"Sceptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and to us more interesting point of view. Julius and Raphael are the emblems of his own fears and his own hopes; their Philosophic Letters unfold to us many a gloomy conflict that had passed in the secret chambers of their author's soul. Sceptical doubts on the most important of all subjects were natural to such an understanding as Schiller's; but his heart was not of a temper to rest satisfied with doubts; or to draw a sorry compensation for them from the pride of superior acuteness, or the vulgar pleasure ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... 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
... structure, though composed of combustible materials, the sudden vanishing of this cloud at my uncle's approach—what is the inference to be drawn from these facts? Their truth cannot be doubted. My uncle's testimony is peculiarly worthy of credit, because no man's temper is more sceptical, and his belief is unalterably ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... its influence on the cobras. The nearer his hand approached to the head of the snake, the more the reptile's body recoiled. Looking steadfastly at the stone they shivered, and, one by one, dropped as if paralyzed. The buni then made straight for our sceptical colonel, and made him an offer to try the experiment himself. We all protested vigorously, but he would not listen to us, and chose a cobra of a very considerable size. Armed with the stone, the colonel bravely approached the snake. For a moment I positively felt petrified ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... that Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched a cockatrice. Erasmus resented deeply such an account of his work; but it was true after all. The sceptical philosophy is the most powerful of solvents, but it has no principle of organic life in it; and what of truth there was in Erasmus's teaching had to assume a far other form before it was available for the reinvigoration of religion. He himself, in his clearer moments, felt ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... likely the boy is a genius, and who is going to purchase his pictures?" Yet his father persevered bravely in spite of many "outs" and temporary failures and finally lived to see the merit of his son admitted by those who were at first most sceptical of it. The son is now a fairly successful artist; especially noted for his skill in representing the motion of water and the ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... of the Watson family suddenly changed, and in such a remarkable way it would convince the most sceptical of the existence of good working fairies. A letter came to Pearl, the eldest girl, from the Old Country, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... man whose brain is beclouded by passion and prejudice. Such sublimities are unattainable except by cold and silent contemplation. Suffer me, then, before revealing to your eyes the leaves of the book of life, to prepare your soul by this sceptical purification which the great teachers of the people—Socrates, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, St. Remi, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Kant, etc.—have always claimed ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon it. If he has no curiosity in the direction of these chapters, he can afford to leave them to such as relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does so leave them he will very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of the story to which they are meant to furnish ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sceptical friends, not believing all they had heard regarding the superstitious notions of fishermen, were advised to put a young pig among some fishermen's lines on board of a boat at Newhaven pier. The ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the striking. He studies sentiments and sensations from an artistic point of view. He is a physiognomist, a physiologist, a bit of an anatomist, a bit of a mesmerist, a bit of a geologist, a Flemish painter, an upholsterer, a micrological, misanthropical, sceptical philosopher; but he is no moralist, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ideas of the reason, so long the apparent contradictions, which encumber the attempt to conceive the unconditioned, must be regarded as inherent in the constitution of the reason itself, and as the result of its legitimate exercise on its proper objects. This sceptical conclusion Hamilton endeavoured to avoid by rejecting the distinction between the understanding and the reason as separate faculties, regarding the one as the legitimate and positive, the other as the illegitimate and negative, exercise of one and the same faculty. He thus announces, in ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... pen"; it is indeed the "product of a scoffer's pen"; but after reading the Excursion, few people will think it dull. It is in the most perfect keeping, and without any appearance of effort. Every sentence tells, and the whole reads like one sentence. There is something sublime in Martin's sceptical indifference to moral good and evil. It is the repose of the grave. It is better to suffer this living death, than a living martyrdom. "Nothing can touch him further." The moral of Candide (such as it is) is the same as that of Rasselas: the execution is different. Voltaire says, "A great ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... followed by smoking, a tolerably safe cure, but not always to be relied upon. I should be very sorry to attempt to do without these two helps. Of the two I believe the smoking to be the more valuable, especially when (what is far worse than heavy work) worry is pressing upon one. I am wholly sceptical as to the value of work before breakfast. Let a man get up as early as he likes: but don't let him try to work on an empty stomach. The Irishman was wise who said that when he worked before breakfast, he always ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastic or superstitious: he appears neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is neither dangerously lax nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision; ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... say, because in part also the characteristic differences of these works depend upon the particular mode of the narrative. For narration itself, as applied to history, admits of a triple arrangement—dogmatic, sceptical, and critical; dogmatic, which adopts the current records without examination; sceptical, as Horace Walpole's Richard III., Laing's Dissertation on Perkin Warbeck, or on the Gowrie Conspiracy, which expressly undertakes ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... is a representation of a sceptical poet, I reply that it is in alignment with a representation of a ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... that, although I had read Dr. Baraduc's book, "Les Vibrations Humaines," I approached the instrument in a very sceptical frame of mind; but I was soon convinced of my error. At first, holding a mental attitude of entire relaxation, I found that the left-hand needle was attracted through twenty degrees, while the right-hand needle, the one affected by the out-going current, was repelled through ten degrees. After allowing ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... him curiously. She had expected a casual answer to her casual words, a surface frankness, such as she herself had shown, and, at first, she felt sceptical towards this unbidden confidence: she did not care for people who gave themselves away at a word; either they were naive to foolishness or inordinately vain. But having listened for some time to his outpourings, she began to feel reassured; and soon she ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... to relieve the intolerable pressure of his thoughts. It is not a novel, it is not a treatise, it is not poetry, it is not romance. It is the delineation of a mood; and though it was called, with some reason, sceptical, its moral, if it has a moral, is that scepticism leads to misconduct. That unpleasant and unverified hypothesis, soon rejected by Froude himself, has been revived by M. Bourget in Le Disciple, and L'Etape. The Nemesis of Faith is as ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... illusions to which the mind, busy with its own suggestions, is always liable. The night season, simply because it excludes the external, is prolific in such. The more of the marvellous any one may have experienced in the course of his history, the more sceptical ought he to become, for he is the more exposed to delusion. None have made more blunders in the course of their revelations than genuine seers. Was it any wonder that, as I sat at midnight beside the woman of a hundred years, who had voluntarily died for a time that she might discover ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... 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, quoted in the note," viz. that the same similarity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... in the way) suggests to me now two things, wherein the Documents ordinarily given to such young Ladies, as are intended to have the best care taken of their Instruction, are, I think, very defective; and the fitter to be redress'd, as being of peculiar ill consequence in a Sceptical, loose and unthinking Age; wherein Wit is apt to pass upon ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... "the pup" was worthless. Scott, whose smile was kindly even when sceptical, only corrected Bill to the extent of saying that Friday or Scuffy, whoever or whatever he might be, was no pup; that he was a full-grown dog and in Bob's judgment he would need ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... an uncomfortable silence. Haddo's words were out of tune with the rest of the conversation. Dr Porhoet had spoken of magical things with a sceptical irony that gave a certain humour to the subject, and Susie was resolutely flippant. But Haddo's vehemence put these incredulous people out of countenance. Dr Porhoet got up to go. He shook hands with Susie and with Margaret. Arthur opened the door ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... 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 of the philosopher should be to take nothing for ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... firm. And yet his heart misgives him; for it is not justified by its results. It is not that the sceptical deny its value: that those bent on earthly good reject it with open eyes. The surprise and terror is this: that those who have found the pearl of price—who have named and known it—will still grovel after the lower ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... head and not on mine should rest the burden of my deeds; yet he prospered all his life, and I have been told that his death was happy and painless. This man's career furnishes one of the few arguments that to my sceptical mind suggest the existence of a place of future reward and punishment, for how is it possible that so great a villain should reap no fruit from his rich sowing of villainy? If it is possible, then verily this world is the real hell wherein the wicked are lords and the good ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... a spring-tide thunderstorm. But to make it more evident that the untaught mind did regard such a storm as a dragon, I think the following quotation from John of Brompton's Chronicle will convince the most sceptical: "Another remarkable thing is this, that took place during a certain month in the Gulf of Satalia (on the coast of Pamphylia). There appeared a great and black dragon which came in clouds, and let down his head into the water, whilst his tail seemed turned to the sky; and the dragon drew ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... admirably sceptical chapter on the Emotions (XI) is followed by a largely destructive chapter on Consciousness, Learning, and Remembering, in which Prof. Thorndike is in point of literary style almost at his worst; and in some cases incoherent (e.g. p. 185, middle). The chapters on the Anatomy and Physiology, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... 'You are 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 ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the future more sagaciously. He made no pretension to Webster's magnificent oratory; yet Webster never put more truth in portable form for popular guidance. He possessed Benjamin Franklin's immense common sense, and gift of terse proverbial speech, but none of his lusts and sceptical infirmities. The immortal twenty-line address at Gettysburg is the high water mark of sententious eloquence. With that speech should be placed the pathetic and equally perfect letter of condolence to Mrs. Bixby of ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... "I put more of the substance on the flagging than I need to have done. A few drops would have answered quite as well, but I wanted to make sure. You were very sceptical, ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... is expressed the peculiar turn of Arnold's mind, at once religious and sceptical, philosophical and emotional. It is one of his ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... had told them 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 yourself! ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... but young with the youth of all times 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 much ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... state of human society, to which all his life long he devoted a careful and searching observation. His Essays are not at all sceptical, like the French essays, from which he may have borrowed this appellation: they are thoroughly dogmatic. They consist of remarks on the relations of life as they then presented themselves, especially upon the points of contact ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... terribly clever that she criticizes it unmercifully," said Phillotson, with good-humoured satire. "She is quite sceptical ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... moreover, sceptical because the very persons to whom to-day we have to look to effect the sexual enlightenment of children, are themselves to a great extent also in need of enlightenment; and in respect of many of the questions ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... he was known as "Mr Jones"; and to her innocent mind it never occurred that he could be other than the painter he professed to be. The villagers, however, were sceptical. True, the stranger was a pleasant man who always gave them a cheery "good-day," and gossiped with them in the friendliest manner. But that there was some mystery connected with him, all agreed. "Painter chaps" were notoriously poor, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... 