"Skeptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... art was triumphant. Even the skeptical Cobden, who had damned so much in his day, could not question the lad's mastery. It did not occur to him to ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... that all these newly discovered objects were from the first dynasty, but still not absolutely certain; for the three names occurred only on fragments of vases, and absolutely nothing was known of how these fragments were found. The proof that they belonged to the other objects was wanting. A very skeptical investigator might still have said that the other objects were older, that the potsherds had only fallen accidentally into ruined tombs of an older period; or he might have said quite the contrary, that the potsherds were ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... that "it can't be." I wouldn't class myself as a "believer," exactly, because I've seen too many UFO reports that first appeared to be unexplainable fall to pieces when they were thoroughly investigated. But every time I begin to get skeptical I think of the other reports, the many reports made by experienced pilots and radar operators, scientists, and other people who know what they're looking at. These reports were thoroughly investigated and they are still unknowns. Of these reports, the radar- visual sightings ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... theory were right or wrong. Just as long as there was an explanation to hang upon a phenomenon she was happy enough. She might blithely think up a new theory tomorrow and throw the old one away, but that was of no consequence. Odin had grown skeptical of such thinking when he was a medical student. Each doctor had his own pet diagnosis—and too many tried to fit the patient to the cure instead of working out a cure for the patient. Oh, well, that was far away and ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... the British Embassy. The two representatives of the Entente, though only too glad to talk the matter over, were more skeptical about the attitude of Bernstorff than Mr. Bryan ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... are entirely distinct and separate. And this will explain why certain nervous impressions and shocks received by the mother are not readily transmitted to the child. It is only through changes in the mother's blood that the fetus can be influenced. As will be seen in a later chapter we are skeptical about ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... the young hunters with considerable surprise, for he had been very skeptical of their ability to kill any game, and extremely distrustful of their having anything to do ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an interest—but one—and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I never will! I have thought it all ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... who had assumed the trials and tribulations of manhood, had profited by the first disillusionments. The trusting, childlike faith was gone forever and in his new, skeptical attitude towards human nature—Toots Cortrelle excepted—he had determined to part with as few ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... that he bestrides perfectly identified with a horse? Was Sully's child, that showed its doll a series of engravings to choose from, completely deceived? It seems that we must rather admit an intermittence, an alteration between affirmation and negation. On the one hand, the skeptical attitude of those who laugh at it displeases the child, who is like a devout believer whose faith is being broken down. On the other hand, doubt must indeed arise in him from time to time, for without this, rectification could never occur—one ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... opinions the skeptical Sage put into the mouths of all the corrupt men of the future. Perhaps, as may easily be the case, old Tasio was mistaken, but we ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... recognition of the King, whom she has never seen before; her reading of his mind; her wonderful influence over the French army, and much more of the kind, are part of a well-authenticated tradition with which the skeptical mind must make its peace as best it can. And the feat is not altogether easy. The modern rationalist will say, and is no doubt right in saying, that if we knew all the pertinent facts accurately from first to last, the Maid's ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of their orthodox critics. It is, at any rate, undeserved, as far as Gutzkow, the leader of the school, is concerned. It is true that they were liberal in the matter of religious and philosophical thought. They were also skeptical as to the sincerity and usefulness of many current practises and institutions of the Catholic and Protestant branches of the church; their wit, irony, and satire were directed, however, not against religion, but against the obnoxious externals of ecclesiasticism. This attack was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... anti-christian corruptions of the Gospel; the idolatry, tyranny and persecution of the Roman hierarchy, etc. What prescience does all this imply—prescience no where to be found but in God! "Let now the infidel or the skeptical reader meditate thoroughly and soberly on these predictions. The priority of the records to the events admits of no question. The completion is obvious to every competent enquirer. Here, then, are facts. We are called upon to account for those facts on rational and adequate principles. Is ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... from human weaknesses. A real unity of the world is set forth by Sophocles: there is a divinely ordered control by immutable law, and the will of Zeus is unquestioned. The unitary conception is found also in Euripides notwithstanding his skeptical attitude toward the current mythology. The sense of symmetry potent in the poets forced them to this unitary conception of government, and the natural progress of ethical feeling led them to ascribe the highest ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... concerning the differences in intelligence reveals the lack of data. No tests of the higher intellectual processes, such as the ability to analyze, to associate in terms of elements, to formulate new principles, and the like, have, been given. Some anthropologists are skeptical of the existence of any great differences, while others believe that though there is much overlapping, still differences of considerable magnitude do exist. At present we do not know how much of the differences existing between individuals is due to differences ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... did him no service. His features, though irregular, were not ugly or insignificant, but he wore a rather battered aspect; there were deep lines running from the corners of his mouth, and crowsfeet had started under the gray eyes which, in their turn, looked more skeptical than ardent, rather mocking than eager. Yet when he smiled, his face became not merely pleasant, but confidentially pleasant; he seemed to smile especially to and for the person to whom he was talking; and his voice was notably agreeable, soft and clear—the voice of a high-bred man, ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... asked. Rose was curious. At the same time she was skeptical of the whole movement ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... over succeeding generations, as Voltaire. I name him the infidel, not because his infidelity was the most prominent characteristic, but because he is known more widely in America for his scoffing skepticism. The effect of Voltaire's skeptical writings is more perceptible in Paris than in the provinces, but in the capital an amount of infidelity obtains which is perfectly frightful; and even among those who frequent the church, and sometimes ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... to talk with Patsy. Her frame of mind was too exalted for speech with a skeptical worm. She smiled kindly on me, much as a goddess designs to sweeten the life of a mortal with a glance. She smiled in gentle rebuke as she noted my torn and stained garments and the moccasins so sadly ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... literary character above all Greek, above all Roman fame. As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastic 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 the Author of ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... if you want to take that trouble; though," she added, with a little skeptical laugh, as she removed the crescent from her other ear and gave it to him, "I assure you the trust isn't such a responsible one ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a kind of abstraction. He began to recite slowly in a clear voice, full of a peculiar sympathy that gave color to every word. He seemed as though he felt that the experience of the poet was somehow a prophecy of his own life; and it was. He himself became a skeptical man in religious thought, but returned to the simple faith of his ancestors amid ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Lake, discouraged on every hand, finally decided to build a boat himself, and did build one, with his own hands—a boat fourteen feet long and constructed of rough pine timbers painted with coal-tar—in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. With this boat Lake demonstrated to a skeptical world for all time that he was neither a visionary nor a dreamer, but a practical doer among ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... Calhoun. "I saw one of them clearly enough to be sure. But they're skeptical characters. I'm afraid there may be more on the way here from wherever they keep themselves. Anyhow, now we know some of them are in hearing! I'll take advantage of ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... by knocks that he was a disturbing agency, and that while he remained all our efforts would fail. Upon this some of the company proposed that he should leave; of which invitation he took advantage, with a skeptical sneer at ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... my first school, however, and people wondered. The supervisor also wondered, and was skeptical. Several of the parents, who did not understand very well, complained to him that I kept a menagerie instead of a school. There were some, even, who did not wish to have their children taught natural history, because they came home and asked questions. They did not like it and deemed ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... secondary and formal thing. In his early works there is much conventional piety, no doubt sincere so far as it goes; and he always took a strong intellectual interest in the problems of medieval theology; but he became steadily and quietly independent in his philosophic outlook and indeed rather skeptical of all ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Welwright tell her all he knew about her, and his report of her grace and beauty had piqued her curiosity; his account of the forlorn dullness of her life with Mrs. Lander in their hotel had touched her heart. But she was still skeptical when she went to get her letter of introduction; when she brought Clementina home from the dressmaker's she asked if she might kiss her, and said she was already ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... this point that she translated Hamlet into every-day speech, assuring her lover that there was many a true, mysterious thing in this world. If he was skeptical, let him have patience. One thing, however, was certain: the card reader had guessed everything. What more could he desire? The best proof was that at this moment she was at ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... at the pile of work which lay before me. Then my eyes turned to an open quarto book. It was the late Professor Deeping's "Assyrian Mythology," and embodied the result of his researches into the history of the Hashishin, the religious murderers of whose existence he had been so skeptical. To the Chief of the Order, the terrible Sheikh Hassan of Aleppo, he referred as a "fabled being"; yet it was at the hands of this "fabled being" that he had met his end! How incredible it all seemed. But I knew full well how worthy of ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... of descent from poetry to prose, from passion and imagination to wit and understanding. The serious, exalted mood of the Civil War and the Commonwealth had spent itself and issued in disillusion. There followed a generation of wits, logical, skeptical, and prosaic, without earnestness, as without principle. The characteristic literature of such a time is criticism, satire, and burlesque, and such, indeed, continued to be the course of English literary history for a century after the return ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... indomitably skeptical. But he said, "Ah! That's the precognition you mentioned on Kandar—that the fleet wouldn't be wiped ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. That over against America, for example, was Asia. But it is a calm, and he grows madly skeptical. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... handsome does," quoted Marilla. "I've had that said to me before, but I have my doubts about it," remarked skeptical Anne, sniffing at her narcissi. "Oh, aren't these flowers sweet! It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no hard feelings against Mrs. Lynde now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and be ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... preached to his inmost soul. Doctrinal arguments and learned polemics, he could have tilted with, word for word; but here were facts, and realities and influences, which disarmed and defied all that was skeptical in his nature. The dying man—the priest of God—that young and fragile girl, illustrated by their acts a faith which, though mysterious to him, could be nothing less than divine; but Father Fabian, ignorant of the thoughts which were ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... a sensible economic pressure, the Archangel government set a date when not forty-eight but fifty-six roubles might be exchanged for forty new roubles. Then a date for sixty-four, then for seventy-two and then eighty. Thus the skeptical peasant and the suspicious soldier saw his old roubles steadily decline in exchange value for the new roubles. Of course they had always grabbed all the counterfeit stuff and used it in exchange with no compunctions. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... these sisters. But, on the other hand, to share the remainder of her existence with Andrew Walkingshaw—There rose vividly a picture of that most respectable of partners, and the emotion attendant on this vision drew from her a sigh that ought to have convinced the most skeptical she was ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... marched into y^e land & found diverse cornfeilds & little running brooks, a place fitt for situation: at least it was y^e best they could find." The Pilgrims, then, were quite oblivious of the rock, the historians are entirely skeptical concerning it, and the following generation so indifferent to the tradition which was gradually formulating, that in the course of events it was half-covered with a wharf, and used as ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... nights were surrendered, almost wholly, to my new pursuit. I toiled with all the earnestness which distinguished my temperament, stimulated to a yet higher degree by those feelings of pride and pique, which were resolved to convince my skeptical uncle that I was not entirely without those talents, the assertion of which had so promptly provoked his sneer. Besides, I had already learned that no such scheme as mine could be successfully prosecuted, unless by a stern resolution; and this implied the constant presence ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... prove to the most skeptical that you are still the king, and that Von der Tann, nor any other, may not dare to dictate to you. It will be the most splendid stroke of statesmanship that you could achieve at the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... English drainers tell us of tools and their use, whereby drains may be open twenty inches lower than the feet of the workman; but we have never chanced to see that operation, and are skeptical as to the fact that work can thus be performed economically, except in very peculiar soils. That such a crack may be thus opened, is not doubted; but we conceive of no means by which earth, that requires the pick, can be moved to advantage, without the workman ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... met my questions and objections remarkably well," went on Mr. Evringham. "I am willing and glad to admit truth where I once was skeptical, and I hope to understand much more. One thing I must say, however, I do object to—it is this worship of Mrs. Eddy. I know you don't call it that, but what does it matter what you call it, when you all give her slavish obedience? I should like to take the truth ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... salutation, but not a harsh one, for each hand had a heart in it, or I believed it had, which was all the same to me. They made the customary promise not to forget me, but credulity must stop somewhere, and at this point I must confess my easy faith gave out, and left me skeptical. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... gun, looked at each other, their faces full of sudden seriousness, and there was just a shadow of fear in both blue eyes and black. The silence and the vastness of an empty earth and sky can bring up undreamed of things from the bottom of men's minds. Ellhorn's more skeptical nature was the first to gird itself against ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... balance in the bank of L2,335, and we, as a matter of policy, wanted to have our capital ready at hand. The bank has a rule that a depositor must never have less than L300 to his credit. My friends were somewhat skeptical as to whether the bank did not regard their new customer, F. A. Warren, with some suspicion and as a depositor to be watched. My personal relations with the bank people convinced me everything was all right, but to convince my friends I determined to give them a proof that the bank would break their ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... front seat beside Billie sat Nicholas, and Reginald was in the back with Elinor. Every laddie had a lassie that morning, and Billie, who was a bit skeptical over Nancy's headache, wondered vaguely if this could have been the reason for her staying at home. But she put the thought away from her at once as being unworthy. Billie sighed and gave herself an impatient little shake. Her heart yearned ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... read print splendidly if it were held within six inches of them, and who, when he did read, moved book or paper back and forth in front of his spectacles in a droll, owlish, improbable way, instead of letting his eyes travel across the lines of print, was skeptical at first. He suspected Bonbright of being a youth scratching the itch of a sudden and transient enthusiasm. But he became interested. Bonbright compelled his interest, for he was earnest, intense, not enthusiastic, not ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... are now generally accepted, and the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands on the ancient site; the Mount of Olives looks down upon it; the foundations of the Temple of ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... machinations through witchcraft and the evidence then adduced to prove them, and trained to such credulity by their education and experience, by their theological doctrines, and by the law of the land in Old England, but still clothed upon with that righteousness which as it proved in the end made them skeptical as to certain alleged evidences of guilt, and swift to respond to the calls of reason and of mercy when the appeals were made to their calm judgment and second thought as to the sins of ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... am still skeptical about a commercial nut industry in New York on the basis of our present varieties. After more than 20 years of variety testing in Ithaca only the Thomas black walnut has shown any real merit. All the other sorts that were propagated and recommended have shown themselves ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... grin a little, but even though it didn't seem as skeptical to me as it did to him, I saw he might be right about it. Still, I wasn't goin' to take sides without hearin' all the evidence, so I ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... day. It is no longer the world of Mme. de Rambouillet that confronts us with its chivalrous models, its refined platonism, and its flavor of literature, but rather that of the epicurean Ninon, brilliant, versatile, free, lax, skeptical, full of intrigue and wit, but without moral sense of spiritual aspiration. Literary portraits and ethical maxims have given place to a spicy mixture of scandal and philosophy, humanitarian speculations and equivocal bons mots. It is piquant and amusing, this light play of intellect, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... to agree with you, sir," said Jack. "At first I'll admit I was skeptical, but the way you explain the matter it ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... I was skeptical as to this special brand of philanthropy, but I was touched by the grief of her disappointed hopes. I knew the particular sting. At the same time my hand twitched to shake her for going into this thing in so impractical a way. Teaching and preaching in a foreign land may include ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... from the gate of the Marvin mansion to the avenue, and as Harry turned to Pauline with a skeptical reply on his lips, the approach of a young man of military ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... to have kept his hat on in the presence of King Charles, that the boys might see what a great man he was. I doubt, however, whether the boys were deceived by the hat; and am very skeptical about Dr. Busby's theory ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... grand consummation of Italian intelligence in many departments—the arrival at maturity of the Christian trained mind tempered by the philosophy of Greece, and the knowledge of the actual world. Fully aroused at last, the Italian intellect became inquisitive, inventive, scientific, skeptical—yes, treacherous, immoral, polluted. It questioned all things, doubted where it pleased, saturated itself with crime, corruption, and sensuality, yet bowed at the shrine of the beautiful and knelt at the ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck, who might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical in regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... at Martha after he finished saying that. Her face was coldly skeptical and he had an uncomfortable feeling that his lie hadn't registered ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... similarly skeptical of every kind of authority, and had no confidence whatever in the ability of the three university faculties. For example, since patriarchal conditions were her ideal, she questioned whether mankind derived any material advantages from jurisprudence. ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... men who taught the children of the rich; worldly men who sought honor and power; frivolous men, trifling with philosophical ideas; skeptical men, denying all certainty to truths; men who, as teachers, added nothing to the realm of science, but who yet established certain dialectical rules useful to later philosophers. They were a wealthy, powerful, honored class, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... skeptical, then pained. It was during the days, I think, of my "probation," and into his anxious heart had come the thought, Was I "running well"? But he dismissed the doubt and promised to ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... and little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine that their senses present to different men different images of things this skeptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that skeptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... people have questioned the accuracy of the statement that first-class workmen can load 47 1/2 tons of pig iron from the ground on to a car in a day. For those who are skeptical, therefore, the following data relating to this ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... to the world as though their young creator knew that God gave him but a day. His whole active life was scarcely more than a decade and a half, and yet in that time, without wealth, friends, or influence, in the face of perhaps the most critical and skeptical and least imaginative civilization of the modern world, he wrote his name so high as a creative artist that it ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... skeptical people of Cork, a party of them telegraphed all over the coast to see if they could not find Paul, to verify their story and from Skibbereen they learned that a man answering that description had passed through there and was now ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Some distant, skeptical corner of my brain told me that this was pure insanity, that I was deluded, hallucinated. Yes, I knew that. But it did not seem to matter. The girl who was walking so quietly across the blue yielding moss had ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... conspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, and the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us. 1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. He pronounces it "fine and sombre," but, I lament to add, "skeptical, Judaic, Satanic—in a word, antichristian." That Lord Byron should figure as a member of this diabolical corporation will not surprise men. It will surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... reason. "Nobody has seen so many things as everybody," yet a dozen men cannot see any farther than one, and the truth is not often a matter of majorities. If you tell me any incident in the life of bird or beast that implies the possession of what we mean by reason, I shall be very skeptical. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... applauded, perfunctory and skeptical. "Bli'me if you didn't mike me forget where I was—'ad me thinking I was in 'Yde Park, you did, listening to a ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Somewhat excited, yet half skeptical, he returned to the excavation and scooped out yet another collection. This time there could be no mistake. Nature's own alchemy had fashioned a veritable ingot. There were small lumps in the ore which would need ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... child. And on the hills and through the intervales over which they journeyed, in the glare of the eager sun or beneath the wattled boughs, the emanations of the Divine filled her with transports so contagious that they affected even Thomas, who was skeptical by birth; and when, after the descent from Hermon, two or three of the disciples mused together over the spectacle which they had seen, the rhyme of her lips parted ineffably. She too had seen him aureoled with the sun, dazzling as the snow-fields on the heights. To her it was ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... skeptical of this, even fearful. She had not forgotten Keith's frenzied avoidance of such callers in the old days. But to her surprise now Keith welcomed Mazie joyously—so joyously that Susan began to suspect that behind the joyousness lay an eagerness ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... Joan rolled right side up again. Wood-ladies were dim inhabitants of the woods, beings of the order of fairies and angels and even vaguer, for there was nothing about them in the story-books. Joyce, who felt that she was getting on in years, was willing to be skeptical about them, but could not always manage it. In the nursery, with the hard, clean linoleum underfoot and the barred window looking out on the lawn and the road, it was easy; she occasionally shocked Joan, and sometimes herself, by the license of her speech on such ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... this ignorance and disbelief, and it works whether he believes it or not. Just so the skillful operator in Cosmic Therapeutics can generate, control and direct the power of the Cosmic consciousness which he understands, and it brings its results whether the skeptical mind of man accepts ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... Douglass—not by any means the worst man that the world can produce. He was, or fancied himself to be, a skeptic. Like many a young man, wise in his own conceit, he had no very distinct idea of what he was skeptical about, nor to what hights of illogical nonsense his own supposed views, carried out, would lead him; like many another, too, he had studied rhetoric, and logic, and mathematics, and medicine, thoroughly and well; he would have hesitated long, and studied hard, and pondered deeply, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... writer. "Montfanon, whom I have found at length, has just bought one of the two copies which Ribalta received lately. The old leaguer believes everything, you know, when a Hafner is in the question.... I am more skeptical in the bad as well as in the good. It was only the account given by the trial which produced any impression on me, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... idle words, and the belief then expressed became with Hugh Worthington a firm, fixed principle, which his skeptical uncle tried in vain to eradicate. "There was a heaven, and she was there," comprised nearly the whole of Hugh's religious creed, if we except a vague, misty hope, that he, too, would some day find her, how or by what means ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... day we happened to call upon the ispravnik or Russian governor, and in course of conversation mentioned the "Anadyrski bol," and related some of the stories which we had heard from Paderin. The ispravnik—skeptical upon all subjects, and especially upon this—said that he had often heard of the disease, and that his wife was a firm believer in it, but that in his opinion it was a humbug, which deserved no other treatment than severe corporal punishment. The Russian peasantry, he said, were very superstitious ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Mr. Peaslee, and he was hardly reassured by the skeptical smile of Squire Tucker, and his remark that he would believe that Lamoury was hurt when he saw him. The squire had small faith in either Lamoury or Hibbard. He knew ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... rings, which are often wonderfully beautiful,—so beautiful, in fact, that the uninstructed person is sometimes skeptical as to their production by the children,—may also be preserved in permanent form by parquetry. It is furnished in various colors for this gift, as for the seventh and eighth, and is greatly enjoyed ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... understand, its spirit all minds can grasp, its moral laws all people can obey, its truths appeal not only to the lowly and simple, but also to the highest intellect, they win the spontaneous approval, not only of the pious, but also of the most skeptical. At a literary gathering at the house of the Baron von Holbach, where the most celebrated atheists of the age used to assemble, the gentlemen present were one day commenting on the absurd and foolish things with which the Bible abounds. The French ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... to the influence which was at work in that Gadarene herd, which assumed the functions of Her Majesty's government, the sounds that now came from the Treasury Benches would convince even the most skeptical that sacred history is sometimes repeated by profane, but he could not compliment the devils, who had the bad taste to—(Several honorable members here rose amid the cheers of the Irish Members, and a scene ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... become skeptical of the whole human race, it is because his experience has shown him that honor and vice may walk side by side without contamination; that virtue and crime may be closely connected, and yet no stain be left upon the white robe of purity, and that while upon the one ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... Halsey where I had found Rosie's basket with the bits of broken china piled inside. He was rather skeptical. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I will say that up to the time of my witnessing what I have narrated I was skeptical on the subject of our power over evil spirits. I had heard of such manifestations, but had never seen them with my own eyes. My experience here impressed me with the fact that we could attain such power, and showed me the stern necessity of living near to God; for man, ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... is infamous that the struggle should be so hard for so many. All of us who are ignorant or complacent or skeptical about the social evils of our time are sharers in the iniquity of those who fall. Many of us live in mean satisfaction, just because we ourselves have found comfort and security; that is how these evil forces are able to go on year after year leading ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... our ambassador had been taken to the quarters of Major Valdez, who claimed to be an officer of the Federals, and by him he was thoroughly cross-examined. He had heard of the breaking up of the Confederacy, but not of the capture of Mr. Davis, and was evidently skeptical of our story as to being wreckers, and connected us in some way with the losing party, either as persons of note or a party escaping with treasure. However, O'Toole baffled all his queries, and was proof against both blandishments and threats. He learned what ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... in power has refused to enfranchise woman, being skeptical as to her moral influence in government, yet with strange inconsistency they alike seek the aid of her voice and pen in all important political struggles. While not morally bound to obey the laws made without their consent, yet we ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... "is History! If Plymouth Rock turns out to be a myth, why may not Columbus or Santa Claus or Napoleon, or anything or anybody?" Since then we have been skeptical about history even where it seems most probable; at times doubt whether Rip Van Winkle really slept twenty years without turning over; are annoyed with misgivings as to whether our Western pioneers Boone, Crockett, and others, did ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... of the difficulties is that the technique seems too simple. Students become skeptical. They feel it should be more complicated and involved in order to get results. I suppose people better appreciate something that comes only after a hard struggle. This procedure is devoid of this. Of course, I am not saying that once a person begins to use this technique ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... her dear Miss Emma, nor could find happiness away from her—it seemed a very pleasant thing to think that her devotion might be a voluntary affair, and she stayed because she chose. Still she was skeptical. The abstract question puzzled her a little, too. How came Mas'r Henry to be free? Because he was white; that explained itself. But Miss Emma—she was white, too, and yet somehow she seemed to belong to Mas'r Henry. She wondered if Mas'r Henry could sell Miss Emma; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... had already seated themselves in his carriage and were looking out of the door and smiling with mock patience. But the senator made no move to follow them. Though they were his admirers they were sometimes skeptical, and he was not sorry that they should hear this uninvited tribute. So he made a pretence of buttoning his long coat about him, and nodded encouragingly to Arkwright to continue. "I'm glad you liked it, sir," he said with the pleasant, gracious smile that ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Ritualistic cupboard in Bumsteadville. Above it hung a portrait of the Pope, from which the grand old Apostolic son of an infallible dogma looked knowingly down, as though with the contents of that cupboard he could get-up such a schema as would be palatable to the most skeptical Bishop in all the Oecumenical Council, and of which be might justly say: Whosoever dare think that he ever tasted a better schema, or ever dreamed in his deepest consciousness that a better could be made, let him be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... of my life. At the conclusion of my speech the great audience rose and, still standing, cheered for many minutes. I was immensely surprised and deeply touched by the unexpected tribute; but any undue elation I might have experienced was checked by the memory of the skeptical snort with which one of my auditors had received me. He was very German, and very, very frank. After one pained look at me he rose to ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... transitory condition skepticism is logical insurrection; as a system it is anarchy; skeptical method would thus ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... third day after leaving the caravan, as we were riding near the Cimmaron, I thought I observed a pronged head disappearing behind a swell in the prairie. My companions were skeptical, and none of them would go with me; so, wheeling out of trail, I started alone. One of them—for Gode was behind—kept charge of my dog, as I did not choose to take him with me, lest he might alarm the antelopes. My horse was fresh and willing; and, whether successful or not, I knew I could easily ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... that great submerged city, with Captain Petersen and his skeptical crew. They entered one of the largest of the temples, wandered forlornly through its flooded halls and corridors, seeking some sign of these alleged beings Larry ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... gazed through his nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression—the copyrighted expression of the editor ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Angelo said, how Plutarch felt, how Montesquieu thought about the question, and then glances off from it to the terror of the child at the thought of life without end, to the story of the two skeptical statesmen whose unsatisfied inquiry through a long course of years he holds to be a better affirmative evidence than their failure to find a confirmation was negative. He argues from our delight in permanence, from the delicate contrivances and adjustments ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... skeptical and bitter, my son—but you will learn that a harmless old man can speak ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... purchased of you years ago gave me permanent relief and cure. While I was always skeptical as to a permanent cure of rupture by means of a truss the fact remains that after following your advice and instruction, I have been going about without a truss, doing all kinds of work same as I did prior to becoming ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... spokesmen of Socialism are, like Kautsky, somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an alliance between the working class and this section of the middle class, others accept it without qualification. If, then, we consider at once the middle ground taken by the former group of Socialists, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... confidence in the new plan which claimed benevolent motives. It is only fair to admit that the farmer differs from others of his social rank only in degree, and that his experiences in the past appear to him to justify his skeptical attitude. He has at times suffered exploitation; what he does not realize is that this has been made possible by his lack of knowledge of the ways of modern business and by his failure to organize. The farmer is beginning to appreciate the significance of marketing. Unfortunately, he too often ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... considerable misery is undeniable: and the question is, of course, confined to that. Its exaggeration, in the ordinary estimate both of the vulgar and of skeptical reasoners, is equally certain. Paley, Bishop Sumner, as well as Derham, King, Ray and others of the older writers, have made many judicious and generally correct observations upon its amount, and they, as well as some of the ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... Miller's smile had ceased to be skeptical, it was strained. "And which servant imparted ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... destructive. The fourteen points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... had already learned, was as skeptical as myself in regard to Madre Moreno's spells, for the laughing manner in which she had spoken of her aunt's charms and witcheries, when we were on the hill and even in the presence of the Madre herself, ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... at the skeptical group. "I brought her out from town," he said doggedly, "and whilst I own up to having an imagination, she's stranger than fiction. She'd make the fellow that wrote "She" lay down with a headache. She's ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... forget their parents and their native language also. It was long before I could give credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I received no other testimony but theirs I should probably have continued skeptical to this day as to the truth of the accounts; but when I found the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, I was compelled to admit the validity ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... know it will stop here?" asked skeptical Allee, who was just beginning to read, and found the long words on the billboard too much ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... infinitesimal degree or the whole delicate organism would be thrown out of adjustment. It was not an industry where hit-or-miss methods could be glossed over; on the contrary, every part of the process must be absolutely accurate. Do you wonder people were skeptical as to the possibility of making such a mad undertaking a success and hesitated about putting ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... naturally, he had lost his houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest needlework; and it had the narquois, lightly skeptical look of those who have seen a great deal of life. In short, Nono was a stylish and eminently respectable old bird. That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul, who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, has stuffed and mounted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... material repose, this quiet of decaying atoms, surely the most skeptical of thinkers, in contemplation of SUCH a life and SUCH a death, must instinctively look from earth to heaven; from the bruised and mouldering clod to the spirit infinitely exalted, and radiant ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... she retired from the interview with her father still manfully displaying an outward cheerfulness, while depression grew heavier within, as if she had eaten soggy cake. Her father knew nothing whatever of the stage, and she was aware of his ignorance, yet for some reason his innocently skeptical amusement reduced her bright project almost to nothing. Something like this always happened, it seemed; she was continually making these illuminations, all gay with gildings and colourings; and then as soon as anybody else so much as glanced at them—even her father, who loved her—the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... be like her you need give nothing—only your stubborn will, your skeptical doubts, and the heart that will never know rest till ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... no interest in the sermon, now, on the other side of the world, surrendered to Newman's influence. It is uncertain if they had ever spoken to each other at Oxford; yet that subtle pervasive intellect which captured for years the critical and skeptical mind of Mark Pattison, and indirectly transformed the Church of England after Newman himself had left it, now, reaching across the world, laid hold on Arnold's son, when Arnold himself was no longer there ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... overdo it." He snapped off the lighter and looked at his employer through a cloud of blue-gray smoke. "I mean, after all, he's on the records as being a crackpot. I'd be a pretty stupid reporter if I believed everything he said. If I don't act a little skeptical, he'll think I'm either a blockhead or ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of being married to a woman who demanded a nice home and nice clothes and a circle of nice friends had done a great deal toward making him a little skeptical about the soundness of his standards. But his moments of uncertainty were few and fleeting, called into life by such uncomfortable circumstances as touching old Wetherbee for money or putting his tailor off when the date ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Certain distinguished sermons had their popular names, as "The Judas Sermon," or "The Peter Sermon," and drew their admirers accordingly. He was a man of marked emotional nature, which he often found it hard to control. A skeptical critic might have wondered whether the tears welled, or the face broke, or the voice trembled, always just at the right moment, from pure spontaneity. But those who knew the preacher personally never doubted the genuineness of the feeling that ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... from the hawk-like, intent, boldly imperious countenance which she had seen before. Those piercing eyes were softened and quietly shining. The arrogant lines about the mouth that could look so bitter and skeptical, were as sweet and candid as ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... you was so skeptical, you hold the line, and, when you feel a tug, take a turn around the cleat here or he'll ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... on a minute; I'm coming to that," said Miss Daggett firmly. "As I was telling you, this work is a complete library in itself. A careful perusal of the specimen pages will convince the most skeptical. Turning to page four hundred ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... walking round the head of the cove in which it was the habit of the little craft to hibernate, strange sounds like that of a purring cat were ofttimes wafted shoreward. "It is only the wind in her rigging," the skeptical explained; but a suspicion still lurks in some of our minds that the Eskimo are not so far from the truth in ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Skeptic to be so shrewd—shrewd though he often is. Being also skeptical, his skepticism sometimes overcolours ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... nature with which Raoul spoke were not without effect. Could Sir Frederick have had his way, the prisoner would have been acquitted on the spot. But Lyon was skeptical as to the story of love, a sentiment about which he knew very little; and there was a spirit of opposition in him, too, that generally induced him to take the converse of most propositions that were started. The prisoner was dismissed, and the court closed its doors, to make up its decision ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... purchased, larger and every way better than those employed on the former occasion. Stores were laid in, as experience dictated, on a larger scale than before, and proclamation was made of "an expedition to Peru." But the call was not readily answered by the skeptical citizens of Panama. Of nearly two hundred men who had embarked on the former cruise, not more than three fourths now remained.11 This dismal mortality, and the emaciated, poverty-stricken aspect of the survivors, spoke ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... a queer light in the eye of the Irishman. I observed him narrowly—expectantly. Often I had read of this phenomenal art of improvised ballad-singing, but had always remained a little skeptical in regard to the possibility of such a feat. Even in the notable instances of this gift as displayed by the very clever Theodore Hook, I had always half suspected some prior preparation—some adroit forecasting ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... resolution. Moreover, he possessed what only a few men do possess, the capacity to tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons. He was preeminently a philosopher, of a happy, skeptical turn of mind. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... mistake to suppose that when reaction follows collapse, in cases in which alcohol has been given, this result is always due to the alcohol. I have seen so many cases of severe collapse recover without alcohol that I cannot but be skeptical as to its necessity, and even as to its value. I was much struck many years ago by a case of post partum hemorrhage which was so severe that convulsions set in. I should then have given brandy if there had been any to give, but there was none in ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... laying aside the 'Clarion' with a skeptical shrug of her pretty shoulders, as she glanced up at her brother; "I suppose this means that you are going to propose again ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... existence of moral principles which are capable of effective application. We believe, so far as the mass of children are concerned, that if we keep at them long enough we can teach reading and writing and figuring. We are practically, even if unconsciously, skeptical as to the possibility of anything like the same assurance in morals. We believe in moral laws and rules, to be sure, but they are in the air. They are something set off by themselves. They are so very "moral" that they have no working contact with the average affairs ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... Krech, "was that of a polite but skeptical child listening to a bedtime story. I soon convinced him of its importance, though. He says it ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... a bit skeptical at first, it all seemed so silly, such a whimsey for a rich man to fancy—taking such big risks just for the thrill he got—but the more I picked up about the man the less inclined I became to doubt, and by now I'm ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... spoke earnestly, "I know you're skeptical. You don't think the crystals do what I say they do. Even though you see it with your own eyes you doubt that it is happening. I will do anything possible to test this device to your satisfaction. Name the test that will dispel your doubts and we ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... be found exceedingly valuable for classroom use by teachers of theology, hydraulics, and applied engineering. It is recommended that it be introduced to students before their minds have become hardened, clotted, and skeptical. The author does not hold himself responsible for any of the statements in the book, and reserves the right to disavow any or all of them under ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... almost hear them say to each other in dog language, a strong, morose, savage badger! Alas! we are wasting our days in idleness, our talents rust from disuse! Finally, Uncle Jim remained the only frankly skeptical member. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... beauty is too subtle a thing for thought. How, they say, can one hope to distill into clear and stable ideas such a vaporous and fleeting matter as Aesthetic feeling? Such men are not only unable to think about beauty, but skeptical as to the possibility of doing so,—contented mystics, deeply ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... a flaming, fragrant garden, overrun with flowers, a sort of unspoiled island Eden, where bronze-brown Eves with faces and figures of surpassing loveliness disported themselves on the long white beaches, or loitered the lazy days away beneath the palms. But I went there skeptical at heart, for, ever since I journeyed six thousand miles to see the women for whom Circassia has long been undeservedly famous, I have listened with doubt and distrust to the tales told by returned travelers of the nymphs whom they had found, leading an Arcadian ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell |
