Best Incredulity Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I'm sorry I was short with him--but I don't like a man to approach me telling me it for my sake. "Maybe it was," said Wylie "It's poor technique." "I'd all for it," said Wylie. "I'm vain as a woman. If anybody pretends to be interested in me, I'll ask for more. I like advice." Stahr shook his head distastefully. Wylie kept on ribbing him--he was one of those to whom this privilege was permitted. "You fall for some kinds of flattery," he said. "this 'little Napoleon stuff.'" "It makes me sick," said Stahr, "but it's not as bad as some man trying to help you." "If you don't like advice, why do you pay me?" "That's a question of merchandise," said Stahr. "I'm a merchant. I want to buy what's in your mind." "You're no merchant," said Wylie. "I knew a lot of them when I was a publicity man, and I agree with Charles Francis Adams." "What did he say?" "He knew them all--Gould, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Astor--and he said there wasn't one he'd care to meet again in the hereafter. Well--they haven't improved since then, and that's why I say you're no merchant." "Adams was probably a sourbelly," said Stahr. "He wanted to be head man himself, but he didn't have the judgement or else the character." "He had brains," said Wylie rather tartly. "It takes more than brains. You writers and artists poop out and get all mixed up, and somebody has to come in and straighten you out." He shrugged his shoulders. "You seem to take things so personally, hating people and worshipping them--always thinking people are so important-especially yourselves. You just ask to be kicked around. I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it--on the inside.”

Restraint Personal Normalcy Incredulity Fi The Last Tycoon

Book:The Last Tycoon

Source: The Last Tycoon

“If you can't show it, you don't know it.”

Atheism Evidence Proof Incredulity Proof Of Existence

Author:Aron Ra

“The theologian Meric Casaubon argued—in his 1668 book, Of Credulity and Incredulity—that witches must exist because, after all, everyone believes in them. Anything that a large number of people believe must be true.”

Science Skepticism Credulity Incredulity Witch Hunts Meric Casaubon

Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?”

Source: THE TWO CULTURES: AND A SECOND LOOK

“I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.”

May Stories My Own Influence Strange Balance Credit Tales Skeptical Seductive Vintage Narrators Incredulity

Book:TARZAN OF THE APES SERIES - Complete Collection: 25 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated): The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, The Son of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed, Tarzan and the Golden Lion, Tarzan the Terrible and many more

Source: TARZAN OF THE APES SERIES - Complete Collection: 25 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated): The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, The Son of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed, Tarzan and the Golden Lion, Tarzan the Terrible and many more

“Those of you who speak only English, applaud [audience applause]. Those of you who speak only Spanish, applaud [audience applause]. [In mock incredulity] Then how do you know what I just said?”

Knows Said Speak Audience Do You Know Applause Mock Incredulity

Author:Gloria Estefan

“When a belief vanishes, there survives it -- more and more vigorously so as to cloak the absence of the power, now lost to us, of imparting reality to new things -- a fetishistic attachment to the old things which it did once animate, as if it was in them and not in ourselves that the divine spark resided, and as if our present incredulity had a contingent cause -- the death of the gods.”

Ifs Reality Belief Lost Causes Divine Absence Attachment Sparks New Things Cloaks Belief In God Old Things Incredulity

Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume I: Swann's Way (A Modern Library E-Book)

Source: In Search of Lost Time, Volume I: Swann's Way (A Modern Library E-Book)

“Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.”

Lost Divine Incredulity

Book:Plutarch's Lives

Source: Plutarch's Lives

“When passion and habit long lie in company it is only slowly and with incredulity that habit awakens to finds its companion fled, itself alone.”

Long Lying Passion Company Habit Companion Incredulity

Book:Wisdom, Wit and Pathos of Ouida

Source: Wisdom, Wit and Pathos of Ouida

“To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt.”

World Lasts Degrees Evidence Guilt Revenge Reasonable Refuge Stubborn Audacity Insolence Incredulity

Book:Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Source: Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

“Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom, which some display, by universal incredulity.”

Universal Display Incredulity

Book:A History of the Earth and Animated Nature: Illus. with 85 Copperplates

Source: A History of the Earth and Animated Nature: Illus. with 85 Copperplates

“Incredulity is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequents of these; and it is very bad, as being accompanied with disingenuity, obstinacy, rudeness, uncharitableness, and the like bad dispositions; from which credulity itself, the other extreme sort of folly, is exempt.”

Kind Causes Mistake Worst Ignorance Extremes Folly Disposition Credulity Rudeness Obstinacy Incredulity

Book:The works of Isaac Barrow

Source: The works of Isaac Barrow

“It's a taboo subject. How the dead are betrayed by the living. We who are living--we who have survived--understand that our guilt is what links us to the dead. At all times we can hear them calling to us, a growing incredulity in their voices, You will not forget me -- will you? How can you forget me? I have no one but you.”

Voice Forget Growing Subjects Calling Guilt All Time Links Survived Betrayed Taboo Forget Me Incredulity

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal "the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry]." He said he didn't know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate's coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”

Ifs Knows Said School Lasts Desire Girl College One Day Method Intention Missions Circles Opening Candidates Ministry Principal Buttons Coats Arcs Brass Dismay Incredulity

Author:Anna Julia Cooper

“Incredulity is not wisdom.”

Incredulity

Author:Charles Spurgeon

“For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.”

Men Long Action Ability Equal Endure Envy Incredulity

Book:The Landmark Thucydides

Source: The Landmark Thucydides

“Sisters don't need words. They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles and frowns and winks - expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and disbelief. Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs - that can undermine any tale you're telling.”

“The human understanding is a revelation from its maker, which can never be disputed or doubted. There can be no scepticism, Pyrrhonism, or incredulity or infidelity here. No prophecies, no miracles are necessary to prove this celestical communication. This revelation has made it certain that two and one make three, and that one is not three nor can three be one. We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfilment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, that is, nature's God, that two and two are equal to four.”

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“Scanning the newspapers and absorbing with a mixture of incredulity and indignation the enormities they report, I conclude that what England lacks today is, quite simply, sense.”

World Today America Modern England Newspapers Reports Mixtures Modern World Absorbing Indignation Incredulity Scanning

Author:Paul Johnson

“The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.”

Believe Self Passion Produce Deception Self Deception Incredulity

Book:Afterlife: An Investigation

Source: Afterlife: An Investigation

“The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.”

Men Believe Enough Natural Teach He Man Ought Internet Free Speech Disposition Scarce Incredulity Wisdom And Experience

Book:The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Source: The Theory of Moral Sentiments

“Looking back through the mists of time, I recall some distinctly religious experiences in my teens--when I was only fourteen years old to be precise. These experiences opened my mind to the idea of a Creator and that caring for other living things was a Christian duty. My parents were not strongly religious at the time and when I announced at that youthful age that I wanted to be a priest, it not unnaturally provoked some incredulity, even mirth. In the same year, I became a vegetarian, which--for family and friends--was even more vexing.”

“There's always this sense of incredulity that writers feel, because they're usually living flat and ordinary lives, because they have to.”

Feels Ordinary Flats Ordinary Life Incredulity

Author:Doris Lessing

“Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.”

Giving Literature Pleasure Return Anticipation Incredulity

Book:Conversations on Some of the Old Poets

Source: Conversations on Some of the Old Poets

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

Source: The Prince

“There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.”

Wells Matter Religion Doubt Easier Historical Vulgar Incredulity

Book:The Fair Mad of Perth

Source: The Fair Mad of Perth

“The Bishop goes on to the human eye, asking rhetorically, and with the implication that there is no answer, 'How could an organ so complex evolve?' This is not an argument, it is simply an affirmation of incredulity.”

Humans Eye Religion Answers Goes On Argument Asking Complexes Evolve Organs Faith In God Affirmation Implications Bishops Human Eyes Incredulity

Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

Source: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

“Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them-with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances, which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro’s warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.”

People Heart Littles Struggle Circumstances Brave Warm Magazines Chains Dozen Appreciated Fascination Tribute Submerged His Smile Incredulity Skimming

Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

Source: The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

“Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms around the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.”

Sometimes Left Language Starting Cages Bunnies Fluffy Incredulity Zoom Greyhounds Around The Bend

Book:Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel

Source: Cloud Atlas (Enhanced Movie Tie-in Edition): A Novel

“A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.…We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it. Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference beween us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick.”