"Sceptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... question settled, a great gaiety seized us, and we began to plan new journeys for the years to come; journeys which had this peculiar charm—that they belonged to a few kindred spirits; the world knows nothing of them, and when some obscure reference brings them to mind, smiles its sceptical smile, and goes on with its money-getting. Rosalind drew from its hiding-place the chart of this world of the imagination which we were given to studying on long winter evenings, and of which only a few copies exist. These charts are among the few things not ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... jealousies are at the bottom of those troubles which still occur from time to time in Turkey: the traveller hears no insulting epithet, and the green-turbaned Imam will receive him as kindly and courteously as the sceptical Bey educated in Paris. I have never been so aggressively assailed, on religious grounds, as at home,—never so coarsely and insultingly treated, on account of a presumed difference of opinion, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... less sceptical," said Florence, "since she has conversed with a lady who has just descended from ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... minds of all at this period were still imbued with those superstitious feelings, of which many of the most illustrious persons had given ample proof even in the preceding reign. We have become either more wicked or more sceptical, whichever you please to term it; but this is certain, that many of the things predicted were accomplished with an exact punctuality, which might serve to overthrow the finest arguments of the greatest philosophers, and which has indeed destroyed many ingenious theories. Doubtless the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Population you will find in my sixth letter at large—but do not, my dear sir, suppose that because unconvinced by this essay, I am therefore convinced of the contrary. No, God knows, I am sufficiently sceptical, and in truth more than sceptical, concerning the possibility of universal plenty and wisdom; but my doubts rest on other grounds. I had some conversation with you before I left England, on this subject; and from that time I had purposed ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Demosthenes, Cicero, or Tacitus. And so I pass from this painful subject; only quoting—if I may be permitted to quote—Mr. Burton's wise and gentle verdict on the whole. "Buchanan," he says, "though a zealous Protestant, had a good deal of the Catholic and sceptical spirit of Erasmus, and an admiring eye for everything that was great and beautiful. Like the rest of his countrymen, he bowed himself in presence of the lustre that surrounded the early career of his mistress. More than once he expressed his pride and reverence in the inspiration ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... inasmuch as the art of writing must have been quite unknown in Greece until after the alleged age of the traditional Homer, whose date had been variously estimated at from 1000 to 800 B.C. by less sceptical generations. It had come to be a current belief that the Iliad was first committed to writing in the age of Peisistratus. A prominent controversialist, F.A. Paley, even went so far as to doubt whether a single written copy of the Iliad existed in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... too long over-strained by Broadway drama and now flaccid and incapable of further response to its leering or shrieking appeal, the din of twentieth-century art fell on nerveless ears and on a brain benumbed and sceptical. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the decline of the Ottoman empire has been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the Turks to all modern improvements, and a sluggish, conservative policy, hostile to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The Turks have ever been bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to European influences. The Oriental dress has been preserved in Constantinople, and all the manners and customs of the people are similar to what they were in Asia several ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... many, even if they have Mr. Gosse's book, will be rather inclined to begin with a small attempt; especially as they are probably half sceptical of the possibility of keeping sea-animals inland without changing the water. A few simple directions, therefore, will not come amiss here. They shall be such as anyone can put into practice, who goes down to stay in a lodging-house at ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... parishes round had no drainage whatever, excepting along the bottoms of the ridges, and the now familiar red pipes had just made their appearance on a farm belonging to a stranger to those parts—a young fellow from Norfolk. Everybody was sceptical, and called him a fool. Everybody wanted to know how water was going to get through fifteen inches of heavy land when it would lie for two days where a horse trod. However, the pipes went in, and it so happened that the first ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... heaven as the agent of God, in the form of his own statue, does he prevail against his slayer and cast him into hell. The moral is a monkish one: repent and reform now; for to-morrow it may be too late. This is really the only point on which Don Juan is sceptical; for he is a devout believer in an ultimate hell, and risks damnation only because, as he is young, it seems so far off that repentance can be postponed until he has amused ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... reckoning some collateral evidence is needed before accepting any of the dates given in Japanese annals. Kaempfer and even Rein were content to endorse the chronology of the Chronicles—the Records avoid dates altogether—but other Occidental scholars* have with justice been more sceptical, and their doubts have been confirmed by several eminent Japanese historians in recent times. Where, then, is collateral ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... America, and that the essential unity which binds the members of the five denominations together, in spite of some external differences, is manifesting itself forcibly. Not only does the evangelical alliance prove to the most sceptical that this unity is real, but a fact peculiar to the United States, the great awakening produced by the crisis of 1857, has given evidence of the perfect harmony of convictions. In the innumerable meetings caused to spring up by this awakening from one end of the country to the ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... Temperley in one of her least comprehensible moods. But whatever she might say, he stood up for her among the neighbours with persistent loyalty. He decked her with virtues that she did not possess, and represented her to the sceptical district, radiant in domestic glory. Hadria thus found herself in an awkwardly uncertain position; either she was looked at askance, as eccentric, or she found herself called upon to make good expectations of saintliness, such as never were ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... of Genesis by the Christian fathers By the Reformers By modern theologians, Catholic and Protestant Theological reasoning as to the divisions of the animal kingdom The Physiologus, the Bestiaries, the Exempila Beginnings of sceptical observation Development of a scientific method in the study of Nature Breaking down of the theological ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of this description are easily persuaded by a plausible reasoner, that his opinions are true, and with equal facility submit to the next artful sophist, who avows even contrary sentiments. The natural effect of this inconstancy will be, a disregard of ALL truth, and a ready admission of every sceptical principle. When the mind is in such a state of fluctuation and uncertainty, or rather the willing slave of every tyrant, it is well prepared for vice: it will admit a criminal thought, as well as a sentimental error, and the same plausibility which could successfully insinuate ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... sceptical respecting its merits,' said Mr. Maitland, laughing. 'I do hope you will be able to convince him that what he has read and heard about it is all ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... themselves; those silver shoulders, half rising from the opening of the chlamys, like the moon's disc emerging from an opaque cloud. Candaules, half reclining upon his cushions, gazed with fondness upon his wife, and thought to himself: 'Now Gyges, who is so cold, so difficult to please, and so sceptical, must be already ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning. These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... They were all frankly sceptical, though realizing that Henderson Blake was not a man given to exaggeration. Nor did their scepticism altogether vanish when Kendrick had ended his bizarre story with a demonstration of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... will not in your careless youth or your sceptical maturity find beauty in this story, you will not "get under the skin" of it, as the saying is, unless you have stopped sometime in your busy going, to consider, aside and with understanding, the pathos of the old actor. It is a curiously poignant human thing, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... and as an historical problem are glad to be rid of it,—who resign all attempt to extract a prosaic truth out of the exploits of Theseus or the labours of Hercules, and who smile at mention of the race of Amazons—a race so well accredited in ancient times that neither the sceptical Arrian nor Julius Caesar himself ventured to doubt of their existence—would yet shrink from surrendering the tale of Troy, with all its military details, and all its hosts, and all its kings and chieftains, entirely to the domain of fiction. What! No part of it true?—no Agamemnon?—no Ulysses?—no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... upon the authority of William Blades that books breathe; however, the testimony of experts is not needed upon this point, for if anybody be sceptical, all he has to do to convince himself is to open a door of a bookcase at any time and his olfactories will be greeted by an outrush of odors that will prove to him beyond all doubt that books do actually ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... foolish and futile it was to talk to the empty air when I might have confessed myself to the real lover of my life face to face, had I been less sceptical,—less proud! Was not my very journey to the House of Aselzion a testimony of my own doubting attitude?—for I had come, as I now admitted to myself, first to make sure that Aselzion really existed—and secondly, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... of a prophet—an able, acute, and fair-minded prophet, I grant, but still a prophet—and before a prophet the wisest man has to be silent, or content himself by answering in prophecy also. What makes the sceptical frame of mind in which Mr. Dicey approaches the Home Rule question so important is not simply that it probably represents that of a very large body of educated Englishmen, but that it is one in which a federal system cannot be produced. Faith, hope, and charity are political as well as social ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... melted into a liquid mass. As I am writing for the unscientific reader, who may not be familiar with the facts through which these inferences have been reached, I will answer here a question which, were we talking together, he might naturally ask in a somewhat sceptical tone. How do you know that this state of things ever existed, and, supposing that the solid materials of which our earth consists were ever in a liquid condition, what right have you to infer that this condition was caused by the action of heat upon them? I answer, Because it is acting ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... the 'Origin' I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian hypothesis remained incomparably more probable than the creation hypothesis. And if we had none of us been able to discern the paramount significance of some of the most patent and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to speak, thrust ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... treated by historians, as the mere ebullition of frenzied fanaticism—as a useless and deplorable effusion of human blood. It may be conceived with what satisfaction these views were received by Voltaire, and the whole sceptical writers of France, and how completely, in consequence, they deluded more than one generation. Robertson was the first who pointed out some of the important consequences which the Crusades had on the structure of society, and progress of improvement in modern ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... with the curate. But in these quarrels, who is it that is beaten, buffeted, and ridiculed? It is Homais; to him is the most comic role given, because he is the most true, because he best paints our sceptical epoch, a fury whom we call a priest-hater. Permit me still to read to you page 206. It is the good woman of the inn who offers something to ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... born at Cnossus in Crete and taught at Alexandria, probably during the first century B.C. He was the leader of what is sometimes known as the third sceptical school and revived to a great extent the doctrine of Pyrrho and Timon. His chief work was the Pyrrhonian Principles addressed to Lucius Tubero. His philosophy consisted of four main parts, the reasons for scepticism and doubt, the attack on causality and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... however, never take this view. Shakespeare's contemporaries thought him a mighty clever fellow and no more. Why, even Wordsworth was well persuaded he could write like Shakespeare had he been so minded. Mr. Arnold remained all his life honestly indifferent to and sceptical about the fame of both Tennyson and Browning. Great living lawyers and doctors do not invariably idolize each other, nor do the lawyers and doctors in a small way of business always speak well of those in ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... sceptical about the reality of the fortune until the lawyer came from London, "yin's errand to see Miss Jean," as she explained importantly to Miss Bathgate, and he was such an eminently solid, safe-looking ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... undermined their morality, without giving them its own instead; and in religious matters, since they could never think of accepting the positive belief in the old gods, it affected them only on the negative and sceptical side. Just because they conceived of antiquity dogmatically—that is, took it as the model or all thought and action—its influence was here pernicious. But that an age existed which idolized the ancient world and its products with an exclusive devotion was not the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... seize his foot; and having demolished the toes and the tibia, with all the meat upon it, proceed to demolish up to the very end of the trochanter! Nor were they more tender of their own antennae, of which, when we had duly convinced a sceptical friend, he exclaimed—It seems impossible; but there is no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... compound caused the wood fire to flare up and flicker, casting fitful and fantastic shadows around. Moonshee stared, with fixed eyes, expecting every moment the reappearance of the supernatural poultry; but I, being as yet sceptical, descended the stairs, followed by my trembling ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... own mental history, that if all governors do not think the same 't is from want of that intimate knowledge of their pupils' minds which I naturally possess. I really find it difficult to keep their morale steady, and am inclined to think many of my own sceptical sufferings are traceable to this source. I well remember what reflections arose in my childish mind from a comparison of the Hebrew history, where every moral obliquity is shown out with such naivete, and the Greek history, full of sparkling ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... thoughts for her, with a smile, "you are a trifle sceptical. What you are saying to yourself is, 'How far does that lover of adventures want to make me go? It is quite obvious that I attract him; and sooner or later he would not be sorry to receive payment for his services.' You are quite right. We must have ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... probity, nothing acquainted with the little arts of getting a name by plotting against the honesty and credulity of the people." The prescriptions given by this worthy body were consequently received with a simple faith which later and more sceptical generations might deny them. Perhaps the most remarkable of these directions, given under the heading of "Medicines External," was the following: "Pull off the feathers from the tails of living cocks, hens, pigeons, or chickens, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... innocent as the sternest matter-of-fact person could desire. Fancies he had in profusion, and very bad ones; but of imagination not a scintilla! His mind was one of those which live in a prison of logic, and cannot, or will not, see beyond the bars such a nature is at once positive and sceptical. This boy had thought proper to decide at once on the numberless complexities of the social world from his own ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Dick, after a sceptical pause, during which he watched the lambent light as it played about in a slow fantastic way, just as if it were a softly-glowing lantern carried by a short-winged moth, which used it to inspect ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... resulting from schools, colleges, and guilds: it is difficult to impress them with novel truths; but in a great degree they act as breakwaters to the waves of error. In no department of social life is this doctrine better illustrated than in the medical profession, which is among the keenest and most sceptical of bodies in scrutinising novelty; but it has rarely allowed any real improvement to remain permanently untested and unadopted. We believe this to be the fair view to take of a class of scientific men who have certainly had a large ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... went to France, and in them the N.C.O.'s plant esprit de corps and the fear of God. The missing identity discs arrive, and a fourth Date is fixed—July 21. And the dwellers in the blinking hole, having been wolfed several times, are sceptical, and treat the latest report as ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Sicknesses and Diseases from Witchcraft and Supernatural Causes.... Being useful to others besides Physicians, in that it confutes Atheistical, Sadducistical, and Sceptical Principles and Imaginations ..., London, 1665. Though its title-page bears no name, the author was undoubtedly that "William Drage, D. P. [Doctor of Physic] at Hitchin," in Hertfordshire, to whose larger treatise on medicine (first printed in 1664 as A Physical Nosonomy, then in 1666 as The ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... but sixty-nine or ninety-nine, I am inclined to be a little sceptical about that record myself; there is one thing in its favor, however, and that is, that he made it an even nine hundred and ninety-nine, and not one thousand. Of course, you know there are plenty of people living to-day who are over one hundred years old, and some who ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... France's hands. He is worthy of a great tradition, learned in the lessons of the past, concerned with the present, and as earnest as to the future as a good prince should be in his public action. It is a Republican dignity. And M. Anatole France, with his sceptical insight into an forms of government, is a good Republican. He is indulgent to the weaknesses of the people, and perceives that political institutions, whether contrived by the wisdom of the few or the ignorance of the many, are ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... universally received articles of the Christian Creed. The work attracted some share of public attention. A poetical effusion in verse was addressed to Blair in reply by a minister of the Protestant Church; and an Anabaptist minister also entered the lists with a pamphlet nearly as sceptical as the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... critiques, 4me serie.] This libertinism had its philosophy, a sort of philosophy of nature, of which the most brilliant exponents were Rabelais and Moliere. The maxim, "Be true to nature," was evidently opposed sharply to the principles of the Christian religion, and it was associated with sceptical views which prevailed widely in France from the early years of the seventeenth century. The Jesuits sought to make terms by saying virtually: "Our religious principles and your philosophy of nature are not ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... which we rest our doctrines and hopes, are not the uninspired portions? What can be the meaning or nature of an Inspiration to teach Truth, which does not guarantee its recipient from error?"—So far a living sceptical writer. ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Acme, as she gave a slight shudder. "Englishmen are generally more sceptical on these points than we are; and disbelieve supernatural appearances, which we are accustomed to think are not unfrequent. I could tell you many stories, which, in my native island, were believed by our enemies the Turks, as well as by ourselves: but if you would like it, I ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Conseils (lying by accident in the way) suggests to me now two things, wherein the Documents ordinarily given to such young Ladies, as are intended to have the best care taken of their Instruction, are, I think, very defective; and the fitter to be redress'd, as being of peculiar ill consequence in a Sceptical, loose and unthinking Age; wherein Wit is apt to pass ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... Whilst, in the case of the Greek Apologists, the acknowledgment of revelation appears conditioned by philosophical scepticism on the one hand, and by the strong impression of the dominion of the demons on the other, the sceptical element is not only wanting in the Latin Apologists, but the Christian truth is even placed in direct opposition to the sceptical philosophy and on the side of philosophical dogmatism, i.e., Stoicism.[406] Nevertheless ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... she took them into her thoughts made even the most sceptical of them lean back and smile. If they felt like questioning the genuineness of her feeling it could only be explained on the ground of consummate art and either way it was something they ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... nearly all speaking English with a nasal twang. Meanwhile every one shouted, the naphtha flared, the drums beat, the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... again, there are days when I do not think thus, but when I suffer just the same; for I belong to the family of the thin-skinned. But then I do not tell it, I do not show it; I conceal it very well, I think. Without any doubt, I am thought to be one of the most indifferent men in the world. I am sceptical, which is not the same thing, sceptical because I am clear-sighted. And my eyes say to my heart, Hide yourself, old fellow, you are grotesque, and it ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... provided you do not shoot them or set a pack of dogs on them. It must be admitted that the foxes have the best of it; and indeed a glance at our pheasants, our deer, and our children will convince the most sceptical that the children have ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... By way of Schaffhausen they proceeded to Zurich, where Goethe's first act was to seek Lavater. Their talk during his stay in Zurich mainly turned on Lavater's great work on Physiognomy, to which Goethe had continuously contributed by help and counsel, though from the first he was sceptical of its scientific value. Their intercourse was as cordial as it had been in the previous year, and Lavater was subjugated more than ever by the personality of Goethe. "Who can think more differently than Goethe and I," he wrote to Wieland, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... of that which he so often in older days maintained. This was a true comment on the pictures of the loyalty of the Prussian people and the simple faith of the German peasants, which from his place in Parliament he had opposed to the new sceptical teaching of the Liberals. As soon as he was able he went about among the wounded; as he once said, the King of Prussia was accustomed to look into the eyes of wounded men on the field of battle and therefore would never venture on an unjust or unnecessary war, and in this ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... by her womanliness, had too much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false—except, indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Anything bearing on personal religion instantly touched Scots folk of the humble sort. But Aunt Jen was obdurate. Long experience had rendered her sceptical with ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Pauncefort, after duly flouncing about with every possible symbol of pettish agitation and mortified curiosity, her cheek pale with hesitating impertinence, and her nose quivering with inquisitiveness, condescended to admit with a sceptical sneer, that, of course, no doubt her ladyship knew more of such a subject than she could; it was not her place to know anything of such business; for her part she said nothing; it was not her place, but if it ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... exponent of the mind of the Church of England,—or of any other Church. Revelation rests, at this hour, on exactly the same basis on which it has always rested, and on which it will rest, to the end of time; let the age be faithful, or faithless,—learned or unlearned,—rationalizing or scientific,—sceptical or superstitious,—or whatever else you will. And if I am asked to explain myself, I would humbly say,—(always submitting my own statements in such a matter to the judgment of the Bishops and Doctors of the Church ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Cro-Magnon. Again, a single specimen does duty for the so-called Chancelade race. The skeleton is of comparatively low stature, and is deemed to show close affinities to the type of the modern Eskimo. Without being unduly sceptical, one may once more wonder if the Cro-Magnon stock may not have produced this somewhat aberrant form. Even on such a theory, however—and it is hardly orthodox—diversity of physical structure would seem to be on the increase. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... against conquest: and so, like competing tradesmen in the same street, they were a source of mutual embarrassment, and one of them was bound to kill the other. But if Roman Catholicism seemed to Pierre to be worn out and threatened with ruin, he remained quite as sceptical with regard to the power of Freemasonry. He had made inquiries as to the reality of that power in Rome, where both Grand Master and Pope were enthroned, one in front of the other. He was certainly told that the last Roman princes had thought themselves compelled to become Freemasons in order to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... now Merriman's turn to be sceptical, but he murmured polite regrets in as convincing a way as he was able. "Let us go back into my office," the manager continued. "If you want a private chat ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... be called a game, save perhaps with the chief player, who was not more or less sceptical than most public men with whom he had acquaintance in that age. (Is there ever a public man in England that altogether believes in his party? Is there one, however doubtful, that will not fight for it?) Young Frank was ready to fight without much thinking, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... say it tells us. I believe all religions do the same; some indeed more emphatically and primarily than others; but that indeed would be incontestably of Divine origin, and acknowledged at once by the most sceptical, which should thoroughly teach it. Now, my friend Timotheus, I think you are ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... well met," and Chaos were come again: all which to any one that has once fairly pictured out the grand mother-idea, Society in a state of Nakedness, will spontaneously suggest itself. Should some sceptical individual still entertain doubts whether in a world without Clothes, the smallest Politeness, Polity, or even Police, could exist, let him turn to the original Volume, and view there the boundless Serbonian Bog of Sansculottism, stretching sour and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... temptation of quoting Mr. Morris's rendering of that famous passage in the twenty-third book of the epic, in which Odysseus eludes the trap laid for him by Penelope, whose very faith in the certainty of her husband's return makes her sceptical of his identity when he stands before her; an instance, by the way, of Homer's wonderful psychological knowledge of human nature, as it is always the dreamer himself who is most surprised when his ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... other stories both fantasy and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering and unblessed. But Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker's stories."—London ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... particularly sceptical. He and another rustic functionary, of whom we shall speak presently, the grave-digger, are always the esprits forts of the place. They are so much in the habit of talking of ghosts, and are so well acquainted with all the tricks of which these evil spirits are capable, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... time that his need for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to him; half a world lay between them—or soon would. All his days he had awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming of the thing men call Love; and when it had come to him he had not known it nor guessed it until its cause had slipped away ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... they had spent peacefully enough, wandering about the streets, occasionally being "moved on" by a policeman, until the sceptical officer already referred to had evinced an intention of arresting them both as rogues and vagabonds. I could not help smiling at the peremptory manner in which poor Giannoli's adventures had almost been brought ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... case you should imagine this is a deception, and I produce the smoke from my throat in some manner, will you kindly try my esoteric tobacco, Sir? (To a bystander, who, not without obvious misgivings, takes a few whiffs and produces smoke, as well as a marked impression upon the most sceptical spectators.) Having thus proved to you the existence of a Spirit World, allow me to inform you that this is nothing to the marvels to be seen inside for the small sum of twopence, where I shall have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... boat?" asked a prudent little boy, with a sceptical look in his small countenance. "And where's the water?" he would have added ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about being an Irish patriot—he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common—but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be one of ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a little in the miscellany called (not without a touch of piquancy) La Tyrannie des Fees Detruite, by a Mme. d'Auneuil, whom persons of a sceptical turn might imagine to be a sort of factitious rival to Mme. d'Aulnoy.[231] It returns to the Greek or pseudo-Greek names of the heroic romance, and to its questionable device of histoires stuck like plums in a pudding. Nor are the Sans Parangon and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... no doubt but that the Motor Pirate has a real existence. On arriving at Salisbury I at once proceeded to make inquiries as to what was known of the outrage, but Salisbury generally was sceptical on the subject. I found, however, that the affair had been reported at the county police office; and I at once drove on here, and am now in a position to assert that this quiet Wiltshire village has been the scene of the most astounding robbery of modern times. It is safe ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... entered the outer cloister of San Marco, and inquired for Fra Luca, there was no shadowy presentiment in his mind: he felt himself too cultured and sceptical for that: he had been nurtured in contempt for the tales of priests whose impudent lives were a proverb, and in erudite familiarity with disputes concerning the Chief Good, which had after all, he considered, left it a matter of taste. Yet fear was a strong element in Tito's ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... I had been sceptical about him until I met him. I wondered if he was self-conscious about his goodness, or if he was a dreamer who could not get down to the realities of this world, or if he had been spoiled by flattery, or if piety was part of ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... fair man, with an impudent frog-face, who is trying desperately hard to take in a sceptical crowd with the too familiar purse-trick). Now look 'ere, I don't mind tellin' yer all, fair an' frank, I'm 'ere to get a bit, if I can; but, if you kin ketch me on my merits, why, I shan't grumble—I'll promise yer that much! Well, now—(to a stolid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... tone, in sentiment, and in reasonings, to all that had jaded and disgusted her in the circle of her admirers,—it was all this that captivated Beatrice at the first interview with Leonard. Here was what she had confessed to the sceptical Randal she had dreamed and sighed for. Her earliest youth had passed into abhorrent marriage, without the soft, innocent crisis of human life,—virgin love. Many a wooer might have touched her vanity, pleased her fancy, excited ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... do not believe in Dr. Argure quite as fully as some less sceptical members of his congregation do, Deacon Goodsole believes in him most implicitly. Deacon Goodsole is a believer—not I mean in anything in particular, but generally. He likes to believe; he enjoys it; ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... have heard sceptical people say that the stories of these "great receptions" were vamped-up affairs, mere newspaper manufacture. I would like to have had some of those sceptics in Toronto with us on August 25th, 26th and 27th. It would have taught them a ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... equal reluctance—forced into the same boat, and since bongre malgre we must voyage for a time together, in the interest of this unfortunate child, candour becomes us both. Men of my profession sometimes resort to agencies that the members of yours usually shrink from. I too was once very sceptical concerning the truth of Mrs. Orme's fragmentary story, for it was the merest disjecta membra which she entrusted to me, and my credulity declined to honour her heavy drafts. To satisfy myself, I employed a shrewd female detective to 'shadow' the pretty ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... there accost a sallow lank-looking boatman followed by a negro, on the lookout for custom, in their marine calling. A request is made for their boat and services, for conveyance to the ship. At first the man looks suspicious and sceptical, but on expostulation that there was the utmost necessity for an interview with the captain before sailing, and important dispatches to be sent home, and a hint given that a fee for services in such a case was of no object, he at once consents; the ferry boat is launched, and in a few ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... "After all, if I stop in England," said he, "I can't afford to lose my position in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated low scoundrel like Sedgett should bag the game." Besides, is it not somewhat sceptical to suppose that when Fate decides, she has not weighed the scales, and decided for the best? Meantime, the whole energy of his intellect was set reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward would, by nature and the occasion, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... amongst the really earnest Puritans prosperity disclosed a pride, a worldliness, a selfish hardness which had been hidden in the hour of persecution. What was yet more significant was the irreligious and sceptical temper of the younger generation which had grown up amidst the storms of the Civil War. The children even of the leading Puritans stood aloof from Puritanism. The eldest of Cromwell's sons made small pretensions to religion. Milton's nephews, though reared in his house, were ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... withdrew with all his men, except two who wished to settle at Pardo. He could not persuade them to leave, and after his departure they were cut to pieces by the Cebuanos. Pending positive corroboration I was very sceptical about this strange narrative; but, being in Mindanao Island six years afterwards, I went to visit Datto Mandi, who most readily confirmed all the above particulars, and presented me with his portrait. Prior to the American advent, Datto Mandi, protege as ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... a party of three men, who were on their way to the West, where, according to the story they told, they had found a wonderfully rich gold-field. Many a story of that kind had already been told in Birralong, both at the Rest and on Marmot's verandah, and the Birralong folk were sceptical, especially those who on former occasions had been induced, on the strength of the story, to furnish stores on credit, or take a contributing interest in the newly found claim; in either case receiving in return only the knowledge that, even in matters connected with gold-mining, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the sceptical, the Merced couldn't keep always tilted; in time it would cut down to a level and slow up; then the sand and gravel it was carrying would settle, and the stream stop its digging. Again, if the stream-cut valley theory is correct, why isn't ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... of their elders; and while taking, no doubt, a leading part in them, she used to suffer much self-reproach about her coldness and inability to be carried away with the same enthusiasm as others. At the same time, nothing was farther from her nature than any sceptical inclination, and she used to pounce with avidity upon any approach to argumentative theology within her reach, carrying Paley's Evidences up to her bedroom, and devouring it as she lay upon the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... most from their leader and father in philosophy. Dr Hirsch, though born in France and covered with the most triumphant favours of French education, was temperamentally of another type—mild, dreamy, humane; and, despite his sceptical system, not devoid of transcendentalism. He was, in short, more like a German than a Frenchman; and much as they admired him, something in the subconsciousness of these Gauls was irritated at his pleading ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... given of experiences resulting in a discovery so surprising, must interest even those sceptical in regard to the progress in art of the American aborigines; and it must also be remembered that, almost without exception, late as well as early travellers in this region have become enthusiastic and imaginative ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... The sceptical Hume accepts this absurd statement without even asking, or at least without giving, the name of Helvetius's informant. The adventurer who insisted on going forward when, at his first landing in Scotland, even Sir Thomas Sheridan, with all the chiefs present, advised retreat, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... two types of philosophy, which he called the dogmatic and critical types. The essence of a dogmatic philosophy is that it makes belief to rest upon knowledge. Its endeavour is to demonstrate that which is believed. It brings out as its foil the characteristically sceptical philosophy. This esteems that the proofs advanced in the interest of belief are inadequate. The belief itself is therefore an illusion. The essence of a critical philosophy, on the other hand, consists in this, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... had long been making its appearance in the literature of the time. The highest speculations which can occupy the attention of man were touched with a recklessness and power, a brilliancy of touch and a bitterness of satire, which forced the sceptical productions of the day upon the notice of all who studied, read, or delighted in literature;—for those were the days of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the great men of ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... sceptical as to the practical value of this novel invention, but Mr. John Walter, the proprietor of the London Times, with better foresight than the others, and needing increased facilities for printing his paper, contracted for two presses, each to have two impression cylinders. These were constructed ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul: though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence; if so, then, how should I, in the presence of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They revelled in the pictured visions of the circus, but were sceptical about the literal fulfilment of some of the promises made on the bills. Certain things advertised were eliminated from reasonable expectation: for instance, the boys all knew that the giraffe would not be discovered eating off the top of a cocoanut-tree; ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... "loco"—mad, if not a bit of a sorcerer, as the common people suspected him of being. The little white jacket was in reality a concession to Mrs. Gould's humanizing influence. The doctor, with his habit of sceptical, bitter speech, had no other means of showing his profound respect for the character of the woman who was known in the country as the English Senora. He presented this tribute very seriously indeed; it was no trifle for a man of his habits. Mrs. Gould felt ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... letter that there is really little difference between himself and Mr. Harrison, except in Mr. Harrison's more enthusiastic view of human nature. But he confesses also that the article has given pleasure to his enemies and pain to his friends. Though his opinions, in short, are sceptical, the consequences seem to him so disagreeable that he has no desire to insist upon them. In fact, he wrote little more upon these topics. He was, indeed, afterwards roused to utterance by an ingenious attempt of Mr. Mivart to show a coincidence between full ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Naples. There were the high dignitaries of the Empire, the foreign ambassadors, the marshals, the ministers; M. de Talleyrand with his enormous salary, his high position as Grand Chamberlain and Vice-Elector, his title of Prince of Benevento, always sparkling with the cold, sceptical, politely contemptuous wit that distinguished those who belonged to the old rgime—Talleyrand, who, in the Emperor's closet possibly spoke to him with a certain freedom, but in the Gallery of Henry ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... said the Doctor. "I am too sceptical to be an ethical adviser; and as for good resolutions, I believed in them when I was young. They are the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were still very hazy as to the actual degree of the success of the landing, or really how far across the Peninsula the original force had progressed. The papers said everything had been wonderfully successful, but Mac was rather sceptical. At any rate, they were not wasting any time in pushing the mounted men in as infantry. The future was obscure and uncertain; but, with a feeling of eerie anticipation, he felt the freshness of the dawn of a new mysterious life, when men met men in mortal fight, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... not of vital importance to our plan and it is possible the machines will do little to help us, but already they have vindicated themselves. Even the seamen, who have remained very sceptical of them, have been profoundly impressed. Evans said, 'Lord, sir, I reckon if them things can go on like that you wouldn't want nothing else'—but like everything else of a novel nature, it is the actual sight of them at work that is impressive, and nothing short ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... not cut out for literary work. I have not sufficient imagination, nor am I sceptical enough for this fanciful and scientific age. The world only cares for impossible adventures and magic stories, or stories which undermine their religion or upset it altogether, and I am not clever enough ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... clerical monopoly of education has therefore come about—that the intellectual standard is very low in Mexico. The Holy Office, too, has had its word to say in the matter. This institution had not much work to do in burning Indians, who were anything but sceptical in their turn of mind, and, indeed, were too much like Theodore Hook, and would believe "forty, if you pleased." They even went further, and were apt to believe not only what the missionaries taught them, but to cherish the memory of their old gods into the ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... for years, and found no rest—as little in wisdom as in folly, in spiritual dreams as in sensual brutality. I could not rest in your Platonism—I will tell you why hereafter. I went on to Stoicism, Epicurism, Cynicism, Scepticism, and in that lowest deep I found a lower depth, when I became sceptical ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... support. The two men worked together rather as father and son—as, curiously enough, they were to be later—than as employer and employee. To Bok, the daily experience of seeing Mr. Curtis finance his proposition in sums that made the publishing world of that day gasp with sceptical astonishment was a wonderful opportunity, of which the editor took full advantage so as to learn the intricacies of a world which up to that time he had known only in a ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... Touching at St. Helena* and Ascension, we crossed the equator on the forenoon of the 15th, in longitude 19 degrees 45 minutes West, where we endeavoured to obtain soundings with 2000 fathoms of line, which parted at 1600 fathoms. Respecting deep-sea soundings, there are some sceptical persons who, in consequence of the bottom not being brought up from the great depths reported to have been found, are inclined to doubt that soundings were actually obtained ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... that course itself. Thus he pursued science, across her appointed boundaries, into the land of perplexity and shadow. From the truths of astronomy he wandered into astrological fallacy; from the secrets of chemistry he passed into the spectral labyrinth of magic; and he who could be sceptical as to the power of the gods, was credulously superstitious as to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... monotony of scenery or occupation. Although I am leaving this country, probably for good, I would not wish it to be thought that I have no faith in it, for the late developments and marvellous returns from the goldfields should convert the most sceptical. Nor have the other sources of wealth to the Colony failed to impress their importance on me. . . Every one is glad to return to his home, and I am no exception; but however happy I am at the prospect of again seeing my native land, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... for the extras containing the latest news from the front. The people stood for hours in front of the newspaper offices, but definite news was so long in coming, that despair once more seized their hearts and they again became sceptical ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... interventions of Olympus, sanctioned by Vergil and followed by many a poet since. The latter method is obviously only suited for a purely legendary epic, though even the legendary epic can well dispense with it, and it might have been supposed that an age so sceptical and careless of the orthodox theology, as that into which Lucan was born, would have felt the full absurdity of applying such a device to historical epic. Lucan was wise in his choice, and left Olympus severely alone. But ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... chroniclers, had a much wider field of vision. Attached successively to Albert of Bavaria, Queen Philippa of England and Wenceslas of Luxemburg, he had many opportunities to study European affairs, and, as a Belgian, was able to consider them from an independent and even a sceptical point of view. Though generally considered as a French writer, he remains independent of French influence. With Monstrelet, Chastellain, Jean Molinet and Jean Lemaire de Belges, who wrote for the dukes of Burgundy, this independent attitude ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... in our weather during our stay at St. Louis, and I had no opportunity of seeing the beauties of the neighbourhood, which we hear much extolled, but respecting which we are rather sceptical. The only drive we took, was to a new park being made outside the town, called Lafayette Park, which gave us anything but a pleasant impression of the entourage of St. Louis; we must admit, however, that a very short distance by railway brought us into ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... enthusiasm which Charles the Great had evoked in his subjects. His conception of the Empire was too large for narrow minds. They could see no reason in it. They were acutely alive to the sacrifices which it demanded in the present, and sceptical as to the advantages which it promised in the future. The idea of working for posterity does not naturally occur to half-civilised peoples; they live from hand to mouth, and are continually absorbed in the difficulties of the moment; they believe in ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... of religious controversy might encourage the sceptical turn in a few persons of a studious disposition, the zeal with which men soon after attached themselves to their several parties, served effectually to banish for a long ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... "functionaries of state" attended this series, the principal subject tried being the wife of one of these dignitaries. He himself was extremely sceptical of his wife's ability to move the board, and remained so until convinced by the facts! The board was lowered, and the balance showed a pressure of from 70 to 100 grammes. The subject was extremely fatigued ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... angry and as rich as the Catholics, saw in every Calvinist a murderer and a robber. They thirsted after their blood; for the spirit of religious frenzy; the characteristic of the century, can with difficulty be comprehended in our colder and more sceptical age. There was every probability that a bloody battle was to be fought that day in the streets of Antwerp—a general engagement, in the course of which, whoever might be the victors, the city was sure to be delivered over to fire, sack, and outrage. Such would have been the result, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... that it could seriously be worth while to burn down a whole real world, in order to roast a probably imaginary pig. I found it very hard to believe, with the Chaplains, that the war was purifying everyone's character, and I was particularly sceptical as regards some of the elderly non-combatants who were unable to realise at first hand "the Glory of the ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... condition. On the whole the conflicting results ought to be as puzzling to those who may attribute them to a universal tendency to inherit the exact condition of parents as they are to those who, like myself, are sceptical as to the existence of such ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... somewhere in the wood beneath, the peculiar laugh which I have described as one of the disagreeable characteristics of Professor Westervelt. It brought my thoughts back to our recent interview. I recognized as chiefly due to this man's influence the sceptical and sneering view which just now had filled my mental vision in regard to all life's better purposes. And it was through his eyes, more than my own, that I was looking at Hollingsworth, with his glorious ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
