Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Assert   Listen
verb
Assert  v. t.  (past & past part. asserted; pres. part. asserting)  
1.
To affirm; to declare with assurance, or plainly and strongly; to state positively; to aver; to asseverate. "Nothing is more shameful... than to assert anything to be done without a cause."
2.
To maintain; to defend. (Obs. or Archaic) "That... I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men." "I will assert it from the scandal."
3.
To maintain or defend, as a cause or a claim, by words or measures; to vindicate a claim or title to; as, to assert our rights and liberties.
To assert one's self, to claim or vindicate one's rights or position; to demand recognition.
Synonyms: To affirm; aver; asseverate; maintain; protest; pronounce; declare; vindicate. To Assert, Affirm, Maintain, Vindicate. To assert is to fasten to one's self, and hence to claim. It is, therefore, adversative in its nature. We assert our rights and privileges, or the cause of tree institutions, as against opposition or denial. To affirm is to declare as true. We assert boldly; we affirm positively. To maintain is to uphold, and insist upon with earnestness, whatever we have once asserted; as, to maintain one's cause, to maintain an argument, to maintain the ground we have taken. To vindicate is to use language and measures of the strongest kind, in defense of ourselves and those for whom we act. We maintain our assertions by adducing proofs, facts, or arguments; we are ready to vindicate our rights or interests by the utmost exertion of our powers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Assert" Quotes from Famous Books



... adored in Russia. The gay and affable manner of Prince Lobkowitz made him the life and soul of all the parties at which he was present. He was a constant courtier of the Countess Braun, the reigning beauty, and everyone believed his love had been crowned with success, though no one could assert as much positively. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... knowledge of the workings of nature proves to have been just and true. The ocean is formed from the rains which descend from heaven and the streams which flow from earth. By making Oceanus therefore the offspring of Uranus and Gaea, the ancients, if we take this notion in its literal sense, merely assert that the ocean is produced by the combined influence of heaven and earth, whilst at the same time their fervid and poetical imagination led them to see in this, as in all manifestations of the powers of nature, an ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... summer outing, and beautiful Kiowa Lodge, perched on a shoulder of the mountain among embowering pines, glowed with incandescent lights, while its blithe-hearted guests pursued their chosen kinds of pastime; but none of them, I venture to assert, were happier than the little white-crown in her grassy lodge on the bank of ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... "And I assert the friendship of a lifetime," Evander persisted. His voice and his eyes were very merry, but there came an unconquerable gnawing at his heart that, in spite of the fair place and the fair face and the sweet ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... would be wrong to admit that even in its character as knowledge early religion was illusion and no more. The poetic faculty, the faculty which prompts us to find outside us what we feel to be within us and to assert its reality, led man right and not wrong. What he worshipped was not the bare object which met the eye and ear, but the thing as he conceived it. He conceived that there was without him that of which his inner consciousness bore witness, an ideal, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... amount of culture among the Filipino peoples prior to the Spanish conquest. A variety of opinions have been expressed as to the direction of the writing. Chirino, San Antonio, Zuniga, and Le Gentil, say that it was vertical, beginning at the top. Colin, Ezguerra, and Marche assert that it was vertical but in the opposite direction. Colin says that the horizontal form was adopted after the arrival of the Spaniards. Mas declares that it was horizontal and from left to right, basing his arguments upon certain ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... person and pillage my carriage, I overheard one of these men say to another, speaking of me: 'She must get out, must she not, Monsieur d'Escorval?' I believe that the brigand who uttered these words was a peasant named Chanlouineau, but I dare not assert it on oath." ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... mood awakened by the art and by the country, but the closer resemblance between the things which art was able to do, and the things which the country had already done. Even more, immediately after sunset. The hills, becoming uniform masses, assert their movement, strike deep into the valley, draw themselves strongly up towards the sky. The valleys also, with their purple darkness, rising like smoke out of them, assert themselves in their turn. And the sky, the ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... his little college room; his clothes hanging on the door, the photographs of his father and mother, of Chopin and Wagner on the chest of drawers. The familiar sight reassured him at once, and his natural buoyancy of spirit began to assert itself. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... To assert, however, that Napoleon's escape from Elba was prompted by a desire to avoid bankruptcy, is to credit him with respectable bourgeois scruples by which he was never troubled. Though "Madame Mere" and Pauline complained bitterly to Campbell of the lack of funds at Elba, the Emperor ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... Treaty defers claims (see Antarctica entry), but Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and UK assert claims (some overlapping), including the continental shelf in the Southern Ocean; several states have expressed an interest in extending those continental shelf claims under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS) to include undersea ridges; the US and ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... great in human life and history, and what is sometimes even more to the purpose, it helps us to account for the little. As it has been well said: "It would save us much mental perplexity if we could assert without qualification that all is law, that ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... morning. A child, who happened to be with his father in the court-house, was snatched up by a negro woman, who, at the risk of her own life, carried him to a place of safety. But admitting the worst charges, any one who remembers the New York riot of 1863 will be slow to assert that this black mob exhibited any barbarity which has not been more than emulated by white mobs. Shocking enough the details are; but human action always and with every race is ferocious, when once the restraints of self-control and the law are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... an odd thing to assert, and a more difficult thing still to prove, but Miss Gascoigne was not at heart a bad woman. She had a fierce temper and an enormous egotism, yet these two qualities, in the strangely composite characters that one meets with in life, are not ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... with his political principles and personal affiliations, and his talents were maturing. Hitherto his outlook upon life had been derived largely from older men, but his own individuality now began to assert itself; his groove in life was ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... and dogmatic, and irreverent, and sometimes slightly improper; women who had missions to mend everything in heaven and earth, except themselves; who had quarrelled with their husbands, and had therefore felt a mission to assert women's rights, and reform marriage in general; or who had never been able to get married at all, and therefore were especially competent to promulgate a model method of educating the children whom they never had had; women who wrote poetry about Lady Blanches whom ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... apostolical church, teaching and maintaining the doctrine of the apostles; let him be excommunicated." (III) They appeal to the "Ancient fathers of the Church, led by the example of the apostles." (XXXI) In treating of the use of the sign of the Cross in baptism they assert that its use follows the "rules of Scripture and the practice of the primitive Church." And further, "This use of the sign of the Cross in baptism was held in the primitive Church, as well by the Greeks as the Latins, with ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... that when a certain sensation is received, as, for instance, a sound stimulus, it reinstates sensory impressions and motor reactions together with their associated mental images, thus enabling the mind to assert that a dog is barking in the distance. In such a case, the present impression is evidently joined with, and interpreted through, what has already formed a part of our experience. What is true of this particular case ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... more than common danger, and need the wisest care and protection. She knew, also, from reading and observation, that an evil habit of mind or body which did not show itself in the second generation would often be reproduced in the third, and assert a power that it required the utmost strength of will and the greatest ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... pleasures of observation and analysis, in the examination of the environment and its people, he feels in himself the dawning of strange ideas. Confused desires for other lands awake and are clarified by reflection and study. Instincts, sensations and thoughts bequeathed by heredity, awake, grow fixed, assert themselves with an imperious assurance. He recalls memories of beings and things he has never really known and a time comes when he escapes from the penitentiary of his age and roves, in full liberty, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... viewed in a one-sided manner, from two quite opposite points of view, in relation to the spiritual contents of his songs. His poems appear to mirror the transition character of his age, when the personal life of the feelings, the subjective tendency, began to assert itself beside the Christian consciousness of the congregation. He may therefore be regarded as the last and the most perfect of those poets who were grounded in the ecclesiastico-confessional faith, and with him the line of the strict ecclesiastical poets closes. He may also ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... auriferous pyritic lodes, it does not appear even now to be clear, as some scientists assert, that their gold is never found in chemical combination with the sulphides of the base metals. On the contrary, I think much of the evidence points ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... the same work we find the following language. "I do not propose to myself to speak of the Inquisition of times past, but of what exists in Rome at the present moment; I shall therefore assert that the laws of this institution being in no respect changed, neither can the institution itself be said to have undergone any alteration. The present race of priests who are now in power are too much afraid of the popular indignation to let loose ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... not like to assert—because I am telling the truth here—that our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew eight inches of water. Yet in ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... of the unfinished romance which was published in 1883 under the title of "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret." Long lost sight of in the mass of Hawthorne's manuscripts, this last of his posthumous works was reviewed by the critics with some incredulity, and Lathrop had the hardihood to publicly assert that no such romance by Hawthorne's pen existed, thereby casting a gratuitous slander on his own brother-in-law. We may have our doubts in regard to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, for we have no absolute standard by ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... Christian priests, who rarely hesitate to make charges of Atheism, not only against opponents, but each other; not only against disbelievers but believers in God. The Jesuit Lafiteau, in a Preface to his 'Histoire des Sauvages Americanes,' [13:1] endeavours to prove that only Atheists will dare assert that God created the Americans. Scarcely a metaphysical writer of eminence has escaped the 'imputation' of Atheism. The great Clarke and his antagonist the greater Leibnitz were called Atheists. Even Newton was ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... and you sing back to them. There wouldn't have to be any truth, if there weren't any lies. Then one needn't assert anything—' ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... going to drink tea with Miss Wendover, whatever Urania may do,' said Dr. Rylance, who felt that the time had come when he must assert himself. 'I am out for a day's pleasure, and I mean to drink the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... saucerful of onions left last night," Lizzie would assert, "and two cobs of corn, after I'd had my dinner. You couldn't do much with those. And, as for butter on the asparagus"—Lizzie was very respectful, but her tone would rise aggrievedly—"it was every bit eaten, ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... and Shakespeare are identical. Then we shall glance at Bacon's motives for writing plays by stealth, and blushing to find it fame. We shall expose the frank folly of averring that he chose as his mask a man who (some assert) could not even write; and we shall conclude by citing, once more, the irrefragable personal testimony to the ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... home-remembering miner, and it gave him the crowning glory of the view. For, beyond the pine-hearsed summits, rarely seen except against the evening sky, lay a thin, white cloud like a dropped portion of the Milky Way. Faint with an indescribable pallor, remote yet distinct enough to assert itself above and beyond all surrounding objects, it was always there. It was the snow-line of ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... Eddy, who passed away in the Murphy cabin on the seventh of February, was the only wife and mother called by death, in either camp, before the arrival of the First Relief. Both Patrick Breen's diary and William G. Murphy, then a lad of eleven years, assert that Mrs. Eddy and little Margaret, her only daughter, were buried in the snow near the Murphy cabin on the ninth of February. Furthermore, the Breen Diary and the death-list of the Donner Party show ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... exact date of their advent, the much mooted and more fundamental question at once presents itself, Why were the Hebrews "the chosen people"? It is safe to assert at once that this was not arbitrary nor without reason. Moreover, the choice was not that of a moment, but gradual. Rather the real question is, By what divine process were the Israelites prepared to be the chosen people that their later prophets ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... abject is our race! Condemned to slavery and disgrace! Shall we our servitude retain, Because our sires have borne the chain? Consider, friends, your strength and might; 'Tis conquest to assert your right. How cumberous is the gilded coach! The pride of man is our reproach. Were we designed for daily toil, To drag the ploughshare through the soil; To sweat in harness through the road; To groan beneath the carrier's ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... Lanier, I am sure you CAN do this worthily. It's a great occasion, — not especially for poetry as an art, but for Poetry to assert herself as a power."* To this letter Lanier replied: "If it were a cantata upon your goodness, . . . I am willing to wager I could write a stirring ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... The optimism which is built on this foundation has no message of comfort for the stricken heart. To say that "evil is only good in the making," is to repeat an ancient and discredited attempt to solve the great enigma. And to assert that perfect justice is meted out to individuals in this world, is surely mere dreaming. Moreover, we can hardly acquit him of playing with pantheistic Mysticism of the Oriental type, without seeing, or without caring, whither such speculations logically lead. "Within man," he tells us, "is the ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... political shades, that formerly fought and crowded one another within each of the two circles—be it that of the Legitimists or that of the Orleanists—, had been thawed out like dried infusoria by contact with water; as if they had recovered enough vitality to build their own groups and assert their own antagonisms. The Legitimists dreamed they were back amidst the quarrels between the Tuileries and the pavilion Marsan, between Villele and Polignac; the Orleanists lived anew through the golden period of the tourneys between Guizot, Mole, ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... a faith could not long withstand the more generous and cosmopolitan spirit of Christianity, yet we venture to assert that it was vastly preferable in its effects to some abortions of our common creed. That there was a conflict between the two religions we know. As late as the sixteenth century a Christian ecclesiastic complains that the leaders of Gaelic thought of the period were heathen enough to delight ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... the end of March was a delightful period of good fellowship. The beautiful early spring was beginning to assert its power over nature. The grass was green. The trees and hedgerows were full of sap and the buds ready to burst into new life. As one walked down the roads in the bright sunshine, and smelt the fresh winds bearing the scent of springtime, an exquisite ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... the Lower School, the excitement continued steadily to increase, and small boys being seized in out-of-the-way corners were made to assert at one time that they would vote for Thurston, and at another that they would vote for Parkes or Fielding, and so, in order to escape with a whole skin, were forced to commit perjury at least a dozen times between the hours of ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... title to the throne, and he added the proud motto "Altera securitas." A crowned fleur-de-lis is constantly repeated on the walls, and on the gates the shield of France is to be seen next to the lions of England; for our English sovereigns continued to assert their right to the French succession. The other badges on the gates include the crown on a bush, which recalls Bosworth Field, when Lord Derby took the golden circlet from the hawthorn bush, where it fell when Richard was slain, and placed it on his step-son's head. The ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith

... meritorious. Thus Clement and Ravaillac being unquestionably sincere, they were therefore indubitably innocent. Nay, the absurdity of this principle might be shewn to be even greater than what has yet been stated. It would not be going too far to assert, that whilst it scorns the defence of petty villains, of those who still retain the sense of good and evil, it holds forth, like some well frequented sanctuary, a secure asylum to those more finished criminals, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... "You cannot mean that. At least, I deserve—have earned—your friendship by what I have undergone for you. Let me have a word of hope! Though divorce is not allowed in this country, death befalls any man, for while your statisticians figure out that the married live longest, they do not assert that they are immortal. Clemenceau dead, his widow may remarry. You say he is an enthusiast—one of those college-growths which run to seed without any fruit. I thought the contrary from the way he rode my horse and handled the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... gently might have ministered to the comfort of the staff for many months. But no; the brigadier's servant and the mess-waiter, who was a high-spirited and intelligent dragoon, sought to vary the ennui of the march, and to assert their superiority over the Kaffirs in the matter of stage-driving, by taking the fourgon and its half broken team full gallop down the incline terminating in Houwater vlei. A playful and exhilarating expedient, which ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... went there," she said, "to assert a principle—a principle relevant to the circumstances of that convention, and one which would promote all good causes and retard all bad ones. I went there, as an item of the world, to contend that the sons and daughters of the race, without distinction of sex, sect, class ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the multitude, has become almost of no effect; passive acceptance mentally, absolute rejection physically, seeming to be the portion of much of the gospel of health. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," is almost an axiom. I am disposed to amend it, and assert that cleanliness is godliness, or a form of godliness. At any rate, the man or woman who demands cleanliness without and within, this cleanliness meaning pure air, pure water, pure food, must of necessity have a stronger body and therefore a clearer mind (both being nearer what ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... tendency to paralysis prevails, the danger is less threatening, although equally momentous. In such cases I use Apis and Moschus in alternation, although I am unable to assert, on account of deficient experience, that this treatment will always prove satisfactory. Such cases hardly ever arise under hom[oe]opathic treatment; and if they come to us out of the hands of all[oe]opathic practitioners, ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf

... assert that the kind of verse which happened to reflect certain moods of mine at a certain period of my life, is the best kind of verse in itself, or is likely to seem to me, in other years, when other moods may have made me their ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons

... owns the air above the various nations? Obviously the individual landowner has rights, especially as to freedom from damage. The nation also has rights, especially for its protection and for police work. How high, however, does this jurisdiction go? Some assert that a maximum altitude should be set, say five thousand feet, above which the air would be as free as the seas; others that each nation must have unqualified control to the ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser

... others. Of those writers who mention the bequest or promise none mention it at any time when it is supposed to have happened; they mention it at some later time when it began to be of practical importance. No English writer speaks of William's claim till the time when he was about practically to assert it; no Norman writer speaks of it till he tells the tale of Harold's visit and oath to William. We therefore cannot say how far the promise was known either in England or on the continent. But it could not be kept altogether hid, even if either party ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... and we should be safe; and I am not certain that we would not do it, if we could find out the necessary process, and that under the plea of necessity. But, sir, this is impossible; and can man be in the midst of freemen, and not know what freedom is? Can he feel that he has the power to assert his liberty, and will he not do it? Yes, sir, with the certainty of Time's current, he will do it whenever he has the power. The data are before us all, and every man can work out the process for himself. Sir, a death-struggle must ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin

... British officers; and the captives bound themselves to make good from their own resources their redemption money. The Afghan ex-Subadar proved himself honest; the captives were captives no longer, and they proceeded to assert themselves in the masterful British manner. They hoisted the national flag; Pottinger became once again the high-handed 'political,' and ordered the local chiefs to come to his durbar and receive dresses of honour. Their fort was put into a state of defence, and a store of ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... now more than three weeks that you played upon me a trick most treacherous. What it was I will not relate, for it would be needless. This I do assert, and more, that when you tell me you do not know what I mean, as you told me yesterday, you say not the truth. When I demand that you give to me the satisfaction that a gentleman should offer to another under such circumstances, I feel that I am treating you with a courtesy ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... of every man; consequently, Burdovsky is not excepted. Let him answer for his own blunders. As to the objection which I made just now in the name of all, to the presence of your friends, I think I ought to explain, gentlemen, that I only did so to assert our rights, though we really wished to have witnesses; we had agreed unanimously upon the point before we came in. We do not care who your witnesses may be, or whether they are your friends or not. As they cannot fail to recognize Burdovsky's right (seeing that it is mathematically demonstrable), ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... ground for us not to look further to our own interest? What! Because France chooses to exempt America from her injurious decrees, are we to consent to their continuance?"[331] Where such a contradiction exists, to assert a pledge from a Government, and that two years after Erskine's singular performance of 1809, which led to his recall, is a curious example of the capacity of the American Administration, under Madison's ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... for the usual purposes, by the usual emissaries, that Lord Rockingham did not consent to the repeal of this act until he was bullied into it by Lord Chatham; and the reporters have gone so far as publicly to assert, in an hundred companies, that the honorable gentleman under the gallery,[8] who proposed the repeal in the American committee, had another set of resolutions in his pocket, directly the reverse of those he moved. These artifices of a desperate cause are at this time spread abroad, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... prophets and reads our sacred books. These things I know well from those who have been near her. But who ever heard that she has been seen to read the books of the Christians! Probus will not dare to assert it. 'T is not more public that Longinus himself is inclined to our faith—by my head, I doubt not that he is more than inclined—than 'tis that Zenobia is. If our Messiah should first of all gird ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... him forever. If she ever came back it would not be as his daughter, but as the wife of Gilman. She had deserted him, fled in the night like a thief; his heart began to harden again, and he rose stiffly. His native stubbornness began to assert itself, the first great shock over, and he went out to the kitchen, and prepared, as best he could, a breakfast, and sat down to it. In some way his appetite failed him, and he fell to thinking over his past life, of ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... enters into the food-consumption of northern races. He becomes abstemious, eats sparingly, and discovers his palate to have become oddly exacting—finds that certain fruits and drinks are indeed, as the creoles assert, appropriate only to particular physical conditions corresponding with particular hours of the day. Corossole is only to be eaten in the morning, after black coffee;—vermouth is good to drink only between the hours of nine and half-past ten;—rum or other strong ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... hunter was not only thrilled with the passion of the chase and of discovery; he was intent also upon collecting the furs and skins of wild animals for lucrative barter and sale in the centers of trade. He was quick to make "tomahawk claims" and to assert "corn rights" as he spied out the rich virgin land for future location and cultivation. Free land and no taxes appealed to the backwoodsman, tired of paying quit-rents to the agents of wealthy lords across the sea. Thus the ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... sneezing—identify the monster with the earthquakes so common to the Puna and Hilo districts of Hawaii, which border upon the active volcano, Kilauea. Natives say that a great lizard is the guardian spirit or aumakua of this section. At Kalapana is a pool of brackish water in which, they assert, lies the tail of a moo whose head is to be seen at the bottom of a pool a mile and a half distant, at Punaluu; and bathers in this latter place always dive and touch the head in order to avert harm. As the lizard guardians of folk tale are to be found "at the bottom of a pit" (see ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... limitations. Within us we have a hope which always walks in front of our present narrow experience; it is the undying faith in the infinite in us; it will never accept any of our disabilities as a permanent fact; it sets no limit to its own scope; it dares to assert that man has oneness with God; and its wild dreams become true ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... the modes of thought are understanding and will. These belong in the sphere of determinate and transitory being and do not hold of the natura naturans: God is exalted above all modality, above will and understanding, as above motion and rest. We must not assert of the natura naturata (the world as the sum of all modes), as of the natura naturans, that its essence involves existence (I. prop. 24): we can conceive finite things as non-existent, as well as existent (Epist. 29). This constitutes their "contingency," which must by ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... may be prepared to assert that his words give no encouragement or allowance to any such conclusions; and this assertion they may support by another—that a love of riches was the peculiar failing of the young man, whose conduct suggested the observations ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves

... by these words, Willock sat down opposite her, and resumed his pipe as if to assert his sex. "I seem weak to you," he explained, "because I love you, child, and want to make friends with you. But let me meet a big man—well, you'd see, then!" He looked so ferocious as he uttered these ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... because you ask not panegyric but narrative. I shall endeavour that it may be chaste and clear, informing the devout, and not wearying the fastidious. At any rate the truth of my narrative is assured, since it has been communicated by you;[133] and beyond doubt you assert nothing but things of which ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... know anything about it; but the Stork looked musing, nodded his head, and said: "Yes; I think I know; I met many ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelled so of fir. I may congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... the quinquennial series, Vandin wishes to assert that the five senses are competent to cognise their respective objects and that besides these senses and their objects there is neither any other sense to perceive nor any other object of perception. He also cites the authority of the Veda according to which the Apsaras (or ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the year 1870, the square was the popular piano. The grand has always been too expensive for the great music-loving masses, and previous to this time the upright had not been developed sufficiently to assert itself as a satisfactory instrument. The numerous objections to the square piano forced its manufacture to be discontinued a few years after the introduction of the improved new upright. Square pianos that come, at the present day, under ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... Do you think we expect any justice out of you? Do you think I come in this room ever dreaming you'd grant our demands? No! We knew you! And if we do assert our rights, what do you do? You set your hellhounds of police on us! Haven't we been agitatin' for our rights among you for days? We've got our answer from you, but you look out for ours, because as sure as there is a hell waitin' for all parasites, we'll ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington

... to a small sensation and several ingenious theories, one enthusiastic philologer going so far as to derive the name Halzaphron from the Greek, interpreting it as "the salt of the west winds" or "Zephyrs," and to assert roundly that the temple (he assumed it to be a temple) dated far back beyond the Roman Invasion. This contention, though perhaps no more foolish than a dozen others, undoubtedly ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... humanist and the ascetic who dwelt together in that large mind; to observe how the world-renouncing element had to grow at the expense of the other, until full justice had been done to its claims; and then how the brighter, more truly Hellenic side was able to assert itself under due safeguards, as a precious thing dearly purchased, a treasure reserved for the pure and humble, and still only to be tasted carefully, with reverence and godly fear. There is, of course, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... first-class diver himself, and had also to be acquainted with the manoeuvring of a small boat. He was also required to have a smattering of navigation generally. Above all, he had to be able to assert authority over the other divers; and in all these respects our ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... the chief item of which was that, on the approach of a burly policeman to seize her, she—if the pronouns be not too definite in their sex—fell upon her back and adroitly received the constabulary "wind" upon her upraised foot, thereby working much havoc. No one would assert that the woman's movement is responsible for the production of such people; no reasonable person would assert that their adherence condemns it; but we are rightly entitled to be concerned lest the rising generation of womanhood be ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... first begun, When the Worlds Monarch dug, and his Queen spun, His Fig-leaves his first Coronation-Robe, His Spade his Scepter, and her Wheel his Globe; And Royal Birthright, as their Schools assert, Not Kings themselves with Conscience can divert; How came the World possest by Adams Sons, Such various Principalities, Powres, Thrones? When each went out and chose what Lands he pleas'd, Whilst a new Family new Kingdoms rais'd? ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... importance, as it throws some doubt on the view which I have taken of the labellum being always an organ compounded of one petal and two petaloid stamens." That is to say, it leaves it open for a critic to assert that the vessels which enter the sides of the labellum are lateral vessels of the petal and do not necessarily represent petaloid stamens. In the sequel he gives a satisfactory answer to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... Mexican, an enormous burden when the day's wage or the yearly earning of the family is considered and when there is added to this the yearly expense of ancestor worship. How such voluntary burdens are assumed by people under such circumstances is hard to understand. Missionaries assert it is fear of evil consequences in this life and of punishment and neglect in the hereafter that leads to assuming them. Is it not far more likely that such is the price these people are willing to pay for a ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... authorised inspiration which inspired the Babylonian magi with the desire to burn the philosopher. Zadig admitted that he had never either seen or heard of the horse of the king or of the spaniel of the queen; and yet he ventured to assert in the most positive manner that animals answering to their description did actually exist and ran about the plains of Babylon. If his method was good for the divination of the course of events ten hours old, why should it not be good for those of ten years or ten centuries past; nay, might it ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... assert their authority by force, and three foreigners from the steerage who tried to force their way in among the women and children were shot down ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... system and the whole organism of man, with one sex as well as the other, in such a manner that it often leads to serious disturbances and manias; under certain conditions even to insanity and death. True enough, the sexual instinct does not assert itself with equal violence in all natures, and much can be done towards curbing it by education and self-control, especially by avoiding the excitation resulting upon certain conversations and reading. It is thought that, in general, the impulse manifests itself ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... tragically, one way or another. It must. Such a woman must interest both gods and men in her cause. But what I most apprehend is, that with her own hand, in resentment of the perpetrated outrage, she (like another Lucretia) will assert the purity of her heart: or, if her piety preserve her from this violence, that wasting grief will soon put a period to her days. And, in either case, will not the remembrance of thy ever-during guilt, and transitory triumph, be a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... you're out of them, they don't; and therefore you may with probability assume—not with certainty, observe, but with probability—that there's more water in the air where it damps your curls than where it doesn't. If it gets much denser than that, it will begin to rain; and then you may assert, certainly with safety, that there is a shower in one place, and not in another; and not allow the scientific people to tell you that the rain is everywhere, but palpable in Tooley Street, and impalpable in ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... mask for instruction. Have we succeeded? We think so. Before long we shall have covered with our narratives an enormous period of time; between the "Comtesse de Salisbury" and the "Comte de Monte-Cristo" five centuries and a half are comprised. Well, we assert that we have taught France as much history about those five centuries and a half ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... heat of his anger, told me of his intentions. It was late one night at a card-party at your house, and just before he was so foully murdered. No doubt you, or any right-minded person for that matter, will say that this evidence only clinches the case against me. But, in spite of it, I assert my innocence. Amongst my many sins the crime Hervey charges me with"—he purposely avoided associating the charge with her—"is not numbered. Can I hope that you will ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... were even now in Sans-Souci, sire, I do not think you would give this hour to books. I dare assert you would be practising with Quantz, and preparing ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... soldiers called on the commons to assert their liberties and elect new tribunes, the decemvirs having deprived them of these officials. They then marched to the Aventine Hill, where they selected ten military tribunes. The senate sent to them to know what they wanted, but they replied that they had no ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... with him, Skinner? Why had n't he made a fight for the raise? It was that old, disgusting timidity that had been a curse to him ever since he was a boy. Others had pushed ahead through sheer cheek, while he held back, inert, afraid to assert himself. By gad, why had n't he made a fight for a raise? They could only sack him, ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... nor do I assume to master the thoughts of any human heart; but I assert, by the chronicler's right, that before a quarter of an hour had sped, Sandridge was teaching her how to plaint a six-strand rawhide stake-rope, and Tonia had explained to him that were it not for her ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... himself elevated to this great office, the highest object of a lawyer's ambition, and, in my opinion, one of the most enviable stations an Englishman can attain. It is said that as a Common Serjeant he displayed the qualities of a good judge, and his friends confidently assert that he will make a very good Chief Justice; but his legal qualifications are admitted to be very inferior to those of his predecessors. [He made a very bad one, but was personally popular and generally respected for his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... had lived among the gentry in her maiden days, and, as she was wont to assert, she knew what was what as well as anybody. She had, moreover, a vigorous dislike for young Jack Green the chauffeur who, notwithstanding his airs,—perhaps because of them,—occupied a much lower ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... representative of a council, and of a kind and benevolent and patriot governor.' You'll observe I do not pretend to remember his words, but take this to have been the sum and substance of this part of his labored oration. When he came to that part of it where he undertook to assert 'that a king, by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience,' the more sober part of the audience were struck with horror. Mr. Lyons called out aloud, and with an honest ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... near a million of people took place without a single act of violence on the part of the liberated slaves. Neither did the measure carry violence in its train. So far the act was successful. But that all which the friends of Emancipation hoped for has been attained, no one will assert. When, however, we hear of the financial ruin of the Islands, as a consequence of that measure, it may be well to inquire into their condition previous to its taking place. That the West India Colonies were trembling on the brink of ruin at the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... 8), according to Mr. Noble, was not destroyed by fire in 1819, as Mr. Timbs and other writers assert. The house destroyed was Bensley the printer's (next door to No. 8), the successor of Johnson's friend, Allen, who in 1772 published Manning's Saxon, Gothic, and Latin Dictionary, and died in 1780. In Bensley's destructive fire all the plates and stock of Dallaway's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... to tell us what we cannot do. They assume that blindness and deafness sever us completely from the things which the seeing and the hearing enjoy, and hence they assert we have no moral right to talk about beauty, the skies, mountains, the song of birds, and colours. They declare that the very sensations we have from the sense of touch are "vicarious," as though our ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... could tell the crocodiles down the stream of a dead hippopotamus; and yet they came up from miles below. Their sense of smell must be as acute as their hearing; both are quite extraordinary. Dozens fed on the meat we left. Our Krooman, Jumbo, used to assert that the crocodile never eats fresh meat, but always keeps it till it is high and tender—and the stronger it smells the better he likes it. There seems to be some truth in this. They can swallow but small pieces at a ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... that chanticleer proclaims the day. But as far as I know no one has had the insolence to deny the street-organ as the proper herald of the spring. Without it the seasons would halt. Though science lay me by the heels, I'll assert that the crocus, which is a pioneer on the windy borderland of March, would not show its head except on the sounding of the hurdy-gurdy. I'll not deny that flowers pop up their heads afield without such call, that the jack-in-the-pulpit ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... together they formed a solid and luxuriant mass of verdure. White and crimson roses shone amid the dark, glossy foliage of the mountain-laurel, which held up with sturdy stem its own rich clusters of fluted cups, that seemed to assert equality with the queen of flowers, and would not be eclipsed by the fragrant loveliness of their beautiful dependents. The borders of box, which had once been trimmed and trained into fanciful points and tufts and convolutions of verdure, had grown into misshapen clumps; and the ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... merit, be worthy of, richly deserve. demand, claim; call upon for, come upon for, appeal to for; revendicate[obs3], reclaim; exact; insist on, insist upon; challenge; take one's stand, make a point of, require, lay claim to, assert, assume, arrogate, make good; substantiate; vindicate a claim, vindicate a right; fit for, qualify ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... replied, "has seldom or never been known to lie. And where a whole tribe testify alike the truth of what they assert can not be questioned." ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... errors as really had moral and spiritual relations, how much more with regard to the comparative trifles (as in the ultimate relations of human nature they are) of merely human science! But, for my part, I go further, and assert, that upon three reasons it was impossible for any messenger from God (or offering himself in that character) to have descended into the communication of truth merely scientific, or economic, or worldly. And the three reasons are these:—First, Because such a descent would have degraded ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... have shrunk. The old Strefford had certainly been a larger person, and she wondered if material prosperity were always a beginning of ossification. Strefford had been much more fun when he lived by his wits. Sometimes, now, when he tried to talk of politics, or assert himself on some question of public interest, she was startled by his limitations. Formerly, when he was not sure of his ground, it had been his way to turn the difficulty by glib nonsense or easy irony; now he was actually dull, at times almost pompous. She noticed too, for the first ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... then, confidently assert that the defenders and upholders of Public Schools without religion seek in America, as well as in Europe, to turn the people into refined Pagans. They recently betrayed themselves. They wish, as Dr. Wehrenphennig and Dr. Wirgow ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... by an Analogie one may suppose them so, and from the Polonian disease one may believe them such, yet I think we have not the least encouragement to either from the Microscope, much less positively to assert them such. And perhaps the very essence of the Plica Polonica may be the hairs growing hollow, and of ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... almost unanimous in fixing the date of this Gospel between 63 and 70, A. D. There is no valid reason for questioning the usual view that it was written in Rome. Clement, Eusebius, Jerome and Epiphanius, all assert that this was so. That the book was mainly intended for Gentiles, and especially Romans, seems probable from internal evidence. Latin forms not occurring in other Gospels, together with explanations of Jewish terms and customs, and the omission of all reference to ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth

... richly deserving it) to chastise Captain Miles of the Prince's Dragoons? He would whirl my paternal cane out of my hand, box my hair-powder out of my ears. Lord a-mercy! I tremble at the very idea of the controversy? He would assert his independence in a word; and if, I say, I think the home Parliament had a right to levy taxes in the colonies, I own that we took means most captious, most insolent, most irritating, and, above all, most impotent, to assert ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... certainly have occurred in his other very voluminous works. I have searched his Confessions for instances of this invocation, either from himself or anxious mother, and had he believed, as the Catholic prelates assert, in this intercession of the dead, it would most assuredly have been sought in the hour of his suffering and fear, lest he should be given over. But I find none. On the contrary, these two passages occur in his Confessions: 'I now ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... existence for the sake of the first two or three years. Marriage is not one long honeymoon. We wish it were. When you agree to a marriage you fix your eyes on the honeymoon. When we agree to a marriage we try to see it as it will be five or ten years hence. We assert that, in the average instance, five years after the wedding it doesn't matter whether or not the parties were in love on the wedding-day. Hence we will not yield to the gusts of the moment. Your system is, moreover, if we may be permitted the observation, a premium on ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett

... his feet. "I say, for mercy's sake, take me away! I can't stand this sort of thing. Before I know it I shall do something scandalous. I shall steal some of their infernal crockery. I shall proclaim my identity and assert my rights. I shall go blubbering to Miss Searle and ask her in pity's ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... NELSON'S state of health, and supposed infirmities arising from his former wounds and hard services, precluded the probability of his long surviving the battle of Trafalgar, had he fortunately escaped the Enemy's shot: but the Writer of this can assert that HIS LORDSHIP'S health was uniformly good, with the exception of some slight attacks of indisposition arising from accidental causes; and which never continued above two or three days, nor confined him in ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty

... and to take up the great question which has been frequently agitated, whether it be expedient and requisite for the States to delegate a larger portion of power to Congress, or not; yet it will be a part of my duty, and that of every true patriot, to assert, without reserve, and to insist upon the following positions:—That unless the States will suffer Congress to exercise those prerogatives they are undoubtedly invested with by the Constitution, every thing must very rapidly tend to anarchy and confusion: That it is indispensable ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... cellar; and he wore, in accordance with the usage of the most prominent law-students of that day, six cravats, one over the other, and yellow-topped boots, by which he was recognized as a blood of the metropolis. Having in this way qualified himself to assert and maintain his rights, he came to his estate, upon his arrival at age, a very model of landed gentlemen. Since that time his avocations have had a certain literary tincture; for having settled himself down as a ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... farther off. Her guide, therefore is not scent, but sight. Nevertheless, she is constantly feeling the ground with her antennae. What can be the function of those organs? I do not know, although I assert that they are not olfactory organs. The Ammophila, in search of her Grey Worm, had already led me to make the same assertion; I now obtain an experimental proof which seems to me decisive. I would add that the Pompilus has very short sight: often she passes ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of their lives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it has seemed up to this point as if all depended on passivity, let me now assert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on activity. A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel, but never for a man. No in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... is as to the time when the Pagan oracles ceased to give responses. Ancient Christian writers assert that they became silent at the birth of Christ, and were heard no more after that date. Milton adopts this view in his Hymn of the Nativity, and in lines of solemn and elevated beauty pictures the consternation of the heathen idols at the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... penetrated with its traditions than he knows; but ever since the Romantic movement began in England, about a century ago, the general tendency is anarchical and anti-classical. Writers like Wordsworth, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin, had very little deference about them. They did not even trouble to assert their independence; they said what they thought, and as they thought it. But the spirit of American literature does not on the whole appear to me to be a democratic spirit. It has not, except in the case ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... that Alix used often to amuse him, and he always felt more at home with her than with the other two. She had only been a gawky and thin fifteen or sixteen when she began to assert herself in his kitchen, dictate to Kow, and waste good butter and eggs on experiments. He had secretly rather admired her quick tongue and her daring, he liked her to ride his horses, and was amazed at the speed ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris



Words linked to "Assert" :   verify, claim, hold, asseverate, deport, attest, proclaim, predicate, acquit, asserter, behave, affirm, postulate, say, avow, maintain, insist, bear, assure, take, put forward, protest, allege, assert oneself, comport, conduct, posit, assertion, assertive, tell, swan, assertable, swear, take a firm stand, carry



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org