"Credulous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entered by then the broad, human path of inconsistencies. Already the Tropical Belt Coal Company was in existence. He sent instructions to have some of the things sent out to him at Samburan, just as any ordinary, credulous person would have done. They came, torn out from their long repose—a lot of books, some chairs and tables, his father's portrait in oils, which surprised Heyst by its air of youth, because he remembered his father as a much older man; a lot ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... nation, being exploded by some, and accounted such a reproach, as unfit to be any longer on record.—In answer to this, I shall only notice, (1.) That there have been some hundreds of volumes published of things fabulous, fictitious and romantic, fit for little else than to amuse the credulous reader; while this subject has been in a great measure neglected. (2.) We find it to have been the constant practice of the Lord's people in all ages, to hand down and keep on record what the Lord had done by and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... young, the heady, and the confident, as nothing more than the murmurs of peevishness, or the dreams of dotage; and, notwithstanding all the documents of hoary wisdom, we commonly plunge into the world fearless and credulous, without any foresight of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... more than matched the rival pastors That tute a credulous Fatherland; And we admit that you are proved our masters When there is dirty work in hand; But in your lore I notice one hiatus: Your Kaiser's scutcheon with its hideous blot— You've no corrosive in your apparatus ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... step-daughter, Isabella, in which role he is accepted by Sir Patient. But Isabella has betrothed herself to Lodwick, a son of the pedantic Lady Knowell: whilst Lucretia Knowell loves Leander, the alderman's nephew, in spite of the fact that she is promised by her mother to Sir Credulous Easy, a bumpkinly knight from Devonshire. Lodwick, who is a close friend of Leander, has been previously known to Sir Credulous, and resolving to trick and befool the coxcomb warmly welcomes him on his arrival in town. He ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... smiling with a kind of bitter triumph. "No," said he, "I will take nothing at your hands; if I were dying of thirst, and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips, I should find the courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing to commit ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... of the Sultan of France!" She rides like a man, dresses like a man, smokes, and follows the Arabs in all their expeditions against the French. She has adopted the Mahometan religion, and is become a sort of priestess, or Maraboutah. She promises the credulous Arabs that she will not only put her husband on the throne of Algeria, but even of France itself, and then all the world will become Mussulmans! The Moors say she can never leave The Desert because she has brought ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... proved by so many testimonies Beneficent and charitable purposes (War) Bestowing upon others what was not his property Beware of a truce even more than of a peace Bomb-shells were not often used although known for a century Bungling diplomatists and credulous dotards Burning of Servetus at Geneva But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate Butchery in the name of Christ was suspended By turns, we all govern and are governed Calling a peace perpetual can never make it so Canker ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this respect Charlevoix is not so credulous as Padre Ruiz de Montoya and the older writers, he yet repeats the story of the bird that cleans the alligator's teeth, the magic virtues of the tapir's nails, and many others. See Charlevoix, vol. i., bk. i., p. 27, Paris, 1756. [The story of the bird that cleans the teeth of alligators ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... marks are found in you and you alone, Trust me, I'll add no word to thwart your plan, But leave you free to perish like a man. The wight who drives through life with bandaged eyes, Ignorant of truth and credulous of lies, He in the judgment of Chrysippus' school And the whole porch is tabled as a fool. Monarchs and people, every rank and age, That sweeping clause includes,—except ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... each into the ark, or that Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, or that a fragment of the True Cross could cure hydrophobia. Such notions, still almost universally prevalent in Christendom a century before, were now confined to the great body of ignorant and credulous men—that is, to ninety-five or ninety-six percent. of the race. For a man of the superior minority to subscribe to one of them publicly was already sufficient to set him off as one in imminent need of psychiatrical attention. Belief ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... people that have married when they thought there was great kindness, and how miserably they have found themselves deceived; how despicable they have made themselves by it, and how sadly they have repented on't. He reckons more inconveniency than you do that follows good nature, says it makes one credulous, apt to be abused, betrays one to the cunning of people that make advantage on't, and a thousand such things which I hear half asleep and half awake, and take little notice of, unless it be sometimes to say that with all these faults ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... carried them from Gaza to Beiroot, where they landed, and where Fakredeen had the political pleasure of exhibiting his new and powerful ally, a prince, an English prince, the brother perhaps of a queen, unquestionably the owner of a splendid yacht, to the admiring eye of all his, at the same time, credulous and rapacious creditors. ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... any device, be made to produce eight thousand pounds, would, it might have been thought, have seemed incredible to the most illiterate foxhunter that could be found on the benches. Distress, however, and animosity had made the landed gentlemen credulous. They insisted on referring Chamberlayne's plan to a committee; and the committee reported that the plan was practicable, and would tend to the benefit of the nation. [521] But by this time the united force of demonstration and derision had begun to produce an effect even on the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mind of my youth and early manhood has been slowly moulded into the socialistic, spiritualistic, and theistic mind I now exhibit—a mind which is, as my scientific friends think, so weak and credulous in its declining years, as to believe that fruit and flowers, domestic animals, glorious birds and insects, wool, cotton, sugar and rubber, metals and gems, were all foreseen and foreordained for the education and ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... understood from them that the war chief had said that they were building homes for a trader who was coming there to live, and would sell us goods very cheap, and that the soldiers were to remain to keep him company. We were pleased at this information ad hoped that it was all true, but we were not so credulous as to believe that all these buildings were intended merely for the accommodation of a trader. Being distrustful of their intentions, we were anxious for them to leave off building and ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... proves that she gave no credence to the report of the supposititious birth of the Prince; although, in her youthful days, and when irritated against her step-mother, she had entered into the Court gossip on that subject, with all the eagerness of a weak and credulous mind. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... further parley was, that on the express promise of his Royal Highness that they should receive pardon, and that neither their persons nor those of their wives or children should be touched, the credulous Vaudois, still hoping for fair treatment, laid down their arms, and permitted the ducal troops to ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... something that might lead to a divorce. Drummond, like so many divorce detectives, was not averse to guiding events, to put it mildly. He had ingratiated himself, perhaps, with the clairvoyant and Davies. Constance had often heard before of clairvoyants and brokers who worked in conjunction to fleece the credulous. Now another and more serious element than the loss of money was involved. Added to them was a divorce detective—and honor itself was at stake. She remembered the doped cigarettes. She had heard of them before at clairvoyants'. She ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... yet began to dawn among the Northern Indians; for, though their conjurors do indeed sing songs and make long speeches to some beasts and birds of prey, as also to imaginary beings, which they say assist them in performing cures on the sick, yet they, as well as their credulous neighbours, are utterly destitute of every idea ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... and fair ladies, their perilous adventures and tender love-making, their minstrelsy and tournaments and gorgeous cavalcades,—as if humanity were on parade, and life itself were one tumultuous holiday in the open air,—and you have an epitome of the whole childish, credulous soul of the Middle Ages. The Normans first brought this type of romance into England, and so popular did it become, so thoroughly did it express the romantic spirit of the time, that it speedily overshadowed all other forms of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the rude, disfigured statue he thought of all the stories his mother, an uncompromising clerical and a woman of credulous faith, had told him of the patron of Alcira, particularly the legend of the enmity and struggle between San Vicente and San Bernardo, an ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that day were capable of appretiating. Physical science, disgraced by its alliance with the "blind experiments" of alchemy and the deluding dreams of judicial astrology, was in possession of few titles to the respect of mankind; and its professors,—credulous enthusiasts, for the most part, or designing impostors,—usually ended by bringing shame and loss on such persons as greedy hopes or vain curiosity bribed to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Simon and Harry Ford been as credulous as their companions, they would not have abandoned the mine to the imps and fairies. For ten years, without missing a single day, obstinate and immovable in their convictions, the father and son took their picks, their ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... shroud in which the Saviour was supposed to have been wrapped by Joseph of Arimathaea. This relic is contained in an altar under the cupola. One cannot help feeling anger and amazement at these miserable impostures on the ignorance of credulous devotees. We were actually shown by one of the priests an oblong frame, about thirty inches by twelve, containing a tracing, probably photographed, of this holy napkin, which, having been pressed against the Saviour's face, retained the imprint of His features; and so this piece of old linen ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... death sent by Theodoric found him. There is some doubt as to the mode of execution adopted. One pretty good contemporary authority says that he was beheaded, but the writer whom I have chiefly followed, who was almost a contemporary, but a credulous one, says that torture was applied, that a cord was twisted round his forehead till his eyes started from their sockets, and that finally in the midst of his torments he received the coup de grace from ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... step further, and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, by simulating deformity and debility from which they are exempt, than by such honest labour as their health and strength enable them to perform. In the meantime the credulous public pities and pampers a nuisance which requires only the treadmill and the whip. This art, often successful when employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to works which possess intrinsic merit. We ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to work in a more direct way, and with gross and palpable artifice, which yet the credulous Timon was too blind to see, would affect to admire and praise something that Timon possessed, a bargain that he had bought, or some late purchase, which was sure to draw from this yielding and soft-hearted lord a gift of the thing commended, for no ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... marrying the miller's daughter, listen to Parson John; if you want him to enter life a soft-headed greenhorn, who will sign any bill carrying 50 per cent to which a young scamp asks him to be security, listen to Parson John; in fine, if you wish a clever lad to become either a pigeon or a ring-dove, a credulous booby or a sentimental milksop, Parson John is the best ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to you of myself, sir, or of the English army, for all other accounts will reach you at Versailles almost as soon as they do me in this remote corner of Virginia. It is reported that you are going to make peace, but I am not very credulous on this point, and I fancy that they will at least await the end ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... has of late years published a formal vindication of it to the world. In this vindication he has not only deduced the original of it from pure Platonic love, but would willingly persuade us that it is still continued upon the same mental principles; a doctrine which the world will hardly be credulous enough to swallow, even though he should offer more convincing arguments to support it than he ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... statesmen, as well as the Odes and the Book; but, even if the First August Emperor did not entertain the suspicion that the first were (as, indeed, they are according to our Western lights) all "hocus-pocus," he was himself very credulous and superstitious, and the learned word-juggling of the Changes was in any case harmless to him; so that really his rage was confined to the four or five books, known by heart throughout China, setting forth the ancient ritual system of previous ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... contract Walker submitted to the Attorney-General of the State and to General Wood, who once before had acquitted him of filibustering; and neither of these Federal officers saw anything which seemed to give them the right to interfere. But the rest of San Francisco was less credulous, and the "colonists" who joined Walker had a very distinct idea that they were not going to Nicaragua to plant ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... herself in the bar: for Will and Dulcie could not even afford a private room to receive their wedding company so summarily assembled. Never was such a business, in Clary's opinion; not that she had not often heard of its like—but to happen to a kind, silly, credulous pair, such as Dulcie and Will Locke! Clary sat fanning herself, and casting knots on her pocket-handkerchief, and glancing quickly at Sam Winnington's gloomy, dogged face, so different from the little man's ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... sir," replied the master. "They as firmly believe in the Flying Dutchman as they do in the Gospel; and you can't persuade them that he is not to be met with. It would never do for me to go and tell them that they are cowards and credulous fools; and I well know that the same men would face three times their number with cutlasses ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... fragmentary ejaculations, which were all that she ventured upon in my lady's presence. But when she was gone Miss Pole began a long congratulation to Miss Matty that so far they had escaped marriage, which she noticed always made people credulous to the last degree; indeed, she thought it argued great natural credulity in a woman if she could not keep herself from being married; and in what Lady Glenmire had said about Mr Hoggins's robbery we had a specimen of what people came to if they gave way to such a weakness; evidently Lady ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... apply even his own theory. Yes," he went on, "and I think (as you say) we might find, not only in the partisans of different systems of physic, the representatives of the various priesthoods, but in their too credulous—or shall we say, too faithful patients? —the representatives of all sects. There is, for example, the superstitious vulgar in medicine,—the gross worshipper of the Fetish, who believes in the efficacy of charm, and spell, and incantation, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... perceive in the Wartons, rapidly developed, and it led to the blind enthusiasm with which the vapourings of Macpherson were presently received. The earliest specimens of Ossian were revealed to a too-credulous public in 1760, but I find no evidence of any welcome which they received from either Joseph or Thomas. The brothers personally preferred a livelier and more dramatic presentation, and when Dr. Johnson laughed at Collins because "he loved fairies, genii, giants, and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... danger of the poet in London, that he should come to think himself 'somebody'; though, doubtless, in proportion as he is a poet, the other danger will be the greater, that he should deem himself 'nobody.' Modest by nature, credulous of appearances, the noisy pretensions of the hundred and one small celebrities, and the din of their retainers this side and that, in comparison with his own unattended course, what wonder if his heart sinks and he gives up the game; how shall his little pipe, though ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... give of the supposed incidents attending Pascal’s conversion, there never was a more absurd fancy than that Pascal’s mind suffered any eclipse in the great change that came to him. He may have been credulous, he may have been superstitious. The miracle of the Holy Thorn may be an evidence of the one, and the unnatural asceticism of his later years a proof of the other. But to speak of the author of ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... pointed, and there appeared the upper sails of a ship. Our hopes made us believe that it was the frigate. "As likely the Frenchman come to finish us off, or maybe only the Flying Dutchman again," said Stubbs. I thought that I detected a gleam of humour in his eye, as if he was not quite so credulous as he pretended to be. As the stranger approached, the belief that she was the Phoebe gained ground. At length those who knew her best said that there was no doubt about the matter. They were right. Before dark she hove-to close to us, and a boat with a midshipman ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... which found its way into one of the daily papers, with many embellishments, brought crowds of believers in "the night side of nature" to our mischievous youngsters, who were ready to humor the credulous public to the top of its bent. Very many people looked sage, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... leaving Cecilia much perplexed, much uneasy for herself, and both grieved and alarmed for the too tender, too susceptible Henrietta, who was thus easily the sport of every airy and credulous hope. ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... us to allow witches to live, many persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have purely accidental associations been taken as convincing proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames on the asserted testimony of supernatural circumstances? I will not say that there ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... furnished by two considerations. First, there were old authoritative sages and poets who loved to speculate and dream, and who published their speculations and dreams to reign over the subject fancies of credulous mankind. Secondly, the conception was intrinsically harmonious, and bore a charm to fascinate the imagination and the heart. The fragmentary visions, broken snatches, mystic strains, incongruous thoughts, fading gleams, with which imperfectrecollection comes laden ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... return of Columbus to Hispaniola, it is proper to notice some of the principal occurrences which took place in that island under the government of Ovando. A great crowd of adventurers of various ranks had thronged his fleet—eager speculators, credulous dreamers, and broken-down gentlemen of desperate fortunes; all expecting to enrich themselves suddenly in an island where gold was to be picked up from the surface of the soil, or gathered from the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... be said indeed, that Papias was foolish and credulous. But unhappily foolishness and credulity are not characteristic of any one form of ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... arrow whistled through the air, and in another moment the owl fell fluttering to the ground completely transfixed; but it underwent no change, as was expected by the credulous archer. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Yeomanry, whom they supposed they had won over, but who was, in reality, a better-class spy, acting under Lord Castlereagh's instructions. Armstrong cultivated them sedulously, dined at their table, echoed their opinions, and led the credulous brothers on to their destruction. All at last was determined on; the day of the rising was fixed—the 23rd day of May—and the signal was to be the simultaneous stoppage of the mail coaches, which started nightly from the Dublin post-office, to every quarter of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... edges by the hydrostatic pressure of the Gulf Stream. On one of these little islets or keys, hard by Caillon Bay, the rumor went that the buccaneer had sunk a Spanish galleon laden with pieces of eight and ingots of despoiled Mexico. The people thereabout are a simple, credulous race of Spanish Creoles, speaking no English, keeping the saints' days, and watching the salt-pans of the more energetic but scarcely more thrifty Americans with curious wonder. They chanced in their broken tongue to commit the story of the treasure to a diver of an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... boys,—willing captives,—yet meeting the glances of bright eyes with far less courage than they had shown while facing the guns upon the battlefield. Thrilling tales of the late battle wore poured into credulous ears: "We were here. We were there. We were everywhere. Our company accomplished wonderful deeds of valor;" and if Beauty's smile be indeed a fit reward, truly these ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... jealous of the power and prosperity of Manuel, persuaded him that the Persian commandant in Armenia was about to seize his person, and either to send him a prisoner to Artaxerxes, or else to put him to death. Manuel, who was so credulous as to believe the information, thought it necessary for his own safety to anticipate the designs of his enemies, and, falling upon the ten thousand Persians with the whole of the Armenian army, succeeded in putting them all to the sword, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... cases the paid agents of the Republican party, have for months been circulating among the unsophisticated and more credulous classes, preaching their heresies and teaching the people that if Weaver is elected president, money may be had for the asking, transportation on the railroad trains will be practically free, the laboring man ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... other hand, red men as well as white men are sometimes given to romancing, and I have known of cases where "legends" would be manufactured on the spur of the moment by some young Indian to satisfy an importunate and credulous questioner, to the keen but suppressed amusement of other ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... dreams were regarded in Egypt with religious reverence, and the prayers of the devout were often rewarded by the gods, with an indication of the remedy their sufferings required; and magic, charms, and various supernatural agencies, were often resorted to by the credulous; who "sought to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that had familiar spirits, and to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... facility for doing him a mischief. And first she must draw closer a certain loose tie she had already looped betwixt herself and the household of Lady Bellair. This tie was the conjunction of her lying influence with the credulous confidence of a certain very ignorant and rather wickedly romantic scullery maid with whom, having in espial seen her come from the house she had scraped acquaintance, and to whom, for the securing of power over ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... was looking for one of those almost incredible excuses which are sometimes accepted by credulous old men when violent passions seize them in ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... through the key-hole, or under the door, turned out to be my own garment. I smiled at my groundless fears, was pleased with any resolution, returned light-hearted to my bed, and moralized nearly the whole of the night on the simplicity of a great part of mankind in being so credulous as to believe every idle tale, or conceive every noise to be a spectre, without first duly examining ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... had closed all avenues to sensations that might impair her powers; she would not give way either to shame and remorse for herself, or to pity or indignation against the prisoner; she would attend only to the accuracy of the testimony that was required of her as an expiation of her credulous incaution; but such was the tension of her nerves, that, impassive as she looked, she heard every cough, every rustle of paper; each voice that addressed her seemed to cut her ears like a knife; and the chair that was given to her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... underwent a sudden change of expression. She was hardly responsible, they considered, and her last incredible assertion had gone far to nullify the effect of her previous testimony. She was overcome by the nervous shock, or had told less than she knew and was still concealing somewhat, or was so credulous and plastic and fanciful as to be hardly worthy of belief. She was dismissed earlier than she had dared to hope: and with this deterioration of the testimony of the witness who was nearest the time and place of the disaster, the jury presently went to work to evolve out ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... how he lay in the grave; and how, thus fulfilling a solemn atonement, he rose again from the dead! In these stories we but design to paint an allegory from the operations of nature and the evolutions of the eternal heavens. But the allegory unknown, the types themselves have furnished to credulous nations the materials of many creeds. They have travelled to the vast plains of India; they have mixed themselves up in the visionary speculations of the Greek; becoming more and more gross and embodied, as they emerge farther from the shadows of ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... that she had called herself a friend of mine; and just then she came into notice—just enough to give her opportunities of being dangerous. Well, I heard before long that she was slandering me to all her acquaintances. Oh, she knew all about me! It was lucky for me I had a credulous husband. And it still goes on. She came here not long ago; yes, she came. She told me that she knew I was afraid of her, and she ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... on the Chickahominy, the enemy were continually watching our movements from lines of balloons floating high up in the air, anchored in place by stout ropes. They created quite a mystic and superstitious feeling among some of the most credulous. One night while a member of Company C, Third South Carolina, was on picket among some tangled brushwood on the crest of the hill overlooking the river, he created quite a stir by seeing a strange light in his front, just beyond the stream. He called for the officer of the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... however, a hundred to one that you do not, and in that event, what will be your situation? You will be looked upon as an impostor, and the consequences may be horrible to you. Remember where you are, and amongst whom you are. The Spaniards are a credulous people, but let them once suspect that they have been imposed upon, and above all laughed at, and their thirst for vengeance knows no limit. Think not that your innocence will avail you. That you are no impostor I feel convinced; but they would never ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... better. This was the period of the Missouri Compromise. Reports of the agitation and of the debates in Congress were eagerly scanned by those Negroes in Charleston who could read; rumor exaggerated them; and some of the more credulous of the slaves came to believe that the efforts of Northern friends had actually emancipated them and that they were being illegally held in bondage. Nor was the situation improved when the city marshal, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... who always think dead men great and live men small.' The tendency is natural and is entirely worthy of blame. If a man is great when he is dead, then he was great when he was alive. It is but a re-echo of much of the folly talked during the war, when we were so credulous as to believe that every dead soldier was a saint and every live one a hero. Then, when the war was over, these hero worshippers quietly forgot that the soldiers had been heroes, put up stone crosses to the dead, and did little to remove ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... you labour under," he remarked, referring particularly to the operations of the British slave-squadron, "is that you are altogether too confiding and credulous; you accept every man as honest and straightforward until you have learned, to your cost, that he is the reverse. Take the case, for example, of your attack upon Chango Creek. You were led to undertake it upon the representations ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... It is a call for implicit confidence. And that confidence has been given by a too credulous public. Three hundred years ago, when the victims were marched in long procession from dungeon to burning-place, they were accompanied by an approving mob, eager to inflict every indignity and to applaud every pang. The men about the burning-place were not intentionally cruel. They had simply ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... gives to every word such an impressiveness and dignity that every opposite thought disappears, while others throw out words which are forgotten. On the other hand, the readiness to accept suggestions is evidently also quite different with different individuals. From the most credulous to the stubborn, we have every degree of suggestibility, the one impressed by the suggestive power of any idea which is brought to his mind, the other always inclined to distrust and to look over to the opposite argument. Such a stubborn ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... canting hypocrite, a psalm-singer and devil-dodger, he has no civilization worth the name, and his customs are filthy. Since the great trek he has acquired, from long intercourse with his Kaffir slaves, many of the native's savage traits. In short, a born liar, credulous and barbarous, crassly ignorant and ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... iniquities of this kind, the perpetrators of these crimes, far from recognizing what is evident to all—viz. that for the Russians this event, even from their patriotic, military point of view, was a scandalous defeat—endeavor to assure credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring men—lured into a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse, of whom several thousands have been killed and maimed merely because one General did not understand what another General had said—have ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... the powers of the witches are largely due to the credulous contemporary commentators, who misunderstood the evidence and then exaggerated some of the facts to suit their preconceived ideas of the supernatural powers of the witches; thereby laying themselves open to the ridicule of all their opponents, past and present. Yet ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... fact, from which the inference is indisputable; a fact, which, I am afraid, shows not only that we were not waiting for the occasion of war, but that, in our partiality for a pacific system, we had indulged ourselves in a fond and credulous security, which wisdom and discretion would not have dictated."] "It is not unreasonable," said he on the 21st of February, 1792, "to expect that the peace which we now enjoy should continue at least fifteen years, since at no period of the British history, whether we consider ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... refused the culprit some trifling favour at the gallows, whereupon Arrowsmith denounced a curse upon him—to wit, that whilst the family could boast of an heir, so long they should never want a cripple: which prediction was supposed by the credulous to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... musing upon the embarrassments of his situation, and uncertain how he should reconcile his sense of duty with his love. Although Dunwoodie himself placed the most implicit reliance on the captain's purity of intention, he was by no means assured that a board of officers would be equally credulous; and, independently of all feelings of private regard, he felt certain that with the execution of Henry would be destroyed all hopes of a union with his sister. He had dispatched an officer, the preceding ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... hundred. The Rev. John Norton, in his sketch of John Cotton, remarks that "the hen, which brings not forth without uncessant sitting night and day, is an apt emblem of students." Certainly the hen is an apt emblem of the "uncessant" sitter, the credulous scratcher, the fussy cackler who produced ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... eastern places. In addition to these the Arabian priests are described by the Dutch as constituting a very numerous and pernicious tribe, who, although in the constant practice of imposing upon and plundering the credulous inhabitants, are held by ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... goblins, ghosts, firebrands of household broils, Nor drunkards, liars, cowards, cheaters, clowns, Thieves, cannibals, faces o'ercast with frowns, Nor lazy slugs, envious, covetous, Nor blockish, cruel, nor too credulous,— Here mangy, pocky folks shall have no place, No ugly lusks, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... frequently observed by Wesley that his preaching rarely affected the rich and the educated. It was over the ignorant and the credulous that it exercised its most appalling power, and it is difficult to overrate the mental anguish it must sometimes have produced. Timid and desponding natures unable to convince themselves that they had undergone a supernatural change, gentle and affectionate natures who believed that those ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... this warlike and patriotic agitation, it was only natural that the excitement should gain a party, naturally restless and credulous. The French emigrants could not but feel a desire for action, in the hope of taking an active part in the general struggle waged against the enemy who kept them far from their country by the very fact of his existence and his power. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... during the day, being engaged in their avocations abroad. There is a very small tent about the middle of the place; it belongs to a lone female, whom one frequently meets wandering about Wandsworth or Battersea, seeking an opportunity to dukker some credulous servant-girl. It is hard that she should have to do so, as she is more than seventy-five years of age, but if she did not she would probably starve. She is very short of statue, being little more than five feet and an ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... only brother. A more unfortunate selection of an heir could not have been made, as Tom Wychecombe was, in reality, the son of a barrister in the Temple; the fancied likeness to the reputed father existing only in the imagination of his credulous uncle. ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... persons are expected to fast and practise chastity but when once the impression prevails that such observances not only achieve particular ends but produce wiser, happier, or more powerful lives, then they are likely to be followed by considerable numbers of the more intelligent, emotional and credulous sections of the population. The early Christian Church was influenced by the idea that the world is given over to Satan and that he who would save himself must disown it. The gentler Hindus were actuated by two motives. First, more than other ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... human experience. The evidences had convinced her of nothing but a force as yet unclassified in the scientific categories and all her interest lay in the undeveloped powers of brain which might be discovered in the course of ignorant and credulous experiment. We met therefore on the common ground of rejection of the so-called occultism of the day, though I knew even then, and how infinitely better now, that ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... informed saw in these terrible events the scenes pictured in the Apocalypse and maintained that the battle of Armageddon was at hand. The epoch-marking battle of Waterloo in June of this year was sufficiently near the picture of blood painted in the Revelation to satisfy the credulous. ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... my Lord, and of kindness—mistaken it may be, I grant you—to them, continue to make the desirable attempt. My amiable friend, Hickman, has certainly been made the dupe of their adroitness, but, indeed, he is too simple and credulous for this world, as every kind-hearted man, with great benevolence and little judgment, usually is. If I had not risen honestly and honorably, as I trust I may say, through the gradations of office upon ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... an assassin was engaged to put him out of the way; but the scoundrel missed his aim and only wounded his victim. Fearful lest the young king, who was faithful to Coligny, should discover her part in the attempted murder, the queen mother invented a story of a great Huguenot conspiracy. The credulous king was deceived, and the Catholic leaders at Paris arranged that at a given signal not only Coligny, but all the Huguenots, who had gathered in great numbers in the city to witness the marriage of the Protestant ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the result that the natives will be robbed of their land and driven into the interior, to perish on the points of the spears of the powerful and ferocious Zulus. Now, that is an exceedingly dangerous doctrine to preach to such ignorant, credulous folk as are the Tembu, the Pondos, and the Griquas; the more so since there is a soupcon of truth in it, as is evidenced by the increasing numbers of the Dutch who are pressing over the border in order to escape from British ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... do you justice," Andrew answered coldly, "and I am willing to believe that you have faith yourself in the extraordinary story you have just told us. But frankly I think that you have been too credulous." ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the porch was dim, and as Elice Gleason, answering the ring, opened the outer door she stared as one who sees unbelievable things. For a moment she did not utter a sound, merely stood there gazing at the visitor with a look that was only partially credulous; in sudden weakness, oddly unlike her normal composure, she covered her face ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... Alas! Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every step, like ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... "that's what the rich man will say. After cheating the poor, buncoing the credulous, and 'cornering' his fellows, he will say he is willing to give it back, for he has no further use for it. There's a good moral in that song, Mr. Sweeney, and some of our sordid ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... term darwesh, in a general sense, denotes a person who has adopted what by extreme courtesy is called a religious life, closely akin to the "mendicant friar" of the middle ages; i.e., a lazy, dirty, hypocrital vagabond, living upon the credulous public. The corresponding term in Arabic is Fakir; ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... are proverbially credulous concerning all preternatural influences; and, had Robert Maclean been cognizant of half the ghostly associations attached to the residence which he had selected in compliance with general instructions from his mistress, it is scarcely problematical whether the house ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... quite right. The reading of that letter has revolutionized my character. I am a changed woman, Dorothy, and thoroughly ashamed of myself. When I remember how I have deluded that poor, credulous young man, in making him believe I understood even the fringe of what he spoke about, it fills me with grief at my perfidy, but I am determined to amend my ways if hard study will do it, and when next I see him I shall talk to him worthily like a ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... former always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I, in this respect, more credulous than any of ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... bath. Here stood an alabaster cup containing spirits of wine which I kindled, repeating magical words which I did not understand, but which she said after me, giving me the letter addressed to Selenis. I burnt the letter in the flame of the spirits, beneath the light of the moon, and the credulous lady told me she saw the characters she had traced ascending in the rays of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... credulous historian lived in Darwinian times, he might have recorded this as a splendid instance ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... ear] [i.e. Credulous. WARBURTON.] Not merely credulous, but credulous of evil, ready to receive malicious ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... Maltboy," said his host, ushering him into a little apartment at the end of the entry, which contained a few books, and was passed off upon a credulous world as Mr. Whedell's library. The gas was lighted, writing materials were produced, and, in less than three minutes, Matthew Maltboy had put his name at the bottom of a check on the —— Bank, for two hundred dollars. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... pp. 121-127. The author, who assumes the coexistence of two selves—one waking, the other subwaking, and who attributes to the latter all weakness and vice (according to him the unconscious is incapable of rising above mere association by contiguity; it is "stupid," "uncritical," "credulous," "brutal," etc.) would be greatly puzzled to explain ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... tree," a dwarf chestnut so well known to residents of the District, and I have been impressed by the many superstitious persons, both men and women, who have stopped for a moment and silently stood under its branches. Many are the credulous believers in its power to satisfy human desires, and the season when its branches are full of nuts is regarded by these as a specially propitious time for their realization. With many persons this tree is the basis of their ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... has been glory, would to Washington have been disgrace. To his intrepidity it would have added no honorary trophy, to have waded, like the conqueror of Peru, through the blood of credulous millions, to plant the standard of triumph at the burning mouth of a volcano. To his fame, it would have erected no auxiliary monument to have invaded, like the ravager of Egypt, an innocent though barbarous nation, to inscribe his name on ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... scarcely ranked among artists." So judged the leader of the 'cognoscenti', and, in accordance with his views, Elgin and Aberdeen are held up to ridicule in 'English Bards' (second edition, October, 1809, 1. 1007, and 'note') as credulous and extravagant collectors of "maimed antiques." It was, however, not till the first visit to Athens (December, 1809-March, 1810), when he saw with his own eyes the "ravages of barbarous and antiquarian despoilers" (Lord Broughton's ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... are more apt to profit by anthropology is composed of those in whom there is a decided predominance of good. In some cases they are deficient in selfish and combative energy, do not know how to assert their rights, are credulous and confiding. Children of that character if reared by timid and over-fond parents, are deprived of the rough contact with society that is necessary to their development. There are many whom the lack of self-confidence, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... road ye both journey," added the placid tones of Alice Dunscombe; "but ye are young, and ye are credulous." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... recollection of their differences, and, remote as he was from every means of learning that Richard's disgrace was in reality only the just, as well as natural consequence, of his own unsuccessful intrigues, the good but credulous Baronet at once set it down as a new and enormous instance of the injustice of the existing Government. It was true, he said, and he must not disguise it even from Edward, that his father could not have sustained such ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... beyond the control of the Government. We know what effect distress produces, even on people more intelligent than the great body of the labouring classes can possibly be. We know that it makes even wise men irritable, unreasonable, credulous, eager for immediate relief, heedless of remote consequences. There is no quackery in medicine, religion, or politics, which may not impose even on a powerful mind, when that mind has been disordered ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... supererogatory virtue and write to us. You can't know how pleasant it is to be en rapport with you, though by holding such a fringe of a garment as a scrap of letter is. We don't see you, we don't hear you! 'Rap' to us with the end of your pen, like the benign spirit you are, and let me (who am credulous) believe that you care for us and think kindly of us in the midst of your brilliant London gossipry, and that you don't disdain the talk of us, dark ultramontanists as we are. You are good to us in so ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastick or superstitious: he appears neither weakly credulous, nor wantonly skeptical; his morality is neither dangerously lax, nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Mir Saheb," replied I. "The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep. The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium. Tell on." And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything but ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... which involved an impossibility in the first place, but which was as false in itself, as replete with dishonesty and imposture, as it was deceitful and treacherous to the poor people who were foolish and credulous enough to be influenced by it. We are not now assailing the Whigs for the reforms which they effected in the Irish establishment, because we most cordially approve of them. Nay, more, we are unquestionably of opinion that that reform ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... had spent alone on that isolated hilltop. As he glanced about him, the completed work loomed large and seemed like a monument to the indomitable will and prowess of this young fellow who seemed to him so simple and credulous—almost childlike in some ways. He wondered how Tom could ever have raised those upper logs into their places. It seemed to him that the trifling instance of thoughtlessness which was the cause of all this striving, ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... some hearts are made? I play the child, and weep at the recollection—for the grief is still fresh that stunned as well as wounded me—yet never did drops of anguish like these bedew the cheeks of infantine innocence—and why should they mine, that never was stained by a blush of guilt? Innocent and credulous as a child, why have I not the ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... was not the only hermit's island on our eastern coasts which was imagined, in these credulous times, to be the occasional abode of evil spirits. According to Bede no one had dared to dwell alone on the island of Farne before St. Cuthbert selected it as his anchoret habitation, because demons resided there (propter demorantium ibi phantasias demonum). Vita Cuthberti, cap. 16. See also ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... brief experience sufficed to convince him that daily journalism was not his forte. He was and is too indiscreet, precipitate, credulous, and inconsiderately generous to be a successful editor. If a paper could be conducted on purely altruistic principles, and without reference to profits, there would be no man fitter to occupy an editorial chair. For as an inspiring force, as a radiating focus of influence, his equal is not to be ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... man, as had appeared by his confession, and were exhorted to receive the body with the utmost veneration and pious care, as one by which there was good hope that God would work many miracles. To this the prior and the rest of the credulous confraternity assenting, they went in a body in the evening to the place where the corpse of Ser Ciappelletto lay, and kept a great and solemn vigil over it; and in the morning they made a procession ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... for Could Not, in things inanimate, that have no will; but Could Not, for Would Not, never,) and thereby lay a stumbling block before weak Christians; as if Christ could doe no Miracles, but amongst the credulous. ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... hard-believing love! how strange it seems 985 Not to believe, and yet too credulous; Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes; Despair and hope make thee ridiculous: 988 The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely, In likely thoughts the ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... away with a crooked smile on his pale, smooth face. The credulous, drink-softened German amused him. He would have to avoid Twenty-ninth street in the future. He had not been aware that Bergman ever went ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... myself to commit to paper what I think. The lapse of two years has but deepened the feeling which I then experienced. The subject may perhaps be only unpleasant to people at home, but to me personally, who have seen the ruin and dismay brought upon the too credulous loyalists, the recollections it stirs up are more bitterly mortifying than ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... sudden, vicissitudes, but beat not thy brains to foreknow them." It was characteristic of an age of luxury that it should be one of superstition and mental disquietude, eager to penetrate the future, and credulous in its belief of those who pretended to unveil its secrets. In such an age astrology naturally found many dupes. Rome was infested with professors of that so-called science, who had flocked thither from the East, and were always ready, like other oracles, to supply responses acceptable ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong toward Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... despair. He eagerly inquires the cause. After much entreaty, she informs him that she has had ill luck at play, and, with anguish in her looks, laments that she is ruined beyond redemption. The too credulous admirer can do no less than accommodate her secretly with a sufficient sum to prevent her from being taken to task by her husband; and thus the disinterested lady proves, in the end, a greater drain to the gallant's pocket than the most ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the city here, and on the sloping banks of the stream noted more for its plenitude of "chubs" and "shiners" than the gamier two-and four-pound bass for which, in season, so many credulous anglers flock and lie in wait, stands a country residence, so convenient to the stream, and so inviting in its pleasant exterior and comfortable surroundings—barn, dairy, and spring-house—that the weary, sunburnt, and disheartened ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... only too clear to me that my unfortunate brother in the Lord had fallen a victim to the hatred of his fiendish enemy, to the delusion of his judge and the witnesses, and to his own credulous imagination. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... ignorant, how happened the priests to be so wise? If the people were so credulous, why were not the priests credulous too? "Like people, like priests," is a proverb approved by experience. Among so many nations and through so many centuries, why has not some one priest betrayed the secret of the famous ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Gertrude, once during our voyage, seemed roused, by an inexcusable imprudence of emotion on my part, into some suspicion of her state, yet it passed away; for she thinks rarely of herself,—I am ever in her thoughts and seldom from her side, and you know, too, the sanguine and credulous nature of her disease. But, indeed, I now hope more than I have done since ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to be practised by them, and the name "Chaldean" became a by-word, a synonym for "a wise man of the East,"—astrologer, magician or soothsayer. They dispersed all over the world, carrying their delusive science with them, practising and teaching it, welcomed everywhere by the credulous and superstitious, often highly honored and always richly paid. Thus it is from the Chaldeans and their predecessors the Shumiro-Accads that the belief in astrology, witchcraft and every kind of fortune-telling has been handed down to the nations of Europe, together with the practices belonging ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... possession of their privileges, they were surprised in 1305 to find that Edward had secretly applied to Rome, and had procured from that mercenary court an absolution from all the oaths and engagements, which he had so often reiterated, to observe both the charters. There are some historians,[*] so credulous as to imagine, that this perilous step was taken by him for no other purpose than to acquire the merit of granting a new confirmation of the charters, as he did soon after; and a confirmation so much the more unquestionable, as it could ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... all had laughed at Thorpe's bombastic figures of speech and told him to go and talk to a credulous elevator boy somewhere, and asked him if he had the girl aboard the lugger yet and Professor Peabody had wanted to know seriously if he had found any traces of ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... by the help of Orlando, had conquered them all. The worst of them, Marsilius, king of Spain, had agreed to pay the court of France tribute; and Gan, in spite of all the suspicions he excited in this particular instance, and his known villany at all times, had succeeded in persuading his credulous sovereign to let him go ambassador into Spain, where he put a final seal to his enormities, by plotting the destruction of his employer, and the special overthrow of Orlando. Charles was now old and white-haired, and Gan was so too; but the one was only confirmed ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... thrust his arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that deceives his eyes, provokes them. Why, credulous {youth}, dost thou vainly catch at the flying image? What thou art seeking is nowhere; what thou art in love with, turn but away {and} thou shalt lose it; what thou seest, the same is {but} the shadow of a reflected form; it has nothing of its own. It comes and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the matter seriously and fairly, we should probably find ground for believing that there is no better reason for its being abandoned, than that many absurd stories, concerning spirits and apparitions, have been used to be believed and propagated amongst weak and credulous people; and that the Evil Spirit not being the object of our bodily eyes, it would be an instance of the same weakness to give credit to the doctrine of its existence and agency. But to be consistent with ourselves, we ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... transactions and arrangements in the corn trade by its premature divulgement; and, above all, constitute the Globe newspaper their confidential organ upon the occasion, should alone have satisfied the most credulous of its unwarrantable and preposterous character. We acquit the Globe newspaper of intentional mischief, but charge it with great thoughtlessness of consequences. To return, however, for a moment, to that topic in the new Tariff most important ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... prepared for the introduction of still another invention of paganism, which Rome named purgatory, and employed to terrify the credulous and superstitious multitudes. By this heresy is affirmed the existence of a place of torment, in which the souls of such as have not merited eternal damnation are to suffer punishment for their sins, and from which, when freed from impurity, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... for Grineff," said the lady, in an icy tone. "The Tzarina cannot grant him grace. He passed over to the usurper, not as an ignorant and credulous man, but as ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... pursued by our philosophers. In the mean time, there are, on the one hand, sceptical philosophers, who think there is nothing certain in nature, because there is misconception in the mind of man; on the other hand, there are many credulous amateurs, who go to nature to be entertained as we go to see a pantomime: But there are also superficial reasoning men, who think themselves qualified to write on subjects on which they may have read in books,—subjects which they may have seen in cabinets, and which, perhaps, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... springing up, "he gave me his word that he would not go by that train when I told him Miss Lindsay was going by it. He has broken his word and seized the opportunity I was mad and credulous enough to tell him of. If I had been in your place, Brandon, I would have strangled him or thrown him under the wheels sooner than let him go. He has shown himself in this as in everything else, a cheat, a conspirator, a man of crooked ways, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw |
