"Disputable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there'll be no difficulty in my proving this relationship. I have evidence upon evidence of the fact right in this room with me; evidence much more convincing and far less disputable than this surprising twin can bring forward if her identity is questioned. Georgian had a twin sister, but she was buried years ago. I was never buried. I simply did not return from a well-known and dangerous voyage. The struggle I had for life—you cannot ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... for me rather than for you? The hypothesis is very disputable. You are the elder; you, therefore, would be the first to be thought of. Besides, I do ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... during the past month we at Xerxes Naval Base have been working on exactly that problem. We have a very considerable interest in having the classification of this planet established, and we also feel that this may not be the last time a question of disputable sapience may arise. I believe, your Honors, that we have approached such a definition. However, before we begin discussing it, I would like the court's permission to present a demonstration which may be of help in ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... that it should be transmitted. But with all deference be it spoken, I do not conceive that a Report of a Committee of the Council in England is hitherto a law in either kingdom; and until any point is determined to be a law, it remains disputable by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... as well as a less disputable proof of solar radiative intensity than any mere estimates of temperature, was provided in some experiments made by Professor Langley in 1878.[724] Using means of unquestioned validity, he found the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... most important, after all, to human beings in our disputable state, what is that higher prudence which was to be the aim and issue ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... various casualties which befel Pizarro's squadron is, for the most part, composed from intercepted letters; though, indeed, the relation of the insurrection of Orellana and his followers is founded on rather a less disputable authority; for it was taken from the mouths of an English gentleman then on board Pizarro, who often conversed with Pizarro; and it was, upon enquiry, confirmed in its principal circumstances by others who were in the ship ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... be disputable whether in order to draw a living Madonna, one needs to know how many ribs she has; but it would have seemed indisputable that in order to draw a skeleton, one must know how many ribs ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald's. ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... observed that for the first day or two they did not quit their fears, but suspected the gentleness of their usage to be only preparatory to some unthought-of calamity. However, being confirmed by time, they grew perfectly easy in their situation and remarkably cheerful, so that it was often disputable whether or no they considered their being detained by us as a misfortune. For the youth I have above mentioned, who was near two months on board us, had at last so far conquered his melancholy surmises, and had taken such an affection to Mr. Anson, and seemed ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... qualify you for giving it: penetration, skill and understanding, however amply you possess them, are not sufficient to fit you for the charge; something still more is requisite, you must be invested with fuller powers, you must have a right less disputable, and a title, that not alone, inclination, not even judgment alone must sanctify, but which law must enforce, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... is within him, that he may strive to mend; he must be taught what is without him, that he may be kind to others. It can never be wrong to tell him the truth; for, in his disputable state, weaving as he goes his theory of life, steering himself, cheering or reproving others, all facts are of the first importance to his conduct; and even if a fact shall discourage or corrupt him, it is still best that he should know it; for it is in this world as it is, and not in a world ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Earl of Richmond overcame and slew King Richard III., and was hailed as King on the field of victory. But the destruction of Richard, an indubitable usurper and tyrant, was only the first step in establishing a title to the throne as disputable as ever a monarch put forward. To establish that title, however, was the primary necessity not merely for Henry himself, but in the general interest; which demanded a secure government after ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... things which I confess I do not understand, is the proclamation of neutrality. This has always appeared to me as an assumption on the part of the executive not warranted by the Constitution. But passing this over, as a disputable case, and considering it only as political, the consequence has been that of sustaining the losses of war, without the balance of reprisals. When the profession of neutrality, on the part of America, was answered by hostilities on the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... not had time to die which vouch for the dealer who sells it. In my time matters were rather different. The painters we throve by had died long enough ago for pedigrees to get confused, and identities disputable; and if I had been desirous of really purchasing a genuine Old Master for myself—speaking as a practical man—I don't know where I should have gone to ask for one, or whose judgment I could have safely relied on to guard me from being cheated, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... Service, with the Prayer for the King in't, would give one a little satisfaction as to the Doctors present opinion, for what he has been, if you will but examine and scan it by his Book, tho it be a Reforming Book, is I am sure very disputable; in one Page of it he seems very zealous for the Protestant Reformation, and says, being very much piqu'd at Sir John Brute's putting on a Clergy-man's Habit in the Provok'd Wife, that the Church of England, he means the Men in her, is ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... It would be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city: a history which, in spite of the labor of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable outline,—barred with brightness and shade, like the far away edge of her own ocean, where the surf and the sand-bank are mingled with the sky. The inquiries in which we have to engage will hardly render this outline clearer, but their results will, ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... a quarter of a million; and Belgium, if we like, at one hundred thousand—though the Belgian service being still in a state of transition, and the degree of training very varied within it, that minor point is disputable. Indeed it is better, in taking a general survey, to consider only ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... the finest and most poetical philosophy. I think they owe it to their affiliation to the oldest philosophies. There are many disputable things in Edouard Schure, but what remains is the divination which made him climb through all doctrine to the infinitely distant Source of ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... madame! when affairs of interest are concerned, which are more or less disputable, it is perfectly useless to speak of them without the documents ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue |
