"Sceptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most of the brummagem reforms advocated by the professional suffragists, male and female. The mere statement of the current suffragist platform, with its long list of quack sure-cures for all the sorrows of the world, is enough to make them smile sadly. In particular, they are sceptical of all reforms that depend upon the mass action of immense numbers of voters, large sections of whom are wholly devoid of sense. A normal woman, indeed, no more believes in democracy in the nation ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... not believe in Dr. Argure quite as fully as some less sceptical members of his congregation do, Deacon Goodsole believes in him most implicitly. Deacon Goodsole is a believer—not I mean in anything in particular, but generally. He likes to believe; he enjoys it; he does it, not on evidence, but on general principles. The deacons ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... snapping his thick fingers with a contemptuous look for the women folk. He had just worked off his five years' government naval service; and it was as master-gunner of the fleet that he had learned to speak good French and hold sceptical opinions. He hemmed and hawed and then rattled off his latest love adventure, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... racing. Seeing into the future was a rather revolutionary idea to me. My mind is conservative; I have always been sceptical of the more fantastic ideas suggested by science. But Charlie seemed to know what he was talking about. In view of the marvelous things he had done that night, it seemed hardly fair to doubt him now. I ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... sceptical. "Well," he said after a moment's reflection, and with studied politeness,—having already offended at the outset, "all I got to say is, you talk like a woman, that's all ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... repentance by no means took the form of greater respect for women. On the contrary, he became more and more a convert to Don Juan's love—philosophy, and allowed only the millionaire and Prince Etc. to sue for favour, while the sceptical Louis grew wholly averse ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... about their being kings and princes at home. This venal trespass on the truth, though it has been occasionally played off by some pseudo marquis, baronet, and other illustrious foreigner, in our land of good-natured credulity, has been completely discountenanced in this sceptical, matter-of-fact age; and I even question whether any tender virgin, who was accidentally and unaccountably enriched with a bantling, would save her character at parlor firesides and evening tea-parties by ascribing the phenomenon to a swan, a shower ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Under less startling circumstances it is quite a common occurrence for seamen to have their toenails eaten off while they are asleep. It rarely happens that the flesh is penetrated; and they nearly always go for the big toe. People who have not seen such things are sure to be sceptical about the truth of this statement. It can, however, be easily verified. On the Baltimore vessel's arrival in the stream, and after communications had been effected with the shore, it was found that men could not be induced ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... Salisbury House, the mansion of his kind and generous patron, the Earl of Devonshire; and that the king, formerly Hobbes's pupil in mathematics, nodded to his old tutor. A short duodecimo sketch of Hobbes may not be uninteresting. This sceptical philosopher, hardened into dogmatic selfishness by exile, was the son of a Wiltshire clergyman, and he first saw the light the year of the Armada, his mother being prematurely confined during the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sceptical and agnostic days it may sound a little strange, and perhaps to some seem quite absurd, that the authorities of Harvard in 1791 felt obliged publicly to deny that Gibbon's History was used as a text-book at the University. But with the exception perhaps ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... this river must have been the demarcation between the two provinces is obvious; one glance into that deep rift, the only exit from which is by painful worked artificial zigzags which, under the most favourable conditions, cannot be called safe, will satisfy the most sceptical geographer. The exact statement of distance is a proof that Marco entered the territory of Yung-ch'ang." Captain Gill says (II. p. 343-344) that the five marches of Marco Polo "would be very long ones. Our journey ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... being so, a sort of 'Who the Devil, I humbly beg to know, is Donatus?' but there is tradition in its favour, the fact of Virgil having been buried here or hereabouts, and the honour being claimed by no other spot. When there is probability it is unwise to be so very sceptical: take away names, and what are the places themselves? Here not much, at ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... You can't let a mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer tread into the dust the neighbour whom he has joined with you in swearing to protect?" There was no resisting that Our own interest might leave us cold; we might even be sceptical of our danger. But we were put on our honour, and every man in the House with the instincts of a gentleman was swept away by that ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... a bit sceptical about the letter," said Dr. O'Grady, "but I expect when she's talked it over with Ford she'll see the sense ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... against hostile circumstances, some seemingly accidental cause, sudden and unforeseen, had blasted the labours of his most vigorous energy,—the fruit of his most deliberate wisdom. Thus, by degrees a gloomy and despairing cloud settled over his mind; but, secretly sceptical of the Mohammedan creed, and too proud and sanguine to resign himself wholly and passively to the doctrine of inevitable predestination, he sought to contend against the machinations of hostile demons and boding stars, not by human but spiritual agencies. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... do not always use the proper terms applicable to the different parts that compose it. Relying, then, upon my readers' indulgence in this respect, I shall attempt to give an idea of what a Corean female is like. It has always been a feature in my sceptical nature to think that the more one sees of women the less one knows them; according to which principle, I should know Corean women very well, for one sees but little of them. Be that as it may, however, I shall proceed to give my ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... stoical, sceptical, ill-informed British Legation," as S—— of the American Legation calls it—is wringing its hands with annoyance, and were it Italian, and therefore dramatically articulate, its curses and maladette would ascend to the very heavens in a menacing cloud like ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... accept a Christian baptism. The Spanish Jews who perished by one of the most excruciating deaths rather than forswear their faith may be numbered by thousands, and those who preferred exile and spoliation to apostasy, by hundreds of thousands. Even in our own sceptical and materialising age the conduct of the Russian Jews under the recent savage persecution shows that the old spirit is not extinct. In the face of the long and splendid roll of Jewish heroism, it is idle to dwell on the fact that in each great persecution some Jews have yielded to the fear ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... straggling streets, without an inhabited hinterland, which at present try so severely the springs of the ricketty droshkis, will be properly paved and kept in decent repair. For my own part, I confess I am a little sceptical with regard to this prediction, and I can only use a favourite expression of the Russian peasants—dai Bog! God ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... alone. Local or political jealousies are at the bottom of those troubles which still occur from time to time in Turkey: the traveller hears no insulting epithet, and the green-turbaned Imam will receive him as kindly and courteously as the sceptical Bey educated in Paris. I have never been so aggressively assailed, on religious grounds, as at home,—never so coarsely and insultingly treated, on account of a presumed difference of opinion, as by those who claim descent from the Cavaliers. The bitter fierceness of some of our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... had long been waiting to hear. As usually happens, too, this same word, once uttered, was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and chaunted through all notes of the gamut, till the sound of it had grown a weariness rather than a pleasure. Sceptical sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide, and desperation, became the staple of literary ware; and though the epidemic, after a long course of years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared with various modifications in other countries, and everywhere ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... who is sceptical of the Courtly derivation of the Italian popular song may, besides consulting the admirable book of Prof. d'Ancona, compare with the contents of Tigri's famous "Canti popolari Toscani," the following scraps of Sicilian ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about being an Irish patriot—he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common—but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be one ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... our view till March 23. "'Land in sight' was reported this morning. We were sceptical, but this afternoon it showed up unmistakably to the west, and there can be no further doubt about it. It is Joinville Island, and its serrated mountain ranges, all snow- clad, are just visible on the horizon. This ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... disengaged primitive Christian ethics from a crowd of superstitious and artificial duties which had overlaid them, and a similar process has been going on in Catholic countries under the influence of the rationalising and sceptical spirit. The influence of dogmatic theology on Morals has declined. Out of the vast and complex religious systems of the past, an eclectic spirit is bringing into special and ever-increasing prominence those Christian virtues which are most manifestly in accordance with natural religion ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Historia. Prototypes of the majority of the stories may either be found in Lucian or in the twenty volumes of Voyages Imaginaires, published at Paris in 1787. In case, however, any reader should be sceptical as to the accuracy of this statement he will have no very great difficulty in supposing, as Dr. Johnson supposed of Ossian, that anybody could write a great amount of such stuff if he would only consent to abandon his mind to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... themselves. Authors, however, never take this view. Shakespeare's contemporaries thought him a mighty clever fellow and no more. Why, even Wordsworth was well persuaded he could write like Shakespeare had he been so minded. Mr. Arnold remained all his life honestly indifferent to and sceptical about the fame of both Tennyson and Browning. Great living lawyers and doctors do not invariably idolize each other, nor do the lawyers and doctors in a small way of business always speak well of those in a big way. The poets and learned critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... Final causes, perhaps, ought never to be the subject of human speculation, but when they are plain and obvious. To substitute vain conjectures, instead of the designs of Providence, on subjects where those designs are beyond our reach, serves only to furnish matter for the cavils of the sceptical, and the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... contemptible; a foolish boy still, a boy without the graces, generosities and opulent strength of young boys. In these days, what of lordship or leadership is still to be done, the youth must do it, not the mature or aged man; the mature man, hardened into sceptical egoism, knows no monition but that of his own frigid cautious, avarices, mean timidities; and can lead no-whither towards an object that even seems ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... The Superior thought my cheeks were ominously hollow, and suspected threats of consumption in my cough. So I was to go to the Mediterranean, and try its milder air. I liked the change. Paris, with its gloss of noisy gayety and its substance of sceptical heartlessness, was repugnant to me. Perhaps it was because of this that Brother Sebastian had been mured up in the capital two-thirds of his life. If our surroundings are too congenial we neglect the work set before us. But no matter; to ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... elusiveness of "mysticism" arises out of the fact that it is not a creed, but a state of mind. It is formulated into no dogmas, but, in so far as it is communicable, it is conveyed, or sought to be conveyed, by symbols. These symbols to a sceptical or an unsympathetic person will say nothing, but the presumption among those who are inclined towards the cult is that if these symbols convey anything at all, that thing is mysticism. The mystics are right. The familiar phrases, terms, and symbols of mysticism ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... a weak stick of a creature with a smattering of medicine, grew sceptical. He insisted that jacketing, no matter how prolonged, could never kill me; and his insistence was a challenge to the Warden to ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... night, in the middle watch, always in the middle watch. That circumstance might have aroused suspicion in sceptical minds. But we ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... lightning! Napoleon lived in an age when God was no longer believed; the meaning of all Silence, Latency, was thought to be Nonentity: he had to begin not out of the Puritan Bible, but out of poor, sceptical encyclopedias. This was the length the man carried it. Meritorious to get so far. His compact, prompt, every way articulate character, is in itself perhaps small compared with our great chaotic inarticulate Cromwell's. Instead of 'dumb prophet struggling to speak,' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... and ideas of Imperator must be considered as a whole. I can assure my readers that there is nothing diabolical about him. If Stainton Moses and Mrs Piper have created him, they have created a masterpiece; Imperator inspires respect in the most sceptical. ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... to the deistical movement which Rousseau found in progress at Geneva in 1754,[338] was distinctly the outcome in a more or less marked way of a rationalising and philosophic spirit, and not of the religious spirit. The sceptical side of it with reference to revealed religion, predominated over the positive side of it with reference to natural religion. The wild pantheism of which there were one or two extraordinary outbursts ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... of all times and places—the story is alive with them at once. The Rostov household resounds with them—the Rostovs are of the easy, light-spirited, quick-tongued sort. Then there is the dreary old Bolkonsky mansion, with Andrew, generous and sceptical, and with poor plain Marya, ardent and repressed. And for quite another kind of youth, there is Peter Besukhov, master of millions, fat and good-natured and indolent, his brain a fever of faiths and aspirations which not he, but Andrew, so much more ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... had to wait a quarter of an hour, walking up and down the windy platform, where the porter abandoned himself to the contemplation of occasional rooks, and was sometimes surprised by the arrival of a train for which he had waited so long as to have become sceptical as to the existence of such things as trains in the scheme of the universe. The station was a terminus, and the line was a loop, for which very few people appeared ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... overwhelmed by the obvious. He saw nothing in a European crisis except a war with France; and nothing in a war with France except a repetition of the rather fruitless glories of Agincourt and Malplaquet. He was of the Erastian Whigs, sceptical but still healthy-minded, and neither good enough nor bad enough to understand that even the war of that irreligious age was ultimately a religious war. He had not a shade of irony in his whole being; and beside Frederick, already as old as sin, ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... seemed momentarily changed. He was as pale and thin as ever, but his face softened oddly; certain lines which contributed to his usually bitter and sceptical expression disappeared, while others became visible which changed his look completely. He bowed with more deference than he affected with other women, and Orsino fancied that he would have held Maria Consuelo's ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... alone to that particular page in the book of Nature. I endeavoured to study every phase of thought that can throw light on human life; consequently the very ridges of the skin, the hair found on the hands, all were used as a detective would use a clue to accumulate evidence. I found people were sceptical of such a study only because they had not the subject presented to them in a ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... particularly sceptical. He and another rustic functionary, of whom we shall speak presently, the grave-digger, are always the esprits forts of the place. They are so much in the habit of talking of ghosts, and are so well acquainted with all the tricks ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... 1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero inflicted on the Christians, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... success, however, is to have sufficient confidence in one's self to brave the criticisms - to say nothing of the witticisms - of a sceptical public. So eight o'clock on the morning of April 22, 1884, finds me and my fifty-inch machine on the deck of the Alameda, one of the splendid ferry-boats plying between San Francisco and Oakland, and a ride of four miles over the sparkling waters of the bay lands us, twenty-eight ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... out of the soul of the countries "beyond the Alps" is, of course, the supreme example of this uncivilised force. One frequently encounters sceptical-minded Catholics, full of the very spirit of Montaigne—who died in the Catholic faith—but it is rare to meet a Protestant who is not, in a most barbarous sense, full ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... repudiated. Utilitarianism, and the greatest happiness of the greatest number, comfortable domestic axioms, little schemes for the elevation of the masses by the classes, had, on their logical basis, no attraction for this sceptical, wayward girl. To be merely useful was, in her eyes, to make oneself meddlesome and absurd. The object of existence was to be heroic or nothing. She could imagine herself a Poor Clare: she could not imagine herself as a great ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... you should imagine this is a deception, and I produce the smoke from my throat in some manner, will you kindly try my esoteric tobacco, Sir? (To a bystander, who, not without obvious misgivings, takes a few whiffs and produces smoke, as well as a marked impression upon the most sceptical spectators.) Having thus proved to you the existence of a Spirit World, allow me to inform you that this is nothing to the marvels to be seen inside for the small sum of twopence, where I shall have the honour of introducing to you Mlle. SCINTILLA, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... incredulous man, who is in a perpetual quarrel with the curate. But in these quarrels, who is it that is beaten, buffeted, and ridiculed? It is Homais; to him is the most comic role given, because he is the most true, because he best paints our sceptical epoch, a fury whom we call a priest-hater. Permit me still to read to you page 206. It is the good woman of the inn who offers something to ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... thing of all was that neither surprise nor familiarity prevented the Colonel's being liked; his largest drafts on a sceptical attention passed for an overflow of life and gaiety—almost of good looks. He was fond of portraying his bravery and used a very big brush, and yet he was unmistakably brave. He was a capital rider and shot, in spite ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... to a grave consideration—that this doctrine of an infallible rule of interpretation may suit ignorance or scepticism: it is death to a sincere and reasonable and earnest faith. It is not hard for a sceptical mind to deceive itself by saying, that it receives whatever the church declares to be true: it may receive any number of doctrines, but it will not really believe them. We may restrain our tongues ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... of state" attended this series, the principal subject tried being the wife of one of these dignitaries. He himself was extremely sceptical of his wife's ability to move the board, and remained so until convinced by the facts! The board was lowered, and the balance showed a pressure of from 70 to 100 grammes. The subject was extremely fatigued after these tests, ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... official document drawn up, a memorandum filed, which proceeded directly from the advice, suggestion, or argument of a Free Paper which no one but its own readers is allowed to hear of, and of whose very existence the suburbs would be sceptical. ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... friction of life. Charles was only twenty-one years old. At that age the freshness of youth seems inseparable from candor and sincerity of soul. The voice, the glance, the face itself, seem in harmony with the feelings; and thus it happens that the sternest judge, the most sceptical lawyer, the least complying of usurers, always hesitate to admit decrepitude of heart or the corruption of worldly calculation while the eyes are still bathed in purity and no wrinkles seam the brow. Charles, so far, had had no occasion to apply the maxims ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... I said, "why not? To me the thing rings true to the last drop. What makes you sceptical? Confide in ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... the extras containing the latest news from the front. The people stood for hours in front of the newspaper offices, but definite news was so long in coming, that despair once more seized their hearts and they again became sceptical of ultimate victory. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... Mr. Carter, with a sceptical shrug of his shoulders, "but I doubt it. You will probably fritter away your time and your father's money in boat-racing, football, and fraternity dramatics; that is what ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... saw in every Calvinist a murderer and a robber. They thirsted after their blood; for the spirit of religious frenzy; the characteristic of the century, can with difficulty be comprehended in our colder and more sceptical age. There was every probability that a bloody battle was to be fought that day in the streets of Antwerp—a general engagement, in the course of which, whoever might be the victors, the city was sure to be delivered over to fire, sack, and outrage. Such would have been the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... English painter who went to Rome, and when he got into the Sistine Chapel, turning to his companion, said, "Egad, George, we're bit!" Our own tendency is, because of our ignorance, to be sceptical and suspicious as to foreign works of art, especially of a kind that are novel and daring. No one is so hard to please as a simpleton. We are so afraid of being taken in, that we are reluctant to commit ourselves in favor of any new thing until we have heard from headquarters; but ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... we not know who made it all!" These few and simple words had a cheering influence on Roswell, and served to increase his confidence in eventual success. God did produce all things, either directly or indirectly; this even his sceptical notions could allow; and that which came from divine wisdom must be intended for good. He would take courage, and for once in his life trust to Providence. The most resolute man by nature feels his courage augmented by such ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the future, this one had stopped short as all stopped, or failed in their predictions of what was to come. He had been startled and almost frightened. Like many Southern Italians, he was at once credulous and sceptical—a superstitious unbeliever, if one may couple the two words into one expression. His intelligence bade him deny what his temperament inclined him to accept. Besides, on the present occasion, no theory which he could form could account for the woman's ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... passion, tearing and torturing quite ordinary persons like herself, she had always been a little sceptical. The great love poems of the world, when she read them, had always left her with the feeling that their authors were of different clay from herself and had no common meeting ground with her. She had seen her friends ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... streams, but so surrounded by fruit trees that little could be seen of the country. The house was spacious, clean and comfortable, and the people very obliging. Many of the women and children had never seen a white man before, and were very sceptical as to my being the same colour all over, as my face. They begged me to show them my arms and body, and they were so kind and good-tempered that I felt bound to give them some satisfaction, so I turned up my trousers and let them see the colour of my leg, which they ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the decline of the Ottoman empire has been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the Turks to all modern improvements, and a sluggish, conservative policy, hostile to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The Turks have ever been bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to European influences. The Oriental dress has been preserved in Constantinople, and all the manners and customs of the people are similar to what they were in Asia ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... had ever since kept her as a servant in his palace. A man from Ruanda then told us of the Wilyanwantu (men-eaters), who disdained all food but human flesh; and Rumanika confirmed the statement. Though I felt very sceptical about it, I could not help thinking it a curious coincidence that the position they were said to occupy agreed with ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... swallows, or a good proportion of them, into the mud and deposit them for the winter at the bottom of a pond. Professionally conservative, as a fine old Church-of-England clergyman, though constitutionally sceptical, as became one of the earliest of really observant naturalists, he was loath to break flatly with the consensus of contemporary opinion, rustic and philosophic, and found a modus vivendi in the theory that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... my first entirely satisfactory test of the occult. I went with Mrs. Rose, one of our members, to sit for 'independent slate-writing'—that is to say, writing on the inner surfaces of closed slates. Up to this moment I was profoundly sceptical, but I could not doubt the reality of what happened. I took my own slates—the ordinary hinged school slates; but whether they were my own or not made no difference really, for the final test which I demanded was such that any prepared slates were useless. ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... that she wished him privately to investigate the matter. He of course would know far, far better what to do than she, but she would suggest that he keep an eye upon Blake. At first Mr. Stone appeared somewhat sceptical and hesitant, but after peering darkly out for a long and ruminative period at the dusty foliage of the Court House elms, and after hearing the comfortable fee Katherine was willing to pay, he consented to accept the case. As he left he kindly assured her, with manly pity for ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... round of applause was not wanting, but on this point Mrs. Kobbe was visibly sceptical: she received her lord ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... on the Cibicu, a woman murdered her husband. She did not deny the act, but pleaded justification, alleging that her husband was guilty of unfatherly conduct toward his daughter. The local authorities were very sceptical of her defence, since the murdered man had always borne an excellent reputation among both Indians and whites; but no contradictory evidence could be adduced upon which to base an open trial, so the matter ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... worlds and suns and planets, while the busy fingers plied and rolled tobacco leaves, but these discussions generally ended in a sigh, a shake of the head, and an unbelieving, "there must be something solid under this earth," from the sceptical host. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Warham and Erasmus, of Grocyn and Colet and More. Unhappily there was a darker side to this conservatism. The Archbishops had returned like the Bourbons, forgetting nothing and having learned hardly anything. If any man could have learned the lesson of history it was Juxon's successor, the hard sceptical Sheldon, and one of the jottings in Pepys' Diary shows us what sort of lesson he had learned. Pepys had gone down the river at noon to dine with the Archbishop in company with Sir Christopher Wren, "the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... shop than a house. I lingered with him for nearly an hour, telling him of the great world lying beyond Dixmude, of London and Paris, and of New York and some of its wonders, of which I fancied he was rather sceptical. And then I came away, after shaking hands with him at his doorstep in the dim alley-way, with the bar of golden sunlight shining at the entrance to the Grand' Place and the noise of the ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... land of perplexity and shadow. From the truths of astronomy he wandered into astrological fallacy; from the secrets of chemistry he passed into the spectral labyrinth of magic; and he who could be sceptical as to the power of the gods, was credulously superstitious as to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... few incredulous people who refused to believe the assertion that four more moving bodies had to be added to the planetary system. They scoffed at the notion; they said the satellites may have been in the telescope, but that they were not in the sky. One sceptical philosopher is reported to have affirmed, that even if he saw the moons of Jupiter himself he would not believe in them, as their existence was contrary ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... and again, where he alters the letters which Rosencrans and Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided, and sceptical, dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and finds out some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse for his own want of resolution, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was, however, perpetually forced upon;—for he had a thousand little sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend—most of which notions, I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and of a vive la Bagatelle; and as such he would make merry with them for half an hour or so, and having sharpened ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... among the prophets?" said Leicester. "I thought thou wert sceptical in all such matters as thou couldst neither see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, and that thy belief was limited ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... knows that...." he continued, with a sceptical laugh. "Is it not written ... in the society papers? But it has ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... be not sceptical. Believe and you will be happier. Life is only the minutest segment of the great ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... This was a blow which, somehow, he had not expected. The girl in the white boat had looked enchantingly young. When he had played the seal for her she had laughed like a child. He—even he, who believed in no one's simplicity, made sceptical by his own naughtiness so early developed towards a fine maturity!—had not expected anything like this. And these English, who pride themselves upon their propriety, their stiffness, their cold respectability! ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Shaftesbury, and with almost all the politicians of that age, a very loose morality where the public was concerned; but in Halifax the prevailing infection was modified by a very peculiar constitution both of heart and head, by a temper singularly free from gall, and by a refining and sceptical understanding. He changed his course as often as Shaftesbury; but he did not change it to the same extent, or in the same direction. Shaftesbury was the very reverse of a trimmer. His disposition ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... comrade and their grappling with problems arising out of such modern inventions as carbolic acid and tramways, we need not feel surprised if an observer accustomed to scrutinise the animal world so closely feels sceptical on the subject of "instinct" viewed as a mysterious entity antithetically opposed to "reason" and supposed to act as its substitute ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... intends, shortly, to explore their summits: and, I think there can be little doubt, that his curiosity will not go unrewarded. If large rivers do exist in the country, which some of us are almost sceptical enough to doubt, their sources must arise amidst these hills; and the direction they run in, for a considerable distance, must be either due north, or due south. For it is strikingly singular that three such noble harbours as Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, alike ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... are genuine in the sense which makes them so attractive—that is to say, as literally authentic pictures of a great man's interior life, of his actual words and behaviour as witnessed by his intimates—must always remain doubtful to the sceptical mind. True reminiscences are naturally somewhat cloudy in outline, hanging loose together with gaps and interruptions; whereas these are all coherent, clear-cut, and written in a style that gives superior polish and setting to every scene and anecdote. That they are compiled upon a ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... so," said the sceptical Swing. "But I don't mind. I'm good-natured to-day. I feel just like being lied to. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... personal initiative. At the bottom of the social ladder the system creates an army of proletarians discontented with their lot and always ready to revolt, while at the summit it brings into being a frivolous bourgeoisie, at once sceptical and credulous, having a superstitious confidence in the State, whom it regards as a sort of Providence, but without forgetting to display towards it a ceaseless hostility, always laying its own faults to the door of the Government, and incapable of the ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... speech-memory might be hysterical, as her sobbing the night before had been, or it might be connected with some little failure of circulation in the brain; an explanation, perhaps, pointed to by the extraordinary length of her sleep. Anyhow, Tims felt sceptical as to a doctor being ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... of view must shift with each generation of readers, as ideas or beliefs go in or out of fashion, are accepted, rejected, or rehabilitated. To one age Tennyson may seem weakly superstitious; to another needlessly sceptical. After all, what he must live by is, not his opinions, but his poetry. The poetry of Milton survives his ideas; whatever may be the fate of the ideas of Tennyson ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... knows what to him who would adventure to go to hell." Such was the pious casuistry of a witty usurer. Whether he undertook this last adventure, for the four hundred thousand pounds he left behind him, how can a sceptical biographer decide? Audley seems ever to have been ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... make appearing in the middle. He, Saurez, would be famous, and his sons and grandsons would have copies of the book in their houses to show visitors and the priest. Ah, it would be well to have the priest witness Saurez' signature, then sceptical people would know indeed that the stories were Saurez' own accounts. So ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... raised his eyes, which, though bleared with age, were still the windows of a sceptical soul, and let them fall. "Ellen is a good girl, Philip," ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... or of introducing the Inquisition into France, but the Court might at least be brought to invest itself with the odour of sanctity, and the parish-priest might be made as formidable a person within his own village as the mayor or the agent of the police-minister. Louis XVIII. was himself sceptical and self-indulgent. This, however, did not prevent him from publishing a letter to the Bishops placing his kingdom under the especial protection of the Virgin Mary, and from escorting the image ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Berry' in a very antagonistic frame of mind, determined beforehand that the whole thing was a swindle (italics are recent), accompanied by friends who were even more sceptical than myself, if that were possible." I go on then to describe the usual cabinet, and pass on ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... as a matter of scientific fact. But when a theory has been raised to such a level of probability as this, it is, for all practical purposes, as good as a demonstration. Thus, in the particular instance before us, even if the sceptical demand for evidence, which from the nature of the case is clearly impossible, were granted, and if we could actually observe the transmutation of species, the fact would not exert any further influence on the progress of science than is now exerted ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... a soul Grown sceptical of life. Power? Power? For what? And over what? And toward what? Not a power Over myself or pain or loneliness Or ignorance or evil; not a strength To bid the near-world cease, and in its place Instate my visions beautiful and pale, Nearer the heart's desire. No, you would ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... incredulously, "How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?" God giveth the grain a body as it hath pleased him; he can do the same with regard to that part of man's nature which is committed for a while to the earth. Let not the natural difficulties connected with this subject make us sceptical. There are no more difficulties connected with a grave than with a grape vine. Those distant twigs, on that dry vine, begin to bud and blossom; grapes form upon them; it is filled with clusters. Is there any thing in the resurrection more strange than this? Twice, inspiration ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the Doctor was a cleverer man than he, and of course would want to show it. So, after the fashion of a country squireen, he felt a longing to "set him down." "He's been a traveller, they say," thought he in that pugnacious, sceptical spirit which is bred, not, as twaddlers fancy, by too extended knowledge, but by the sense of ignorance, and a narrow sphere of thought, which makes a man angry and envious of any one who has ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... traveller; and as he is a mighty surly fellow, neither loves nor is loved by any one; "through sin's long labyrinth had run, nor made atonement when he did amiss;" as, moreover, he is licentious and sceptical; Lord Byron very naturally, and creditably to himself, sets out in his Preface with disclaiming any connection with this imaginary personage. It is somewhat singular, however, that most of the offensive reflections in the poem are made, not by ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... certain beautiful star she called her Christopher. She loved to fancy he was now an inhabitant of that bright star; and often on a clear night she would look up, and beg for guidance from this star. This I consider foolish: but then I am old and sceptical; she was still young and innocent, and sorely puzzled to know her husband's ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... about the Trojan horse, and jesting about priests. The fact that it was a priest on whom the snakes had fastened seemed to afford especial delight to the sceptical ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... enquiry, that this Society has some hundreds of well-authenticated accounts of these occult occurrences, and it really seems that we are often sceptical of these phenomena, without taking the trouble to investigate the cases that come under our immediate notice to discover ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... had spoken through him. And so here goes! up with the Ark and the trumpets, and out on to the hot sand for the march! It would have been a great deal easier to have stopped in the tents. It was disheartening work marching round thus. The sceptical spirit in the host—the folk of whom there are many great-grandchildren living to-day, who always have objections to urge when disagreeable duties are crammed up against their faces—would have enough to say on that occasion, but the bulk of the people were true, and obeyed. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... this sacred and inestimable gift, and who may forfeit its blessings by subsequent guilt and final impenitence. The present state of our knowledge, or rather ignorance of the philosophy of the human mind, may not supply us with a satisfactory answer for those, who, in a cavilling or sceptical spirit, ask, "How can these things be?" But it is the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the Church, and it is perplexed with fewer difficulties than will be found to press ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Chick entertained for the one was offset by what he felt for the other. He was between two forces; his instinct warned him of the Bar, sceptical, powerful, ruthless, a man to be reckoned with; but his better nature went ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... unless she was dazed, as she well might be. Next she, with a mob of the curious, was carried into the parlour, where were all the inmates of the house. She paid no attention to Mrs. Wells, but at once picked out a tall old woman huddled over the fire smoking a pipe. She did this, by the sceptical Nash's evidence, instantly and without hesitation. The old woman rose. She was 'tall and swarthy,' a gipsy, and according to all witnesses inconceivably hideous, her underlip was 'the size of a small child's arm,' and she was marked with some disease. 'Pray ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... that I was not dreaming; I certainly heard strange music, and entrancing voices. But in acknowledging your powers over something unseen, I must explain to you the incredulity I at first felt, which I believe annoyed you. I was made sceptical on one occasion, by attending a so-called spiritual seance, where they tried to convince me ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... in a second. The boys consulted as to what should be done. Willy was sceptical. He thought Frank had been dreaming, or that it was only Uncle Balla, or "some one" moving about the yard. But a second cackle of warning reached them, and in a minute both boys were out of bed pulling on ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... were discussing the chances, a faint star sparkled in the midst of the cavernous gloom. "You see it because you imagine it," cried some; yet, no, it was steadfast, and grew broad and bright, until even the most sceptical recognised the pale midnight sky at the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... pass from this painful subject; only quoting—if I may be permitted to quote—Mr. Burton's wise and gentle verdict on the whole. "Buchanan," he says, "though a zealous Protestant, had a good deal of the Catholic and sceptical spirit of Erasmus, and an admiring eye for everything that was great and beautiful. Like the rest of his countrymen, he bowed himself in presence of the lustre that surrounded the early career of his mistress. More than once he expressed ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... sceptical at last,' he sneered. 'I have the missing portions of the papyrus here with me. You can have them for a song. I was afraid to leave the roll too complete, lest I should invite detection. It would be a pity to let them go to some ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the phantom horseman made his rounds, and several times the sentinels shot at him without effect, the white horse and white rider showing no annoyance at these assaults. When it came the turn of a sceptical and unimaginative old corporal to take the night detail, he took the liberty of assuming the responsibilities of this post himself. He looked well to the priming of his musket, and at midnight withdrew out of the moonshine and ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... a different nation," Marker said, looking towards Lewis. "But I find the curse of modern times is this mock-seriousness. Some centuries ago men and women were serious about honour and love and religion. Nowadays we are frivolous and sceptical about these things, but we are deadly in earnest about fads. Plans to abolish war, schemes to reform criminals, and raise the condition of woman, and supply the Bada-Mawidi with tooth-picks are sure of the most respectful treatment ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the dulcet young voice with a strange emotion. Something holy and convincing seemed to emanate from the boy's very presence, and though he, as became a modern Italian, was thoroughly sceptical and atheistical, and would have willingly argued against the very words of Christ as written in the Gospel, some curious hesitation that was almost shamefacedness held him silent. But the Cardinal was even more strongly moved. The earnest spirit of truth with which Manuel ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... since Jeff had put everything on such superior grounds, she felt that she should prove herself fit for new and exalted conditions of life by seeing to it that he made good all his remarkable promises. She remembered that he had not yet opened the box of money, and became a little sceptical as to its contents. Somebody might have watched Jeff, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... its approach; still others were dedicated to its far-spreading purpose. I found an astonishing conflict of opinion. Even those who had attended this most momentous of all economic conferences were sceptical about complete results. Yet no one questioned the intent to smash enemy trade. Will our interests be ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleaving an oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and of course believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certain village-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded that the wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson, a good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interesting circumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Napoleon, the sight of him in his glory called to mind an anecdote told of him by Major Towneley in our regiment. When an exile in London, he spoke to the major of some project that he would put into execution quand je serai Empereur. "Do you really still cherish hopes of that kind?" asked the sceptical Englishman. "They are not merely hopes," answered Louis Napoleon, "but a certainty." He believed firmly in the re-establishment of the Empire, but had no faith whatever in its permanence. This uneasy apprehension ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... "that is what I am doing. I suppose I am naturally sceptical; but I want to put aside all that stands on insecure evidence, and all the sham terminology that comes from a muddled delight in the supernatural. I want to give up and clear away all that is not certain—material things must be brought to the test of material ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson |
