"Mental reservation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that I do make this Declaration and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever and without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking that ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... manifestly inconsistent with any natural interpretation of the Fourteen Points which all the belligerents had accepted as the basis of the armistice and consequent peace; and they were not such as any Power could be expected to sign without an effort to get them amended before peace was concluded or a mental reservation to procure their modification as soon as might be thereafter. The German delegates, with Count Brockdorff-Rantzau at their head, did their best to expose the inconsistencies between the Allies' professions and their performance, and to secure a reconsideration of ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... voted that Judith was to be received into the family, Mr. Bob Bucknor making a mental reservation that he would not divulge the news to his wife and daughters until they were well out of Kentucky. He had strong hopes that European travel might soften the hearts of his daughters towards their pretty, ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... tendered voluntarily was in terms apparently no less strong than the bond which they refused, it was conjectured that the former piece had been drawn up by their ghostly fathers with some private equivocation or mental reservation; a suspicion which receives strong confirmation from the characters and subsequent conduct of some of these persons,—the most noted fanatics certainly of their party,—and amongst whom we read the names of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the absence of poor Plunket, who set off for Ireland with little hope of finding his wife alive, we made a very good figure last night. Castlereagh spoke better than I ever heard him. You will see that your suggestion of adding some words to exclude all mental reservation is adopted—that is to say, both Phillimore and Castlereagh last night stated the willingness of the promoters of the Bill to admit them, if any person thought it desirable to move their insertion. Burrell, notwithstanding what he had said, came and voted against us; but Curteis and Fox Lane, instead ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... laid for but one course at a time, she was able to give herself up during the meal to a frank study of her new-found relatives. She was going to like Ripley Halstead; already liked him, and each passing moment confirmed her first opinion. Concerning the others, she was not so sure. There was a mental reservation behind Mrs. Halstead's surface cordiality, and the bewitching Angelica seemed too seraphically sweet and gentle to ring quite true. Vernon was a type with which in a more crude stratum of humanity she ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... tell General Michael that he was not good at keeping secrets, chiefly because that gentleman was not of the trivial confession type; but he made a mental reservation. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... deceive, no part of the definition, intrinsically and always wrong, why God cannot lie, not against commutative justice, mental reservation not ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... harsh and prominent. The high narrow wrinkled forehead, the small deep-set jet-black eyes, gleaming like living coals from beneath straight shaggy eyebrows, the thin aquiline nose, the long upper lip, the small fleshless mouth and projecting chin, the expression of habitual cunning and mental reservation, mingled with sullen pride and morose ill-humor, gave to his marked countenance a repulsive and sinister character. Those who looked upon him once involuntarily turned to look upon him again, and marvelled and speculated upon the disposition and ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... execution. The idea of being "clever" in a gondola by moonlight appeared to her to involve elements of which her grasp was not active. But it was settled between them that she should tell her father that she was ready to follow him obediently anywhere, making the mental reservation that she loved Morris Townsend more ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... said in a speech—a perpetually provisional arrangement Under these ephemeral forms of rule, our national inferiority in face of other stable and far-sighted governments is flagrantly evident. The sense of duty wears away, devoted service is never given without a mental reservation touching the morrow—that unknown morrow, which checkmates the boldest plans. Thus constituted, such regimes are all alike, and it was not for the princes of the House of France to draw their swords to impose one form of national humiliation rather than another ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... habit of thinking only in essentials and his predisposition to neglect form, it is not strange that he said: "I have never united myself to any church because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... away, and cut off in the flower of your youth. It is incumbent on you, therefore, to prepare for the great change, by repenting sincerely of your sins; of this there cannot be a greater sign, than an ingenuous confession, which I conjure you to make without hesitation or mental reservation; and, when I am convinced of your sincerity, I will then give you such comfort as the situation of your soul will admit of. Without doubt, you have been guilty of numberless transgressions to which youth is subject, as ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... I, without evasion or mental reservation, given a faithful account of the steps by which I have arrived at this barrier, which is likely to be the ne plus ultra of my peregrinations, unless the generous Count de Melvil will deign to interpose his interest in behalf of an old fellow-soldier, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... War, and you intended to defeat that purpose. You accepted the office, not in the interest of the President but of Mr. Stanton. If this purpose, so entertained by you, had been confined to yourself; if when accepting the office you had done so with a mental reservation to frustrate the President, it would have been a tacit deception. In the ethics of some persons such a course is allowable. But you can not stand even upon that questionable ground. The "history" of your ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... required to take them absolutely, without any reversion of mental reservation. Some would willingly quit all but one or two lusts they cannot think to twin with; and they would deny themselves in many things, but they would still most willingly keep a back-door open to some beloved lust or other. And who seeth not what double dealing is here? And what reason can plead ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... show, but it was quite the third day out from Liverpool before I saw her smile as I wished to see her smile—without a mental reservation, in fact. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... anybody is too good to work," replied Ellen, but she uttered the platitude with a sort of mental reservation. In spite of herself, the attitude of worship in which she had always seen all who belonged to her had spoiled her a little. She did look at herself with a sort of compunction when she realized the fact that she might ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... much at a loss what course to pursue. His line of education, as well as his father's tenets in matters of church and state, had taught him a holy horror for Papists, and a devout belief in whatever had been said of the Punic faith of Jesuits, and of the expedients of mental reservation by which the Catholic priests in general were supposed to evade keeping faith with heretics. Yet there was something of majesty, depressed indeed and overclouded, but still grand and imposing, in the manner and words of Father Buonaventure, which it was difficult to reconcile with ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... to Ernestine for the warm-hearted way in which she had put her proposal, as if it were a real favor to her. She made this one mental reservation to herself,—it should last only until she found "something better" as a solution. When Milly told the little girl of the new move, Virgie was delighted. "It'll be like having a real man in the house again," she said. "We'll have to teach her how to speak like ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... contrasted. He felt indefinitely proud of the dress. Some instinct in the man's simple, strong mind told him that it was good for women to be beautiful, but his ignorance of the sex being profound he had no desire to analyze the beauty. He had no mental reservation with regard to her. Indeed it would have been hard to find fault with Etta Sydney Bamborough, looking upon her merely as a beautiful woman, exquisitely dressed. In a cynical age this man was without cynicism. He did not dream of reflecting that the lovely hair owed half its beauty to the clever ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... me to the office of President of the United States, I have, in conformity with the constitution of our country, taken the oath of office prescribed therein. I have taken this oath without mental reservation and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that it requires of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought. I commence ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... combination that she could not count on; and Stanwell, reddening under her look of interrogation, and cursing his own glaring robustness, would affirm that of course, of course, of course, by everything that was holy there was time enough—with the mental reservation that there wouldn't be, even if poor Caspar lived ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... best McLean could do, but he made a mental reservation to see Marie that night and slip her a little money. Peter need never ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Gravamina of this year were very bitter, complaining of the practice of usury by priests, of the pomp of the cardinals and of the pope's habit of giving promises of preferment to certain sees and then declaring the places vacant on the plea of having made a "mental reservation" in favor of some one else. The Roman clergy were called in this bill of grievances "public fornicators, keepers of concubines, ruffians, pimps and sinners in various other {46} respects." Drastic proposals of reform were defeated ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith |
