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Skeptical   Listen
adjective
Skeptical, Skeptic  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to a sceptic or skepticism; characterized by skepticism; hesitating to admit the certainly of doctrines or principles; doubting of everything.
2.
(Theol.) Doubting or denying the truth of revelation, or the sacred Scriptures. "The skeptical system subverts the whole foundation of morals."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Skeptical" Quotes from Famous Books



... a trifle skeptical as to the wisdom of permitting the stranger to attach himself to him. There was always the chance that he was but the essence of some hypnotic treachery which Tario or Jav was attempting to exert upon the Heliumite; and yet, so sincere had been ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the most skeptical foreigner. But after he has lived for a couple of years in an interior city as I have done, with its antiquated legislation, its superstition and idolatry, its infanticide, its girl suicides, its public corruption and moral degradation, rubbing shoulders continually ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... of the Cenacle, which held its sessions at D'Arthez's home on rue des Quatre-Vents, during the Restoration. He disparaged Leon Giraud's beliefs, went under a Rabelaisian guise, careless, lazy and skeptical, also inclined to be melancholy and happy at the same time; nick-named by his friends the "Regimental Dog." Fulgence Ridal and Joseph Bridau, with other members of the Cenacle, were present at an evening party given by Madame Veuve Bridau, in 1819, to celebrate the ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... period of descent from poetry to prose, from passion and imagination to wit and understanding. The serious, exalted mood of the Civil War and the Commonwealth had spent itself and issued in disillusion. There followed a generation of wits, logical, skeptical, and prosaic, without earnestness, as without principle. The characteristic literature of such a time is criticism, satire, and burlesque, and such, indeed, continued to be the course of English literary history ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... by the time a lad is fifteen years of age." Nor can we admit that his grammar even "taught him the rudiments of his native language," when we have been having proof upon proof, for two hundred and eighty-six pages, that he was already familiar with its rudiments. We are equally skeptical as to whether it really "opened the golden gate of knowledge" for him: we should certainty say that this gate had stood ajar, at least, for years. Indeed, that portion of his history which relates to grammar seems to us by far the most unsatisfactory of all. In his honesty, in his penmanship, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... skeptical, but by no means controversial. He asked his question in an honest desire to know ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... heart while the Bremen steamer was carrying me to New York. Day after day passes and all you see about you is an unbroken waste of water, an unrelieved, a hopeless monotony of water. You know that a change will come, but this knowledge is confined to your brain. Your senses are skeptical ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... on a minute; I'm coming to that," said Miss Daggett firmly. "As I was telling you, this work is a complete library in itself. A careful perusal of the specimen pages will convince the most skeptical. Turning to page four hundred and fifty-six, ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... rights among us moderns that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the role! A poet who is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are very much caviar to the "wholesome" man, so full ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us. 1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. He pronounces it "fine and sombre," but, I lament to add, "skeptical, Judaic, Satanic—in a word, antichristian." That Lord Byron should figure as a member of this diabolical corporation will not surprise men. It will surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many are ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... order. It is a matter of course that in these premises any appreciable illiteracy is an intolerable handicap. So is also any training which discourages habitual self-reliance and initiative, or which acts as a check on skepticism; for the skeptical frame of mind is a necessary part of the intellectual equipment that makes for advance, invention and understanding in ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... "Montfanon, whom I have found at length, has just bought one of the two copies which Ribalta received lately. The old leaguer believes everything, you know, when a Hafner is in the question.... I am more skeptical in the bad as well as in the good. It was only the account given by the trial which produced any impression on ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... Cradlebow, at seasons when the tide came in, would pour forth the utterances of his soul with the most earnest eloquence. At other times, he was morbid and silent, or made skeptical and sneering remarks aside. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... of the University. Dr. Witmer's conclusions, as set forth in a paper in the December (1909) issue of the Psychological Clinic, are of very great interest. He approached Peter's first performance in a skeptical frame of mind. I gladly waive the opportunity to express my own views regarding Peter in order to put upon the stand a more ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... it that the car has not been dogging me by your instructions?" said Theydon. He was inclined to be skeptical, yet the Chief Inspector seemed to have spoken ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... separated by a filmy veil. The girl, naturally frank and unreserved, was intimidated by the restrained and melancholy mien of her companion. Yet she felt constrained to speak lest deception might be charged against her. Stephen, troubled in his own mind over the supposed unfavorable condition of affairs, skeptical of the affections of his erstwhile confidante, felt, too, a like necessity to be open ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... skeptical until now. I had had the usual tolerant attitude of the man who is summoned from his bed to search for burglars, combined with the artificial courage of firearms. With the discovery of my empty gun, I felt like a man on the top of a volcano in lively eruption. Suddenly I found ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... EPICUREANS.—In the Greek world the progress of investigation and reflection tended to produce disbelief in the old mythological system. Social confusion and degeneracy tended to undermine all religious faith. Pyrrho (about 330 B.C.) brought forward the skeptical doctrine, that the highest wisdom is to doubt every thing. Euhemrus (315 B.C.) interpreted the whole mythology as an exaggeration, by imagination and invention, of historical events which form its ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... his eyes from me and fixed them on the floor. After a pause he resumed, in emphatic accents:—"Well, I have lived to this age in unbelief. To credit or trust in miraculous agency was foreign to my nature, but now I am no longer skeptical. Call me to any bar, and exact from me an oath that you have twice been dead and twice recalled to life; that you move about invisibly, and change your place by the force, not of muscles, but of thought, and I will ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... individual, with watery eyes that could read print splendidly if it were held within six inches of them, and who, when he did read, moved book or paper back and forth in front of his spectacles in a droll, owlish, improbable way, instead of letting his eyes travel across the lines of print, was skeptical at first. He suspected Bonbright of being a youth scratching the itch of a sudden and transient enthusiasm. But he became interested. Bonbright compelled his interest, for he was earnest, intense, not enthusiastic, not ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... it developed that Malbihn alone had seen anything clearly. Several of the blacks averred that they too had obtained a good view of the creature but their descriptions of it varied so greatly that Jenssen, who had seen nothing himself, was inclined to be a trifle skeptical. One of the blacks insisted that the thing had been eleven feet tall, with a man's body and the head of an elephant. Another had seen THREE immense Arabs with huge, black beards; but when, after conquering their nervousness, ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... who claimed to be an officer of the Federals, and by him he was thoroughly cross-examined. He had heard of the breaking up of the Confederacy, but not of the capture of Mr. Davis, and was evidently skeptical of our story as to being wreckers, and connected us in some way with the losing party, either as persons of note or a party escaping with treasure. However, O'Toole baffled all his queries, and was proof ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... of the kind seemed menacing them, were amused that distant America, supposedly so scientifically modern, should be yielding to superstition worthy only of the Middle Ages. The accounts from Bermuda were more difficult to explain. And England, with Bermuda involved, was not skeptical; as a matter of fact, the British authorities were astonished. Warships were starting for Bermuda; and that morning of May 16th, with the passenger lines in New York not sailing for Bermuda, American warships were ordered to Hamilton. The menace, whatever it was, ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... tell how he was descending the Ohio with two philosophers who believed so firmly in the natural innocence and goodness of men, that they invited some Indians aboard their boat and were at once tomahawked. Their skeptical companion shot two of the savages and then jumped into the river, where he swam for his life, diving at the flash of their guns, till he got safe to the ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... broke in the skeptical captain, "do you know where such a ship lies? Can you see it ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... in the sermon, now, on the other side of the world, surrendered to Newman's influence. It is uncertain if they had ever spoken to each other at Oxford; yet that subtle pervasive intellect which captured for years the critical and skeptical mind of Mark Pattison, and indirectly transformed the Church of England after Newman himself had left it, now, reaching across the world, laid hold on Arnold's son, when Arnold himself was no longer there to fight it. A general reaction against the negations and ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Englishman applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. "Bli'me if you didn't mike me forget where I was—'ad me thinking I was in 'Yde Park, you did, listening to a bloody horator ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... of Aristotle concerning which we had a discussion one day? Its subject was the hypnotic power possessed by the eyes of certain reptiles. I laughed the idea to scorn; you maintained that it was possible. Well, I agree with you; and I'd like to have about a dozen of our modern skeptical scientists in this cave with me ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... capacity to tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons. He was preeminently a philosopher, of a happy, skeptical turn of mind. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... skeptical. "I reckon he ain't no more gain here than he was over there," he said, and ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... peculiarly skeptical. He and another village functionary, of whom we have spoken before, the grave-digger, are always the daring spirits of the neighborhood. They have talked so much about ghosts, and they know so well all the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... the skeptical Sage put into the mouths of all the corrupt men of the future. Perhaps, as may easily be the case, old Tasio was mistaken, but we ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... type of every other Roman mind to which Christianity has been offered. If you receive it not at once, should others? Suppose the soul to be full of sincere convictions as to the popular faith, can the gospel easily enter there? Suppose it skeptical, as to all spiritual truth; can it enter there? Suppose it polluted by vice can it easily enter there? Suppose it like the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... from bonds. He remarks upon the unaccountable connection between pleasure and pain, and from this the conversation gradually turns to a consideration of the question of the immortality of the soul. He convinces his listeners of the pre-existence of the soul; but they are still skeptical as to its immortality, urging that its pre-existence and the fact that it is more durable than the body does not preclude the possibility of its being mortal. Socrates, however, argues that contraries ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... "You look skeptical," Mr. Goddard continued, gazing at her searchingly; "but let me tell you that you will find it no easy matter to prove the statements you have made—no person of common sense would ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... conversing one evening. One of them with a skeptical mind had just rejected the Bible because it did not tell him the things that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made, and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of heaven ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... the doctor's two friends never lost their temper. The professor was habitually cool, and the lawyer severely skeptical. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... have improved what was good, and gibbeted more effectually what to the times seemed evil. Who would now think of designating a parcel of serious savages "the praying Indians of Natick"? And yet there is a sound and a power about the words that would go far to convert the skeptical aborigines in their own despite. Why, there was something rich and nervous in the talk of the very lawmakers. "The accursed sect of the Quakers,"—what a fine spirit such an accusative case gives to the dry formula of a legal enactment! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... to offer ere we close. Our first is, that, with all his errors, De Quincey has never ceased to believe in Christianity. In an age when most men of letters have gone over to the skeptical side, and too often treat with insolent scorn, as sciolistic and shallow, those who still cling to the gospel, it is refreshing to find one who stands confessedly at the head of them all, in point of talent and learning, so intimately acquainted ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... freed the Songhoi from the rule of Mali. The country thereafter continued for some time in peace. Later it expanded considerably under Sunni Ali, "the true Negro soldier," who ruled from 1464 to 1493. Although skeptical, violent and oppressive he paved the way for the establishment of the largest empire which had ever existed in that part ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... the skeptical group. "I brought her out from town," he said doggedly, "and whilst I own up to having an imagination, she's stranger than fiction. She'd make the fellow that wrote "She" lay down with a headache. She's come out here to help us cowboys ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... With skeptical smile the magistrate looks at that felonious, would-be kidnaper of a juvenile innocent, and asks for ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... effects of an inadequate cause? Inanimate and unintelligent nature would not be an adequate cause. Did these do more than animated intelligence can do? Gentlemen of skeptical proclivities answer. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various

... Then, instead of working or reading, he rolled a comfortable chair up to the fire, put on a fresh log or two, opened a new box of Bock's, and lighting one, settled back in the chair. How many hours he sat and how many cigars he smoked are not recorded, lest the statement should make people skeptical of the narrative. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... and yet, if he got an explanation of the existence of the Welsh language among these "Doegs," or sought to know any thing in regard to their traditional history, he omits entirely to say so. Without meaning to doubt his veracity, one feels skeptical, and desires a more intelligent and complete account ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... Even the skeptical Cobden, who had damned so much in his day, could not question the lad's mastery. It did not occur ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... the preternatural and of popular superstitions as literary material, after a rationalizing and skeptical age, is signalized by ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... to be an institution recognized by the state as a means of punishing immorality, upholding the Catholic religion, persuading the skeptical,—confirming the wavering, and exercising a salutary terror over the ladies of the upper class, at that period renowned for their dissolute morals. The aristocracy of Florence patronized and protected the institution—because its existence ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... an idea which the invalid had never heard expressed before; but still somewhat skeptical, she asked, "Do you feel that way about ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... long after the boy had darted away into the east they argued together concerning the marvelous and incomprehensible vision. Afterward they secretly engrossed the circumstance upon their records, but resolved never to mention it in public, lest their wisdom and veracity should be assailed by the skeptical. ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... and had grown careless and neglectful of their duty. Their interpretation of the glowing prophecies of the exilic and pre-exilic prophets had led them to expect to realize the Messianic kingdom immediately upon their return. They were, therefore, discouraged and grew skeptical (2:17) because of the inequalities of life seen everywhere. This doubt of divine justice had caused them to neglect vital religion and true piety had given place to mere formality. They had not relapsed ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... creditor, and, if he were a man of the court, to the yet worse position of an absentee creditor.[2303] Thus, as to the clergy, it had almost separated the head from the trunk by superposing (through the concordat) a staff of gentleman prelates, rich, ostentatious, unemployed, and skeptical, upon an army of plain, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... predisposed to skepticism by its prevailing acuteness, has never lacked representatives of skeptical philosophy. The transition from the philosophers of doubt whom we have described to the great Bayle was formed by La Mothe le Vayer (died 1672; Five Dialogues, 1671), the tutor of Louis XIV., ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... If you are skeptical, let me beseech you to join the children in a Free Kindergarten, and play with them. You will be convinced, not through your head, perhaps, but through your heart. I remember converting such a grim female once! You know Henry James says, "Some women are unmarried ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... back into the harness again. Then he bade all of his employees a touching farewell, packed his golf clubs, and disappeared in the general direction of Southern California. He was away so long that eventually even the skeptical Mr. Skinner commenced to wonder if, perchance, the age of miracles had not yet passed ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... women were more skeptical than they are, in touching the wrong doings of others," replied the young man. "The world is not so bad as it seems. Now I am sure that if the truth of this affair could really be known, we should find scarcely a single fact in ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... pathetic scene. This was communicated to him by a lady whose name is not given. She had gone to Washington to persuade the President to have hospitals for our soldiers located in the North. He was skeptical of the plan and was slow to approve it. His hesitation was the occasion of much anxiety to her. When he finally granted the petition, she thanked him with great earnestness and said she was sure he would be happy that he had done it. He sat with his ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... undoubtedly conventional; its melodramatic effects are dependent on stage presentment rather than on the printed page. In fact, so much an artisan of the theatre was Mr. Howard that he was always somewhat skeptical of the modern drama in print. When he was persuaded to issue his last piece, "Kate," in book form, he consented to the publisher's masking it as a novel in dialogue, hoping thus, as his prefatory note states, "to carry ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... spirit of grace is actually th'owed me, but I feel prone to say I thinks it's fixin' to rassle wid me. I ain't sayin' I stands convicted, but I aims to be a searcher fur the truth; I aims to stop, look, an' lissen. I ain't sayin'—" He broke off, the floods of his imagery dammed by the skeptical eye which swept him; then made a lame conclusion, "Tha's whut I sez, Ma'am, to ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... children in other lands, are skeptical as to the reality of the stories told in the songs. Thus I remember once hearing our old nurse telling a number of stories and singing a number of songs to the little folk in the nursery. They had accepted one ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... with a, perfection of accent that constrains us to believe that she must have taken at least a few lessons in pronunciation from some of the leading members of WALLACK'S company. Still, her way of walking blindly into the table, and falling over casual chairs, ought to convince the most skeptical person that her English accent is not yet what it should be. And in general, her walk and conversation in this scene demonstrate that even the most carefully simulated somnambulism may not resemble in all respects ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various

... it!" ejaculated Squire Heath, who had watched the melting of his skeptical opinions in ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... The agent was skeptical at first about the wisdom of entrusting such power as this to a subordinate but I put my case to him squarely. I said in brief that I was sure I could pick a gang of fifty men who would do the work of seventy-five. I told him ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... the skeptical Sam asked. "If we stay here very long your mother'll come and send us downstairs. What's ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... light, and asked for the prayers of all good Christians. The audience felt that human hearts are the same the world over, and that the Holy Ghost had been given unto them, "even as unto us." The address of Low Quong would convince the most skeptical of the power of the gospel to purify the heart, illumine the mind and elevate the life and character of the Chinamen as well as others. He spoke in good English, and by his clear putting of the gospel truth, touched the hearts of all. The service made many converts. It convinced ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various

... skeptical. "I wish I could believe it. I feel as if I were playing with a rattlesnake. He's treacherous! I think we'd better ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... the Bolsheviks, astonishingly credulous of "secret" news from Moscow, and skeptical of every one's opinion but their own, were bolsheviking Marxian Utopia beneath a screen of such arrogant innocence that even the streetcorner police constables suspected them. And Mustapha Kemal, in Anatolia, was rumoured to be preparing a holy war. It was known as a Ghazi in those days. ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... York public officials are strangely skeptical of the possibilities of reform. Last year the courts of New York City sent three thousand delinquent women to the workhouse on Blackwell's Island,—a place notorious for the low state of its morale. They sent ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... unreserved. Is the stick that he bestrides perfectly identified with a horse? Was Sully's child, that showed its doll a series of engravings to choose from, completely deceived? It seems that we must rather admit an intermittence, an alteration between affirmation and negation. On the one hand, the skeptical attitude of those who laugh at it displeases the child, who is like a devout believer whose faith is being broken down. On the other hand, doubt must indeed arise in him from time to time, for without this, rectification could never occur—one belief opposes the other or drives ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... follows collapse, in cases in which alcohol has been given, this result is always due to the alcohol. I have seen so many cases of severe collapse recover without alcohol that I cannot but be skeptical as to its necessity, and even as to its value. I was much struck many years ago by a case of post partum hemorrhage which was so severe that convulsions set in. I should then have given brandy if there had been any to give, but there was none in ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... would be the rationale for the Defense Department's fight against discrimination in the local community. The Gesell Committee was used by Adam Yarmolinsky and others to demonstrate to Secretary McNamara if not to the satisfaction of skeptical military traditionalists and congressional critics that the need to solve a severe morale problem justified the department's intrusion. Appeals to military efficiency, therefore, became the ultimate justification for integrating the units of the armed forces and providing ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... punning clown rather than a cunning sage. Marcolf, who is Solomon's brother in a German version, has no trust in a woman even when dead. So, in another version, Marcolf is at once supernaturally cunning, and extremely skeptical as to the morality and constancy of woman. But it is unnecessary to enter into the problem more closely. Suffice it to have established that in Zabara's "Book of Delight" we have a hitherto unsuspected adaptation of the ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... introspection and self-scrutiny, but have never had any hallucinations, mental delusions, nor hysterics, and am not at all superstitious. Spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic dabblings, and the other psychical fads of the day have little or no attraction for me. In fact, I have always been skeptical of them, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... writes a letter—one to a professor, one to a king—which reveals both his own nature and the steady advance of the kingdom of God. The contrast between the scientist and the man of letters is not favorable to the latter. Karshish is an ideal scientist, with a naturally skeptical mind, yet wide open, willing to learn from any and every source, thankful for every new fact; Cleon is an intellectual snob. His mind is closed by its own culture, and he regards it as absurd that any man in humble circumstances can teach him anything. Learning, which has made the scientist ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... their tormentor in a new light, Pierre and his father could say nothing. Wondering, but not believing, they exchanged stolen glances. It is probable that the abbe, in his present mood, was sincere; for in a fanatic one must allow for the wildest inconsistencies. The old sergeant, more skeptical than the Acadians, was, at the same time more polite. ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... earnestly, "I know you're skeptical. You don't think the crystals do what I say they do. Even though you see it with your own eyes you doubt that it is happening. I will do anything possible to test this device to your satisfaction. Name the test that will dispel your doubts and ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... previously ignored, pierced him like a sword. If it were true; if Amy herself, poor pretty Amy, had indeed been there, were indeed near him now, hammering and crying out like a child shut out at night, against his own skeptical heart ... if it were indeed true that during those two hours she had had her heart's desire, and had been one with his very soul, in a manner to which no earthly union could aspire ... how had he treated her? Even at this thought a shudder of repulsion ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... long before any other game mentioned in China or Egypt is even the first of chess; but we may say this much, that, notwithstanding, the doubts expressed by Crawford in his history and Rajah Brooke in his journal, and the negative opposition of Dr. Van der Linde, we cannot bring ourselves to be skeptical enough to discredit the trustworthiness of the accounts furnished to us in the works of Dr. Hyde, Sir. William Jones and Professor Duncan Forbes of the existence of the game called the Chaturanga ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... say that up to the time of my witnessing what I have narrated I was skeptical on the subject of our power over evil spirits. I had heard of such manifestations, but had never seen them with my own eyes. My experience here impressed me with the fact that we could attain such power, and showed me the stern necessity of living near to God; for man, in and of himself, is ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. Jasper was very generous. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... repeated, "and I mean it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an interest—but one—and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... we conclude in the same manner of great and little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine that their senses present to different men different images of things this skeptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that skeptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... whatever comes. And being an unemotional and very tolerable sailor, he was able to be as cynical at sea as on land, and as much of an oracle, in his wholly unobtrusive way. The perfect personal poise of Mavick, which gave him an air of patronizing the ocean, and his lightly held skeptical view of life, made his company as full of flavor on ship as it was on shore. He didn't know anything more about the weather than the Weather Bureau knows, yet the helmsman of the yacht used to consult him about the appearances ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... however, many continued to look askance at poetry, and were skeptical as to its value. To Boethius, weeping in prison, came Philosophy to console him. She found him surrounded by the friends of his youth, the Muses, who now were inspiring him to write dreary verses of complaint. But ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... thought otherwise, being of a skeptical turn on very many points, but his doubts did not break forth in active denial, and he was rather disaffected than rebellious, At one period, this gentleman had taken a part in active life at home, and possibly might have been eager to share its rewards; but in latter ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... he believes it or not. Just so the skillful operator in Cosmic Therapeutics can generate, control and direct the power of the Cosmic consciousness which he understands, and it brings its results whether the skeptical mind of ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... shrug of my shoulders, a polite air of incredulity; but, to tell the truth, I was a little less skeptical than I appeared. There was something in her manner that by no means suggested pretense. And she had said a true word about the occurrences on the Re d'Italia. If appearances meant facts, I myself had been proved ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... way. My best talker was an old Scandinavian sea-captain, who was having a new bark built at Port Blakely,—an interesting old salt, every sentence of his conversation flavored with sea-brine, bluff and hearty as a sea-wave, keen-eyed, courageous, self-reliant, and so stubbornly skeptical he refused ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... I have been to Caprera, and I have come over to see her and you. Italy is ready for the move, and is only waiting for the great man. He will not act without the Savoyard; he believes in him. I will not be skeptical. There are difficulties enough without imagining any. We have no money, and all our sources of supply are drained; but we have the inspiration of a sacred cause, we have you—we may gain others—and, at any rate, the French are no longer ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression—the copyrighted expression of the editor beleagured ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... Mr. Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... fourteen points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... his daughter-in-law, and passing in review before her the distinguished personages of the room, described them with that skeptical wit, that courteous irony, of which the nobles of other days were so completely the masters. He spoke like the Duke d'Ayer of old, that caustic wit, of whom a lady of the court said that she was amazed that his tongue was not torn out twenty times a day, so full of pointed needles was ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... could have a badger, we could almost hear them say to each other in dog language, a strong, morose, savage badger! Alas! we are wasting our days in idleness, our talents rust from disuse! Finally, Uncle Jim remained the only frankly skeptical member. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... well-educated physicians, upon medical professors, my learned colleagues, upon eminent lawyers or divines, upon strong-minded farmers or hunters, entirely unacquainted with such subjects, and incapable of psychological delusion, or upon persons of very skeptical minds who would not admit anything until the phenomena were made very ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various

... every way better than those employed on the former occasion. Stores were laid in, as experience dictated, on a larger scale than before, and proclamation was made of "an expedition to Peru." But the call was not readily answered by the skeptical citizens of Panama. Of nearly two hundred men who had embarked on the former cruise, not more than three fourths now remained.11 This dismal mortality, and the emaciated, poverty-stricken aspect of the survivors, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... their captives; they were dragon-flies. As the insects one by one crawled out at the narrow opening, the boys decapitated them and laid them in a row on the grass. They had caught nine, and nine times thirty-five—well, it would be more than three krones. The stupendous amount made Pelle skeptical. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... progressive science. A very common knowledge of history, a very little observation of life, will suffice to prove that no learning, no sagacity, affords a security against the greatest errors on subjects relating to the invisible world. Bayle and Chillingworth, two of the most skeptical of mankind, turned Catholics from sincere conviction. Johnson, incredulous on all other points, was a ready believer in miracles and apparitions. He would not believe in Ossian; but he was willing to believe in the second sight. He would not believe in the earthquake of Lisbon; but ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... every one by himself and for himself, had been adopted by the sovereign as the maxim of state; and that maxim, alike hideous and fatal, had become the ruling principle of government. It was the device of Louis Philippe—a prince gifted with moderation, knowledge, tolerance, humanity, but skeptical, destitute of either nobility of heart or elevation of mind—the most experienced corrupter of the human race ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... did build one, with his own hands—a boat fourteen feet long and constructed of rough pine timbers painted with coal-tar—in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. With this boat Lake demonstrated to a skeptical world for all time that he was neither a visionary nor a dreamer, but a ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton

... who were enamored by the Misses Bimpa were skeptical of this, and affirmed that it was a "humbug," but this question will be settled in the evening. Meanwhile, the commotion around the circus is increasing each moment. From among the long, low wooden buildings surrounding the canvas circus there ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... you thought I was before you snatched me from the burning—I mean from Bender. Let me see if I can quote you correctly: 'One of the many young city girls who go wrong because they have no chance; bred in slums, ill-treated, ill-fed.' Poor Bobbie had no chance until—you'll be skeptical when I tell you how she first received her moral uplift—she had some nice clothes. Stealing was her only vice! At that, she only took enough to meet her needs; but one day she found some money; quite a lot, it seemed to her. Down in her little fluttering fancy she had always had longings ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... in the whole world. A statement from you will carry more weight with the girls than anything I could possibly tell them. It will convince the doubters, you know. There are sure to be some who will insist on being skeptical." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... Civil Cabinet), who was somewhat skeptical at first regarding the need of such a fund, is now glowing with enthusiasm about it, and he tells me the whole Commission, which is composed of carefully chosen men, is earnestly devoted to the work of making the very best and wisest ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... the child asks, "Why does the moon get smaller?" and the mother answers, "Because, dear, God cuts a piece off every day to make the stars with." The authorities, recognizing that their power lay in unquestioning belief, have always sanctified it and made the pious, non-skeptical type the ideal and punished the non-believer with death or ostracism. Fortunately for the race, the skeptic, if silenced, modifies the strength of the belief he attacks and in the course of time even ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... this was the same ball that had carried away the testicle of his young friend, that had penetrated the ovary of the young lady, and, with some spermatozoa upon it, had impregnated her. With this conviction he approached the young man and told him the circumstances; the soldier appeared skeptical at first, but consented to visit the young mother; a friendship ensued which soon ripened into a happy marriage, and the pair had three children, none resembling, in the same degree as the first, the heroic ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... would say—"When young Digby and I were boys together," and then add with a sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interest secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part of the British dominions." Mrs Pompley was always rather cowed by the Digbies. She could not be skeptical as to this connection, for the Colonel's mother was certainly a Digby, and the Colonel impaled the Digby arms. En revanche, as the French say, for these marital connections, Mrs. Pompley had her own favorite affinity, which she ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... there is no utterance more hopelessly skeptical. And for what were the youth of Oxford led into such bottomless depths of disbelief as to any real existence of truth or any real foundation for it? Simply to save an outworn system of interpretation into which the gifted preacher happened to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... been schooled to be skeptical concerning any act masking as purely philanthropic. But the huge man ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... of my life. At the conclusion of my speech the great audience rose and, still standing, cheered for many minutes. I was immensely surprised and deeply touched by the unexpected tribute; but any undue elation I might have experienced was checked by the memory of the skeptical snort with which one of my auditors had received me. He was very German, and very, very frank. After one pained look at me he rose to leave ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... naturally cynical, but her downtown experience had left her very skeptical about her ability to judge men from such details. Blake, for instance, could smile as innocently as a child and meet any woman's eyes without flinching. But there was this difference between Blake and Pendleton: the latter was new to New York. He ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... if they showed themselves skeptical about our future, they proved most sympathetic over our past. Our description of the Friday footprints especially brought out much fellow-feeling. They knew the spot well, they said, and it was very bad. In fact it was called the Oni ga Jo, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastick or superstitious: he appears neither weakly credulous, nor wantonly skeptical; 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 ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... in a kind of abstraction. He began to recite slowly in a clear voice, full of a peculiar sympathy that gave color to every word. He seemed as though he felt that the experience of the poet was somehow a prophecy of his own life; and it was. He himself became a skeptical man in religious thought, but returned to the simple faith of his ancestors amid ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... is to provide a relationship of firmness and tolerance within which a child may become autonomous and acquire a sense of self-control, self-esteem, and relationship with others. Otherwise he may suffer loss of confidence in himself and become skeptical of others, a result which can be the fruit of either restrictive discipline or ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe

... unwonted bulk of her correspondence diverted her mind from its immediate duty. She failed to catch the instructor's eye, and the recitation proceeded without her assistance. Priscilla watched her from the back seat as she read the Yale letter with a skeptical frown, and made a grimace over the blue and the yellow; but before she had reached the Hotel A——, Priscilla was paying attention to the recitation again. It was coming her way, and she was anxiously ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster

... Pope, from which the grand old Apostolic son of an infallible dogma looked knowingly down, as though with the contents of that cupboard he could get-up such a schema as would be palatable to the most skeptical Bishop in all the Oecumenical Council, and of which be might justly say: Whosoever dare think that he ever tasted a better schema, or ever dreamed in his deepest consciousness that a better could ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... spirit—comprehension, generosity. Living up to the demand of the moment was George's forte. Indeed, there were those among his friends who felt that there were moments when George lived up to things too brightly and too beautifully. His Uncle Jaffry, for instance, had his openly skeptical moments. But George even lived up to his uncle's skepticism. He accepted his remarks with charming good humor. It was his pride that ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... in 'em any more," he went on. "But let me tell you this—I've got one idea right now that would make me five hundred dollars just as easy as that—" He snapped his fingers at her as he continued: "Do you hear? As easy as that!" His wife, still skeptical, seemed to pay no heed, so petulantly he inquired: "Why don't ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... one spot was a barren wilderness, and she never could desire to leave her dear Miss Emma, nor could find happiness away from her—it seemed a very pleasant thing to think that her devotion might be a voluntary affair, and she stayed because she chose. Still she was skeptical. The abstract question puzzled her a little, too. How came Mas'r Henry to be free? Because he was white; that explained itself. But Miss Emma—she was white, too, and yet somehow she seemed to belong to Mas'r Henry. She wondered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... itself implies that you are skeptical. While that state of mind exists, I can do nothing—it ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... far as it goes; and he always took a strong intellectual interest in the problems of medieval theology; but he became steadily and quietly independent in his philosophic outlook and indeed rather skeptical of all ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... the roll with a smile. He opened it hastily, in a most skeptical humor. Walter Tyrrel leant over him, and tried just at first to put in a word or two of explanation, such as Le Neve had made to himself; but an occasionally testy "Yes, yes; I see," was all the thanks he got for his pains and trouble. After ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... course he knew the common stories—about fascination. He had once been himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of our common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, "cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field,"—a relation which some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so instinctive that this animal ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... organic world, inferred, by induction, the existence of God from what has seemed to them the wonderful adaptation of the different organs and parts of the animal body to its, apparently, designed ends! Imagine a mind of this skeptical character, in all honesty and under its best reason, after finding itself obliged to reject the evidence of revelation, to commence a search after the Creator, in the light of natural theology. He goes through the proof for final cause and design, as ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... beside Billie sat Nicholas, and Reginald was in the back with Elinor. Every laddie had a lassie that morning, and Billie, who was a bit skeptical over Nancy's headache, wondered vaguely if this could have been the reason for her staying at home. But she put the thought away from her at once as being unworthy. Billie sighed and gave herself an impatient little shake. Her ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes

... obstructions by this pioneer to the youthful mind, and planted, at every turn, with friendly guide-boards to direct them in the right road. The slightest perusal of the work alluded to, will convince even the most skeptical of the truth of these remarks, and satisfy every one who is not wedded by prejudice to old rules and forms, that it will meet ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... will bring you a letter which I have recently received, and when I have read it to you, you will understand why I have been so skeptical regarding what you have told me, and why I have questioned ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... the middling that come nearest to them. You know that the seduction of that part of mankind from the principles of religion, morality, subordination, and social order is the great object of the Jacobins. Let them grow lax, skeptical, careless, and indifferent with regard to religion, and, so sure as we have an existence, it is not a zealous Anglican or Scottish Church principle, but direct Jacobinism, which will enter into that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... its birds and beasts, a stranger would naturally expect to come upon them at every turn, instead of which it is a well-known fact that one hundred miles of the wildest country may be traversed without seeing a single head of game, and the uninitiated might become skeptical as to its existence. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... skeptical at first, it all seemed so silly, such a whimsey for a rich man to fancy—taking such big risks just for the thrill he got—but the more I picked up about the man the less inclined I became to doubt, and by now I'm convinced it ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... somatist[obs3], theophobist[obs3]. V. be irreligious &c. adj.; disbelieve, lack faith; doubt, question &c. 485. dechristianize[obs3]. Adj. irreligious; indevout[obs3]; undevout[obs3]; devoutless[obs3], godless, graceless; ungodly, unholy, unsanctified[obs3], unhallowed; atheistic, without God. skeptical, freethinking; unbelieving, unconverted; incredulous, faithless, lacking faith; deistical; unchristian, antichristian[obs3]. worldly, mundane, earthly, carnal; worldly &c. minded. Adv. irreligiously ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... candidacy was regarded as an established fact. On the 20th of July, the Legislature of the State placed him formally in nomination. Meanwhile Lewis had gone to North Carolina to work up sentiment there, and by the close of the year assurances of support were coming in satisfactorily. From being skeptical or at best indifferent, Jackson himself had come to share the enthusiasm of ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... exciting, but it was only when Russia sent that one word "Mobilize" to Serbia that we suspected serious results. Even the summer visitors from the States exhibited signs of excitement, yet they were skeptical of the chances of war; that is, war that would really affect us! My newspaper in Montreal wired for me to come down to do war cartoons and I left my father and ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene

... Rutherford! No, no... we must go back of all that! It is in the hearts of the people that we must erect our defenses. It is the spirit of this godless and skeptical age that is undermining order. We must teach the people the truths of religion. We must inculcate lessons of sobriety and thrift, of reverence for constituted authority. We must set our faces against these new preachers of license and infidelity... we must go back to the old-time faith... ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair

... stockings, lace, etc.; but to our great pleasure each page corresponding closely, save in orthography and syntax, with a page of the new manuscript, and the page numbers of the old running higher than those of the new! Here was evidence which one could lay before a skeptical world that the transcriber had not expanded the work of the original memoirist. The manuscript passed into my possession, our Creole lady-correspondent reiterating to the end her inability to divine what could be wanted with "an almost illegible scrawl" ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... had a previous understanding with Malcolm Murchison by which he was to drive us round by the long road that day, nor do I know exactly what motive influenced the old man's exertions in the matter. He was fond of Mabel, but I was old enough, and knew Julius well enough, to be skeptical of his motives. It is certain that a most excellent understanding existed between him and Murchison after the reconciliation, and that when the young people set up housekeeping over at the old Murchison place, Julius had an opportunity ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... up whole philosophies on the basis of things you never saw, and you scoff at people who believe in other things that you think they never saw and that don't come under what you label scientific. You talk about paradoxes—why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... inclined to welcome him as a fellow wanderer. Whicher declared that he had murdered his wife and children in the East and he was seeking a refuge from the officers of the law. But Jesse's comrades were skeptical, and when they found on Whicher a pistol bearing Pinkerton's mark, they started with him for Kansas City intending to leave him dead in the street there. Shortly after they crossed to the Independence side of the river, the sound of a wagon on the frozen ground impelled them to finish the job where ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... contributor to The Saturday Evening Post, takes time to deepen his observation and to say it with real words instead of worn symbols, he makes, and does make, literature. More are doing it than the skeptical realize. The new epoch of the American essay is well ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... skeptical, he returned to the excavation and scooped out yet another collection. This time there could be no mistake. Nature's own alchemy had fashioned a veritable ingot. There were small lumps in the ore which would need alloy at the mint before they ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... absolutely certain; for the three names occurred only on fragments of vases, and absolutely nothing was known of how these fragments were found. The proof that they belonged to the other objects was wanting. A very skeptical investigator might still have said that the other objects were older, that the potsherds had only fallen accidentally into ruined tombs of an older period; or he might have said quite the contrary, that the potsherds ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... Susan was skeptical of this, even fearful. She had not forgotten Keith's frenzied avoidance of such callers in the old days. But to her surprise now Keith welcomed Mazie joyously—so joyously that Susan began to suspect that behind the joyousness lay an eagerness to welcome anything ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter



Words linked to "Skeptical" :   questioning, disbelieving, incredulous, skeptic, unbelieving, sceptical, distrustful, doubting, skepticism



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