummond, I'll sleep on it to-night, and if I come to a determination favourable to the proposition, you shall go; but not alone. One of my officers must go ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... was only half-listening, even to that last, that shocking, that totally unexpected proposition, his real goal. Here was the plot he had been seeking, the plot the Corps needed so desperately to know. Yet his personal crisis was, for the moment, more important if he was ever to be of any further benefit to the Secret Service ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... conducted by Wagner's son. Bayreuth promises us the best artists. Whether some of the singers are or are not the best artists is largely a matter of taste. But that Siegfried Wagner is the best conductor procurable in Germany is too preposterous a proposition to be considered for a moment. He may be some day; but ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Chevalier de Callieres de former une Expedition pour aller attaquer Orange, Manatte, etc.; Resume du Ministre sur la Proposition de M. de Callieres; Autre Memoire de M. de Callieres sur son Projet d'attaquer la Nouvelle York; Memoire des Armes, Munitions, et Ustensiles necessaires pour l'Entreprise proposee par M. de Callieres; Observations du Ministre sur le Projet et le Memoire ci-dessus; ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... a modicum of comfort by swearing at the Administration, the President, the Cabinet. What right had they to declare war, anyhow? Now, if we were going to fight Mexico!—or if the Germans tried to come over here!—well, that would be a different proposition! ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... refusing rain from heaven, or warmth from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would no less be hers. "But I won't have them, Duke," said Madame Goesler; and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills. "You can't make a person take a thing because you write ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... as if it had been the plan of a battle. A difficulty arose on this occasion. The Pope had wished Napoleon to receive the holy communion in public on the day of the coronation, and Napoleon had given the matter thought. The Grand Master of Ceremonies, M. de Segur, brought up against the proposition the necessity of a preliminary confession and the possibility that absolution might be denied him. "That's not the difficulty," said the Emperor, "the Holy Father knows how to distinguish between the sins of Caesar and those ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... all, let us here begin to examine a little touching the covenant you stand before God in, whether it be the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Grace; [The first use is a use of examination]. and for the right doing of this, I shall lay down this proposition—namely, that all men naturally come into the world under the first of these, which is called the old covenant, or the Covenant of Works, which is the Law; "And were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others"; which they could not be, had they not been under the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... consistent, and believe them. They inform us also that there is one proper form for Corinthian capitals, another for Doric, and another for Ionic. We, considering that there is also a proper form for the letters A, B, and C, think that this also sounds consistent, and accept the proposition. Understanding, therefore, that one form of the said capitals is proper, and no other, and having a conscientious horror of all impropriety, we allow the architect to provide us with the said capitals, of the proper form, in such and such a quantity, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the paddock, where he walked up and down a few times in the rain. But the more he thought about the proposition, the more enthusiastic he grew. He could see himself the center of attraction, and he could almost hear the howls of ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... with his back against the door, "that is, of course, the first proposition to be considered. What ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... proposition of Euclid on the forehead of Potts amused him and the other gentleman, who was hailed 'Mallard!' and cared nothing for problems involving the female of man when such work was to the fore as the pugilistic encounter of the Earl of Fleetwood's chosen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doubted whether twenty-five white throats could make as much noise as half a dozen red ones, I consented to the proposition. I sent nine men to the flat upon which the ponies and cattle were grazing, with orders to place themselves between the creek and herd, and when the firing began drive the animals into ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... meeting at Hammersmith for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety of lighting the roads, in the midst of a most animated discussion, Captain Atcherly proposed an adjournment of the said meeting; which proposition being strongly negatived by a small individual, Captain Atcherly quietly pointed to an open window, made a slight allusion to the hardness of the pavement, and finally achieved the exit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... mother of a Shakespeare or a Newton. I suppose everybody will unhesitatingly allow that a great mathematician could hardly by any conceivable chance arise among the South African Bushmen, who cannot understand the arduous arithmetical proposition that two and two make four. No amount of education or careful training, I take it, would suffice to elevate the most profoundly artistic among the Veddahs of Ceylon, who cannot even comprehend an English drawing of a dog or horse, into a respectable ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... no useless or even evil features in our Western civilization is not for a moment contended. The stiff starched shirt may certainly be asked to give an account of itself and justify its continued existence, if it can. But I think the proposition is capable of defense that the vast majority of the implements of our Occidental civilization have their definite place and value, either in contributing directly to the comfort and happiness of their ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... never fails to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous Drapier's Letters patriotism? They are masterpieces of dreadful humour and invective: they are reasoned logically enough too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so great, but there is his enemy—the assault is wonderful for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his hand, rushing on his enemies and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was astounded by this bold proposition, but the very audacity of it caught his fancy. He struck the executioner ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Readily assenting to the proposition, Blaize obtained the key of the cellar from the butler, and adjourning thither with Pillichody, they seated themselves on a cask with a bottle of sack and a couple of large glasses ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to the old woman who now entered it. Through the windows she had often held silent and unsuspected vigil. It was her way to know the trails over which she might be called to travel and since that day, three years before, when Sister Angela had met her on the road and made her startling proposition, Becky had subconsciously known that, in due time, she would be compelled to accept what then she ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... that I was bringing distress on our women and children. He inquired if some terms could not be made that would be honorable to me and satisfactory to my braves, for us to remove to the west side of the Mississippi. I replied that if our Great Father could do us justice and make the proposition, I could then give up honorably. He asked me "if the great chief at St. Louis would give us six thousand dollars to purchase provisions and other articles, if I would give up peaceably and remove to the west side of the Mississippi?" After thinking some time I agreed that I ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... the apparent egotism of her idea, "since you seem to want me for the central figure in everything, suppose we start a story like this: Suppose I am left here at the Lazy A with my mother to take care of and a ranch and a lot of cattle; and suppose it's a hard proposition, because there's really a gang of rustlers that have been running off stock and never getting caught, and they have a grudge against my family and grab our cattle every chance they get. Suppose—suppose they killed my brother when he was about to round them ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... proposition was harder still to comprehend. There had already been a tacit declaration of war, and overt acts were of frequent commission. As the states seceded, they seized the arsenals, with arms and munitions; the shipping, mints and all ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... "The proposition hits me just right," says I. "Let's be nabobs for a while and see how it feels. What'll we do—take in the Niagara Falls, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... the footman demurred from some proposition that the bearded one made, but an instant later something passed from the hand of the caller to the hand of the servant. Then the latter turned and led the visitor by a roundabout way to a little curtained alcove off the apartment in which the countess ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... proposition, for the blaze of the sun on the length of the dusty street was deterring. They walked back almost in silence the way they had come; but with his hand on Mrs. Manstey's gate and the house less than two ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... The general proposition which is the basis of Political Economy, made its first approach to truth under the only circumstances which admitted of men meeting at arm's length, not as members of the same group, but as strangers. Gradually the assumption of the right to get the best price has penetrated into the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... me if I tell you that I think you are a happy man, and excuse me if I add, that if you do not keep yourself so I shall not think you a wise one. A good wife is better than a good-for-nothing mistress.—A self-evident proposition!—A stupid truism! Yes; but if every man who knows a self-evident proposition when he sees it on paper, always acted as if he knew it, this would be a very wise and a very happy world; and I should not have occasion ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... that to begin the attack there would be like taking a bull by the horns, and he therefore suggested the attempt by the tail."[27] In order to avoid the formidable works at Cronenburg, and yet come up in rear of Copenhagen, according to this proposition of Nelson's, it was proposed in the council to go by the Great Belt. That passage is more intricate, and therefore, from the pilot's point of view, more hazardous than the Sound. Nelson was not much deterred by the alarming reports. "Go by the Sound, or by the Belt, or ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Turkish Army on the Peninsula in a regular trap. Therefore, whether from the local or the larger point of view, he has no wish to call us in until he has had a real good try. He means straightway to put the whole proposition ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... messenger from Ahmed Pasha presented to the sultan a letter, in which was stated that the grand master, Villiers of Isle Adam, anxious to put a stop to the fearful slaughter that was progressing, had offered to capitulate on honorable terms. This proposition was immediately agreed to by the sultan, and a suspension of hostilities was proclaimed around the walls. The Ottomans retired to their camp, having lost upward of thirty thousand men during the deadly strife of a few hours; and the Christians had now leisure to ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... present strict banking laws in Wisconsin, starting a bank was a comparatively simple proposition. The surprizingly small amount of capital needed is well illustrated by the story a prosperous country-town banker told on himself, when asked how he happened to enter ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... said that, Max had resolved almost fiercely that nothing on earth should keep him from going back as quickly as possible. If Grant or Edwin Reeves had calmly advised his seeking a new fortune in remote Algeria, he would have flung away the proposition with passion; but when Sanda DeLisle quietly made the suggestion, it was different. America lay behind him in the far distance, where the sun sets. His face was turned to the east, and Algeria was near. The girl whom he had ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... I like Br. R.'s views and proposition. If, by calling the offspring of believers, "the children of the church," we, by implication, abridged any of their privileges, or if, by calling them church-members, we believed that they acquired rights and privileges not otherwise appertaining ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... has rejected a proposition to give the ballot to woman, by a vote of 231 to 1. It flouted all discussion of the question, and voted it down with the utmost alacrity. No one cognizant of the bigotry, narrowness and general ignorance that prevail there will be surprised ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... as if, in the course of a few generations, they must come to see how unnecessary was the cruder form of picture-writing which this alphabet would naturally supplant; but, in point of fact, they never did come to a realisation of this seemingly simple proposition. Generation after generation and century after century, they continued to use their same cumbersome, complex writing, and it remained for an outside nation to prove that an alphabet pure and simple was capable of fulfilling all the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... if the securities are not recovered, I am not prepared to say." Dick's face clouded. "You see, it is this way: We have our investments in the West as well as those we went into in Boston some time ago. We— that is, dad— was going to take a loan on that mining proposition. That would involve our putting up some of those bonds— say forty or fifty thousand dollars' worth— as collateral security with the banks. Now, if we don't get the bonds back, dad will either have to cancel that loan or, otherwise, put up something else as security— ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... While Dante and Beatrice gaze with awe and admiration upon the circles of light which revolve through all the signs of the zodiac, St. Thomas Aquinas solves sundry of Dante's doubts, and cautions him never to accede to any proposition without having duly ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... affirms to be its logical opposite, namely, not prose, but matter of fact or science. The one addresses itself to the belief, the other to the feelings. The one does its work by convincing or persuading, the other by moving. The one acts by presenting a proposition to the understanding, the other by offering interesting objects of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... had on his person, to release him; but like Paulding and Van Wert of old, the patriotism of the sailor chiefs revolted at the attempt to bribe them, and an order to place the rebel in closer confinement was the only result of the proposition. Corruption has been little known in this war among our naval officers; and though many of them are far from wealthy, their honor and good name are more precious in their eyes than millions ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... I accepted the proposition, and by lunch-time the news was all over the factory that the new girl was to be Henrietta's room-mate. Annie Kinzer—everybody, in fact—approved, except, possibly, Emma. Emma was a homely, plainly dressed girl who had worked ten years ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... he continued, as she did not speak, "that my proposition seems at first distasteful, but there is much to be said ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... to point out to your lordship that my proposition is correct, and that I can cross-examine to the credit ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... dwells above, too high to be degraded by our low sensualism, too ethereal to lose its sweet freedom in the logically woven links of our scholastic trammels. 'Ye shall know the truth, and it shall make you free,' is a proposition not only of moral, but of universal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have you been living?" replied Fletcher. "Nur-el-Din is the greatest vaudeville proposition since Lottie Collins. Conjurer! That's what she is, too, by Jove! She's the newest thing in Oriental dancers... Spaniard or something... wonderful clothes, what there is of 'em... and jewelry... wait till ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... ceased. We all rose to go and were parting at the doorway with sundry hems and haws when the Patron piped up anxiously, "Do you suppose he painted my Corot?" "I don't know and I don't care," said the Painter shortly. "Damn it, man, can't you see it's a human not a picture-dealing proposition?" sputtered the Antiquary. "That's right," echoed the Critic, as the three locked arms for the stroll downtown, leaving the bewildered Patron to find his way alone ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... abstracts you have produced show that the amounts of goods in 1866 and 1867 were very much in the same proportion; so that that is not consistent with the general proposition you stated, that the agents have restricted their credits to the men very much since these regulations were enforced?-As I said before, I made up these two lists in this way, that one was for the last year when the agents could settle ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Scottish literature, and disgrace of her antiquities, that we have manifested an eager propensity to believe without inquiry and propagate the errors which we adopt too hastily ourselves. The general proposition that the Lowlanders ever wore plaids is difficult to swallow. They were of twenty different races, and almost all distinctly different from the Scots Irish, who are the proper Scots, from which the Royal Family are descended. For instance, there is scarce a great family in the Lowlands ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... breath, without any significance. The new word cannot mean did wish. The "reformers" must contend that wisht is the real word, or their position cannot be maintained for an instant. If the word still remains wished—"did wish"—though pronounced wisht, their proposition to conform the spelling to the pronunciation is laughable. There can be no conformation and the old words remain. Whenever a change is made in a single letter of a word, the word is broken: it is no longer the same word. The new form becomes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... would like to ask if anyone has a definite proposition beyond the one that has been proposed, restricting it by cutting out the advance agents of the blight. I believe that has been the only proposition so far. We certainly can't kill off the birds that will carry off blight on their feet. We don't know if a fungous ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... lot—and then some. If you'd been raised with a gun on your hip, and had been born a man instead of a woman, I reckon you'd have been an unsafe proposition to r'il. You certainly did look mad when you came out of that office-building; and the only regret I feel about it, is that I didn't stand within comfortable easy reach of the gazabo that made you feel like that. One of us would—have ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... of indignation blazed up in him, as though someone had imposed upon him. The sport was gone, the fun of the thing; it became merely official business. To appropriate a pair of smuggled emeralds was a first-class sporting proposition, with a humorous twist. As it stood now, he would be picking Hawksley's pocket; and he wasn't rogue enough for ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... him up for the night in an empty cloth factory, and the next morning brought him to an ice-hole near the dyke, and began to beg the drummer 'de la Grrrrande Armee' to oblige them; in other words, to swim under the ice. Monsieur Lejeune could not agree to their proposition, and in his turn began to try to persuade the Smolensk peasants, in the dialect of France, to let him go to Orleans. 'There, messieurs,' he said, 'my mother is living, une tendre mere' But the peasants, doubtless through their ignorance ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... according to Mary's wishes. Mr. Green was a true friend of Mr. Bacon's, and he saw, or believed that he saw, in his daughter's proposition, the means of his reformation. He, therefore, returned into the village, and going to the office of Grant, satisfied the mortgage on Mr. Bacon's property, and brought all the papers relating thereto away and placed them in ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... sexual abstinence was likewise affirmed in America in a resolution passed by the American Medical Association in 1906. The proposition thus formally accepted was thus worded: "Continence is not incompatible with health." It ought to be generally realized that abstract propositions of this kind are worthless, because they mean nothing. Every sane person, when confronted by the demand ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... others to make a display of his fund of knowledge makes notorious his own stock of ignorance. Philosophers have said:—A prudent man will not obtrude his answer till he has the question stated to him in form. Notwithstanding the proposition may have its right demonstration, the cavil of the fastidious ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... will so edify and soothe me, nor merely because those veiled statues will make less uncouth the city I was born in, do I feverishly thrust on you my proposition. The wish in me is that posterity shall be haunted by our dead heroes even as I am by Umberto. Rather hard on posterity? Well, the prevision of its plight would ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... There was some murmuring. There was even a rash suggestion from one boy that they should go, in spite of the breaker and the bosses, and revel for a good half-day in the pleasures of the show. But this treasonable proposition was frowned down without delay. These boys had caught the spirit of loyalty from the men who worked at Burnham Breaker, and not even so great a temptation as this could keep them from the ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... personal object of Faith—'in ME.' The object of Faith is not a proposition but a Person. That Person is the same in the Old Testament and in the New. The Jehovah of the one is the God in Christ of the other. Consequently faith must be more than intellectual assent, it must be voluntary and emotional, the act of the whole man, 'the synthesis ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... many, when the female mind accurately appreciates an appeal to the force of pure reason. This was one of the occasions. An abstract proposition had been presented to Miss Milroy, and Miss Milroy was convinced. If it was meant as an apology, that, she admitted, made all the difference. "I only hope," said the little coquet, looking at him slyly, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins |
