"Freethinker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by which he possessed himself of the estates he then held in right of his lady, and those too that he enjoyed through the attainder of her uncle, Sir James Harrington. He acknowledged himself a freethinker and a materialist, a character of rare occurrence in those ages, showing him to be as daring in his opinions as in his pursuits. That the soul of man was like the winding up of a watch, and that when the spring was run down the man died, and the soul was extinct, are still recorded ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... sorrowful for that reason, and not to be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did their duty, and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's approbation. They were Presbyterians, the judge was a freethinker. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Torralvo, a physician, had studied medicine and philosophy with extraordinary success, and was high in the confidence of many of the eminent personages of Spain and Italy, for whom he fortunately predicted future success. A confirmed infidel or freethinker, he was denounced to the Inquisition by the treachery of an associate as denying or disputing the immortality of the soul, as well as the divinity of Christ. This was in 1529. Torralvo, put to the torture, admitted that his informing spirit, Zequiel, was a demon by whose ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was still more mortifying, the book ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... win," said he, at about the same time to the States of France, "I would not change my religion on compulsion, the dagger at my throat. Instruct me, instruct me, I am not obstinate." There spoke the wily freethinker, determined not to be juggled out of what he considered his property by fanatics or priests of either church. Had Henry been a real devotee, the fate of Christendom might have been different. The world has long ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... meaning and metaphysics of life. Instead of war, there is peace. The music lover may argue, but his conceptions are entirely circumscribed by the music, and have no relation whatever either to philosophy or to politics as such. The wars are small wars, and spill no blood. A Wagnerite may be a freethinker or a Catholic, an anarchist or a conservative. Even painting, which is an art of miserable general ideas, is not so far removed from intelligence as is music. This explains why the Greeks were able to attain such heights in philosophy, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... on the face of the matter, present with one who follows the orthodox path. And that in itself represents a type of mind of no little social value. Moreover, I for one, am quite ready to assert that, class for class, the Freethinker does represent a type of mind considerably above the average. That this is not more generally recognised is due to the policy of the religious advocate in contrasting the uneducated Freethinker ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... building a card castle for himself, which may be dissipated by a single breath. Holgrave, the daguerreotypist, who serves as a contrast to the factitious judge, is a genuine character, and may stand for a type of the young New England liberal of 1850: a freethinker, and so much of a transcendentalist that we suspect Hawthorne's model for him to have been one of the younger associates of the Brook Farm experiment. He is evidently studied from life, and Hawthorne ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... rather disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice." A dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, with lightnings going!"Such a favorite was not the man to bring back my Brother from ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... tombs, the Florentine freethinker, the haughty Farinata, rises "with breast and brow erect, as holding Hell in great contempt," and tells Dante that the souls of the lost have no knowledge concerning things that are actually passing on earth, though they know the past and see the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... This disguised freethinker, for he does not appear to me to be anything else, was one of the most original thinkers of the period intermediate between ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... Endymion, we all know, was a king of Elis, though some call him a shepherd. Shepherd or king, however, he was so handsome, that the moon, who saw him sleeping on Mount Latmos, fell in love with him. This no orthodox heathen ever doubted: Lucian, who was a freethinker, laughs indeed at the tale; but has made him ample amends in this history by creating him ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... he was recommended to me by my old friend, Madame d'Oilly, as a freethinker, and at the same time by my aunt, Madame de la ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... opportunity of closer observation declared that there was no truth in the story. Rachel herself appeared to dislike Jacob Worse, and Mrs. Garman could not bear the sight of him, since Pastor Martens had assured her that he was a freethinker. ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... (1711) of a paper called The Freethinker, in conjunction with associates, of whom one was Dr. Boulter, who, then only minister of a parish in Southwark, was of so much consequence to the Government that he was made first Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards Primate of Ireland, where his ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... of his window, wounded a gownsman of Brasenose. The Tories, "under terror of this dangerous and unexpected resistance, retreated from Oriel." Yet such was the academic strength of the Jacobites and the Churchmen, that a Freethinker, or a "Constitutioner," ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... evidence of "Mr. Bates," I append a narrative given me verbally by Miss Hartly, who, like Mr. Bates, had, up to the time of her experience, posed as a pronounced and somewhat bitter sceptic. She was an emphatic freethinker, and had then no belief whatsoever in a future life. Now she believes "a sight" more than ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... 'ave a feller like that in our place. We 'ad a lodger once and she found out that 'e was a freethinker or something, and she cleared 'im out, bloody quick, I ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... you stand hearing the voice of truth for once? I don't in the least expect you to agree with me all at once; but I must say I did expect Mr. Hovstad to admit I was right, when he had recovered his composure a little. He claims to be a freethinker— ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen |
