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Credulity   /krɪdˈuləti/   Listen
Credulity

noun
1.
Tendency to believe readily.



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"Credulity" Quotes from Famous Books



... office of a well known review conducted by a journalist of boundless philanthropy and credulity. Mr. Place—as I will call him—was within, and I at once ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... in some degree the province of the female Gipsy. She affects to tell the future, and to prepare philters by means of which love can be awakened in any individual towards any particular object; and such is the credulity of the human race, even in the more enlightened countries, that the profits arising from their practices are great. The following is a case in point:—Two females, neighbours and friends, were tried some years ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... my heart. And some day I hope to be able to restore to her the money which I have lost through my credulity." ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... was being exorcised within. Now Fra Colonna had a way of uttering a curious sort of little moan, when things Zeno or Epicurus would not have swallowed were presented to him as facts. This moan conveyed to such as had often heard it not only strong dissent, but pity for human credulity, ignorance, and error, especially of course when it blinded men ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... opinion, nurture an opinion, cherish an opinion &c n.. view as, consider as, take as, hold as, conceive as, regard as, esteem as, deem as, look upon as, account as, set down as; surmise &c 514. get it into one's head, take it into one's head; come round to an opinion; swallow &c (credulity) 486. cause to be believed &c v.; satisfy, persuade, have the ear of, gain the confidence of, assure; convince, convict^, convert; wean, bring round; bring over, win over; indoctrinate &c (teach) 537; cram down the throat; produce conviction, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... no case have been found trivial. As with Zinzendorf and his united brethren, so with Wesley and his co-workers and disciples. Their aims were exalted, their labours noble, the results which they achieved were immense. But intermingled with it all there was so much weakness and credulity, so much weight given to the workings of a heated and over-wrought imagination, so many openings to a blind fanaticism, such morbid extravagances, so much from which sober reason and cultivated intellect shrank ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... table, lifted up the boy's chin, and looked into his eyes. "My dear young friend," he said, "I fear you have fallen into evil ways since you passed out of the range of my beneficent influence. But you should not try to impose so glittering a romance on the verdant credulity of an old acquaintance at the first meeting in ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... for the use of patent medicines is mysticism. Ignorance is the mother of credulity. It is reported[13] that Cato, the elder, recommended cabbages as a panacea for all sorts of ills, that he treated dislocations of the limbs by incantations, and ordered the Greek physicians out of Rome. ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... from experience that he never deceived them. At the first, when in a frank manner he told them the exact time the fish had been landed, some were inclined to laugh, and others to be angry, fancying that he was practising on their credulity; but the more generous soon saw, from the honest blush which rose on his cheeks when he assured them that he was simply saying what he knew to be the case, that he was really speaking the truth. He ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston

... if travellers sometimes impose on the credulity of mankind, they are often also not believed when they speak the truth. Credulity and scepticism are indeed but different names for the same hasty judgment on insufficient evidence: and, as the old woman readily assented that there ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... in the story is that from which the title is derived. Of all people who ever lived, the Persians were perhaps most remarkable for their unshaken credulity in amulets, spells, periapts, and similar charms, framed, it was said, under the influence of particular planets, and bestowing high medical powers, as well as the means of advancing men's fortunes in various manners. A story of this kind, relating to a Crusader of ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... although the thing sounds so preposterous, a child might be expected to scoff at it. A man to get a magic belt; to put it on, and then to melt away? Why, the 'Seven-league Boots' couldn't be a greater tax on one's credulity. Sit down and tell ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Quentin, somewhat indignant that the chiromantist should thus practise on his credulity, and endeavour to found a reputation by predicting the ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... man until he finished. By that time the storm had ceased and the sky, suddenly clearing in the west, revealed the last rays of the setting sun, which brightened the room for a few moments. I laughed softly when Uncle Ashby went out, and all that I had heard of the ignorance, credulity, and superstition of the Southern negro came into my mind. I sat for a while, musing in the gathering dusk, and then went ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... about Durnovo. He was not suitably got up. Your bar-room prospective millionaire is usually a jolly fellow, quite prepared to quench any man's thirst for liquor or information so long as credit and credulity will last. There was nothing jolly or sanguine about Durnovo. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat his dark eyes flashed in a fierce excitement. His hand was unsteady. He had allowed the excellent cigar to go out. The man was full of quinine and fever, in ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... where and every when exercised mortal curiosity. Fear and credulity support the arms of superstition, fierce as city griffins, rampant as the lion and the unicorn; and forasmuch as no creature, Nelson not excepted, can truly boast of having never known fear, and no man also—from polite ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... desire to drink of it. Yet who would not have been moved by the strange working of events which made the old woman's prophecy seem the true reading of a future beyond guess or reasonable forecast? I jeered and snarled at myself, at Betty, at her prophecy, at the Vicar's credulity. But the notion would not be expelled; two parts stood accomplished, but the third remained. "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promised!"—I forget how it runs on, for it is long since ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... and customs of the North in the twelfth century; the state of the arts and the amount of science known to the educated. It abounds in sound morals, and its author might have sate at the feet of Adam Smith for the orthodoxy of his political economy. He is not entirely free from the credulity of his age and his account of Ireland will match anything to be found in Sir John Mandeville. Here we are told of an island on which nothing rots, of another on which nothing dies, of another on one-half of which devils alone reside, of wonderful monsters and animals, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... searched and submitted to a very disquieting third degree. When they asked him in violent explosive tones what he went into Germany for, he replied in his mild, unexcited Western voice—to give his brother-in-law some money. All Europe is accustomed to crazy Americans of course, but this strained credulity to the breaking point; for nobody who has not tried to travel in the war countries can realize the sheer unbelievability of such guilelessness. The British laughed loud and long. His papers were taken away and sent to London but in a few days everything ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin

... into details; but there can be no further doubt that Tchebaroff is a rogue! He has deceived poor Mr. Burdovsky, and all of you, gentlemen, who have come forward so nobly to support your friend—(he evidently needs support, I quite see that!). He has abused your credulity and involved you all in an attempted fraud, for when all is said and done this claim is ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... assist him in whatever he Commanded them to the last Drop, much with the same Zeal and Forwardness, as our Life-and-Fortune Men did here in England. I say, when all this was consider'd, I could not so much condemn his Credulity, nor blame him for believing them, for no Man could have doubted their Sincerity, but he that at the same time must have Taxt ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... —The destinies ordain.—"In the mythology, also, of the Iliad, purely Pagan as it is, we discover one important truth unconsciously involved, which was almost entirely lost from view amidst the nearly equal scepticism and credulity of subsequent ages. Zeus or Jupiter is popularly to be taken as omnipotent. No distinct empire is assigned to fate or fortune; the will of the father of gods and men is absolute and uncontrollable. This seems to be the true character of the Homeric deity, and it is very necessary ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... of his mother. A charge of pretended conspiracy was invented against her, and it is probable that but for the intervention of Burrus, who with Seneca was appointed to examine into the charge, she would have fallen a very sudden victim to the cowardly credulity and growing hatred of her son. The extraordinary and eloquent audacity of her defence created a reaction in her favour, and secured the punishment of her accusers. But the ties of affection could not long ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... the party and the children set forth early this morning for a day's fishing on the lake, Walter having learned from a loquacious boatman that trout of large size, frequently weighing fifteen pounds, are to be caught here. We women, lacking the credulity of the true brother of the angle, declined Walter's invitation, preferring a morning at the Villa Carlotta to "the calm, quiet, innocent recreation of angling," although we did encourage the fisher-folk by telling ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... which Bajazet was imprisoned by Timur, so long and so often repeated as a moral lesson, is now rejected as a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, according to which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge, a more specious narrative ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to accept Darwins or any other derivative theory as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in a blind faith that species—that the manifold sorts and forms of existing animals and vegetables—"have no secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become more and more probable. But we are confident ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... frantic credulity: thy servant sees but in the stars worlds mightier than this little earth, whose light would neither wane nor wink, if earth itself were swept from the infinities ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to get the most out of it with the least cost to himself. Under the words that seemed so kind and considerate, the young man's heart swelled with the strong and grateful purpose to spare himself in no way in the service of such an employer. The wily man saw this, and smiled to himself over the credulity of mankind. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... see her father lying ill, she had disappeared. On inquiry it was found that Cho[u]bei had never known a day of illness. The excuse was all a lie. "A case of the wild duck; the cock had come." Whose was the child she bore? O'Hagi laughed, and her attendant woman smiled, at his credulity. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... creature understood every word he uttered. Indeed, he got into such a habit of doing this, that it is very probable he might have come to believe that Cuffy really did understand, though he was not gifted with the power to reply. If it be true that Jarwin came to this state of credulity, certain it is that Cuffy was deeply to blame in the matter, because the way in which that ridiculous hypocrite sat before his master, and looked up in his face with his lustrous, intelligent eyes, and cocked his ears, and wagged his tail, and smiled, might have deceived a much less ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne

... readiness to show every article which they had got from the ships, repeating the name of the donor with great warmth, as if offended at our suspicions, yet with a half-smile on their countenances at our supposed credulity in believing them. There was, indeed, at all times some degree of trick and cunning in this show of openness and candour; and they would at times bring back some very trifling article that had been given them, tendering it as a sort of expiation for the theft of another ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... Midas, and also returned to the city for supplies. In the meantime, the ones to reach the latter place first were to give out the news of the discovery of a magnificent new section, the center of which was a gold-bearing creek of amazing richness. Here was a chance to excite the credulity of the people of Nome, than whom there were none more willing and anxious to learn of new and rich gold discoveries; and the possibility occurred to the miners that money with which to prospect the new Midas might be collected ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... any real existence and matter of fact. But this difficulty did not impede him from an attempted solution. He thought himself performing a great service when he addressed himself to the "destruction of that implicit faith and credulity which is the bane of all reasoning and free inquiry."[136] He refused to acknowledge a Supreme Being, in the following words: "While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular intelligent cause, which at first bestowed and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... scruples checked; Forth did she pour, in current free, Tales that could challenge no respect But from a blind credulity; 1827. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... is the fault of the Press. What has rendered it such a pliant tool in the hands of German Imperialism is either credulity or venality; and both are contemptible qualities. Credulity is probably the more prevalent, at least in this country, where shoals of newspapers, blinded by their own prejudices, were the dupes of ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... the elements, but, influenced by their imagination, magnified the energy and bravery that overcame them. Peasants gazed with wild astonishment on the village lad returned, after a few years absence, a veritable 'Jack tar.' The credulity of these delighted listeners tempted Jack to 'spin his yarns,' and tell his tales of nautical adventures, real or imaginary. Hence, he was everywhere greeted with a genial and profuse hospitality. The best seat in the house, the choicest ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock

... unbelieving, ashamed of my own credulity, I tore at his collar, and my fingers closed upon ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... but his "influence" with the Archbishop of Mayence, the Elector of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg.[4] While Podiebrad thus dangled the ultimate hopes of the imperial crown before the duke's eyes, he over-estimated his credulity. As a matter of fact the royal exile had no "influence" at all with the first named elector, and the last, too, showed no disposition whatsoever to serve his unstable policy. Both were content to advise Emperor Frederic. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into it he threw a few grains of credulity, which his father had left him, and which he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-white bird, with dove's eyes, and he sang ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... would also call by the same name such compound forms as being accepted, having been shown, and having said in these expressions: "for the purpose of being accepted;" "is the having been shown over a place;" "I recollect his having said that." But does it not tax even credulity to believe that a simple Anglo-Saxon infinitive in -an, only one form of which followed a preposition, and that always to, could have developed into many compound forms, used in both voices, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... tortures, prepare him for a dreamy state in which he becomes thoroughly convinced that he really is a medium. As such he speaks in council, and he is most thoroughly satisfied that what he says is the truth. Of course there are among them some who are rogues, who profit by the credulity of others, and who even invent tricks in order to fasten their authority upon the people in an illegitimate manner. These tricks themselves are not performed in the majority of cases as conscious sleight ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... must be something subtly noxious to the human brain in the composition of newspaper ink; or else it is that the large page, the columns of words, the leaded headings, exalt the mind into a state of feverish credulity. The printed page of the Press makes a sort of still uproar, taking from men both the power to reflect and the faculty of genuine feeling; leaving them only the artificially created need of having something ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... baffled in their just expectations. If I love Lord Grenville and Lord Howick, it is because they love their country; if I abhor ... it is because I know there is but one man among them who is not laughing at the enormous folly and credulity of the country, and that he is an ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the light and frivolous jester, of whom it is your misfortune to think so highly, learn, my dear Abraham, that this political ...
— English Satires • Various

... the hair varied in light and dark colored animals. Of course, there is an odor about some colored dyes, such as black and indigo blue. Some of the blind are themselves responsible for fostering this belief, but they do it to test the credulity of the public, and they do not know the real harm they are doing ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... us as 'Huns.' At least, it can be said of our Press, high or low, it never nicknamed its enemies. French were always French, English—English, Russians—Russians. It was beneath the dignity of the war to call our enemies names." He was amazed at the ignorance concerning the Germans, and the credulity of such as those who believed they boiled their dead to make lard. I told him of the German Ambassador's reception in London, Dr. Sthamer, how he was received by certain people in Society and many were well disposed towards him, though at first ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... of the late Frances Purcell, who has the honour of selecting such of his lamented old friend's manuscripts as may appear fit for publication, in order that the lore which they contain may reach the world before scepticism and utility have robbed our species of the precious gift of credulity, and scornfully kicked before them, or trampled into annihilation those harmless fragments of picturesque superstition which it is our object to preserve, has been subjected to the charge of dealing too largely in the marvellous; and it has been half insinuated that such is his love ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... said, had sent him after us in all haste; there was a report that the whole coast was to be shelled; a lady had passed, flying with her children; the carriage was ordered out; they were only waiting for us, to run, too. We did not believe a word of it, and were indignant at their credulity, as well as determined to persuade them to remain where they were, if possible. When told their plan was to run to the house formerly used as a guerrilla camp, we laughed heartily. Suppose the Yankees fired a shell into it to discover its inhabitants? ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... anchorite. But better than his own immortal soul, he loved and doated upon gold! That love acknowledged, fed, and gratified, when are its demands appeased?—when does conscience raise a barrier against its further progress? It is a state difficult to believe. Could I have listened with an ear of credulity to the tale of Thompson—could I have borne to listen to it with patience, had I not witnessed an act of turpitude that ocular demonstration could only render credible—had I not been prepared for that act by the tone, the manner, the expressions of the minister, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... Stramen also accused himself of having caused the feud by his rash credulity, and driven Bertha to perjury and insanity by his impetuous and uncontrollable temper. For, he reasoned, had she reposed any confidence in his justice and charity, she would have ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... which even the king could not swallow. They called it The League of the Long Bow; thus attaching themselves by a double bond to their motherland of England, which has been steadily celebrated since the Norman Conquest for its heroic archery and for the extraordinary credulity of its people. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... laughed at a recent nature writer for his credulity in half-believing the story told him by a fisherman, that the fox catches crabs by using his tail as a bait; and yet I read in Romanes that Olaus, in his account of Norway, says he has seen a fox do this ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... royalty; and when I consoled her by saying that, by Act of Parliament, the King was obliged to wear his crown so many hours a day and therefore wore it always at breakfast, lunch and dinner in Buckingham Palace, she accepted my assurance with the credulity of a child of four. And when Barbara rebuked me for taking advantage of her innocence, she was very angry indeed. How was she to know when and where not to ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... of any man; it was a tale forged to inflict fresh agony on the mother's heart, and he determined on discovering, if possible, the truth. He pretended entirely to disbelieve it; declared it was not possible; that the earl had practised on their credulity, and would laugh at them afterwards; and contrived so well, that three or four declared he should be convinced with his own eyes, and set about pulling down the slight brickwork which covered the well. This was what ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... minds of such, who, although they dare not deny the existence of a Supreme Being, yet disbelieve that he ever in any way revealed Himself to his creatures. Let Philosophy (as it is termed) smile with pity or contempt on my weakness or credulity, yet the superintendence of a particular PROVIDENCE, interfering by second causes, is so apparent to me, and was so conspicuously displayed in the course of my afflictions, that I shall not banish it from my mind from the beginning to the end of ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... spirit asserted itself with an explosion which shook the plethoric gravity with which Perry contemplated an orgy of indigestion. The universal scheme appeared planned to fulfil the law of a Titanic humour, and his own credulity and Connie's indiscretions showed suddenly to Adams as mere mote-like jests which circled in a ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... another for awhile without saying a word. But this profound silence was suddenly attended with a confused noise of running, crying, and shutting up of shops, upon which I thought it my duty to go and wait upon the Queen, though I was sorely vexed to see how my credulity had been abused but the night before at Court, when I was desired to tell all my friends in Parliament that the victory of Lens had only disposed the Court more and more to leniency and moderation. When I came to the New Market, on my way to Court, I was surrounded ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... contrivance was his credulity shamefully deceived at a feast which is respected even on the coast of the Euxine Sea, under the eye of the Deity of Hospitality; and the blood of a stranger and a guest was sprinkled on the splendid tablecloths, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... diverting chapter than that which deals with literary frauds. None contains a more grotesque revelation of the smallness and the complexity of human nature, and none—not even the records of the Tichborne trial, nor of general elections—displays more pleasantly the depths of mortal credulity. The literary forger is usually a clever man, and it is necessary for him to be at least on a level with the literary knowledge and critical science of his time. But how low that level commonly appears to be! Think of the success ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... of every miracle since time began," said he; "it but proves the widespread folly and credulity of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... capable of explanation with a little credulity. When I question the peasants, our neighbours, they tell me that the effect of the egg-shell is as simple as can be: the Butterflies, attracted by the whiteness, come and lay their eggs upon it. Broiled by the sun and lacking ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... white man's civilization and his religion, but have even gullibly imbibed his superstitions. Thus is their dread of the figure 13 accounted for. The Native witch-doctors in the early days took advantage of their credulity, whilst civilized people traded on their susceptibilities, and the semi-civilized Natives also traded upon the fears of their ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... bounded, nothing trite, nothing which had the bloom taken off it by much previous description! The early voyagers moreover, were like children coming out to take their first gaze into the world, with ready credulity and unlimited fancy, willing to believe in fairies and demons, Amazons and mystic islands, "forms of a lower hemisphere," and fountains of ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... of their antagonism is the most notable characteristic of the modern scientific mind; and I believe no credulity or fallacy admitted by the weakness (or it may sometimes rather have been the strength) of early imagination, indicates so strange a depression beneath the due scale of human intellect, as the failure of the sense of beauty in form, and loss of faith in heroism ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... said I, take not advantage of my credulity, and these my weak moments: but were I the first lady in the land, instead of the poor abject Pamela, I would, I could tell you. But I ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... privilege to me to paint you: what title in the world have I to pretend to such a model?" Nick replied to Miriam. "The sacrifice is yours—a sacrifice of time and good nature and credulity. You come, in your bright beauty and your genius, to this shabby place where I've nothing worth speaking of to show, not a guarantee to offer you; and I wonder what I've done to deserve such ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... two put the sailor, always superstitious and of ready credulity, and very often ignorant that the stories and the figure were not the actual results of human experience, and, their reality assumed, whatever strange thing he saw in his wanderings would be naturally referred to them, whether it were an occasional Dugong, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of faction and by the zeal of foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to aggravate prejudices which in themselves are more than sufficiently strong. In that state of affairs, and of the public with relation to them, the first thing that government owes to us, the people, is information; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... description, and in Paul's fiery exclamation. Each has three clauses, which fall 'like the beats of a hammer.' 'Sorcerer, false prophet, Jew,' make a climax of wickedness. That a Jew should descend to dabble in the black art of magic, and play tricks on the credulity of ignorant people by his knowledge of some simple secrets of chemistry; that he should pretend to prophetic gifts which in his heart he knew to be fraud, and should be recreant to his ancestral faith, proved him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... of subterfuges similar to those employed by Haykar are common in folk-tales. In one, the hero vanquishes, and generally destroys, his adversary (usually a giant) by imposing on his credulity, like Jack when he hid himself in a corner of the room, and left a faggot in his bed for the giant to belabour, and afterwards killed the giant by pretending to rip himself up, and defying the other to do the same. In other cases, the hero foils his opponents by subterfuges ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... Bloomfield "Mirror,"—on May 18, 1856. The article—"Vagaries vs. Spiritualism"—purports to be written by "Philomath," of Roxbury, New York, who is none other than John Burroughs, at the age of nineteen. It starts out showing impatience at the unreasoning credulity of the superstitious mind, and continues in a mildly derisive strain for about a column, foreshadowing the controversial spirit which Mr. Burroughs displayed many years later in taking to task the natural-history romancers. The ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... clergyman of Launceston, respecting a ghost which (in the year 1665) he has seen and laid to rest, that in the first instance had haunted a poor lad, the son of a Mr. Bligh, in his way to school, in a place called the 'Higher Broom Field.' This grave relation showed, I thought, the credulity of the times in which the author of it lived; and so I determined to have doctor, boy, and ghost in my story. But whereas, in the worthy divine's account of the transaction, the ghost appears to come on earth for no purpose whatever (unless ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... Master, who presented him) were required to depose to their knowledge (de scientia) of his sufficiency: and five others to their credence (de credulitate), says the Statute. Only in the School of Theology was no room allowed to credulity: there all the Masters had to depose 'of their knowledge,' and ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... dreadfully sorry, dear friend, for my silly credulity. But don't be uneasy about the exactions of that woman; we will manage to arrange all that, even if I have to make you an ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... cathedral. If so, as she had frequently seen us, I had no doubt that from the first she knew who we were. I immediately guessed that, finding her old calling valueless, she had betaken herself to her present mode of life, in the hopes of preying on the superstition and credulity of her fellow-creatures. And I found that I was ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... yet wholly died out, surviving in the legendary tales of most countries. In some instances, too, it would seem that certain trees like animals have gained a notoriety, purely fabulous, through trickery and credulity. About the middle of the last century, for instance, there was the groaning-tree at Badesly, which created considerable sensation. It appears that a cottager, who lived in the village of Badesly, two miles from Lymington, frequently heard a strange noise behind his house, like a person in extreme ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... a courier of my condition may go free, though nameless. But to business—Norfolk is tampering with our credulity. He thinks to gain our time to his advantage: but the work must again be urged forward. Yet lack we thy aid. May we depend on its being faithfully rendered? We must have no lukewarm allies in the rear ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... Instead, the idea that an order so noble, so heroic in its history, so rich in symbolism, so skilfully adjusted, and with so many traces of remote antiquity, was the creation of pious fraud, or else of an ingenious conviviality, passes the bounds of credulity and enters the domain of the absurd. This fact will be further emphasized in the chapter following, to which those are respectfully referred who go everywhere else, except to Masonry itself, to learn what Masonry is and how ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements; but to depend upon a government that must itself depend upon thirteen other governments for the means of fulfilling its contracts, when once its situation is clearly understood, would require a degree of credulity not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind, and little reconcilable with ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... eyes. She regarded herself as one who had been hoaxed and swindled; begged me to take back the book; and never again, to the end of her life, could endure to look into the book, or to be reminded of that criminal imposture which Dr. Oliver Goldsmith had practised upon her youthful credulity. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... the way of learning all she could of the medium's affairs without showing her own hand. She obtained a detailed account of the seances from the elder Cranes, and each time she became not only more convinced of the medium's fraud, but sure that the faker, more and more secure in her clients' credulity, was growing both ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... the "three" theological virtues of blind faith, passive obedience, and inexhaustible patience; because they have been so pathetically loyal to their misrulers; because they have shown the sentimentality of a woman and the credulity of a child. The German Michel has been the political Peter Pan of Europe, the boy that won't grow up. He has been the boy that has been let loose and has lit the match to the powder magazine. He has been the incurable romanticist who has continued to believe in fairy-tales ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... regard to medicine, he used to say that it was not clear and defined in practice. He wanted to measure the scope of a disease, and to supply the remedies by mathematical rule. He saw, too, that medical men were less valued for their real worth than for their tact in winning confidence through the credulity of the public. This was particularly exemplified in a gold-field, where the greatest impostors obtained credit for a time. His thoughts and conversation also constantly reverted to the interior, and to the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... has been made by certain writers, with more credulity than discretion, of some personal characteristics of a great-hearted man. My purpose in tendering this sketch to the lovers of FitzGerald is to show that in many ways he has been calumniated. The man who could write the letters to his humble friend, which are here printed; the man who could show ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... of course as clear as noonday. Now, when I came to trace this rumor to its source, I became apprised that it owed its publicity to an old man of our number known by the nickname of 'Mister,' who was remarkable for a rare amount of credulity, self-conceit, and obstinacy, and at the same time for being the invariable butt of his company. This wiseacre averred that he had succeeded in wringing from Mrs. Rose the confession that directly she and old Bill ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... various ways—by voluntary subscriptions, by holding picnics, excursions, fairs, bazaars and other methods. But the largest source of revenue was derived by imposing upon the credulity of the sons and daughters of Erin by the sale to them of bonds of the Irish Republic, a chimerical dream which was painted in such glowing colors and presented with such stirring appeals to their patriotism ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... grace in the woods, and her gymnasium had been among the sportive billows of the ocean. It is but of little use me describing her face; for everyone supposes that, in these affairs, the author draws at once, as largely as he can, upon his own imagination, and as he dares, upon the credulity of his readers. Though a slave, she had but little of the black blood in her—in her complexion none. She was not fair, but her skin was very transparent, very pure, and of a dazzling and creamy sort of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... less difficult to Hubert than to "receive." He had boasted his inability to believe that which was unsupported by evidence, and had found bitter fault with evangelical doctrine, which, he supposed, put a high premium upon blind credulity,—an attitude of mind, he contended, which would render a man as open to receive the teachings of Buddha, or Mahomet if he happened to hear them, as those of Jesus Christ. He might have added, or the teachings of a Payne, ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... throwing passion into hate by fixing it on an object; of of amusing the hunter by the sight of his living prey; giving the watcher the hope of the smoking and boiling blood about to flow; of amusing the bird-catcher by the credulity of the uselessly-winged lark; of being a victim, unknowingly reared for murder by a master-mind—all this exquisite and horrible service, of which the person rendering it is ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... the same manner. They appeal to the senses in exactly the same way and are received by the Maid with equal credulity. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... that Mr. Fessenden was the only real purchaser of any part of the patent; and, as the original patentee shortly afterwards quitted the concern, the former was left to manage the business as he best could. With a perseverance not less characteristic than his credulity, he associated himself with four partners, and undertook to superintend the construction of one of these patent-mills upon the Thanes. But his associates, who were men of no respectability, thwarted his plans; and after much toil of body, as well as distress of mind, ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Ignorance, for several Ages, had been successfully encouraged and was designedly introduced to make Way for Credulity, the Simplicity of the Gospel and the Doctrine of Christ were turn'd into Gaudy Foppery and vile Superstition. It was then, that the Church of Rome began openly to execute her deep-laid Plot for enslaving the Laity. Knowing, that no Power or Authority can be established or long ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... them is actually inheritable, and that one is transmitted relatively seldom. But among psychic characters one finds that practically all are inheritable. For example, stupidity, credulity, avarice, pecksniffery, lack of imagination, hatred of beauty, meanness, poltroonry, petty brutality, smallness of soul.... I here present, of course, the Puritan complex; there flashes up the ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... them; the same tonic killed superfluous hair or made it grow on bald spots. A freckle to eradicate, a wrinkle to remove, a moth-patch to bleach, a grey hair to dye; nothing was impossible here, not even credulity. It was but meet that the mistress should steal past the servant, that the servant should dodge the mistress. Every woman craves beauty, but she does not want the public to know that her beauty is of the kind in which nature has no hand. No man is a hero to his valet; no woman is a ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... Their experience does not point to the good American tradition that it is the educated man who finally succeeds. The richest man in the Italian colony can neither read nor write—even Italian. His cunning and acquisitiveness, combined with the credulity and ignorance of his countrymen, have slowly brought about his large fortune. The child himself may feel the stirring of a vague ambition to go on until he is as the other children are; but he is not popular with his schoolfellows, and he sadly feels the lack of dramatic interest. Even the pictures ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... hardening his muscles, sweating and delighting in the shifting chances of a game. Activity fled from the brain to the extremities of the body. They were strong, but their minds lay fallow, wrapped in a haze of childish credulity. Modern men seemed to stop growing at the age of fourteen; they never went beyond, content with the joys of movement and strength. Many of these big fellows were ignorant of women, or almost so, at the age when in other times they were turning back, satiated ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the highway my child," (he had just enough in him to make him free of speech), "who obtain office through the credulity of Jean Baptiste the industrious Beaver, who, like Jacques in France, bears everything. Jean Baptiste labors. It is the duty of Jean Baptiste to believe everything he is told. Monsieur of the Forty and Company must live upon something. Tsha! The Beavers were created to sweat—to ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... as tides that ebb and flow. This treatise will disprove the last I read. Shade of Hippocrates! what creeds are formed, What antics practiced with your "Healing Art!" I will not sport with fate, nor tamper thus With man's credulity and nature's strength. No: I will gently coincide with nature, And give her time and scope to work the cure— Strengthening the patient's heart with trust in God, And teaching him that genuine health depends On true obedience to the natural laws Ordained ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... reported that Professor James himself had agreed to communicate with this world, if he could, and, in order to test the reports, had left a sealed message to be opened at a certain definite time after his death, the incredulous gasped at the professor's amazing "credulity." ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... come in time to the Mount McKinley National Park, and perhaps they will come also to the Alaskan Alps. Perhaps it is not straining the credulity of an age like ours to suggest that McKinley's commanding summit may be attained some day by aeroplane, with many of the joys and none of the distressing hardships endured by the weary climber. When this time comes, if it does come, there ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... in Connaught. An arbitrary division once limited the free clans to six in the southern half-kingdom, and six in the north; and the unfree also to six. But Geoffrey Keating, whose love of truth was quite as strong as his credulity in ancient legends—and that is saying much—disclaimed that classification, and collected his genealogies from principal heads—branching out into three families of tribes, descended from Eber Finn, one ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... necessity of these rules (proceeding from the magistrates and myself) being strictly enforced. You, dear sir, are too little experienced in these circumstances, however obvious your other merits are to me, to act on your own judgment in the matter, as you have hitherto done. Credulity can in the present instance only lead to embarrassment, the result of which might prove injurious to you rather than beneficial, and this I wish to avoid for the sake of your ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... a strong presentation of certain forms of credulity in human nature and of the special tricks which the alchemists and impostors of that day adopted. One character wants to buy the secret of the helpful influence of the stars; another parts with his wealth to learn the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... empire of Rome, have scarcely a better foundation. Now, why may not the same use be made of architecture? Is not the religion of our ancestors legible in the very ornaments of their house? Are not their excessive ignorance and credulity equally visible in the griffins, sphinxes, dragons, mermaids, and chimeras, which are so frequently carved in Gothic roofs, and which are so absurdly mistaken for angels and devils? The analogy might ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... from the intellect, since there was nothing articulate to take its place; yet its hold on the heart was singularly relaxed. The consequence was that humorists could regale themselves with the foibles of monks and of cardinals, with the credulity of fools, and the bogus miracles of the saints; not intending to deny the theory of the church, but caring for it so little at heart that they could find it infinitely amusing that it should be contradicted in men's lives and that no harm should come of it. So ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... upon mortals who are ignorant of its power, or who feel its castigation, without being willing to acknowledge the hand from whence it proceeds; he will perceive that ignorance is necessary, that credulity is the necessary result of ignorance—that slavery and bondage are necessary consequences of ignorant credulity—that corruption of manners springs necessarily from slavery—that the miseries of society, the unhappiness of its members, are ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... there is an English ether and a Sumatran ether? Perhaps you imagine that the ether of Kent is in some way superior to the ether of Surrey, through which this train is now bearing us. There really are no bounds to the credulity and ignorance of the average layman. Is it conceivable that the ether in Sumatra should be so deadly as to cause total insensibility at the very time when the ether here has had no appreciable effect upon us whatever? Personally, I can truly say that I never felt ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... present on the wane. And on the whole I think what one might call useful or catchpenny accomplishments are also passing their zenith—shorthand lessons, book-keeping lessons, and such-like impostures upon parental credulity. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... of the eleventh century who compiled a historical work ([Greek: Synopsis historion]) the scope of which extended from the creation to 1057 A.D. He gives no evidence of historical knowledge or the critical sense, but rather of great credulity and a fondness for legends. His treatise is, moreover, largely plagiarized from the Annals of Ioannes ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... epoch in the history of the human mind in our country; but the author had anticipated a very remote period of its enlargement. Scot, the apostle of humanity, and the legislator of reason, lived in retirement, yet persecuted by religious credulity and legal cruelty. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... that dying swans have not sung a mournful hymn over their last moments, under an affecting and human sense of their mortality. He has believed in the English lark to the same point of pleasing credulity. Why should he not give its existence the same faith? The history of its life is as old as the English alphabet, and older still. It sang over the dark and hideous lairs of the bloody Druids centuries before Julius ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... and deserved a little help. He had done well enough so far, but he scarcely understood how near to the edge of Mrs. Ascher's credulity he ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... p. 42. "We almost envy the credulity of those who in the gentle moonlight of a summer night in England, amid the tangled glades of a deep forest, or the turfy swell of her romantic commons, could fancy they saw the fairies tracing their ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... pleasure Currado; and, true it is that I have had in my house for these fourteen years the boy whom thou dost now demand of me, and his mother, and gladly will I surrender them; but tell Currado from me to beware of excessive credulity, and to put no faith in the idle tales of Giannotto, or Giusfredi, as thou sayst he calls himself, who is by no means ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... lower animals, he enumerates horned horses furnished with wings; the mantichora, with the face of a man, three rows of teeth, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail; the basilisk, whose very glance is fatal; and an insect which cannot live except in the midst of the flames. But notwithstanding his credulity and his want of judgment, this elaborate work contains many valuable truths and much entertaining information. The prevailing character of his philosophical belief, though tinctured with the stoicism of the day, is querulous and melancholy. Believing that nature is an all- powerful ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... not have been made. To assert that Pashitch, who, with his set, had worked to make Great Serbia ever since they had removed the Obrenovitch from its path in 1903, was innocent of plotting against Austria in 1909-10, is to ask for too much credulity. Had not Russia already said the road to ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... nourished during the peace, in order to injure the land which gave them birth. But they will no longer find the impious bands who were the instruments of their first crimes; terror has dissolved them, or justice has purged our country of their presence. They will no longer find that credulity they abused, or that hatred which once sharpened their daggers. Surrounded everywhere by the public power, everywhere within the grasp of the tribunals, these horrible wretches will be able henceforth neither to make rebels, nor to ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... splendid men have worked, lived and died to free us from superstition, from credulity, from ignorance, yet still we stand in the same place, and fail to appreciate the freedom that is ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... party, sees the advance of illusory arguments and grounds of proof which have the advantage of novelty, against as illusory grounds of proof destitute of this advantage, and which, perhaps, excite the suspicion that the natural credulity of his youth has been abused by his instructors. He thinks he can find no better means of showing that he has out grown the discipline of his minority than by despising those well-meant warnings, and, knowing no system of thought but that of dogmatism, he drinks deep draughts ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... large bearded apes, forming a considerable item in the population of the island, and said to be under a king of their own, crowned with leaves. We can give what credit we like to such fables as these, which were propagated by the credulity of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... countries, tending by other means to the same object, abused the credulity of the ignorant. In the gloom of their temples, behind the curtain of the altar, they made their gods act and speak; gave forth oracles, worked miracles, ordered sacrifices, levied offerings, prescribed endowments; and, under the names of theocracy and of religion, the state ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... impossible to say what absurdities they may believe, or of what follies they may be guilty. As the people become enlightened, the priests of a false faith are compelled to refine their system; at present, in Russia, nothing is too gross for the credulity of ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... in silence to find the table laid, a plentiful supper spread, and the company seated. After supper came singing of songs, saying of ballads, and telling of tales. I know with what in- credulity many highlanders will read of a merry-making in their own country at which no horn went round, no punch-bowl was filled and emptied without stint! But the clearer the brain, the better justice is done to the more etherial wine of fthe soul. Of several of the old songs Christina begged ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... clerk was an apt learner in deception and trickery. Shortly after this experiment upon the public credulity, a careless boy lighting the lamps in the window (for this was before the introduction of gas) set some netting on fire, causing a damage of a few shillings, the fire being almost instantly extinguished. As business had been a little dull, the junior ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... admirers; had formed one of the congregation at Paul's Cross when the confession drawn up for her had been read aloud in her name by Dr. Capon, who from the pulpit opposite the platform where the penitents were set, preached a vigorous sermon against credulity and superstition. Ralph had read the confession over a couple of days before in Cromwell's room, and had suggested a few verbal alterations; and he had been finally present, a few days after More's ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... it want you for?" He was making light of her now, his question accompanied by a hard, cynical look which told her that she could say as much or as little as she chose and he'd suit himself in the extent of his credulity. "Were you the lovely cashier in an ice cream store? And did you abscond with a dollar and ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... selfish man, profited by this report. A foolish citizen had offered him fifty dollars if he might only be permitted to see me through the door, being very desirous to see a wizard. Holtzkammer told me, and we jointly determined to sport with his credulity. The major gave me a mask with a monstrous nose, which I put on when the doors were opening, and threw myself in an heroic attitude. The affrighted burger drew back; but Holtzkammer stopped him, and said, "Have patience for some quarter of an hour, and you shall see he will assume ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... was invisible, that was mortal no longer? "Maybe at the moment the Lord will put it into our heads." This is very old-fashioned phraseology, and a week before, most likely, I should have smiled (though always with kindness) at Dr. Moncrieff's credulity; but there was a great comfort, whether rational or otherwise I cannot say, in the ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... said, with characteristic downrightness, "If I was paid what a bishop is paid for doing what a bishop does, I should find abundant cause for merriment in the credulity of my countrymen;" and, waiving the theological animus which the saying implies, it is not uncharitable to surmise that a general sense of prosperity and a strong faculty of enjoying life in all its aspects ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... Thorwald's message; for they believed implicitly that he meant to do what he threatened. They did not know that Ole, although a worthy man, was not so earnest a believer in all Mr Mason's principles, but that he could practise on their credulity in time of need. Like the missionary, he would rather have died than have sacrificed the life of a woman or child; but, unlike him, he had no objection to deceive in ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... in the shadows of a portico nearby, though 'twould somewhat strain credulity to imagine him the elderly tradesman Martin. He was a powerful and burly figure, black habited, of impudent visage quite unlike a gentle relative's. In the deeper shadows back of him crouched two fellows, one of whom bore in his hand ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... you are one of the doubtful doctors; you love to catch credulity upon your hook. I hear fat laughter gurgling in your throat, and out bolts your threadbare simile—'Before the battle's won the Brentford hero sings Te Deum.'—But don't be wasteful of the little wit you have. Do I not tell you it is decreed? ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft



Words linked to "Credulity" :   trustfulness, trustingness, credulous, trust



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