"Sceptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English humour—was more than half- French in temperament, and attracted to himself all that was artistically frivolous in his kingdom. Questions of decency and morality—which after all are not perpetually amusing—apart, the social spirit typified in this exceptional king is one of sceptical humour and ironical smiles: it takes common emotions for granted—is bored by them, in fact—and is a foe to sentimentality and gush and virtuously happy endings. It was the spirit of Charles the Second that inspired English comedy, and inspired it most thoroughly in Congreve but a few ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... the same street, they were a source of mutual embarrassment, and one of them was bound to kill the other. But if Roman Catholicism seemed to Pierre to be worn out and threatened with ruin, he remained quite as sceptical with regard to the power of Freemasonry. He had made inquiries as to the reality of that power in Rome, where both Grand Master and Pope were enthroned, one in front of the other. He was certainly told that the last Roman princes had thought themselves compelled to become Freemasons ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... This tradition, as applying to the very earliest periods, may be nothing more than historical superstition, yet it has its historical importance. Supposing it were possible to prove that none of the persons mentioned in the Bible from Adam down to the Apostles ever lived, even the most sceptical critic would still have to admit that the history of a great portion of the human race has been materially affected by the belief in the examples of their alleged lives. Something similar may be said ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... confession! Well, there has been tea up there. I had some. If you hurry on after Yakovlitch, instead of wasting your time with such an unsatisfactory sceptical person as myself, you may find the ghost of it—the cold ghost of it—still lingering in the temple. But as to you being tired I can hardly believe it. We are not supposed to be. We mustn't, We can't. The other day I read in some paper or other ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... by the inward instincts of the soul: it had afterwards to be pruned and chastened by the sceptical understanding. For its perfection, the co-operation of these two parts of man is essential. While religious persons dread critical and searching thought, and critics despise instinctive religion, each side ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... least glimmer of personal initiative. At the bottom of the social ladder the system creates an army of proletarians discontented with their lot and always ready to revolt, while at the summit it brings into being a frivolous bourgeoisie, at once sceptical and credulous, having a superstitious confidence in the State, whom it regards as a sort of Providence, but without forgetting to display towards it a ceaseless hostility, always laying its own faults to the door of ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... was that Susan had been coming to the age that is sceptical about Santa Claus, but she could not ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... thing," mused the Woman, "that all pound-men are sarcastic and sceptical. It seems an inevitable part of their occupation. They never believed me when I was a ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... master, no pontiff in the arts. Palizzi bore rule at Grez—urbane, superior rule—his memory rich in anecdotes of the great men of yore, his mind fertile in theories; sceptical, composed, and venerable to the eye; and yet beneath these outworks, all twittering with Italian superstition, his eye scouting for omens, and the whole fabric of his manners giving way on the appearance of a hunchback. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all my nature of mind sceptical. . . . And as to the doubt of the soul I discover it to be false: a mood: not a conclusion. My conclusion—and that of all men who have ever once seen it—is the Faith; Corporate, organised, a personality, teaching. A ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... them in the name of religion alone. Local or political jealousies are at the bottom of those troubles which still occur from time to time in Turkey: the traveller hears no insulting epithet, and the green-turbaned Imam will receive him as kindly and courteously as the sceptical Bey educated in Paris. I have never been so aggressively assailed, on religious grounds, as at home,—never so coarsely and insultingly treated, on account of a presumed difference of opinion, as by those who claim descent from the Cavaliers. The bitter fierceness of some of our leading ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... theory) it will be found to be a secret isle in some great estuary or arm of that ageless Eastern river suspected by the major. Surely that mysterious Apple (of whose powers Margarita was once so sceptical) never grew on any vulgar, easily-to-be-come-at mainland! No, it lurks to-day in its own island Paradise, and the angel with the flaming sword cut the land apart from all common ground so that the furrows smoked beneath it as the floods ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... even so," said the sceptical Swing. "But I don't mind. I'm good-natured to-day. I feel just like being lied to. Turn yore ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... the Book of Job, except that he is offering his victim luxuries instead of pains. In the prologue in Heaven he speaks with such a jaunty air that Professor Blackie's translation has omitted the passage as irreverent. He is the spirit that denies—sceptical and cynical, the anti-Christian that is in us all. His business is to depreciate spiritual values, and to persuade mortals that there is no real distinction between good and bad, or between high and low. We have seen in the character of Cornelius ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... system. Little work was done; the prisoners were very slightly reformed, and the agents often unfit. But by what means labor could be exacted, or a "millennial age of righteousness" supersede the past, he declared himself uncertain. He was sceptical that it was possible to obtain men of science, prudence, and equity, to administer a system so complexed, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... to his, that we shall instinctively avoid all in our conversation that would be displeasing to him. A person habitually indulging jealous, angry, or revengeful feeling—a person habitually worldly in his spirit—a person allowing himself in sceptical and unsettled habits of thought, cannot talk without doing harm. This is our Savior's account of the matter in the verses immediately before the passage we were speaking of—'How can ye, being evil, speak ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... nothing wrong. But if such a man stood in need of money, I should not like to trust him; and I should certainly not trust him with young ladies, for there there is always temptation. Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Evolutions Navales, p. 78. Dr. Gardiner declared himself sceptical as to the genuineness of the French gentleman's narrative, mainly on the ground of certain inaccuracies of date and detail; but, as Hoste certainly believed in it, it cannot well be rejected as evidence of the main features of the action ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... Superstition, deadly superstition, may co-exist with much learning, with high civilization, with any religion, or with utter irreligion. Canidia wrought her spells in the Augustan age, and Chaldean fortune-tellers haunted Rome in the sceptical days of Juvenal. Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, and Lilly, the astrologer, were contemporaries of Selden, Harrington, and Milton. Perhaps there never was a more superstitious period than that which produced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... morals. Lord Lyons asked me why I wasn't in Berlin. I said, "For the best of reasons, my husband preferred going without me—but I hoped he would send for me perhaps at the end of the Congress." He told me Lady Salisbury was there with her husband. He seemed rather sceptical as to the peaceful issue of the negotiations—thought so many unforeseen questions would ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... The sceptical insurrection of the eighteenth century made a terrific noise and frightened not a few worthy people out of their wits; but cool judges might have foreseen, at the outset, that the efforts of the later rebels ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... and brought it to him. He looked at her with a sceptical smile, which was involuntary, and lingered on his face even after he had ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... father raised his eyes, which, though bleared with age, were still the windows of a sceptical soul, and let them fall. "Ellen is a good ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... speaking of the intellectual region, and I would sum it up by saying that I think that the duty of every thoughtful person, who desires to avoid egotism in the intellectual region, is to cultivate what may be called the scientific, or even the sceptical spirit, to weigh evidence, and not to form conclusions without evidence. Thus one avoids the dangers of egotism best, because egotism is the frame of mind of the man who says credo quia credo. Whereas the aim ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... that the English could fight; a point which, hitherto, the natives had been somewhat sceptical about. They were afraid of the French, but they looked upon us as mere traders. He had, too, other things to trouble him as to the state of the Carnatic, and so hastened to make peace. He agreed to pay the expenses of the war, and to cede us Devikota and some territory round it; and to allow the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... Buxieres—ensconced in his unpretentious apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary's first letter. The announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were, had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical. He remembered, it is true, hearing his father once speak of a cousin who had remained a bachelor and who owned a fine piece of property in some corner of the Haute Marne; but, as all intercourse had long been broken off between the two families, M. de Buxieres ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Various sceptical theories, to which much importance was attached for a time, are now almost forgotten. The Mythical theory fails to account for the immediate effect produced by belief in the Resurrection. Myths require time for their growth and development, but the disciples of Jesus set ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... its way is the overthrow of the Anwhei faction of the militarist party. The Chinese liberals do not feel very optimistic about the immediate outcome. They have mostly given up the idea that the country can be reformed by political means. They are sceptical about the possibility of reforming even politics until a new generation comes on the scene. They are now putting their faith in education and in social changes which will take some years to consummate themselves visibly. The self-styled southern republican constitutional ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... in the conference; others had helped to shape its approach; still others were dedicated to its far-spreading purpose. I found an astonishing conflict of opinion. Even those who had attended this most momentous of all economic conferences were sceptical about complete results. Yet no one questioned the intent to smash enemy trade. Will our interests be pinched at ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... with all the calm confidence of perfect self-reliance, and therefore his words were not wanting in effect on his audience, critical and sceptical ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... bagpipes of the squeaking train." Even amongst the really earnest Puritans prosperity disclosed a pride, a worldliness, a selfish hardness which had been hidden in the hour of persecution. What was yet more significant was the irreligious and sceptical temper of the younger generation which had grown up amidst the storms of the Civil War. The children even of the leading Puritans stood aloof from Puritanism. The eldest of Cromwell's sons made small pretensions to religion. Milton's nephews, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... I produce the smoke from my throat in some manner, will you kindly try my esoteric tobacco, Sir? (To a bystander, who, not without obvious misgivings, takes a few whiffs and produces smoke, as well as a marked impression upon the most sceptical spectators.) Having thus proved to you the existence of a Spirit World, allow me to inform you that this is nothing to the marvels to be seen inside for the small sum of twopence, where I shall have the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... (and correctly) regard their "law of the conservation of energy" as the immovable foundation of all their science (Robert Mayer, Helmholtz), just as in like manner chemists so regard their fundamental law of the "conservation of matter" (Lavoisier). Sceptical philosophers could, however, raise certain objections to either of these fundamental laws with as much success as against their combination into the single superior law of the "conservation of substance." As a matter of fact, dualistic philosophy still attempts to ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... worked together rather as father and son—as, curiously enough, they were to be later—than as employer and employee. To Bok, the daily experience of seeing Mr. Curtis finance his proposition in sums that made the publishing world of that day gasp with sceptical astonishment was a wonderful opportunity, of which the editor took full advantage so as to learn the intricacies of a world which up to that time he had known only ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... attractions and the repulsions of particles of matter; all knowledge was attained through the senses; the mind antecedent to experience was a tabula rasa. In other words, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, the character of speculative thought in England was essentially sceptical, critical, and materialistic. Why "materialism" should be more inconsistent with the existence of a Deity, the freedom of the will, or the immortality of the soul, or with any actual or possible system of theology, than "idealism," I must declare myself at a loss ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... thing that can free a man from superstition, and that is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been the ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... me the questions involved are intensely interesting, hence my queries. I hope they do not read as if I were hypercritical or sceptical. ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... conversation better than that of men; you find with them a certain gentleness which is not met with amongst us, and it seems to me, besides, that they express themselves with greater clearness, and that they give a more pleasant turn to the things they say." A meddler and intriguer during the Fronde, sceptical and bitter in his Maximes, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld was amiable and kindly in his private life. Factions and the court had taught him a great deal about human nature; he had seen it and judged of it from its bad side. Witty, shrewd, and often profound, he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... at him approvingly. Forestier cried with a sceptical laugh: "The poor husbands!" Then they talked of love. Duroy said: "When I love a woman, everything else in ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... him. "But," he exclaimed, "how mistaken I was about that man—I am convinced of it now—O he was a good man—a noble philanthropist!—if there is a chair in heaven, Wilberforce is in it!" Colonel A. is somewhat sceptical, which will account for his hypothetical manner of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... clinical reservations in religion either, as so many of his brethren have. 'I cannot go to cure the body of my patient,' he protests, 'but I forget my profession and call unto God for his soul.' To call Sir Thomas Browne sceptical, as has been a caprice and a fashion among his merely literary admirers: and to say it, till it is taken for granted, that he is an English Montaigne: all that is an abuse of language. It is, to all but a small and select circle ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... populated but, when they approached its banks, the villages were comparatively thick, standing for the most part in clearings in a great forest. On the march the Burmese officer frequently talked with Stanley, asked many questions about England and India; and was evidently surprised, and somewhat sceptical, as to the account the lad gave him of the fighting strength of the country. He treated him with considerable indulgence, and sent him dishes from his ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... sceptical at last,' he sneered. 'I have the missing portions of the papyrus here with me. You can have them for a song. I was afraid to leave the roll too complete, lest I should invite detection. It would be a pity to let them go to some other museum. ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... do not believe in Dr. Argure quite as fully as some less sceptical members of his congregation do, Deacon Goodsole believes in him most implicitly. Deacon Goodsole is a believer—not I mean in anything in particular, but generally. He likes to believe; he enjoys it; he does it, not on evidence, ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... book whut yuh calls de Bible ain't no frien' to de cullud people," said Black Mose in a sceptical moment. ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... they have Mr. Gosse's book, will be rather inclined to begin with a small attempt; especially as they are probably half sceptical of the possibility of keeping sea-animals inland without changing the water. A few simple directions, therefore, will not come amiss here. They shall be such as anyone can put into practice, who goes down to stay in a lodging-house at the ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... civilisation. As before mentioned, the inhabitants adopted with avidity the Roman dress, language, and literature. That language must therefore be supposed to have entered deeply into the composition of the present Cumrian tongue. The sceptical examiner may therefore reasonably object, that any similarity between the two languages might have originated in the adoption of that of Rome by the British provincials. In answer to this I refer in the first place to Lloyd's reasoning, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... Utilitarianism, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, comfortable domestic axioms, little schemes for the elevation of the masses by the classes, had, on their logical basis, no attraction for this sceptical, wayward girl. To be merely useful was, in her eyes, to make oneself meddlesome and absurd. The object of existence was to be heroic or nothing. She could imagine herself a Poor Clare: she could not imagine herself as a great young lady dividing her hours ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... by a good old miner who gave him an opportunity to work over his dump. Sick as he was he was able in a few days to find gold enough to take him out of the country to a doctor. He was now on his way back to his claim and professed to be very sceptical of Atlin and every other ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent for the Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N.Y., smiled a sceptical smile and withdrew to keep an appointment with a ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... not feel like it now, at all events," replied Crawley; and when supper-time came he was still more sceptical of a very speedy restoration to his ordinary comfortable condition. It was an absurd plight to be in; he felt very hungry, and there was the food; the difficulty was to eat it. It hurt his lips to put it in his mouth—salt was out of the question—and it hurt his ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... the Demon Lover, or that Mr Bourne of whom Glanvil tells in The Iron Chest of Durley, or the Bishop Evodius who was St Augustine's friend, or for that matter the son of Monica himself. The reality of these visitations may seem dim, but the most sceptical of us cannot doubt that, whether from some quickened fear of death or impending disaster, from evil conscience or swift intensification of vision; whether in the forms of beloved sons lost at sea or of other revenants who were held indispensably ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the Montgolfier balloons naturally threw the efforts of Monsieur Charles and the brothers Robert into the shade. Nevertheless those gentlemen had got hold of a better principle than their rivals; and, knowing this, they resolved to convince the sceptical by constructing another balloon. They wisely began by obtaining subscriptions to enable them to carry out their designs, and finally succeeded in making a globe formed of tiffany, covered with elastic varnish, which was twenty-eight feet in diameter. This they filled with hydrogen ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... hang his little celluloid sign, Howard Sommers, M. D., Physician and Surgeon, beneath his window. The proprietor of the Keystone thought it gave a desirable, professional air to the house. But Webber, the young man in the Baking Powder Trust, was sceptical of its commercial value to the doctor. Certainly the results from its appearance were not ascertainable. Sommers had no patients. The region about the Keystone was a part of the World's Fair territory, and had ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... been enslaved, and then sent by Kamrasi as a curiosity to Rumanika, who had ever since kept her as a servant in his palace. A man from Ruanda then told us of the Wilyanwantu (men-eaters), who disdained all food but human flesh; and Rumanika confirmed the statement. Though I felt very sceptical about it, I could not help thinking it a curious coincidence that the position they were said to occupy agreed with Petherick's Nyam ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... exactly similar observation in the present century. The same result has followed several times when a variety with peas of one colour has been artificially crossed by a differently-coloured variety.[929] These statements led Gaertner, who was highly sceptical on the subject, carefully to try a long series of experiments: he selected the most constant varieties, and the result conclusively showed that the colour of the skin of the pea is modified when pollen of a differently coloured ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... the deistical movement which Rousseau found in progress at Geneva in 1754,[338] was distinctly the outcome in a more or less marked way of a rationalising and philosophic spirit, and not of the religious spirit. The sceptical side of it with reference to revealed religion, predominated over the positive side of it with reference to natural religion. The wild pantheism of which there were one or two extraordinary outbursts during the latter part of the middle ages, to mark the mystical ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... my pen, since disjointed eulogium will do little towards satisfying the curious or silencing the sceptical; and for description in reasonable detail, worthy the subject, only one hand in our age has existed endowed by nature to grapple with such a task, and that wizard hand lies mouldering now beneath the ruins of ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... these gentlemen go to work with the most serious mien; at the opera they deem it becoming to put on a nonchalant, sceptical, cleverly-frivolous air. They concede with a smile that they are not quite at home in the opera, and do not profess to understand much about things which they do not particularly esteem. Accordingly, they are very accommodating and ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... disorder, and his eyes shining brightly with fever, like half-extinguished coals, one would hardly have recognized in him the happy lord of Boiscoran, free from care and trouble, upon whom fortune had ever smiled,—that haughty sceptical young man, who from the height of the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... genuine in the sense which makes them so attractive—that is to say, as literally authentic pictures of a great man's interior life, of his actual words and behaviour as witnessed by his intimates—must always remain doubtful to the sceptical mind. True reminiscences are naturally somewhat cloudy in outline, hanging loose together with gaps and interruptions; whereas these are all coherent, clear-cut, and written in a style that gives superior polish and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... up of worms, like Herod who slew the children of Bethlehem and was smitten by the judgment of God, because (though apparently in this they confound him with a later Herod) he affected divine honours. To mention such slanders, as the sceptical Bayle has said with special reference to the case of Knox, is all that is needed to refute them. They are the product of malignity so evident that it defeats itself. I know but one parallel to them in our ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... it spreads itself downwards: For in all family affection, we find protection granted and favours bestowed, are greater motives to love and tenderness, than safety, benefits, or life received. One would wonder to hear sceptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... about everything in the world; but at the end of his book you find that he has not opened his heart on this subject. No doubt his profession as a reciter and story-teller prevented him. We can see that Thucydides was sceptical; but can we fully see what his scepticism was directed against, or where, for instance, Nikias would have disagreed with him, and where he and Nikias ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... it does not end here. The flaw runs through the whole constitution of things; there is no possible equation between the anomalies and dislocations on which he turns the dry light of that sceptical philosophy which has usurped the place of faith. Thought is good and action is good, but they will not work together. Our reason is our glory, but our indiscretions serve us best—we must either be cowards or fools. We have a perception of infinite goodness, just sufficient to make us conclude ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... the implied identity of the youthful Margrave with the aged Grayle, of the elixir of life, and of magic arts? I—I tell such a romance! I,—the noted adversary of all pretended mysticism; I,—I a sceptical practitioner of medicine! Had that manuscript of Sir Philip's been available,—a substantial record of marvellous events by a man of repute for intellect and learning,—I might perhaps have ventured to startle the solicitor of I—with my revelations. But the sole proof ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the reasonableness of his proposal, and they consented, still entirely sceptical. But when they had made their examination they were utterly dumbfounded to find all their notions entirely overset. Master Baine, of course, drew up the required document, and signed and sealed it, whilst ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... his thick fingers with a contemptuous look for the women folk. He had just worked off his five years' government naval service; and it was as master-gunner of the fleet that he had learned to speak good French and hold sceptical opinions. He hemmed and hawed and then rattled off his latest love adventure, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... exclude political oppression from the grounds of revolution as Locke was to insist upon it as the fundamental excuse. Locke is, in fact, the first of English thinkers the basis of whose argument is mainly secular. Not, indeed, that he can wholly escape the trammels of ecclesiasticism; not until the sceptical intelligence of Hume was such freedom possible. But it is clear enough that Locke was shifting to very different ground from that which arrested the attention of his predecessors. He is attempting, that is to say, a separation between Church and State ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... from yours. The child is so like Robert that I can believe in the other likeness, and may the inner nature indeed, as you say, be after that pure image! He is so fat and rosy and strong that almost I am sceptical of his being my child. I suppose he is, after all. May God bless you, both of you. I am ashamed to send all these letters, but Robert makes me. He is better, but still much depressed sometimes, and over ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... come, Paddy! none of your claptrap with me: I'm too sceptical for it. I'm not at all convinced that the world wouldnt be a better world if everybody behaved as Dubedat does than it is now that everybody behaves as ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... the N.C.O.'s plant esprit de corps and the fear of God. The missing identity discs arrive, and a fourth Date is fixed—July 21. And the dwellers in the blinking hole, having been wolfed several times, are sceptical, and treat the latest report ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... scheme, to her sense, was noble enough to varnish over any disdain she might feel for forces drawing him another way. She had a prejudice, in general, against his existing connexions, a suspicion of them, and a supply of off-hand contempt in waiting. It was a singular circumstance that she was sceptical even when, knowing her as well as he did, he thought them worth recommending to her: the recommendation indeed mostly confirmed ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... consisted of fern roots and kumara; fish they never saw, and the only flesh he then partook of was human. But I will no longer dwell on this humiliating subject. Most white men who have visited the island have been sceptical on this point; I myself was before I had "ocular proof." Consequently I availed myself of the first opportunity to convince myself of the fact. I have reflected upon the subject, and am thoroughly satisfied that nothing will cure the natives of this dreadful propensity ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... an ordinary being; one look at the rounded forehead which shone over dark eyebrows and the unfathomable eyes would convince the most sceptical. The mysteries had a charm for her, and now that she had been taught the hidden secrets of Nature, she craved to understand the powers which worked the will, to dive deeply into the sympathies governing the soul, and to become skilled in the magical rites observed ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... of deep thankfulness to the universal Father, who watches for the safety of sparrows, and sends his rain upon the just and upon the unjust. In short, the faith in this order of the physico- miraculous is open alike to the sceptical and the non-sceptical: it is touched superficially with the coloring of superstition, with its tenderness, its humility, its thankfulness, its awe; but, on the other hand, it is not therefore tainted with the coarseness, with the silliness, with the credulity of superstition. Such a faith reposes ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... to the scene, which all the other personages have left to join in a dance, and finds his associate in the depths of despair. He plies Max with wine, and, affecting sympathy with him in his misfortunes, gradually insinuates that there is a means of insuring success on the morrow. Max remains sceptical until Caspar hands him his rifle and bids him shoot at an eagle flying overhead. The bird is plainly out of rifle range, a mere black dot against the twilight sky; but Max, scarcely aiming, touches the trigger and an eagle of gigantic size comes hurtling through ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... dwelt later, and in No. 33, in a third-story back room, a young clerk named Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote his "Ballad of Babie Bell"; and there, at No. 84 which was the residence of Judge Daly, the African explorer Paul Du Chaillu wrote fiction and fact that by sceptical contemporaries was generally accepted as fiction. A block farther north was another home of Mrs. Botta, and the house of the actress who is remembered as Tom Moore's first sweetheart, and the one-time ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... A SCEPTICAL man, conversing with Dr. Parr, observed that he would believe nothing that he did not understand. Dr. Parr, replied, "Then young man, your creed will be the shortest of ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... ask me what I think of his book? I find in it many interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning. These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. They all suppose the earth a created existence. They must suppose a creator then; ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... man cut his own head off before jumping into the river, it was suicide," he said carefully, "for the body is headless. As for myself, I have never witnessed such a phenomenon, and I am sceptical." ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: and Wednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping their promise—either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their promise? She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... his mother, but he never was better dressed than was absolutely necessary—partly, no doubt, by his own fault, for he was as indifferent to his appearance as a German philosopher. "My dear fellow, you are coming to pieces," Pemberton would say to him in sceptical remonstrance; to which the child would reply, looking at him serenely up and down: "My dear fellow, so are you! I don't want to cast you in the shade." Pemberton could have no rejoinder for this—the assertion so closely represented ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... Justice Powell, had frequent altercations on the subject of ghosts. The bishop was a zealous defender of the reality of them; the justice was somewhat sceptical. The bishop one day met his friend, and the justice told him that since their last conference on the subject, he had had ocular demonstration, which had convinced him of the existence of ghosts. "I rejoice at your conversion," ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... atheism which pervaded Europe in the next and the following century sprung directly out of profanation such as this? Merely to narrate them, and to do so in the briefest manner, does violence to every genuine sentiment of piety. What must have been the effect produced upon frivolous and sceptical tempers when with sedulous art such things were put forward as solemn verities not to be distinguished from the primary truths of religion, and entitled to the same ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... course, it is perfectly obvious that there are truths in Kipling, that there are truths in Shaw or Wells. But the degree to which we can perceive them depends strictly upon how far we have a definite conception inside us of what is truth. It is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything. It is clear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... purpose of judging the masterpiece and deciding whether the rebel who had refused to be a notary had not squandered the time accorded him in which to give proof of his future prospects as an author. The father and mother were there, both anxious, the one slightly sceptical, yet hoping that his son would reveal himself as a man of talent; the other as mistrustful as ever, but at the same time much distressed to see her son so thin and sallow, for during those fifteen months of exile he had lost his high colour and his eyes ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... that his lordship remained unmoved by this tempting enumeration, and that a sceptical smile flitted across the doctor's face, Argyropoulos understood that he had not to deal with easy dupes, and he was confirmed in his intention to sell to the Englishman the discovery on which he reckoned to complete his fortune and to give a ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... expected, from the very nature of the topic of investigation. But the author has endeavored, as a student at the feet of his judges, to derive the largest possible benefit from criticism. No word of censure, however wide of the mark, has been unwelcome to him, whether from the sceptical or orthodox press. To all questioned passages he has given a careful re-examination, in some instances finding cause for alteration, but in others seeing his ground more strongly sustained than was at first imagined. He ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Pharaoh, and Benvenuto, Cellini's father, and St. Dominick's mother, and Edward II. of England, and dodged back and forward among patriarchs and pagans, and modern Christians, men and women not at all suspecting that he was making poor Sturk, who had looked for a cheerful, sceptical sort of essay, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... In the highly civilized cities of Greece they encountered on the one hand the full tide of heathenism with all its degrading vices and superstitions, and on the other, Pagan philosophy with its hard sceptical temper and intellectual pride. Influences such as these may account for the comparatively small results which seem to have followed the preaching of St. Paul at Philippi, Thessalonica[21], and Berea, and the prominence given to women as being more easily ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... Schwartz). But as names appear to yield storm, lightning, night, or dawn with equal ease and certainty, according as the scholar prefers dawn or storm, I confess that this demonstration would leave me sceptical. It lacks scientific exactitude. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... But, objects the sceptical, the Merced couldn't keep always tilted; in time it would cut down to a level and slow up; then the sand and gravel it was carrying would settle, and the stream stop its digging. Again, if the stream-cut valley ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... and places—the story is alive with them at once. The Rostov household resounds with them—the Rostovs are of the easy, light-spirited, quick-tongued sort. Then there is the dreary old Bolkonsky mansion, with Andrew, generous and sceptical, and with poor plain Marya, ardent and repressed. And for quite another kind of youth, there is Peter Besukhov, master of millions, fat and good-natured and indolent, his brain a fever of faiths and aspirations which not he, but Andrew, so ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... myself to making his acquaintance, hearing his account of his case, and ascertaining his mental attitude with regard to suggestion. I usually find, from the failure of other methods of treatment, that he is more or less sceptical as to the chance of being benefited. I endeavour to remove all erroneous ideas, and refuse to begin treatment until the patient is satisfied of the safety and desirability of the experiment. I never say I am certain of being able to influence him, but ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... sceptical bystanders put themselves deliberately in front of the blindfolded man, to see if he would turn ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... they point not towards the pole. What made her leave Edinburgh with reluctance at last, if we may believe her own assertions, was a dispute which she left unfinished with Mr Moffat, touching the eternity of hell torments. That gentleman, as he advanced in years, began to be sceptical on this head, till, at length, he declared open war against the common acceptation of the word eternal. He is now persuaded, that eternal signifies no more than an indefinite number of years; and that the most ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... colleges, and guilds: it is difficult to impress them with novel truths; but in a great degree they act as breakwaters to the waves of error. In no department of social life is this doctrine better illustrated than in the medical profession, which is among the keenest and most sceptical of bodies in scrutinising novelty; but it has rarely allowed any real improvement to remain permanently untested and unadopted. We believe this to be the fair view to take of a class of scientific men who have certainly had a large share of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... compelled respect, coming from the quarter it did. "There is not a doubt in any of the Admirals' or Generals' minds," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, in the despatch announcing his arrival, "but that Tobago and Trinidada are the enemy's objects." Nelson himself was sceptical,—the improbability seemed great to his sound military perceptions; but, confident as he was in his own conclusions in dilemmas, his mind was too sane and well balanced to refuse direct and credible evidence. Summing up the situation with lamentations, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... declared Wilmshurst. All the same he felt rather sceptical. The spoor of the right-hand column of the retiring Huns hardly bore out the Rhodesian's statement, but evidently the scout knew ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... of Carlovitz, the decline of the Ottoman empire has been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the Turks to all modern improvements, and a sluggish, conservative policy, hostile to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The Turks have ever been bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to European influences. The Oriental dress has been preserved in Constantinople, and all the manners and customs of the people are similar to what they were in Asia ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... differed most from their leader and father in philosophy. Dr Hirsch, though born in France and covered with the most triumphant favours of French education, was temperamentally of another type—mild, dreamy, humane; and, despite his sceptical system, not devoid of transcendentalism. He was, in short, more like a German than a Frenchman; and much as they admired him, something in the subconsciousness of these Gauls was irritated at his pleading for peace in so peaceful a manner. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... day, there being nowhere else to go, they went up "that pup." They knew that it was practically unstaked, but they had no intention of staking. The trip was made more for the purpose of giving vent to their ill-humour than for anything else. They had become quite cynical, sceptical. They jeered and scoffed at everything, and insulted every chechaquo they met along ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... dreaming; I certainly heard strange music, and entrancing voices. But in acknowledging your powers over something unseen, I must explain to you the incredulity I at first felt, which I believe annoyed you. I was made sceptical on one occasion, by attending a so-called spiritual seance, where they tried to convince me of the ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... arrival of the steamer in English waters should not have been looked upon with any great favor by the Englishmen. In addition to the jeers of the sceptical, the presence of vessels was accompanied by suspicion on the part of the naval authorities, and the merchants ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... modifications it must suffer, we shall see later; as well as the new theories which have largely displaced it. It will be better first to survey the universe from the evolutionary point of view. But I may observe, in passing, that the sceptical remarks one hears at times about scientific theories contradicting and superseding each other are frivolous. One great idea pervades all the theories of the evolution of worlds, and that idea is firmly established. The ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... progress of physical astronomy up to the time when very striking proofs of the universality of the law of gravitation convinced the most sceptical, it must still be borne in mind that, while gravitation is certainly the principal force governing the motions of the heavenly bodies, there may yet be a resisting medium in space, and there may be electric and magnetic forces to deal with. There may, further, be cases where the effects of luminous ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... am conscious of God and He must exist.' Pascal wearily replied that it was not God he doubted, but logic. He was tortured by the impossibility of rejecting man's reason by reason; unconsciously sceptical, he forced himself to disbelieve in himself rather than admit a doubt of God. Man had tried to prove God, and had failed: 'The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote (eloignees) from the reasoning of men, and so contradictory (impliquees, far fetched) that they made little impression; ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... ofttimes he wondered how that blank, hopeless feeling of having completely done with life could be his, seeing that he was still in his prime. Formerly eager, sanguine, warm-hearted, glowing with good impulses; now indifferent, sceptical, with a heart of stone and the chronic ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... becoming anxious, for although the following day brought the news that Cronje had surrendered, yet the evening saw the garrison again reduced to quarter rations. This was only a precautionary measure, for Buller had helioed 'everything progressing favourably.' But the man in the street was sceptical. If favourable, why reduce the ration? Thus it was that Tuesday, Majuba Day—although on that date the tide of fortune had turned in our favour—marked the lowest pitch of despondency into which the garrison was ever plunged during the ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... thrown into the hold of a galley, "I had my feet right on the face of the Count Pierre de Bretagne, whose feet, in turn, were by my face." Joinville is almost twelfth-century in feeling. He was neither feminine nor sceptical, but simple. He showed no concern for poetry, but he put up a glass window to the Virgin. His religion belonged to the "Chanson de Roland." When Saint Louis, who had a pleasant sense of humour put to him his favourite ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... be called a game, save perhaps with the chief player, who was not more or less sceptical than most public men with whom he had acquaintance in that age. (Is there ever a public man in England that altogether believes in his party? Is there one, however doubtful, that will not fight for it?) Young Frank was ready to fight without much thinking, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... perfection, I doubt, as he lays down as necessary. What, therefore, I humbly conceive is best to be done, will be to avoid choosing a man of bigoted and narrow principles; who yet shall not be tainted with sceptical or heterodox notions, nor a mere scholar or pedant; who has travelled, and yet preserved his moral character untainted; and whose behaviour and carriage is easy, unaffected, unformal, and genteel, as well acquiredly as naturally so, if possible; who shall not be dogmatical, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... his opinions are true, and with equal facility submit to the next artful sophist, who avows even contrary sentiments. The natural effect of this inconstancy will be, a disregard of ALL truth, and a ready admission of every sceptical principle. When the mind is in such a state of fluctuation and uncertainty, or rather the willing slave of every tyrant, it is well prepared for vice: it will admit a criminal thought, as well as a sentimental error, and the same plausibility ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... although the sexes mix together, they profess the vows of celibacy and chastity. Their lands are in excellent order, and they are said to be very rich. [I should be very sorry to take away the character of any community, but, as I was a little sceptical as to the possibility of the vow of chastity being observed under circumstances above alluded to, I made some inquiries, and having met with one who had seceded from the fraternity, I discovered that my opinion of human nature was correct, and the conduct of the Shakers not ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... saint are as aloof from each other as sinner and archangel. Without some clue to the saint's spiritual identity, the record of his labours and hardships, fasts, visions, and miracles, offers nothing more helpful than bewilderment. We may be edified or we may be sceptical, according to our temperament and training; but a profound unconcern devitalizes both scepticism and edification. What have we mortals in common with ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... subventions and loans the work was pushed onward with great vigour. The sceptical were gradually losing their scepticism, and all the world was awakening to see what an immense advantage to civilisation the triumph of de Lesseps' ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... yourself be deceived: great intellects are sceptical. Zarathustra is a sceptic. The strength, the freedom which proceed from intellectual power, from a superabundance of intellectual power, manifest themselves as scepticism. Men of fixed convictions do not count when it comes to determining ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... A sceptical genius has said: "God made man in his image and man has returned the compliment." This saying is an eternal truth, and it would be very curious to write the history of the local divinity of every continent as well as the history of the patron ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... time when everybody else was sceptical as to the possibility of coals being carried from the midland counties to London, and sold there at a price to compete with those which were seaborne, he declared his firm conviction that the time was fast approaching when the London market would be regularly supplied with north-country ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... of religious controversy might encourage the sceptical turn in a few persons of a studious disposition, the zeal with which men soon after attached themselves to their several parties, served effectually to banish for a long time ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... of experiences resulting in a discovery so surprising, must interest even those sceptical in regard to the progress in art of the American aborigines; and it must also be remembered that, almost without exception, late as well as early travellers in this region have become enthusiastic and imaginative when brought into contact with these monuments of a measureless past,[63-*]—none ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... said. "As you know, I am sceptical by nature, and want all evidence carefully sifted. I daresay I am too critical, and that is a fault. But fancy getting in touch with a friend of Dante's! What would one not give? Tell me: what is this Princess like? Is she the sort of person one ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... world can Miss Ophelia get along with Augustine St. Clare,—gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical, sceptical,—in short,—walking with impudent and nonchalant freedom over every one of her most cherished ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... can make them, only his sword he and I do not like. In the afternoon my Lord and I walked together in the coach two hours, talking together upon all sorts of discourse: as religion, wherein he is, I perceive, wholly sceptical, as well as I, saying, that indeed the Protestants as to the Church of Rome are wholly fanatiques: he likes uniformity and form of prayer; about State-business, among other things he told me that his conversion to the King's cause (for so I was saying that I wondered from ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Protestantism has disengaged primitive Christian ethics from a crowd of superstitious and artificial duties which had overlaid them, and a similar process has been going on in Catholic countries under the influence of the rationalising and sceptical spirit. The influence of dogmatic theology on Morals has declined. Out of the vast and complex religious systems of the past, an eclectic spirit is bringing into special and ever-increasing prominence those Christian virtues which are most manifestly ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... for miles, annoying them in every possible way, haunting the hawk like its evil genius: it is most singular that so small a creature should thus overcome one that is the formidable enemy of so many of the feathered race. I should have been somewhat sceptical on the subject, had I not myself been an eyewitness to the fact. I was looking out of my window one bright summer-day, when I noticed a hawk of a large description flying heavily along the lake, uttering cries of distress; within a yard or two of it was a small—in ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... decency of the age will cast over the stage the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. The playwrights are recovering too, yet, if anything, more tardily than the people; for when a nasty cynicism, like that ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... had a phenomenal memory. I hope that it was an exact one. His story is given in its entirety because of its novelty. The only thing that makes me feel in the least sceptical is that La Mara,—the pen name of a writer on musical subjects,—translated these letters into German. But every one agrees that Chopin's end was serene; indeed it is one of the musical death-beds of history, another was Mozart's. His face was beautiful and young in the flower-covered coffin, says ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... Call is fulfilled. Sceptical, fluid and shrinking as he is by nature, he stands for this hour at least, a strong wall and a fortress, by his clear conscience, his simple courage, and his full surrender to whatever be in store for him. How bravely he refuses to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... she should prove herself fit for new and exalted conditions of life by seeing to it that he made good all his remarkable promises. She remembered that he had not yet opened the box of money, and became a little sceptical as to its contents. Somebody might have watched Jeff, and have carried ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the sisters, Mrs. Douglas, after due warning, became the mother of a son. How this event had been brought about without the intervention of Lady Maclaughlan was past the powers of Miss Grizzy's comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even when ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... as much as I thought necessary, they both started cross-examining me in such an impertinent and sceptical manner that at length I became extremely irritated, and declined to answer any more questions. Whereupon Dr. Loonem proceeded to wash his hands again, saying in an oily manner, as though addressing a child, "Pray, ah, don't excite yourself, my dear sir; don't, ah, excite ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... publication of perfectly independent testimony of, perhaps, equal, if not greater, value, though of quite a different character. With these words of explanation as to the delay in its publication, I resign this paper to the criticism of our sceptical friends. Let them calmly consider and pronounce upon the evidence of the Tibetan pedlar at Darjiling, supported and strengthened by the independent testimony of the young Brahmachari at Dehradun. Those who were present when the statements of these persons ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... have affected perfect credulity in order to throw the Hickeys and countryfolk off their guard with me. I have listened to their method of convincing the sceptical strangers. I have examined the ordnance maps, and cross-examined the neighboring Protestant gentlefolk. I have spent a day upon the ground on each side of the water, and have visited it at midnight. I have considered the upheaval theories, subsidence theories, volcanic ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... there were some favouring conditions, the importance of which our studies of the human problems already discussed will have made my readers realise. Isolated, the Irish farmer is conservative, sceptical of innovations, a believer in routine and tradition. In union with his fellows, he is progressive, open to ideas, and wonderfully keen at grasping the essential features of any new proposal for his advancement. He was, then, himself eminently a subject for co-operative ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker |
