"Disbelieving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life, Sylvia would never forget the rending shock of disillusion brought her by these blunt words. She did not dream of disbelieving them, or of underestimating their significance. A thousand confirmatory details leaped into her mind: the rich, sweet voices—the dramatic ability—the banjo—the deprecatory air of timidity—the self-conscious unwillingness to take the leading position to which their ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... perfect tense of the verb affo, affis, affui, affere," gabbled off Tom with such confidence, that though Ethel gave an indignant jump, Richard was almost startled into letting it pass, and disbelieving himself. He remonstrated in a somewhat hesitating voice. "Did you find that in the dictionary?" said he; "I thought affui ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... she picks up her pattens, her stick and her fan, And bundles her hair up as well as she can. Next minute it all stands on end with surprise: She stares and she stares, disbelieving her eyes— ...
— Fishy-Winkle • Jean C. Archer
... obtained. The end of it was that, at a late hour on the second evening, the jury acquitted the prisoner, without leaving their box. It was not too much to say that his life had been saved by his brother. His brother alone had persisted, from first to last, in obstinately disbelieving the clock—for no better reason than that the clock was the witness which asserted the prisoner's guilt! He had worried everybody with incessant inquiries—he had discovered the absence of the housemaid, after the trial had begun—and ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the jury were Jacobites. The prisoners' counsel, as one of them told Sir Walter Scott, knew that their clients were guilty. A witness had seen them in the act. But the advocate (Lockhart, a Jacobite) made such fun out of the ghost that an Edinburgh jury, disbelieving in the spectre, and not loving the House of Hanover, very logically disregarded also the crushing evidence for a crime which was actually described in court by ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... few moments disbelieving his eyes. Here, too, there was no room for doubt. The feet of the Indian boy had trodden in the tracks of the bear. The evidence was conclusive; the fact astonishing. Of course, it was ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... wonderful message, the king whom she loved so loyally, and for whom she died, spoiled all her plans. He, with his political advisers, prevented her from driving the English quite out of France. These favorites were lazy, comfortable, cowardly, disbelieving; in their hearts they hated the Maid, who put them to so much trouble. Charles, to tell the truth, never really believed in her; he never quite trusted her; he never led a charge by her side; and in the end, he shamefully deserted her, and left ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... if she did everything, and even bestowed her rare kisses, under instructions from her conscience, and every tendency to effusiveness was checked as a crime. Yet the truth was that she was naturally kind and even generous, but disbelieving in nature on the whole, she never would sanction any natural instinct unless she could give it the form of duty. She was an unpleasant companion at times, because she often felt bound to "set things right," and made suggestions ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... Taunton, Sir John Walter and Sir John Denham, and to the archdeacon of Wells and the chancellor of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The book was, indeed, a truly remarkable patchwork. All shades of opinion from that of the earnestly disbelieving Scot to that of the earnestly believing Roberts were embodied. Nevertheless Bernard had a wholesome distrust of possessions and followed Cotta in thinking that catalepsy and other related diseases accounted for many of them.[26] He thought, too, that the Devil very ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... brother priests, of the Church herself. I am quite willing to accept the responsibility; and, as I have been able, as I trust, by means of a few words, to dissipate, in the minds of all those who do not begin with disbelieving me, the suspicion with which so many Protestants start, in forming their judgment of Catholics, viz. that our Creed is actually set up in inevitable superstition and hypocrisy, as the original sin of Catholicism; so now I will proceed, as before, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... a wide difference between assuming that a portion of the conversation had escaped a witness's memory and disbelieving all that witness's evidence. As the counsel for the Crown had said, if he had not, as he swore, warned me, and I had not, as he swore, refused to listen to his warning, then Sir John Bell was a moral monster. ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... though he liked the idea of having a venture in the 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud.' Caldigate, without actually disbelieving all that had been said to him, did not relish the proposal. It was not the kind of thing which they had intended. After they had learned their trade as miners it might be very well for them to have shares in some established concern;—but in ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... of that hour was terrible beyond human 50:27 conception. The distrust of mortal minds, disbelieving the purpose of his mission, was a million times sharper than the thorns which pierced 50:30 his flesh. The real cross, which Jesus bore up the hill of grief, was the world's hatred of Truth and Love. Not the spear nor the material cross wrung from his faithful ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... Tour then warned her passionately against le jeune aventurier Americain, and almost frightened the girl into disbelieving the whole story. But proofs were forthcoming, and with the landlord's wife, who enjoyed sharing a borrowed halo, Josephine Delatour—or Josephine Doran—went to Algiers to await Mrs. Reeves's arrival. Meanwhile, with the money she procured from Max, the girl planned to buy herself a ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... servitude should ever exist in any of the territories to be annexed. Wilmot was a Democrat, and at this time a decided majority of his party favored the proviso. But the pro-slavery wing rallied, while the Whigs, disbelieving in the war and in annexation both, offered the proviso Democrats no hearty aid. In consequence it was defeated both then and ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... finished for the day, and she went up to her own room. She had no light, and, without undressing, she threw herself on the bed. But no rest came to her. Hour after hour she tossed about, devising reason on reason for disbelieving the woman's word. But ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... conception of the story itself in its greatest and unifying stage is probably if not certainly English. The original sources of the story of Arthur are no doubt Celtic; they give themselves out as being so, and there is absolutely no critical reason for disbelieving them. But in these earlier forms—the authority of the most learned Celticists who have any literary gift and any appreciation of evidence is decisive on this point—not only are the most characteristic unifying ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... agreed Gurney. "I have run up against a good many people in my time who seem to make a point of disbelieving everything that has not come within the scope of their own actual experience. Yet there is nothing so very wonderful in this business, after all. New land is frequently being discovered where deep water is known to have previously existed; and this is a case in point, that is all. And, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... seem to think that it is impossible for the Water Ouzel to walk at the bottom of the water, owing to its body being of less specific gravity. I will not argue the point with them, but disbelieving my own eyes, I will endeavour to submit with a good grace; otherwise I should have said that I have repeatedly seen it doing so, from a situation where I had an excellent opportunity of observing it, the window of a building directly over the place where it was feeding. It walked into the water ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... detail of each distinctive year's administration, but the numerical loss of membership was not the most serious result of the introduction of the grade system; among those who then dropped out of the organization, disbelieving in the departure from the original simplicity of forms, were some of the most active and influential members, the loss of whose interest and personality was severely ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... is the intrusion of the nasty personal element which spoils the word. Belief ought to be a very impersonal thing. It ought simply to mean a convergence of your own experience on a certain result; but most people are quite as much annoyed at your disbelieving a thing which they believe, as at your disbelieving a thing which they know. You ought never to be annoyed at people not accepting your conclusions, and still less when your conclusion is partly intuition, and does not depend upon ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... back, they'd either murder him or kidnap him?" Scotty sounded disbelieving. "I doubt it. Nothing the enemy has done so far points to that kind of tactic. Why should they start using ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... and she laughed in a short and satisfied way. Willoughby turned and stared at her, disbelieving the evidence of his ears. But her face showed him quite clearly that she was thoroughly pleased. Ethne was a Celt, and she had the Celtic feeling that death was not a very important matter. She could hate, too, and she could ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... portended, drew forth a pistol and, cocking it, had it ready to hand. But as I did so they broke into shrill clamour and, rising on heavy wings, soared away as came Pluto to leap about us, uttering joyous barks and butting at us with his head. And then I saw him all wet, nay, as I gazed on him, disbelieving my eyes, he shook himself, sprinkling us with blessed water. Somehow I was upon my feet and, taking Sir Richard's swooning body across my shoulder, I stumbled on towards that place of rocks, Pluto running on before and turning ever and anon to bark, as bidding me hasten. So at ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... yours is merely passive, sullen, negative, as it mainly is, despairing of our capacity and anticipating a future of gloom, it is no game for man or woman. It is certainly the opposite of that for which I plead. Do not stand aloof, despising, disbelieving, but come in and help—insist on coming in and helping. After all, we have shown a good deal of courage; and your part is to add a greater courage to it. There are glorious years lying ahead of you if you choose to make them glorious. God's in His Heaven still. So forward, brave hearts. ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... addition to the number of planets without overturning my Mysterium Cosmographicon, published thirteen years ago, according to which Euclid's five regular solids do not allow more than six planets round the sun. But I am so far from disbelieving the existence of the four circumjovial planets that I long for a telescope to anticipate you if possible in discovering two round Mars—as the proportion seems to me to require—six or eight round Saturn, and one each ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... soon the sea closes over this sort of wreck; and how quietly people take—when they must take, and there is no more disbelieving it—the truth which they would have given their lives to prove was an ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... a philosopher of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., was arguing one day for the existence of spirits with a disbelieving opponent. "All you have to do," he said, "is to go into any village and make enquiries. From of old until now the people have constantly seen and heard spiritual beings; how then can you say they do not exist? If they had never seen nor ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... knowers; but they are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. Although it may indeed happen that when we believe the truth A, we escape {18} as an incidental consequence from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens that by merely disbelieving B we necessarily believe A. We may in escaping B fall into believing other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad as B; or we may escape B by not believing anything ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... me gather men and women, Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130 Enter each and all, and use their service, Speak from every mouth,—the speech, a poem. Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: I am mine and yours—the rest be all men's, Karshish, deg. Cleon, deg. Norbert, deg. and the fifty. deg.136 Let me speak this once in my true person, Not as Lippo, deg. Roland, or Andrea, deg.138 Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: Pray you, look on these my ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... offenses and raised again for our justification." Wherever, by the preaching of the gospel, the fact of Christ having died for the sins of the world is made known, this guilt becomes possible. The sin of disbelieving on Christ is, therefore, the great sin now, because it summarizes all other sins. He bore for us the penalties of the law; and thus our obligation, which was originally to the law, is transferred to ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... must have suffered, shot through the head and face with a musket-ball, and at the mutilated aspect which his "handsome face must have presented to the eyes of his apostate wife." It did not prevent him from stoutly disbelieving and then refusing to be comforted, when the recovery of the illustrious victim was announced. He could always dissemble without entirely forgetting his grievances. Certainly, if he were the forgiving Christian he pictured himself, it is passing strange to reflect ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reached the king that Moti had exchanged his horse for a live tiger; and the monarch himself came down, half disbelieving the tale, to see if it were really true. Someone at last awaked Moti with the news that his royal master was come; and he arose yawning, and was soon delightedly explaining and showing off his new possession. ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the satisfaction of any who may be so disbelieving as to take this view of Mr. Quatermain's story, the Editor may state that a gentleman with whom he is acquainted, and whose veracity he believes to be beyond doubt, not long ago described to him how he chanced to kill four African ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... and misguiding. So I fared, Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds, Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind, 295 Suspiciously, to establish in plain day Her titles and her honours; now believing, Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground Of obligation, what the rule and whence 300 The sanction; till, demanding formal proof, And seeking it in every thing, I lost All feeling of conviction, and, in fine, Sick, wearied out ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... that, though justified in disbelieving it at first, he would not be so when others, whose veracity and motives he had no reason to suspect, told him ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more pliable master, jeered, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... some number which is only thrown once in six times must have been thrown if the die was thrown at all. The improbability, then, or, in other words, the unusualness, of any fact, is no reason for disbelieving it, if the nature of the case renders it certain that either that or something equally improbable, that is, equally unusual, did happen. Nor is this all; for even if the other five sides of the die were all ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... am never to admit that I was not born on Earth, for, like all provincials, the humans pride themselves on disbelieving everything beyond their own experience, and if they understood they would be certain to resent intrusions from another planet. I'm sure I don't blame them altogether when I recall those patronizing Jupitans.—And I'm told they are awfully jealous and distrustful even of one another, herding ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... garments.—They all have hardly disappeared in the Town-hall, when the Prince of Dessau arrives with his Grenadiers to seize the students, of whose flight to Schilda he has been informed.—Ruepelmei tells him, that he has captured and killed many of them, but the Prince, disbelieving him, orders his soldiers to search the houses beginning with the Town-hall. Ruepelmei, remembering the Marquis, implores him to desist from his resolution, the Town-hall being the nightly asylum for Schilda's ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Miss Corny, in disbelieving derision. "That Joyce has been more like a simpleton lately than like herself. I can't think what has come ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... lead a miserable Life with a Husband, who has no Grounds for his Jealousy but what I have faithfully related, and ought to be reckon'd none. 'Tis to be fear'd too, if at last he sees his Mistake, yet People will be as slow and unwilling in disbelieving Scandal as they are quick and forward in believing it. I shall endeavour to enliven this plain honest Letter, with Ovid's Relation about Cybele's Image. The Ship wherein it was aboard was stranded at the mouth of the Tyber, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
