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noun
Infallibility  n.  The quality or state of being infallible, or exempt from error; inerrability. "Infallibility is the highest perfection of the knowing faculty."
Papal infallibility (R. C. Ch.), the dogma that the pope can not, when acting in his official character of supreme pontiff, err in defining a doctrine of Christian faith or rule of morals, to be held by the church. This was decreed by the Ecumenical Council at the Vatican, July 18, 1870.






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"Infallibility" Quotes from Famous Books



... lines in which the father believes. For the latter purpose the opinion is no disqualification. The devout Catholic accepts the multiplication table, and can impart his knowledge without reference to the infallibility of the Pope. To refuse to employ him is to impose an extraneous penalty on his convictions. It is not illiberal for an editor to decline the services of a member of the opposite party as a leader writer, or even as a political reviewer or in any capacity in which his opinions would affect his ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... the doctrine of Papal Infallibility may be the beginning of a way out of the difficulty, and that its promoters were so eager for it, rather for the facilities it afforded for the repealing of old dogmas than for the imposition of new ones. The Pope cannot, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... indirectly, upon each member of the community in any way interested in the article, we should then have an exact datum which we do not now possess for reaching a conclusion. If some superhuman authority, speaking with the voice of infallibility, could give us this information, it is evident that a great national want would be supplied. No question in practical life is more important than this: How can this desirable knowledge of the economic effects of a ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... gods of the earth, mountain, river, wind, and thunder and lightning should obey him. Not content, however, with absorbing and corrupting for political purposes the primitive faith of the aborigines, the invaders corrupted their own religion by carrying the dogma of the divinity and infallibility of the Mikado too far. Stopping short of no absurdity, they declared their chief greater even than the heavenly gods, and made their religion centre in him rather than in his alleged heavenly ancestors, or "heaven." In the interest of politics and ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... but not very tall man, with a somewhat vacant expression of feature, and a singular habit of looking fixedly and in apparent amazement for a full minute at anyone who happened to address him. These, with a slow ponderous movement of body, a fixed belief in his own infallibility, and an equally firm belief in the unsurpassed perfections of the Betsy Jane, were his chief characteristics; and as he is destined to figure for a very brief period only in the pages of the present history, we need not analyse him ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... lontano.” (Because we are too far off.) A very new argument against the universal infallibility of the Pope. It took, however; for his opponent ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... and as no one likes being confounded, and it is especially regrettable when a parent is placed in such a position, I brought the course to an abrupt end by assuming that owl-like air of wisdom peculiar to infallibility in a corner, and telling them that they were too young to understand these things for the present; and they, having a touching faith in the truth of every word I say, gave three contented little purrs of assent, and proposed ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... perhaps, by the anticipation of the meeting, paused a moment, as if in doubt, before the small oddly-clad figure which blocked her path—a horrible moment to Garnett, who felt a pang of misery at this satire on the infallibility of the filial instinct. He longed to make some sign, to break in some way the pause of uncertainty; but before he could move he saw Mrs. Newell give her daughter a sharp push, he saw a blush of compunction flood Hermione's face, and the girl, throwing back her ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... given the matter of his place in the human drama much thought. He had an idea that it was proper for him to vote with his friends, and he always did it. Had he been called a tool, he would have been much ruffled; he merely trusted to the infallibility of the party. ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... Edward Coke call this the greatest question which had ever been argued in Westminster. It was proved to him that he himself as judge had followed the interpretation which he now condemned. He answered that he was not pope, and made no pretensions to infallibility. He now firmly maintained that the King had no such prerogative ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... laid telegraphs, constructed steam-engines, launched ships, pierced isthmuses, created sciences, corrected laws, repressed factions, fed the poor, civilized barbarians, drained marshes, cultivated waste lands, without ever having a single dispute as to the infallibility ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... criterion more infallible than partial (if they are not party) meetings can be discovered as the touchstone of public sentiment. If any person on earth could, or the great Power above would, erect the standard of infallibility in political opinions, no being that inhabits this terrestrial globe would resort to it with more eagerness than myself, so long as I remain a servant of the public. But as I have hitherto found no better guide than upright intentions and close investigations, I shall adhere ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... been before in Israel. Nevertheless it is not to be thought that the Sanhedrim had not always that right, which from the time of Esdras is more frequently exercised, of proposing to the people, but that they forebore it in regard of the fulness and infallibility of the law already made, whereby it was needless. Wherefore the function of this Council, which is very rare in a senate, was executive, and consisted in the administration of the law made; and ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... of this eternal foreknowledge, actually bestows a grace, this grace will prove efficacious or inefficacious according as He has foreknown whether the will will give or withhold its consent. Thus can the infallibility of efficacious grace be reconciled with the dogma of free-will without prejudice to such other dogmas as final perseverance and the predestination of the elect, because God by virtue of the scientia media has it absolutely ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... the study of politics, in the usual sense of the term, it certainly cannot be advisable. Nothing appears to me more disgusting than to see young men rushing into the field of political warfare, and taking sides as fiercely as if they laid claim to infallibility, where their fathers ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... precept the sage MacGrawler had endeavoured to obey; consequently the result of his obedience was that even by himself he was better known than trusted. Whatever he might appear to others, he had in reality no vain faith in the infallibility of his own talents and resources; as well might a butcher deem himself a perfect anatomist from the frequent amputation of legs of mutton, as the critic of "The Asinaeum" have laid "the flattering unction to his soul" that he was really skilled ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... as a fulcrum for all the world. He represents the public judgment, that is to say the public reason, the touchstone, the scales, the refining rod, which tests the value of every one and the merit of every work. Infallibility of judgment is perhaps rarer than anything else, so fine a balance of qualities does it demand—qualities both natural and acquired, qualities of mind and heart. What years of labor, what study and comparison, are needed to bring ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... befallen to the curious researchers of them. Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest you should be deluded, that I would upon this kind of fortune-flinging proof infer an uncontrollable and not to be gainsaid infallibility ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... even in the driest ground. He aliens a delinquent's estate with as little remorse as his other holiness gives away an heretic's kingdom, and for the truth of the delinquency, both chapmen have as little share of infallibility. Lye is the grand salad of arbitrary government, executor to the star-chamber and the high commission; for those courts are not extinct, they survive in him like dollars changed into single money. To speak the truth, he is the universal tribunal; for since ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... who are pernicious enough in their way; but the savage and destructive criticism of which I speak is quite as ignorant and far more harmful. It assumes an air of authority based on a superficial knowledge of art, and beguiles the public into a belief in its infallibility by means of a smooth style and an occasional epigram the smartness of which may and often does conceal a rank injustice. The expression of a hope that the result of Mr. Bartholdi's labors "will be something better than another gigantic asparagus ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... (not the narrative part) of "Highland Storms," are delightful reading. The progress of the sportsman has never been better given than in "Christopher North in his Sporting Jacket." In "The Moors" the actual sporting part is perhaps a little spoilt by the affectation of infallibility, qualified it is true by an aside or two, which so often mars the Christopherian utterances. But Wilson's description has never been bettered. The thunderstorm on the hill, the rough conviviality at the illicit distillery, the evening voyage on the loch, match, if they ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... about our agent's course at the Vatican, I have come over to Rome to see about it. He is an Irishman, with a little of Father TOM in him, and has got into a "controversy" with his Holiness about infallibility. Our African bishop (otherwise PHELIM BURKE) insists that PUNCHINELLO is infallible! The Pope says this is ridiculous! Father PHELIM replies that "there are two that can play that same game." I found them in the midst of this when ANTONELLI ushered me into the Papal presence. PIUS ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... being in the Sophomore class at Yale, was of the age when one is constitutionally "from Missouri." Probably King Solomon, at sixty, had doubts concerning the scope and depth of his wisdom; at eighteen he would have admitted its all-embracing infallibility ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... than twice as large as his own stood ready to resist his coming. The road was broad and the country open except in crossing the Rio Frio mountain. General Taylor pursued the same course in marching toward an enemy. He moved even in smaller bodies. I never thought at the time to doubt the infallibility of these two generals in all matters pertaining to their profession. I supposed they moved in small bodies because more men could not be passed over a single road on the same day with their artillery and necessary trains. Later I found ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... have me say I am certain, would you? these are no times for Popery and infallibility; however, I assure you I think him perfectly safe. He has done a foolish and idle trick, but no man is wise always. We must get rid of his fever, and then if his cold remains, with any cough, he may make a ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... man can make lawful." Accompanied by a priest, he visited his own college of Ain Warka, but gained no light; and the same was true of his visit to the superior of the convent of Bzummar, who desired to see him. It is a suggestive fact, that the infallibility of the Pope, even then, was everywhere a controverted point between him and the priesthood. The weakness of the reasoning on the papal side was everywhere so apparent to him, as greatly to strengthen his evangelical faith. In one of his interviews ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... any academical light; they all possess a large share of good sense, improved upon the experience of their fathers; and this is the surest and best guide to lead us through the path of life, because it approaches nearest to the infallibility of instinct. Shining talents and University knowledge, would be entirely useless here, nay, would be dangerous; it would pervert their plain judgment, it would lead them out of that useful path which is so well ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... will fly away from the spot where it has been hit, but the savage knows perfectly well the infallibility of his poisons which will bring it to the ground in a few minutes, so he follows the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... hath intruded upon the prophetical office of Jesus Christ. What else means his pretences to infallibility?16 And that too when he imposes unwritten verities, abominable traditions, blasphemous rites and ceremonies; and forbids or dispenseth with the holy commands of God: Yea, when he enforceth these his Omrian statutes, and doth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... should be noted that the appeal to apostolic churches is to any and all such, and is accordingly just so much the stronger in the controversy in which it was brought forward. The argument, whenever it occurs, does not turn upon the infallibility of any one see or church as such. That point is not touched. Such a turn to the argument would have weakened the force of the appeal in the dispute with the Gnostics, however powerfully it might be ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... the king. And these unfortunates, it appeared, would, upon detection, be haled forth and summarily executed there and then! I learned, further, that while the king put the most implicit faith in the infallibility of the witch doctors, and especially in that of Machenga, the head or chief of them, a few of the indunas who were then talking to me held rather strongly to the opinion that the selection of victims was not so much the result of supernatural guidance and wisdom vouchsafed to the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... a sincere spirit of belief (which has been wrongly disputed by Lange, Zeller, and Puenjer) a demoniacal pleasure in bringing to light absurdities in the doctrines of faith, with absolute confidence in the infallibility of conscience an entirely pessimistic view of human morality. His strength lies in criticism and polemics, his work in the latter (aside from his hostility to fanaticism and the persecution of those differing in faith) being directed chiefly against optimism and the deistic religion of reason, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... him Bishop of 'Ngami; which, you know, is one of those places that LIVINGSTONE (is he living, though?) found out. When any body questioned him, the said delegate was immediately to talk 'ngammon Latin; and His Holiness would interpret it to the council, as being the African for infallibility. It's wonderful how well this jolly dog gets on, with his dogmas ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various

... voters whichever way it was directed," he manifested much indignation. "This is one of those assertions," he said, "which can only be denied, and pronounced to be malignant and false. No facts exist to support it. The asserters assume to themselves, and to those who think with them, infallibility. Take their words for it, they are the only honest men in the community." "As far as I know," he said, "there is not a member of the legislature who can properly be called a stockjobber or a paper-dealer. There are several of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... so he throws on his harness, astounded, till his blood quickens with work, at the round of sacrifices demanded of nature: which is indeed curious considering what we are taught here and there as to the infallibility of our august mother. Well, the world of humanity had done this for Beauchamp. His afflicted historian is compelled to fling his net among prosaic similitudes for an illustration of one thus degradedly in its grip. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Purgatory; the Worship, Invocation, and Intercession of the Blessed Virgin, Saints, and Angels; Veneration of Relics; Worship of Images; Universal Supremacy of the Roman Church; the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; and the Infallibility of the Pope. These two last were not imposed upon the Roman Church as articles of faith, necessary to be believed, until 1854 and 1870. With the exception of the last two, the above is a summary of the errors of Rome, drawn ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... Protestants, could not long retain sufficient prestige to keep its adherents together. The destiny of such a body is written in the history of the 'Old Catholics,' who seceded from Rome because they would not accept the dogma of Papal infallibility. The seceders included many men of high character and intellect, but in numbers and influence they are quite insignificant. The Church of England has only one title to exist, and it is a strong ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... me as a youth who no longer believed in the special inspiration of the Scriptures, or in their infallibility, but who was still a Christian as thousands of "liberal" Church people in ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... others, curled without powder; at others, straight, without powder or curls. He was churchwarden; and then, when his head was full of his office, it was also full of flour, and full of ideas of his own consequence and infallibility. On a concert night, and in the ball-room, it was curled, and then it was full of amatory conquests; and, as he was captain in the Cavalry Volunteers, on field days his hair was straight and lank—martial ardour gave him no time to attend to the fripperies ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... to boundless luxury, they are become great enemies to all manner of fatigues. But, to make amends, the sciences flourish among them. The effendis (that is to say, the learned) do very well deserve this name: They have no more faith in the in inspiration of Mahomet, than in the infallibility of the Pope. They make a frank profession of Deism among themselves, or to those they can trust; and never speak of their law but as of a politic institution, fit now to be observed by wise men, however at first introduced ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... Woman,' one of those stupidly spoilt figures which seemed like hoaxes on his part, so unworthy they were of his powerful hands; but he was none the less radiant, feeling certain that he had turned out yet another masterpiece, and promenading his god-like infallibility through the crowd which he did not ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... doubt, however, if Mr. Howells will ever reap the benefit of my criticisms, for not long since I read a note from him saying that he never looked into The Gazette. You must already have given offence by doubting his literary infallibility. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... the East to the exclusion of all others. He remained paramount throughout the civilized world until within the last three hundred years. In the records of the College of Physicians of England we read that Dr. Geynes was cited before the college in 1559 for impugning the infallibility of Galen, and was only admitted again into the privileges of his fellowship on acknowledgment of his error, and humble recantation signed with his own hand. Kurt Sprengel has well said that "if the physicians who remained so faithfully attached to Galen's system had inherited his penetrating ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae

... platform is understood and the 330:9 letter and the spirit bear witness, the infallibility of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... conditions that arise in times of national emergency. The idea that the Press could censor itself is ridiculous. That such a theory should ever have been put forward argues a strange inability to understand the essentials of the subject, and sets up a doctrine of infallibility in the world of journalism for which there ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... and to determine the sense of any passage in such books. But this sense, once ascertained to the mind of the sectary, was to be taken for pure truth—for the very word of God. The controversial efficiency of the principle of biblical infallibility lay in the fact that the conservative adversaries of the Reformers were not in a position to contravene it without entangling themselves in serious difficulties; while, since both Papists and Protestants agreed in taking efficient measures to stop the mouths of any more radical ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... ugly words as discipline, passive obedience and command; let his submission be gentle to him, and his obedience resemble kindness. Renounce the stupid pleasure of imposing your fancies upon him, and of giving orders to prove your infallibility. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... this point is still more worthy of remark than that he should utter them. Indeed, I judge from what you say on the 68th and 69th pages of your book, that you are yourself opposed to calling in question the morality of that which civil government approves. But, to doubt the infallibility of civil government,—to speak against Caesar,—was manifestly held to be quite as presumptuous in the time of the Apostles as ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... of the world. If the test of truth lay in a show of hands or a counting of heads, the system of magic might appeal, with far more reason than the Catholic Church, to the proud motto, "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," as the sure and certain credential of its own infallibility. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... were not accompanied with spiritual faultlessness. Inspiration was one thing, infallibility another. The gifts of the Spirit were, like the gifts of Nature, subordinated to the will—capable of being used for good or evil, sometimes pure, sometimes mixed with human infirmity. The supernaturally gifted man was no mere ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... fly. Tell a pope to be reasonable. You must relieve him of his infallibility if you want him to act like a sensible man. Adrian could undertake no reforms, and still besought Erasmus ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... kept the clearness that was like the breath of infallibility. "Isn't the whole point ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... presumptuous, reading-and-writing, socially and politically powerful ignorance inconceivable by Thomas Aquinas or even Roger Bacon, was incapable of so convenient an arrangement; and science was strangled by bigoted ignoramuses claiming infallibility for their interpretation of the Bible, which was regarded, not as a literature nor even as a book, but partly as an oracle which answered and settled all questions, and partly as a talisman to be carried by soldiers in their breast pockets or placed under the pillows of persons ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... yelp of laughter; but when Mr. Carr looked at her she was grave and deferential again. Miss Rowe looked entreatingly from face to face. The minister did not notice Anthony's remark; but swept on again on what was plainly his favourite theme,—the infallibility of the people. It was a doctrine that was hardly held yet by any; but the next century was to see its gradual rise until it reached its climax in the Puritanism of the Stuart times. It was true, as Mr. Carr said, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... was about to say, preposterously. Her implicit belief in and obedience to him have increased his self-confidence into a dogmatic assertion of infallibility. But"—fearing she might create an unfortunate impression upon the listener's mind—"Winston has grounds for his good opinion of himself. His character is unblemished—his principles and aims are excellent. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... truths, without any thought whatever on the subject; so universally accepted, indeed, that it is considered a waste of time to think upon them at all; but which, upon a thorough investigation, might possibly lose some of their old-time infallibility, and the consideration of which might well repay the trouble, by opening a field of thought at once ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Sir Lambert was explaining his forecast of the political weather. The young knight had a great fancy for airing his politics, and an unwavering conviction of the infallibility of his judgment. If Sir Lambert was to be believed, what King Edward would undoubtedly do was to foment civil war in Scotland, until all the rival male claimants had destroyed each other. He would then marry the daughter of one of them, and annex Scotland as her appanage. All being ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... grail of his son's forgiveness—troubled him vaguely. In spasmodic moments of remorse he read his notebook, tremendously buoyed up by an augmenting consciousness of evolution. Faint inner voices warned him at times not to misinterpret his exultant happiness in terms of infallibility and when they called to him he had his moments ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... an impostor, who, in the sixth century, assumed the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension that the grammarians might become more important than the theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of their infallibility on all the books of Scripture contained in the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was fortunately included. (Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, l. ii.) 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious prophecies against the See of Rome, inspired the Protestants ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... with the injuries, the services which dissenters have done to our church and to our state. If they have once destroyed, more than once they have saved them." Burke next observed that the church of England might alter her laws without changing her identity. He said that she professed no infallibility, and had always exercised the right of reforming her doctrine, discipline, and ceremonies, instancing as examples the change which she had made in the liturgy in the reign of Edward VI. and the reduction of her articles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... hapless monarch and the present occupant of the German throne, for in both there exists and has existed the same exaggerated and narrow-minded religious beliefs, bordering on mysticism, and also an all-embracing faith in their absolute and unquestionable infallibility. ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... spoken of the ultramontanism of the Spanish clergy. Never had those doctrines more fanatical defenders, nor sectarians more fiery partisans, than the ecclesiastical writers of the Peninsula; the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, the superiority of his jurisdiction with respect to the bishops and to the general councils, was propagated not only in books but in the pulpit and the confessional. Nevertheless the enlightened ministers of Charles III., Aranda, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... put out of his own and his successors' hands, nor can the Cardinals take away from him, nor the Episcopate, one jot or tittle of this spiritual prerogative. He cannot, for instance, condition his infallibility on the consent of a General Council, or surrender the canonization of saints to the votes of the faithful at large. Such are the inalienable, Christ-given prerogatives of the Papacy. Henry VIII. feloniously set himself up for Pope within the realm ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... principles of freedom; and if upon this occasion Bonaparte was placed on the throne by the force of opinion, he could not have restored the ancient despotism without exciting universal dissatisfaction. Men seem formerly to have been awed by a conviction of his infallibility, and did not suffer themselves to reason upon the principles of action of a man who dazzled their imaginations by the magnificence of his exploits and the grandeur of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... had condemned the cause of the Church and of humanity, and thrown the weight of his authority into that of Gallicanism. Here again we see how his mental intensity and impatience reduced him to the dilemma which found solution in his apostasy. Holding as he did to the Papal infallibility in a form far more extreme than that subsequently approved by the Vatican Council, he was bound in consistency to accept the Pope's decision as infallible in respect to its expediency and in all its detail. Thus it ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... together sometimes without talking of women, without talking of horses, without talking of politics, but they cannot assemble to eat a meal together without talking of wine, and they cannot talk of wine without assuming to each one of themselves an absolute infallibility in connection with that single subject which they would shrink from asserting in relation to any ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... way I am bound to say that Baha-'ullah himself has made mistakes, and can we be surprised that the almost equally venerated Abdul Baha has made many slips? It is necessary to make this pronouncement, lest possible friends should be converted into seeming enemies. The claim of infallibility has done harm enough already in ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... infallibility, these countries are claimed by Rome, and wedded to her, and this doctrine of infallibility makes a divorce impossible. Rome waits only her time to reclaim her supposed own. And this doctrine of infallibility will make it a holy war, hence good and true Catholics everywhere will be obliged ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... Identification Bureau, it seemed that the world was tottering to its fall; but the rest of us, who had not really at the bottom of our hearts, perhaps, believed in the infallibility of the finger-print system, took it more calmly. And presently we went upstairs to take a look at the contents of Silva's secret cupboard. When he had first come to the house, Miss Vaughan explained, he had ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson

... to conceal an incipient baldness—whose wary and slightly weary eyes all impressively suggested the metropolitan atmosphere of high pressure and sophistication from which he had emerged. He had a machine to sell; an amazing machine, endowed with human intelligence and more than human infallibility; for when it made a mistake it stopped. It was designed for the express purpose of eliminating from the payroll the skilled and sharp-eyed women who are known as "drawers-in," who sit all day long under a north light patiently threading the ends of the warp through ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... claim infallibility; some of his conclusions may be erroneous; he believes, however, that future investigation will prove the verity of every proposition that is advanced in this book. These propositions have been formulated ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various Vedas, Bibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings about infinitely small atoms and molecules and in all the infinitely great and ...
— A Letter to a Hindu • Leo Tolstoy

... "That is no answer." She was untrammelled by any respect for Euclid, and would have freely questioned the infallibility of an axiom, with a courage such as only ignorance possesses. She was thinking not only of Jock, but had an eye to distant contingencies, when there might be question of a still more precious boy. "God," she said, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... hand, if the blind acceptance of authority appear to him in its true colors, as mere private judgment in excelsis, and if he have courage to stand alone face to face with the abyss of the Eternal and Unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by 'Infallibility,' but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell of honest men will to him be more endurable than a paradise full ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... Thomas More, he takes the opportunity of introducing descriptions of scenery, literary digressions, and quaint illustrations from his vast stores of reading to the confusion of all definite arrangement. Southey is in the awkward position of a dogmatist defending a compromise. An Anglican claiming infallibility is necessarily inconsistent. His view of toleration, for example, is oddly obscure. He would apparently like to persecute infidels;[152] and yet he wishes to denounce the Catholic church for its persecuting principles. He seems to date the main social evils to the changes which ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... it may be said, that the Franco-German war changed all this. The Turkish government then no longer feared the French, and hence no longer lent itself to Papal intrigues. The dogma of the Papal Infallibility has been also a severe ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... truth, to begin with, supplies the possibility of distinguishing certain truths as self-evident in a sense which ensures infallibility. When a belief is true, we said, there is a corresponding fact, in which the several objects of the belief form a single complex. The belief is said to constitute knowledge of this fact, provided it fulfils ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... any true version of the antecedents of the two old women would have seemed mere madness. Had either spectator noted that the bones of the two old faces were the same, she would have condemned her own powers of observation rather than doubt the infallibility of instinctive disbelief, which is the attitude of the vernacular mind not only to what it wishes to be false, but to anything that runs counter to the octave-stretch forlorn—as Elizabeth Browning put it—of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... far from admitting the infallibility of man as the equality of the sexes. The clearest thinkers of the world have had soft spots in their brains; for instance, the daemon belief of Socrates and the ludicrous superstitions of Pythagoras; and you have laid your finger on the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... a dreadful fidget whenever the little gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache,—and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the wind blows from, she will catch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... foreign customs and strange beliefs, can put their finger here and say, 'This is where they are right'; and there and say, 'This belief is foolishly wrong and idiotic.' I am not, unfortunately, one of these writers. I have no such confident belief in my own infallibility of judgment as to be able to sit on high and say, 'Here is truth, and ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... succeeded much more quickly than others, all the individuals in the family have persevered till they have solved the questions; and the timid seem to have been more encouraged by this practical demonstration of the infallibility of persevering attention, than by any other methods which have been tried. When, after a number of small successful trials, they have acquired some share of confidence in themselves, when they are certain of the possibility of their ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... issues alone are involved, we may perhaps accept the view that the well considered opinion of the majority is as near as may be to infallibility. But it is very rarely the case that the question of the legitimacy of a property interest can be reduced to a purely moral issue. Usually there are also at stake, technical and broad economic issues in which majority judgment ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... practice of holding public lectures in order to increase his reputation was discouraged in the physician, and he was especially warned against lectures tricked out with quotations from the poets. Physicians who pretended to infallibility in detecting even the minutest departure from their prescriptions were laughed at; and finally, there were precise by-laws to regulate the personal behaviour of the physician. He was enjoined to ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... from her a single thought or act of his life in this respect. She knew all and had weighed every thing, and flattered herself that their frequent and unreserved conversations had not confirmed his belief in the infallibility of the Church of Rome, and perhaps of some ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... to what lengths the principles of the Church of Rome have led their votaries: and who can assert that she is, in any respect, changed? The Romanist denies that the principles of his Church are changed: nay, he must do so, or renounce the doctrine of infallibility, which is incompatible with change: why, then, should Protestants volunteer assertions, respecting the altered character of Popery, when the Papists themselves deny the fact altogether? I may venture to assert that the individual who advances such a statement, is ignorant of the real principles ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... operations of the War, to what purpose are we called to this Council? When he talks of being responsible to the People, he talks the language of the House of Commons; forgets that, at this Board, he is only responsible to the King. However, though he may possibly have convinced himself of his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced, before we can resign our understandings to his direction, or join with him in the measure he proposes." [BIOG. BRITANNICA (Kippis's; London, 1784), iii. 278. See ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... he has formed his opinions of men and life. We cannot expect that he will change them in your, I mean in our favour. Men of the world are of the world, worldly. I do not think they are always right; I do not myself believe in their infallibility. There is no person more clever and more judicious than papa. No person is more considerate. But there are characters so rare, that men of the world do not admit them into their general calculations, and such ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... talking, you know that you are "booked" for the day. He is rather a "bore," and is uncommonly fond of quoting the Scriptures in support of his theories. But there is something about the man one cannot help liking. His wonderful infallibility in curing disease is set down by himself to divine inspiration. Many a vision has he seen. Unfortunately his doctrines, though excellent in theory, are seldom successful in practice. An excellent prescription which I am informed ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... the infallibility of what is thus revealed, we must remember that while truth is always infallible, there is a possibility of its recognition or conception being tinged to a greater or less degree, with our erroneous judgements, and as the light, pure in itself, is colored by the glass through which it passes, ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... employed to pass Acts of Attainder against feudal magnates and Acts of Supremacy against the church; and men complained that despotic authority had merely been transferred from the pope to the king, and infallibility from the church to parliament. "Parliament," wrote an Elizabethan ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... all that was necessary to mention of the antiquities of the French stage. The duties of the poet were gradually more rigorously laid down, under a belief in the authority of the ancients, and the infallibility of Aristotle. By their own inclination, however, the poets were led to the Spanish theatre, as long as the Dramatic Art in France, under a native education, had not attained its full maturity. They not only imitated ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Jesus warned His disciples. They were not to love to be called Rabbi, a title which occurs in three forms, Rab, Teacher, Doctor; Rabbi, My Doctor or Teacher; Rabboni, My great Doctor. Nor were they to call any man 'Father,' in the sense of granting him any infallibility of judgment or power over their consciences.... 'Papa,' as the simple Moravians call their great man, Count Zinzendorf: 'Founder,' as Methodists denominate good John Wesley; 'Holy Father in God,' as bishops are sometimes called; 'Pope,' which is the same as 'Papa'; ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... Saraswati, founder of the new sect of [A]ryas in the United Provinces and Punjab. Their chief doctrine, the infallibility of the Vedas or earliest Hindu scriptures, is reactionary, although a number of reforms are inculcated in the name of a return to ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... no infallibility. I merely express my own honest opinion, formed against my earnest desire. I do not lay it down as law for others, though, of course, I believe that many others would come to the same conclusion. It appears to me that the story is one that cannot ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... Then the same family strain inevitably crops out, in the loosely-woven web of defensive presumptive evidence—whose pedigree we trace to the same parentage. God forbid that I should commit the sacrilege of arrogating His divine attribute—infallibility—for any human authority, however exalted; or claim it for any amount of proof, presumptive or positive. 'It is because humanity even when most cautious and discriminating is so mournfully fallible and prone to error, that in judging its own frailty, we require the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... astonished to find it so nearly perfect. Whatever opinion he had of its errors he would sacrifice to the public good, and he hoped that every member of the convention who still had objections would on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and for the sake of unanimity put his name to this instrument. Hamilton added his plea. A few members, he said, by refusing to sign, might do infinite mischief. No man's ideas could be more remote from the plan than his were known to be; but ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... unavoidably created to myself two sorts of enemies: the Papists indeed, more directly, because they have kept the Scriptures from us what they could; and have reserved to themselves a right of interpreting what they have delivered under the pretence of infallibility: and the Fanatics more collaterally, because they have assumed what amounts to an infallibility, in the private spirit; and have detorted those texts of Scripture which are not necessary to salvation, to the damnable uses of sedition, disturbance, and destruction of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... the people. But he did so as a Conservative. He had watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called upon him to be the organ of Mr. Daubeny. This duty he performed with great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering round without inconsistency, and without flaw to his infallibility, was eased by Mr. Daubeny's newly-declared views on Church matters. The People's Banner could still be a genuine People's Banner in reference to ecclesiastical ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... of naval warfare, in which even the greatest geniuses at times groped but blindly. Nelson was not afraid to confess the truth. The French Emperor, however, seems never to have made an admission which would mar his claim to strategic infallibility. Even now, when the Spanish ships were proved to clog the enterprise, he persisted in merely counting numbers, and in asserting that Villeneuve might still neutralize the force of Calder and Cornwallis. These hopes he cherished up to August 23rd, when, as the next chapter will show, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... course, full well one frequent consequence of the broad-mindedness which results. I realize how promptly the unread man, filled to the lips with the frothy spirit of his own infallibility, will condemn him whose knowledge of men and motives makes him pause and suspend his judgment. But what of that? Some one has said that thinking makes you wise but weak, while action makes you narrow but strong. A terse sentence, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... woman as well-informed as her husband would deprive him of this daily source of domestic enjoyment; his lecture would be reduced to discussion, and to discussion in which he might be defeated. To rob him of his oracular infallibility might greatly improve the husband, but it would revolutionize ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... Satan unchained, will not admit of a further descent in sin. The Mystery tonight is Scholarius' scheme in contravention of His Serenity's efforts. Oh, it is a quarrel, and a big one, involving Church and State, and the infallibility of our newly risen Jeremiah. Thus full-handed, thinkest thou in a suit the Prince of India against the venerable Hegumen of all the St. James', His Majesty will hesitate? Is thy opinion of him as a politician so uncomplimentary? Think again, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... One man may turn 50 Spinning Wheels, which shall serve 100 persons to Spin with at once; so that the Spinners shall have nothing to do but employ both hands to draw Tire from the Distaff. The Demonstration of the Infallibility of this Invention may be easily made ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines

... little volume the author gives but his own personal opinions upon the subjects discussed, and although the sentiments are expressed with an assurance born of conviction, yet he claims not infallibility. ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... see this victim to her own indiscretion breathe her last sad sigh, and expire in all the extremity of penury and wretchedness. The two quacks, whose injudicious treatment, has probably accelerated her death, are vociferously supporting the infallibility of their respective medicines, and each charging the other with having poisoned her. The meagre figure is a portrait of Dr. Misaubin, a foreigner, at that ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... notorious that people are saved by faith. And there is no faith stronger than that of a bad-tempered woman in her own infallibility. Plainly, this wife of yours is the sort of person who cannot be tolerated by anybody short of the angels. We deduce that your Empress must be ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... unkind about him, one horn of the dilemma must be taken. If you admit you were wrong in the first conclusion, you lay yourself open to the suspicion that you are also wrong in the second—that you are one who makes snap judgments. The safer way then is to cling close to the presumption of your own infallibility, without, of course, actually stating it, and claim that your idol has changed, backslidden—fallen. This then lends an aura of virtue to your action, as it shows a wholesome desire on your part not to associate with the base person, and also an altruistic wish to warn the world so ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... always been a matter of course to her. She whose truest vocation is love, received from nature that which the greatest of men have striven hard to win and only half succeeded in winning. Man's profound dualism is alien to her; her greatness—but also her limitation—lies in the simplicity and infallibility of her instinct, which has had no evolution and is consequently not liable to produce atavisms and aberrations. She is hardly conscious of the chasm between sexual instinct and personal love. Wherever this is not so, we may find intellectual greatness (as for instance ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... entering a temple of Jupiter as a church. Religion in Roman Catholic countries being thus left, so far as the educated classes are concerned, to the priests and women, its recent developments have been inspired exclusively by priestly ambition and female imagination. The infallibility of the Pope and the worship of the Virgin have made, and are still making, tremendous strides. The Romanizing party in the Episcopal Church of England are left panting behind, in their vain efforts to keep up with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... God save Allah," is the fundamental doctrine of Islamism, and to this is added the equally binding declaration that "Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah." The faithful Moslem must also believe in the sacredness and infallibility of the Koran. He is also required to believe in the resurrection and the day of judgment, and an after-state of happiness and of misery. Also he must believe in the absoluteness of the decrees of God,—that he foreordains whatsoever comes to pass, and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... and tenderly attached to his good wife. Thus it was probably not any subtle distinction between Real Presence and Transubstantiation, not misgivings as to the exact degree of worship to be paid to the Virgin, not doubts as to the limits of the personal infallibility of the Pope or objections to practical abuses in the Church of Rome—which kept Keble and has kept many a Romanizing clergyman of the Anglican Church from becoming a Roman Catholic. Nor is the reason when analysed one of which ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... vexed at not having been believed on trust, thought the moment had arrived to regain his infallibility, by completing the unfinished sentence. While every one was endeavouring to supply the ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... risk at the hands of the Inquisition at Cologne if he had not been saved by Leo X. Cardan, a mathematician and physician, was one of the learned men of the day most impregnated with Kabbalism. He believed in a kind of infallibility of the inner sense, of the intuition, and regarded as futile all sciences that proceeded by slow rational operations. He believed himself a mage and magician. From vanity he spoke of himself in the highest terms and from cynicism in the ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... and popular use of the terms conscience and moral sense. These terms, and especially the word conscience, are often employed to designate a sort of mysterious entity, supposed to have been implanted in the mind by God Himself, and endowed by Him with the unique prerogative of infallibility. Even so philosophical and sober a writer as Bishop Butler has given some countenance to this extravagant supposition, and to the exaggerated language which he employs on the prerogatives of conscience, and to the emphatic ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... himselfe by such an admirable eloquence of language, and the cleere and incomparable power of reason, that he not only made them appeare unaequall adversaryes, but carryed the warr into ther owne quarters, and made the Popes infallibility to be as much shaken and declyned by ther owne Doctors, and as greate an acrimony amon[g]st themselves upon that subjecte, and to be at least as much doubted as in the schooles of the Reformed or Protestant, and forced them since to defende ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... fears! "If thy God were good," said Ossian, "he would call Finn into his dun." Yes, the heroic heart is dear to the heroic heart. I would back the intuition of an honest soul for truth against piled-up centuries of theology. But this high spirit is stifled everywhere by a dull infallibility which is yet unsuccessful, on its own part, in awakening inspiration; and, in the absence of original though, we pick over the bones of dead movements, we discuss the personalities of the past, but no one asks the secrets of life ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... extraordinary circumstances attending this trial. One is, that Richard Crowninshield, Jr., the supposed immediate perpetrator of the murder, since his arrest, has committed suicide. He has gone to answer before a tribunal of perfect infallibility. The other is, that Joseph Knapp, the supposed originator and planner of the murder, having once made a full disclosure of the facts, under a promise of indemnity, is, nevertheless, not now a witness. Notwithstanding his disclosure ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... could solve the riddle of their prophecies, it was certain that no one could disprove his solutions. Yet these came so often to their own disproof by lapse of time, that I can only think that the good doctor hoped to die before his critical periods came, or was so clever as to trust the infallibility of ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... speak in the House of Lords last night. It is a really terrible place for the unaccustomed. Frigid impatience and absolute goodwill, combined with a thorough conviction of the infallibility of laymen (if not too religious) on all sacred subjects, are the tone, morale, and reason, of the House as a living being. My whole self-possession departs, and ejection from the House seems the best thing which could happen to one."—Archbishop ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... Pardon us, brother of the flesh, say they, in saintly whispers,—it is all for the Church and Christ. Boldly fortified with sanctimony, they hurl back the shafts of reform, and ask to live on sumptuously, as the only sought recompense for their christian love. Pious infallibility! how blind, to see not ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... rendered to its Creator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin sentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed, undraped statuettes in every nook and corner,—or dwarfs the soul and pins it to the surplice of some theologic dogmata claiming infallibility—or coffins the intellect in cramped, shallow, psychological categories,—it bore fruit in a wide-eyed, large-hearted, liberal-minded eclecticism, which, waging no crusade against the various Saladins of modern systems, quietly possessed itself of the really valuable ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... Nonconformist, and I find in it an attack (I am not concerned with the truth or falsehood of the opinions attacked) on the doctrines of episcopal succession, of sacramental grace, of baptismal regeneration, and the like. It is wholly silent about claims to Papal domination, about infallibility, about purgatory and indulgences, about the worship of the Virgin or of the Saints. Am I justified in concluding that the writer is 'referring in unmistakable terms' to the Church of Rome, because the Church of Rome, in common with the majority ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... miracles in the ordinary conduct of His Church. It would be a strange miracle if infallibility existed in one man. But it appears so natural for it to reside in a multitude, since the conduct of God is hidden under nature, as in all ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... everything: theaters, exhibitions, concerts: he had a touching veneration for art, literature, and middle-class ideas: they fascinated him. He had imbibed the vague and ardent ideology which intoxicated the middle-classes in the first days of the Revolution. He had a definite belief in the infallibility of reason, in boundless progress,—quo non ascendam?—in the near advent of happiness on earth, in the omnipotence of science, in Divine Humanity, and in France, the eldest daughter of Humanity. He had an enthusiastic and credulous sort of anti-clericalism which ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... important result of the supreme position accorded to the Papacy was the gradual emergence of the doctrine of papal infallibility. "The Church of Rome," says Gregory VII, "through St. Peter, as it were by some privilege, is from the very beginnings of the faith reckoned by the Holy Fathers the Mother of all the Churches and will so be considered to the very end; for in her no heretic is ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... Wales, entered the Church, and rose to be successively Bishop of St. Asaph 1444, and of Chichester 1450. He was a strenuous controversialist, chiefly against the Lollards; but his free style of argument, and especially his denial of the infallibility of the Church, led him into trouble, and on being offered the choice of abjuration or death at the stake, he chose the former, but nevertheless was deprived of his bishopric, had his books burned, and spent his latter days in the Abbey ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... law, contending, at least implicitly, that it is unnecessary to seek farther the desired justification. However, the basis of common law, though broad, is certainly not broad enough for the consideration of such a question as the present one. His coolness rises to sublime heights, in thus assuming infallibility for common law, ignoring the very important fact that behind it there is another and higher law, whose imperative, to every one with a conscience, is ultimate. It evidently never occurs to him that some time could be profitably spent in research, ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... inaccuracy, blunder, misapprehension, falsity, misconception. Associated Words: fallibility, infallibility, fallible, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... corruptions, of course, like all other human institutions. As a religion, although it superadded many dogmas and rites which Protestants do not accept, and for which they can see no divine authority,—like auricular confession, the deification of the Virgin, indulgences for sin, and the infallibility of the Pope,—still, it has at the same time defended the cardinal principles of Christian faith and morality; such as the personality and sovereignty of God, the divinity of Christ, salvation in consequence of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... claim to infallibility. There are verses in the Mahabharata that are exceedingly difficult to construe. I have derived much aid from the great commentator Nilakantha. I know that Nilakantha's authority is not incapable of being challenged. But when it is remembered that the interpretations given by Nilakantha ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... led the way to the mills. But once there the amusement in his eyes rapidly deepened to amazement, for there were few steps in the processes upon which the boy could not talk as fluently and technically as did the mill boss himself. And he knew timber; knew it with the same infallibility which had, even in McLean, always seemed to border upon ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... those who believe themselves entitled to veneration on account of their years, to complain of the arrogant disregard of their counsels, which they impute to the rising generation. Cherishing the highest opinion of their own sentiments, to which they attribute a kind of infallibility, as being founded upon experience, they naturally expect implicit submission to their dictates and an exact conformity to their views: they require not only to be heard, but obeyed, and are impatient at the folly of those who rebel ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... the attainment of great results, that the probabilities and existing circumstances may be well weighed before such means are applied. A plan, to be entirely correct, must be suited to all cases. If its infallibility is not thus established, there can be no impropriety in pointing out the errors and dangers to which it is exposed, for the benefit ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... to try conclusions with Majesty—still less on such an occasion. The extreme freedoms with departed greatness, the party-petulance carried to the Throne of Grace, the unchecked indulgence of private humour, the assumption of infallibility and even of the voice of Heaven in this poem, are pointed instances of what we have said. They shew the singular state of over-excitement of Mr. Southey's mind, and the force of old habits of independent and unbridled thinking, which cannot be kept down ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... medical profession. Our ancestors listened with awe and obedience to the warnings and behests of the medicine man, bloodletter, bonesetter, family doctor. In modern times doctors have disagreed with each other often enough to warrant laymen in questioning the infallibility of any individual healer or any sect, whether homeopath, allopath, eclectic, osteopath, or scientist. Yet to this day most of us surround the medical profession or the healing art with an atmosphere of necromancy. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... make all knowledge vanish away, there will lack nothing but the presence of a perfect charity to turn the nineteenth century into a complete kingdom of heaven. Amongst changes, then, so great and so hopeful—amongst the discoveries of the rights of women, the infallibility of the Pope, and the physical basis of life, it may well be doubted if the great fathers of ancient song would find, if they could come back to us, anything out of the way or ludicrous in ...
— Every Man His Own Poet - Or, The Inspired Singer's Recipe Book • Newdigate Prizeman

... as awful. MacWheep at once sits down with the air of one taken red-handed in arson, and the court debates the point till every authority has taken his fill, when the clerk submits to the Moderator, with a fine blend of deference and infallibility, that Mr. MacWheep is perfectly within his rights; and then, as that estimable person has, by this time, lost any thread he ever possessed, the Presbytery passes to the next business—with the high ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... consequences upon him. When we feel that another is to share the self-same fortune with ourselves we judge more severely of our prospects, and withhold our confidence from that delusive magic which appears to shed an infallibility of happiness over our own pathway. Of late years, indeed, there has been much to sadden my intercourse with Monsieur de Miroir. Had not our union been a necessary condition of our life, we must have been estranged ere now. In early youth, when my affections were warm ...
— Monsieur du Miroir (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... human race, and in particular its value for purposes of legislation and social economy, which we are far from denying, there is some risk that lectures like Professor Huxley's at Belfast, dressed up for promiscuous crowds, and produced with the polite scorn of infallibility, in which the destruction of moral responsibility is broadly hinted at as one of the probable results of researches in biology, will do great mischief. For what does it matter, or rather ought it to matter, for social ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... upon Tower-hill! for since that Florida plot, and after that his hopes of Irish preferment came to naught, he who could not help himself by fair means has taken to foul ones, and gone over to Italy to the Pope, whose infallibility has not been proof against Stukely's wit; for he was soon his Holiness's closet counsellor, and, they say, his bosom friend; and made him give credit to his boasts that, with three thousand soldiers he would ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley



Words linked to "Infallibility" :   inerrancy, reliability, fallibility, dependableness



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