"Skepticism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farming more and more on a big scale. But what seemed most wonderful to me was an instrument now being talked about which sent messages by electricity. It was not perfected yet. It was treated with skepticism. But if it could be! If I could get a message from St. Louis, a distance of more than a hundred miles, in a few ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Cogolludo, and of some the originals were published by the late Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in the second volume of the reports of the "Mission Scientifique au Mexique et dans l'Amerique Centrale." Their authenticity has been met with considerable skepticism by Waitz and others, particularly as they seem to predict the arrival of the Christians from the East and the introduction of the worship of ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... chimeras, destroyed the aspirations, ravaged the confidence of souls, killed love, dragged down the chivalrous worship of women, crushed the illusions of hearts and accomplished the most gigantic talk ever attempted by skepticism. He passed over everything with his mocking spirit, and left everything empty. And even to-day those who execrate him seem to carry portions of his thought, in spite of themselves, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... writer that this first conclusion is premature and unworthy—I will add, deplorable. Through what faults or infirmities of dogmatism on the one hand, and skepticism on the other, it came to be so thought, we need not here consider. Let us hope, and I confidently expect, that it is not to last; that the religious faith which survived without a shock the notion of the fixity ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... this, that, anything—only, not the Deep Place—prease! He was a pitiable object, could Martin have found pity for him in his heart. He was no longer the suave, dapper Japanese gentleman. His boasted gentility was gone with his courage; and superstitious terror had quite overcome his Western skepticism. He was just a yellow coolie, terror-stricken, cringing before and begging of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Mendelssohn's German translation was welcomed in Russia at its first appearance no less than in Germany, but when some of the children of Rabbi Moses ben Menahem embraced the Christian faith, and their father, as was natural, was suspected of skepticism, the Biur and the Meassefim were pronounced, like libraries by Sir Anthony Absolute, to be "an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge." So also with Wessely's Epistles, which were destroyed in public, together with Polonnoy's Toledot Ya'akob Yosef. Haskalah itself was not impugned, ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... President of the Society of Antiquaries, brought out his own "edition" of the poems, with a commentary providing extensive historical proof of what Bryant "ascertained."[8] The remarks of Warton and Tyrwhitt suddenly seemed hasty and superficial. Warton had clearly outlined his reasons for skepticism, but he offered to show "the greatest deference to decisions of much higher authority."[9] Tyrwhitt had also hesitated to be dogmatic. He saw fit to suggest that, since Chatterton had always been equivocal, the authenticity of the poems could be judged only on internal ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... knees at last beside her bed. No Madigan of this generation had been taught to pray, an aggressive skepticism—the tangent of excessive youthful religiosity—having made the girls' father an outspoken foe to religious exercise. But to Sissy's emotional, self-conscious soul the necessity for worded prayer ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... nothing in common with Gertrude Wentworth's conception of a soubrette, by the most ironical scowl that had ever rested upon the unpretending tokens of the peace and plenty of the Wentworths. Fortunately, Augustine could quench skepticism in action. She quite agreed with her mistress—or rather she quite out-stripped her mistress—in thinking that the little white house was pitifully bare. "Il faudra," said Augustine, "lui faire un peu de toilette." And she began to hang up portieres in the doorways; to place wax ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... guerra? Che sangue! che orrore!" [Footnote: "When will this war ever be ended? what blood! what horror!" I have often heard the question and the comment from many Italians who were not cats.] The French tourist they distinguish by his evident skepticism concerning his own wisdom in quitting Paris for the present purpose; and the traveling Italian, by his attention to his badly dressed, handsome wife, with whom he is ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... was the first to recover from the surprise occasioned by Britz's revelation. He became aware of a growing skepticism that refused to accept so obvious an explanation of the puzzling circumstances surrounding the merchant's death. Surely the same solution would have suggested itself to him ere this were it possible for twenty hours to have elapsed between ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... social chaos and the logical steps towards its better ordering. I came to have an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the poverty in the midst of which I was living and which the socialists constantly forced me to defend. My plight was not unlike that which might have resulted in my old days of skepticism regarding foreordination, had I then been compelled to defend the confusion arising from the clashing of free wills as an alternative to an acceptance of the doctrine. Another difficulty in the way of accepting this ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... shoals to the printed offer of luna moths measuring ten and eleven inches across the wings. Letters came in by, every mail, responding variously with fervor, suspicion, yearning eagerness, and bitter skepticism to Average Jones' advertisement. All of these he put aside, except such as bore a New York postmark. And each day he compared the new names signed to the New York letters with the directory of occupants ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to my lodgings, being rather drunk myself, with a cheerful Machiavelian drunkenness which quite satisfied all my instincts of skepticism, an idea struck me. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... are none the less impassable, and of chains, though light as air, yet stronger than brass or iron. And everywhere is the machinery ready, though different in its frame and operation in different torture-chambers, to crush out the budding skepticism, and to mould the mind into the monotonous decency of general conformity. Foe or Fetish, King or Kaiser, Deity itself or the vicegerents it has appointed in its stead, are answerable for it all. God himself has looked upon it, and it is very good, and there is no appeal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... addressed Mr. Czenki looked up, and the living flame of wonder within his eyes flickered and died. In silence, for a minute or more, he studied the unconcealed skepticism in his employer's ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... Raeburn was the very last man to understand or sympathize with any phase of life through which he had not himself passed. He had never been troubled with religious doubts; skepticism seemed to him monstrous and unnatural. He met the confession, which his son had made in pain and diffidence, with a most deplorable want of tact. In answer to the perplexing questions which were put to him, he merely replied testily that Luke had been overworking himself, and that he ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... the car whirled him across the city, on what this greatest thing in the world might be. And he hoped with gentle skepticism that the enthusiasm was warranted. A young man opened the car door as they stopped. His face was flushed, Eddinger noted, hair pushed back in disarray, his shirt torn open ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... supernatural overruling of the present laws of nature. The experience of man is not the limit of knowledge. His own existence is a proof that the chain of finite causes is not inviolable. Geology sweeps away the very foundations of skepticism, by demonstrating that certain phenomena produced immediately by God himself—the phenomena of the creation of life—have occurred repeatedly in the history of our globe. Revelation is not impossible because supernatural. The world is just as ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the wife of an atheist, who had been brought to God at one of our meetings. She was converted at the same time. She had brought two of her daughters to the meeting, desiring that they too should know Christ. I said to the mother: "How is it with your skepticism now?" "Oh," said she, "it is all gone." When Christ gets into the heart, atheism must go out; if a man will only come and take one trustful, loving look at the Saviour, there will be no desire ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody
... all this, any one doubts the fact that evaporation tends to produce cold, let him countenance his skepticism, by wetting his face with warm water, and going into the air in a Winter's day, and his faith ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... three characteristic letters which by accident escaped me when I was writing on the subject before. Here is the story: Schlegel and Niebuhr had been for some time on unpleasant terms. The historical skepticism of the latter was altogether distasteful to Schlegel; and he was wont to deny Niebuhr's claim to the title of historian. Well, Landor was dining at Bonn, and among the company immediately opposite to him at table was Schlegel. Hardly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... his day deprecated in all sincerity and earnestness the growing disbelief in witchcraft and diabolical agency, fearing that mankind, losing faith in a visible Satan and in the supernatural powers of certain paralytic old women, would diverge into universal skepticism. It is one of the saddest of sights to see these good men standing sentry at the horn gate of dreams; attempting against the most discouraging odds to defend their poor fallacies from profane and irreverent investigation; painfully pleading doubtful Scripture and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... modern Science on your Earth, based on the scientific method of investigation, its devotees adopted a spirit of skepticism concerning all problems of human activity not susceptible to measurement with the foot-rule, or analysis with the test tube, with the result that the newer Science of Psychology was invented to supply a reasonable and material explanation for the subtle and mystifying ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... more cruel and unforgiving than society's standard. But it is really definitely unchristian. Further, society is radically insincere, forgiving what can be kept secret, condoning on account of moral skepticism much general laxity, and yet breaking out into a mock ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... March, 1876, by Mr. J.W. Ward, of Belfast; and the positions of the satellites, as he estimated them on several nights, are compared with those computed, the two sets presenting tolerably good agreement. Indeed the corroborations are such as to almost wholly negative any skepticism, though such extraordinary feats should always be received ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... an arm or a leg amputated, he reflected, say they can still feel pains in the absent member. Well, there's an analogy in that. Modern skepticism has amputated God from the heart; but there is still a twinge where the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... calculated their uses and limitations, had no thought that the tanks would go to Berlin. They were simply a new auxiliary. Probably the average soldier was skeptical of their efficiency; but his skepticism did not interfere with his curiosity. He wanted to see the beast ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the political and religious system imposed on them from above. Implicit faith in the superior wisdom of their temporal and spiritual rulers was made the greatest of all virtues. But with the growth of an intelligent skepticism throughout the western world, the power of king and priest has been ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... haunted. This particular spot is hardly one where a person would prefer to see a ghost, even if one knew it was but an optical illusion; but one evening, some years ago, when a bright moon was mounting high and swinging well around to the south, a young girl who lived near by and who had a proper skepticism for the marvels of the gossips passed this house. She was approaching it from an opposite sidewalk, when, glancing up at this belvedere outlined so loftily on the night sky, she saw with startling clearness, although pale and misty in the deep shadow of ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... he snorted, with a skepticism amply justified by the past. "And if you did, I shouldn't answer; I hate letters, always did. But you cable me once a fortnight to let me know you're living—and send an extra cable if ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... with, Mr. Poundstone, you might accept my solemn assurances that despite the skepticism which, for some unknown reason, appears to shroud our enterprise in the minds of some people, we have incorporated a railroad company for the purpose of building a railroad. We purpose commencing grading operations in the very near future, and the only thing that can ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... on a Monday. Betimes Tuesday morning, inspired outwardly by the zeal of one just won over from skepticism to the immediate advisability of following a sapient course, he sought opportunity to become a member in good standing of the Shining Star Colored Uplift and Progress League, a simple ceremony and a brief, since it involved ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... when a few ciphers are cut off from the roll of Israel's impossible armies? If much that we read as literal history turns out legend and myth, are we to find a painful alternative between a blind credulity and as blind a skepticism? We follow this same re-reading of Roman and Grecian story untroubled, and see the heroes of our childhood turn into races and sun-myths without calling the Muse of History ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... do grieve—in spite of your grinning skepticism and your bantering attitude. See here, Tom; I've started about a thousand times to say ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... them light, and we cover their eyes that they may not witness our orgies; they promised to teach them virtue and we are encouraging their vice. Instead of peace, wealth, and justice, confusion reigns, commerce languishes, and skepticism is fostered among ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... of an American tradition to show a certain skepticism toward our democratic institutions. I myself have sometimes thought the aging process could be delayed if it had to make its way through Congress. But you will deliberate, and you will discuss, and that is fine. But my friends ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... expression and persuasion, but cast yourself upon the Holy Spirit and seek for them His testimony and see to it that they put themselves in the place where the Holy Spirit can testify. This is the cure for both skepticism and ignorance concerning Christ. If you yourself are not clear concerning the truth about Jesus Christ, seek for yourself the testimony of the Holy Spirit regarding Christ. Read the Scriptures, read especially the Gospel of ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... performance with silent skepticism. He did not abuse horses himself, neither did he put up with too much nonsense from them. To him they were like children, needing a lot of tolerant kindness, but, also, at times, to be greatly improved by a sound whipping. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... sharp skepticism. "I should say it was!" He stared at his father incredulously. "Look here; aren't you just a little bit sudden, the way you're goin' about things? You've let mother shove you a little too fast, haven't you? Do you ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... nation's hopes of various reforms seemed to have been blighted, and ending with a whole mass of experiences of life and the literary failures and annoyances which he underwent during the second half of his life. And in this connection it must not be forgotten that the very spirit of analysis and skepticism wherewith the school of writers of the '40's is imbued, leads straight to pessimism, like any other ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Timea; skepticism does not become a woman. Her adornment is piety; leave the rest to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the terror inspired by the fatal end, the aching regrets over the parting with dear ones, these feelings, which possess even the devoutest Jew, are expressed in one of Lebensohn's most beautiful poems, "The Death Agony", and in "Knowledge and Death" the skepticism of the Maskil prevails over the optimism of ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... the opposite pole from credulity is an unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged in writing his History of the World, he heard the sounds of a fracas in the prison-yard. On inquiry of those who were concerned in it, and were on the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... among the ferns, delicate and elfin, with a shy perplexity on her face. It was difficult to speak even to Mother about wood-ladies without a pretence of skepticism. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... events supported by far stronger evidence than can be adduced for the conquests of Alexander, the Crusades, or the Norman conquest of England, what is it, we may ask, that he calls upon us to believe? His skepticism, as so often happens, affords the measure of his credulity. He contends that Cortes, the greatest Spaniard of the sixteenth century, a man little acquainted with books, but endowed with a gigantic genius and with all the qualities requisite for success in warlike enterprises ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... worked up into a state of fear bordering on panic, but wise old Mbonga affected to feel considerable skepticism regarding the tale, and attributed the whole fabrication to their fright in the face of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... much that it is in danger of being missed by the ignorant to such an extent that great harm may result. This is true, not only of mental therapeutics and hypnotism, but of every other blessing we possess. Hypnotism has nothing to fear from the senseless skepticism and contempt of those who have no knowledge of the subject." He adds pertinently enough: "While hypnotism can be used in a greater or less degree by every one, it can only be used intelligently by those who understand, ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... About ninety years ago it was first discovered, but the information brought back to civilization by the explorers was apparently so exaggerated that it excited general ridicule. No one believed that the wonders described really existed. Even later, when corroborative evidence was forthcoming, skepticism continued. It was almost as difficult then to make people believe the truth about the hot springs and geysers, as it is now to make people believe that it is possible for a man to stand on the edge of a hot spring, catch the choicest kind of fish in the cool waters of the lake surrounding ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... prophecy condemns the same sins as those mentioned in the last chapters of Ezra and Nehemiah. He denounced their impure marriages, their lack of personal godliness, their failure to pay tithes and their skepticism. The special occasion for the discourses was the discontent which arose because their expectation of the glorious Messianic Kingdom had not been realized. They had also had unfavorable harvests. It is thought by many that the time of the prophecy is between ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... children; they shan't be neglected any longer if I can help it—I should feel guilty, quite guilty! Now won't you let your little nephew come? Perhaps they'll not find it so very terrible, after all." From which Mr. Yancy concluded that when she invaded it, skepticism had rested as a ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... her laugh in court," Mrs. Sylvester spoke in deep earnestness and Kent placed faith in her statement in spite of his outward skepticism. "And I heard her laugh in this corridor this morning and I placed her as the same woman. I asked Mr. Sylvester who she was, and he told me. I'd been reading this account of the Turnbull inquest, and I recollected seeing Mrs. Brewster's name, ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... as 'potent an agent of intoxication' as exists to-day, and it blinds us to the need of work along scientific lines for the immediate improvement of the race. What right have we to intoxicate reason with religion? If religion is anything it must be reason." I fairly hurled my words of half-baked skepticism at him, with the vision of father and Dabney digging in the garden, still ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sketched with such vividness, such abundance of colour, and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard's life should be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chilling attributes of William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticism must have vanished from her mind. Besides, there are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture which, with simple but ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... years I have been making an experiment—one of those experiments which men frequently attempt, believing all the time that it is worse than child's play, and half hoping that it will prove so and sanction the wisdom of their skepticism concerning the result. When I left home I placed in your charge the key of my private desk or cabinet, exacting the promise that only upon certain conditions would you venture to open it. Those contingencies have not arisen, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... among his friends who felt that there were moments when George lived up to things too brightly and too beautifully. His Uncle Jaffry, for instance, had his openly skeptical moments. But George even lived up to his uncle's skepticism. He accepted his remarks with charming good humor. It was his pride that he ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... this delicacy were thrown aside, and such theologians plainly told that the skepticism and Infidelity—if skepticism and Infidelity there be—lies ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... after some moments of this silent acquiescence and silent skepticism, "that will make it very evident ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... literature, for the reason that the general line of attack during this century has been made from a literary standpoint. Of course, there has always been, whether easily discoverable or not, an undertone of skepticism of the rank sort. Oftentimes the battle has been avowedly against the book as a professed inspiration. Strauss and Renan made no cloak for their deed. But in many instances the method of procedure has been to study, as under a calcium light, the literary ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... downstairs. Just now the laugh is on an old boy with benevolent side-whiskers, who's sliding down the balusters, and a fat old party, who looks like a bishop, that's bumping his way down with his feet sticking out straight in front of him. Shy away from these things that end in an ism, my boy. From skepticism to rheumatism they've an ache or a pain in ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... of my brain, all the while, was some shadow of doubt, of skepticism, of reiterated self-warning that it was all too good to be true. It wasn't until I looked over the well-gnawed top rail of Slip-Along's broken manger and saw that blessed boy there, by the light of Whinnie's lantern, saw that blessed boy of mine half buried ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the following bulky matters: Geometry, the Solar Spectrum, the Habeas Corpus Act, the British Parliament, and in Metaphysics they were asked to trace the progress of skepticism from Descartes to Hume. It is within bounds to say that some of the results were astonishing. Without doubt, there were students present who justified their teacher's wisdom in introducing them to these studies; but the fact is also evident that others ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The skepticism of factory workers appals me. They suspect everybody and everything from the boss down. I believed almost everything about Mame, especially since she paid back all she ever borrowed. No one else ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... of monkeys that forms so large a part of the population of the Jardin d'Acclimation in Paris; and yet, as this curious account has not been questioned, so far as we are aware, by those who ought to know the facts, it is hardly gracious in us to begin the relation of it by gratuitous skepticism. A Bordeaux ship-owner, who is noted for insisting on a strict obedience to instructions on the part of his captains, some time ago gave written orders to one of the latter to bring back from Brazil, whither he was going, one or two monkeys—"Rapportez-moi ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... fancies and theories into the Scriptures; they have read Milton's Paradise Lost but have neglected the Book of Job; they have considered the experiences of Luther instead of the Epistles of Peter and Jude. To avoid skepticism on the one hand, and ridicule on the other we must resort to the Scriptures to formulate our views of ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... himself into the mire of unbelief. Difficulties and objections should be candidly considered, and allowed their due weight; but they must not be suffered to override irrefragable proof, else we shall soon land in universal skepticism: for difficulties, and some of them too insoluble, can be urged against the great facts of nature and natural religion, as well as of revelation. To reject a series of events supported by an overwhelming weight of evidence, on the ground ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... you patiently and without interruption. Now listen to me. You complain of the skepticism of the age. This is one form in which the philosophic spirit of the age presents itself. Let me tell you, that another form, whichit assumes, is that of poetic reverie. Plato of old had dreams like these; and the Mystics of the Middle Ages; and still their disciples ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... clever hillman, who had been south for an education and had learned skepticism in addition to the rule of three, undertook to discover wires leading over roof-tops to that room; but he searched for a week and did not find them. When his search was over, and all had done laughing ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... heels because the E's, each blasted one of them, would regard the absolutely true facts proved beyond question by science with an attitude of skepticism, temporarily accepting the uncontestably immutable as only ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... not the corresponding religious interest. The truth is viewed by many as a beautiful theory, the heart remaining a flint. We have to regret the fact, that some of the best minds in the place are tinged with skepticism. Happily the most influential are, notwithstanding, our firm friends, and are in favor of good ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... comprehension of the idea of God will neutralize the skepticism and despondency sometimes stealthily nourished or crushingly impressed by contemplations of the immensity of nature. If one, from regarding the cold and relentless mechanism of the surrounding system, tremble for fear of there being no kind Overruler, let ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... were left unsettled. The attempt of a writer of biography to maintain that even in March, 1914, the President and Colonel House foresaw the European war and wanted to arrange our own international relations by way of precaution has been generally received with polite skepticism. ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... to infidelity and skepticism is demonstrated by the infidel productions of the day. The dogma of ecclesiastic authority set up in opposition to reason and scientific discovery is the infidel's devil, and a very poor devil at that. For, when ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... during the last few years of his life he used to lock the outer doors of his house twice a day and then engage in private prayer; on the other hand, friends of Burton who knew him and were with him almost to the last have received this statement with skepticism. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... sympathy, hope, skepticism, doubt—come all ye trooping emotions to threaten or console; but an end has come to fairy stories and wonder tales—Master Studious is in the awful presence ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... buried deep, do you?" inquired Colonel Ward, a flavor of satiric skepticism in his voice. He was gazing quizzically forward to where Mr. Bodge sat on the capstan's drumhead, his nose elevated with wistful eagerness, his whiskers flapping about his ears, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... is a very general tendency to deny that ideal forces have any practical power. But there have been several thinkers whose skepticism has an opposite direction. "We can not," they say, "attribute external reality to the sensations we feel." We need not wonder that this theory has failed to convince the unmetaphysical common-sense of people that a stone post is merely a stubborn thought, and that the bite of a dog is nothing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... poured the milk for his father and added doughnuts to the plate, just to save time. He couldn't admit it to Scotty, of course, but he was plenty curious in spite of his skepticism. He knew Scotty, and his pal wouldn't get excited over some silly business ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... George that "them two little jool-eyed scuts was limbs av the old gint himself, and they reminded him, Barnay, of a pair of haythen naygurs," than which he could say no more. But then, Barnay's wholesale skepticism was his only recreation, save talking about his pretty daughter "of school age," and he liked to stand tucking his beard inside his collar and indulging in both. In truth, Barnay, who knew the waters of the Atlantic fairly well, was sorely tried to take orders from the two little ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... the tour was continued to London, where he published six additional concertos for violin. By the time he was ten years of age he had written his first oratorio, and now when he was upon a concert tour he was met with skepticism and misrepresentations, the claim being put forward that the compositions being published under his name had really been written for him by his father, since it was evident from the face of them that no boy of his ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... vision of the future, European history is to be a perpetual prize-fight, of which France has won this round, but of which this round is certainly not the last. From the belief that essentially the old order does not change, being based on human nature which is always the same, and from a consequent skepticism of all that class of doctrine which the League of Nations stands for, the policy of France and of Clemenceau followed logically. For a Peace of magnanimity or of fair and equal treatment, based on such "ideology" as the Fourteen Points of the President, could only have the effect of ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... turned his back on the boy, and after loitering a moment to make sure that he had nothing more to say, the lad slipped away, triumphantly bearing with him the coveted morsel of yellow pasteboard. That its import was noncommittal and even contained a tang of skepticism troubled him not a whit. The chief thing was that he had wrested from the manager an opportunity, no matter how grudgingly accorded, to show what he was worth. He could farm and he knew it and he had no doubt that he could demonstrate the fact to ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... of prayer, but I was a skeptic, as I supposed, and considered both not proven. But the steady contemplation of the probability of death, for seven successive days, under conditions that compelled candor, raised questions that skepticism could not answer, and gave to my questions answers that skepticism could not refute. There comes a time, under such conditions, when common sense asserts itself and sophistry fails to satisfy. Since I made this discovery in my personal experience, I have learned that my case was not peculiar, ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... of all this skepticism. It was necessarily slow, for beginners at a single-command monoplane school are permitted to fly only under the most favorable weather conditions. Even then, old Mother Earth, who is not kindly disposed toward those of her children ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... mean, and I don't think just such a priest supposable. I dare say if a priest found himself drifting into doubt, he'd try to avoid the disagreeable subject, and, if he couldn't, he'd philosophize it some way, and wouldn't let his skepticism worry him." ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... constitutional law and because it represents a more radical revolution than all the others combined. The softening of the bitter opposition of the early days through the general spirit of progress has been somewhat counteracted by a modern skepticism as to the supreme merit of a democratic government and a general disgust with the prevalent political corruption. This will continue to react strongly against any further extension of the suffrage until ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Mr. Heatherbloom explained his plan quickly. Francois listened, at first with open skepticism, then ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... strong—they were vehement. His intellectual opinions were hobbies that he rode under whip and spur. A theory for everything, a solution of every difficulty, a "high moral" view of politics, a sharp skepticism in religion, but a skepticism that took hold of him as strongly as if it had been a faith. He held to his non credo with as much vigor as a religionist ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... are four; "1st, That the progress of mankind depends on the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is diffused; 2d, That, before investigation can begin, a spirit of skepticism must arise, which, at first aiding the investigation, is afterwards aided by it; 3d, That the discoveries thus made increase the influence of intellectual truths, and diminish, relatively, not absolutely, the influence of moral truths,—moral truths being more stationary than intellectual truths, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... in certain provinces of France, old religious customs which are full of charming simplicity. May they endure and ever hold out against the icy breath of skepticism, the cold rules of the beautiful, and ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals, he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point of pain, to the point of sickness—his many HIDDEN sufferings make him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the last great slave-insurrection which began ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... did not share Chief Slater's and Thurston's skepticism. Narko's words had chilled him with dismay. He called the other two aside and gave them a quick whispered briefing on the theory he had discussed with the government scientists, asking ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... formulated Speech, the spoken Reason; the Word is in God, and is God Himself, manifested to the Intelligence. Here is what is above all the philosophies. This we must believe, under the penalty of never truly knowing anything, and relapsing into the absurd skepticism of Pyrrho. The Priesthood, custodian of Faith, wholly rests upon this basis of knowledge, and it is in its teachings we must recognize the Divine ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the most part he was a great hope—a sort of visible atonement for their sufferings. He at least was an achievement; he was something they had done. And he could not be undone, nor doubted—he put all skepticism to flight. In his vicinity there was no room for pessimistic philosophies, for ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that explanation ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... weeks of inactivity, with no thought of penetrating the inland forests behind the range, or of even entering the nobler bay beyond? Or was the location of the spot a mere tradition as wild and unsupported as the "marvells" of the other volume? Pomfrey had the skepticism of the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... said. There was interest in his mind, overlaid with skepticism, of course, but interest all the same. That, Jonas thought, was a better sign than he had dared to ...
— Wizard • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... swelling waist-band and fat, puffy cheeks, betrayed his skepticism in looks rather than ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... yourself. I never attempt puzzles." The girl, somewhat to his surprise, showed no resentment at his rebuff. Indeed, he began to suspect her of being secretly amused. He began also mentally to accuse her of not being too badly hurt to walk, if she wanted to; indeed, his skepticism went so far as to accuse her of deliberately baiting him—though why, he did not try to conjecture. Women were queer. Witness his ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... scheme of future retribution. In speculative thought the prevailing school, as in Locke, approached reality from the side of sense-knowledge, till Hume showed how this road led to a denial of miracle and in philosophy to a fundamental skepticism. Berkeley reverted to the ideal philosophy, and there seemed but a continuance of the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... lips on that subject forever. I have never since ventured to ask anybody any questions on that subject, but have studied it out for myself as well as I could. Soon after that the doctor preached a sermon in which he denounced skepticism in his own vigorous terms, and consigned to perdition all the great teachers of heresy, of whom he mentioned the names—before unheard, I am sure, by the great majority of cadets, thought their works were to be found in the West ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... scoundrel who had read deeply and come to the conclusion that in a world like this there is no valid reason why a man should be virtuous. Evidently the author had himself breathed the mephitic air of eighteenth-century skepticism. His natural goodness of heart safeguarded him from corruption, but it pleased him as artist to dip his pen in the blackest ink and draw the picture of the devil with whom he had wrestled in moments of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... in an article otherwise friendly to the inventor, expressed some skepticism as to the real merit ...
— Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck - Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24 • John H. White
... steadfast and unafraid, strong in his own belief,—yes strong enough to make others believe in him. Without doubt or skepticism, himself he has confounded ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... subtleties of controversy, most innocent of the duplicities of unbelief, Faith saw her neighbour entangled, as it seemed, in a mesh of his own weaving and had not power to untie the knot. It distressed her. Other knots of skepticism or ignorance that he had presented to her she had cut easily with the sword of truth if she could not untie; he had offered her one to-day that she could cut indeed as easily for herself,—but not for him. To do that called for not better wits, but for far greater controversial acumen ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... ourselves, instead of being blessed with the bright and balmy influences of Christianity, should now have been groping our way in the darkness of heathenism, or left to perish in the cold and cheerless labyrinths of skepticism." ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... regimen. Our debt was to be paid, not in a pure form, but mixed with the costs of unbelief, cowardice, avarice. Yet primarily it is the cost, not of meanness, but of magnanimity, that we are now paying,—not of a base skepticism, but of a noble faith. For, in truth, normal qualities and actions involve costs no less than vicious and abnormal. Such is the law of the world; and it is this law of the costs of worthiness, of knowledge ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... for the latter sport, an athlete had to play in three-fourths of the season's games, on the "'Varsity"; to gain the white track letter, one had to win a first place in some event, in a regularly scheduled track meet with another team. And now, Butch's skepticism seemed confirmed, for at the start of his last year at college, Hicks had not annexed a single B, though he bade fair to corral one in the spring ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hair's-breadth of the last opportunity ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... with skepticism, but plied his paddle again. He was not as concerned about the launch as he pretended, of course; at the worst it probably meant that Stinson had been entertaining some of his friends on the sly. He had no intention of handing his mysterious passenger to the police. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... thing," Antonio implored me. "And hereafter avoid the supernatural like the plague. May this affair instil into your philosophy of life a little healthy skepticism. There is no better tonic than laughter for one who has caught the malaria of psychical research. But even Nuta, my wife's old dresser at the theater, will tell you that laughter is precious. You have given her to-night the first out-and-out guffaw that she has enjoyed in years. She ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... friend, that you get rid of your German skepticism; you know, I esteem your judgment, but when it comes to doubting anything the newspapers say, I draw the line. What reporters do not know about Anarchists, and especially about your publisher, is not worth knowing. According to their great wisdom I not ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... sort of significance as a revelation of the forces back of the world. Such thinkers maintain that Christ is the best the race has to show, and yet affirm that the race is but an insignificant item in the total massiveness of the universe. The Bible establishes the faith of men against skepticism like this by making the Christ-ideal for God himself so attractive ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... of the unusual case, and Hardenberg listened with absorbed attention, watching him closely, weighing every word, and noting critically the most trifling gesture or change of expression. For a while his natural skepticism struggled with a growing conviction that the man before him was telling the truth. It was an extraordinary experience, to be sure, but he quickly realized that Stratton had nothing to gain by a ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... decay. They portend dissolution or they foreshadow new groupings for struggle over other issues on another plane. Evangelical churches are drawing together with mutual tolerance to present a united front against modern skepticism and cynicism which are directed against the older ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... exerted but a portion of his power, and that he could have done greatly more than he actually did, seeing that we now find him adequate to the origination of vitality and organization in its two great kingdoms, plant and animal. But, still confining ourselves with cautious skepticism within the limits of our argument, we continue to hold that, as fishes of a high and reptiles of a low order, with trees of the cone-bearing family, are the most perfect specimens of their respective classes which the producing ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... on this business in all the skepticism of the nineteenth century, felt awed, and began to wish he had selected any other building in the world but this. He seemed to be ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... time, however, there has been a growing skepticism among astronomers, relating not so much to the correctness of his measures as to the computations by which he inferred the high percentage of obscure radiated beat compared with the reflected heat, and so deduced the high temperature of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... Italian merchants who are assembled in a tavern at Paris, are represented as conversing on the subject of their wives: all of them express themselves with levity, or skepticism, or scorn, on the virtue of women, except a young Genoese merchant named Bernabo, who maintains, that by the especial favor of Heaven he possesses a wife no less chaste than beautiful. Heated by the wine, and excited by the arguments and the coarse ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... of those who have really studied the phenomena of the sensitives, starting with absolute skepticism, have come to a new form of the old belief; and when, of the remaining minority, the weight of respectable opinion goes so far as suspense of judgment, how does the argument look? Isn't it at least one of those cases of new phenomena where it is well to be on guard against old ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... For, as skepticism is in one sense the handmaid of truth, discontent is the mother of progress. The man is comparatively of little use in the world ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... calamity. During my own residence at Florence, I have never known the miraculous picture to be uncovered during a drought, without the desired result immediately following. In cases of long continued rains, its intervention has been equally happy. I have heard several persons, rather inclined to skepticism as to the miraculous qualities of the picture, hint that the barometer was consulted on these occasions; else, say they, why was not the picture uncovered before the mischief had gone so far? What an idea is ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... herself at the same time the author of the lines signed "Laura," and "Laura Maria." This information being received by Mr. Bell, though a professed admirer of the genius of Mrs. Robinson, with some degree of skepticism, he replied, "That the poem with which Mrs. Robinson had honoured him was vastly pretty; but that he was well acquainted with the author of the productions alluded to." Mrs. Robinson, a little disgusted at this incredulity, immediately sent for Mr. ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... his "Autobiography," he had familiarized himself with Milton's "Paradise Lost," and by the time he was ten years old he had grappled with the ages-old problems of Whence and Whither and become a skeptic! It is doubtful whether his "skepticism" really consisted of anything more than the consciousness that there were apparent contradictions in the Bible, a discovery which many a precocious lad has made at quite as early an age, and the failure of the usual theological subterfuges to satisfy ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... his house waits for him waist deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he has been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on the earth. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... Shakespeare's authorship have been set forth sufficiently in this volume and offer no basis for an attitude of skepticism. A few considerations may be recalled as correctives for a partial or mistaken reading of the evidence. (1) Though the records of Shakespeare's life are meager, they are fuller than for any other Elizabethan dramatist. ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... disquietude have fallen upon our people. Why is our age so sad? Has Schopenhauer carried the judgment of mankind by his favorite motto, "It is safer to trust fear than faith?" Is it because our age has lost faith in God? Have doubt and skepticism burned the divine dew off the grass, and left it sere and brown? Nay, a thousand ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... commonwealth today are not the evils of a democracy but of an amorphous something which is afraid to be a democracy. Whether the opposition to women's voting be honestly professed or whether it is concealed under chivalrous idolatry, distrust and skepticism are behind it.... When pushed to the wall, objectors to woman suffrage now-a-days take refuge behind one of two platitudes: The first is used too often by women whose public activities ought logically to make them suffragists—the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... place we can only accept her words with a certain skepticism. Her story may be nothing but a fabrication. However, it is interesting because she claims to be the unwilling servant of a dreaded master. She lays stress upon the fact that she is an Oriental ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... on the extreme edge of the group now stepped forward and examined the can, while several other men crowded about to look. There were exclamations of surprise. It was curious to see how quickly enthusiasm and awe succeeded skepticism. ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... speech as I did on that night. I wish my whole congregation had been there to hear it. I regret that there are not more men like Ingersoll interested in the affairs of the nation. I do not wish to be understood as indorsing skepticism ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... looked back he dated his decline from the appearance of her first article. It had done all the mischief he had feared. Not only were his old stock-holders dissatisfied, but wherever he went for aid he found a disconcerting lack of response, a half-veiled skepticism that ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... variance of science, no quibble of the intellect, can ever disturb this faith on which my soul rests. It is more than a conviction; it is a perfect satisfaction! I KNOW! I may not be able to explain all mysteries, but I can never doubt again, because I know. The more I meet with modern skepticism, the more I am convinced that that is the only answer to it all: "He that doeth His will shall know of the doctrine," and that promise is fulfilled to all who have the will ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz |
