"Untruth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Danton and St. Just, that Robespierre read it through once every day." In the perspective of history, no one feels that he has said the last word about a philosophy like Rousseau's after demonstrating its "untruth." Good or bad, it has meant too much for any such easy disposal. What shall we call an idea, objectively untrue, but practically of the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... which she knew nothing and desired to know nothing. Though she herself was as pure as the driven snow, she did not require to be told that there were impurities in the world. If it was meant to be insinuated that he was untrue to her, she simply disbelieved it. But what if he were? His untruth would not justify hers. And untruth was impossible to her. She loved him, and had told him so. Let him be ever so false, it was for her to bring him back to truth or to spend herself in the endeavour. Her father did not understand her at all when he ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... tell you themselves, I hope," said poor Nancy, striving to satisfy her mistress without telling a positive untruth. ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... whose lives and stories your kind presence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness,—your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture,—your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... justice demanded that he should admit that virtue at least in his enemy. "I have not known him lie, it is true. His kind is too arrogant, too self-confident to have recourse to untruth. But I have known him do things ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... the heirs of his affection, and the burden of his cares. He embraces a free community of all things, save those which either honesty reserves proper, or nature; and hates to enjoy that which would do his friend more good. His charity serves to cloak noted infirmities, not by untruth, not by flattery, but by discreet secrecy; neither is he more favourable in concealment, than round in his private reprehensions; and when another's simple fidelity shows itself in his reproof, he loves his monitor so much the more, by how ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... book as they are to the interest of the memorable character which he seeks to illustrate. Always they are told without grace, and generally are suspicious in their details. Mr. Gillman we believe to be too upright a man for countenancing any untruth. He has been deceived. For example, will any man believe this? A certain 'excellent equestrian' falling in with Coleridge on horseback, thus accosted him— 'Pray, Sir, did you meet a tailor along the road?' 'A tailor!' answered Coleridge; 'I did meet a person ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... her own interests were alone at stake, had she stooped to an untruth. Fearlessly, and ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... pavement, and that my task was chiefly to guide it to the rails and to make it fast when I had got it there. Otherwise, this basket was no different from any dress-basket you may see upon half a dozen four-wheelers the first time you look in at a railway station; and I should be telling an untruth if I said that I thought about it at all. Indeed, it was not until we got to the Boundary Road, and I stopped at the house called Bredfield, that so much as a notion of anything wrong entered my head. There, however, I did get a shock, and no ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... powerful lyrics. A history of the authorship of these biographies and songs would be interesting, and is perhaps still possible. The reprint in the series of Hugh O'Reilly's Irish history—albeit, a mass of popular untruth was put at the end of it—shows as if some more considerate mind had begun to influence these publications. They, too, are fast vanishing, and will yet be ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... who was a simple man, and had heard Vinicius say that the Greek had been with him in Ostrianum, and had seen him with Croton enter the house in which Lygia lived, stopped for a moment and said,—"Speak no untruth, old man, for to-day thou wert with Vinicius in Ostrianum ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... had enough of them at Chiswick," said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. The meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which consists in a beautiful woman trying to suppose herself plain, or an able man trying to be unaware of his ability, no man ever had less than Milton. Neither from himself nor from others did he ever conceal the fact that he was a man of genius. In his eyes no kind of untruth, however specious, could be a virtue. But of a finer humility, built on truth, he was not without his share. The truly humble man may be a genius and may know it and may never affect to deny it: he may know that he has done ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... blows his nose, mutters something about his card-case and telling an untruth, which excites much merriment; and Mr. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a kind of groan, and presently exclaimed, 'If only untruth were not such a sin!' and, on my exclamation of dismay, he added, 'I don't think a blowing up ever ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... through her lorgnette. "You will have to complain to the steward if you cannot find your chairs, young woman; these are mine, engaged and paid for." With that, she prepared to seat herself with the help of the maid, who was blushing furiously, mortified by the flagrant untruth of her mistress. ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... numbering ten thousand horsemen; also that he was sent by his sire with this force to gain prevalence for the King of Constantinople." "O my lady," said Sharrkan, "I adjure thee by thy religion, tell me the cause of all this, that sooth may appear to me clear of untruth, and with whom the fault lies." "Now by the virtue of thy faith," she replied, "did I not fear lest the news of me be bruited abroad that I am of the daughters of Roum, I would adventure myself and sally forth single handed against the ten thousand horsemen and slay their leader, the Wazir Dandan ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... heard this opinion, a hundred times! And it is entirely an untruth. Underneath the coarse and obscene profession, underneath the foulest oaths—about one's mother—underneath the drunken, hideous exterior—Sonechka Marmeladova still lives! The fate of the Russian prostitute—oh, what a tragic, piteous, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... had been deceived, and had expected to see us back again after a very little while; and my father taking me on his knee and telling me that my mother and brother were both dead seemed to me now but a bit of acting, to set my mind at rest. The cruelty of that falsehood sank into me, and I hated all untruth because of it. I wrote to my mother secretly: I knew the street, Colman Street, where we lived, and that it was not Blackfriars Bridge and the Coburg, and that our name was Cohen then, though my ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... blast of a strange, unused, and seld heard of sound had pierced my ears, I supposed that flying fame, who with swift quills oft paceth with the worst, had brought report of some untruth, but when too too many records in your open parliament were witnesses of such pronounced words, not more to my disgrace than to your dishonor, who did forget that (above all other regard) a prince's word ought utter nought of any, much less of a king, than such as ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... face, and then retreating left it pale again, but she was too proud to deny the charge. She would not utter an untruth nor an evasion even on so delicate a subject. There was an armed truce of silence between them for a few minutes, till the evil genius of the Secretary rose and he felt again that desire to subject ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... sharp line of demarcation between this world and the next, and expect a radical change in ourselves and our surroundings, a break in the chain of continuity entirely contrary to the teaching of nature and experience. In the same way we cling to the specious untruth that we can begin over and over again in this world, forgetting that while our sorrow and repentance bring sacramental gifts of grace and strength, God Himself cannot, by His own limitation, rewrite the Past. We are in our sorrow that which we have made ourselves in our sin; our temptations ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... some whiskey to take the taste of that untruth out of your mouth! How can a man of your attainments call that obviously modern fraud by such a name? The place is not nearly two thousand years old! It is probably the tomb of a Syrian queen named Adiabene and her family. Josephus mentions it. This land is full—every square ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... letter—God is good, for that! For it was that told of how she died—that wicked poison-bite! My child, it has never gone quite out of my heart to think your mother died so far away in such pain—never in all these years! And now I know it for an untruth. I thank ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... had been puzzled by his presence in France, but his explanation, he hoped, had been sufficient. He had assured her that the only motive of his journey had been to be near her, which was, indeed, no untruth. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... returned Mr. Percivale; "so much the main thing that any imperfection or coarseness or untruth which interferes with it ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... observe, of 'sucking my plots while I drink his tea'—one as much as the other! And now why do I tell you this, all of it? Ah,—now you shall hear! Because, it has often been in my mind to ask you what you know of this Mr. Powell, or ever knew. For he, (being profoundly versed in every sort of untruth, as every fresh experience shows me, and the rest of his acquaintance) he told me long ago, 'he used to correspond with you, and that he quarrelled with you'—which I supposed to mean that he began by sending you his books (as with one and everybody) and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... to keep in mind. If you call a man's work insincere, the superficial critic will take it as calling the man himself insincere; but the two are distinct, and it needs to be emphasised, for sincere men are making these propagandist plays, of which the manifest and glaring untruth is working mischief to the national mind. A type of such a play is familiar enough in these days when we like to ridicule the West Briton. We are served up puppets representing the shoneen with a lisp ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... country, to declare her their enemy, and to avow eternal separation from her, it may be easily conceived how a large portion of the colonists would feel that their confidence had been betrayed; that the representations they had made to English statesmen would bear the stamp of untruth; that their hopes had been blasted, and that they were now to be treated as rebels and traitors for adhering to the faith of their forefathers; for, as Mr. Allan remarks, the Declaration of Independence "left no neutrals. He who was not for independence, unconditional ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... in her husky voice, "If you bother me, Monsieur, I shall tell every one that you are there to give out holy water that is poison. My aunt says so." My face turned purple with shame, and I stammered out, "Please do not believe that, Monsieur Doucet. My little sister is telling an untruth." ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... infallibility was re-established. No one cared, or perhaps dared to correct the error. In itself it seemed little worthy of notice, yet it had its share of evil influence. First, it diverted men's minds from the one question; secondly, it left behind it the demoralising effect inseparable from untruth. Were it even what the public eagerness chose to shape it, its relative value, weighed against the triumph of courage and virtue, would ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... and to the office, where we sat, and in discourse at the table with Sir W. Batten, I was obliged to tell him it was an untruth, which did displease him mightily, and parted at noon very angry with me. At home find Lovett, who brought me some papers varnished, and showed me my crucifix, which will be very fine when done. He dined with me and Balty's wife, who is in great pain for her husband, not hearing of him ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... favour. Yea when ther was speech of their remoovall into these parts, sundrie of note & eminencie of y^t nation would have had them come under them, and for y^t end made them large offers. Now though I might aledg many other perticulers & examples of the like kinde, to shew y^e untruth & unlicklyhode of this slander, yet these shall suffice, seeing it was beleeved of few, being only raised by y^e malice of some, who laboured ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... So depart All untruth from out my heart; All false ways of speaking, thinking; All false ways of looking, linking; All that is not true and real, Tending not to God's Ideal: Help me—how shall human breath Word Thy ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... a mere theory, but a widely recognized reality, and the worst accusation that can be made against Socialists is not that they are trying to create a war of classes where none exists, but that some of them at times interpret the conflict in a narrow or violent sense (I shall discuss the truth or untruth of this criticism in later chapters). Yet Mr. Roosevelt voices the opinion of many when he calls the view that the maximum of progress is to be secured only after a struggle between the classes, the "most mischievous of ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... and would yield nothing. When Georgina, the fourth daughter, pointed out to her that, in accordance with all rules of good breeding, she should have abstained from asserting that her brother had spoken an untruth, she blazed up again. "It was untrue," ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... who was killed, you remember. I told Pauline I would resent that conduct if it were repeated, and on the same occasion I asked her whether she had engaged herself to him in any shape or form. Her answer was a simple, straightforward negative, and the child is incapable of untruth." ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... to snatch the seductive object. Deaf to the anaemic whisper of compunction, remembering that sin taints only the weak, he will be translated to that dizzy eminence, where right and wrong, truth and untruth, become as pigmies, hardly discerned by the naked eye. There dwells Kali—the shameless and pitiless; and believing our country that deity incarnate, her needs must be our gods. 'Her image make we in temple after temple—Bande Mataram?'" The invocation ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal,—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... this comparative untruth, that gives rise to the dissatisfaction we feel in the last analysis of French character. It is delusive. The promise of beauty held out by external taste is unfulfilled; the fascination of manner bears a vastly undue proportion to the substantial kindness and trust which that immediate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock. "If he is like this at twenty, what will he be at fifty?" groaned the Colonel. "I'd rather Clive were dead than have him such a heartless woriding as this." And yet the young man was not ungenerous, not untruth-telling, not unserviceable. He thought his life was good enough. It was as good as that of other folks he lived with. You don't suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was in the City early enough in the morning; or slept badly, unless he indulged too freely over-night; or twinges ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beleeve it, since we see In this worlds practise few men better be. Justice to live doth nought but justice neede, 130 But policie must still on mischiefe feede. Untruth, for all his ends, truths name doth sue in; None safely live but those that study ruine. A good man happy is a common good; Ill men advanc'd live of the ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... the teacher, "the fault is mine. I led young Lauriston away to"—he stopped: it would scarcely help his friend's cause to say that he had been helping him at his lessons; thus he continued, "to show him my lists"—which was not an untruth, for he had ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... controvert it, so impatient was he of the limitations of our daily thought. This habit, of course, is a little chilling to the social affections; and though the companion would in the end acquit him of any malice or untruth, yet it mars conversation. Hence, no equal companion stood in affectionate relations with one so pure and guileless. "I love Henry," said one of his friends, "but I cannot like him; and as for taking ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... business. Creditors have hearts and they have good impulses. They appreciate friendship and especially gratitude. Don't believe a word of that great untruth "There is no sentiment ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... to witness his innocence; it was of no use for him to say an untruth, for he was going before ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... I found her full of dangerous excitement. It was impossible to allay it without telling her either an untruth or the whole story. I could not deceive her, and with a desperate calmness I related the history of the day. I tried to make light of my disappointment, but she broke ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... committee of the British House of Commons took evidence that year upon all sorts of questions concerning the North-West, and particularly its suitability for settlement, much of which was valueless owing to its untruth. Nevertheless, the Imperial Committee, after weighing all the evidence, reported that the Territories were fit for settlement, and that it was desirable that Canada should annex them, and hoped that the Government ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... me for a hostage played a trick!" he shouted. "He and a man of mine knew Persian. They talked together. Then in the night they ran away, and your hostage went to Wassmuss, and has told him all the truth and more untruth into the bargain than ten other men could invent in a year! So Wassmuss threw in my teeth that letter you gave me, and I was laughed out of countenance by a heritage of spawn of Tophet! And what has Wasmuss done ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... an unending and ideal future. But the idealistic and aspiring temper of early Tuscan art had the defects of its qualities. Its spiritual ecstasy once conventionalized and reduced to a formula led to unreality, and, if not to untruth, at least to an unwholesome ignoring of a part of truth. There was, therefore, an inevitable reaction to the naturalism described with such verve and gusto by Fra Lippo Lippi. But this is, after all, social history in terms of art, and to Browning what has happened ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... certain point," we consented. "But we should prefer to call it confirmed in our convictions. Wherever we have liked or disliked in literature it has been upon grounds hardly distinguishable from moral grounds. Bad art is a vice; untruth to nature is the eighth of the seven deadly sins; a false school in literature is a seminary of crime. We are ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... social communication with the aristocracy. Every day of my life I see people who can dress better, and live in better houses, than I can afford. There are many individuals who would not choose to make my acquaintance, because I am not of their caste—but I should speak a great untruth, if I said this made me discontented. They have their path and I have mine; I am happy in my own way, and am willing they should be happy in theirs. If asked whether what little knowledge I have produces discontent, I should answer, that it made me happier, infinitely ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... may make no boast. For all you I might have been slain. When ye saw two knights leading me away, beating me, ye left me for to succour a gentlewoman, and suffered me to remain in peril of death. Never before did any brother to another so great an untruth. And for that misdeed now I ensure you but death, for well have ye deserved it. Therefore guard yourself from henceforward, and that shall ye find needful as soon as ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... that President Wilson deliberately tells an untruth. Not the German Government but the German race, hates this Anglo-Saxon fanatic, who has stirred into flame the consuming hatred in America while prating friendship and ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... let the most well-intended falsehood escape your lips; for Heaven, which is entirely Truth, will make the seed which you have sown of untruth ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... which most men arrive at sooner or later, I mean that very few care two straws about truth, or have any confidence that it is righter and better to believe what is true than what is untrue, even though belief in the untruth may seem at first sight most expedient. Yet it is only these few who can be said to believe anything at all; the rest are simply unbelievers in disguise. Perhaps, after all, these last are right. They have numbers and prosperity on their side. They have all which ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... strayed in here by accident. I was born in an island in the Greek Archipelago; I am by profession an auctioneer, and my name is Punk." The king sat on his throne for seven long instants like a statue; and then there awoke in his mild and ancient eyes an awful thing; the complete conviction of untruth. Every one has felt it who has found a child obstinately false. He rose to his height and took down the heavy sword above him, plucked it out naked, and then spoke. "I will believe your mad tales about ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... heart he is bitterly chagrined. To be unloved is one thing—to be laughed at is another. "After all, you are right. There is nothing in this world so rare or so admirable as honesty. I am glad you told me no untruth, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... desire for applause: considering little what the inward motive may be, so long as the outward conduct conforms; and thus cultivating hypocrisy, and fear, and selfishness, in place of good feeling. While insisting on truthfulness, she constantly sets an example of untruth by threatening penalties which she does not inflict. While inculcating self-control, she hourly visits on her little ones angry scoldings for acts undeserving of them. She has not the remotest idea ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching; and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... had good cause for his anger. Dorothy had lied to him. Of that there could be no doubt; but her deception was provoked by his own conduct and by the masterful love that had come upon her. I truly believe that prior to the time of her meeting with Manners she had never spoken an untruth, nor since that time I also believe, except when driven to do so by the same motive. Dorothy was not a thief, but I am sure she would have stolen for the sake of her lover. She was gentle and tender to a degree ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... hard upon my brother," said Kenric. "There lives not a man in the Western Isles better fitted than Alpin for the great office of kingship. He is just, and noble, and trusty. No man in all Bute can say that he ever broke a promise or told an untruth. Think you that because he is hasty with his dirk he is therefore a thoughtless loon, who knows not when a gentle word can do more service than a blow? When did he ever draw dirk or sword without just cause? You do not know him as I do, Dovenald, or you would not breathe ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... who had lost his senses by the operation of the Tamas, told them that they were not authentic. The saints then said, 'Thou art tending towards unrighteousness; thou takest not to the righteous path. The greatest saints have formerly said they are authentic, O Indra.' And incited by Untruth, he touched me on my head with his foot. At this, O lord of Sachi, he became divested of power and of good looks. Then, as he was agitated and overpowered with fear, I spoke to him, 'Since thou hast pronounced as spurious the unexceptionable hymns of the Veda which ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... possession of some form of religion in this larger sense of the word is of the utmost importance to moral stability. The sentiments must be strong enough to make us ashamed at the mere thought of committing, and distressed during the act of committing any untruth, or any uncharitable act, or of neglecting what we feel to be right, in order to indulge in laziness or gratify some passing desire. So long as experience shows the religion to be competent to produce ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Mark Twain; also that on two occasions, when he had ventured diffidently to say that he knew that author personally, he was at once so evidently regarded as lying for effect that he felt guilty, and looked it, and did not venture to say it any more; thus, in a manner, practising untruth to save ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... philosophy, and almost all authors, are rather to be frequented for exercise than for freight; but this exercise ought to acquire us health and strength, spirits and good-humour. There is none of them that does not supply some truth useful to every man, and some untruth equally so to the few that are able to wrestle with it. If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt; if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius: and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... seen her,' he replied. 'Her face is beautiful and good;' and then, mademoiselle, the silly chief said a great big untruth, but I know he only did so because he loves me so much. He declared, ma belle mademoiselle, that I was just as pretty ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... was troubled and DISTRAIT during dinner, which consisted of mutton and custard, which have no appeal for me owing to having them to often at school. For I had, although not telling an untruth, allowed Tom to think that I had a dozen or so Frat pins, although I ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... seldom jokes," replied Ned, "and when he does, you can always tell. He goes to our church, and I know he wouldn't deliberately tell an untruth. Oh. Andy's up ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... died in prison at Pontefract. According to Henry's account of the matter he had voluntarily starved himself to death. Few, however, doubted that he had been put to death by Henry's orders. To prove the untruth of this story, Henry had the body brought to St. Paul's, where he showed to the people only the face of the corpse, as if this could be any evidence whatever. After Richard's death, if hereditary succession had been regarded, the person ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... thought of. I have never found any evil in the boy, and there are no taverns nor flower-boats nor any places of dissipation in our neighborhood. No doubt Ming-Y has found some amiable youth of his own age with whom to spend his evenings, and only told me an untruth for fear that I would not otherwise permit him to leave my residence. I beg that you will say nothing to him until I shall have sought to discover this mystery; and this very evening I shall send my servant to follow after him, and to ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... to reply, "Why, mother, you just said that I was queer; and this old man was queer; and my father must have been queer, too." But she glanced at the placid old face, and forbore. There was a truth as well as an untruth in the inconsistent sayings, and both lay too deep for the childish intellect ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... you would forfeit his favour forever; and your mother would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I brought you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had not assured her of that it might be different; but she, who so hates an untruth, and who said to the squire, 'Frank says this will clear him; and with all his faults, Frank ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... students, than which nothing can be more obnoxious to the progress of refined art. "But," said he, "while I am urging the advantage of freedom and nature in study to genius, let me not be misunderstood. There is no untruth in the idea that great wits are allied to great eccentricity. Genius is apt to run wild if not brought under some regulation. It is a flood whose current will be dangerous if it is not kept within proper banks. But it is one thing to regulate its impetuosity, ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... I have, at that age, any correct idea of God; but I soon learned to have elevated notions of His works, and through them I was led to adore something invisible—something I was convinced of within, but could not see. My mother, to my knowledge, never deceived me, or told me an untruth: therefore, I believed her implicitly; and to this day I never doubted. So much for the implanting an early faith in the Unseen. But the beautiful world and the things in it which I saw, and with which I came in contact, Oh! how wonderful they appeared to me! They ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... his intention to deceive her, to say that the publishers had advanced him five pounds. But that would be his first word of untruth to Amy, and why should he be guilty of it? He told her all that had happened. The result of this frankness was something that he had not anticipated; ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... prevaricate. However conflicting the opinions of men concerning beautiful things, right actions, and good sentiments, Plato was persuaded there are ideas of Order, and Right, and Good, which are universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Untruth, injustice, and wrong may endure for a day or two, perhaps for a century or two, but they can not always last; they must perish. The just thing and the true thing are the only enduring things; these are eternal. Plato had a sublime conviction ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Italians deeply, I should feel passionately any similar crisis anywhere. You cannot judge the people or the question out of the 'Times' newspaper, whose sole policy is, it seems to me, to get up a war between France and England, though the world should perish in the struggle. The amount of fierce untruth uttered in that paper, and sworn to by the 'Saturday Review,' makes the moral sense curdle within one. You do not know this as we do, and you therefore set it down as matter of Continental prejudice on my ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... if I had not stamped my foot and stopped his rambling. His insinuations sounded as if I were a feeble-minded creature and couldn't tell truth from untruth, or know when a man meant or didn't mean what he said, and had never heard things of the same sort before. I've heard them before, and in several different places. I am a good many things I ought not to be, but I am not feeble-minded. ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... not tell her that she had given some to Bessie, and yet she could not tell an untruth. One struggle, and she answered: "I gave some to Bessie," letting fall a dish in her fright. It broke ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... secrecy. The contradictions in his conduct entangled him in embarrassments, in which his declarations, if always true in the sense he privately gave them, were only a hair's-breadth removed from actual, and even from intentional, untruth.'—Whether traceable to descent, or to the evil influence of Buckingham and the intriguing atmosphere of the Spanish marriage-negotiations, this defect in political honesty is, unquestionably, the one serious blot on ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Tresham after the servant's revelation, I find the same untruth. He delivers a long rhapsody on brothers' love, saying that it exceeds all other in its unselfishness. Her sole rejoinder—and here she does for one second attain to authenticity—is the question: "What ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... of the matter, certainly. But I would not have you think for a moment that they would refuse to—" a very expressive shrug of the shoulders concluded this sentence. The upright and truth-loving woman did not for a moment imagine she was guilty of an untruth; her prejudices were deeply rooted, and she could not imagine the head forester not agreeing with her at bottom, notwithstanding his contradictory nature prevented him admitting it frankly; as for Antonie, she was a good-natured little thing, but she lacked the stamina ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... very strong. It is difficult to think that some fifteen or twenty messages from various sources of which I have personal notes, all agree, and yet are all wrong, nor is it easy to suppose that spirits can tell the truth about our world but untruth about their own. ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you say about the newspapers is very true and very flattering. They are indeed a curious compound of truth and untruth. I am so used to newspaper nonsense and attacks that I do not ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... of the person spoken to." If right here means something binding in commutative justice (Ethics, c. v., s. ix., n. 6, p. 106), we deny that any such right is violated by what is called a simple lie, that is, an untruth not in the matter of religion, and not affecting the character, property, or personal well-being of our neighbour. For if a simple lie is a violation of commutative justice, it carries the obligation of restitution (Ethics, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... individuality—or soul, or whatever one cares to call it—intact. It accepts or repudiates what the personality—that is intellect—learns through the five senses. If it is truth, then it becomes part of the individuality—if it is untruth, it is discarded. Individuality is never in doubt—it knows. It is not bound by foolish laws evolved from the five-sensed personality; it will, in the end, have its way. You will have to listen more to your individuality; be controlled less by your personality. The ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... adoption of a negative prefix to reverse the meaning: as, order, disorder; pleasure, displeasure; consistency, inconsistency; capacity, incapacity; observance, nonobservance; resistance, nonresistance; truth, untruth; constraint, unconstraint. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... alone are fruitful; they are caught Into the fountain of all life (wherethrough Men's souls that drink are broken or made new) Like drops of heavenly elixir, fraught With the clear essence of eternal youth. Even one little deed of weak untruth Is like a drop of quenchless venom cast, A liquid thread, into life's feeding stream, Woven forever with its crystal gleam, Bearing the seed of ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... tell the truth about you,—with great pride, if occasion required it. But I couldn't do it then. What would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her? That was the reason why I told an untruth,—because I did not choose to fall into the trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... way. Now, however, she was in a position where she must either tell him that Kitty had opened that still sealed letter from herself to him which he had carried all these years, or else tell him an untruth. She had no right to tell him what Kitty had confided to her. There was no other ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... presume it was Will—and though I do not know what he may have told you, yet I will undertake to say that he has told you nothing but the truth. I am always safe in believing him, and do not believe he would tell me an untruth for any thing ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... to lie or evade never remained long with Dorian Trent; but that evening as he turned into the lane which led up to the house, he was sorely-tempted. Once or twice only, as nearly as he could remember, had he told an untruth to his mother with results which he would never forget. He must ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... a deliberate untruth. He bit his lip. "Well, I looked to find myself in an enemy's country at this Tergou; but maybe if ye knew all ye would not be ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... far enough to see the bridge, "There, madam," says I, "there is my entrance, where the sea pours into this lake from yonder cavern."—"It is not possible," says she; "this is another untruth; and as I see you would deceive me, and are not to be believed, farewell; I must be gone. But, hold," says she, "let me ask you one thing more; that is, by what means did you come through that cavern? You could not have used to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, Without the torment of the night's untruth. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... fact is, you bind, as your tact is, Your head with the vows of untruth, Than you shine out more charming, and, what's more alarming, You come ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... story short, as the saying goes, the poor players cleared over three hundred dollars by the night's show, while the distinguished artists who gave grand opera in homeopathic doses in another end of the town sang to almost empty benches. Handy told no untruth when he announced on the bills that "those who witnessed the ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... but in this, as in other matters of late, I have found myself mistaken." Driven to the wall, Gates wrote to Washington a denial that the letter contained the passage in question, which was an absolute lie, and this untruth typifies his character. Without expressing either belief or disbelief in this ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... etc., all a sham. Even when found out as an impostor before all the keepers and others, we find him impudently saying, "I'll tell you what I shall do to get up my shooting again." The fellow never had any shooting to get up. But the mere habit of untruth was ingrained in the man. His undignified race, in a dressing-gown, round the Crescent was no doubt concealed from Arabella—she would never have got over that! As a display of cowardice it was only ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... who was conversing with M. Odent, the Mayor of Senlis, accused the civilians of having fired on the German Army, and rendered him responsible for it. Then began the burning of the whole Rue de la Republique. This untruth was immediately spread about, and two hours after the affray a General said at Villers-Saint-Frambourg what another General said next morning at Nanteuil-le-Haudouin: That Senlis was burned because the civilians had fired on the German Army. The ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... 497; haplography^. illusion, delusion; snare; false impression, false idea; bubble; self-decit, self-deception; mists of error. heresy &c (heterodoxy) 984; hallucination &c (insanity) 503; false light &c (fallacy of vision) 443; dream &c (fancy) 515; fable &c (untruth) 546; bias &c (misjudgment) 481; misleading &c v.. V. be erroneous &c adj.. cause error; mislead, misguide; lead astray, lead into error; beguile, misinform &c (misteach) 538 [Obs.]; delude; give a false impression, give a false idea; falsify, misstate; deceive &c 545; lie &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Sally felt the worst anent thy saying that the cords hurt pretty bad," Peggy told him. "It seemed like an untruth to her." ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... the great Las Casas, who called all the historians of the Conquest of Mexico liars; and though his labored refutation of their fictions has disappeared, yet, fortunately, the natural evidences of their untruth still remain. Having before me the surveys and the levels of our own engineers, I have presumed to doubt that water ever ran up hill, that navigable canals were ever fed by "back water," that pyramids (teocalli) could rest on a foundation of soft earth, that a canal twelve feet ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... herself for having forgotten her message. But the fact was, Kate, who was neither an untruthful nor deceitful girl, shrank from telling a direct lie. She had yielded to the temptation last Sunday because, as she had persuaded herself then, she was not required to tell an untruth, but merely to hold her tongue about the message; but now she found that to hide that wrong-doing a direct lie must be told, and, although it made her uncomfortable and unhappy, it was done. But she protested again and again to her own ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... he knew General Hamilton's political bias, and my apprehensions from it. It is a mere calumny, therefore, in the monarchists, to associate General Washington with their principles. But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by often repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves. It is a mere artifice in this party, to bolster themselves up on the revered name of that first of our worthies. If I have dwelt longer on this subject than was necessary, it proves the estimation in which I hold your ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... connected with Matthew, would not gain by a literal detail of facts. Like the Wanderer in 'The Excursion' this Schoolmaster was made up of several, both of his class and men of other occupations. I do not ask pardon for what there is of untruth in such verses, considered strictly as matters of fact. It is enough, if, being true and consistent in spirit, they move and teach in a manner not unworthy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... think, too, that I deceived them; so I went to them, and cautioned them very earnestly to be on their guard against me, for it might be that I deceived them. I saw well enough that I would not do so advisedly, nor tell them an untruth; [12] but everything made me afraid. One of them, on one occasion, when he had heard me speak of this temptation, told me not to distress myself; for, even if I wished to deceive him, he had sense enough not to be deceived. This gave ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... be delighted to have you," replied Merrington with complete untruth. "I have Nepcote's address included in the list of guests who were at the moat-house at the time of the murder," he added, opening his pocket-book and hastily scanning it. "Ah, here it is—10 Sherryman Street. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... still hunting for him?" she asked with a sudden, yearning eagerness that went to the heart of the Indian. He could not speak an untruth, nor could he admit the great fear that almost stopped the beating ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... a second Job, a man simple and upright, altogether fearing the Lord God, and departing from evil. He was a simple man, without any crook of craft or untruth, as is plain to all. With none did he deal craftily, nor ever would say an untrue word to any, but framed his speech always to ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... the exercise of private judgment, faithfully gone about, does by no means necessarily end in selfish independence, isolation; but rather ends necessarily in the opposite of that. It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy; but it is error, insincerity, half-belief and untruth that make it. A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth. There is no communion possible among men who believe only in hearsays. The heart of each is lying dead; has no power ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits—thereby distorting their esthetic and ethical understanding—is a great evil, as is every untruth. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... of dramatic "irony," by which the poet makes words to be spoken, of which the spectator already knows the untruth. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... ought to observe it as a law, never to say any thing disagreeable to those whom they are speaking to: what will render the practice of this rule also the more difficult, is, that it must ever be subordinate to the former, of never speaking falsely or telling an untruth." To govern the tongue in this manner must require great address indeed; and it is too much practised both by men and women. Out of the abundance of the heart how few speak! So few, that I, who love simplicity, would gladly give up politeness for a quarter of the virtue that ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Marechal. She had resumed her thoughtful air. He saw her advancing, and, guessing what she was going to say, felt uncomfortable at having to tell an untruth if he did not wish to hurt her feelings by ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... came bothering the colonel again next morning. The colonel again sent for me and asked me what on earth this man wanted now, so I was then obliged to admit the truth. I asked him if he would forgive me for telling him an untruth overnight, and on his consenting, I told him the Portuguese had lost a quantity of money, which he put down at seven thousand dollars. The Portuguese's answer to the question who had placed the money there ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... been carried to England; and then breaks into a diatribe against foreigners who purchase and carry away such treasures, "not to make a serious study of them, but for mere vain-glory ... or in order to write books contradicting the very MSS. that they have bought, and with that dishonesty and untruth which are ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... were seriously concerned, believing that their daughter was telling them an untruth, and threatened to punish her for it, but she insisted so strongly that she saw and played with a "funny little boy, with lots of brass buttons on his jacket," that they finally gave up threatening and resolved ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... vast, massive, unwieldy, bulky. Laughable, comical, comic, farcical, ludicrous, ridiculous, funny, droll. Lead, guide, conduct, escort, convoy. Lengthen, prolong, protract, extend. Lessen, decrease, diminish, reduce, abate, curtail, moderate, mitigate, palliate. Lie (noun), untruth, falsehood, falsity, fiction, fabrication, mendacity, canard, fib, story. Lie (verb), prevaricate, falsify, equivocate, quibble, shuffle, dodge, fence, fib. Likeness, resemblance, similitude, similarity, semblance, analogy. Limp, flaccid, flabby, flimsy. List, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... received would in fact be filched from the pockets of unsuspecting persons. He would vouch for that of which he was doubtful and receive the price of sharp practice. In other words he, Alan Vernon, who had never uttered a wilful untruth or taken a halfpenny that was not his own, would before the tribunal of his own mind, stand convicted as a liar and a thief. The thing was not to be borne. At whatever cost it must be ended. If he were fated to be a beggar, at least he would ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... from herself: in case of her being already dead before me, the box and all its contents should be burnt without opening or disturbing anything. And lest anyone should plead ignorance of the contents, I swear by the God I worship and by all that is most sacred that no untruth is here asserted. If anyone should contravene my wishes that are just and reasonable in this matter, I charge their conscience therewith in discharging my own in this world and the next, protesting that such is ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... slave! Thou art telling me an untruth, and thou knowest it. Show me thy business instantly, or I will carry thee off to my dominions ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... inadequacy which may be urged against natural science, not in the spirit of detraction, but for the sake of a more sound belief concerning reality. The philosopher falls into error no less radical than that of the dogmatic scientist, when he charges the scientist with untruth, and attaches to his concepts the predicate of unreality. The fact that the concepts of science are selected, and only inadequately true of reality, should not be taken to mean that they are sportive or arbitrary. ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... particular enough where they concerned the honour of God, or where they formed a part of some symbolism which the alteration would cause to be wrongly interpreted so as to teach untruth. But for all else, he let them go, and so did our Lord. When Aaron explained why he had not eaten the goat of the sin-offering, Moses was content. Nor did Christ condemn David the King, but excused him, for eating the shewbread. I am sure Moses would have baptised me this morning, ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... man. He had served many years on board of a man-of-war, and had been in every climate: he had many strange stories to tell, and he might be believed even when his stories were strange, for he would not tell an untruth. He could navigate a vessel, and, of course, he could read and write. The name of Ready was very well suited to him, for he was seldom at a loss; and in cases of difficulty and danger, the captain would not hesitate ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... altruistic. It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of the claims of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice, for these are elemental principles of social life; but it appeals more confidently to the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered children of the race, and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction of suffering and the creation of happiness. The ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... your prejudice, coming from the South. I have sought to speak sincerely to you, because you are young, impressible, and anxious for knowledge; and it is better to know an unwelcome truth, than to find out by-and-by you have all your life been believing an untruth. Nothing is more sickening to the candid and sincere heart, than to learn its cherished opinions and dearest hopes have been nothing but fallacies; and when you are old as I am, you will have been more fortunate than I have been, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... nodded. It was all over town that Yasmini had been closeted with the commissioner on the morning of her recent escape. She herself had deliberately sown the seeds of that untruth. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... strongly enough this tendency to self-delusion, which inclines us to become the prey of untruth, by preventing the birth of faith, ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... means; the element of deception in both only adds to the admiration finally awakened. The carrying out of conceptions like these—the delineation of a character that perpetually weaves a web of untruth, and yet through all maintains our respect, and at last secures our reverence—was no easy task; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and which every one of us may bear a share in discharging. There ought to be a far deeper consciousness of our fundamental unity. They talk a great deal about 'the rivalries of jarring sects.' I believe that is such an enormous exaggeration that it is an untruth. There is rivalry, but you know as well as I do that, shabby and shameful as it is, it is a kind of commercial rivalry between contiguous places of worship, be they chapels or churches, be they ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren |
