"Credulous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a scientific age peculiarly credulous; the ease with which any charlatan finds followers; the common readiness to fall in with any theory of progress which appeals to the sympathies, and to accept the wildest notions of social reorganization. We should be obliged to note also, ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... superannuated court-dangler, a credulous trifler, but an earnest Papist as his brother Antony had been, sixty-six years old, and feeble beyond his years, who, his life long, had never achieved one manly action, and had now one foot in the grave; this was the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... worthy the name of a science, will lie in its application by the professor to a person respecting whom he has had no opportunity of previous information. Nothing is more easy, when a great warrior, statesman, poet, philosopher or philanthropist is explicitly placed before us, than for the credulous inspector or fond visionary to examine the lines of his countenance, and to point at the marks which should plainly shew us that he ought to have been the very thing that he is. This is the very trick of gipsies and fortune-tellers. But who ever pointed to an utter stranger ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... I keep still about it? I did it with the best of intentions—as if I had never intended to deal seriously with you, as if—enough! That lasted until I got this in my hands, and the credulous little man-crazy fool will find out what I meant when she hears the banns of our marriage published in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... years past he had given particulars of ships under construction to the same parties as on this occasion. He admitted that to do so was contrary to regulations, especially in wartime, but thought that under the circumstances he was doing no harm. I am not exactly a credulous person, and I have heard some tall stories in my time, but for once I am inclined to believe that the man is speaking the truth. I believe that he received no money, and was acting ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Vergil. It has shown that the meager Vita is a conglomeration of a few chance facts set into a mass of later conjecture derived from a literal-minded interpretation of the Eclogues, to which there gathered during the credulous and neurotic decades of the second and third centuries ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... this alleged vision was merely an ingenious device for remonstrating with the Sovereigns. It must not be forgotten that in those times the popular belief as to such matters was very different from that which obtains now; and that Columbus was as credulous as his contemporaries on the subject of the supernatural. It was easy for an imagination like his to be wrought upon so as to give to "airy nothings," to the "thousand phantasies that crowd into the memory," the character of special revelations from heaven. In this very despatch ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... an attentive perusal of the whole story they could decide for themselves;' adding that, 'whether true or false, the narrative is written with consummate ability and possesses intense interest.' But others were more credulous. According to the 'Mercantile Advertiser' the story carried 'intrinsic evidence of being an authentic document.' The 'Albany Daily Advertiser' had read the article 'with unspeakable emotions of pleasure and astonishment.' The 'New York Times' announced that 'the writer (Dr. Andrew Grant) displays ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... loved this pretty, false, selfish woman so long? Why had he allowed himself to be drawn back into her toils after he had known she was false? Why was he more weak, more credulous, more ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... combine the requisite materials for the different kinds of glass needed; to melt them, grind, fashion, and polish them; adjust their densities and focal distances, etc., etc. A man who can believe that brass can do all this, might as well believe in God. The most credulous men in the world are unbelievers. The great Napoleon could not believe in Providence; but he believed in his star, and in ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... never-failing experience of being obliged to subdue in his books what he knew to be real for fear it should be deemed impossible, had already made the remark in his preface to Nickleby, that the world, which is so very credulous in what professes to be true, is most incredulous in what professes to be imaginary. They agree to be deceived in a reality, and reward themselves by refusing to be deceived in a fiction. That ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... children alive after it all; but on the other hand he comes to his senses in an unknown place, and is so terrified as to be quite ready to make restitution to Na.nefer.ka.ptah. The episode, which is not creditable to Egyptian society, seems to be intended for one of the vivid dreams which the credulous readily accept as ...
— Egyptian Literature
... It may have been credulous of me, but I felt the boy was telling the truth, and I was deeply sorry he had not stuck to it. So, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... he was sensitive when there was no cause, and he was credulous where he ought to be suspicious. The fact that the little man had held the door against him made him sure that M. Fille had not wished him to see the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... says, 'there is very little difference in the main features between the ceremonies of the Greek and Romish Churches. Both are intended to attract the senses, to please the vulgar, and to deceive the credulous, and neither can have any effect ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... of characters! I trust thou art no impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave, is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. I trust that in thee "shall all the families of the earth be blessed," by being yet connected together in a better world, where every tie that bound heart to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far beyond our ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... that it is very near the size it seems to be: so that our eyes are either quite correct, or, at all events, not very incorrect. What becomes then of the exception, "If once...?" However, let us leave this credulous man, who does not believe that the senses are ever wrong,—not even now, when that sun, which is borne along with such rapidity that it is impossible even to conceive how great its velocity is, nevertheless seems to ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... of here, as you may imagine, but the invasion—yet I don't grow more credulous. Their ridiculous lists of fifty thousand men don't contribute to frighten me— nay, though they specify the numbers of apothecaries and chaplains that are to attend. Fifty thousand men cannot easily ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... they force open the door and murder me? How foolish, how fearfully foolish to have sent away all my servants. Now I understand it: Cagliostro is not only an impostor—a charlatan, but he is a thief and an assassin. I have been caught in the trap set for me, like a credulous fool! He and his associates will rob me and plunder my beautiful villa, but just given to me, and, when they have secured all, murder me to escape betrayal." With deep contrition, weeping and trembling, Wilhelmine accused herself ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... him with dismay, and yet there was hope in his heart. But then where the head might easily enough fail his heart had accepted responsibility. There was a note in the woman's appeal which struck a responsive chord in his own credulous heart, and somehow he felt that his parting with Vada was not to be for long. He felt that Jessie would eventually come back to him. He felt, though he did not put the thought into words, that no woman could feel as she did about her children, and be utterly dead ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... guilelessly that her satire fell to the ground. He was an entirely new sort to the spiteful child. The terrible advantage the person who will admit his faults cheerfully has over the one who has pride and evades was never more manifest. Jake Ransom pointed out to a credulous following the causes of Sadie's disaffection, and left the envious child in such a state of futile rage that she was ready to burst with her ill-directed fury. In the end the month's work had to be granted the tribute of success, and the term closed with a distinct triumph for ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... Simon and Harry Ford been as credulous as their companions, they would not have abandoned the mine to the imps and fairies. For ten years, without missing a single day, obstinate and immovable in their convictions, the father and son took their picks, their sticks, and their lamps. They went ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... to see what effect was produced upon his listeners. Joe seemed indifferent. He saw through the fellow, and did not credit a word he said. Joshua had been more credulous at first, but he, too, began to understand the man from Pike County. The idea occurred to him to pay him back ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... thee, sweet Biancha, nay, so now! by Jesus, I am not jealous, but resolved I have the faithful'st wife in Italy. "For this I find, where jealousy is fed, Horns in the mind are worse than on the head. See what a drove of horns fly in the air, Wing'd with my cleansed and my credulous breath: Watch them, suspicious eyes, watch where they fall, See, see, on heads that think they have none at all. Oh, what a plenteous world of this will come, When air rains horns, all ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... he was conscious of a mounting rage at being so gigantically misunderstood, and his anger mingled with a bitter contempt for Simeon Caley, for a people so blind, so credulous, so helpless in the grasp of ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... not for ever. It is a common lot to be humbled for the credulous confidence of youth. It is a safer and a nobler error, Isaac, than its opposite. It is better than unbelief ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... impulses, as the Greek character was windy, vain, and servile to such impulses. Both nations, it is true, were superstitious, because all nations, in those ages were intensely superstitious; and each, after a fashion of its own, intensely credulous. But the Roman superstition was coloured by something of a noble pride; the Grecian by vanity. The Greek superstition was fickle and self-contradicting, and liable to sudden changes; the Roman, together with the gloom, had the unity and the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... at the risk of an irksome repetition, I must insist upon, lest I seem to favour the credulous, superstitious view. Plattner's absence from the world for nine days is, I think, proved. But that does not prove his story. It is quite conceivable that even outside space hallucinations may be possible. That, at least, the reader ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... was the firmest of believers, without being credulous, so he was the most charitable of mortals, without being what we call an active friend. Admirable at giving counsel, no man saw his way so clearly; but he would not stir a finger for the assistance of those to whom he was willing enough to give advice: besides that, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... they derived from it. And not missionaries only have believed this, and old travellers who lived in ages of credulity, but more recent observers, such as Carver and Bruce, whose testimony is of great weight, and who were neither ignorant, nor weak, nor credulous men. What I have read concerning ordeals also staggers me; and I am sometimes inclined to think it more possible that when there has been full faith on all sides these appeals to divine justice may have been answered by Him who sees the secrets of all hearts than that modes ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... both extant. The ascription to Africanus of an encyclopaedic work entitled Kestoi (embroidered girdles), treating of agriculture, natural history, military science, &c., has been needlessly disputed on account of its secular and often credulous character. Neander suggests that it was written by Africanus before he had devoted himself to religious subjects. For a new fragment of this work see Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Grenfell and Hunt), ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Letter to me, of the Nature or the Proceedings of County Conventions, & therefore I made no Observation upon them. I hope it will not be in the Power of any designing Men, by imposing upon credulous tho' well meaning Persons long to keep this Country, who may be happy if they will, long in a State of Discord & Animosity. We may see, from the present State of Great Britain, how rapidly such a Spirit ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... journal from the time he commenced to write about the country to the present, because there has been no period of time when I have been alive that I have not heard of Bancroft, and I should be equally credulous if President Lane should tell me that he was here at the founding of this Institution. But instead of bringing those volumes of Bancroft's here, and reading them to you on this occasion, I will let the reporters publish ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... missionary, it may be backed by the explorer Lander, who, in speaking of this same class of men, says: "These Mollahs procure an easy subsistence by making fetishes or writing charms on bits of wood which are washed off carefully into a basin of water, and drank with avidity by the credulous multitude." And he adds: "Those who profess the Mohammedan faith among the negroes are as ignorant and superstitious as their idolatrous brethren; nor does it appear that their having adopted a new creed has either improved ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... so entirely bereft of common sense, or so much oppressed by fear, that they become absolutely childish. Credulous to the last degree, they are caught by the bird-lime of the simplest snare. When they have done a successful job, they are in such a state of prostration that they immediately rush into the debaucheries they crave for; they get drunk on wine and spirits, and throw themselves madly ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... armed and appointed, for they had been furnished, by Count Julian, with a part of the arms sent by the king to Africa. The bishop was smooth of tongue, and profound in his hypocrisy: his pretended zeal and devotion, and the horror with which he spoke of the treachery of his kinsman, imposed upon the credulous spirit of the king, and he was readily admitted into his ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... down, the guests found, when they separated the heap of dainties they had received, that there would be seven instead of six. The trick of adding secretly a pig was carried on by some of the priesthood, and, in the eyes of the credulous multitude, added vastly to the wonder-working power of Turia. On another island the shrine of Turia was a very smooth stone in a sacred grove. The priest was careful to weed all round about, and covered ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... dislike to a primitive, hot hate. Of his own land and life he heard nothing, not even when his face was again turned toward the east. Nor did he think of it. As now he saw them, the rules and principles and standards of his former existence were petty and credulous. But he assured himself he had not abandoned those standards. He had only temporarily laid them aside, as he had left behind him in London his frock-coat and silk hat. Not because he would not use them again, but because in ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... murder him, as though to say, you can see for yourselves how truthful I am, so you'll believe all the sooner that I didn't murder him. Oh, in such cases the criminal is often amazingly shallow and credulous. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... know all their names and idiosyncrasies, and began to take a certain interest in them. Above all had the case of Frielinghausen appealed to her. The sympathetic little seamstress saw in him something of the romantic disguised prince; and it amused her to make the credulous Wiegandt a little jealous, until at last she would assure him with a hearty kiss that he ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... The credulous believed that the Treaty of Bucarest had at last brought peace to that distracted part of the world. Those who knew their central Europe realized that Berlin had only forced Vienna to acquiesce in the Treaty of Bucarest ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... till one day he surprises his belle, overwhelmed by despair. He eagerly inquires the cause. After much entreaty, she informs him that she has had ill luck at play, and, with anguish in her looks, laments that she is ruined beyond redemption. The too credulous admirer can do no less than accommodate her secretly with a sufficient sum to prevent her from being taken to task by her husband; and thus the disinterested lady proves, in the end, a greater drain to the gallant's pocket ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... and solitary, stood the inn for the penitent pilgrims, who sought "the murmuring runnels" of St. Clement's healing well; for in this neighbourhood, even from the age of the Roman, springs of crystal wave and salubrious virtue received the homage of credulous disease. Through the gloomy arches of the Temple Gate and Lud, our horsemen wound their way, and finally arrived in safety at Marmaduke's hostelrie in the East Chepe. Here Marmaduke found the decorators of his comely person already ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thought it better he should marry the cottar's than the farmer's daughter! Anyhow she was resolved to keep an eye on the young woman so long as Cosmo was within her swoop. He was chivalrous and credulous, and who could tell what Elsie might not dare! Her refusal to be his wife did not deprive her of antecedent rights. And there she was, gathering behind Cosmo, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... respect, and being generally the result of preceding tumult and confusion, do not immediately acquire stability or strength. Besides, in times of commotion, some men will gain confidence and importance who merit neither; and who, like political mountebanks, are less solicitous about the health of the credulous crowd, than about making the most of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... an arbiter at councils, the favourite of Indian kings. In his own work there is hardly a word about all this. We do not wish to disguise his weaknesses, such as they appear in the same biography. He was a credulous man, easily imposed upon by crafty priests, still more easily carried away by his own superstitions; but he deserved to have lived in better times, and we almost grudge so high and noble a character to a country ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... red-handed in the very act of taking the money. What story could she tell that would clear her of that! That she had taken it so that it wouldn't be stolen, and that she was going to give it back in the morning? Was there anybody in the world credulous enough to believe anything like that! Tell Gypsy Nan's story, all that had happened to-night? Yes, she might have told that to-morrow, after she had returned the money, and been believed. But now-no! It would even make her appear in a still worse light. ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... which this Prince got over so considerable a Point as this, made him begin to be too credulous and to perswade himself that the Solunarian Church-Men were really in earnest, as to their Pageant-Doctrin of Non-Resistance, and that as he had seen them bear with strange extravagancies on the Crolian Part, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... its attachment to the German family that then sat on the British throne; for, as is the fact with all provinces, the virtues and qualities that are proclaimed near the centre of power, as incense and policy, get to be a part of political faith with the credulous and ignorant at a distance. This truth is just as apparent to-day, in connection with the prodigies of the republic, as it then was in connection with those distant rulers, whose merits it was always safe to applaud, and whose demerits it was treason to reveal. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... so, it did seem manifest to him, Dr. Grantly, that Mrs. Proudie absolutely believed the report which she promulgated so diligently. The wish might be father to the thought, no doubt; but that the thought was truly there, Dr. Grantly could not induce himself to disbelieve. His wife was less credulous, and to a certain degree comforted him; but that evening he received a letter which greatly confirmed the suspicions set on foot by Mrs. Proudie, and even shook his wife's faith in Lord Dumbello. It was from a mere acquaintance, who in the ordinary course of ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... injured. To complete his chivalrous equipment, which he had begun by fitting up for himself a suit of armor strange to his century, he took an esquire out of his neighborhood, a middle-aged peasant, ignorant, credulous, and good-natured, but shrewd enough occasionally to see the folly of their position. The two sally forth from their native village in search of adventures, of which the excited imagination of the knight— turning windmills ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... said Burgomaster Baersdorp, who, clad in his costly fur-bordered cloak, was coming from the town-hall and had heard the last speaker's words. "But let me set you right. To-day the credulous are beginning to hope again, and the time for pressing your just desire is ill-chosen. Wait a few days and then, if the relief does not appear, urge your views. I'll speak for you, and with me many a good man in the magistracy. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on the morrow, his thoughts would return to dwell on the haunting vision of the girl's face, while his own rude, credulous chivalry, kindled by the recollection of her beauty, stifled his ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... behaviour. At this the duke became impatient to hear what his good friend had to say; whereon that valiant gentleman boasted, with an air of bravery and truth, of certain gallantries which had passed between him and the lady. On hearing this, James, being credulous was sorely depressed. He ceased to visit his wife, withdrew from general company; and so well did Sir Charles's scheme succeed, that before the queen's arrival, the duke had decided on denying his marriage with one who had brought ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... lying in the air, lying on earth, lying in words and in writing, lying to Heaven and earth, lying in every thing. Our great men treat Russia like a child, but there is no small degree of credulity in believing us to be so credulous." ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... passes of the stony hills; the girls might be seen bounding in lascivious dance in the streets of many a town, and the beldames standing beneath the eaves telling the 'buena ventura' to many a credulous female dupe; the men the while chaffered in the fair and market-place with the labourers and chalanes, casting significant glances on each other, or exchanging a word or two in Rommany, whilst they placed some uncouth animal in a particular posture ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... family vault by a Romish priest and his assistants. How it came there, or why it has been removed, I know not; it is not my present purpose to inquire. Suffice it, that it now lies in a vault beneath the ruins of Davenham Priory. My son, Sir Ranulph, who has lent a credulous ear to the artful tales of the impostor who calls this woman mother, is at present engaged in arming certain of the household, and of the tenantry, to seize upon and bring away this body, as resistance is apprehended from ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rainy days in Nevada were always "glummy" among Madigans, because the blonde twin had once been so affected by their gloom that she spelled it that way. An over-credulous person was a "sucher" since the day she had written it so. Jack Cody lived in the "vikinty" of their house, because Bep Partington had so decreed. "Don't greed" had become a classic since the day Aunt Anne issued her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... opiniative[obs3]; opinioned, opinionate, opinionative, opinionated; self-opinioned, wedded to an opinion, opinitre; bigoted &c. (obstinate) 606; crotchety, fussy, impracticable; unreasonable, stupid &c. 499; credulous &c 486; warped. misjudged &c. v. Adv. ex parte[Lat]. Phr. nothing like leather; the wish the father to the thought; wishful thinking; unshakable conviction; "my mind is made up - don't bother ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... for fresh iniquities of this kind, the perpetrators of these crimes, far from recognizing what is evident to all—viz. that for the Russians this event, even from their patriotic, military point of view, was a scandalous defeat—endeavor to assure credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring men—lured into a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse, of whom several thousands have been killed and maimed merely because one General did not understand what another General had said—have performed an act of heroism because those who ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... or of blind enthusiasts. Poor stupid humanity goes round and round like a mill-horse in a dreary ring of political follies. The cast-off sophisms and rhetorical rubbish of a past generation are patched up, scoured, and offered to the credulous present as something novel and excellent. People do not know how often the rotten stuff has been used and thrown away, and accept it readily. After a while, they discover to their cost, as their ancestors did before them, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... At length to the churchyard gate I went, And asked of a woman old and bent, "Who was the girl, whose cross of stone Bears nothing save these words alone,— 'Emily's Grave'?" "Alas!" she answered, "many a year Hath passed since I beheld her bier; She was young, and came from a humble nest, And credulous too, like all the rest; So a stranger met her here one day And caught her in his net straightway. He said he was rich, and she should shine Like a queen in his castle by the Rhine, And, winning her ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... an independent position, and present peculiar views, in the light of the new sciences of which it is the exponent,—views not derived from the past, not in harmony with the orthodox literature of the day, nor tinged by any credulous fanaticism, but resulting from a half century of earnest ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... required to believe; and the old-fashioned, open, intelligible infidelity of the last century accepted them, and rejected Christianity accordingly. That was a self-consistent, simple, Ingenuous thing, compared with those monstrous forms of credulous reason, incredulous faith, metaphysical mysticism, even Christian Pantheism—so many varieties of which have sprung out of the incubation of German rationalism and German philosophy upon the New Testament. The advocates ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... times, and then with obscurity. Again: suppose he was an impostor. An impostor would hardly have risked his reputation voluntarily on what he knew could never take place. Had he done so, his only reliance must have been upon the credulous enthusiasm of his followers. He would then have made it the chief topic, would have striven strenuously to make it a living and intense hope, an immovable, all controlling faith, concentrating on it their desires and expectations, heart and soul. But he really did ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... good medicine for his Majesty, and "certaynly I have found no better counceylle than the counceylle of an auncyent Greke, with a grete and long berd, a man of grete wysdom, sage, and worthy to be praysed." And when the Fox, in another fable, leaves the too-credulous Goat in the well, Reynard adds insult to injury by saying to him, "O maystre goote, yf thow haddest be [i.e. been] wel wyse, with thy fayre berde," and so forth. (Pp. 153 and 196 of Mr. Jacobs' new edition.)—A ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... me what the old dye had insisted on reading in my hand. It was simply very remarkable, and embraced an apparent knowledge of the past, which would make any credulous person believe in her happy predictions ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... "Now, a credulous man," said Ralph Cranfield, carelessly, to himself, "might suppose that the treasure which I have sought round the world lies buried, after all, at the very door of my mother's dwelling. That would be a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... dare not trust my pen, it trembles so; It seems to feel a portion of my woe, And makes me credulous that trees and stones At mournful fates have uttered mournful tones. While I look back again on days long past, How gladly would I yours might be my last! Sad our first severance was, but sadder this, When death forbids one hour of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... same flower almost universally adopted to commemorate a particular festival. Many plants, again, have had a superstitious connection, having in this respect exercised a powerful influence among the credulous of all ages, numerous survivals of which exist at the present day. Thus, in Westphalia, it is said that if the sun makes its appearance on New Year's Day, the flax will be straight; and there is a belief current in Hessia, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... by whomsoever remembers the painful uneasiness of the mind under a great stress of excitement with no definite issue. The lust for a vengeance, demanded by the aroused sensibilities of compassion, makes men credulous in their impatience; they easily believe anyone is guilty, because they feel an imperious need for fastening the guilt upon some definite head. Few verdicts of "Not Guilty" are well received, unless another victim is at hand upon whom the verdict of guilty is likely to fall. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... is not requisite to tell a fine story; and a fine story is always agreeable to a credulous listener. An agent of the Society goes into a place, and finds no difficulty in procuring a pulpit from which to address a congregation. The benevolent pastor, who, perhaps, has had neither time nor opportunity to examine the principles of the Society, readily officiates ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... but whose acquaintance she had never made, and who had been absent when the scandalous occurrence which led to her disgrace came to light. He was a man of from twenty-five to twenty-six years of age, who idled his life away: his courage was undoubted, and being as credulous as an old libertine, he was ready to draw his sword at any moment to defend the lady whose cause he had espoused, should any insolent slanderer dare to hint there was a smirch on her virtue. Being deaf to all reports, he seemed one of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... He is vain, litigious, hard-hearted, and credulous; a liar, a drunkard, and a pauper. His "ganging plea" is worthy of Hogarth.—Sir W. Scott, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... hurly-burly's done.'" Cooke's biographer, Mr. William Dunlap, thought that this story bore "sufficient marks of probability." It must be said, however, that as to anecdotes touching their heroes, biographers are greatly prone to be credulous. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... by a genuine desire to elevate worship and to purify faith. There was a very different side to his life and work, however, and in some features of his character he seems to have been a fanatic and enthusiast of the most dangerous sort. He was credulous, superstitious and visionary. He had no clear, strong and well-reasoned purpose to which he could hold consistently to the end. An earnest Catholic, he only sought to reform the Church, not to supersede it; but his moral ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... child reject the still more monstrous falsifier, Gomora; but adopts them both, according to the custom of novelists; and not the slightest objection is raised. Then descending lower and still lower; disregarding alike the warning of Lord Bacon 'a credulous man is a deceiver,' and of Tacitus fingunt simul creduntque—he rakes up even a devotee, Boturini, and makes him also an historic authority, without overtaxing public credulity; though this wretch, as we have seen, out-Munchausens Pietro himself, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... little interested in these historical associations; they looked at all with that credulous admiration which leaves no room for examination or discussion. Madeleine read the name written under every piece of workmanship, and her sister answered with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... justice, then, at least, will I. I'll rend the woof of cunning into shreds, And lay its falsehoods open to the day. Most reverend primate! art thou, canst thou be So simple-souled, or canst thou so dissemble? Are ye so credulous, my lords? My liege, Art thou so weak? Ye know not—will not know, Ye are the puppets of the wily Waywode Of Sendomir, who reared this spurious Czar, Whose measureless ambition, while we speak, Clutches in thought the spoils of Moscow's wealth. Is't left for me to tell ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller
... crime, and had published intimate accounts of the Heredith family, their wealth, social position, and standing in the county. Colwyn, as he glanced at Philip Heredith, came to the conclusion that the London picture papers had been once more guilty of deceiving their credulous readers. The portraits they had published of him in no wise resembled the young man who was now seated opposite him, regarding him with ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Browne's works says—"We ourselves have witnessed an example of the curious and credulous exaggeration which has construed certain articulations in animals into rational speech. Some time since, in travelling through Italy, we heard, in grave earnest, from several Italians, of the prodigy of a Pomeranian dog that had been taught to speak most intelligibly by Sir ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... an orphan, but now I perceived suddenly the force of Fyne's qualifying statement, "to a certain extent." It would have been infinitely more kind all round for the law to have shot, beheaded, strangled, or otherwise destroyed this absurd de Barral, who was a danger to a moral world inhabited by a credulous multitude not fit to take care of itself. But I observed to Fyne that, however insane was the view she held, one could not declare the girl ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the divine will. Don Jaime's father had been a powerful personage, one of those who made laws over there in Madrid; he had even lived in the royal palace. He still saw him in his memory, just as he had imagined him in the credulous illusions of boyhood, bending men to his will; able to send some to the gallows and pardoning others according to his caprice; seated at the table of monarchs and playing cards with them, just as Pep himself might do with a crony ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that deceives his eyes, provokes them. Why, credulous {youth}, dost thou vainly catch at the flying image? What thou art seeking is nowhere; what thou art in love with, turn but away {and} thou shalt lose it; what thou seest, the same is {but} the shadow of a reflected form; it has nothing ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... be somewhat effeminate—that is, at the command of the public, supple in following unconsciously the shades of public opinion, wavering and varying, sceptical and credulous, wicked and devout, a braggart and a true man, enthusiastic and ironical, and always ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... make my eyes shine and my blood run swiftly, but not so swiftly as to make me break my troth with you, had he not sworn to me that through him I should gain what moved me more than any man's love. How he was to accomplish this I could not see in the beginning, and was so little credulous of his being able to keep his oaths that I let myself be drawn by you almost ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... wonders of her death. Then it came to pass that when fruit came upon this vine, lo! it was purple in hue instead of white like the other grapes, and yielded a red juice. Full of superstition, and still credulous of marvels, O-kis-ko imagined the change to be due to the magic arrow buried at its root. He gathered the grapes and pressed the juice from them, and lo! it was red—it was the semblance of blood, Virginia Dare's blood, absorbed from the water (in which it had melted from the arrow) ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... that is overshadowed by the nightmare of ignorance and superstition. A seeker after truth, is a man of few words, and they are used by him only by the truths or facts discovered. He has no patience with the unmeaning records offered only to please the credulous, and by those of little or no truth that appears during a long recitation of ungrounded statements. From the above it is wisely seen that the object of these remarks is to present a few truths for the purpose of stimulating the attention of the listener. We will take man when ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... upon this question, my dear, and I mean to tell the House that a grosser misrepresentation of facts was never yet promulgated from the Ministerial benches, nor flaunted in the faces of an all too leniently credulous Opposition; that will warm 'em up a bit, I flatter myself; those fellows in office will hang their heads in shame at the word ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... at, which was afterwards replenished. With the aid of its content, a newspaper, and some skimming of the cream of the pie-stock, Flora got through the remainder of the day in perfect good humour; though occasionally embarrassed by the consequences of an idle rumour which circulated among the credulous infants of the neighbourhood, to the effect that an old lady had sold herself to the pie-shop to be made up, and was then sitting in the pie-shop parlour, declining to complete her contract. This ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... tools meant a costly expedition and the attracting of undesirable attention. I went alone, living with primitive Russian settlers and afterwards with the Indians. To gain a hold on them I studied the occult sciences and learned tricks that impose upon the credulous. To the white men I'm a crank, to the Indians something of a magician, but my search for the oil has gone on, and now while I already know where boring would be commercially profitable, I'm on the brink of ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... powers, which he claimed the Great Spirit had bestowed upon him. He had also a mystic torch, the gift, as he said, of Manabozho, keeper of the sacred fire. He had also singular belt made of beans, which he assured his credulous followers had grown from his flesh and would render invulnerable all who touched it. To widen his influence the Prophet had this belt carried by Indian runners far ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... away with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face. The credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have to avoid Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware that Bergman ever went ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... sufficient numbers to satisfy the wants of the planters.[10] It is true that trading in slaves was declared to be felony, that the two harbors of Port Louis and Matubourg were closed against their entrance, that a slave registry was opened in 1815, and that credulous Governors wrote to the home authorities that the Mauritians, far from wishing to renew this nefarious traffic, were filled with indignation at the remembrance of its horrors. All this may be true, but ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... terrible liar. He also visited Canada and claimed that the British whom he had seen stood ready to help Black Hawk with men, arms and ammunition, and that a steamboat would bring them to Milwaukee in the spring. This was good news to the credulous old chief; and quite as acceptable as this was Neapope's story that the Winnebagoes and Pottawatomi would join in the campaign to secure his rights. Added to these encouragements were the entreaties of the homesick hungry women, who longed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... imagined that something like a volatile oil of turpentine might be mixed with the waters from a pine-swamp, but this supposition did not quite satisfy me. I mentioned the fact to some philosophical friends on my return to England, but it was not much attended to. I suppose I was thought a little too credulous. ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... sacking sheets, and the "bitter bite of the flea,"—sad entertainment for gentlemen! Instead of wise and merry talk, wherein he excelled, solitary confinement in a wooden cell (the brethren now foist off a stone one upon credulous tourists) with willing slavery to stern Prior Basil. The long days of prayer and meditation, the nights short with psalmody, every spare five minutes filled with reading, copying, gardening and the recitation of offices. All these the novice took with gusto, safe hidden from the flash of emerald ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... not restore the truth and honesty That thou hast banish't from thy tongue with lies Was this the cottage, and the safe abode Thou told'st me of? What grim aspects are these These oughly-headed Monsters? Mercy guard me! Hence with thy brew'd inchantments, foul deceit Hast thou betrai'd my credulous innocence With visor'd falshood, and base forgery, And wouldst thou seek again to trap me here With lickerish baits fit to ensnare a brute? 700 Were it a draft for Juno when she banquets, I would not taste thy treasonous offer; none But such as are ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... a credulous and ignorant people, but it has nothing surprising for me. Let Ennana and the wise men come. ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... in the marts of commercialism a contempt for the gullible, and the credulous; the trusting and the confiding, let it be known that the "smart" bargainer will indeed smart for his smartness, for in the light of cosmic consciousness, this alleged "wisdom" of men, appears as utter foolishness; wasted effort; ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... of pleasure; in utter weariness of the world,—he exclaims, "O! give me back that sweet morning of my days, when all my feelings were fresh, and the heart was wet with a perpetual dew. Give me the untried strength; the undeceived trust; the credulous imagination, that bathed all things in molten glory, and filled the unknown world with infinite possibilities." Sad with skepticism, and tired with speculation, he cries out for that faith that needed no other ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... what the natives had to expect, there has not been one single concession or reward for the credulous Pedro A. Paterno, a Filipino, the only real agent of the miracle of the Peace, to whom they have denied even the modest ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... prose added in this edition are really his work.[189] Scott had good reason for his additions in most cases, though sometimes, as he was aware, the Dean had merely revised the work of other people. The editor was occasionally over-credulous in attributing pieces to Swift, but he was perhaps oftener too generous in giving room to things which he knew had very little claim to be considered Swift's work. When he was in doubt he chose to err on the safe side, according to the principles set forth in the following note on the Letter from ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... indeed, that Papias was foolish and credulous. But unhappily foolishness and credulity are not characteristic of any one form of Christian ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company, happens to be on board here, and, having been subpoenaed as witness in a stock case on the docket in Kentucky, has his transfer-book with him. A month since, in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulous stock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the alarmists, the Company, previously advised of their scheme, so managed it as to get into its own hands those sacrificed shares, resolved that, since a spurious panic must be, the panic-makers should ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Sergeant of mine has felt his rapacity by the Industry of this man's wife they had accumulated something handsome to support them in their advanced age—which coming to the knowledge of this cruel Spoiler—he borrowed 4500 dollars from the poor Credulous Woman & ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe
... burst into a characteristic laugh. It was the first time since the dinner commenced that he had seen the funny side of anything. Tom Flannery was not given to looking upon the comical side. He was too credulous for that; but when anything did strike him as funny, and he made up his mind to treat it as such, the outburst of laughter that followed—laughter that was rich and childlike—was something to do ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... treated with every mark of disapprobation and contempt. But, to the disgrace of humanity and virtue, the assassin of honor, the wretch who breaks the peace of families, who robs virgin innocence of its charms, who triumphs over the ill-placed confidence of the inexperienced, unsuspecting, and too credulous fair, is received and caressed, not only by his own sex, to which he is a reproach, but even by ours, who have every conceivable reason to despise and avoid him. Influenced by these principles, I am neither ashamed nor ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... billet from his bosom:—"I have kept this writing alone, as thou knowest," continued the abbot, "for our guidance. Listen again to the confessions of yonder rebellious and it may be credulous priest:— ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... always a tendency in human nature to be over-credulous as to our own achievements, and over-sceptical as to ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... the hope of living under British government. The fools—the "easy people"—the "folk who gave without a price"—the "truth tellers"—the "men who wish to forget"—the unwise, cocksure, cleaner-living, unbelievably credulous, foolishly honest British officials would be all gone. The pikelhaube and the lash, blackmail and coercion would take the place of generosity. Africa would better be back under the Arabs again, for the Arabs had no system to speak of and were inefficient. Some ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Others also give me excellent reports of him. Leonides, however, still sticks to his favourite "at present." But Herodes speaks in the highest terms of him. In short, 1 am glad even to be deceived in this matter, and am not sorry to be credulous. Pray let me know if Statius has written to you anything of importance ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... acquiescence; but to this sort of reproach I expect to be able to show that none are more obnoxious than those very philosophers by whom it is most freely cast. That nothing is more unphilosophical than uncompromising irreligion, nothing more credulous than its credulity, no other beliefs more monstrous than those by which it strives to fill up the void created by its own unbelief: this is my present thesis, and this I propound, not unaware what formidable antagonists I am thereby challenging, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... poor"—thus the legend runs—"in deity's or demon's name." For truly, of the two angels which, we are told, attend upon the birth of credulous mankind and the initial stages of development, the malign influence would seem to be ever in the ascendant, irrespective of the social status of the, more or less, pre-natally affected, innocent reproduction wherein is focused the latent follies and delinquencies of the race, as portrayed in the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... this melancholy passage in her life. She, why, I know not, changed her name from that of Duquesne to the one she now bore—Jaubert; and for the last two or three years had supported a precarious existence by plausible begging-letters addressed to persons of credulous benevolence; for which offense she had frequently visited the police courts at the instance of the secretary of the Mendicity Society, and it was there I had consequently made ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Alms Eleemosynary Age Primeval Belief Credulous Blame Culpable Breast Pectoral Being Essential Bosom Graminal, sinuous Boy, boyish Puerile Blood, bloody Sanguinary, sanguine Burden Onerous Beginning Initial Boundary Conterminous Brother Fraternal Bowels Visceral Body Corporeal Birth Natal, native ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... discord would be equally oppressive to the people. Tormented with these reflections, he opened his mind to his wife Judith, of whose fidelity he entertained no suspicion, but who, having secretly fixed her affections on another, took this opportunity of ruining her easy and credulous husband. She conveyed intelligence of the conspiracy to the king, and aggravated every circumstance, which, she believed, would tend to incense him against Waltheof, and render him absolutely implacable [x]. Meanwhile the earl, still dubious with regard to the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... by Wesley that his preaching rarely affected the rich and the educated. It was over the ignorant and the credulous that it exercised its most appalling power, and it is difficult to overrate the mental anguish it must sometimes have produced. Timid and desponding natures unable to convince themselves that they had undergone a supernatural ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of it. Mind you, I trust them implicitly. But, outside their own line, they're credulous as ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... over-priced variant of the life pattern which signs itself western civilization. Dating from the Crusades a thousand years ago, western civilization has been promoted, built up and carried forward by the blood, sweat and tears of credulous, hopeful, eager human beings. Its promises have been wonderful; its performance, especially since 1900, has been pitifully inadequate, ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... all,"—I answered, at once, and with emphasis. "That is, if you mean by the term 'spiritualist' a credulous person who believes in mediumistic trickery, automatic writing and the like. That is ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... world with the most extraordinary inventions. In a short time I could make him believe whatever I pleased, and he would have sworn as readily as upon an article in the canon. Moreover, as he was very devout, and was by nature somewhat credulous, my fables received credence the more readily, and in a short time I had so completely surrounded and hemmed him in with mystery that he cared for nothing that was not supernatural. In short I became ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... learning and science. For when he was brought to him, he walked aside, and drew him into conversation, and after putting a variety of questions to him, and receiving answers from him, he ordered his officers to take him away, and put him to death. But we must not be too credulous in the case of narratives told by Oppius, especially when he undertakes to relate anything touching the friends or foes of Caesar. This is certain, that there lay a necessity upon Pompey to be severe upon many of Sylla's ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... punish the miscreants who disperse them, according to their desserts. However, the wretches who thus impose on the world, finding their account therein, as they certainly do, is a proof of multitudes being as credulous in this affair as Miss Blandy, and account for her being imposed on, in the manner she declares she ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... grand gentleman; his dress was all velvet and satin, and blazing with jewels. How the villagers stared. They had flatly refused to believe that this last little stranger was the first one, and had made great fun of Margary and her mother for being so credulous. But they had not minded. They had given their guest a little pallet stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with rose-leaves to sleep on, and fed him with the best they had. His father, in his gratitude, offered ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... subject for wonder with everybody, and no one will believe that they are constructed of other than solid material. Even the credulous, who are permitted to tap one of Parmentier's boots as a convincing test, cannot help sharing the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... thousand signatories indignantly stepped forth to rescue their country from the opprobrium thrown upon it by the base conduct of the Government. In vain did Ministers seek to overawe the timid and mislead the credulous: for Knowledge and Reason were making great strides in England, so that Britons now looked on Frenchmen only as "citizens of the world, children of the common Father," not as enemies to be assassinated "at the command of weak or ambitious Kings, or ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... ocular analyses, tabular compendiums, inductive exercises, productive systems, intellectual methods, and various new theories, for the purpose of teaching grammar, may serve to deceive the ignorant, to amuse the visionary, and to excite the admiration of the credulous; but none of these things has any favourable relation to that improvement which may justly be boasted as having taken place within the memory of the present generation. The definitions and rules which constitute the doctrines of grammar, may be variously expressed, arranged, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the man, the authority with which he is clothed, and not the man himself! How can one be a factor in life unless one represents something which is the fruit of actual, personal experience? Your authority is for the weak, the timid, the credulous,—for those who do not care to trust themselves, who run for shelter from the storms of life to a 'papier-mache' fortress, made to look like rock. In order to preach that logically you should be a white ascetic, with a well-oiled manner, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the premium to De Grey," and that "those who had lost their bets might thank themselves for it, for being such simpletons as to bet against the favourite," he raised a murmur highly flattering to Archer, amongst some of the most credulous boys; whilst others loudly proclaimed their belief in Dr. Middleton's impartiality. These warmly congratulated De Grey. At this Archer grew more and more angry, and when Fisher was proceeding to speak nonsense FOR him, pushed forward into the circle to De Grey, crying, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth |