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 Sir Andrew added his own signature and ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... were racing. Seeing into the future was a rather revolutionary idea to me. My mind is conservative; I have always been sceptical of the more fantastic ideas suggested by science. But Charlie seemed to know what he was talking about. In view of the marvelous things he had done that night, it seemed hardly fair to doubt him now. I decided to accept his astounding statement ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... it 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 ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the United States Government, Department of Justice, I had studied investigations into the relation of a low wage to the life of immorality. These had shown me that many factors in the home, in the training, in the mental condition, often contributed to the result. I had grown sceptical of the "plain" statement of a complex matter, and peculiarly hesitant in accepting accounts of outrage and cruelty. It was in this spirit that I crossed to Belgium. To this extent, I ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... sound, and can be spoken almost with closed lips. You have no broad vowels and large consonants to fill your mouth as when you say Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson. This difference in sound seems symbolic. Ibsen is the solitary man, a scathing critic of society, a delver in the depths of human nature, sceptical of all that men believe in and admire. He has not, like Bjoernson, any faith in majorities; nay, he believes that the indorsement of the majority is an argument against the wisdom of a course of action or the truth of a proposition. The summary of this poet's ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... 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 ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... that preparations were being made at Ostwalden for the reception of the young widow. And it was in consequence of his own gossipy letter that the steward was disagreeably surprised by the prince's sudden appearance. The head forester seemed somewhat sceptical about the prince's fancy for his "cool forest home," for he ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... I said to my sceptical friend: "Those who praise the simple life and those who scoff at it are both very extravagant as a rule. Let the matter be stated temperately. The tramp does not want a world of tramps—that would never do. The tramps—better call them the rebels against modern ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... procedure. The meeting of individuals in conversation was a method of arriving at the truth of ethical conduct and ethical relations. It was made up of induction and definition. No doubt the spirit of his teaching was sceptical in the extreme. While having a deeper sense of the reality of life than others, he realized that he did not know much. He criticized freely the prevailing beliefs, customs, and religious practice. For this he was accused of impiety, and forced to drink the ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... fantasy and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering and unblessed. But Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker's stories."—London Academy (Feb. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... find, on enquiry, that this Society has some hundreds of well-authenticated accounts of these occult occurrences, and it really seems that we are often sceptical of these phenomena, without taking the trouble to investigate the cases that come under our immediate notice to ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... (Max Muller), or for the inevitable thunder, or storm, or lightning (Kuhn- 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 ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... compounded of speed, time, and the course. That leaves a large margin for error. So if they felt doubtful they got a plummet, greased it, and dipped it overboard. When it was hauled up they inspected whatever might be sticking to the tallow, and at once announced our position. At first I felt sceptical. It was as though one who had got lost with you in London might pick up a stone in an unknown thoroughfare, and straightway announce the name of that street. That would be rather clever. But I discovered my fishermen could do ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... not 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 in the worship ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... been turned rather towards the Northern Pacific Coast, yet San Francisco with its great harbor, the ever increasing commercial developments and number of other advantages, still is a magnificent attraction to the homeseeker, who for the last few years has been very sceptical in his preference on account of existing unfavorable conditions regarding the city's government which is the prey of dishonest politicians. For this and many other reasons I should never make my home within the limits of the city of San Francisco. There are beautiful localities within ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... momentarily changed. He was as pale and thin as ever, but his face softened oddly; certain lines which contributed to his usually bitter and sceptical expression disappeared, while others became visible which changed his look completely. He bowed with more deference than he affected with other women, and Orsino fancied that he would have held Maria Consuelo's hand a moment longer, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... her royalist friends of whom she was the honoured hostess. All acknowledged the extraordinary similarity both in person and manner which the stranger bore to the royal family. Some were enthusiastic believers; others, with all their legitimist enthusiasm, were sceptical. Amongst the former was a certain Monsieur S. de L., who thought the appearance of the 'prince' a miracle in reference to that particular time. Louis-Philippe, when he accepted the crown nearly two years before, had done so ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... least the autumn, and timidly clothed themselves accordingly. The elm, the first big tree to stir in its sleep, showed tiny, curled leaflets of a doubting, yellowish green; and the later moving oaks were frankly sceptical, one glowing faintly brown and crimson, another silvery gray and pink. They would need at least ten more days to convince them into downright summer greenery, even though slender-throated doves already mated in their tops ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... They were all frankly sceptical, though realizing that Henderson Blake was not a man given to exaggeration. Nor did their scepticism altogether vanish when Kendrick had ended his bizarre story with a demonstration ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... was a stranger even by name. So far as my 'dedication' was concerned, I can but think that my parents were in error thus to exclude the imaginary from my outlook upon facts. They desired to make me truthful; the tendency was to make me positive and sceptical. Had they wrapped me in the soft folds of supernatural fancy, my mind might have been longer content to follow their traditions in ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... at this gift as might have been expected. Either it seemed to him to be too good news to be true, or he was of a sceptical turn of mind. At all events he was not satisfied until he had sat down with the missionary and assured himself that every verse in his ragged treasure was contained in the presented volume, and a great deal more besides. Then he let the old treasure go, and ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... methods of reckoning some collateral evidence is needed before accepting any of the dates given in Japanese annals. Kaempfer and even Rein were content to endorse the chronology of the Chronicles—the Records avoid dates altogether—but other Occidental scholars* have with justice been more sceptical, and their doubts have been confirmed by several eminent Japanese historians in recent times. Where, then, is ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to-day; it was so in the eighteenth century. In England a Professor may easily become a fossil; in Germany he often guides the thought of the age. For some years that scoffing writer, Voltaire, had been openly petted at the court of Frederick the Great; his sceptical spirit was rapidly becoming fashionable; and now the professors at the Lutheran Universities, and many of the leading Lutheran preachers, were expounding certain radical views, not only on such vexed questions as Biblical inspiration and the credibility of the Gospel ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... 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, but on general ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... splendid rooms, far more splendid than those at the Palazzo Rosso, rooms rich with porphyry, alabaster, mosaics, gilded flourishes and arabesques of stucco, and containing many treasures of painting and sculpture, some of which, I believe, even the sceptical Morellists allow to be actually the handiwork of the artists to whom they are ascribed. But so far from there being any question of their visiting the private apartments at Isola Nobile, their guide, at one point in their progress, sprang forward and hurriedly closed a door that ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... reasonable creatures does it rise in any proportion, as 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 Coverley Papers • Various
... 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 ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... was a deep instinctive and emotional need for a basis of thought so strong and vivid that he need not question it. I believe he had long been seeking for such a basis, and that he was right to accept it, because he did so in entire simplicity and genuineness. My brother was not sceptical nor analytic; he needed the repose of a large submission, of obedience to an impersonal ideal. His work lay in the presentment of religious emotion, and for this he needed a definite and specific confidence. In no other Church, and least of all in Anglicanism, ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... presents itself is character, which apparently must be self-formed and developed by resistance to evil. We have had plenty of "evidences" in the manner of Paley or the Bridgewater Treatises, met by sceptical argument on the other side; but has inquiry yet tried to fathom the ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith
... 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
... persons who venture to speak disparagingly of the ramparts; in fact, they have several times demanded of the authorities the demolition of those old walls, relics of a former age. At the same time, the most sceptical among them experience a shock of delight whenever a marquis or a count deigns to honour them with a stiff salutation. Indeed, the dream of every citizen of the new town is to be admitted to a drawing-room of the Saint-Marc quarter. They know very well that their ambition is not attainable, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... all mortal wishes, prospects, and pursuits. Their motive, for all this, we need not pause, in this place, to examine. But a distinction may be made between the melancholy of the heart, and the melancholy of the mind: while the latter is sceptical, sour, and misanthropic, the former is passionate, tender, and religious. Those who are under the influence of the one, become inactive, morose, or heedless: detecting the follies of the wisest and the frailties of the best, they scoff at the very name of virtue; they spurn, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... right, but sixty-nine or ninety-nine, I am inclined to be a little sceptical about that record myself; there is one thing in its favor, however, and that is, that he made it an even nine hundred and ninety-nine, and not one thousand. Of course, you know there are plenty of people living to-day who are over one hundred years old, and some who have reached the very satisfactory ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... college, being an artist in the Smithsonian. Two are in business for themselves; one of them, a shrewd, sagacious and level-headed man as one would meet anywhere, with a sharp commercial turn of mind. This man differs from the others in being keenly incredulous—sceptical of his hallucinations ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... feature in the gipsy character is their indifference about religion. Not that they are strong-minded or sceptical. They have never made any profession of atheism. Far from that, indeed, the religion of the country which they inhabit is always theirs; but they change their religion when they change the country of their residence. They are equally ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... of a young lady—yes, I believe it was you!—whose translation of Browning's "Lost Leader" into Greek iambics was better than mine. They set it in the Ireland. You admit it? Capital! As to the superiority of yours, I was, of course, entirely sceptical, though polite. Remind me, how did you translate "Just for a ribbon to put on ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have impressed them badly.[80] It is in the highest degree improbable that they attached any importance to his few slips. He speaks of having a naturally weak memory which, so he declares, had grown worse while he was in prison,[81] and he was frankly sceptical as to the possibility of any man's recalling every incident in squabbles that happened years before.[82] As it happens, his memory seems to have been excellent. No doubt it failed him now and then; but seldom did it mislead him on any essential point.[83] It is conceivable that Luis de Leon's ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... man, with an impudent frog-face, who is trying desperately hard to take in a sceptical crowd with the too familiar purse-trick). Now look 'ere, I don't mind tellin' yer all, fair an' frank, I'm 'ere to get a bit, if I can; but, if you kin ketch me on my merits, why, I shan't grumble—I'll promise yer that much! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... was more sceptical than Pitt; and Grenville and Malmesbury soon had cause to believe the offer to be merely an effort of certain Frenchmen to speculate in the English funds. Nothing came of the matter. Melvill, O'Drusse, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... pamphleteering on his own account in 1739. Mr. Horace Bleackley has happily described it as "The most famous apologia in criminal literature," and as such it is reprinted in the present volume. Even this tour de force failed to convince a sceptical world, and on 15th April was published A Candid Appeal to the Publick concerning her case, by "a Gentleman of Oxford," wherein "All the ridiculous and false Assertions" contained in Miss Blandy's Own Account "are exploded, and the Whole of ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... great storm that swept a continent, and now an organized effort that came to town with bands and banners and handbills and motor-cars for the saving of souls. Never at any time did I take part in nor was I attracted by any of these movements. My nature, although passionate, was too critical (or sceptical if you like, for it amounts to the same thing) and shy to be drawn into these whirls; but on several occasions Parload and I sat, scoffing, but nevertheless disturbed, in the back ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... to the supposed argument from evolution, viz., from man's lowly origin, as furnishing a strong presumption against his immortality. This plea, familiar enough in sceptical discussions of the subject, has been put forward with great poetic force by Mr. William Watson; after graphically describing {228} "the gibbering form obscene that was and was not man," as lower in many respects than the beasts and birds in whose midst he ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... species of tremor which attends a sense that danger is near, and an uncertainty concerning its cause and character. Reluctant as he was to yield belief to supernatural occurrences, we have already said he was not absolutely incredulous; as perhaps, even in this more sceptical age, there are many fewer complete and absolute infidels on this particular than give themselves out for such. Uncertain whether he had not dreamed of these sounds which seemed yet in his ears, he was unwilling to risk ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... thither they resorted in vast numbers. As a consequence, the customary resorts were deserted. We could see the ducks, and that was about all. Realizing the hopelessness of the situation we had been confining ourselves so strictly to quail that my brother had begun to be a little sceptical of our wildfowl tales. Therefore, one day, I took him out and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... been laid by the sceptical writers on the undoubted fact that in many cases the witch confused dreams with reality and believed that she had visited the Sabbath when credible witnesses could prove that she had slept in her bed all the time. Yet such visions are known in other religions; Christians ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... between them. The best and simplest means for those who are acquainted with the structural defects common to natural corundum gems is to seek for such defects in any specimen that is in question, and if no such defects can be found, to be very sceptical as to the naturalness of the specimen, inasmuch as perfect corundum gems are very rare in nature, and when of fine color command exceedingly high prices. No jeweler can afford to risk his reputation for knowledge and for integrity by selling as a natural stone any gem which does not possess ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... palace of the king of the piskies, or fairies, and proves the truth of the story he has afterwards to tell by producing the goblet, "which remained in the boy's family for generations, though unfortunately it is no longer forthcoming for the satisfaction of those who may still be sceptical." A like origin has been suggested for the celebrated "Luck of Edenhall," and the "Horn of Oldenburg," and other like relics); the Carinthian girl, who, climbing a mountain during the noon-hour, entered through ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... whole poem is inimitably graceful and piquant. The gay humour, the demure horror of the witchcraft, the terrible seriousness of the battle, wonderfully realize the mock-heroic gigantesque; and while there is not the minute accuracy of Gulliver in Lilliput, Drayton did not write for a sceptical or too-prying audience; quite half his readers believed more or less in fairies. In the metre of the poem Drayton again echoes that of the older romances, as he did in Dowsabel. In the Quest of Cinthia, while ostensibly we come to ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... he be a historian worthy of the name and know his own business. There exist liberal and reactionary, rationalist and catholic historians, who deal with political or social history; for the history of philosophy there are metaphysical, empirical, sceptical, idealist, and spiritualist historians. Absolutely historical historians do not and cannot exist. Can it be said that Thucydides and Polybius, Livy and Tacitus, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Giannone and Voltaire, were without moral and political views; and, in our time, Guizot or ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... approaching, and that it hears them coming; and odd or marvellous as it may seem, this signal of the little fly, which never misleads you—this signal which falls upon your ear just at the proper and precise moment, is as certain as that two and two make four. Be not sceptical, and imagine that this is chance; no such thing. Go when you will to the chasse a l'affut, station yourself in whichever part of the forest you like, be assured the fly will be there; it was never otherwise. The question is, who sends the fly? how does it know the sportsman? and by what mysterious ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... regarded as a fairy story by ultracivilized men who dislike, perhaps, the notion that their own savage forebears have somewhere in the past been addicted to similar practices. Captain Cook was rather sceptical upon the subject, until, one day, in a harbour of New Zealand, he deliberately tested the matter. A native happened to have brought on board, for sale, a nice, sun-dried head. At Cook's orders strips ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... for our purpose. Of the sciences it behooves one to speak circumspectly, and undoubtedly mathematics and physics, at least, demand such close attention and such firm reasoning as to render them an essential part of any disciplinary education. But there are good grounds for being sceptical of the effect of the non-mathematical sciences on the immature mind. Any one who has spent a considerable portion of his undergraduate time in a chemical laboratory, for example, as the present writer has done, and has the means of comparing ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... chair up to the blazing grate, and prepared for a long and enjoyable visit with one Charles Dickens. A young woman of charm and persistence had induced him, only the week before to purchase a full set of Dickens with original Cruikshank engravings—although Hawkins secretly confessed that he was sceptical—and it was not like him to spend money without getting its full value in return. It was with some show of gratitude then that he looked upon the blizzard which kept him indoors for the night. Years ago he had read "Oliver Twist" and ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... change. He had profoundly disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as a necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very existence, of the very meaning, of his government. He was far too sceptical to believe in progress of any kind. Things were best as they were or rather, they were least bad. "You'd better try to do no good," was one of his dictums, "and then you'll get into no scrapes." Education at best was futile; education ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation. "It is necessary to come," says he, "to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... discovered, but only in the process of discovery—is the one which comes out with greater and greater strength, through all Corsairs, Laras, and Parasinas, till it reaches its completion in "Cain" and in "Manfred," of both of which we do boldly say, that if any sceptical poetry at all be right, which we often question, they are right and not wrong; that in "Cain," as in "Manfred," the awful problem which, perhaps, had better not have been put at all, is nevertheless fairly put, and the solution, as far as it is seen, fairly ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... commonly St. Catherine's wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some other part about them, resistunt incantatorum praestigiis ([2795]Boissardus writes) morbos a sagis motos propulsant &c., that to doubt of it any longer, [2796]"or not to believe, were to run into that other sceptical extreme of incredulity," saith Taurellus. Leo Suavius in his comment upon Paracelsus seems to make it an art, which ought to be approved; Pistorius and others stiffly maintain the use of charms, words, characters, &c. Ars vera est, sed pauci artifices reperiuntur; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 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 ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... down to 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 ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... law, and he enjoined sacrifice to ancestors and spirits. But all this apparently without any theory. His definition of wisdom is well known: "to devote oneself to human duties and keep aloof from spirits while still respecting them." This is not the utterance of a sceptical statesman, equivalent to "remember the political importance of religion but keep clear of it, so far as you can." The best commentary is the statement in the Analects that he seldom spoke about the will of Heaven, yet such ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... interventions of Olympus, sanctioned by Vergil and followed by many a poet since. The latter method is obviously only suited for a purely legendary epic, though even the legendary epic can well dispense with it, and it might have been supposed that an age so sceptical and careless of the orthodox theology, as that into which Lucan was born, would have felt the full absurdity of applying such a device to historical epic. Lucan was wise in his choice, and left Olympus severely alone. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... alongside and clung to the gunwale. One of them discovered that the boat's bottom was covered with barnacles. They were {239} ravenously devoured, but proved of little value as food. The men in the water were so weak that had it not been for the efforts of three who had remained in the boat, sceptical as to the utility of the bath, they would never have been able to regain their positions. During all these experiences, discipline was maintained—indeed, it was maintained to ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... clause relates only to the action of a commander in a territory of which he is in occupation; while (3) most English and American writers look upon the meaning of the clause as doubtful. If Mr. Cohen will look at p. 44 of my Laws of War on Land, 1909, he will find that I carry this sceptical attitude so far as to include the clause in question in brackets as "apocryphal," with the comment that "it can hardly, till its policy has been seriously discussed, be treated as a rule of international law." I have accordingly maintained, in correspondence with my Continental ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... novels about alien places and times, the trenchant and swordlike stories of Stevenson. But I am not narrowly on the side of the romantics. I think that glimpses of the gloom of our civilization ought to be recorded. I think that the bewilderments of the solitary and sceptical soul ought to be preserved, if it be only for the pity (yes, and the admiration) of a happier time. But I wish that there were some way in which the chorus could enter. I wish that at the end of each chapter of stiff agony or insane ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... says: "Which of us would not lay down life itself to know that he had spoken yesterday with the darling of our souls dead years ago?" Not one of you! The expression is rather hysterical in its intensity. The majority of your ultra-sceptical class would not even spend a day or an hour in the pursuit, for you have neglected the opportunities which have been open to all the world. You might have held a pair of slates in your own hands, secured in any manner, with no pencil between them; might have heard ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... that sacred and glorious thing, an inheritance. A trust-fund would always be a splendid red-herring to draw across the path of Mrs. Grundy's sleuth-hounds—a quarry more savoury to their nostrils even than a reputation. And nothing soothes the sceptical more than being asked now and again to witness a transfer of stock, especially if it is money held in trust. It has all the force of a pleasant alterative pill on the circulation of Respectability—removes ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... involved, twisted and breakneck sentences, each noun with as many verbs as Brigham Young had wives. Then followed a romantic craze, and everyone struggled to combine religion and romance, with frequent punches at religion, and we prided ourselves on being sceptical and independent in our literary tastes. My advice was simply to make up one's mind what to read, and then read it. Life is short, and books are many. Instead of making your mind a garret crowded with rubbish, make it a parlour, substantially furnished, beautifully ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... 