"Credulity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of life. Till the time of her coming to Paris, for very dearth of outward impressions, she had lived chiefly in dreams, the life of all others most favorable to the prolongation of ignorance and credulity. The liberty and activity she had enjoyed for the last two years were ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... Atticae of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius. It consists of a confused mass of heterogeneous materials relating to philology, antiquities, law, dreams, spectres, &c., and is characterized by considerable credulity. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... strangeness of her situation during the fortnight in Baden, Ivan could not tell. He was perfectly well aware that it would be of no use to explain their true position to any one he knew. Mockery at his faith in their credulity at so preposterous a statement, would have been his only reward. But it was none the less true that, so long as Irina remained with him, she was treated with the punctilious courtesy that he should have used towards her had she been what they ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... of the observer's powers of discernment, unjust suspicions which the translator's inaccuracy led me into entertaining. May this note serve to mitigate the harshness of the strictures provoked by my overtaxed credulity! I do not scruple to attack ideas which I consider false; but Heaven forfend that I should ever attack those who uphold ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... perhaps should be sorry to see them other than they are; but it is somewhat singular to hear people talking of Turner's exquisite care and watchfulness in color as false, while they receive such cases of preposterous and audacious fiction with the most generous and simple credulity. ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... this much better: when Theseus is asked by a confidant if he really had been in the world below, he answers, how could any sensible man possibly believe so silly a tale! he merely availed himself of the credulity of the people, and gave out ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... "Bukhtar" (Bactria), the "Eastern" (Bakhtar) region on the Amu or Jayhun (Oxus) River; afterwards called Khorasan. The two-humped camel is never seen in Arabia except with northern caravans, and to speak of it would be a sore test of Badawi credulity. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... The best writing must come of a gift for making magic out of what are but commodities to us, and that gift is not distributed by the generous gods from barrows which go the round of the neighbourhoods where many babies are born, as are faith, hope, and credulity, those virtues that cause the enormous circulations of the picture papers, and form the ready material for the careers of statesmen and the glory of famous soldiers. It is more unusual. We see it as often as we do comets and signs in the heavens, a John in the ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... more addicted than his father to too much religious credulity, had yet implicit faith in the German notion of vampires, and has more than once been angry with my father for speaking irreverently of those ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... again? Nothing could seem impossible, after all that they had seen. . . . They acted in good faith. A woman said to them, "I am Jeanne, your sister." They believed, because they wished to believe.' And so forth, about the credulity of the age. ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... a little independent thinking. When I approached my Bible without the bias of the Westminster Confession I discovered that it did serve admirably as a wardrobe in which to hang any sort of religious prejudice. Continued study made me see that religious faith is generally mere human credulity. I discovered that in my pitying contempt for those of differing belief I much resembled the Yankee who ridiculed a Chinaman for wearing a pig-tail. 'True,' the Celestial replied, 'we still wear the badge ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... continually, and if I touch her, I destroy not the beauteous Form, but she looks pleased, and a sweet Smile sits in the charming Space which divides her Lips. One would swear that Voice and Speech were issuing out, and that ones Ears felt the melodious Sound. How often have I, deceived by a Lovers Credulity, hearkned if she had not something to whisper me? and when frustrated of my Hopes, how often have I taken my Revenge in Kisses from her Cheeks and Eyes, and softly wooed her to my Embrace, whilst she (as to me it seem'd) only withheld her Tongue the more to inflame ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... bitterness of experience, that she had neither time, place, nor serious thought for such matters. Her only interest, if interest it could be called, was an occasional wonderment at the extent of the harvest Aunt Mercy reaped out of the credulity of the merchant and finance-princes of the city. This, and the state of her aunt's health, as pronounced by Dr. Valmer, were the only things which ever brought such matters as "crystal gazing" and scientific astrology ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... His credulity in these points may be disappointing to the reader who hopes to find in Scot a scientific rationalist. That, of course, he was not; and his leaning towards superstition on these points makes one ask, What did ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... and duchess being so well pleased with the afflicted duenna, were encouraged to proceed with other projects, seeing that there was nothing too extravagant for the credulity of the knight and squire. The necessary orders were accordingly issued to their servants and vassals with regard to their behavior towards Sancho in his government of the promised island. The day after the flight of Clavileno, the duke bade Sancho prepare, and get ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... certainly was not based upon any research or knowledge of my own, as I had not at that time perused a single Report of the Society, nor a page in its organ, the African Repository. My approval was the offspring of credulity and ignorance. I am explicit on this point, because my opponents have accused me of inconsistency—though it ought not surely to disgrace a man, that, discovering himself to be in error, he promptly turns to the embrace of truth. As if opinions, once formed, must be as irrevocable ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... to the malice of my foe, where I might henceforth employ myself in composing a faithful narrative of my actions. I designed it as my vindication from the aspersions that had rested on my character, and as a lesson to mankind on the evils of credulity on the one hand, and of imposture ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... one instant she shook like an aspen. Then she recovered herself. What was to be done? She tried to think. This matter of Hervey was of her doing. She had driven him to it; urged him to it. Now she realized the full horror of what her foolish credulity had led her into. It had been in her power to stay his hand, at least to draw his fangs. Now it was too late. Suddenly she turned upon her lover in one final appeal. At that moment it seemed the only chance of ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... might not have been made. To assert that Pashitch, who, with his set, had worked to make Great Serbia ever since they had removed the Obrenovitch from its path in 1903, was innocent of plotting against Austria in 1909-10, is to ask for too much credulity. Had not Russia already said the road to Constantinople ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... sandhill or a heap of ashes has been produced on the face of nature since the memory of man. That a rock, or rather a mountain chain, with a peak 1800 feet high, should have been produced at any time time within the last four thousand years, altogether tasks our credulity. The powers of nature are now otherwise employed than in rough-hewing the surface of the globe. She has been long since, like the sculptor, employed in polishing and finishing—the features were hewn out long ago. Her master-hand has ever since ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... which Bajazet was imprisoned by Timur, so long and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, according to which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge, a more specious narrative of this memorable transaction. No sooner was Timur informed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... have been enslaved. I own to you, also, my satisfaction that our august Prince Royal has conducted himself in such a manner as to leave your excellency no cause to repent of that which some people were pleased to call "credulity," but which events have proved to ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... by those who only know a little; but by those who are well informed, you probably would be. The fact is from a too ready credulity, we have now turned to almost a total scepticism, unless we have ocular demonstration. In the times of Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and others,—say in the fifteenth century, when there were but few travellers ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... perpetuate minority rule. Fraud and deception have always been an indispensable means of maintaining class ascendency in government. The primitive politician no less than his present-day successor saw the possibility of utilizing the credulity of the masses for the purpose of furthering his own selfish ends. This explains the long-continued survival of that interesting political superstition which for so many centuries protected class rule under the pretended sanction of ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... burden of proof which the lower court had laid upon Salome. He admitted generously the entire sincerity of Salome's kinspeople in believing plaintiff to be the lost child; but reminded the court of the credulity of ill-trained minds, the contagiousness of fanciful delusions, and especially of what he somehow found room to call the inflammable imagination of the German temperament. He appealed to history; to the scholarship of the bench; citing the stories of Martin Guerre, ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Jimaboy, stretching his arms over his head, when Isobel got up to light the lamps, "isn't the credulity of the race a beautiful thing to contemplate? Let's hope this furore will die down as suddenly as it jumped up. If it doesn't, I'm going to make Hasbrouck furnish us a stenographer ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... remedies; the same skin-food was warranted to create double-chins or destroy them; the same tonic killed superfluous hair or made it grow on bald spots. A freckle to eradicate, a wrinkle to remove, a moth-patch to bleach, a grey hair to dye; nothing was impossible here, not even credulity. It was but meet that the mistress should steal past the servant, that the servant should dodge the mistress. Every woman craves beauty, but she does not want the public to know that her beauty is of the kind in which nature has ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... has this disadvantage—it breeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed dak-bungalow-haunter:—"There is a corpse in the next room, and there's a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel have just eloped from a ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... are free to take these trifles for arithmetical estimates, or arithmetical estimates for trifles. The illusions of life are the best things in life; that which is most respectable in life is our futile credulity. Do there not exist many people whose principles are merely prejudices, and who not having the force of character to form their own ideas of happiness and virtue accept what is ready made for them by the hand of legislators? Nor do we address those Manfreds who having ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... "Credulity is a curious thing," went on Treherne in a low voice. "It is more negative than positive, and yet it is infinite. Hundreds of men will avoid walking under a ladder; they don't know where the door of the ladder will ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... copies of the first edition having been sold by a graceless descendant to a Leipsic bookseller, a second edition was brought out under a new title, and this, too, is now much sought as a precious memorial of human credulity.(140) ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... study the stages by which the professional criminal has adapted the work of invention to his ends, and mark at the same time how the swindler always strikes the same old chord of credulity ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... may again be observed. If public opinion is sovereign in the domain of force, it is much more so in the domain of fraud. Fraud is its proper sphere. Stratagem is the abuse of intelligence. Imposture on the part of the despoiler implies credulity on the part of the despoiled, and the natural antidote of credulity is truth. It follows that to enlighten the mind is to deprive this species ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... this a point of indifference to the nation, but what must either render us totally desperate, or sooth us into the security of idiots. We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy, to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. Men are in public as in private, some good, some ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... fanatic! The witching, enigmatic Debora haunted his memory; and with dismay he recalled the blistering vision evoked by the music, through which she had glided like some tremulous Lamia. Decidedly his imagination had carried him far. He cursed his easy credulity, he reviled his love ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... sight of what the doctor describes as "infinite quantities" of bones of human creatures, who, they took for granted, had been devoured, and of skulls hanging on the walls by way of receptacles for curios. It was the age of universal credulity, and for more than a century after the most absurd tales with regard to the people and things of the mysterious new continent found ready credence even among men of science. Columbus, in his letter to Santangel ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... for a lad to be less trustful, and so less honest? It requires no small experience of the world to know that a man, who has no especial reason thereto, is telling you lies. I am not sure whether it is not best to go on being duped for a certain time. At all events, our honest Pen had a natural credulity, which enabled him to accept all statements which were made to him, and he took every one of Captain Macheath's figments as if they had been the most unquestioned ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... citizens. For it will not even do to say, that he dreaded the involving the city in war, by seizing Nicanor, and hoped by professions of confidence and just-dealing, to retain him in the observance of the like; but it was, indeed, his credulity and confidence in him, and an overweening opinion of his sincerity, that imposed upon him. So that notwithstanding the sundry intimations he had of his making preparations to attack Piraeus, sending soldiers over into Salamis, and tampering with, and endeavoring ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... fraternity that I ever met with. I was a thousand times forewarned of him, by some of his old friends; but I was over confident, and I met my reward, as my eyes were not opened till I had suffered to the amount of many thousands of pounds by my credulity. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... she became capable of a little work, was to make a small velvet bag for the scheme of nativity which she had obtained from her husband. Her fingers itched to break the seal, but credulity proved stronger than curiosity; and she had the firmness to enclose it, in all its integrity, within two slips of parchment, which she sewed round it, to prevent its being chafed. The whole was then put into the velvet bag aforesaid, and hung as a charm round the neck of the infant, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... voudroit le nier en vain, que le Chancelier Cowper epousa deux femmes, qui vecurent ensemble dans sa maison avec une concorde singuliere qui fit honneur a tous trois. Plusieurs curieux ont encore le petit livre que ce Chancelier composa en faveur de la Polygamie." Tickled by the extravagant credulity or grotesque malice of this declaration, an English wit, improving upon the published words, represented the Frenchman as maintaining that the custodian of the Great Seal of England was called the Lord Keeper, because, by English ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... of his suspicions by pretending to an unutterable passion for Sylvia Armytage. It was perhaps that piece of duplicity, worthy, he thought, of the Iscariot himself, that galled Sir Terence now most sorely; that and the memory of his own silly credulity. He had been such a ready dupe. How those two together must have laughed at him! Oh, Tremayne had been very subtle! He had been the friend, the quasi-brother, parading his affection for the Butler family to excuse the familiarities with Lady O'Moy which he had permitted himself under Sir Terence's ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... to the years against the hours; and many a poor book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his too easy credulity in giving an extravagant sum for books which he discovers later that he could have bought for as many shillings as he has paid dollars. Not that the rarissimi of early printed books can ever be ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... He asked many questions regarding their personal appearance, habits, &c. It was evident that he entertained some very comical ideas upon the subject. After sitting for a time silent, he suddenly enquired, "Do they ate pratees like other people?" A lady, present, in order to impose upon his credulity, replied, "Indeed Terry they not only eat potatoes, but they sometimes eat people." His countenance expressed much alarm, as he replied, "Faix thin, but I'll kape out o' their way." After a short time he began to suspect they were making ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... to accept Darwin's or any other derivative theory as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in a blind faith that species—that the manifold sorts and forms of existing animals and vegetables—"have no secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become more and more probable. But we are confident that, if a derivative ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... "Friend with a drink—have one?" And he staggered drunkenly forward, banking all upon the credulity and thirst of the soldier who confronted him with ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hesitated in his credulity, and to persuade him of the fact, a bottle was tied to the line, and sunk in the water. At seventy fathoms it was drawn up, and to D——'s astonishment the water had nearly filled the bottle to its neck. He took the bottle ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... moment was pregnant with fate. I had no power to reason. In the career of my tempestuous thoughts, rent into pieces as my mind was by accumulating horrors, Carwin was unseen and unsuspected. I partook of Wieland's credulity, shook with his amazement, and panted ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... more about the credulity of the public," wrote Prince Albert to Baron Stockmar; "you will scarcely credit that my being committed to the Tower was believed all over the country; nay, even 'that the Queen had been arrested!' People surrounded the Tower in thousands to see ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... breath. I know that I could never get him to see the real truth about me; I might tell him that I have let myself be tied up in a golden net—but he would only marvel at my spirituality. Oh, the women I have seen trading upon the credulity of men! And when I think how I did this myself! If men were wise, they would give us the vote, and a share in the world's work—anything that would bring us out into the light of day, and break the spell of mystery that ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... and after humanism the Reformation, and after the Reformation Cartesianism, and after Cartesianism experimental philosophy had banished the old credulity from thoughtful minds. When the Revolution came, the bloom had already long faded from the flower of Gothic legend. It seemed as if the glory of Jeanne d'Arc, so intimately related to the traditions of the royal house of France, could not survive the monarchy, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... protectors and encouragers, and by no means the destroyers of the works of art; and this ridiculous story of the picture being used as a target was probably invented by the priesthood, who seemed to have taken great delight in imposing on poor Eustace's credulity. To me it seems that such a story could only have been invented by a monk, and believed and repeated by an old woman or a bigot. The priests and French emigrants have invented and spread the most shameful and improbable ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... to know that God is, with an unshakable certainty of conviction. To the Hindu that inner conviction is the only thing worthy to be called faith, and this gives you the reason why faith is said to be beyond reason, and so is often confused with credulity. Faith is beyond reason, because it is the testimony of the Self to himself, that conviction of existence as Self, of which reason is only one of the outer manifestations; and the only true faith is that inner conviction, which no argument can either strengthen or weaken, of the innermost ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... this contrast upon the apparently excessive credulity of Othello has been already pointed out. What further conclusions can be drawn from it? Obviously, to begin with, the inference, which is accompanied by a thrill of admiration, that Iago's powers of dissimulation and of self-control ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... should be severe. The people of Liemba village having a cow or two, and some sheep and goats, eagerly advised us to go on to the next village, as being just behind a hill, and well provisioned. Four very rough hills were the penalty of our credulity, taking four hours of incessant toil in these mountain fastnesses. They hide their food, and the paths are the most difficult that can be found, in order to wear out their enemies. To-day we got to the River ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... about that," answered the priest, "but no one will believe you. The people of this region are depraved and wicked, and your belief in my words will only cause them to laugh and jeer at you for your credulity." ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... test of what knowledge you otherwise have of the subject. Might perhaps be used in that way, by the Examining Military Boards, in Prussia and elsewhere, if no other use lie in it? Fuchs's own contributions, mere ignorance, folly and credulity, are not worth interpreting: but he has printed, and in the same abstruse form, one or two curious Parish Manuscripts, particularly a "HISTORY" of this War, privately jotted down by the then Schoolmaster of Mollwitz, a good simple accurate old fellow-creature; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... written these treatises need not rest on this fact, however honourably it appeals to our candour. Let us place it on higher ground, and tell those who asperse this monarch for his credulity and intellectual weakness, that they themselves, had they lived in the reign of James I., had probably written on the same topics, and felt as uneasy at the rumour of a witch being a resident ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... from all loyalty to right principle, on the part of the officiary of the Company, it is to me simply inconceivable that shrewd business men as these officials are known to be would be guilty of an act which from a purely business point of view would be a stupidly suicidal one. It taxes one's credulity to too great a degree to ask one to believe that, in view of the recent plebiscite taken in several Provinces, that any officer, possessed of mental qualifications sufficient to secure a position of power in the Company, would ally himself with a coterie of lawbreakers ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... in Adams in the form of an ironic spirit asserted itself with an explosion which shook the plethoric gravity with which Perry contemplated an orgy of indigestion. The universal scheme appeared planned to fulfil the law of a Titanic humour, and his own credulity and Connie's indiscretions showed suddenly to Adams as mere mote-like jests which circled in a general ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... vraisemblable," answered Captain M—-; "and I am afraid that too often a great illiberality is shown towards travellers, who, after having encountered great difficulties and dangers, have the mortification not to be credited upon their return. Although credulity is to be guarded against, I do not know a greater proof of ignorance than refusing to believe anything because it does not exactly coincide with one's own ideas. The more confined these may be, from want ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the different planets, he would have to say of those of the Earth something like this: "One of Man's leading traits is what is known as belief. He is a credulous creature, and is especially susceptible to appeals to his credulity in regard to matters affecting his existence after death." Whatever explanation we may accept of the origin of the conception by this animal of his soul-existence, and of the evolution of shadowy beliefs into religious systems, we must ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Caesar Borgia, we beheld an expression of bonhomie—a total absence of hauteur, still less of ferocity; in fact, so totally different was he in appearance from all that we had preconceived, that it was with some difficulty we could persuade ourselves that our cicerone was not practising upon our credulity. So much, then, for the notion, that he never trusts himself out of his palace without being surrounded by a formidable guard. Perhaps no monarch is oftener seen without, or evinces less fear for his personal safety, than the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... and stood off his man for a moment, shouting all the time to his leader that the Indians were trying to get the horses. Lewis saw the thieves tugging at the picket-ropes, and hastened into the fray, cursing himself for his own credulity. A giant Blackfoot engaged him, bull-hide shield advanced, battle-ax whirling; but wresting himself free, Lewis fired point-blank into his body, ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... and facile credulity are easily imposed upon. A report emitted in jest, or in earnest, travels with alarming rapidity, and the consequences have not unfrequently been serious. The native rarely sees a joke, and still more rarely makes one. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... by lustres in continual stream, Till night they find in such excessive day? Art thou not prone, with too intense a ray, To gild the hope improbable, the dream Of fancied good?—or bid the sigh upbraid Imaginary evils, and involve All real sorrow in a darker shade? To fond credulity, to rash resolve Dost thou not prompt, till reason's sacred aid And fair discretion in thy ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... professional care of a mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New York City. The doctor held the credulity of the men who mailed those checks in fine contempt and proceeded to feather his nest valiantly while his good luck continued, going on many a glorious spree at the paper's expense while Dick Carson went down every day deeper into the valley of ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... genuine. I make this inquiry in quality of an antiquary, and am not otherwise concerned about it; for if I were sure that any one now living in Scotland had written them, to divert himself and laugh at the credulity of the world, I would undertake a journey into the Highlands only for the pleasure of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... for the use of patent medicines is mysticism. Ignorance is the mother of credulity. It is reported[13] that Cato, the elder, recommended cabbages as a panacea for all sorts of ills, that he treated dislocations of the limbs by incantations, and ordered the Greek physicians out ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... fell upon hers, and neither of them appeared to notice its pressure. Her face was close to his, a tear gleamed on her young, moon-blanched cheek. A sudden impatience seized him at her credulity, a contempt at the ease with which she was victimized; the effort was almost without spice. Still his grasp tightened upon her hand, drew it toward him. "In Greenstream," he continued, "men don't like me, they are afraid of me; but the ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of tragedies; but a survey of the notions, that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove, that Shakespeare was in no danger of such censures, since he only turned the system that was then universally admitted to his advantage, and was far from over-burdening the credulity ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... he always took a strong and friendly interest; and when, late in life, reverses fell upon Mr. Owen in the shape of humiliating revelations of his own credulity, Whittier's relations to him were unchanged. "I have read with renewed interest," he wrote, "the paper of R. D. Owen. I had a long talk with him years ago on the subject. He was a very noble and good man, and I was terribly indignant when ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... word is with the odium which credulity on the one hand and imposture on the other have during many centuries of superstition and ignorance gradually caused it to be associated, let us consider for a moment its real meaning, and the terrible effects which its practice is ever destined ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... version published the same year in Kopys. The omission can be explained only on the ground that the editor, Judah Loeb, who was the son of the author, did not wish to give offence, or he had outgrown the credulity of ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... read certain statements you sent me from English papers on cruelty to Boer refugee families. I am amazed at the iniquity of men who circulate such lies, and the credulity of those who believe them. The opinion of Germans, French, Americans, and even many Dutch, here on the spot, is that the leniency and amazing liberality of the Government to their foes is prolonging the war. A Dutch girl in the Pretoria Camp declared to the ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he said he hardly thought he should be back from the Snowy Range before I left. Essentially an actor, was he, I wonder, posing on the previous day in the attitude of desperate remorse, to impose on my credulity or frighten me; or was it a genuine and unpremeditated outburst of passionate regret for the life which he had thrown away? I cannot tell, but I think it was the last. As I cautiously rode back, the sunset glories were reddening the mountain ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... and deserved a little help. He had done well enough so far, but he scarcely understood how near to the edge of Mrs. Ascher's credulity he had gone. ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... sure that they are untrue. It seems to me that a vast amount of credulity is needed for positive unbelief. Do atheists ever have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Elizabethan Age the idea of the novel grows more definite. In Sidney's Arcadia (1580), a romance of chivalry, the pastoral setting at least is generally true to nature; our credulity is not taxed, as in the old romances, by the continual appearance of magic or miracles; and the characters, though idealized till they become tiresome, occasionally give the impression of being real men ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... legs; how at one time he was possessed with the desire, heroica passio, of suicide; of his habit of filling his house with pets of all sorts—kids, lambs, hares, rabbits, and storks. The chapter in which he records all the maladies which afflicted him, puts upon the reader's credulity a burden almost as heavy as is the catalogue given by another philosopher of the number of authors he mastered before his twelfth year. Two attacks of the plague, agues, tertian and quotidian, malignant ulcers, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... her affection for her parents, she was frantic. This place offered hope, and to it she went in all innocence, not knowing that it was only the open door to a life such as the most lurid disorderly resorts of the metropolis could scarcely match. There her credulity was preyed upon, and she was tricked into taking this drug, which itself has such marked and perverting effect. But, though she must have been given a great deal of the drug, she did not yield, as many of the sophisticated ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... does not appear to have great weight. It means only that at a time when the Christian Church included but a small fraction of the human race; when all questions of orthodoxy or the reverse were practically in the hands of the priesthood; when ignorance, credulity and superstition were at their height and the habits of independence and impartiality of judgment running very low; and when every kind of violent persecution was directed against those who dissented from the prevailing ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... upon knowledge, or science, but upon faith, or, as some term it, credulity. People have agreed to describe as an "act of faith" the operation of closing one's eyes in order to see better. It is by walking with faith,—in other words, with one's eyes shut,—that the gates of Paradise are reached. If we could take from afar the census of that locality, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... in a lower latitude, which they who give credit (if any such there now be) to the pretended discoveries of De Fonte, affect to wish had been recommended to Captain Cook, has (if that will cure them of their credulity) been satisfactorily made. The Spaniards, roused from their lethargy by our voyages, and having caught a spark of enterprise from our repeated visits to the Pacific Ocean, have followed us more than once into the line ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... is an instance of the credulity of unbelief. Think of the mental condition which could swallow such an explanation of such a Worker and such work. It is more difficult to believe the explanation than the alternative which it is framed to escape. So it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Leinster, of Oliold in Munster, and of Eochaid in Connaught. An arbitrary division once limited the free clans to six in the southern half-kingdom, and six in the north; and the unfree also to six. But Geoffrey Keating, whose love of truth was quite as strong as his credulity in ancient legends—and that is saying much—disclaimed that classification, and collected his genealogies from principal heads—branching out into three families of tribes, descended from Eber Finn, one from Ir, and four from Eremhon, sons of Milesians of Spain; and ninth ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... lion, and take swift, fearful vengeance. The big, dumb heart of humanity, in the long, run, can be trusted. It is often imposed upon, its blind trust shamefully abused. Scoundrels exist and prosper on its patience and credulity. But only for a time. There is a reckoning for all such deceptions, if need be, in blood and fire. The dull heart throbs, the dull eyes open, the great brain stirs in its sleep, and humanity, true to its origin, rises to crush the lie with its million arms of power. And earth-born ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... already, close behind you and around you, thick winrows of corpses on battlefields, countless maimed and sick in hospitals, treachery among Generals, folly in the Executive and Legislative departments, schemers, thieves everywhere,—cant, credulity, make-believe everywhere. Thought you greatness was to ripen for you, like a pear? If you would have greatness, know that you must conquer it through ages, centuries,—must pay for it with a proportionate price. For you, too, as for all lands, the struggle, the traitor, the wily ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... feeble mind. Hence the influence of physic, an art which does more harm to man than all the evils it professes to cure. I do not know what the doctors cure us of, but I know this: they infect us with very deadly diseases, cowardice, timidity, credulity, the fear of death. What matter if they make the dead walk, we have no need of corpses; they fail to give us men, and it ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... but, influenced by their imagination, magnified the energy and bravery that overcame them. Peasants gazed with wild astonishment on the village lad returned, after a few years absence, a veritable 'Jack tar.' The credulity of these delighted listeners tempted Jack to 'spin his yarns,' and tell his tales of nautical adventures, real or imaginary. Hence, he was everywhere greeted with a genial and profuse hospitality. The best seat in the house, the choicest drinks in the cellar, were for Jack. ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... vexed was because he believed a report that I had knocked up against a foreign potentate in Rotten Row for a bet, which was not only untrue but ridiculous, and I was getting a little impatient of the cattishness and credulity of the ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... gods prophesy rain in the season of rain, or the death of an old man, we believe them. But when the gods prophesy something incredible and ridiculous, such as happens not nowadays, and hath not been heard of since the fall of Bleth, then our credulity is overtaxed. It is possible that a man should lie; it is not possible that the gods should ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... and bannocks, and occasionally potatoes, and rarely a pudding, with coffee, rich and steaming, to wash all down, pipes would follow, and then yarns of adventures, possible and impossible, all exciting and wonderful, and all received with the greatest credulity. ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... and Jim, there was no telling what manner of projects they might have formed for his edification, and their own amusement and his; and father considered it necessary to bid Milly give them a word of warning not to practise on the credulity of the old sailor, as they had at times been wont to do while we were at ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... to survive her; for when he undertook matrimony, as he had nothing to turn his hand to, she instructed him herself in the art and mystery of cooperage. At that time, so robust a specimen of anility was she, she could pitch an empty cask across the street, and her credulity is as strong at this moment as her arm was of yore. We conclude, from her story, that the proper stuff for making prophetesses of the baser sort has, even in our day, only to be looked for to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... contend together without either being able decisively to prevail over his antagonist, leads the fear and awe deeply impressed on the human mind to the worship as well of the author of evil, so tremendous in all the effects of which credulity accounts him the primary cause, as to that of his great opponent, who is loved and adored as the father of all that is good and bountiful. Nay, such is the timid servility of human nature that the worshippers will neglect the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... trying to do was more difficult for that. General credulity to the contrary, men do not often make spoken love first. How many men propose marriage to their women across the drawing-room or from chair to chair? Absurd! The eyes speak first, then the arms, the lips last. The woman is in his arms before he tells his love. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... invalid, even though the Court may have misconstrued the statute as making a life sentence mandatory rather than discretionary. Emphasizing that there were "no exceptional circumstances * * * present," the majority asserted that "it rather overstrains our credulity to believe that [such a defendant would be ignorant] of his right [to request and] to engage counsel." In the second, Townsend v. Burke,[850] the Supreme Court declared that although failure of a State court to offer or to assign counsel to one charged with the noncapital offenses of burglary ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... But of the prison-world ye knew before Hewing in twain the door, To thralls of custom and of circumstance We preach deliverance. O self-imprisoned ones, be free! be free! These fetters frail, by doting ages wrought Of basest metals—fantasy and fear, And ignorance dull, and fond credulity— Have moldered, lo! this many a year; See, at a touch they part, and fall to naught! Yours is the heirship of the universe, Would ye but claim it, nor from eyes averse Let fall the tears of needless misery; Deign to ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of Brunswick and the credulity of Frederick William, left unprotected. As early as June, old Marshal Lukner invaded Flanders, but, being arrested on suspicion, was replaced by Dumouriez, who continued the war in the Netherlands and defeated the stadtholder, Albert, duke of Saxon- Tescheu (son-in-law to Maria Theresa, in consideration ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... often, and perhaps Almost invariably, quite justified. To be the wife of an ordinary man, indeed, is an experience that must be very hard to bear. The hollowness and vanity of the fellow, his petty meanness and stupidity, his puling sentimentality and credulity, his bombastic air of a cock on a dunghill, his anaesthesia to all whispers and summonings of the spirit, above all, his loathsome clumsiness in amour—all these things must revolt any woman above the lowest. To be the object of the oafish affections of such a creature, even when they are honest ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... felt. Deep down, as Miss Erme would have said, I was uneasy, I was expectant. At the core of my personal confusion—for my curiosity lived in its ashes—was the sharpness of a sense that Corvick would at last probably come out somewhere. He made, in defence of his credulity, a great point of the fact that from of old, in his study of this genius, he had caught whiffs and hints of he didn't know what, faint wandering notes of a hidden music. That was just the rarity, that was the charm: it fitted so perfectly ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... implicitly that he meant to do what he threatened. They did not know that Ole, although a worthy man, was not so earnest a believer in all Mr Mason's principles, but that he could practise on their credulity in time of need. Like the missionary, he would rather have died than have sacrificed the life of a woman or child; but, unlike him, he had no objection to deceive ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... record, a certificate which is more needed in this branch of inquiry than perhaps in any other. But with regard to the third defect there is considerable danger. An inquirer with an object is so apt to find what he wishes to find, either by the exercise of his own credulity or the ingenuous extension of inquiry into answer; whereas the inquirer who is content to note with the simplicity of those who occupy themselves by collecting what others have not collected, may be deficient in the details he gives, but is seldom wrong ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the game interesting; of offering an end; of throwing passion into hate by fixing it on an object; of of amusing the hunter by the sight of his living prey; giving the watcher the hope of the smoking and boiling blood about to flow; of amusing the bird-catcher by the credulity of the uselessly-winged lark; of being a victim, unknowingly reared for murder by a master-mind—all this exquisite and horrible service, of which the person rendering it is unconscious, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... at his credulity, as he had done once at his incredulity over the same peculiar word. Then recurred to him that wonderful little saying ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... towards the Steyne, we had one more good laugh at our companion's credulity, who expressed great anxiety to know what the huge wheel was intended for, which is at the corner by the barrier, and throws up water for the use of the town; but which, Crony very promptly assured him, was the grand action of the improved roasting apparatus at the York hotel. We now bade ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... religions and forms of government. He has tales of giants, harpies, mermaids, and sea-serpents. Wild men living in trees, Amazons dwelling on lonely islands, cannibals scouring seas and forests in search of human prey, figure in his narrative. Erroneous facts, mistaken judgments due to a credulity that may seem to us ingenuous, are frequent, but it must be borne in mind that he worked without a pre-established plan, his chronicle developing as fresh material reached him; also that he wrote at a time when the world seemed each day to expand before the astonished eyes of men, revealing magic ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... There was no sovereign demonstrator in communication with the earth, to tell benighted man what to think in any of a thousand questions which arose to confound him. There were, instead, impostors, magicians, vain theorists, prompted by ambition and superior native ability to abuse the credulity of their fellow-mortals, which they did with such success as to become their oracles, their dictators, or even their gods. The multitude most naturally surrendered themselves to all such delusions. If it may be conceived to have been possible that their feeble ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Restoration and Revolution, it is invaluable for those who wish to put themselves in touch with that period. The anecdotes introduced to illustrate Bunyan's positions of God's judgment upon swearers and sinners, convicting him of a credulity and a harshness of feeling one is sorry to think him capable of, are very interesting for the side-lights they throw upon the times and the people who lived in them. It would take too long to give a sketch of the story, even if a summary could give any ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... any person to whom Caermarthen was partial, that person was undoubtedly Mary. That he had seriously engaged in a plot to depose her, at the risk of his head if he failed, and with the certainty of losing immense power and wealth if he succeeded, was a story too absurd for any credulity but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hold his tongue; he does nothing but scoff at their credulity, and when they reach the house the first thing he does is to go straight to the dining-room and tell the whole ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... somewhat indignant that the chiromantist should thus practise on his credulity, and endeavour to found a reputation by predicting the consequences ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... were wedded to the established order, and never doubted the literal inspiration of the Scriptures. They also believed in the divine origin of the prayer-book, a measure of credulity which, although commendable, is, I believe, not required. These parents were severe, exacting, imperious—not bad nor exactly cruel—simply "consistent." They believed that man was a worm of the dust, and stood by the traditions. They believed in the dogma of total depravity ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... from the beginning. This may have been through a native credulity which failed to manifest itself in his other dealings with the world. I think it more probable that Evans and his pretensions appealed to the love of romance native to Sheener. I think he enjoyed believing, as we enjoy lending ourselves to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... seen Him why couldn't I still remember Him? Why couldn't I consider the millions of years that go to the making of man and do my little bit and wait on His will? Because my temptation came on me. I was tempted in the wilderness of my own credulity and conceit. For I looked back over time past and I said like Solomon—I don't know whether he ever said it, but he's the most blase Johnnie I remember—'All is vanity.' As it was in the beginning, so it ever shall be. We are not made in the image of God. We are made rather ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... truth of the matter began to break upon me. A man was approaching, and when we met I asked him what was making that noise yonder. "Frogs," he said. At another time, in the flat-woods of Port Orange (I hope I am not taxing my reader's credulity too far, or making myself out a man of too imaginative an ear), I heard the bleating of sheep. Busy with other things, I did not stop to reflect that it was impossible there should be sheep in that quarter, and the occurrence had quite passed ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... They know that a creed is but a statement, a statement of a man's or a woman's belief, whether it be in connection with religion, or in connection with anything else. But what they do object to is dogma, that unholy thing that lives on credulity, that is therefore destructive of the intellectual and the moral life of every man and every woman who allows it to lay its paralysing hand upon them, that can be held to if one is at all honest and given to thought, ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... poet but himself, for several generations, has so far succeeded in, perhaps even has steadfastly attempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it perpetually strikes us that we are reading the poetry of our own day and generation. No demands are made on our credulity; the light, the science, the scepticism of the age, are not hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary poetic forms; there are no supernal, no infernal influences, for Faust is an apparent rather than a real exception: but ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... looked upon the person who had pretended to pass those upon me for true wonders, of which I myself have been eye-witness from the time I have been honoured with your illustrious family at my court, as one who would have abused my credulity. But I cannot refuse to believe my senses; and shall remember them while I live, and never cease to bless heaven for directing you to me, in preference to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... his mind, a strange mixture of credulity and doubtfulness. He did not disbelieve either in the existence of ghosts, or in the possibility of commuting other metals into gold; but was very slow to credit any fact that was at all extraordinary. He would tell of Cave's having seen an ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... point to the good American tradition that it is the educated man who finally succeeds. The richest man in the Italian colony can neither read nor write—even Italian. His cunning and acquisitiveness, combined with the credulity and ignorance of his countrymen, have slowly brought about his large fortune. The child himself may feel the stirring of a vague ambition to go on until he is as the other children are; but he is not popular with his schoolfellows, ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... sir, on our credulity,' replied the girl; 'no living man can be a mummy,—outside of the House of Lords ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... a second Munchausen, and myself a credulous old fool for attaching the slightest weight to them. And yet, let me tell you, Africa is a very queer country—as you will discover if you persist in attempting to carry out your plan—and queer things happen in it, things that strain a man's credulity to the breaking-point, until he has had personal experience of them. That remark of Shakespeare's, that 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are reckoned in our philosophy' is nowhere more forcefully confirmed than ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... with him in the High Street, to be honoured by him with a private interview of a quarter of an hour, were enviable distinctions. He, after the fashion of all the false prophets who have deluded themselves and others, drew new faith in his own lie from the credulity of his disciples. His countenance, his voice, his gestures, indicated boundless self-importance. When he appeared in public he looked,—such is the language of one who probably had often seen him,—like Atlas conscious that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Professor Futvoye into a one-eyed mule. It would have seemed incredible, almost unthinkable, once, but so many impossibilities had happened to Horace of late that one more made little or no strain upon his credulity. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Slavens admitted. "But I don't know; I never heard him speak. I thought I heard that other voice this morning here in Meander, but I'm not sure. I'll be listening. I must get on with my yarn, and I warn you now that I'm going to tax your credulity and try ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... The truth of this account he very strenuously insisted upon and wished me to go thither with him. I was at a loss to know whether or not Tinah himself gave credit to this whimsical and fabulous account; for though they have credulity sufficient to believe anything, however improbable, they are at the same time so much addicted to that species of wit which we call humbug that it is frequently difficult to discover whether they are in jest or earnest. Their ideas of geography ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... remarkable attempt to swindle the commonwealth by means of the absolute freedom with which loans were granted. In America a syndicate of speculative 'men of business' was formed for the purpose of exploiting the simple-minded credulity of us 'stupid Freelanders.' Their plan was to draw as large a sum as possible from our central bank under the pretence of requiring it to found an association. Forty-six of the cleverest and most unscrupulous Yankees joined in this campaign against our pockets. What they ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... affair was cleared up they would affect great readiness to show every article which they had got from the ships, repeating the name of the donor with great warmth, as if offended at our suspicions, yet with a half-smile on their countenances at our supposed credulity in believing them. There was, indeed, at all times some degree of trick and cunning in this show of openness and candour; and they would at times bring back some very trifling article that had been given them, tendering it as a sort of expiation for the theft of another ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... one of which increases the chances that the individual may come in danger in the midst of developed society. Yet no one of those factors involves just the necessity of crime. The same kinds of brains might simply show stupidity or credulity or inconsiderateness or brutality or stubbornness or egotism, and might by each of those factors decrease their chances in the community without directly running into conflict with the law. The criminal is therefore never born as such. He is only born with a brain which is in some directions ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... memory I can go away back to Henry's infancy; I see his large, blue eyes intently regarding my father when he rebuked him for his credulity in giving full faith to the boyish idea of planting his marbles, expecting a crop therefrom; then comes back the recollection of the time when, standing we three alone by our father's grave, I told them always to remember that brothers ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and only requested some hunters to take her back, because she and her children (a little hairy also) were weary of living far from the church and the sacraments. The same author, notwithstanding his credulity, acknowledges that he never knew an Indian who asserted positively that he had seen the salvaje with his own eyes. This wild legend, which the missionaries, the European planters, and the negroes of Africa, have no doubt embellished with many features taken from the description of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... He who abandons the personal search for truth, under whatever pretext, abandons truth. The very word truth, by becoming the limited possession of a guild, ceases to have any meaning; and faith, which can only be founded on truth, gives way to credulity, resting on mere opinion. Natural ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... to the body? If your business calls you to buy or sell, do you use falsehoods? do you equivocate? do you exaggerate or conceal the truth in order to impose upon your neighbour, and make a profit of his necessity or credulity? If any of these marks be upon you, God's word singles you out and drags you to the bar of Divine justice to hear your doom in the text, 'The wicked shall surely die.' Oh, see your danger; repent and make restitution! Why ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... of June came, and the Confederate Army failed to appear. This confirmed Milroy in his disbelief in a contemplated attack with a strong force, and my credulity was ridiculed. As early, however, as June 8th, Milroy wired Schenck at Baltimore that he had information that Lee had mounted an infantry division to join Stuart's cavalry at Culpeper; that the cavalry force there was "probably more than twice 12,000," and that there was "doubtless ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... attention of the now roused landlady? But let us concede him that miracle, too. How is he to go away and yet leave the doors and windows locked and bolted from within? This is a degree of miracle at which my credulity must draw the line. No, the room had been closed all night—there is scarce a trace of fog in it. No one could get in or out. Finally, murders do not take place without motive. Robbery and revenge ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... is implied by the author) falls in love with two ladies at once. Such a novel is refreshing after the mathematical accuracy with which clerks, barmaids and politicians are perpetually presented to us by our novelists, but I am not at all sure that Miss KAYE-SMITH is wise in trusting our credulity too far. There was a day when one would have accompanied her Tramping Methodist anywhere, but of late years that promise has not been fulfilled, and her last novel is, I think, distinctly her poorest. I like her affection for Sussex, her catalogue of Sussex names, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... a green table except as fencers in the field Men who meant what they said and said what they meant Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity Mendacity may always obtain over innocence and credulity Military virtue in the support of an infamous cause Mistakes might occur from occasional deviations into sincerity Mondragon was now ninety-two years old Moral nature, undergoes less change than might be hoped More catholic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at his credulity; he laughed readily and was not fond of sulking. Nor must we forget that this preeminent tragedian was a perfect comedian, and that this fact entitled him to true enjoyment of the humorous side of life. Have I not somewhere read: "Beware ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various |
