"Cogent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arguments made a suitable impression on the young monarch, and a still deeper on his sister, the duchess of Beaujeu, who exercised great influence over him, and who believed her own soul in peril of eternal damnation by deferring the act of restoration any longer. The effect of this cogent reasoning was no doubt greatly enhanced by the reckless impatience of Charles, who calculated no cost in the prosecution of his chimerical enterprise. With these amicable dispositions an arrangement was at length concluded, and received the signatures of the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... to believe that you would, without some very cogent reason, violate all decorum by coming alone at dead of night two miles through a dreary stretch of hills and woods. Necessity sometimes sanctions an infraction of the rules of rigid propriety, and I am impatient to hear your defence ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... to Congress to be well founded in whole or in part, it is in the competency of Congress to offer her an indemnity for the surrender of that claim. In a case like this, surrounded, as it is, by many cogent considerations, all calling for amicable adjustment and immediate settlement, the Government of the United States would be justified, in my opinion, in allowing an indemnity to Texas, not unreasonable or extravagant, but fair, liberal, and awarded ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... and still more if you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one in it. I would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which I feel very strongly, and into the composition of which caprice or ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... enduring system of law and order not based on universal submission to personal rule, could be installed. Both the popular animus and the correlative coercive scheme of law and order are of historical growth. Both have been learned, acquired, and are in no cogent sense original with the German people. But both alike and conjointly have come out of a very protracted, exacting and consistent discipline of mastery and subjection, running virtually unbroken over the centuries that have passed since ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... quantity can neither be increased nor diminished, the forms under which Force expresses itself may be transmuted into each other. As yet this doctrine has not received complete scientific demonstration, but so numerous and so cogent are the arguments adduced in its behalf, that it stands in an imposing, almost in an authoritative attitude. Now, the Asiatic theory of emanation and absorption is seen to be in harmony with this grand idea. It does not hold that, at the conception of a human being, a soul is ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... care. To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost seem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... THE FUTURE ROLAND G. USHER The Diplomatic "The most cogent analysis of national prospects and Aspects possibilities any student of world politics has yet written."—Boston Herald. ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... every boy for miles around would feel at liberty to call upon her pupils and they would be simply besieged. She had conducted her school successfully for many years under its present methods and until she saw more cogent reasons for changing she should continue ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... itself was a work of the Ekanti (singularistic) Vai@s@navas, mentions the Brahma-sutras as having the same purport as its own, giving cogent reasons [Footnote ref 1]. Professor Jacobi in discussing the date of the philosophical sutras of the Hindus has shown that the references to Buddhism found in the Brahma-sutras are not with regard to the Vijnana-vada of Vasubandhu, but with regard to ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... his milk, and which has been embraced by an infinite number, shall take up an opinion held only by a few, condemned by all the schools, and really regarded as a great paradox, it cannot be doubted that he must have been induced, not to say driven, to embrace it by the most cogent arguments. On this account I have become very curious to penetrate to the very ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... No, Gentlemen, you are natural judges of the difficulties which beset us, and they are doubtless greater than I can even fancy or forbode. Let me, for the sake of argument, admit all you say against our enterprise, and a great deal more. Your proof of its intrinsic impossibility shall be to me as cogent as my own of its theological advisableness. Why, then, should I be so rash and perverse as to involve myself in trouble not properly mine? Why go out of my own place? Why so headstrong and reckless as to lay up for myself miscarriage ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... I ululate, dear my dearie, Coiled on a nastily mildewed tomb, When the horned owl hoots, and the world is weary, Weary of sorrow, and swamped in gloom? Childie my child, 'tis a cogent question; Dearie my dear, if you wish to know, Tis not that I suffer from indigestion, But that the ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... without the most cogent reasons that we assert our opinion, that the distich of Pope, "Worth makes the man," or the title appended by Colley Cibber to one of his dramas, "Love makes the man," ought henceforth to yield, in point of truth, to the irrefragable principle which we here solemnly advance, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... emergency and as a last resort. It will readily be seen, however, that the teacher's knowledge of the subject must be far more comprehensive in such a procedure than in the question-and-answer type of recitation, for the very cogent reason that the discussion is both liable and likely to diverge widely from the limits of the book; and the teacher must be conversant, therefore, with all the auxiliary facts. She must be able to cite authorities in case of need, and make specific ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... religious works are chiefly critical and controversial, and are written in a style of quiet and graceful simplicity, with great perspicacity of expression and perspicuity of thought. His "Scripture Testimony of the Messiah" is a wonderful monument of human learning and clear, candid, and cogent logic. It is the greatest standard work in the language, on "the Unitarian Controversy." When he retired from the direction of' the college at Homerton, where he trained many eminent men for the Christian ministry ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... On these cogent grounds I reiterate my well-founded solicitation, and feel the more confident of a favorable answer, as the welfare of my nephew alone guides ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... that the victories of Constantine the Great, and both the fear of punishment and the desire of pleasing the Roman emperors, were cogent reasons, in the view of whole nations as well as of individuals, for embracing the Christian religion. Yet no person well informed in the history of this period will ascribe the extension of Christianity wholly to these ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the Constitution—both as originally written and as amended. He argued that all born or naturalized Americans are citizens—that neither sex nor color has anything to do with citizenship rightfully. His reasoning seemed to us, who are interested, cogent and logical, and his spirit fearless and broad. Mrs. Stanton spoke on the general question with great force and pithiness. Of all their speakers she seemed to me to have the most weight. Her speeches ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... present day the preponderating tendency among scholars favours the traditional authorship. On the other hand the most recent scrutiny asserts: "Although many critics see no adequate reason for accepting the tradition which assigns the book to the Apostle John, and there are several cogent reasons to the contrary, they would hardly deny that nevertheless the volume is Johannine—in the sense that any historical element throughout its pages may be traced back directly or indirectly to that Apostle ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... fair-minded man can deny that a plausible constitutional case could be made out in favour of Secession, nor that the citizens of the Southern confederacy demonstrated their wish and determination to secede by far more cogent evidence than the return of eighty-six Secessionists to Congress. The prima facie arguments which may be alleged in favour of Secession were tenfold stronger—unfounded as I hold them to have been—than the prima facie ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... into account the large percentage of myopes among the deaf, we believe there are other cogent reasons why, if found practicable, the use of the sense of touch may become an important element in our eclectic system of teaching. We should reckon it of considerable importance if it were ascertained that a portion of the same work now performed by the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... of the details handed down to us, and would support the novel conclusion that those very miracles, which have been the stumbling block to so many truthful, earnest minds, may finally offer some very cogent arguments for the truth of the whole narrative. Is this then a line of thought which merits the wholesale condemnations and anathemas hurled at it by those who profess to speak in the name of religion? ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... necessary to mention the fact, that there were several very cogent passages in the first draught of the Declaration of Independence that were finally omitted. The one most pertinent to this ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... There is in all wrong-doing either ignorance, or temporary hallucination or blindness, and imprudence is but ignorance or delusion carried into action. Did we see clearly the certain bearings and consequences of actions, we should need no stronger dissuasive from all evil, no more cogent motive to every form of virtue. 2. There is no conceivable duty which may not be brought under the head of justice, either to God or to man; for our duties to ourselves are due to God who has ordained them, and to man whom we are the more able to benefit, the more ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... doctrine." Calhoun was a great debater, but hardly a great orator. His speeches are the arguments of a lawyer and a strict constitutionalist, severely logical, and with a sincere conviction in the soundness of his case. Their language is free from bad rhetoric; the reasoning is cogent, but there is an absence of emotion and imagination; they contain few quotable things, and no passages of commanding eloquence, such as strew the orations of Webster and Burke. They are not, in short, literature. Again, the speeches of Henry Clay, of Kentucky, the leader ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... not to be. Nevertheless, Catherine never showed more political wisdom than in this matter, and it was the one aim of her life in which she wholly failed. We have in the Legenda Minore a racy account of a personal interview with Gregory on the subject, in which she presented cogent considerations to him. She shrewdly suggested that the mercenary troops who ravaged Italy, and were "the very cause and nourishment of war," would gladly turn their arms against the infidel, "For there are few people so wicked ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... return home by way of Sempringham. She could not have given any very cogent reason, except that she wished to see the place where the only peaceful days of her mother's life had been passed. Perhaps peace might there come to her also; and she was far enough from it now. It would have been strange indeed if peace had ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... the higher controversial criticism. Its literary style is good, its controversial manner excellent, and its writer's emphasis does not escape in italics and notes of exclamation, but is all reserved for lucid and cogent reasoning. Altogether a book of an excellent spirit, written with ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... Edmund Spenser," capable of writing such a poem as Thealma and Clearchus, should have kept his talents so concealed, that in an age of commendatory verses no slightest contemporary record of him exists—is, to say the least, extraordinary. There are cogent arguments then on both sides of the question, and there is very little positive proof on either: so we must be content to leave the matter in some doubt ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... his crisp military voice, "His Majesty, and all England, are greatly pleased at the work of the South Atlantic fleet. In the report of our recent victory, the commander of the Panther had an extremely cogent reason to commend very heartily the action of a former officer of this vessel. To be exact and fair, it was an act upon which the safety of this vessel and her ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... military laws and regulations were equally cogent. In the late act of the Assembly for raising a regiment, it was provided that, in cases of emergency, if recruits should not offer in sufficient number, the militia might be drafted to supply the deficiencies, but only to serve ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Indeed, it was not usual for him to raise his voice in council, but as he had been the first to carry the important news, and was known to be an ardent admirer and pupil of Ujarak, he felt that he was bound to back his patron; and his arguments, though not cogent, prevailed. ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... Places of Islam. In other words they ask for nothing more than what was guaranteed by Mr. Lloyd George and on the strength of which guarantee Mahomedan soldiers split their blood on behalf of the Allied Powers. All the elaborate argument therefore and the cogent reasoning of the above extract fall to pieces based as they are upon a case that has never existed. I have thrown myself heart and soul into this question because British pledges abstract justice, and religious ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." No one will deny that this has reference to his coming at the end of the Jewish age. Now would it not be doing injustice to this powerful and cogent reasoner to say, that he suddenly drops this subject without giving his brethren any warning, and runs off to the end of time, speaks of another coming of' Christ at which he is to raise, at the same instant, all ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... to which he opposed the Calvinistic tenet of particular and personal predestination; in defence of which indefensible notion he found himself more at a loss than he expected. Edward Burrough said not much to him upon it, though what he said was close and cogent; but James Naylor interposing, handled the subject with so much perspicuity and clear demonstration, that his reasoning seemed to be irresistible; and so I suppose my father found it, which made him willing to drop ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... 1787, volcanic outbursts on the dark side of the moon. The persistent recurrence, indeed, of similar appearances under circumstances less amenable to explanation inclined Webb to the view that effusions of native light actually occur.[929] More cogent proofs must, however, be adduced before a fact so intrinsically improbable ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... follow as a necessary consequence that an epileptic patient cannot possibly fall down in a fit so long as he carries a piece of mistletoe in his pocket or a decoction of mistletoe in his stomach. Such a train of reasoning would probably be regarded even now as cogent by a large portion of the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... about this fact to a greater degree. Consequently a distinction proceeding on this ground seemed more imperative and more definitive then than is the case to-day. As a fact in the sequence of development, therefore, the distinction is a substantial one and rests on sufficiently valid and cogent grounds. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... strong arm of the military power of the United States, will be requisite to stay the encroachments of our people, whose love of adventure and whose thirst for gain, will carry them among the Indians, unless arrested by more cogent considerations than a sense of duty, or the prohibitions of the ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... doubt that the Morrison was daft. Stewart did not even raise his eyes from the book; he kept on dictating above the clatter of the rolling weights; his intentness on the matter in hand was that of a business man putting a proposition on paper for the purpose of making it definite and cogent and clear. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion. Then, indeed, our intuitions and our reason work together, and great world-ruling systems, like that of the Buddhist or of the Catholic philosophy, may grow up. Our impulsive ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... which may have been proposed or contemplated would be extremely impolitic; for this might have a pernicious influence on future negotiations, or produce immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and mischief to other persons. The necessity of such caution and secrecy was one cogent reason for vesting the power of making treaties in the President, with the advice and consent of the senate, the principle on which that body was formed confining it to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... nurses no doubt had cogent reasons for failing to apply for Navy commissions, but the fact that only one applied called attention to a phenomenon that first appeared about 1946. Black Americans were beginning to ignore the Navy. Attempts by black reserve ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... arguments on the other side are equally cogent, and so much more alluring! And they are used by the same man with reference to the same passion, and are intended by him to put himself right in his conduct in reference to the same dear girl. Only the former line of thoughts occurred to him on a Saturday, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Even this cogent reasoning failed in provoking Cosway to reply. He took Stone's hat, and handed it with the utmost politeness to his foreboding friend. "There's only one remedy for such a state of mind as yours," he said. "Come to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... suffer by their injustice, at least take care that he had first shown his contempt of their yoke? For himself, he should certainly never have embraced his present calling, had he not been stimulated to it by these cogent and irresistible reasons; and he hoped, as experience had so forcibly brought a conviction of this sort to my mind, that he should for the future have the happiness to associate me to his pursuits.—It will presently ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the time is fast hastening when woman will be accorded the exercise of the right your association demands. With that secured, many other advantages, now denied, will surely and speedily follow. I can see no valid objection to the right of suffrage being conferred, while there are many and very cogent reasons in favor of it. As has been said, you may go on election day to the most degraded elector you can find at the polls, who would sell his vote for a dollar or a dram, and ask him what he would ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... on such a basis that I shall not need to shore it up with props and buttresses, leaning on borrowed or begged foundations: or at least, if mine prove a castle in the air, I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece and hang together. Wherein I warn the reader not to expect undeniable cogent demonstrations, unless I may be allowed the privilege, not seldom assumed by others, to take my principles for granted; and then, I doubt not, but I can demonstrate too. All that I shall say for the principles I proceed on is, that I can only appeal to men's own ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... departed wise one had believed that the Red One came from out of the starry night, else why—so his argument had run—had the old and forgotten ones passed his name down as the Star-Born? Bassett could not but recognize something cogent in such argument. But Ngurn affirmed the long years of his long life, wherein he had gazed upon many starry nights, yet never had he found a star on grass land or in jungle depth—and he had looked for them. True, he ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... half—a—dozen steps, heels over head, until he lay sprawling on the manger or mule—trough before the door, where the Ceases are fed under busha's own eye on all estates—for this excellent and most cogent reason, that otherwise the maize or guinea—com, belonging of right to poor mulo, would generally go towards improving the condition, not of the quadruped, but of the biped quashiet who had charge of him—and there he lay ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... value of this dualism is composed of what may be called reality, quality, spirit, or substance against the lower value of form, quantity, or manner. Of these terms "substance" seems to us the most appropriate, cogent, and comprehensive for the higher and "manner" for the under-value. Substance in a human-art-quality suggests the body of a conviction which has its birth in the spiritual consciousness, whose youth is nourished in the moral consciousness, ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... astonishment. They seemed by no means to relish this foretaste of what was before them. Mine, in particular, had conceived a moral aversion to the prairie life. One of them, christened Hendrick, an animal whose strength and hardihood were his only merits, and who yielded to nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with an indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his wrongs with a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian lineage, stood with his head drooping ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... neglected to be used. Gratified resentment and the certainty of plunder, were held up to view as present consequences of this measure; and the expulsion of the whites, and the repossession, by the Natives, of the country from which their fathers had been ejected, as its ultimate result.—Less cogent motives might have enlisted them on the side of Great Britain. These were too strong to be resisted by them, and too powerful to be counteracted by any course of conduct, which the colonies could observe towards ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... later pope but at that time Dean of Saint Peter's and professor of theology, have forthwith undertaken to get him a professorship? Erasmus declined the offer, however, 'for certain reasons,' he says. Considering his great distress, the reasons must have been cogent indeed. One of them which he mentioned is not very clear to us: 'I am here so near to Dutch tongues which know how to hurt much, it is true, but have not learned to profit any one'. His spirit of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... doctor had to spend weeks, sometimes months or years interviewing a patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort the relevancies from the vast amount of chaff. We are able now, with the help of the serum, to confine our discourses to matters cogent to the ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... will esteem it as given to himself; and pledges his sacred word that he will reward our alms with an eternity of bliss. Such motives, says St. Chrysostom, would be sufficient to touch a heart of stone: but there is something still more cogent, continues the same holy father, which is, that the same Jesus Christ, whom we refuse to nourish in the persons of the poor, feeds our souls with his precious body and blood. If such considerations move ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the matter in abeyance for maturer deliberation; but promises that, unless he sees cogent reasons to the contrary, he may grant a pardon when eighteen months of the sentence have expired. That will be the last week in August, and almost two years since she was thrown into prison. I should have made application to his predecessor, Glenbeigh, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... thought, it owes its influential reappearance to certain evolutionary hypotheses of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, which in turn stimulated Mr. John Fiske to that further inquiry which resulted in those first cogent and extended statements of the doctrine which have been the basis of so many subsequent ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... the deepest moment; but still apparently thinking how he can declaim like a practised rhetorician in the London Cockpit, which he used to frequent. Yet you must, at the same time, imagine his declamation to be chaste and precise in its language and cogent, logical and learned in its argument, free from the artifice and affectation of his manner, and in short, opposite to what you might fairly have expected from his first appearance and tones. And when you have compounded these inconsistencies in your imagination, and united qualities which on ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... of Conrad's essential modernity I should like to propose a more cogent comparison, and a more illuminating contrast, with a man whose achievements were in Conrad's own province, who challenges ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... one federal government, vested with sufficient powers for all general and national purposes. The more attentively I consider and investigate the reasons which appear to have given birth to this opinion, the more I become convinced that they are cogent and conclusive. Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their SAFETY seems to be the first. The SAFETY of the people doubtless has relation to a great variety ...
— The Federalist Papers
... sure as I am of myself, though he has more cogent reasons," answered Florizel, "but sure enough to bring him here without alarm. He has had enough to cure the most tenacious man of life. He was cashiered the other day ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to show that the Holy Scriptures have been of any benefit, or have rendered any aid, to woman in her efforts to obtain her rights in either the social, the business, or the political world; and unless she is able to present stronger or more cogent reasons to justify that conclusion than any which are therein specified, I shall be compelled to adhere to my present conviction, which is, that this book always has been, and is at present, one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the emancipation and ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... upon the earth, and sobbed, audibly even at the spot where I was standing. I was in doubt whether to wait longer or to proceed; my way lay just by him, and it might be dangerous to interrupt so substantial an apparition. However, my curiosity was excited, and my feet were half frozen, two cogent reasons for proceeding; and, to say truth, I was never very much frightened by any thing ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no virtue in itself in mere themal interrelation,—in particular of lesser phrases. One cogent theme may well prevail as text of the whole. As the recurring motives are multiplied, they must lose individual moment. The listener's grasp becomes more difficult, until there is at best a mystic maze, a sweet chaos, without a clear melodic thought. It ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... however too far to retreat. He had too much spirit to resume either of those professions, which for reasons so cogent in his opinion, he had already quitted. He wrote essays, squibs, and pamphlets for an extemporary support. But though these were finished with infinite rapidity, he found that they constituted a very precarious means of subsistence. The time of dinner often came, before ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... privilege to be a stamp officer in those stormy hours. Most of the stamp officers were forced to resign under pressure which they might well be excused for finding sufficiently cogent. In order to make the new law a dead letter the colonists resolved that while it was in force they would avoid using stamps by substituting arbitration for any kind of legal procedure. With a people in this temper, there were only two things to be done; to meet their wishes, or to annihilate ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... End. His muscular height made those about him look puny. He was red in the face with the excitement of abusing Mutimer's enemies, and looked as if nothing would please him better than to second words with arguments more cogent. He and those about him hailed the agitator's appearance with three ringing cheers. A little later came a supporter whom Richard had not expected to see—Mr. Westlake. Only this morning intelligence of what was going ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... messages from and to the Front. It is as full of departmental offices as Whitehall itself—some 153 of them to be exact—each one indicated by a combination of initial letters, for staff officers are men of few words and cogent, and it saves time to say "O." when you mean Operations, "I." for Intelligence, "A.G." for Adjutant-General; a fashion which is faithfully followed at the other H.Q., for D.A.A.Q.M.G. saves ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?—I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us like ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... strength on the conviction and esteem they establish in the heads and hearts of their people. The reasons which lead parents to limit their offspring are sometimes selfish, but more often honorable and cogent." ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... had other reasons, some of them very cogent in his own estimation at least, for desiring my presence somewhere in the Eastern States; and the West Point "detail" was the only way in which that could be readily brought about. He had just been restored, or was about to be, to the actual command of the army, after having ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... retreat at times from the vanities of the world, which else might cling to me too closely, since I have been promoted to be peer-spiritual of your forest-court. For, indeed, I do find in myself certain indications and admonitions that my day has past its noon; and none more cogent than this: that daily of bad wine I grow more intolerant, and of good wine have a keener and more fastidious relish. There is no surer symptom of receding years. The ferryman is my faithful varlet. I send him on some pious errand, that I ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... Blinkhampton in a state of intellectual satisfaction marred by a sense of emotional emptiness. He had been very active, very energetic, very successful. He had new and cogent evidence of his power, not merely to start but to go ahead on his own account. This was the good side. But he discovered and tried to rebuke in himself a feeling that he had so far wasted the time in that he had seen nobody and nothing beautiful. Men of affairs had no concern with a feeling like ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... to hear the Leader of the Opposition say, in a concise and cogent sentence, that he could easily conceive many sweated trades in which the wages of the workers could be substantially raised without any other change except a diminution of price. Sir, the wages of a sweated worker bear ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... over. I had all the points on Mrs. Maroney that I wanted. I could see that there was some cogent reason for Maroney's marrying Mrs. Irvin. He wanted to place her where she would tell no stories. There were only two ways to do this. Maroney, the thief, had either to murder his mistress, or to make her his wife. I could see plainly ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... sign this salute over the sea, And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism, But remember the little voice that I heard wailing—and wait with perfect trust, no matter how long; And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeathed cause, as for all lands, And I send these words to Paris with my love, And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them, For I guess there is latent music yet in France—floods of it. O I hear already the bustle of instruments—they ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... at Passage Regatta, and mainly because .Mr Willett, whom nobody cared to cashier—he had been Treasurer for so many years,—had as a rule imbibed so much beer in the course of the forenoon that any one argument appeared to him as cogent as any other. He seemed, in fact, to delight in hearing a case from every point of view; and by consequence it could be securely predicted of any given race in Passage Regatta that "You had never lost ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... evanescence of the special claims of all. Nor can we find any sharp and defined line of argument to convince them that they are wrong. The objections, however, to which this position is open are, I think, none the less cogent because they are somewhat general; and to all practical men, conversant with life and history, it must be plain that the necessity of doing God's will being granted, it is a most anxious and earnest question whether that will has not been in some special ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... the commodore and madame, the first mate, the twins, Ramsey, and the committee of seven—who, we shall see, were not taking discomfiture meekly—were scarlet threads in the story's swiftly weaving fabric—cogent reasons, themselves, why these two ladies had helped vote Ramsey to the seat ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... States. The ancient Athenians, during their contest with Philip of Macedon, considered the question of the supplies from the Bosphorus etc. as one of life and death. But this can be looked upon only as a cogent proof of the small development which their commercial talents had received at the time. How easily might they not, according to our ideas, have obtained corn from Sicily ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... lawyer then went on with his heated protest, as it might be called far more properly than an argument, to the length of nearly an hour. The calm, manly, and cogent reply of his opponent occupied far less time, but obtained far more favor with the sitting magistrates; who, after a short consultation among themselves, unanimously decided to hear the proposed evidence, and thereupon ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... was long supposed to be Henry the Third of England, and this would suggest that she lived in the thirteenth century. An early scholar, the Abbe de La Rue, in fact, said that this was "undoubtedly" the case, giving cogent reasons in support of his contention. But modern scholarship, in the person of Gaston Paris, has decided that the King was Henry the Second, of pious memory; the Count, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, his natural son by Fair ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... ships were fated to be lucky or unlucky, either because they were launched on a Friday, or that their keel was laid on a Friday, or that they were cursed when building or when about to sail, or had a Jonas on board, or for some other equally cogent reason. I always found that a bad captain and master and a careless crew was the Jonas most to be dreaded, and that to ill-fit and ill-find a ship was the worst curse which could be bestowed on her. I should have been considered a great heretic if I had publicly expressed such opinions ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... do not claim, of course, to furnish a mathematical and final refutation. But the refutation which we draw from the consideration of real time, and which is, in our opinion, the only refutation possible, becomes the more rigorous and cogent the more frankly the evolutionist hypothesis is assumed. We must dwell a good deal more on this point. But let us first show more clearly the notion of life to ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... studies.] and some of Op. 25; and these works prove decisively the inconclusiveness of the lady's argument. The twelfth study of Op. 10 (composed in September, 1831) invalidates all she says about fire, passion, and rushing torrents. In fact, no cogent reason can be given why the works mentioned by her should not be the outcome of unaided development.[FOONOTE: That is to say, development not aided in the way indicated by Miss Ramann. Development can never ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... said Emerson, "but they have not Faith and Hope. I know no two words whose meaning is more lost sight of. We use these words as if they were as obsolete as Selah. And yet they have the broadest meaning and the most cogent application. The opening of the spiritual senses," continues Emerson, "disposes men even to greater sacrifices, to leave their signal talents, their means and skill of procuring a present success, their power and their fame,—to ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... part of her journey Betty busied herself with reading over Mr. Blake's two letters and the lengthy replies that the editors had composed. These last were as totally unlike as their writers, and Betty thought that none of them hit the point so well as Madeline's suggestions, and none was so cogent as the plea that Eleanor and Jim between them had unconsciously made; but they might all help. From Mr. Blake's two letters she decided that he must be a very queer sort of person, and she devoutly hoped that his conversational style would be less obscure ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... for the accommodation of the public, but the real objects of which are too frequently the advancement of private interests. The known necessity which so many of the States will be under to impose taxes for the payment of the interest on their debts furnishes an additional and very cogent reason why the Federal Governments should refrain from creating a national debt, by which the people would be exposed to double taxation for a similar object. We possess within ourselves ample resources for every emergency, and we may be quite sure that our citizens in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... writer dare tell in our English tongue the consequences of evicting the denizens of a genuine rookery for the purpose of substituting improvements; and I know only one French writer who would be bold enough to furnish cogent details to any civilised community. But, for argument's sake, let me suppose that your "rooks" are transferred from their nests to your model dwellings. I shall allow you to do all that philanthropy can dictate; I shall grant ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the elective will, on advertence and consultation with reason, to decide whether or not it shall be won to consent. But were it not for the channel of passion, this will could never have been approached at all even by reasons the most cogent. Rhetoric often succeeds, where mere dry logic would have been thrown away. God help vast numbers of the human race, if their wills were approachable only through their reasons! ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... practice is apostolical which cannot be proved from the writings of these apostolical fathers: that would be a fallacy of an opposite kind. I ground my inference specifically and directly on the fact, that these writers are full, and copious, and explicit, and cogent on the nature and duty of prayer and supplications, as well for public as for private blessings; and of intercessions by one Christian for another, and for the whole race of mankind no less than for mercy on himself; and yet though openings ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... serene hill-tops of thought, to awaken sublime sensations in all present such as the spectacle of some noble mountain panorama will summon up in the meditations of the most phlegmatic. Mr. Churchill, ever lucid, ever cogent, ever earnest, ever forceful, was wont to be so convincing that he would almost cause listeners to forget for the moment that, were the particular project which just then happened to be uppermost in his mind to be carried into execution, any small hopes ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... between Brutus and his page (IV, iii); but in the main it is great, not through its power to elicit sympathetic tears, but through its dignity and grandeur. It is one of the stateliest of tragedies, lofty in language, majestic in movement, logical and cogent in thought. We can never mourn for Brutus and Portia as we do for Romeo and Juliet, or for Lear and Cordelia; but we feel that we have breathed in their company an air which is keen and bracing, and have caught ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... respect to the bill before me. The arguments urged in those communications against the repeal of the election laws and against the right of Congress to deprive the Executive of that separate and independent discretion and judgment which the Constitution confers and requires are equally cogent in opposition to this bill. This measure leaves the powers and duties of the supervisors of elections untouched. The compensation of those officers is provided for under permanent laws, and no liability for which ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... of the deliberate development of the unreasoning faculties were much more cogent. But here they depart from the principles on which they justify their study of hypothetics; for they base the importance which they assign to hypothetics upon the fact of their being a preparation ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the only way of dealing with this attitude was to adopt some means of forcing the enemy to sea and compelling him to expose himself to the decision we sought. The most cogent means at hand was to threaten his commerce. Instead, therefore, of attempting to seek out his fleet directly, our own would sit upon the fairway of his homeward-bound trade, either on the Dogger Bank or elsewhere, thereby setting up a situation ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... lawyer's appearance. A great natural superiority of intellect, an apt and complete study of his subject, ample readiness and subtlety of statement, these you expect; but not a certain direct and cogent candour, which appears to be, and which indeed is, utterly unaffected. The success of Mr. Hope-Scott with Parliamentary committees is, I have always thought, due to the fact that he unites the qualities of a great ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... relics. The fact that he unfortunately set himself the task of combating the theory of evolution, which was fast gaining ground in his day, should not blind us to the high value of his geological experiences. The results of his observations provide some of the most cogent proofs of the theory he disputed. Late in life Miller's mind gave way, and he put an end to his own ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... Seward through all the stages of his political career were aware that, great as he was in public speech, in the Senate, at the Bar, before popular assemblies, cogent and powerful as he had so often proved with his pen, his one peculiar gift, greater perhaps than any other with which he was endowed, was his faculty, in personal intercourse with one man or with a small number of men, of enforcing his own views and taking captive his hearers. With the President ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion; as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?" And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent, "What does it signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us?" The materials of their clothes are, in general, good and plain, and most of them are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it, the last gigot, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... greatest books, it is doubtful how much immediate influence they had. Certainly in the New York convention itself Hamilton's personal influence was a stronger force. His arguments were both eloquent and cogent, and met every objection; and his efforts to win over the opposition were unremitting. The news which came by express riders from New Hampshire and then from Virginia were also deciding factors, for New York could not afford to remain out of the new Union if it was to embrace States on ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... friends, in creating our womankind the Maker of us all was beyond doubt actuated by laudable and cogent reasons; so that I can merely lament my inability to fathom these reasons. I shall obey the Queen faithfully, since if I did otherwise Sire Edward would have my head off within a day of his return. In consequence, I do not consider it convenient to oppose his vicar. To-morrow I shall assemble ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... great interest the manuscript of your pamphlet. Very many of us who have daily to do with the problems and perplexities of our social life and to give counsel to the anxious or the penitent or the perturbed will thank you for these clear and cogent chapters. To arguments based on moral and religious principle you add the weight of ripe experience and of technical scientific knowledge. Your words will gain access to the commonsense of many who would perhaps regard ...
— Conception Control and Its Effects on the Individual and the Nation • Florence E. Barrett
... since the published controversy on the subject in the nineties between Herbert Spencer and myself. I should like to return to the matter in detail, if the space at my disposal permitted, because it seems to me that the arguments I advanced at that time are equally cogent to-day, notwithstanding all the objections that have since been urged against them. Moreover, the matter is by no means one of subordinate interest; it is the very kernel of the whole question of the reality ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... the Colonies from the Crown,' he did not believe that one per cent. of the people would adopt it. He believed that the people of England felt a deep attachment to their Empire, and that not a barren rock over which the flag of England had ever waved would be abandoned by them without a cogent and sufficient reason. Every argument used in support of the necessity of giving up the Provinces, which lay within eight days of our own shores, would apply with equal force in the case of Ireland, if the people of the United States chose ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... "No, my lord; only Nathaniel—not Daniel at all." Irascibly, the Judge's, "What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?" Shamefaced and yet irritably, "I didn't, my lord." "You did, sir!"—with great indignation, topped by this cogent reasoning,—"How could I have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?" Nothing at all was said about it in the Reading; but, again and again, Mr. Winkle, as there impersonated, while endeavouring to feign an easiness of manner, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... paper or whisper a sentence to him. Apprehending its bearings at a glance, he would take the bare fact and so shape and develop it, like a potter molding a bowl on the wheel out of a lump of clay, that it grew into a cogent argument or a happy illustration under the eye of the audience, and seemed all the more telling because it had not been originally a part of his case. Even in the last two years of his parliamentary life, when his sight had so failed that he read nothing, ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... again insisted upon its observance, during the governorship of Don Fernando de Silva, and later during that of Don Juan Nio de Tabora—who, recognizing that the motives that influenced their predecessors were more cogent than before, because of the greater decline in which they found that commerce, the poverty of the inhabitants, and the loss in their business, conformed to the earlier decisions. Licentiate Don Francisco de Roxas put forth ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... were confined strictly to the female parent, and the procreative instinct were the legitimate inheritance of the male only, we could never hope for a perfect sexual union, for the very cogent reason that the love of the male would never equal that of the female, since our ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... futile effort to recover some of the property stolen from them, had rendered inevitable the continuance and constant extension of the strife all through the five generations of Dutch rule, and furnished cogent precedent for like action afterwards,[7] After 1652, Colonists of the baser sort kept arriving in cargoes, and gradually the Netherlands Company allowed persons not of their own nation to land and settle under severe fiscal and other restrictions. ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... who entered Parliament in 1813, always said that the first Lord Plunket was, on the whole, the finest speaker he had ever heard, because he combined a most cogent logic with a most moving eloquence; and these gifts descended to Plunket's grandson, now Lord Rathmore, and, in the days of which I am speaking, Mr. David Plunket, Member for the University of Dublin. Voice, manner, diction, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... herself; but as Orestes instantaneously rushes on her with the bloody sword, her courage fails her, and, most affectingly, she holds up to him the breast at which she had suckled him. Hesitating in his purpose, he asks the counsel of Pylades, who in a few lines exhorts him by the most cogent reasons to persist; after a brief dialogue of accusation and defence, he pursues her into the house to slay her beside the body of Aegisthus. In a solemn ode the chorus exults in the consummated retribution. The doors of the palace are thrown open, and disclose ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... favorites, partly as the weaker side, partly as conquerors against odds, and partly because their demand for independence was thought too natural to be resisted at the sword's point by a Government founded on the right of insurrection only. To these merely sentimental and not very cogent considerations was added the more potent and weighty reflection that what the Southerners had done no Power, whether American or European, could ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... recalling. When I started out it was quite settled in the back of my mind that I must not leave Rawdon's. I simply wanted to abuse my employer to Parload. But I talked myself quite out of touch with all the cogent reasons there were for sticking to my place, and I got home that night irrevocably committed to a spirited—not to say a ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... great river, whose source had been traced south of the Equator, and 2000 miles beyond the limits of the Pharaohs' dominions. Nor was the desire diminished when, without sharing the gratification of the Prince in whose name he acted, General Gordon advanced cogent reasons for establishing a line of communication from Gondokoro, across the territory of Mtesa, with the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. As Gordon pointed out, that place was nearly 1,100 miles from Khartoum, and only 900 from Mombasa, while the advance to the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and was commanding the Rev. Philip Stimcoe to strip—as he put it—to the teeth, and immerse himself forthwith. As the Rev. Philip Stimcoe, patriot and martyr, he was obstinately, and with even more passion, refusing to do anything of the kind, and for the equally cogent reasons that he was a Protestant of the Protestants and that the water had ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... this reasoning seemed, at first, to produce little effect. But to those just behind it appeared more cogent, seconded as it was by a consuming curiosity. Moreover, the masses in the rear were rolling down, and their pressure presently became irresistible. All at once the front ranks realized that they ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... based is this: that except as to those things which pertain to State unity and those which are in their nature common to the whole county, it is right that each small community should regulate its own local matters without interference." It was this sentiment to which popular sovereignty made a cogent appeal. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Doctor's charges would be paid by the county; otherwise I should be responsible for the amount. I then went out to see the grave-diggers, and used such convincing arguments that they willingly agreed to disinter the body. My arguments were brief, but cogent, and were presented to them about in the ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... projects, extolled the delights of an autumnal tour with his wife and mother-in-law before returning to Holland; in short, was so plausible in his arguments, so specious and pressing, pleading so eloquently the violence of his love and inutility of delay, and overruling objections with such cogent reasoning, that he achieved a complete triumph, and it was agreed that in one week Van Haubitz should lead his adored Emilie to the hymeneal altar. In the interval, he would have abundant time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... subjugated the Helots, if the latter had not previously been inured to slavery. The objection to this hypothesis—that the Helots could scarcely have so hated the Spartans if they had merely changed masters, does not appear to me very cogent. Under the mild and paternal chiefs of the Homeric age [145], they might have been subjected to a much gentler servitude. Accustomed to the manners and habits of their Achaean lords, they might have half forgotten ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... But we are far from approving of it as a substitute for death. In the first place, it is equally irrevocable; and it is one, and perhaps the most cogent argument against death-punishment, that it admits of no recall in case of error, no remission or compensation in the event of sentence having been passed upon an innocent man. Our author, indeed, seems to think otherwise; for he reckons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... individuals. The official exposition of British "Liberalism" to-day still wriggles unstably because of these conflicting constituents, but on the whole the Whig strand now seems the weaker. The contemporary Liberal politician offers cogent criticism upon the brutality and conceit of modern imperialisms, but that seems to be the limit of his service. Taking what they do not say and do not propose as an indication of Liberal intentions, it would seem that the ideal of the British ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... corner-stone; and the superstructure is friendship, protecting kindness, gratitude, and all the moral sentiments by which self-interest is liberalized. Such is Party, looked at on the favourable side. Cogent moral inducements, therefore, exist for the prevalence of two powerful bodies in the practice of the State, spreading their influence and interests throughout the country; and, on political considerations, it is desirable that the strength of each should bear such proportion to that of the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Fossell across the counter a number of plausible reasons why his pay should be handed to him as usual. He knew all the while that his arguments were sophistical and radically unsound; but he trusted that he was making them cogent. (Why is it that in dreams we feel no remorse for our sins, but only a terror lest we be found out? I cannot tell; but the best men and women of my acquaintance agree that it is so.) Mr. Fossell preserved an impassive, inscrutable face; but ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... is the very condition of the possibility of Progress, it is obvious that the idea would be valueless if there were any cogent reasons for supposing that the time at the disposal of humanity is likely to reach a limit in the near future. If there were good cause for believing that the earth would be uninhabitable in A.D. 2000 or 2100 the doctrine of Progress would lose its meaning ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... give in; you might have a fall, and I know that I should feel obliged to stop, and I am in a hurry. If that reason does not strike you as a cogent one, I am sorry, for to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... slippery roads. The men, too, unused to campaigning on the frontier, would not be able to endure a winter in the wilderness, with no better shelter than a tent; especially in their present condition, destitute of almost every thing. Such are a few of the cogent reasons urged by Washington in a letter to his friend William Fairfax, then in the House of Burgesses, which no doubt was shown to Governor Dinwiddie, and probably had an effect in causing the rash project ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... interests of several new and neighbouring nations. If the measure is new and without precedent, so is the situation of the parties to it. That the purposes of the meeting are somewhat indefinite, far from being an objection to it is among the cogent reasons for its adoption. It is not the establishment of principles of intercourse with one, but with seven or eight nations at once. That before they have had the means of exchanging ideas and communicating with one another ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... took place April 11 and her charm, culture and cogent reasoning won many friends to the cause and disarmed many of its opponents. Branch organizations were soon formed in the northern and southern parts of the city with Mrs. Atlanta Hecker and Miss Cecilia Razovsky as presidents. Meetings ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... bungalows to smoke and gamble. They have fabulous riches in diamonds, pearls, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. They love Malacca, and take a pride in beautifying it. They have fashioned their dwellings upon the model of those in Canton, but whereas cogent reasons compel the rich Chinaman at home to conceal the evidences of his wealth, he glories in displaying it under the security of British rule. The upper class of the Chinese merchants live in immense houses within walled ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... "fast" conduct might lend itself to scandalous rumors, and was altogether unbecoming in a religious. The nun smiled, and protested that she was ready to obey her superiors' orders in every particular, as all good Catholics and good religious are bound to do, but slyly insinuated the following cogent argument: "Does not Your Lordship think, however, that, since our convent lives partly on the reputation of this famous breed of trotters, it is hardly for the credit of the house that its representative ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... had an uncle who lived near Charleston, in South Carolina, whose daughter was to pass the summer with Melissa, and was expected to arrive before the appointed day. It would, he said, be a delicate point for him to request her to anticipate the nuptials, unless he could give some cogent reasons for so doing; and at present he was not apprised that any such existed. His father, after a few moments hesitation, answered, "I have reasons, which, when told"—here he stopped, suddenly arose, hastily walked the room in much visible ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... very spot, prayed her to be reasonable? She had yielded then. Mr. Roscorla's arguments were incontrovertible, and she had shrinkingly accepted the inevitable conclusion. Now, young Trelyon's representations and pleadings were far less cogent, but how strongly her heart went ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... romance and the drama the presence, the cogent and undeniable power of those same abiding elements of mysticism and mystery, which underlie all human experience, and repeated in myriad forms find their classic expression in the queries of the "Weird Sisters," ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... a balcony surrounded by her lords and ladies, and there received the diplomatists, speaking at length to the French Envoy in a tone of lightness and elusive cheerfulness which he was at a loss to understand and tried in vain to pierce by cogent remarks bearing on matters of moment involved in his embassage. Not far away stood Leicester, but the Queen had done no more than note his presence by a glance, and now and again with ostentatious emphasis she spoke to Angele, whom she had had brought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... vicinity of Bostam or Damghan that I should incline to place this landmark. If no one very cogent reason points to this, a variety of minor ones do so; such as the direction of the traveller's journey from Kerman through Kuh Banan; the apparent vicinity of a great Ismailite fortress, as will be noticed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... they reveal a glow and fervour of conviction that places them high among the memorials of the human spirit, do I recognise anything which is beyond human possibilities. I observe, indeed, that St Paul's method of argument is not always perfectly consistent, nor his conclusions absolutely cogent. Such inspiration as they contain they draw from their nearness to and their close apprehension of the dim and awe-inspiring ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... falsehoods so publicly, and so undeniably exposed. The former will, I presume, next year, employ an hundred thousand men, to answer the accusation; and if the Empress of the two Russias is pleased to argue in the same cogent manner, their logic will be too strong for all the King of Prussia's rhetoric. I well remember the treaty so often referred to in those pieces, between the two Empresses, in 1746. The King was strongly ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... I can see no reason why Mohammed and his Bedouins in the desert should not have made the same observation as the Vedic poets in India, though I must admit at the same time that Colebrooke has brought forward very cogent arguments to prove that, in their scientific employment at least, the Arabic Manzil were really borrowed from ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... Most cogent to our purpose is a text, described for the first time by Wiedemann,[20] in which al-Biruni explains how a special train of gearing may be used to show the revolutions of the sun and moon at their relative rates and to demonstrate the changing phase of the moon, features of fundamental importance ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... of the Child, Ch. I. Hirth (Wege zur Heimat, p. 526) is likewise opposed to the encouragement of abortion, though he would not actually punish the pregnant woman who induces abortion. I would especially call attention to an able and cogent article by Anna Pappritz ("Die Vernichtung des Keimenden Lebens," Sexual-Probleme, July, 1909) who argues that the woman is not the sole guardian of the embryo she bears, and that it is not in the interests of society, nor even in her own interests, that she should be free ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with the person to whom poverty can do no more is so pleasant and possible that I marvel it does not occur more frequently. I am prepared to believe on the very lightest assurance that these things do happen, but are hushed up for reasons which would be cogent enough if ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... his speech could hardly make much impression, but it appears to-day an extraordinarily clear, strong, upright presentment of the complex and unpopular case against the war. His other long speech is elevated above buffoonery by a brief, cogent, and earnest passage on the same theme, but it was a frank piece of clowning on a licensed occasion. It was the fashion for the House when its own dissolution and a Presidential election were both imminent to have a sort of rhetorical scrimmage in which members on both ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... extensively practiced, both at that school and at the two others I afterward attended. The boys often talked about the hygiene of it; and the general theory was that it was somehow physically detrimental; but I heard no arguments advanced sufficiently cogent to make me see the necessity for a real moral effort against the habit, though, as I neared puberty, I was indulging more ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... remember it is as we sometimes throw away noble ore, for lack of skill to separate it from a base alloy. As regards the nightmare anomaly of perfect art arisen in times of moral corruption, those unconscious analogies I have spoken of, and which perhaps are our most cogent reasons, have taught us that such anomalies are but nightmares and horrid delusions. For, taking the phenomenon historically, we shall see that although art has arisen in periods of stress and change, and therefore of moral anarchy, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... secure the prey which the terror of the other might cause him to drop. It was simply to punish the prowler. Poor William could not exactly tell indeed why he wished to shoot Alfred Stevens; but his cause of hostility was not less cogent because it had no name. The thousand little details which induce our prejudices in regard to persons, are, singly, worth no one's thought, and would possibly provoke the contempt of all; but like the myriad threads which ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Ah, mon Dieu! That touched one's heart! One must try to be very pleasant to that so lonely young man! And that so lonely young man was extended mead and balm in the shape of invitations to very smart affairs. To some of which he found, at the last minute, he couldn't go, for the simple and cogent reason that Checkleigh or Stocks had appropriated his ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... very mien and aspect (often their language) can only be speculated on: all this reappears, takes precision and certainty. But is not this a mere creation, like that of art or of systematic metaphysics? What struck me as the only certainty among these admirable cogent arguments was that the once tank of Juturna, round whose double springs Rome must have arisen to drink and worship, this sacred and healing water where the Dioscuri watered their steeds after Lake Regillus, has been ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... been whipped by the rebels, but it follows with arithmetical certainty that if we keep on fighting long enough we will whip them in time. Let x equal time and y equal opportunity. Then when x and y come together we shall have x plus y which will equal success. Does my logic seem cogent to you, Mr. Big Shoulders ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... State, we strongly petitioned it for an enlargement of our civil rights and for the ballot. Mrs. Elizabeth L. Saxon was indefatigable in her efforts, and went before the Convention in person and plead our cause. But the majority of the members thought there were cogent reasons for not granting our petitions; but they made women eligible to all school offices—an indication that Louisiana will not be the last State in the Union to deny women their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... is built differently from any other; we get the plans by erecting the structure. In the realm of character it is houses rather than architecture we need. Build but one hour's conduct squarely on the plain, cogent teachings of the man of Nazareth and you will serve the world better than if you gave a lifetime to the ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... into ripples of the air. Only he was irritated and alarmed by the abiding sense of some surrounding danger, which stayed with him, which he fought against in vain. His common sense had not deserted him. On the contrary, it was argumentative, cogent in explanation and in rebuke. It strove to sneer his distress down with stinging epithets, and shot arrows of laughter against his aimless fears. But the combat was, nevertheless, tamely unequal. Common sense was routed by this enigmatic enemy, and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "arbitrarily asserted" to exist by Professor Semper, he is again presuming on the ignorance of his readers. Professor Semper's agencies are in no way more undemonstrable than Mr. Darwin's are. Mr. Darwin was perfectly cogent as long as he stuck to Lamarck's demonstration; his arguments were sound as long as they were Lamarck's, or developments of, and riders upon, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and almost incredibly ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... or military posts; to say nothing of the still readier plan for securing their fidelity (a plan already talked of in all quarters) by exacting a large body of hostages selected from the families of the most influential 30 nobles. On these cogent considerations, it was solemnly determined that this terrific experiment should be made in the next year of the tiger, which happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771. With respect to the month, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... speaker Thomas Shipley was clear, cogent, sometimes eloquent, and always impressive. He never attempted oratorical effect, or studied harangues. He generally spoke extemporaneously, on the spur of the occasion, and what he said came warm from the heart. It was the simple and unadorned expression of his sentiments ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Mexico subsequent to the war with that country, received from Mexico not merely a cession of the territory that was claimed by Texas, but much that lay beyond the asserted limits. Shall we, then, acting simply as the cogent of Texas in the settlement of this question of boundary, take from the principal for whom we act that territory which belongs to her, to which we asserted her title against Mexico, and appropriate it to ourselves? Why, sir, it would be a violation of justice, and of a principle ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... go to some borough where the people have no voice; or who, not relishing the prospect, do not go to face their former constituents, but go at once to some borough, and there take a seat, which, by cogent arguments, no doubt, some one has been prevailed on to go out of to make way for them? What will even the impudence of the most prostituted knaves of hired writers find to say in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... being; others believed him an inspired champion, transported in the body from some distant climate, to show us the way to safety; others, again, concluded that he was a recluse, who, either from motives of piety, or other cogent reasons, had become a dweller in the wilderness, and shunned the face ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... while Snap on the right hand and Puss on the other put up their paws towards a morsel which she held out of the reach of both—Snap occasionally desisting in order to remonstrate with the cat by a cogent worrying growl on the greediness and futility of her conduct; till Eppie relented, caressed them both, and divided the morsel ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... cogent, they should be proposed and insisted on separately; if weak, it will be best to collect them into a body. In the first case, being persuasive by themselves, it would be improper to obscure them by the confusion of others: they should appear in their due light. In the second case, ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... with any show of probability, ascribed, been really the author, such author would have had no reason for disowning the book, or remaining incognito. Any one of them but Burke would have claimed the authorship and fame—and proud fame. But Burke had a very cogent reason for remaining incognito. In claiming Junius he would have claimed his own condemnation and dishonour, for Burke died a pensioner. Burke was, moreover, the only pensioner who had the commanding talent displayed in the writings of Junius. Now, when I lay ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... giving an open and public testimony of our adherence to the covenants, national and solemn league, that we should labor to attain a suitable frame, and serious consideration of the weightiness, solemnity, and awfulness of the work we were then undertaking: enforcing the same by several cogent motives, as namely, because in renewing these covenants we are called to remember our baptismal and personal vows, whereby we had renounced the devil, the world and the flesh, and devoted ourselves to the Lord to be his people; which if they were ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery |
