"Refute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... matter to persuade him to consent to the appointment of some rural politician to a place of diplomatic importance. Objection was made to one nomination, on the ground that the person was a drunkard, and a leading Senator came one morning before the Committee to refute the charge. He made quite an argument, closing by saying: "No, gentlemen, he is not a drunkard. He may, occasionally, as I do myself, take a glass of wine, but I assure you, on the honor of a gentleman, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the Iron Mask, there grew upon him more and more the sense of a mighty loss. Nora's sweet loving face started from the shadows of the forlorn walls. Her docile, yielding temper, her generous, self-immolating spirit, came back to his memory, to refute the idea that wronged her. His love, that had been suspended for awhile by busy cares, but which, if without much refining sentiment, was still the master passion of his soul, flowed back into all his thoughts,—circumfused ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Cabin," and to fortify herself against them by a published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained her knowledge. Late in the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... the eye of an animal and the light of heaven was accidental. But the contrary is notoriously the case; so much the case that some philosophers have maintained that the eye was formed by the need for seeing, a statement which I need take no trouble to refute, just as those who make it take no trouble to establish, I will not say its truth, but even its possibility. But the fact, if it be a fact, that the eye was not originally as well adapted to see with as it is ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... Just to refute them again, here is a quotation from the report of a Protestant chaplain on active service with these same maligned troops from the "north-eastern States." Bear in mind, too, that this particular chaplain has been in the army but a short time, and therefore brings a ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... poisoned pellet in a bottle of plain ones, and letting the result happen when it might. His argument was, that the murderer would be far from the scene at the time death took place. These statements I submit, and if Christopher Shelby can deny or refute them, none will ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... willed me To treat of with the king on your behalf, I brake even now with him so far, till he In sudden rage of grief, ere I scarce had My tale out-told, pray'd me to stint my suit, As that from which his mind abhorred most. And well I see his fancy to refute, Is but displeasure gain'd and labour lost. So firmly fixed stands his kingly will That, till his body shall be laid in grave, He will not part from the desired sight Of your presence, which silder he should have, If he had once allied you again In marriage to any prince or ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... sick and in trouble, a mind wandering from her sister's grave to her children, and then at the anathema of the Church, made her a widowed maid. To overcome her scruples, her lover wrote a book (inviting the clergy to refute it,) defending the marriage with a deceased wife's sister. But ever as he spoke there was a film before her eyes. There was a gaunt priest, with canonical robes, stood before the gates of heaven. Before him and through him was the way to an eternal happiness, below him was a fiery hell; ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... or noble in this life, so his soule after death, entreth into the body of some excellent beast or other, but the soules of simple and rusticall people do possesse the bodies of more vile and brutish creatures. Then I began to refute that foule error: howbeit my speach did nothing at all preuaile with him: for he could not be perswaded that any soule might remaine without a body. [Sidenote: Chilenso.] From thence I departed vhto a certaine ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... these wiseacres in their own learned lingo; what they say, or what they quote, may be true or it may not; but it has nothing to do with his Idea. If he opens his mouth to justify himself, they refute him with arguments that he does not understand; there is a wall between them. More than a wall; there is a world between them! It is his 'credo' against their 'ignoro'; it is, his 'expecto' against their 'non video'. Yet in ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... in the humility of inquiries or disquisitions, have only proposed them to more ocular discerners. And we shall so far encourage contradiction as to promise no disturbance, or re- oppose any pen, that shall fallaciously or captiously refute us. And shall only take notice of such whose experimental and judicious knowledge shall be employed, not to traduce or extenuate, but to explain and dilucidate, to add and ampliate, according to the laudable custom of the ancients in their sober promotions of ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... this is called in human tongues, as I tell you, neither more nor less than apoplexy. Come, if so you will, count, and continue this conversation at my house, any day you may be willing to see an adversary capable of understanding and anxious to refute you, and I will show you my father, M. Noirtier de Villefort, one of the most fiery Jacobins of the French Revolution; that is to say, he had the most remarkable audacity, seconded by a most powerful organization—a man ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his master's cruelty. It is true that he afterwards composed an elaborate apology for his people in the form of a history in twenty volumes, which may be considered as a kind of palliation for the evil he had done them in action. It was more possible to refute the Roman prejudices based on utter ignorance of Jewish history, than the prejudices based on their narrowness of mind. But even here the writer has often to accommodate himself to a pagan standpoint, which could not appreciate Hebrew sublimity. When he wrote the Antiquities, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... granted that chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years would suffice for that. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... grafted trees to bear at an early age. This tree in the nursery of Mr. Jones of Lancaster, Pa., was grafted in May and photographed in September one year following. Of course early bearing is not wholly desirable but in a way it will refute the common belief that black walnuts are necessarily tardy in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... individuals to escape from public obligations, and then to have withheld from them just compensation. It has been gratifying to me in tracing the history of these claims to find that ample evidence exists to refute an accusation which would impeach the purity, the justice, and the magnanimity of the illustrious men who guided and controlled the early ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... from the truth. The traditions that have come down to us of what happened before the building of the city, or before its building was contemplated, as being suitable rather to the fictions of poetry than to the genuine records of history, I have no intention either to affirm or to refute. This indulgence is conceded to antiquity, that by blending things human with divine, it may make the origin of cities appear more venerable: and if any people might be allowed to consecrate their origin, and to ascribe it to the gods as its authors, such is the renown of the Roman people in ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... 'Refute these calumnies,' said Kate, 'and be more patient, so that you may give them no advantage. Tell us what you really did, and show ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... which will be continued later by the examining-magistrate; and I wished above all to explain to you the very serious reasons for which I asked you to interrupt your journey and to come back here with Madame de Gorne. You are now in a position to refute the truly distressing charges that are hanging over you. I therefore ask you to tell me ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... of October 10th to Reynier. This and his letter to Maret seem to me to refute Bernhardi's contention ("Toll," vol. iii., pp. 385-388) that Napoleon only meant to drive the northern allies across the Elbe, and then to turn on Schwarzenberg. The Emperor's plans shifted every few hours: but the plan of crossing ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... but yet maintained by the people as a requisite of orthodoxy. Having gone thus far, Van Os proceeded to deny a form of infralapsarianism, which was termed "justification from eternity." Many prominent but bigoted minds, having long entertained these ultra ideas he was endeavoring to refute, and some having gone so far as to attempt their introduction into a revised edition of the confession of faith, Van Os was censured for heresy. But he took the first opportunity to preach the Protestant doctrine that every one had the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Outlook to prepare an article on woman suffrage, which it published. The statements in it were universally repudiated by the press and the people of that State. Mrs. Grenfell said of it at this convention: "It is as absurd to refute her assertions as to reply to Baron Munchausen or to insist that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland never happened. Such conditions as she describes do not ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... at the outset speaks of 'some critics who affirm the authenticity of the Epistle attributed to him [Polycarp], but who certainly do not justify their conclusion by any arguments nor attempt to refute adverse reasons.' He himself passes over in silence all answers which have been given to the objections alleged by him. Doubtless he considered them unworthy of notice. I have endeavoured to supply this lacuna in his work; and the reader will ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... weeks of the war a conference of black editors, including Walter White, pressed for the creation of an experimental integrated division of volunteers. White argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a tremendous psychological effect upon white America," and refute the enemy's charge that "the United States talks about democracy but practices racial discrimination and segregation."[2-28] The NAACP organized a popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... preamble with publishing a deliberate falsehood, for the purpose of exciting odium against the king; but I think it impossible to view their conduct in any other light. The popish plot and popish army were fictions of their own to madden the passions of their adherents. Charles, to refute the calumny, as he was about to receive the sacrament from the hands of Archbishop Ussher, suddenly rose and addressed him thus, in the hearing of the whole congregation: "My Lord, I have to the utmost of my soul prepared ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... usual disinterestedness, he promptly gave to the Corresponding Society. A second part appeared in 1792; and at length Pitt adopted Burke's opinion that criminal justice was the proper argument with which to refute Tom Paine. Acting on a hint from William Blake, who, in a vision more prosaic and veridical than was usual with him, had seen the constables searching for his friend, Paine escaped to France, and was convicted in ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... and she folded her arms as she gazed at her angry antagonist. "Go! I scorn to refute ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... his frightful conspicuousness. He had not the remotest idea of what he had said in setting forth his case for Germany, and he knew that it was his duty to listen closely to Dora, in order to be able to refute her argument when his two-minute closing speech fell due but he was conscious of little more than his own condition. His legs had now gone wild beyond all devilry, and he had to keep shifting his weight from one to the other in order even to hope that their frenzy ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... Lady Burton was stricken down with an incurable disease. Death with its icy breath hung over her as her pen flew along the paper, and the questions constantly on her lips were "Shall I live to complete my task? Shall I live to tell the world how great and noble a man my husband was, and to refute the calumnies that his enemies have so industriously circulated?" She did complete it in a sense, for the work duly appeared; but no one recognised more clearly than herself its numerous shortcomings. Indeed, it is little better than a huge scrap-book filled with newspaper cuttings and citations ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... never steadied by a healthy divergency of opinions and the presentation of conflicting arguments. It was not even a debating society, for all represented practically the same interests, held the same views, made the same speeches, which there was no one to question or to refute. Hence the monotony of the proceedings, the sameness of the speeches, sometimes marked with great ability, and generally delivered with much eloquence and fervour, at the short annual sessions. The proceedings were usually controlled by a small caucus ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... naturalist who believes in the inductive method must needs draw the conclusion from these naive admissions, that, as Darwinism lacks the empiric prerequisites, it should be discarded. Moreover, the demand is made in all seriousness, that, in order to refute Darwinism which has not as yet been established empirically, ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... fitted into the empty cylinder. But before inserting them she closed the pistol once more, cocked it, and held it out. Her arm trembled violently as she pulled the trigger. Could she do it? As though to refute this doubt of her ability to carry out an act determined upon, she broke the weapon once more, loaded and closed it, and thrust it in the pocket of her coat. Then, washing the grease from her hands, she put on her gloves, and was about to turn out the light ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Oh well, refute yourself in three good columns in Merlin's paper. We have been enjoying the sight of Nathan's wrath; we have just been telling him that he owes us no little gratitude for getting up a hot controversy that will sell his second edition in a week. In his eyes at this present ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... compound of dogmatism and unbelief? to disperse these cloudy doubts, and to analyse and repel these many ambiguous statements?—Once more. A fool can assert, and in a moment, that 'There is no GOD.' But it requires a wise man to refute the lie; and his refutation will probably demand a volume.—I say, it was in vain to urge such considerations as these. "Why does no one reply to these 'Essays and Reviews?'" was asked,—till, I apprehend, pens enough have been unsheathed ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... so vainly denied in himself, he found his most useful levers in the humble labourers whose characters he had studied, whose condition he sought to make themselves desire to elevate. Unconsciously his whole practice began to refute his theories. The abuses of the old Poor Laws were rife in his neighbourhood; his quick penetration, and perhaps his imperious habits of decision, suggested to him many of the best provisions of the law now called into operation; ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... treatise to encumber a simple argument by controverting any of the trite objections of habit or fanaticism. But there are two; the first, the basis of all political mistake, and the second, the prolific cause and effect of religious error, which it seems useful to refute. ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... To refute the whole system of Arianism, he wrote the book which he called The Treasure, which he divided into thirty-five titles or sections. He answers in it all the objections of those heretics, and establishes from scripture the divinity of the Son of God; and from title ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... wish you would assert it; for I should not be unwilling to acknowledge my relation to the Gods. But you say nothing like it; no, our resemblance to the Gods, it seems, was by chance. Must I now seek for arguments to refute this doctrine seriously? I wish I could as easily discover what is true as I ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to refute all the infamous rumours which were circulated respecting Kleber's death. When the First Consul received the unexpected intelligence he could scarcely believe it. He was deeply affected; and on reading the particulars ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the eighteenth century Dr. Nehemiah Grew, of the Royal Society, published his Cosmologia Sacra to refute anti-scriptural opinions by producing evidences of creative design. Discussing "the ends of Providence," he says, "A crane, which is scurvy meat, lays but two eggs in the year, but a pheasant and partridge, both excellent meat, lay and hatch fifteen or twenty." He points to the fact that ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... believe that in most instances he was; and perhaps the custom was not continued in my case long enough for me to refute the maxim. But as yet, the very gloss upon the god's wings was fresh as on the first day when I had acknowledged his power. Still was Isora to me the light and the music of existence! still did my heart thrill and ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hard years that followed—years in which the blood-thirsty and piratical games of his boyhood paled to the mildest of imaginings—the nickname still clung, long after he had ceased to resent it; long after he had stripes and braid to refute it. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... have shared his knowledge of the incident with any one. But that it had leaked out was cruelly self-evident, and the worst part of it was that the malicious gossip was founded on so much actual fact that it was difficult—almost impossible, in fact—to combat or refute it. She felt helpless in the face of the detestable scandal which had reared itself upon a foundation of such ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Americans need to be told, And it never'll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in choler At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn such eye-dollar-try's what very few do, And John goes to that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... nothing more at heart than to convince you I am incapable of forgetting, or neglecting the friendship I made at college, now begin that correspondence by letters, which you and I agreed, at parting, to cultivate. I begin it sooner than I intended, that you may have it in your power to refute any idle reports which may be circulated to my prejudice at Oxford, touching a foolish quarrel, in which I have been involved on account of my sister, who had been some time settled here in a boarding-school. When I came hither with my uncle and aunt (who are our guardians) to fetch her ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... such and such a source is the reliable one par excellence, and the principal basis upon which to establish conclusions. No source, however seemingly insignificant, should be neglected. A brief mention is sometimes very important, as it may be a clue to new data, or may confirm or refute accepted information and thus lead to further investigation. Some documents, of course, are much more explicit than others, but this is no reason why the latter should be neglected. The value of a ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
... basis on which our country can have full development, and on which we can have final peace with England, we find in opponents a variety of attitudes, but one attitude invariably absent—a readiness to discuss the question fairly and refute it, if this can be done. One man will take it superficially and heatedly, assuming it to be, according to his party, a censure on Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien. Another will take it superficially, but, as he thinks, philosophically, and ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... Not being able to refute these plausible arguments, Bea contented herself with stubbornly maintaining her point. "But red, Edith, why red? It is a nightmare. Who ever heard of a ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Saviour did make, by showing that the tendency of his mission was so adverse to the views with which this being was, by the objectors themselves, supposed to act, that it could not reasonably be supposed that he would assist in carrying it on. The power displayed in the miracles did not alone refute the Jewish solution, because the interposition of invisible agents being once admitted, it is impossible to ascertain the limits by which their efficiency is circumscribed. We of this day may be disposed possibly to think such opinions ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... prelude to another feat performed by Old Put, this time a physical one, which, while not so worthy of renown, perhaps, as the great moral victory he achieved over his men, has brought him greater fame. Both taken together absolutely refute the insinuations of his enemies, to the effect that he had suffered a decline of mental, moral, or physical force. Washington wrote, commending him for his action in suppressing the mutiny; and as for the feat now to be mentioned, it may be said to speak for itself. In fact, it has been speaking, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... and principles the paper is conducted. A cautious arguer will always avoid, as far as he can, the use of evidence that comes from a doubtful source. If one finds that an opponent has used the testimony of questionable witnesses, he can, by exposing the fact, easily refute ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... manifestations of the preceding phases of evolution, gives us, in regard to the social organization in process of formation, a more exact (positive or fact-founded) idea than our opponents think, who always imagine that they have to refute the romantic and sentimental socialism of the ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... singular fact," observes an acute historical writer,[5] "that Lord Grey, on this occasion, made an able and erudite law argument; which all the law lords, including Lord Ellenborough, made vain efforts to refute; and which Lord Ellenborough had the manliness to eulogize;" notwithstanding which Lord Grey's motion for a copy of the opinion of the law officers of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 555, Supplement to Volume 19 • Various
... made a statement to the emperor, and to several other persons, with such good faith and sincerity, that they appeared in their narrative, not merely to have abstained from fabulous statements, but also to contradict and refute the fabulous statements made ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... familiarized themselves with the speculations of the day, not merely for the sake of a wider range of knowledge, but that they might the more successfully refute the assailants of the faith, many of whom were men of great power. They were fully aware that it behooved them to know their ground, for their opponents studied the points of comparison carefully. The infidel Celsus studied Christianity and its relation to the Old Testament histories ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... in which his ideas were clothed than about the ideas themselves, and that he did not hold the same opinions for long together; but the accusation of instability has been made in such high quarters that it is necessary to refute it still ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... now to refute formally the fond, feeble notion, that this parable proves the sinfulness of dissenting from the Church of England, established by the State and prelatic in its government. Even although we should concede ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... do not say that. All I say is that expert testimony would refute us as far as we have gone. But if you will let me make a few tests of my own I can readily clear up that end of the case, I now feel sure. Let me take ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... the fact that, by adopting this stratagem, Dr. Royce could escape altogether the formidable necessity of first arguing the main question of idealism versus realism. Secretly conscious of his own inability to handle that question, to refute my "Soliloquy of the Self-Consistent Idealist," or to overthrow my demonstration that consistent idealism leads logically to hopeless absurdity at last, Dr. Royce found it infinitely easier to deceive his uninformed readers by a ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... parthenogenesis credible? and this he would call going straight to the heart of the matter. Now Pascal's method is, on the whole, the method natural and right for the Christian; and the opposite method is that taken by Voltaire. It is worth while to remember that Voltaire, in his attempt to refute Pascal, has given once and for all the type of such refutation; and that later opponents of Pascal's Apology for the Christian Faith have contributed little beyond psychological irrelevancies. For Voltaire has presented, better than any one since, what is the unbelieving ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... suspected one another of having been her lovers. Vannier had thus made her pay for her hospitality; Langelley and the gendarme Mallet himself, had exacted the same price—accusations it was as impossible as it was useless to refute. She herself well knew her own abasement, and at times disgust seized her. On the evening of September 27th, she did not return to Vannier's; escaping from this hell, she craved shelter from a lacemaker named Adelaide Monderard, who lodged in the Rue du Han, and who was Langelley's ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... resource, Monnica begged a bishop she knew, a man deeply read in the Scriptures, to speak with her son and refute his errors. But so great was the reputation of Augustin as an orator and dialectician that the holy man dared not try a fall with such a vigorous jouster. He answered the mother very wisely, that a mind so ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... ardent mind, prompt imagination, and copious flow of words, who heard with impatience any logic which was not his own, sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, asked me how I could sit in silence, hearing so much false reasoning, which a word should refute? I observed to him, that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible; that in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general, I was willing to listen; that if every sound ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... fruitless discussions regarding the lack of Scriptural sanction for women's new freedom. Usually a clergyman appeared on the scene, volubly quoting the Bible to prove that any widening of woman's sphere was contrary to the will of God. But always ready to refute him were Antoinette Brown, now an ordained minister, William Lloyd Garrison, and occasionally Susan herself. To the young Quaker broadened by her Unitarian contacts and unhampered by creed or theological ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... under no necessity of denying that there is some analogy between the development of mind in the individual man, and in humanity as a whole, in order to refute the theory of Comte. Still, it must not be overlooked that the development of mind, in all cases and in all ages, is materially affected by exterior conditions. The influence of geographical and climatic conditions, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Jersey was most extraordinary. Last year he [Mr. Cass] should have voted for the proposition, had it come up. But circumstances had altogether changed. The honorable Senator then read several passages from the remarks, as given above, which he had committed to writing, in order to refute such a charge as that of the Senator from ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... gravely asserted in the records of the reign of Charles I., that Jesuits were of three degrees, and were to be found among politicians, merchants, and the professed Fathers living in religious houses. It would be obviously superfluous to refute this ridiculous statement which seems destined to crop up at intervals to the end of time, quite regardless of the fact that it has been repeatedly ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... his study of Scripture, or something unknown that made him take up the part of a Christian Aristotle; in any case he felt himself called into the field to support the cause of St. Augustine against infidelity, and to refute the "anile fable" of the Antipodes. Cosmas referred men back to Revelation on such matters, and his system was "demonstrated from Scripture, concerning which a Christian is not allowed to doubt." Man by himself could not understand the world, but in the Bible it was all clear enough. And from the ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... unruffled and not much concerned to know the facts of our adventure. My impression is that he had been taking a nap on my lounge; be appeared refreshed and even gay; but if I am inexact in these details he is alive to refute me. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Tsai li ti, had been watching me ever since I had come to Ch'ao Yang. They had listened much and often to our preaching, and now they had come to make formal inquiries. I gave them such information as I thought they needed, and we got on well enough till they asked me to refute a slander. The slander was to the effect that in a chapel in Peking, the preacher would, when he finished preaching, get down off the platform and have a smoke! I had to admit that this was no slander, but a true statement. I had a good deal to say in explanation ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... of the family and the family honours, he was quite indignant. He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the unfeudal tone of the present day. He was astonished, indeed, but his character and general conduct must refute it. He could refer Sir Walter to all who knew him; and certainly, the pains he had been taking on this, the first opportunity of reconciliation, to be restored to the footing of a relation and heir-presumptive, was a strong proof of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... such a delicate point, which the Sicilian canon, Recupero, fancied that there was; [Footnote: Recupero. See Brydone's Travels, some sixty or seventy years ago. The canon, being a beneficed clergyman in the Papal church, was naturally an infidel. He wished exceedingly to refute Moses: and he fancied that he really had done so by means of some collusive assistance from the layers of lava on Mount Etna. But there survives, at this day, very little to remind us of the canon, except an unpleasant guffaw that rises, at times, in solitary valleys of Etna.] but which, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... iron has been proclaimed the best in the world, a proposition that none can successfully refute. Its qualities are becoming known in quarters where it would naturally be expected its superiority would be admitted reluctantly, if at all. It is now sent to New York and Ohio, and even to Pennsylvania—an agency ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... a third shape, that is, in our English 'fashion'; from 'pietas', 'pitie' and 'piete'; from 'capitulum', 'chapitre' and 'capitule', a botanical term. So, too, in Italian, 'manco', maimed, and 'monco', maimed of a hand; 'rifutare', to refute, and 'rifiutare', to refuse; 'dama' and 'donna', ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... arguments finds a place in debate: namely, indirect arguments. It is often as much an advantage to a debater to dispose of objections as it is to establish his own case. This is because a question usually has two alternatives. If one can refute the arguments in favor of the opponent's position, he has by that very process established his own. If the points of the refutation are of minor importance and are related to any division of his own direct argument, the refutation of such points should ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... to this new "evasiveness of life," would have to take its place. Attempts are indeed being made at this very hour to "start fresh" with a new aesthetic sense and only the winnowing process of time and the pressure of personal experience can refute such attempts. Meanwhile all we can do is to note the rejection of such attempts by the verdict of the complex vision; a rejection which indicates that if such attempts are to be successful they must imply the substitution of a new complex vision for the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... had once before sounded him, by mentioning the late Reverend Mr. Brown, of Utrecht's, image; that a great and small glass, though equally full, did not hold an equal quantity; which he threw out to refute David Hume's saying[839], that a little miss, going to dance at a ball, in a fine new dress, was as happy as a great oratour, after having made an eloquent and applauded speech. After some thought, Johnson said, 'I come over to the parson.' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... shame of defeat, yet with but doubtful and imperfect success. Paley, with his intuitive sagacity, saw through the difficulty of answering Gibbon by the ordinary arts of controversy; his emphatic sentence, "Who can refute a sneer?" contains as much truth as point. But full and pregnant as this phrase is, it is not quite the whole truth; it is the tone in which the progress of Christianity is traced, in comparison with the rest ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... man in perfect health being much affected by such a charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. But were it true, to what does it amount?—to an impeachment of a liver complaint. 'I will tell it to the world,' exclaimed the learned Smelfungus: 'you had better (said I) tell it to your physician. 'There is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... this means it lies in the power of every fine woman to secure at least half-a-dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. The female world are likewise indispensably necessary in the best causes to manage the controversial part of them, in which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to refute them. Arguments out of ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... refute the statements too often made that "men won't work," and "there's work enough if men are only willing to do it." Such is not the truth. I can find you many instances where good, steady workmen have offered to the foremen of certain establishments $10, $25, and even the whole of the first month's ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... he arrived too late, Thalberg having quitted the capital on the preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which were everywhere the answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated Liszt, and seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave two private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both of which were crowded, the latter being attended by more than four hundred people. The result was a brilliant victory, and henceforth there ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... essentially similar methods of treating their pets, which have been housed, fed, protected and cared for in much the same way in all pigeonries. In fact, there is no case better adapted than that of the pigeons to refute the doctrine which one sees put forth on high authority, that "no other characters than those founded on the development of bone for the attachment of muscles" are capable of variation. In precise contradiction of this hasty assertion, Mr. Darwin's researches prove that the skeleton ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... the Judge's stare. It did not seem to be a vacant gaze; on the contrary, it seemed to contain something. It seemed not only fixed; it seemed fixed on some object. It looked past me, behind me, and there, with all its terror and all its intelligence, it rested, motionless. It seemed to refute the notion that dead men cannot see; it seemed to affirm that dead men's eyes are not dead. Into that terrible stare I looked, fascinated, awed, hushed, motionless. Then, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... danger would increase, since the moral principle would gain additional strength by exercise, both which things are implied in the notion of virtuous habits." (From the chapter on Moral Discipline m the Analogy, sect. iv.) The purpose of this disquisition is to refute the Necessitarians; it is resumed in the third chapter ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... refute this cautious statement, the gondola quietly glided out again upon the Grand Canal, in full face of a great white dome, rising superbly from a sculptured marble octagon against a radiant sky. Sky and dome and sculptured ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... the working class. However, assume again that the census knows how to classify them. Then there were roughly 104,000 men and 107,000 women who ought to have been questioned. They possessed the answers which would justify or refute the casual phrase about the "ignorant workers" or the "intelligent workers." But nobody could think of questioning ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... migratory waves of surplus population from the Columbia Valley would be plausible enough. It is only necessary, however, to turn to the accounts of the earlier explorers of this region, Lewis and Clarke, for example, to refute the idea, so far at least as the Columbia Valley is concerned, although a study of the many diverse languages spread over the United States would seem sufficiently to prove that the tribes speaking them could not have originated at a common center, unless, ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... variations whose accumulation amounts ultimately to specific difference. It is a pity, however, that instead of contenting himself like a theologian with saying that his opponent had been refuted over and over again, he did not refer to any particular and tolerably successful attempt to refute the theory that modifications in organic structure are mainly functional. I am fairly well acquainted with the literature of evolution, and have never met with any such attempt. But let this pass; as with Mr. Darwin, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... is needless to refute the Euhemeristic hypothesis, worthy of the Abbe Banier, that the cow is a real cow, offered by a real historical Gladstone, or by his companion, Jo, to the ignorant populace of the rural districts. We have already ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... this source are apt to make the great man seem unnaturally cold, dignified, remote, and impressive. So usual has this view of Washington become, that there is a common belief that he never laughed aloud—a belief which there are many stories to refute. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... the North Briton, a periodical publication of some talent, but more bitterness. In the forty-fifth number, he assailed the king, charging him with a direct falsehood. The charge should have been dismissed with contempt; for it was against the dignity of the government to refute an infamous slander. But, in an evil hour, it was thought expedient to vindicate the honor of the sovereign; and a warrant was therefore issued against the editor, publisher, and printer of the publication. The officers of the law entered ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the pacha and his minister, after the business of the divan, with their heads aching from the doubts of Hudusi, or the means that they had taken to refute them, in not the best humour in the world listened to the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father accepted from the ministers of Christianity the expiation which he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the death of Crispus, the emperor could ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... much dispute about the date of Botticelli's "Nativity," and some defenders of Savonarola have hoped to read 1511 in the strange character of its inscription, so that this beautiful picture, standing forth as the work of one for many years under the influence of "the Frate," may refute the common calumny that that influence was unfriendly to art. Our catalogue, indeed, unhesitatingly asserts of Botticelli, that "he became a follower of Savonarola and no doubt suffered from it;" but ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... done. If there is any flaw in my defence, it is for you two to refute me. I shall answer your ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... commendable, he quoted his name. Bayle observes, that "this is an excess of politeness, prejudicial to that freedom which should ever exist in the republic of letters; that it should be allowed always to name those whom we refute; and that it is sufficient for this purpose that we ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... eye upon the guide. But Reuther's face was still alight. She felt very happy. Their journey had not been for naught. He would have six hours' start of his pursuers; he would be that much sooner in Shelby; he would hear the accusation against him and refute it ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... the floor of the Assembly, as stated. Presently I took up the gauntlet, and made this argument. The challenger never claimed his glove, then nor since; nor has anybody, so far as I know, attempted to refute this speech. Nothing has come to my ears (save as to two points, to be noticed hereafter) but reckless, bold denial of God's truth, infidel affirmation without attempt at proof, ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... portion of the prize-money known by them to have been awarded for the expulsion of the Portuguese in the preceding year, and notoriously in my possession! Their forbearance being so improbable as to refute itself, being contrary to common sense; even in the absence of the vouchers, which were transmitted to the Brazilian Government, but never acknowledged—I am able however to account for the whole from documents no less ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... which to him were so childishly impossible. But as often he would voluntarily retire from the conflict, sometimes shaking his head dubiously, sometimes muttering his impatience with a mere child whose logic he, despite his collegiate training, could not refute. He was as full of philosophical theories as a nut with meat; but when she asked for proofs, for less human belief and more demonstration, he hoisted the white flag and retired from the field. But his admiration ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking |
