"Double-dealing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whom any one could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world; not he! He has too much simplicity for this world's cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world's double-dealing. What did he ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... about his father's reputation for sanity, and reports him a crazy suicide; if he gaily accuses his publisher and good friend of double-dealing, shuffling, and dishonesty; if he tells stories about Mrs. Clermont, {205b} to which his sister offers a public refutation,—is it to be supposed that he will always tell the truth about his wife, when ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Cicero's letters only, but those of Caesar and Pompey and Lentulus, and much information besides that was never trusted to pen or paper—in order to lay down with any accuracy the course which a really unselfish patriot could have taken. But there seems little reason to accuse Cicero of double-dealing or trimming in the worst sense. His policy was unquestionably, from first to last, a policy of expedients. But expediency is, and must be more or less, the watchword of a statesman. If he would practically serve his country, he must do to some extent ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... game with us, my lady—luring us into the dirty scheme, and then turning around and setting your husband on us in the act! I see through it all now, you underhanded, double-dealing slut!" ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... The double-dealing of Ratcliffe in the matter of Robertson had not prevented his being rewarded, as double-dealers frequently have been, with favour and preferment. Sharpitlaw, who found in him something of a kindred genius, had been intercessor in his behalf with the magistrates, and the circumstance ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... other country, except in regard to charges, where it is far in advance. Considering what one gets for his money, this is the most expensive country in the world for foreigners. Except where the rates are fixed by law, as in posting, the natives pay much less; and here is an instance of double-dealing which does not harmonise with the renowned honesty of the Norwegians. At the Belle-Vue, we were furnished with three very meagre meals a day, at the rate of two dollars and a half. The attendance was performed by ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... filled with accounts of the knavery, the double-dealing, the cross purposes, the perjury, the lies, the bribery, the alteration and erasing, the suppressing and destroying of papers, the various schemes and plots that for the sake of the almighty dollar have left their stains upon ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... with the enemy, though I was not able to fasten this on them. On the 16th of February they returned to Winchester, and reported their failure, telling so many lies about their hazardous adventure as to remove all remaining doubt as to their double-dealing. Unquestionably they were spies from the enemy, and hence liable to the usual penalties of such service; but it struck me that through them, I might deceive Early as to the time of opening the spring campaign, I having already received from General Grant an ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... writing. To this I have no intention of alluding here, beyond stating that up to the present my confidence has not been shaken in my defence of the main lines of his conduct, clearing him of the deceit and double-dealing alleged against him. I say this because there may be some who have thought me silenced by argument, in that I have not seen fit to rise to such crude taunts as that, "After this Captain Mahan will not undertake," etc. What Captain Mahan will or will not do is of no particular ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... all manner of double-dealing in war, not reputing it a victory unless where the courage of the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Athenian commissioners. It is not impossible that the terms offered, infamous as they were to Sparta, might have been accepted; but the whole negotiation was frustrated by the violence of Cleon, who, on hearing the suggestion of the envoys, overwhelmed them with abuse, accusing them of double-dealing and bad faith. The envoys were confounded by this specimen of Athenian manners, and seeing that they were wasting their time to no purpose, they turned their backs on the city ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... in the very early days, lying was a capital offense among us. Believing that the deliberate liar is capable of committing any crime behind the screen of cowardly untruth and double-dealing, the destroyer of mutual confidence was summarily put to death, that the ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... so devoured, the King's authority so contemned, all evils laid at his door, all his profits diverted—my anger burned within me, and I said more to Parabere than was perhaps prudent, telling him, in particular, what I designed against Bareilles, of whose double-dealing I needed no further proof; by what means I proposed to lull his suspicions for the moment, since we must lie at Gueret, and how I would afterwards, on the first occasion, have him seized ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... said, her lips white and stiff, "there must be no double-dealing between you and me. Tom Chavis told me yesterday that you are interested in a waitress in Lazette. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of the rain-clouds, throwing it all far back, as a retired scene, into the upper sky. Of this effect the old masters, as far as I remember, have taken no cognizance whatsoever; all with them is, as we partially noticed before, either white cloud or pure blue: they have no notion of any double-dealing or middle measures. They bore a hole in the sky, and let you up into a pool of deep, stagnant blue, marked off by the clear round edges of imperturbable, impenetrable cloud on all sides—beautiful in ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... Grecian. The name is derived from that of Pelasgus, an early Greek hero. By their neighbors the Greeks were regarded as a deceitful, double-dealing nation.] ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... was a pleasure to know such an honorable fellow was to be an opponent, and that the Marshall boys were so utterly opposed to any form of double-dealing or trickery, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... from the banks became a law pending the Presidential struggle. In fact, it was because no proof of General Harrison's party orthodoxy could be found, that he was nominated; and the Whig managers of the Harrisburg Convention felt obliged to sacrifice Henry Clay, which they did through the basest double-dealing and treachery, for the reason that his right angled character as a party leader would make him unavailable as a candidate. As to John Tyler, he was not a Whig in any sense. It is true that he had opposed the removal of the deposits, and voted ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... innocent victims also to purchase their protection. Harmhabi, who was continually looking for opportunities to put down injustice and to punish deceit, at length decided to pro-mulgate a very severe edict against the magistrates and the double-dealing officials: any of them who was found to have neglected his duty was to have his nose cut off, and was to be sent into perpetual exile to Zalu, on the eastern frontier. His commands, faithfully carried out, soon produced a salutary effect, and as he would on no account relax the severity ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... own sovereign. Perhaps, indeed, Wellington's nature would not have permitted him to succeed under such difficulties. Wellington could hardly have met craft with craft, and, it must be added, falsehood with falsehood, as Marlborough did. We have said in this book already that even for that age of double-dealing Marlborough was a surprising double-dealer, and there were many passages in his career which are evidences of an astounding capacity for deceit. "He was a great man," said his enemy, Lord Peterborough, "and I have forgotten his faults." Historians would gladly do the same if they could; ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... to him. He looked, and he knew. The liquid darkness of his large eastern eyes cast a light that brought her heart out: she confessed it, and she comforted him. The sweetest in the woman caused her double-dealing. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to Reed, which was opened at head-quarters on the supposition that it was on army matters, and "with no idea of its being a private letter, much less the tendency of the correspondence," as Washington explained in a letter to Reed, which had not a word of reproach for the double-dealing that must have cut the General keenly, coming as it did at a moment of misfortune and discouragement. Reed wrote a lame explanation and apology, and later sought to "regain" the "lost friendship" by an earnest appeal to Washington's ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... Camerons it is enough to say that their leader was the gentle Lochiel, and that they were worthy of their chief. The Macphersons came in rather late, under Cluny. The Frazers were held back by the crafty Lovat, whose double-dealing, with the abstention of Macleod (who was sworn to the cause) and of Macdonald of Sleat, ruined the enterprise. Clan Chattan was headed by the beautiful Lady Mackintosh, whose husband adhered to King George. Of the dispossessed Macleans, some 250 were gathered (under Maclean of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... says, 'I shall allow to go his silly way after this outrageous bit of double-dealing. I think it useless to strive further with him. He has not only confessed all the foul details, but he came brazenly out with the assertion that a man has a right to lead his own ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Strasburg without making the slightest effort to continue on their mission. On the 16th of February, they returned and reported their failure, telling so many lies as to remove all doubt as to their double-dealing. Unquestionably, they were spies, but it struck me that through them I might deceive Early as to the time of opening the spring campaign. I therefore, retained the men without even a suggestion of my knowledge of their true character. Young, meantime, kept ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... and have been refused," I cried hotly. For I believe that speech of his recalled me to my senses. It has ever been an instinct with me that no real prosperity comes out of double-dealing. And commerce with such a sneak sickened me. "Go back to your father, Philip, and threaten him, and he may make you rich. Such as he live by blackmail. And you may add, and you will, that the day of retribution ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tendency to censoriousness in our mode of uttering them, if we consider to how little advantage we should ourselves appear, if all the words of fretfulness and irritability which we have ever spoken, all our insincerity and double-dealing, our selfishness, our pride, our petty resentments, our caprice, and our countless follies, were exposed as fully to the public gaze as were those of this renowned and glorious, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... our ships with chimerical fears, that they were extremely apprehensive of being embroiled with the government, and of suffering in their interest, if those measures were taken, which appeared to Mr Anson at that time to be the most prudential; and, therefore, lest the malice and double-dealing of the Chinese might have given rise to some sinister incident, which would be afterwards charged on him, he resolved to continue passive as long as it should appear that he lost no time by thus suspending his own opinion. With ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... 'mainspring of life' (that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought to be as she does,—it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not know, or pretend any better. I do ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... psha, nonsense! Dare say not so black as he is painted. Dare say not worse than his neighbors." We condone everything in this country—private treason, falsehood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and double dealing. What! Do you mean to say in your acquaintance you don't know ogres guilty of countless crimes of fraud and force, and that knowing them you don't shake hands with them; dine with them at your table; and meet them ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Cathcart to find a dodge by which his Government could inveigle the Danes to commit a breach of the Convention, but the latter stood firm by the conditions, and the commanders, being disgusted with the whole affair, declined to aid their Chiefs in the Government in any act of double dealing. But they had the Emperor Alexander of Russia to deal with. He offered to act as intermediary between Great Britain and France in order to bring about an honourable peace. The British Government refused, and it is stated on incontrovertible authority that Alexander was furious, and ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... double dealing required a new embassy to Rome; but in the mean time the King gave the See of Salisbury to his chancellor, and that of Hereford to the superintendent of his larder. When the answer of the Pope was finally received, it was found ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... repented of these foolish mysteries; and this was going on another step. "Indeed, Cecilia," said Helen, "I wish—on my own account I wish you would not conceal anything. It is hard to let the general suspect me of extreme folly and absurdity, or of some sort of double dealing in this business, in which I have done my utmost to do right and to go straightforward." Poor Helen, with her nervous headache beating worse and worse, remonstrated and entreated, and came to tears; ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... long letters in return and felt like a criminal in her double dealing. She knew she was wrong but she could not make a decision. On the one hand was all that she could hope this world could offer, and on the other nothing but a true and gallant heart. She was angry and ashamed of herself and very restless, and withal, in spite of herself, ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... of yours, Master Micah,' quoth Decimus Saxon, 'though smacking of double dealing in a truth-lover like yourself. If we meet them in battle I trust that it may be with chevaux-de-frise of pikes and morgenstierns before us, and a litter of caltrops in front of them, for Monmouth has no cavalry that could stand for a moment ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host and ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... reason best known to himself, had certainly taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing declared it; his own attentions, his father's hints, his mother-in-law's guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
