Literary notes about indubitable (AI summary)
The word "indubitable" has been deployed in literature as a marker of undeniable truth or clarity about a fact, observation, or perception. In many texts—from Freud’s observation that unpleasant impressions can be readily forgotten [1] to Jane Austen’s commentary on social judgments in Emma [2]—the term underscores an assertion that leaves little room for debate. Its use spans both scientific and literary discourse, where it often qualifies evidence as self-evident, such as in discussions of observable phenomena in sociology and criminal psychology [3, 4, 5]. Additionally, the word appears in the works of authors like Carlyle, Hawthorne, and Dickens, where it not only lends an air of certainty to historical events or character traits [6, 7, 8] but also subtly conveys the persuasive power of ostensibly irrefutable details, as seen in Jefferson’s foundational document [9].
- That unpleasant impressions are easily forgotten is an indubitable fact.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - That Frank Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable.
— from Emma by Jane Austen - Their existence is indubitable to any impartial observer.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - Here are facts which are indubitable and unexplained.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - Again, it is indubitable that the movement of the body seems quicker when we observe it with a fixed glance than when we follow it with our eyes.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - It is strange; secret as the Mysteries; but it is indubitable.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - "Yes," I replied, "my right to that appellation is indubitable.
— from Mosses from an old manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne - An indubitable token of life!
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - We shall call it "the facts" to emphasise its indubitable reality, and avoid, as far as possible, any other implications.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson