"Disbelieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his coffee. "We've talked about it," he admitted. "Although I must say the hypothesis Bart has come up with would never have occurred to me. I'm still not sure I credit it, but" ... he shrugged ... "I can't say that I disbelieve it, either." ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a piece of friendly advice. "Although you may disbelieve the bible," said he, "you ought not to say so. That you should keep to yourself." "Do you believe the bible?" said I. He replied, "Most assuredly." To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... had gone quite stale. Querida was right; he ought to lie fallow. No ground could yield eternally without rest. Querida was clever enough to know that; and he had been stupid enough to ignore it—even disbelieve it, contemptuous of precept and proverb and wise saw, buoyed above apprehension by consciousness and faith ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... low his head: "Bold is the donkey-driver, O Ka'dee! and bold the Ka'dee who dares say what he will believe, what disbelieve—not knowing in any wise the mind of Allah—not knowing in any wise his own heart and what it shall ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... liar, and the falsehoods which you have uttered, only serve to increase your guilt, and confirm me in my resolution to sacrifice both you and that guilty woman who lies yonder. Can I disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes? Must I go into particulars, and say that last night, at about this hour, in the kitchen—ha! you turn pale—you tremble—your guilt is confessed. I would have killed you last night, Anderson, but I had not the weapons. This ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... was on my own door, it occurred to me that I should do well to make sure of not being surprised by Lucilla over the reading of Oscar's letter. The truth is that I shrank from reading it. In spite of my resolution to disbelieve the servant, the dread was now growing on me that the letter would confirm his statement, and would force it on me as the truth that Oscar had left us never to return. I retraced my ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... whether great souls can be so at the mercy of a few particles of matter that when these are disturbed the spirit is plunged into oblivion! You never really have gotten rid of God. There is a flame in the center of your heart which you cannot put out. If there were no God it would be easier to disbelieve in him than it is. You cannot get rid of him because the best in you is God in you. The flame is he and there in the center of your life, recognized or unrecognized, he is burning up as best ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... both lose their wives; and both disbelieve in reality, though they think proper to accept, the excuses they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... created immutable. From death, famine, and the struggle for existence, we see that the most exalted end which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the creation of the higher animals{523}, has directly proceeded. Doubtless, our first impression is to disbelieve that any secondary law could produce infinitely numerous organic beings, each characterised by the most exquisite workmanship and widely extended adaptations: it at first accords better with our faculties to suppose that each ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... Hiram Look kept sullenly to their castles, nursing indignant sense of their wrongs. They got an occasional whiff of the scandal that was pursuing their names. Though their respective wives strove with pathetic loyalty to disbelieve all that the seeress had hinted at, and moved in sad silence about their duties, it was plain that the seed of evil had been planted deep in their imaginations. Poor human nature is only what it is, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Antonia, one whom we could in some degree appreciate, although so far above us. But how could we understand a being like Mona, who told us, and we saw no reason to disbelieve her, that she had never known what it was to do wrong? She seemed as incapable of evil as the birds of the air, or, to make the comparison still stronger, as a beautiful rose. She was guileless by nature, and ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... some use in breaking up people's ignorance about their own bodies. Half the physical as well as moral misery comes from ignorance. Didn't I always tell you that I want to know? A good many of my associates pretend to be agnostics, neither believe or disbelieve in anything. The further I go the more I am convinced that there is a positive basis for things. They talk about the religion of humanity. I tell you, Philip, that humanity is pretty poor stuff to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the narrative. (2) Next you can say that the evidence is weak, and this will be bringing credit for the others where you say the evidence is strong. People will never go so far as your narrative. Cut it down to what is true, and they will disbelieve a part of it; put in these legends and they will compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... beings should leave the world with the undeserved stain of so odious a charge on them, without attempting to clear themselves, is credible only to those who form opinions by their wills, and believe or disbelieve as ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... not think it, I know; but I am not at liberty to reveal secrets of State. Let us put that aside, I cannot give you proof; if you wish to disbelieve it, do. But now I come to my main point. There is a side to this question about which you know nothing, but you know that in the State to-day the Church has her enemies. This indiscretion on the part of the Prince, supported by a promise ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... addressed to our honor, as well as our avarice. Nor does it respect us as to these pirates only, but as to the nations of Europe. If we wish our commerce to be free and uninsuked, we must let these nations see that we have an energy which at present they disbelieve. The low opinion they entertain of our powers, cannot fail to involve us soon ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the unitary principle implied in all multiplicity. Everyone of necessity believes in this. It is impossible to define the term completely, for to define is necessarily to limit, and we are thinking of the illimitable. But we ought to understand clearly that to disbelieve in God is an impossibility; everyone believes in God if he believes in his own existence. The blankest materialist that ever lived, whoever he may have been, must have affirmed God even in the act of denying Him. Professor Haeckel declares his belief ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... I was unable to speak. I was so overcome at this unexpected confirmation of the sight I had seen on that eventful Friday night, though I had afterwards been inclined to disbelieve the evidence of my own senses, as everybody else had done, even the skipper at last joining in with the opinion of Mr Fosset and all the rest, save the boatswain, old Masters. Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... over several miles, without taking them beyond the bounds of Coton Manor. Durant began to disbelieve in the existence of a world beyond. Coton Manor had swallowed up the county; it seemed to have opened its gates and swallowed ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Germans are in that mood now. But as most of us have had to learn, a man may be bitterly ashamed of this or that incident in his country's history—what Englishman, for instance, can be proud of Glencoe?—he may disbelieve in half its institutions and still love his country far too much to suffer the thought of its destruction. I prefer to see my country right, but if it comes to the pinch and my country sins I will fight to save her from the destruction her sins may have brought ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... the captain the facts of the case," said Johnson, "and he does me the honour to disbelieve me. The lieutenant has gone off to the Ministry of War for instructions. Meanwhile, you are under arrest, and they won't let you quit this spot without authority. If you really mean that you must go ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... mystique, because, after gardening for over twenty years, garden writing for fifteen and being in the mail order garden seed business for seven I have been on the receiving end of countless amazing claims by touters of agricultural snake oils; after testing out dozens of such concoctions I tend to disbelieve mystic contentions of unique superiority. ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... far as the simple 'imagination' is concerned, there may be no question of belief or disbelief. The picture of Falstaff or of Lafayette, a horse or a centaur, arises equally, and is put together, let us suppose, by simple association. But as soon as I think about either I believe or disbelieve, and equally whether I judge the object to be a thought or to be a 'real fact,' whether I say that I could have seen Lafayette, or that I could not have seen Falstaff. It is not a question between reality or unreality, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... his visitor, quickly, "I don't quite know what you mean. One who professes to be an infidel professes more or less intelligent disbelief in the Bible, yet you admit that you have never studied the book which you profess to disbelieve—much less, I suppose, have you studied the books which give us ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... lightly enough, but with a purpose. For, absurd as may seem the fictions we have sported with, are they not types of many other far more serious ones which we cram down the throats of our rising generation, long after we ourselves have begun to disbelieve them? There is a conventional teaching which we decorously administer, and leave our pupils to disavow it when they can. History is still taught in our public and private schools, seasoned with all the exploded blunders of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... numbered with those who were desirous of reuniting Christians[653]. The method he proposed was to distinguish fundamental points from such as were not, and leave men at liberty to believe or disbelieve the latter. He communicated his project to Casaubon, who highly approved it: but how shall men settle what articles are fundamental? This question is a source of endless disputes. Besides, they must be able to answer the Roman Catholic Divines, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... you have Joanna—this evil creature stained by God knoweth how many shameful crimes—you have her beneath your hand and let her come and go as she lists, to work such new harms as her cunning may suggest—either you disbelieve my statements, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... to the Bottom; when the Earth quaked, and Rocks were split; when the Graves were opened, and the Bodies of Saints, which slept in Death, arose and walked. Let Atheists alone, and Freethinkers disbelieve the Terrors of that Hour. 'Twas fit that Nature should feel such Convulsions, when the Lord of Life suffered ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... we were to meet him, I also took care to tell Lizzy that it would be no pleasure to me, and that if it was at dinner, I hoped I should not sit next to him. I said these things to her oftener than I should naturally have done, because I saw that in her wish to disbelieve them she really did so, and I wished to make her understand me, in case either Papa or Mama or the boys should be speaking of it before her. You will say, why did I not speak more to Mama herself?—partly because ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... was not a lady by birth; in her soul she was still the girl who had begged for pence in the Edgware Road, who had run crying through the dark streets after the cab that conveyed her drunken and fatally-injured mother to St. Mary's Hospital. Let them disbelieve who know not Fan, who have never ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... it must not, produce all that it could produce. And it is high time to disbelieve the legend which represents wagedom as the best incentive to productive work. If industry nowadays brings in a hundred times more than it did in the days of our grandfathers, it is due to the sudden awakening of physical and chemical sciences towards the end of last century; ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... subject. Yet all this is not enough to account for the fact in question—why they should feel this distaste for the very subject of religion. Why should they be ashamed of paying reverence to an unseen, all-powerful God, whose existence they do not disbelieve? Yet they do feel ashamed of it. Is it that they are ashamed of themselves, not of their religion; feeling the inconsistency of professing what they cannot fully practise? This refinement does not materially alter the view of the case; for it is merely their ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... sect or division, though very ancient indeed. We never held to the Halacha, and we laugh at the Mishna and Talmud and all that. We do not believe or disbelieve in a God—Yahveh, or the older Elohim. We hold that every man born knows enough to do what is right; and that is religion enough. After death, if he has acted up to this, he will be all right should there be a future of immortality; and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... have frightened McGuire and Aunt Tillie too? Even if the old woman had been timid about staying in the house, she had made it clear to Peter that she was entirely unaware of the kind of danger that threatened her employer. Peter had believed her then. He saw no reason to disbelieve her now. She had known as little as Peter about the cause for McGuire's alarm. And here he had found her staring with the same unseeing eyes into the darkness, with the same symptoms of nervous shock as McGuire had shown. What enemy of McGuire's could frighten Aunt ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... fair with you, Jack, if I affected to disbelieve in your faith in your love for me and its endurance, but I should be still more unfair if I didn't tell you what I honestly believe, that at your age you are apt to deceive yourself, and, without knowing it, to deceive others. You confess you have not yet decided upon your career, and you are always ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... with external nature, empirically acquired, which serves directly for the production of objects necessary to existence or agreeable to the senses, would get its utility recognized if people had the least encouragement to disbelieve it. Is it reasonable to think that even much more cultivated minds than those of the numerical majority can be expected to be, will have so delicate a conscience, and so just an appreciation of what is against their own apparent interest, that they will reject these and the innumerable ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... said Mr. Minturn. "With all my heart I believe you! I know you are loyal to her, and to me! It isn't you I disbelieve, child, it is ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... we were getting ready in earnest. You will wonder, perhaps, how it is I have allowed myself to be deceived for so long. It was because I believed in him during the first three years, and during the second three I had already lost so much time that I dared not disbelieve in him. It was always: 'Just six months more, Cleo, dear, and then we shall astonish the world.' And then the vision of that vast theatre was too fascinating for me to abandon. His excuses were always plausible. Now he ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... that he felt very much disposed to disbelieve what Bill had told him, or rather, to fancy that ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... face of the disbelief that had met my denials of any secret mission, I felt to have Schnitzel also disbelieve me would be too great a humiliation. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... days I have had some threatening symptoms of ill-health; not very serious, perhaps, to a person surrounded with any of the comforts of civilisation, but much so to one in my position. Besides, despite my endeavours to disbelieve the dangers with which we are said to be menaced from lawless freebooters, it is difficult to disregard them so far ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... his child. And, sir, I did it. I abhor every other dependence—the things you count good in me I reckon but filthy rags. At the same time, I know that ever since that day, forty years ago, I have lived in his service and tried to live to his glory. And now, sir, shall I disbelieve his promise? do you think he would ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... came gradually to see, shortly afterwards (1836-1839) that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the Sacred Books of the Hindoos; the miracles by which Christianity is supported, the discrepancies between the accounts in the different Gospels, gradually led him to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. "Thus," he writes,[85] "disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress." But Darwin was too modest to presume to go beyond the limits laid down by science. He ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... will be rude enough to disbelieve her, and, as will be seen, her supernatural powers had limits; but it was odd, though fortunate, that they should have broken down exactly at this important juncture. Who made those rebellious candles take him to that chamber and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... walks, labyrinths of evergreens, and grass paths leading into beautiful unexpected places, where one suddenly came upon deep, clear pools where water plants grew and slow carp had dreamed centuries away. The gardens caused Emily to disbelieve in the existence of Mortimer Street, but the house at times caused her to disbelieve in herself. The picture gallery especially had this effect upon her. The men and women, once as alive as her everyday self, now gazing down at her ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unreasonable in such a proposal. Dr. Hook, strong Churchman as he was, "called to union on the principles of the English Reformation." But the criticism which had been set afloat by the movement had discovered and realised, what defenders of the English Church had hitherto felt it an act of piety to disbelieve, when put before them by Romanists like Lingard, and radicals like Cobbett. that the Reformers had been accomplices in many indefensible acts, and had been inconsistent and untrustworthy theologians. Providentially, it was felt, the force of old convictions and tradition ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use. Clifford's cosmic emotions find no use for Christian feelings. Huxley belabors the bishops because there is no use for sacerdotalism in his scheme ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... million imbeciles (You think) aware some dozen men of sense Eye me and know me, whether I believe In the last winking virgin as I vow, And am a fool, or disbelieve in her, And ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... has written, 'in verse or out of verse is more wearisome than the delivery of reluctant doubt, of half-hearted hope and half-incredulous faith. A man who suffers from the strong desire either to believe or disbelieve something he cannot, may be worthy of sympathy, is certainly worthy of pity, until he begins to speak; and if he tries to speak in verse, he misses the implement of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... purse and took out her copy; Derues snatched it, and tore it up. "Now," he exclaimed, "you are paid; I owe you nothing now. If you like, I will declare it on oath in court, and no one will disbelieve my word." ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... reason or another, Mr. Olney chose to disbelieve the stories from Cuba, and tried to throw discredit on General Lee, declaring that his action in the Ruiz matter had been hasty and unwarranted, and that things were not so bad in Cuba as he stated them ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... written a paper of her too just complaints against her husband, and written it in plain and very pungent English. Pepys, in an agony lest the world should come to see it, brutally seizes and destroys the tell-tale document; and then—you disbelieve your eyes—down goes the whole story with unsparing truth and in the cruellest detail. It seems he has no design but to appear respectable, and here he keeps a private book to prove he was not. You are at ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... true and ecclesiastical. You appeal in your defence to wise and sagacious intellects, who are far from enemies to Catholicism, or to the Irish Hierarchy, and you have no hope, or rather you absolutely disbelieve, that Education can possibly be conducted, here and now, on a theological principle, or that youths of different religions can, under the circumstances of the country, be educated apart from each other. The more you think over the state of ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... sun." The word has a meaning, and suggests that meaning to the mind of any one who is listening to me. But suppose I ask him, Whether it is true: whether he believes it? He can give no answer. There is as yet nothing to believe, or to disbelieve. Now, however, let me make, of all possible assertions respecting the sun, the one which involves the least of reference to any object besides itself; let me say, "the sun exists." Here, at once, is something ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... God like themselves; the virtuous make Him good, and the profligate make Him wicked; ill-tempered and bilious devotees see nothing but hell, because they would willingly damn all mankind; while loving and gentle souls disbelieve it altogether; and one of the astonishments I could never overcome, is to see the good Fenelon speak of it in his Telemachus as if he really gave credit to it; but I hope he lied in that particular, for however strict ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... should stand forth as the champion of the herd, and do all the roaring and stamping, while the other bulls remained mute, and followed with the rest of the herd, yet so it was; but there seemed no reason to disbelieve the unpleasant fact that the monarch's example would be imitated by his subjects. The herd had now drawn so near, and the young ladies had made such a comparatively slow retreat, that they were yet many yards distant from ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... a theory, yet excited at finding that Morton apparently had thoughts, Mr. Wrenn piped: "Honestly, I don't see that at all. I don't see how anybody could disbelieve anything after a sunset like that. Makes me believe all sorts of thing—gets me going—I imagine I'm all sorts of places—on the Nile ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... centage has disappeared for ever. Hence naturally the jealousy of barbarous Orientals that we Europeans, in groping amongst pyramids, sphynxes, and tombs, are looking for buried treasures. The wretches are not so wide astray in what they believe as in what they disbelieve. The treasures do really exist which they fancy; but then also the other treasures in the glorious antiquities have that existence for our sense of beauty which to their brutality is inconceivable. In these circumstances, why should it surprise us that men will pursue ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... him against the humdrum past. That's another point, Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and most Romans were frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you, read Ctesiphon with them, or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... "No. I don't disbelieve it, either. I've no reason to, one way or another." He studied his drink for a moment, and lowered the level in the glass slightly. "I've said that once in a while things get reported that look as though such other worlds, in another time-dimension, may exist. ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper
... define and limit God in order to take hold of Him, to detach one's self and parts of the universe from God in some mysterious way in order to reduce life to a dramatic antagonism, is not faith, but infirmity. Excessive strenuous belief is not faith. By faith we disbelieve, and it is the drowning man, and not the strong swimmer, who clutches at the floating straw. It is in the nature of man, it is in the present purpose of things, that the real world of our experience and will ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. No good reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not betray itself to certain organizations, at a distance, through the walls of a box in which the animal is shut up. We need not disbelieve the stories which allege such an occurrence as a fact and a not very ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in Bibles, and disbelieve in them: but of all Bibles the frightfulest to disbelieve in is this 'Bible of Universal History.' This is the Eternal Bible and God's-Book, 'which every born man,' till once the soul and eyesight are extinguished in him, 'can and must, with his own eyes, see the God's-Finger writing!' To discredit ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... you how annoyed I was by these exaggerations. In this age of doubt people who do not know me might possibly be led to disbelieve the real facts when they are mixed up with ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... confessed that, before getting to sleep again, Mark thought of what Aunt Chloe had said about the "ghoses"; but having been taught to disbelieve in such things, and always to seek for some natural explanation of whatever appeared supernatural or unreal, he made up his mind to wait and make the attempt to unravel this mystery by himself before saying anything ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... guest-friends of those who have hired them. [But that is not the case, of course. Far from it!] {52} Nay, I call you the hireling, formerly of Philip, and now of Alexander, and so do all who are present. If you disbelieve me, ask them—or rather I will ask them for you. Men of Athens, do you think of Aeschines as the hireling or as the guest-friend of Alexander? You hear what ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... Master Constans, and some day you will know what that means." She moved away, majestically as does a goddess, conscious of her power but magnanimously refraining from using it. Constans and Ulick laughed after the manner of men-kind who find it easy to disbelieve in what they do not understand. Then, with a long hand-grip, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... peradventures on them,—Mirabeau steps up to the President, experienced Mounier as it chanced to be; and articulates, in bass under-tone: "Mounier, Paris marche sur nous (Paris is marching on us)."—"May be (Je n'en sais rien)!"—"Believe it or disbelieve it, that is not my concern; but Paris, I say, is marching on us. Fall suddenly unwell; go over to the Chateau; tell them this. There is not a moment to lose."—"Paris marching on us?" responds Mounier, with an atrabiliar accent, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... depended upon at the ballot-box. Strange stories are told of avowed opposition to Mr. Motley on the ground of the most trivial differences in point of taste in personal matters,—so told that it is hard to disbelieve them, and they show that the caprices which we might have thought belonged exclusively to absolute rulers among their mistresses or their minions may be felt in the councils of a great people which calls itself self-governing. It is perfectly true ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... understanding what they were not required to understand, than of doing what they were required to do—whence their crude and false utterances concerning a God of their own fancy—in whom it was a good man's duty, in the name of any possible God, to disbelieve; and just because she was true, authority had immense power over her. The very sweetness of their nature forbids such to doubt ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... "Baker's Chronicle," that nobody in the establishment could read; and thus from the pages of history he used to suck in all he knew—thieving and lying namely; in which, for his years, he made wonderful progress. If any followers of Miss Edgeworth and the philosophers are inclined to disbelieve this statement, or to set it down as overcharged and distorted, let them be assured that just this very picture was, of all the pictures in the world, taken from nature. I, Ikey Solomons, once had a dear little brother ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of you," he said, still without looking up, "to look upon me with suspicion, aversion, and distrust; to disbelieve any good you may hear of me; to hate me if you can; to treat me as long as you live with uniform coldness ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... torments of hell, are constantly repeated and are copious and vivid. Reference to chapter and verse would be superfluous, since almost every page of the Koran abounds in such tints and tones as the following. "The unbelievers shall be companions of hell fire forever." "Those who disbelieve we will surely cast to be broiled in hell fire: so often as their skins shall be well burned we will give them other skins in exchange, that they may taste the sharper torment." "I will fill hell entirely full of genii and men." "They shall be dragged on their faces into hell, and it shall ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... its place. But when Candide begins to suffer the natural consequences of his vices, he feels it to be but a poor consolation, that others are now reaping the benefit of his sin. Is it surprising that such a work induced thousands to disbelieve in the holy providence of God, and prepared multitudes to 'do evil that good might come?'" (Christian Spectator, vol. i. pp. ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... enabled him to take a conspicuous part in building up the great fabric of the British Empire. But he was also—as all who were taking part in the ceremony believed in their hearts—a 'man of the world' and 'a man of pleasure.' Do we, then, disbelieve in our own creed, or are we engaged in a solemn mockery? Palmerston had not obeyed the conditions under which alone, as every preacher will tell us, heaven can be hoped for. Patriotism, good nature, and so forth are, as we are told, mere 'filthy rags' of no avail in the sight of heaven. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... those who disbelieve in love at first sight laugh if they will, sat down to think, trembling in every limb, utterly shaken by the inrush of a new and strong emotion. He had not come to the age of twenty-four without some experience of the other sex, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... itself. So we have a dead man and we first ask who shot him. Crosland says he did, and tells us the circumstances, his sister confirms his statement, and the butler, the woman servant and the nurse, who are quickly upon the stage in this tragedy, see no reason to disbelieve the statement. We burrow a little deeper into the evidence, and we discover one or two interesting facts. The man was shot on the left side of the head, a clean wound above the left ear. Crosland says ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... when he has held me down year after year! When he made father disbelieve in me—made me disbelieve in myself! And all merely ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... obstinacy of those who disbelieve the genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed in red. The blind man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that others have a power which he himself wants: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... story told by Miss Smithers. It would to my mind be impossible for any man, whose intelligence had been trained by years of experience in this and other courts, and whose daily duty it is to discriminate as to the credibility of testimony, to disbelieve the history so circumstantially detailed in the box by Miss Smithers (Sensation). I watched her demeanour both under examination and cross-examination very closely indeed, and I am convinced that she was telling the absolute truth so far as she ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... of great Astonishment; yet this I am inform'd is really the Case, with regard to one of the most ingenious Divines, our Metropolis has to boast of. One Reason may perhaps be alledged, for such an unexpected Alteration of Sentiment, viz. That tho' we disbelieve these Doctrines, because they are absurd, yet we hold at the same time, others, equally repugnant to Reason, and to Common Sense; and certainly we may as reasonably embrace the one as retain the other. Besides, with what reasonable Expectation of Success ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... Democratic minority of the committee, after examining Hoffman and Tweed, who disclaimed any knowledge of the transactions and affected to disbelieve the truth of the charges, pronounced the facts cited "stale slanders," and most of the witnesses "notorious swindlers, liars, and thieves," declaring that the fraudulent vote did not exceed 2,000, divided equally between the two ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... candid are not the most part of our priests, who would fain have us think them altogether unsceptical. Nevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'God is,' though they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually are, and that to disbelieve we ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... Saint, who, in thus bowing to the crowd, was expressing his approbation of their proceedings. It was, in fact, a regular miracle. So alleged both padres and cura, and who was there to contradict them? It would have been a dangerous matter to have said nay. In San Ildefonso no man dared to disbelieve the word of the Church. The miracle worked well. The religious enthusiasm boiled up; and when Saint John was returned to his niche, and the little "cofre" placed in front of him, many a "peseta", "real," and "cuartillo," were dropped in, which ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... quieted. But again, when I spoke of the log book and said that the ship had been enclosed in the ice for thirteen years, even the lieutenant seemed to disbelieve me. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... an immaterial as well as in a material world. We are planted at the overlap of two spheres, that which is spiritual and that which is physical, and we gravitate so sensibly and so rapidly to the latter as to lose touch with the former, and finally to disbelieve in the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... sacrifice him? I was deeply attached to Buchanan; I thought him my friend, and trusted him as such—through long years our intimacy continued. You see how unwisely this attachment was indulged; I have misplaced my confidence; I am willing to disbelieve this statement of Beverly; he is known to you; I believe he is a miserable creature, but his testimony is but a link in the chain of evidences I have of Buchanan's being the author of this infamous story. It was artfully concocted and maliciously circulated. He ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... safe in my pouch, I thought I had good reason to disbelieve them; and taking advantage of their surprise—for they had not expected so bold a step on my part—I was at the door before they could prevent me. I heard Mathurine, the fool, who had sprung to her feet, cry 'Pardieu! he will take the Kingdom of Heaven ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... direction of the eminent Harvey,[20] the king's physician, who was later to discover the circulation of the blood. In the course of this chapter we shall see that Harvey had long cherished misgivings about witchcraft. Probably by this time he had come to disbelieve it. One can but wonder if Charles, already probably aware of Harvey's views, had not intended from his first step in the Lancashire case to give his physician a chance to assert his opinion. In any case ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... asked. He couldn't fully believe what he'd heard, but there had been too many strange things to let him disbelieve, either. If they had made him a mandrake-man, then by what little he could remember and guess, they ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... of the old Greeks or Romans, is a mere assumption, originating in a false idea of what quantity is; and, that Greek or Latin verse was less accentual than is ours, is another assumption, left proofless too, of what many authors disbelieve and contradict. Wells's definition of quantity is similar to mine, and perhaps unexceptionable; and yet his idea of the thing, as he gives us reason to think, was very different, and very erroneous. His examples imply, that, like Walker, he had "no conception of quantity arising from any thing but ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... slavery can never obtain a substantial foothold there. Why, then, do you make the subject one of so much importance? Why do you risk all the calamities of civil war and a disruption of the Union for such a poor reward? We should distrust all your statements, we should disbelieve all your professions of patriotism, if we could for a moment credit the assertion that you would break up the Union on such a ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... One who could make it strong. Suddenly she felt in her that consciousness which the weakest have at times felt, and which, however the rationalist may scoff, the Christian dare not disbelieve—that sense of not working, but being worked upon—by which truths come into one's heart, and words into one's mouth, involuntarily, as if some spirit, not our own, were at work within us. Such had been oftentimes the case with her; but never so strong as now. A voice ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... was aware, from the moment in which she received the letter, that she had wronged her daughter by her suspicions. It did not occur to her to disbelieve a word that was said in the letter, or an inference that was implied. She had been wrong, and rejoiced that it was so. But nevertheless there was that in the letter which annoyed and irritated her, though she could not explain to herself the cause ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... you will; but I know that I love what is right, and wish to do my duty;' and so they have been made perplexed and unhappy, one day fancying themselves worse than they really were, and the next fancying themselves better than they really were; and by both tempers of mind tempted to disbelieve God's Gospel, and throw away the thought of ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... attack first." [502] Moses allowed himself to be influenced by their talk, and he also liked the idea of sending out spies, but not wishing to act arbitrarily he submitted to God the desire of the people. God answered: "It is not the first time that they disbelieve My promises. Even in Egypt they ridiculed Me, it is now become a habit with them, and I know what their motive in sending spies is. If thou wishest to send spies do so, but do not pretend that I ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... moral man. We find him adorned with all the virtues which Heaven gave him at his birth; his real goodness, which neither injustice nor misfortune could alter; his generosity, which not only made him disbelieve in ingratitude, but actually incited him to render good for evil and obliged him to own that "he could not keep his resentments;" his gratitude for the little that is done for him; his sincerity; his openness of character; his greatness ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... ribbon which fastened the bunch of golden grain. It was—nay, it could have been nothing else—that very spider. The honoured work was not his, but his dead friend's. How the exchange had occurred he could not now understand, but to disbelieve that it had taken place would have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you, my oldest friend, be my greatest benefactor! I sue to your niece; she affects to disbelieve. Will you convince her of my truth, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could no longer disbelieve in the reality of love, since God Himself had loved his individual soul with divine love from all eternity. Gradually, as his soul was enriched with spiritual knowledge, he saw the whole world forming one vast symmetrical expression of God's power ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... moment, as if to ascertain whether I were laughing at him. And then, after a pause, "Perhaps you don't know that I disbelieve in a future ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... and confirmed by the black looks of the injured crew had fallen like a thunderbolt, and for the moment Willoughby was stunned. The boys could not—would not—believe that one of their number could be guilty of such an act. And yet, how could they disbelieve it? ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... does not appear to me to have been clearly proved; nor do I give in to the objection of Simmias, that the soul is not stronger and more durable than the body, for it appears to me to excel very far all things of this kind. 82. 'Why, then,' reason might say, 'do you still disbelieve? for, since you see that when a man dies his weaker part still exists, does it not appear to you to be necessary that the more durable part should still be preserved during this period?' Consider, then, whether I say any thing to the purpose in reply to this. For I, too, as well as Simmias, ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... be was personally immaterial to himself. "For I," he concluded, "am but a soldier of fortune, and can make terms for myself with either party." The blunt counsel pleased the Shah. "You are right, Najib," said Ahmad, "and the Nawab is misled by the impulses of youth. I disbelieve in the Mahratta penitence, and I am not going to throw you over whom I have all along regarded as the manager of this affair. Though in my position I must hear every one, yet I promise never to act against ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic; mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; and there is nothing more curious ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... I disbelieved in equality at home because it was against nature, and for that same reason I as utterly disbelieve in it ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... glory of existence. To disbelieve is to give ourselves into the power of death, and just so far to ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... that was said upon the subject, the object of their criticism must have been as artificial as Mr Riprapton's left leg, and she must have been nothing more than an animated lay-figure, I began to disbelieve these assertions, the more especially as the lady herself was as easy under them as she was in every gesture and motion. Whenever she made her appearance, so did my old friend Mr R; he entertained a platonic attachment for her, and that the more strongly, as each ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... squeals and chitters just like little childer, I'd a been puzzled at what ye be a tellin' me; but as I knows there be all o' these creators in the middle o' the broad ocean,—and mermaids too, I dare say,—then, ye see, little Will'm, I must disbelieve that ye heard anything more than the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... charges will be proved and that the King will be divorced. It is impossible to discover what effect the report may have in the country; it is certain hitherto that all ranks of men have been decidedly favourable to the Queen, and disbelieve the charges against her. The military in London have shown alarming symptoms of dissatisfaction, so much so that it seems doubtful how far the Guards can be counted upon in case of any disturbance arising out of this subject. Luttrell says that ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... they are "great goddesses to idle men"; then, that they are "mistresses of disputings, and logic, and monstrosities, and noisy chattering"; declares that whoso believes in their divinity must first disbelieve in Jupiter, and place supreme power in the hands of an unknown god "Whirlwind"; and, finally, he displays their influence over the mind of one of their disciples, in his sudden desire "to speak ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Division, was in the thick of the battle—too far in for his rank, I am told, and he is most emphatic that with one more Brigade Achi Baba would now be in our hands. He said this to me in presence of his own Chief and I believe him, although I had rather disbelieve. To my mind "a miss is as good as a mile" should run a "miss is far worse than a mile." He is a sober-spoken, most gallant Officer. But it can't be helped. This is not the first time in history when the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... him medicine man, some called him priest; now, we call him theologian. These men set out to teach men how to keep from offending this being, and they laid down certain laws to regulate the conduct of men. First of all it was necessary to believe in this power. To disbelieve in him was the worst offense of all. To have some human being, dressed in the skin of a wild beast, deny the existence of this infinite being, was more than the infinite being could stand. The first thing, therefore, was to believe in this power, the next to support this gentleman ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... life; to stand on the same moral plane, and that, if possible, a high one; to find satisfaction in different explanations of the purpose and significance of life and the universe, and yet the same satisfaction. It is certainly not less possible to disbelieve religiously than to believe religiously. This accord of mind, this emulation in freedom and loftiness of soul, this kindred sense of the awful depth of the enigma which the one believes to be answered, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... odious puppy. But as to her assignations in the garden, if they are with any one, it is with Gillian, and I see no harm in them, except that we might have been told—-only that would have robbed the entire story of its flavour, I suppose. Besides, I greatly disbelieve the entire story, so don't be worried about it! There—-as if we had not been doing our best to worry you! But come home, dearest old Lily. Gather your chicks under your wing, and when you cluck them together again, all will be well. I don't think you will find Valetta ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Yes, quite so," he continued. "You have suffered so much of late that you disbelieve in anything but unhappiness. You feel it must be interminable. It was all my fault. You fancy that you are alone, with a bitter hostile world arrayed against you. And since the world is your enemy, what do you care what the ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Time, who will surely do right at last, and go on to the dogheaded worthies, without necks, and long hair hanging down behind, who, as a cacique told Raleigh, that 'they had of late years slain many hundreds of his father's people,' and in whom even Humboldt was not always allowed, he says, to disbelieve (so much for Hume's scoff at Raleigh as a liar), one old cacique boasting to him that he had seen them with his own eyes. Humboldt's explanation is, that the Caribs, being the cleverest and strongest Indians, are also the ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... impulse—Alured had been talking to her about his plans for Trevor's birthday; and, as he spoke of that street, the wild thought came over her how easily a fever might yet sweep him away. And yet she says, all down the street, she was trying to persuade herself to forget Emily's warning, and to disbelieve in the infection. After all, she thought, even if she had not met Emily, she should have made some excuse for turning back, such a pitiful thought came of the fair, fresh face ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... affair, Burr junior. I wanted to disbelieve in your guilt, I wanted to feel that there was no young gentleman in my establishment who could stoop to such a piece of base pilfering; but the truth is so circumstantially brought home through the despicable meanness of a boy of whose actions I feel the utmost abhorrence, that I am bound ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Mrs. Brown burst into tears, and reproaches of her husband. I saw her, in 1857, at Marysville, and disbelieve the story. And the WINGDAM CHRONICLE, of the next week, under the head of "Touching Reunion," said: "One of those beautiful and touching incidents, peculiar to California life, occurred last week ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... of philosophers: the display of ingenuity, for the most part, is and always has been it. I must here offer you an opinion of my own, which, if you think well of me, you will pardon, though you should disbelieve its solidity. My opinion then is, that truth is not reasonably the main and ultimate object of philosophy; but that philosophy should seek truth merely as the means of acquiring and of propagating happiness. Truths are simple; wisdom, which is formed by their apposition ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... her dad was there so that she would not be compelled to keep Bland any longer than was necessary. Bland was seedier than he had been in Tucson, if that were possible. Too evidently he had no part of the seventy-five dollars left, if he had ever possessed that much. Mary V would like to disbelieve everything he said, but a troubled doubt of his falsity ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Glo'ster, though some of us stoutly maintained that the whiteness of Handsome entitled her to the prize. Then there were about thirty sheep; but with them (in spite of frequent intercourse) we could only make out a general acquaintance—for we disbelieve altogether in the possibility of distinguishing one of the flock from the others. It must be the easiest thing in the world for a sheep to establish an alibi; and we are rather surprised that the impossibility of detection does not encourage some of the bolder of the woolly-sided heroes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... not only believe in a life after death; they are even of opinion that they would never die at all if it were not for the maleficent arts of sorcerers who cut the vital thread prematurely short. In other words, they disbelieve in what we call a natural death; they think that all men are naturally immortal in this life, and that every death which takes place is in fact a violent death inflicted by the hand of a human enemy, though in many cases the foe is invisible and works his fell ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Koopman told her anxious friends that she had received such assurances from Rhodes that she could not disbelieve him, and that the best thing which they could do would be to contradict all statements on the subject of a raid on the Transvaal that might come to their ears. This occurred on an after-Christmas evening of ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... or disbelieve concerns me not at all," the Prior answered. "Nathless, through that wall he went, for with my own eyes I saw a part of it roll back and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... antient is a piece of private history, the truth of which my beloved cares not to own, and indeed affects to disbelieve: as she does also some puisny gallantries of her foolish brother; which, by way of recrimination, I have hinted at, without naming my informant ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Markham!' said she, with a shocked expression and voice subdued almost to a whisper, 'what do you think of these shocking reports about Mrs. Graham?—can you encourage us to disbelieve them?' ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... as nursery honour. We respected each other's pretendings unless we were very cross, but I didn't disbelieve in his fairy godmother. I only said, "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full," to snub him for making ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... first knew Ideala her religious opinions were all unsettled. "I neither believe nor disbelieve," she told me; "I am in a state of don't know; or perhaps it would be more exact to say that I both doubt and believe at one and the same time. I go indifferently to either church, Protestant or Catholic, and ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... one end of the kingdom to the other with any desperate rapidity. Even when the posts rode at a hand gallop, the long leagues took their long time to cover, and, after all, of most of the news that came to the capital from abroad and afar it was generally safe to disbelieve a full half, to discredit the third quarter, and to be justifiably sceptical as to the remaining portion. But, credible or incredible, all news is blown to Paris, as all roads lead to Rome, and in the fulness ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy |
