"Credulous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... husband, and with a spirit as high and undaunted as his own, and a mind far more noble and generous, she cherished his honor, as the only treasure which violence or injustice could never wrest from him. Affection is always credulous, and fortunately for her happiness she gave no belief to the high charges which were publicly alleged against him; but placed the most undoubting trust in his assurance, that they were the baseless calumnies of an enemy. Even the many dark shades in his character, which could not escape her ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... peace-makers. It was deemed to be their right and duty, when in their opinion the strife had lasted long enough, to interfere and bring about a reconciliation. The knowledge of this fact led the Lenapes, in aftertimes, to put forward a whimsical claim to dignity, which was accepted by their worthy but credulous historian, Heckewelder. They asserted that while their nation was at the height of power, their ancestors were persuaded by the insidious wiles of the Iroquois to lay aside their arms, for the purpose of assuming the lofty position of universal mediators and arbiters among the Indian nations. ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... of the company: was asked where he got that very neat bag, and the valuable locket? He readily answered, they were a present from Lady Kitty, who was violently in love with him, and he expected to marry her in a short time. He is so credulous that any child might impose on him. I told him that I came from Lord Stirling's, and that he might write by me to Lady Kitty. Accordingly, he wrote a long letter and gave me, which I opened there, and, by desire of Colonel Morris, answered it, when I got to New-York, in Lady Kitty's ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and, as we proceed, we shall become only too familiar with the fact, the singular facility with which, in the total absence of critical discrimination, spurious writings were ascribed by the Fathers to Apostles and their followers.... Credulous piety which attributed writings to every Apostle, and even to Jesus himself, soon found authors for each anonymous work of an edifying character.... In the earlier days of criticism, some writers, without much question, adopted the traditional view as to the authorship of the Epistles, but the ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... all expectation of renewing the felicity of her earlier years, by being restored to the friendship of Mrs Harrel, in whom she had mistaken the kindness of childish intimacy for the sincerity of chosen affection; and though she saw her credulous error with mortification and displeasure, she regretted it with tenderness and sorrow. "What, at last," cried she, "is human felicity, who has tasted, and where is it to be found? If I, who, to others, seem marked out for even a partial possession of it,—distinguished ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... finishes the page of the psalter which he has commenced, writes at the foot that he bequeaths the continuation to his successor, and then goes into the church to die. Nowhere was monastic life to find such docile subjects. Credulous as a child, timid, indolent, inclined to submit and obey, the Irishman alone was capable of lending himself to that complete self-abdication in the hands of the abbot, which we find so deeply marked in the historical and legendary memorials of the Irish Church. One easily recognises ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... stone toward yon shining object Afloat inshore ... I eat my heart to think How all which makes him worthy of more love Must train his ear to catch the siren croon That never else had reached his upland home! And he who failed in proof, how should he arm Another against perils? Ah, false hope And credulous enjoyment! How should I, Life's fool, while wakening ready wit in him, Teach how to shun applause and those bright eyes Of women who pour in the lap of spring Their whole year's substance? They can offer To fill the day much fuller than I could, And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... knew, he must augur some result from it, though his own dejected spirit did not prompt him to deduce a very encouraging one. He thought of all the impostures that are practised upon the credulous, and his imagination suggested some brilliant figures to his mind. He thought at first of declaring to them that the Great Spirit was pleased with the expedition, and was lighting the band on its way with spirit lamps; or that the meteors were the spirits of departed ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... general upright and honest, therefore unsuspecting and credulous. They are too much engrossed with their own business to pry into the conduct of their neighbours, and too indifferent, in point of disposition, to interest themselves in what they conceive to be foreign to their own ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... at least, He thought so, and existence charmed. The credulous indeed are blest, And he who, jealousy disarmed, In sensual sweets his soul doth steep As drunken tramps at nightfall sleep, Or, parable more flattering, As butterflies to blossoms cling. But wretched who anticipates, Whose brain no fond illusions daze, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... vi. I, 341, with "the pomp of a too-credulous day" and the "homeless sound of joy" of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... kind;[132] as if matters so repugnant to nature, could be contrary to such grievous defects of it. For so it often happens, that when a rational medicine is not to be found, any improper and rash one is attempted. But such experiments are to be abandoned to itinerant quacks, and credulous old women. Though even in our days our art is not sufficiently purged of this filth in these cases; seeing the dung of some birds, and the hoofs of quadrupeds are still ordered to be swallowed down by the sick. But whereas chemistry has furnished us with the means of extracting the salts, and ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... as had appeared by his confession, and were exhorted to receive the body with the utmost veneration and pious care, as one by which there was good hope that God would work many miracles. To this the prior and the rest of the credulous confraternity assenting, they went in a body in the evening to the place where the corpse of Ser Ciappelletto lay, and kept a great and solemn vigil over it; and in the morning they made a procession habited ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... been credulous of me, but I felt the boy was telling the truth, and I was deeply sorry he had not stuck to it. So, ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... a warm fur cloak for Amy. Poor Amy! she was but the shadow of her former self, but a shadow very pretty and pleasant to look on. Hester's heart was sore to think of such a bright, good honest creature married to a man like her brother. But she was sure however credulous she might have been, she had done nothing to be ashamed of. Where there was blame it ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Beiroot, where they landed, and where Fakredeen had the political pleasure of exhibiting his new and powerful ally, a prince, an English prince, the brother perhaps of a queen, unquestionably the owner of a splendid yacht, to the admiring eye of all his, at the same time, credulous and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... wounded to observe that the surgeon thought I was insane, for he quoted the above case as a parallel to mine. This I remonstrated against; and, although I could perceive a credulous smile upon his features, I at once cheerfully agreed to put myself under his care. When he retired for the evening, I found that I was indebted for my escape from death to a strange circumstance—the death of my uncle, my father's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... Simon and Harry Ford been as credulous as their companions, they would not have abandoned the mine to the imps and fairies. For ten years, without missing a single day, obstinate and immovable in their convictions, the father and son took their picks, their sticks, and their lamps. They went about searching, sounding the ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... light upon it which it began to lose. Some of them thought hereby to keepe the Moone in her orbe, whereas otherwise she would have fallen downe upon the earth, and the world would have lost one of its lights, for the credulous people believed, that Inchanters, and Witches could bring the Moone ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... been sensual from time immemorial, rough in speech and action because there had been but few men in Britain who had been otherwise since the Romans abandoned the island. He was superstitious and credulous because few were philosophical or gifted with intellectual courage. Yet he had, what was possessed by his contemporaries, a faint and intermittent thirst for knowledge, of which he himself hardly knew ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... There was a childlike and simple quality in his own nature, which made me reach out to him and confide in him as I would have done to one of my own age. Later, I scoffed at this virtue in him as something old-fashioned and credulous. That was when I had reached the age when I was older, I hope, than I shall ever be again. There is no such certainty of knowledge on all subjects as one holds at eighteen and at eighty, and at eighteen I found his care and solicitude irritating ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... drafts was fully executed. It may have been that the unduly favourable representations made to the College respecting John Shakespeare's social and pecuniary position excited suspicion even in the habitually credulous minds of the heralds, or those officers may have deemed the profession of the son, who was conducting the negotiation, a bar to completing the transaction. At any rate, Shakespeare and his father allowed three years to elapse before (as far ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... made a fortuitous expedition to Frankfort-on-the-Main—an expedition partly prompted by the outbreak of cholera at Berlin at the time, and partly by the portent of a dream (he was credulous in such matters) which at the beginning of the year had intimated his death. Here, however, he practically remained until his death, leading a quiet, mechanically regular life and devoting his thoughts to the development of his philosophic ideas, isolated at ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... as possible when our ill-judged kindness sent him to England. At that time he was in Canada, but it was not worth while to give any address. When Mr. Bowyear started the Charity Organization Society in Adelaide, he said I was no good as a visitor; I was too credulous, and had not half enough of the detective in me. But I had not much faith in ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... was revived in these letters of Marsa to Menko:—all the ignorant, credulous love of the young girl for Michel, then her enthusiasm for love itself, rather than for the object of her love, and then, again—for Menko had reserved nothing, but sent all together—the bitter contempt of Marsa, deceived, for the man who ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... me. He expatiated with great profoundness and fertility of ideas, on the uses to which a faculty like this might be employed. No more powerful engine, he said, could be conceived, by which the ignorant and credulous might be moulded to our purposes; managed by a man of ordinary talents, it would open for him the straightest and surest avenues ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... undertone of contempt, the Greeks their [Greek: eyetheia]. Lady Shiel tells us of the modern Persians, 'They have odd names for describing the moral qualities; "Sedakat" means sincerity, honesty, candour; but when a man is said to be possessed of "sedakat," the meaning is that he is a credulous, contemptible simpleton.' [Footnote: Life and Manners in Persia, p. 247.] It is to the honour of the Latin tongue, and very characteristic of the best aspects of Roman life, that 'simplex' and 'simplicitas' never acquired this ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts, by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no designs itself, it suspects none in others. It wears no guards before its breast. Every door and portal and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden, when the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... unless he had had it direct from his famous uncle. These, however, are conjectures, more or less probable. The story may derive from Fray Basilio Ponce de Leon or it may not. It is the kind of story that any unscrupulous person might easily invent and repeat to a too credulous visitor. As it stands, the evidence in its support is, on the face of it, unsatisfactory. The case for the story is perhaps not quite so weak as has been supposed;[200] ingenuity has shown that the case against it may, to some extent, be frittered away.[201] Still, there is no getting over ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... characters! I trust thou art no impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave, is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. I trust that in thee "shall all the families of the earth be blessed," by being yet connected together in a better world, where every tie that bound heart to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far beyond ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that he made the war between the Christian sects. But it would be nearer still to say that the war is something not made by Turks but made up by infidels. The tourist visiting the churches is often incredulous about the tall tales told about them; but he is completely credulous about the tallest of all the tales, the tale that is told against them. He believes in a frantic fraticidal war perpetually waged by Christian against Christian in Jerusalem. It freshens the free sense of adventure to wander through ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... were sitting there in a row because they were all woven into the pattern of one large and rather splendid life. Each had a bond, and each had a grievance. If they could have their will, what would they do with the generous, credulous creature who nourished them, I wondered? How deep a humiliation would each egotism exact? They would scarcely have harmed her in fortune or in person (though I think Miss Julia looked forward to the day when Cressida would "break" and could be mourned over),—but the fire ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... son: not for ever. It is a common lot to be humbled for the credulous confidence of youth. It is a safer and a nobler error, Isaac, than its opposite. It is better than unbelief ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the appearance of flames, which he thought he saw in the waters of the sea, a little way from where our boat was anchored. My father, and some others, who were aware that the sea is sometimes phosphorated, confirmed the poor credulous man in his belief, and added several circumstances which fairly turned his brain. They persuaded him the Arabic sorcerers had fired the sea to prevent us from travelling ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... she was looking for one of those almost incredible excuses which are sometimes accepted by credulous old men when violent passions seize ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... say. Carr, I need hardly mention, I had never suspected for a moment; but Charles—Marston had evidently believed what Charles had said, but I am by nature more cautious and less credulous than Marston. Besides, I had not forgiven Charles yet for trying to incriminate Carr. Not knowing what to say, I ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... style, just a suggestion of a kind of sublimated Bostonese about them, don't you know. Curious! However, the ordinary Martian is gamy, good company, full of happiness, with a considerable fancy for jokes, absurdly addicted to music, and as credulous as a child. Somehow, Dodd, a good deal of my earthly nature has stuck to me, and I revel in a dual life. I have my Martian side, but I can't, and this life can't, knock the old foibles of the world you left, out of me yet. I may get the proper sort of exultation in time, but just now I've ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... her step-daughter, Isabella, in which role he is accepted by Sir Patient. But Isabella has betrothed herself to Lodwick, a son of the pedantic Lady Knowell: whilst Lucretia Knowell loves Leander, the alderman's nephew, in spite of the fact that she is promised by her mother to Sir Credulous Easy, a bumpkinly knight from Devonshire. Lodwick, who is a close friend of Leander, has been previously known to Sir Credulous, and resolving to trick and befool the coxcomb warmly welcomes him on his arrival in town. He persuades ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... young man. His preaching pleased Madam Esmond from the first, and, I daresay, satisfied her as much as Mr. Whitfield's. Of course it cannot be the case at the present day when they are so finely educated, but women, a hundred years ago, were credulous, eager to admire and believe, and apt to imagine all sorts of excellences in the object of their admiration. For weeks, nay, months, Madam Esmond was never tired of hearing Mr. Ward's great glib voice and voluble commonplaces: and, according to her wont, she insisted that her ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pony as he rounded the pool. Stories that he had overheard flashed across his mind, ghastly stories whispered by tremulous native lips into credulous brown ears, of the size of the Thing which dwelt here, of its age, its incredible scaly length and girth, its patient devilish cunning; of the toll it had taken of three generations, tales you would not care to hear—like that of the old blind Bogobo ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... what she called human experience. The evidences had convinced her of nothing but a force as yet unclassified in the scientific categories and all her interest lay in the undeveloped powers of brain which might be discovered in the course of ignorant and credulous experiment. We met therefore on the common ground of rejection of the so-called occultism of the day, though I knew even then, and how infinitely better now, that ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... of Simon the Magician had also been beheld. Rome had seen, or, it may be, thought she believed she had seen, Vespasian cure the halt and the blind with a touch. The atmosphere then was charged with the marvellous. The temples were filled with prodigies, with strange gods, beckoning chimeras, credulous crowds. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... extent the teaching of Galen. The style of these books is elegant, and his description of diseases accurate. Alexander of Tralles was the first to open the jugular vein in disease, and employed iron and other useful remedies, but he lived in superstitious times, and was very credulous. For epilepsy, he recommended a piece of sail from a wrecked vessel, worn round the arm for seven weeks.[30] For colic, he recommended the heart of a lark attached to the right thigh, and for pain in the kidneys ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... any measures pursued to punish the miscreants who disperse them, according to their desserts. However, the wretches who thus impose on the world, finding their account therein, as they certainly do, is a proof of multitudes being as credulous in this affair as Miss Blandy, and account for her being imposed on, in the manner she declares she ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... character of the mining populations there and here he found very great, and, on the whole, he evidently thought the Northern miners much superior, in most essential points, to their fellows at the South. Certainly, according to him, they are neater in their persons, more cool and sensible, less credulous, less addicted to politics, and much more thrifty. 'The women, when they are well-behaved and good managers,' he said, 'have more influence with the men in the North. In the South and in Auvergne, I have sometimes ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... heroes has been glory, would to Washington have been disgrace. To his intrepidity it would have added no honorary trophy, to have waded, like the conqueror of Peru, through the blood of credulous millions, to plant the standard of triumph at the burning mouth of a volcano. To his fame, it would have erected no auxiliary monument to have invaded, like the ravager of Egypt, an innocent though barbarous nation, to inscribe his name ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... very ground over which we had made our way. I had assuredly put great credit on the statements of the solitary old man who visited the Depot, but his information as far as we could judge had turned out to be false; and I was half angry with myself for having been so credulous, well aware as I was of the exaggerations of the natives, and how little dependence can be placed on ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... the public mind on so critical a question, and derange vast transactions and arrangements in the corn trade by its premature divulgement; and, above all, constitute the Globe newspaper their confidential organ upon the occasion, should alone have satisfied the most credulous of its unwarrantable and preposterous character. We acquit the Globe newspaper of intentional mischief, but charge it with great thoughtlessness of consequences. To return, however, for a moment, to that topic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... interest in the process of corruption. With absolute indifference as to the idea of morality, and absolute indifference as to the moral quality of the means used to attain its end, it rejoiced in the superiority of secrecy, of the accomplished and calculating understanding, and in deceiving the credulous by means of ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... Norton, in his sketch of John Cotton, remarks that "the hen, which brings not forth without uncessant sitting night and day, is an apt emblem of students." Certainly the hen is an apt emblem of the "uncessant" sitter, the credulous scratcher, the fussy cackler ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... pretensions, and it would be no matter for surprise if, by virtue of the reputation which they enjoy and of the awe which they inspire, some of them should attain to the highest position of authority over their credulous fellows. In point of fact magicians appear to have often ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Thou who now and then Touched the too credulous ear with pathos, canst not speak? Hast lost thy ready skill of tongue and pen? What, Jester! Tears upon ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... for waggish laborers to deposit old horse shoes and other iron articles where they are at work, for the special pleasure of digging them up for credulous antiquarians, than to find proofs of the existence of the ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and, (though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence, and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun, of mere grief and ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... stone, and in the quiet of the gloaming Cunningham could hear his coarse, lewd voice tossing crumbs of abuse and mockery to the seven or eight villagers who squatted near him—half-amused, half-frightened, and altogether credulous. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... further, and who find it easier to extort a pittance from the spectator, by simulating deformity and debility from which they are exempt, than by such honest labour as their health and strength enable them to perform. In the meantime the credulous public pities and pampers a nuisance which requires only the treadmill and the whip. This art, often successful when employed by dunces, gives irresistible fascination to works which possess intrinsic merit. We are always desirous to know something of the character and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... His imagination was portentous, and the Fifteenth Century was hospitable to this faculty; there was nothing—except plain but unknown facts—too marvelous to be believed; and that Columbus was even more credulous than his contemporaries is proved by the evidence that even facts were not exempt from his entertainment. An ordinary appetite for the marvelous could swallow stories of chimeras dire, and men whose heads do grow beneath their ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the case against the prisoner, and, after deliberating eight or ten hours and being out all night, they returned a verdict of guilty. Flechter broke down and declared bitterly that he was the victim of a conspiracy upon the part of his enemies, assisted by a too credulous prosecuting attorney. Everybody admitted that it was an extraordinary case, but the press was consistent in its clamor against Flechter, and opinion generally was that he had been rightly convicted. On ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... made us believe that it was the frigate. "As likely the Frenchman come to finish us off, or maybe only the Flying Dutchman again," said Stubbs. I thought that I detected a gleam of humour in his eye, as if he was not quite so credulous as he pretended to be. As the stranger approached, the belief that she was the Phoebe gained ground. At length those who knew her best said that there was no doubt about the matter. They were right. ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... several tablespoonfuls, filling up the phial from the faucet at the rough sink in one corner of the room. I replaced the phial, locked the cabinet, and concealing the broken bottle in my dressing-gown, lest I should meet one of the servants, I retraced my steps to my own room. I was not wholly credulous of its marvellous properties, although Hilyard was not given to boasting or lying—except to women—but I believed it at least to be a poison, and I believed that it defied analysis, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... the first time in her life she loved, really and passionately, and felt her heart beat as it had never beat before. Foolish and ignorant, while at the same time credulous and romantic; very near that fatal age—thirty years—which is almost certain to create in woman a great transformation; she now, aided by the memory of every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal who resembled D'Argenton. The ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... quantity. There are also in your machine induction coils for the purpose of making an impressive noise, and a small electric furnace to heat the salted gold. I don't know what other ingenious fakes you have added. The visible bluish light from the tube is designed, I suppose, to hoodwink the credulous, but the dangerous thing about it is the invisible ray that accompanies that light. Mr. Haswell sat under those invisible rays, Prescott, never knowing how deadly they might be to him, an ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... replied I. "The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep. The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium. Tell on." And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything but astounded.... ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... the experience I had had of mankind, I could find no great difficulty in managing a man who liked me, and for whom I not only did not care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he believed to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination to believe! And I took care sometimes to drop words of cottages and love, and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on a man in such a station of life that she might show her love without ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... exalted situation, contrived, by means of forged letters, to make Frederick believe that he held a secret and traitorous intercourse with the Pope, who was then at enmity with the Emperor. In consequence of this supposed crime he was cruelly condemned by his too credulous sovereign to lose his eyes, and, being driven to despair by his unmerited calamity and disgrace, he put an end to his life by dashing out his brains against the walls of a church, in the year 1245. Both Frederick and Pietro delle Vigne composed verses ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... between the physical and the hyperphysical, between the regular course of nature and the providential interruption of that course. The stream of the miraculous is here confluent with the stream of the natural. By such legends the credulous man finds his superstition but little nursed; the incredulous finds his philosophy but little revolted. Both alike will be willing to admit, for instance, that the apparent act of reverential thanksgiving, in certain birds, when drinking, is caused and supported ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... awakens them, showing them on the horizon the returning planters, bringing with them new whips and heavier manacles?—Nothing is more distrustful than such a sentiment in such breasts—quickly alarmed, ready to strike, ready for any act of violence, blindly credulous, headlong and easily impelled, not merely against real enemies on the outside, but at first against imaginary enemies on the inside,[2381] but also against the King, the ministers, the gentry, priests, parliamentarians, orthodox Catholics; against ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... class, who are more apt to profit by anthropology is composed of those in whom there is a decided predominance of good. In some cases they are deficient in selfish and combative energy, do not know how to assert their rights, are credulous and confiding. Children of that character if reared by timid and over-fond parents, are deprived of the rough contact with society that is necessary to their development. There are many whom the lack of self-confidence, the lack of ambition, and lack of business energy condemn to an obscure life, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... their potency. The inspired messenger of the Great Spirit, as he openly proclaimed himself, had boldly promised his followers an easy victory over their enemies. A battle was fought—the Indians were defeated—and the gory form of many a gallant, but credulous "brave," attested that the renowned Prophet had lost, amid the carnage of that nocturnal conflict, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... they can't talk of anything else. It is almost an industry, somewhat scrupulously prepared for the credulous and simple people from the North. They all harp on love: this howling singer, you ... ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... contrast with what the natives had to expect, there has not been one single concession or reward for the credulous Pedro A. Paterno, a Filipino, the only real agent of the miracle of the Peace, to whom they have denied even the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... not getting off. When I see them—and I saw them this morning—they have showy reasons. They do mean to go, but they've postponed it." With which the girl brought out: "They've postponed it for you." He protested so far as a man might without fatuity, since a protest was itself credulous; but Kate, as ever, understood herself. "You've made Milly change her mind. She wants not to miss you—though she wants also not to show she wants you; which is why, as I hinted a moment ago, she may consciously have hung back to-night. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... and relatives have gone before them. They seem simple and primitive enough at first sight, and yet they are as strange and incomprehensible a race as any in the world. They are as superstitious, as credulous of marvels, fairies, magicians, and omens, as the men whom St. Patrick preached to, and at the same time they are shrewd, skeptical, sensible, and bottomless liars. Upon the whole, I met with no nation on my travels whose company I enjoyed so much, or who inspired me with so much kindliness, ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... live only in tradition; but it is surprising to find what singular superstitions still exist among credulous classes, even in the ...
— Myths and Legends of Christmastide • Bertha F. Herrick
... his bosom:—"I have kept this writing alone, as thou knowest," continued the abbot, "for our guidance. Listen again to the confessions of yonder rebellious and it may be credulous priest:— ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... not perhaps already pledged to each other! Very likely Paula had thought of her as merely a credulous child, and so had concealed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tampered with his own concessions, and at last abdicated. His son and successor made a great flourish of proclamations and promises, throwing himself upon the popular sympathy until time enabled him to forswear himself. The credulous people who believed the oaths of kings, generally paid afterwards the penalty of their credulity in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... bent, "Who was the girl, whose cross of stone Bears nothing save these words alone,— 'Emily's Grave'?" "Alas!" she answered, "many a year Hath passed since I beheld her bier; She was young, and came from a humble nest, And credulous too, like all the rest; So a stranger met her here one day And caught her in his net straightway. He said he was rich, and she should shine Like a queen in his castle by the Rhine, And, winning her love, he took her hence To where she found it ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... Whistling Dick's unerring nose caught the scent of frying fish. Like a pointer to a quail, he made his way down the levee side straight to the camp of a credulous and ancient fisherman, whom he charmed with song and story, so that he dined like an admiral, and then like a philosopher annihilated the worst three hours of the day by a nap ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... way the family of the Verdant Greens never got beyond a certain point either in wealth or station, but were always the same unsuspicious, credulous, respectable, easy-going people in one century as another, with the same boundless confidence in their fellow-creatures, and the same readiness to oblige society by putting their names to little bills, merely for form's and ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... knowledge, so that all the playing at occultism by conceited people now seems jejune and foolish. A little machine called the instantaneous photograph takes pictures as quickly and accurately as the human eye does, and besides makes them permanent. Instead of fooling credulous multitudes with responses from Delphi, we have a Congress which can enact tariff regulations susceptible of interpretations enough to satisfy the love of mystery of the entire nation. Instead of loafing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... discerning reader is left to judge. In the Chevalier Duvall will be recognized one of those splendid villains, whose superb rascality is cloaked beneath the mantle of a fine person, elegant address, and the assumption of every quality likely to interest and please the credulous people whom he honors ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... church in Rome named in honor of St. Praxed or Praxedes. The Bishop's Tomb, however, "is entirely fictitious, although something which is made to stand for it is now shown to credulous sightseers." (Mrs. Orr, Handbook to ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... eager interest and pliant imagination that Bessie looked and listened,—susceptible, credulous, unfastidious. To her, the Osmyn of the night was radiant with all heroic qualities and manly graces, the weakly simulated sorrow of Almeria brought real tears to her eyes, and she drew her white shoulders forward with a shudder when the wooden Zara kindled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... and Artifice there appears in any of our Extravagancies, the greater is the Folly of 'em. Upon this score it is that the last mentioned deservedly claim the Preference to all others. They have improved so well their Amusements into an Art, that the credulous and ignorant are induced to believe there is some secret Vertue, some hidden Mystery in those darling Toys of theirs: when all their Bustling amounts to no more than a learned impertinence and all they teach men is ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... Indian chief humorously mentioned by Irving as generously "decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast with his breech clout and leathern leggins, being grand officer at top and ragged Indian at bottom." [Footnote: Bonneville, p. 34.] Whatever may be said by credulous and enthusiastic authors to decorate this Indian pueblo, its houses and its breech-cloth people, cannot conceal the "ragged Indian" therein by dressing him ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... Rebecca rest and let her keep the fancy of Owain as her good ghost of a sun in the mist of a frosty morning; sweeter to her than an image of love, though it were the very love, the love of maidens' dreams, bursting the bud of romance, issuing its flower. Delusive love drove away with a credulous maiden, under an English heaven, on a coach and four, from a windy hill-top, to a crash below, and a stunned recovery in the street of small shops, mud, rain, gloom, language like ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... friendly priest, "O Father Felician! Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders. Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition? Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit?" Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my credulous fancy! Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning." But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered,— "Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me without meaning, Feeling ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... frenzied lips of the half-maddened bridegroom, as his glance flashed on Hazen. "Had you no mercy? Have you no mercy now, that you should torture her young, credulous soul with these fanciful obligations; obligations which no human being has any right to impose upon another, whatsoever the Cause, holy or ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... forbids us to allow witches to live, many persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have purely accidental associations been taken as convincing proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames on the asserted testimony of supernatural circumstances? I will not say that there are no witches; but ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... whining monk art thou? What holy cheat? That would'st encroach upon my credulous ears, And cant'st thus vilely! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... its way into one of the daily papers, with many embellishments, brought crowds of believers in "the night side of nature" to our mischievous youngsters, who were ready to humor the credulous public to the top of its bent. Very many people looked sage, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... from the counterfeiter,—not from the vulgar shams distributed so widely over the world from the well-known manufactories of paintings in France, England, and other parts, which can deceive only the most ignorant or credulous, but from talent itself debased to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... we consider such stories, they were believed by the Normans, who were no less credulous than the Anglo-Saxons. This is evident from the large number of miracles, revelations, visions, and enchantments which are related with great gravity by the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... only too clear to me that my unfortunate brother in the Lord had fallen a victim to the hatred of his fiendish enemy, to the delusion of his judge and the witnesses, and to his own credulous imagination. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,—and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... the amazement of Clay and Nugget, who expected him to oppose Randy's project with all his might. The truth of the matter was that Ned, being a sensible fellow, shared Randy's view, and was rather anxious to see the tables turned on the credulous rustics. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... Imperial family was denied again and again. It has been said from authoritative sources that the Czar did not know him by sight, and that the Czarina knew him only as a superstitious and neurotic woman might know some fortune teller or other charlatan. Nevertheless the credulous public believed him to be the evil spirit of the Imperial circle, and every false move, every unpopular act, was ascribed to his baneful influence. But such a career could not last long, and the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... you she was a woman in a thousand? See now! we ought to have thought of that laundry ourselves; but we didn't, none of us did; we were too credulous and too easily satisfied with the evidence given at the inquest. Well, I'm seventy-seven, but I'm not too old to ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... people as original or as the reverse, with the understanding that originality is the basis of the world's progress. To be original in thought is to add new relationships to those already accepted, or to substitute new ones for the old. The original person is not easily credulous; he applies to traditional teaching and procedure the acid test of results. Thus the astronomers who rejected the theological idea that the earth was the center of the universe observed that eclipses could not be explained on such a basis, and Harvey, as he dissected ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson |
