"Credibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the first—from the days when I was planning The New Republic onward—urged that all doctrines pertaining to particular forms of Christianity were merely parts of a wider question—namely, that of the credibility of supernatural religion of any kind, and that this credibility must be tested, not by an examination of religious doctrines as such, or even of religious emotion in the purer and more direct manifestations of it, but in the indirect effects produced by ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... remarked, that the tidings of important events fly with a celerity almost beyond the power of credibility, and that reports, correct in the general point, though inaccurate in details, precede the certain intelligence, as if carried by the birds of the air. Such rumours anticipate the reality, not unlike to the "shadows of coming events," which occupy the imagination of the Highland ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... conduct of one of our countrymen, acting in the high and solemn capacity to which Mr. King was called, we cannot, however, without doing violence to our own feelings, and criminating numbers of our countrymen, perhaps equally entitled to credibility with Mr. King himself, afford our credence to his singular report; especially when we see it contradicted unconditionally, by the unfortunate witnesses of the unhappy ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... for picturesqueness than for credibility," Thorndyke agreed. "May I ask," he continued, "whether Captain Raggerton's friend gave any explanation as to how this singular story came to his knowledge, or ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... This difference, however, was very far from amounting to inconsistency; but it was sufficient to show, that the hurry of the dispute was such that it was not easy to discover the truth with relation to particular circumstances, and that therefore some deductions were to be made from the credibility ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the Mahdi, the notion makes no electric connection with your nature,—it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. As an hypothesis it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even if he be not one of the Mahdi's followers), the hypothesis is among the mind's possibilities: it is alive. This shows that deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... will not be denied that the three following are among the most important points to be ascertained, in deciding on the credibility of witnesses; first, whether they have the means of gaining correct information; secondly, whether they have any interest in concealing truth, or propagating falsehood; and, thirdly, whether they agree in their testimony. Let us examine ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother Rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe, that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of smoke from the scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure; ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Senate, and among the number have been mentioned M. Ducis, M. de La Fayette, and the Marechal de Rochambeau. The truth is, that no such refusals were ever made. The following fact, however, may have contributed to raise these reports and give them credibility. Bonaparte used frequently to say to persons in his salon and in his cabinet; "You should be a Senator—a man like you should be a Senator." But these complimentary words did not amount to a nomination. To enter the Senate certain legal forms were to be observed. It was necessary to be presented ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the court of Frederick the Great; his sceptical spirit was rapidly becoming fashionable; and now the professors at the Lutheran Universities, and many of the leading Lutheran preachers, were expounding certain radical views, not only on such vexed questions as Biblical inspiration and the credibility of the Gospel narratives, but even on some of the orthodox doctrines set forth in the Augsburg Confession. At Halle University, John Semler propounded new views about the origin of the Bible; at Jena, Griesbach ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... interest which was in the jury's eyes at the beginning gradually die out. He notices how they fall into resigned attitudes. He has a glimmering that the good old legal aphorisms which he has been enunciating with such care about the burden of proof, the weight of evidence, the credibility of witnesses and the caution about sympathy and prejudice, are not very convincing to the jury. But the conventions require ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... length all the questions which the spirit of modern inquiry has raised concerning the books of the Old Testament—their genuineness, integrity, date, chronology, and credibility; their relation to science, to profane history, to each other, and to the New Testament—would far exceed the limits allowed by the plan of the present work. To the Pentateuch alone, or even a single book of it, as Genesis or Deuteronomy; to the books of Chronicles; to Isaiah ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... virgin, Hameltruda, whom he had brought from Britain. They also tell us that, on the sixth day after his baptism, he made a donation of some lands to this monastery.—The details, however, of the circumstances connected with the first, diminish its credibility; and Jumieges, then desolate, could scarcely contain a community capable of accepting the donation. But under the reign of the son and successor of Rollo, the abbey of Jumieges once more rose from its ashes. Baldwin and Gundwin, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Prescott wrote his History of the Conquest, such a theory was quite tenable; but the new historic matter lately made known by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg has given a different aspect to the question. Without attempting to maintain the credibility of this writer's history as a whole, I cannot but think that he has given us satisfactory grounds for believing that the ruined cities of Central America were built by a race which flourished long before the Toltecs; that they were ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... confessedly one of adequate evidence. The evidence for the supreme miracle—the transcendent character of Jesus—is clear, see Part III. chap. iv.; and the miraculous element in the story of his life must be considered in view of this supreme miracle. In association with him his miracles gain in credibility. In estimating the evidence for them their dignity and worthiness is important. What the devout imagination would do in embellishing the story of Jesus is exhibited in the apocryphal gospels; the miracles of the canonical gospels are of an entirely different type, which commends them as authentic. ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... history of the House of Borgia has been culled are not to be examined in a preface. They are too numerous, and they require too minute and individual a consideration that their precise value and degree of credibility may be ascertained. Abundantly shall such examination be made in the course of this history, and in a measure as the need arises to cite evidence for one side or for the other ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... come to pass. So when, laying his hand on his heart, and with gushing floods of tears, Gumbo says, in reply to his master's injunction, "Oh no, master! nebber to nobody!" we are in a condition to judge of the degree of credibility which ought to be ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fits. The only witness you mention is that worthless boy, Sicinius Pudens, in whose name you accuse me. He says that he was present. His extreme youth is no reason why we should reject his sworn evidence, but the fact that he is one of my accusers does detract from his credibility. It would have been easier for you, Aemilianus, and your evidence would have carried much more weight, had you said that you were present at the rite and had been mad ever since, instead of entrusting the whole business to the evidence of boys as though it were a mere joke. A boy had a fit, a ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... clergy, properly so called, however, the prevailing offence was not crime, but licentiousness. A doubt has recently crept in among our historians as to the credibility of the extreme language in which the contemporary writers spoke upon this painful topic. It will scarcely be supposed that the picture has been overdrawn in the act books of the Consistory courts; ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... says he, "a matter of great patience to reasonable men to find people arguing in this manner; objecting against the credibility of such particular things revealed in Scripture, that they do not see the necessity or expediency of them. For, though it is highly right, and the most pious exercise of our understanding, to inquire with due reverence into the ends and reasons of God's dispensations; yet, ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... other tools of crime. The skulls, etc., were sworn to by the constables who had found them. Evidence was lax in that age and place. They all confessed but the landlord. And Manon was called to bring the crime home to him. Her evidence was conclusive. He made a vain attempt to shake her credibility by drawing from her that her own sweetheart had been one of the gang, and that she had held her tongue so long as he was alive. The public prosecutor came to the aid of his witness, and elicited that a knife had been held to her throat, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... John Fiske accepts the narratives as history, and Edward Arber, who has edited them (2 vols., 1884), holds that the "General History" (1624) is more reliable than the "True Relation" (1608). On the other side, as doubters of Smith's credibility, are ranged such weighty authorities as Charles Deane, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... Were you out? Love to Jane." Mrs. Dyson denied that she had known of an accident which Peace had had to his foot at this time. In spite of the ruling of the magistrate that Mr. Clegg had put forward quite enough, if true, to damage Mrs. Dyson's credibility, he continued to press her as to her authorship of these notes and letters, but Mrs. Dyson was firm in her repudiation of them. She was equally firm in denying that anything in the nature of a struggle had taken place between Peace and her ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... not bear—it could at no time, not even in the most theological of ages, have borne—the more searching tests of realism, of verisimilitude, and credibility. It is all the greater skill in the poet that by his careful handling of our imagination and feelings he actually does produce "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith." The less it will endure the trial as a system ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... some of those medical works where one may find recorded various rare and almost incredible cases, which may not have their like for a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so as to give a new lease of credibility to stories which had come to be looked upon ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was the evidence of a native of India to which he might refer on this subject. It was that of a gentleman, a native of Delhi, who was in England in the year 1849, and he could appeal to the right hon. baronet the member for Tamworth in favour of the credibility of that gentleman. He never met with a man of a more dignified character, or one apparently of greater intelligence, and there were few who spoke the English language with greater purity and perfection. ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... which have been drawn from that evidence. So, here we must pass, in the first place, to the consideration of a matter which may seem foreign to the question under discussion. We must dwell upon the nature of the records, and the credibility of the evidence they contain; we must look to the completeness or incompleteness of those records themselves, before we turn to that which they contain and reveal. The question of the credibility of the history, happily ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... be found collected in the fourth volume of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History; abstracts of them, with ample references, in Mosheim and Neander's Ecclesiastical Histories, and in Stanley's ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the ritual of the holy animals." And Hengstenberg, in his learned work on "Egypt and the Books of Moses," conclusively shows, by numerous examples, how direct were the Egyptian references of the Pentateuch; in which fact, indeed, he recognizes "one of the most powerful arguments for its credibility and for its composition by Moses."—HENGSTENBERG, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... not been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world, and protect America's credibility, interests, and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... is it not like and how is it like other books? How is it the record of a revelation from God? What can be said of its structure? What can be said of its books, of its groups of books? What can be said of its credibility? Give the arguments from history, ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... were hurt by her. She further confessed, that, "she was at the great meeting in Mr. Parris's pasture, when they administered the sacrament, and did eat of the red bread and drink of the red wine, at the same time." This confession established her credibility at once; and, the next day, the warrants were issued for the nine persons above mentioned, against whom they had secured in her an effective witness. She had resided for some time at Casco Bay; and we shall soon ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... words, is found in the Book of Joshua (xv. 15-19), and here we are told no less explicitly that the incident happened during the lifetime of Joshua. There is no doubt that the incident happened; it is a simple and natural story, and carries the marks of credibility upon its face; but if it happened after the death of Joshua it did not happen before his death; one of these narrators borrowed the story from the other, or else both borrowed it from a common source; and one of them, certainly, ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... is desired to believe, that those Poems were actually composed within such limits of time; nor was there any reason why a prose statement should acquaint the Reader with the plain fact, to the disturbance of poetic credibility. But, in the present case, I am compelled to mention, that the above series of Sonnets was the growth of many years;—the one which stands the 14th was the first produced; and others were added upon occasional visits to the Stream, or as recollections of the scenes upon its banks awakened a wish ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... which are the highest in the world. When shelling was severe they locked up their houses and disappeared mysteriously for a day or two until a renewed lull enabled them to restart their profitable shop-keeping. Many alleged spies lived here unharassed, especially in the outlying farms; and credibility was lent to the current tales by the number of carrier pigeons seen passing over the lines, or by the incident of the two dogs which suddenly appeared early one dawn from the German lines, leapt our trenches, and were lost ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... evil, ever befell New England, from its settlement down to revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of its nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the coloured, magnifying, and distorted medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. It was, indeed, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... haunting sense of magic in art, which comes out over and over again in Homer—in the golden maids, for instance, who assist Hephaestus in his work, and similar details which seem at first sight to destroy the credibility of the whole picture, and make of it a mere wonder-land—is itself also, rightly understood, a testimony to a real excellence in the art of Homer's time. It is sometimes said that works of art held to be miraculous are always of an inferior kind; but at least ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the daring criminal—daring beyond all bounds of credibility. And whatever might be the dexterity, the ingenuity, the ability, the devotion of those who were pursuing him, such were his tricks, such his craft and cunning, such the fertility of his invention, so well conceived his devices, so great his audacity, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... that the size of the lie always involves a certain factor of credibility, since the great mass of a people will be more spoiled in the innermost depths of its heart, rather than consciously and deliberately bad. Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... choose but grant it, though with something of a sneer, and the work was begun. He walked up and down with Robert, joining in hopes that the lady would be satisfied before dinner- time. The two clergymen likewise walked together, arguing, as was their wont, on the credibility of apparitions. The two ladies stood in almost breathless watch, as the bricks that had covered in the opening were removed, and the dark hole brought to light. Contrary to expectation, when the opening ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... translation I have not deviated from the gist of events, but I have taken the liberty of making a variety of omissions and emendations, with the aim of adding credibility to some of the events, such as those noted above. I have also prefaced some of his anecdotes, which he retails as fact, with the words "It is believed that..." or ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... so much detail that the only way to combat them was by the general assertion that they were illusory. This was felt to be a very unsatisfactory method of procedure, as far as the public was concerned, because it amounted to no more than attacking the credibility of a witness who pretended to describe only what he himself had seen—and there is nothing so hard ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... swept aside, except what is contained in the Gospels. S. Paul, who had been an object of admiration to the earlier Deists, is the object of Bolingbroke's special abhorrence. And not only is the credibility of the Gospel writers impugned, Christ's own teaching and character are also carped at. Christ's conduct was 'reserved and cautious; His language mystical and parabolical. He gives no complete system of morality. His Sermon on the Mount gives some precepts which are impracticable, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... There is none of the far-fetched, impossible exaggeration—the form of burlesque which Theodore Hook or Albert Smith might have attempted. It is, in fact, a real speech, which might have been delivered to a dull-headed audience without much impairing credibility. Apart from this it is a most effective harangue and most plausible statement of the ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... Paley did not believe in his own book. No one could have rested satisfied with it for moment, if he felt that he was on really strong ground. Besides, how insufficient for their purpose are his examples of discrepancies which do not impair the credibility of the ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... Newman declared to be the greatest man in the Anglican Church, wrote, at the conclusion of the first chapter of his great work, The Analogy of Religion, the chapter which treats of a future life, these pregnant words: "This credibility of a future life, which has been here insisted upon, how little soever it may satisfy our curiosity, seems to answer all the purposes of religion, in like manner as a demonstrative proof would. Indeed a proof, even ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... succeeded the above as Foreign Secretary), when a young man, quartered with his regiment in Ireland, saw the apparition of "The Radiant Boy," said to be an omen of good. Sir Walter Scott speaks of him as one of two persons "of sense and credibility, who both attested supernatural appearances on their ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... the presence of women in affairs of business is an intrusive evil of times out of joint. Now, since matters of life and liberty were in the balance, the primitive denizens of Witch-Face Mountain felt that the admission of Narcissa Hanway's testimony to consideration and credibility evinced an essential defect in the law of the land, and the fallibility of all human reasoning. What distorted impression might not so appalling an event make upon one so young, so feminine, so inexperienced! What exaggerated wild thing might she ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of the credibility of the Libellus Synodicus, a compilation of the ninth century, see Hefele, History ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... opposition with the father of the invincible and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying processes of Reason as to take the character of exact history. In any case, however, where it shall be found contumaciously slighting credibility, and refusing to be reduced to anything like probable fact, we shall beg that we may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Commission speaks of this as a "somewhat curious" case. We wonder how the punished woman described it. Afterwards, the case was reopened, and "evidence was given calculated to throw the gravest doubts on the credibility of the informers" against these five women. What was then done? Were the informers punished for giving false evidence designed to work incalculable injury to five innocent women? Not at all. A few days later the same informers were employed again as ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... crown grants to his own family. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way of putting things together his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the House of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk, he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst "he lies floating many a rood," he is still ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... independent, serving the state only for the love of his country, abhorring office and the task of governing, but wise and prudent, neither to be led by any art or trickery to do what is not just, nor even to entertain base suspicions of another, without some very specious cause to give them credibility. This is strange, Laura, and I do not understand it. Did your father express a wish that you should see me, so that I may act openly in ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... elevate the study of history from its present crude and informal state, and do what he may toward placing it in its proper rank, as the head and chief of all the sciences. Even then, he cannot perform his task unless his materials are ample, and derived from sources of unquestioned credibility. But if his facts are sufficiently numerous; if they are very diversified; if they have been collected from such various quarters that they can check and confront each other, so as to do away with all suspicion ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... the fact that he wanted, and Dock Vincent was put upon the stand. The learned counsel adroitly conveyed the information that the witness had been convicted of crime, and had served a term in the state prison—which, though it did not exclude him from giving evidence, might affect his credibility. This statement roused the ire of Dock, and he was cross and sullen, which is a very bad state of mind to be in when subjected to the torture of a ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... do what they pleased and drift where they could without him. It is reported he has since declared his life to be in danger, and even applied to his Consul for protection. This seems to pass the bounds of credibility; but the movements of Baron Senfft von Pilsach have been throughout so agitated and so unexpected that we know not what to look for; and the signatories of the annexed addresses, if they were accused to-morrow of a design on the man's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... really departed in quest of adventure from a dominion that afforded no scope for a desultory and eager ambition; and that something of truth lurks beneath many of the rich embellishments which his wanderings and exploits received from the exuberant poetry and the rude credibility of the age. During his absence, Menestheus, of the royal race of Attica, who, Plutarch simply tells us, was the first of mankind that undertook the profession of a demagogue, ingratiated himself with the people, or rather with the nobles. The absence of a king is always the nurse of seditions, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cover of that unsuggestive title; so that the curious reader of little faith shall have difficulty if he resolves to discover the whereabouts of the village and to inquire respecting the author's claim to credibility as a historian. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... I am convinced of the truth of the story told by Miss Smithers. It would to my mind be impossible for any man, whose intelligence had been trained by years of experience in this and other courts, and whose daily duty it is to discriminate as to the credibility of testimony, to disbelieve the history so circumstantially detailed in the box by Miss Smithers (Sensation). I watched her demeanour both under examination and cross-examination very closely indeed, and I am convinced ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... harmonised into one continuous Narrative. 2. The Acts of the Apostles, and continuous History of St. Paul. 3. An Analysis of the Epistles and Book of Revelation. 4. An Introductory Outline of the Geography, Critical History, Authenticity, Credibility, and Inspiration of the New Testament. The whole illustrated by copious Historical, Geographical, and Antiquarian Notes, Chronological ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Mr. Mill is unjust towards the distinction between Knowledge and Belief, as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes ample amends to the injured theory in the next chapter, by enlarging the province of credibility far beyond any extent which Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming for it. Conceivability or inconceivability, he tells us, are usually dependent on association; and it is quite possible that, under other associations, ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... the hero of the Nile. Had I not been an eye-witness to this disgraceful act, I would not have ventured to relate it." (Gordon's Memoirs, vol. i. p, 210.) The author, also, would not have ventured to adduce it, without first satisfying himself, by inquiry, as to the probable credibility of Mr. Gordon, and likewise testing his narrative. It bears marks of the inaccuracy in details to which memory is subject, but the indications of general ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... happened in America; that is one reason for believing it. Another land would absorb it, or at least give a background to shadow over its likelihood, the scenery and atmosphere to lend an evanescent credibility, changing it in time to a mere legend, a tale told out of the hazy distance. But in America it obtrudes; it stares eternally on in all its stark unforgetfulness, absorbing its background, constantly ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the taste, perhaps, rather than the virtue, of this cultivated age, a graver irony, a more skilful and delicate banter is substituted in its place. An eloquent historian, beside his more direct, and therefore fairer, attacks upon the credibility of Evangelic story, has contrived to weave into his narration one continued sneer upon the cause of Christianity, and upon the writings and characters of its ancient patrons. The knowledge which this author possesses of the frame and conduct of the human mind must have led him to observe, ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... disappeared. Where he went and what he did between those hours nobody ever knew. Gadbut swore that twice he had met him coming out of a stockbroker's office in Threadneedle Street, and, improbable though the statement at first appeared, some colour of credibility began to attach to it when we reflected upon the dog's inordinate passion for acquiring ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... same pattern. We do not find perfect consistency in his philosophy; and still less have we any right to demand this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe that while employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give credibility to his tales, he is not disposed to insist upon their literal truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, 'Something of the kind is true;' or, as in the Gorgias, 'This you will think to be an old wife's tale, but you can think of nothing ...
— Statesman • Plato
... details and different versions arose. What was conceivable as happening, in view of the baseness and lewdness of the pair, was noised abroad as having already taken place, and reports possessing some credibility were believed as true. The populace, seeing Agrippina now for the first time without Pretorians, took care not to fall in with her even by accident; and if any one did chance to meet her he would hastily get out of the way without saying ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... papa about them, I don't understand business; but I want to tell you about Sir Rupert. The Society for Psychical Research sent down a Committee to inquire into the credibility of the ghost, and recorded four authentic apparitions in the spare bedroom; and on family evidence accepted at least three events in the Long Gallery. It was just after their report was issued that papa was invited to lease the house to some Americans for the summer. He always gets a good ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... CREDIBILITY OF HISTORY.—At the opposite pole from credulity is an unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged in writing his History ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... those, which the laws of nations would have given. These articles require that the declarations made in the presence of consuls, and certified by them, shall be received in evidence in all courts whatever: and, in some instances, give to their certificates a credibility which excludes all other testimony. The cases are rare, in which our laws admit written evidence of facts; and such evidence, when admitted, must have been given in the presence of both parties, and must contain the answers to all the pertinent questions, which they ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... so well in their own coin, that they also duly hanged themselves. It must be admitted that the fact of the same kind of death having been chosen by them, and by the objects of Archilochus' derision, does not increase greatly the credibility of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... has sought to give credibility and respectability to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to the uninformed public that Harvard University ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... Every thing is regulated by what we call natural means. But, in the times I speak of, all was mysterious: the powers of men were subject to no recognised laws: and therefore nothing that imagination could suggest, exceeded the bounds of credibility. Some men were supposed to be so rarely endowed that "a thousand liveried angels" waited on them invisibly, to execute their behests for the benefit of those they favoured; while, much oftener, the perverse and crookedly disposed, who delighted in mischief, would ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... miracles were really performed, or not, depends entirely upon the credibility of the authors themselves who have thus quoted! which, as shall be shown hereafter, may be disputed; and, thirdly, it could be retorted upon Protestants, that this same argument is the same in principle with the often refuted popish argumentation. ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... connexion betwixt Henry's supposed death and the descent of Conachar and his followers, though adopted by her in a moment of extreme and engrossing emotion, was sufficiently probable to have been received for truth, even if her understanding had been at leisure to examine its credibility. Without knowing what she sought except the general desire to know the worst of the dreadful report, she hurried forward to the very spot which of all others her feelings of the preceding day would ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... and the Pharisee are still with us. "Establish the credibility of the miracles of Jesus, or, better still, let Him work a miracle to-day, and we will believe," they say. This age is credulous; it hungers to believe the extraordinary. Yet, while it is running after folly, it is blind to the most extraordinary fact, the most stupendous ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... marshes; the rest is either craggy rock or a parched soil; and had it even been possible to break through these obstructions, the toil had been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day there remain traces of his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... beginning of this Kenneth's reign. Buchanan's narrative, carefully distilled from all the ancient Scottish sources, is of admirable quality for style and otherwise quiet, brief, with perfect clearness, perfect credibility even, except that semi-miraculous appendage of the Ploughmen, Hay and Sons, always hanging to the tail of it; the grain of possible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's art! [6] In brief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human bones and armor ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... must allow it as one of the requisites of our admission to our original standing in the Union. To-day the negro is as competent a witness in our State as the white man, made so by the action of the convention. The credibility of the witness is to be determined by the jurors and justices. If you refuse his testimony, as is being done, the result will be the military courts and Freedmen's Bureau will take it up, and jurisdiction is lost, and those who best know ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... the least of the many extraordinary circumstances attending the city of Timbuctoo, that no two travellers agree in their account of it; and for this reason it is most difficult to decide, to whom the greatest credibility should be awarded, or, on the other hand, whether some of them, who pretend to have resided within its walls, ever visited it at all. The contradictions of the respective travellers are in many instances so gross, that it is scarcely ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... looking out for some sign of home, was seized with a doubt of the credibility of her senses. It was on the tip of her tongue to say "This must be the house of some other Mr. Hastings," when she remembered prudence, and said nothing. Getting out and going toward the house to inquire, the door opened, and a man in a rough mining suit ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... bring forward any one," said Charles, addressing Lanyere, "Sir Giles must be set right on one point in which he is in error. Your credibility is not to be disputed, and I accept your ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... however, are but pleasing fantasies, the cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets, the poets, to which I would not have my judicious readers attach any credibility. Neither am I disposed to credit an ancient and rather apocryphal historian who asserts that the ingenious Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of one of his windmills; nor a writer of latter ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... things, consistently with your honor and the duties you will owe to a protecting nation. Such a communication among individuals may be mutually beneficial to the contending parties. On this or any future occasion, if I affirm to you any facts, your knowledge of me will enable you to decide on their credibility; if I hazard opinions on the dispositions of men or other speculative points, you can only know they are my opinions. My best wishes for your felicity attend you wherever you go; and believe ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... should really see them, and hear their voices, and hold them in her arms, to-morrow, seemed to her a thing impossible, beyond credibility or dream. Then she said to herself that it all depended on what ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... a tolerable full view of the case, and will see that no possible censure can attach to Mr. Jefferson; that a diversity of opinion will arise from publication as to your father's credibility or mine, and that both may suffer in the Public estimation. I will conclude that, during my long life, I have scarcely ever known an instance of newspaper publication between A. and B. that some obloquy did not attach ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and her glance was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had dug for her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively subdued, and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... the reason to accept the conclusion, from which unaided it recoils. The affections and emotions are eminently the court of appeal in matters of real religion, which is an affair of the heart; but they are not, I submit, the court in which to weigh allegations regarding the credibility of physical facts. These must be judged by the dry light of the intellect alone, appeals to the affections being reserved for cases where moral elevation, and not historic conviction, is the aim. It is, moreover, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... is fretted with little indentations; hence its name, El-Shurum—"the Creeks." Near one of these baylets, Wellsted chanced upon "volcanic rocks which are not found in any other part of the peninsula:" this sporadic outbreak gives credibility to the little "Harrah" reported to be found upon the bank of the Midianitish "Wady Sukk." A hideous, horrid reef, dirty brown and muddy green, with white horses madly charging the black diabolitos, whose ugly heads form chevaux de frise, a stony tongue based upon Tiran Island, and ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... strange, weird sight, this forest beneath the river; the waters wash over the broken tree-tops, fish swim among the leafless branches: it is desolate, spectre-like, beyond all words. Scientific men who have examined the field with a view to determining the credibility of the legend about the bridge are convinced that it is essentially true. Believed in by many tribes, attested by the appearance of the locality, and confirmed by geological investigation, it is surely entitled to be received as a ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... intended to be lighter matter on the fashions, foibles, and prominent characters of the day. Gibbon owns the authorship of the first article on Lord Lyttelton's history of Henry the Second, and his hand is discernible in the account of the fourth volume of Lardner's work On the Credibility of the Gospel History. The first has no merit beyond a faithful report. The latter is written with much more zest and vigour, and shows the interest that he already took in Christian antiquities. Other articles, evidently from the pen of Deyverdun, on the English theatre and Beau ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... Marmontel, would "render virtue amiable" in his Contes Moraux (1761), and cure the ravage of passion with a canary's song. His more ambitious Belisaire seems to a modern reader a masterpiece in the genre ennuyeux. His Incas is exotic without colour or credibility. Florian, with little skill, imitated the Incas and Telemaque, or was feebly idyllic and conventionally pastoral as a follower of the Swiss Gessner. Restif de la Bretonne could be gross, corrupt, declamatory, sentimental, humanitarian in turns or all ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... possesses 'the notes' of a true Church. This was the aspect of the question which engaged Bradlaugh's attention. He was critical, legal. He took objections, insisted on discrepancies, cross-examined as to credibility, and came to the conclusion that the case for the supernatural was not made out. And this he did not after the first-class fashion in the study or in octavo volumes, but in the street. His audiences were not Mr. Mudie's subscribers, but men and women ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... enemy. And as continual reports declared, most exceeding pains were taken in the palace, that the despatches of Romanus, which contained many most unfavourable statements respecting Firmus, should be received and read by the prince; while many circumstances strengthened their credibility. And, on the other hand, that those documents which Firmus frequently, for the sake of his own safety, endeavoured to lay before the emperor by the agency of his friends, should be kept from his sight as long as possible, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for living ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... for a whole half-year, I once escaped my Sunday flogging. It came as regularly as the baked rice-puddings. I began to look upon the thing as a matter of course; and, if any person should doubt the credibility of this, or any other account of these my school-boy days, happily there are several now living who can vouch for its veracity, and if I am dared to the proof by anyone by whose conviction I should feel honoured, that proof ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of earth of the most exquisite verdure, enamelled with the sweetest wild flowers, seemed to promise the goats and a few straggling cows luxurious herbage. How silent and peaceful was the scene! I gazed around with rapture, and felt more of that spontaneous pleasure which gives credibility to our expectation of happiness than I had for a long, long time before. I forgot the horrors I had witnessed in France, which had cast a gloom over all nature, and suffering the enthusiasm of my character—too often, gracious God! damped by the tears ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the legend is not, nor should it be, a proof of belief in Christ and Christianity. This view is well voiced by Rev. Dr. Campbell, in his "New Theology," when he says "The credibility and significance of Christianity are in no way affected by the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, otherwise than that the belief tends to put a barrier between Jesus and the race, and to make him something that ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... century, whose work on natural history, in thirteen folio volumes, contains with much that is valuable a large proportion of fables and inutilities. In particular he is so ample on the subject of the cock and the bull that from his practice, all rambling, gossiping tales of doubtful credibility are called COCK AND BULL STORIES. Aldrovandus, however, deserves our respect and esteem as the founder of a botanic garden, and as a pioneer in the now prevalent custom of making scientific collections for purposes ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... will be more fully manifested by duly attending to the following narration. Setting aside all minor matters, I shall relate only those of the greatest importance, which are well worthy of commemoration, and those which I have personally seen, or heard of from men of credibility. I shall now speak with much care concerning those parts most recently discovered, and without any romantic ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... said he, "to this idle and mischievous rumour. Means have been used to discover its likelihood or credibility, but we find it to be utterly false and unworthy of our notice. The inventor of these tales shall ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... yet its style remains. Darwin has no more destroyed the style of Job nor of Handel than Martin Luther destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions get disproved sooner or later; and so we find the world full of a magnificent debris of artistic fossils, with the matter-of-fact credibility gone clean out of them, but the form still splendid. And that is why the old masters play the deuce with our mere susceptibles. Your Royal Academician thinks he can get the style of Giotto without Giotto's beliefs, and correct his perspective into the bargain. Your man of letters thinks he can ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... so puzzling a question. To have avowed the truth might, in those times, have occasioned his being burnt at a stake, although, in ours, his confession would have only gained for him the credit of a liar beyond all rational credibility. He was fortunately relieved by the return of Sir Piercie Shafton himself, whose ear caught, as he entered, the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... protest I don't understand him, nor do I conceive what the residue of the personal estate will amount to; but not to much, as the opinion of the family is. The reports, and belief of those who are not in the secret, are out of all credibility. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... conversation between Sir Walter, his brother Carew, and Mr. Ironside at Sir George Trenchard's table, but as Mr. Ironside was himself subsequently sworn and examined, it is better to quote his own words. It is significant of the credibility of these witnesses, that the evidence of Jefferies, although he merely reported what Mr. Ironside had told him of the conversation, and could not remember all that had been said, tallies completely with the evidence of the ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... by the Indians at the second Stanwix Treaty, there is only one other source which lends any credibility to the Pine Creek view, and that is Smith's Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. After the last treaty was made acquiring Pennsylvania lands from the Indians, the legislature, in order to quell disputes about ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... past-time, implies the conception of infinite past-time, which is an impossibility. To this let us add, that even were self-existence conceivable, it would not in any sense be an explanation of the Universe.... It is not a question of probability, or credibility, but ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... June a seizure was made of a sloop fastened to the wharf, by an armed force, and the seizure carried by violence to the man-of-war. That this seizure was made with every circumstance of violence and insult which could irritate a mob, is proved by the oaths of thirteen eye-witnesses whose credibility has never been impeached. Unhappily, the irritation succeeded but too well. The collector and comptroller who made the seizure in that manner were treated with great indignity and personal injury by ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... of it as to give an account what it is that shall keep together a material and immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken the credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity; and I persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point much weakened by that difficulty.... But you will say, you speak only ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... a very strange one, when it is considered that the native was a very spare and weak man, so that either of the police ought to have been able to keep him at arm's length; but to say that he seized both their guns is beyond all credibility. The natives were sitting down when the police arrived. How they could therefore find a wallet upon the murdered man, I cannot conceive; since the natives never have their wallets slung, except when moving; and it certainly is not probable, that the man, in spite ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... this has also arisen from the expectation, that the larger or more complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. Add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; but then the want of analogy must ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... Probability. — N. probability, likelihood; credibleness[obs3]; likeliness &c. adj.; vraisemblance[Fr], verisimilitude, plausibility; color, semblance, show of; presumption; presumptive evidence, circumstantial evidence; credibility. reasonable chance, fair chance, good chance, favorable chance, reasonable prospect, fair prospect, good prospect, favorable prospect; prospect, wellgrounded hope; chance &c. 156. V. be probable ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... self-consistent; every thing shall be internally coherent and reconciled, whatever be its external relations as to our human experience. But this species of assumption, on the largest scale, is more within the limits of credibility and plausible verisimilitude when applied to modes of existence, which, after all, are in such total darkness to us, (the limits of the possible being so undefined and shadowy as to what can or cannot exist,) than the very slightest liberties taken with human character, or with those principles ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... of credibility in general. It need hardly be said that the lay-journalist and newspaper reporter have usually been ignored by us, simply because experience and investigation have many times proved that a scientific fact, by presentation ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... it might soften his enmity. I found, by his manner, that he had never, from the committee box, looked at him. He broke forth again, after a pause of Some length,—"Wonderful indeed! almost past credibility, is such a reverse! He that, so lately, had the Eastern world nearly at his beck; he, under whose tyrant power princes and potentates sunk and trembled; he, whose authority was without ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay |
