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Belief   Listen
noun
Belief  n.  
1.
Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses. "Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance."
2.
(Theol.) A persuasion of the truths of religion; faith. "No man can attain (to) belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth."
3.
The thing believed; the object of belief. "Superstitious prophecies are not only the belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men."
4.
A tenet, or the body of tenets, held by the advocates of any class of views; doctrine; creed. "In the heat of persecution to which Christian belief was subject upon its first promulgation."
Ultimate belief, a first principle incapable of proof; an intuitive truth; an intuition.
Synonyms: Credence; trust; reliance; assurance; opinion.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Belief" Quotes from Famous Books



... are thrifty and the visitors dine in hotels. There is one expensive high-class house, in the Via Tornabuoni—Doney e Nipoti or Doney et Neveux—where the cooking is Franco-Italian, and the Chianti and wines are dear beyond belief, and the venerable waiters move with a deliberation which can drive a hungry man—and one is always hungry in this fine Tuscan air—to despair. I like better the excellent old-fashioned purely Italian ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... Elizabeth (Vol. ii., p. 393.).—There is a current belief in Ireland that the family of Mapother, in Roscommon, is descended from Queen Elizabeth: and there are many other traditions completely at variance with the ordinarily received opinion as to her inviolate chastity. A discussion of the matter might discover the ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various

... another call for volunteers, the number specified being a little over 42,000, and their term of service was fixed at three years, unless sooner discharged. The same call provided for a substantial increase in the regular army and navy. I did not enlist under either of these calls. As above stated, the belief then was almost universal throughout the North that the "war" would amount to nothing much but a summer frolic, and would be over by the 4th of July. We had the utmost confidence that Richmond would be ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... came upon a certain passage of Bede, in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, wherein he asserts that Dionysius the Areopagite was the bishop, not of Athens, but of Corinth. Now, this was directly counter to the belief of the monks, who were wont to boast that their Dionysius, or Denis, was not only the Areopagite but was likewise proved by his acts to have been the Bishop of Athens. Having thus found this testimony of Bede's in contradiction of ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... soft in their political ideas," continued the unsparing critic; "for the old insular belief that all foreigners were devils and rogues they substituted another belief, equally grounded on insular lack of knowledge, that most foreigners were amiable, good fellows, who only needed to be talked to and patted ...
— When William Came • Saki

... letters—one of them is subjoined, to gratify the perhaps innocent curiosity which is naturally felt to know the peculiarities of a man's mind and feelings under such circumstances, and not for the purpose of intimating a belief that he was truly penitent. The reader will be surprised with the apparent readiness with which he made ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... Skinner's thoughts had perpetually recurred during that one summer afternoon in the garden in Dorsetshire, when he had forgotten his secrecy and spoken even with his enemy of the one passion they had in common. Chayne worked out the dates and they fitted in with his belief. Two days ago Garratt Skinner started to cross the Col du Geant. He would sleep very likely in the hut on the Col, and go down the next morning to Courmayeur and make his arrangements for the Brenva climb. On the third day, to-day, he would set out with Walter Hine and sleep at the gite ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... extraordinary how widely the belief prevails on the Continent of Europe that the London Tower is still a fortress, charged with the protection of ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... told you that I am not unacquainted with arms. When I am a free man I enforce belief in my word. As ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... of Philander—and yet thou mayest have sent—but I shall never see it, till they raise up fresh witnesses against me—I cannot think thee wavering or forgetful; for if I did, surely thou knowest my heart so well, thou canst not think it would live to think another thought. Confirm my kind belief, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... of our cursory acquaintance we had judged the French a sociable nation. Our stay at Versailles speedily convinced us of the fallacy of that belief. Nothing could have impressed us so forcibly as did the frigid silence that characterised the company. Many of them had fed there daily for years, yet within the walls of the sunny dining-room none exchanged even a salutation. This unexpected taciturnity in a people whom we had been taught to regard ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... the place, and did all as was wanted to be done, 'cause Avice was away, working somewhere's; and she'd never let me gie her aught for it. And I heard ta passon tell her as she were sold to hell, 'cause the old soul have a bit of belief like in witch-stones, and allus sets one aside her spinnin' jenny, so that the thrid shanna knot nor break. Ta passon he said, God cud mak tha thrid run smooth, or knot it, just as He chose, and 'twas wicked to think she could cross His will. And the old ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... equality with other nations in respect of culture when we secured the advantages of popular government and its social concomitants. It would seem, however, to be a sounder, as it is certainly a more gratifying belief, that precisely because we have attained these advantages it will be easier for us to appropriate all the benefits which civilization has to offer—possible for us to make more rapid strides than have been made by other nations, impeded by a diversity of interests and conflicts between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... of the last two hypotheses; but it is much more profitable to try to discover why they, who were really not one whit less sensible persons than our excellent selves, should have been led to entertain views which strike us as absurd, The belief in what is erroneously called spontaneous generation, that is to say, in the development of living matter out of mineral matter, apart from the agency of pre-existing living matter, as an ordinary occurrence at the present day—which is still held by some of us, was universally accepted as an ...
— The Rise and Progress of Palaeontology - Essay #2 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... relieved, and the sense of private ownership inspired, the labours of the smaller proprietors; and the perpetuation of a considerable proportion of the Gracchan settlers is probable on general grounds. The reason why it is difficult to give specific reasons for this belief is that, at the time when we next begin to get glimpses of the condition of the Italian peasant class, the great reform had been effected which incorporated the nations of Italy into Rome. The existence of numerous small ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... down, either he does hold her down, or chance trips him up. There is no legitimate way, short of murder, whereby the train-crew can ditch him. That train-crews have not stopped short of murder is a current belief in the tramp world. Not having had that particular experience in my tramp days I cannot vouch for ...
— The Road • Jack London

... correct the prevailing impression that religion played the greatest part in Egyptian life or even a greater part than it does in Moslem Egypt. The mistaken belief that death and the well-being of the dead overshadowed the existence of the living, is due to the fact that the physical character of the country has preserved for us the cemeteries and the funerary temples better ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner

... such is the activity of the Rocky Mountain sheep that, although sixty or seventy men were out in pursuit, not more than half a dozen animals were killed. Of these only one was a full-grown male. He had a pair of horns twisted like a ram's, the dimensions of which were almost beyond belief. I have seen among the Indians ladles with long handles, capable of containing more than a quart, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... her in painful succession, she wept for him, more than for herself. Supported by the conviction of having done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother and sisters. And so well was she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... lord, the carriage waits,' but if they ventured to add a sentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely to miss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part of Hamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the belief that some day he would be invited to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... convictions. He smiled, however, with a certain complacency, as he also recalled the previous autumn when the first news of the California gold discovery had penetrated North Liberty, and he had expressed to her his belief that it would offer an outlet to Demorest's adventurous energy. She had received it with ill-disguised satisfaction, and the remark that if this exodus of Mammon cleared the community of the godless and unregenerate it would only be another proof ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... Astro sat in silent awe as they listened to the plans for man to reach toward the stars. Spacemen by nature and adventurers in spirit, they were united in the belief that some day Earthmen would set foot on all the stars and never stop until they had seen the last sun, the last world, the last ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... family. She had the faith and health of the servants'-hall in keeping. Heaven can tell whether she knew how to doctor them rightly: but, was it pill or doctrine, she administered one or the other with equal belief in her own authority, and her disciples swallowed both obediently. She believed herself to be one of the most virtuous, self-denying, wise, learned women in the world; and, dinning this opinion perpetually into the ears of all round about her, succeeded in bringing ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to complete the account of my conversation with Lady Byron; but as the credibility of a history depends greatly on the character of its narrator, and as especial pains have been taken to destroy the belief in this story by representing it to be the wanderings of a broken-down mind in a state of dotage and mental hallucination, I shall preface the narrative with some account of Lady Byron as she was during the time of ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... evidence are premises from which a conclusion is to be drawn. The first step in the exercise of this duty is to acquire a belief of the truth of the ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke

... sometimes led astray; but his conscience made him much trouble, and, finally, it asserted its supremacy, and he came off conqueror over his evil propensities. A change from skepticism or deism to a decided belief in the Christian Religion, no doubt exerted the strongest influence in making him ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... and uninjured, to the best of my knowledge and belief; though I understand that one of them narrowly escaped lynching at the hands ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... of a job. The success of this venture, if it turned out so, meant that Blinky would do the one big act of his life. He would take the girl Louise from her surroundings, give her a name that was honest and a love that was great, and rise or fall with her. Pan had belief in human nature. In endless ways his little acts of faith had ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... me I was bred i'th' moon, I have ne'r a bush at my breech, are not we both mad, And is not this a phantastick house we are in, And all a dream we do? will ye walk out Sir, And if I do not beat thee presently Into a sound belief, as sense can give thee, Brick me into that wall there for a chimny piece, And say I was one o'th' Caesars, ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... the gay world without exemption from its vices or its follies; but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind. His belief of revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his principles; he grew ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... exemplified, if at all elsewhere, in these our days. How has this man, to whom the world once offered nothing but blackness, denial and despair, attained to that better vision which now shows it to him, not tolerable only, but full of solemnity and loveliness? How has the belief of a Saint been united in this high and true mind with the clearness of a Sceptic; the devout spirit of a Fenelon made to blend in soft harmony with the gaiety, the sarcasm, the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... delighted to take Arthur Denton's child by the hand, and the tears had run down his brown, weather-beaten cheeks as he looked into Ruth's face and exclaimed at the resemblance to her father that he saw there. "You shall yet hear. You shall yet see, Mamselle," he had prophesied with a fullness of belief that made Grace resolve to keep on writing to the address Jean had given her for a year at least, whether or not she received a line in return. She, too, felt confident that Arthur Denton ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... sometimes to question Miago upon this point, and from him I learned their belief in the existence of an evil spirit, haunting dark caverns, wells, and places of mystery and gloom, and called Jinga. I heard from a settler that upon one occasion, a native travelling with him, refused to go to ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... home. And his point of view changed, even as does the point of view of all Americans who visit Europe. From the attitude of an adventurous spirit anxious to see the excitement, his letters showed a new belief that any one who goes to France and is not able and willing to do more than his share—to give everything in him toward helping the wounded and suffering—has no ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell

... so far influenced by these representations— extraordinary indeed in a country which boasts that here freedom of opinion and of speech is established by law—that I intended to confine myself to sending the MS. to Mr. Everett; in the belief that when he should have the weakness of his arguments in behalf of what he defended and the injustice of his aspersions upon me, fairly and evidently laid before him, that he would make me at least ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... not depend on force, but on craft. We three cannot carry away as much gold as can twenty-one, but our shares will be the same, and then we are not likely to find again so full a treasury as that at Rheinstein. My belief that these chaps would fight was dispelled by their conduct last night. Think of eighteen armed men flying ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... generous element. Your father never did so in his speeches, and therefore we admired him. At the present day we don't so much care to study English speeches; they may be insular,—they are not European. I honour England; Heaven grant that you may not be making sad mistakes in the belief that you can long remain England if you cease to be European." Herewith the German bowed, not uncivilly,—on the contrary, somewhat ceremoniously,—and disappeared with a Prussian Secretary of Embassy, whose arm he linked in his own, into ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and severe philosophy taught by the Greek philosopher Zeno; he taught that men should always seek virtue and be indifferent to pleasure and happiness. This belief, carried to the extreme of severity, exercised a great influence on many ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... bound him again and stretched him upon the couch, they guarded him one at a time, evidently secure in the belief that he could not escape. Jim Farland thought a day never had seemed so long. All the time he was busy with his thoughts. He had a plan of campaign outlined now; he wanted to be ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... in it a little too much, and are afraid of the Negroes knowing that they believe in it. Not two generations ago there might be found, up and down the islands, respectable white men and women who had the same half- belief in the powers of an Obeah-man as our own ancestors, especially in the Highlands and in Devonshire, had in those of witches: while as to poisoning, it was, in some islands, a matter on which the less said the safer. It was but a few years ago that in a West ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... you that, in the belief that she was to enjoy a free lunch, my beloved yoke-fellow, who is just now very hot upon economy, forewent her breakfast and arrived upon your threshold faint and ravening, you will conceive the emotion with ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. That all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief that they needs must do so. The analogy of a machine, that sooner or later must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its parts, does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually renewed ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... sympathy we have to extend to a man-slayer; we are made to feel that a man may kill his fellow in a moment of ungovernable and not unrighteous wrath without losing his fundamental goodness. On the other hand, it seems to me, Mr. Du Maurier fails to convert us to belief in the possibility of such a character as Trilby, and fails to make us wholly sympathise with his paeans in her praise. It seems psychologically impossible for a woman to sin so repeatedly as Trilby, and so apparently without any overwhelming temptation, and yet at ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... teachings of the enemies of the Catholic church, as found in the periodical press, as well as in their writings of a more permanent character. The first seven propositions briefly express the errors on pantheism, naturalism, and absolute rationalism. All who have any Christian belief, to whatever denomination they may adhere, must surely acknowledge the justice of denouncing philosophers of the school of Strauss, who insist that Christ is a myth, and His ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... Laodicea,"—is plainly abhorrent to every principle of rational criticism. The remarks of C. and H. on this subject (pp. 486 ff) have been faithfully met and sufficiently disposed of by Dean Alford (vol. iii. Prolegg. pp. 13-8); who infers, "in accordance with the prevalent belief of the Church in all ages, that this Epistle was veritably addressed to the Saints in Ephesus, and to no other Church."] In the former case, they will be exhibiting a curiosity; viz. they will be shewing us how (they think) a duplicate ("carta bianca") copy of ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... to the same childlike trust in his promises, may, I think, hope for a similar blessing. God is no respecter of persons. "If any man do his will, him he heareth." And all the teaching of the Scriptures confirms us in this belief. The passages which we have quoted at the commencement of this paper, with hundreds of others, all lead to the same conclusion. In the Scriptures every form of illustration is used to impress upon us the conviction that God is indeed our Father, and that ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... so far had it not been for the encouragement he received from French traders and settlers, who assured him that King Louis would come to his assistance in due time, with men and ammunition. Strong in this belief, as well as in his innate sense of right and justice, he planned to unite the scattered tribes against the invader and overthrow all the border forts in a day. His boldness and aggressiveness were unique in the history of ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... literature and ethics to dictate to Art its subjects? Is it right to demand that the artist's work shall have an obviously intelligible message or meaning, which the intellect can abstract from it and relate to the conduct of life? My belief is that the most literature can do is to help to interpret art, and that art offers to it, as nature does, a vision of ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... what she was doing-the relation, that is to say, which her act bore to the common life of man—she had no shadow of doubt. It was her belief, as of the whole Humanitarian world, that just as bodily pain occasionally justified this termination of life, so also did mental pain. There was a certain pitch of distress at which the individual was no longer necessary to himself or ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... judged of her spiritual being from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money—what did that matter? Something might be ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... of man to believe that the Fates have set him in the wrong groove, Farwell, like many others whose lives have been spent in exclusively masculine surroundings, believed his tastes to be domestic. Not that he had ever pushed this belief beyond the theoretical stage; nor would he have exchanged places with any of his confreres who had taken wives. But he railed inwardly at the intense masculinity of his life, for the same reason that the sailorman ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... Richmond; the entrance to the bar, reading-room, etc. is by a flight of stairs from the street to the second story, with stores underneath. Here there is an incessant influx of strangers coming from all directions on business with the new government. But the prevalent belief is that the government itself will soon travel to Richmond. The buildings here will be insufficient in magnitude for the transaction of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... sanctum, and she was alarmed for Charles as she was still vibrant from the hostility in the actor-manager. What was the occasion of it? She could not guess. It was incredible to her that any one could object to Charles, so kindly, so industrious, so simple in his work and his belief in himself. People laughed at him sometimes indulgently, but that was a very different thing to this hostility, this cold, implacable condemnation. That was beyond her, for she had been brought up in a school of absolute tolerance except ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... up in the minds of the profound politicians who played their whist at the hotel Graslin a belief that the viscount and the young wife had based certain hopes on the ill-health of the banker which were now frustrated. The great agitations which marked this period of Veronique's life, the anxieties which a first childbirth causes ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... yet, entirely convinced that his son-in-law intended an invasion upon England. Fully persuaded himself of the sacredness of his own authority, he fancied that a like belief had made deep impression on his subjects: and notwithstanding the strong symptoms of discontent which broke out every where, such a universal combination in rebellion appeared to him nowise credible. His army, in which he trusted, and which he had considerably augmented, would easily be able, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... fire. Well she guessed the object of the wily Italian in speaking as he did. It availed him nothing, and she only despised him the more. It was cowardly, contemptible, and, from such a source, absolutely unworthy of belief. Yet secretly it worried her just the same. She had always considered Kenneth's life an open book. She thought she knew his every action, his every thought. The mere suggestion that her husband might have other interests, other attachments of which she knew nothing took her so by surprise ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... Market Square, and you would soon find yourself amid the wild and hilly moorlands, sprinkled with iron-and-coal villages whose red-flaming furnaces illustrated the eternal damnation which was the chief article of their devout religious belief. And in the Market Square not even the late edition of the Staffordshire Signal was cried, though it was discreetly on sale with its excellent sporting news in a few shops. In the hot and malodorous candle-lit factories, where the real ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... was a distinguished personage in my eyes, having been the daughter of Captain Jonathan Prescott who commanded a company under Sir William Pepperell at the siege of Louisburg and lost his life there; and I could not question the wisdom of colonial times. Indeed, to this hour I have a lingering belief that cats can foretell ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... preparations made, principally by the plantation negroes, to take the city." "We hoped they would progress so far as to enable us to ascertain and punish the ringleaders." "Assure my friends that we feel in perfect security, although the number of nightly guards, and other demonstrations, may induce a belief among strangers ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... indeed, and, for the while, the clouds had cleared away. Still Zikali sat silent and I, who was acquainted with the habits of this people, knew that I was witnessing a conflict between two they considered to be respectively a spiritual and an earthly king. It is my belief that unless he were first addressed, Zikali would have sat all night without opening his lips. Possibly Cetewayo would have done the same if the impatience of public opinion had allowed him. At any was rate it was he ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... too rational to imbibe her teachings on the blessedness of slavery and starvation. Meanwhile, as no magnanimous sinner can live down to the pseudo-Christian standard, unprogressive Agnosticism takes the place of demoralised belief, and the Kingdom of God fades ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... the belief of the prowess of their troops, equal in number, greatly superior in artillery, and possessing an extremely strong position, scarcely paid sufficient attention to what would happen in the event of a defeat. The infantry being posted very strongly in the three villages, which were ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... death." Hence it was useful for the end of the Incarnation that He should assume these penalties in our flesh and in our stead, according to Isa. 53:4, "Surely He hath borne our infirmities." Secondly, in order to cause belief in the Incarnation. For since human nature is known to men only as it is subject to these defects, if the Son of God had assumed human nature without these defects, He would not have seemed to be true man, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... in places. He may since have unearthed some pre-historic treasures there. The cavern was interesting as showing the honeycombing effects of water on limestone rock, but it did not lead very far into the hill. The belief that the murderer escaped by another opening than the one by which he entered was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... opened wide. Her belief in this wonderful Godmother was such that she was almost prepared to see Godmother wave a wand and command her to become beautiful—and then, on looking into a mirror, to find that she was so. "What did she say?" she managed ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin

... believe, more or less," he answered, smiling. "By-the-by, I must apologise for not having before given an account of myself. To the best of my belief, I am the only survivor of the gallant fellows who manned the Dragon privateer, of which I had the honour to be first officer. She carried sixteen guns and a crew of 110 hands, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... secret of life for you and for me is to lay our purposes and our characters continually before Him who made them, and cry, "Do Thou purge me, and so alone shall I be clean. Thou requirest truth in the inward parts. Thou wilt make me to understand wisdom secretly." What more rational belief? For surely if there be any God, and He made us at first, He who makes can also mend His own work if it gets out of gear. What more miraculous in the doctrines of regeneration and renewal than in the mere fact ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley

... himself upon his matting (perhaps a cotton rug, more likely a bundle of woven water reeds) and sleeps. No one wakes him; habit rouses him at dawn. He scrubs his teeth with a fibrous stick. It is a part of his religious belief to keep his teeth clean. The East Indian (Hindu or Mohammedan) has the whitest, soundest teeth in the world if the betel-nut ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... 4th.) "If either has a sufficient degree of merit to recommend it to the attention of the public."—J. Walker cor. "Now W. Mitchell's deceit is very remarkable."—Barclay cor. "My brother, I did not put the question to thee, for that I doubted of the truth of thy belief."—Bunyan cor. "I had two elder brothers, one of whom was a lieutenant-colonel."—De Foe cor. "Though James is here the object of the action, yet the word James is in the nominative case."—Wright cor. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... surged forwards on the next sea, held behind by his comrades' strong arms, out on the very stem he groped his way, and then he shouted, and behind him all hands shouted, 'Come, Johnny! Now's your time!' There's a widespread belief among our sailor friends that the expression 'Johnny' is a passport to a Frenchman's heart. At any rate, seeing Roberts on the very stem and hearing the shouts, the nearly exhausted Frenchmen came picking their dangerous way and clinging to the weather rail one ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... harm can they do us?" said Audrey, incredulous of danger. "You don't suppose they'll want to murder us, surely! My own belief is that we never should have been locked up here if you hadn't let them know how much we know, ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, speaking of the causes leading to intemperance, after stating his belief that it is a transmissible disease, like "scrofula, gout ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... her? Certainly he knew her! He must have known from the first that she was her father's daughter, or he would never have put himself in her power. His belief in her was such a sweet thing. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... doctrine of evolution, is part of the same tendency of increasing knowledge to unify itself, which has led to the doctrine of the conservation of energy. And this tendency, again, is mainly a product of the increasing strength conferred by physical investigation on the belief in the universal validity of that orderly relation of facts, which we express by the so-called 'Laws ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley

... patients were very tired, and yet no water was to be seen. Cumuli, which had been gradually collecting from one o'clock in the afternoon, cast their shadows over the forest, and deceived the eye into the belief that the desired creek was before us. At last, however, to our infinite satisfaction, we entered into a scrub, formed of low stunted irregularly branched tea-trees, where we found a shallow water-course, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... first became visible. Zwingli gazed at it from the churchyard of the Great Minster. "What can it portend?" was the question put to him by the abbot George Mueller of Wettingen, in accordance with the belief of the age. "It will cost me, my George, me and many an honorable man his life. The truth and the Church will suffer calamity, but God will not forsake them!" In the pulpit he spake in a similar strain: "Thou wilt not punish pride, Zurich. Well then! thou ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... religion of the culprit. She could not be persuaded that the faith in which she had been brought up was proved to be a sham because one of its professors, whom she had above all others loved and trusted, had broken away from its teachings and defied her own belief. She would not secede with her father; but remained in the Church of the mother she was never to see again, and this in spite of extraordinary and dogged efforts on the part of Lord Rens to pervert her to his own Atheism. His mind had been so warped by the agony of his heart ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... a man of less dogged character, or one more amenable to reason, the Marquis would have known how to deal; but the success which had hitherto rewarded St. Mesmin's course of action had confirmed the young man in his belief that everything was to be won by courage; so that the more the Marquis blustered and threatened the more persistent the suitor showed himself. Wherever Mademoiselle's presence was to be expected, St. Mesmin appeared, dressed in the extreme of the fashion ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... the powers of belief were put to too great a strain by a tale of more than ordinary marvel, Bill would follow with one of such utter impossibility that the company would feel that the limit had been reached, and the yarns would cease. But after the first week most of the time was given ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... We were working away till long after dark by the light of our fires. Scouts were sent out, but came back after some time stating that they could see nothing of the enemy. At length Stanley expressed his belief that Donald had been mistaken; at which our friend bristled up. No, he was certain he had seen an army of blacks; probably, however, when they caught sight of him, they might have thought better of ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... letter with which the preceding chapter closes, was the last heard from her for many weeks. Various were the surmises in the family as to the reasons for her unaccountable silence, but at length they settled down in the belief that she must have fallen a victim to some of the diseases of a new country; though why they should not have received some tidings of her fate from her brother, ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... said Adam; "the squire's 'cute enough but it takes something else besides 'cuteness to make folks see what'll be their interest in the long run. It takes some conscience and belief in right and wrong, I see that pretty clear. You'd hardly ever bring round th' old squire to believe he'd gain as much in a straightfor'ard way as by tricks and turns. And, besides, I've not much mind to work under him: I don't want to quarrel with any ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... made so evident that not even his greatest enemy could doubt any longer; but all seemed of no avail. Week after week passed, and with the exception of one most mysterious occurrence, affairs remained the same. So strong was the belief of the nobles in his innocence, that the most strenuous exertions were made in his favor; but, strong as Ferdinand's own wish was to save him, his love of justice was still stronger; though the testimony of Don Luis might be set aside, calm deliberation on all the evidence against him marked ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... and it blew harder than ever; and I could just see some vessels at a distance, scudding before the gale, but they could hardly see me. I sat very melancholy the whole day, shedding tears, surrounded by nothing but the roaring waves. I prayed very earnestly: I said the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and as much of the Catechism as I could recollect. I was wet, starving, and miserably cold. At night I again fell asleep from exhaustion. When morning broke, and the sun shone, the gale abated, and I felt more cheered; but I was now ravenous from hunger, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... or two I made inquiries, Una," Jack said to me as we sat there,—"inquiries which I won't detail to you in full just now, but which gradually showed me the truth of the poor soul's belief. What you yourself told me just now chimes in exactly with what I discovered elsewhere, by inquiry and by letters from Australia. The baby that died was the real Una Callingham. Shortly after its death, your stepfather and your mother left the colony. All your ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... Nero could do sufficed to remove from men's minds the belief that on him rested the infamy of the fire. This public sentiment troubled and frightened him, and to remove it he sought to lay the burden of guilt on others. It was now the year 64 A.D., and for at least thirty years the ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... his companions were deceived by false indications of land. They were only vapors of an odd form, which rose in the background. It happened sometimes that these honest men were obstinate in their belief; but, after a certain time, they were forced to acknowledge that they had been dupes of an optical illusion. The pretended land, moved away, changed form and ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... told by a nurse or a coachman should certainly not be reproduced in this book. In this book, there are a few of those stories only which are true to the best of the author's knowledge and belief. ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

... for the Jews in the part of Poland annexed by Austria, especially the extension of compulsory military service to them, were looked upon by the ignorant masses as a dire misfortune. They rebelled against every change, and placed no belief in the promises made by the authorities to better their condition. They were terrorized by the severity of the measures taken against them, and, impotent to carry on a struggle against authority, they threw themselves into the arms of Hasidism, which ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... with the Indian cheetah Curious belief Anecdotes of leopards Their attraction by the smallpox Native superstition Encounter with a leopard Monkeys killed by leopards Alleged peculiarity of ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... not make a joke on a supposed Chinaman named Ah Sin; but the obscurity of the joke and my lack of knowledge regarding American literature caused the point to elude me at first, which was true of many jokes. The Americans are preeminently practical jokers, and the ends to which they go is beyond belief. I heard of jokes which, if perpetrated in China, would have resulted in the loss of some one's head. To illustrate this, in the Spanish-American War the camps at Tampa were besieged with newspaper reporters, and one from a large journal was constantly trying to secure secret ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... my belief that you are responsible for this spying. It is not my wish to shoot a Padre, but you shall be taken out ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce

... good which comes to the one should come to the other, and that, as one people, the evils which blight the hopes of the one blight the hopes of the other; I say, I may stand alone among colored men in the belief that harmony of sentiment between the blacks and whites of the country, in so far forth as it tends to honest division and healthy opposition, is natural and necessary, but I speak that which is a conviction as strong as the Stalwart idea of diversity between Black and White, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... The belief would not be so deep-rooted in the peasant's mind, if facts had not from time to time confirmed it. But we may assume that, in successful cases, the Cats made to lose their bearings were young and unemancipated animals. With those neophytes, a drop ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... by a notion of having outwitted her husband, was in unusual good spirits, and almost in good humour. The idea of thwarting his designs, and being in the way of his entertainment, gave to her a delight she had seldom received from any thing; and the belief that this was effected by the superiority of her cunning, doubled her contentment, and raised it to exultation. She owed him, indeed, much provocation and uneasiness, and was happy in this opportunity of ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... of belief that he now really was on the trail, followed the porter, and the clerkly man (rather a liberty, thought ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... us with more or less force. Personally, my work was undertaken in Nanchang partly from faith in the principle, partly because there were no funds available to institute medical work on any other basis. My faith in the principle is founded upon the belief that anything of value is more appreciated when something has been asked in exchange for its worth, from those perfectly able to effect the exchange.... The ordinary people who seek help from the missionary will retain a higher measure of self-respect, and also suspect less the ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton

... many invisible worlds above and beneath, with which he was transported into a train of musing, and continued in this exercise for about the space of two years, until he, by prayer and meditation on the history of the creation, came to a thorough belief that God made all things, and that all which he made was very good. And yet after he came to more maturity, he relapsed to a deeper labyrinth of darkness about these foundation truths, and was so assaulted with ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... the fire, piled on a log or so, and then returned to his chair, hoping against belief that something really would be accomplished in the seminar. All the boys, he excepted, were smoking, and all of them were lolling back in ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... me;—but give me first that relic,—I wish to look upon it. And can there be such virtue—I had nigh said, such mischief—in this little thing? Strange; forgive me, Philip,—but I've still my doubts upon this tale of Eblis. You know I am not yet strong in the new belief which you and the good priest have lately taught me. I do not say that it cannot be true: but still, one so unsettled as I am may be allowed to waver. But, Philip, I'll assume that all is true. Then, if it ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the conversation, he created some slight embarrassment by reiterating his belief that this strange man must be his father, and appealed to his mother for verification of ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... in seeking and realising what they take for truth, why not the majority? Now this implies two propositions. It is the same as to say, first, that earnestness of conviction is not to be distinguished from a belief in our own infallibility; second, that faith in our infallibility is ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... partizans of order. The clergy now openly declared that Maximilian was pledged to the holy see for the restoration of the confiscated property of the clergy to its original owners. The archbishop, newly landed, did all that was in his power to encourage such a belief and to guide the regency to an uncompromising surrender to the holy see.* As the security of immense transactions in clergy property was ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will ...
— The Republic • Plato

... that sanction which God has instituted and commanded, and who, entrapping others, comes to court to-day—not the pure being to demand your respect—but one whom we can but contemplate with loathing and disgust, and who has proved herself utterly unworthy of belief. Gentlemen, I simply wish to direct your attention to the proven facts. I have thus ventured to allude to the distinction I have endeavored to draw, not for the purpose of warping your minds, or in any degree throwing an unfair prejudice ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without his peer in ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert

... belief there is no such thing as a trance. Letting on people do be to make the world wonder the time they think well to rise up. To keep them to their work is best, and not to pay much ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats

... maximum duties provided in the bill, that is, an increase of twenty-five per cent. ad valorem over the minimum duties, are to be in force. Fear has been expressed that this power conferred and duty imposed on the Executive is likely to lead to a tariff war. I beg to express the hope and belief that no ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft

... beneath. This is the principle upon which the Pantheon of Agrippa is lighted; the only difference being one of proportion. In Persia, the diameter of the eye was always very small compared to that of the dome. If we are justified in our belief that the constructors of the Parthian and Sassanide palaces were no more than the perpetuators of systems invented by the architects of Nineveh and Babylon, the Assyrian domes also may very well have been opened ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... a will. But had any such circumstances existed in this case? Had the drug habit produced such mental changes in the deceased as would destroy or weaken his judgment? There was not a particle of evidence in favour of any such belief. Up to the very end he had managed his own affairs, and, if his habits of life had undergone a change, they were still the habits of a perfectly ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... overland tunnel on the chance of cracking the apex of a vein. The small companies sank shafts on the chance of touching pay ore, the big companies tunneled deep and drifted wide in the hope of cutting several veins. The merchants built in the belief that the camp was a permanent town, and the gamblers took chances of losing money if their game was honest, and put their lives at hazard ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... all summer to get over the shock. They'll be planning new trouble this fall." Leila spoke with the confidence of belief. "Leslie Cairns never gives up. Are you ready to fight them again, Beauty?" Leila eyed Marjorie quizzically. She asked the question in the odd, level tone she had used on first ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... what significance could underlie this unusual form of matutinal exercise, Dr. Farnsworth came out of the forecastle and beckoned to him. The young Doctor had a red Vandyck beard sedulously cultivated in the belief that it would make him look older and inspire the confidence of patients, and a shock of dark red hair which he rumpled vigorously when he was thinking. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... replied Susan. And it was the truth. Her instinctive belief in a modified kind of fatalism made her judgments of people—even of those who caused her to suffer—singularly free from personal bitterness. Freddie, a mere instrument of destiny, had his good side, his human side, she knew. At his worst he was no worse than the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... 90 km./sec.) in the direction towards the sun. The absolute magnitude of this star is 11m.7 and it is, with the exception of one other, the very faintest star now known. Its spectral type is Mb, a fact worth fixing in our memory, as different reasons favour the belief that it is precisely the M-type that contains the very faintest stars. Its apparent velocity (i.e., the proper motion) is so great that the star in 1000 years moves 3 deg., or as much as 6 times ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier

... ecclesiastical antiquities studied in Cambridge, after Whitaker had pointed the way! Men sought to weed out what was spurious, and in what was genuine to set aside the part due to the accidental forms of the time, and to penetrate to the bottom of the sentiments, the belief, and activity of the writers. The constitution of the Church naturally led them to devote special study to the old provincial councils. For the history of the country they referred to the monuments of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... regulate the decrease of population, although it is too much our custom to look only at the other side of the picture. The social and civil wars of Mexico have been of such a character, as we have seen, as to warrant the belief that from this cause alone population must have constantly diminished, from their very commencement in 1810 until 1840, when matters were comparatively resuscitated. The employment for labor during the time that the large ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... Wyandanch on July 14, 1659,[45] as a token of love and esteem in ransoming his captive daughter and friends from the Narragansetts, is worthy of note, for it is evident that the Sachem had no one else so capable. In confirmation of this surmise and my belief that he had a prominent part in all the land transactions of Wyandanch, my friend William S. Pelletreau, who is preparing the early records of the town of Smithtown for publication, has lately found recorded, in a dispute over the lands of Smithtown, a deposition ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker

... and feature, a fluent speaker and a fearless enthusiast in her devotion to her art. She would allow herself to be repeatedly bitten by rattle-snakes and received no harm excepting the ordinary pain of the wound. After years of investigation I have come to the belief that this immunity was the result of an absolutely empty stomach, into which a large quantity of milk was taken shortly after the wound was inflicted, the theory being that the virus acts directly on the contents of the stomach, changing it ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... with you looking at mother's dead face, and her smiling back at you so awful and still, and the good God, if there is a God, listening, that I has promised mother that the boys Nat and Thady—the Cap'n and Gen'ral, as they're called here—shan't larn your ways, which are bad past belief; so when mother's buried, we're going away. That's all. You can go to the ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade

... Cornwall (1688-1766), known as the Chevalier de St. George. At one time the belief was current that the wife of James II. did not give birth to a child, and the "young Pretender" was supposed to be a son of one Mary Grey (see note on p. 409 of vol. v. of present edition of Swift's ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... must say there's more to it than I supposed. They've studied the Prophecies; that's evident. And they're not narrow in their belief. They're ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet-anchor in hoping for forgiveness had proved false. This account of the exceptional nature of his experience, a matter which would have set her rejoicing two years ago, chilled ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... was full of pride. He had lived for ten years in the Hotel Railleux, working as six men and six women together would not have worked in the fashionable quarter, and he had never been shaken in his belief that Paris held no ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... and few playwrights can resist the temptation to foist a story upon their picture, thus marring it by an inharmonious intrusion of melodrama or farce. This has often been done upon deliberate theory, in the belief that no play can exist, or can attract playgoers, without a definite and more or less exciting plot. Thus the late James A. Herne inserted into a charming idyllic picture of rural life, entitled Shore ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... the origin of the race is that accepted by Kishi (21 p. 481) and some other Japanese biologists. It is their belief that the forms of movement acquired by the individual as the result of confinement in narrow cages are inherited. Thus centuries of subjection to the conditions which Kishi has described (p. 6) finally resulted in a race of mice which breed true ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes



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