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Infallible   Listen
adjective
Infallible  adj.  
1.
Not fallible; not capable of erring; entirely exempt from liability to mistake; unerring; inerrable.
2.
Not liable to fail, deceive, or disappoint; indubitable; sure; certain; as, infallible evidence; infallible success; an infallible remedy. "To whom also he showed himself alive, after his passion, by many infallible proofs."
3.
(R. C. Ch.) Incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals. See Papal infallibility, under Infallibility.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Infallible" Quotes from Famous Books



... disputed even in the Roman Catholic Church itself, and the infallibility of the Pope was only decreed so recently as the Vatican Council in 1870. It was always agreed that where the Pope and Bishops were unanimous they were infallible, and their unanimity might be expressed either in a general council, or in a decree of a local council tacitly accepted by the Pope and the rest of the Church, or even in a decree of the Pope alone if the bishops either expressly or tacitly ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... and you refuse to weigh the argument, to listen to the reason, to yield to the persuasion. You are hard, and opinionated, and obstinate. You set up your individual judgment against the verdict of the world and deem it infallible. You are hard to yourself, and cruelly hard to me, for, as there is a God in heaven, I believe you love me, even as I love you. Oh, my love! my love!" his voice melted, his arms closed around her. "Why ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... boys' jackets, and braid straw, and bleach and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend, could upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default of a doctor, who was often miles away, were supposed to be infallible medical oracles. Many a human being had been ushered into life under their auspices,—trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their knees, clothed by their handiwork in garments gradually enlarging from year to year, watched by them in the last sickness, and ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... punished—a day in which the poems of Homer might once more be read, the immortal statues of the Greek sculptors find worshippers, and the demonstrations of Euclid a consenting intellect. But that unfortunate, that audacious policy of usurpation once entered upon, there was no going back. He who is infallible must needs be immutable. In its very nature the action implied compulsion, compulsion implied the possession of power, and the whole policy insured an explosion the moment that the means of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... These animals in their undomesticated state, judging from a widely-spread analogy, would have been in some degree sterile if intercrossed; and such sterility will be admitted as almost certain by all those who believe that the lessened fertility of crossed forms is an infallible criterion of specific distinctness. Anyhow these animals keep distinct in the countries which they inhabit in common. On the other hand, all domestic dogs, which are here supposed to be descended {31} from several distinct species, are, as far as is known, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... that the repayments are ultimately derived from the consumers of the commodities produced by the associations; they form, of course, a part of the cost of production, and must necessarily be covered by the price of the product. That this shall take place fully and universally is ensured with infallible certainty by the free mobilisation of labour. A production in which these repayments were not completely covered by the price of the commodities produced would fail to attract labour until the diminished supply of the commodities had produced ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... be a miner accustomed to 'hydraulicking' in California or British Columbia, Australia or South Africa. I hope that the work will not be placed in inexperienced hands, whose blunders of ignorance will give the invaluable and infallible process a ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... neither the whole of this view, nor yet to be excluded from it. I concur not therefore with Dr. Campbell, who, to make out a strong case, extravagantly says, "It is never from an attention to etymology, which would frequently mislead us, but from custom, the only infallible guide in this matter, that the meanings of words in present use must be learnt."—Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 188. Jamieson too, with an implicitness little to be commended, takes this passage from Campbell; and, with no other change than that of "learnt" to "learned" publishes ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun, Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery, And prove their doctrine orthodox, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... not been witnessed for ages: and yet recently, in the eruption of 1798, the crater remained quite inactive. Its bottom did not sink in; while at Vesuvius, as M. von Buch has observed, the greater or less depth of the crater is an infallible indication of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... gain'd the Victory. She never went about to think, how she should escape, because she knew it would be easy, the keeping of the Key of the Monastery, [was] often intrusted in her keeping, and was, by turns, in the hands of many more, whose Virtue and Discretion was Infallible, and out of Doubt; besides, her Aunt being the Lady Abbess, she had greater privilege than the rest; so that she had no more to do, she thought, than to acquaint Henault with her Design, as soon as she should get an opportunity. Which was not quickly; but, in the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... prophet expel the priest, there will be no discipline and no cohesion. Still, at the present time, the greatest need seems to be that we should return to the fundamentals of spiritual religion. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that both the old seats of authority, the infallible Church and the infallible book, are fiercely assailed, and that our faith needs reinforcements. These can only come from the depths of the religious consciousness itself; and if summoned from thence, they will ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... black miles.... Every now and then he thinks back over his shoulder, thinks back over his long roaring, yellow trail of souls. He laughs bitterly at sleep, at the men with tickets, at the way the men with tickets believe in him. He knows (he grips his hand on the lever) he is not infallible. Once ... twice ... he might have ... he almost.... Then suddenly there is a flash ahead ... he sets his teeth, he reaches out with his soul ... masters it, he strains himself up to his infallibility again ... all those people there ... ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... that is always the case," he answered. "'Duge the Infallible' I heard a stockbroker ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... after having been for over twenty-five years in the editorial chair, Edward Bok was by no means infallible in his judgment of what the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... Albemarle wearing one. In the picture of the House of Commons in the time of Sir Robert Walpole we get an excellent indication of how popular the periwig was amongst the lawmakers of the land. Farquhar, in a comedy called "Love and a Bottle," brought out in 1698, says, "A full wig is imagined to be as infallible a token of ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews

... had done before, marked the other neighbours' houses in the same place and manner. The robber, at his return to his company, valued himself much on the precaution he had taken, which he looked upon as an infallible way of distinguishing Ali Baba's house from the others; and the captain and all of them thought it must succeed. They conveyed themselves into the town with the same precaution as before; but when the robber and his captain came to the street, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... discussed by John Adams, Josiah Quincy, and other eminent men. Over these meetings Samuel Adams presided as moderator; a man clear in judgment, calm in conduct, inflexible in resolution; deeply grounded in civil and political history, and infallible on all points ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... cook anywhere? The dories sang about him and his food. Was a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told at full length. Had a man hooked tobacco from a mess-mate? He was named in meeting; the name tossed from roller to roller. Disko's infallible judgments, Long Jack's market-boat that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart (oh, but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad luck with dory-anchors, Salter's views on manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue ashore, and Harvey's ladylike handling of the oar—all ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... signs—sui generis—are what make the harlot, the robber, the murderer, the ticket-of-leave man, so easily recognizable by their foes, the spy and the police, to whom they are as game to the sportsman: they have a gait, a manner, a complexion, a look, a color, a smell—in short, infallible marks about them. Hence the highly-developed art of disguise which the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... much as hers when they asked her to their dinners and dances, or to spend a week with them in the country. In her way, she was as independent as was Carroll in his, and as she was not in love, as he was, her life was not narrowed down to but one ideal. But she was not so young as to consider herself infallible, and she had one excellent friend on whom she was dependent for advice and to whose directions she submitted implicitly. This was Lady Gower, the only person to whom Helen had spoken of Carroll and of his great feeling for her. Lady Gower, ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... necessary guide. Though every action be 'the work of a Kami.' yet each man has within him the power to discern the righteous impulse from the unrighteous, the influence of the good deity from that of the evil. No moral teacher is so infallible as one's own heart. 'To have learned that there is no way (michi),'[5] says Motowori, 'to be learned and practiced, is really to have learned the Way of the Gods.' [6] And Hirata writes: 'If you desire to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... comparatively straight line. It is, or seems to be, a consciousness of direction that is as unerring as the magnetic needle. Reason, calculation, and judgment err, but these primary instincts of the animal seem almost infallible. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... came to know that this new species of creatures were liable to such imperfection, is best explain'd by the Devil's prying, vigilant disposition, judging or leading him to judge by himself; (for he was as near being infallible as any of God's creatures had been) and then inclining him to try whether it was ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... this most civilized branch of the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal points ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... practices.[75] He wrote to the secretary of the Protector asking him to inform his master of the lack of good shepherds in Ireland "to illuminate the hearts of the flock of Christ with His most true and infallible word," taking care at the same time to recommend the Protector to appoint the clergymen who had been brought over from England to vacant bishoprics, so that the public funds might be relieved by the withdrawal of their pensions. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... last days, and grew abundantly also about the banks of the river; but, in general, a belt of the POLYGONUM JUNCEUM, about 400 or 500 yards wide, grew between the immediate margin and the grassy plains. This shrub was found an infallible guide to the vicinity of the river, when, as sometimes happened, other lines of trees, resembling those on its banks, had led me to a distance from it. The day was cool and rather cloudy, a great novelty to us; for every day had been clear and ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... voice as to the military skill which she displayed in these repeated operations. The reader sees her, with her banner, posted in the middle of the fight, guiding her men with a sort of infallible instinct which adds force to her absolute quick perception of every difficulty and advantage, the unhesitating promptitude, attending like so many servants upon the inspiration which is the soul of all. These ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... yourself being the object of their action. The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls?—I doubt it, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... returned. Some time after this, I was informed that the British fleet in the Mediterranean was affected with this disorder; that one-tenth, or more, of the crews of our ships had laboured under it; and, on my return to England, I was urged to represent to His Majesty's ministers, that I had an infallible remedy for the disorder. I was referred to Doctor Harness, of the Transport Board. I waited on the Doctor, and afterwards corresponded with him. He appeared very desirous of knowing the remedy; but he was not at liberty to grant me any remuneration for it. I, however, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... the suffrages of all classes may be offered in favour of souls in purgatory, there are some days especially privileged and set apart in the calendar for the purpose, with this note affixed to them, dia de anima (Soul-day), and on which the effect of the suffrage is supposed to be infallible; that is to say, that each devout person draws out as many souls from purgatory as pieces of money which he draws out of his purse to pay for the like number of masses, or other acts of devotion to be performed. On those days, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... long grey beard and bald head. He was clad in a suit of grey, with a blue hood, and his muscular body was enveloped in a wide blue mantle flecked with grey—an emblem of the sky with its fleecy clouds. In his hand Odin generally carried the infallible spear Gungnir, which was so sacred that an oath sworn upon its point could never be broken, and on his finger or arm he wore the marvellous ring, Draupnir, the emblem of fruitfulness, precious beyond compare. When seated ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... Theo was not altogether candid: else how to account for a phrase in one of Madam Esmond's letters, who said: "I am glad to hear the powders have done the dear child good. They are, if not on a first, on a second or third application, almost infallible, and have been the blessed means of relieving many persons round me, both infants and adults, white and coloured. I send my grandson an Indian bow and arrows. Shall these old eyes never behold him at Castlewood, I wonder, and is Sir George so busy with his books and his politics that he can't afford ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... latest parted thence, His features poised in genial armistice 220 And armed neutrality of self-defence Beneath the forehead's walled preeminence, While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach, Settles off-hand our human how and whence; The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears The infallible strategy of volunteers Making through Nature's walls its easy breach, And seems to learn where he alone could teach. Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills As he our fireside were, our light and heat, 230 Centre ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... kinship. He envied the purple-nosed old cab-drivers on the stand, the boot-black boys at the edge of the pavement, the two large bobbies pacing slowly along the Tower Gardens railings in the consciousness of their infallible might, and the bright scarlet sentries walking smartly to and fro before the Mint. He envied them their places in the scheme of world's labour. And he envied also the miserable sallow, thin-faced loafers ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... places. Some of our common oaks bear their leaves green all winter; but they are generally pollards, and such as are shelter'd in warm corners and hedge rows. To speak then particularly of oaks, and generally of all other trees of the same kind, (by some infallible characters) notice should be taken of the manner of their spreading, stature and growth, shape and size of the acorn, whether single or in clusters, the length or shortness of the stalks, roundness of the cup, breadth, narrowness, shape, and indentures of the leaf; and so of the bark, Trachys, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... par, young men superior either in talents or in diligence to the mass. It is said, I know, that examinations in Latin, in Greek, and in mathematics, are no tests of what men will prove to be in life. I am perfectly aware that they are not infallible tests: but that they are tests I confidently maintain. Look at every walk of life, at this House, at the other House, at the Bar, at the Bench, at the Church, and see whether it be not true that those who attain high distinction in the world were generally men who were distinguished ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... life was pitiless, strong enough to take his treasures out of his hands, and to thrust him out of the room; otherwise, how could he go with any faith to death; otherwise, he would have felt the helpless disillusion of a youth who finds his infallible parents weaker than himself. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... penetrate not the fog, the tempest. They do not perceive the signs of the times—cannot embrace the horizon of the nation. And thus his small intellectual insight is dimmed by those around him. Lincoln begins now already to believe that he is infallible; that he is ahead of the people, and frets that the people may remain behind. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... are not infallible; and if it met with any accident there was delay at both ends, and more ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... in spite of all the restraints imposed on it by morality and decency, is always breaking loose before one can be aware of it. If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the infallible and inexhaustible source of the ludicrous is the same ungovernable impulses of sensuality in collision with higher duties; or cowardice, childish vanity, loquacity, gulosity, laziness, &c. Hence, in the weakness of old age, amorousness is the more laughable, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... announcement, implies a new hero,—and if we come upon a plain family-party, when fondly hoping for an introduction to some distinguished stranger, we may be excused for thinking ourselves hardly treated. Is it so infallible a sign of superiority, moreover, to speak constantly in riddles? This Sphinx-like style is eminently characteristic of Mr. Linden. Then again, our authors have been too ambitious. They laboriously assert ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... the heart beats unusually strongly, the natural appetite abates, and the woman has a craving after strange food. The neck of the womb is contracted, so that it can scarcely be felt when the finger is put in. And the following is an infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits and melancholy; the monthly courses cease without any apparent cause, the evacuations from the bowels are retained unusually long, by the womb pressing on the large gut, and her desire for sexual ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... are scattered at intervals over the entire region where it is certain that Babylon anciently stood, and between the "heaps" the soil is in many places composed of fragments of pottery and bricks, and deeply impregnated with nitre, infallible indications of its having once been covered with buildings. As the traveller descends southward from Baghdad he finds these indications increase, until, on nearing the Euphrates, a few miles beyond Mohawil, he notes that they have become continuous, and finds himself in a region of mounds, some ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... partridge clamouring on the left when he commenced a foray was a certain presage of success to a Mina. Similarly, Mr. Kennedy notes that the finding of a dried goatskin, either whole or in pieces, among the effects of a suspected criminal is said to be an infallible indication of his identity as a Mina, the flesh of the goat's tongue being indispensable in connection with the taking of omens. In Jaipur the Minas were employed as guards, as a method of protection against their fellows, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... something about him that seemed to belie a first guess at his age. His face was emaciated; his hair was white and hung in straggling masses on his shoulders; his hooked nose bore apparently the infallible stamp of extreme age. Yet there was a strange and uncanny strength and quickness in his movements. There was no stoop to his shoulders. His head was set squarely. His eyes were as keen as steel. It would have been impossible to have ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... have settled the question so cavalierly, if people had not discovered an infallible method of estimating accurately, and always in the same manner, the degree of warmth, in other words, the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... whole of the present facts are the infallible result of the whole of the past, so that if the prior state of the entire universe could recur it would be followed by the present, the process of ascertaining the relations of cause and effect is an analysis or resolution of this complex uniformity ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing

... first presentation, resemble [D—H resembling] that all tempting Minerall newly digged up, the Actors being onely the labouring Miners, but you the skilfull Triers and Refiners: Now considering [D—H consider] how currant this hath passed, under the infallible stampe of your judicious censure, and applause, and (like a gainefull Office in this Age) eagerly sought for, not onely by those that have heard & seene it, [F—H omit heard and] but by others that have meerely heard thereof: here you behold me acting the Merchant-adventurers ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... she did not feel like a Puritan, and, although she may not have noted the fact, she did not look like one. It was not a look of vanity that she threw into the mirror, or of special self-consciousness; in her toilet she had obeyed only her instinct (that infallible guide in a woman of refinement), and if she was conscious of any emotion, it was of the stirring within her of the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... ends of the earth together. Circumnavigator of the realms of mind, wherever he touched, he appeared as discoverer, as conqueror, as lawgiver. In mathematics, he discovered or invented the Differential Calculus,—the logic of transcendental analysis, the infallible method of astronomy, without which it could never have compassed the large conclusions of the "Mecanique Celeste." In his "Protogaea," published in 1693, he laid the foundation of the science of Geology. From ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... proper bounds of authority to fix beforehand, on some general presumption, that certain persons are not fit to do certain things. It is now thoroughly known and admitted that if some such presumptions exist, no such presumption is infallible. Even if it be well grounded in a majority of cases, which it is very likely not to be, there will be a minority of exceptional cases in which it does not hold: and in those it is both an injustice to the individuals, and a detriment to society, to ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... one infallible, perhaps because it is automatic, regard for its own comfort and well-being—it cannot be induced to tie itself into a knot. It is in mind that once in the old country a very long and very cold lethargic boa constrictor became benumbed and forgot the primal ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... Catholic clergy have split from Rome and founded a Czech National Church. They have left the Pope, and have in return been excommunicated. Apparently excommunication has not a great terror, however. National Catholicism without an infallible Pope is not far removed from Greek Catholicism and even Anglicanism. Austria and Hungary are Roman Catholic, but Czecho-Slovakia will remain either Protestant or ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... else to be done at that late hour, Craig decided to sleep soundly over the case, his infallible method of taking a fresh start after he had run up ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... unsolved, and yet the very hinge upon which that weighty case depends. To which I humbly say: First, That I do lament that such a point should be so needful to be determined, which seems not probable, if possible, to be determined to infallible satisfaction for want of clear Scripture to decide it by, though very rational to be believed according to rules; as, for instance, if divers examples are alleged of the shape of persons that have been seen, of whom there is ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... social differences in the congregations we are somewhat at sea. We tried to arrive at a conclusion by the hats and bonnets, than which there is usually no more infallible test. On our first Sunday we attended the Free Kirk in the morning, and the Established in the evening. The bonnets of the Free Kirk were so much the more elegant that we said to one another, "This is evidently the church of society, though the adjective ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... sister of M. de Polignac, and the Baron de Besenval and M. de Vaudreuil, particular friends of the Polignac family, made use of means, the success of which was infallible. One of my friends (Comte de Moustier), who was in their secret, came to tell me that Madame de Polignac was about to quit Versailles suddenly; that she would take leave of the Queen only in writing; that ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... a sudden storm of rain and violent thunder added to Katchiba's renown, and after the shower horns were blowing and nogaras were beating in honor of their chief. Entre nous, my whistle was considered infallible. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... don't know much about,—the Book of Life. That is none of your dusty folios with black letters between pasteboard and leather, but it is printed in bright red type, and the binding of it is warm and tender to every touch. They reverence that book as one of the Almighty's infallible revelations. They will insist on reading you lessons out of it, whether you call them names or not. These will always be lessons of charity. No doubt, nothing can be more provoking to listen to. But do ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... have not hitherto been looked upon as attacks upon Revelation, but rather as corroborations of it. What the Editor believes as a Christian (if he is one is therefore another affair, nor does he reckon himself so infallible or incapable of alteration in his sentiments, as not at another time to adopt different ones upon more reflexion and better information; therefore, though he has at present little or no doubt of what ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner

... suppose I make any pretence to be infallible, you are quite mistaken,' he said, with slow solemnity—no one in disclaiming Papistry could have been more the Pope—'I leave that to your priests at St. Damian's, Dora. But there is an infallible guide, both ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... What would the Virginian do to Trampas? Would it be another intellectual crushing of him, like the frog story, or would there be something this time more material—say muscle, or possibly gunpowder—in it? And was Scipio, after all, infallible? I didn't pretend to understand the Virginian; after several years' knowledge of him he remained utterly beyond me. Scipio's experience was not yet three weeks long. So I let him alone as to all this, discussing with him most other things good and evil in the world, and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... yesterday Duncannon called on me, and told me O'Connell had got up an opposition to him in Kilkenny; that he was of opinion that the recent events would diminish neither his power nor his popularity, and that in fact he was infallible with the Irish mob. As Richard says, 'if this have no ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections—if he has any—against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... however, obliged him not to pause at what he had done; whenever a sovereign has adopted a decisive course, even though it be unjust, he is compelled to prove to all witnesses, and particularly to prove it to himself, that he was quite right all through. A good means for effecting that—an almost infallible means, indeed—is, to try and prove his victim to be in the wrong. Louis, brought up by Mazarin and Anne of Austria, knew better than any one else his vocation as a monarch; he therefore endeavored to prove it on the present occasion. After a ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... man, but to a corporation of men bound together by love—to the church. What delighted him was the thought how much easier it was to believe in a still existing living church, embracing all the beliefs of men, and having God at its head, and therefore holy and infallible, and from it to accept the faith in God, in the creation, the fall, the redemption, than to begin with God, a mysterious, far-away God, the creation, etc. But afterwards, on reading a Catholic writer's history of the church, and then a Greek orthodox ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... the theory that my Father was omniscient or infallible was now dead and buried. He probably knew very little; in this case he had not known a fact of such importance that if you did not know that, it could hardly matter what you knew. My Father, as a deity, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... revelation. The first difficulty is in the fact that wicked men who wilfully deceive would have confronted the best men upon the earth, and confusion without remedy would have been the result of leaving our world without a common and infallible test. ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880

... they all are. Valet, cook, porter, boots, chambermaid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coal-heaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most human kind. Jones came across him in the earlier stages of the War, not in England and not in France. The selection wasn't after the usual manner or upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various

... Massachusetts," the senator went on, turning again to his son. "Call me a man with friends enough to make me a sort of foreman of round-ups in the old home State, and you've got it about right. I don't say that I've always used the power as it ought to be used; the good Lord knows, I'm no more infallible than other folks. You've gone through a heap of trouble and worry because you thought, when you got ready to knock the wedge out of the log, my fingers were going to get caught in the split, along with a lot of others. That would have been true enough any other year but this, I reckon, so ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... it affect the conclusion that the German Nation has been plunged into this abyss by its scheming statesmen and its self-centred and highly neurotic Kaiser, who in the twentieth century sincerely believes that he is the proxy of Almighty God on earth, and therefore infallible. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... of humanity itself? The solution so often sought amidst such long wars surely lies in this: Either give the Pope the temporal sovereignty of the world, or leave him only the spiritual sovereignty. Vicar of the Deity, absolute and infallible sovereign by divine delegation, he can but remain in the sanctuary if, ruler already of the human soul, he is not recognised by every nation as the one master of the body ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... by Jack's narrative of our hero's intrepid behaviour at the assembly, as well as the contest with him in the park. But still this plaguy amour occurred like a bugbear to his imagination; for he held it as an infallible maxim, that woman was an eternal source of misery to man. Indeed, this apophthegm he seldom repeated since his marriage, except in the company of a very few intimates, to whose secrecy and discretion he could trust. Finding Jack himself at a nonplus in the affair of Emilia, he ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... is damp; that 6 times 6 are thirty-six; that 2 from 10 leave eight; that 8 and 7 are fifteen. These are perhaps the only things we are agreed about; but although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever accepts them we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the working essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them we know to be wholly insane, and qualified ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... discovered," said Cador, "the sentiments which thou wouldst fain conceal from thyself. The symptoms by which the passions show themselves are certain and infallible. Judge, my dear Zadig, since I have read thy heart, whether the king will not discover something in it that may give him offense. He has no other fault but that of being the most jealous man in the world. Thou canst ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... though, as in the example discussed above, the figure welds all together into a coherent whole for the intellect to grasp apart from the appeal the music makes to "the feeling." This "feeling" of Wagner's was absolutely right, it was infallible; and in consequence we find a curious state of affairs is promptly established. The rich, joyous strain of music, lull of the feeling of summer, immediately becomes what was, so to say, at the back of Wagner's ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... Behold the infallible confirmation of the Series, 2, 4, 8, 16: is not this a Geometrical Progression? Is not this—if I might quote my Lord's own words—"strictly according ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... eternity is to be one of bodily pain—of "torment "—is the literal teaching of Scripture, which has been literally interpreted by the theologians, the poets, and the artists of many long ages which followed the acceptance of the recorded legends of the church as infallible. The doctrine has always been recognized, as it is now, as a very terrible one. It has found a support in the story of the fall of man, and the view taken of the relation of man to his Maker since that event. The hatred of ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... sustain the siege of Syracuse. His profound secresy in the execution is as astonishing as the design itself. He communicated his thoughts on this affair to no person whatsoever, but contented himself with declaring, that he had found out an infallible way to free the Syracusans from the danger that surrounded them; that they had only to endure with patience, for a short time, the inconveniences of a siege; but that those who could not bring themselves to this resolution, might freely ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... delinquency are, I think we may discover a principal cause of them in the present condition and habits of the adult part of the labouring classes. We shall find, very frequently, that infant crime is the only natural produce of evil, by the infallible means of precept and example. I do not intend to assert, that the majority of parents amongst the poor, actually encourage their children in the commission of theft; we may, indeed, fear that some do; as in the instance of the two little girls detected in shop-lifting, whose case was ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... then he looked grave; he stood still, and his eyes fell. "If I am to make a Church infallible," he said, "if I must give up private judgment, if I must act on faith, there is a Church which has a greater claim on us all than the Church ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... may be said of Green that he combines the merits of the scientific and literary historian. He has written an honest and artistic piece of work. But he is not infallible. I have been told on good authority that in his reference to the Thirty Years' War he has hardly stated a single fact correctly, yet the general impression you get from his account is correct. Saintsbury writes that Green has "out-Macaulayed Macaulay ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... according to their interested and perverted views, is omnipotent. * * * Numbers with them, is the great element of free Government. A majority is infallible and omnipotent. 'The right divine to rule in Kings,' is only transferred to their majority. The very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to restrain the majority. Constitutions, therefore, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... outward, visible and infallible sign of the inner man, were perfect male hands, long and thin with square-tipped sensitive fingers, and a certain look of steel ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... they would place bets, whether the game-cocks were immortal, whether invulnerable, and in this case who would be the referee, who would win, and so on: discussions quite to the taste of those who found sciences, theories, and systems, based on a text which they esteem infallible, revealed or dogmatic. Moreover, there were cited passages from novenas, books of miracles, sayings of the curates, descriptions of heaven, and other embroidery. Don Primitivo, the philosopher, was in his glory quoting opinions of ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to await me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We shall join them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist General. Could aught be simpler or more infallible?" ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... quantity, and that hence arises the functional difference. A prostate is part of a uterus, just as a coccygeal bone is part (the centrum) of a vertebra. That this is the absolute signification of the prostate I firmly believe, and were this the proper place, I could prove it in detail, by the infallible rule of analogical reasoning. John Hunter has observed that the use of the prostate was not sufficiently known to enable us to form a judgment of the bad consequences of its diseased state. When the part becomes morbidly enlarged, it acts as a mechanical impediment ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... considered the hardiest of all flowers. In the account of the Great Frost of 1608, "this one infallible token" is given in proof of its severity. "The Leek whose courage hath ever been so undaunted that he hath borne up his lusty head in all storms, and could never be compelled to shrink for hail, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... Olympus I was rarely troubled by such teasing attentions. The little ones seem to enjoy themselves in their exile, and, to say true, so do I. My work was carried on, I admit, much more smoothly and surely than it can be here, and my hand, I am afraid, in crossing the sea, has lost much of its infallible cunning. But I enjoy the exercise, and I look onward to the art as I never did before, and I seem to have more leisure. Can you explain ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... the deposition of Eugenius was either a rightful and valid exercise of conciliar authority or it was not. If it was not—if the council had wrongfully or uncanonically condemned the successor of Peter—how could it be infallible? and when should its legislation in any other particulars be indisputable? On the other hand, if the deposition was a valid one, with what consistency could the French continue to regard Eugenius as their legitimate pastor? It was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to this edition he declines to resume the strife in spite of general expectation of it, but, as a final shot, he delivers himself of "an article from his critical creed," that the "critic is as little infallible as author or translator," which seems, at any rate, arather pointless and insignificant contribution ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... turned away his head. The tender-hearted little Irishman covered him over carefully and climbed into his seat. "He couldn't swally it," he said to himself in an awed voice, putting the flask to his own lips, "Begorra, an' it's near the Kingdom he must be!" To Tommy it appeared an infallible sign of approaching dissolution that a man should reject the contents of his flask. He gave himself to the business of getting out of the bronchos all the speed they had. "Come on, now, me bhoys!" he shouted through the gale, "what are ye lookin' ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert must begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put ourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the Grove: the object ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... criminal, and turn us aside from the study of the Holy Scriptures.[307] It seems that one of the Porta's had delivered himself in the style of an ancient oracle; but what was more alarming in this prophetical spirit, several of his predictions had been actually verified! The infallible court was in no want of a new school of prophecy. Baptista Porta went to Rome to justify himself; and, content to wear his head, placed his tongue in the custody of his Holiness, and no doubt preferred being ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... which Lincoln always faced every test, apparently with a tranquil and assured faith that, whatever might seem his lack of fitting preparation, his best would be adequate to the occasion. The habit has led many to fancy that he believed himself divinely chosen, and therefore sure of infallible guidance; but it is observable far back, almost from the beginning of his life; it was a trait of mind and character, nothing else. The letter closes with a broad general theory concerning the war, wrought out by that careful process of thinking whereby he was wont to make his way to the big, simple, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... must admit that matter of this type ranks higher in his subjective scale of values than the works of the masters. Teachers and students whose strongest interest is in grade marks value these more highly than true attainment. For, whatever may be our claims or assertions, interest is finally an infallible barometer of the values ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... a creature of impulses and instincts not by any means infallible. They had led him into blunders and scrapes before now. On the other hand, they had protected him from mistakes no less serious. Had he been a matter-of-fact person he would have said to himself: "What can I do? I know of nothing positive against ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... now feel realized in us what as poet I but prophetically imagined. Brotherhood of spirits is the most infallible key to wisdom. Separately we can do nothing.... Do not fear from this time forth for the endless duration of our friendship. Its materials are the fundamental impulses of the human soul. Its territory is eternity; its non plus ultra ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... wrote that the only difference between the Catholic Church and the Church of England was, that the former was infallible and the latter never wrong. Mr. Pierce would hardly have claimed for himself either of these qualities. He was too accustomed in his business to writing, "E. and O.E." above his initials, to put much faith in human dicta. But in the present instance he felt sure of what he said, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... to the cure of all such hypocrisy, and to the salvation of our souls, is to know that we are hypocrites, and to know also what that is in which we are most hypocritical. Well, there are two absolutely infallible tests of a true hypocrite,—tests warranted to unmask, expose, and condemn the most finished, refined, and even evangelical hypocrite in this house to-night, or in all the world. By far and away the best and swiftest is prayer. True prayer, that ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... heart' on delivering him, and 'laboured' to do so. The curious obstacle, limiting even his power, is a rare specimen of conservatism in its purest form. So wise were our ancestors, that nothing of theirs shall ever be touched. Infallible legislators can make immutable laws; the rest of us must be content to learn by blundering, and to grow by changing. The man who says, 'I never alter my opinions,' condemns himself as either too foolish ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... Martian faith. There seemed little to understand about it. It was one national expression of the love of goodness and of beauty, but it was all directed to a source of infallible wisdom, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... Galen in vain for enlightenment, as these works, having been written several centuries before the time of the plagues, naturally contained no information concerning them. It was evident, therefore, that on this subject, at least, Galen was not infallible; and it would naturally follow that, one fallible point having been revealed, others would be sought for. In other words, scepticism in regard to accepted methods would be aroused, and would lead naturally, as such scepticism usually does, to progress. The devastating effects ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... his hunches were infallible. At cards, dice, or wheels he had always had hunches and he had always won. That was why he had stopped gambling, years before, before anybody found out. He was ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith

... dynamic and not static; its ideal is motion and not rest. Rest is the quality of dead things, and particularly of dead souls. The weariness of the way, which is so obvious a phenomenon in the Christian life, is the infallible sign of lukewarmness. What we need therefore is to break with the assumption that we know all that it is necessary to know, and that we have done or are doing all that it is necessary to do. It is indeed the mark of an ineffective religion that the notion of necessity ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... had continued for some time, Neptune offered me a box of infallible ointment, to cure all the diseases of life. It was a lump of grease; and his valet, seizing it, rubbed my face all over with it. He then scrubbed me with a handful of oakum, which effectually took off the tar. Being now pronounced shaved and clean, to my great ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... loftiness, where this idea may be lodged; as the priests of ancient religions laid the mountain peak bare, and cleared it of thorn and of root for the fire to descend from heaven. There may come to us any day, from the depths of the planet Mars, the infallible formula of happiness, conveyed in the final truth as to the aim and the government of the universe. Such a formula could only bring change or advancement unto our spiritual life in the degree of the desire and expectation ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... and hardhearted writer of a singularly licentious and hardhearted school. [228] It is certain that Matthew Tindal, who, at a later period, acquired great notoriety by writing against Christianity, was at this time received into the bosom of the infallible Church, a fact which, as may easily be supposed, the divines with whom he was subsequently engaged in controversy did not suffer to sink into oblivion. [229] A still more infamous apostate was Joseph Haines, whose name is now almost forgotten, but who was well known in his own ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Louis to crucify the pride of rank and power. If the president of a college or of a railroad or of a bank becomes a different man to the eye of an early friend, what can be expected of those who are raised above public opinion, and have no fetters on their wills,—men who are regarded as infallible ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... that gray, snarling, bloody-lipped mass, Kazan drew back, panting and bleeding. He was weak. There was a curious sickness in his head. He wanted to lie down in the snow. But the old and infallible instinct warned him not to betray that weakness. From out of the pack a slim, lithe, gray she-wolf came up to him, and lay down in the snow before him, and then rose swiftly and sniffed at ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... heard him harangue, with all the oracular importance of a veteran, on the possibility of Canning's subsisting for a whole month on a few bits of bread; and he is now preparing a treatise, in which he will set forth a new and infallible method to prevent the spreading of the plague from France to England. Batson's has been reckoned the seat of solemn stupidity: yet it is not totally devoid of taste and common sense. They have among them physicians, who can cope with the most eminent lawyers ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... necessary to immerse the bees, and examine each separately. By this operation, we actually found four small males. Therefore, to render the experiment decisive, not only was it requisite to remove all the drones, but also, by some infallible method, to prevent any from being introduced, which the ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber

... very name and surname inspire thorough disgust, cherishes in his mind a malicious design to burn me in my own house. Which the infallible signs, hereinafter mentioned, fully demonstrate; in the first place, the said wicked nobleman has begun to emerge frequently from his apartments, which he never did formerly on account of his laziness and the disgusting ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... never seen a more terrible, desperate, solemn struggle than the one which is going on in the soul of the poor trembling young woman, who, at the feet of that man, has to decide whether or not she will open her lips on those things which the infallible voice of God, united to the no less infallible voice of her womanly honour and self-respect, tell her never to reveal to ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... out by yourself, as I would have had you, you might have robbed on to the end of the chapter; but you was wiser than all the world, or rather lazier, and see what your laziness is come to—to the CHEAT, [Footnote: The gallows.] for thither you will go now, that's infallible. And a just judgment on you for following your headstrong will; I am the only person to be pitied; poor I, who shall be scandalised for your fault. THERE GOES SHE WHOSE HUSBAND WAS HANGED: methinks I hear them crying so already." At ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... talks, for we do not claim to have seen and counted all the facets of the crystal of truth. We humbly acknowledge that we have often been wrong in the past, and no reason has latterly been given us to believe ourselves infallible; but these disputed points in the kindergarten are, after all, of no more vital importance than the old theologic controversy as to how many angels can stand on the point of a needle. If the occupations are found to be based on incorrect psychologic ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... have been equal to the occasion, even if you had been so dreadfully fractured," said Miss Burton. "We all would have become your devoted nurses, and each one of us would have had a separate and infallible remedy, which, out of courtesy, you would have ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... Greek Emperor. In the Latin doggerel recounting their virtues, their meteorological efficacy stands first, for especial stress is laid on their power of dispelling the thunder. The stress thus laid by Pope Urban, as the infallible guide of Christendom, on the efficacy of this fetich, gave it great value throughout Europe, and the doggerel verses reciting its virtues sank deep into the popular mind. It was considered a most potent means of dispelling hail, pestilence, storms, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... hour after dinner, it prevents an accumulation of crudities in the first passages, is an infallible remedy for the horrors of indigestion, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... interest themselves in silks and satins, ribbons and furbelows, it will be an infallible sign that the great drama of humanity is at length played out, and that the lights are to be turned down, and the house left to silence and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... from which we received, through the Crusaders and the Moors, the basis of nearly all science and luxury, from Asia. There were, undoubtedly, many bad popes, men as bad as the incestuous, and, according to the recent dogma, the infallible Alexander Borgia; priests who are not all vile, but many nobler than their system, acknowledge this with regret, and among whom there are some whom I can reverence, such as John Henry Newman, for instance, whose life would favorably ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... bees are not infallible, and they do not always work with exact mechanical certainty. When they find themselves in a difficult place they sometimes make very great blunders. One often finds that they leave too much, and often too little, space between the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... had been mistaken after all. It was the love-light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... convinced that Christ could not design by a mere edict, however authoritative, to give this passion of humanity strength enough to make it a living and infallible principle of morality in every man, when we consider, first, what an ardent enthusiasm he demanded from his followers, and secondly, how frail and tender a germ this passion naturally is in human nature. Widely diffused indeed it is, and seldom entirely eradicated; but for the most part, at ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... teaching that a stern father sends us suffering which is represented as being sometimes a means of education, and sometimes a punishment for transgressing a hard and clearly defined law. Their god, in his infallible but stern wisdom, sets those who cling to him on an evil and stony path to prove their strength, and to let them at last reach the glorious goal which is revealed to them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... that ever went out. As a soho man he was unrivalled. The form of every hare for miles about was known to him, and if a fox or a covey of partridges were to be found at all, he was your man. In wild-fowl shooting he was infallible. No pass of duck, widgeon, barnacle, or curlew, was unknown to him. In fact, his principal delight was to attend the gentry of the country to the field, either with harrier, foxhound, or setter. No coursing match went right if Torn were not present; ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... feature remained to swear by; and, as the law wisely and humanely demands that in these cases a body shall be identified beyond doubt, justice bade fair to be baffled again. But lo! as often happens in cases of murder, Providence interposed and pointed with unerring finger to a slight, but infallible mark. The deceased gentleman was known to have a large mole over his left temple. It had been noticed by his servants and his neighbors. Well, gentlemen, the greedy fish had spared this mole,—spared it, perhaps, by His command, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... wrong even in the bottomless pit, but, like Satan and his fallen angels in Milton's poem, would have excellent arguments to prove that they were injured and ill-used, deceived and betrayed, and lay the blame of their misery on God, on man, on anything but their own infallible selves. ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... paragraph headings. They must, in their search for fuller information or criticism, be able to interpret different authors, use different language, and attack from different angles, even when treating the same object. Children must in their studying be taught to use books as a means to an end—not an infallible means, but one which needs ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... Ephippiger helps us to identify the Languedocian Sphex: her relics, the cymbals and the long sabre, are the unmistakable sign of the cocoon to which they adhere. The black Cricket, with his red-braided thighs, is the infallible label of the Yellow-winged Sphex; the larva of Oryctes nasicornis tells us of the Garden Scolia as certainly as the best description; the Cetonia-grub proclaims the Two-banded Scolia and the larva of the Anoxia announces ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... which he presents. A conspiracy of silence is directed against any system of ethics advanced as superior to the Sermon on the Mount. In popular opinion Jesus never made a mistake; all his teachings were infallible; no other view ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... from the center of such heavy article to the point of contact of the string at the top with some stationary object. This is a sure guide. Set the pendulum swinging and count the vibrations and you will soon become quite infallible. Having acquired the ability to judge a second of time you can go to work with ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... their magnanimity, and their justice. Adoration is paid to this new sovereign: he is publicly and officially told, in the Assembly and by the press, that he possesses every virtue, all rights and all powers. If he spills blood it is inadvertently, on provocation, and always with an infallible instinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so pure?" The greater number of people prefers the theories of their books to the experience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they have fashioned ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... on reaching this beautiful table land, to rest ourselves and give our horses an opportunity to graze. Little villages of prairie dogs were scattered here and there, and we killed half-a-dozen of them for our evening meal. The fat of these animals, I have forgotten to say, is asserted to be an infallible ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... use in trying to sleep. But in this hour he did not want oblivion. He wanted endless time to think. And slowly, with infinite care and infallible memory, he went over every detail of what he had seen and heard since his arrival home. In the headlong stream of consciousness of the past hours he met with circumstances that he lingered over, and tried to understand, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... are not yet enrolled among the infallible prophets. Whether I shall ever again see those whom I love depends upon the will of God. But I don't wonder that with your sad experience you should give way to despair. For myself, I will ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... all her life been associated either with her mental inferiors or with men who, under the almost hostile intimidation of her beauty, had not dared to contradict her; naturally, then, it irritated her when Anthony emerged from the state in which her pronouncements were an infallible and ultimate decision. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... intelligible only to the conjurer, but was said to contain infallible information about the future, and the little man offered to interpret the writing to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... criminal neglect if the patient dies without the consolations of the medical profession. This menace is kept before the public by the Peculiar People. The Peculiars, as they are called, have gained their name by believing that the Bible is infallible, and taking their belief quite seriously. The Bible is very clear as to the treatment of illness. The Epistle of James; chapter v., contains ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... adults will not do—it must be all. The mysterious spirit that thus peers out and vanishes again at each election is the People, not any particular person, but the quintessence, and it is supposed to be infallible; it is supposed to be not only morally but intellectually omniscient. It will not even countenance the individuality of elected persons, they are to be mere tools, delegates, from this diffused, intangible ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... immense practice among, dogs as well as among horses. He was a keen observer of disease, and a dear lover of his profession, and he had paid great attention to rabies— dog-madness. He and his assistants had been repeatedly bitten by rabid dogs; but knowing that he was in possession of an infallible preventive remedy, he never dreaded the wounds inflicted either upon himself or upon his assistants. Mr Youatt never knew lunar-caustic, if properly and immediately applied, to fail. It is, of course, only a preventive. If hydrophobia be once developed in the human system, no antidote ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... Abraham Lincoln. Besides, I use subsidiary reservoirs only to attain a mean depth of 750 to 1,000 fathoms, and that with a view of managing my machines. Also, when I have a mind to visit the depths of the ocean five or six mlles below the surface, I make use of slower but not less infallible means." ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... when created is a tabula rasa, but having certain capacities inherent in it in consequence of the nature of its Creator. The Creator being absolutely veracious, the information imparted by the senses is infallible. Further, the Creator being absolutely happy, the soul naturally seeks happiness, and is said to love that in which it expects to find happiness. So far there is no room for error. Where it can come in is in the inferences which the mind draws from the information which the senses give, and ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler

... isolation and raising higher and higher the walls which separated her from other Churches. She has a wonderful record of missionary work in Europe and outside; she has a minutely organised centralisation, with an infallible autocrat at the head; and she has an enlarged dogmatic system, larger than any other Church. She pointed out again and again her superiority to all other Christian communities, and claimed for herself the exclusive right to speak in the name of Jesus ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... undoubtedly that is familiar to every one. But with respect to the view entertained by the scientist and critical school of Biblical scholars, represented chiefly by modern Germans, I may state briefly: "They regard the Bible as the human record of a divine revelation; not absolutely infallible, since there is no book written in any human language but must partake in a measure of the imperfections of that language. Many of this school, while admitting the Bible to contain the record of a true supernatural revelation, ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... were required to be of spotless reputation and irreproachable virtue. Nero, after murdering his mother, did not dare to be present at the celebration of the Mysteries: and Antony presented himself to be initiated, as the most infallible mode of proving his innocence of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... for horn thinned to the quick, it is not to be relied upon with thick horn, the outside of which may be practically healthy and char black, while its underlying surface may be cankered. With this exception the test is an infallible one, as by it the demarcation between cankered and healthy tissue can be clearly traced, and as a result we can with equal confidence radically remove[A] all cankered tissue, and conserve all healthy. As the object of that abominably cruel and barbarous operation of stripping the sole is ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... being partly disgusted with the popular theology, having no scruples about putting aside Inspiration, &c., and conceiving that he himself is an adequate representative of the nineteenth century's intelligence, and that the nineteenth century's intelligence is most profound and infallible, sets to work to demolish what is distasteful to himself, and what the unerring criticism of the day rejects, correcting St. Paul's mistakes, patronising him whenever he is fortunate enough to receive the approbation of the great thinkers of our day, and so constructs ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... musician—in such proportion may he comprehend and appreciate the unusual qualities and achievements of a man like Muir. He will realize to some degree—indistinctly to be sure, "seeing men as trees walking"—the infinity of nice and accurate observation, the discriminating choice of illustration, the infallible tact and unvarying sureness with which he holds our interest, and the dominant poetic insight into the nature of things, which are spread before the reader in lavish abundance, in Muir's two books, "The Mountains of California" and "Our National Parks." ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... history of its formation or mode of production adds nothing to it and takes nothing away. We infer design from certain arrangements and results; and we have no other way of ascertaining it. Testimony, unless infallible, cannot prove it, and is out of the question here. Testimony is not the appropriate proof of design: adaptation to purpose is. Some arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but may leave us in doubt. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... most learned and illustrious members, there was no more doubt that the dogma under consideration would be voted by the partly astute and partly complaisant majority than that it would have been rejected in the twenty preceding Councils. On the 18th of July 1870, the Pope was proclaimed Infallible. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... her sister," repeated Mr. Wilmot; "I think we have good proof that she is much more so. I hope you are now convinced that Fanny is not infallible, though I will confess I am surprised and disappointed, for I thought she was really ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes



Words linked to "Infallible" :   unerring, inerrant, infallibility, unfailing



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