"Guileful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... guileful calculation to surprise one into betrayal, was the subtlest diplomacy. "Let us see," she mused aloud, "you, your comrades, monsieur, you have no country now? Bien, that accounts for your interest ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... counsel with himself, and in his love and doubt grew guileful as he had never been before. For he knew well that Gudruda had this weakness—she was a ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... guard. The wide difference in the wisdom of these princes is nowhere more distinctly shown than in the quality of the men they chose to guard them. Louis employed the simple, honest, brave Scot. Charles chose the most guileful of men. They were true only to self-interest, brave only in the absence of danger. The court of Burgundy swarmed with these Italian mercenaries, many of whom had followed Charles to Peronne. Count Campo-Basso, who afterward ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Doc, who's guileful that a-way. As he sees the little Sue girl archin' for another buck, he pulls out a paper an' makes a bluff. 'Yere it is,—four hundred an' ninety-three dollars an' seventy-four cents. I puts it down all accurate, 'cause I ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way: While subtile Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong: Hark, injur'd Want recounts th' unlisten'd tale, And much-wrong'd Mis'ry ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Is guileful without guile, Halting of foot and tarrying over-long; The will of Gods is strangely over-ruled, It may not ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... and asked Denny Bolton to "do it—for me." For one flashing instant he saw her eyes flare at his candid refusal; then they cleared again with that same miraculous swiftness. Once more the corners of her lips lifted pleadingly, arched with guileful, provocative sweetness. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Barnes would have been bored by such confidences as these. Now he was eagerly drinking in every word that Peter uttered. His lively brain was putting the whole situation into a nutshell. Assuming that Peter was not the most guileful person on earth, it was quite obvious that he not only was in ignorance of the true state of affairs at Green Fancy but that he was to be banished from the place while still in ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... a guileful citizen utter potent words among the good, nevertheless he fawneth on all and useth every subtlety. No part have I in that bold boast of his, 'Let me be a friend to my friend, but toward an enemy ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... movement came about on an evening when Boase came up to the Manor to see him and the Flynns, who were staying with him at the time. Nicky was then three years old, and a daily growing delight to Ishmael, but the Parson was not without a guileful plot to wean him somewhat from that allegiance. He had begun to consider—probably because Daniel Flynn, deeply as he disagreed from him in many respects, had stirred him to the wider issues—that Ishmael must ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... and conference, That were the sinews of societies, Are now for underminings only us'd; And novel wits, that love none but themselves, Think wisdom's height as falsehood slyly couch'd, Seeking each other to o'erthrow his mate. O friendship! thy old temple is defac'd: Embracing envy,[103] guileful courtesy, Hath overgrown fraud-wanting honesty. Examples live but in the idle schools: Sinon bears all the sway in princes' courts. Sickness, be thou my soul's physician; Bring the apothecary Death with thee. In earth is hell, hell true[104] felicity, Compared with this world, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the Bishop that Lucien's mother was a woman of uncommon powers and great modesty, and that it was she who found the subjects for her son's verses. Nothing pleased Lucien so much, according to the guileful Francis, as any recognition of her talents—he worshiped his mother. Then, having inculcated these notions, he left the rest to time. His lordship was sure to bring out the insulting allusion, for which he ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... it," said Father Payne, "that anything which makes people acquiesce in preventable evil, and see the beautiful effects of death and pain and waste, is the direct influence of the devil. It is the last and most guileful subtlety that he practises, to make us solemnly mournful and patient in the presence of calamities for which we have ourselves to thank. The only prayer worth praying in the time of war is not, 'Help us to bear this,' but 'Help us to cure this'; and to behave with meek reverence ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the sea, a woodland isle, and therein a goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the wizard Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder. His daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow: and ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to forgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it were but the smoke leap upwards from his own land, hath a desire to die. As for thee, thine heart regardeth it not at all, Olympian! What! did not ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... woman, Comptesse, who has heretofore played the game so brilliantly, you have grown singularly unobservant. I am not a crusader, liberating captive Christian knights. I am France's servant, playing a somewhat guileful game which is as ancient as Ulysses, and ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... winds in flooding grass Unmoor the rose; Or guileful ways the salmon pass To sea, disclose: For so, alas, With Love, alas, With fatal, fatal ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... said, "My sons, beware The guileful Cat and baited snare, To Mice a sure perdition!" And showed how, caught within the trap They would bewail their dire mishap, With tears of ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... of murderous deed, his ear No startling summons seem'd to hear; Yet should some sudden theme intrude Of friend betray'd—ingratitude;— Or treacherous counsel—follies nurs'd In ardent minds, who, dying, curs'd The guileful author of their woes; His troubled look would then disclose Some secret anguish, inward care, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing—along ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... round The arms of sleep. In fury he donned his mail, He clutched his sword, thinking unspeakable thoughts; For now he thought to set the ships aflame, And slaughter all the Argives, now, to hew With sudden onslaught of his terrible sword Guileful Odysseus limb from limb. Such things He purposed—nay, had soon accomplished all, Had Pallas not with madness smitten him; For over Odysseus, strong to endure, her heart Yearned, as she called to mind the sacrifices Offered to her of him continually. Therefore she turned aside from Argive men ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the Serpent's guileful hate Would not innocency spare: Bade the maiden urge her mate With the fruit his lips to sate, Nor 'scaped she ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... Amund the blind slays Lyting; Valgard the guileful comes back to Iceland; his evil counsel to Mord; Mord begins to backbite and slander Hauskuld and Njal's sons ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... man named Valgard, he kept house at Hof by Rangriver, he was the son of Jorund the Priest, and his brother was Wolf Aurpriest (1). Those brothers, Wolf Aurpriest, and Valgard the Guileful, set off to woo Unna, and she gave herself away to Valgard without the advice of any of her kinsfolk. But Gunnar and Njal, and many others thought ill of that, for he was a cross-grained man and had few friends. They begot between them a son, whose name was Mord, and he is long ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... cupidity of the red men with "Guns, Powder, Shot, Hatchets (which the Indians call Tomahawks), Kettles, red and blue Planes, Duffields, Stroudwater blankets, and some Cutlary Wares, Brass Rings and other Trinkets." In Pennsylvania, George Croghan, the guileful diplomat, who was emissary from the Council to the Ohio Indians (1748), had induced "all-most all the Ingans in the Woods" to declare against the French; and was described by Christopher Gist as a "meer idol among his countrymen, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... on the fairer, far into the night, but amidst the mirth Sigmund and Signy were sad at heart. And before the sun was risen next day Signy came to her father in secret and begged him to stay in his own country rather than trust the guileful heart and murder-loving hand of Siggeir. But Volsung answered that he must go to be Siggeir's guest, for he could not break his pledged word through fear of peril. So on the morrow the smooth-speeched Siggeir departed with Signy, and when two months were passed Volsung ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... damned Ghost, (quoth he,) Nor guileful sprite to thee these wordes doth speake, 290 But once a man Fradubio,[*] now a tree, Wretched man, wretched tree; whose nature weake A cruell witch her cursed will to wreake, Hath thus transformd, and ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser |
