Paul's attitude towards nepotism was at variance with his character as a reformer.

Further, since Socrates and the Socratics were educators, they too might be, and in general were, regarded as sophists; but, as they conceived truth - so far as it was attainable - rather than success in life, in the law court, in the assembly, or in debate, to be the right end of intellectual effort, they were at variance with their rivals, and are commonly ranked by historians, not with the sophists, who confessedly despaired of knowledge, but with the philosophers, who, however unavailingly, continued to seek it.

There are other sayings in the book that appear to be at variance with its fundamental thought.

The Renaissance closed the middle ages and opened the modern era, - not merely because the mental and moral ideas which then sprang into activity and owed their force in large measure to the revival of classical learning were opposed to medieval modes of thinking and feeling, but also because the political and international relations specific to it as an age were at variance with fundamental theories of the past.

z This account is at variance with the literary evidence and rests on that of the coins, as set forth by I.