"Skepticism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Paris; and yet, as this curious account has not been questioned, so far as we are aware, by those who ought to know the facts, it is hardly gracious in us to begin the relation of it by gratuitous skepticism. A Bordeaux ship-owner, who is noted for insisting on a strict obedience to instructions on the part of his captains, some time ago gave written orders to one of the latter to bring back from Brazil, whither he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... a sort of lassitude in vital energy. One becomes blase, disillusioned, an old young man, past being diverted. How many young people are in this state! Upon them have been deposited, like a sort of mold, the traces of our decrepitude, our skepticism, our vices, and the bad habits they have contracted in our company. What reflections upon ourselves these youths weary of life force us to make! What announcements are ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... "an article is a word prefixed to substantives, to point them out, and to show how far their signification extends; as, "a garden, an eagle, the woman." Skepticism in grammar is no crime, so we will not hesitate to call in question the correctness of this "best of all grammars beyond all comparison." Let us consider the very examples given. They were doubtless the best that ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... with it a contempt for everything which it can not understand; skepticism becomes the synonym for intelligence; men no longer repeat; they doubt; they dissect; they sneer; they reject; they invent. If the myth survives this treatment, the poets take it up and make it their stock in trade: they decorate it in a masquerade of frippery and finery, ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... high time, dear friend, that you get rid of your German skepticism; you know, I esteem your judgment, but when it comes to doubting anything the newspapers say, I draw the line. What reporters do not know about Anarchists, and especially about your publisher, is not worth knowing. According to their great wisdom I not only incited men to remove the crowned ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... his exposition of the true relations of skepticism to affirmative and negative belief, the philosophical reader must be referred to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Science on your Earth, based on the scientific method of investigation, its devotees adopted a spirit of skepticism concerning all problems of human activity not susceptible to measurement with the foot-rule, or analysis with the test tube, with the result that the newer Science of Psychology was invented to supply a reasonable and material explanation for the subtle and mystifying ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... across it an indecipherable jumble of words. She had expressed it exactly—it seemed as though some one had been trying to write with a weight clogging his hand. And there was something about this scrap of paper—something convincing and authentic—which struck heavily at my skepticism. Here was what ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the nimble intellectualities, the specious animalism, the derisive skepticism, the snapping personalities, the witty worldliness, that interlace and constitute the successive cantos of "Don Juan," the passages just quoted and similar ones (they are not many) rise, as above the desires and the discontents, the plots and contentions, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... who have really studied the phenomena of the sensitives, starting with absolute skepticism, have come to a new form of the old belief; and when, of the remaining minority, the weight of respectable opinion goes so far as suspense of judgment, how does the argument look? Isn't it at least one of those cases of new phenomena where it is well to be on guard against old mental ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... and uncandid way, he will soon plunge himself into the mire of unbelief. Difficulties and objections should be candidly considered, and allowed their due weight; but they must not be suffered to override irrefragable proof, else we shall soon land in universal skepticism: for difficulties, and some of them too insoluble, can be urged against the great facts of nature and natural religion, as well as of revelation. To reject a series of events supported by an overwhelming weight of evidence, on the ground of unexplained ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lost faith in the legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from the examples of divers grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in their more practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at the skepticism of a modern hard-headed and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... controversy, most innocent of the duplicities of unbelief, Faith saw her neighbour entangled, as it seemed, in a mesh of his own weaving and had not power to untie the knot. It distressed her. Other knots of skepticism or ignorance that he had presented to her she had cut easily with the sword of truth if she could not untie; he had offered her one to-day that she could cut indeed as easily for herself,—but not for him. To do that called for not better wits, but for far greater controversial acumen and logical ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... whose reputation for scholarship gives them wide influence, give it as their opinion that the Bible is not inspired at all, except as other great books are inspired. This poison has penetrated all our churches. The virus of skepticism has entered the pulpits ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... but there is not the corresponding religious interest. The truth is viewed by many as a beautiful theory, the heart remaining a flint. We have to regret the fact, that some of the best minds in the place are tinged with skepticism. Happily the most influential are, notwithstanding, our firm friends, and are in favor of good ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... where he found Cortlandt in deep thought. "I cannot get over the dreams," said the doctor, "I had in the first part of the night. Notwithstanding yesterday's excitement and fatigue, my sleep was most disturbed, and I was visited by visions of my wife, who died long ago. She warned me against skepticism, and seemed much distressed at my present spiritual state." "I," said Bearwarden, who had been out early, and had succeeded in bringing in half a dozen birds, "was so disturbed I could not sleep. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... examinations of the testimony of the catacombs regarding the doctrine, the faith, and the lives of the Christians of Rome in the first three centuries. The evidence is harmonious and complete. It leaves no room for skepticism or doubt. There are no contradictions in it. From every point of view, theologic, historic, artistic, the results coincide and afford mutual support. The construction of the catacombs, the works of painting found within them, the inscriptions on the graves, all unite in bearing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... great things were expected by the farmers of the State, but gradually their confidence waned. As they saw the new professor walking over the farm in a dilettantish way, superintending operations with gloved hands, and never touching any implement, doubts arose which soon ripened into skepticism. Typical were the utterances of our farm manager. He was a plain, practical farmer, who had taken the first prize of the State Agricultural Society for the excellence of his own farm; and, though he at first indulged in high hopes regarding the new professor, he soon had misgivings, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... I don't mean any harm, and you must not think anything of my brusque speeches. As you know, there is a tinge of skepticism in me which I can not help, and my ideals are so much higher than the realities of life, that I am always ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... His skepticism he indicates in references, for example, to Paracelsus and van Helmont. Their specific remedy against "the stone," he says, and their claims that they can reduce stones to "insipid water, is so strange (not to say incredible) that their ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... discarded. It is doubtless impossible to estimate with entire correctness the relative value of the different forces that advance or retard civilization, but we believe the weight of historic evidence goes to prove that religious skepticism was the actual cause, as it has always been the inevitable precursor, of national decay. Coleridge in The Friend quotes the historian Polybius as attributing the strength of the Roman republic to the general reverence of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... virtue and magnificent wisdom and goodness. He lived for the good of his country and the world. I love him for the tall angel of light that he now is, and the celestial richness of the glory that streams from his brow. I know I love him, and no philosophy or skepticism can cheat me out ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... the novel is this. The heroine, who is young, but not in her first girlhood, has in her aspect and her natural disposition everything that is akin to the mystical aspirations of the saint; but, more or less desolated by the diffused skepticism of the day, she has been robbed of innocence by a man, an old family friend, and has never been at peace with herself or wholly escaped from his sinister power since. The hero, who meets her by accident ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Mr. Czenki looked up, and the living flame of wonder within his eyes flickered and died. In silence, for a minute or more, he studied the unconcealed skepticism in his employer's face, and then ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... to my secretary's office, I could see her looking up from her desk at the Swami's face with an expression of fascinated skepticism. The Swami's back was toward me, and on it hung flowing folds of a black cloak. His turban was white, except where it had rubbed against the ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... don't know how we're going to handle this. They only suspect that you are their deity. As it stands, now, we're on trial, here. And I get the impression that logic, not faith, seems to be their supreme religious virtue; that skepticism is a religious obligation instead of a sin. That's something else that's practically unheard ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... tryin' to tell you I wouldn't. Only this time, I ain't. If I was, don't you suppose I've got sense enough not to go to you to help me with it?" The girl waited with all outward appearance of skepticism for him to proceed. "This girl went ridin' with Jack Purdy—he borrowed ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... voluntarily to the brutality of the crowd and the rigors of the law. Moreover, and from the start, notwithstanding threats and temptations, two-thirds of the clergy would not take the oath; in the highest ranks, among the mundane ecclesiastics whose skepticism and laxity were notorious, honor, in default of faith, maintained the same spirit; nearly the whole of them, great and small, had subordinated their interests, welfare and security to the maintenance of their dignity or to scruples of conscience. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sweeping assertion," responded her teacher in a somewhat doubtful tone. "I'll have to ruminate on that. However, this little glimpse of a better way than I have hitherto known, seems like an olive leaf of hope and promise to me, for I have been tossing on a restless sea of doubt and skepticism for years, reaching out and groping after some substantial plank that would float me into a haven of peace and rest. But how is it that you, so young, argue so clearly and logically about these things that have puzzled older and wiser heads ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... had bought in 1856 from the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The statement was, of course, received with the utmost incredulity; but Simionides asserted, not only that he had written it, but that, in view of the probable skepticism of the scholars, he had placed certain private signs on particular leaves of the codex. When pressed to specify these marks he gave a list of the leaves on which were to be found his initials or other monogram. The test ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... would not be superfluous to remark that precisely the members of our party's military organization assumed in October an attitude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the organization and its officially military character involuntarily inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... depend upon your own powers of expression and persuasion, but cast yourself upon the Holy Spirit and seek for them His testimony and see to it that they put themselves in the place where the Holy Spirit can testify. This is the cure for both skepticism and ignorance concerning Christ. If you yourself are not clear concerning the truth about Jesus Christ, seek for yourself the testimony of the Holy Spirit regarding Christ. Read the Scriptures, read especially the Gospel of John but do not depend upon the mere reading of the Word, but before ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... memoir, or even a disquisition: at some point, the flow incident to wilful instead of soulful utterance becomes apparent;—ambition, pride of opinion, love of display somewhere manifest themselves. It has been said that the chief element of Hume's mental power was skepticism; and, singular as it may appear, his doubts about what are deemed the vital interests of humanity gave a charm to his record of her political vicissitudes; while he made capital of touching "situations," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... sincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft and diabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satan and in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, would diverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights to see these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attempting against the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies from profane and irreverent investigation; painfully ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... skeptic, but I was sometimes a doubter. Rather than faith, I should have much preferred to have knowledge, exact knowledge. Often I even felt ironical when confronted with the simple faith we clergymen should surely encourage, sustain, and humbly glory in, whereas with skepticism, even when openly expressed, I always felt some part of myself to be in secret sympathy. I continued to study works, both English and foreign, on psychical research. I followed the experiments of Lodge, William James, and others. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... certain provinces of France, old religious customs which are full of charming simplicity. May they endure and ever hold out against the icy breath of skepticism, the cold rules of the beautiful, and the wearisome ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... energy of the apostolic age, we ourselves, instead of being blessed with the bright and balmy influences of Christianity, should now have been groping our way in the darkness of heathenism, or left to perish in the cold and cheerless labyrinths of skepticism." ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... Nudimmud. Delitzsch, Babylonische Weltschoepfungsepos, p. 99, questions the identity with Ea, but his skepticism is unwarranted, though the title ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... snorted, with a skepticism amply justified by the past. "And if you did, I shouldn't answer; I hate letters, always did. But you cable me once a fortnight to let me know you're living—and send an extra cable if you want ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... had produced a dispassionate tolerance which weakened the ethnographical conception of a privileged Christendom. And when classical antiquity with its men and institutions became an ideal of life) as well as the greatest of historical memories, ancient speculation and skepticism obtained in many cases a complete mastery over the minds of Italians. Since, again, the Italians were the first modern people of Europe who gave themselves boldly to speculations on freedom and necessity, and since they did so under violent ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... frightened. He tried to see it from the viewpoint of an outsider, and found himself incredulous and doubting. McLean would resent the situation. Even the Portier was a person to reckon with. The skepticism of the American colony was a thing to fear ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whom he adored as an angel, arose the demon of skepticism and mistrust, and regarded him with mocking smiles and looks of contempt; but still Feodor von Brenda was a name of honor, a cavalier to whom his pledged word was sacred, and who was ready to pay the debt of honor which he had ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... He laughed with skepticism, but plied his paddle again. He was not as concerned about the launch as he pretended, of course; at the worst it probably meant that Stinson had been entertaining some of his friends on the sly. He had no intention of handing his mysterious passenger to the police. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Berkeley's position an impregnable citadel of skepticism. He accepted Berkeley's conclusion that we know nothing of matter, and then attempted to show that inferences based on ideas might be equally illusory. Hume attacked the validity of the reasoning process itself. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... I anywhere say, as he falsely insinuates."—Id. "Everywhere, anywhere, elsewhere, somewhere, nowhere"—L. Murray's Gram., Vol. i, p. 115. "The world hurries off apace, and time is like a rapid river."—Collier cor. "But to new-model the paradoxes of ancient skepticism."—Dr. Brown cor. "The southeast winds from the ocean invariably produce rain."—Webster cor. "Northwest winds from the highlands produce cold clear weather."—Id. "The greatest part of such ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... he used to lock the outer doors of his house twice a day and then engage in private prayer; on the other hand, friends of Burton who knew him and were with him almost to the last have received this statement with skepticism. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... case is a classic example of discordant personality. You all remember his half-pagan, half-Christian bringing up at Carthage, his emigration to Rome and Milan, his adoption of Manicheism and subsequent skepticism, and his restless search for truth and purity of life; and finally how, distracted by the struggle between the two souls in his breast, and ashamed of his own weakness of will when so many others whom he knew and knew of had thrown off the shackles of sensuality and dedicated themselves ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... will work this time." Bassett looked at his friend keenly and seeing that Campbell's face betrayed skepticism he prepared himself mentally to exercise the same talents that had made his father, Blow-Hard Bassett, a successful ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... corruption and strong political forces backing government controls; nevertheless, the government's primary goal of EU integration has resulted in some market-oriented progress. The economy remains vulnerable to higher fuel prices, poor agricultural weather, and the skepticism of foreign investors. Also, the presence of an illegal separatist regime in Moldova's Transnistria region continues to be a drag on ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... never known the miraculous picture to be uncovered during a drought, without the desired result immediately following. In cases of long continued rains, its intervention has been equally happy. I have heard several persons, rather inclined to skepticism as to the miraculous qualities of the picture, hint that the barometer was consulted on these occasions; else, say they, why was not the picture uncovered before the mischief had gone so far? What an idea is suggested by ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... indicate progress in civilization, not in piety; and while the kings and their subjects are assuredly loosing their grasp on Booddhism, they are not reaching out to lay hold on Christianity. It seems rather as if the whole nation were swaying off into the frigid regions of skepticism, and, influenced by the example of many unworthy representatives of Christian countries, they live only for the luxuries and laxities of the present life. Priestly robes are much less frequently seen on the river and in the streets than formerly; and many of the clergy no longer reside at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... was the first to recover from the surprise occasioned by Britz's revelation. He became aware of a growing skepticism that refused to accept so obvious an explanation of the puzzling circumstances surrounding the merchant's death. Surely the same solution would have suggested itself to him ere this were it possible for twenty hours to have elapsed between the ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... advent. While a student at school, Gaussen had encountered that spirit of rationalism which pervaded all Europe during the latter part of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century; and when he entered the ministry he was not only ignorant of true faith, but inclined to skepticism. In his youth he had become interested in the study of prophecy. After reading Rollin's "Ancient History," his attention was called to the second chapter of Daniel, and he was struck with the wonderful exactness with which the prophecy had been ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... passed through. They or their prototypes were familiar friends. There was the recently created baronet, whose "bloody hand" had apparently wiped out the stains of his earlier Radicalism, and whose former provincial self-righteousness had been supplanted by an equally provincial skepticism; there was his wife, who through all the difficulties of her changed position had kept the stalwart virtues of the Scotch bourgeoisie, and was—"decent"; there were the two native lairds that reminded him of "parts of speech," one being distinctly alluded to as a definite ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... have been making an experiment—one of those experiments which men frequently attempt, believing all the time that it is worse than child's play, and half hoping that it will prove so and sanction the wisdom of their skepticism concerning the result. When I left home I placed in your charge the key of my private desk or cabinet, exacting the promise that only upon certain conditions would you venture to open it. Those contingencies have ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... myself, of late, as I transcribed them in my turn, I confess to having blamed the Philadelphian but lightly for his skepticism. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Kant, confines human knowledge to experience, and thus avoids the errors which beset the dogmatist. But then, as Hume seemed to have shown, empiricism must run out into skepticism. If all our knowledge has its foundations in experience, how can we expect to find in our possession any universal or necessary truths? May not a later experience contradict an earlier? How can we be sure that what has been will be? Can we know that there is anything fixed ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... Oriel College, Oxford. Taking Holy Orders, he was, for a time, deeply influenced by Newman and the Tractarian movement, but soon underwent the radical revolution of thought revealed by his first treatise, the "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1849, and created a sensation. Its tendency to skepticism cost him his fellowship, but its profound pathos, its accent of tenderness, and its fervour excited wide admiration. Permanent fame was secured by the appearance, in 1856, of the first two instalments of his magnificent work, "The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... and not a few "sound historical critics" would consider it in the highest degree absurd to suggest that cities with such structures have ever existed there. Under the circumstances supposed, how wisely skepticism could talk against a suggestion of this kind at Copan, Mitla, or Palenque! and how difficult it would be to find a satisfactory answer to its reasonings! Nevertheless, those mysterious structures have not wholly disappeared, and we ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... this Egyptian immigration into Attica was long implicitly received. Recently the bold skepticism of German scholars —always erudite—if sometimes rash—has sufficed to convince us of the danger we incur in drawing historical conclusions from times to which no historical researches can ascend. The proofs upon which rest the reputed arrival of Egyptian colonizers, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... surgeon, old school-and-college chum of Anthony's though he was, was about to have his first introduction to a place of which he had heard much, but of whose nearness to Paradise he doubted with the strong skepticism of a man who has seen many a fair beginning end in all unhappiness ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... term "Sydney duck" had become only too well known. The idyllic time of order and honesty and pleasant living with one's fellow-men was over. But we were unaware of that; and, knowing the average generous-hearted miner, we listened to Don Gaspar with a certain surprised skepticism. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals, he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point of pain, to the point of sickness—his many HIDDEN sufferings make him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the last great slave-insurrection which ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... around the table, and sat down. "Cousin Parnelia was here this morning," she went on. "Poor old idiot, she was certain that planchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told her to go ahead—but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it to the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house." ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... "Our venerable mother," says the great historian from whom we have already quoted, "had contrived to unite the opposite extremes of bigotry and indifference"; and these blended influences, which led Gibbon first to Rome, and then to skepticism, proved no doubt to the average mind a mere narcotic to all spiritual life. Gibbon is not the only great writer who has recorded his testimony against Hanoverian Oxford. Adam Smith in that work which ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... begin with, Mr. Poundstone, you might accept my solemn assurances that despite the skepticism which, for some unknown reason, appears to shroud our enterprise in the minds of some people, we have incorporated a railroad company for the purpose of building a railroad. We purpose commencing grading operations in the ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Besides, no one would believe it: it seems too improbable, being real life. It will be more improbable before we finish the adventure, I suspect. Can I trust your discretion to keep it secret? You know, I have a deal of skepticism ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... I don't like to say anything just as you're going to fight for your country, my boy, but your attitude of religious skepticism has troubled me, as well as your habit of intimacy with the shop hands. I confess to you that I've been a little afraid at times that you'd take after Jonathan's father. He never went to church, he forgot that he owed something to his position as a Pindar. He used to have that house of his overrun ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... suddenly, the rapt speaker encountered Mrs. Whipp's twisted, acid, hungrily listening countenance. He emitted a burst of laughter and looked back at Miss Mehitable, who was wiping her eyes. "Tell Mother the whole story," he went on, "just as you did to me; and here's hoping my skepticism isn't inherited. And now, Mrs. Whipp"—addressing the faded listener who gave a surprised sniff—"I'll go home and wash my face. I know you'll approve of that. Good-night, Miss Upton; don't you cry. I'm going to put up a good fight and perhaps ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... strong—they were vehement. His intellectual opinions were hobbies that he rode under whip and spur. A theory for everything, a solution of every difficulty, a "high moral" view of politics, a sharp skepticism in religion, but a skepticism that took hold of him as strongly as if it had been a faith. He held to his non credo with as much vigor as a religionist holds to ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... "a friend came to me with the confession that for several years she had masturbated, and had become such a slave to the habit that she severely suffered from its ill effects. At that time I had never heard of self-abuse by women. I listened to her story with much sympathy and interest, but some skepticism, and determined to try experiments upon myself, with the idea of getting to understand the matter in order to assist my friend. After some manipulation, I succeeded in awakening what had before been unconscious and unknown. I purposely ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... was painfully conscious that this meeting had revived in him all the fears, vague uneasiness, and sense of wrong that had haunted his first boyhood, and which he thought he had buried at El Refugio four years ago. Susy's allusion to his father and the reiteration of Peyton's skepticism awoke in his older intellect the first feeling of suspicion that was compatible with his open nature. Was this recurring reticence and mystery due to any act of his father's? But, looking back upon it in after-years, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... to be meaningless. The resolutions of the annual convention of 1885, tame as they are, got into print and roused the ire of the clergy, and upon the following Sunday, Dr. Patton of Howard University preached a sermon on "Woman and Skepticism," in which he unequivocally took the ground that freedom for woman led to skepticism and immorality. He illustrated his position by pointing to Hypatia, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, George Eliot, Harriet Martineau, Mme. Roland, Frances Power Cobbe, and Victoria Woodhull. He ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... been for a few months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever been in their own country. In the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice; they point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... evince an attitude of skepticism toward new theories of the vocal action. Voice Culture has settled along well-established lines. In the past fifteen years little change can be noted in the practices of vocal teachers. The mechanical idea is so firmly ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... doubt about all classifications and general terms, for they are the basis of statistical measurement. That done you are fairly proof against seduction. No better popular statement of this is to be found than H. G. Wells' little essay: "Skepticism of the Instrument." Wells has, of course, made no new discovery. The history of philosophy is crowded with quarrels as to how seriously we ought to take our classifications: a large part of the battle about ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... writers—Mrs. Browning, D. G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne—as representative of the minor poets of the age; but there are many others who are worthy of study,—Arthur Hugh Clough and Matthew Arnold,[239] who are often called the poets of skepticism, but who in reality represent a reverent seeking for truth through reason and human experience; Frederick William Faber, the Catholic mystic, author of some exquisite hymns; and the scholarly John Keble, author of The Christian Year, our best known book of devotional verse; ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... was going back to my lodgings, being rather drunk myself, with a cheerful Machiavelian drunkenness which quite satisfied all my instincts of skepticism, an idea ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... may outrage Thee, they will be, sooner or later, baptized in tears; grant that they may cease to believe in any other shelter from the tempest, than Thy love, and spare them the severe lessons of unhappiness. Our wisdom and skepticism are in our hands but children's toys; forgive us for dreaming that we can defy Thee, Thou who smilest at Golgotha. The worst result of all our vain misery is that it tempts us to forget Thee. But Thou knowest ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... and large attempt at an expression in poetry of a knowledge of the earth as one of the orbs, and of man as a microcosm of the whole, and to give to the imagination these new and true fields of wonder and romance. In it fable and superstition are at an end, priestcraft is at an end, skepticism and doubt are at an end, with all the misgivings and dark forebodings that have dogged the human mind since it began to relax its hold upon tradition and the past; and we behold man reconciled, happy, ecstatic, full of reverence, awe, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Thus, sometimes, a new Paschal, he felt himself seized with a vertigo in trying to sound the bottomless abyss which the infernal genius of the painter had dug under his feet. How many times, in the overflowings of his imagination, he had been forced to commune within himself thanks to the frenzied skepticism of Madame Pipelet, who, only looking at facts, and disdaining to seek after causes, grossly considered the incomprehensible conduct of Cabrion toward Alfred ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... if you should say it aloud. What do you care for O'm? If you wanted to get the Pundit to look at his religion fairly, you must first depolarize this and all similar words for him. The argument for and against new translations of the Bible really turns on this. Skepticism is afraid to trust its truths in depolarized words, and so cries out against a new translation. I think, myself, if every idea our Book contains could be shelled out of its old symbol and put into a new, clean, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Buddha's life. His lifetime covered the period of greatest intellectual growth in Athens. If, as some think, the great book of doubt[24] was written by the Hebrew in 450, there would be in three lands, at least, about the same time the same earnestly scornful skepticism in regard to the worn-out teachings of the fathers. But at a time when, in Greece, the greatest minds were still veiling infidelity as best they could, in ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... abhors a vacuum," and there must be some children in the world, to keep the balance, the spirit-rappers have kindly stepped into their vacant places, and may be regarded as the true and only children on this side the Atlantic. The frightful skepticism of the young ones with regard to Kriss-Kinkle has come to such a pass, that a little girl of three years old, who had been kept, as her relations thought, in all the verdure becoming to her tender years, upon her aunt telling ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... unbroken testimony of tradition that history seemed to have innumerable records of it in the hearts and memories of each generation. But as there appears no document or parchment of such criteria as to satisfy all inquiries, historical skepticism has ventured upon the absurd length of calling in question the fact of the treaty. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, with commendable zeal, has bestowed much labor upon the questions connected with the ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... revelation had been wanting; faith in philosophy itself was now wanting. Mystery re-appeared. The philosopher knew as much as the peasant. Of this mystery, Giacomo Leopardi was the echo in the solitude of his thought and his pain. His skepticism announced the dissolution of this theologico-metaphysical world, and inaugurated the reign of the arid True, of the Real. His songs are the most profound and occult voices of that laborious transition called the nineteenth ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... attraction for the public: rather it repelled. The people are only with a writer when he brings them words of simple, clear, vigorous, and assured life. They prefer a sturdy lie to an anemic truth. Skepticism is only to their liking when it is the covering of lusty naturalism or Christian idolatry. The scornful Pyrrhonism in which the Esope clothed itself could only be acceptable to a few minds—"aeme sdegnose,"—who knew the solid worth beneath it. It ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... is not your secret!" I was tempted to answer. "It is not your nerves which torment you. I would wager that in despite of your cynicism and skepticism, you have once believed in something, or in some one who has broken faith with you," but I was careful not to let him suspect my conjectures. I believe he would have devoured me. The anger of this man ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... Of course, his picture was based on facts they had learned from their captive. Perhaps he had purposely misled them or fogged some essentials. But could he have done that in a mental contact? Ross would simply have to accept everything with a certain amount of cautious skepticism. ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... Skepticism is much less sinful than credulity. The sloth of the man who will not examine things, will not prove them, who prefers to buy his garments of truth ready made, results in what is worse than unbelief, and that is blind belief in the false. It is a religious duty to question every ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... meets Lazarus (him who was raised from the dead) and, regarding him as a patient, describes his symptoms,—such symptoms as a man might have who must live on earth after having looked on heaven. The physician's half-scoffing words show how his habitual skepticism is shaken by a glimpse of the unseen world. He concludes, but his doubt is stronger than his conclusion, that Lazarus must ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... deep, do you?" inquired Colonel Ward, a flavor of satiric skepticism in his voice. He was gazing quizzically forward to where Mr. Bodge sat on the capstan's drumhead, his nose elevated with wistful eagerness, his whiskers flapping about his ears, his ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Skepticism would follow any attempt to proclaim the prince guilty because his voice sounded like that of the chief conspirator. In a matter where whole nations were concerned the gravest importance would be attached ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... while the people who formed the regular circles and had made a sect with a devotional character in it, rapidly degenerated into a credulity and materialism which were more discouraging than the most arid skepticism. Physical phenomena which met every demand for absolute guarantee of their genuineness, were very rare, and to meet with them required great patience and persistence, while the scientific student, in the habit of dealing with experiments that had definite results, obeying ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... personal piety was a matter of official enforcement. For a number of reasons religious zeal declined in the eighteenth century. After the Revolution, under the influence of the new political theories and of French skepticism the percentage of students professing to be active Christians fell very low. In the early nineteenth century the interest of students in religion increased, and religious organizations in a number of colleges were founded. Practically all of these later gave ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... that logic, not faith, is the supreme religious virtue. And get this, Monty, because it's something practically unheard of: skepticism is a ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... verge of dissolution at the hands of our corrupt public officers, that our finance is only another name for imminent bankruptcy, or that the new millennium of Washington morals will be organized by Mr. John Harrington—these things we deny in toto, from beginning to end. So wide and deep is our skepticism, that we even doubt whether 'war, famine, revolution, or all three together' would have instantly ensued if Mr. John Harrington had not delivered his speech on ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... written sentence becomes two diametrically opposite ideas, given opposing inflection and accompanying voice-effect. "He stood in the front rank of the battle" can be made praiseful affirmation, scornful skepticism, or simple question, by a simple varying of voice and inflection. This is the more unmistakable way in which the "how" affects the "what." Just as true is the less obvious fact. The same written sentiment, spoken by Wendell Phillips and by a man from ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... As a fact, Jan's skepticism was amply justified. In the thirty-five-day trip thus begun—which should have been completed in sixteen days—Jan was given as striking an example of the effects of man's muddle-headed, slack-minded incompetence as that which Jean had furnished him of the effects of man's able-bodied, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... not my scornful skepticism but the high faith of Miss Higglesby-Browne which was justified by the event, and the Harding-Browne expedition left the island well repaid for its toils and perils. Plus the two bags of doubloons, which were added to the spoils, ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... of experiences of life and the literary failures and annoyances which he underwent during the second half of his life. And in this connection it must not be forgotten that the very spirit of analysis and skepticism wherewith the school of writers of the '40's is imbued, leads straight to pessimism, like any other sort ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... shoals to the printed offer of luna moths measuring ten and eleven inches across the wings. Letters came in by, every mail, responding variously with fervor, suspicion, yearning eagerness, and bitter skepticism to Average Jones' advertisement. All of these he put aside, except such as bore a New York postmark. And each day he compared the new names signed to the New York letters with the directory of occupants of the Stengel Building. Less than a week after the luna moth advertisement appeared, Average ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her, there was no one to direct or assist her. She scrupulously endeavored to conceal her doubts and questions from her guardian. Poor child? she fancied she concealed them so effectually from his knowledge; while he silently noted the march of skepticism in her nature. There were dim, puzzling passages of Scripture which she studied on her knees; now trying to comprehend them, and now beseeching the Source of all knowledge to enlighten her. But, as has happened to numberless others, there was ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... thought she." What are those mad schemes of which my friends have tried to apprise me? He was ever self-willed and stubborn; ever inclined to skepticism. Alas! alas! I foresee sad days for my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... invisible, are none the less impassable, and of chains, though light as air, yet stronger than brass or iron. And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous decency of general conformity. Foe or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are answerable for it all. God himself has looked upon it, and it is very good, and there is no appeal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... the Deep Place—prease! He was a pitiable object, could Martin have found pity for him in his heart. He was no longer the suave, dapper Japanese gentleman. His boasted gentility was gone with his courage; and superstitious terror had quite overcome his Western skepticism. He was just a yellow coolie, terror-stricken, cringing before and begging ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... and skepticism vanished as if by magic. She had opposed this beautiful plan which would mean so much to her crippled sister! In deepest contrition she enthusiastically proposed, "Let's write the letter now and send it off so's your answers will begin coming in as soon as they can. ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... be whom we saw with them?" asked Harry eagerly, his mind no longer containing an ounce of skepticism to ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... he left her, she loaned him a French novel full of skepticism and scorn of virtue and morality. He was tempted to throw it in the fire, but it was hers. He read it and rather liked it. He began to think he had been too narrow; he wished he could get out and see the world, the great world of thinking people where Miss Bright lived. ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... attached to the doctrine of Satan comes from the fact that men have read their fancies and theories into the Scriptures; they have read Milton's Paradise Lost but have neglected the Book of Job; they have considered the experiences of Luther instead of the Epistles of Peter and Jude. To avoid skepticism on the one hand, and ridicule on the other we must resort to the Scriptures to formulate our ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" is pathetic in its name, and in his use of the name. It is an admission from a man of the world in the London of 1850, that poor old Puritan Bunyan was right in his perception of the London of 1650. And yet now, in Thackeray, is the added wisdom or skepticism, that though this be really so, he must yet live in tolerance of and practically in homage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Engineering, in an article otherwise friendly to the inventor, expressed some skepticism as to the real merit of ...
— Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck - Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24 • John H. White
... beliefs, hopes, poetic ideal, and chimeras, destroyed the aspirations, ravaged the confidence of souls, killed love, dragged down the chivalrous worship of women, crushed the illusions of hearts and accomplished the most gigantic talk ever attempted by skepticism. He passed over everything with his mocking spirit, and left everything empty. And even to-day those who execrate him seem to carry portions of his thought, in spite of themselves, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... mighty power of transformation or to demonstrate the great principle of a spiritual ascension from our decayed bodies, of those seraphic hosts, who are to stand as ministering angels around the majesty of Heaven, through all the never ending cycles of eternity, no matter what objections skepticism may urge of the impossibility of conceiving how the dead can be raised up to a newness of life. Our faith receives it as a revealed fact, and our hearts rejoice in the glorious hope, because we know that our Redeemer liveth, and that he will again stand upon this earth. And ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... the old rustic, though he felt the skepticism around him. He tapped his cranium with his forefinger, which he then extended towards the house. "Take that insect there," he said, indicating a little beast that ran along the plaster. "What does it say? It says, 'I am the spider that spins the Virgin's thread.'" And the archaic ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... can ever disturb this faith on which my soul rests. It is more than a conviction; it is a perfect satisfaction! I KNOW! I may not be able to explain all mysteries, but I can never doubt again, because I know. The more I meet with modern skepticism, the more I am convinced that that is the only answer to it all: "He that doeth His will shall know of the doctrine," and that promise is fulfilled to all who have the ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... supporting Shakespeare's authorship have been set forth sufficiently in this volume and offer no basis for an attitude of skepticism. A few considerations may be recalled as correctives for a partial or mistaken reading of the evidence. (1) Though the records of Shakespeare's life are meager, they are fuller than for any other Elizabethan dramatist. ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... excitement among the Chinese and their numerous friends. At first they professed skepticism and maintained that there must be some misunderstanding, and finally they protested and refused to sign the Treaty. One of the American journals published in Paris wrote: "Shantung was at least a moral explosion. It blew down the front of the temple, and now everybody can see that behind the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... derogatory to the "Majesty of heaven and earth" to conceive of him as occupied with our mean affairs, numbering the hairs of our heads, and guiding the sparrow's fall. But the blow which crushed her heart, destroyed its skepticism. She saw so clearly in this dispensation, the hand of a Father chastening his erring child; she felt so keenly that she deserved the rod, for having in a measure worshipped the gift more than the ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... an hour to pass, the city reads. Crimes, scandals, horrors, holocausts, burglaries, arsons, murders, deceptions. The city reads with a vague, dull skepticism. Who are these people of the newspaper columns? Lusting scoundrels, bandits, heroes, wild lovers, madmen? Not in the streets or the houses that tick-tock through the night.... Somewhere else. A troupe of mummers wandering unseen behind the great clock face of the city—an always unknown troupe ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... plants and animals is proof of a distinct supernatural overruling of the present laws of nature. The experience of man is not the limit of knowledge. His own existence is a proof that the chain of finite causes is not inviolable. Geology sweeps away the very foundations of skepticism, by demonstrating that certain phenomena produced immediately by God himself—the phenomena of the creation of life—have occurred repeatedly in the history of our globe. Revelation is not impossible because supernatural. The world is just as ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Antiquaries, brought out his own "edition" of the poems, with a commentary providing extensive historical proof of what Bryant "ascertained."[8] The remarks of Warton and Tyrwhitt suddenly seemed hasty and superficial. Warton had clearly outlined his reasons for skepticism, but he offered to show "the greatest deference to decisions of much higher authority."[9] Tyrwhitt had also hesitated to be dogmatic. He saw fit to suggest that, since Chatterton had always been equivocal, the authenticity of the poems could be judged only on ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... the other hand, from the old wastebasket many discarded scraps of real but till now unacknowledged value. Busy in gathering stores of its own, it is able to find time for digesting those bequeathed to it, and for executing both tasks with a good deal of care. It brings skepticism to its aid in both, and subjects new and old conclusions to almost equally close analysis. Each new pebble it picks up upon the shore of the Newtonian ocean it holds up square and askew to the light, and cross-examines color, texture and form. Now and then, being ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... concerned to portray a scoundrel who had read deeply and come to the conclusion that in a world like this there is no valid reason why a man should be virtuous. Evidently the author had himself breathed the mephitic air of eighteenth-century skepticism. His natural goodness of heart safeguarded him from corruption, but it pleased him as artist to dip his pen in the blackest ink and draw the picture of the devil with whom he had wrestled in moments of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... fairly startled out of his skepticism now. He had the eyes of a goldfish, and his upper lip and swelling cheeks ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... convinced, that Garth died in the communion of the church of Rome, having been privately reconciled. It is observed by Lowth, that there is less distance than is thought between skepticism and popery; and that a mind, wearied with perpetual doubt, willingly seeks repose in the bosom of an ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... in our history when unbelief and skepticism was more determined in its opposition to the Christian religion than at the present. There is an incessant attempt to instill into the minds of the young principles in opposition to, and destructive of Christianity. Many ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... sick folks—an' folks what ain't sick but thinks they is, which is worse?" Nancy's face showed open skepticism. ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... not you that terrible and unhappy fantom? How many times this fear has taken possession of my dreams! How many times you have appeared to me as the type of the unspeakable agony to which the spirit of inquiry has driven man! With your beauty and your sadness, your weariness and your skepticism, do you not personify the excess of sorrow produced by the abuse of thought? Have you not given up, and as it were prostituted, that moral power, so highly developed by what art, poetry, and science have done for it, to every new impression and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... be the wife of the marquis. Yet if there were roses, there were thorns in such a path. The village girl knew that madame la marquise must lead a life very different from any she had known. She must bear with a husband whose mind was ever in a state of unrest and skepticism, and she must meet the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... unexpected blow on the head, but only the sad consciousness that they must part with the children. But even this consciousness was dimmed by the impressions of the day. The fathers and the mothers looked at their children with mingled sensations, in which the skepticism of parents toward their children and the habitual sense of the superiority of elders over youth blended strangely with the feeling of sheer respect for them, with the persistent melancholy thought that life had now become dull, and with the curiosity aroused by the young men who so bravely ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... a keen sense of disapprobation and skepticism into the hitherto placidly accepted state of disability, by flashing a mirror on the physical and moral attitudes which she was assuming, I was able to rob the pathological complex of its (altogether unconscious) pleasurable feeling-tone, and to restore to its ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... necessary in this work of healing. The loving patience of Jesus, we must strive to emulate. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" has daily to be exemplified; and, although [10] skepticism and incredulity prevail in places where one would least expect it, it harms not; for if serving Christ, Truth, of what can mortal opinion avail? Cast not your pearls before swine; but if you cannot bring ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... a gesture of skepticism. "All those doctors send you to each other," she proclaimed. "Like as not he'll get half for ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that explanation was ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... arises either from indolence, weakness, indifference, or incapacity. With many people, to doubt is to fear the trouble of examining things, which are thought uninteresting. But religion being presented to men as their most important concern in this and the future world, skepticism and doubt on this subject must occasion perpetual anxiety and must really constitute a bed of thorns. Every man who has not courage to contemplate, without prejudice, the God upon whom all religion is founded, can never ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... six weeks now since his experience in Queen's Gate, and he had gone through a variety of emotions. Bewildered terror was the first, a nervous interest the next, a truculent skepticism the third; and lately, to his astonishment, the nervous interest ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... not yet condemned Haskalah. Mendelssohn's German translation was welcomed in Russia at its first appearance no less than in Germany, but when some of the children of Rabbi Moses ben Menahem embraced the Christian faith, and their father, as was natural, was suspected of skepticism, the Biur and the Meassefim were pronounced, like libraries by Sir Anthony Absolute, to be "an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge." So also with Wessely's Epistles, which were destroyed in public, together with Polonnoy's Toledot Ya'akob Yosef. Haskalah ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... charmed, and that the charm was drawing into its ban her very thoughts and emotions. She felt subdued, quieted. It was as she had said—the ages seemed to hover like ghosts about them, and her hard, worldly skepticism could make no stand against the hush and mystery of the past. Here generation after generation, amidst danger, battle and death, men had bowed down and poured out their hottest, most fervent prayers, and their sincerity and faith had sanctified ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... among the ferns, delicate and elfin, with a shy perplexity on her face. It was difficult to speak even to Mother about wood-ladies without a pretence of skepticism. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... no effect; it is as though I were walking in my sleep. The Buddhist tendency in me blunts the faculty of free self-government and weakens the power of action; self-distrust kills all desire, and reduces me again and again to a fundamental skepticism. I care for nothing but the serious and the real, and I can take neither myself nor my circumstances seriously. I hold my own personality, my own aptitudes, my own aspirations, too cheap. I am forever ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to God at one of our meetings. She was converted at the same time. She had brought two of her daughters to the meeting, desiring that they too should know Christ. I said to the mother: "How is it with your skepticism now?" "Oh," said she, "it is all gone." When Christ gets into the heart, atheism must go out; if a man will only come and take one trustful, loving look at the Saviour, there will be no desire ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody
... reason for his skepticism, for later the calm of the Mission Garden was broken upon by the monotonous tread of banded men on the shell-strewn walks, and the door of the refectory opened to the figure of Senor Perkins. A green silk sash across his breast, a gold-laced ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte |
