Famous quotes containing the word probable:
“I have very lately read the Prince of Abyssinia [Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas]MI am almost equally charmed and shocked at it—the style, the sentiments are inimitable—but the subject is dreadful—and, handled as it is by Dr. Johnson, might make any young, perhaps old, person tremble—O heavens! how dreadful, how terrible it is to be told by a man of his genius and knowledge, in so affectingly probable a manner, that true, real happiness is ever unattainable in this world!”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Thus all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. ‘Tis not solely in poetry and music, we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy, When I am convinc’d of any principle, ‘tis only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“It was only too probable that among the half-converted Pagans and Jews, any rite, any form, would find favor, whilst yet unable to comprehend the spiritual character of Christianity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)