"Sceptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ached as I slowly made my way back to the table, presented my hands for a rather sceptical inspection by Mrs. Handsomebody, and dropped ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... up a little in the miscellany called (not without a touch of piquancy) La Tyrannie des Fees Detruite, by a Mme. d'Auneuil, whom persons of a sceptical turn might imagine to be a sort of factitious rival to Mme. d'Aulnoy.[231] It returns to the Greek or pseudo-Greek names of the heroic romance, and to its questionable device of histoires stuck like plums in a pudding. Nor are the Sans Parangon and the Fee des Fees ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They revelled in the pictured visions of the circus, but were sceptical about the literal fulfilment of some of the promises made on the bills. Certain things advertised were eliminated from reasonable expectation: for instance, the boys all knew that the giraffe would not be discovered eating off the top of a cocoanut-tree; nor would the monkeys play a ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... tea and coffee—the latter, be it known, I had watched the American woman boiling in the frying-pan. It was a black-looking compound, and I did not attempt to discuss its merits. The vessel in which it had been prepared had prejudiced me, and rendered me very sceptical on that score. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... said, expressing her thoughts for her, with a smile, "you are a trifle sceptical. What you are saying to yourself is, 'How far does that lover of adventures want to make me go? It is quite obvious that I attract him; and sooner or later he would not be sorry to receive payment for his services.' You are quite right. We must have ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... yuh, boss, dat book whut yuh calls de Bible ain't no frien' to de cullud people," said Black Mose in a sceptical moment. ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... shook her wise head. She was nearly twenty, and four years of matrimony had made her sceptical of man's capacity for romance. "Two years are long, and he will see many girls, and become one again of a life that is always more brilliant than our sun in May. His eyes will be dazzled, his mind distracted, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... inquiring mind would miss reading for a good deal. Let the reader be as adverse as he may to the writer's philosophy, let him be as devoted to the obstructive as Mr. Buckle is to the progress party, let him be as orthodox in church creed as the other is heterodox, as dogmatic as his author is sceptical,—let him, in short, find his prejudices shocked at every turn of the argument, and all his prepossessions whistled down the wind,—still, there is so much in this extraordinary volume to stimulate reflection, and excite to inquiry, and provoke to earnest investigation, perhaps (to this or ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... of which he had previously caught a glimpse, and here he begged his guide to leave him. He felt a sudden desire to meet his unknown ancestors face to face, and to trace the tendencies which, from the grim Bracciaforte and the stately sceptical humanist of Leo's age, had mysteriously forced the race into its ever-narrowing mould. The dusky canvases, hung high in tarnished escutcheoned frames, presented a continuous chronicle of the line, from Bracciaforte himself, with his predatory profile outlined by some early Tuscan hand against ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... and yet beginning to be derisively sceptical in spite of herself). Have you really seen all ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... Robert Boyle in his "Sceptical Chymist" (1661) first defined the word element in the sense which it retained until the discovery of radioactivity (1896), namely, a form of matter that could not ...
— A Brief History of Element Discovery, Synthesis, and Analysis • Glen W. Watson
... process mere fiat, so far as we can see, could not produce? The only thing that presents itself is character, which apparently must be self-formed and developed by resistance to evil. We have had plenty of "evidences" in the manner of Paley or the Bridgewater Treatises, met by sceptical argument on the other side; but has inquiry yet tried to fathom the mystery of ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith
... ancient tradition, though not as accepting it for a part of ascertained history, yet in a spirit less sceptical than was usual to him. He writes thus: 'It is supposed that Odin was chief of a tribe of barbarians which dwelt on the banks of the lake Moeotis, till the fall of Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... pre-eminently sceptical, has not escaped the general tendency, for even in what appeared to be the most rationalistic epoch—that of the Revolution—the "Cult of Reason" was founded, to be succeeded by the "Religion of the Supreme Being" introduced by Robespierre. And what numbers of new sects and religions can be recorded ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... victim of illusion; thinking much, and speaking little, she had not come to her twenty-third year without perceiving what a distance lay between a girl's dream of life as it might be and life as it is. Had she invariably disclosed her thoughts, she would have earned the repute of a very sceptical and ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... deadened the spiritual nerves by the help of which one believes simply and without question, so that even if I would believe I have lost the power. You permit me to go to church if I like; but you have poisoned me with scepticism to such a degree that I have grown sceptical even with regard to you,—sceptical in regard to my own scepticism; and I do not know, I do not know. I torture myself, and am maddened ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... inducements are pure. They are the free and careful cultivation of the powers that have been given, with an aim at moral and intellectual perfection. Her speech is moderate and sane, but never palsied by fear or sceptical caution. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... angel sang a more appealing ditty still, whereat they were all about ready to advance, when one of their number, of a sceptical turn, urged them to avoid such fanciful matters and give heed to their sheep, who would otherwise become the prey of ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... magnetic disturbances. On the other hand, it must be confessed that many striking magnetic storms have occurred without any corresponding solar disturbance,[5] but even those who are inclined to be sceptical as to the connection between these two classes of phenomena in particular cases can hardly doubt the remarkable parallelism between the general rise and fall in the number of sun-spots and the extent of the daily movements of the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Lambelle quietly; "I put more of the substance on the flagging than I need to have done. A few drops would have answered quite as well, but I wanted to make sure. You were very sceptical, you know." ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... the furthest" Catholic "mission among the savages of the South seas," than "to teach in an Irish Catholic University," or have "gambled away my reason," or adopt "sophistries," or have published "sophisms piled upon sophisms," or have in my sermons "culminating wonders," or have a "seemingly sceptical method," or have "barristerial ability" and "almost boundless silliness," or "make great mistakes," or am "a subtle dialectician," or perhaps have "lost my temper," or "misquote Scripture," or am "antiscriptural," or "border very closely on the ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... became more and more a stern republican, or rather an advocate for that religious and moral aristocracy which, in his day, was called republicanism, and which, even more than royalism itself, is the direct antipode of modern jacobinism. Taylor, as more and more sceptical concerning the fitness of 375 men in general for power, became more and more attached to the prerogatives of monarchy. From Calvinism, with a still decreasing respect for Fathers, Councils, and for Church-antiquity in general, Milton seems to have ended ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... vanity and simplicity are too easily overwhelmed by the obvious. He saw nothing in a European crisis except a war with France; and nothing in a war with France except a repetition of the rather fruitless glories of Agincourt and Malplaquet. He was of the Erastian Whigs, sceptical but still healthy-minded, and neither good enough nor bad enough to understand that even the war of that irreligious age was ultimately a religious war. He had not a shade of irony in his whole being; and beside Frederick, ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... essay is not a very safe guide to the history of Protestantism or of Catholicism, though it is full of brilliant points and sensible assertions. And in the end our essayist, the rebel from his Puritan traditions, and the close ally of sceptical Gallios, after forty pages of learned pros and cons, declares that he will not say more for fear of "exciting angry feelings." He rather sneers at Protestant fervour: he declaims grand sentences about Catholic ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... not believe in Dr. Argure quite as fully as some less sceptical members of his congregation do, Deacon Goodsole believes in him most implicitly. Deacon Goodsole is a believer—not I mean in anything in particular, but generally. He likes to believe; he enjoys it; he ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... of minor importance, but his novel had come from the press on the day he sailed out of New York harbor and perhaps there awaited him at Shepheard's some report from his publisher. That gentleman had predicted success with an abundant optimism. Stuart himself had been sceptical. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... said, "it has been cruel to a man of such a sceptical soul as mine to educate him back from the faith he had acquired to the unfaith he had tried to put behind him. Why did you do it? The suppression of the truth is never excusable. The secret you might have scattered with a word, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... exhibit quite as much variety of mood—seldom, of course, so picturesquely conveyed—as his poems. He is, in promiscuous alternation, refined, gross, sentimental, serious, humorous, indignant, repentant, dignified, vulgar, tender, manly, sceptical, reverential, rakish, pathetic, sympathetic, satirical, playful, pitiably self-abased, mysteriously self-exalted. His letters are confessions and revelations. They are as sincerely and spontaneously autobiographical ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... sceptical expression around Zoie's mouth, but she did not pursue the subject. "How do you suppose that red baby will ever look in this pink basket?" she asked. And then with a regretful little sigh, she declared that she ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... think of love of country as a prejudice, or a passion for freedom as an illusion. The cosmopolitan or international idea which such teachers as Cobden have tried to impress on our stubborn islanders, would have found in Macaulay not lukewarm or sceptical adherence, but point-blank opposition and denial. He believed as stoutly in the supremacy of Great Britain in the history of the good causes of Europe, as M. Thiers believes in the supremacy of France, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... all the politicians of that age, a very loose morality where the public was concerned; but in Halifax the prevailing infection was modified by a very peculiar constitution both of heart and head, by a temper singularly free from gall, and by a refining and sceptical understanding. He changed his course as often as Shaftesbury; but he did not change it to the same extent, or in the same direction. Shaftesbury was the very reverse of a trimmer. His disposition led him generally to do his utmost to exalt the side which was up, and to depress the side which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had no word with him, because he could not speak to her in the workroom or in his mother's room, and because she never met him (as she half expected to do) in the street. Sally often thought of their evening together, but gradually, as Gaga took no further step, she became sceptical about his plan, and she hardened towards him. Already her active mind was casting about for new outlets. She visited Mrs. Perce, and repaid ten shillings of the amount she owed her. She wrote to Toby, walked with Harry Simmons, had ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... he was silent and gloomy and kept walking up and down and thinking. In the end he overcame his sceptical vanity, and going into his wife's room he said ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Saurez, would be famous, and his sons and grandsons would have copies of the book in their houses to show visitors and the priest. Ah, it would be well to have the priest witness Saurez' signature, then sceptical people would know indeed that the stories were Saurez' own accounts. So on ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... to the desirability of amusements in the library, I own that I am somewhat sceptical. The library has its own division of labor in the work of education, and that division is the training of the people to the use and appreciation of books and literature. An argument in favor of games is that they draw ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... the things which are not, to bring to nought the things which are.—His heart, hungry of all martyrdom, all saintly doings, went forth to welcome the idea. But then, he asked himself almost awed, in this sceptical, rationalistic age, are such semi-miraculous moral examples still possible? And answered, with strong exultation—as one finding practical justification of a long, though silently, cherished conviction—yes, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... connection and not receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical bias, believed and didn't make the smallest bones about saying so either that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when, neglecting ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... proclaimed his famous conceptual proof of God: 'I am conscious of myself, and must exist; I am conscious of God and He must exist.' Pascal wearily replied that it was not God he doubted, but logic. He was tortured by the impossibility of rejecting man's reason by reason; unconsciously sceptical, he forced himself to disbelieve in himself rather than admit a doubt of God. Man had tried to prove God, and had failed: 'The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote (eloignees) from the reasoning ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... with the power of his poetry over us, as the imputed Arianism or any other aspect of the theology of Paradise Lost has to do with the strength and the sublimity of Milton, and his claim to a high perpetual place in the hearts of men. It is best to be entirely sceptical as to the existence of system and ordered philosophy in Wordsworth. When he tells us that "one impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral evil and of good, than all the sages can," such a proposition cannot be ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... encounter, and believed stories at which even David blinked. Often he looked at me in quick alarm if David said that of course these things did not really happen, and unable to resist that appeal I would reply that they really did. I never saw him irate except when David was still sceptical, but then he would say quite warningly "He says it is true, so it must be true." This brings me to that one of his qualities, which at once gratified and pained me, his admiration for myself. His eyes, which at times ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... and that even physical science is as full of contradictions as theology. Such enterprises, conducted with whatever ingenuity, are, as I believe, hopeless; but at least they are fundamentally and radically sceptical. That, under whatever disguises, is the true meaning of the Catholic argument, which is so persuasive to many. To prove the truth of Christianity by abstract reasoning may be hopeless; but nothing is easier than to persuade yourself ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... What the difficulties are which it has encountered, and the modifications it must suffer, we shall see later; as well as the new theories which have largely displaced it. It will be better first to survey the universe from the evolutionary point of view. But I may observe, in passing, that the sceptical remarks one hears at times about scientific theories contradicting and superseding each other are frivolous. One great idea pervades all the theories of the evolution of worlds, and that idea is firmly established. The stars ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... what to answer. "Oh, very well; I'll write down some particulars about them." He instantly composed "Lives of Extraordinary Painters." The housekeeper studied the manuscript attentively, and regaled her astonished visitors with the marvellous incidents it contained; however, finding many were sceptical, she came to her young master and told him people would not believe what she told them. "Not believe? Ah, that's because it is only in manuscript. Then we'll have it printed; they'll believe when they see it in print." He sent the manuscript to a London publisher, and inquired what the ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... lightning (Kuhn- Schwartz). But as names appear to yield storm, lightning, night, or dawn with equal ease and certainty, according as the scholar prefers dawn or storm, I confess that this demonstration would leave me sceptical. It lacks scientific exactitude. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... adversaries as 'travellers' tales.' But the best testimony for the truth of the reports as to actual belief in the facts is the undesigned coincidence of evidence from all ages and quarters.[5] When the stories brought by travellers, ancient and modern, learned and unlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we have all the certainty that anthropology can offer. Again, when we find practically the same strange neglected sparks, not only rumoured of in European popular superstition, but attested in many hundreds of depositions ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... future which his mother has in view, or how this treatment conduces to the happiness of that future, he judges by the results he feels; and finding such results anything but pleasurable, he becomes sceptical respecting her professions of friendship. And is it not folly to expect any other issue? Must not the child reason from the evidence he has got? and does not this evidence seem to warrant his conclusion? The mother ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... that her father was "the victim of foul play"—the black brows sank yet another degree—and that she wished him privately to investigate the matter. He of course would know far, far better what to do than she, but she would suggest that he keep an eye upon Blake. At first Mr. Stone appeared somewhat sceptical and hesitant, but after peering darkly out for a long and ruminative period at the dusty foliage of the Court House elms, and after hearing the comfortable fee Katherine was willing to pay, he consented to accept ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... self-direction or the exhibition of the least glimmer of personal initiative. At the bottom of the social ladder the system creates an army of proletarians discontented with their lot and always ready to revolt, while at the summit it brings into being a frivolous bourgeoisie, at once sceptical and credulous, having a superstitious confidence in the State, whom it regards as a sort of Providence, but without forgetting to display towards it a ceaseless hostility, always laying its own faults to the door of the Government, and incapable of ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... to keep awake. I shouted; I even sang, or rather I tried to sing; but the most melancholy strains were the only results of my efforts, my voice sounding as hollow as that from a skull—if voices ever do come out of skulls, on which subject I venture to be sceptical. ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... and pursuits. Their motive, for all this, we need not pause, in this place, to examine. But a distinction may be made between the melancholy of the heart, and the melancholy of the mind: while the latter is sceptical, sour, and misanthropic, the former is passionate, tender, and religious. Those who are under the influence of the one, become inactive, morose, or heedless: detecting the follies of the wisest and the frailties of the best, they scoff at the very name of virtue; they spurn, as visionary ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... this wise treatment was entirely ruined by the arrival of the doctor, who bore the sounding official designation of the Residency surgeon. This gentleman was wont to be sceptical in the matter of ailments, limiting his recognition only to honest, downright illness worthy of the attention of a medico whose name stood in front of a formidable array of honourable letters, too numerous for him to mention. But even really great people are not ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... Now, however sceptical I may yet feel about the truth of all Darwin's theory, I cannot sit quietly by and see him misrepresented in such a scandalously slovenly manner. What Darwin does say is that sometimes diversified and changed habits may be observed in individuals of the same species; that is that there are ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... long time gone from this-here State o' Wilkes," the agent vouchsafed dryly. He would have said more, but his shrewd eyes saw in this young man's expression something that bade him pause, less sceptical. The handsome and wholesome face showed a strength of its own in the resolute curving nose and the firmly-set lips and the grave, yet kindly, eyes, with a light of purposeful intelligence glowing within their clear deeps. The tall form, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, narrow of hip, though ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... impulses, of a will that has become caprice. But the consequences of making Reason our tyrant instead of our king are almost equally disastrous. There is so little which Reason, divested of all emotional or instinctive supports, is able to prove to our satisfaction that a sceptical aridity is likely to take possession of the soul. It was thus with Wordsworth; he was driven to a perpetual questioning of all beliefs and analysis of ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... sources of the maiden Paula, of the family Dei Mansi (Anawim), the daughter of Abraham, and later the wife of Yechiel dei Mansi, who, in 1288, copied her father's abstruse Talmudic commentary, adding ingenious explanations, the result of independent research. But one grows somewhat sceptical over the account, by a Jewish tourist, Rabbi Petachya of Ratisbon, of Bath Halevi, daughter of Rabbi Samuel ben Ali in Bagdad, equally well-read in the Bible and the Talmud, and famous for her beauty. She lectured on the Talmud to a large number of students, and, to prevent their ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... doubt everything—you are cold, sceptical, disdainful, blase. But a pretty woman makes her appearance on the scene. You go wild like a school-boy and are ready to commit any act of folly. It is you who I am addressing, Marquis. Do you hear me? Speak! what ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... must have had a phenomenal memory. I hope that it was an exact one. His story is given in its entirety because of its novelty. The only thing that makes me feel in the least sceptical is that La Mara,—the pen name of a writer on musical subjects,—translated these letters into German. But every one agrees that Chopin's end was serene; indeed it is one of the musical death-beds ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... on such superior grounds, she felt that she should prove herself fit for new and exalted conditions of life by seeing to it that he made good all his remarkable promises. She remembered that he had not yet opened the box of money, and became a little sceptical as to its contents. Somebody might have watched Jeff, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... none but a man of wealth could afford to live in, and which not one wealthy man in a hundred would choose on its merits. It might easily languish in the estate market for years, set round with noticeboards proclaiming it, in the eyes of a sceptical world, to be an ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... his throat in a dreadful manner. Plainly, had the upper part of the weapon become detached, the sword swallower's career must infallibly have come to an untimely end. Again, in New York, when swallowing 14 nine-inch bayonet swords at once, Cliquot had the misfortune to have a too sceptical audience, one of whom, a medical man who ought to have known better, rushed forward and impulsively dragged out the whole bunch, inflicting such injuries upon this peculiar entertainer as to endanger his life, and ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... broods the Spirit from beyond the Great Range." Along those newer lines the Society went, and there are many who will say: "They are better lines. It is better that these abnormal happenings should fall into the background, that they should not be presented to a scornful and sceptical world, that we should rely on the literature that we have, without desiring to increase it by new knowledge, in which much can only be gained by abnormal means. Better to rest on what we have, and not try to add to it." ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... the statement of its doctrine. The significance of this early period lies in the fact that, in the positive, definite system of Christianity, systematic thought, which was fast becoming disorganized and sceptical, found a center about which it might rally and focus itself, and the scattered fragments of philosophy were all collected together, by either friends or foes, about the new religion. The new point of view and the new relations would be most ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... the extras containing the latest news from the front. The people stood for hours in front of the newspaper offices, but definite news was so long in coming, that despair once more seized their hearts and they again became sceptical ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... gasped; "Hello, Hamil! Shiela thought it must be you, but I was sceptical. Whew! That isn't much of a swim; I must ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Nature and Generation of Metals: And possibly, those that know how little I have remitted of my former addictedness to make Chymical Experiments, will easily believe, that one of the chief Designes of this Sceptical Discourse was, not so much to discredit Chymistry, as to give an occasion and a kind of necessity to the more knowing Artists to lay aside a little of their over-great Reservedness, & either explicate or prove the Chymical Theory better than ordinary Chymists have done, or by enriching ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... in the days before Mr. Chamberlain's return from South Africa and the adoption of Tariff Reform by the Unionist Party; and I decipher again the same considerations, unanswered and unanswerable, that leave me sceptical to-day. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... us; and in those wherein we contend with them for the pre-eminence, I would acknowledge our advantages to the age, and claim no victory from our wit. This being what I have proposed to myself, I hope I shall not be thought arrogant when I enquire into their errors: For we live in an age so sceptical, that as it determines little, so it takes nothing from antiquity on trust; and I profess to have no other ambition in this essay, than that poetry may not go backward, when all other arts and sciences are advancing. Whoever censures ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... replied, "of course there's a lot of talk now in the papers about aphasia and amnesia and all that stuff. But, you know, we reporters are a sceptical lot. We have to be shown. I can't say we put much faith ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... by snapping his thick fingers with a contemptuous look for the women folk. He had just worked off his five years' government naval service; and it was as master-gunner of the fleet that he had learned to speak good French and hold sceptical opinions. He hemmed and hawed and then rattled off his latest love adventure, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... themselves, they are faithful and devoted; but the pageantry, the music, the antiquity, and the mystery of the ancient Church, draw forth, with the most potent spells, the fervour of their warm, emotional natures. They are never sceptical: the harder a doctrine is to believe the more they like it; the more improbable a tradition is the more tenaciously they cling to it. They are attracted by the supernatural and the horrible; they would not bate a single saint or devil of the complete faith to rescue all ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... They adore their father and have a fanatical faith in him and that means that Tolstoy really is a great moral force, for if he were insincere and not irreproachable his daughters would be the first to take up a sceptical attitude to him, for daughters are like sparrows: you don't catch them with empty chaff.... A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes, and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher; but a ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... a sceptical pause, during which he watched the lambent light as it played about in a slow fantastic way, just as if it were a softly-glowing lantern carried by a short-winged moth, which used it to inspect the flowering plants as it sought for a meal. "Let's go ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... to church, but read at home. He was somewhat sceptical in regard to the Bible, not that he had ever carefully examined either it or its evidences, but he had read much of the prevalent semi-infidelity, and was a little conceited over his independent thinking. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... old estimates of the philosophers, and had led to the nobler sentiment that God had made of one blood all nations and races, and had stamped His own image on them all, and even redeemed them all by the sacrifice of His Son, the speculations of sceptical biology have in a measure counteracted its benign influence. They have fostered the contempt of various classes for a dark skin or an inferior civilization. They indirectly encourage those who, with ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the regions of sorrow. The evidence, within and without the house, met, and, by the force of sympathetic similarity, mixed in an instant, carrying away in their course, like floating straws, the strongest doubts that remained in the mind of the most sceptical man in Christ's Kirk, of the hapless daughter of Wat Webster having been carried off by the Devil. The town was in the greatest commotion; terror and pity were painted on every face; but the feelings ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... He needed but to look closely within him and without him,—which he was gifted, with eyes to do,—and then report what he saw, in the language to which he was born. This he did, and his "Maxims" are the fruit. His method was largely the sceptical method of Montaigne. His result, too, was much the same result as his master's. But the pupil surpassed the master in the quality of his work. There is a fineness, an exquisiteness, in the literary form of La Rochefoucauld, which Montaigne might indeed have disdained to seek, but which he ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... find in it many interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning. These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... and female. The mere statement of the current suffragist platform, with its long list of quack sure-cures for all the sorrows of the world, is enough to make them smile sadly. In particular, they are sceptical of all reforms that depend upon the mass action of immense numbers of voters, large sections of whom are wholly devoid of sense. A normal woman, indeed, no more believes in democracy in the nation than she believes in democracy at her own fireside; ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... Sceptical Men disputing for the Reason of Animals, and telling us it is only our Pride and Prejudices that will not allow them the Use of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... question; but while we were discussing the chances, a faint star sparkled in the midst of the cavernous gloom. "You see it because you imagine it," cried some; yet, no, it was steadfast, and grew broad and bright, until even the most sceptical recognised the pale midnight sky at the bottom of the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... HISTORICALLY REGARDED > Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; .. and yet their doubting those traditions did not make ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... recounting the story of his evil days the faces of his hearers expressed curiosity. Some appeared shocked, Monpavon especially. For him, this exposure of rags was in execrable taste, an absolute breach of good manners. Cardailhac, sceptical and dainty, an enemy to scenes of emotion, with face set as if it were hypnotized, sliced a fruit on the end of his fork into wafers as thin as ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering and unblessed. But Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker's ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... of worship, and a religious corporation, and uniformly square their conduct accordingly. It was therefore unjust, as well as imprudent, in you, Sir, who are a popular writer, and whose works are read by every body, to endeavour to render sceptical free-thinkers, from their own principles the fastest and sincerest friends to religion in general, the objects of odium and detestation to the believers in that particular religion, which happens to be at present established by law. This, ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... be utterly repudiated. Utilitarianism, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, comfortable domestic axioms, little schemes for the elevation of the masses by the classes, had, on their logical basis, no attraction for this sceptical, wayward girl. To be merely useful was, in her eyes, to make oneself meddlesome and absurd. The object of existence was to be heroic or nothing. She could imagine herself a Poor Clare: she could not imagine herself as a great ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... in her offering. Christ's glance went right beyond her outward appearance, and beyond her small and almost imperceptible offering, to the motive and character. "She hath given more than they all." All sorts of people were around Him: Pharisees, with their phylacteries; Scribes, with their sceptical notions; Samaritans, with their vaunted traditions: but He always went right beyond the outward show. The Samaritan was good and kind, though he got no credit for piety; the Pharisee was corrupt and self-seeking, ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... passes, rubbings, mysterious incantations, etc., often resorted to, have no physiological effect whatever, and only serve to work in the way of suggestion upon the mind of the subject. In view of this it is probable that any person in normal health can be hypnotized, provided he is not too sceptical of the operator's knowledge and power; and, on the contrary, any one can hypnotize another, provided he do not arouse too great scepticism, and is not himself wavering and clumsy. It is probable, however, that susceptibility varies greatly in degree, and that ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... herself, in her book on the literary history of Peacock's time, unable to comprehend the admiration expressed by certain critics for Headlong Hall and its fellows, but is even, if I do not mistake her, somewhat sceptical of the complete sincerity of that admiration. There is no need to argue the point with this agreeable practitioner of Peacock's own art. A certain well-known passage of Thackeray, about ladies and Jonathan Wild, will sufficiently explain her own inability to taste Peacock's ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... and Moliere and Foote were Aristophanic. PLUTARCH, LA MOTHE LE VAYER, and BAYLE, alike busied in amassing the materials of human thought and human action, with the same vigorous and vagrant curiosity, must have had the same habits of life. If Plutarch were credulous, La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, and Bayle philosophical, all that can be said is, that though the heirs of the family may differ in their dispositions, no one will arraign the integrity of the lineal descent. VARRE did for the Romans what PAUSANIAS ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine, that their senses present to different men different images of things, this sceptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement of our perceptions. But as there will be little doubt that bodies ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that, although I had read Dr. Baraduc's book, "Les Vibrations Humaines," I approached the instrument in a very sceptical frame of mind; but I was soon convinced of my error. At first, holding a mental attitude of entire relaxation, I found that the left-hand needle was attracted through twenty degrees, while the right-hand needle, the one affected by the out-going current, ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... a game, save perhaps with the chief player, who was not more or less sceptical than most public men with whom he had acquaintance in that age. (Is there ever a public man in England that altogether believes in his party? Is there one, however doubtful, that will not fight for it?) Young Frank was ready to fight without ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... distinguishing between them. The best and simplest means for those who are acquainted with the structural defects common to natural corundum gems is to seek for such defects in any specimen that is in question, and if no such defects can be found, to be very sceptical as to the naturalness of the specimen, inasmuch as perfect corundum gems are very rare in nature, and when of fine color command exceedingly high prices. No jeweler can afford to risk his reputation for knowledge and for ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... about the Trojan horse, and jesting about priests. The fact that it was a priest on whom the snakes had fastened seemed to afford especial delight to the sceptical and priest-hating rabble. ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... I'm not given to 'jollying' newspaper reporters. Here's a copy of the telegram I sent this morning, if you are still sceptical. Really, I don't see why you think it so impossible. Don't you consider Mr. Huntington a fit man ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord with sniffs ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... grown sceptical as to working-girls, and of the good she did them—or any one else. It was all terribly dreary and forlorn, and she wished she could end it by putting her head on some broad shoulder and by being ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... gusty puffs of wind that now and then swept through the compound caused the wood fire to flare up and flicker, casting fitful and fantastic shadows around. Moonshee stared, with fixed eyes, expecting every moment the reappearance of the supernatural poultry; but I, being as yet sceptical, descended the stairs, followed by my trembling household, and ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... certainly taken hold of the French mind, but France has been too busy and is temperamentally too economical to risk large expenditures upon what is necessarily an experiment. The British are too conservative and sceptical to be the pioneers in any such enterprise. The Russians have been too poor in the necessary ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... party of three men, who were on their way to the West, where, according to the story they told, they had found a wonderfully rich gold-field. Many a story of that kind had already been told in Birralong, both at the Rest and on Marmot's verandah, and the Birralong folk were sceptical, especially those who on former occasions had been induced, on the strength of the story, to furnish stores on credit, or take a contributing interest in the newly found claim; in either case receiving in return only the knowledge that, even in matters connected with gold-mining, humanity ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the mournful butler had handed him with a look as sceptical as his own, and had rejected the mushroom sauce after a scarcely perceptible sniff. He looked baffled and hungry, and Archer reflected that he would probably finish his meal on ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... it would be dangerous to put myself in the way of so much temptation, but the end of it was that day after day we sat together in my sitting-room, answering the inquiries of the sceptical, the congratulations of the convinced, and the offers of assistance that came from people who wished to join in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... or observation, and merely give the result; he should, in every case where it is practicable, describe the nature of his experiment,—the when, the where, the how;—and the means and opportunity he had of making his observations, that the curious or sceptical inquirer may be enabled to perform the experiment, or make the ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... planets, while the busy fingers plied and rolled tobacco leaves, but these discussions generally ended in a sigh, a shake of the head, and an unbelieving, "there must be something solid under this earth," from the sceptical host. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Shawe-Taylor's proposal became canvassed of the newspapers and the politicians. Mr Dillon seemed to be sceptical of it, as a transparent landlord dodge. It was, however, enthusiastically welcomed by the Freeman, whilst The Daily Express, the organ of the more unbending of the territorialists, denounced it mercilessly, and no sooner did the Duke of ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... "I must confess myself sceptical of a favourable result, and only trust your experiment may not have a tragical termination; for I've no faith in the aborigines: they are treacherous in the extreme, and will commit any act of violence to possess themselves of a coveted article. I myself have known shepherds ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... intellectual life, and it was said of him that "he was a philosopher who had gone to Italy by mistake instead of to Germany." He may also be called the prophet of the modern aesthetic school. His attitude to Christianity, though deeply sceptical, was not unsympathetic. As a boy he came under the influence of Keble, and at one time thought of taking orders, but his gradual change of view led him to relinquish the idea. Among his works may be mentioned an article on Coleridge, and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... the last century at all. In 1813 he might well have turned back at the Polish frontier, and have made peace, and later he might have dropped Prussia. We certainly owed our reestablishment on the old basis at that time to the benevolence of Emperor Alexander I.—or, if you wish to be sceptical, you may say to the Russian policy, which was such as Prussia needed. Gratitude for this dominated the reign of Frederick William III. The credit, however, which Russia had in the Prussian accounts was used up by the friendship, I may even say servility, of Prussia during ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... him one morning, I found him on his knees buttering and rolling up this great picture, preparatory to sending it to the Academy. I made some remark about its unusual size, saying with a sceptical smile, 'It will take up ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... prevented co-operation. In other cases it was the quarrels artificially fomented by Austria between her subject nations, notably between the Poles and Ruthenes and between the Yugoslavs and Italians. Finally, the Poles lacked a definite international point of view. They were justly sceptical of Slav solidarity seeing that they were oppressed by a government which claimed to ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... the way for the acceptance in France of the materialism and philosophy of healthy common science through the sceptical disintegration of metaphysics. He announced the atheistic society which was soon to come into existence, inasmuch as a society of avowed atheists could exist, as an atheist could be an honest man, as man was not degraded by atheism, but by superstition ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... A sceptical genius has said: "God made man in his image and man has returned the compliment." This saying is an eternal truth, and it would be very curious to write the history of the local divinity of every continent as well as the history of the patron saints in each one of our provinces. ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... blue enamel. It has descended from Lady Frances Devereux, Essex's daughter, in unbroken succession from mother and daughter, to the present possessor. Although the entire story has met with disbelievers, the most sceptical must allow that whether this be the ring or not, it is valuable as a work of art of the ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... first time that his need for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to him; half a world lay between them—or soon would. All his days he had awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming of the thing men call Love; and when it had come to him he had not known it nor guessed it until its cause had slipped away from ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... search may be. Most of us are so entirely out of touch with the spirit of art in this busy new world that we are not quite convinced of its reality. We know that it is decorative, and that a certain pleasure flows from it; but we are sceptical of its significance in the life of the race, of its deep necessity in the development of that life, and of its supreme educational value. And our scepticism, it must be frankly said, like most scepticism, grows out of our ignorance. True art has nothing in common with the popular conception ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... afterwards, but his repentance by no means took the form of greater respect for women. On the contrary, he became more and more a convert to Don Juan's love—philosophy, and allowed only the millionaire and Prince Etc. to sue for favour, while the sceptical Louis grew wholly ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... gentlemen go to work with the most serious mien; at the opera they deem it becoming to put on a nonchalant, sceptical, cleverly-frivolous air. They concede with a smile that they are not quite at home in the opera, and do not profess to understand much about things which they do not particularly esteem. Accordingly, they are very accommodating and complaisant towards vocalists, female and male, for whom ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... pursued by fate, will not fail to impart a sense of dignity even to the meanest. "After all, if I stop in England," said he, "I can't afford to lose my position in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated low scoundrel like Sedgett should bag the game." Besides, is it not somewhat sceptical to suppose that when Fate decides, she has not weighed the scales, and decided for the best? Meantime, the whole energy of his intellect was set reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward would, by nature and the occasion, be disposed to swallow. He quitted the cab, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... momentarily changed. He was as pale and thin as ever, but his face softened oddly; certain lines which contributed to his usually bitter and sceptical expression disappeared, while others became visible which changed his look completely. He bowed with more deference than he affected with other women, and Orsino fancied that he would have held Maria Consuelo's hand a moment longer, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Grown sceptical of life. Power? Power? For what? And over what? And toward what? Not a power Over myself or pain or loneliness Or ignorance or evil; not a strength To bid the near-world cease, and in its place Instate my visions beautiful and pale, Nearer the heart's desire. No, you would give Power ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... Pyrrhonism. A doctrine held by a follower of Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher of the third century before Christ, who founded the sceptical school. He taught that it is impossible to attain truth, and that men should be indifferent ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... their very nature the utterances of a prophet—an able, acute, and fair-minded prophet, I grant, but still a prophet—and before a prophet the wisest man has to be silent, or content himself by answering in prophecy also. What makes the sceptical frame of mind in which Mr. Dicey approaches the Home Rule question so important is not simply that it probably represents that of a very large body of educated Englishmen, but that it is one in which a federal system cannot be produced. Faith, hope, and charity are ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... which have made the enjoyment of them in our times the greatest blessing we possess. It was a new spirit that had arisen in our world to break the fetters which centuries of fraud and superstition and injustice had forged,—a spirit scornful of old authorities, yet not sceptical, with disgust of the past and hope for the future, penetrating even the hamlets of the poor, and kindling the enthusiasm of princes and nobles, producing learned men in every country of Europe, whose original investigations ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... something might be gained by the publication of perfectly independent testimony of, perhaps, equal, if not greater, value, though of quite a different character. With these words of explanation as to the delay in its publication, I resign this paper to the criticism of our sceptical friends. Let them calmly consider and pronounce upon the evidence of the Tibetan pedlar at Darjiling, supported and strengthened by the independent testimony of the young Brahmachari at Dehradun. Those who were present when the statements of these persons were taken, all occupy very respectable ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... 'You are sceptical at last,' he sneered. 'I have the missing portions of the papyrus here with me. You can have them for a song. I was afraid to leave the roll too complete, lest I should invite detection. It would be ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... there was no general hostility to the Church in Paris. The bourgeoisie—I speak of its masculine element—was as sceptical then as it is now, but it knew that General Trochu, in whom it placed its trust, was a practising and fervent Catholic, and that in taking the Presidency of the Government he had made it one of his conditions that religion ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... be subdued by Yoga, i.e., by regulating the wind within the body. Doubt is to be dispelled by certainty; this implies that certain knowledge should be sought for by driving off doubt. The commentator thinks that this means that all sceptical conclusions should be dispelled by faith in the scriptures. By 'fear,' in this verse, is meant the source of fear, or the world. That is to be conquered by the conquest of the six, i.e., desire, wrath, covetousness, error, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... read the paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon it. If he has no curiosity in the direction of these chapters, he can afford to leave them to such as relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does so leave them he will very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of the story to which they are meant to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mind of the Church of England,—or of any other Church. Revelation rests, at this hour, on exactly the same basis on which it has always rested, and on which it will rest, to the end of time; let the age be faithful, or faithless,—learned or unlearned,—rationalizing or scientific,—sceptical or superstitious,—or whatever else you will. And if I am asked to explain myself, I would humbly say,—(always submitting my own statements in such a matter to the judgment of the Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England,)—that we receive the Bible on the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... and, lifting his feet, coasted downhill at forty miles an hour into the main street of Blakeney. Ten minutes later, when the car followed, a mob of men so completely blocked the water-front that Ford was forced to stop. His head-lights illuminated hundreds of faces, anxious, sceptical, eager. A gentleman with a white mustache and a look of a retired army officer pushed his way toward Ford, the crowd making room for him, and then closing ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... the head of the innocent himself?... What does it matter that, thinking that he has to deal with noxious giants, Don Quixote attacks useful windmills?... Nothing of the sort can ever happen with Hamlet: how could he, with his perspicacious, refined, sceptical mind, ever commit such a mistake! No, he will not fight with windmills, he does not believe in giants ... but he would not have attacked them even if they did exist.... And he does not believe in evil. Evil and ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... led them into the store, where he showed the will to Frank and Joe, who were at first sceptical, and afterwards began to doubt the evidence of their senses. But when the witnesses were called, and had confirmed Jeffson's statements, and, above all, when the bags of gold-dust and nuggets were handed over to him, Frank could no longer question the amazing fact that ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... ruler whose love of children was one of his most salient traits. In regard to those other and vaguer accusations, he contended that the Duke was too jovial by nature to have tortured any save those who, in his opinion, thoroughly deserved it. Indeed, he was sceptical about the whole thing. Monsignor Perrelli might have told us the truth, had he cared to do so. But, for reasons which will appear anon, he is remarkably silent on all that concerns the reign of his great contemporary. He says ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... appeared in Paris, under the title of De la Certitude, (Upon Certainty), by A. JAVARY. It makes an octavo of more than five hundred pages, and for originality of ideas and illustrations, and cumulative force of logic, is almost unrivalled. The sceptical speculation of the time is reduced by it to powder, and thrown to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... are the enlightened minds of the district, they are the only persons who venture to speak disparagingly of the ramparts; in fact, they have several times demanded of the authorities the demolition of those old walls, relics of a former age. At the same time, the most sceptical among them experience a shock of delight whenever a marquis or a count deigns to honour them with a stiff salutation. Indeed, the dream of every citizen of the new town is to be admitted to a drawing-room of the Saint-Marc quarter. They know very well that their ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... Barnwells and Hugers. And yonder is a stump-orator perched on his barrel, pouring out his exhortations to fidelity in war and in religion. To-night for the first time I have heard an harangue in a different strain, quite saucy, sceptical, and defiant, appealing to them in a sort of French materialistic style, and claiming some personal experience of warfare. "You don't know notin' about it, boys. You tink you's brave enough; how you tink, if you ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... villages were comparatively thick, standing for the most part in clearings in a great forest. On the march the Burmese officer frequently talked with Stanley, asked many questions about England and India; and was evidently surprised, and somewhat sceptical, as to the account the lad gave him of the fighting strength of the country. He treated him with considerable indulgence, and sent him dishes from ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... the traveller; and as he is a mighty surly fellow, neither loves nor is loved by any one; "through sin's long labyrinth had run, nor made atonement when he did amiss;" as, moreover, he is licentious and sceptical; Lord Byron very naturally, and creditably to himself, sets out in his Preface with disclaiming any connection with this imaginary personage. It is somewhat singular, however, that most of the offensive reflections in the poem are made, not by the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... literature were his daily household delight. Nothing pleased him so well as to sit with his wife, reading aloud to her while she worked; now translating from some foreign poet, now rolling forth melodiously the exquisite cadences of Queen Mab. Student of philosophy as he was, he was deeply and steadily sceptical; and a very religious relative has told me that he often drove her from the room by his light playful mockery of the tenets of the Christian faith. His mother and sister were strict Roman Catholics, and near the end forced a priest into his room, but the priest was promptly ejected by the wrath ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... embroidering and the old baroness stitching steadily along the folded linen—while all these people were thus quietly and peaceably engaged, an event was brewing which was destined to produce some very remarkable results. And lest the justification of ordinary possibility should be required by the sceptical hereafter, I will at once state that the greater part of what follows is a matter of history, well known to many living persons; and that in writing it down I wish it to be understood that I am submitting to the judgment of humanity a strange case which actually ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... one of the greatest of living authors had confidently prophesied a worldwide reputation. She, Dreda Saxon, an author whom strange people talked about, whose name appeared familiarly in newspapers and magazines! She herself had dreamed of such fairy tales, had expatiated on their probability to sceptical friends; but now that Mr Rawdon had prophesied the same thing she was none the less surprised and tremulous. He who has experienced what the world calls triumph knows well that at those moments the inmost feeling of the heart has ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sceptical disbeliever, boys!" struck in Tony West, raising his hands in mock horror. "Nigel, m'lad, you've made an early conversion. The good doctor has a sneaking belief in the story. How now, son? What's your plan ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... require it, can hear the footsteps of an approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate observations. Any reader who is sceptical in regard to the cultivation of the senses, would do well to consult the account of Julia Brace, the deaf and dumb and blind girl, as published in some of the early volumes of ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... standards!—suffers dreadfully in the world's opinion by any feud, schism, or shadow of change among its members. This is what the New Testament, a code of philosophy fertile in new ideas, first introduced under the name of scandal; that is, any occasion of serious offence ministered to the weak or to the sceptical by differences irreconcilable in the acts or the opinions of those whom they are bound to regard as spiritual authorities. Now here in Scotland, is a feud past all arbitration: here is a schism no longer theoretic, neither ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?" said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at once sceptical and ironical. "Because, in these days, under a regime which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms, small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does that prove ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... expression of sceptical consideration and an inward suspicion of the peculiar force of this man's dogmatic insight, Blandford assented, with, I fear, the mental reservation of telling the story to his wife in his own way. He was surprised when his friend suddenly drew the horse up sharply, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... doubt in any of the Admirals' or Generals' minds," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, in the despatch announcing his arrival, "but that Tobago and Trinidada are the enemy's objects." Nelson himself was sceptical,—the improbability seemed great to his sound military perceptions; but, confident as he was in his own conclusions in dilemmas, his mind was too sane and well balanced to refuse direct and credible evidence. Summing up the situation with lamentations, six weeks later, he said to Davison: ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... closed lips. You have no broad vowels and large consonants to fill your mouth as when you say Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson. This difference in sound seems symbolic. Ibsen is the solitary man, a scathing critic of society, a delver in the depths of human nature, sceptical of all that men believe in and admire. He has not, like Bjoernson, any faith in majorities; nay, he believes that the indorsement of the majority is an argument against the wisdom of a course of action or the truth of a proposition. The summary of this poet's work and personality ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... English painter who went to Rome, and when he got into the Sistine Chapel, turning to his companion, said, "Egad, George, we're bit!" Our own tendency is, because of our ignorance, to be sceptical and suspicious as to foreign works of art, especially of a kind that are novel and daring. No one is so hard to please as a simpleton. We are so afraid of being taken in, that we are reluctant to commit ourselves in favor of any new thing until we have heard from headquarters; but it ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... is not a water-finder by profession. He is a tenant farmer residing at Catcolt, a village near Bridgwater, and merely exercises the art to oblige his neighbours. Several of the country people in this neighbourhood (Somerset) have the gift. It has never been known to fail. Personally I was rather sceptical on the subject, but was converted by the stick turning in my hands when standing over a spring. There were about six persons present at the time; all tried it, but it would turn for no one excepting the man in the picture ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... another in his brother the Duke of Mayenne, far inferior to his elder brother in political talent and prompt energy of character, but a brave and determined soldier, a much better man of party and action than the sceptical, undecided, and indolent Henry III. The majority of the great towns of France—Paris, Rouen, Orleans, Toulouse, Lyons, Amiens—and whole provinces declared eagerly against the royal murderer. He ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the sole proposition of the oriental philosophic religionists, who have all alike sought to discover it by taking the high priori road. That God is all, appears to be the prevalent dogmatic determination of the Brahmanists; that all is God, the preferential but sceptical solution of the Buddhists; and, in a large view, I believe it would be difficult to indicate any further essential difference between their theoretic systems, both, as I conceive, the unquestionable growth of the Indian soil, and both founded upon transcendental ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... then, that by a slight re-arrangement of Locke's pronouncements in natural philosophy, they could be made inwardly consistent, and still faithful to the first presuppositions of common sense, although certainly far more chastened and sceptical than impulsive opinion is likely to be ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... from the old fancy, that the other phenomena are not natural. The fog of itself may be; but what brings it on, just then, at a crisis, when they were speculating about the character of the chased vessel, some doubting her honesty, others sceptical of her reality, not a few boldly pronouncing her as a phantom? If an accident of nature, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Even the presence of Sophia did not bring her much comfort. Immediately Sophia left the room Constance's sciatica began to return, and in a severe form. She had regretted this, less for the pain than because she had just assured Sophia, quite honestly, that she was not suffering; Sophia had been sceptical. After that it was of course imperative that Constance should get up as usual. She had said that she would get up as usual. Besides, there was the immense enterprise of obtaining a new servant! Worries loomed mountainous. Suppose Cyril were dangerously ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the same pods. Wiegmann made an exactly similar observation in the present century. The same result has followed several times when a variety with peas of one colour has been artificially crossed by a differently-coloured variety.[929] These statements led Gaertner, who was highly sceptical on the subject, carefully to try a long series of experiments: he selected the most constant varieties, and the result conclusively showed that the colour of the skin of the pea is modified when pollen of a differently ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... T, not forgetting to add, that T was the hieroglyphic for Thief. The villain himself affirmed it was simply the mark of a cross, burned into it by a blessed friar, as a charm against St. Vitus's dance, to which he had once been subject. The people, however, were rather sceptical, not of the friar's power to cure that malady, but of the fact of his ever having moved a limb under it; and they concluded with telling him, good-humoredly enough, that notwithstanding the charm, he was destined to die "wid the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... conviction of it grows most in his opponent when he least interposes his speech between his action and his opponent. Speech, especially when it is haughty, betrays want of confidence and it makes one's opponent sceptical about the reality of the act itself. Humility therefore is the key to quick success. I hope that every non-co-operationist will recognise the necessity of being humble and self-restrained. It is because so little is really required to be done because all of that little depends entirely upon ourselves ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi |
