"Infallibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... responsible to the People, he talks the language of the House of Commons; forgets that, at this Board, he is only responsible to the King. However, though he may possibly have convinced himself of his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced, before we can resign our understandings to his direction, or join with him in the measure he proposes." [BIOG. BRITANNICA (Kippis's; London, 1784), iii. 278. See ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of the ultramontanism of the Spanish clergy. Never had those doctrines more fanatical defenders, nor sectarians more fiery partisans, than the ecclesiastical writers of the Peninsula; the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, the superiority of his jurisdiction with respect to the bishops and to the general councils, was propagated not only in books but in the pulpit and the confessional. Nevertheless the enlightened ministers ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... last. The Republican party has so long identified itself with Capital in all its forms, with the protected monopolists, the trusts and the corporations, that the mass of Labour threatens to support the Democrats; and as the latter party maintains the doctrines of direct government and the infallibility of the majority, the result will be such a financial crisis and such an industrial revolution that the Americans will have at last to admit that ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... crops out, in the loosely-woven web of defensive presumptive evidence—whose pedigree we trace to the same parentage. God forbid that I should commit the sacrilege of arrogating His divine attribute—infallibility—for any human authority, however exalted; or claim it for any amount of proof, presumptive or positive. 'It is because humanity even when most cautious and discriminating is so mournfully fallible and prone to error, that in judging its own frailty, we require the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... condition, without which one is not really a minister, unless he were so faultlessly. And thus they have at once stripped, not only all of the race of Adam, that ever exercised that office, but themselves also, of any real mission, as ministers, unless they have assumed the Pope's infallibility, and are advanced to the Moravian perfection. So, although the scripture declares it essential to the true church, that she hold the head, yet by their childish reasoning, this would infer a conclusion ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... beliefs, can put their finger here and say, 'This is where they are right'; and there and say, 'This belief is foolishly wrong and idiotic.' I am not, unfortunately, one of these writers. I have no such confident belief in my own infallibility of judgment as to be able to sit on high and say, 'Here is ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... of symbolism; although its ancient interpretations were often ill-founded and incorrect. The alteration from symbol to dogma is fatal to beauty of expression, and leads to intolerance and assumed infallibility. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... was broad and the country open except in crossing the Rio Frio mountain. General Taylor pursued the same course in marching toward an enemy. He moved even in smaller bodies. I never thought at the time to doubt the infallibility of these two generals in all matters pertaining to their profession. I supposed they moved in small bodies because more men could not be passed over a single road on the same day with their artillery and necessary ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... auto-suggestions or their delirium that they behave with the fanaticism of fakirs, and exhibit an extraordinary energy and perseverance in the pursuit of the object of their morbid ideas. By their assurance, the sentiment of infallibility, and the fire of faith which is manifested in their prophetical manner, they fascinate the feeble brains of the people who surround them and attract ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... sounded, and this delicate problem was left unsolved. But Mr. Waddell, who liked to get to the bottom of things, continued to ponder these matters as he marched. He mistrusted the omniscience of Struthers and the superficial infallibility of the self-satisfied Cockerell. Accordingly, after consultation with that eager searcher after knowledge, Second Lieutenant Little, he took the laudable but fatal step of carrying his difficulties to one Captain Wagstaffe, the ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... for her to bear. She assumed the gigantic load; and naturally she staggered under it. While he had lived, she had worked, indeed, with regularity and conscientiousness; but it was work made easy, made delicious, by his care, his forethought, his advice, and his infallibility. The mere sound of his voice, asking her to sign a paper, had thrilled her; in such a presence she could have laboured gladly for ever. But now there was a hideous change. Now there were no neat piles and docketings under the green lamp; now there were no simple explanations ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... attention whatever to me, continuing to hold my grandmother's hand and look into the wise, stormy, tender, emphatic, much-enduring old face. And I wondered at my relative, and saw in this marvel one more proof of her own infallibility. ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... true colors, as mere private judgment in excelsis, and if he have courage to stand alone face to face with the abyss of the Eternal and Unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by 'Infallibility,' but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell of honest men will to him be more endurable than a paradise ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... Luther in this matter was the attitude of the Church generally, in opposition to science, for it assumed its position in an age of dense ignorance, and claimed too much infallibility to admit of enlightenment. Nevertheless, the Church feels the spirit of the age and slowly moves. At the present time it is being slowly permeated by the modern spirit of agnostic scepticism, which ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... grinder of foes, that warrior endued with mighty energy, of firm grasp, and invincible in battle,—that conqueror of both celestials and Daityas, that foremost of all car-warriors.' And beholding Partha's infallibility, training, fleetness of hand, and the range also of Arjuna's arrows, Drona became amazed. And, O bull of the Bharata race, lifting up his excellent bow, the Gandiva the unforbearing Partha drew it now with one hand and now with another shot an arrowy shower. And beholding that shower resembling ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... snares which necessity forced him to invent and construct for himself, for want of just such a volume. Several of these original inventions will appear in the present work for the first time in book form, and the author can vouch for their excellence, and he might almost say, their infallibility, for in their perfect state he has never yet found them to "miss" in ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... falling into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled "The Infallibility of Human Judgment," it occasioned an acquaintance between us. He took great notice of me, called on me often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale alehouse in —— Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr. Mandeville, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... General and Supreme Judge of the Opinions of the Learned, which you had long before assumed, and had exercised with a ferocity and a despotism without example in the Republic of Letters, and hardly to be paralleled among the disciples of Dominic; exacting their opinions to the standard of your infallibility, and prosecuting with implacable hatred every one that presumed to differ from you."—LOWTH'S Letter to W., ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... dissented from the Reformed Establishment in many points of doctrine, and still acknowledged the Pope's infallibility and supremacy, yet they looked not upon these doctrines and discipline to be fundamentals, or without which they could not be saved; and, therefore, continued to assemble and baptise and communicate for the space of ten years in the ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false. And, perhaps, the same may be justly said of every sect, church, and society of men, when they assume to themselves that infallibility which they deny to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... perform miracles in the ordinary conduct of His Church. It would be a strange miracle if infallibility existed in one man. But it appears so natural for it to reside in a multitude, since the conduct of God is hidden under nature, as ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the little gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the wind blows from, she will catch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... are pernicious enough in their way; but the savage and destructive criticism of which I speak is quite as ignorant and far more harmful. It assumes an air of authority based on a superficial knowledge of art, and beguiles the public into a belief in its infallibility by means of a smooth style and an occasional epigram the smartness of which may and often does conceal a rank injustice. The expression of a hope that the result of Mr. Bartholdi's labors "will be something better than another gigantic asparagus stalk added to those ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... affirmed that bertillons cannot be mistaken; but in a Detroit court, on January both, 1914, an expert declared that "a difference of one-eighth of an inch in the laying on of the fingers made an entirely different impression"; and "judgment was awarded against the bank," which, relying upon the infallibility of the finger record, had brought the action. At any rate, the bertillon is still a potent weapon with the police, and when they want a man for a crime committed, or when they desire to drive out of any given place on the face of the earth a man who has been previously a convict, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... simple?—of what use all the incense and these chanted litanies, these eternal processions, and these saintly shin-bones borne in costly array—if one poor mortal, supposed to live on visiting terms with the Evil One, can strike such terror into the whole army led on by Infallibility? ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... not."—1 John 3:6. Any mistake that would be a violation of God's law would be a sin, but aside from this, a simple error in judgment is not a sin. Salvation does not warrant an experience beyond the probability of error in our human nature, and Christian perfection is not infallibility. ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... all patience. Anne of Austria stooped toward her son's ear, and addressed some words to him in Spanish. Philippe was completely ignorant of that language, and grew pale at this unexpected obstacle. But, as if the spirit of the imperturbable Aramis had covered him with his infallibility, instead of appearing disconcerted, Philippe rose. "Well! what?" said Anne ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... in a rare degree of this wonderful open-air quality as a writer that constrains us in our generation to condone any offences against the mint and anise and cummin decrees of literary infallibility that Borrow may have from time to time committed. And when it is realised, in addition, what a unique knowledge he possessed of the daily life, the traditions, the folk-lore, and the dialects of the strange races of vagrants, forming such a picturesque element in the life of the road, the documentary ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Deity inspires. Foolish must he be who can mistake for this a local acclamation, or a transitory outcry—transitory though it be for years, local though from a Nation. Still more lamentable is his error who can believe that there is any thing of divine infallibility in the clamour of that small though loud portion of the community, ever governed by factitious influence, which, under the name of the PUBLIC, passes itself, upon the unthinking, for the PEOPLE. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... won't make any difference to my action. After all, I'm twenty-five; if I can't begin to manage my life now, you may be sure I never shall. But I know I'm right. I would bet on my infallibility. At present I've only told you half my reasons for resigning, and already you agree ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... learned Frisian, called "the light of the world," friend and compatriot of the great Rudolph Agricola, preaches throughout the provinces, uttering bold denunciations of ecclesiastical error. He even disputes the infallibility of the Pope, denies the utility of prayers for the dead, and inveighs against the whole doctrine of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Benedictus Deus. [Sidenote: January 26, 1564] Pius also caused to be prepared a symbol known as the Tridentine Profession of Faith which was made binding on all priests. Save that it was slightly enlarged in 1877 by the pronouncement on Papal Infallibility, it stands to the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... objective certainty. All the glosses and asseverations in the world cannot carry us an inch beyond the due weight of the evidence vouchsafed to us. An honest and brave mind will accept manfully this condition of things, and not seek for infallibility where it can find none. It will adopt as its motto that noble saying of Bishop Butler—noble, because so unflinchingly true, though opposed to a sentimental optimism—'Probability is ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... alumnae are married. The exact proportion of teachers is not known, but it is of course large. The Wellesley College Christian Association is of great assistance to the alumnae recorder in keeping in touch with Wellesley missionaries, but even the Christian Association disclaims infallibility in questions of numbers. An article in the News for February, 1912, by Professor Kendrick, the head of the Department of Bible Study, states that no record is kept of missionaries at work in our own country, but there ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... lost your faith in our infallibility," she answered, "your case is hopeless, and I would counsel you to put on the cowl, at once, and hie away to some dull monastery, where you can rail, at leisure, against woman and her deceptive attributes. It might form a new and fitting exercise for the holy brotherhood, and, methinks, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... bear in mind that I make no claim to infallibility. I am a painter of landscape; out of my own sphere, I become an amateur. You are not hound to ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Honorius has become a cause celebre, especially in connection with the doctrine of papal infallibility. It should be observed, however, that the doctrine of papal infallibility, as defined at the Vatican Council, A. D. 1870 (cf. Mirbt, n. 509), requires that only when the Pope speaks ex cathedra is he infallible, and it has not been shown that any opinion whatever ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... public to accept as authoritative their chronological and ethnological reveries, why should the Eastern student, who has access to quite different—and we make bold to say, more trustworthy— materials, be expected to join in the blind belief of those who defend Western historical infallibility? He believes—on the strength of the documentary evidence, left by Yavanacharya (Pythagoras) 607 "B.C." in India, and that of his own national "temple records," that instead of giving hundreds we may safely give thousands of years to the foundation of Cumaea and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... singular development of solicitude for his preservation, but could not help saying something in praise of his invention, giving a demonstration of the infallibility of the principle, with several scientific causes of error in working out the practice. He had no doubt it would be all right on another experiment. Seeing that her looks expressed unfeigned alarm at this announcement, he assured her that her kind interest in his safety was ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... similar perversion, be claimed by any mob or party constituting the majority of a city, town, or neighbourhood, as well as by the Colony of Massachusetts, against the Parliament or supreme authority of the nation. They had no doubt of their own infallibility; they had no fear that they "should hereafter be of a malignant spirit;" but they thought it very possible that the Parliament might be so, and then it would be for them to fight if they should have "strength sufficient." But after ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... is, and what a fearful view of frail human nature is opened for a searching mind to observe that a man, who professes to have abandoned the pleasures of existence, to have broken through the very first law of nature, to have separated himself from his kind, and to have assumed perfection and infallibility, the attributes of his Creator, devoting the altar at which he serves to the wicked purposes of arraying man against man, and of embruing the hands held up before him at prayer in ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... to find it so nearly perfect. Whatever opinion he had of its errors he would sacrifice to the public good, and he hoped that every member of the convention who still had objections would on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and for the sake of unanimity put his name to this instrument. Hamilton added his plea. A few members, he said, by refusing to sign, might do infinite mischief. No man's ideas could be more remote from the plan than his were known to be; ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... the thought of verse 1. The fool has no standard of conduct but his own notions, and is absurdly complacent as to all his doings. The wise seeks better guidance than his own, and is docile, because he is not so ridiculously sure of his infallibility. No type of weak wickedness is more abominable to the proverbialist than that of pert self-conceit, which knows so little that it thinks it knows everything, and is 'as untameable as a fly.' But in the wisest sense, it is true that a mark of folly is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his infallibility struck Sir Herbert as a flagrant violation of the rules of the game. He did not accept the protestations as genuine; he thought Sir Henry was overdoing his part, and playing to the gallery. He grew nettled in his turn, ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... the Church may pretend not to be opposed to the natural aspirations of man? These objectors do not, or will not, see that the Church, by enlarging the domain of her teaching to cover all things with the mantle of infallibility, would most effectually crush the action of the human intellect, which was meant for use, not rust, which must be allowed something to act upon, and which in independent action is bound to rush into a variety of differences according to the bent ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... only; the Seven Sacraments; Purgatory; the Worship, Invocation, and Intercession of the Blessed Virgin, Saints, and Angels; Veneration of Relics; Worship of Images; Universal Supremacy of the Roman Church; the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; and the Infallibility of the Pope. These two last were not imposed upon the Roman Church as articles of faith, necessary to be believed, until 1854 and 1870. With the exception of the last two, the above is a summary of the errors of Rome, drawn up by ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... of the boy on lines in which the father believes. For the latter purpose the opinion is no disqualification. The devout Catholic accepts the multiplication table, and can impart his knowledge without reference to the infallibility of the Pope. To refuse to employ him is to impose an extraneous penalty on his convictions. It is not illiberal for an editor to decline the services of a member of the opposite party as a leader writer, or even as a political reviewer ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... can its promulgers give me of the infallibility of their doctrines, even supposing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a temple of Jupiter as a church. Religion in Roman Catholic countries being thus left, so far as the educated classes are concerned, to the priests and women, its recent developments have been inspired exclusively by priestly ambition and female imagination. The infallibility of the Pope and the worship of the Virgin have made, and are still making, tremendous strides. The Romanizing party in the Episcopal Church of England are left panting behind, in their vain efforts to keep up with the superstitions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... (Laughter.) I would as soon have a Latin priest,—I would as soon have Archbishop Hughes,—I would as soon go to Rome as to Jerusalem or Athens,—I would as soon have the Pope at once in his fallible infallibility,—as ten or twenty, little or big, anti-slavery Doctor-of-Divinity priests, each claiming to give his infallible rendering, however differing from his peer. (Laughter.) I never yet produced this Bible, ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... difficulty that authoritativeness has to contend with is some other authoritativeness. When an infallibility clashes with a pontification— ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... for the many sects found among the Dutch Reformed. The Roman Catholic Church, the only episcopacy in Holland, numbers only two sections: those—the majority—who admit the infallibility of the Pope, and those—a small minority—who, although recognizing the Pope as chief of the Church, do not agree with the decisions of the Vatican Council of 1870, proclaiming this papal infallibility. The Roman Catholic Church is a tolerably prospering institution, thanks ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... prophet-like boldness and infallibility, we have once again an announcement of the inadequacy of the Reformation, the formal and external character of prevailing types of religion, and the unapostolic nature of the existing churches. The language describing the visible ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... tradition, and even government. The wave of rebellion swept over me in an instant, beginning with an heretical doubt as to the sanctity of the established order of things—that fetish which has ruled Pan-Americans for two centuries, and which is based upon a blind faith in the infallibility of the prescience of the long-dead framers of the articles of Pan-American federation—and ending in an adamantine determination to defend my honor and my life to the last ditch against the blind and senseless regulation which assumed the synonymity ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Don't I love the world for loving Morris? Don't I follow him about to feel the gladness that he brings? Don't I live on the praises of Henry? and don't I tear every man that utters a doubt of his infallibility? Poor old Dominie Young! I was savage on him last night, for an unnecessary remark about Henry; and I'll go and hear him preach, to show my contrition; and penitence can't go further. Now, mother dear, I probably ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... against Pope's use of names made such a defense desirable. See, for example, Ward (p. 9) and "A Letter to a Noble Lord: Occasion'd by the Late Publication of the Dunciad Variorum," in Pope Alexander's Supremacy and Infallibility Examin'd (London, 1729), p. 12. Boileau's Discourse is a particularly apposite reply to the latter, which had contrasted Pope's satiric practice with that of Horace, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... the free will hath his proper working also. From the result of his whole performance I was confirmed in this opinion; that we must acknowledge the work of both grace and free will in the conversion of a sinner; and so likewise in all other events, the consistency of the infallibility of God's foreknowledge at least (though not with any absolute, but conditional predestination) with the liberty of man's will, and the contingency of inferior causes and effects. These, I say, we must acknowledge for the [Greek: hoti] but for the [Greek: to pos], I thought it bootless for me to ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... she now asked herself, if the hunchback would ever accept them on such terms. But Florine had gone too far to recede, and she durst not tell all. She resolved, therefore, to leave the future to chance and as those, who have themselves fallen, are little disposed to believe in the infallibility of others, Florine said to herself, that perhaps in the desperate position in which she was, Mother Bunch would not be so scrupulous after all. Therefore she said: "I see, mademoiselle, that you are astonished at offers so much above what you usually gain; but I must tell you, that I am now ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... stand for intellectual infallibility. These political discussions disturbed them. They felt that their credentials as schoolmasters were being examined and found wanting. They accused the boys of priggery. It was a most false charge, for the boys were enthusiasts, and enthusiasm is a form of self-forgetfulness ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... Paul, who considered this unlooked-for escape as a species of resurrection, patiently awaited the time the trapper mentioned with renewed confidence in the infallibility of his judgment. The Doctor regained his tablets, a little the worse from having fallen among the grass which had been subject to the action of the flames, and was consoling himself for this slight misfortune by recording uninterruptedly such different ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... custom when the war is discussed, nothing was said of Kultur, of German innocence or enemy guilt, of an early and victorious peace, of British warships hiding always in safety, or of the omniscience and infallibility of the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... slowly. Having reached his full height, he instantly rolled upon the grass, goblet in hand, spilling the cold liquor on more than one ankle—whose owners frisked—but not disturbing a muscle in his own long face, which, in the total eclipse of reason, retained its gravity, primness, and infallibility. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... pope called Frederick the "heretical Marchese di Brandenburgo," the king returned the compliment by calling him the "Grand Lama," and delighted himself over the assumed infallibility of the vicegerent of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Inferences which are as irresistible to the mind as the axioms with which we started. In no other domains of Thought can this be done by any methods now in vogue. In no other realms, therefore, are complete precision and infallibility attainable. It is this which constitutes the peculiar character of these three Sciences, and distinguishes them radically ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... reverence the infallibility of synods, may try to ascertain their sense. The leading bishops were attended by partial or careless scribes, who dispersed their copies round the world. Our Greek Mss. are sullied with the false and prescribed reading of (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1460:) ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... before in Israel. Nevertheless it is not to be thought that the Sanhedrim had not always that right, which from the time of Esdras is more frequently exercised, of proposing to the people, but that they forebore it in regard of the fulness and infallibility of the law already made, whereby it was needless. Wherefore the function of this Council, which is very rare in a senate, was executive, and consisted in the administration of the law made; and whereas the Council itself is often understood in Scripture by the priest ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... Spain had heresy been treated more cruelly; yet here, too, the Vatican claim was spurned. But the final humiliation took place some years later under Urban VIII.,—the same pontiff who wrecked papal infallibility on Galileo's telescope. He tried to enforce his will on the state of Lucca, which, in the days of Pope Paul, had submitted to the Vatican decrees abjectly; but that little republic now seized the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... not having been believed on trust, thought the moment had arrived to regain his infallibility, by completing the unfinished sentence. While every one was endeavouring to supply the ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... caution be used, least any degree of interference or infringement might take place, either on the rights of the Federal Government on the one side, or those of the several States on the other. Instances of this kind may happen; for infallibility is not the lot of any man or body of men, even the best of them on earth. The human mind in its present state, being very imperfect, is liable to a multitude of errors. Prejudice, that great source of error, often ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... the belfry had loosened one of the carved corbels which ornamented the interior of the roof beneath which the Magician knelt; before he could remove, the sharp and heavy mass descended on his forehead, and whilst it confirmed the infallibility of his prescience, in an instant deprived him of life. Michael, however, according to the account of Benvenuto da Imola, had strength enough to lift up the stone, and ascertain its weight, after which he declared it was of the exact size he expected; and that nothing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... gods of the earth, mountain, river, wind, and thunder and lightning should obey him. Not content, however, with absorbing and corrupting for political purposes the primitive faith of the aborigines, the invaders corrupted their own religion by carrying the dogma of the divinity and infallibility of the Mikado too far. Stopping short of no absurdity, they declared their chief greater even than the heavenly gods, and made their religion centre in him rather than in his alleged heavenly ancestors, or "heaven." In the interest of politics and conquest, and ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness—a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... moustache, Dickson kicked out in front of his goal very neatly, and was not afraid to meet the charge of an opposing forward. An incident in his career caused a great deal of amusement at the time, however, and is worth recording, just to show the immense faith he had in the infallibility of his old club. It was in a cup tie with the Vale of Leven, when that club beat the Queen's Park by two goals to one. Dickson appeared at goal with an umbrella, as the rain was falling fast, but when the Vale scored their first goal he was obliged to ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... of Wurtzburg. One of the professors there at that time was Dollinger, an eminent biologist, and father of the famous Catholic historian who later distinguished himself by his opposition to the new dogma of papal infallibility. Dollinger was both a profound thinker and an accurate observer. He took the keenest interest in embryology, and worked at it a good deal. However, he is not himself responsible for any important result in this field. In 1816 a young medical doctor, whom we may at once designate as Wolff's ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... full well one frequent consequence of the broad-mindedness which results. I realize how promptly the unread man, filled to the lips with the frothy spirit of his own infallibility, will condemn him whose knowledge of men and motives makes him pause and suspend his judgment. But what of that? Some one has said that thinking makes you wise but weak, while action makes you narrow but strong. A terse sentence, but one which will not bear inspection. ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... this house, particularly in its German branch, from yielding to the pressing demands of so many of its subjects, and, after the example of other princes, enriching itself at the expense of a defenceless clergy? It is difficult to credit that a belief in the infallibility of the Romish Church had any greater influence on the pious adherence of this house, than the opposite conviction had on the revolt of the Protestant princes. In fact, several circumstances combined to make the Austrian princes zealous supporters of popery. Spain and Italy, from which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that the modern world proceeded as before. Something more drastic appeared to be necessary— some bold and striking measure which should concentrate the forces of the faithful, and confound their enemies. The tremendous doctrine of Papal Infallibility, beloved of all good Catholics, seemed to offer just the opening that was required. Let that doctrine be proclaimed, with the assent of the whole Church, an article of faith, and, in the face of such an affirmation, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... in his tent, only knew from the guttural rejoicings of the squaws that the expedition had been successful and the captive was in their hands. At any other time he might have thought it an evidence of some growing scepticism of his infallibility of judgment and a diminution of respect that they did not confront him with their prisoner. But he was too glad to escape from the danger of exposure and possible arraignment of his past life by the desperate captive, even though it might not have been understood ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... the methods of the Naval Academy were open to criticism would be to claim for them infallibility. Upon the whole, however, in my time they erred rather on the side of being over-conservative than unduly progressive. Twenty years later, recalling some of our Academy experiences to one of my contemporaries, himself more a man of ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... conscience and future times will agree," thus appealing to the distant tribunal as James pointed out. All the insane hospitals have their sufferers for conscience's sake, paranoid personalities whose egos have expanded to infallibility and whose consciences ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... marriage to be. Still, he was married and tenderly attached to his good wife. Thus it was probably not any subtle distinction between Real Presence and Transubstantiation, not misgivings as to the exact degree of worship to be paid to the Virgin, not doubts as to the limits of the personal infallibility of the Pope or objections to practical abuses in the Church of Rome—which kept Keble and has kept many a Romanizing clergyman of the Anglican Church from becoming a Roman Catholic. Nor is the reason when analysed one of which Anglican philosophy ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... into the room with a note for me which was marked "urgent," and I asked if I might read it. Jack Ward was the only man who ever wanted me in a hurry, and so confident was I in the infallibility of my chemist that I was not thinking of Owen. When I had finished reading the note I found that the conversation had taken a ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... body of Lutherans, more than all others, has saved the Germans of the Middle West from being swamped in materialism and rationalism. Honor to whom honor is due. But the very prosperity of these Lutherans has made them haughty, self-sufficient, self-righteous. A tone of Pharisaism and of infallibility seems to run through their utterances. They seem not only to believe in an infallible revelation from God, but in themselves as infallible interpreters of that revelation. Every one who does not accept their interpretation is branded as a heretic of the same kind ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... individual recollection, but begins to recognize the instability of his position: "I either witnessed the occurrence or dreamt it." This is sufficient to prove that, with all people's boasting about the infallibility of memory, there are many who have a shrewd suspicion that some of its asseverations will not bear a ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... infallibility; some of his conclusions may be erroneous; he believes, however, that future investigation will prove the verity of every proposition that is advanced in this book. These propositions have been formulated only after a twenty-years study of biology ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... faith in the infallibility of science, and, above all, of everything written by the Germans. He believes in himself, in his preparations; knows the object of life, and knows nothing of the doubts and disappointments that turn the hair o f ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... attainable has always been recognized by the Christian Church, Apostolic, Catholic, and Protestant. Baptism was called by the Greek fathers, "enlightenment" (Photismos), as by it the believer received the spirit of truth. The Romanist, in the dogma of infallibility, proclaims the perpetual inspiration of a living man; the Protestant Churches in many creeds and doctrinal works extend a substantial infallibility to all true believers, at least to the extent that they can be inspired to recognize, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... spiritual sovereignty over all Christendom. The Pope cannot validly resign and put out of his own and his successors' hands, nor can the Cardinals take away from him, nor the Episcopate, one jot or tittle of this spiritual prerogative. He cannot, for instance, condition his infallibility on the consent of a General Council, or surrender the canonization of saints to the votes of the faithful at large. Such are the inalienable, Christ-given prerogatives of the Papacy. Henry VIII. feloniously set himself up for Pope within the realm of England. Blending together temporal and spiritual ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... be loved by men. She may be respected for her talents, she may be honored for her philanthropy, but she can not win the warmer emotions of the heart. But Madame Roland, with an energy of will, an infallibility of purpose, a firmness of stoical endurance which no mortal man has ever exceeded, combined that gentleness, and tenderness, and affection—that instinctive sense of the proprieties of her sex—which gathered around her a love as pure and as enthusiastic as woman ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... believed that it was only the want of power that prevented the Catholics from renewing the fires of Smithfield and the terrors of the Inquisition. It was believed that the infallibility and supremacy of the Pope bound the Catholic citizen to yield unquestioning obedience to the Catholic clergy in matters civil and political, as well as spiritual. There was a natural and very ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... freedom; and if upon this occasion Bonaparte was placed on the throne by the force of opinion, he could not have restored the ancient despotism without exciting universal dissatisfaction. Men seem formerly to have been awed by a conviction of his infallibility, and did not suffer themselves to reason upon the principles of action of a man who dazzled their imaginations by the magnificence of his exploits and the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... everything, states that in Rome alone fifty-five millions of lottery-tickets are taken annually. Now though I would much sooner doubt the infallibility of the Pope than that of the author of the most invaluable of hand-books, I cannot help thinking there is some strange error in this calculation. The whole population of Rome is under 180,000, and ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... nature, the world over—to believe that one can do things better than any one else. But if such importunities prevail, the chances are that books will be misplaced by the very literary expert who has solemnly asserted his infallibility. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... pain, of guardian spirits, of high teachers, of an infinite central power, of circles above circles approaching nearer to His presence—all of these conceptions appear once more and are confirmed by many witnesses. It is only the claims of infallibility and of monopoly, the bigotry and pedantry of theologians, and the man-made rituals which take the life out of the God-given thoughts—it is only this which has defaced ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... has since accorded him. In our senior year the higher classes competed for the Boylston prizes for English composition. Emerson and I sent in our essays with the rest and were fortunate enough to take the two prizes; but—Alas for the infallibility of academic decisions! Emerson received the second prize. I was of course much pleased with the award of this intelligent committee, and should have been still more gratified had they mentioned that the man who was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "Remember, however, that infallibility is not the property of man, or you may entail disappointment on yourself, by expecting what is never to be found. The best men are sometimes inconsistent with themselves. They are liable to be hurried, by sudden starts of passion, into expressions and actions, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... liable to error; nature and certainty is very hard to come at, and infallibility is ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... their eyes only one of the ordinary myths and errors of mortals. THEY gave me no key to this twisted and unnatural badness. Such a paradox of evil rose to the stature of the supernatural. It was, indeed, almost as supernatural as the infallibility of the Pope. An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite as much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong. The only explanation which immediately occurred to my mind was that Christianity did not come from heaven, but from hell. Really, if Jesus of Nazareth ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... slightly weary eyes all impressively suggested the metropolitan atmosphere of high pressure and sophistication from which he had emerged. He had a machine to sell; an amazing machine, endowed with human intelligence and more than human infallibility; for when it made a mistake it stopped. It was designed for the express purpose of eliminating from the payroll the skilled and sharp-eyed women who are known as "drawers-in," who sit all day long under a north light patiently threading the ends of the warp through the heddles of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it so deeply influenced her own intellectual life that she utterly rejected the most irrational dogmas of Christianity, such as eternal punishment, the vicarious atonement of Christ, the doctrine that faith is necessary to salvation, the equality of Christ with God, the infallibility of the Bible; she made morality of life, not orthodoxy of belief, her measure of "religion"; she was "a Christian", in her own view of the matter, but it was a Christian of the school of Jowett, of Colenso, and of Stanley. The latter ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... asperity and reproches against him, and in which he defended himselfe by such an admirable eloquence of language, and the cleere and incomparable power of reason, that he not only made them appeare unaequall adversaryes, but carryed the warr into ther owne quarters, and made the Popes infallibility to be as much shaken and declyned by ther owne Doctors, and as greate an acrimony amon[g]st themselves upon that subjecte, and to be at least as much doubted as in the schooles of the Reformed or Protestant, and forced them since to ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... in its favor, the liberty of inquiry, which is also a want of the human mind; and had proclaimed the authority of individual reason: but it had so lost that which is the necessary basis and vital condition of all revealed religion—the principle of infallibility; because nothing can live except in virtue of the laws that presided at its birth; and, in consequence, one revelation cannot be continued and confirmed without another. Now, infallibility is nothing but revelation continued by ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man was surrounded by a "nimbus" of infallibility; no one had ever enlightened me on the fact that serious-minded men had themselves once been young, and had learned the student jargon of Heidelberg; that this director himself, after a noisy youth, had arrived at the idea that every young man has malicious propensities, and that what seems ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Christian Science Journal:—At the prison, once a week, there are Christian papers given to the inmates. But none of those papers point out so clearly the fallibility of the mortal or carnal mind, and the infallibility of the divine Mind, as does the teaching of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... and the Bishop of the diocese rose, to deliver a long diatribe upon the wickedness of heresy, the infallibility of the Church, and the necessity for the amputation of diseased limbs of the body politic. As nobody disagreed with any of his sentiments, the harangue was scarcely necessary; but time was of small value in the twelfth century. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... cruel persecutions of the dissenters from the Romish Church, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, the horrors of the Inquisition, the crusades against the Albigenses and the simple dwellers of the Vaudois valleys, have been regarded as atrocities peculiar to the believers in papal infallibility, and the necessary consequences of their doctrines; and hence they have looked upon the constitutional agitation of the Irish Catholics for relief from grieveous disabilities and unjust distinctions as a struggle merely ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... make use of long and unintelligible words, and never to visit a patient without doing something new, lest the latter should say, "He can do nothing without his book." In brief, a reputation for infallibility must be maintained. ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... vindicated from any technical responsibility for the attitude of the Romish Church towards the Copernican doctrines. The significance of this circumstance has been commented on in connection with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... with native pictures on cloth. At the east end is a recess in which are some well-executed Chinese statues, the chief figure is of large dimensions, and is intended to represent the Durmah Rajah, whose statue is supposed to give infallibility. Two bells were suspended, one from the centre, the other from the balcony, the tongues of which were long, of ivory, and moved by a string. The Rajah received us in state, amidst discordant sounds of horns, pipes, and drums; his followers for the most part were badly clothed, the few decent looking ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... matter shall REST without a REVIEW ON EITHER SIDE"!! "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher!" Will God's word forever remain unvindicated, because of your veto? Your one mistake that I have shown, proves your infallibility. Let me repeat it in connection: In your text, Matt. xii: 39, 40, it states three days and three nights. This itself overthrows the whole of your argument—for three days are just as long as three nights. See how it ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... discredit Christian morality, he induces some to carry it to the extreme of asceticism. To discredit needful authority, he makes rulers of the State into despots, and persuades the rulers of the Church to claim infallibility. To discredit Christianity, he adds to it human inventions." Wesley has a similar sentiment. "If you place Christian perfection too high, you drive it out of the world." And it is certain, that an infinite amount of hostility to Christianity is owing ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various Vedas, Bibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings about infinitely small atoms and molecules and in all the infinitely great and infinitely remote worlds, ...
— A Letter to a Hindu • Leo Tolstoy
... "progress" unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without being doctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive without being infallible—at any rate, without believing in some infallibility. For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress. Never perhaps since ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... phases of the Conference's proceedings bore a strong resemblance to the Pope's description, but as, unlike ecclesiastical councils, it had no claim to infallibility, and therefore no third act, the consequences to the world were deplorable. The Supreme Council never knew how to deal with an emergency and every week unexpected incidents in the world outside were calling for prompt action. Frequently it contradicted itself within ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... a singular keenness of judgment, unassisted by any academical light; they all possess a large share of good sense, improved upon the experience of their fathers; and this is the surest and best guide to lead us through the path of life, because it approaches nearest to the infallibility of instinct. Shining talents and University knowledge, would be entirely useless here, nay, would be dangerous; it would pervert their plain judgment, it would lead them out of that useful path which is so well ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... escaped: he may thank me for't In part. I would not have his bulls abolished— 'Twere worth one half our empire: his indulgences Demand some in return; no, no, he must not 40 Fall;—and besides, his now escape may furnish A future miracle, in future proof Of his infallibility. [To the Spanish Soldiery. Well, cut-throats! What do you pause for? If you make not haste, There will not be a link of pious gold left. And you, too, Catholics! Would ye return From such a pilgrimage without a relic? The very Lutherans have more true devotion: See ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... my opinion," said Hester Jennings, with inflexible calmness, "and I am not surprised that you do not like it when you have got it—few people do. The truth is not generally palatable. Not that I go in for infallibility of judgment. Wait and see what Mr. St. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... of Pope Clement XIV.'s last illness, which were announced at the Vatican, culminated in a very fair bull. The notices commenced with "His Holiness is very ill,'' and ended with "His Infallibility is delirious.'' ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... branches of Government, reserving fundamental sovereignty to the people of this great land. It is only as the temporary representatives and servants of the people that we meet here, we bring no hereditary status or gift of infallibility, and none ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... from the laboratory of Nature. I may venture to prophecy that no future Beddoes will make it the corival of the mathematical sciences in demonstrative evidence. I think it a matter of doubt whether, during the period of its supposed infallibility, physiology derived more benefit from the extension, or injury from the misdirection, of its views. Enough of the latter is fresh in recollection to make it but an equivocal compliment to a physiological position, that it must stand or ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... possibly Christians have not all got "such an extravagant reverence for English judges as is felt by Mr. Blatchford himself. The experiences of the Founder of Christianity have perhaps left us in a vague doubt of the infallibility ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... it keeps the Catholic clergy in a constantly explanatory attitude to show that the Syllabus does not really mean what to the ordinary reader it unmistakably seems to mean; and the work of explanation is made the more necessary and the more difficult by the decree of papal infallibility, which followed the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... so thoroughly convinced of the infallibility of their theory that they did not for one moment hesitate to cast the poor into the Procrustean bed of their economic notions and treat them with the most revolting cruelty. Convinced with Malthus and the rest of the adherents of ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... me say I am certain, would you? these are no times for Popery and infallibility; however, I assure you I think him perfectly safe. He has done a foolish and idle trick, but no man is wise always. We must get rid of his fever, and then if his cold remains, with any cough, he may make a ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy and passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries? There is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to introduce a power into the world, invested with the prerogative of infallibility in religious matters. Such a provision would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding the difficulty; and when I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... to him:—on the chance of that Sam was staking his faith. The Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company has been established a great many years; it has always treated its Indians justly; it enjoys a tremendous prestige for infallibility. The bonds of race are strong, but the probabilities were good that in the tribes with whom Jingoss would be forced to seek sanctuary would be some members, whose loyalty to the Company would out-balance the rather ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... century, steeped in a meddling, presumptuous, reading-and-writing, socially and politically powerful ignorance inconceivable by Thomas Aquinas or even Roger Bacon, was incapable of so convenient an arrangement; and science was strangled by bigoted ignoramuses claiming infallibility for their interpretation of the Bible, which was regarded, not as a literature nor even as a book, but partly as an oracle which answered and settled all questions, and partly as a talisman to be carried ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw |
