"Unflattering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in high spirits and delighted Golushkin with his sharp, ready wit. The latter had not the slightest suspicion that the "little cripple" every now and again whispered to Nejdanov, who happened to be sitting beside him, the most unflattering remarks at his, Golushkin's, expense. He thought him "a simple sort of fellow" who might be patronised; that was probably why he liked him. Had Paklin been sitting next him he would no doubt have poked him in the ribs or slapped him on the shoulder, but as it ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... leaving him small legacies or gifts or tokens of their affection. These came alike from actors who had shared with him the traffic of the stage, and from fellow-townsmen of Stratford. Even if the recorded references are scanty enough, there is none that may be held unflattering if we except the attack by Greene, for which his publisher went out of his way to apologise. It is hard, if not impossible, to estimate the value of any form of art-work in the lifetime of the worker, and it may well be that of the thousands who applauded Shakespeare's plays there were ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... new cantos touch on warlike feats, To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe[iu] Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes, But which 't is time to teach the hireling tribe Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts, Must be recited—and without a bribe. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... cordial, but constrained. At times during the dinner Sommers found Colonel Hitchcock's eyes resting upon him, as if he were trying to understand him. Sommers was conscious of the fact that Lindsay had probably done his best to paint his character in an unflattering light; and though he knew that the old colonel's shrewdness and kindliness would not permit him to accept bitter gossip at its face value, yet there must have been enough in his career to lead to speculation. While they were ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... history department announced to Professor Endicott his intention of spending several months in Paris to complete the research work necessary to his doctor's dissertation,[114-1] the head of the department looked at him with an astonishment so unflattering in its significance that the younger ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... did not know him at all, and that even his name to her was meaningless. There were a many ways of accounting for this: but he put aside the unflattering explanation that she had simply forgotten all about Jurgen, in favor of the reflection that the Jurgen she had known was a scapegrace of twenty-one. Whereas he was now a ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... curiosity; and to Boswell's Life of Johnson we are indebted for many of the details of Goldsmith's life,—his homeliness, his awkward ways, his drolleries and absurdities, which made him alternately the butt and the wit of the famous Literary Club. Boswell disliked Goldsmith, and so draws an unflattering Portrait, but even this does not disguise the contagious good humor which made men love him. When in his forty-seventh year, he fell sick of a fever, and with childish confidence turned to a quack medicine to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... between the two men of the difference in the surfaces of clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the pictorial sources of the heroic Simon Downige before them, and Linda declared, "Dodge, you have never made a head of me. How very unflattering!" ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... But this unflattering reality could not discourage a man who was determined to gratify his passion at all costs. His ancestral name gained him but one privilege, disastrous for his future: it opened to him the doors of the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... means to come by it. Only overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded an inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in poesy itself should seek to know what they do, and how they do; and especially, look themselves in an unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable unto it. For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead. Which was partly the cause, that made the ancient-learned ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... this is the road the Prince recommended," Beechy went on. "It would be too unflattering to our vanity to think he could have wished to hurl us to our death, so ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... not keep up with class A, and a few more young things from the nursery who were wilder than wild rabbits from the wood when we began. Also it should be stated that from the babies' point of view white people are only playthings. "They were very good before you came!" is the unflattering remark frequently addressed to us; and as we discreetly retire, the babies do seem to become suddenly beautifully docile. But even so they might be better, as an unconscious comedy over-seen this ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... poems, such as "On a Girdle," often show fancy and grace of expression, but are frequently frigid and artificial, and exhibit absolute indifference to the charms of Nature. As a man, though agreeable and witty, he was time-serving, selfish, and cowardly. Clarendon has left a very unflattering "character" of him. He m. a second time and had five sons and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... unflattering description, Saint-Simon adds the fact that his "large, pasty face was so covered by pimples that it looked like one large abscess.'" Such, then, was the repulsive lover who found favour in the eyes of the Regent's daughter, and for whom she was ready to discard all ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... But she resolved altogether that she would not display her anger to Mrs Baggett. Mrs Baggett, after all, had done it for the best. And there was something in Mrs Baggett's mode of argument on the subject which was not altogether unflattering to Mary. It was not as though Mrs Baggett had told her that Mr Whittlestaff could make himself quite happy with Mrs Baggett herself, if Mary Lawrie would be good enough to go away. The suggestion had been made quite in the other way, and Mrs Baggett ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... model should have irritated him he was at a loss to understand—unless there lurked under that impudence a trace of unflattering truth. ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... awry, To them that would make speech of speech arise; They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies, That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie So in my swelling breast, that only I Fawn on myself, and others do despise; Yet Pride, I think, doth not my Soul possess, Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass: But one worse fault—Ambition—I confess, That makes me oft my best friends overpass, Unseen, unheard—while Thought to highest place Bends all his powers, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the other side of the bridge. But the second declared mutinously that he didn't care a rap who was on the other side of the bridge, and Jukes, passing in a flash from lofty disapproval into a state of exaltation, invited him in unflattering terms to come up and twist the beastly things to please himself, and catch such wind as a donkey of his sort could find. The second rushed up to the fray. He flung himself at the port ventilator as though he meant to tear it out bodily and toss it overboard. All he did was ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... hymns, and the enemy made overtures for a truce by showing a white flag. About 40 of them appeared on the parapet, and a brisk conversation ensued for several minutes across "No Man's Land." A somewhat unflattering remark from one of the enemy who had a wonderful knowledge of forcible English, ended the armistice ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... so," returned truthful Johnnie, with unflattering moderation. "You get me those things done as quick as you can, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... but isn't very helpful," decided Miss Beaver with unflattering directness. "I've told Mr. Wiley that I thought a dog might interest his son and Mr. Wiley replies that his wife won't let him get one. There is something more behind this and it's obvious you don't ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... of the great reckoning before the Most High Judge, answer for this corner of the earth." Prone to discuss with his "Britannic frankness" the faults of his countrymen, he cannot bear that any one else should do so. In the "Description of Wales" he breaks off in the middle of a most unflattering passage concerning the character of the Welsh people to lecture Gildas for having abused his own countrymen. In the preface to his "Instruction of Princes," he makes a bitter reference to the prejudice of the English Court against everything Welsh - "Can any good thing come from Wales?" His fierce ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... editorial output in general was unflattering. It seemed to him bound by formalism and incredibly blind to the immense and vivid interest of the news whereby it was surrounded, as if a man, set down in a meadow full of deep and clear springs, should elect to drink from a shallow, torpid, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and dry sticks under stones and in holes in trees and then proceeding to dress, in gay autumn leaves, more favoured twigs. She crooned over them; expatiated upon their loveliness, and, at a given signal, poor Jan-an clumsily appeared and in most unflattering terms accused Noreen of depravity and unfaithfulness, demanding finally, in most picturesque and primitive language, the hidden children. At this point Noreen rose to great heights. Fear, remorse, ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... like everything Florence did and said. And Florence was above everything else a church member, a prominent Christian in her self-sacrificing wifehood and motherhood, her social and charitable and civic work. She might be unflattering, but she would be right. Rachael's last conscious thought, as she went off to sleep, was that she would take the earliest possible moment to ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... realization of evil had been the discovery that one of his college classmates, who was studying architecture in Paris had a love affair with a young woman who did not expect him to marry her. Babcock had related this incident to Newman, and our hero had applied an epithet of an unflattering sort to the young girl. The next day his companion asked him whether he was very sure he had used exactly the right word to characterize the young architect's mistress. Newman stared and laughed. "There are a great many words to express ...
— The American • Henry James
... and to be ignorant of horsemanship, was something unflattering to Don Luis in the eyes of Currito; but when Currito saw that, in addition to his learning, and to all those other matters of which he himself knew nothing, although he supposed them to be difficult and perplexing, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... give rise to an opinion, easily received, and soon universally accredited, that Clarence was a natural son of the deceased; and so strong in England is the aristocratic aversion to an unknown lineage, that this belief, unflattering as it was, procured for Linden a much higher consideration, on the score of birth, than he might otherwise have enjoyed. Furthermore will the above correspondence testify the general eclat of Madame la Meronville's attachment, and the construction naturally put upon it. Nor do we see much ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the mansion gasped. This was frankness, indeed,—a frankness most unflattering to herself, but it served to rouse and brace her jaded nerves. She replied, ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... of hair and jaw, with deep eye-sockets. She admired it for the black gown and the lace handkerchief she was holding; but she was interested in it, too, as the true egoist always is in self-portraiture, however unflattering. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... society of young and pretty ladies, and devoted himself with almost ostentatious fidelity to Lena. Their affair had become irreproachable with time; it had the permanence of a successful marriage without the unflattering element of legal obligation. And he had kept his secretary. Lena had left off being afraid either that Ethel would leave or that Hippisley would put some ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... Through the subsequent years, which included wanderings in America, and a narrow escape from drowning in trying to swim Niagara, he kept pressing Shelley's widow to marry him. Perhaps because he was piqued by Mary's refusal, he has left a rather unflattering portrait of her. He was indignant at her desire to suppress parts of 'Queen Mab'; but he might have admired the honesty with which she retained 'Epipsychidion', although that poem describes her as a "cold chaste moon." The old sea-captain in Sir John Millais' picture, "The North-West Passage," ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... Saxons—a convert of Erkenwald, from whom he received the cowl. In the disgraceful chaos after the Fire, the body of Sebba, says Dugdale "was found curiously enbalmed in sweet odours and clothed in rich robes." Here also could be read the unflattering epitaph over the monument of Ethelred the Unready; and hard by the tomb of John of Gaunt, in December, 1641, the corpse of another Fleming by birth was interred. Sir Anthony Van Dyck had spent the last nine years of his life in England at ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... On another occasion an unflattering poem on a "popular singer" was illustrated, quite innocently by the artist, who probably never saw the verses, with what appeared to be a portrait of Mr. Isidore de Lara; but no sooner was the matter ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... intimation of his matrimonial plans, but it was hardly possible to keep the secret much longer. He and Virginia had been seen together in public places; his many visits to her house were known. Her sudden resignation from the hotel also had excited comment. People began to connect their names in a way unflattering to both. Such slanderous rumors must be stopped at any cost, thought Stafford to himself, and one evening at Delmonico's, while in a jovial, communicative mood, an opportunity came to unbosom himself freely to his friend Hadley. It was the latter's birthday and they were duly celebrating ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... thoughtfully we walked to and fro. We did not so much feel ashamed of having brought forward such foolish arguments as we felt a kind of restitution of our personality. After the heated and, so far as we were concerned, very unflattering utterance of the philosopher, we seemed to feel ourselves nearer to him—that we even stood in a personal relationship to him. For so wretched is man that he never feels himself brought into such close contact ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... speculating with deep unrest how he might approach that lonely and lovely woman. Nor had he missed my attractions and we may feel sure that jealousy shared his heart with passion. Upon these reflections broke Redmayne, the murderer, and Marco's first thought was doubtless unflattering to the residents of "Crow's Nest." What he designed to do next morning I cannot say, but we determined his actions from the other end. Having first appeared before him by Black Wood and lifted the curtain on the second act of my romantic comedy, I remained there a while, then ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... Fanny. "It sounds unflattering, whatever it means." "Gloves!" repeated Father Fitzpatrick, unheeding her. "Well, now, what d'you think of that! Millions of dollars' worth, I'll wager, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... in terms equally unflattering. They likened Bones to all representatives of the animal world whose characteristics are extreme foolishness, but at last they came into a saner, ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... diversion, he handed his majesty what he believed was a satire on a courtier, more remarkable for its humour than its decency. Whereon Charles, with anticipation of much delight, opened the folded page, when he was surprised to see, not a copy of verses, but an unflattering description of himself, which ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... who rank high in their profession is at least supportable to our vanity; but, we find that the anthropologists are of the slums of the divine, or of an archaic kindergarten of intellectuality, and it is very unflattering to find a mess of moldy infants ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... point, the confidence will have to be mutual. I am a close-mouthed person and have no confidants, but of necessity you will learn my affairs pretty thoroughly if you accept my offer. You have heard a good deal of talk about me—most of it unflattering. You have heard that I drive hard bargains. At every session of the legislature I am charged with the grossest corruption. There are men in my own party who are bent on breaking me down and getting rid of me. I'm going to give them the best fight I can put up. I can't ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... certain misstatements of his excellent friend, Giorgio Vasari, without hurting that worthy's feelings. Nevertheless, we gather from what Vasari says in his second edition that he somewhat resented the appearance of this new biographer. Perhaps this coloured his unflattering account of Condivi as an artist, when describing Michael Angelo's scholars: "Ascanio della Ripa took great pains, but no results have been seen, whether in designs or finished works. He spent several years over a picture for which Michael Angelo ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... But the Cure was engaged in religious exercises, beads flying through his fingers, lips moving, eyes tight closed. Madame shrugged her shoulders eloquently as if to say, "Men—what worms! I ask you," and turned on me herself. She led off by making some unflattering guesses as to my past career, commented forcibly on my present mode of life, ventured a few cheerful prophecies as to my hereafter and polished off a brisk ten minutes heart-to-heart talk by snapping her fingers under my nose and threatening me with the guillotine if I did not instantly ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... shrewdness and experience, he had a great deal to contend against. Pausing in his walk, he had taken off his cap and was scratching his head furiously, when suddenly he exclaimed: "What an ass I am!" in so loud a tone that several passers-by turned to see who was applying this unflattering epithet ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... a baker's dozen of Presidents have, at various times, sent most unflattering reports to ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... she, with the other Dominions, should have a relative preference in our markets for her products. In so far as that plan involved an advantage to our own Dominions over the Allies who, equally with them, bore with us the heat and burden of the war, it was as impolitic as it was unjust, and as unflattering as it was impolitic, inasmuch as it assumed that the Dominions wanted a "tip" as a reward for their ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... his country and his own people, and the other was the voice of his conscience. He thought, when he happened to go into the little town, that people nudged each other significantly as he passed, and made unflattering remarks about him. As a matter of fact, however, no such thing happened. True, there were some who wondered why he remained at home, while all his schoolfellows and friends had volunteered; but many more remembered that he was the son of Dr. Nancarrow, a man who, to the time of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... don't say it," Clay answered. "It would probably be something very unflattering or very forward, and in either case I should take you back to your ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Muriel's unflattering description of Miss Merton's youth, then her face sobered. In her heart she knew that Miss Merton disliked her, and the knowledge was not pleasant. She made an earnest resolve to overcome the teacher's prejudice. She would make Miss Merton ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... notice unflattering accent) Yes, indeed! He busy in the Senate or helping his clients! He wearied out by his labours there, there, that he spends the whole night snoring! It is business away from home that makes him turn up at night all ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... I do, as legal adviser," with unflattering emphasis. "Good morning, Captain Miller; I did not recognize you at first. I suppose you have both heard ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... physician with noisy pleasure, "I believe yo' right!" As they descended he explained how such recoveries are possible and why they are so rare, citing from medical annals a case or two whose mention John thought very unflattering. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... imaginative faculty was under the control of an exceptionally strong and retentive memory. One may venture to say, indeed, without danger of exaggeration that his testimonials as regards habitual accuracy of statement have seldom been exceeded. Despite the doctor's unflattering portraits of Frenchmen, M. Babeau admits that his book is one written by an observer of facts, and a man whose statements, whenever they can be tested, are for the most part "singularly exact." Mr. W. J. Prouse, whose knowledge of the Riviera district is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... of them conferred upon him, as fondly as the English young man of his rudimentary type cherishes his dukes and duchesses. The English young man may revel in his coroneted beauties in photograph shops, the young American dwells fondly on flattering, or very unflattering, reproductions of his multi-millionaires' wives and daughters in the voluminous illustrated sheets of his Sunday paper, without which life would be a wretched and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... state, unennobled by the consciousness of instrumentality to higher purposes;—at once unenlightened and unchecked by revelation. Most gratefully ought we to acknowledge that since the completion of our constitution in 1688, we may, with unflattering truth, elucidate the spirit and character of such a church by the contrast of the institution, to which England owes the larger portion of its superiority in that, in which alone superiority is an unmixed blessing,—the diffused cultivation ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge |
