"Credible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which she hoped to bribe her jailors, she was finally beheaded. Thus did a vulgar and infamous Messalina, distinguished only by rare beauty, furnish Luini with a S. Catherine for this masterpiece of pious art! The thing seems scarcely credible. Yet Bandello lived in Milan while the Church of S. Maurizio was being painted; nor does he show the slightest sign of disgust at the discord between the Contessa's life and her artistic presentation in the person ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Garfield remained at Hiram, teaching and working very hard. His salary, though a good one for the time and place, was still humble according to our English notions; but it sufficed for his needs; and as yet it would have seemed hardly credible that in only twenty years the Ohio schoolmaster would rise to be President of the United States. Indeed, it is only in America, that country of peculiarly unencumbered political action, where every kind of talent ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... startling and extraordinary, become credible when we remember the circumstances by which woman is surrounded in pioneer life, and how those circumstances tend to strengthen the nerves and increase the hardihood of the softer sex. Hunting is there one of the necessary avocations, in which women ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... name "black death" was given to the disease in the more northern parts of Europe—from the dark spots on the skin above mentioned—while in Italy it was called la mortalega grande ("the great mortality"). From Italy came almost the only credible accounts of the manner of living, and of the ruin caused among the people in their more private life, during the pestilence; and the subjoined account of what was seen in Florence is of special interest as being from no less an ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... those already recited, but so atrocious and devoid of motive, that it was a matter of grave doubt whether the facts should be given. It seemed too deplorable that such an occurrence could be recorded as the act of human beings; furthermore, would it be credible? It has been intimated that the present endeavor is to give a complete history of events as they occurred: no material item suppressed, nothing imaginary included; therefore the ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... It seemed credible enough, and my informant was positive; he saw you together at a picnic in Switzerland. It was looked upon as a settled thing ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... into the new assembly for the suppression of blasphemy and profaneness; by which bill, whoever should be convicted of having spoken or written any thing against the Trinity, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testament, by the oath of two or more credible witnesses, were to be made incapable, and disabled in law to all intents and purposes, of being members of assembly, or of holding any office of profit, civil or military, within the province: and whoever should be convicted of such crimes a second time, were also to ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... and credible that conservative, slumbering, and "mysterious" China is actually having a revolution, that beautiful and terrible thing, that angel in the garb of a monster? If it is, what is the cause of the revolution? What will ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... whole the belief, which has long been held by many skilful cultivators, that good follows from exchanging seed, tubers, &c., seems to be fairly well founded. Considering the small size of most seeds, it seems hardly credible that the advantage thus derived can be due to the seeds obtaining in one soil some chemical element deficient in the other soil. As plants after once germinating naturally become fixed to the same spot, it might ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... reading the correspondence which is digested in these pages, as hardly credible that Doctor Sturk should have continued to live for so long a space in a state of coma. Upon this point, therefore, I took occasion to ask the most eminent surgeon of my acquaintance, who at once quieted my doubts by detailing a very remarkable ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... only instance of unfairness in the conduct of the prosecution. The Treasury put a youth called Atkins in the box, thus declaring him to be at least a credible witness; but Atkins was proved by Sir Edward Clarke to have perjured himself in the court in the most barefaced way. In fact the Treasury witnesses against Wilde were all blackmailers and people of the lowest character, with two exceptions. The exceptions were a boy named ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... their weakness or their simplicity. They found what they sought in Judas of Kerioth. This wretch, actuated by motives impossible to explain, betrayed his Master, gave all the necessary information, and even undertook himself (although such an excess of vileness is scarcely credible) to guide the troop which was to effect his arrest. The remembrance of horror which the folly or the wickedness of this man has left in the Christian tradition has doubtless given rise to some exaggeration ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... miracles because they esteem, them incredible: how, then, do they believe in existence—in the being of anything? Is it credible—to human reason, I mean—that anything should be without a cause? Nothing, so far as we can judge, ever comes to be without an efficient cause—something that goes before, with power to bring that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Amadises, Lisvarts and Felixmartes of late mediaeval romance, that the behaviour of Don Quixote in the Sierra Morena, ever had any serious models in reality? Nay, more difficult still to believe—because the whole madness of individuals is more credible than the half-madness of the whole world—is it possible to believe that, as the poems of innumerable trouveres and troubadours, minnesingers and Italian poets, as the legion of mediaeval romances of the cycles of Charlemagne, Arthur, and Amadis would ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... One, but scarce credible, quality of this Oyl, he affirms to be, that though it be boiling, yet one may run ones hand into it without scalding; to which he adds, that it hath a very healing {13} Vertue for cuttings, lameness, &c., the part affected being anointed therewith. One thing more he related, not to be omitted, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... suspicion, if not doubt. But, as I have before observed, the account would, in all probability, not be rejected by a naturalist, although it might be by people without much knowledge of the animal kingdom, who would not be able to judge by comparison whether the existence of such an animal was credible. Even fabulous animals have had their origin from existing ones. The unicorn is, no doubt, the gemsbok antelope; for when you look at the animal at a distance, its two horns appear as if they were only one, and the Bushmen have so portrayed the animal in their caves. The dragon also is not exactly ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... which has fallen from the distinguished Senator has convicted Mrs. Clara Leonard of inconsistency or has added anything to the argument upon his side of the question. I have never said or intimated that there were women who were not credible witnesses. I have never thought or intimated that there were not women who were competent to administer the affairs of State or even to lead armies. There have been such women, and I believe there will be to the end of time, as there have been ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... But I happen to know it is perfectly correct. I received the information on the highest—the very highest and most credible authority." ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... respects so faithful a transcript of "the truth as it is in Nature" came as a surprise and to me at least as a rebuke. How, under the rigid necessity of incorporating in its system much that seemed nearly unintelligible, and much that was barely credible, Theology has succeeded so perfectly in adhering through good report and ill to what in the main are truly the lines of Nature, awakens a new admiration for those who constructed and kept this faith. But however nobly it has held its ground, Theology must feel to-day ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... Confining ourselves to credible history, it appears that in the year 986 (eighty years before the conquest of England by William of Normandy), an Icelandic mariner named Bjarne Herrjulson, making for Greenland in his rude bark, was swept ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... twelve years of age, left without a guide, without means of support, without any one to advise me, and without money, more than a hundred leagues from my home, and already accustomed to the comforts of a luxurious life. It is hardly credible that in this state of affairs I was regarded almost as a suspect, and was required each day to present myself before the city authorities for the greater safety of the Republic. I remember well that whenever the Emperor was pleased ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... teeth that he understood. But he did not seem interested. What he expected of me was to extricate him from a difficult situation. I don't know how far credible this may sound, to less solemn married couples, but to remain at variance with his wife seemed to him a considerable ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... might seem not very credible if I did not give the passage literally, and I therefore quote it from the careful translation of Taine's History of English Literature by Mr. Van Laun, one of the masters of the Edinburgh Academy, where I will ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the ashes of that wood, and boyle it with the patient's urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyled ashes upon a board in a ranke, and upon every heap lay nine spears of crocus: it hath greater effects than is credible to any one that shall barely read ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... different from that of genius, since it bears the stamp of serving the will; while that of the latter is free from it. Therefore the anecdote which Squarzafichi relates in his life of Petrarch, and has taken from Joseph Brivius, a contemporary, is quite credible—namely, that when Petrarch was at the court of Visconti, and among many men and titled people, Galeazzo Visconti asked his son, who was still a boy in years and was afterwards the first Duke of Milan, to pick out the wisest man of those present. The ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... her womanly nature, can she give a careful eye to the disposal of those important questions which touch the very core of her heart? Why, when reduced to these, its naked dimensions, the injustice seems so horrible, as not to be credible, and did we not know the facts, we would find it hard to believe that man, made in the image of his Maker, could violate justice so barbarously. Surely woman lies under no moral obligation to any laws which, wanting her assent, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... high and mighty talk, which would have been indecent in one of Mr. Darwin's equals, proceeds from a writer whose want of intelligence, or of conscience, or of both, is so great, that, by way of an objection to Mr. Darwin's views, he can ask, "Is it credible that all favourable varieties of turnips are tending to become men;" who is so ignorant of paleontology, that he can talk of the "flowers and fruits" of the plants of the carboniferous epoch; of comparative anatomy, that he can gravely ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... way with women. His system was, as I understood it, to take them by the neck and bring them along with him. That was his fierce, primordial way of "wooing" them. And they liked it. So at least we are informed by a thousand credible authorities. They liked it. And the modern woman, so we are told, would still like it if only one dared to try it on. There's the trouble; if ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... employment, as the lowest clerk in his office. Both the master and the men looked a little suspiciously on me, at first. My account of myself was always the same—simple and credible; I had entered the counting-house with the best possible recommendation, and I acted up to it. These circumstances in my favour, joined to a manner that never varied, and to a steadiness at my work that never relaxed, soon produced their effect—all curiosity about ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... much must be admitted in extenuation of her conduct, reprehensible as it appeared, that every rumour relative to the death of her royal consort immediately reached her, and that two of these especially appeared more credible than the guilt of a noble, who could, apparently, reap no benefit from the commission of so foul and dangerous a crime. In the first place, the Spanish Cabinet had been long labouring to undermine the power of France, in which they had failed through the energy and wisdom of the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... imposed upon any one in this country, and which the men who made the Constitution, with their recent reminiscences of the Revolution, the battles of which they had fought with halters around their necks, would have been the last to prescribe. Could any assertion be less credible than that they proceeded to institute another supreme government which it ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... attached to Funda, and other cities situated at or near the junction. It would have been deeply interesting, and have given a new importance to the river communications of Africa, could we have believed, what was positively asserted by very credible witnesses, that vessels by its channel sailed to and from the lake Tchad, and thus held intercourse with the kingdoms of Loggun and Bornou. It seems certain that the names Tshadda, Shary, and Tchad, are one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Credible persons have described her to me as being, and supplemented mine own memory—in the extremest sunset of her life, when the very fray and pillings of her garment were come to, and no more stuff remained wherewith to piece it,—a person of Signal Beauty. She was of commanding stature, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a talisman of mickle might. I was not disappointed. I assure you, Emily, by that memory which is dearest to both of us, that what I went through this afternoon transcends the limits of what I had before deemed credible. In brief, what I saw, seated in my bedroom, in the broad daylight of summer, and looking into the crystal depth of that small round tablet, was this. First, a prospect, strange to me, of an enclosure of rough and hillocky grass, with a grey stone ruin in the midst, ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... all his poem. These are not the most poetical parts of "The Seasons," certainly, where such effusions prevail; but still, so far from being either vicious or worthless, they have often a virtue and a worth that must be felt by all the children of men. There is something not very credible in the situation of the parties in the story of the "lovely young Lavinia," for example, and much of the sentiment is commonplace enough; but will Mr Wordsworth say—in support of his theory, that the worst poetry is always ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... walking genius, this credible incredible, and visible invisible pedestrian dealer in portable eatables, has almost ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... however, the legend of their genesis gives no hint of an origin in other than their historical habitat. The history and the legendary lore of the Indian are passed down from generation to generation, so that it would seem hardly credible that all trace of this migration from a distant region should have become lost within a period of somewhat ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... families exiled from the suburbs, or in supplement to the hospitals. The amount of relief they afforded unostentatiously, out of means that shared the general failure of accustomed resource, when the famine commenced, would be scarcely credible if stated. Admirable, too, were the fortitude and resignation of the genuine Parisian bourgeoisie,—the thrifty tradesfolk and small rentiers,—that class in which, to judge of its timidity when opposed to a mob, courage ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was plausible surely. Moreover, he was prepared to accept her story; thus far it seemed straightforward and extremely credible. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... with barrows, removing the sand and gravel as soon as these had been sifted and sorted. But for those such as ourselves, whose claims lay more or less in the centre of the mine, the problem was a very different one. It sounds hardly credible, but after consultation we came to the conclusion that it would never pay to clear the ground by removing the rubbish, so we solved the problem by filling in the "paddock" we had sunk with the ground excavated therefrom, and opening another alongside. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... credible, yet it is strictly true, for from a child up to the present time I have always succeeded, spite of interruptions of every kind, in devoting myself to the occupation in which I was engaged. Loud noises in an adjoining room, or even tolerably severe physical pain, will not prevent my working ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more credible than creditable, the Lalugwumps, as they call themselves, deny the immortality of the soul. In all my stay in their country I found only one person who believed in a life "beyond the grave," as we should say, though as the Lalugwumps are cannibals they would ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... lying open in the muck of the roadway, wet and discoloured. Till that moment I had not come to the point of believing the place. The town was not humane. It was not credible. It might have been, for all I could tell, a simulacrum of the work of men. Perhaps it was the patient and particular mimicry of us by an unknown power, a power which was alarmingly interested in our doings; and in a frenzy over its ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... words of the Virgin are rendered more credible by which she asserted her virginity. Thus Ambrose says: "Belief in Mary's words is strengthened, the motive for a lie is removed. If she had not been espoused when pregnant, she would seem to have wished ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... seemingly peevish opposition which he gave to almost all Argyle's plans, a suspicion has arisen that he had been treacherous throughout. But the account given of his pardon by Burnet, who says his father, Lord Dundonald, who was an opulent nobleman, purchased it with a considerable sum of money, is more credible, as well as more candid; and it must be remembered that in Sir John's disputes with his general, he was almost always acting in conjunction with Sir Patrick Hume, who is proved, by the subsequent events, and indeed by the whole tenor of his life and conduct, to ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... likewise, the Virginians were naturally disposed to attribute to white men some share in it; and speculation presently began to run wild. The newspapers were soon full of theories, no two being alike, and no one credible. The plot originated, some said, in certain handbills written by Jefferson's friend Callender, then in prison at Richmond on a charge of sedition; these were circulated by two French negroes, aided by a "United Irishman" calling himself a Methodist preacher, and it was in ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... would be nearly intolerable, it must go on. He looked at the impassive cow-puncher getting ready to go and tying a rope on Pedro's neck to lead him, then he looked at the mountains where the runaways had vanished, and it did not seem credible to him that he had come into such straits. He was helped stiffly on the mare, and the three horses in single file took up their journey once more, and came slowly among the mountains The perpetual desert was ended, and they crossed a small brook, where ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... impowered and required upon oath, to try all manner of crimes and offences, that shall be committed by any slave or slaves, at the court house of the county, and to take for evidence, the confession of the offender, the oath of one or more credible witnesses, or such testimony of negroes, mulattoes or Indians, bond or free, with pregnant circumstances, as to them shall seem convincing, without the solemnity of a jury; and the offender being then found guilty, to pass such judgment upon such offender, according ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... we may devise a flying chariot. If we are to use wings, he says, we must be brought up in the constant practice of them from youth, first 'running on the ground, as an ostrich or tame goose will do ... and so by degrees learn to rise higher.... I have heard it from credible testimony, that one of our own nation hath proceeded so far in this experiment, that he was able by the help of wings, in such a running pace, to step constantly ten yards at a time.' The arms of a man extended ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... We may suppose that the "Fishing Admirals," authorized by the Star Chamber and confirmed in their authority by 10 and 11 William III., c. 25, had already asserted a de facto jurisdiction on the spot, for it is hardly credible that the mere wantonness of legislative invention can have produced such a tribunal. To anticipate for a moment: the Act provided that the master of the first ship arriving from England with the season should be admiral of the harbour; to the masters of ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... notions will admire it for being further from civilization and nearer to the noble savage; civilization being held, by some mysterious argument, to be deficient in "naturalness." In the second place, this belief has made it credible that the plain corruption of authentic epic by oral transmission, or very limited transmission through script, might be the sign of multiple authorship; for if you believe that a whole folk can compose a ballad, you may easily believe that a dozen ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... the dancers have to dance in. At which crisis it wants no little skill and practice in a man to steer his partner deftly and without collisions through the intricate melee. It can be done, though, to a degree hardly credible till practically tested, the really greatest difficulties being, in point of fact, rather to start and stop than to avoid bumpings when once fairly underweight; but ladies suffer sufficiently from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... introduced to us as possessing so many camels and oxen, and so forth, and ten children. All these are represented to him by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from different parts of the world at once that all his ships ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... levee broke up and the party had gone, Washington said to Colonel Humphreys: "Well, you have taken me in once, but, by God, you shall never take me in a second time."[1] Irving, who borrows this story from Jefferson, warns us that perhaps Jefferson was not a credible witness. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Jews under the Romans enjoyed a similar power in his day. Origen defends the correctness of v. 62 by adducing this as a similar instance in his own knowledge. Blunt treats the matter as a kind of "undesigned coincidence," rendering credible the death penalties spoken of in Acts ix. 1, xxii. 4, xxiv. 6.[45] So Edersheim (D.C.B. art. Philo, p. 365b), "The rule of the Jewish community in Alexandria had been committed by Augustus to a council of Elders." This is also stated in the Jewish Encyclopædia ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... story is scarcely credible—yet it is a notorious fact; and the lieutenant, a few nights afterwards, acquired the sobriquet which forms a head to this sketch and with which he was invested by the upper gallery of Crow Street Theatre—nor did he ever get rid of it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... closely than Ibsen's does. But we are conscious of a less painful effort and of a more human result. Morris does successfully what Ibsen unsuccessfully aimed at doing: he translates the heroic and half-fabulous action into terms that are human and credible. ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... scientific minds. If the democratic principle does not, on the one hand, induce men to cultivate science for its own sake, on the other it enormously increases the number of those who do cultivate it. Nor is it credible that, from amongst so great a multitude no speculative genius should from time to time arise, inflamed by the love of truth alone. Such a one, we may be sure, would dive into the deepest mysteries of nature, whatever be the spirit of his country or his age. He requires no assistance ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... reported on credible authority that this concession -was the result of a conference at which the President, Secretary of War Baker and Colonel Ridley were present. It was said that Secretary Baker and Colonel Ridley persuaded the President to withdraw the orders ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... to the production of natural effects, it is demanded why they are made; or, in other words, what reason can be assigned why God should make us, upon a close inspection into His works, behold so great variety of ideas so artfully laid together, and so much according to rule; it not being credible that He would be at the expense (if one may so speak) of all that art ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... nature has no fixed order, but that it could be, and constantly was, altered." But for us now, continues Professor Huxley, "the notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained by our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature is the expression of a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Plat. "Alcib." i. 123 B. "Why, I have been informed by a credible person, who went up to the king (at Susa), that he passed through a large tract of excellent land, extending for nearly a day's journey, which the people of the country called the queen's girdle, and another which they called her veil," etc. Olympiodorus and the Scholiast both think that ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... don't see how it could have been. However, I do not place very much value upon it as standing alone, but considered in connection with the performances of Eusapia, it becomes a little more nearly credible." ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... terrace is the same height as the top of the ascent above the arches. We have then actual proofs for roads leading up from east and west toward the center of the wall on the south side of the city, and every reason that an entrance here was practicable, credible, and necessary. ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... it, Judith; no, I'll not deny it. Sartain things have been said, as I've told you, but I'm not very credible as to reports. Young as I am, I've lived long enough to l'arn there's two sorts of characters in the world—them that is 'arned by deeds, and them that is 'arned by tongues, and so I prefar to see and judge for myself, instead of letting every jaw that chooses to wag become my judgment. Hurry ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof which is superior. The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention,) 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... they have thought it credible that Steve, married to his coveted fairy princess, should first become attached to Mary Faithful by friendship and then find that friendship replaced by a deep and never-to-be-changed love. It was an impossible ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Inn. There, under the candles, the dead man, as we said, was recognised for Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a very well-known justice of the peace and wood and coal dealer. All this occurred on Thursday, October 17, and Sir Edmund had not been seen by honest men and thoroughly credible witnesses, at least, since one o'clock on Saturday, October 12. Then he was observed near his house in Green Lane, Strand, but into his ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... takes to do it gains the V.C., discovers the villain dying repentant with a full confession in his left puttee, and embraces the girl who chanced to be Red-Crossing in the rear of the German position—presumably having arrived there by aeroplane. This seemed to me both probable and credible in a magazine. Still a novel climax was needed. After the few well-chosen words from the prison governor I took the convict to the nearest public-house, let him discover that the new restrictions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... to ascertained methods of proof, are apt to look on a man who vows that if a thing has been declared true by some authority whom he respects, then that constitutes proof to him, as either the victim of a preposterous and barely credible infatuation, or else as a flat impostor. Yet De Maistre was no ignorant monk. He had no selfish or official interest in taking away the keys of knowledge, entering not in himself, and them that would enter in hindering. The true reasons for his detestation of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... respect which is practically paid to newspaper authority? Do men think, that because a witness has been perpetually detected in falsehood, he may therefore be the more safely believed whenever he is not detected? or does adherence to a story, and frequent repetition of it, render it the more credible? On the contrary, is it not a common remark in other cases, that a liar will generally stand to and reiterate what he has once said, merely ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... established, indubitable facts, though out of the range of common experience—this had amazed this very practical man. Cathcart had hinted too of other things—things which he would not amplify—of a still more disconcertingly impossible nature—matters which Morton had scarcely thought had been credible even to the darkest medievalists; and all this with that same sharp, sane humor that lent an air of reality to all that ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... wild assailants. Weary of the conflict, he at last consented to purchase a peace with them; and then, seeking the military renown which Oleg had so signally acquired, he resolved to imitate his example and make a descent upon Constantinople. The annals of those days, which seem to be credible, state that he floated down the Dnieper with ten thousand barges, and spread his sails upon the waves of the Euxine. Entering the Bosporus, he landed on both shores of that beautiful strait, and, with the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... was nothing left for his own expedition to accomplish; but the two explorers generously gave him information which enabled him, after separating from them, to achieve the discovery of Albert Nyanza, of whose existence credible assurance had already been given to Speke and Grant. Baker first sighted the lake on the 14th of March 1864. After some time spent in the exploration of the neighbourhood, during which Baker demonstrated that the Nile flowed through the Albert Nyanza—of whose size he formed an exaggerated ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... never be obtained," replied Kai Lung, with conviction in his tone. "It is not credible that throughout the Empire could be found even another possessing all the engaging attributes of the one before me. But should it be my miraculous fortune to be given the opportunity, my presumptuous choice for her discriminating ears alone would be the story of the ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... "Anna, I would never have believed it! But I declare to you by all that's credible that I am not her lover. I might be, I suppose; but I never yet durst risk the declaration. The chit is so unreal; a mincing doll; she will and she will not; there is no counting on her, by God! And hitherto I have had my own way without, and keep the lover ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... physical properties of the elements were known to be periodic functions of their atomic weights, the idea of a common origin and common substance became much more credible. Differences in atomic weight and differences in properties alike might reasonably be explained by the differences in the amount of the primordial substance present in the various atoms; an atom of oxygen being supposed to be composed ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... bishop had now to sit up through the night to re-write five leaves of his printed oration, and cancel five which had been printed; and worse! he had to get them by heart, and to have them translated and inserted, by employing twenty scribes day and night. "It is scarcely credible what my master went through about this time," saith ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... la Mancha! thou mirror wherein all the valiant ones of the world may behold themselves, thou second and new Don Manuel de Leon, who was the glory and honor of the Spanish knights! With what words shall I relate this tremendous exploit? By what arguments shall I render it credible to succeeding ages? or what praises, though above all hyperboles hyperbolical, do not fit and become thee? Thou, alone, on foot, intrepid and magnanimous, with a single sword, and that none of the sharpest, with a shield not of the ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... pen, and inform those, who, for want of conversing with me, are strangers to what those know and see, with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted. But, as certain things may appear, to some persons, scarce credible, nay impossible, though actually fact, I shall not fail to relate them for the benefit of the public. Wherefore, I say, being (God be praised) arrived at my ninety-fifth year, and still finding myself sound and hearty, content and chearful, I never cease thanking ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... facts more or less correct in themselves, come a number of tales of olden days, which are at least more marvellous than credible, the following serving as an example. The scientific truth underlying the story is the well-known expedient of placing a shrivelled apple under the receiver of an air pump. As the air becomes rarefied the ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... fit. She was so silent and shadowy that the whole house sympathized with her, until it became extremely uncomfortable to the servants, who constantly went away; and a story that the house was haunted became immensely popular and credible the moment ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... the Kirat is evidently the most credible, although it is not unlikely that Ramanath may have been disgusted, and might have been employed to gain over the people, and to negotiate between the Rajput and Kirat; but the scribe alleges, that these ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... the heat of his zeal and eloquence, upon this point of the death and resurrection of Christ, lets fall a very odd passage, and which must have many grains of allowance to make it tolerable: "prosus credible est (saith he), quia ineptum est; certum est, quia impossible—it is therefore very credible, because it is foolish, and certain, because it is impossible"; "and this (says he) is necessarium dedecus fidei," that is, "it is necessary the Christian ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... Essex," says, "I wish the sad casualties may never return which lately have happened in this county; the one, 1581, in the Hundred of Dengy, the other, 1648, in the Hundred of Rochford and Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible parishioners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth thereof); when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies in burrows, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, which, withering to dung, was infectious to cattle. The March ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... sister.] of all Philip's preparations against the king has been snatched off, and the king will hear all the proceedings, not from Athenian accusers, whom he might consider to be speaking for their own interests, but from the acting minister himself; the charges therefore will be credible, and the only remaining argument for our embassadors will be, one which the Persian monarch will rejoice to hear, that we should take common vengeance on the injurer of both, and that Philip is much more formidable to the king, if he attack us first; for, should we be left in the lurch ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... must be anthropological. They are in point of fact so much anthropological data relating to Britain. It is no use calling them history, and then defining that history as bad history simply because as history the recorded facts do not appear to be credible. As a matter of fact they belong to the prehistory period of Britain, and to test their value scientific ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... its grey sea, his mother's whims and plaints, the crowd and heat of the little German watering-place where he had left her—was it he, George Tressady, that had been really wrestling with these things and persons, walking among them, or beside them? It seemed hardly credible. What was real, what remained, was merely the thought of some hours of solitude, beside the Norman sea, or among the great beech-woods that swept down the hills about Bad Wildheim. Those hours—they only—had stung, had penetrated, had found the shrinking core ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... same spokesmen of the dynastic Powers; and nowhere is there more urgent need of such professions. Official and "inspired" professions are, of course, to be overlooked; at least, so charity would dictate. But there have, in the historic present, been many professions of this character made also by credible spokesmen of the German, and perhaps of the Japanese, people, and in all sincerity. By way of parenthesis it should be said that this is not intended to apply to expressions of conviction and intention that have ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... been printed which asserted that any described sign is used by "all Indians," for the reason that such statement is not admissible evidence unless the authority had personally examined all Indians. If any credible person had affirmatively stated that a certain identical, or substantially identical, sign had been found by him, actually used by Abnaki, Absaroka, Arikara, Assiniboins, etc., going through the whole list of tribes, or any definite portion of that list, it ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... is merely a poetic symbol, a beautiful artifice employed by the poets to perpetuate a legend by associating it with the imperishable hieroglyphs of the galaxy. It is not credible that men imagined that group of stars only outlined in such shape by the help of arbitrary fancy to be literally the translated hunter himself. The meaning simply was that he was immortalized through the eternal linking of his name and form with a stellar cluster ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and His Majesty? That will be the way I shall present it to them. That was another reason I wanted to stay on here. I anticipated that you might want a credible witness to what was going to happen," he said. "Now, you'll be here for not more than five years before you're promoted elsewhere. Nobody remains longer than that on a first Proconsular appointment. Just keep your eyes and ears and, especially, your mind, open while you are here. ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... Afghan children are trafficked into Iran for the purpose of forced marriages, commercial sexual exploitation, and involuntary servitude as beggars or laborers tier rating: Tier 3 - Iran did not provide evidence of law enforcement activities against trafficking, and credible reports indicate that Iranian authorities punish victims of trafficking with beatings, imprisonment, and execution; Iran has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... could not so much as conceive any other possibility,—that she had obeyed an overmastering desire, an irresistible craving, listened to the tempter's voice in the shape of her own flesh and blood; he could not find it credible that the fair victim, a creature of hot passion and a fond heart, had offered herself a willing sacrifice; to satisfy his ideal, she must needs have been overborne by force or fraud, constrained by sheer violence, caught in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... ingenious inversion of reasoning, he felt he owed it to abstract justice—in other words to his much disgruntled self—to make all possible use of this offending, this renegade personage, when opportunity of so doing occurred. Now, learning on credible authority that Sir Charles's name was still one to conjure with in India, it clearly became his duty to bid his son seek out and secure whatever modicum of advantage—in the matter of advice and introductions—might be derivable from so irritating ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... subsequent campaigns, a party of the Danes came up the River Thames with a fleet of their vessels, and an account is given by some of the ancient historians of a measure which Alfred resorted to to entrap them, which would seem to be scarcely credible. The account is, that he altered the course of the river by digging new channels for it, so as to leave the vessels all aground, when, of course, they became helpless, and fell an easy prey to the attacks of their enemies. This is, at least, a very improbable statement, for a river like ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... possessions which had been seized by force should be restored to their rightful owners, and that all castles which had been erected since the death of Henry I should be destroyed, and the number of these was noted at the time as 1115, though a more credible statement gives the number as 375. The treaty between the two which had no doubt preceded these ceremonies in the council contained other provisions. Stephen promised to regard Henry as a son—possibly he formally ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... that few of their bodies were found anywhere afterwards. This year came that light to the sepulchre of the Lord in Jerusalem twice; once at Easter, and the other on the assumption of St. Mary, as credible persons said who came thence. And the Archbishop Turstin of York was through the pope reconciled with the king, and came to this land, and recovered his bishopric, though it was very undesirable ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... a determination to hold myself neutral till I had at least discovered the author of the lines I held in my hand. If they came from a credible person—but how could they do so and be written and posted up in the manner they were? An honest man does not seek any such roundabout way to strike his blow. Only a coward or a villain would take this method to arouse public curiosity, and perhaps ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... identical with one of these persons is not inconceivable, but such a hypothesis refuses to be reconciled with the story of the fighting in Izumo which preceded the descent to Tsukushi. The much more credible supposition is that the Yamato Court, confronted by a formidable rebellion having its centre in Izumo, retired to Tsukushi, and there, in the course of years, mustered all its followers for an expedition ultimately ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the other side of the island there are likewise many harbours; and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. But they report (and there remains good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, ...
— Utopia • Thomas More |