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 but the introduction ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... Let not the sceptical reader sneer, and ask where she got, or who brought the swords and pistols. Some kind deity, willing to assist the purposes of her just revenge, interposed and brought her arms. Surely Horace would allow that this was "dignus vindice nodus." But ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... said the Doctor. "I am too sceptical to be an ethical adviser; and as for good resolutions, I believed in them when I was young. They are the colours ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his death, to comprehend his appalling position, to realize that all was at an end. When, however, he told his acquaintances of this, he perceived that he ought not to have done so. They appeared astonished at first, and then sceptical, professing to doubt the accuracy of the doctor's diagnosis. Finally, they endeavoured to banish the unpleasant impression by abruptly changing the subject, and Semenoff found himself talking with them about all sorts of things, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... called in these later days, and from opposite directions, to revise its judgments about Jesus Christ. Christians, on the one hand, have been called to do it by writers of whom M. Ernest Renan is the most remarkable and the most unflinching. But the sceptical and the unbelieving have likewise been obliged to change their ground and their tone, and no one with any self-respect or care for his credit even as a thinker and a man would like to repeat the superficial ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... difficult problem to assume that this could be no other than Mrs. William James, still, it is customary for purchasers to state the name of the person to whom goods are to go, and many people are sceptical that the salesman has it down right even then. "Your sister-in-law, Mr. James, is———?" we suggested. "Oh, yes, of course—of course; Mrs. William James; of course—of course," Mr. James said. Now, certainly, he supposed ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... set it, now near dead, beside its mates; and he was scarce returned before there came a rush, like that of a furious strong man, against the door, and a whistle as loud as that of a railway engine rang about the house. The sceptical reader may here detect the finger of the tempest; but the women gave up all for lost and clustered on the beds lamenting. Nothing followed, and I must suppose the gale somewhat abated, for presently after a chief came visiting. He ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... different Species of Philosophy II. Of the Origin of Ideas III. Of the Association of Ideas IV. Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding V. Sceptical Solution of these Doubts VI. Of Probability VII. Of the Idea of necessary Connexion VIII. Of Liberty and Necessity IX. Of the Reason of Animals X. Of Miracles XI. Of ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... with an asperity and positiveness that somehow did not hold out to its end. "She did say to me, I confess, how fond she was of dancing, and how she had refrained from saying much about it to you"—Mr. Port here interpolated a sceptical snort—"because she knew that taking her to the Casino would only bore you. And I do think, Port, that keeping her here with us all the time is grossly selfish; and if you don't want to take her to the hop I hope you'll let her go with me. But what we'd better ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... angry and as rich as the Catholics, saw in every Calvinist a murderer and a robber. They thirsted after their blood; for the spirit of religious frenzy; the characteristic of the century, can with difficulty be comprehended in our colder and more sceptical age. There was every probability that a bloody battle was to be fought that day in the streets of Antwerp—a general engagement, in the course of which, whoever might be the victors, the city was sure to be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... singing about the Trojan horse, and jesting about priests. The fact that it was a priest on whom the snakes had fastened seemed to afford especial delight to the sceptical ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... outside and see that they have not the necessity which those who practise them believe. You cannot fail to discover that the beliefs which to you are self-evident to the foreigner are absurd. The year in Germany, the long stay in Paris, had prepared Philip to receive the sceptical teaching which came to him now with such a feeling of relief. He saw that nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were merely adapted to an end. He read The Origin of Species. It seemed to offer an explanation of much that troubled him. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... loves. For twenty years he served her without faltering, sometimes with an artlessness which would appear infantine, if something infinitely sincere and sublime did not arrest the smile upon the most sceptical lips. ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... in wisdom as in folly, in spiritual dreams as in sensual brutality. I could not rest in your Platonism—I will tell you why hereafter. I went on to Stoicism, Epicurism, Cynicism, Scepticism, and in that lowest deep I found a lower depth, when I became sceptical of Scepticism itself.' ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... making its appearance in the literature of the time. The highest speculations which can occupy the attention of man were touched with a recklessness and power, a brilliancy of touch and a bitterness of satire, which forced the sceptical productions of the day upon the notice of all who studied, read, or delighted in literature;—for those were the days of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... no doubt, a leading part in them, she used to suffer much self-reproach about her coldness and inability to be carried away with the same enthusiasm as others. At the same time, nothing was farther from her nature than any sceptical inclination, and she used to pounce with avidity upon any approach to argumentative theology within her reach, carrying Paley's Evidences up to her bedroom, and devouring it as she lay upon ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... 