"Deceitful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who know Frenchmen by caricature merely, as volatile, fickle, deceitful, full of artifice, should sit in judgment upon them. He has the least heart of all who thinks that there is not some heart everywhere! The charity which tarrieth long and suffereth much wrong, has been that ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the disposition of her son, whom I had engaged to take away with me, I addressed several remarks to him, and soon discovered that he was of a false and deceitful nature, always on his guard, taking care of what he said, and consequently speaking only from his head and not from his heart. Every word was delivered with a quiet politeness which, no doubt, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... exclaimed, "that resemblances are often deceitful, and not to be depended upon. In this case, however, there is scarcely a trace that could constitute any particular peculiarity—a peculiarity which, if it existed, would strengthen—I know not whether to say—my suspicions or my hopes. The early disappearance of that poor boy, without the existence ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... go on to say what these unexpected things were, is a good place for telling what mamma said to me afterwards, when we were by ourselves, about the whole affair, and my part in it. She quite allowed that I had not meant to do wrong or to be deceitful, or anything like that, and that I had been rather in a hole. But she made me see that, to start with, I should not have promised Margaret to keep it a secret, and she said she was sure that Margaret would have given in to our telling her—mamma, I mean—of ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... of human nature which they find current, and attribute to themselves whatever wishes this theory would lead them to expect. We used to be full of virtuous wishes, but since Freud our wishes have become, in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Both these views, in most of those who have held them, are the product of theory rather than observation, for observation requires effort, whereas ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... Tasso, Marino, Guarini, Metastasio, and a crowd of writers of inferior merit and celebrity, were spell-bound in the enchanted gardens of a gaudy and meretricious Alcina, who concealed debility and deformity beneath the deceitful semblance of loveliness and health. Ariosto, the great Ariosto himself, like his own Ruggiero, stooped for a time to linger amidst the magic flowers and fountains, and to caress the gay and painted sorceress. But to him, as to his own Ruggiero, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... myself shall not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. [11:11]Why? Because I love you not? God knows. [11:12]But what I do I also will do, that I may take away an occasion from those who wish an occasion, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we are. [11:13]For such false apostles, deceitful laborers, transform themselves into apostles of Christ. [11:14]And no wonder; for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. [11:15]It is no great thing, therefore, if his ministers transform themselves ...
— The New Testament • Various
... ever-restless secret scheming and gathering together in dark corners. It is not for their religion that I hate and distrust the Papists. I know little about matters of controversy. I meddle not in things too high for me. But I hate them for their subtlety, their deceitful ways, their lying, and their fraud. Thou knowest how they schemed and plotted the death of good Queen Bess; we citizens of London find it hard to forgive them that! We love not the son of this same Mary Stuart, whom of old the Papists strove to give us for our Queen; yet he is our lawful ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of the learned men of his time, his political life was contemptible, as he was completely under the control of the court favorite, Alvaro de Luna. Alvaro de Luna era el hombre mas politico, disimulado, y astuto de su tiempo [Alvaro de Luna was the most politic, deceitful, and astute man of his time], so says the Spanish historian Quintana; and as Burke puts it, he had the strongest head and the bravest heart in all Castile. There was no one to excel him in knightly sport, no one lived in greater magnificence, and he was, in truth, "the glass of fashion, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... tender passions! yes, they would become those impenetrable features! Why, thou deceitful hag! I placed thee as a guard to the rich blossoms of my daughter's beauty. I thought that dragon's front of thine would cry aloof to the sons of gallantry: steel traps and spring guns seemed writ in every wrinkle ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... affect virtue, and pretend only to vice; that a charlatan setting up morality would have no sort of following; that religion and the domestic virtues have gone so utterly to rags as not to be worth putting on for a deceitful garment; and that, no principles being left to parade, the only chance for the French modern Tartuffe is to confess and exaggerate weaknesses. We seem to have something of an advantage here. We require at least that the respectable homage of vice to virtue should not be omitted. "Charity, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... The first thorough unconscious sleep would seem to be the hopeless destruction of the soul in its perfect oblivion. Death is forever for the first time, shrouded in the misleading obscurities of an unknown novelty. Appearances are often deceitful, yielding obvious clews only to mistakes and falsehoods. They are always superficial, furnishing no ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the bow of the Wanderer, even the black bow of Eurytus, on the bed beside Pharaoh, and passed thence to her own chamber, and the deceitful dream too ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... instantly to return, to replace the candle full in my view, to sit down close beside the bed, and, with her arm once more thrown over me, she was forced again to repeat that the Jew's bag could not come there, and, cursing me in her heart, she recommenced her deceitful songs. She was seldom released in less than two hours. In vain she now tried by day to chase away the terrors of the night: to undo her own work was beyond her power. In vain she confessed that her threats were only to frighten me into being a good boy. In vain she told me that I was too old now ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Sin is deceitful, and will harden all those that indulge it. The more tender any man is to his lust, the more will he be hardened by it. There is a native hardness in every man's heart; and though it may be softened by gospel means, yet if those means be afterwards neglected, the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the truth," said Bella. "Oh, what deceitful things you men are! Leave me alone, James; I will speak. I won't sit by and hear poor dear Miss Collum deceived in this way. Miss Collum, ask him if that is all he knows about it. Ask him, and see ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... hollow tree Was tenanted by three. An eagle held a lofty bough, The hollow root a wild wood sow, A female cat between the two. All busy with maternal labours, They lived awhile obliging neighbours. At last the cat's deceitful tongue Broke up the peace of old and young. Up climbing to the eagle's nest, She said, with whisker'd lips compress'd, 'Our death, or, what as much we mothers fear, That of our helpless offspring dear, Is surely drawing near. Beneath ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... it has had time to expand. For what is most cruel in cruelty is its tendency to demoralise its victims, especially those who are of tender years—to harden them, to brutalise them, to make them stubborn and secretive, to make them shifty and deceitful, to throw them back upon themselves, to shut them up within themselves, to quench the joy of their hearts, to numb their sympathies, to cramp their expansive energies, to narrow and darken their whole outlook on life. All this the cruelty of his seniors ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... the master who, having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a return of the original symptoms of disease, but even by a return of these symptoms in an aggravated form." (See Hahnemann's ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... say truth is stranger than fiction. A deceitful thing to try to pass for white when she is colored! If she comes back to this school I shan't stay!" said the coarse rough girl, twirling her gold pencil. "I ain't a going ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... told you in the close of my Third Introductory Lecture, that "so far from art's being immoral, little else except art is moral." I have now farther to tell you, that little else, except art, is wise; that all knowledge, unaccompanied by a habit of useful action, is too likely to become deceitful, and that every habit of useful action must resolve itself into some elementary practice of manual labour. And I would, in all sober and direct earnestness advise you, whatever may be the aim, predilection, or necessity ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... he compels her to confess that she is mistaken. The coronation ends with John's triumph, while the hapless Fides is carried off to be immured in a dungeon. John visits her in her cell, and obtains her pardon by promising to renounce his deceitful splendour, and to fly with her. Later he discovers that a plot against himself has been hatched by some of the Anabaptist leaders, and he destroys himself and them by blowing up the palace ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... as you have, Nuss," she said. "But I 've known Myrtle Hazard ever since she was three years old, and to think she should have come to such an end,—'The heart is deceitful above all things ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... wise and polished nation. Xenophon has made an eloquent attempt to explain the nature of military good faith. Cambyses tells his son, that, in taking advantage of an enemy, a man must be "crafty, deceitful, a dissembler, a thief, and a robber." Oh Jupiter! exclaims the young Cyrus, what a man, my father, you say I must be! And he very sensibly asks his father, why, if it be necessary in some cases to ensnare and deceive men, he had not in ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... gate—the flashing of arms, and rustling of plumes, and jingling of spurs, within it. In short, it was that gay and splendid confusion, in which the eye of youth sees all that is brave and brilliant, and that of experience much that is doubtful, deceitful, false, and hollow—hopes that will never be gratified—promises which will never be fulfilled—pride in the disguise of humility—and insolence in that ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the poor girl's heart and weighed it down with their heavy meaning. Upright and delicate as a flower born in the depths of a forest, she knew nothing of the world's maxims, of its deceitful arguments and specious sophisms; she therefore believed the atrocious explanation which her father gave her designedly, concealing the distinction which exists between an involuntary failure and an ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... be otherwise, in a small Island of volcanic mountains, far within the Tropics, and perpetually covered with the richest vegetation?" The moral aspect of things is by no means so good; but neither is that without its fair features. "So far as I see, the Slaves here are cunning, deceitful and idle; without any great aptitude for ferocious crimes, and with very little scruple at committing others. But I have seen them much only in very favorable circumstances. They are, as a body, decidedly ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... him of the certainty of the promised recovery. Yet when the king of Babylon sent ambassadors to congratulate him on this recovery, we find this holy man ostentatiously displaying to them his silver, and gold, and armour. Truly the heart is "deceitful above all things;" and it was, indeed, to manifest this more fully that God permitted him thus to act. God "left him," says the inspired writer, "to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart[4]." Let us take David as another instance of the great danger of prosperity; he, too, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... of Arbaces ran over the writing. He read it to the end, and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said, in a voice of deceitful calmness, "Is the writer of this ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... a very fallacious and deceitful arguing of the Pharisee, thus to speak before God in his prayers: I am righteous, because I have not hurt my neighbour, and because I have acted in ceremonial duties. Nor will that help him at all to ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... was by that dim Lake,[1] Where sinful souls their farewell take Of this vain world, and half-way lie In death's cold shadow, ere they die. There, there, far from thee, Deceitful world, my home should be; Where, come what might of gloom and pain, False hope should ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... She could not believe that Ann would have the hardihood to play off the same trick again so soon; and she was very much surprised and very indignant when she saw her begin to cry with all her might, just as she had done before. While the deceitful girl's eyes were covered with her apron, in the extremity of her grief, Katy contrived to get on the hotel steps behind her, so that she could see and hear ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... a good boy," she said, "but there was always something about him that made me suspicious. There was something in his expression—I can't tell you what—that set me to thinkin' all wasn't right. Appearances are deceitful, as our old minister ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... deceitful persons spend their lives in blaming deceit, so as to use it on some great occasion to ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... his ignorance, he covets himself; and he that approves, is himself {the thing} approved. While he pursues he is pursued, and at the same moment he inflames and burns. How often does he give vain kisses to the deceitful spring; how often does he thrust his arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that deceives his eyes, provokes them. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... as a lie; and that a man who frankly expresses his beliefs and ambitions, and openly goes about his business and his pleasures with no thought of concealment, is often regarded as Machiavellian and deceitful, because a timid and cautious world finds it hard to believe that he is really as ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... is I don't want to be a lady if it makes folks so crewel an so deceitful as that," said Submit Goodrich, a black-eyed, bright cheeked wench, old Israel's youngest daughter. "To think o' her pretendin not to know him, right afore all the folks, and she on her knees to him a cryin only four days ago. I don't care if she ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... formerly so docile (though, as it now turned out, so deceitful); who had always known her place and never answered her mistress but with respect; was to-day an unrecognisable Bassett—not in the least impudent, but as certainly not to be awed or brow-beaten. Standing in the glare of discovered misconduct, under the scourge ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the soul sorliche to then lichame. sadly to the body, * * * * * * * * * * hwi noldest bethenchen thu me. 90 why wouldst thou not think of me theo hwule thet ic wunede inne the. while that I dwelt in thee, for thu were leas and luti[gh]. for thou wert false and deceitful, and unriht lufedest. and iniquity didst love; godnesse and riht. goodness and justice aefre thu onscunedest. 95 ever thou didst shun. hwar is nu the modinesse. Where is now the pride swo muchel the thu lufedaest. thou so much didst love? hwar beoth nu theo pundes. Where ...
— The Departing Soul's Address to the Body • Anonymous
... the adjacent coast, and derives its name from the Payaguas, a treacherous and deceitful people, who subsist by fishing. It is a fertile district, and produces a species of ilex,[14] which makes the tea so much used in South America. The laborers, who esteem it vastly more than we do our Chinese tea, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... squeaky voice. His habits were retiring, and his manner was shy. He was, in fact, about the last man one would have thought capable of "putting up" a fight. However, a somewhat wide experience has taught me that appearances in this connection are apt to be deceitful; the quiet, unassuming man is very often a ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... doesn't act like a deceitful boy. To-day I asked him if he wanted any money, or should I put what I owe him with the rest, and he looked me straight in the face with such honest, grateful eyes, I could not doubt him when he said: 'Keep it, please, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... be consummately impressive were it not that we know how wholly deceitful she was without in the least knowing it. But the creeping horror of time is quickly softened by her marriage in 1833 to a Frenchman called De Bombelles, who was in the service of her native land, and ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... society, where there is no bond of common interest, but violent feminine competition. They have no issue which unites them; they do not hold together. They do well to hold the men. This keeps them anxious, tearful, deceitful, and busy, besides being dear and sweet ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... Winifred brightly. "And as for the sprained ankle, wicked and deceitful creature that I am, I made it the excuse for not going with Mrs. Latimer. Good people, really good people, would think that I merited punishment for not doing my duty in my small sphere of life. Yet see! Instead of that ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... my mother's portrait, which I had worn next my heart throughout all the vicissitudes of fortune encountered by me since the moment it had first been placed in my hands, and, pressing the spring, threw back the cover, and allowed my eyes to rest upon the loveliness it had concealed. Deceitful! If falsehood lurked within the liquid depths of those clear, calm, steadfast eyes, or was hidden behind that smooth and placid brow, then I thought must the very angels be false! If falsehood could shroud itself behind a mask of such surpassing ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... well I'm satisfied 'tis nothing all But a deceitful hope, less solid far, A thousand times, than is the moving sand; But are not all things so with wretched man? All things soon pass away like rapid streams Which hasten to the sea, where lost for ever In th' ocean's vast abyss unknown they ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... jeered Emma Dean. "Did you ever see the ocean smile more sweetly, the deceitful old thing. When one stops to think of the ships and people it gobbles up every year one feels ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... sides upon the yellow sand. Her apprehensions chas'd, by slow degrees, The virgin's fingers playful stroke his breast; Then bind with wreaths his horns: more daring now Upon his back the royal maid ascends;— Witless a god she presses. From the fields, His steps deceitful gradual turn'd, he bends, And seeks the shore; then playful in the waves Just dips his feet;—thence plunging deep, he swims Through midmost ocean with his ravish'd prize. Trembling the nymph beholds the lessening shore;—— Firm grasps one ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... genii; and there they delight to make themselves invisible, and to flutter about others like phantoms secretly infusing evil into them, which they spread around like the poison of a viper. These are more direfully tormented than others. But those who are not deceitful, and who have not been so filled with malignant craftiness, and yet are in the evils derived from the love of self, are also in the hells behind, but in those less deep. On the other hand, those that have been in evils from the ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... blame Reggie for borrowing if he was hard up, but knew he could pay. But most men are deceitful creatures, anyway. Don't let Aunt Ella write to father. He was always sore about her influence over Quincy, and he mustn't think Aunt Ella made this match. If the Countess would write him, puffing up Reggie's ancestors, and his blue ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... to be literary, and felt pleased that you approved of the work her mother did years ago. That is all she thought about it. I did more thinking while Nora was telling me. I thought that Landis Stoner must be a little mite deceitful or she would not be critical of Nora when others were present and yet slip in to see her during study-hours. It seemed—well—it ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... shall never see you more! Why did I tell you of the speaking bird, singing tree, and yellow water; or rather, of what importance was it to me to know whether the devout woman thought this house ugly or handsome, or complete or not? I wish to Heaven she had never addressed herself to me? Deceitful hypocrite!" added she, "is this the return you have made for the kind reception I gave you? Why did you tell me of a bird, a tree, and a water, which, imaginary as I am persuaded they are, by my dear brother's death, yet ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... we began to see the wonderful effects of deceitful mirage, extremely common all over Persia. One sees beautiful lakes of silvery water, with clusters of trees and islands and rocks duly reflected upside down in their steady waters, but it is all an optical deception, caused by the action of the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to the Protestants was more than balanced by the assassination of the great Duke of Guise, the ablest general and leader of the Catholics. So when all hope had vanished of exterminating the Huguenots in open warfare, a deceitful peace was made; and their leaders were decoyed to Paris, in order to accomplish, in one foul sweep, by wholesale ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... by auction. The auctioneer shouts loudly that they are 'the newest arrivals, simple, and not cunning, lately captured from the people of the kingdom (Poland), and not from Muscovy'; for the Muscovite race, being crafty and deceitful, does not bring a good price. This kind of merchandise is appraised with great accuracy in the Crimea, and is bought by foreign merchants at a high price, in order to be sold at a still higher rate to blacker nations, such as Saracens, Persians, Indians, Arabs, Syrians, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... represent a Man as hypocritical and designing to one, which make him appear a Saint or Hero to another. He therefore who looks upon the Soul through its outward Actions, often sees it through a deceitful Medium, which is apt to discolour and pervert the Object: So that on this Account also, he is the only proper Judge of our Perfections, who does not guess at the Sincerity of our Intentions from the Goodness of our Actions, but weighs ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Antiquary interposed. "Aroint thee, witch! wouldst thou poison my guests with thy infernal decoctions? Dost thou not remember how it fared with the clergyman whom you seduced to partake of that deceitful beverage?" ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the Jarra army had returned from fighting Daisy, and that this firing was by way of rejoicing. However, when the chief men of the town had assembled, and heard a full detail of the expedition, they were by no means relieved from their uneasiness on Daisy's account. The deceitful Moors having drawn back from the confederacy, after being hired by the Negroes, greatly dispirited the insurgents, who, instead of finding Daisy with a few friends concealed in the strong fortress of Gedingooma, had found him at a town near Joka, in the open country, surrounded by so ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... moved on westwards 'towards the Beauce, intending to reach his own estates in Brittany for winter quarters. But his young captains got out of control. Led by a Gloucestershire knight, Sir John Minsterworth, "ready in hand but deceitful and perverse in mind," a considerable section of the troops refused to follow the old "tomb-robber" to Brittany, and determined to spend the winter where they were, under Minsterworth's leadership. Knowles would not give place to his subordinate, and made his way ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... are Deceitful Shifts, The Stoppers, Jealousy, Which hath Sir Argus hundred Eyes, Wherewith to watch ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... a full inquiry to be made into the mischance that had cut off his brother so suddenly. But he could not manage, by all his arts, to escape silent condemnation in the thoughts of the common people. He afterwards asked Karl, "Who had killed Harald?" and Karl replied that it was deceitful in him to ask a question about something which he knew quite well. These words earned him his death; for Frode thought that he had reproached him covertly ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our modern parties have chosen to divide on this point, the question has been disputed with the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both sides have become, on that account, the more captious and deceitful. Our monarchical faction maintain, that these WITES, or SAPIENTES, were the judges, or men learned in the law; the popular faction assert them to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the Commons. [FN [a] We know of one change, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... deceitful," replied Mrs. Morton, who, by the way, spoke through her nose. "Pray Heaven he may be what he seems; but what's bred in the bone comes out in ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Heaven as little children. And oh, that grown-up people would imitate these things; for if they would become in these respects as little children, the sweet cast of mind would be reflected in their faces too, and the ugly looks given by envious discontent, deceitful thoughts, unkind intention and restless want of faith and hope would all be washed out ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... replied. "When I think that I am alone, hampered by social conventions that make me deceitful, I envy the privileges of a man. But when I also reflect on the means which nature has bestowed on us women to catch and entangle you men in the invisible meshes of a power which you cannot resist, then the part assigned to me in the world ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... art a deceitful rogue thyself, for it is plain thou knowest these people would only persuade us on shore to entrap and surprise us; and yet thou that art a Christian, as thou callest thyself, would have us come on shore and put our lives into their hands who know nothing ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... the autumn of the year 9 A.D. The long rainy season of the German forests began. Hermann decided that the time had arrived for the execution of his plans. He began his work with a deceitful skill that quite blinded the too-trusting Varus, inducing him to send bodies of troops into different parts of the country, some to gather provisions for the winter supply of the camps, others to keep watch over some tribes not yet subdued. The Roman force thus weakened, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... heretical &c. (heterodox) 984; unsound; illogical &c. 477. inexact, unexact inaccurate[obs3], incorrect; indefinite &c. (uncertain) 475. illusive, illusory; delusive; mock, ideal &c (imaginary) 515; spurious &c. 545; deceitful &c. 544; perverted. controvertible, unsustainable; unauthenticated, untrustworthy. exploded, refuted; discarded. in error, under an error &c. n.; mistaken &c. v.; tripping &c. v.; out, out in one's reckoning; aberrant; beside the mark, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Because I love you not? God knows. (12)But what I do, and will do, is that I may cut off the occasion of those who desire an occasion, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we. (13)For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. (14)And no wonder; for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. (15)It is no great thing then, if also his ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... heretical &c (heterodox) 984; unsound; illogical &c 477. inexact, unexact inaccurate^, incorrect; indefinite &c (uncertain) 475. illusive, illusory; delusive; mock, ideal &c (imaginary) 515; spurious &c 545; deceitful &c 544; perverted. controvertible, unsustainable; unauthenticated, untrustworthy. exploded, refuted; discarded. in error, under an error &c n.; mistaken &c v.; tripping &c v.; out, out in one's reckoning; aberrant; beside the mark, wide of the mark, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... is such a commodity as superfluous personal sacrifice to one's matrimonial obligations," he soliloquized. "Perhaps this spouse of mine with the pre-historic constitution can be cured by an abstract treatment. Is she ill, or is she playing a wild, deceitful part? Is she sitting on me with all her weight?" He was willing to allow her the usual proportion of female indisposition, but a continued story of such nightmare proportions was beginning to unstring ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... This thing call'd pain Is (as the learned Stoicks maintain) Not bad simpliciter, nor good, 185 But merely as 'tis understood. Sense is deceitful, and may feign, As well in counterfeiting pain As other gross phenomenas, In which it oft mistakes the case. 190 But since the immortal intellect (That's free from error and defect, Whose objects still persist the same) ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... with a word And laugh at me. Arise, my recollections, For now I need you or shall never need you! Woe, woe, that I must call you in this hour! Will not one loving glance return to me? One unambiguous word? Ah, words and glances, Deceitful woof of air. A heavy heart Would cling to you, and ye are rent like cobwebs. Away, fond recollection! My old life Today is cast behind me, and I stand Upon a sphere that rolls I ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... honourably," Ben Ibyn said, putting a hand on his shoulder kindly. "We have heard much of the character of the Order, and that though valiant in battle, your knights are courteous and chivalrous, deeming a deceitful action to be unworthy of them, and binding themselves by their vows to succour the distressed and to be pitiful to the weak. We have heard that our wounded are tended by them in your hospitals with ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... deceitful," Aunt Martha comes back. "She misrepresents her age, lies about her birthplace, and—and she wears ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... makes me half wish I could. . . . It was full of wisdom and the beauty of holiness, which even I, poor sceptic and outcast, could recognise and appreciate. After all, he didn't get it from the Articles, but from his own human heart, which, he told us, was deceitful and ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... exclamaci is, whiche sheweth the signification of sorowe, or of anger, by callyng vpon eyther a man, aplace, or a thynge? Cicero in hys oratour: Odeceitful hope of men, and frayle fortune: & our vayne contencions, whych oft[en] tymes are broken in the myd way, rushe downe, and in the fal ar quite ouerthrowen before they can se the hauen. Hereunto ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... is explained now. So, Gina Montani was this beloved one. I am his by sufferance—she, by love. Holy Mother, have mercy on my brain! I know they love—I see it all too plainly. And I could believe his deceitful explanation, and trust him. I told him I believed it on our wedding night. He did not know why he went to her house; habit, he supposed, or, want of occupation. Oh, shame on his false words! Shame on my ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... with ev'ry virtue mov'd, Tho' at his birth deceitful fortune smil'd, In one sad hour, too fatally he lov'd; False fortune frown'd, and he was ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... with duty, is to ask myself, "Should I be content that my maxim (to extricate myself from difficulty by a false promise) should hold good as a universal law, for myself as well as for others?" and should I be able to say to myself, "Every one may make a deceitful promise when he finds himself in a difficulty from which he cannot otherwise extricate himself?" Then I presently become aware that while I can will the lie, I can by no means will that lying should be a universal law. For with such a law there would be no promises at all, since it ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no not one[7]." "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin[8]?" "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it." "Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me." "We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind." "O wretched ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... bear the sight of the man. He is treacherous and deceitful. I'm not at all sure that he's honest. It was only after he'd been here some time that I learned he was formerly with Signor Keralio. That was enough to set me against him. Like master, like valet, as the saying goes, and ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... mysterious powers. For this reason the greatest opponents to the advance of the Gospel in Borneo are the Manangs. I am glad to say, however, that some Dyak witch doctors have listened to the teaching of the missionaries and have seen the wickedness of the deceitful lives they have led. These have become Christians, and have openly confessed to their evil practices in trading on the superstitions of the Dyaks. Some have become Catechists and teachers, and are teaching others to renounce ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... will seek a lord, beloved as Pholoe, the coy, Or Chloris, or young Gyges, that deceitful, girlish boy, Whom, if you placed among the girls, and loosed his flowing locks, The wondering guests could not decide which ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... weight dragged a great hole in the ear. These rings were inserted when the children were quite young, and pulled their little faces out of shape, giving an uncomfortable expression. Sarawak Malays always said, "A Sakarran Dyak may be trusted, but a Sarebas is deceitful." It is a curious fact, however, that the Sakarrans, with all their fair words and sleek prepossessing looks, did not embrace the gospel as the Sarebas did. The Rev. Walter Chambers lived at Sakarran for some time, but gathered no converts. He then settled himself ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... these appearances were more than usually deceitful; for shortly afterward watchers on the coast reported a strange fishing boat, with patched brown sails, heading for the suspected bay. Before the patrols came up, however, she seemed to be alarmed. The brown sails were ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... of Pan and Apollo," he asked, "have you been singing this deceitful paean to summer ...
— Options • O. Henry
... my fosterer: thy hope yet shall fail thee If thou lookest to see me turned back from my folly, Lamenting and mocking the life of my longing. Many such have I had, dear dreams and deceitful, When the soul slept a little from all but its search, And lied to the body of bliss beyond telling; Yea, waking had lied still but for life and its torment. Not so were those dreams of the days of my kingship, Slept my body—or died—but my soul was not sleeping, It knew that she touched ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... blind as to substitute falsehood in the place of truth, directed themselves, for the like aid, to fictitious and deceitful deities, who were not able to answer their expectations, nor recompense the homage that mortals paid them, any otherwise than by error and illusion, and a fraudulent imitation of the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... out one of his hints that the fair sex are imperfect, Fanny, being under the influence of Miss Maitland's revelations, ventured to suggest that they had no more faults than men, and certainly were not more deceitful. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the truth, known the frequent and long conversations his deceitful companion had held with the plotting Furniss, and how the latter had worked to get Offut sent on this voyage with him, our hero would have felt different toward the other. The second boss's parting words had been: "Remember you owe this opportunity to me, Fret Offut, who ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... of the future by the past, is to observe how the same nation long retains the same customs, remaining constantly covetous or deceitful, or similarly stamped by some one vice or virtue. Any one reading the past history of our city of Florence, and noting what has recently befallen it, will find the French and German nations overflowing with avarice, pride, cruelty, and perfidy, all of which four vices ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the dejected figures of my two men, and I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... O Ferdiad," cried Cuchulain, "not meet was it for thee to come to contend and do battle with me, because of the instigation and intermeddling of Ailill and Medb, [2]and because of the false promises that they made thee. Because of their deceitful terms and of the maiden have many good men been slain.[2] And all that came [3]because of those promises of deceit,[3] neither profit nor success did it bring them, and they have fallen by me. And none the more, [4]O Ferdiad,[4] shall it win victory or increase of fame for thee; and, [5]as ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... understanding. Every soul shall taste of death, and ye shall have your rewards on the day of resurrection; and he who shall be far removed from hell fire, and shall be admitted into paradise, shall be happy: but the present life is only a deceitful provision. Ye shall surely be proved in your possessions, and in your persons; and ye shall bear from those unto whom the scripture was delivered before you, and from the idolaters, much hurt: but if ye be patient, and fear God, this is a matter that is ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... recovering her spirits by the help of anger, began to abuse Lucy for a cold-hearted, deceitful girl; but ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... these sentiments, and the dialogue concluded with a general and bitter invective against beauty, and with many compassionate considerations for all honest plain girls who are deluded by the wicked arts of deceitful men. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... much imaginary work was there; Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for Achilles’ image stood his spear Grip’d in an armèd hand; himself behind Was left unseen save to the eye of mind: A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, Stood for the whole to ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... is my very character, says many a doubting, broken hearted sinner. Well, thank God, says many a self-confident, whole-hearted Pharisee, it is far from being mine. We can only say this, he that knows most of his own superlatively deceitful and desperately wicked heart, suspects himself most, and exercises most godly jealousy over himself; while persons, who see least of themselves, are most self-confident and daring. Even Judas could as boldly ask, 'Master, is it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... knighthood he Did gird on me; in such good part he took My valiant service. After him I went To testify against that evil law, Whose people, by the shepherd's fault, possess Your right, usurping. There, by that foul crew Was I releas'd from the deceitful world, Whose base affection many a spirit soils, And from the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... obstacle. It bent and twisted and turned. Often it crept underneath a great rock and lost itself. Fifty yards farther on one would find it, shy and retiring, slipping down the face of a slab of rock, always with the deceitful promise that over the next hill it would be better behaved. Instead it grew worse, until the column was walking in Indian file up steep hill sides and across the necks of the valleys. At 08.00 the ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... to the bottom, we cannot but acknowledge that Art-Unions are nothing else but lotteries, under another and more popular name. Both exist ostensibly for the good of others, who in reality are but the dupes of a most deceitful and vicious system, against which every good citizen should indignantly turn his face. It cannot be justly said in defence of Art-Unions, that they spend more money for art than was ever done in the same period of time, nor that they have ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... time his wakened conscience was still at work in him, and had more to do with his enfeebled condition than the prolonged fever. At length his parents were convinced that he had something on his mind that interfered with his recovery, and his mother was confident that it had to do with "that deceitful creature, Isy." To learn that she was safe, might have given Marion some satisfaction, had she not known her refuge so near the manse; and having once heard where she was, she had never asked another question about her. Her husband, however, having overheard certain of the words that fell from ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... suppose not fewer than a dozen. She married Philip King of Spain who in her sister's reign was famous for building Armadas. She died without issue, and then the dreadful moment came in which the destroyer of all comfort, the deceitful Betrayer of trust reposed in her, and the Murderess of her Cousin succeeded ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... morality was no barrier to his practicing usury; and that, according to Plutarch, Demosthenes was a very questionable moralist in practice. Why, then, necessarily conclude that a moralist is a moral man, or a sarcastic satirist a deceitful one, or the man who describes scenes of blood and carnage a monster of cruelty? Does not Montaigne say of authors that they must be judged by their merits, and not by their morals, nor by that show of works which ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... most convenient way to honour and reputation would be the sciences; yet scarcely had he tasted their enchantment when his soul became inflamed with an ardent passion after truth. Every one who is acquainted with these sirens, and has heard their deceitful song, must know that, provided he does not make a mere trade of them, he must infallibly miss his aim, from the necessity of assuaging the burning thirst with which they inspire him. Faustus, after he had for a long time groped ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... if it be possible that —— could descend so low as to be the propagator of this story, he must either be vastly ignorant of the state of affairs in this country at that time, or else, he must suppose that the whole body of the inhabitants had combined with me in executing the deceitful fraud. Or why did they, almost to a man, forsake their dwellings in the greatest terror and confusion; and while one half of them sought shelter in paltry forts, (of their own building,) the other should flee to the adjacent counties ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... that at the further side of that plain was a little hill called Lucre, and in that hill a silver-mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but going too near the brink of the pit, the ground being deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain;-some also had been maimed there, and could not to their dying day be ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... means they would be able to obtain much greater power, and to put down democracy throughout Asia; but those who loved plain and honourable dealing in a general thought that Lysander, when compared with Kallikratidas, appeared to be a crafty, deceitful man, conducting the war chiefly by subtilty and stratagem, using honourable means when it was his interest to do so, at other times acting simply on the rules of expediency, and not holding truth to be in itself superior to falsehood, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... said the baroness. "I saw Edouard Riviere in the park but yesterday. I saw him. My old eyes are feeble, but they are not deceitful. I saw him. Send my breakfast to my own room. I come of an ancient race: I could not sit with liars; I should forget courtesy; you would see in my face how thoroughly I scorn you all." And she went haughtily out with ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... and the whole lecture seems to have aimed at the heaping of ignominy on the British name. The stronger the denunciation of England, the more popular the speaker. The Union of Hearts gets "no show" at all. The phrase is unknown to Irish Nationalists. However deceitful they may be, it cannot yet be said that ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... sunshine streamed into her eyes, and caused her pupils to shrink until they appeared to be no larger than black pinheads. Perhaps, the cure acknowledged to himself, it was only this that gave them a deceitful effect; nevertheless he felt suddenly sure that for some reason she was lying to him. He did not believe that Miss Grant ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... seven foot frame over the fire, staring drearily out of the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. He had seen it smitten by all the plagues of Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and swept by fire, and in the grasshopper ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... these our author presents as conjectures only; "God is the only one who knows the truth." He proceeds to describe the characteristics and disposition of the Filipino natives, which is full of contradictions. They are hospitable, but neglect their parents; and are deceitful and ungrateful. They are exceedingly clever and imitative, and even show much ability in many occupations and mental exercises; but they are apt to be superficial, incorrect, indifferent to results, slothful and lacking ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... extraordinary Genius. He seems to be the only one, amongst all the Moderns, who was equal to so great a Work. He had studied Man in himself; and, in a small Collection of moral Reflexions, he has laid open the various Forms and Folds of that Heart, which by Nature is deceitful above all Things. He has given us, as it were, the Characters of all Mankind, by discovering those secret Springs of Self Love, which are the Source of all our Actions.—Self Love is born with us; and this great Author has shewn, that there is no Principle in human Nature so secret, ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... round behind the place is clear of forest, but this, as well as the streets and gardens, is covered with a dense, tough carpet of shrubs, having the same wiry nature as our common heath. Beneath its deceitful covering the soil is always moist and soft, and in the wet season the whole is converted into a glutinous mud swamp. There is a very pretty church in one corner of the square, but in the rainy months of the year (nine out of twelve) the place ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... with Kells. But he had taken a meaning from her last few words that she had not intended to convey. All that was woman in her—mounting, righting, hating—leaped to the power she sensed in herself. If she could be deceitful, cunning, shameless in holding out to Kells a possible return of his love, she could do anything with him. She knew it. She did not need to marry him or sacrifice herself. Joan was amazed that the idea remained an instant before her consciousness. But something had told ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... sad and heavy cheer, Complain'd to Cupid: Cupid, for his sake, To be reveng'd on Jove did undertake; And those on whom heaven, earth, and hell relies, I mean the adamantine Destinies, He wounds with love, and forc'd them equally To dote upon deceitful Mercury. They offer'd him the deadly fatal knife That shears the slender threads of human life; At his fair feather'd feet the engines laid, Which th' earth from ugly Chaos' den upweigh'd. These he regarded not; but did entreat That Jove, usurper of his father's seat, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... thought and argument, but their use of these terms is empty, and exhibits all the intellectual processes with the intelligence left out. I know nothing more distressing than the attempt to follow any German argument concerning the War. If it were merely wrong-headed, cunning, deceitful, there might still be some compensation in its cleverness. There is no such compensation. The statements made are not false, but empty; the arguments used are not bad, but meaningless. It is as if they despised ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... danger, the Astrolabe found a passage, casting anchor in the same place as Dillon had done, namely in Ocili Bay. The scene of the shipwreck was on the other side of the bay. It was not easy to get information from the natives, who were avaricious, untrustworthy, insolent, and deceitful. An old man, however, was finally induced to confess that the whites who had landed on the beach at Vanon had been received with a shower of arrows, and that a fight ensued in which a good many natives had fallen; as for the maras (sailors) they had ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... confused shapes, but none, Hans thought, like the ordinary forms of splintered ice. There seemed a curious expression about all their outlines,—a perpetual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful shadows and lurid lights played and floated about and through the pale blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the traveller; while his ears grew dull and his head giddy with the constant ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... advent the new servant was the cause of considerable discussion, and, regrettably, of not a little controversy, among the members of the household of Greenwood. The squire maintained that "the fellow is a bad-tempered, lazy, deceitful rogue, in need of much watching." Mrs. Meredith, on the contrary, invariably praised the man, and promptly suppressed her husband whenever he began to rail against him. To Janice, with the violent prejudices of youth still unmodified by experience and reason, Charles was almost a special deputy ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... feigns as well with that deceitful scout; (Fitting with him the father of all lies) Watches his thievish hands in fear and doubt; And follows every motion with her eyes. When lo! a mighty noise is heard without! "O mighty mother! king of heaven!" she cries, "What thing is this I hear?" and quickly springs ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... is no love in the world. Where will you find it? Tell me, and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all human hearts were like mine, we might have an Arcadia: but most men have no hearts. The world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell of vanity and hypocrisy. No: let us give up. We were born before our time: this age is ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... votaries as excelling in beauty and activity, strength and intelligence, they were at the same time described as envious and gluttonous, base, lustful, and revengeful. Jupiter, the king of the gods, was deceitful and licentious; Juno, the queen of heaven, was cruel and tyrannical. What could be expected from those who honoured such deities? Some of the wiser heathens, such as Plato, [9:1] condemned their mythology as immoral, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... means now which thou hadst adopted in the match at dice,—the same means, viz., by which thou hadst subjugated Indraprastha, and the same means by which thou hadst dragged Krishna to the assembly! This thy wise uncle, fully conversant with the duties of the Kshatriya order—this deceitful gambler Sakuni, the prince of Gandhara, let him fight now! The Gandiva, however, doth not cast dice such as the Krita or the Dwapara, but it shooteth upon foes blazing and keen-edged shafts by myriads. The fierce arrows ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Of the whole division, about 6000 strong, not more than 500 were taken prisoners; no one was able to escape. Meanwhile the attack on the main army had slackened, and the Romans were but too glad to rest. When at length the absence of any tidings from the corps sent out startled them out of the deceitful calm, and they drew near to the scene of the battle for the purpose of learning its fate, the head of the son was displayed on a pole before his father's eyes; and the terrible onslaught began once more against the main army with the same fury and the same hopeless uniformity. They ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... lips are the snare of his soul." "Thy tongue," says the Psalmist, "deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good, and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all-devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy thee for ever; He shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living" ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... of the devil in him, approached his uncle once more, with a deceitful respect, and he was once more politely rebuffed—as indeed he had half hoped to be. He then began his clandestine measures—measures which culminated in him leaving the house one autumn morning dressed in a rather stylish ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... from the dew, so telling W. to uncover them and to distribute them to the respective gun-bearers without noise, I crept out and stole unperceived along the margin of the tank to discover the number and position of the elephants. So deceitful was the moonlight, being interrupted by the dark shadows of the jungle, that I was within ten paces of the nearest elephant before I distinguished her. I counted three—one large and two others about six feet high. Being satisfied with my information, and having ascertained that no ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... delight in fraude & guilt in mischief bloude and wrong: Thy lips have learned the flattering stile O false deceitful tongue. ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... professed to have been, he should have shown himself a humane as well as an innovating sovereign. Those who assisted him in his reforms, he rewarded with the bowstring. His character was blackened by ingratitude, an instinctive vice in oriental rulers. Obstinate as he was suspicious, deceitful as he was cunning, he could not rule his own passions, much less could he control the corrupt morals of his people. He was to an extraordinary degree avaricious, a quality everywhere odious, but especially in a land where generosity measures love—where ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and curb the stifling domination of the Roman Church and its agents the Jesuits and the Inquisition. The Benedictine Feijoo (1675-1764) labored faithfully to inoculate Spain, far behind the rest of Europe, with an inkling of recent scientific discoveries. And the budding prosperity, however deceitful it proved, was reflected in a more ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... "Figulus odit figulum.'' It is, at least, through business-jealousy that one porter hates another, and the reason for it lies in the fact that two of a trade know each other's weaknesses, that one always knows how the other tries to hide his lack of knowledge, how deceitful fundamentally every human activity is, and how much trouble everybody takes to make his own trade appear to the other as fine as possible. If you know, however, that your neighbor is as wise as you are, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... was then much more intimately blended with the life of man than it is now; and on all matters of religion, Western Europe seemed to present a united front and to be impervious to change. Appearances, however, are proverbially deceitful. Beneath this apparent uniformity and general conformity, there lurked countless forces, spiritual, intellectual, social and political, making for change. Dissent and dissatisfaction, with myriads of tiny teeth, had undermined and weakened the stately columns that upheld the imposing structure of ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... best known from their enemies, their virtues and abilities from their friends, their customs and times from their servants, their conceits and opinions from their familiar friends, with whom they discourse most. General fame is light, and the opinions conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful; for to such men are more masked: Verior fama ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... again; it is too long and one grows out of things. But nothing I feel, will be so easy or so amusing as Paris and I intend to get through with it soon and trot home to you by the middle of August AT THE VERY LATEST. So, please write me a deceitful letter and say you do not miss me at all and that my being so near as Paris makes a great difference and that I am better out of the way and if Chas goes to London I shall be near him in case he forgets to put on his overshoes ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the worshipful Master Spikeman," said the knight, "is not much more favorable than thine own, though mine eyes be not blinded by the deceitful mists of passion. Be wary, however, else mayest thou incur an enmity which ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... 'Ye bulls of Bharata's race, I knew beforehand of this affliction of yours consisting in your deceitful exile by the son of Dhritarashtra. Knowing this, I have come to you, desirous of doing you some great good. Do not grieve for what hath befallen you. Know that all this is for your happiness. Undoubtedly, the sons of Dhritarashtra and you are all equal in my eye. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... tell by looks," said the lady, sourly. "They're deceitful; villains are generally ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... frolic and felicity attended the popular gatherings on the beach, until the fatal moment when the gun fired for the first race! Then, as if at that signal, the clouds began to muster in ominous blackness; the deceitful sunlight disappeared; the rain came down for the day—a steady, noiseless, malicious rain, that at once forbade all hope of clear weather. Dire was the discomfiture of the poor ladies of Looe. They ran hither and thither for shelter, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... from their toil. I myself for a little will take thy duty in thy stead.' To whom Palinurus, scarcely lifting his eyes, returns: 'Wouldst thou have me ignorant what the calm face of the brine means, and the waves at rest? Shall I have faith in this perilous thing? How shall I trust Aeneas to deceitful breezes, and the placid treachery of sky that hath so often deceived me?' Such words he uttered, and, clinging fast to the tiller, slackened hold no whit, and looked up steadily on the stars. Lo! the god shakes over either temple a bough dripping with Lethean dew and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... a youth of a specious and deceitful character: it was his practice to dissemble his real sentiments, and to recommend himself by flattering speeches to the favor of his superiors. By constantly addressing Prince Edwin in the language of adulation, he succeeded in rendering his company very agreeable to him; ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... of Lottie. She's such a baby she didn't know she was telling me. There was nothing nasty at all in speaking to Miss Minchin. I felt it my duty"—priggishly. "She was being deceitful. And it's ridiculous that she should look so grand, and be made so much of, ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... exposure or deny its reality. They therefore overreacted to other judgments that Collins made, particularly to his attacks upon Christian revelation. These they denigrated as misleading, guileful, sinister, contrived, deceitful, insidious, shuffling, covert, subversive. What they objected to was, first, the way in which he reduced the demonstration of Christian revelation to only the "puzzling and perplexing" argument from prophecy, the casual ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... Popery is deceitful in its character; and the design of this brief work is, in part, to drag it forward into the light of the middle of the nineteenth century, to strip the flimsy vizor off its face, and to bring it, with all its abuses, corruptions, and hypocritical Protestant advocates, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... letter and a card, and waited in the large Florentine parlor. In the open fireplace blazed a wood fire very suggestive of American comfort—very deceitful in the suggestion, for there is little of home comfort ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... their pieces much oftener in the newspapers than any of their predecessors. You compliment me highly on my elegies, and tell me that I have even dared to be original now and then; and you ask me very seriously, how I come to be so well acquainted with the tender passion of love.—Ah, Sir, how deceitful are appearances! under a forbidding aspect and uncouth form, I conceal the soul of an Oroondates, a soul that thrills with the most sensible emotions at the sight of beauty. Love easily finds access where the mind is naturally inclined to melancholy; ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... last. As that fair flower [5730]Adonis, which we call an anemone, flourisheth but one month, this gracious all-commanding beauty fades in an instant. It is a jewel soon lost, the painter's goddess, fulsa veritas, a mere picture. "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vanity," Prov. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... what was most admirable in Voltaire's personal character. On the whole, he was far from being an admirable man. He was vain, he was shallow, he was frivolous, he was deceitful, he was voluptuous, he fawned on the great, he abased himself before them, he licked the dust on which they stood. "Trajan, est-il content?" ("Is Trajan satisfied?")—this, asked, in nauseous adulation, and nauseous self-abasement, by Voltaire of Louis XV., so little like ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... likely; Mark Wylder was not the person for any such office. I hope Stanley does not intend trying to extract money from him; anything rather than that degradation—than that villainy. Stanley was always impracticable, perverse, deceitful, and so foolish with all his cunning and suspicion—so very foolish. Poor Stanley. He's so unscrupulous; I don't know what to think. He said he could force Mark Wylder to leave the country. It must be some bad secret. If he tries and fails, I suppose he will be ruined. I don't know what to think; ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... that the city is this vain and deceitful world; that the citizens are the principalities and powers of the devils, the rulers of the darkness of this world, who entice us by the soft bait of pleasure, and counsel us to consider corruptible and perishable things as incorruptible, as though the enjoyment that ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... please ourselves with the contrary opinion, is one of the daughters of Fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother; she chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled. Who can read of the present distresses of the Genoese, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... could be only conjecture. A violent start had been irrepressible, and, as they both were speechless from the shock, Kate remained mistress of the situation, and evidently not disposed to be merciful. A few sarcastic expressions to her cousin, some cutting remarks on Bluebell's deceitful and designing conduct, and she was gone—apparently for the purpose of exposing the intrigue she imagined herself to have discovered. Dutton sprang after her, and Bluebell, in much vexation and alarm, returned to ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... to train me to this Wo! Deceitful Arts that nourish Discontent, Ill thrive the Folly that bewitch'd me so! Vain Thoughts adieu; for now I will repent: And yet my Wants persuade me to proceed, Since none takes pity ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... begins, you must be convinced of its necessity; and this is probably the point on which you are entirely incredulous. Listen to me, then, while I help you to discover the hidden mysteries of a heart that "is deceitful above all things," and let the self-examination I urge upon you be prompt, be immediate. Let it be exercised through the day that is coming; watch the manner in which you express yourself on every subject; observe, especially those temptations ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady |
