At the sentiment behind this filial act nobody could cavil, for a policeman's best friend is admittedly his mother,
P. G. Wodehouse. The Girl in Blue, p.65 (1971)
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I mean not to cavil with you, as one loving sophistry : neither to control you, as one having superiority, the one would bring my talk into the suspicion of fraud, the other convince me of folly.
John Lyly. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578)
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His chief contribution to science was his studies of the electron and his monumental work on the "Identification of Matter and Energy," wherein he established, beyond cavil and for all time, that the ultimate unit of matter and the ultimate unit of force were identical.
Jack London. The Iron Heel
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“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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It is human to seek out what hurts us and then at once to seek to get rid of it. The statements that are capable of so relieving us seem quite naturally true, we are not inclined to cavil at a sedative that acts.