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 were no more likely than those of the earlier, to furnish permanent resting-places ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... 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 ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... could make out of them—was found to be so beneficial that nobody in Australia would like to return to the barrack home or the barrack school. If the inspection had been from the first merely official, public opinion would have been suspicious and sceptical, but when ladies saw the children in these homes, and watched how the dull faces brightened, and the languid limbs became alert after a few weeks of ordinary life—when the cheeks became rosier, and the eyes had new light in them; when they saw that the ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... and, in logical consequence I was bound to admit the conservation of suffering, the eternity of misery. But on that evening many of my audience were untaught in the rudiments of ultimate thought, and some were still sceptical of the bona fides of our purpose, and our power to achieve its object. To them, in their then ineptitude, what I shall say now would have been unintelligible. For in the same way that the waves of light or sound exceeding a certain maximum can not be transferred to the brain by dull eyes and ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... least, to obscure the matter; not that it completely extinguishes the natural light which assures us of these things. The academicians[153] would have won. But this dulls it, and troubles the dogmatists to the glory of the sceptical crowd, which consists in this doubtful ambiguity, and in a certain doubtful dimness from which our doubts cannot take away all the clearness, nor our own natural lights chase away all ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... remained sceptical "about the travelling of plants from the north EXCEPT DURING THE TERTIARY PERIOD." But he added, "such speculations seem to me hardly scientific, seeing how little we know of the old floras." ("Life and Letters", III. page 247.) That in later geological times the south has been the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... no use, truth and knowledge nothing. 2. That I believe he will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in the fire, and being actually in it. But yet if he be resolved to appear so sceptical as to maintain, that what I call being actually in the fire is nothing but a dream; and that we cannot thereby certainly know, that any such thing as fire actually exists without us: I answer, That we certainly ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... any measure guided and controlled by such a woman. Alone, and aided by nothing but a reputation for sanctity, she dared to tell the greatest men in Europe of their faults; she wrote in words of well-assured command, and they, demoralised, worldly, sceptical, or indifferent as they might be, were yet so bound by superstition that they could not treat with scorn the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... see that you do not believe me," she said, "and I think it is very rude of you to be so sceptical. If you have any remarks to make on the subject pray make them ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... when it is adorned with the colours of his wit, and pointed with the acuteness of his logic. His critical dictionary is a vast repository of facts and opinions; and he balances the false religions in his sceptical scales, till the opposite quantities (if I may use the language of algebra) annihilate each other. The wonderful power which he so boldly exercised, of assembling doubts and objections, had tempted him jocosely to assume ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... drawn up with its prow resting snugly on the sandy bottom of the little strait that is locally known as the Northwest River. Mackenzie and a group of swarthy natives gathered on the shore to see us off. All but the high-spirited agent were grave and sceptical, and shook their heads at our persistency in going into a country we had been so ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... of Central Africa, that has made great strides within the last few years, will now be rapidly extended. The fact of an established government under the direction of my able successor, Colonel Gordon, R.E., is sufficient to assure the most sceptical that the future will be rich in ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about being an Irish patriot—he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common—but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... admitted that this could hardly be advanced as a convincing miracle. So the Lord proposed two other tests: the first was that Moses should have his hand smitten with leprous sores and restored immediately by hiding it from sight in "his bosom." And in the event that this test left his audience still sceptical, he was to dip Nile water out of the river, and turn it into blood ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... reason, if for no other, cultivate as often as you can, without entrenching on the nobler pastime of fly-fishing, the art of trolling—for we must confess that there is an art in this as in everything else; and should my reader be sceptical on the point, he has only to try conclusions, when he gets the chance, with some old troller, and he will be ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... guns—elephant-guns, by the way, lent them by their Dutch friends for the occasion. Sandy Black rode with a cool, sober, sedate air, looking interested and attentive, but with that peculiar twinkle of the eyes and slightly sarcastic droop at the corners of the mouth which is often characteristic of the sceptical Scotsman. On the other hand, Jerry Goldboy went along blazing with excitement, while every now and then he uttered a suppressed exclamation, and clapped the blunderbuss to his shoulder when anything moved, or seemed to ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... imagine,' said the Doctor. 'I am too sceptical to be an ethical adviser; and as for good resolutions, I believed in them when I was young. They are the ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application to the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... desire for political preferment and emolument, to satisfy the world that John Quincy Adams had from the beginning, been a pure-hearted patriot, and one of the noblest sons of the American Confederacy. His new career was to furnish a luminous commentary on his past life, and to convince the most sceptical, of the justice of his claim to rank among the highest and best of American patriots. Placed beyond the reach of any gift of office from the nation, with nothing to hope for, and nothing to fear in this respect, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... no blunders while I was a village doctor. I had already grown prudent, and my sceptical temperament was a bar to any ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja |
