"Credulity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taxes my credulity," said Quincy, "but I will not allow it to break our friendship. Tom, kindly ring for that supper to be sent up." He looked at his watch. "Doctor, you've time to spare. 'Tis ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... after this his opinions began to change, it is impossible to say. But we are conscious of a markedly different tone in the Observations, and a sneer at "the ancient alliance between the avarice of the priests and the credulity of the people" is in the familiar style of the Deists from Toland to Chubb. There is no evidence of his familiarity with the widely diffused works of the freethinkers, and as far as I am aware he does not quote or refer to them even ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... wept at the injustice of such skepticism. It was Pet Bettany, of all people, who came to his rescue with credulity. She was sincerely convinced. A voluptuary and intrigante herself, she believed that her own ideas of happiness and her own impulses were shared by everybody, and that people who frowned on vice ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... overboard on that night, but merely a mighty beam of wood that one of Jensen's confederates cast over the vessel's side just before he raised the cry of 'Man overboard!' Jensen himself was snugly concealed in the innermost parts of the ship, where he lay close, laughing in his sleeve at us and our credulity. After we left he came out of his hole and made his way to Early Island, as agreed upon with his companions, who, on his arrival, butchered the most ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Carson's name began to be heralded throughout the world up to the present date, impostors have presented themselves in various cities; and, acting on the credulity of the people, they have palmed themselves off as the individual of whom we write; but, from the perusal of this work, it can be seen how seldom the real Kit Carson has enjoyed the luxuries of civilized life. It is in this way, many persons have gathered ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... severely, just because our very life hangs on them. On the other hand, we should not reject them as useless, because they are not of an entirely different kind from those on which all the actions and beliefs of our common daily life are based. There is a scepticism which is merely a credulity of negations. This also ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... an instance of the credulity of unbelief. Think of the mental condition which could swallow such an explanation of such a Worker and such work. It is more difficult to believe the explanation than the alternative which it is framed to escape. So it is always. The difficulties of faith ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to comment is Mr. Knox of Pennsylvania. Indignantly he demands investigation. In Mr. Brandegee of Connecticut, who spoke next, indignation has already stimulated credulity. Where Mr. Knox indignantly wishes to know if the report is true, Mr. Brandegee, a half a minute later, would like to know what would have happened if marines had been killed. Mr. Knox, interested in the question, forgets that he asked for an inquiry, and replies. If American marines had been ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Aretino, in a letter overflowing with enthusiasm, on Poggio's discovery of a copy of Quintilian. Some of the half-witted, who joined in this great hunt, were often thrown out, and some paid high for manuscripts not authentic; the knave played on the bungling amateur of manuscripts, whose credulity exceeded his purse. But even among the learned, much ill-blood was inflamed; he who had been most successful in acquiring manuscripts was envied by the less fortunate, and the glory of possessing a manuscript of Cicero seemed to approximate to that of being its author. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... After some skirmishing, Damodar’s party being evidently the strongest, Rana Bahadur retired privately to Banaras with the character of insanity but, except in an ungovernable ferocity and cruelty of temper, and in a credulity, evidently the fault of education, he seems to have been abundantly judicious, and in fact ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... of burning till the vegetation has had time to renew itself; in which case the spot is commonly abandoned, or, if partially burned, it is not without considerable toil that it can be afterwards prepared for sowing. On such occasions there are imposters ready to make a profit of the credulity of the husbandman who, like all others whose employments expose them to risks, are prone to superstition, by pretending to a power of causing or retarding rain. One of these will receive, at the time of burning the ladangs, a dollar or more from each family in the neighbourhood, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... thinks so little of himself, and feels such a sense of his own imperfections, that he quickly discerns the least evidence of Christian character in others; and he sees so much to be overlooked in himself, that he is rather inclined to the extreme of credulity, in judging the characters of others. He is ready, with Paul, to esteem himself "less than the least of all saints;" and where he sees any evidence of piety in others, he can ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow,—attend to the history of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... that the Government had been honeycombed by irresponsible demagogues, that were fattening upon the credulity of the people to the great injury of our commerce and prosperity, that no laws unfriendly to the best interests had been planned, and no act had been contemplated inconsistent with the dignity and honor of the Nation. They contended that in protecting capital against vicious assaults, they ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... myself; pen in hand, into recognition and civility, find all the force of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy of non-resistance. In vain do I redouble the violence of the language in which I proclaim my heterodoxies. I rail at the theistic credulity of Voltaire, the amoristic superstition of Shelley, the revival of tribal soothsaying and idolatrous rites which Huxley called Science and mistook for an advance on the Pentateuch, no less than at the welter of ecclesiastical ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... now at his credulity, as he had done once at his incredulity over the same peculiar word. Then recurred to him that wonderful little saying of ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... cage" in which Bajazet was imprisoned by Timur, so long and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, according to which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge, a more specious narrative of this memorable transaction. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a happy mean between us, eh, Evelyn? You are all credulity and gush, and I refuse to disturb myself about other people, ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the Company, it is to me simply inconceivable that shrewd business men as these officials are known to be would be guilty of an act which from a purely business point of view would be a stupidly suicidal one. It taxes one's credulity to too great a degree to ask one to believe that, in view of the recent plebiscite taken in several Provinces, that any officer, possessed of mental qualifications sufficient to secure a position of power in the Company, would ally himself ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... scruples checked; Forth did she pour, in current free, Tales that could challenge no respect But from a blind credulity; 1827. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... touched superficially with the coloring of superstition, with its tenderness, its humility, its thankfulness, its awe; but, on the other hand, it is not therefore tainted with the coarseness, with the silliness, with the credulity of superstition. Such a faith reposes upon the universal signs diffused through nature, and blends with the mysterious of natural grandeurs wherever found—with the mysterious of the starry heavens, with the mysterious ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Pendragon Tower. As you may easily suppose, plenty of superstitions and scandals have followed in the track of the Spaniard's curse; and no doubt, as you would put it, any accident happening to this Cornish family would be connected with it by rural credulity. But it is perfectly true that this tower has been burnt down two or three times; and the family can't be called lucky, for more than two, I think, of the Admiral's near kin have perished by shipwreck; and one at least, to my own knowledge, on practically the same spot where Sir ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... of subsequent contemplation. This moment was pregnant with fate. I had no power to reason. In the career of my tempestuous thoughts, rent into pieces as my mind was by accumulating horrors, Carwin was unseen and unsuspected. I partook of Wieland's credulity, shook with his amazement, and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... her father lying ill, she had disappeared. On inquiry it was found that Cho[u]bei had never known a day of illness. The excuse was all a lie. "A case of the wild duck; the cock had come." Whose was the child she bore? O'Hagi laughed, and her attendant woman smiled, at his credulity. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... assist him in whatever he Commanded them to the last Drop, much with the same Zeal and Forwardness, as our Life-and-Fortune Men did here in England. I say, when all this was consider'd, I could not so much condemn his Credulity, nor blame him for believing them, for no Man could have doubted their Sincerity, but he that at the same time must have Taxt ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... shade of his cedar-tree, rooted to the ground by this revelation of male villany and female credulity. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... last month, again put to sea, and on the 22d Admiral Keppel sailed. By the best intelligence from London the populace are amused, and the public funds are supported by hopes given out, by administration of peace, by an acknowledgment of American independency. But as the credulity of that nation has no bounds, we can draw no inference from this general opinion, that such is the intention of government. We suppose that rumor to be a consequence of the mischievous determination of the Cabinet, to propose independence on ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... the evolution and the vast variety of the vegetable kingdom. To attribute this to any power of modification by environment, when we see how little environment can do to make any essential change in vegetation, would require more credulity than I would consider justifiable in the pursuit of scientific truths. So in the evolution of the animal kingdom, I believe the power of the physical environment has ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... with timid servility to great names. The opinions of men of erudition, and genius, and holy zeal for religion, are to be examined with modest deference, but not to be received with implicit credulity. In the most enlightened and holy men, who, since the decease of the apostles, have served God and his Christ; in the fathers of the ancient Church; in those who headed the Protestant Reformation, and lived as saints, or died as martyrs; in Luther, ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... County, New York,—the Bloomfield "Mirror,"—on May 18, 1856. The article—"Vagaries vs. Spiritualism"—purports to be written by "Philomath," of Roxbury, New York, who is none other than John Burroughs, at the age of nineteen. It starts out showing impatience at the unreasoning credulity of the superstitious mind, and continues in a mildly derisive strain for about a column, foreshadowing the controversial spirit which Mr. Burroughs displayed many years later in taking to task the natural-history romancers. The production was evidently ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... of the early Victorian "Quarterly Review" and Lane's so-called "Arabian Nights." Thus, speaking of Gypsy fortune- tellers, he says: "Their practice chiefly lies among females, the portion of the human race most given to curiosity and credulity." Sentences like this always remind me of Lord Melbourne's indignation at the thought of religion intruding on private life. His indignation is obviously of the same period as the sentence: "Among the Zingari are not a few who deal in precious stones, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... people could be induced to credit the idle stories circulated of a promised land, where their wants would be supplied, and their independence secured, without exertion on their part. It was going to the extent of ignorance and credulity to credit them; and yet evidences of an undoubted character was furnished your committee as to this matter. It is one of the factors in a movement the end of which we cannot now forecaste. There are in the State of Mississippi alone five million five hundred thousand acres of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... experiences in his character as doctor of medicine and teller of fortunes, of the weakness of human nature and strength of common credulity, the learned Alexander Bendo vanished from the city; and about the same time the gallant Earl of Rochester appeared at court, where he sought for and obtained the merry monarch's pardon. The wonderful stories he was enabled to relate, piquant ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... such occasional exhibitions of prophetic power, they ultimately reduced divination to a system, and, by the help of the barsom or bundle of divining rods, undertook to return a true answer on all points connected with the future, upon which they might be consulted. Credulity is never wanting among Orientals; and the power of the priesthood was no doubt greatly increased by a pretension which was easily made, readily believed, and not generally discredited ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... without question, the parts to which Vance assigned her. When in their mummeries they were successful, she neither enjoyed the credulity of those they had tricked nor was sobered with remorse. In the world Vance found a certain number of people with money who demanded to be fooled. It was his business and hers to meet that demand. If ever the conscience of either stirred restlessly, Vance soothed it by the easy answer that if they ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... His friends, especially his new friends, thought he "had a little money," and knew, since he told them, that he had expectations. He did not tell them that his expectations were largely bound up in their credulity and faith in his integrity. Some of them discovered that later, but the majority drifted out of his circle poorer without being wiser, for Mr. Hyane played a wonderful game of piquet, and seemed to be no more than ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... would have been enslaved. I own to you, also, my satisfaction that our august Prince Royal has conducted himself in such a manner as to leave your excellency no cause to repent of that which some people were pleased to call "credulity," but which events have ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... province is high and peculiar; higher than any poet but himself, for several generations, has so far succeeded in, perhaps even has steadfastly attempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it perpetually strikes us that we are reading the poetry of our own day and generation. No demands are made on our credulity; the light, the science, the scepticism of the age, are not hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary poetic forms; there are no supernal, no infernal influences, for Faust is an apparent rather than a real exception: ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... credulity and superstition have constantly and strongly competed with the art of medicine. There is no doubt, according to Pliny, that the magical art began in Persia, that it originated in medicine, and that it insinuated itself first amongst mankind under the plausible guise of promoting health.[217] ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... test of what knowledge you otherwise have of the subject. Might perhaps be used in that way, by the Examining Military Boards, in Prussia and elsewhere, if no other use lie in it? Fuchs's own contributions, mere ignorance, folly and credulity, are not worth interpreting: but he has printed, and in the same abstruse form, one or two curious Parish Manuscripts, particularly a "HISTORY" of this War, privately jotted down by the then Schoolmaster of Mollwitz, a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in this branch of inquiry than perhaps in any other. But with regard to the third defect there is considerable danger. An inquirer with an object is so apt to find what he wishes to find, either by the exercise of his own credulity or the ingenuous extension of inquiry into answer; whereas the inquirer who is content to note with the simplicity of those who occupy themselves by collecting what others have not collected, may be deficient ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... sympathetically at this, expressing by a wink his confidence in the skipper's promise to the men; and the two laughed with much heartiness and fellow feeling over the credulity of those who had been so easily satisfied, and gone back to their work, confidently trusting in ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that a mixture of salts, etc., is tipped in every night or early in the morning! Strange that the art should be limited to the village of Saratoga! The incredulity of some people is the most ridiculous credulity known. Such wonders as the spouting springs, the "strongest" in Saratoga, come from so small an orifice in the ground, as to preclude the least possibility of adulteration. Besides, the manufactured article would be too costly to allow such immense ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... from Atreus' cursed table? 39 And sweet-touched harp that to move stones was able? Poets' large power is boundless and immense, Nor have their words true history's pretence. And my wench ought to have seemed falsely praised, Now your credulity harm ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... vague With truth commingled to and fro are heard. Words in confusion fly. Amid the throng These preach their words to vacant air, and those To others tales narrate; the measure still Of every fiction in narration grows; And every author adds to what he hears. Here lives credulity; and here abides Rash error; transports vain; astonied fear; Sedition sudden; and, uncertain whence, Dark whisperings. Fame herself sits high aloft, And views what deeds in heaven, and earth, and sea Are done, and searches all creation round. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... day and on the wrong side of the water. As the novelty wore off, people began to doubt and reason about it. Had the place been traversed by a ghost or disturbed by a witch they could have acquiesced in it very quietly; but this outlandish belief in fairies was altogether an overtask for Yankee credulity. As might have been expected, the little strangers, unable to breathe in an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion, soon took their leave, shaking off the dust of their elfin feet as a testimony against an unbelieving generation. It was, indeed, said that certain rude fellows from the Bay State ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... means of the public credulity at this time, gained sums sufficient to repair their ruined fortunes, may be mentioned the names of the Dukes de Bourbon, de Guiche, de la Force,[10] de Chaulnes, and d'Antin; the Marechal d'Estrees; ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... has been so persistently adhered to by the Southern planters and their advocates, and so successfully forced upon the credulity of the North, as the statement that white men can not perform field labor in the cotton States, coupled with the equally false assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism, and ceases to be ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... so far from being conceived beforehand, are not even felt at the time. The main seat of the imitative part of our nature is our belief, and the causes predisposing us to believe this, or disinclining us to believe that, are among the obscurest parts of our nature. But as to the imitative nature of credulity there can be no doubt. In 'Eothen' there is a capital description of how every sort of European resident in the East, even the shrewd merchant and 'the post-captain,' with his bright, wakeful eyes of commerce, comes soon to believe in witchcraft, and to assure you, in confidence, ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... patently absurd to be appalling. Nor indeed do I think that to the more credulous children in England can the idea of eternal burning have ever been quite so forbidding as their nurses meant it to be. Credulity is but a form of incaution. I, as I have said, never had any wish to play with fire; but most English children are strongly attracted, and are much less afraid of fire than of the dark. Eternal darkness, with a biting east-wind, were to the English fancy a far more fearful prospect ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... superstitions, his credulity and mistakes; Plato, with all his blunders in elementary logic; Homer, with all his naive ignorance of science and the wide world; Dante, despite his cramped outlook; Milton, in spite of his perverse theologizing—these and their like are, and will always be, literature. ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... may have the same bias to incredulity as others to credulity, because they are subject to a wrong association of ideas, as well as other persons though in a ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... shiftlessness, and moral weakness, we shall generate the thoroughly rounded man of prudence, foresight, responsibility, and financial independence. He will cease to be the gullible victim of the sharper who plays upon vanity, credulity, and superstition, and learn to value only that which is real and substantial. It is of the highest importance to the Negro, who must make his way amid disadvantages and embarrassments of the severest character, that he be made aware ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... point he was excessively vain, and regardless of all those ties which ought to control an honourable mind. In his intercourse with females he was an unprincipled flatterer, ever prepared to take advantage of their weakness, their credulity, or their confidence. She that confided in him was lost. In referring to this subject, no terms of condemnation would be too strong to ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Public credulity accepted these stories. The highest powers in the state welcomed them without hesitation and indorsed them with their authority. Even the Emperor echoed them, and, taking them for a text, advanced, in the famous telegram ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... felt it to be his intellectual duty to persuade himself that the whole affair was an illusion, not a reality. He would have been glad, even at the sacrifice of his confidence in his own astuteness, to believe that the Swiss doctor had been amusing himself at the expense of his credulity. But the remembrance of the scene in the Baron's bedroom at the Badischer Hof was too vivid to leave the slightest ground for this theory. He was obliged to be content with the thought that he should soon place the broad Atlantic between himself and a creature so ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... o'clock in the morning; I don't know how he managed it; it appears to be his favourite hour; wherever we have heard of him he has come in with the dawn. In England he would arrive at 5.30 p.m. He asks innumerable questions, but they are easy to answer, for he has a sweet credulity. He made me rather ashamed; he is a better American than so many of us; he takes us more seriously than we take ourselves. He seems to think that an oligarchy of wealth is growing up here, and he advised me to be on ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... label scientific. You talk about paradoxes—why, your scientist, who thinks he is the most skeptical, the most materialistic aggregation of atoms ever gathered at the exact mathematical centre of Missouri, has more blind faith than a dervish, and more credulity, more superstition, than a cross-eyed smoke beating it past a country graveyard in the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's famous crystal. He had enjoyed the excitement when he and Madalena and their two assistants, among the other passengers on board ship, had consented to be searched for the missing jewels. And he had laughed sneeringly at the credulity of those who believed in Madalena's trumped-up vision "of the small fair man," the lighted life-preserver dropped into the sea at night, and the yacht which sent out a ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Shakespeare's later years, altered vild to vile in three passages of a single play, though he thereby made not the slightest shade of difference in the meaning of the passage! And the same demand is made upon our credulity in regard to the eight hundred and fifty similar instances! Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Duffus Hardy, Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Ingleby, accomplished palaeographers, keen-eyed, remorseless investigators, learned doctors though you be, you cannot make men who have common sense ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... was safe or convenient, he had unceremoniously left her and gone to New York to live upon money supplied by a credulous city gentleman, whom his smooth tongue had interested in his "inventions," he had not taken the trouble even to write to Emeline. But within the present month the New Yorker's credulity and his "loans" had ceased to be material assets. Then Bennie D., face to face with the need of funds, remembered his sister and the promise given his dead brother that he should be provided with a home as long as she ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... however, even the insane patients on his ward began to distrust him, and at the present time there is hardly an attendant or patient in the building who cares to associate with Y. He missed no opportunity of playing upon the credulity of the younger and less sophisticated attendants in the criminal building, at first begging and urging them to carry his petitions to their destination in a surreptitious manner, and finding this of no avail threatening them with fines and imprisonment as accomplices in this gigantic ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... his lamented old friend's manuscripts as may appear fit for publication, in order that the lore which they contain may reach the world before scepticism and utility have robbed our species of the precious gift of credulity, and scornfully kicked before them, or trampled into annihilation, those harmless fragments of picturesque superstition, which it is our object to preserve, has been subjected to the charge of dealing too largely ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... "It had sure ought to be, and we thank you for them new assurances. You see, our spiritual on-rest is due to the fact that Humpy Joe's get-away left us broke, and we banked on you to pull us even. That first experience strained our credulity to the bustin' point, and—well, in words of one ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... Countess, the wealthy Duke with a feudal castle in Scotland, Mrs. Fontage's own maiden pilgrimage to Arthur's Seat and Holyrood, all the accessories of the naif transaction, seemed a part of that vanished Europe to which our young race carried its indiscriminate ardors, its tender romantic credulity: the legendary castellated Europe of keepsakes, brigands and old masters, that compensated, by one such "experience" as Mrs. Fontage's, for an ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... affirmed, and received additions by repeating, that after he reached the fort and unbuttoned his vest, a handful of bullets dropped out. In subsequent years Forney was accustomed to smile at this innocent credulity of his neighbors but frequently remarked that the impression of his being bullet-proof was of great service to him on more than one occasion preceding and ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... his Friend took was conveyed to him by Jack, and inscribed, 'A Bolus or an Electuary for Mr. Truepenny.' Jack had a good Estate left him, which came to nothing; because he believed all who pretended to Demands upon it. This Easiness and Credulity destroy all the other Merit he has; and he has all his Life been a Sacrifice to others, without ever receiving Thanks, or ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... friendships stood about in every scene—bright presences that cast a roseate glow on all the tribulations of his life. And it seemed as if a failure here was half a failure only, after all. It had not robbed him either of his youth, his strength, or a certain boyish credulity and trust in all his kind. He still believed he should win his golden goal, and he loved the land ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... June came, and the Confederate Army failed to appear. This confirmed Milroy in his disbelief in a contemplated attack with a strong force, and my credulity was ridiculed. As early, however, as June 8th, Milroy wired Schenck at Baltimore that he had information that Lee had mounted an infantry division to join Stuart's cavalry at Culpeper; that the cavalry force ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... his bedroom mere emotional belief in Miss Tancred had risen to rational conviction. The first aspect of the guest-chamber had inspired him with a joyous credulity. It wooed him with its large and welcoming light, its four walls were golden white and warm, and in all its details he had found unmistakable evidences of design. There was an overruling coquetry in the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... publisher only, and not, as many have chosen to believe, to the author. Thus were published Lord Bacon's "Hamlet," Raleigh's poems, several plays of Messrs. Beaumont and Fletcher—who were themselves among the cleverest adapters of the times—and the rest of that glorious monument to human credulity and memorial to an impossible, wholly apocryphal genius, known as the works of William Shakespeare. The extent of my writing during this incarnation was ten autographs for collectors, and one attempt at a comic ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... should have looked upon the person who had pretended to pass those upon me for true wonders, of which I myself have been eye-witness from the time I have been honoured with your illustrious family at my court, as one who would have abused my credulity. But I cannot refuse to believe my senses; and shall remember them while I live, and never cease to bless heaven for directing you to me, in preference to any ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... transmitted to us. The monks, who were the only annalists during those ages, lived remote from public affairs, considered the civil transactions as entirely subordinate to the ecclesiastical, and, besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity which were then universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost inseparable from their profession and manner of life. The history of that period abounds in names, but is extremely barren of ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... eye. He looked gloomily, almost sadly into my face, glowing, as it must have been, with generous emotions, marvelling doubtlessly at my credulity. ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... privileges it acquired; but there is nowhere a single line descriptive of the buildings themselves. Gunton does indeed speak of a goodly house for the Abbot constructed by King Peada; but he must have been capable of strange credulity if he imagined, as his words seem to imply, that this very house was in existence in the time of Henry VIII. He writes thus:[3] "The Royal Founder ... built also an house for the Abbot, which upon the dissolution by Henry the Eighth, became the Bishop's ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... partly reconciled to his fate. One could marry her to a good fellow—not to a good for nothing, but to a fellow with some understanding and a good pair of arms. Besides, the next may be a boy, he thought. Of course they would be all right. His new credulity knew of no doubt. The ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his wife. She was also hopeful. Three priests came to that christening, and Madame Levaille was godmother. The child turned ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... have guessed that they had done really well. The name by which the war of those remote years was popularly known is enough to show that the difficulties faced by those men at the end of the war may have obscured the good they had done. That name is itself clear evidence of the not unpleasing credulity and ridiculous but innocent desire of the people of ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... reaching to his knees. Beneath this garment his lean legs were bare, while on his feet he wore shoes of skin which reached to the ankle, and which were secured by thongs. Such as he Hugo and Humphrey had often seen, but never before a face like his, in which craftiness and credulity were strangely mingled. For several minutes he stood there, first scrutinizing Humphrey and ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... has this disadvantage—it breeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed dak-bungalow-haunter:—"There is a corpse in the next room, and there's a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel have just eloped from a place sixty miles away," the hearer would not ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... those scoundrels, who, lost to all sense of decency and honour, boldly assume the outward semblance of worthy citizens, and, by the pretentious nature of their appearance, not only seek the better to impose upon the noble credulity of Puddin'-owners, but, with dastardly cunning, strike a blow at ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... from that in which he lived: and yet I am struck every time I take up the book with the thoroughness of his work, and the soundness of his judgments. I would not say the same of some of his predecessors, great lawyers though they were, for in dealing with mediaeval affairs they showed a wonderful credulity. To me it seems that he has often gone right when they went wrong, and that his estimate of historical evidence was very much sounder than theirs. The amount of uncongenial, if not repulsive labour that he must have performed when he was studying the old law-books ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... so called from an Italian doctor who had imposed on the credulity of a former prince. The rooms were large, airy, pleasant, and looked upon the garden; but the walls were of great thickness (for the tower was old), and the windows were heavily barred. The Prince, followed ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discover from her whether she had ever had any dealings with procuresses. He was, as a matter of fact, convinced that she had not; the anonymous letter had put the idea into his mind, but in a purely mechanical way; it had been received there with no credulity, but it had, for all that, remained there, and Swann, wishing to be rid of the burden—a dead weight, but none the less disturbing—of this suspicion, hoped that Odette would now ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... they, indeed? Then sorrow seize my tongue, for, look you, sir, I will not speak of your own fame or honour, Nor of your word to me: king's words, I find, Are drafts on our credulity, not pledges Of their own truth. You have been often pleas'd To shower your royal favours on my head; And fruitful honours from your kindly will Have rais'd me far beyond my fondest hopes; But had I known such service was to be The nearest way my gratitude might take To solve ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... idols are shattered in a day. This were a catastrophe that might wrench even youth's divine credulity. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... taken out of holes every bit as big as themselves. Considering all these things, it would be wonderful indeed if toads were not often found in places and conditions which would naturally give rise to the familiar myth. Throw in a little allowance for human credulity, human exaggeration, and human love of the marvellous, and you have all the elements of a very excellent toad-in-the-hole in the highest ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... with grief at the loss of so many of his bravest warriors at the disaster of Roncesvalles, and bitterly reproached himself for his credulity in resigning himself so completely to the counsels of the treacherous Count Ganelon. Yet he soon fell into a similar snare when he suffered his unworthy son Charlot to acquire such an influence over him, that he constantly led him into acts of cruelty and injustice that ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... and duchess being so well pleased with the afflicted duenna, were encouraged to proceed with other projects, seeing that there was nothing too extravagant for the credulity of the knight and squire. The necessary orders were accordingly issued to their servants and vassals with regard to their behavior towards Sancho in his government of the promised island. The day after the flight of Clavileno, the duke bade Sancho prepare, and get himself ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... priest, magician, and medicine man were one and the same; and medicine remained stationary until it could divorce itself completely from religion. Primitive medicine, then, springs from folklore, legends, credulity, and superstitions; the same forces that give rise to all forms ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life!' If this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it." If the genius of prophecy could have stood by Burke's shoulder then, and illuminated his noble soul with the knowledge that ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Then she recovered herself. What was to be done? She tried to think. This matter of Hervey was of her doing. She had driven him to it; urged him to it. Now she realized the full horror of what her foolish credulity had led her into. It had been in her power to stay his hand, at least to draw his fangs. Now it was too late. Suddenly she turned upon her lover in one final appeal. At that moment it seemed the only ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... you to sectional strife for the purpose of sectional dominion and the destruction of the rights of the minority. Do they mean treason to the Constitution and the destruction of the Union? Or do they vilely practice on credulity and passion for personal gain? The latter is suggested by the contradictory course they pursue. At the same time they proclaim war upon the slave property of the South, they ask for protection to the manufactures of the staple which could not ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... see it in the wan cheek, sunk eye, and air of chagrin, which ever mark the children of dissipation. Pleasure is a vain illusion; she draws you on to a thousand follies, errors, and I may say vices, and then leaves you to deplore your thoughtless credulity. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... how they had beguiled him and how it was they who had cajoled him into buying an ass worth half a hundred dirhems[FN47] for five thousand and five hundred.[FN48] His friends blamed him and a company of the folk laughed at him and marvelled at his folly and his credulity in accepting the sharpers' talk, without suspicion, and meddling with that which he understood not and thrusting himself into that whereof he ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... pastor whose power and authority was in no degree less absolute than that of any of the "Romish priests" whom he so heartily denounced. She was brought up in that school of Irish Low Church Protestantism that makes more severe demands upon submission and credulity than any other, and yet more fiercely arraigns other creeds on those special counts. It is quite arguable that Irish people, like the Israelites who so ardently desired a king, enjoy and thrive under religious oppression, and it ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... POSSIBILITIES if what I say is true. Now let us proceed. I am going to take you into three rooms—the three whose doors you see ahead of you. You will notice that, including the one you have just left, there are four on this corridor. I do not wish to strain your credulity, or play tricks upon you; so I am going to ask you to fix an approximate idea of the length of the corridor in your mind, as it will perhaps enable you to account more readily for what may appear to be a discrepancy in the corresponding ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... and Aman, from the body of sister Jeanne des Anges, through three wounds below the region of the heart; a report which was afterwards shamelessly used against Grandier, and of which the memorandum still exists, a monument, not so much of credulity and superstition, as of hatred and revenge. Pere Lactance, in order to allay the suspicions which the pretended miracle had aroused among the eye-wittnesses, asked Balaam, one of the four demons who still remained in the superior's body, the following day, why Asmodeus and his two companions ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... same satisfaction I found that the result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my ears, that great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not with much credulity I listen to any, when they speak evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated, when profit is looked for in their punishment. An enemy is a bad witness; a robber is a worse. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... between the sexes was, it is said, quite openly practised, the offspring being reared as monks and nuns. The different orders competed with each other for the fame and wealth to be obtained out of the public credulity. A fraud attempted by the Dominicans at Bern, in 1506, with the concurrence of the heads of the order throughout Germany, was one of the main causes of ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... were looked at askance as foreign adventurers, and there is no doubt that although many were honourable men, others came to Rome merely to make money out of the superstitious beliefs and credulity of the Roman people. Fine clothes, a good house, and the giving of entertainments, were the best introduction to practice that some of these ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Crachit; when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... nobody to accept Darwin's, or any other derivative theory, as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in a blind faith that species—that the manifold sorts and forms of existing animals and vegetables—"have no secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become more and more probable. But we are confident, that, if a derivative ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of what you do not understand. Believe in him if you will, but be careful not to chant his praises in my presence; not to parade your credulity before my eyes, if you do not desire that I shall disenchant you. Just now you are duped—so was I at your age. Your judgment slumbers, experience is in its swaddling-clothes; but I shall bide my time, and the day ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... had transformed Professor Futvoye into a one-eyed mule. It would have seemed incredible, almost unthinkable, once, but so many impossibilities had happened to Horace of late that one more made little or no strain upon his credulity. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... pacific nations is the neutralisation of all those human relations out of which international grievances are wont to arise. And what is necessary to assure a reasonable expectation of continued peace is the neutralisation of so much of these relations as the patriotic self-conceit and credulity of these peoples will permit. These two formulations are by no means identical; indeed, the disparity between what could advantageously be dispensed with in the way of national rights and pretensions, and what the common run of modern patriots could be induced to relinquish, is probably much ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen |
