"Insincere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was opened at Nimeguen under the mediation of England in 1675; and to that congress Temple was deputed. The work of conciliation however, went on very slowly. The belligerent powers were still sanguine, and the mediating power was unsteady and insincere. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sadly. "Jo hates me for it and refuses to think I am sincere or that there is any good in the movement, but I declare that she is the insincere one in not trying to see the good in the cubist movement. Jo is very hard-headed and conventional at heart, in spite of ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... conclusion. If Ireland has really been denied something which has proved the secret of Colonial loyalty and prosperity, what Englishman would be so short-sighted as to wish to deprive her of it for the mere sake of domination? If Home Rule were really a stepping-stone towards Imperial Federation, how insincere our professions of "thinking Imperially," if we are not prepared to sacrifice a merely local sentiment of union ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the platform on which we stand, and look and speak from another! if there could be any regulation, any 'one-hour-rule,' that a man should never leave his point of view without sound of trumpet. I am always insincere, as always knowing there ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... this story is a strange one. There must have been somewhat in the character and bearing of these silenced and banished ministers that touched the heart of Thomas Harrison, the governor's chaplain. He made a confession of his insincere dealings toward them: that while he had been showing them "a fair face" he had privately used his influence to have them silenced. He himself began to preach in that earnest way of righteousness, temperance, and judgment, which ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... each other, you know we don't. Yes, you say that you love me and that I'm the only girl. That's part of the game. I can play it"—her little eyes began to dance—"quite as well as you. But it's playing with something that's quite too serious to be played with—after all, isn't it, now? It's insincere, and, as I tell you, from now on I'm going to be as true and as sincere and as honest as ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... had been an even brown, began to flush slowly in the centre of the cheeks. The colour spread till all that he saw of her was suffused, and she turned away. He thought he had shocked her, and so did she. Neither knew that the body can be insincere and express not the emotions we feel but those that we should like to feel. In reality she was quite calm, and her dislike of him had nothing emotional in it ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... still those among us who believed your course was polite, but insincere, and those among you who assumed that our professed attitude was sentimental and unreal. Bitterness had departed, and sectional hate was no more, but there were those who feared, even if they did not believe, that between the great sections of our greater government there was not ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... a simple, village rustic. Such exaggerated compliments would suit better the brilliant dames of the city. I would rather a thousand times you would say, 'Gabriella, I do feel kindly towards you,' than utter any thing so formal, and apparently so insincere." ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... slavery by name as unjust, or wrong, is sufficient proof that it is just and right; and, alas! my dear Harriet, it requires more of the spirit of Christ than I possess to hear such assertions without ungovernable impatience. I do not believe the people who utter them are insincere or dishonest in stating such convictions; but I am shocked at the indignation with which such fallacious arguments ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... in the first series will help us to inquire whether we have any reason to distrust the sincerity of a statement. We ask whether the author was in any of those situations which normally incline a man to be insincere. We must ask what these situations are, both as affecting the general composition of a document, and as affecting each particular statement. Experience supplies the answer. Every violation of truth, small or ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... scamper, than poring over books, or in a parlor. I do not know that Canada has analyzed it out, but she lives it. Young Canada may be bumptious, raw, crude. Time tones these things down; but she is not tired before she has begun the race. She is not nerve-collapsed and peeved and insincere. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... what was obviously sincere and real, seemed utterly insincere and unreal to Blanche Farrow, during those tense hours. Thus, when she overheard Donnington and Bubbles talking over the arrangements for their wedding, their talk ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... judgment-seat. What we call pure or impure, is not with her the final question. Not how much chaff is in you; but whether you have any wheat. Pure? I might say to many a man: Yes, you are pure; pure enough; but you are chaff,—insincere hypothesis, hearsay, formality; you never were in contact with the great heart of the Universe at all; you are properly neither pure nor impure; you are nothing, Nature has no business ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... who found himself turned out of office by the Commissioners, lost no opportunity of insinuating that American promises were insincere, and any expectations built upon them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... character than even the turns of the mouth, or the words that issue from it; often do the tones of unpractised dissemblers give the lie to their assertions. Many people never speak in an unnatural voice, but when they are insincere: the phrases not corresponding with the dictates of the heart, have nothing to keep them in tune. In the course of an argument however, you may easily discover whether vanity or conviction stimulates the disputant, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... referred to the subject. Wherefore we are asked two things—to contemn the Jew and accept the symphony as a manifestation of tremendous genius. Possibly Mendelssohn never clapped eyes on the symphony. Had he done so, one would have expected him to pay Wagner a superficial, insincere compliment about the score, and imply that something might be done, etc. We have Richard's written word for it that Mendelssohn never referred to Wagner's work. All the same, what I believe may have been the case, and what Wagner most certainly would not have believed ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... Anderson's fire the other day when his telephone bell rang. He made the usual insincere exclamation of disgust—as insincere as the horror we simulate when a bundle of letters is brought into the room, to have letters and to be called up on the telephone being really adventures and therefore welcome; and he then crossed the room to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... plasters and unguents. In my better days I had stories to tell; but death has closed the long dark avenue upon loves and friendships; and I can only look at them as through the grated door of a long burial-place filled with monuments of those who were once dear to me, with no insincere wish that it may open for me at no distant period, provided such be the will of God. My pains were those of the heart, and had something flattering in their character; if in the head, it was from the blow of a bludgeon gallantly received and well ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... by one, leaving the ballroom deserted and empty. His bold hands trembled, his graceful limbs tottered, and then one night apoplexy turned its hooked and icy fingers around his throat. From this fateful day he became morose and harsh. He accused his wife and son of being insincere in their devotion, charging that their touching and gentle care was showered upon him so tenderly only because his money was all invested. Elvira and Philippe shed bitter tears, and redoubled their ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... and studious, sometimes bulbous-browed and pop-eyed maidens who at class prayer-meetings requested God to "guide their feet along the paths of greatest usefulness." Neither sort tempted Carol. The former seemed insincere (a favorite word of hers at this era). The earnest virgins were, she fancied, as likely to do harm as to do good by their faith in ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... prose was then almost as bad as his verse, though it was modelled on what was considered fine writing at the opening of the present century. He writes to his dearest student friends in a style which is profoundly insincere, though the thoughts are often good, and the fact of his love for his friends cannot be doubted. He had committed to memory Fisher Ames's noble speech on the British Treaty, and had probably read some of Burke's great pamphlets on the French Revolution. The stripling statesman aimed to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... that it is being reserved for that spoiled child, posterity. I may say, however, that I do not regard "De Profundis" as one of Wilde's best books. I was disappointed with it. It is too frequently insincere, and the occasion was not one for pose. And it has another fault. I happened to meet M. Henry Davray several times while he was translating the book into French. M. Davray's knowledge of English is profound, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... to suppose that the patriotism and the zeal which every American displays for the welfare of his fellow-citizens are wholly insincere. Although private interest directs the greater part of human actions in the United States as well as elsewhere, it does not regulate them all. I must say that I have often seen Americans make great and real ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... when, viewing with a compassion, most rare in those days, the impending fate of the heroic mountaineers, the powerful Count of Toggenborg tried to negotiate a peace with the Duke. Leopold's terms, however, were so humiliating and evidently so insincere that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... overlooking Sydney Harbour. A poet's mind has given life to his work on the marble, and when he was an associate with Mr. Millais, Mr. Holman Hunt, and others, who, in 1850, were endeavouring to bring truth and beauty of expression into art, by the bold reaction against tame and insincere conventions for which Mr. Ruskin pleaded and which the time required, Mr. Woolner joined in the production by them of a magazine called "The Germ," to which some of the verses in this ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... amused me to think that the combination he had succumbed to had an American accent, a transcendental aunt and an insolvent father; but all my old loyalty to him mustered to meet this unexpected hint that I could help him. I saw that I could from the insincere tone in which he pursued: "I've criticised her of course, I've contended with her, and it has been great fun." Yet it clearly couldn't have been such great fun as to make it improper for me presently to ask if Miss Anvoy had nothing at all settled on herself. To this he ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... afterwards reprinted in pamphlet form under the title "Pre-Raphaelitism," he recognised the propriety of the name, and the real affinity between the new school and the early Italian schools of sacred art. Mediaeval art, he asserted,[11] was religious and truthful, modern art is profane and insincere. "In mediaeval art, thought is the first thing, execution is the second; in modern art, execution is the first thing and thought is the second. And again, in mediaeval art, truth is first, beauty second; ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... London, who was himself so far imposed upon that he believed them to be sincere, and did all in his power to prevent a rupture between the two nations. The preparations, however, were so notorious that they could be no longer concealed, and Mirepoix was upbraided at St. James's with being insincere, and the proofs of his Court's double-dealing were laid before him. He appeared to be struck with them; and complaining bitterly of his being imposed upon, he went in person over to France, where he reproached ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... outlines of feminine tactics, which are emphasized by insincere gestures, by looks of feigned ingenuousness, by artful intonations of the voice and even by the snare of cunning silence, are characteristic to some ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... of conscience by self-indulgence; when, instead of saying I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help?—and seeking the steep and arduous consolations of duty, we look into our nearest friends' faces and whine for a sympathy that is often insincere, or lie down in some place of comfort that is ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... fact that he was perfectly well known to be only a poor miner—that he should lie again. Like most logical reasoners Mr. Ford forgot that humanity might be illogical and inconsistent without being insincere. He turned away without speaking as if indicating a wish ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... would often be there, whether Lady Sellingworth would allow him to be one of the few real intimates to whom her door was open. He hoped so; he believed so; but he was not quite certain about it. For there was something elusive about her, not insincere but just that—elusive. She might not care to see very much of him although he knew that she liked him. They had touched the fringe of intimacy on the ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... ideals on all sides. Which has resulted in laying a sort of foundation of men who believe in the ideals and would fight for them. They are good fighters and, when the sincere ones begin, they will plant their flag where the insincere and mere politicians will be forced to stand by it to save their faces. A few louder brays from Berlin, a few more threats of hoofs trampling on the Star Spangled Banner and the fuse will be fired. An American fuse ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... have remained transfixed at the sight, and to have noted a like dismay on the visage before the glass, ere they summoned strength to fly. These facts Colonel Ellison gave at the command of his wife, with many protests and insincere delays amidst which the curiosity of his hearers alone prevented them from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... confronting the essentially aged and decrepit graces of his model with his own essentially youthful temper, he invigorated what he borrowed; and with him an aspiration towards the classical ideal, so often hollow and insincere, lost all its affectation. His doating grandfather, the reigning Grand-duke, afforded readily enough, from the great store of inherited wealth which would one day be the lad's, the funds necessary for the completion of the vast unfinished Residence, with "pavilions" (after the manner of the ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... her,—qualities on which she could descant almost with eloquence; and therefore she was always shamming love and friendship and benevolence and tenderness. She could tell you, with words most appropriate to the subject, how horrible were all shams, and in saying so would be not altogether insincere;—yet she knew that she herself was ever shamming, and she satisfied herself with shams. "What is he going to say to me?" she asked Augusta, with her hands clasped, when she went up to put her bonnet on ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the impression the man's information had made upon him. Dismay, anger, and shame struggled for the mastery in his breast. What a suffocating air he breathed in this house! How vile and underhand and insincere were the people by whom he was surrounded! But was this true that Auguste told him? Did he not lie and slander like the rest? Was he not doing the servant far too great an honor by letting his mind dwell on the low gossip ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... of the ways. If English respect be worth preserving at all, it can be preserved only by immediate action. Any other course than immediate severing of diplomatic relations with both Germany and Austria will deepen the English opinion into a conviction that the Administration was insincere when it sent the Lusitania notes and that its notes and protests need not be taken seriously on any subject. And English opinion is allied opinion. The Italian Ambassador[12] said to me, 'What has happened? The United States of to-day is not the United States I knew fifteen years ago, when ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... which, little by little, loses its truth, and is accepted by the moderns only as a personification of victory itself,—not as an actual picture of the living Angel who led to victory. There is a wide difference between these two conceptions,—all the difference between insincere poetry, and sincere religion. This I have also endeavoured farther to illustrate in the tenth Lecture; there is however one part of Athena's character which it would have been irrelevant to dwell upon there; yet which I ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... quite whether I liked her—how can you with those women of the world? She was kind and insincere; she was gentle and she was cruel; she was generous and ungenerous; she was true as steel, and she was false as Judas—what would you?—she was a woman of the world, with several sweet natural impulses, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... he changed, and his eyes took on a far-off look which Faith had seen so often in the eyes of David, but in David's more intense and meaning, and so different. With what deftness and diplomacy had he worked upon her father! He had crossed a stream which seemed impassable by adroit, insincere diplomacy. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the purification of the soul of Admetos, by sorrow and its cruel yet beneficent reality, and in his commentary he emphasises each point of development in that process. When his wife lies at the point of death the sorrow of Admetos is not insincere, but there was a childishness in it, for he would not confront the fact that the event was of his own election. Presently she has departed, and he begins to taste the truth, to distinguish between a sorrow rehearsed in fancy and endured in fact. In greeting Herakles ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... two peculiarities—one was a great dislike for Ronald, the other a sincere dread of all love and lovers for her children. From her they heard nothing but depreciation of men. All men were alike, false, insincere, fickle, cruel; all love was nonsense and folly. Mrs. Vyvian tried her best to counteract these ideas; they had this one evil consequence—that neither Lillian nor Beatrice would ever dream of even naming such ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... time must elapse before a man can know the heart of his fellow-man, if, indeed, it can ever be known; and it was not until Edward had become addicted to habits of intemperance that he discovered the professed friendship of Mr. Treves to be insincere. Words of warning seldom came from his lips. What cared he if Edward did fall? Such being the case, the business would come into his own hands; and such "a consummation devoutly to be wished" it was very evident that if Edward did not soon reform ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... Captain Brisco, and for the moment the heart of Alice warmed to him. She fancied she had misjudged him. But as she looked at him, she saw a look on his face that made her doubt. It was a look that made his words seem insincere. And when the moving picture girl saw the captain speaking in an aside to Hen Lacomb, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... devoted themselves to art with a passion of enthusiasm which was in itself the highest expression of their principles. That they seemed often iconoclastic was in reality less the result of their hatred of authority than the prevalence of unreasoning, and therefore by their standards necessarily insincere, adherence to established formulae. Dogmas they hated, not because they were popularly received, but because although they had been vital realities to their originators, they had become in time mere lifeless forms, ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... rapid a rise to fame has had few parallels, and was certainly not approached until Byron woke and found himself famous at twenty-four. Pope was eager for the praise of remarkable precocity, and was weak and insincere enough to alter the dates of some of his writings in order to strengthen his claim. Yet, even when we accept the corrected accounts of recent enquirers, there is no doubt that he gave proofs at a ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... Charles really thinks she'll die and won't tell me. Richard thought it. He was sorry and gentle, because he knew. You could see by his cleared, smoothed face and that dreadfully kind, dreadfully wise look. He gave into everything—with an air of insincere, provisional acquiescence, as if he knew it couldn't be for very long. Dr. Charles ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... read it and think it admirable in every respect. It is unanswerable. He has given to words their natural meaning. He has recognized the intention of the framers of the recent amendments. There is nothing in this opinion that is strained, insincere, or artificial. It is frank and manly. It is solid masonry, without crack or flaw. He does not resort to legal paint or putty, or to verbal varnish or veneer. He states the position of his brethren of the bench with perfect fairness, and overturns it with perfect ease. He ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... indispensable thing. It is useless to take opinions on trust, to retail them, to adopt them; they must be formed, created, felt. The work of a sincere artist is almost certain to have some value; the work of an insincere artist is of its very ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... has an insincere nature, while hers is like crystal. He is extremely fond of sympathy from women, and her urgent tone makes him seem a sort of hero to himself. If he must endeavor earnestly, there is something to be overcome, and that is his love for ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... young are nice-looking without being beautiful, very supple and pensive, and with expressive eyes. They lack the unsteady, insincere countenance of the men, and have reposeful, placid faces, with occasional good features. There is a good deal of character in their firmly closed lips, the upper lip being slightly heavy but well-shaped. The inside of the mouth is adorned with most regular, firm, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... own good-will. For one little moment he despised himself heartily—one little moment of clear insight into self was his. And forthwith he began to meditate apologies, formulating phrases designed to prove adequate without sounding exaggerated and insincere. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... confederated under Pontiac's masterly leadership, then Dunmore's War permitted us to begin life as a republic without having the Alleghanies for our western boundary. Nor can I hold in these latter days that His Lordship was insincere in waging the war; for England was ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... the Court of Hyder Ali, on some secret mission, perhaps for achieving a more solid peace betwixt that able and sagacious Prince and the East India Company's Government,—that which existed for the time being regarded on both parts as little more than a hollow and insincere truce. He told many stories to the advantage of this Prince, who certainly was one of the wisest that Hindostan could boast; and amidst great crimes, perpetrated to gratify his ambition, displayed many instances of princely generosity, and, what was a little more ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... themselves all license, and he used it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical couplets sung during the carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master so distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to let him live in his house, held him ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... proven to the satisfaction of every atheist that God is a myth, old Jerry turns around and gives Khalid this warning: "Don't believe all he says, for I know that atheist well. He is as eloquent as he is insincere." ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the prayer of the great assembly does not always find a fitting voice. It is sometimes arid and formal; it is sometimes palpably insincere and perfunctory, alas for our human disabilities and infirmities! The power of the leader to forget himself, to gather up into his heart the common needs of those who are listening, and pour them out before ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... knot was at this juncture exactly what appealed to me. I, too, was tired of vicarious casuistry, and the fascination of our enterprise, intensified by the discovery of that afternoon, had never been so strong in me. Not to be insincere, I cannot pretend that I viewed the situation with his single mind. My philosophy when I left London was of a very worldly sort, and no one can change his temperament in three weeks. I plainly said as much to Davies, and indeed took perverse satisfaction in ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... for friendship was stronger than his need of love; that to him friendship was hardly distinguishable from love. Throughout all his letters there is a series of causeless explosions of emotion, which it is hardly possible to take seriously, but which, far from being insincere, is really, no doubt, the dribbling overflow of choked-up feelings, a sort of moral leakage. It might be said of Coleridge, in the phrase which he used of Nelson, that he was "heart-starved." Tied for life to a woman with whom he had not one essential ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... too severe," said Arthur. "Graeme's idea of insincerity is better, though very severe for her. And, after all, I don't think that she is consciously insincere. I can scarcely tell what it is that makes the dear lady other than admirable. I think it must be her taste for management, as Miss Fanny calls it. She does not seem to be able to go straight to any point, but plans and arranges, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... wholesome and vigorous nature, soured and perverted by a poisonous creed.] 'And there are others who hold that we, who cherish our noble Bible, wrought as it has been into the constitution of our forefathers, and by inheritance into us, must necessarily be hypocritical and insincere. Let us disavow and discountenance such people, cherishing the unswerving faith that what is good and true in both our arguments will be preserved for the benefit of humanity, while all that is bad or false ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... thereby procured for me the honor of this introduction." Both Monsieur Lomaque's red-rimmed eyes were seized with a sudden fit of winking, as he made this polite speech. His enemies were accustomed to say that, whenever he was particularly insincere, or particularly deceitful, he always took refuge in the weakness of his eyes, and so evaded the trying ordeal of being obliged to look steadily at the person whom ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... beginning "Ve la mar" is exquisite. They are found in the first canto. This scene wherein the Princess refuses to wed Calendau is typical of the poet. The northern temperament is not impressed with these long tirades, full of ejaculations and apostrophes; they are apt to seem unnatural, insincere, and theatrical. Intense feeling is not so verbose in the north. In this particular Mistral is true to his race. We quote entire the words of Calendau after the refusal of Esterello, itself full ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... sex-acts, and to a great extent made them into matters either of Temple-ritual and the worship of the gods, or of communal and pandemic celebration, as in the Saturnalia and other similar festivals. We have certainly no right to regard these celebrations—of either kind—as insincere. They were, at any rate in their inception, genuinely religious or genuinely social and festal; and from either point of view they were far better than the secrecy of private indulgence which characterizes our modern world in these matters. ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... mistake if he shall allow the provocations offered him by insincere time-servers to drive him from the house of his own building. He is young yet. He has abundant talents—quite enough to occupy all his time without devoting any ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... pome Regards a lovely country home, He sighs, in words not insincere, "I think I'd ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... despatches of importance. The despatches received by the Oberon contained instructions respecting the affair of Carlshamn; and notwithstanding the opinions and assurances of Sir James to the contrary, the Ministers continued to suspect the Crown Prince of Sweden to be insincere. Being, however, still desirous of remaining at peace with Sweden, Sir James continued his friendly and courteous policy. The bomb-ships he sent for had arrived, and his force, both within and without the Baltic, being formidable, gave Sweden ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... the swift result of all repeated drug-taking is, I can assure you, moral decay—rapid moral decay. To touch drugs habitually is to become hopelessly unpunctual, untruthful, callously selfish and insincere. I am talking mere textbook, mere everyday common-places, to you when I tell ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... employer. Upon this most admirable system (a system in which, unhappily, he has had but few imitators among modern statesmen,) depended in a great degree his success. His devotion has been sneered at; but it has never been proved to have been insincere. With how much more show of justice may we consider it to have been founded upon a solid and upright basis, when we recollect that his whole outward deportment spoke its truth. Those who decry him as a fanatic ought to bethink themselves that religion was the chivalry of the age in which he ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... establishing an International Society for Reform, Aunt Faith listened quietly, and then said, "I will join you, Mrs. B———, when I have the leisure time at my disposal." She never found the time, but in her answer, she was not insincere. If she had been left unemployed, she might have joined some organization for religious work, and esteemed it a pleasant privilege, but as it was, her daily home duties stood first, and as long as they surrounded her, she did ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... of the island. The number of the population who have the true Polynesian cast of countenance may be put down at about 7000. D'Urville says "they combine the most opposite qualities. They are generous, courteous, and hospitable, yet avaricious, insolent, and always thoroughly insincere. The most profuse demonstration of kindness and friendship may at any moment be interrupted by an act of outrage or robbery, should their cupidity or their self-respect be ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Chancery as a writer of the Apostolic Letters. At that early age the scene that opened itself to his eyes was calculated to destroy all faith in the goodness of human nature. He found in the occupant of St. Peter's Chair, in Boniface IX., a man, ambitious, avaricious, insincere in his dealings, and guilty of the most flagrant simony, bestowing all Church preferments upon the best bidder, without regard to merit or learning, and making it his study to enrich his family ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... conversation is momentary silence rather than speech. It is only the haranguers who feel it their duty to break in with idle and insincere chatter upon a pleasant and natural pause. A part of the good fellowship of acceptable conversation is what one might call "interest questions." "Interest questions" are just what the words imply, and have about them no suspicion of the inquisitive and impertinent catechizing which ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... anew the living nerve. And there is no theme on which he does not some time or other dart his sudden and searching glance. It is truly said of him by Emerson that "there have been men with deeper insight; but, one would say, never a man with such abundance of thoughts: he is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for all that he cares for. Cut these words and they bleed; they are vascular and alive." Such a voice, speaking at Shakspere's ear in an English nearly as racy and nervous as the incomparable old-new ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... are quite right about 'loyal,'" [he writes to Mr. Knowles], "I love my friends and hate my enemies—which may not be in accordance with the Gospel, but I have found it a good wearing creed for honest men." [But he only regarded as "enemies" those whom he found to be double-dealers, shufflers, insincere, untrustworthy; a fair opponent he respected, and he could agree to differ with a friend without ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... that cause words to issue with sincerity and conviction, but are merely enunciating word-sounds mechanically. Painful experience alike to audience and to speaker! A parrot is equally eloquent. Again let Shakespeare instruct us, this tune in the insincere prayer of the King, Hamlet's uncle. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... of social rectitude—members of the legislature—they might use the tu quoque argument: asking whether bribery of a customer's servant, is any worse than bribery of an elector? or whether the gaining of suffrages by claptrap hustings-speeches, containing insincere professions adapted to the taste of the constituency, is not as bad as getting an order for goods by delusive representations respecting their quality? No; it seems probable that close inquiry would ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... is just as evil a thing as the triumph of the plutocracy, and to have escaped one danger avails nothing whatever if we succumb to the other. In the end the honest man, whether rich or poor, who earns his own living and tries to deal justly by his fellows, has as much to fear from the insincere and unworthy demagog, promising much and performing nothing, or else performing nothing but evil, who would set on the mob to plunder the rich, as from the crafty corruptionist, who, for his own ends, would permit the common people to be exploited by the very wealthy. If ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... distinct buzz of unpent excitement when a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl entered the shop. The excitement seemed to have communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting a lady who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the Bombay duck, he intercepted the newcomer on his way to the accustomed counter and informed him, amid a deathlike hush, that he had run out ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... who at heart care nothing for the neighbor and do not fear God, yet preach about love of the neighbor and of God. Such are judges who judge by gifts and friendships while affecting zeal for justice and speaking with reason about judgment. Such are traders who at heart are insincere and fraudulent while dealing honestly for the sake of profit. Such are adulterers when, from the rationality every man possesses, they talk about the chastity of marriage; ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of his advantage. On the other hand Thomas's conduct, which must have been exceedingly exasperating to the hot blood which Henry had inherited, must be severely condemned in many details. We cannot avoid the feeling that much about it was insincere and theatrical, and even an intentional challenging of the fate he seemed to dread. But yet it does not appear what choice was left him between abjectly giving up all that he had been trained to believe of the place of ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... used to high smoking. Our hostess's coffee! Would she confide to us her secret? The baby! We hardly trust ourselves to speak. The usual baby—we have seen it. As a rule, to be candid, we never could detect much beauty in babies—have always held the usual gush about them to be insincere. But this baby! We are almost on the point of asking them where they got it. It is just the kind we wanted for ourselves. Little Janet's recitation: "A Visit to the Dentist!" Hitherto the amateur reciter has not appealed to us. But this is genius, ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... Sophistry rather tampers and trifles with the moral convictions than directly attacks them." The Sophists were wanting in deep conviction, in moral earnestness, in sincere love of truth, in reverence for goodness and purity, and therefore their trifling, insincere, and paradoxical teaching was unfavorable to goodness of life. The tendency of their method is forcibly depicted in the words of Plato: "There are certain dogmas relating to what is just and good in which we have been brought up from ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... played a part, Catherine said, with a different accent: "Ce Paul Jones etait une bien mauvaise tete." Certainly Jones's diplomacy, which was of a direct character, was not equal to his present situation, unfamiliar to him, and for success demanding conduct tortuous and insincere to an Oriental degree. Jones, in comparison with his associates in Russia, was remarkably truthful,—a trait which involved him in humiliating difficulties, and which was a source of irritation to the ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... say that the effect of this vivacious fluid chiefly appeared in the oilier glibness with which flattery and fiction ran from the tongue, and in a manner lighter and livelier, but quite heartless and insincere. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... and was loved by the Spanish people. The people rose and demanded that Godoy should be delivered to them. In March, 1808, the King abdicated and Fernando was proclaimed King. But the abdication was insincere, and Charles IV wrote to Napoleon that he had been compelled to take that action, certain that if he did not do so, he and the Queen would perish. Not content with this communication, Charles IV went to Bayonne to meet Napoleon, where his son Fernando had been invited by Napoleon ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... pioneers, who, by their heroic fortitude, patient suffering and persistent devotion, rescued the old Bay Colony from the jaws of the certain death to which the narrow and mistaken policy of the bigoted and sometimes insincere founders had doomed it. They forced them to abandon pretentious claims, to admit strangers without insulting them, to tolerate religious differences, and to incorporate into their legislation the spirit ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... he had been unable to transfer his heart to another. This had happened just at the period of his father's death, and he had endeavoured to console himself with politics, with what fate we have already seen. A constant, upright, and by no means insincere man was our Christopher Dale,—thin and meagre in his mental attributes, by no means even understanding the fullness of a full man, with power of eye-sight very limited in seeing aught which was above him, but yet worthy of regard in that he had realised ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... way you wanted. I shall have to respect the man I marry, and I never could respect you, Gary. You are too—too much as you are now. You'd like to punish me, physically; you'd like to hurt me, in some way—if you could. You'll never be a lover to any woman, Gary—you are too insincere. You never have loved me; you have merely been flattered over having me near you. And it is only your vanity ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... which they have practised on a Tibboo or Tuarick, who, though very knowing fellows, are, comparatively with the Fezzaners, fair in their dealings. Their moral character is on a par with that of the Tripolines, though, if any thing, they are rather less insincere. Falsehood is not considered odious, unless when detected; and when employed in trading, they affirm that it is allowed by the Koran, for the good of merchants. However this may be, Captain Lyon asserts, that he never could find ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... nothing that I value more than the privilege of becoming acquainted with those whose historic names and existing positions are of such inestimable value to the world at large." In saying this, Mr. Spalding was not in the least insincere, nor did his conscience at all prick him in reference to that speech at Nubbly Creek. On both occasions he half thought as he spoke,—or thought that he thought so. Unless it be on subjects especially endeared to us the thoughts of but few of us go ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Good Heavens! Justify it? No. I only say this, strange as it may seem, that I believe his affection for Miss Trevanion was for herself,—so he says, from the depth of an anguish in which the most insincere of men would cease to feign. But no more of this; she is saved, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seems to show a genuine unfamiliarity in the whole point of view. It also shows, I think, that the second stage of opposition, which has already begun to express itself in the stock phrase that 'what is new is not true, and what is true not new,' in pragmatism, is insincere. If we said nothing in any degree new, why was our meaning so desperately hard to catch? The blame cannot be laid wholly upon our obscurity of speech, for in other subjects we have attained to making ourselves ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said 'e stuck to it, but I said I wasn't sure whether that was right or not. And then the old man began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!" Mr. Brisher affected an insincere amusement. "'E was, well—what you might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that was the sort of friend 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd naturally expect that from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up with daughters ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the month, when he gets his salary; on the other days he lounges about at home in slippers and tries to look as if he were doing the Government a great service by living in the Caucasus. No, Alexandr Daviditch, don't stick up for him. You are insincere from beginning to end. If you really loved him and considered him your neighbour, you would above all not be indifferent to his weaknesses, you would not be indulgent to them, but for his own sake would try to make ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... The most subtle and amazingly high motives had been assigned to Lord Charlton's most ordinary actions, and happily he had been so ordinary a person that no impossible shock had been given to the ideal built up about him. And it had not been difficult or insincere to carry on something of the same illusion with regard to the man who had won the Victoria Cross and had been very popular with Tommy Atkins. David Bright's very reserves, the closed doors in his domestic life, did not ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... in some of his destructive criticism, or rather denunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. "The discoveries of science ... make it impossible for sincere men to retain the faith," &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are insincere. "It is absolutely certain that portions of the Bible are not true; and those, important portions." [42] This is based on two premisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's conclusions ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... on, her career was a succession of brilliant coups in gaining the confidence and love, not to say the money, of men of all ages, and all walks of life. Her powers of fascination were as potent as her professions of reform were insincere. She never made an honest effort to be an honest woman, she never tried to do the square thing. Yet, like other women of her type, she found all sorts of excuses for her wrongdoing. She pretended that she was persecuted, a ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... revelations of a very complex order of mind, with its many-sided sympathies and its apparent contradictions. The self-justification she puts forward for her errors is sometimes sophistical, but not for that insincere. She is not trying to make us her dupes; she is the dupe herself of her dangerous eloquence. But her moral worth so infinitely outweighed the alloy as to leave but little call, or even warrant, for dwelling on the latter. "If I come back to you," said her old literary patron Delatouche, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... and apprehension and high resolve upon both sides. The colored men, conscious of their own rectitude, were either unaware of the real light in which their innocent parade was regarded by their white neighbors, or else laughed at the feeling as insincere and groundless. The whites, having been for generations firm believers in the imminency of servile insurrections; devoutly crediting the tradition that the last words of George Washington, words of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... insincere—calling myself "not such a bad fellow," thinking I regretted my lost youth when I only envy the delights of losing it. Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was much moved by the eloquent attack on Christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought (and still think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. Insincere pessimism is a social accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately nearly all pessimism is insincere. But if Christianity was, as these people said, a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life, then I was quite prepared to blow up St. Paul's Cathedral. But the extraordinary ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... about eight thousand men, are natives. The aboriginal inhabitants are called Tagals. They are somewhat idle, though a good-natured, pleasure-loving race; are nominally Roman Catholics, but very superstitious and insincere. Their houses are formed of bamboo raised on piles, the interior covered by mats, on which the whole family sleep, with a mosquito curtain over them. The ornaments in their houses are generally a figure ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... are very nice. They adore their father and have a fanatical faith in him and that means that Tolstoy really is a great moral force, for if he were insincere and not irreproachable his daughters would be the first to take up a sceptical attitude to him, for daughters are like sparrows: you don't catch them with empty chaff.... A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... intriguing, sharp, subtle, artful, deceitful, foxy, knowing, shrewd, tricky, crafty, designing, insincere, maneuvering, sly, wily. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... only aim at making my school a reflection of the outside world. In the outside world we have to tolerate much that is prejudicial to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, partly because we cannot always discover in time who may be let alone as being genuinely insincere, and who are in reality masking sincerity under a garb of flippancy, and partly also because we wish to err on the side of letting the guilty escape, rather than of punishing the innocent. Thus many ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... refined, her temperament under ordinary conditions essentially sweet and agreeable. In crises Louise developed considerable character, in strong contrast with her usual assumption of well-bred composure. That the girl was insincere in little things and cultivated a polished manner to conceal her real feelings, is undeniable; but in spite of this she might be relied upon to prove loyal and true ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... way make the tragedy insincere? I think not. We know that people did feel and think about "pollution" in the way which Sophocles represents; and if they so felt, then the tragedy ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... Paul Veronese and Tintoret themselves, without desiring to imitate the Pre-Raphaelite work, would have looked upon it with deep respect, as John Bellini looked on that of Albert Duerer; none but the ignorant could be unconscious of its truth, and none but the insincere regardless of it. ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... more or less, insincere," said Lord Oldborough. "But to have chosen an envoy who joins ingratitude to duplicity would reflect no credit upon the minister by whom he was appointed. Were I speaking to a common person, I should not admit the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... don't know your idea of what is "mutual" in friendship; mine is an equal interchange of good feeling. Now if I were to mention that I passed over a province for your sake, you might think me somewhat insincere; for, in point of fact, it suited my convenience, and I feel more and more every day of my life the advantage and pleasure which I have received from that decision. But this I do say—the moment I had announced ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... disparaging way. He was constantly urging me to go to see Piccini, and also Caribaldi,—for there is a miserable opera buffa here,—but I always said, "No, I will not go a single step," &c. In short, he is of the Italian faction; he is insincere himself, and strives to crush me. This seems incredible, does it not? But still such is the fact, and I give you the proof of it. I opened my whole heart to him as a true friend, and a pretty use he made of this! He always gave me bad advice, ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... two classes of music have been termed subjective. The first is declamation, pure and simple; the singer may be telling a lie, or his sentiment may be insincere or false; what these sounds stand for, we know from the words, their grade of passion, etc. The last phase of our art is much more subtle, and is not amenable to such accurate analysis. If we may liken music to painting, we may, I think, compare the latter to the first three ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... left the room than the Presidente turned to Cousin Pons with that insincere friendliness which is about as grateful to a sensitive soul as a mixture of milk and vinegar to ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... and relatives and acquaintances: marriage makes no difference. Those who talk and write and legislate as if all this could be prevented by making solemn vows that it shall not happen, are either insincere, insane, or hopelessly stupid. There is some sense in a contract to perform or abstain from actions that are reasonably within voluntary control; but such contracts are only needed to provide against the possibility of either party being no longer desirous of the specified performance ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... counterpart of the one going on in the rooms of Mademoiselle de Guerchi, except that the roles were inverted; for while the lady was as much in love as the Duc de Vitry, the answering devotion professed by the notary was as insincere as the disinterested attachment to her lover displayed by the whilom maid ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... facts of the case at the nearest police-station, and the Major had been forced to more manly tactics with her. He had not used a stick; his hands had served him very well, and in the course of his argument he had made a few insincere remarks on the mutual relations of Frank and ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... coquetries of Calvin, not much over thirty, taking this and that into consideration, weighing together dowries and religious qualifications and the instancy of friends, and exhibiting what M. Bungener calls "an honourable and Christian difficulty" of choice, in frigid indecisions and insincere proposals. But Knox's next letter is in a humbler tone; he has not found the negotiation so easy as he fancied; he despairs of the marriage altogether, and talks of leaving England,—regards not "what country consumes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unsound and insincere is he who says, I have determined to deal with thee in a fair way!—What art thou doing, man? There is no occasion to give this notice. It will soon show itself by acts. The voice ought to be plainly written on the forehead. Such as a man's character is, he immediately shows it in ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... vicious. It is so common for Southern slaves who arc apparently pious, when exposed to temptation to fall into acts of gross immorality, that many unthinking persons in the South have come to the conclusion that there is no sincere piety among them; that they are insincere and hypocritical in their professions and pretentious. A gentleman once remarked to me, that he had never seen an African in whose piety he had entire confidence. It was a remark, I believe of Doctor Nelson, (the author of the celebrated work on infidelity,) ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... an insincere one, for he did not conceive it as a real statement made to a real human being. Cleo was his wonderful dream-woman, and he had no notion at all of getting any insight into her as a real woman playing an actual role in actual life. He did not think of her as an element of real life at ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the strongest necessity, and the most ample evidence, would ever have drawn this condemnation from Rome, whether sincere or insincere. But the urgencies of the case became more evident from day to day. In 1758, the condemnation was followed by the practical measure of appointing Cardinal Saldanha visitor and reformer of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... for a deceiver and insincere, The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite! It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it, The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover. Affection for it, think they who judge truly, Tempts men to commit ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... from a dangerous position. By a misunderstanding, as I think, he is in danger of being permanently separated from those with whom only he can ever have a real sympathy—the sincere opponents of slavery. It will be a mistake if he shall allow the provocations offered him by insincere timeservers to drive him from the house of his own building. He is young yet. He has abundant talents, quite enough to occupy all his time without devoting any to temper. He is rising in military skill and usefulness. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Christ's teaching, striving for centuries only after privilege, patronage, and political power. Was ever such a topsy-turvyism? Instead of being a bridge over the great gulf between wealth and poverty, the Church still savors to him too much of the "be content where you are" sentiment. To him she is insincere, and consequently his pew is empty. He doesn't want an insurance agency only for the next world; he wants a kingdom of righteousness, joy, and peace, first in this world, where Christ intended it to be, as well as in the next. Church authority can no longer compel ...
— What the Church Means to Me - A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... failures. The whole is condemned in the person of a few; while a majority—the bulk of men—estimate themselves by their successes. One great man sheds glory on his race, while one villain is condemned alone. The popular judgment, that lawyers are insincere and dishonest, because they appear on both sides of a case, with equal zeal, when there can be but one right side, is not peculiar to the bar. It should be remembered that learned and pious divines take opposite sides of all doctrinal points of Scripture, and yet ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... because I see so imperfectly what we ought to do. However, we shall do what seems the best to be done—with what success has to be seen. I am heartily sick of politics and parties, and that, mainly, because they seem to me so insincere. ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... artist resumed with a laugh, "is permitted in this little group, so near nature's heart, I think I must follow this small maiden's example, and stick to my original statement. For once, Miss Burton, we have won the advantage over you, and have proved that yours are the only insincere words that have been spoken. But I know that if I stay another moment I shall be worsted. So I shall leave the field before victory is ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... rightly ambitious in various ways. It is right to be ambitious for fame and honor. The love of praise is not bad in itself, but it is a very dangerous motive. Why? Because in order to be popular, one may be tempted to be insincere. Never let the world's applause drown the voice ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... not in his main object. If he was crafty, Edward was yet craftier. He had fallen into the same error that his father had, in 1296, and was outwitted by the superior political ability of him whom he had intended to deceive, and who, it must be confessed, was equally insincere. Edward cheated both father and son, by holding out to them the hope of a crown he never meant them to attain, his object being to unite the two countries; an excellent purpose in itself, if we could only bring ourselves to overlook the fraud and violence by which it was to be ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... at this point, and the maudlin tears were not altogether insincere. His own wife and children he heartily loved, and remembered them now with honest tenderness. At home he was not a drinker and a rough; only amid the hardships and perils ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... why he could not accept and be done with it, instead of persisting in a sequence of insincere and even lying hesitations. But ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Italian opera was what it is now, frivolous, insincere, imbecile. Its sole function was, and always has been, to help idlers of the upper classes to while away their evenings. The absurd notion of a Platonic music was rivalled by the absurdity of the composition. The inane dialogue was made up of interminable recitative, in the midst of which an occasional ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... agents ready to present any and every kind of error to ensnare souls,—heresies prepared to suit the varied tastes and capacities of those whom he would ruin. It is his plan to bring into the church insincere, unregenerate elements that will encourage doubt and unbelief, and hinder all who desire to see the work of God advance, and to advance with it. Many who have no real faith in God or in His word, assent to some principles of truth, and pass as Christians; and thus they are ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... seemed pained and grieved about something, and he asked me if I hadn't time to go away into a quiet place where we could talk it over by ourselves; but he had a kind of a cruel, insincere look in his eye, and I said no, I believed I didn't care to, and that I was a poor conversationalist, anyhow; and so I came away, and left him looking at his brass locket and kicking holes in the ground and using ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... England, then, was really alarmed at the Stuart scheme of toleration, sincere or insincere, because it seemed theoretical and therefore fanciful. It was in advance of its age or (to use a more intelligent language) too thin and ethereal for its atmosphere. And to this affection for the actual in the English moderates must be added (in what proportion ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was saturated with cant—cant moral, cant political, cant religious; an affectation of high principle which had ceased to touch the conduct and flowed on in an increasing volume of insincere and unreal speech. The truest thinkers were those who, like Lucretius, spoke frankly out their real convictions, declared that Providence was a dream, and that man and the world he lived in were material phenomena, generated by natural forces out of cosmic atoms, and into ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith |
