"Delusion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... latter from the former! How frequently do they despise and condemn each other—the miser the spendthrift, and the spendthrift the miser! And yet they worship, so to speak, at the same shrine; they are victims of the same delusion; they both make ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... in that country where the horrors of the revolution have ended in producing a very prevalent, though vague belief, in the influence of fatality upon human character and human actions, among those who pretend to ridicule, as unmanly prejudice and childish delusion, the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... looked round—yet scarce believed The witness that his sight received; Such apparition well might seem Delusion of a dreadful dream. Sir Roderick in suspense he eyed, 260 And to his look the Chief replied, "Fear naught—nay, that I need not say— But—doubt not aught from mine array. Thou art my guest—I pledged my word As far as Coilantogle ford; 265 Nor would I call a clansman's brand For ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the power he hath put into your hands for the advancement of the Kingdom of his Son, and bringing forth of the head-Stone of his House. The slow progresse of the work of God hath alwaies been the matter of our sorrow, which is now increased by the multiplication of the spirits of errour and delusion, that drowne many souls into perdition, and so strengthen themselves that they shall afterward be laboured against, with more pains then successe, if a speedy and effectuall remedie be not provided. And therefore as ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... It's a what-do-you-call-it—an obsession. You often hear of cases. Fellows who are absolutely sane really, but cracked on one particular subject. Some of them think they're teapots and things. You've got a craving for being rescued from drowning. What happens, old man? Do you suddenly get the delusion that you can't swim? No, it can't be that, because you were doing all the swimming for the two of us just now. I don't know, though. Maybe you didn't realize that ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... wert thou not so fair I'd curse thee for thy multitude of sins— For sending home my clothes all full of pins— A shirt occasionally that's a snare And a delusion, got, the Lord knows where, The Lord knows why—a sock whose outs and ins None know, nor where it ends nor where begins, And fewer cuffs than ought to be my share. But when I mark thy lilies how they grow, And the red roses of thy ripening charms, I bless ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... that Cecil had not shared her delusion on that subject, and anxiously inquired if she had ever acknowledged to her her ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... think me scarcely less under the influence of a similar delusion when I tell you, that I have been somehow or other drawn also into an association, not indeed so public or potent as that of the Saints, but equally persevering in the objects for which it has been formed. The drift of ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... was in planting raspberries, planting potatoes between the rows the first year. One delusion I had was in planting as many different and untested varieties as I could afford to buy and not confining myself to those that had been tried and had proven satisfactory. Fortunately for me, the high cost of plants at this time did not warrant my buying as many different ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... have seen it; it is not, O Heaven!—is not delusion, this fond dream, But even now it works, works bliss for her. Proceed, Sir ... you were saying ... Sir, I list ... That in her eyes you saw angelic fire, Pure from the dross, the dimming clouds of earth, Deem'd now her frame ethereal, unakin To ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... to criticise, not one only, but all these beliefs, and without soon having to face the question whether the whole idea of the Church, as a real and divinely ordained society, with a definite doctrine and belief, is not a delusion, and whether Christianity, whatever it is, is addressed solely to each individual, one by one, to make what he can of it. It need hardly be said that within the limits of what the Church is committed to there is room for very wide differences of opinion; it is ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... accept His teaching we must believe that men are not wrong in wishing for happiness, but wrong in their way of seeking it. Earthly happiness,—pleasure that belongs to the senses and perishes with them,—earthly happiness is a dream and a delusion. But happiness on earth,—spiritual joy and peace, blossoming here, fruiting hereafter,—immortal happiness, is the ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... country village, I yet felt that nothing less than this was consistent with barest duty. While I had merely doubted, I had kept silence, and no act of mine had suggested doubt to others. Now that I had no doubt that Christianity was a delusion, I would no longer act as though I believed that to be of God which heart and intellect rejected ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... another to behold the show, till the Abbey was nearly empty, while he tried to work out the perplexing question whether all this pomp and splendour were truly for the glory of God, or whether it were a delusion for the temptation of men's souls. It was a debate on which his old and his new guides seemed to him at issue, and he was drawn in both directions—now by the beauty, order, and deep symbolism of the Catholic ritual, now by the spirituality ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... prince, my husband? Look at the old, and learn! They curse in old age what they worshipped in youth; they love what they once scorned. What has thus transformed them? Time. Time, the murderer, who in his reckless culture plants fresh roses on the ruined wall, will draw and thicken the veil of delusion over my face until my true features shall be stifled behind it. I shall be utterly alone—alone forever! Thou wilt be afar, on the mountains, rocks, or in the deserts; temptation will surround me, and disgust possess my soul. Thou mayst be brought in chains to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... world which was destroying the religions of the nations, even before it had been fully grasped by the secular consciousness. Where others saw only the ruin of everything that is holiest, they saw the triumph of Jehovah over delusion and error. Whatever else might be overthrown, the really worthy remained unshaken. They recognised ideal powers only, right and wrong truth and falsehood; second causes were matters of indifference to them, they were no practical politicians. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... desperately hard thing—and you misunderstood it. Unless you can understand it, dear, it would do no good to come back, it would only mean other humiliating memories. This is not an easy letter to write and it's not well done. If your attitude of this afternoon is anything more than the delusion of anger—in other words, if your love is not one of complete trust, it's better that we shouldn't see each other again. If you can come in the spirit that I can receive you, to-day can be erased as if it had never happened—but until I have your answer (given after you have searched your heart) ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... yes, actually love her with a love no mere woman, were she fair as Troy's Helen, could ever arouse in me! Of course,—in spite of the contrary assertions made by that remarkably interesting Chaldean monk Heliobas,—I feel I am the victim of a brain-delusion,—therefore it is just as well I should see this 'field of Ardath' and satisfy myself that nothing comes of it—in which case I shall ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... anon he would see the portrait of Dugald looking on them wondering at their folly, and that must daunten him. It would not take long till some extravagance of these elders made him wince, and there was Cornal Colin again in the dolours, poor company for them that would harbour any delusion of youth. It was pitiful then to see them take their departures, almost slinking, ashamed to have sounded the wrong note in that chamber of sober recollections. Miss Mary, lighting them to the door with one of her mother's candlesticks, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... it was useless to argue further: the delusion must be firmly established to have caused this young creature to seclude herself from general society for so long a period. The facts of her parentage must have been imprudently confided to her when young, and an imaginative temperament had done the rest. The secresy with which she guarded these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... harass'd and tir'd at last, with Fortune's vain delusion, O, I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this conclusion, O; The past was bad, and the future hid, its good or ill untried, O; But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would enjoy ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... out-pitch any deck ever designed by man. In about two minutes the pair were a hundred yards in the lead, Jean's cap had sailed airily from his head, and after flaunting into Silver Star's face, had roosted upon a near-by shrub. Jean himself promptly decided that reins were a delusion and a snare (Robin's mouth was hard) and let them go to grasp the pommel of his Mexican saddle. But even that failed to steady him in that outrageous saddle, nor were stirrups the least use in ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... liquefaction of St. Januarius's blood to be a trick of the Neapolitan clergy; but he keeps up the falsehood for the sake of gain and power. In like manner, he has an extensive Roman laboratory ever at work for the manufacture of all the instruments of delusion which his emissaries propagate throughout Christendom. There he makes false relics, from portions of the true cross downwards; there he sells pardons and indulgences; and there he has a corps of writers employed in the invention of fictitious miraculous tales, saints' lives, and the like. All ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... that Jesus Christ is either mistakenly represented in the Gospels, or that He made enthusiastic claims which cannot be verified; and if it is true that the faith in a Resurrection on which Christianity is suspended, and which has produced such fruits as we know have been produced, is a delusion; then all I can say is that the noblest lives that ever were lived in the world have found their impulse in a falsehood or a dream; and that the richest clusters that ever have yielded wine for the cup have grown upon a thorn. If like produces like, you cannot account for Christ and Christianity ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... cooking. So it is best to buy the partially cooked cereals that take only a few minutes to prepare. Otherwise the 'patent breakfast foods' have no more nutritive quality than plain grain; some of them not so much. The notion that bran has remarkable food value is a delusion; it actually makes the protein of the grain less digestible. As for mineral matter, 'to build up bone and teeth and brawn,' there is enough of it in almost any mixed diet, without swallowing a lot ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways as he could think of, that ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... delusion and death should keep the door of Rossetti's house, for example, and refuse him to the reader. His mortal illness had nothing to do with his poetry. Some rather affected objection is taken every now and then to the publication of some facts (others being already well known) in ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... express himself more bitterly than he does now and then when he fixes his clear gaze upon the folly, the vanity, the weaknesses which make up man’s customary life, and the deceits which he practises upon himself and his fellows. All the world seems to him at such times “in a state of delusion.” If there is truth, it “is not where men suppose it to be.” The majority are to be followed, not “because they have more reason, but because they ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... the delusive dream of an immortality springing from mental imbecility, nor the chimera of a political finality in governmental system which establishes and tolerates INJUSTICE, nor the permanence of a State in the midst of preponderating elements of fluctuating popular delusion. ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... satisfied of the truth of the whole matter, had become more or less imbued with the atmosphere that she lived in, and aside from her own feelings, was glad that her parents could be happy in their grief, even though it were a delusion. ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... midnight the would-be ascetic announced: "This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?" God whispered, "I," but the ears of the man were stopped. With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed. The man said, "Who are ye that have fooled ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... spoken of the rapid growth. The practical advantage of this as to fruit-trees is that one begins to have an income from them here sooner than in the East. No one need be under the delusion that he can live in California without work, or thrive without incessant and intelligent industry, but the distinction of the country for the fruit-grower is the rapidity with which trees and vines mature to the extent of being profitable. But nothing ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... luxuries—such as gravel soil, main drainage, electric light, telephone, baths (h. and c.), and company's own water, that you might be pardoned for imagining life to be so ideal for them that no possible improvement could be added to their lot. Mrs. Willoughby Smethurst was under no such delusion. What Wood Hills needed to make it perfect, she realized, was Culture. Material comforts are all very well, but, if the summum bonum is to be achieved, the Soul also demands a look in, and it was Mrs. Smethurst's unfaltering resolve that never while she ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... of its wisdom present us Each morning with gems of this kind, Such matters must strike as momentous The news-editorial mind; 'Tis time this delusion was done with, High time that some voice made it clear We don't want those fountains to run with Such very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... the victim of a strange delusion that kept him pinned, night and day, in his chair for the last two years of his life. The mysterious death, or, rather, disappearance, of his elder brother, James Crayden, seems to have preyed upon his mind, for it was shortly after that event ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... in my arms. This is Catharine, the queen, but not my loved one. A woman cannot so disguise herself; art goes not so far as to falsify the entire nature, the innermost being and life of a person.' Oh, there have been hours, awful, horrible hours, when it seemed to me as though all this were a delusion, a mystification—as though in some way an evil demon assumed the queen's form by night to mock me, poor frenzied visionary, with a happiness that has no existence, but lives only in my imagination. When such ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... maiden, who wanted nothing in the whole world but his heart. Well I know that I sinned grievously against my mother and the laws of virtue and propriety in carrying on a clandestine love affair, in allowing my heart to be deceived by his ardent protestations of love and even in my delusion going so far as to grant him a rendezvous—nay, even ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... delusion is strong, but it must be borne in mind that he was exactly the instrument ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... pleasantry—'will' and 'wish' are identically contrasted in Sonnet cxxxv.—that Shakespeare, to the confusion of modern readers, makes play with the word 'will' in the sonnets, and especially in the two sonnets (cxxxv.-vi.) which alone speciously justify the delusion that the lady is courted by two, or more than two, lovers of the ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... it flows out into the changeless ocean of eternity. After all the bewildering distractions of life—after having drowned myself in a multiplicity of trifles and in the caprices of this fugitive existence, yet without ever attaining to self-intoxication or self-delusion—I come again upon the fathomless abyss, the silent and melancholy cavern, where dwell 'Die Muetter,' where sleeps that which neither lives nor dies, which has neither movement nor change, nor extension, nor form, and which lasts when all ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to do at home. In this resemblance to my former happy state I passed about two months; and I now began to think I was to be adopted into the family, and was beginning to be reconciled to my situation, and to forget by degrees my misfortunes, when all at once the delusion vanished; for, without the least previous knowledge, one morning early, while my dear master and companion was still asleep, I was wakened out of my reverie to fresh sorrow, and hurried away ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... deeply-rooted instinct. In the same temper which Socrates reproves in himself they are disposed to think that even fallacies will do no harm, for they will die with them, and while they live they will gain by the delusion. And when they consider the numberless bad arguments which have been pressed into the service of theology, they say, like the companions of Socrates, 'What argument can we ever trust again?' But there is a better and higher spirit ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... the joys of the scene that the type was always the same even when the individual was not—he hailed with renewed appreciation this costly expression of a social ideal. The dining-room at the Nouveau Luxe represented, on such a spring evening, what unbounded material power had devised for the delusion of its leisure: a phantom "society," with all the rules, smirks, gestures of its model, but evoked out of promiscuity and incoherence while the other had been the product of continuity and choice. And the instinct which ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... from its place ("Satanas in hac gente sevit zizania"—Vitringa), yet we are confident of, and hope for, a future in which this prophecy shall anew powerfully manifest itself The broken power of the Mahommedan delusion opens up the prospect, that the time in which this hope is to be realized ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... "Are ye also deceived or led astray?" they cry in anger. Then they ask, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this multitude which knoweth not the law, are accursed." They would have it that only the ignorant masses had been led away by this delusion; none of the great men, the wise men, had accepted this Nazarene as the Messiah. They did not suspect that at least one of their own number, possibly two, had been going by night ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... returned to my home. In meditation that night, the burning Goal of my life was achieved. Now I ceaselessly enjoy the spiritual pension. Never from that day has the Blissful Creator remained hidden from my eyes behind any screen of delusion." ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... faith of a man in his guidebook, we ignored the native forebodings. Besides, there were just people enough who knew nothing about it, and therefore thought it could be done, to encourage us in our delusion. Accordingly we left Toyama after lunch in the best of spirits, in jinrikisha, for Kamidaki, or Upper Fall, to which there professed to be a jinrikisha road. The distance was three ri, seven miles and a half. Before we had ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... evince a spirit in every respect the direct contrary of that of our Blessed Redeemer should fancy that they are Christians of singular attainments; and it is more woful still, that many young people should be scared away into irreligion or unbelief by the wretched delusion, that these creatures, wickedly caricaturing Christianity, are fairly representing it. I have beheld more deliberate malice, more lying and cheating, more backbiting and slandering, denser stupidity, and greater self-sufficiency, among bad-hearted and wrong-headed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... to convince Miss Elmsdale of the full extent of her delusion, you lit a candle, and ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... equal natural rights may be an illogical delusion; emancipation may convert the slave from a well-fed animal into a pauperised man; mankind may even have to do without cotton shirts; but all these evils must be faced if the moral law, that no human being can arbitrarily dominate ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... he had exhausted every form of threat and appeal to enforce his rights. He had hoped on wildly to the last. He had watched the progress of my attachment to her, and had encouraged it under a frantic delusion, that the final detection of it would place her at his mercy. His mind had been so wrought upon by this terrible passion, and the plots and schemes he was forever weaving to win or ensnare her, that much of his conduct which had appeared ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... as sure, and suspected he didn't. But it was too late to back out. Together, we summarized what he'd told us, while Napier puzzled over it. Finally the doctor shrugged. "Visions. Euphoria. Disconnection with reality. Apparently something of a delusion that he's to save the world. I'm not a psychiatrist, but it sounds like insanity to me. Probably not dangerous. At least, while he wants to save us, we won't have to worry about the ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... that over all things Righteousness rules. I can believe that. But Righteousness is not friendliness nor mercy nor comfort nor any such dear and intimate things. This cuddling up to Righteousness! It is a dream, a delusion and a phase. I've tried all that long ago. I've given it up long ago. I've grown out of it. Men do—after forty. Our souls were made in the squatting-place of the submen of ancient times. They are made out of primitive needs and they die before our bodies as those needs are ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... arbitrary revisions of the constitution; and his position became finally untenable when he committed the fatal error of marrying Draga Mashin, a woman of no position and notorious private character. Two incidents in her tragic story remind us of similar scandals in English history—the fond delusion of Mary Tudor and the legend of Mary of Modena's warming-pan. The last straw was the design, widely attributed to her and the infatuated king, for securing the succession to her brother, who had as little claim to the throne as any other Serbian subject. On June 10, 1903, ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... the court of the palace, the inexorable dates would not permit me to rest in the delusion that the head of Marin Falier had once bloodily stained them as it rolled to the ground—at the end of Lord Byron's tragedy. Nor could I keep unimpaired my vision of the Chief of the Ten brandishing the sword of justice, as he proclaimed ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the hottest summer in many years and lest I forget to set it down more mad dogs than can well be handled. My wife very hystericky and forever in a smock and declareth she would be dead and married life a delusion, the which opinion I take small issue with having my hands full of business and Lasselle forever at my heels with our affair of the mine not to speak of H. Nevil which waileth continually over how ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... those people are under a delusion who call that painter a good master who can only draw well a head or a figure. Certainly there is no great merit if, after studying a single thing during a whole lifetime, you attain to a certain degree of ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... it be that the governor's eyes were fixed on his? He strove to shake off the delusion. He felt, rather than saw, the guest of honor descend from the coach; felt rather than saw him making straight toward himself; and he winced and quivered at the ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Free Trade theory was based upon one assumption: that England was to be the one great manufacturing centre of an agricultural world. And the actual fact is that this assumption has turned out to be a pure delusion. The conditions of modern industry, steam-power and machinery, can be established wherever there is fuel, especially coals. And other countries beside England,—France, Belgium, Germany, America, even Russia,—have coals. And the people over there ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... the fires, and guessed what had happened, being in the secret of Marshall's delusion. He mounted his horse, and, with a thousand men, entered the deserted camp at nine in the evening. The stores that were yet unconsumed he rescued from destruction for the ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... people has gone forth proclaiming me the Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to my principles and opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or, approving them, to ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... from his talk that the old man's disorder was based upon the idea of treasure lost, sunk, or hidden hereabout; for our coast was dangerous, a menace to vessels, and not innocent, besides, of smugglers and worse. Perhaps the poverty of his later years was at the root of his delusion; perhaps his madness would have taken this form anyhow. However he had fallen into the fat man's hands, this was the secret of the latter's power. While I pondered gloomily, the sitting (so to call it) came to an end. Perhaps my unwelcome ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... entry in his record I call attention to my brother's statement that he did not regard Clifton Hines as entirely sane on this one matter, and to his conviction that the hatred Hines then bore him, amounting to a delusion of persecution, might on his death turn against Judson Clark. He instructed me to go to Clark, tell him the story, and put him on ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that way much; but while the ship was about to anchor, casting his eyes in that direction, he received an absurd impression that his captain (he was up there, of course) was sitting on both sides of the aftermost skylight at once. He was too occupied to reflect on this curious delusion, this phenomenon of seeing double as though he had had a drop too much. He ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... really thought so at first myself, and I made the sign of the cross accordingly, but I soon perceived it was no delusion. Now it would be pleasant, should this same Don Rodrigo come upon an expedition similar to yours—it would seem as tho' the man was born ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... would have us believe that the whole notion arose from an unintentional play upon words; but the careful survey of the field, which has been taken by Hertz and Baring-Gould, leads to the conclusion that many other circumstances have been at work. The delusion, though doubtless purely mythical in its origin, nevertheless presents in its developed state a curious mixture of mythical ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... which will never die! The idea of home, with its sweet repose and calm blessedness, was only a delusion after all!" ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... that they have any just claim to the name of Catholic, why not come out openly and write it on the title-pages of their Bibles and Prayer-Books? Afraid of going so far, they gratify their vanity by privately calling themselves Catholic. But the delusion is so transparent that the attempt must provoke a ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... noble and all that she knew was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made all the thickening disaster of the world only a sort of glorious setting to our unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken rather with that glorious delusion, under the ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... careless before, suddenly seemed to float into a sea of joy, without being able to give any scriptural account of the change. She continued, I believe, to her death in this state; but he feared it was a subtile delusion of Satan as an angel of light. One soul, however, was, to all appearance, brought truly to the Rock of Ages during his and his friend's prayerful visitations. These ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... free from tannin. It is quite true that many suppose by infusing the tea for a very brief period only—two or three minutes —the passage of the tannin into the beverage can be prevented, but, as Sir William Roberts has pointed out, this is quite a delusion. Tannin is one of the most soluble substances known, and melts in hot water just as sugar does. Tea made experimentally, by pouring boiling water on the dry leaves placed on filter paper, contains tannin. As Sir William remarks, you can no more have tea without tannin, than you can ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... surprise that father says that I am so narrow-minded that I look at things through a tube and measure them with a clam-shell. I mentioned something last night about having nothing but tears, shed by all of you girls, to be buried in. But this was a mere delusion! So as I can't get the tears of the whole lot of you, each one of you can henceforward keep her own for ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... dead men's bones; of men horribly maimed and mangled by lead and steel; of long mud trenches where the killed lay thick under the fresh clods—of all this and more I saw enough to cure any man of the delusion that war is a beautiful, glorious, inspiring thing, and to make him know it for what it is—altogether hideous and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... out of his way as possible. This was not difficult, for the artist was too much wrapped up in himself to meddle with any domestic affairs. He seemed to be under some mystification that the lively French girl was a guest of Miss Rothesay's, and his sister ventured not to break this delusion. Christal's surname created no suspicions; the very name of his former model, Celia Manners, had long since passed from ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... unkindly of me just now," continued Clara softly; "but I felt it was my duty to tell you the worst at once. It's no good living in a delusion! I'm very, very ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... through a magnifying glass of about eighteen power. I know that he was perfectly honest in the delusion of considering himself one of the most important State prisoners that had ever been confined here. He would have it that half Maryland was in mourning for him, and ready with ransom of untold gold, but was certain that the Government would never venture to set ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... man's story is such bitterness to speak? What life hath Delusion so visited, and Pain, And swiftness of Disaster? O great King, our master, How oped the one haven to the slayer and the slain? And the furrows of thy father, did they turn not nor shriek, Did they bear so long silent thy casting ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... afterwards to enjoy or to diffuse. It was only by such a turn that the hazardous freedom of thought in the rest of the composition could have passed with impunity: Shakspeare was not certainly himself deceived respecting this theatrical delusion. The true conclusion is the death of Catharine, which under a feeling of this kind, he has placed earlier than was conformable to history. I have now gone through all the unquestionably genuine works of Shakspeare. I have carefully ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... dally housework or business, the building of houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location, Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms, The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of his ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... next morning under more favourable auspices, but these soon proved a delusion and a snare. The column was making for a pass in the Gatsrand, not far from the waterworks, known to be in the enemy's occupation, when at about 11 o'clock a violent thunderstorm broke directly overhead. Marching ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... descriptions of smiling and rosy felons working on state roads in "Don't Worry" camps. Is it ground for congratulation that the very victims of the specious pretense of the eternal right and necessity of prisons should have succumbed to that delusion? Does it not prove a need yet more urgent to be up and at them? Is it not humiliating to know that men, our brothers, partakers of our common nature, can be so abased as to kiss the rod, and joke about their fetters, and accept ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... stripes were to float over every city and fortress in the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the river St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and "bearing for their motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What are all these worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but that other sentiment, dear to every American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... and not distinct from God; there is absolutely but One, and this eternal One comprehends all, and is itself all in all; so that there is no where any real and essential distinction, and even that which is alleged to exist between evil and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of Ethics.... Now, the necessity of this choice and determination presses urgently upon our own time, which stands midway between two worlds. Generally, it is between these two paths alone that the decision is ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... tent, Sweet and soul-piercing as the midnight songs Which are, they say, the harbingers of death, Flow'd on her ear—when, with impulsive spring, As if a magic spell had wing'd her feet, Fearing the sounds would vanish into air, And prove delusion ere she reach'd the spot, She forward rush'd, and soon beheld the friend, The dear companion of her youth. She seiz'd The hand that lay upon the quivering chords, Stopping their melody and resting mute. The pause was awful—He at length exclaim'd, In a deep, laboured cry, "Ye ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... Eunice. She lives in a fools' paradise; and she sees in her lover a radiant creature, shining in the halo thrown over him by her own self-delusion, Nothing of this sort is to be said for me. I see Philip as he is. My penetration looks into the lowest depths of his character—when I am not in his company. There seems to be a foundation of good, somewhere in his nature. He despises and hates himself (he has confessed it to me), ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... it finally as our solemn conviction that there is need for a law like our own English law, and we add—and those who know India know how true this sentence is—such legislation, however carefully framed, will be a delusion, a blind, a dead letter, unless men of no ordinary insight and courage and character are appointed to see that ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... little coaxing, a few words of warning to revive affectionate anxiety, a good big dose of flattery, and the thing was done; and, what was better still, Aunt Margaret was left under the happy delusion that the projected visit was the outcome of her own inspiration. She said nothing to the invalid, but at half-past three that afternoon she put on her woollen crossover, and a black silk muffler, and her best silk dolman, and dear Aunt Sarah's sable pelerine, and her Sunday bonnet, and ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... exclaimed Renaldo, starting from the couch, "am I under the delusion of a dream; or are these things really so, as my friend has represented them? Such a total and sudden degeneracy is amazing! is monstrous ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... my coach acquaintance! How I despised myself for the one unkind half suspicion which I had entertained so derogatory to the high character of the saint. But it was a great comfort to me, nevertheless, to be so satisfied of my delusion, and to feel so easy and so happy in my mind at the close of our long interview. According to my promise, I saw the minister on the following day. He was as peaceful and heavenly-minded as before. Another appointment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the Imperial camp, and in sight almost of our pickets, we could hardly credit that we were not the victims of some delusion. Involuntarily, we would look back, fearful that, regretting his clemency, Theodore might follow and overtake us before we reached our camp. But God, who had almost by a miracle delivered us that day, still protected us; and shortly afterwards, with grateful and joyful hearts, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... they remember, With piercing, untold anguish, The proud boasting of their youth. And they feel how Nature was fair. And the mists of delusion, And the scales of habit, Fall away from their eyes; And they see, for a moment, Stretching out, like the desert In its weary, unprofitable length, Their faded, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... unable to accomplish, had now to be done by that uncertain and dreadful dispenser of God's judgments, War—War, with its abominably casual, inaccurate methods, destroying good and bad together, but at last able to hew a way out of intolerable situations, when through man's delusion of perversity ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... late at night, was to me only one incident of a sort of continuous nightmare: I was half asleep, wholly delirious and every impression was as the half-delusion of a half-waking dream. I was barely half-conscious, yet I had sense enough to lie still, except for writhing and turning over, and to restrain myself from singing ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... ill. At first we thought it a development of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The salad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion my poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... basket of figs and put it on his shoulder, and went back to Jerusalem. When he came near the city he could not recognise it, and when he had entered the gate he could not either find his own house or see any of his acquaintance. He said therefore within himself, "Some strange delusion has come upon me; I have missed my way in coming over the hills: it must be that I was not fully awake. This will be a wonderful thing to tell Jeremiah when I meet with him." And he went out of the city. But when he looked back upon it, he could see that it was indeed Jerusalem; ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... which has worked perversely. Elsa, you are under a spell, poor woman; you do not know the truth. I gave you the philtre in your drinking water, and Foy, the traitor Foy, has reaped its fruits. Dear girl, shake yourself free from this delusion, it is I whom you really love, not that base thief of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... oh friend, and yet you know that Siddhartha is no driver of an ox-cart and a Samana is no drunkard. It's true that a drinker numbs his senses, it's true that he briefly escapes and rests, but he'll return from the delusion, finds everything to be unchanged, has not become wiser, has gathered no enlightenment,—has ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... present to the senses, as the seeing of specters or of reptiles in delirium tremens. Monomania is mental derangement as to one subject or object. Frenzy and mania are forms of raving and furious insanity. Compare synonyms for DELUSION; IDIOCY. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... me yet is what has kept me long; a fear that I am under a delusion; but the conviction remains firm under all circumstances, in all frames of mind. And this most serious feeling is growing on me; viz. that the reasons for which I believe as much as our system teaches, must ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... As no material by this name exists there can be no definition. When the term is used in defining a fabric, it is a delusion and ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... passed, in due time, with no inconvenience save that of wet feet, for the stream was breast high to the horses; but being broad and swift and full of sunken rocks and slippery stones, and the crossing tortuous, it is not a ford to be commended. There is a curious delusion that a rider has in crossing a swift broad stream. It is that he is rapidly drifting up-stream, while in fact the tendency of the horse is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... certain indulgences or pursuits which that party disapprove. Those of the other class, finding, in many instances, much zeal for these peculiarities, without a state of moral feeling adapted to the truths which are professed, are apt to consider the whole as either pretence or delusion. ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... another theological authority asserted: "If the Darwinian theory is true, Genesis is a lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and a snare." Another, who had shown excellent qualities as an observing naturalist, declared the Darwinian view "a ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... close haul!" roared Dan, in the vain delusion that his voice would be heard a quarter of a mile away. "Keep down yer 'elm and close haul—wash me in rum if he ain't comin' up again, and there she goes right into it. Shake up, you gibbering fools; luff her a bit and make fast. Did ye ever see ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... with a keen anxiety, which only agitated her the more. Every one seemed uneasy and rather dull;—a circumstance not very remarkable, since, in spite of the popular delusion on that subject, very few ever really look happy at a wedding. It makes clearer to each one the silent ghost sitting in every human heart, which may take any form—bliss long desired, lost, or unfulfilled—or, in the fulfilling changed to pain—or, at best, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... terrible blow this will be to you, but you would have had to hear it sooner or later—if not from me, at least from others. Let us try to, bear the Calamity with fortitude, and place our trust in the mercy of God. Let us submit ourselves to His will. Do not think that what I am writing is some delusion of my sick imagination. On the contrary, I am perfectly clear at this moment, and absolutely calm. Nor must you comfort yourself with the false hope that these are the unreal, confused feelings of a despondent spirit, for I feel indeed, I know, since God has deigned to reveal it to ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... nothing, but you and that table! Even the table was not what you said it was. It was not an unpainted pine table with four straight legs. It was a table of dark polished wood, and it stood on a single post with feet. There was nothing there that you said was there. Everything was a sham and a delusion; every word you spoke was untrue. And yet everybody in that theatre, excepting you and me, saw all the things that you said were on the stage. I know they saw them all, for I was with the people, and heard them, and saw them, and at times I fairly felt the thrill of enthusiasm ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... orders to German ships were precisely the same. Were this known to the German population one of the ten thousand hate tricks would be out of commission. Therefore, this and similar articles must be suppressed, not because they are not true, but because they would interfere with the delusion of hate which saturates the mind of the new Germany. I have seen articles returned to this distinguished writer with the censor stamp: Not to be ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... who likes this better feeling enjoy it. Enjoy it, did I say? No. Reclaim him, if possible. Convince him that he labors under a delusion. Restore him to truth, and to reason; banish the cup from his mouth, and change the brute ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... the beaming man observed zestfully. "Of the Interstellar Medical Service, to which all problems of public health may be referred! But here we have a real problem for you! A contagious madness! A transmissible delusion! An epidemic of insanity! ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... of having helped to bring Louis XVI. to the scaffold. The English pamphlet has a brief preface in which it is presented "as a burnt offering to Truth, in behalf of the most zealous friend and advocate of the Rights of Man; to protect him against the barbarous shafts of scandal and delusion, and as a reply to all the horrors which despots of every description have, with such unrelenting malice, attempted to fix on his conduct. But truth in the end must triumph: cease then such calumnies: all your efforts are in vain —you ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... each little bosom was heaving with sighs, For to-night their stern father's command had been given That they should retire precisely at seven Instead of at eight; for they troubled him more With questions unheard of than ever before; He had told them he thought this delusion a sin, No such being as Santa Claus ever had been, And he hoped, after this, he should never more hear How he scrambled down chimneys with presents, each year, And this was the reason that two little heads So restlessly tossed on their soft ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... their Government, and was enforced by the free, thoughtful, and intelligent suffrage of the citizen. Combinations, monopolies, and aggregations of capital were either avoided or sternly regulated and restrained. The pomp and glitter of governments less free offered no temptation and presented no delusion to the plain people who, side by side, in friendly competition, wrought for the ennoblement and dignity of man, for the solution of the problem of free government, and for the achievement of the grand destiny awaiting the land which God ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... rajah's authority to pass me through his dominions; and besides the natural jealousy of these people when intruded upon, they have very good reasons for concealing the amount of revenue they raise from their position, and for keeping up the delusion that they alone can endure the excessive climate of these regions, or undergo the hardships and toil of the salt trade. My passport said nothing about the passes; my people, and especially the Ghorkas, detested the keen, cold, and cutting wind; at ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... perceive me yielding my heart to the first tenderness of the passion, watch over me, if the object be not every way worthy of me, my equal, my superior.—Oh! as you would wish to snatch me from the grave, rouse me from the delusion—save me from disappointment, regret, remorse, which I know that I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth |
