"Skeptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more conspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, and the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us. 1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. He pronounces it "fine and sombre," but, I lament to add, "skeptical, Judaic, Satanic—in a word, antichristian." That Lord Byron should figure as a member of this diabolical corporation will not surprise men. It will surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many are the generous and eloquent Frenchmen, besides Chateaubriand, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... in the existence of moral principles which are capable of effective application. We believe, so far as the mass of children are concerned, that if we keep at them long enough we can teach reading and writing and figuring. We are practically, even if unconsciously, skeptical as to the possibility of anything like the same assurance in morals. We believe in moral laws and rules, to be sure, but they are in the air. They are something set off by themselves. They are so very ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... the success of the plan and left the old peddler still harping on his daughter. All the way home and many days afterwards Petka could think of nothing else. It seemed to him the greatest opportunity in the world to marry a girl from America. But now and then he got skeptical of his ability to get such a prize. However, he decided to try. He admitted that the whole success lay in the shaping of a strong and convincing letter and sending it to her properly. Petka knew how to write letters, but the question ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... as though, sooner or later, Obed meant to have them visit his fur farm, and see with their own eyes what he had been doing. Bandy-legs, skeptical once more, told himself he only hoped the whole thing might not turn out to be a myth, and that the said Obed himself prove to be a ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... skeptical, he returned to the excavation and scooped out yet another collection. This time there could be no mistake. Nature's own alchemy had fashioned a veritable ingot. There were small lumps in the ore which would need alloy ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... coming man, the sister resents the truth that Boy belongs to the same species and sex, or persists in judging him by this standard. In the "freshness" of his age and kind, he is skeptical as to her good looks and other fascinations, and takes wicked satisfaction in giving her to understand that he, at least, "is not fooled by her tricks and manners." If her "nagging" is a thorn under his jacket, his ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... add three points to the foregoing statements: First, Joseffy has always been rather skeptical of too few piano studies. His argument is that endurance is also a prime factor of technic, and you cannot compass endurance without you endure prolonged finger drills. But as he has since composed—literally ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... no mistake—great minds are skeptical.... The strength and the freedom which arise from exceptional power of thought express themselves in skepticism.... A mind which aspires to great things and is determined to achieve them is of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... whom I have found at length, has just bought one of the two copies which Ribalta received lately. The old leaguer believes everything, you know, when a Hafner is in the question.... I am more skeptical in the bad as well as in the good. It was only the account given by the trial which produced any impression on ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... "Sam's skeptical, though," retorted Stanley. "And, as for me, I've a mine right here in San Francisco." He spoke enthusiastically. "Moving sandhills into the bay. Making a new city front out of flooded bogs! That's realism. Romance. And what's better, fortune! ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... taught, that brings order out of chaos, that becomes the solvent of the riddle of life, and however cynical, skeptical, or practical we may think at times we may be, a little quiet clear-cut thought will bring us each time back to the truth that it is the essential force that leads away from the tooth and the claw of the jungle, that lifts life up from and above the clod. Love ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... by the crowd of persons that thronged to salute him. Keeping it in his hand, he passed into the House. In the place to which the Senate had been summoned stood a statue of Pompey. Cassius is said to have looked at it and silently invoked the dead man's help, and this though he was inclined to the skeptical tenets of Epicurus. Meanwhile Antony, who was firmly attached to Caesar and a man of great strength, was purposely kept in conversation outside the senate-house by Decimus Brutus. As Caesar entered, the Senate rose to ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... tell her all he knew about her, and his report of her grace and beauty had piqued her curiosity; his account of the forlorn dullness of her life with Mrs. Lander in their hotel had touched her heart. But she was still skeptical when she went to get her letter of introduction; when she brought Clementina home from the dressmaker's she asked if she might kiss her, and said she was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... outside—Simon Lake, discouraged on every hand, finally decided to build a boat himself, and did build one, with his own hands—a boat fourteen feet long and constructed of rough pine timbers painted with coal-tar—in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. With this boat Lake demonstrated to a skeptical world for all time that he was neither a visionary nor a dreamer, but a practical doer ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... land. If only we could have a badger, we could almost hear them say to each other in dog language, a strong, morose, savage badger! Alas! we are wasting our days in idleness, our talents rust from disuse! Finally, Uncle Jim remained the only frankly skeptical member. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... was a little skeptical about the matter when it was mentioned to him, but he agreed that there was something in the idea, after all, and that it was rather odd for the mysterious man to remain so long in the vicinity of Oak Farm, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... exhausting every possibility for concealment. When they reached the kitchen door again, Peter rubbed his head and gave it up. A screech owl somewhere off in the woods jeered at him. All the men, except Jesse, were plainly skeptical. But he sent them back to their posts and, still pondering the ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... the skeptical parent is plain: to save the child by any possible means, to preach the uselessness of the sacrifice in season and out of season, and to endure patiently whatever penalty the law may indict for evasion. ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... visitation. On the first occasion I was too skeptical to do more than verify by natural methods the character of the incident; on the second, I responded to the signal after it had been several times repeated, but without result. To-night's recurrence completes the 'fatal triad' expounded by Parapelius Necromantius. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... subject was the hypnotic power possessed by the eyes of certain reptiles. I laughed the idea to scorn; you maintained that it was possible. Well, I agree with you; and I'd like to have about a dozen of our modern skeptical scientists in this cave with me ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... shore, our ambassador had been taken to the quarters of Major Valdez, who claimed to be an officer of the Federals, and by him he was thoroughly cross-examined. He had heard of the breaking up of the Confederacy, but not of the capture of Mr. Davis, and was evidently skeptical of our story as to being wreckers, and connected us in some way with the losing party, either as persons of note or a party escaping with treasure. However, O'Toole baffled all his queries, and was proof against both blandishments ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... happened to call upon the ispravnik or Russian governor, and in course of conversation mentioned the "Anadyrski bol," and related some of the stories which we had heard from Paderin. The ispravnik—skeptical upon all subjects, and especially upon this—said that he had often heard of the disease, and that his wife was a firm believer in it, but that in his opinion it was a humbug, which deserved no other treatment than severe corporal punishment. The Russian peasantry, he said, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... processes the details of which are kept profoundly hidden from public scrutiny, and when the evidences of success are presented in the doubtful form of specimens which the public has no means of tracing directly to the process, the public is apt to be skeptical, and to express skepticism often in not ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... moment, and I will bring you a letter which I have recently received, and when I have read it to you, you will understand why I have been so skeptical regarding what you have told me, and why I have questioned you ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... forgotten that English drainers tell us of tools and their use, whereby drains may be open twenty inches lower than the feet of the workman; but we have never chanced to see that operation, and are skeptical as to the fact that work can thus be performed economically, except in very peculiar soils. That such a crack may be thus opened, is not doubted; but we conceive of no means by which earth, that requires the pick, can be moved to advantage, without the workman standing ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... that the struggle should be so hard for so many. All of us who are ignorant or complacent or skeptical about the social evils of our time are sharers in the iniquity of those who fall. Many of us live in mean satisfaction, just because we ourselves have found comfort and security; that is how these evil forces are able to go on year after year leading thousands to their undoing. If the test ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... belong to any other than the heathen creeds, and no one had taken offence at his skeptical writings. When Euryale acted like the best of the Christian women, he could not take it amiss; and he would have scorned to blame her preference for the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... devotion to the Woman's Cause, and this White Slave Traffic all rot. He had worked sufficiently in the bad towns of the South Welsh coast and had had an initiation into the lower-living parts of Birmingham and London to be skeptical about the existence of these poor, deluded virgins, lured from their humble respectable homes and thrust by Shakespearean procuresses, bawds, and bullies into an impure life. If they went to these places abroad it was probably with the hope of greater gains, better food, and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... spokesmen of Socialism are, like Kautsky, somewhat skeptical as to the necessity of an alliance between the working class and this section of the middle class, others accept it without qualification. If, then, we consider at once the middle ground taken by the former group of Socialists, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... argument the skeptical friend called the office of the Philharmonic. Mr. Toscanini had been right about the Beethoven Concerto and had correctly remembered the ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... the employment of these vessels in the ordinary packet service—we cannot pretend to form an opinion; but of the entire feasibility of the passage of the Atlantic by steam, as far as regards safety, comfort, and dispatch, even in the roughest and most boisterous weather, the most skeptical must now cease ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Benito was skeptical. He said as much; but Tony was obdurate. Did he not know a second door when he saw one? Was he, furthermore, not a grown man and therefore entirely capable of distinguishing between his left hand and his right? Yes! Tony was all of that, and more, so Tony inserted the key in ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and effect, and incapable under any circumstances of the patient analysis needed to trace to all their sources the threads of their strangely mingled webs of life; impressionable folk under the spell of words; speculative; at once credulous and skeptical; intellectually alert enough to want to do their own thinking and not intellectually disciplined enough to do it well; persuaded that the Bible has both a message and authority and unable to find in their traditional interpretation of it either a satisfying message or an adequately directing ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... by General Grant, as to where I was located (Craighten being a personal friend of mine who was most skeptical at the start of my accomplishing anything with the material I had, was overjoyed at our success), was answered, "Nobody knows where he is, but everybody knows where ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... skeptical, and would not budge until Aleck had related every circumstance that he knew about Agatha's involuntary flight from New York. He was all for going to the red house and interviewing Agatha herself, but Aleck refused to let ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... to the skeptical shopkeeper with a board on which oak, satin-wood, walnut, etc., were imitated to the life in squares, that worthy gave a start and betrayed his admiration, and Robinson asked him five shillings more than he would if the other had been more considerate. In short, before evening the door ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... up to us," the man answered. Noting the skeptical look in Gregory's face, he went on: "Don't make the mistake of trying to judge a boat from the dock, Mr. Gregory. 'You can't tell by the looks of a frog how far he can jump,' or how fast either. Barrows has been at the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... and disbelief, and it works whether he believes it or not. Just so the skillful operator in Cosmic Therapeutics can generate, control and direct the power of the Cosmic consciousness which he understands, and it brings its results whether the skeptical mind of ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... I want it more than anything else in the whole world. A statement from you will carry more weight with the girls than anything I could possibly tell them. It will convince the doubters, you know. There are sure to be some who will insist on being skeptical." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... now and then you run afoul of somebody who does not believe in spiritual knockers. Enter any of our drinking saloons, take a seat, or stand up, and look on for an hour or two, especially about the time "churchyards yawn!" and if you are any longer skeptical upon the spirit-ual manifestations as exhibited in the knee pans, shoulder joints, and thickness of the tongue of the mediums,—education would be thrown ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... road had been chartered to connect the Durham coal-fields with tidewater. Stephenson heard of the project, and at once proposed to the company to make an iron railroad of the new wooden tramway and equip it with his traveling engines. His arguments and demonstrations won over the skeptical directors. They had their charter amended so as to authorize the use of steam as motive power for the transport of passengers as well as merchandise. Thus began the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first in the world with a passenger charter. The chief engineer ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... on the Modern Skeptical Theories. By Francis Wheaton. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... among those who, skeptical at first and inclined to ridicule the project into an early grave, eventually found himself swayed by the publicity and gradually coerced into serious consideration of the results attendant upon the building of the road. The Colonel was naturally as ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... be found exceedingly valuable for classroom use by teachers of theology, hydraulics, and applied engineering. It is recommended that it be introduced to students before their minds have become hardened, clotted, and skeptical. The author does not hold himself responsible for any of the statements in the book, and reserves the right to disavow any or all of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... a gringo judge." The tone of Alviro was more than skeptical. It was bitter with ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... alongside of ancestor worship from the earliest times. At any rate, we find their worship growing rapidly within the period of authentic history and undermining the domestic worship, while at a still later period skeptical philosophy undermined both religions. Along with the decay of ancestor worship went many economic and political changes which marked the dissolution of the patriarchal family. Let us see what some of the steps ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... evening. One of them with a skeptical mind had just rejected the Bible because it did not tell him the things that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made, and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of heaven and why God permitted it, and because the Bible failed here he would have none ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... the two of them smiled at each other with rare good humor out under the June stars. Only the tinker's smile was skeptical. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... triumphant. Even the skeptical Cobden, who had damned so much in his day, could not question the lad's mastery. It did not occur to ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Susan was skeptical of this, even fearful. She had not forgotten Keith's frenzied avoidance of such callers in the old days. But to her surprise now Keith welcomed Mazie joyously—so joyously that Susan began to suspect that behind the joyousness lay an eagerness to welcome anything that would help him ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an interest—but one—and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I never will! I have thought it all out. I ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... I showed Halsey where I had found Rosie's basket with the bits of broken china piled inside. He was rather skeptical. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... so with a clearness and fairness that have not been equaled since the days of Lessing—and then he drifts off in a new direction. The mutual opposition between Jews and Catholics becomes an opposition between the skeptical and the mystical temperaments. It is as if he wanted to say that all differences are unreal except those between individuals as such. And if that be his intention, he is right, I believe, and his play is the greater for bringing that thought ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... the same manner of great and little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine that their senses present to different men different images of things this skeptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that skeptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... even skeptical to believe in the royal family and not in the 'Holy' Family," replied Mr. Twyford. "But, of course, I can easily empty my pockets, to show ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... literature there is no utterance more hopelessly skeptical. And for what were the youth of Oxford led into such bottomless depths of disbelief as to any real existence of truth or any real foundation for it? Simply to save an outworn system of interpretation into which the gifted ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... father may have thought otherwise, being of a skeptical turn on very many points, but his doubts did not break forth in active denial, and he was rather disaffected than rebellious, At one period, this gentleman had taken a part in active life at home, and possibly might have been eager to share its rewards; but in latter days he did ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... surmount its obstacles, is cleared of these obstructions by this pioneer to the youthful mind, and planted, at every turn, with friendly guide-boards to direct them in the right road. The slightest perusal of the work alluded to, will convince even the most skeptical of the truth of these remarks, and satisfy every one who is not wedded by prejudice to old rules and forms, that it will meet the ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... afterwards to tell how he was descending the Ohio with two philosophers who believed so firmly in the natural innocence and goodness of men, that they invited some Indians aboard their boat and were at once tomahawked. Their skeptical companion shot two of the savages and then jumped into the river, where he swam for his life, diving at the flash of their guns, till he got safe to the ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... would say—"When young Digby and I were boys together," and then add with a sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interest secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part of the British dominions." Mrs Pompley was always rather cowed by the Digbies. She could not be skeptical as to this connection, for the Colonel's mother was certainly a Digby, and the Colonel impaled the Digby arms. En revanche, as the French say, for these marital connections, Mrs. Pompley had her own favorite ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... passion and imagination to wit and understanding. The serious, exalted mood of the Civil War and the Commonwealth had spent itself and issued in disillusion. There followed a generation of wits, logical, skeptical, and prosaic, without earnestness, as without principle. The characteristic literature of such a time is criticism, satire, and burlesque, and such, indeed, continued to be the course of English literary ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... review of the lessons taught in his journal may well startle the incredulous and unbelieving spirit of our skeptical day. Those who doubt the power of prayer to bring down actual blessing, or who confound faith in God with credulity and superstition, may well wonder and perhaps stumble at such an array of facts. But, if any reader is still doubtful as to the facts, or thinks they are ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... leads me to say, that it seems to me that the supernatural, in order to call forth those sensations, terrible to our ancestors and terrible but delicious to ourselves, skeptical posterity, must necessarily, and with but a few exceptions, remain enwrapped in mystery. Indeed, 'tis the mystery that touches us, the vague shroud of moonbeams that hangs about the haunting lady, the glint on ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... there; now he found that each one of these lesser industries was a separate little inferno, in its way as horrible as the killing beds, the source and fountain of them all. The workers in each of them had their own peculiar diseases. And the wandering visitor might be skeptical about all the swindles, but he could not be skeptical about these, for the worker bore the evidence of them about on his own person—generally he had only ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... skeptical, let me beseech you to join the children in a Free Kindergarten, and play with them. You will be convinced, not through your head, perhaps, but through your heart. I remember converting such a grim female once! You know Henry ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Sulphite and Bromide, and their derivatives, sulphitic and bromidic, are themselves so sulphitic that they are not susceptible of explanation. In a word, they are empirical, although, accidentally it might seem, they do appeal and convince the most skeptical. I myself balked, at first, at these inconsequent names. I would have suggested the terms "Gothic" and "Classic" to describe the fundamental types of mind. But it took but a short conversation with the Chatelaine to demonstrate ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... was silence in the room, then with a skeptical note of ridicule and challenge the hunchback demanded: "Why didn't ye go ter ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... would spoil it all. Oh, he knew how she would spoil it. With her mocking laugh, her warped judgments, her skeptical point of view. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... A few lounging "Excelsior" boys were equally astonished to see Jovita's red rose crest and black mantilla glide by, and followed her unvarying smile and jesting salutation up to the shadow of the crumbling portal. At vespers nearly all Buckeye, hitherto virtuously skeptical and good-humoredly secure in Works without Faith, made a point of attending; it was alleged by some to see if Jovita's glossy Indian-inky eyes would suffer aberration in her devotions. But the rose-crested head was never lifted from the well-worn prayer-book or the brown hands which held a certain ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... description of the storm, we witness the corresponding internal heaving and tossing of a human soul. Everywhere we notice that Ulysses doubts at first, doubts Calypso, doubts Ino, doubts even his final safety when on land. He is the skeptical man, he never fails to call up the possibilities on the other side. Though a God give the promise, he knows that there are other Gods who do not promise, or may give a different promise to somebody else. It is ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... remained resolutely skeptical. "Oh, give them a year or two more and they'll collapse—! His pictures will never sell, you know. He'll never even ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... that there is a chance that Mr. Stillman's wife may get well. She's in a private sanitarium, at Livermore, you know." She stopped to draw up the bedclothes higher. "I do hope it's so!... But I'm always skeptical about crazy people ever amounting to anything again. Seems to me they're ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... the social gatherings which grew out of the study of spiritism was a lady who, like myself, was a convinced believer in the reality of the phenomena, but skeptical as to the value and personal origin of the communications made in the "circles." Her daughter, a child of seven, was in fact a hypnotic clairvoyant of singular lucidity, and my brother, Dr. Jacob Stillman, obtained from the mother permission ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... think for one minute it was all easy sailing, for there were doubting Thomases, but it only took time and results to convert even the most skeptical ones. And here I must make a confession. It was much easier for my sister, unversed in any phase of canning, to master this new method than it was for me with my four years' training course and my five years of teaching canning behind me. And this is the reason. She had nothing to "unlearn," ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... To convince the skeptical people of Cork, a party of them telegraphed all over the coast to see if they could not find Paul, to verify their story and from Skibbereen they learned that a man answering that description had passed through there and was now on ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... never arrogated the prerogative of 'La Tour sans venin,' but of one thing, my poor wilful child, you shall never have reason to be skeptical,—that dear Jane and I will indefatigably strive to serve you as faithfully and successfully, as did in ancient days, the Psylli whom ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the chain-man to ascertain what distance they had come, and found that by some mistake he had merely dragged the chain over the ground, without keeping any record. By the "go-it-ometer," he found he had made ten miles. Being skeptical about this, he asked a drayman who was passing how far it was to the Plaza. The drayman replied it was just half a mile; and the surveyor put it down in his book,—just as Judge Douglas says, after he had made his calculations ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... was bound to reassure the most skeptical mind, and M. Segmuller breathed again: "Now that I am easy on that score," said he, "I should like some information about another prisoner—a fellow named Chupin, who isn't in the secret cells. I want to know if any visitor came ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... skeptical at first about the wisdom of entrusting such power as this to a subordinate but I put my case to him squarely. I said in brief that I was sure I could pick a gang of fifty men who would do the work of seventy-five. ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... at first disposed to look upon it as a "yarn;" but the souvenir which Jake carried on his face was evidence that could not be doubted, and Cummings soon convinced the skeptical sailing master that the Chan Santa Cruz ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... bulky carcass of a galloping brute, who fell dead instantly. The arrow, at the Grand Duke's request, was given to him as a souvenir which he doubtless often exhibited as proof of his story when some of his European friends proved a little bit skeptical of his yarns of the ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... [15] Since some skeptical persons are willing to discard this Book of Esther as no true history; and even our learned and judicious Dr. Wall, in his late posthumous Critical Notes upon all the other Hebrew books of the Old Testament, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... points were impaired until Mr. Wilson hated to be reminded of them by Lloyd George, in the case of Dantzig and the Polish corridor. The dawn of a better world grew dubious. The ardor of mankind cooled. They were at first incredulous, then skeptical. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... learned, was as skeptical as myself in regard to Madre Moreno's spells, for the laughing manner in which she had spoken of her aunt's charms and witcheries, when we were on the hill and even in the presence of the Madre herself, convinced me of her intelligence and education. It was not this that troubled ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... leave the Hofkirche, you find yourself just opposite to the "Golden Dachl," which the natives tell you is a roof built of pure gold, but which the skeptical declare to be copper gilded. This roof covers a handsome Gothic balcony and blazes as splendidly as if it were gold, as Bee and Mrs. Jimmie preferred to believe. It is said to have cost seventy thousand dollars, and was built by Count Frederick of Tyrol, who was called "The Count of the Empty ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... been listening in silence. He had a naturally skeptical face; his present expression mightn't really mean that he didn't believe what he ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... become sensual and selfish and had grown careless and neglectful of their duty. Their interpretation of the glowing prophecies of the exilic and pre-exilic prophets had led them to expect to realize the Messianic kingdom immediately upon their return. They were, therefore, discouraged and grew skeptical (2:17) because of the inequalities of life seen everywhere. This doubt of divine justice had caused them to neglect vital religion and true piety had given place to mere formality. They had not relapsed into idolatry but a spirit of worldliness had crept in and they were guilty of many ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... not detract from Peter's ardor that his intellect was away for an instant in a rather skeptical study of Metz Wyndham's life. To Peter had come glimpses of the magnificent selfishness of this prophet of the people. Did all great men have such an ego? If their lives were closely examined would they ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... implies that you are skeptical. While that state of mind exists, I can do nothing—it depends entirely ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the man had in fitting me, and other details of the uninteresting but practical operation. At once, in its train, followed a wholesome view of the modern skeptical world I was accustomed to move in at home. I thought of roast beef, and ale, motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The effect was immediate ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... and prolific pen, the first instalment of the Meditations upon the Christian Religion, a work which will prove not only a fitting answer to his countryman's attack on the Gospels, but will serve equally well as an antidote to the present skeptical ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Weschcke of St. Paul I got in touch with a reliable Minneapolis firm. They evidently had been burned and they were somewhat skeptical. They said if we would send a sample there they would look them over. So I went out and picked up a mixed sample and shipped to Minneapolis, and they said if we could send nuts as good as the sample they ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... were able to cross-pollinate and one tree was especially productive. Miles Bolton recognized its value and began growing seedling trees and distributing them to his neighbors. Some of them were quite skeptical and even refused to take them as a gift and plant them. However, he got the village pretty well planted to Persian walnut trees, so that today there are 145 nice trees within the village, and two small ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... apparently, were reading as they walked slowly toward the gate. Finally, when they were about ten feet from where I stood concealed behind one of the massive palms, the man raised his head from the page and, looking earnestly into the woman's eyes, exclaimed in a skeptical tone: 'Il n'aurait jamais cru le fait si ces messieurs n'avaient pu lui jurer L'avoir vu!... Tout ce que j'ai predit!... Les faux nobles,—les plagiaires!' which means in English, "He couldn't ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... little about Thibet. Foreigners are not permitted to enter the country, and only a few venturesome explorers have endured the hardships and faced the dangers of a visit to that forbidden land. Indeed, it is so perilous an undertaking that a skeptical public frequently takes the liberty to doubt the statements of the men who have gone there. But all agree that it is the hermit of nations, and its people are under the control of cruel and ignorant Buddhist priests, who endeavor to prevent them ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... of perplexity and disputation—a cause of deeper guilt and more aggravated ruin. The Gospel has appeared transcendently beautiful and glorious to all who have been savingly enlightened by the Holy Spirit—while, to the impenitent and skeptical, it seems obscure, irrational, and incomprehensible. The former rejoice in the scriptures, just as they are, and willingly yield to the obedience of faith: the latter are ever anxious to lower the standard of divine truth to the level ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... gate of the Marvin mansion to the avenue, and as Harry turned to Pauline with a skeptical reply on his lips, the approach of a young man of military ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... first political opinions which reached the ears of Frances were coupled with sneers on the conduct of her countrymen. At first she believed them; but there was occasionally a general, who was obliged to do justice to his enemy in order to obtain justice for himself; and Frances became somewhat skeptical on the subject of the inefficiency of her countrymen. Colonel Wellmere was among those who delighted most in expending his wit on the unfortunate Americans; and, in time, Frances began to listen to his eloquence with great suspicion, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... as, to say the least of it, antecedently improbable. They had even refused to accept his authentic letters, written on the actual paper of a temperance hotel, as sufficient proof of it. He had not altogether blamed them for their Sadducean attitude, being a little skeptical himself. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Only he who is untameable, who cannot be dominated, who knows he has to play the lord over men, over facts, over all things save his own divinity can arouse this faculty. "With faith all things, are possible." The skeptical laugh at faith and pride themselves on its absence from their own minds. The truth is that faith is a great engine, an enormous power, which in fact can accomplish all things. For it is the convenant or engagement between man's divine ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... been thinking nothing of the kind, but for some obscure reason the skeptical jeer that had risen to his lips remained unsaid. He rose impatiently. "Well, there seems to be no chance of discovering anything now; the house is burnt, the gang dispersed, and she has probably gone with them." He paused, and then laid three or ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... rather than a cunning sage. Marcolf, who is Solomon's brother in a German version, has no trust in a woman even when dead. So, in another version, Marcolf is at once supernaturally cunning, and extremely skeptical as to the morality and constancy of woman. But it is unnecessary to enter into the problem more closely. Suffice it to have established that in Zabara's "Book of Delight" we have a hitherto unsuspected adaptation of the ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... could read print splendidly if it were held within six inches of them, and who, when he did read, moved book or paper back and forth in front of his spectacles in a droll, owlish, improbable way, instead of letting his eyes travel across the lines of print, was skeptical at first. He suspected Bonbright of being a youth scratching the itch of a sudden and transient enthusiasm. But he became interested. Bonbright compelled his interest, for he was earnest, intense, not enthusiastic, not effervescing ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... not, Dad. But I'm going to try!" and Tom, after a further talk with his father, began work in earnest on the big problem. That it was a big one Tom was not disposed to deny, and that it would be a valuable invention even his somewhat skeptical father admitted. ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... is based upon ocular or tangible proofs.[542] I used to utter words based on (plausible) reasons. Indeed, in assemblies, I always spoke of reasons (and never faith). I used to speak irreverently of the declarations of the Srutis and address Brahmanas in domineering tones. I was an unbeliever, skeptical of everything, and though really ignorant, proud of my learning. This status of a jackal that I have obtained in this life is the consequence, O regenerate one, of those sins of mine! If even after hundreds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... course of that walk he showed me a place where he had seen what he had thought at the time to be a flock of wild pigeons. He described how they flew, the swoop of their movements, and the tree where they alighted. I was skeptical, for it had long been thought that wild pigeons were extinct, but that fact had not impressed itself upon his mind. He said if he had known there could be any doubt about it, he would have observed them more closely. ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... preparations for the voyage. Two vessels were purchased, larger and every way better than those employed on the former occasion. Stores were laid in, as experience dictated, on a larger scale than before, and proclamation was made of "an expedition to Peru." But the call was not readily answered by the skeptical citizens of Panama. Of nearly two hundred men who had embarked on the former cruise, not more than three fourths now remained.11 This dismal mortality, and the emaciated, poverty-stricken aspect of the survivors, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... girl, naturally frank and unreserved, was intimidated by the restrained and melancholy mien of her companion. Yet she felt constrained to speak lest deception might be charged against her. Stephen, troubled in his own mind over the supposed unfavorable condition of affairs, skeptical of the affections of his erstwhile confidante, felt, too, a like necessity to ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... does not eventually become skeptical of the whole human race, it is because his experience has shown him that honor and vice may walk side by side without contamination; that virtue and crime may be closely connected, and yet no stain be left upon the white robe of purity, and that while upon the one hand he ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... the dim interior, muffled and skeptical. "What dat?" he said. "Don't want no foolishness 'round ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... power has refused to enfranchise woman, being skeptical as to her moral influence in government, yet with strange inconsistency they alike seek the aid of her voice and pen in all important political struggles. While not morally bound to obey the laws made without their consent, yet we find women the most law-abiding ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... steamer was carrying me to New York. Day after day passes and all you see about you is an unbroken waste of water, an unrelieved, a hopeless monotony of water. You know that a change will come, but this knowledge is confined to your brain. Your senses are skeptical ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... which have been accepted by some historians as valid, prompt a series of reflections. In the first place, anyone who has had experience with negro labor may reasonably be skeptical when told that healthy, well fed negroes, whether slave or free, can by any routine insistence of the employer be driven beyond the point at which fatigue begins to be injurious. In the second place, plantation work as a rule had the limitation of daylight hours; in plowing, mules which ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the Renaissance to the Reformation was a deep and subtle antithesis of the interests of this world {374} and of the next. It is notable that whereas some philosophical minds, like that of the brilliant Olympia Morata, who had once been completely skeptical, later came under the influence of Luther, there was not one artist of the first rank, not one of the greatest poets, that seems to have been in the least attracted by him. A few minor poets, like ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... school, however, and people wondered. The supervisor also wondered, and was skeptical. Several of the parents, who did not understand very well, complained to him that I kept a menagerie instead of a school. There were some, even, who did not wish to have their children taught natural history, because they came home and asked questions. They did not like it ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... The nerves of all the spectators were strung to the snapping-point. Gregory finally began to explain to Prince John, who looked half curious and half skeptical,— ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... greeted this announcement. They fell to embracing one another and their eyes filled with tears. Pecson alone preserved his skeptical smile. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... that the life I had in view did not require a college education. Then he made me a very attractive business proposition, but it looked to me like slavery, and what I wanted most was freedom. My father and mother were both Christians, but I had become skeptical, profane and reckless of public opinion. I had left home for a boarding house in the same town at eighteen, and at nineteen I had slipped the moorings and was heading ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... reveals the lack of data. No tests of the higher intellectual processes, such as the ability to analyze, to associate in terms of elements, to formulate new principles, and the like, have, been given. Some anthropologists are skeptical of the existence of any great differences, while others believe that though there is much overlapping, still differences of considerable magnitude do exist. At present we do not know how much of the differences existing between individuals is due ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... least a little while. Any delay would be a point gained. He shuddered to think that he might lose her, and then, the day after the irrevocable vows had been taken, the treasure might come to light, and all their life be spent in vain regrets. Graciella was skeptical about the lost money. Even Mrs. Treadwell, whose faith had been firm for years, had ceased to encourage his hope; while Miss Laura, who at one time had smiled at any mention of the matter, now looked grave if by any chance ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... interest then at the man whose arms were bound, but privately we permitted ourselves to be skeptical regarding the details of his alleged ghoulishness. We had begun to discount German stories of Belgian atrocities and Belgian stories of German atrocities. I might add that I ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... that constrains us to believe that she must have taken at least a few lessons in pronunciation from some of the leading members of WALLACK'S company. Still, her way of walking blindly into the table, and falling over casual chairs, ought to convince the most skeptical person that her English accent is not yet what it should be. And in general, her walk and conversation in this scene demonstrate that even the most carefully simulated somnambulism may not resemble in all respects the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... built himself a palace, with a city attached to it; and in short, made himself, generally, at home. We are also fortunate in having some genealogical particulars as to his wife's antecedents; and it is to be regretted that modern historians, of the skeptical, the irreverent, and the startling schools, could not imitate the gravity, the good faith, and the respect for things established, by which the elder chroniclers were inspired. The apothecaries of the Middle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his wash-basin, and she had delicately and considerately introduced to him the idea of her new method. Nels, it appeared, had a great reputation as a bread-maker, and he was proud of it. Moreover, he was skeptical of any clap-trap thing with wheels and cranks. He consented, however, to let her show how the thing worked and to sample some of the bread. To that end she had him come up to the house, where she won him over. Stillwell ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... the United States. He had been experimenting with a screw or propeller for steamboats, instead of the paddle-wheels as used by Fulton, and finally, equipping a small boat with two propellers, offered the invention to the British admiralty. But the admiralty was skeptical. The United States consul in Liverpool happened to be Francis B. Ogden, a pioneer in steam navigation on the Ohio river. He was impressed with Ericsson's invention, introduced him to Robert F. Stockton, of the United States navy, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... sector, and a diversified industrial base. Over the past decade, however, the country has suffered recurring economic problems of inflation, external debt, capital flight, and budget deficits. Growth in 2000 was a negative 0.8%, as both domestic and foreign investors remained skeptical of the government's ability to pay debts and maintain the peso's fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. The economic situation worsened in 2001 with the widening of spreads on Argentine bonds, massive withdrawals from the banks, and a further decline in consumer and investor ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... himself, he had induced his father to enter upon his street-car speculations, to use the resources of the Third National to carry a part of his loans and to furnish capital at such times as quick resources were necessary. In the beginning the old gentleman had been a little nervous and skeptical, but as time had worn on and nothing but profit eventuated, he grew bolder ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... have been deceived, there is no doubt. They know it themselves. A case which will serve as an illustration is that of Dr. Luys, some of whose operations were "exposed" by Dr. Ernest Hart, an English student of hypnotism of a skeptical turn of mind. One of Dr. Luys's pupils in a book he has published makes the following statement, which helps to explain the circumstances which we will give ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... was joyous this time; but in her heart of hearts Kathlyn was skeptical. Till she trod the deck of a ship homeward bound she would always ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... plane was there, too, and the radio man. Their stories were told in a disconcerting silence, broken only by some officer's abrupt and skeptical question ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... which Raoul spoke were not without effect. Could Sir Frederick have had his way, the prisoner would have been acquitted on the spot. But Lyon was skeptical as to the story of love, a sentiment about which he knew very little; and there was a spirit of opposition in him, too, that generally induced him to take the converse of most propositions that were started. The prisoner was dismissed, and the court closed its doors, to make ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... individuals. The same hatred of excess rendered him equally the enemy of refiners and free- thinkers, so that the like exile fell to the lot of Arnauld and Bayle, the one carrying to the extreme the doctrines of grace, and the other those of skeptical inquiry. Nor did he relish the excessive simplicity of La Fontaine, or deem that his talent was a sufficient compensation for his slovenly manners and inaptitude for court life. Of all these writers it may be said, that they flourished ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... destroyed; the conversion of the nations to Christianity; the many anti-christian corruptions of the Gospel; the idolatry, tyranny and persecution of the Roman hierarchy, etc. What prescience does all this imply—prescience no where to be found but in God! "Let now the infidel or the skeptical reader meditate thoroughly and soberly on these predictions. The priority of the records to the events admits of no question. The completion is obvious to every competent enquirer. Here, then, are facts. We are called upon to account for those facts on rational and adequate ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... become a moral duty for the Zionists who are loyal to the movement and respect their convictions—might mean a complete standstill in the life of American Jewry. Perhaps there are a few among us who are skeptical about the fate of American Judaism, and who therefore see no harm in hastening its disintegration. But those of us who are profoundly concerned about the future of the two and one-half million Jews who are now in America, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Dr. Douglass—not by any means the worst man that the world can produce. He was, or fancied himself to be, a skeptic. Like many a young man, wise in his own conceit, he had no very distinct idea of what he was skeptical about, nor to what hights of illogical nonsense his own supposed views, carried out, would lead him; like many another, too, he had studied rhetoric, and logic, and mathematics, and medicine, thoroughly and well; he would have hesitated long, and studied hard, and pondered deeply, before ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... body-belt, and he was obliged to withdraw the glittering blade by itself, and to hand it to her in all its naked terrors. The young girl received the weapons with a smiling complacency. Upon such altars as these the skeptical reader will remember that Mars had once hung his "battered shield," his lance, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... objects were from the first dynasty, but still not absolutely certain; for the three names occurred only on fragments of vases, and absolutely nothing was known of how these fragments were found. The proof that they belonged to the other objects was wanting. A very skeptical investigator might still have said that the other objects were older, that the potsherds had only fallen accidentally into ruined tombs of an older period; or he might have said quite the contrary, that the potsherds were ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... the admission of a distinguished contemporary historian, noted for his skeptical tendencies, in regard to the evidence for these alleged miracles, is noteworthy. It is in these words:—"Many of them were immediately proved on the spot before judges of unquestioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... supposed capable of exciting unreasonable attention—especially among men who, daily trained to the labors of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the sagacity of a horse—but there were certain circumstances which intruded themselves per force upon the most skeptical and phlegmatic; and it is said there were times when the animal caused the gaping crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from the deep and impressive meaning of his terrible stamp—times when the young Metzengerstein turned ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... early trained by the skeptical philosophy of the age. All his poetry shows this. The 'In Memoriam' may almost be said to be the poem of nineteenth century scepticism. To this scepticism he has applied an "all-subtilizing intellect", and has ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... her dear Miss Emma, nor could find happiness away from her—it seemed a very pleasant thing to think that her devotion might be a voluntary affair, and she stayed because she chose. Still she was skeptical. The abstract question puzzled her a little, too. How came Mas'r Henry to be free? Because he was white; that explained itself. But Miss Emma—she was white, too, and yet somehow she seemed to belong to Mas'r Henry. She wondered if Mas'r Henry could sell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... at the skeptical group. "I brought her out from town," he said doggedly, "and whilst I own up to having an imagination, she's stranger than fiction. She'd make the fellow that wrote "She" lay down with a headache. She's come out here to help us cowboys live nobler, better lives. She's going to learn ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... drew up to him to see what it could be in the way of an apple to command such a price and be in such evident demand. They were truly lovely apples to look at, but noticing that I was still skeptical as to their exceeding merits, Willis kindly gave me one—by way of removing all doubts. Truth to say, those doubts were at ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... one, the men were tested and went storming out, shouting the news. For a minute, the gathering crowd was skeptical, remembering the other failures. Then, abruptly, men were screaming, crying and fighting for the precious bracky, like the legions of the damned grabbing for lottery tickets when the prize was a passport ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... had spent very little time conning its pages since starting out in life for himself. Like many another who has been rigidly reared under the vague doctrines of "old theology," he had, at an early age, become both restive and skeptical. This state of mind had grown more pronounced as he had advanced in his profession and been brought in such close touch with suffering and dying humanity. Thus he had long since ceased to attend church, and, having found no comfort ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... in Denver Mr. Greeley wrote a number of letters to the New York Tribune, confirming the finding of gold in the territory and advising immigration. The people in the East were skeptical in regard to its discovery and awaited a written statement ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... bureaus of the Government and to the general experience of mankind. A physician who disbelieved in vaccination would not be the right man to handle an epidemic of smallpox, nor should we leave a doctor skeptical about the transmission of yellow fever by the Stegomyia mosquito in charge of sanitation at Havana or Panama. So with the improvement of our rivers; it is no longer wise or safe to leave this great work in the hands ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... to the study of natural laws, never doubted that historians would follow until they had exhausted every possible hypothesis to create a science of history. Year after year passed, and little progress has been made. Perhaps the mass of students are more skeptical now than they were thirty years ago of the possibility that such a science can be created. Yet almost every successful historian has been busy with it, adding here a new analysis, a new generalization there; a clear and definite connection where before the rupture of idea was absolute; ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the rather obscure motive of which is to emphasize the saintly virtues of Pere de La Brosse, is believed even to this day by many simple people, hundreds of whom know it by heart. But some are skeptical. "I should have been able to give more certainty to this tradition," says M. Mailloux, the historian of Isle aux Coudres and also its cure, "had I been able to make more extended investigation. Meanwhile," he adds naively, "my investigations suffice to give ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... our pay-roll is, naturally, the largest. It furnishes the biggest incentive. In addition, the Dixie Queen is the farthest out from town, and there are many excellent spots for a holdup between town and the mine. Oh, don't look skeptical. I've tried trusted messengers by roundabout trails, and guards and all that. They even held up a convoy on one occasion. I've set traps. I've done everything. But now I've a new idea, and I believe ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... allowed any longer, if public opinion, or the public conscience, was once roused. Let people laugh at Celtic monuments as much as they like, if they will only help to preserve their laughing-stocks from destruction. Let antiquarians be as skeptical as they like, if they will only prevent the dishonest withdrawal of the evidence against which their skepticism is directed. Are lake-dwellings in Switzerland, are flint-deposits in France, is kitchen-rubbish in Denmark, so very precious, and are the magnificent cromlechs, the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... great and good characters, the mind must be trained to delight in TRUTH,—not in comic rhymes, in sentimental tales, and skeptical poetry. The truth revealed in God's Holy Word, should constitute the firm basis of education; and the works of Creation and Providence the superstructure while the Divine blessing can alone rear and ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... be a very great mistake to suppose that when reaction follows collapse, in cases in which alcohol has been given, this result is always due to the alcohol. I have seen so many cases of severe collapse recover without alcohol that I cannot but be skeptical as to its necessity, and even as to its value. I was much struck many years ago by a case of post partum hemorrhage which was so severe that convulsions set in. I should then have given brandy if there had been any to ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... the Archangel government set a date when not forty-eight but fifty-six roubles might be exchanged for forty new roubles. Then a date for sixty-four, then for seventy-two and then eighty. Thus the skeptical peasant and the suspicious soldier saw his old roubles steadily decline in exchange value for the new roubles. Of course they had always grabbed all the counterfeit stuff and used it in exchange with no compunctions. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... other, their faces full of sudden seriousness, and there was just a shadow of fear in both blue eyes and black. The silence and the vastness of an empty earth and sky can bring up undreamed of things from the bottom of men's minds. Ellhorn's more skeptical nature was the first to gird itself ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... time Werper pretended to be skeptical; but at last permitted himself to be convinced that Mohammed Beyd had indeed killed himself in remorse for the death of the white woman he had, all unknown to his followers, loved ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... by the skeptical, when legends of Noah's flood were found among rude races, that they had been derived from Christian missionaries. But these myths can not be accounted for in this way; for the missionaries did not teach that the world was once destroyed by fire, and that a remnant of mankind escaped ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... interests me highly, and I thank you most sincerely for it. I am obliged to reply, however, that the affidavit of Messrs Miller and McKinlay astonished me very much. I cannot remember to have ever read anything of the kind anywhere and like you, I am very skeptical about it. I was in the world and a student at Amherst College in the year 1867, and was even then collecting the material for my history. I am pretty sure that I should have known of anything of this kind had it existed. I am going to try to run this ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... children so young that they soon forget their parents and their native language also. It was long before I could give credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I received no other testimony but theirs I should probably have continued skeptical to this day as to the truth of the accounts; but when I found the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the actors, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone |
