"Skeptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only here and there a few stars gleamed diamond-like in the heavens, but threw insufficient light to aid the eyes which sought to penetrate the surrounding gloom. The old hand threw himself back on his pillow in skeptical irritation. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... trees were able to cross-pollinate and one tree was especially productive. Miles Bolton recognized its value and began growing seedling trees and distributing them to his neighbors. Some of them were quite skeptical and even refused to take them as a gift and plant them. However, he got the village pretty well planted to Persian walnut trees, so that today there are 145 nice trees within the village, and two small ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... bit skeptical—still basing my opinion on your own statements as to common-stock dividends—as to the price per kilowatt after competitors shall have been sandbagged according to that legislative measure," drawled the mayor. He turned to the Senator. "You see, sir, your ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the coming man, the sister resents the truth that Boy belongs to the same species and sex, or persists in judging him by this standard. In the "freshness" of his age and kind, he is skeptical as to her good looks and other fascinations, and takes wicked satisfaction in giving her to understand that he, at least, "is not fooled by her tricks and manners." If her "nagging" is a thorn under his jacket, his cool disdain is a grain of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... & founde it fitt for shipping, and marched into y^e land & found diverse cornfeilds & little running brooks, a place fitt for situation: at least it was y^e best they could find." The Pilgrims, then, were quite oblivious of the rock, the historians are entirely skeptical concerning it, and the following generation so indifferent to the tradition which was gradually formulating, that in the course of events it was half-covered with a wharf, and used as a ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... conviction, and for the most part the rest agreed with me. But Tom Arnold was inclined to be skeptical, and shook ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine that their senses present to different men different images of things this skeptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that skeptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... But Kit was skeptical. "I wish I could believe it. I feel as if I were playing with a rattlesnake. He's treacherous! I think we'd better watch ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... broke in the skeptical captain, "do you know where such a ship lies? Can you see ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... conspirators would kill him. The lord treasurer communicated the result of his inquiries to the king, and urged the affair upon his attention as one of the utmost possible importance. The king himself, however, was very skeptical on the subject. He laughed at the lord treasurer's earnestness and anxiety. The lord treasurer wished to have a meeting of the council called, that the case might be laid before them, but Charles refused. Nobody should know any thing about it, he said, not ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... "I am very skeptical about it," said one of them. "I have sometimes gone to Rodolphe's Thursdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, when one could only sit on anything morally, and where all one had to drink was a little ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... creditor, and, if he were a man of the court, to the yet worse position of an absentee creditor.[2303] Thus, as to the clergy, it had almost separated the head from the trunk by superposing (through the concordat) a staff of gentleman prelates, rich, ostentatious, unemployed, and skeptical, upon an army of plain, poor, laborious, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the writer. "Montfanon, whom I have found at length, has just bought one of the two copies which Ribalta received lately. The old leaguer believes everything, you know, when a Hafner is in the question.... I am more skeptical in the bad as well as in the good. It was only the account given by the trial which produced any impression on ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... with idolatry and with the intolerant ferocity of a priest for the indifferent or the skeptical. The idol made her plaint to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... triumphant. Even the skeptical Cobden, who had damned so much in his day, could not question the lad's mastery. It did not occur to him ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... most prominent standard-bearers are clad in the motley garb of theorists. Their flag may be seen wandering to and fro, hither and thither, up and down, swayed by every breath of popular caprice; so it move to the mere cry of "Progress!" its followers are content. To-day, in the hands of the skeptical philosopher, it assaults the heavens. Tomorrow it may: float over the mire of Mormonism, or depths still more vile. It was under the flag of progress that, in the legislative halls of France, the name of the Holy Lord God of Hosts, "who inhabiteth eternity," was legally ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... heard anything of Wagner's interview with Peter John and then all that Wagner told him was that the freshman had promised faithfully to do better. But Will had already had so much experience with Peter John's promises that he was somewhat skeptical as to results. His classmate he knew was not essentially vicious, only weak. He was so weak and vain that he was eager to gain the favor of whatever person he chanced to be with, and his promise of better things to Wagner was as readily given as was his response to ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... be like her you need give nothing—only your stubborn will, your skeptical doubts, and the heart that will never know rest till at the ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... where he alters the letters which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and skeptical; dallies with his purposes till the occasion is lost, and finds out some pretense to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the king when he is at his prayers; and, by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the foundations of the Temple of Solomon are ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... "Well, what?" the skeptical Sam asked. "If we stay here very long your mother'll come and send us downstairs. What's the ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... looked up with a start, and his mildly inquiring glance should have convinced the most skeptical to the contrary. But apparently it had no such ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... same ball that had carried away the testicle of his young friend, that had penetrated the ovary of the young lady, and, with some spermatozoa upon it, had impregnated her. With this conviction he approached the young man and told him the circumstances; the soldier appeared skeptical at first, but consented to visit the young mother; a friendship ensued which soon ripened into a happy marriage, and the pair had three children, none resembling, in the same degree as the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... came, college was in a most ungodly state. The college church was almost extinct. Most of the students were skeptical, and rowdies were plenty. Wine and liquors were kept in many rooms; intemperance, profanity, gambling, and licentiousness were common. I hardly know how I escaped.... That was the day of the infidelity of the Tom Paine school. Boys that ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... your community, and no small part of those classes of the middling that come nearest to them. You know that the seduction of that part of mankind from the principles of religion, morality, subordination, and social order is the great object of the Jacobins. Let them grow lax, skeptical, careless, and indifferent with regard to religion, and, so sure as we have an existence, it is not a zealous Anglican or Scottish Church principle, but direct Jacobinism, which will enter into that breach. Two ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... discouraged on every hand, finally decided to build a boat himself, and did build one, with his own hands—a boat fourteen feet long and constructed of rough pine timbers painted with coal-tar—in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. With this boat Lake demonstrated to a skeptical world for all time that he was neither a visionary nor a dreamer, but a practical doer among ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... reveals both his own nature and the steady advance of the kingdom of God. The contrast between the scientist and the man of letters is not favorable to the latter. Karshish is an ideal scientist, with a naturally skeptical mind, yet wide open, willing to learn from any and every source, thankful for every new fact; Cleon is an intellectual snob. His mind is closed by its own culture, and he regards it as absurd that any man in humble circumstances can teach him anything. Learning, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... conclusively prove to the most skeptical that you are still the king, and that Von der Tann, nor any other, may not dare to dictate to you. It will be the most splendid stroke of statesmanship that you could achieve at the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was sound asleep in his dear old bed while his "secretary" was pacing up and down the studio talking of Servia, Russia and the Kaiser. This youth, too, skeptical as he generally was about everything not connected with his own interests, appeared infected by the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... remarks upon the unaccountable connection between pleasure and pain, and from this the conversation gradually turns to a consideration of the question of the immortality of the soul. He convinces his listeners of the pre-existence of the soul; but they are still skeptical as to its immortality, urging that its pre-existence and the fact that it is more durable than the body does not preclude the possibility of its being mortal. Socrates, however, argues that contraries cannot exist in the same thing at ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... generations, as Voltaire. I name him the infidel, not because his infidelity was the most prominent characteristic, but because he is known more widely in America for his scoffing skepticism. The effect of Voltaire's skeptical writings is more perceptible in Paris than in the provinces, but in the capital an amount of infidelity obtains which is perfectly frightful; and even among those who frequent the church, and sometimes ostentatiously parade an affection for it, this skepticism fills the intellects. ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... was bound to reassure the most skeptical mind, and M. Segmuller breathed again: "Now that I am easy on that score," said he, "I should like some information about another prisoner—a fellow named Chupin, who isn't in the secret cells. I want to know if any visitor came for ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... for one minute it was all easy sailing, for there were doubting Thomases, but it only took time and results to convert even the most skeptical ones. And here I must make a confession. It was much easier for my sister, unversed in any phase of canning, to master this new method than it was for me with my four years' training course and my five years of teaching canning behind me. And this is the reason. She had ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... again, of the preternatural and of popular superstitions as literary material, after a rationalizing and skeptical age, is signalized by such ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... silence. He had a naturally skeptical face; his present expression mightn't really mean that he didn't believe what ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... concerning which we had a discussion one day? Its subject was the hypnotic power possessed by the eyes of certain reptiles. I laughed the idea to scorn; you maintained that it was possible. Well, I agree with you; and I'd like to have about a dozen of our modern skeptical scientists in this cave with me for ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... smiled with a keen smile, and a gleam of roguery twinkled in her gray eye, the sprightly, skeptical roguery of those people who did not believe that they were made of the same clay as the others, and who lived as masters for whom ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... through his nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression—the copyrighted expression of the editor beleagured ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... fourteen points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... purchased of you years ago gave me permanent relief and cure. While I was always skeptical as to a permanent cure of rupture by means of a truss the fact remains that after following your advice and instruction, I have been going about without a truss, doing all kinds of work same as I did prior to becoming ruptured. I cheerfully recommend ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... already learned, was as skeptical as myself in regard to Madre Moreno's spells, for the laughing manner in which she had spoken of her aunt's charms and witcheries, when we were on the hill and even in the presence of the Madre herself, convinced me of her intelligence and education. It was ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... remainder of her existence with Andrew Walkingshaw—There rose vividly a picture of that most respectable of partners, and the emotion attendant on this vision drew from her a sigh that ought to have convinced the most skeptical she was very ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... stranger would naturally expect to come upon them at every turn, instead of which it is a well-known fact that one hundred miles of the wildest country may be traversed without seeing a single head of game, and the uninitiated might become skeptical ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... which promptly descends on the brain of the intelligent reader who endeavors to gain a clear idea of the state of society or of the administration of government in these early ages of Italian history, makes the careful student very skeptical of any precise presentation he may find of them, and causes him to be particularly cautious and proportionately diffident in making, himself, any very definite statements concerning them. If he be a wise man and wish to make his investigation of some use to others, ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... both of them were too delighted to say much of anything else. Then they sobered down and began this first long-distance conversation. Now one of the objections Mr. Bell had constantly been forced to meet from the skeptical public was that while the telegraph delivered messages that were of unchallenged accuracy telephone conversations were liable to errors of misunderstanding. One could not therefore rely so completely on the trustworthiness ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... and self-scrutiny, but have never had any hallucinations, mental delusions, nor hysterics, and am not at all superstitious. Spiritualistic manifestations, hypnotic dabblings, and the other psychical fads of the day have little or no attraction for me. In fact, I have always been skeptical of them, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... vanity. You always want to be the first—to write your names at the head of a blank sheet. Why? Is the conquest of a silly, ignorant girl more flattering than that of a woman of sense, who can compare and judge? Is not your triumph a thousand times greater when a disappointed, deeply-skeptical woman lays her heart at your feet, and says—'You I will trust, you will bring me healing and happiness'—than when a young girl gives you her love because you happen to be the first man who asks for it? Other images!—other memories! Do you know so little of a woman's ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... day they returned, and the same thing happened: a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They said: "This is a TV typewriter!" The guard was skeptical, so they plugged it in and demonstrated it. "See? You just type on the keyboard and what you type shows up on the TV screen." Now the guard didn't stop to think about how utterly useless a typewriter ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... to grin a little, but even though it didn't seem as skeptical to me as it did to him, I saw he might be right about it. Still, I wasn't goin' to take sides without hearin' all the evidence, so I sez, ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... asked. Rose was curious. At the same time she was skeptical of the whole movement ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... appears this gay free-thinker was not only somewhat skeptical in his religious notions, but, moreover, a hard-hearted, good-for-nothing fellow—one who, had he lived in our time, would unquestionably have brought himself within the sweep of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Duke of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... were enamored by the Misses Bimpa were skeptical of this, and affirmed that it was a "humbug," but this question will be settled in the evening. Meanwhile, the commotion around the circus is increasing each moment. From among the long, low wooden buildings surrounding ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... dynasty, who freed the Songhoi from the rule of Mali. The country thereafter continued for some time in peace. Later it expanded considerably under Sunni Ali, "the true Negro soldier," who ruled from 1464 to 1493. Although skeptical, violent and oppressive he paved the way for the establishment of the largest empire which had ever existed in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... taught, that brings order out of chaos, that becomes the solvent of the riddle of life, and however cynical, skeptical, or practical we may think at times we may be, a little quiet clear-cut thought will bring us each time back to the truth that it is the essential force that leads away from the tooth and the claw of the jungle, that lifts life up ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... your assertion in the Bible. The Christian religion is full of the most blessed promises of salvation in everything," said Kate, gently, but flushing a little as she spoke, for she disliked talking religion with Grace, who was so skeptical, although if compelled to do so, it was a matter of duty to stand ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... the misrepresentation of their orthodox critics. It is, at any rate, undeserved, as far as Gutzkow, the leader of the school, is concerned. It is true that they were liberal in the matter of religious and philosophical thought. They were also skeptical as to the sincerity and usefulness of many current practises and institutions of the Catholic and Protestant branches of the church; their wit, irony, and satire were directed, however, not against religion, but against ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... not imagine that, because the term Rationalism has been frequently employed within the last few years, it is of very recent origin either as a word or skeptical type. The Aristotelian Humanists of Helmstedt were called Rationalists in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and Comenius applied the same epithet to the Socinians in 1688.[1] It was a common word in England two hundred years ago. Nor was it imported into the English language from ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... him cordially, not only because of his athletic ability, but because he had proved himself a good fellow. Elder Fox had strenuously opposed intimate relationships between the club and former ministers, but he made no attempt to interfere with Mr. McGowan, although he remained skeptical as to the wisdom of such secular tendencies. Sim Hicks, the keeper of the Inn, did not like the minister, and declared he would oust him from the community if it were the last act of ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... shore, our ambassador had been taken to the quarters of Major Valdez, who claimed to be an officer of the Federals, and by him he was thoroughly cross-examined. He had heard of the breaking up of the Confederacy, but not of the capture of Mr. Davis, and was evidently skeptical of our story as to being wreckers, and connected us in some way with the losing party, either as persons of note or a party escaping with treasure. However, O'Toole baffled all his queries, and was proof against both blandishments and threats. He learned ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... withdrawal may become a moral duty for the Zionists who are loyal to the movement and respect their convictions—might mean a complete standstill in the life of American Jewry. Perhaps there are a few among us who are skeptical about the fate of American Judaism, and who therefore see no harm in hastening its disintegration. But those of us who are profoundly concerned about the future of the two and one-half million Jews who are now in America, and of twice that number who may one day be here, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Somewhat excited, yet half skeptical, he returned to the excavation and scooped out yet another collection. This time there could be no mistake. Nature's own alchemy had fashioned a veritable ingot. There were small lumps in the ore which would need alloy at the mint before they could ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... conversion of the nations to Christianity; the many anti-christian corruptions of the Gospel; the idolatry, tyranny and persecution of the Roman hierarchy, etc. What prescience does all this imply—prescience no where to be found but in God! "Let now the infidel or the skeptical reader meditate thoroughly and soberly on these predictions. The priority of the records to the events admits of no question. The completion is obvious to every competent enquirer. Here, then, are facts. We are called upon to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the country has suffered recurring economic problems of inflation, external debt, capital flight, and budget deficits. Growth in 2000 was a negative 0.8%, as both domestic and foreign investors remained skeptical of the government's ability to pay debts and maintain the peso's fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. The economic situation worsened in 2001 with the widening of spreads on Argentine bonds, massive withdrawals ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... violet de parme you represent. If you want any advertising done, just call on me, William Canfield Brewer. I write poetry, draw pictures, make up stories, and prove to the absolute satisfaction of the most skeptical public that any article is even better than you say it is. I command a princely salary,—but I can't command it long enough. Adieu, I go, my ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... Austrian Crown Prince and the subsequent events were exciting, but it was only when Russia sent that one word "Mobilize" to Serbia that we suspected serious results. Even the summer visitors from the States exhibited signs of excitement, yet they were skeptical of the chances of war; that is, war that would really affect us! My newspaper in Montreal wired for me to come down to do war cartoons and I left my father and hiked to ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... soon won the Murphy family and Tom was eager to see us shoot. He had heard that we shot deer, but he was rather skeptical that our arrows could do much damage to bear. So one of the first things he did after our arrival was to drag out an old dried hide and hang it on a fence in the corral and asked me to shoot an arrow through it. It was surely a test, for the old bear had been a tough customer and his ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... supposition," replied Cathewe. "A stunning yarn, and rather hard to believe in these skeptical times. What is it?" he asked softly, noting the dead white ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... want it more than anything else in the whole world. A statement from you will carry more weight with the girls than anything I could possibly tell them. It will convince the doubters, you know. There are sure to be some who will insist on being skeptical." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... the present spokesmen of Socialism are, like Kautsky, somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an alliance between the working class and this section of the middle class, others accept it without qualification. If, then, we consider at once the middle ground taken by the former group of Socialists, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... is infamous that the struggle should be so hard for so many. All of us who are ignorant or complacent or skeptical about the social evils of our time are sharers in the iniquity of those who fall. Many of us live in mean satisfaction, just because we ourselves have found comfort and security; that is how these evil forces are able to go on year after year leading thousands to their undoing. If the test of a real ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... some passages in his philosophical poems, published at Frankfort, contain the substance of their blasphemies. A man of Mocenigo's stamp probably thought that he was faithfully representing the heretic's views, while in reality he was drawing his own gross conclusions from skeptical utterances about the origin of Christianity which he obscurely understood. It does not seem incredible, however, that Bruno, who was never nice in his choice of language, and who certainly despised historical Christianity, let fall crude witticisms upon such ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... I was skeptical as to this special brand of philanthropy, but I was touched by the grief of her disappointed hopes. I knew the particular sting. At the same time my hand twitched to shake her for going into this thing in so impractical a way. Teaching ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... signified by knocks that he was a disturbing agency, and that while he remained all our efforts would fail. Upon this some of the company proposed that he should leave; of which invitation he took advantage, with a skeptical sneer ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... allows himself any relaxation to speak of, except to demonstrate the truth of spiritualism. He does love to monkey with the supernatural, and he delights in getting hold of some skeptical friend and convincing him of the presence of spirits beyond a doubt. I've known him to ignore two cases of croup and one case of twins to attend a seance and help convince a doubting ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... pleaded Mrs. Carr, as she slipped her arm under Jane's head. At the first hint of any excitement she invariably lost her presence of mind and became distracted; and Jane's hysterical outbursts never failed to convince her, though they usually left the more skeptical Gabriella unmoved. "Don't you think you would feel better if you lay back on the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... doubters whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they talk as if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds and to refuse to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves "Liberal," as if a Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to assert that the "advanced thought of the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... to find the way out without paying the price of knowledge, is tempted to say to himself "Faith, and I'll begin with Part III," we give him fair warning that if he does so, he will in all probability end by putting down the book in a confused and skeptical frame of mind. ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... there are political augurs who are ready to give just that as their horoscope, and even point to their useful predecessor, the last Commission, for presumptive proof! In fact, there are occasional grumblers who would look for more from them if they were fewer. These skeptical critics recognize that sometimes in a multitude of counselors there may be safety, but also recall the maxim that councils of war never fight. If the truth must be whispered in the ear of the Commissioners, there are here and there very sincere, capable people who are growing ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... purchased, larger and every way better than those employed on the former occasion. Stores were laid in, as experience dictated, on a larger scale than before, and proclamation was made of "an expedition to Peru." But the call was not readily answered by the skeptical citizens of Panama. Of nearly two hundred men who had embarked on the former cruise, not more than three fourths now remained.11 This dismal mortality, and the emaciated, poverty-stricken aspect of the survivors, spoke more eloquently than the braggart promises and magnificent prospects ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... more skeptical, went straight to the window and looked out. The crumbling mortar-dust on the sill had evidently been disturbed, seeming to make good the Englishman's story, but, from the window, was a clear drop of four hundred ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... "Sam's skeptical, though," retorted Stanley. "And, as for me, I've a mine right here in San Francisco." He spoke enthusiastically. "Moving sandhills into the bay. Making a new city front out of flooded bogs! That's realism. Romance. And what's better, fortune! ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Miller's smile had ceased to be skeptical, it was strained. "And which servant imparted ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... faith. His own nature in this respect is easy to understand but difficult to describe, since the words which must be used convey such different ideas to different persons. Thus, to say that he had the religious temperament, though he was skeptical as to all the divine and supernatural dogmas of the religions of mankind, will seem to many a self-contradiction, while to others it is entirely intelligible. In his boyhood one gets a flavor of irreverence ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... residence at the chateau he had become fat, fresh, and rosy, such as he had never before been at any previous epoch of his life. Emboldened by the friendship he had shown to his guest, Voisenon ventured one day to say to the Abbe Boiviel, that, skeptical and atheistical as they falsely imagined him to be in the world, he possessed, nevertheless, an absolute faith in alchemy; he denied neither the philosopher's stone, nor the universal panacea, nor even the potable ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... round by the long road that day, nor do I know exactly what motive influenced the old man's exertions in the matter. He was fond of Mabel, but I was old enough, and knew Julius well enough, to be skeptical of his motives. It is certain that a most excellent understanding existed between him and Murchison after the reconciliation, and that when the young people set up housekeeping over at the old Murchison place, Julius ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... I'm going to try!" and Tom, after a further talk with his father, began work in earnest on the big problem. That it was a big one Tom was not disposed to deny, and that it would be a valuable invention even his somewhat skeptical ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... deeper interest then at the man whose arms were bound, but privately we permitted ourselves to be skeptical regarding the details of his alleged ghoulishness. We had begun to discount German stories of Belgian atrocities and Belgian stories of German atrocities. I might add that I am still ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... man has perceived it with his mind and reproduced it therewith; no objection may be raised to the soundness of his understanding; ergo, everything may be relied upon just as he has testified to it.'' But he who believes in the more uncomfortable, but at least more conscientious, skeptical doctrine, has, at the minimum, some fair reason for believing himself able to trust the intelligence of a witness. Yet he neither is spared the task of testing the correctness of the witness's ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... secure the managerial berth for his equally inefficient brother-in-law, and thus keep the salary in the family, cautiously accepted the invitation. So this was the man who, a few days later, faced the full board, who with affable confidence in his own abilities won over even the somewhat skeptical Whitehill, and who was, on the ninth day of December, 1912, elected Vice-President and underwriting manager of the Guardian Fire ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... children in other lands, are skeptical as to the reality of the stories told in the songs. Thus I remember once hearing our old nurse telling a number of stories and singing a number of songs to the little folk in the nursery. They had accepted one after another the legends as they ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... passes and all you see about you is an unbroken waste of water, an unrelieved, a hopeless monotony of water. You know that a change will come, but this knowledge is confined to your brain. Your senses are skeptical ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... with increase of tumefaction. A tumefying condition undoubtedly marks the beginning of all catarrhal diseases. Its ravages extend to the diseases of the fall and winter seasons. They are so marked on examination that the most skeptical cannot dispute or doubt the truth of this position. In fact he is already committed to a belief that there is something in the fluids that he must purify by the chemical ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... or insignificant, but he wore a rather battered aspect; there were deep lines running from the corners of his mouth, and crowsfeet had started under the gray eyes which, in their turn, looked more skeptical than ardent, rather mocking than eager. Yet when he smiled, his face became not merely pleasant, but confidentially pleasant; he seemed to smile especially to and for the person to whom he was talking; and his voice ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... conductor, or a contributor to The Saturday Evening Post, takes time to deepen his observation and to say it with real words instead of worn symbols, he makes, and does make, literature. More are doing it than the skeptical realize. The new epoch of the American ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... each party in power has refused to enfranchise woman, being skeptical as to her moral influence in government, yet with strange inconsistency they alike seek the aid of her voice and pen in all important political struggles. While not morally bound to obey the laws made without their consent, yet we find women the most law-abiding class of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... sides, exclamations of amazement and horror broke out when he had finished. Only the chief sat regarding him in silence, a skeptical pucker lifting ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Benavides, and his tone was almost gratified, for he had gathered that Hozier was skeptical when told of the rockets. But in that respect, at least, he was not mistaken. A man-of-war had entered the roadstead, and her powerful lamp was now scouring sea and coast for the missing launch. And in that moment of fresh peril it was forgotten by all but one of the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... unspoiled island Eden, where bronze-brown Eves with faces and figures of surpassing loveliness disported themselves on the long white beaches, or loitered the lazy days away beneath the palms. But I went there skeptical at heart, for, ever since I journeyed six thousand miles to see the women for whom Circassia has long been undeservedly famous, I have listened with doubt and distrust to the tales told by returned travelers of the nymphs whom they had found, leading an Arcadian ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... be. If he asks for information, and you choose to give it, that is one thing,—you are not obliged to hear all the skeptical views and arguments with which he is furnished. Your statement of the truth has nothing to do with the grounds of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... be, allowed any longer, if public opinion, or the public conscience, was once roused. Let people laugh at Celtic monuments as much as they like, if they will only help to preserve their laughing-stocks from destruction. Let antiquarians be as skeptical as they like, if they will only prevent the dishonest withdrawal of the evidence against which their skepticism is directed. Are lake-dwellings in Switzerland, are flint-deposits in France, is kitchen-rubbish in Denmark, so very precious, and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... considerable misery is undeniable: and the question is, of course, confined to that. Its exaggeration, in the ordinary estimate both of the vulgar and of skeptical reasoners, is equally certain. Paley, Bishop Sumner, as well as Derham, King, Ray and others of the older writers, have made many judicious and generally correct observations upon its amount, and ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... his passionate devotion to the Woman's Cause, and this White Slave Traffic all rot. He had worked sufficiently in the bad towns of the South Welsh coast and had had an initiation into the lower-living parts of Birmingham and London to be skeptical about the existence of these poor, deluded virgins, lured from their humble respectable homes and thrust by Shakespearean procuresses, bawds, and bullies into an impure life. If they went to these places abroad it was probably with the hope ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... "I saw one of them clearly enough to be sure. But they're skeptical characters. I'm afraid there may be more on the way here from wherever they keep themselves. Anyhow, now we know some of them are in hearing! I'll take advantage of that and we'll ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... time, if they showed themselves skeptical about our future, they proved most sympathetic over our past. Our description of the Friday footprints especially brought out much fellow-feeling. They knew the spot well, they said, and it was very bad. In fact it was called the Oni ga Jo, or place of many devils, for its fearfulness. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the forgiveness of sins. We do the same thing with Jesus. We speak of him as of a unique personality, as the highest revelation of the Father, and the like, but always connected with a certain skeptical undercurrent of thought; but we do not appreciate him in his deepest soul and in the great motives of his life. He is not for modern theology what he is for orthodoxy, the Saviour of the world ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... that "it can't be." I wouldn't class myself as a "believer," exactly, because I've seen too many UFO reports that first appeared to be unexplainable fall to pieces when they were thoroughly investigated. But every time I begin to get skeptical I think of the other reports, the many reports made by experienced pilots and radar operators, scientists, and other people who know what they're looking at. These reports were thoroughly investigated ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... off and destroyed an attacking fleet eight miles above it. With sufficiently powerful artillery, it might have been destroyed at that moment. But it was invulnerable to the artillery available.... Deliberately false statements were broadcast to reassure the public, but the public was already skeptical, as it later became incredulous, of official reports of victories. The destruction of New Brunswick became known despite official denials, and colossal riots broke out among the inhabitants of the larger cities, ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... had topped short somewhere in the rough. I waited until they were all out on the fairway. Some had played three, some four shots. 'How many do you lie?' asked Rutter. I told him that was my drive. He just stared skeptical. I could scarcely blame him. As a rule I need a fair drive and two screaming brassies on this long fifth before I am in position to approach across the ravine. But this time, with a carry of some 160 yards ahead ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... a trifle skeptical as to the wisdom of permitting the stranger to attach himself to him. There was always the chance that he was but the essence of some hypnotic treachery which Tario or Jav was attempting to exert upon ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... at the narrow opening, the boys decapitated them and laid them in a row on the grass. They had caught nine, and nine times thirty-five—well, it would be more than three krones. The stupendous amount made Pelle skeptical. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... begun, Socrates died the death of the Christian; and though Hume was not a Christian in theory, yet he, too, died the death of the Christian,—humble, composed, without bravado; and though the most skeptical of philosophical skeptics, yet full of that firm, creedless faith, that embraces the spheres. Seneca died dictating to posterity; Petronius lightly discoursing of essences and love-songs; and Addison, calling upon Christendom to behold how calmly a Christian could die; but not ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... argument the skeptical friend called the office of the Philharmonic. Mr. Toscanini had been right about the Beethoven Concerto and had correctly remembered the purely orchestral numbers ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... bulk of her correspondence diverted her mind from its immediate duty. She failed to catch the instructor's eye, and the recitation proceeded without her assistance. Priscilla watched her from the back seat as she read the Yale letter with a skeptical frown, and made a grimace over the blue and the yellow; but before she had reached the Hotel A——, Priscilla was paying attention to the recitation again. It was coming her way, and she was anxiously forming an opinion on the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... still upper-most in his mind. Of course he knew the common stories—about fascination. He had once been himself an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of our common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, "cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field,"—a relation which some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so instinctive that this animal ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to give their own impressions of a journey, though every inch of the way may have been described a half a dozen times before, I add some of the notes made by the way, hoping that they will amuse the reader, and convince the skeptical that such a being as Nurse Periwinkle does exist, that she really did go to Washington, and that these Sketches ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... of line with us," said Anna so confidently as to draw a skeptical grunt from his mother, and for better heart let a tune float silently in and out ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... all we had to dread were the revolution which is held up as a specter to terrify us! Since I cannot imagine a society more detestable than ours, I feel more skeptical than alarmed in regard to that which will replace it. If I should have to suffer from the change, I should be consoled by thinking that the executioners of that day were the victims of the previous time, and the hope of something better ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... human weaknesses. A real unity of the world is set forth by Sophocles: there is a divinely ordered control by immutable law, and the will of Zeus is unquestioned. The unitary conception is found also in Euripides notwithstanding his skeptical attitude toward the current mythology. The sense of symmetry potent in the poets forced them to this unitary conception of government, and the natural progress of ethical feeling led them to ascribe the highest ethical ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... [Footnote 406: Staehelin is skeptical about, and Prof. Billiet and M. Douen reject altogether the story of Calvin's labors at Aosta. Thus much M. Bonnet believes to be established by concurrent MS. and traditional authority: That, early in the year 1536, Calvin ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She stopped to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm always skeptical about crazy people ever amounting to anything again. Seems to ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... law and the orderly sequence of cause and effect, and incapable under any circumstances of the patient analysis needed to trace to all their sources the threads of their strangely mingled webs of life; impressionable folk under the spell of words; speculative; at once credulous and skeptical; intellectually alert enough to want to do their own thinking and not intellectually disciplined enough to do it well; persuaded that the Bible has both a message and authority and unable to find in their traditional interpretation of it either a satisfying ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... the age of twenty-two, when the household removed to Coventry, and Miss Evans was there brought in contact with the family of a wealthy ribbon-maker named Bray. He was a man of some culture, and the atmosphere of his house, with its numerous guests, was decidedly skeptical. To Miss Evans, brought up in a home ruled by early Methodist ideals of piety, the change was a little startling. Soon she was listening to glib evolutionary theories that settled everything from an earthworm to a cosmos; next she was eagerly reading ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... mental reservations that usually accompanied her skeptical smile. She was getting at her fiance from ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... here, interests me highly, and I thank you most sincerely for it. I am obliged to reply, however, that the affidavit of Messrs Miller and McKinlay astonished me very much. I cannot remember to have ever read anything of the kind anywhere and like you, I am very skeptical about it. I was in the world and a student at Amherst College in the year 1867, and was even then collecting the material for my history. I am pretty sure that I should have known of anything of this kind had it existed. I am going to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... depressing mustard yellow paint of the woodwork with its obviously false graining and deepened the blackness of the fireplace. Throughout the reading of the Scripture Edward Dunsack never shifted his slumped position; his face, with smudged closed eyes, seemed fixed in a skeptical smile. The hollows of his temples were green. The reading ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... various chalk formations. "The mere assertion," says Rhymer Jones, "that flints were sponges, would no doubt startle the reader who was unacquainted with the history of these fossil relics of a former ocean;" and yet a little reflection "will satisfy the most skeptical." For long ages the sponge is imbedded in the chalk, through which water is continually percolating. A well-known law of chemistry explains why similar matter should become aggregated; and thus the siliceous matter of the sponge forms ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... had sat in front of our tents above the beach and watched the flying-fish come out in twos and threes and schools, all the way down the rugged coast. I told the captain then that swordfish were chasing them. But he was skeptical. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... concerning the farm house was, in the end, devised by Louis Akers. Woslosky was skeptical. It was true that Cameron might stick his head into the lion's jaws, but precautions had been known to be taken at such times to prevent their closing. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... one evening. One of them with a skeptical mind had just rejected the Bible because it did not tell him the things that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made, and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of heaven and why God permitted it, and because ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. Jasper was very generous. But perhaps he had rewarded her for being a good little girl and not—not ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... skeptical. Nor surprised. Evidently, his informant had had plenty of information. Or else his poker face was ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and the two of them smiled at each other with rare good humor out under the June stars. Only the tinker's smile was skeptical. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... are tamer than the sparrows in Hyde Park—perhaps it is that the passers-by are rarer, and they come to recognize their benefactors. For the first half-hour of the committee meeting, Mary had thus to do battle with the skeptical presence of Ralph Denham, who threatened to have it all his own way. Mary tried half a dozen methods of ousting him. She raised her voice, she articulated distinctly, she looked firmly at Mr. Clacton's bald ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... reasoning, as a man is prone and perhaps obliged to do, from himself to another, had omitted to take account of a factor in Claudia's mind about the existence of which, even if it had been suggested to him, he would have been profoundly skeptical. Ayre had never been able, or at least never given himself the trouble, to understand how real a thing Stafford's vow had been to him, and what a struggle was necessary before he could disregard it. He would have been still more at a loss ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... to the foregoing statements: First, Joseffy has always been rather skeptical of too few piano studies. His argument is that endurance is also a prime factor of technic, and you cannot compass endurance without you endure prolonged finger drills. But as he has since composed—literally composed—the most extraordinary ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... leisure. My nights were surrendered, almost wholly, to my new pursuit. I toiled with all the earnestness which distinguished my temperament, stimulated to a yet higher degree by those feelings of pride and pique, which were resolved to convince my skeptical uncle that I was not entirely without those talents, the assertion of which had so promptly provoked his sneer. Besides, I had already learned that no such scheme as mine could be successfully prosecuted, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the statement. Why? Because they are not up to the new and improved ideas in poultry management. A little trial of the rules laid down in these books will soon dispel all misgivings in this direction and tend to convince the most skeptical that there is money in poultry-keeping. It contains a complete description of all the varieties of fowls, including turkeys, ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... and glittering. Her straight brown hair had been coaxed by dint of two rows of curl papers to hang in shining brown curls. A silver paper star shone above her forehead and slippers covered with more silver paper made her feet things of beauty even in Katy's skeptical eyes. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... rapidly for the blissful young Jenisons. The letters from the far West were full of promise. Even the skeptical David was compelled to admit to himself that the silver lining was discernible against the black cloud that Mary Braddock had ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the lost articles has had long experience as an alienist. He is skeptical as to the reality of what is called mind. So far as his clients are concerned, it is notable for its absence. To be confronted day after day by the absent-minded, and to listen to their monotonous tale of woe, is ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... scene preached to his inmost soul. Doctrinal arguments and learned polemics, he could have tilted with, word for word; but here were facts, and realities and influences, which disarmed and defied all that was skeptical in his nature. The dying man—the priest of God—that young and fragile girl, illustrated by their acts a faith which, though mysterious to him, could be nothing less than divine; but Father Fabian, ignorant of the thoughts which were passing, like ripples of light, through his ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... his rights among us moderns that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the role! A poet who is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... alone." Her lips trembled and tightened. "I am a woman, and I'll show him what a woman can do. He has lived among the Indians until he thinks he owns them. He is hard, and domineering, and uncompromising, and skeptical. And yet—" What gave her pause was so intangible, so chaotic, in her own mind as to form itself into ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... said, "but I am rather skeptical as to these night surprises. In nine cases out of ten—mind, I don't mean for a moment that it was so in your case—but in nine cases out of ten, these rumors of night ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... together," and then add with a sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interest secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part of the British dominions." Mrs Pompley was always rather cowed by the Digbies. She could not be skeptical as to this connection, for the Colonel's mother was certainly a Digby, and the Colonel impaled the Digby arms. En revanche, as the French say, for these marital connections, Mrs. Pompley had her own favorite affinity, which she specially selected from all others when she most desired to produce ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... splendidly if it were held within six inches of them, and who, when he did read, moved book or paper back and forth in front of his spectacles in a droll, owlish, improbable way, instead of letting his eyes travel across the lines of print, was skeptical at first. He suspected Bonbright of being a youth scratching the itch of a sudden and transient enthusiasm. But he became interested. Bonbright compelled his interest, for he was earnest, intense, not enthusiastic, not ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... nothing in the room because some other person has it; this shows poverty of ideas. Let there be nothing in the room which does not satisfy some need, spiritual or physical, of some member of the family. How bare our rooms would become! Let the skeptical reader try an experiment. Take everything out of a given room, then bring back one by one the things one feels essential not merely because it fills space but for the presence of which some one can give a good and sufficient reason. It will mean ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... mortification and embarrassment, with scarcely a heart to cheer, or a hand to help him. [26] Those more enlightened persons whom, during his long residence in Spain, he succeeded in interesting in his expedition, looked to it probably as the means of solving a dubious problem, with the same sort of vague and skeptical curiosity as to its successful result, with which we contemplate, in our day, an attempt to arrive at the Northwest passage. How feeble was the interest excited, even among those who from their science and situation would seem to have their ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Jesus say about Himself? The critics of the world, including the skeptical, infidel critics, seem to agree fully and easily on a few things about this Jesus on whose dissection they have expended so much time and strength. They agree that in the purity of His life, the moral power ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... wholly skeptical as to the existence of any such portent as the vampire, the supernatural theory of the good doctor furnished, in my opinion, but another instance of learning and intelligence oddly associated with some one hallucination. I was so miserable, however, that, rather than try nothing, I ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... open quarto book. It was the late Professor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology," and embodied the result of his researches into the history of the Hashishin, the religious murderers of whose existence he had been so skeptical. To the Chief of the Order, the terrible Sheikh Hassan of Aleppo, he referred as a "fabled being"; yet it was at the hands of this "fabled being" that he had met his end! How incredible it all seemed. But I knew full well how ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... whether he believes it or not. Just so the skillful operator in Cosmic Therapeutics can generate, control and direct the power of the Cosmic consciousness which he understands, and it brings its results whether the skeptical mind of ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... from me and fixed them on the floor. After a pause he resumed, in emphatic accents:—"Well, I have lived to this age in unbelief. To credit or trust in miraculous agency was foreign to my nature, but now I am no longer skeptical. Call me to any bar, and exact from me an oath that you have twice been dead and twice recalled to life; that you move about invisibly, and change your place by the force, not of muscles, but of thought, and I will ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... sympathized with me. I gave them permission to take the fallen hides, and in return received many kindnesses where a few days before I had been confronted by shotguns. This was my first experience with Texas fever, and the lessons that I learned then and afterward make me skeptical of all theories regarding the transmission of ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... skeptical way, such as newspapermen are wont to affect toward a thing until it is done—after which we make a wild scramble ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve |
