"Deceitful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unbroken ceaseless warfare. There were periods of lull, of truce, of compromise. But every lull was short-lived, every truce was hollow, and every compromise, however pure the motives of its authors, proved deceitful and vain. There could be no lasting peace until the great wrong was destroyed, and ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... Roman pontiff, speculative reasoners naturally carry on their assent, and embrace a theory, which has been instilled into them by their earliest education, and which also possesses some degree of consistence and uniformity. But as these appearances are sure, all of them, to prove deceitful, philosophy will very soon find herself very unequally yoked with her new associate; and instead of regulating each principle, as they advance together, she is at every turn perverted to serve the purposes of superstition. For besides the unavoidable incoherences, which must ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... any business with him— which scarcely any one can avoid—good answers and promises of assistance, yet rarely helps anybody but his friends; but twists continually and shuffles from one side to the other. In his words and conduct he is shrewd, false, deceitful and given to lying, promising every one, and when it comes to perform, at home to no one. The origin of the war was ascribed principally to him, together with some of his friends. In consequence of his false reports and lies the Director was led into it, as is believed ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... deceitful wicked measures that the French have taken to endeavour to deprive me of the Nawab's favour (tho' I thank God they have proved in vain, since his Excellency's friendship towards me is daily increasing) ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... not believe I am deceitful, though all my life I have seen my parents try to seem what they are not; that is, try to seem like rich people, when sometimes father's practice brought him only a few hundreds a year, and there was mother and myself and Tom to support. Tom is ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... strongly suggests a further step in the same direction, while he protests that "analogy may be a deceitful guide," yet he follows its inexorable leading ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... number of retired commanders and lieutenants, not to speak of higher dignitaries, are to be found in Krooland. Sierra Leone has been so often described that I will not attempt to draw a picture of its romantic though deceitful beauties. Its blue sky and calm waters, its verdant groves and majestic mountains, its graceful villas and flowering shrubs, put one in mind of a lovely woman who employs her charms to beguile and destroy those who confide ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... engraved in Autographs of Royal, Noble, Learned, and Remarkable Personages in English History, engraved by C.J. Smith, and edited by Mr. John Gough Nichols, 1829, 4to., where the editor suggests that this slip of parchment was "perhaps a deceitful toy," or it may have been attached to some present offered by the Duke of Gloucester to his royal nephew Edward the Fifth. The meaning of Gloucester's motto is perfectly free from misapprehension; but he asserts his fidelity to the crown, which he soon so flagrantly outraged—"Loyalty binds me." ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... with a sigh. "I should think so. But trouble's th' lot o' mon. Riches is deceitful an' beauty is vain—not as tha wur ivver much o' a beauty, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said to him, 'Malinche! we can easily imagine that you will not exactly experience much joy on receiving a present of such wretched things as these; but we have told you before that we are poor—possessing neither gold nor other riches, as the deceitful Mexicans, with their present monarch, Montezuma, have, by degrees, despoiled us of every thing we had. Do not look to the small value of these things, but accept them in all kindness, and as coming from your faithful friends and servants.' ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... besieged Norham for a week, when it surrendered, and then besieged Ford. These delays gave the English time to assemble. King James, as above related, captured Lady Heron at Ford. She was beautiful and deceitful, and soon enthralled the gay king in her spells, while all the time she was in communication with the English. Thus James wasted his time in dalliance, and, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... to whom they appear, it is only for the present time, never for eternity, nor for the glory of God, nor for the eternal salvation of those to whom they speak. It only extends to a temporal fortune, always of short duration, and very often deceitful. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... nature of the human heart without faith and the knowledge of Christ; at bottom it is but the heart of a Cain, murderous toward its neighbor. Nor can anything better be expected from him who is not a Christian. The Scriptures repeatedly denounce such faithless hypocrites as bloodthirsty and deceitful. "Jehovah abhorreth the bloodthirsty and deceitful man." Ps 5, 6. "For their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood." Prov 1, 16. See also verse 11. All mankind are by nature the children of the murderer Cain. They ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... with ev'ry virtue mov'd, Tho' at his birth deceitful fortune smil'd, In one sad hour, too fatally he lov'd; False fortune frown'd, and he was ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Herodotus, he said, was chiefly concerned to steal the lore of those who came before him, such as Hecataeus, and then to escape notice as having stolen it. Also he said that, being himself cunning and deceitful, Herodotus was easily beguiled by the cunning of others, and believed in things manifestly false, such as the ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... was distinguished for numerous traits of character which adorn and elevate the young man or woman and render them deserving of esteem. While yet a child she was remarkable for her veracity and honesty. Her mind seemed to dread a wicked or deceitful thing; and in all her intercourse with her parents and her young associates there was a noble frankness which opened to her the hearts of all. The earliest lessons of her childhood were calculated to impress her mind with the enormity of all falsehood and the value of ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... is often but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys himself, while another comes off safe; and where one perishes, another ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... God's free mercy and by undervaluing good works, it led to moral indolence. But on the contrary, it was to the very unbending moral earnestness of a Christian conscience, which, indignant at the temptations offered to moral frivolity, to a deceitful feeling of ease in respect to sin and guilt, and to a contempt of the fruits of true morality, rebelled against the false value attached to this indulgence money, that these Theses, the germ, so to speak, of the Reformation, owed their origin and prosecution. With the same earnestness he now for ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... entreat you. Not one of the Webers, surely? Yes, one of the Webers,—not Josepha, not Sophie, but the third daughter, Constanze. I never met with such diversity of dispositions in any family. The eldest is idle, coarse, and deceitful—crafty and cunning as a fox; Madame Lange (Aloysia) is false and unprincipled, and a coquette; the youngest is still too young to have her character defined,—she is merely a good humoured, frivolous girl; may ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... notice, and I pack and move up among the sinners in Attic Row. Somehow, you don't look like Paragons either,—you especially," nodding to Clover. "Your eyes are like violets; but so are Sylvia's—that's my sister,—and she's the greatest witch in Massachusetts. Eyes are dreadfully deceitful things. As for you,"—to Katy,—"you're so tall that I can't take you in all at once; but the piece I see doesn't look ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... bivouacs; they found no shelter in them, no winter quarters prepared, no wood. The sick and wounded were left in the streets, in the carts which had brought them. It was again, it was always the same fatal high road, passing through a town which was but an empty name: it was a new bivouac among deceitful ruins, colder even than the forests they ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... such profit and for deceitful glory labor on the wide sea explore its bays amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters there they for riches till they sleep with ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... qualities, and some pretty severe and uncomplimentary things are said about her, but there is little affectation of not understanding her. She may be a prophetess, or a consoler, or a snare, but she is no more "deceitful and desperately wicked" than anybody else. There is nothing mysterious about her first recorded performance. Eve trusted the serpent, and Adam trusted Eve. The mystery was in the serpent. There is no evidence that the ancient Egyptian woman was more difficult to comprehend than the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to decide for them. I had hoped to have been able to place you in a more respectable situation in society than was my original intention when you were thrown upon me, a destitute orphan; but I now perceive my error. You have proved yourself not only deceitful but ungrateful." ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he derives from getting the better of the one he is playing against. He fails to see that each time he stoops to unfair methods in order to gain his purpose he helps to pave the way for other things that are wrong and deceitful.) ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... La Bruyere,—"all passions are deceitful; they disguise themselves as much as possible from the public eye; they hide from themselves. There is no vice which has not a counterfeit resemblance to some virtue, and which does not profit ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... face to face, Anne Ashton and her deceitful lover! How their hearts beat to pain, how utterly oblivious they were of everything in life save each other's presence, how tumultuously confused were mind and manner, both might remember afterwards, but ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of a specious and deceitful character: it was his practice to dissemble his real sentiments, and to recommend himself by flattering speeches to the favor of his superiors. By constantly addressing Prince Edwin in the language of adulation, he succeeded in rendering his company very agreeable ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... again, my dear Sir, let me exhort you (and do you exhort your sister) to deal little with modern writers, but fix your attention almost exclusively upon those who have stood the test of time. You have not leisure to allow of your being tempted to turn aside from the right course by deceitful lights. My household desire to be remembered to you in no formal way. Seldom have I parted, never I was going to say, with one whom after so short an acquaintance, I lost sight of with more regret. I trust we shall meet again, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... you're as deceitful as the rest, And all that talk of buying what's but a vapour Is fancy bred. I might have known as much, Because that's ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... storm. Don't trust, my Lord, to the appearance of the sky. Nothing is more deceitful. For the last two days the barometer has been falling in a most ominous manner, and is now at 27 degrees. This is a warning I dare not neglect, for there is nothing I dread more than storms in the Southern Seas; I have had a taste of them already. The ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... people, and we received from her an account corresponding in all respects with that which our first informant had given us. She added, over and above, that there was no trusting them; that they were deceitful to a degree unparalleled among men, and that no arts or offices of kindness ever won their forbearance. We listened to her statements more than half disposed to credit them, yet we adhered to our original determination, nevertheless, of joining ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... so docile (though, as it now turned out, so deceitful); who had always known her place and never answered her mistress but with respect; was to-day an unrecognisable Bassett—not in the least impudent, but as certainly not to be awed or brow-beaten. Standing in the glare of discovered misconduct, under the scourge of her shame, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... kindly softness spreading over her rough face, "good luck's deceitful! If I had the strands o' your fortin' in my hands, may be I wouldn't twist 'em even; but I ha'n't, and my fingers is too thick to manage anything smaller 'n a rope-knot. You're goin'? Well, look out for me bright and early o' Monday, and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... me on condition of my being everlastingly silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned as ignoble and deceitful. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... belie my nature?" asks she, with quick agitation; "would you have me grow false, secret, deceitful? My aunts trust me: am I to prove myself ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... difficult part of my negotiation with the savages; for, being themselves superlatively unscrupulous and deceitful, they naturally suspected us of being the same, and would not come alongside, or render up possession of the jollyboat and the three wounded seamen whom she carried, until we on our part had released Oahika. And this ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... childhood She loved to fancy kindly hovering round her, Who from his veiling cloud amid the fire Stepped forth in her preserver's form. You smile - Who knows? At least beware of banishing So pleasing an illusion—if deceitful Christian, Jew, Mussulman, agree to own it, And 'tis—at ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a return of the original symptoms of disease, but even by a return of these symptoms in an aggravated form." (See Hahnemann's Chronic ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... of the place and time. Zeus appears first as a barbarian chieftain with the ordinary qualities of such persons. Stories that have come down about him reflect a period of what now seems immorality, though it was the recognized morality of the time; he is deceitful and changeable and completely unregardful of any definite marriage laws. His cult in some places (for example, in Arcadia) had savage features. Whether he had originally in the Hellenic world a special home, and if so what it was, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... way be! All flesh hath corrupted their way, and done abominable works, and "none doeth good," Psal. xiv. 1, 2, 3. But many flee in unto their good hearts as their last refuge, when they are beaten from these outworks of their actions and ways. But the Scripture shall storm that also. "The heart is deceitful above all things," who can know it? it is "desperately wicked," Jer. xvii. 9. In a word, man is become the most lamentable spectacle in the world, a compend of all wickedness and misery enclosed within the walls of inability and impossibility ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... be consummately impressive were it not that we know how wholly deceitful she was without in the least knowing it. But the creeping horror of time is quickly softened by her marriage in 1833 to a Frenchman called De Bombelles, who was in the service of her native land, and is said to have had English blood in his veins. In spite of the loyal effort ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... the vicious and the unreliable. Other evils may flourish among the idle, the indolent, the treacherous, the deceitful and the dishonest, but industry and economy and integrity and faithfulness and honor and even God-fearing piety are desirable qualities in the usurer's victims. The higher the civilization, yes Christian civilization, the more is produced and the richer the harvest. The usurer has no use for a ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... As that fair flower [5730]Adonis, which we call an anemone, flourisheth but one month, this gracious all-commanding beauty fades in an instant. It is a jewel soon lost, the painter's goddess, fulsa veritas, a mere picture. "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... of subsequent love. Congress of artificial love. Congress of transferred love. Congress like that of eunuchs. Deceitful ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... and broadest farce in this flattering and deceitful world to see him look right into my eyes while he answers smilingly, without the least evasion or reserve, the ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... what makes thou here to play? Look, there's the fowler, pr'ythee come away. Do'st not behold the net? Look there, 'tis spread, Venture a little further, thou art dead. Is there not room enough in all the field For thee to play in, but thou needs must yield To the deceitful glitt'ring of a glass, Plac'd betwixt nets, to bring thy death to pass? Bird, if thou art so much for dazzling light, Look, there's the sun above thee; dart upright; Thy nature is to soar up to the sky, Why wilt thou come down to the nets and die? Take no heed to the fowler's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in the world, and say that they could pluck feathers from those wings and that it is moving hands and eyes. And so one who paints (as a book said) a hare which, in order to be distinguished from the dog following it, required a label indicating it, such a person, painting a thing so little deceitful, may be said to paint a great falsehood, more difficult to find amongst the perfect works of nature than a beautiful woman with the tail ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... Queen's and George's apparent acquiescence to my sinful popularity marked the deceitful calm before the storm. Frederick Augustus has not succeeded in gaining the King's and his father's forgiveness even now. As a military officer he is shunted from pillar to post, and the generals and high officials of the court treat him like a recruit in disgrace. Of course ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... after being for twelve years accustomed to judgment at hand, go and suffer, like petty colonists, the delays and chicanery of the tribunals of Lisbon, across two thousand leagues of ocean, where the sighs of the oppressed lose all life and all hope? Who would credit it, after so many bland, but deceitful expressions of reciprocal equality and ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... best thing I myself ever got out of egg-boxes—that picture of a deceitful son stealthily washing himself upon the floor behind the bed, trembling at every footstep lest it might be the "old ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... a part of the Phaenomena of Colours which I present you; Many things unanimously enough deliver'd as matters of fact by (I know not how many Chymical Writers) being not to be rely'd on, upon the single Authority of such Authors: For Instance, as some Spagyrists deliver (perhaps amongst several deceitful processes) that Saccarum Saturni with Spirit of Turpentine will afford a Balsom, so Beguinus and many more tell us, that the same Concrete (Saccarum Saturni) will yield an incomparably fragrant ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... know every brother's and sister's weak point. To the brother who has been fond of ardent spirits he comes behind the deceitful, covetous smile of the rumseller. In this instance the order of the fable is reversed. There the ass put on the lion's skin; here the lion puts on the skin of the ass. To the brother whose weakness is adultery he comes in the form of a harlot, "jeweled and crowned." To the brother whose special ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... the poor priest has died no natural death, is evident; therefore his Grace, I trust, will probe the business to the uttermost, and find out who is the evil Satan amongst us—ay, and tear off the deceitful mask, that my good name thereby may be justified before the Prince and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... the Widow, in a tone of inexpressible rage,—"Prince, you may be forgiven this, but not from me! I never dreamt that the heart of man could be so deceitful,—but you are unworthy of a thought. You are an impostor! My husband in the dress of a barbarian is a prince; you in the dress of a prince are a barbarian. In this world you see me ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... Loki's deceitful ways, and said: "I believe thee not. This is one of thy tricks, ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... I have been cunning—I hope not deceitful, inasmuch as I now reveal my cunning. Instead of describing any real picture of his, I have always substituted one he has only talked about. The picture actually associated with the facts related is not the picture I ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... with fruitful harvests and good fishing. In his early years he was very popular for his kindliness and generosity, his fearless courage and his great strength in battle. But it seems that the greater power which he afterwards acquired disturbed the fine balance of his mind, and he became deceitful, even to his nearest friends, and cruel to a degree which presently won for him the hatred of his people, who murmured against him in secret while fearing to ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... little later he became, with impartial facility, equally delighted with the sturdy Plutarch. His nature was passionate and inconstant, his sensibilities morbidly acute, and his imagination lively. He hated all rules, precedents, and authority. He was lazy, listless, deceitful, and had a great craving for novelties and excitement,—as he himself says, "feeling everything and knowing nothing." At an early age, without money or friends, he ran away from the engraver to whom he had been apprenticed, and after various adventures ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... scathing bitterness. "Why don't they? Because they're too mean an' stingy—that's why. Because they think that by lettin' it go to ruin an' makin' my place look like a dump heap, they can drive me to spend my money to do it, so'st they can save theirs. Because they're such lyin', deceitful critters they actually pretend the wall don't belong to 'em anyhow—that it's mine! Mine! That's why. So they leave it there, lookin' like the devil's own playground, hopin' that some day I'll get so sick of seem' it that way that ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... close that they would not have room to wiggle, and allow intelligent colored people to go up and vote in preference to them. The only Union element in the South proper... is among the colored people. The whites will treat you very kindly to your face, but they are deceitful. I have often thought, and so expressed myself, that there is so much deception among the people of the South since the rebellion, that if an earthquake should open and swallow them up, I was fearful that the devil would be dethroned and some of ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... inexorable shrew—she requires the space of volumes to give even the shadow of her personality and powers. She has puzzled some of the wisest and most learned of men. She was truly royal, and wholly deceitful; self-controlled at times, and madly passionate at others; a lover of pure literature, and yet terribly free in her own writings; kind to her dependants, yet capable of aiming a violent blow at some courtier whom she had caressed a moment before the blow came; an icy virgin, and a confirmed ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... these communications a deeper and more mysterious import. Did he hold private meetings with Miss Vernon in the library? was a question which occupied my thoughts; and if so, for what purpose? And why should she have admitted an intimate of the deceitful ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... home. At first she was angry, afterwards, she cried and begged Boris not to tell thee. I am sure Boris was kind to her, though he told her frankly she was on a dangerous road. All this I had from Boris, and it is the truth; as for what reports have grown from it, I give them no heed. Sunna was deceitful and imprudent. I would not think worse of her ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... is every danger. Evil influences surround them from their birth. These beautiful creatures have in them the possibilities of becoming mean, base, corrupt, treacherous, deceitful, cruel, false, revengeful; of becoming, in fact, unworthy and repulsive in many ways. Why, all our criminals, our drunkards, liars, thieves, burglars, murderers, were once innocent little children ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... There were the superintendents, the supervisors, the special teachers, the principals—petty officers of a petty tyranny in which too often seethed gossip, scandal, intrigue. There were the "soft places"; the deceitful, the easy, the harsh principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, rules, counter-rules. As she talked, Sommers caught the atmosphere of the great engine to which ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... land flowing with milk and honey. While the multitude below saw only the flat sterile desert in which they had so long wandered, bounded on every side by a near horizon, or diversified only by some deceitful mirage, he was gazing from a far higher stand on a far lovelier country, following with his eye the long course of fertilising rivers, through ample pastures, and under the bridges of great capitals, measuring the distances of marts and havens, and portioning out all those wealthy regions ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... leave, away he went, Not dreaming of the false intent That was contrived against him then By wicked, false, deceitful men. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... heard your long tirade, which, to tell the truth, makes me reflect that I have not been so prudent as I ought, and have too readily believed your deceitful speeches, and obeyed you in all things, which is the reason you now think so little of me. Another reason why you speak to me thus, is that you know that I am so much in love with you that I cannot bear to live out of your ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... stability of the commonwealth. A constitution which embodied abstract right alone would be an excellent thing for natures other than human, but since the great majority of men are extremely egoistic, unjust, inconsiderate, deceitful, and sometimes even malicious; since in addition they are endowed with very scanty intelligence there arises the necessity for a power that shall be concentrated in one man, a power that shall be above all law and ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... and having since been driven to and fro by the storm. For one or two days, there was an interval of calm, and the tempest-tossed mariners had time to breathe. They looked upon this tranquillity, however, as deceitful, and, in their gloomy mood, beheld every thing with a doubtful and foreboding eye. Great numbers of sharks, so abundant and ravenous in these latitudes, were seen about the ships. This was construed into an evil omen; for among the superstitions of the seas, it is believed that these voracious fish ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... grew very furious. 'Oh, birds,' said he, 'ye are traitors. Ye are forsworn! Ye are liars—breakers of oaths—deceitful ones!' And he shook his fist at them and spat, being greatly enraged and grieved at ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... The deceitful monk hastened toward the open trap and kneeling gazed for a moment below. There came up a foul odour that made him flinch and draw back; he drew his handkerchief and placed it to his nose and leant again and looked. There was a faint glimmer that showed in ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... egotistical, overweening, vainglorious; nugatory, fruitless, ineffectual, frustrate, unavailing, bootless, futile, abortive, ineffective, empty; delusive, chimerical, unsatisfying, unsubstantial, deceitful. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... First of all that, by imposing upon them a duty they do not feel as such, you set them against your tyranny, and dissuade them from loving you; you teach them to be dissemblers, deceitful, willfully untrue, for the sake of extorting rewards or of escaping punishments. Finally, by habituating them to cover a secret motive by an apparent motive, you give them the means of constantly misleading ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... and glowed among the shipping. I took possession, thinking that if, like Peppino's parents, I might spend my declining days here, the troubles of life, and especially those attendant upon old age, might be easier to bear. And yet, possibly, a stupendous panorama might turn out as deceitful as proficiency at whist, or great riches, or worldly honours, or any of the other adjuncts of age popularly supposed to be desirable; for I suspect that most of these things fail and become as naught in the balance ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... made constable of France. Before his arrival Knowles had moved on westwards 'towards the Beauce, intending to reach his own estates in Brittany for winter quarters. But his young captains got out of control. Led by a Gloucestershire knight, Sir John Minsterworth, "ready in hand but deceitful and perverse in mind," a considerable section of the troops refused to follow the old "tomb-robber" to Brittany, and determined to spend the winter where they were, under Minsterworth's leadership. Knowles would not give place to his subordinate, and made his way to Brittany ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... this is evident, that it was he, and not Campbell, who was guilty of taking unfair advantage of his companions. How the book came into Campbell's desk I know not. But as Egerton has been, in these two matters, convicted of telling a wilful untruth, I am ready to believe him capable of any further deceitful conduct to screen himself. It rests with Doctor Palmer to conclude this most ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... quick with excitement. I had no fear. A wonderful catch, a game fish six inches long filled me with the pride of achievement, and with pride came self-confidence. The stream lured me on. The rapids snapped up my hook, and with many a deceitful tug enticed me farther and farther into the woods. The brush shut the bridge from my view, but I knew that it was not far away, and that a voice so mighty as James could raise would easily overtake ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... happily adapted to such junctures, where deceitful negotiations could extricate him out of difficulties, was filled with terror at the sight of imminent danger, or of a decisive event: he was of opinion to lay siege to some other place, the capture of which might prove an indemnification for the loss of Arras; but Monsieur de Turenne, who was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bald and are usually vain in the matter of dress, probably due to the fact that in the past they were attaches of royalty. A midget is usually suave in manners and not easily embarrassed in public. Several instances are related that midgets, back in the conspiring and deceitful days of royalty, gave their patrons much information of enemy intrigues and ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... rate, "Dodd" was a wayward boy from the first, a typical preacher's son. He was rebellious, belligerent, and naturally deceitful. This last trait, matched with a vivid imagination, made him a great liar as soon as he grew old enough to use the two faculties at the same time. In this regard, however, he was not so wonderfully unlike a great many other people. He had bursts of great generosity; ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... a coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could see none, for though the great soft lout of a ruddy beer-vat tried often to look ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... letter-writing, and now he's your master. I'll tell you another thing old Solomon said: 'Open rebuke is better than secret love, and faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.' My advice is: have another master ready for the Hebe as soon as ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... class, but as large and as ferocious, was employed to guard the sheep and cattle, or to watch at the door of the house, or to follow the owner on any excursion of business or of pleasure. Gratius says of these dogs, that they have no pretensions to the deceitful commendation of form; but, at the time of need, when courage is required of them, most excellent mastiffs are not to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... to marriage with one whom they thought unfit for him. He was wise in asking their counsel, but not wise in rejecting it. Captivated with her looks, the big son wanted to marry a daughter of one of the hostile families, a deceitful, hypocritical, whining, and saturnine creature, who afterward made for him a world of trouble till she quit him forever. In my text his parents forbade the banns, practically saying: "When there are so many honest and beautiful maidens of your own country, are you so hard put to for a lifetime ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... direction, his plausibility long enabled him to explain away his conduct; and, honest in the excess of his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so easy a grace that it assumed the character of truth. He was false, deceitful, treacherous; yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be virtuous. He was a real man, though but an indifferent one; and we can refuse to no one, however grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy, when in his perplexities he shows us features so truly human in their weakness ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical times; and it must be confessed are provoking enough. Some shear very fairly and handsomely to a superficial eye, but commit the unpardonable offence of "leaving wool on." Some are deceitful, shearing carefully when overlooked, but "racing" and otherwise misbehaving directly the eye of authority is diverted. These and many other tricks and defects require to be noted and abated, quietly but firmly, by the manager of ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... to send back to villages of Chitunkue to buy food. It was not reported to me that the country in front was depopulated for three days, so I send a day back. I don't know where we are, and the people are deceitful in their statements; unaccountably so, though we deal fairly and kindly. Rain, rain, rain as if it never tired on this watershed. The showers show little in the gauge, but keep everything and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... see the wonderful effects of deceitful mirage, extremely common all over Persia. One sees beautiful lakes of silvery water, with clusters of trees and islands and rocks duly reflected upside down in their steady waters, but it is all an optical deception, caused by the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to Posthumus; and after telling him what proof he had of his wife's disloyalty, he desired Pisanio would take Imogen to Milford Haven, a seaport of Wales, and there kill her. And at the same time he wrote a deceitful letter to Imogen, desiring her to go with Pisanio, for that, finding he could live no longer without seeing her, though he was forbidden upon pain of death to return to Britain, he would come to Milford Haven, at which place he begged she would meet him. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... cross it in your book; The lady, thunderstruck, with terror shook; Allowed the payment; 'twas a case too clear; In truth for character she 'gan to fear. But most howe'er she grudged the surplus joy, Bestowed on such a vile, deceitful boy. ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... Antiquary interposed. "Aroint thee, witch! wouldst thou poison my guests with thy infernal decoctions? Dost thou not remember how it fared with the clergyman whom you seduced to partake of that deceitful beverage?" ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... hats, and collars, further indicated that she was lovely. All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the box-seat, noted with the smile of cynical philosophy. Not that he depreciated the sex, but that he recognized therein a deceitful element, the pursuit of which sometimes drew mankind away from the equally uncertain blandishments of poker,—of which it may be remarked that Mr. Hamlin was a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... lightly. He argued that, being still young, he could not spare him, and that to accept his offers would not be at all in accordance with his fame for generosity. A proficient in the imperial art of hiding detestation under deceitful blandishments, Nero ended the interview with embraces and assurances of friendship. Seneca thanked him—the usual termination, as Tacitus bitterly adds, of interviews with a ruler—but nevertheless altered his ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... to say, before I forget it, that I don't think I am deceitful by nature. You see, it changes a fellow a lot to get all tangled up in his feelings over a girl that doesn't seem to care a rap for you. He does things that are positively idiotic At any rate, I did. And I ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... to the mother's eyes. She even trembled, well knowing how deceitful were appearances: a mere chill might carry her son off, however tall and strong he might look. And was he not indeed a symbol of that old-time aristocracy, still so lofty and proud in appearance, though at bottom it is ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of nothing but sea and sky, of white-crested waves—which made no secret of their intention of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a child's plaything—and of more deceitful sluggish rolling billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow, undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes brightened to blue of a sapphire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... sadly to the body, * * * * * * * * * * hwi noldest bethenchen thu me. 90 why wouldst thou not think of me theo hwule thet ic wunede inne the. while that I dwelt in thee, for thu were leas and luti[gh]. for thou wert false and deceitful, and unriht lufedest. and iniquity didst love; godnesse and riht. goodness and justice aefre thu onscunedest. 95 ever thou didst shun. hwar is nu the modinesse. Where is now the pride swo muchel the thu ...
— The Departing Soul's Address to the Body • Anonymous
... mystery had slept in her breast, and she thought to have found the true solution in the word "Feodor!" but she was mistaken, and God had allowed this long-mourned, long-desired man to return to her, that she might be allowed to read anew the riddle of her heart more correctly, to find out its deceitful nature, its stubborn pride, and to conquer them. Thus thinking, she raised her head from Bertram's breast, and looked at him "You asked my father for my hand. Do you still ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... be deceitful; and it has often cut me to the heart, to see you show me that affection, which ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... monster base ingratitude, Soul's mortal poison, deadly killing-wound, Deceitful serpent seeking to delude, Black loathsome ditch, where all desert is drown'd; Vile pestilence, which all things dost confound. At first created to no other end, But to grieve those, whom nothing could offend. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... goes on, "we'll say you was sensitive about it. In order to duck their frivolous remarks when you came sneakin' back, maybe you'd be deceitful enough to bluff it through. You might lug something home in the bag, even if it was only some loose real estate. I don't say you would, mind you. You got such an honest, cash-register face. But there are shifty ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... kindled hope was deceitful. The great plague, indeed, returned no more; but what it had done for the Londoners, the great fire, which broke out in the autumn of 1666, did for London; and, in September of that year, a heap of ashes and the indestructible energy of the people were all that ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... agitated without ceasing by the storms of our passions! It is here that true philosophy brings us to a safe port, by a sure and easy passage; not like that of the schools, which, raising us on its airy and deceitful wings, and causing us to hover on the clouds of frivolous dispute, let us fall without any light or instruction in the same place where she took ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... punished for what I did not deserve to be; and when my mother obtained such triumphant proof against me, she did not fail to make the most of it with my father, who, by degrees, began to consider that my treatment was merited, and that I was a bad and deceitful child. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... "Nimium ne crede colori;" and observation, as well as the Scripture, shows us daily that "fair havens" in summer are but foul places to "winter in;" that fair speeches, and a flattering tongue, and the kisses of an enemy, "are deceitful;" and that beneath a fine spotted or barred coat, the jaguar and the tiger, the cobra and the hornet, conceal both the power and the propensity for mischief. So with our old friend Potamochoerus. The pretty creature,—beauty is relative—the Cameroon pig is the prettiest, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof. I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something, and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she does something as much like that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... spirits, should not be prosecuted as rogues and cheats. Spiritualists cannot even pretend they have discovered anything new. We have repeatedly, particularly under the head "Laws against and Trials of Witches," shown that deceitful girls and old crones could perform all the sleight-of-hand and delusions practised by ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... degree of vigor, that my advanced years have left me, expends itself fruitlessly in seeking this conqueror. At every moment, at all places, in a night so dark, I think that I embrace him, and I embrace only a shadow; and my love, beguiled by this deceitful object, forms for itself suspicions which redouble my fear. I do not discover any traces of his flight. I fear the dead Count's friends and retinue; their number terrifies me, and confounds my reason. Rodrigo lives no ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... sentimental love that had made him mopish and wan. It brings to an end in two hearts, filial affection and that perhaps stronger thing, attachment to family. It makes the charming young man a frantic madman, careless of everything but his love. It makes the sweet-natured girl a deceitful, scheming liar, less frantic, but not less devoted than her lover. It results almost at once in five violent deaths, and a legacy of broken-heartedness not easily told. The only apparent good of the disease is that it destroys its victims ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... satisfied 'tis nothing all But a deceitful hope, less solid far, A thousand times, than is the moving sand; But are not all things so with wretched man? All things soon pass away like rapid streams Which hasten to the sea, where lost for ever In th' ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... readers. The circumstance of the crown deposited at the feet of the prince, in a manner so solemn and unexpected, and the former prediction of the Armenian, seem so naturally and obviously to aim at the same object that at the first reading of these memoirs I immediately remembered the deceitful speech of the witches ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... alone, away from the eye and ear of man?" Writing again to Mr. Bonar, he tells him: "I feel distinctly that the whole of my labor during this season of sickness and pain should be in the way of prayer and intercession. And yet, so strongly does Satan work in our deceitful hearts, I scarcely remember a season wherein I have been more averse to these duties. I try to build myself up in my most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping myself in the love of God, and looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal life.' That text of Jude has ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... a man called Emund of Skara, who was lagman of west Gautland, and was a man of great understanding and eloquence, and of high birth, great connection, and very wealthy; but was considered deceitful, and not to be trusted. He was the most powerful man in West Gautland after the earl was gone. The same spring (A.D. 1019) that Earl Ragnvald left Gautland the Gautland people held a Thing among themselves, and often expressed their anxiety to each ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... exchange, extortion alone affixed the price. These examples could not fail to have a deteriorating effect upon their untutored minds; and we find them accordingly losing their former regard for truth, honesty and fidelity; and becoming instead deceitful, dishonest and treacherous. Many of their ancient virtues however, are still ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... run off with the money,' said Cargrim, in what was for him a savage tone. 'I must question the servants about her departure. Miss Norsham, I am afraid that your beautiful nature has been imposed upon by this deceitful vagrant.' ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... with your supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification, and preparation for the worst—you know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation. (You observe my new vein of allegory?) Seriously, however, I must be permitted to allege ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... admired. In his ignorance, he covets himself; and he that approves, is himself {the thing} approved. While he pursues he is pursued, and at the same moment he inflames and burns. How often does he give vain kisses to the deceitful spring; how often does he thrust his arms, catching at the neck he sees, into the middle of the water, and yet he does not catch himself in them. He knows not what he sees, but what he sees, by it is he inflamed; and the same mistake that deceives his eyes, provokes them. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... it was terribly bold of you, if you want to know just what I think," Maria said; "and I think you were very deceitful. Before I would do such a thing to get a young man to go home with me, I would—" Maria paused. Suddenly she remembered that she had her secret, and she felt humbled before this other girl whom she was judging. She became conscious to such an extent of the beam in her own eye ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason; the one commandeth, and the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, neither age ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... kind to say anything to wound another's feelings. It is only a nasty old deceitful thing like yourself who could think of such ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... 'O thou deceitful girl!' cried Mrs. Dornell. 'An accident took you to the Red Lion whilst I was staying at the White Hart! I remember—you came in at twelve o'clock at night and said you'd been to see the cathedral by the light ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... a shaking fen Fix'd me, in dark tempestuous night; There never trod the foot of men, There flock'd the fowl in wint'ry flight; There danced the moor's deceitful light Above the pool where sedges grow; And when the morning-sun shone bright, It shone upon ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not die. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... whatsoever we ourselves have not done I scarcely accompt ours.... It is vertue, yea vertue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen.... These things [i.e., knowledge, reason, good sense], neither the whirling wheele of Fortune can chaunge neither the deceitful cavilling of worldlings separate, neither sickenesse abate, neither age abolish." Then follows a dialogue between Euphues and an atheist,[89] in which I need not say the latter is utterly routed; ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... long years tread the slippery and deceitful path of abhorrent Catholicism, but who to-day stands at the Vatican's door, with the torch of Protestant wisdom, and denounces Popery with a tongue livid with the power ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... spear fiercely through him, and he fell from his war horse. They bore him to a bed, whereon he suffered excruciating agonies till twilight, when he died the third of the nones of February. From such a death, good Lord, deliver us! The bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his days; nevertheless, my trust shall be in thee, ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... fancy she will ever be punished in the way you mention: no, no; she'll wither on the thorny stem dropping the faded and ungathered leaves:—a China rose, of no good scent or flavour—false in apparent sweetness, deceitful when depended on—unlike the flower produced in colder climates, which is sought for in old age, preserved even after death, a lasting and an elegant perfume,—a medicine, too, for those whose shattered nerves require ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi |
