"Eyewitness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... astronomer, when a lad of nineteen, went into Ireland to be touched by Greatrakes, and he testifies that he was an eyewitness of several cures, although he himself was not benefited. In a letter to Lord Conway, Greatrakes says: "The King's doctors, this day (for the confirmation of their majesties' belief), sent three out of the hospital to me, who came on crutches; but, blessed ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... of those rooms were occupied last night," continued Thorndyke, "we might obtain an actual eyewitness of the crime. This room was brilliantly lighted, and all the blinds were up, so that an observer at any of those windows could see right into the room, and very distinctly, too. It might be ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the trouble doth proceed. The next, that all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time. This world is mere ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... a forum in which discontented Germany could blow off steam, but achieve little in the way of remedy or reform. But during the war the Reichstag has even ceased to be a place where free speech is tolerated. It has been gagged as effectually as the German Press. I was an eyewitness of one of the most drastic muzzling episodes which has occurred in the Reichstag during the war—or probably in the history of any modern Parliament—the suppression of Dr. Karl Liebknecht, member for Potsdam, during the debate on military affairs ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... ain't to-day's ten-o'clock comin' from Meadville, 'n' me solemnly promised to be at Lucy's at half-past nine to help Mrs. Macy stone raisins! Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I would n't have believed it of you if I had n't been a eyewitness!—" ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... animals found in that country—the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the elephant, are described with considerable spirit and fidelity; and even the form and colours of the fabulous phoenix, are delineated with all the confidence of an eyewitness. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... a stick of striped peppermint candy to have his best friend stabbed in the back before morning; you see giddy poster designs carrying on flirtations with hand-painted valentines; you catch the love-making, overhear the intriguing, and scent the plotting; you are an eyewitness to a slice out of the life of the most sinister, the most artistic, and the most murderous period ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... clung to his antagonist, roaring like a wild beast; even now Philippus never for an instant lost his presence of mind but desired the nun to fetch two strong slaves. The Sister hurried away, and Paula remained the eyewitness of a fearful struggle. The physician had twisted his ancles round those of the stalwart Persian, and putting forth a degree of strength which could hardly have been looked for in a stooping student, tall and large-boned as he was, he wrenched the Persian's hands from his hips, pressed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... statement of the circumstances attending the lamented fate of Mr. Park, was given to the travellers by an eyewitness, and together with all the information which they could collect, tallies with the story, disbelieved at the time, which Isaaco brought back from Amadi Fatooma. The informant stated "that when the boat came down the river, it ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... said Bertram, "you were yourself an eyewitness of that transaction, which has been spoken of far and wide, and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... stupendous an event! Do these sparing and reverent words sound to you like the product of devout imagination, embellishing with legend the facts of history? To me their very restrainedness, calmness, matter-of-factness, if I may so call it, are a strong guarantee that they are the utterance of an eyewitness, who verily saw what he tells so simply. There is something sublime in the contrast between the magnificence and almost inconceivable grandeur of the thing communicated, and the quiet words, so few, so sober, so wanting in all detail, in which it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... indulged from corrupt following of the ancients. But no abstract could show—though the few scraps of actual phrase purposely inserted may convey glimpses of it—the vigour and picturesqueness of the recital. That Villehardouin was an eyewitness explains a little, but very little: we have, unfortunately, libraries full of eyewitness-histories which are duller than any ditch-water. Nor, though he is by no means shy of mentioning his own performances, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... to the meaning of this statement, nor as to what a man of Milton's genius expected would have been actually visible to an eyewitness of this mode ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... gain much enlightenment from the "Eyewitness" with G.H.Q., though his literary skill in elegantly describing the things that do not ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... sufferings of the poor people must have been dreadful indeed. Mothers flung down their infants on the burning sand, and pressed madly on to save themselves from the most horrible of deaths; old men and boys sunk exhausted, panting, declaring they could go no farther. "Then it was," says an eyewitness, "that the Zouaves behaved like very Sisters of Charity, rather than rough bearded soldiers; they divided their last morsel with these unfortunates, gave them drink from their own scanty stores, and, putting their canteens to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... that he did not know when the head was severed, which must have been done by one of the bullets of which there were so many whizzing about in all directions. Some may doubt the correctness of this story, but I, being myself both a hearer and an eyewitness to the scene at the surgeon's, can vouch for the accuracy of it. Certainly Filer's appearance was not altogether that of composure, for he was not only rather frightened at the fearful exposure of his own body at the breach and across the plain, but he was evidently ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... Yet even the eyewitness does not bring back a nave picture of the scene. [Footnote: E. g. cf. Edmond Locard, L'Enqute Criminelle et les Mthodes Scientifiques. A great deal of interesting material has been gathered in late years on the credibility of the witness, which shows, as an able ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... of men, and are celebrated both by poets and prose writers—these draw you aside from your natural piety. Perhaps you have seen impious men growing old and leaving their children's children in high offices, and their prosperity shakes your faith—you have known or heard or been yourself an eyewitness of many monstrous impieties, and have beheld men by such criminal means from small beginnings attaining to sovereignty and the pinnacle of greatness; and considering all these things you do not like to accuse the Gods of them, because they are your relatives; and so from some want of reasoning ...
— Laws • Plato
... from it to His asking for Mary; Martha's return to the house and whispering in her sister's ear, "The Master is come and calleth for thee;" the hurried obedience to the call—all these incidents are recorded by John with the particularity and vividness of an eyewitness. ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... avoidance of lively sallies, in the extreme regularity of its developments, the classic style is powerless to fully portray or to record the infinite and varied details of experience. It rejects any description of the outward appearance of reality, the immediate impressions of the eyewitness, the heights and depths of passion, the physiognomy, at once so composite yet absolute personal, of the breathing individual, in short, that unique harmony of countless traits, blended together and animated, which compose not ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... The whole Christian army was now engaged in the battle, and returning on its steps, the chariot which bore the royal standard was in the thickest of the fight. Ere long, however, the Saracens were unable to sustain the impetuous assault of the Franks. Boha-Eddin, an eyewitness, having quitted the Mussulman centre, which was put to the route, fled to the tent of the Sultan, where he found the Sultan, who was attended only by seventeen Mamelukes. While their enemies fled in this manner, the Christians, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... from a love of justice and from a wish to vindicate the French Republic and Napoleon from one at least of the many unjust aspersions cast on them. I feel it also my duty to state on every occasion that I, belonging to an army sent to Egypt in order to expel them from that country, have been an eyewitness of the good and beneficial reforms and improvements that the French made in Egypt during a period of only three years. They did more for the good of that country in this short period, than we have done for India ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... eyewitness of this great battle, an officer of an infantry regiment, who escaped with a slight wound, I learned that the German onslaught had been repelled by a series of brilliant bayonet ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... called for the severest censure, not merely on the rioters, but also on the authorities, who took few steps to avert the calamity. An eyewitness stated that half a dozen men could have extinguished the fire, which owed its origin to lighted balls of paper thrown about the chamber by the rioters; but there does not seem to have been even ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... read and digested by Germans, while the German papers not only print prominently the French official communiques, the Russian communiques when available, and interesting chunks from the British "eyewitness" official reports, but most of their feature stories—the vivid, detailed war news—come from allied sources via correspondents in neutral countries. The German censor's task is here a relatively simple one, for German war correspondents never allow professional ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... says that for some days after Josephine's return Bonaparte treated her with extreme coldness. As he was an eyewitness, why does he not state the whole truth, and say that on her return Bonaparte refused to see her and did not see her? It was to the earnest entreaties of her children that she owed the recovery, not of her husband's love, for that had long ceased, but of that tenderness acquired ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... were called Vargas y Machuca. I mention this because from the first oak I see I mean to rend such another branch, large and stout like that, with which I am determined and resolved to do such deeds that thou mayest deem thyself very fortunate in being found worthy to come and see them, and be an eyewitness of things that ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... how he dismounted four times to put heart into the infantry, how he rallied one corps which seemed to be shrinking; "That is not the way to fight, gentlemen. You must stand close up to them. Thus, gentlemen, thus." "You might have seen him," an eyewitness wrote, only four days after the battle, "with his sword in his hand, throwing himself upon the enemy. It is certain that one time, among the rest, he was seen at the head of two English regiments, and that he fought ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not) occur in the London procession. One of the most prominent citizens in our procession (for instance) had his face blacked. Another rode on a pony which wore pink and blue trousers. I was not present at the Metropolitan affair, and therefore my assertion is subject to such correction as the eyewitness may always offer to the absentee. But I believe with some firmness that no such features occurred in ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... with knowledge and authority, and the tale he has to tell is very complete and full of precious detail. He was, himself, an eyewitness of much that happened; he pursued a personal acquaintance with many of those who were connected with Sir Oliver's affairs that he might amplify his chronicles, and he considered no scrap of gossip that ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the gleeman thrills his hearers with a vivid picture of a Viking's sea-burial. It thrills us now, when the Vikings are no more, and when no other picture can be drawn by an eyewitness of that ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long |
