"Credibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... piano. Useless, once more! Though she shrank from confessing it to herself, Mrs. Glenarm's belief in the genuineness of her lover's defense had been shaken. The tone taken by Julius—moderate as it was—revived the first startling suspicion of the credibility of Geoffrey's statement which Anne's language and conduct had forced on Mrs. Glenarm. She dropped into the nearest chair, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. "You always hated poor Geoffrey," she said, with ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... conjunction, conforming in such particulars, did really take place within the latter half of the fourteenth century: if it was considered worth while to search out a described conjunction 2500 years before Christ, in order to test the credibility of Chinese records, it would surely be not less interesting to confirm the accuracy of Chaucer's astronomy, of his fondness for which, and of his desire to bring it forward on all possible occasions, he has given so many proofs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... recreancy is loud through all the land,—now, when we have immediately in view, and on the largest scale, an open patronage of infamous wrong-doing, so brazen-fronted and blush-proof that only the spectacle itself makes its credibility;—the prior possibility of it we should one and all hasten, for the honor of human nature, to deny. Yet in the midst of all this are visible the victorious influences that mould the imported Teuton ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... device for combining the inertia of a wooden idol with the credibility of a flesh and ...
— Maxims for Revolutionists • George Bernard Shaw
... of the legend is not, nor should it be, a proof of belief in Christ and Christianity. This view is well voiced by Rev. Dr. Campbell, in his "New Theology," when he says "The credibility and significance of Christianity are in no way affected by the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, otherwise than that the belief tends to put a barrier between Jesus and the race, and to make him something that cannot properly be called human.... Like many others, I used to take the position ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Savage when he wrote his London. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of Savage, the event was not antedated but foreseen; for London was published in May, 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July, 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of second sight [see post, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was possessed of that faculty. BOSWELL. I am not sure that Hawkins is altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not state of his own knowledge that Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when he wrote London. The ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... scope for a desultory and eager ambition; and that something of truth lurks beneath many of the rich embellishments which his wanderings and exploits received from the exuberant poetry and the rude credibility of the age. During his absence, Menestheus, of the royal race of Attica, who, Plutarch simply tells us, was the first of mankind that undertook the profession of a demagogue, ingratiated himself with the people, or rather with the nobles. The absence of a king is always the nurse of seditions, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... submit to you some observations relative to the affairs of the Jews at Damascus, which I was enabled to make in my recent visit to that city, and also to lay before you the general impression on my mind at that time, as to the weight and credibility of the evidence addressed in support of the charges which have been ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... separated from the body, yet it will be always as easy to give an account of it as to give an account what it is that shall keep together a material and immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken the credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity; and I persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point much weakened by that difficulty.... But you will say, you speak only of the soul; and your words ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... certain account of, who was publicly distinguished as an Orator, and who really appears to have been such, was M. Cornelius Cethegus; whose eloquence is attested by Q. Ennius, a voucher of the highest credibility; since he actually heard him speak, and gave him this character after his death; so that there is no reason to suspect that he was prompted by the warmth of his friendship to exceed the bounds of truth. In his ninth book of ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... restrictions, I think, every writer may be permitted to deal as much in the wonderful as he pleases; nay, if he thus keeps within the rules of credibility, the more he can surprize the reader the more he will engage his attention, and the more he will charm him. As a genius of the highest rank observes in his fifth chapter of the Bathos, "The great art ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... specific experience can generally be, and should be gained. And a slight improvement in the data profits more than the most elaborate application of the calculus of probabilities to the bare original data, e.g. to such data, when we are calculating the credibility of a witness, as the proportion, even if it could be verified, between the number of true and of erroneous statements a man, qua man, may be supposed to make during his life. Before applying the Doctrine of Chance, therefore, we should lay a foundation for an ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... too great between the value of the accessory and that of the principal. The price mentioned by the same author {Plin. 1. viii.c.48.}, of some triclinaria, a sort of woollen pillows or cushions made use of to lean upon as they reclined upon their couches at table, passes all credibility; some of them being said to have cost more than 30,000, others more than 300,000. This high price, too, is not said to have arisen from the dye. In the dress of the people of fashion of both sexes, there seems to have been ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... and tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, 'I should never have known what a man can make of one day; what things may be placed within the interval of twelve hours. A day for this man was more than a week or a month is for others: the mass of things he guided on together was prodigious; from ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... buried, before I was born; I never visited Holland nor spoke with a native of that country. So much I believe you already know. I must, then, give you my authority, and state to you frankly the ground upon which rests the credibility of the strange story which I am, about to ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his learned work on "Egypt and the Books of Moses," conclusively shows, by numerous examples, how direct were the Egyptian references of the Pentateuch; in which fact, indeed, he recognizes "one of the most powerful arguments for its credibility and for its composition by Moses."—HENGSTENBERG, p. 239, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... ask papa about them, I don't understand business; but I want to tell you about Sir Rupert. The Society for Psychical Research sent down a Committee to inquire into the credibility of the ghost, and recorded four authentic apparitions in the spare bedroom; and on family evidence accepted at least three events in the Long Gallery. It was just after their report was issued that papa was invited to lease the house to ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... seems, Jesus dared not set up to be the victorious prince expected, for victories are not to be counterfeited. I hope it was no crime in him that he did not assume this false character, and try to abuse the credibility of the people; if he had done so, it certainly would have been a crime; and therefore in this point at least he is innocent. I do not suppose the Gentleman imagines the Jews were well founded in their expectation of a temporal prince: and therefore when Christ opposed this conceit at the manifest ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... the study of the race problem. Prof. DuBois has shown commendable zeal in studying the race problem, while so many others are content to discuss it. The data for his study were collected principally by the alumni of Atlanta University and are thus entitled to a high degree of credibility. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... designation by the Indians at the second Stanwix Treaty, there is only one other source which lends any credibility to the Pine Creek view, and that is Smith's Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. After the last treaty was made acquiring Pennsylvania lands from the Indians, the legislature, in order to quell disputes about ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... chronicles; and that, when we find him mentioned in history, "the information was derived from the ballads, and is not independent of them or correlative with them." While making these admissions, he accords a considerable degree of credibility to the ballads, and particularly to the "Lytell Geste," the last two fits of which he regards as giving a tolerably ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... longer than his father. The other 84 monarchs had filled up the remaining space of 28,980 years—their reigns thus averaging 345 years apiece. It is clear that these numbers are unhistoric; and though it would be easy to reduce them within the limits of credibility by arbitrary suppositions—as for instance, that the years of the narrative represent months or days—yet it may reasonably be doubted whether we should in this way be doing any service to the cause of historic truth. The names Evechous and Chomasbelus seem mythic ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... to look upon—so fair in her statuesque attitudes and her shapely presence, that the infatuation of the man who created her is readily understood. By the classic beauty of her features and the perfect molding of her figure she is enabled to give all possible credibility to the legend of her miraculous birth. Moreover, the refinement of her bearing and manner allows no jarring note to be struck, and although, when Galatea sadly returns to marble not a tear is shed by the spectator, it ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... said I, "will only enhance his credibility. All the facts which you have stated have been admitted by him. They constitute an essential ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... one of our countrymen, acting in the high and solemn capacity to which Mr. King was called, we cannot, however, without doing violence to our own feelings, and criminating numbers of our countrymen, perhaps equally entitled to credibility with Mr. King himself, afford our credence to his singular report; especially when we see it contradicted unconditionally, by the unfortunate witnesses of ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... deep-rooted faiths of maturity, once, the child's readiness to believe its parents infallible, and would not any other indoctrination have held as firmly? Even so the rather childish minds of Dave's guardians made no question of the credibility of the tale, coming as it did from such an informant—one without a shadow of interest in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... with which it was done. There is none of the far-fetched, impossible exaggeration—the form of burlesque which Theodore Hook or Albert Smith might have attempted. It is, in fact, a real speech, which might have been delivered to a dull-headed audience without much impairing credibility. Apart from this it is a most effective harangue and most plausible ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... while their veracity is not impeachd, stand equal in the eye of the judge; unless he happens to be acquainted with their different characters, which is not presumd—The jury who are taken from the vicinity, are supposd to know the credibility of the witnesses: In the late trials the witnesses were most if not all of them either inhabitants of this town or transient persons residing in it, and the jurors were all from the country: Therefore it is not likely that they were acquainted with the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... the utmost verge of probability, the effect had been preserved. . . For instance, we can conceive and allow of the appearance of a ghost; we can even dispense with an enchanted sword and helmet, but then they must keep within certain limits of credibility. A sword so large as to require a hundred men to lift it, a helmet that by its own weight forces a passage through a court-yard into an arched vault . . . when your expectation is wound up to the highest pitch, these circumstances take it down with a witness, destroy ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and plans to develop or acquire WMD. We need to understand and assess the credibility of threat reporting and provide technical assessments ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... eaten. His leprous flesh can never come again like the flesh of a little child. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, and reap for ever and ever. It is not eternal punishment which is incredible; nothing else has credibility. Let there be no illusion about this: forgiveness is a violation, a reversal, of law, and no such thing is conceivable in a world in which ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... women and distinction in men are alike in this: they seem to be the unthinking a kind of credibility. Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world, and protect America's credibility, interests, and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve a stable ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... fancy of the author had arrayed the story, had been made the subject of somewhat stringent criticism; Fray Antonio Agapida had been found to belong to a Spanish branch of the family of Diedrich Knickerbocker; and doubts were thus cast over the credibility of the whole veracious chronicle. Mr. Irving extricates himself from the dilemma with his usual graceful ingenuity. In a characteristic note to this edition, he explains the circumstances in which the history had its origin, and shows conclusively that whatever dimness may be thrown over the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... convinced me that Paley did not believe in his own book. No one could have rested satisfied with it for moment, if he felt that he was on really strong ground. Besides, how insufficient for their purpose are his examples of discrepancies which do not impair the credibility of the ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... into one continuous Narrative. 2. The Acts of the Apostles, and continuous History of St. Paul. 3. An Analysis of the Epistles and Book of Revelation. 4. An Introductory Outline of the Geography, Critical History, Authenticity, Credibility, and Inspiration of the New Testament. The whole illustrated by copious Historical, Geographical, and Antiquarian Notes, ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... that kind of ground, you know, and abandon the aspect of the question from the side of pure reason, you've so many preliminaries to prove; e g, the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch and the Gospels; the credibility of the narrators; the possibility of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... don't understand him, nor do I conceive what the residue of the personal estate will amount to; but not to much, as the opinion of the family is. The reports, and belief of those who are not in the secret, are out of all credibility. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... does not end here. If you are convinced that the dogma is not true; that a steadily increasing number of persons are becoming aware that it is not true; that its efficacy as a basis of spiritual life is being lowered in the same degree as its credibility; that both dogma and church must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith, if not also by more effective organisations; then, all who hold such views as these have as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and upholders of the churches, and the zeal of the latter is simply ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... be confined to the legality of their conduct, and here can be no difficulty. It was certainly illegal, unless many witnesses are directly perjured: witnesses, who have no apparent interest to falsify,—witnesses who have given their testimony with candor and accuracy,—witnesses whose credibility stands untouched,—whose credibility the counsel for the king do not pretend to impeach or hint a suggestion ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... to the former editions of this work, has been somewhat of a detriment to it. Fray Antonio Agapida was found to be an imaginary personage, and this threw a doubt over the credibility of his Chronicle, which was increased by a vein of irony indulged here and there, and by the occasional heightening of some of the incidents and the romantic coloring of some of the scenes. A word or two explanatory may therefore ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair hung in short ringlets down my neck. The mistress and bar-maid kissed me, the men gave me money, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... matter, what had the iniquities and greed of Dockwrath to do with it? Had reason been shown why the statement made by Dockwrath was in itself unworthy of belief,—that that statement was in its own essence weak,—then the character of the man making it might fairly affect its credibility. But presuming that statement to be wrong,—presuming that it was corroborated by other evidence, how could it be affected by any amount of villainy on the part of Dockwrath? All that Chaffanbrass had done or attempted was to prove that Dockwrath had had his own end ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the Judge Advocate haughtily, 'have you any officers who are prepared to vouch for the character and credibility of this witness, as I see ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... those that are about to follow, gain greater credibility when considered in the light of the newer experimental researches in physics, which demonstrate, apparently, that matter can be made to disintegrate and disappear, and can be again reformed from invisible ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... Well has it been said that the wildest dream of the romancer pales beside the solemn surprise of the Actual. Not one among the thousands there assembled, not the speaker himself, would have considered such a statement within the range of credibility. Alas, that it should have been!—that the monstrous murder of the good Lincoln should have been repeated in these latter days, and the nation have come a second time ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that the size of the lie always involves a certain factor of credibility, since the great mass of a people will be more spoiled in the innermost depths of its heart, rather than consciously and deliberately bad. Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it is more readily captivated by a big lie than by a small one, ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... fastened to the wharf, by an armed force, and the seizure carried by violence to the man-of-war. That this seizure was made with every circumstance of violence and insult which could irritate a mob, is proved by the oaths of thirteen eye-witnesses whose credibility has never been impeached. Unhappily, the irritation succeeded but too well. The collector and comptroller who made the seizure in that manner were treated with great indignity and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... His credibility was rather strongly put to the test as they turned into the High Street, when his companion directed his attention to an individual on the opposite side of the street, with a voluminous gown, and enormous cocked ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Butler says, "probability is the guide of life"; and it seems to me that this is just one of the cases in which the canon of credibility and testimony, which I have ventured to lay down, has full force. So that, with the most entire respect for many (by no means for all) of our witnesses for the truth of demonology, ancient and modern, I conceive their evidence ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... pleasing fantasies, the cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets the poets, to which I would not have my judicious reader attach any credibility. Neither am I disposed to credit an ancient and rather apocryphal historian, who asserts that the ingenious Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of one of his windmills, nor a writer of later times, who affirms that he fell a victim to an experiment in natural ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... world. Every birth is just as wonderful as a virgin birth could possibly be, and just as much a direct act of God. A supernatural conception bears no relation whatever to the moral and spiritual worth of the person who is supposed to enter the world in this abnormal way. The credibility and significance of Christianity are in no way affected by the doctrine of the virgin birth otherwise than that the belief tends to put a barrier between Jesus and the race and to make Him something which cannot ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... brings the truth to be believed. The message of the Church is: these are God's words. As for what these words stand for, you are not to trust her, but Him. The foundation of divine belief is one thing; the motives of credibility are another. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... device with their so-called gods. But we must not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our harder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the probabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more distant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that there should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he would be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his creatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... direct participation in the murder of Americans by the Indians in the southern portion of the Territory, have ever been substantiated by legal evidence; but no person can become familiar with the relations which they sustain to those tribes, without attaching to them some degree of credibility. The most noted instances were the slaughter of Captain Gunnison and his exploring party, near Lake Sevier, in October, 1853; and the horrible massacre of more than a hundred emigrants on their way to California, at the Mountain Meadows, still farther south, in September, 1857, from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... — N. probability, likelihood; credibleness[obs3]; likeliness &c. adj.; vraisemblance[Fr], verisimilitude, plausibility; color, semblance, show of; presumption; presumptive evidence, circumstantial evidence; credibility. reasonable chance, fair chance, good chance, favorable chance, reasonable prospect, fair prospect, good prospect, favorable prospect; prospect, wellgrounded hope; chance &c. 156. V. be probable &c. adj.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... credibility of this famous story, the first thought which arises in the mind is, that it is utterly impossible that sane men, acting in so momentous a crisis, and where interests so vast and extended were at stake, could have resorted to a plan so childish and ridiculous as ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... impatient spectators, it appeared a very tame, one-sided, and anomalous trial, where like a slow stream the evidences of guilt oozed, and settled about the prisoner, who challenged the credibility of no witness, and waived all the privileges of cross-examination. Now and then, the audience criticised in whispers the "undue latitude" allowed by the Judge, to the District Solicitor; but their "exceptions" were informal, and the prosecution received ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... from our last night's bivouac a dense cloud and lightning in this direction. It is marvellous how such strong animals as deer could thus have been killed; but I have no doubt, from the evidence I have given, that the story is not in the least exaggerated. I am glad, however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Dobrizhoffen, who, speaking of a country much to the northward, says, hail fell of an enormous size and killed vast numbers of cattle (6/4. "History of the Abipones" volume 2 page 6.): the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... most extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch as they have known the world much longer than any one else, declare that Noah was no other than Fohi; and what gives this assertion some air of credibility is that it is a fact, admitted by the most enlightened literati, that Noah traveled into China, at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel (probably to improve himself in the study of languages), and the learned Dr. Shuckford gives us the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and awful. For one moment it was an unbelievable thing—a thing beyond all credibility; it must be a delusion, a dream, a nightmare. But no, it was real—pitifully real, shamefully real, hideously real. These sixty policemen had been soldiers, and they went at their work with the cold unsentimentality of their trade. They ascended the steps of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... merely to show my credibility as a witness on this subject. Being a lawyer by profession, I have learned long since that the value of one's opinion, and especially the value of testimony is directly in proportion to one's knowledge of and interest in the subject ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... of his fits. The only witness you mention is that worthless boy, Sicinius Pudens, in whose name you accuse me. He says that he was present. His extreme youth is no reason why we should reject his sworn evidence, but the fact that he is one of my accusers does detract from his credibility. It would have been easier for you, Aemilianus, and your evidence would have carried much more weight, had you said that you were present at the rite and had been mad ever since, instead of entrusting the whole business to the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... to law can be very great, but owing to the necessary conservatism of the courts, it will be a long time before they will make much use of psychological knowledge. Perhaps the greatest service will be in determining the credibility of evidence. Psychology can now give the general principles in this matter. Witnesses go on the stand and swear to all sorts of things as to what they heard and saw and did, often months and even years previously. The ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... uninstructed age believes its own legend; it asks no question upon the point of credibility; with such an age, to hear, is to believe. Originally, indeed, with all of us, to have a conception of any thing is tantamount to believing that it exists, or has existed: belief is no separate act ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... meet me before the throne of the Most High!" According to some accounts this fearful sentence included the King, by whom, if uttered, it might have been heard. The earliest allusion to this awful speech does not contain that striking particularity, which, if part of it, would be fatal to its credibility, i.e., the precise date of Clement's death. It was not till the year after that Clement and King Philip passed to their account. The fate of these two men during the next year might naturally ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... by her means. The connexion betwixt Henry's supposed death and the descent of Conachar and his followers, though adopted by her in a moment of extreme and engrossing emotion, was sufficiently probable to have been received for truth, even if her understanding had been at leisure to examine its credibility. Without knowing what she sought except the general desire to know the worst of the dreadful report, she hurried forward to the very spot which of all others her feelings of the preceding day would have induced ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... authorities may be found collected in the fourth volume of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History; abstracts of them, with ample references, in Mosheim and Neander's Ecclesiastical Histories, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... archers who escorted him from the city to his country palace, clad in dresses of Tyrian purple, and their hair powdered with gold dust. But enormous as this wealth appears, the statement of his expenditure on the Temple, and of his annual revenue, so passes all credibility, that any attempt at forming a calculation on the uncertain data we possess may at once be abandoned as a hopeless task. No better proof can be given of the uncertainty of our authorities, of our imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew weights ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... pressed, to have either evaded or answered so puzzling a question. To have avowed the truth might, in those times, have occasioned his being burnt at a stake, although, in ours, his confession would have only gained for him the credit of a liar beyond all rational credibility. He was fortunately relieved by the return of Sir Piercie Shafton himself, whose ear caught, as he entered, the sound of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... give credibility and respectability to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... supreme miracle—the transcendent character of Jesus—is clear, see Part III. chap. iv.; and the miraculous element in the story of his life must be considered in view of this supreme miracle. In association with him his miracles gain in credibility. In estimating the evidence for them their dignity and worthiness is important. What the devout imagination would do in embellishing the story of Jesus is exhibited in the apocryphal gospels; the miracles of the canonical gospels are of an entirely different ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... well state, without further delay, that I am convinced of the truth of the story told by Miss Smithers. It would to my mind be impossible for any man, whose intelligence had been trained by years of experience in this and other courts, and whose daily duty it is to discriminate as to the credibility of testimony, to disbelieve the history so circumstantially detailed in the box by Miss Smithers (Sensation). I watched her demeanour both under examination and cross-examination very closely indeed, and I ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... statement is a very strange one, when it is considered that the native was a very spare and weak man, so that either of the police ought to have been able to keep him at arm's length; but to say that he seized both their guns is beyond all credibility. The natives were sitting down when the police arrived. How they could therefore find a wallet upon the murdered man, I cannot conceive; since the natives never have their wallets slung, except when moving; and it certainly is not probable, that the man, in spite of the fright he is admitted ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the eating or even the handling of celery; but such accounts, harrowing as they may appear, are insufficient to warrant a bar sinister. Indeed, not only is the mass of evidence in favor of the defendant, but it casts a reflection upon the credibility of the plaintiff, who may usually be shown to have indulged immoderately, to have been frightened by hallucinations or even to have arraigned the innocent for his own guilt. Certain it is that there is not one of the sweet herbs mentioned in this volumes that has ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... sympathy or prayer, enemies of God, in covenant with the Devil, and firebrands of Hell. All this he believed. Of course, he could not pray with, and could hardly be expected to pray for, them. The language ascribed to him by Calef, expressed his honest convictions; bears the stamp of credibility; was not denied or disavowed, then; and cannot ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... sketch now the main events following this night of May 15th and 16th as the outside world saw them. The frantic reports from Bermuda were forced into credibility by the appearance of apparitions at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of the southern States. They were sporadic appearances that night. No attacks were reported. But in all, at least a thousand wraithlike figures of men must have been seen. The visitations began ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... remember I had once occasion to visit one of his dragoons in his last illness at Harborough, and I found the man upon the borders of eternity—a circumstance which, as he apprehended himself, must add some peculiar weight and credibility to his discourse. He then told me, in his colonel's absence, that he questioned not that he should have everlasting reason to bless God on Colonel Gardiner's account, for he had been a father to him in all his interests, ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... it was sufficient to show that the hurry of the dispute was such, that it was not easy to discover the truth with relation to particular circumstances, and that, therefore, some deductions were to be made from the credibility of the testimonies. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... story seems now so preposterously out of keeping with all the associations of a modern Court that it startles our sense of historical credibility when we find by the actual dates that men and women are still living who might have been carried by their nurses to see the crowds round Westminster Abbey on the Coronation Day of King George the Fourth. The Coronation took place on July 19, 1821, and the whole ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... alleged result? The answer will be controlled by the Evidence of sworn witnesses, who depose under a special oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Their Evidence is the Testimony as to the Fact,—the sole testimony; the jury is the ultimate arbiter to decide on the credibility of the evidence, part by part, and its ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... basis of credibility must be laid in the moral nature, where the thing to be believed is important, i.e., moral. And I therefore open with this remark absolutely zermalmende to the common intellect: That from a holy faith ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... he met his match in a pert, jolly, keen-eyed son of Erin, who was up as a witness in a case of dispute in the matter of a horse deal. Curran was anxious to break down the credibility of this witness, and thought to do it by making the man contradict himself—by tangling him up in a network of adroitly framed questions—but to no avail. The ostler's good common sense, and his equanimity and good nature, were not to be upset. Presently, Curran, in a ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... pronounced tendency toward scarlet. His nails were likewise reddened with henna, reminding Matthews that the hands belonging to the nails were rumored to bear even more sinister stains. And the bottomless black eyes peering out from under the white turban lent surprising credibility to such rumors. But there was no lack of graciousness in the gestures with which those famous hands saluted the visitor and pointed him to a seat of honor on the rug beside the Father of Swords. The Father of Swords furthermore pronounced his heart uplifted to receive a friend ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... A New Story and a New Character John the Immortal Eye Witness The Peculiar Theology of Jesus John agreed as to the Trial and Crucifixion Credibility of the Gospels Fashions of Belief Credibility and Truth Christian Iconolatry and the Peril of the Iconoclast The Alternative to Barabbas The Reduction to Modern Practice of Christianity Modern Communism Redistribution ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... superstructure that shall be self-consistent; every thing shall be internally coherent and reconciled, whatever be its external relations as to our human experience. But this species of assumption, on the largest scale, is more within the limits of credibility and plausible verisimilitude when applied to modes of existence, which, after all, are in such total darkness to us, (the limits of the possible being so undefined and shadowy as to what can or cannot exist,) than the very slightest ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... for the defendant addresses the jury. It is the duty of the advocate, on such an occasion, to put forth all his powers in behalf of his client; to obtain acquittal is his object: he must sift the hostile evidence, he must apply every possible test to the accuracy of the testimony, and to the credibility of the witnesses; he may address himself to the reason, to the prejudices, to the sympathies, nay, even to the worst passions of the twelve men whose opinions he seeks to influence in favour of his client. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... divine, ecclesiastically a Presbyterian but theologically a Unitarian, author of "Credibility of the Gospel History" and "Jewish and Heathen Testimonies" in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... justice. They were witnessed by none but blacks, whose testimony, by our statutes, is not admissible. We, the people, therefore, are to try him; and, to get at the facts, we shall receive the evidence of negroes. You will judge for yourselves as to its credibility. If any doubt of the prisoner's guilt rests in your minds, you will give him the benefit of it, and acquit him; but if, on the other hand, you are fully persuaded that he committed either or both the crimes of which he is accused, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... grants to his own family. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way of putting things together his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the House of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk, he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst "he lies floating many a rood," he is still a creature. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... press by their gag-law, seem to have attacked in an opposite direction; that is by pushing its licentiousness and its lying to such a degree of prostitution as to deprive it of all credit. * * * This is a dangerous state of things, and the press ought to be restored to its credibility if possible. The restraints provided by the laws of the States are sufficient for this, if applied. And I have, therefore, long thought that a few prosecutions of the most prominent offenders would have ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the evidence of three witnesses, whose opportunity of knowledge and whose credibility, it cannot be denied, are to be accepted against rumors so easily put in circulation by reckless as well as by mistaken men, but which have beyond question been believed by very many good men who had not the opportunity, or perhaps the sense of obligation, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... to combat them was by the general assertion that they were illusory. This was felt to be a very unsatisfactory method of procedure, as far as the public was concerned, because it amounted to no more than attacking the credibility of a witness who pretended to describe only what he himself had seen—and there is nothing so hard as ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Were you out? Love to Jane." Mrs. Dyson denied that she had known of an accident which Peace had had to his foot at this time. In spite of the ruling of the magistrate that Mr. Clegg had put forward quite enough, if true, to damage Mrs. Dyson's credibility, he continued to press her as to her authorship of these notes and letters, but Mrs. Dyson was firm in her repudiation of them. She was equally firm in denying that anything in the nature of a struggle had taken place ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... current in Germany, of treating history. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History—a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity, in point of fact as well as intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts from the records something which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given us much that is profound and judicious in this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... fictitious forehead is now very often artfully joined on to the real brow of the performer, without those distressing discrepancies of hue and texture which at one time were so very apparent, disturbing credibility and destroying illusion. And the decline of hair in colour and quantity has often been imitated in the theatre with very happy ingenuity. Heads in an iron-gray or partially bald state—varying from the first slight thinning of the locks to the time ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... revelation of his earlier self, or what the influence of such an experience as he relates may have done to strengthen the moral fibre, are points on which I can express no opinion, any more than I can pledge myself to the credibility of the supernatural element of ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... lighter matter on the fashions, foibles, and prominent characters of the day. Gibbon owns the authorship of the first article on Lord Lyttelton's history of Henry the Second, and his hand is discernible in the account of the fourth volume of Lardner's work On the Credibility of the Gospel History. The first has no merit beyond a faithful report. The latter is written with much more zest and vigour, and shows the interest that he already took in Christian antiquities. Other articles, evidently from the pen of Deyverdun, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at present ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the school-room. In all honesty, I don't think that, for a whole half-year, I once escaped my Sunday flogging. It came as regularly as the baked rice-puddings. I began to look upon the thing as a matter of course; and, if any person should doubt the credibility of this, or any other account of these my school-boy days, happily there are several now living who can vouch for its veracity, and if I am dared to the proof by anyone by whose conviction I should feel honoured, that proof will I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... tests the student should constantly be on the watch to form his opinion of the credibility and reliability of a writer or experimenter whose work he is studying. He {18} may thus guide himself as to the books which he should pursue carefully, remembering the dictum of Bacon that "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested," ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... already all over the States of the Union, so Barbicane had no reason for silence. He therefore called together his colleagues then in Tampa Town, and, without showing what he thought about it or saying a word about the degree of credibility the telegram deserved, he read ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... answered the captain. "The whole success of the enterprise depends on your keeping away. Mrs. Lecount will try the credibility of everything you say to her by one test—the test of your communicating, or not, with this house. She will watch you night and day! Don't call here, don't send messages, don't write letters; don't even go out by yourself. Let her see you start for ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... romance is collected from seemingly the most authentic sources, and the Author must leave the question of credibility entirely to his readers, not even thinking that he his peculiarly called upon to express his ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... here we are told no less explicitly that the incident happened during the lifetime of Joshua. There is no doubt that the incident happened; it is a simple and natural story, and carries the marks of credibility upon its face; but if it happened after the death of Joshua it did not happen before his death; one of these narrators borrowed the story from the other, or else both borrowed it from a common source; and one of them, certainly, put it in the wrong place,—one of them must have been mistaken as ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... We all revolt at it, and it is natural that we should do so; but we must allow it as one of the requisites of our admission to our original standing in the Union. To-day the negro is as competent a witness in our State as the white man, made so by the action of the convention. The credibility of the witness is to be determined by the jurors and justices. If you refuse his testimony, as is being done, the result will be the military courts and Freedmen's Bureau will take it up, and jurisdiction is lost, and those who best know the negro will be denied the privilege of passing judgment ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... black man in a three-cornered hat, seated in the stern of a jolly boat who used to be seen about Hell Gate in stormy weather; and who went by the name of the Pirate's Spuke, or Pirate's Ghost, because I never could meet with any person of stanch credibility who professed to have seen this spectrum; unless it were the widow of Manus Conklin, the blacksmith of Frog's Neck, but then, poor woman, she was a little purblind, and might have been mistaken; though they said she saw farther than other folks in the dark. All this, however, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... charged the jury briefly. It was unnecessary for him, he said, to recapitulate evidence of so simple a character. The chief question for the jury was as to the credibility of the witnesses. If the witnesses for the prosecution were truthful and were not mistaken, the inference of guilt seemed inevitable; this the defendant's counsel had conceded. The defendant had proved ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... analogy; this has also arisen from the expectation, that the larger or more complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. Add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; but then the want of analogy must at length yield ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... put mental question-marks after some of the big game stories I heard while I was in Indo-China had I not been convinced of the credibility of those who told them. Only a few days before our arrival at Saigon, for example, an American engaged in business in that city set out one morning before daybreak, in a small car, for the paddy-fields, where there is excellent bird-shooting in the early dawn. The car, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of the dogs of sheep-stealers are fairly beyond all credibility. I cannot attach credit to some of them without believing the animals to have been devils incarnate, come to the earth for the destruction both of the souls and bodies of men. I cannot mention names, for the sake ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... request a proof of the frequency of such acts of rapine? for how familiar must such have been to slave-captains, when three of them dared to carry to a British officer of rank such a flagitious proposal! This would stand in the place of a thousand instances. It would give credibility to every other act of violence stated in the evidence, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... been an eye-witness to this disgraceful act, I would not have ventured to relate it." (Gordon's Memoirs, vol. i. p, 210.) The author, also, would not have ventured to adduce it, without first satisfying himself, by inquiry, as to the probable credibility of Mr. Gordon, and likewise testing his narrative. It bears marks of the inaccuracy in details to which memory is subject, but the indications of general correctness ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... have been advanced—economical, climatic, ethnical, political—all of which contain truth, yet no single one of which can wholly explain the fact. Already the white West Indian populations are diminishing at a rate that almost staggers credibility. In the island paradise of Martinique in 1848 there were 12,000 whites; now, against more than 160,000 blacks and half-breeds, there are perhaps 5000 whites left to maintain the ethnic struggle, and the number of these latter is annually growing less. Many of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... evidence. So, here we must pass, in the first place, to the consideration of a matter which may seem foreign to the question under discussion. We must dwell upon the nature of the records, and the credibility of the evidence they contain; we must look to the completeness or incompleteness of those records themselves, before we turn to that which they contain and reveal. The question of the credibility of the history, happily for us, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... sweeping extent, against a kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with which English critics will examine the credibility of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant and comparatively unimportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... in his philosophy; and still less have we any right to demand this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe that while employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give credibility to his tales, he is not disposed to insist upon their literal truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, 'Something of the kind is true;' or, as in the Gorgias, 'This you will think to be an old wife's tale, but you can think of nothing truer;' or, as in the Statesman, he describes ...
— Statesman • Plato
... when we see their application to the general principles which have hitherto occupied our attention. The phenomena of hypnosis are now so fully recognized as established scientific facts that it is quite superfluous to discuss the question of their credibility. Two great medical schools have been founded upon them, and in some countries they have become the subject of special legislation. The question before us at the present day is, not as to the credibility of the facts, but as to the proper inferences to be drawn from them, ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward |
