"Refutation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conceived that the explanation and defence of these laws could furnish forth occupation for his pen and his voice, through whole years of unwearying declamation, or how he can have dreamed that they could be twisted into a refutation of the Christian religion, is a mystery which I ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... I. Refutation of the Misstatements and Calumnies contained in Mr. Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, bart., respecting the Messrs. Ballantyne, by the trustees and son of the late Mr. James ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... of the bound captives, two of which are now in the Louvre, and the nine histories of the Creation and the Flood fill the panels like the bronze reliefs of the Tomb. The detail and completeness of this fresco are the best refutation of the frequent criticism that Michael Angelo did not finish his work. The fact is, that he finished more than any one. Had Michael Angelo done no work but this vault of the Sistine Chapel, it would have represented an output equal in quantity ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... not to go on before the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still? Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke, and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's philosophy!'No, sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about its refutation.'" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... in the year 1663, son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman of London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He early inherited a fair estate, took his Master of Arts degree in 1688, and began his career as writer with a refutation of attacks upon Wiclif in the "History of Heresy," by M. Varillas. He then chose law for a profession, in 1692 graduated as LL.D., and was admitted an Advocate at Doctor's Commons. He kept a light heart and a lighter purse than beseemed one of his ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... figments and are not supported by Scriptural authority will, I think, be sufficiently evident to the attentive reader, so that an examination of the theory will be sufficient for its refutation. It is not my purpose here to refute the assertions of those who assert that the natural light of reason can teach nothing of any value concerning the true way of salvation. People who lay no claims to reason for themselves are not ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... unauthorized intrusion into the priestly function, by study of the Sacred Scriptures, he imagined to himself the answers which one of the modern school of heresy might return to him—the victorious refutation which should lay the disputant prostrate at the Confessor's mercy—and the healing, yet awful exhortation, which, under pain of refusing the last consolations of religion, he designed to make to the penitent, conjuring her, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Lord Howard of Effingham, who commanded the English fleet in the reign of Elizabeth, having, though a Roman Catholic, destroyed the Armada under the anointed banner of the Pope. What a triumphant refutation of the notion that Roman Catholics dared not oppose the Pope! Lord B—— writes, that the brilliant and justly merited eulogium pronounced by Lord Grey on the Duke of Wellington was rapturously received by the House. How honourable to both was the praise! I feel delighted that ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... faculty, entered the lists as Lefevre's opponent, and an animated dispute was waged between the friends of the two combatants. Of so great moment was the decision regarded by Poncher, Bishop of Paris, that he induced Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, to write an essay in refutation of the views of Lefevre.[137] But the Sorbonne, not content with this, on the ninth of November, 1521, declared that he was a heretic who should presume to maintain the truth of Lefevre's proposition. Lefevre himself would probably have experienced ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... our experience can be proved by no evidence of testimony whatever,—and that, though we have here nothing, save the marvellous character of the events, to oppose to the cloud of witnesses who attest them, that alone, in the eyes of reasonable people, should be regarded as a sufficient refutation.[64] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... had rejected the ideally endowed candidate, solely because she was a woman, they would have indicated their belief that a woman is unfitted for high administrative work. The recent history of our colleges is a refutation of this conclusion. The responsible corporation of a woman's college cannot possibly take the ground that 'any man' is to be preferred to the rightly equipped woman; to quote from The Nation, in its issue of June 22, 1911, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... be avoided, but likewise the danger of floundering helplessly about in the inviting quicksands of inanity, he preserved silence—wise young man that he was, and trusted to his eyes to express an eloquent refutation. At last, however, something seemed to occur to him. A ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... of beauty, too, has been alleged to be peculiar to man. In refutation of this assertion Darwin points to the decorative colours of birds, which are used for display. And to the last objection, that man alone has religion, that he alone has a belief in God, it is answered "that numerous races have existed, and ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... the seven Paradises made of white diamond; the gardens and the plurality being borrowed from the Talmud. Mohammed's Paradise, by the by, is not a greater failure than Dante's. Only ignorance or pious fraud asserts it to be wholly sensual; and a single verse is sufficient refutation: "Their prayer therein shall be 'Praise unto thee, O. Allah!' and their salutation therein shall be 'Peace!' and the end of their prayer shall be, 'Praise unto God, the Lord of all creatures"' (Koran x. 10-11). See also lvi. 24- 26. It will also ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... entire ground between scepticism and Catholicism. In refutation of Protestantism the principal lectures were: The Church and the Republic; Luther and the Reformation; How and Why I Became a Catholic, or A Search after Rational Christianity; and The State of Religion in the United States. On the positive side his chief topics were: The Church ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Philosophumena. The last seven books have just been printed at the university press in Oxford, under the editorial direction of M. Miller, who went to England for that purpose. They make an octavo volume of about three hundred and fifty pages. The Debats says the work is "a refutation of heresies, in which the author endeavors to prove that the heresiarchs have all taken their doctrines from the ancient philosophers:"—a very curious task for Origen to perform, since he was himself ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... reasoning continues to rule scientific thought even to-day, quite irrespective of the fact that science itself claims to have its philosophical parent in Kant, the very thinker who devoted his life's work to the refutation of Hume. ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... full of doubt and trouble, her eyes dark with gathering tears. Frightened at this something she half-divined, but could not understand, she drew near doubtfully. "Angel loves her Joey, her does," she asserted, however, as if in refutation ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... past life and present course, the assault is such as would provoke a retort from any honest man. The vile insinuation that PUNCHINELLO is printed and published for the sole purpose of making money out of its subscribers and the reading public in general, is too mendacious for refutation; and when the reckless editor of the periodical in question gravely announces that he can never read PUNCHINELLO without laughing at its contents, it will be readily seen that he goes so far as to make use of the truth to serve his wicked purposes. But the descent which this shameless conductor ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... quelquefois meme celle du philosophe; n'enlevons pas a la pauvre espece humaine cette consolation, que la Providence divine lui a menagee."[98] He had a distinct dislike for philosophical arguments in refutation of things spiritual, and one day on being asked as to what he considered the nature of the soul, he replied, "Je sais qu'elle est spirituelle et immortelle, et je n'en sais rien de plus "; and when it was suggested to refer the discussion to Fontenelle, with his ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the part of Mr. Mill (with which every absolute moralist will agree), but it contains a complete refutation of his own position, and is a capital instance[209] of the vigorous life of moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated any fundamental distinction between the "right" and the "expedient." For if an action is morally good, and to be ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... failed to perceive this refutation of their rejection of 'abstract ideas', because, like their adversaries, they only thought of qualities, and altogether ignored relations as universals. We have therefore here another respect in which the rationalists appear to have ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... imperfect record remains of the fortunes of even the leaders of the movement; this much, however, is certain, they not only continued contumacious, but persecution added to their numbers. So at length the clergy decided to try what effect a public refutation of these heretics would have on popular opinion. Accordingly the governor and council, actuated by "Christian candor," ordered the Baptists to appear at the meeting-house, at nine o'clock in the morning, on the 14th ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... doctrines, he asserts that "we have some reason to believe that irregular connections between the sexes have, on the whole, exhibited a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization." The refutation of this libel on civilization—which is widely believed—is one of the main objects of the following pages—is, in fact, one of the main objects of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... instruments. The guides of the place greeted him coldly every day, as they started on their glacier excursions or their chamois hunting. But none the less did Zimmermann return the following summer, and work upon his great essay in refutation ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... long been contemplated by Pitt and by other English statesmen. That Pitt deliberately planned and fostered the rebellion, as Irishmen have actually asserted, in order to carry out a union is a charge so monstrous as scarcely to demand serious refutation. It is enough to say that he would certainly not have chosen to have Ireland in rebellion at a time so critical for England as the spring of 1798. That the policy of the government both in England and Ireland, which certainly conduced ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... ripeness, not in rawness, consists the excellence of Americans—an excellence they must be content to share with contemporary nations, however much it may cost them to abandon we know not what bounding ambitions which they have never succeeded in definitely describing in words. Mr. Lowell was a refutation of the fallacy that an American can never be American enough. He ranked with the students and the critics among all nations, and nothing marks his transatlantic conditions except, perhaps, that his scholarliness ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... his adversary, or compel him to change front, greater results will follow than if the conqueror had been weaker in numbers than the vanquished. The battle of Leuthen may certainly be quoted as a practical refutation of this principle, but we beg permission for once to say what we otherwise do not like, NO RULE ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... idea to keep all its other thoughts in harmony therewith. (8) Our opponents are thus driven to admit, in support of their fiction, the absurdities which I have just enumerated; and which are not worthy of rational refutation. ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... false circular roused much indignation among patriotic Americans, and no one believed it a trustworthy statement. The Independent Chronicle, in its issue for August, 1782, had the following refutation: [Footnote: This letter is said to have been written by Captain Manly, five times a prisoner during ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... thou art the man, (as Nathan said to David,) is an assertion capable of striking terror and remorse into the heart." The distinction in meaning here, on which he insists, attaches to the articles a and the. It is a sufficient refutation of this definition to make a counter statement. Suppose we say, "Murray is the best grammarian in the world; or, he is a fool, a knave, and a liar." Which, think you, would be considered ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... thou know this blessed servitude? Canst thou say with a joyful heart, "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant?" He is no hard taskmaster. Would Satan try to teach thee so? Let this be the refutation, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." True, the yoke is the appointed discipline he employs in training his children for immortality. But be comforted! "It is His tender hand that puts it on, and keeps it on." He will suit the yoke to the neck, and the ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... coronation: "The good Madame de M— of the Sacred Heart was saying the other day: 'We had a King with no limbs, and with a head; now we have limbs and no head.' It is unheard of, the trouble taken in certain circles to make out that the King has no will. The future must give to all a complete refutation; the future must teach them that the King knows how to distinguish those that betray from those that serve him." (Report of March 1, 1825). "Does the King wish to run the chances of a complete overturning by throwing himself into the hands of the ultras? That ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Domitius,[461] in the middle of the forum and in a very crowded court; and in the course of my speech I came to the incident of Sestius, after receiving many wounds in the temple of Castor, having been preserved by the aid of Bestia. Here I took occasion to pave the way beforehand for a refutation of the charges which are being got up against Sestius, and I passed a well-deserved encomium upon him with the cordial approval of everybody. He was himself very much delighted with it. I tell you this because you have often advised me in your letters too retain the friendship ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... credited by those who reported it, but it is worth mentioning, as a proof that no calumny was too senseless to be invented concerning the man whose character was from that hour forth to be the mark of slander, and whose whole life was to be its signal, although often unavailing, refutation. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... blushed indignant refutation of the calumnious charge. Vargrave continued,—"As for me, I shall be delighted to meet any friends of yours, and am greatly obliged for your consideration. We may dismiss the postboys, Howard; and what time shall we ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The refutation of vulgar prejudices could not carry with it this high bearing. It aspires only to disencumber the route before the march of truth, to prepare the mind, to reform public opinion, to blunt dangerous tools in improper hands. It is in social economy above all, that these hand-to-hand ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... against him. Douglas in particular never missed an opportunity of referring to it. In the great joint debate in 1858 he spoke of Lincoln's having "distinguished himself in Congress by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country." No better refutation of these oft-repeated charges could be made than that given by Lincoln himself on this occasion. "The Judge charges me," he said, "with having, while in Congress, opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. I will tell you what he can ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... structure with the other bones. In both sexes one of these abnormal bones is situated on each branch of the coronal suture, and the male possesses an additional one placed more anteriorly, and occupying the middle of the frontal suture. The anomalous position of this appendage furnishes a complete refutation of the theory of Camper with regard to the unicorn, that such an occurrence was contrary to nature, and proves at least the possibility of the existence of such an animal. Professor Camper is an ass, of course; but when are we to expect any thing better from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... the connection of objects. And hence, Kant defines psychologically and logically a whole system of similar concepts. His "Critique of Pure Reason'' is intended historically and logically as the refutation of Hume's skepticism. It aims to show that not only metaphysics and natural science have for their basis "synthetic judgments a priori,'' but that mathematics also ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... owner must finish her letter, or it would miss the six o'clock post and not catch the mail; which would have, somehow, some disastrous result. Then said her mother's voice, she should have written it before. Then justification and refutation, and each voice said its say with a difference—more of expounding, explaining—with a result like in Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha's mountainous fugue, that one of them, Gwen's, stood out all the stiffer hence. No doubt you know your Browning. Gwen asserted herself ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the first accusation, we cannot do better than quote the words of the antiquary who has first brought both the calumnious charge and its refutation to light. "The general impression (p. 279) (says that writer) which exists respecting the character of Henry V, and especially whilst Prince of Wales, is so opposed to the idea that he could possibly be suspected of a pecuniary fraud, that it excites surprise that he should have been accused ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... late of Andover, some years ago published a very able essay in the "Christian Review," the title of which was, "Sin a Nature, and that Nature Guilt." This title is a sufficient refutation of the essay. A man could not utter a more palpable contradiction, if he said, "The sun solid, and that solid fluid," or, "The earth black, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... whim lies back of such a preposterous seclusion as that of Judge Ostrander behind his double fence. Sons do not cut loose from fathers or fathers from sons without good cause. You can see, then, that the peculiarities of their mutual history form but a poor foundation for any light refutation of this scandal, should it reach the public mind. Judge Ostrander knows this, and you know that he knows this; hence your distress. Have I ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... these principles had had the safety of Abraham Lincoln in his keeping; and these simple statements are the best refutation of the baseless assertions ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... his residence. Further, Haas considers the Herodotus mentioned by Galen[4] as a prominent physician in Rome, to have been the predecessor and master of Sextus, in whose place Sextus says that he is teaching.[5] Haas also thinks that Sextus' refutation of the identity of Pyrrhonism with Empiricism evidently refers to a paragraph in Galen's Subfiguratio Empirica,[6] which would be natural if the Hypotyposes were written shortly after Galen's Sub. Em., and in the same place. Further, Hippolytus, who wrote in or near ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... unformed and somewhat stilted style which he had not yet got rid of, and, with characteristic reticence, it deals only indirectly with the details of the experience through which he has passed, being in form a disquisition on the importance of personal religion, and a refutation of objections which might occur to his correspondent against making it the main ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... that even a great writer's creative activity usually finds not merely central realisation, but absolute exhaustion within the limits of some single work, to reason against it is futile, and length of time affords it the only satisfying refutation. One would think that it could scarcely require to be urged that creative impulse, once existent within a mind, can never wholly depart from it, but must remain to the end, dependent, perhaps, for its ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... MORALITY, consequently he should also be the first to PERCEIVE that error, not only because he has had longer and greater experience of the subject than any other thinker—all history is the experimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things:—the more important point is that Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue—i.e.: the reverse of the COWARDICE of the 'idealist' ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... ones who have slain themselves and who stagger proudly into graves (God deliver Himself from their caress!); to the religious ones who wage bloody and tireless wars upon all who do not share their fear of life (Ah, what is God but a despairing refutation of Man?); to the solemn and successful ones who gesture with courteous disdain from the depth of their ornamental coffins (we are all cadavers but let us refrain from congratulating each other too courteously on the fact); to the prim ones who find their ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... high ideals which he himself pursued and set before his students. For a whole generation success appeared to crown this work to which he brought all the fervour of missionary enterprise. He died full of years and honour in 1898, and one of his last efforts was an historical refutation of the Ottoman Sultan's claim to the Khalifate of Islam. He already realised the reactionary tendencies of the Pan-Islamic propaganda which Abdul Hamid was trying to spread into India. So great and enduring was the hold of Sir ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... that the mercantile profession is incapable of developing the element of greatness in the mind of man, find a perfect refutation in the career of the subject of this memoir, who won his immense fortune by the same traits which would have raised him to eminence as a statesman. It may be thought by some that he has no claim to a place in the list ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... world's affairs generally, I may say that here at home the most judicious opinion going as to the effects of present causes is that "time will show." As to the present causes of past effects, it is now seen that the late swindling telegrams account for the last year's cattle plague—which is a refutation of philosophy falsely so called, and justifies the compensation to the farmers. My own idea that a murrain will shortly break out in the commercial class, and that the cause will subsequently disclose itself in the ready sale of all rejected pictures, has been called an unsound use of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Catholic Church is an overt fact. What are the causes? A distorted vision, born of misrepresentation of facts and misrepresentation of doctrine and practice; the blind prejudice against which our refutation of facts and explanation of principles are of little avail: these are the two main causes to which can be traced this universal opposition. And indeed no one will tax us with exaggeration were we to repeat here ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... where I need your advice, I'll ask for it." But she made no move to investigate the contents of the promising pile upon the table, and without attempting to mask his umbrage, Joel withdrew his offended dignity to the porch. Even then, in splendid refutation of the theory that curiosity is the cardinal vice of her sex, Persis completed the task on which she was engaged before putting herself in a position to answer Joel's inquiry as to the identity of the correspondent using the stationery of ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Letter written by a Spanish Gentleman to his Friend in England in refutation of sundry Calumnies there falsely bruited among the People, 1589—An Advertisement written to a Secretarie of my Lord Treasurer of Ingland by an Inglish Intelligencer as he passed through Germanie towards Italie; also a Letter written by the Lord ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... insult on your virtue as well as your common sense. Your unanimity this day and through the course of the war is a decisive refutation of such invidious predictions. Our enemies have already had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom, and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and the Abbe de la Bleterie (Preface a l'Hist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32) wishes that some theologien philosophe (a strange centaur) would undertake the refutation of Julian.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... then informed of the mean attacks on Shakespeare which Horace had made in the church, and their complete refutation by the old ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... external conditions no longer fitted for their existence. It has been attempted by some to prove the adaptability of these animals to the present conditions of the northern hemisphere; but so untenable in every phase is this opinion, that it would be sheer waste of time and space to attempt its refutation. That they may have migrated northward and southward with the seasons is more than probable, though it has been stated that the remains diminish in size the farther north they are found; but that numerous herds of such ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... possibly have taken place. But this was only the mood of the moment, and even as a mood did not last more than a moment. And since it has reference to a rather common and a rather unjust conception of American journalism, I think it well to take it first as a fallacy to be refuted, though the refutation may require ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... in downright earnest upon the originator of the assertion, who, he considered, had no more than the amateur's knowledge of the subject. A plain statement of the facts was refutation enough. The new theories, he pointed out, had been widely discussed; they had been adopted by some geologists, although Darwin himself had not been converted, and after careful and prolonged re-examination ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... sure grasp on immortality, that great crowning miracle, the resurrection of our Lord, on which so much depended, which so many jealous eyes were watching, which was so early asserted on the very spot where it claims to have occurred—this M. Renan treats as unworthy serious refutation. It is not even necessary to try to disprove it. It is simply sufficient for him to mention 'the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene,' and to exclaim so beautifully!—'Divine power of love, sacred moments ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was watched, perhaps more closely than I imagined. It may be that spies were close about us, set by the jealous Philip, who desired confirmation or refutation of the things he had been told, the rumours that were gnawing ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... As a refutation to this experimental evidence is the practical experience of the inhabitants of the Island of Groix, off the Brittany coast, whose annual consumption of coffee is nearly 30 pounds per capita, being ingested both as the roasted bean and as an infusion. It is reported that many of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... think this no very hopeful inquiry. You may not unnaturally suppose that the attempt to solve such problems as these can lead to no result, save that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, incapable of refutation and of verification. ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... has been now said to prove that this particular case, from its very nature, furnishes the most abundant and powerful considerations and means for exciting the feelings; and it might be contended, without fear of refutation, that by the diligent and habitual use of those considerations and means, we might with confident expectation of success, engage in the work of raising our affections towards our blessed Saviour to a state of due force and activity. But, blessed be God, we have a ...
— 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
... only to flog his boys: and, rising into a poetic frenzy, applies to him the words of Virgil, "Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." Our great poet thought this senseless declamation merited a serious refutation; perhaps he did not wish to appear despicable in the eyes of the ladies; and he would not be silent on the subject, he says, lest any one should consider him as the credulous Spaniards are made to believe by their priests, that a heretic is a kind of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... strings to his lyre, had also many daylight moments. Mozart always sang them, and how blithely! No one, not Beethoven, not Raphael, not Goethe—to name three widely disparate men of genius—saw life as steadily as the Spaniard. He is a magnificent refutation of the madhouse doctors who swear to you that genius is a disease. Remember, too, that the limitations of Velasquez are clearly defined. Imagination was denied to him, asserts Beruete; he had neither the turbulent temperament of Rubens nor possessed the strained, harsh mysticism of El Greco—a painter ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... will know at what depths and heights of life these elements are truly operative. It will be American, not because its scene is laid or its characters born in the United States, but because its burden will be reaction against old tyrannies and exposure of new hypocrisies; a refutation of respectable falsehoods, and a proclamation of unsophisticated truths. Indeed, let us take heed and diligently improve our native talent, lest a day come when the Great American Novel make its appearance, but written in a foreign language, and by some author ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... a debate in the House, in which, on the authority of a Texas representative, charges of graft or waste were laid against persons concerned in the erection of this building which seemed incredible, but of which I was able to find no refutation. The hospital building is open to the same criticism, and another, which I believe is designed to be the laundry, had got no further, at the date of my arrival, than a square hole in the ground, and when I left had been furthered by a single course of stone or cement laid round the hole. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... superseded the determination of the Directors, in whom the law had vested the decision of that controversy. He is in this just as feeble as he is in every other part. But it is not necessary to say a word in refutation of any part of his argument. The mode of the proceeding sufficiently speaks the spirit of it. It is enough to fix his character as a judge, that he never heard the Directors in defence of their adjudication, nor either of the parties in support of their respective claims. It is sufficient ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the following opinion from a writer of great merit, I am inclined to afford room here, because it deserves refutation, and, I am persuaded, is not so well founded as the generality of the doctrines with which it is presented to the public. "Since human knowledge is so much more extensive than the opportunity of individuals for acquiring it, it becomes of the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... circulated in Bath, he had called upon an editor, requesting him to insert the said reports in his paper in order that he might write him a letter to refute them. The editor at once complied, the calumny was printed and published, but Sheridan forgot all about his own refutation, which was applied for in vain till ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... attributed to the Wild Bulls of Britain and of the European Continent. Let those who imagine that the influence of civilization, of care, and of judicious treatment, will alter the natural instincts of animals, look to this as a palpable refutation of their doctrine. Where is that boasted power of man over nature? Where the fruits of long-continued efforts and fostering protection? The Bos Scoticus is as untameable now as it was centuries ago, simply for this reason, ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... begun a series of articles in the papers on the rights of woman. Why, my dear sisters, the best possible advocacy which you can make is just what you are making day by day. Thousands hear you every week who have all their lives held that women must not speak in public. Such a practical refutation of the dogma which your speaking furnishes ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... followed. He had the gift which makes the mighty Radical, of diving down and seizing some fundamental truth of political science, and then employing it with merciless logic for the illustration or refutation of the practice of the present. The central idea here was one gathered from the political science of the Greeks. The good of the community is the only test of the rightness of an institution. It is justified if it secures that end, unjustified if ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... noted, Lyons had foreseen the American decision against Bunch on purely personal grounds, had been relieved that this would be the issue, and had fore-warned Russell. His despatch just cited may be regarded as a suggestion of the proper British refutation of charges, but with acceptance of the American decision. Nevertheless he wrote gloomily on the same day of future relations with the United States[381]. At the same time Russell, also foreseeing Seward's action, was not disturbed. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... these we must add, as one of the most valuable contributions to Leibnitian literature, M. Foucher de Careil's recent publication of certain MSS. of Leibnitz, found in the library at Hanover, containing strictures on Spinoza, (which the editor takes the liberty to call "Refutation Indite de Spinoza,")—"Sentiment de Worcester et de Locke sur les Ides,"— "Correspondance avec Foucher, Bayle et Fontenelle,"—"Reflexions sur l'Art de connatre les Homines,"—"Fragmens Divers," etc. [2], accompanied by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... accusation was grave enough to demand a refutation in Parliament, which Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell were ready to give as soon as the House ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... who pity and despise the minute analysis of external criticism hardly deserves refutation. There is only one argument for the legitimacy and honourable character of the obscure labours of erudition, but it is a decisive argument: it rests on their indispensability. No erudition, no history. "Non sunt contemnenda quasi parva," says St. ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; and touched by the humane sentiment there exhibited, as well as saddened by the doubt expressed respecting the intellect of the Negro, Banneker sent him a copy of his first almanac, accompanied by a letter which pleaded the cause of his race, and in itself, was a refutation of the charge that the Negro ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Paul, committed to writing the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the disciple of our Lord, the same that lay upon his bosom, also published the Gospel, whilst he was yet at Ephesus in Asia" (Quoted by Eusebius, bk. v., ch. 8, from 3rd bk. of "Refutation and Overthrow of False Doctrine," ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... strike helpless old age, or, having struck, could abscond without calling aid, actuated by terror, not by pity or repentance, was more than Dr. May could believe, and after brief musing, he broke out in indignant refutation. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arousing a suspicion of their inner temperament; were it not so, society would long ago have had its eyes opened to the amount of perverted sexuality it harbors." These lines were written, not in opposition to the more subtle distinctions pointed out above, but in refutation of the vulgar error which confuses the typical invert with the painted and petticoated creatures who appear in police-courts from time to time, and whose portraits are presented by Lombroso, Legludic, etc. On another occasion the same writer remarked, while expressing general agreement with the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the senses equally. For the sake of this, their prime office, the rest is many times forgotten or scorned, the tune is disordered and havoc played with the lineaments of the picture, because without these the word can still do its business. The refutation of those critics who, in their analysis of the power of literature, make much of music and picture, is contained in the most moving passages that have found utterance from man. Consider the intensity of a saying like that of St. ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... daughter, is mourning the long absence of her betrothed, Vasco di Gama the explorer. Her father, wishing to marry her to Don Pedro, the President of the Council, tries to persuade her that Vasco has perished by shipwreck; but the refutation of the story comes in the sudden appearance of Vasco himself, who is summoned before the Council and narrates to them his discovery of a strange land, producing two of the natives, Selika and Nelusko, as confirmations of his announcement. ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... perhaps as good a place as any other to notice one or two of James' most common misstatements; they really would not need refutation were it not that they have been reechoed, as usual, by almost every British historian of the war for the last 60 years. In the first place, James puts the number of the President's men at 475; she had 450. An exactly parallel reduction must often be made when he speaks ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... hear no refutation, persisting in the thought that his crime was unpardonable, since he had relapsed after the devil was cast out." During the present paroxysm, it was in vain to thwart him further; indeed their stay was attended with some hazard, of which, it seems, he felt aware, inasmuch as he drove them forth ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... on his heel, disgusted at this refutation of his theories. He was wretched and uncomfortable as he had never been before, and if it was not this intruding presence that made him so, what was it? Of course he was getting tired of her; what could be more natural? For fifteen years he had not known the pressure of a bond. Of ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... oats' theory are too tragically evident to need any argumentative refutation. The statistics of the prevalency of venereal diseases alone is sufficient; the results of these diseases are more ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... injustice, it is felt, would lie rather in not treating things so unequal unequally. This feeling may, in many cases, amuse the impartial observer, or make him indignant; yet it may, in every case, according to Mr. Russell, be absolutely just. The refutation he gives of egoism would not dissuade any fanatic from exterminating all his enemies with a good conscience; it would merely encourage him to assert that what he was ruthlessly establishing was the absolute good. Doubtless such ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... of course, imply, that the Swedish government, in making unreasonable conditions, had practically caused the breaking off of the negotiations, and even wished to bring about that result. As regards the former, an impartial examination of the Swedish final proposal is the best refutation. And as regards the latter, it may assuredly be affirmed, that there was no want of good will, on the part of Sweden, to come to a good understanding on the point, the last letter on the question written by Sweden is ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... expressed, bade me be of good cheer; "she never for a moment believed in my guilt; Lilian bore up wonderfully under so terrible a trial; it was an unspeakable comfort to both to receive the visits of a friend so attached to me, and so confident of a triumphant refutation of the hideous calumny under which I ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Countess's conduct proved a memorable refutation of cynical philosophy: she rejoiced in the good fortune of him who had offended her! Though he was not crushed and annihilated (as he deserved to be) by the wrong he had done, the great-hearted woman ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... publication gave me for the first time the means of refuting a vile slander which had been doing its deadly work in secret for nearly seventeen years. The following correspondence with General Grant shows the character of that slander, and its complete refutation: ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... still young: that he guessed, or rather fully grasped, that the only thing which Germans take seriously is—"the idea,"—that is to say, something obscure, uncertain, wonderful; that among Germans lucidity is an objection, logic a refutation. Schopenhauer rigorously pointed out the dishonesty of Hegel's and Schelling's age,—rigorously, but also unjustly, for he himself, the pessimistic old counterfeiter, was in no way more "honest" than his more famous contemporaries. But let us leave morality out of the question, Hegel is a matter ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... authorized to announce the reality of another life after this; and he might be removed into it without dying, as an evidence of the truth of his doctrine." The gross materialism of this supposition, and the failure of God's design which it implies, are a sufficient refutation of it. And, besides the utter unlikelihood of the thought, it is entirely destitute of support in the premises. One of the most curious of the many strange things to be found in Warburton's argument ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... memory of his early conflict with the Aristotelians at Pisa, of his scornful and successful refutation of their absurdities. All this made him specially obnoxious to the Aristotelian Jesuits in their double capacity both of priests and of philosophers, and they singled him out for ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... of Sociology is the most signal and brilliant refutation of the Great Man theory, no one man really killed that theory. The general spread and acceptance of Darwinism has produced an intellectual atmosphere in which such a theory can no more live than a fish can ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... For this purpose the minister now requested their excellencies to ask immediately the necessary instructions for their principals. The rest of this long memorial contained a justification of his Britannic majesty's conduct in deviating from the capitulation of Closter-Seven; with a refutation of the arguments adduced, and a retortion of the reproaches levelled against the king of England, in the paper or manifesto composed and published under the direction of the French ministry, and intituled, "A parallel of the conduct of the king of France with that of the king of England, relative ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... itself and needs no refutation; certainly not here, as P. Langen in his Plautinische Studien (Berliner Studien, 1886; pp. 90-91) has conclusively proved that the inconsistent is a feature absolutely germane to Plautine style, and has collected an overwhelming mass of ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... cannot reason in regard to them, ridicule is often the only weapon of successful attack. And it is no compliment to an American audience for the speaker to say that their own minds already suggest the refutation which these errors demand. If the chief end of man, for which boyhood should be a preparation, were to weed turnips or to frighten blackbirds from corn-fields, then surely the objection of Mr. Ball, and the complaint and spirit of resistance offered by Lord John ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... insisting that their genius, capital and enterprise had built up vast cities and opened for settlement and civilization the boundless prairies of the West. These claims have been persistently repeated by railroad men, though they are so preposterous that they scarcely deserve refutation. The railroad, gradually developed by active minds of the past, and greatly improved by the inventions of hundreds of men in the humbler walks of life, is the common inheritance of all mankind, though no class of people have derived greater benefits from it than railroad constructors, managers ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee |
