All 50 Uses of
contradict
in
War and Peace
- Militiamen and recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of war came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously interpreted.†
Chpt 5 *
- He did not like to agree with him in everything and felt a wish to contradict.†
Chpt 6
- The case is this: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand any contradiction and is becoming irritable.†
Chpt 6
- Rostov heard the story and not only said nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's enthusiasm but, on the contrary, looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no intention of contradicting it.†
Chpt 9
- On all these faces, as on the faces of the crowd Petya had seen in the Square, there was a striking contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook, Zinaida Dmitrievna's health, and so on.†
Chpt 9
- All the facts are in flat contradiction to such conjectures.†
Chpt 10
- In the French circle of Helene and Rumyantsev the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war were contradicted and all Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were discussed.†
Chpt 10
- He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.†
Chpt 10
- And all these proposals, based on strategics and tactics, contradict each other.†
Chpt 11
- In spite of Rostopchin's broadsheets, or because of them or independently of them, the strangest and most contradictory rumors were current in the town.†
Chpt 11
- …if she said a word about his not going to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending engagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the fatherland—something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there would be no contradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so, hoping to arrange to leave before then and take Petya with her as their protector and defender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called the count aside and implored him with tears to…†
Chpt 11
- Sonya, owing to the count's contradictory orders, lost her head and did not know what to do.†
Chpt 11
- "The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess, but as she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a contradiction of her words.†
Chpt 12
- This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers.†
Chpt 14
- But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French victories brought the French complete destruction, while the series of Russian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the liberation of their country.†
Chpt 14
- The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals, from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.†
Chpt 14
- All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.†
Chpt 14
- He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de Stael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried to prove anything to him.†
Chpt 15
- This Kutuzov who before the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after winning a battle was unprecedented.†
Chpt 15
- No one contradicted him.†
Chpt 15
- The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.†
Chpt 15
- He did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him—an apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that could lead to nothing—and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.†
Chpt 15
- And what is more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.†
Chpt 15
- But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the program his present accusers would have given him—of nationality,…†
Chpt 15
- She acted in contradiction to all those rules.†
Chpt 15
- Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.†
Chpt 15
- One might believe or disbelieve in the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that period, nor would there have been any contradictions.†
Chpt 15
- On the contrary it is a very mild expression of the contradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of separate states to the writers of general histories and the new histories of the culture of that period.†
Chpt 15
- As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently but often in quite contradictory ways.†
Chpt 15
- Besides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even in their statement as to the force on which the authority of some particular person was based.†
Chpt 15
- This curious contradiction is not accidental.†
Chpt 15
- Not only does it occur at every step, but the universal historians' accounts are all made up of a chain of such contradictions.†
Chpt 15
- This contradiction occurs because after entering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway.†
Chpt 15
- And that is just what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only contradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves.†
Chpt 15
- And that is just what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only contradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves.†
Chpt 15
- Speaking so, the historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show that the new force they have devised does not account for what happens in history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a power which they apparently do not recognize.†
Chpt 15
- Only then, as a result of the contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong.†
Chpt 15
- The universal historians give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of culture evade it and answer something quite different.†
Chpt 15
- Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the subjection of that man's will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions take a single step till it has chosen one of two things: either a return to the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing historical events and termed "power."†
Chpt 15
- Evidently the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually contradictory can only satisfy young children.†
Chpt 15
- But what this program consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually contradict one another.†
Chpt 15
- But not to mention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this program—or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions exists—the facts of history almost always contradict that theory.†
Chpt 15
- But not to mention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this program—or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions exists—the facts of history almost always contradict that theory.†
Chpt 15
- History shows us that these justifications of the events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England.†
Chpt 15
- All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of a solution of that question.†
Chpt 15
- In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.†
Chpt 15
- If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless contradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.†
Chpt 15
- History surveys a presentation of man's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already taken place.†
Chpt 15
- In actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly and definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory.†
Chpt 15
- Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions of the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone's action an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his walk, we are unconscious of any contradiction.†
Chpt 15
Definition:
-
(contradict) disagreein various senses, including:
- to say something is not true -- as in "She contradicted his testimony."
- to say something else is true when both can't be true -- as in "I don't believe her. She contradicted herself as she told us what happened."
- to be in conflict with -- as in "Her assertions contradict accepted scientific principles."