Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Contentions
Contentions fierce,
Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.
Scott.—Peveril of the Peak, Chap. XL., quoting “Albion.”
Contention bold, with iron lungs,
And Slander with her hundred tongues.
Ed. Moore.—Selim the Persian.
In this contention, it is difficult to say which party succeeded.
Fielding.—Joseph Andrews.
Contention is a hydra’s head; the more they strive the more they may: and as Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, brake it in pieces: but for that one he saw many more as bad in a moment.
Burton.—Anat. of Mel., Part II. Sec. 3. Mem. 7.
Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
In every fragment multiplies, and makes
A thousand images of one that was
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks.
Byron.—Childe Harold, Canto III. Stanza 33, Page 61.