"Misrepresentation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his narrative that before entering the Chamber on this eventful day M. Ollivier had found at the Foreign Office Benedetti, just arrived from Ems, who had already seen Bismarck's telegram in a newspaper, and could have assured the ministers that it was a perfidious misrepresentation, since the king had not treated him with actual discourtesy. Nevertheless M. Ollivier quotes and entirely adopts the 'proud and manly' utterances of the Duc de Gramont who stood up and addressed the assembly towards the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... dressmakers and milliners, often themselves of little taste and scant morals, cracked the whip, and the docility with which the American woman blindly and unintelligently danced to their measure. The deeper he went into the matter, too, the more deceit and misrepresentation did he find in the situation. It was inconceivable that the American woman should submit to what was being imposed upon her if she knew the facts. He determined that she should. The process of Americanization going on within him decided him ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... sometimes said, "If physical suffering were concerned, we could bear it; but oh, this pain which is gnawing at the heart—this awful inward agony, which burns like fire!" And if we are capable of suffering so acutely from remorse and shame, from ingratitude and misrepresentation, in this life where there are so many distractions and temporary alleviations, what may not be the possibility of pain in that other life, where there is no screen, no covering, no alleviation, no cup of water to ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... N. misinterpretation, misapprehension, misunderstanding, misacceptation^, misconstruction, misapplication; catachresis^; eisegesis^; cross-reading, cross-purposes; mistake &c 495. misrepresentation, perversion, exaggeration &c 549; false coloring, false construction; abuse of terms; parody, travesty; falsification &c (lying) 544. V. misinterpret, misapprehend, misunderstand, misconceive, misspell, mistranslate, misconstrue, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... acquaintance. I'd tell her you're vulgar, improper, scandalous; I'd tell her you're mercenary, designing, dangerous; I'd tell her the only safe course is immediately to let you drop. I'd thus surround you with an impenetrable legend of conscientious misrepresentation, a circle of pious fraud, and all the while ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... though his character may, perhaps, not have been free from serious blemish, he is never a hypocrite; nor, though he paints exclusively the darkest side of society, is there the least reason to accuse him of culpable misrepresentation of actual facts. He has selected the material most suited to his peculiar genius: we may complain of his principle of selection, and of his tendency to generalize. There ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... 1842; a letter of which the sentiments expressed are as creditable to the judgment and discrimination, as they are honourable to the feelings and humanity of the minister who wrote it, and who, in the absence of personal experience, and amidst all the conflicting testimony or misrepresentation by which a person at a distance is ever apt to be assailed and misled, has still been able to separate the truth from falsehood, and to arrive at a rational, a christian, and a just opinion, on a subject so fraught with difficulties, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... such currency as to impose itself even on so careful a writer as Mr. Schouler, in his "History of the United States." It is impossible to read this part of American church history intelligently, unless the mind is disabused of this misrepresentation. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... chiefs, under whose influence and leadership hostilities had been carried on. This information reassured me, and I determined to proceed, although I found afterwards that it was almost entirely a misrepresentation, which, however, I cannot believe was wilful, as the captain would have had me for a passenger ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... that much apparent difference of opinion has been produced by a mere difference in the mode of describing the same facts, and that persons who at bottom were perfectly agreed, have considered each other as guilty of gross error, and sometimes oven misrepresentation, on this subject. ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... confidence and power the President watched over men and events; cautiously and patiently, with mistakes and successes; amid acrid criticism, noisy abuse and malignant misrepresentation, he made his slow ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... corruption in the public service. During his term of office he was to exhibit another set of qualities, the possession of which had perhaps been less suspected: an instinct for the trend of the national will not unlike that of Jackson, and a far-seeing patience and persistence under misrepresentation and abuse ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... diseased woman, when entirely free from her malady, repented bitterly of what she had done and said of Goodman Bishop and his wife, and heartily desired their forgiveness. So far as the facts stated by Mr. Hale of his own knowledge go, they prove that Bridget Bishop was the victim of gross misrepresentation. Five years afterwards, as we shall see, Mr. Hale gave a very different version of the affair, and one which it is extremely difficult to reconcile with his own former deliberate convictions at the time when the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... not sure of that. I know too well what misrepresentation and calumny can do anywhere; and I have been involved in certain difficulties which, if not explained away, might ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... right to notice. M. Hippolyte Carnot asserts that a motion similar to that of Barere was made in the English Parliament by the late Lord Fitzwilliam. This assertion is false. We defy M. Hippolyte Carnot to state the date and terms of the motion of which he speaks. We do not accuse him of intentional misrepresentation; but we confidently accuse him of extreme ignorance and temerity. Our readers will be amused to learn on what authority he has ventured to publish such a fable. He quotes, not the journals of the Lords, not the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it keeps its respectability unblemished. It makes a liberal use of falsehood in diplomacy, only feeling embarrassed when its evidence is disclosed by others of the trade. An unscrupulous system of propaganda paves the way for widespread misrepresentation. It works up the crowd psychology through regulated hypnotic doses at repeated intervals, administered in bottles with moral labels upon them of soothing colours. In fact, man has been able to make his pursuit of power easier to-day by his art of mitigating the ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... remarks on Louis XIV. and his contemporaries, of which the substance is as sound as the style is beautiful. Unfortunately, like all his other works, they contain also a large proportion of sophistry and misrepresentation. The best test to use before we adopt any opinion or assertion of Bolingbroke's, is to consider whether in writing it he was thinking either of Sir Robert Walpole or of Revealed Religion. When either ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... while from inertia the Republican party has been privy to this misrepresentation, prominent Northern leaders are trying to take advantage of their own neglect in an attempt to reduce representation in national conventions from Southern States, irregularly Democratic. But the friends of just government need not despond, for the ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... from being alone in this, and perhaps merely takes up and reiterates, without much consideration, assertions previously assumed by others. Nothing could be further from Mr. Darwin's mind than any, however small, intentional misrepresentation; and it is therefore the more unfortunate that he should not have shown any appreciation of a position opposed to his own other than that gross and crude one which he combats so superfluously—that he should ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Platform was indignantly and universally rejected by the Eastern synods." (365.) Dr. Jacobs, 1893: "It was endorsed by one of the smaller synods in Ohio, but everywhere else it aroused intense indignation, as a misrepresentation and detraction of the Lutheran Church." (426.) Dr. Neve, 1915: "Only three smaller District Synods in Ohio adopted the Platform temporarily, the East Ohio, the Olive Branch, and the Wittenberg Synods. At all other places it was most decidedly rejected, not only by men of the synods under ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... according to the principle which always governed him at such a crisis. He had the courage to abandon the ground which he had taken up, and which he would have been well entitled to maintain if argument could prevail over misrepresentation and passion. With that {320} cool contempt for the extravagance and the ignorance of the sentiment which thwarted him, he abandoned his scheme and let the mob have its way. On Wednesday, April 11, 1733, it was made ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... and of Imagination generally, as an element of human nature. It is, or was, part of the popular notion of Benthamites, that they are enemies of poetry: this was partly true of Bentham himself; he used to say that "all poetry is misrepresentation": but in the sense in which he said it, the same might have been said of all impressive speech; of all representation or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a sum in arithmetic. An article of ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... realising, as never before, how much harder it is to suffer than to serve. I can only assure you again, by letter, that my heart is as much with you as ever. Regard no opposition, persecution, or misrepresentation. Millions upon millions wait for us to bring to them the ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... humane, to give to the world a work which contained the reasons for the unbelief of the countrymen of Jesus; who for almost eighteen hundred years have been made the unresisting victims of, as the reader will find, groundless misrepresentation, and the most amazing cruelty; because they refused to believe what it was impossible that they should believe, on account of reasons their persecutors did not know, and refused to ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... he was unquestionably the brightest ornament of the British bar. Immediately afterwards the press teemed with tributes to his memory: some of them characterised by great acuteness and discrimination, several by exaggerated eulogy, and one or two by a harsh disingenuousness amounting to misrepresentation and malevolence. Nothing excited more astonishment among those who had thoroughly known Sir William Follett, than the appearance of these attacks upon his memory, and the bad taste and feeling which alone could have prompted the perpetration of them, at a moment when the hearts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... aiding those who under difficulties have guarded the flame of tradition and love of the splendid past with its bright galaxy of "heroes, martyrs, saints." True, the glowing embers often smouldered beneath a debris of neglect and even harsh misrepresentation but were not and could not be extinguished. And now faithful hearts may beat fast with holy joy for the feeble light fanned by loving zephyrs has burst into a glowing flame destined to diffuse its love and influence to all, regardless of ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... wife's relations, if they have the means of so doing and are satisfied with the conduct of the husband. Some travelers have represented that the "marriage by purchase" among the Indians is a mere sale of the woman to the highest bidder, whose slave she becomes. Matthews regards this a misrepresentation so far as it concerns the Hidatsa, the wedding gift being a pledge to the parents for the proper treatment of their daughter, as well as an evidence of the wealth of the suitor and his kindred. Matthews has known many cases where large marriage ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... centuries he almost physically felt the feebleness and hopelessness of the moderate Parliamentarians. He said a word of sympathy for the universally vituperated Jacobins of the Mountain, because through thick veils of national prejudice and misrepresentation, he felt the impossibility of the Gironde. He was wrong in denying to Scott the power of being inside his characters: but he really had a good deal of that power himself. It was one of his innumerable and rather provincial crotchets to encourage prose as against poetry. But, as a matter of fact, ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... brought him with him as his chaplain, and when he was done with that office, gave him the canonry. He has not had it confirmed, as he has not enjoyed it much more than two years. He signs himself "Bachelor," although this is a misrepresentation. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... which he was elected. They sent a protest to the Senate, and that body appointed a committee to investigate the charges made. President Smith and many of the brethren were summoned to Washington to give their testimony. All of this led to much agitation and misrepresentation against the Church. ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... been my study to make it as perfect as I could in this edition, by correcting some inaccuracies which I discovered myself, and some which the kindness of friends or the scrutiny of adversaries pointed out. A few notes are added, of which the principal object is, to refute misrepresentation and calumny. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... reader of Keats's preface will find that this is a misrepresentation. Keats did not speak of any fierce hell of criticism, nor did he ask to remain uncriticised in order that he might write more. What he said was that a feeling critic would not fall foul of him for hoping to write good poetry in the long run, and would be aware that Keats's ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... lands—ye speculators in the folly and credulity of your fellow men—what a mass of misery, and of misrepresentation productive of that misery, have ye not to answer for! You had your acres to sell, and what to you were the worn-down frames and broken hearts of the infatuated purchasers? The public believed the plausible statements you made with such earnestness, and men of all ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... giving "the best and most probable account that could be then given of GOD'S universe[302]." The Hebrew writer asserts indeed "solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority[303];" but we need not therefore "attribute to him wilful misrepresentation, or consciousness of asserting that which he knew not to be true[304]." If this "early speculator" "asserted as facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities," it was because he was not harassed by the scruples which result "from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of assertion ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... felt a little prick of wounded pride when he compared them with our own. The Koelnische Zeitung is, for instance, like all belligerent newspapers, ridiculously biased; but in the earlier days, when I was able to see it, I did not find gross misrepresentation or absurd hate. The "not very tasteful 'Gott strafe England'" has given the English a new word, one writer remarks (Sept. 21, 1915). Naturally, American testimony favourable to Germany is exclusively quoted, ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... spite of all this beauty, surely his misrepresentation of that divinity—the American Girl—is beyond all hope of pardon, beyond contrition, beyond all penance. He does full justice to her refined and splendid loveliness and her magnificent proportions; but he seems to regard her, if one ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... architectural ornament ought to be conventionalized. Remember, when you hear this, that noble conventionalism is not an agreement between the artist and spectator that the one shall misrepresent nature sixty times over, and the other believe the misrepresentation sixty times over, but it is an agreement that certain means and limitations being prescribed, only that kind of truth is to be expected which is consistent with those means. For instance, if Sir Joshua Reynolds had ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... persecution, misrepresentation, and the treatment they are receiving are due entirely to their own evil-doing—lying, cheating, robbing, and murder bring their own reward. The Gipsies of to-day are drinking the dregs of the cups they had mixed for others. The sly ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... answer was, "I should be more fainthearted than they make me, if, through fear of idle reproaches, I should abandon my own convictions. It is no inglorious thing to have fear for the safety of our country, but to be turned from one's course by men's opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation, shows a man unfit to hold an office such as this, which, by such conduct, he makes the slave of those whose errors it is his ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... wily savage had hitherto met with full success; and by means of deceit and misrepresentation, he had roused up and irritated the feelings of several Sachems and their dependants, and induced them to agree to coalesce for the destruction of the Wampanoges, and then to turn their arms against the settlers, with the view of expelling them altogether from the country. His spies had ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... they said that he was concerned. It is probable that some were well founded. It is possible that all were well founded. But it is no less indubitable that they rest on evidence which is not evidence at all, and that the most innocent intimacies would not have escaped misrepresentation from the venomous tongues of Roman society. Caesar comes into court with a fairer character than those whose virtues are thought to overshadow him. Marriage, which under the ancient Romans was the most sacred ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... to positive conviction. When the investigation was complete it was found that 16,460 of the 32,896 signatures were subject to court challenge and that at least 10,000 of them were the product of fraud, forgery and misrepresentation. Prominent members of the bar volunteered their services—T. J. Doyle, C. A. Sorenson, John M. Stewart and H. H. Wilson of Lincoln, and Elmer E. Thomas and Francis A. Brogan of Omaha. A petition to enjoin the Secretary of State from placing ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... principles, and engaged to prove every discreditable story he told of me to be false, and then went on with the discussion. He accepted my challenge to discuss personalities, but neither kept his engagement, nor abated his efforts at misrepresentation during the remainder ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... luxuriates till dawn, when he again seeks the retirement of the deep forests. This noble animal fills so dignified a place both in the zoology and oeconomy of Ceylon, and his habits in a state of nature have been so much misunderstood, that I shall devote a separate section to his defence from misrepresentation, and to an exposition of what, from observation and experience, I believe to be his genuine character when free in his native domains. But this seems the proper place to allude to a recent discovery in connexion ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... This is so wherever, according to the common course of business, it is one party's business to know the facts, and the other practically must, or reasonably may, take the facts from him. In some classes of cases even inadvertent omission to disclose any material fact is treated as a misrepresentation. Contracts of insurance are the most important; here the insurer very seldom has the means of making any effective inquiry of his own. Misdescription of real property on a sale, without fraud, may according to its importance ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... Although the chiefs and head-men were well-nigh unanimous in ratifying these concessions, it was discovered in the spring of 1868 that many of the young men were bitterly opposed to what had been done, and claimed that most of the signatures had been obtained by misrepresentation and through proffers of certain annuities, and promises of arms and ammunition to be issued in the spring of 1868. This grumbling was very general in extent, and during the winter found outlet in occasional marauding, so, fearing a renewal of the pillaging and plundering at an early ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity, even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The ungodly and violent, the proud and Pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places, may combine to crush us. So they treated the MESSIAH, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Friend: It is twenty-eight years ago to-day since the first woman's rights convention ever held assembled in the Wesleyan chapel at Seneca Falls, N. Y. Could we have foreseen, when we called that convention, the ridicule, persecution, and misrepresentation that the demand for woman's political, religious and social equality would involve; the long, weary years of waiting and hoping without success; I fear we should not have had the courage and conscience to begin such a protracted struggle, nor the faith and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... assured him that she herself had made inquiry at the consulate and found that the marriage performed there was binding enough,—"unless the trust company wished to intervene as guardian of the minor and contest its validity on the ground of misrepresentation of Adelle's age," which, of course, must involve ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... crater without passing through one or another of these obstacles. I should have liked to have left the animals there, but it was represented as impossible to proceed on foot, and though this was a decided misrepresentation, Mr. Green plunged in. I had resolved that he should never have any bother in consequence of his kindness in taking me with him, and, indeed, everyone had enough to do in taking care of himself and his own beast, but I never found it harder to repress ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... from the minds of Crowheart's merchants the picture presented by the procession of excursionists returning with their satchels to the station, glowering at Crowheart's citizens as they passed and making loud charges of misrepresentation and fraud. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the dislike of having fixed habits of thought disturbed, leads gentlemen to resent innovations in that way, it is not astonishing that innovations of a more intangible and elusive kind should be subject to a like unconscious misrepresentation, especially by newspapers and public men pushed by commercial or political necessity to say the popular thing rather than the true thing: that contained in the speech of Mr. Churchill, which, together with a newspaper ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... his perverse bellicosity of style made him the object of the attentions of a horde of panic-stricken heresy-hunters. Those of us who had not the fortune to escape the Press by service abroad, especially those of us who derived our living from it, came to loathe its misrepresentation of the English people. There seemed no end to the nauseous vomits of undigested facts and dishonourable prejudices that came pouring out in daily streams. Then we came to realize, as never before, the value of such men as Chesterton. ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... far greater and loftier than any of which these two mean souls had understanding, animated him alike in his discoveries and in his account of them; although that does not alter the unpleasant fact that at the stage matters had now reached it seemed as though there might have been serious misrepresentation. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... other places, the trees of liberty, (or, rather, the trees of the republic,) have been cut down, the tri-coloured flag torn, and the cry of "Vive le Roi!" was for some time predominant; yet the same misrepresentation was had recourse to, and all these places were asserted to have espoused the cause of that party to ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... and what they hope to achieve thereby. It will altogether depend upon the sincerity or lack thereof, upon the broad or narrow horizon of the historian. That which passes as history in our schools, or governmentally fabricated books on history, is a forgery, a misrepresentation of events. Like the old drama centering upon the impossible figure of the hero, with a gesticulating crowd in the background. Quacks of history speak only of "great men" like Bonapartes, Bismarcks, Deweys, or Rough Riders as leaders of the people, while ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... better satisfied than I to see Mr. Darwin's book refuted, if any person be competent to perform that feat; but I would suggest that refutation is retarded, not aided, by mere sarcastic misrepresentation. Every one who has studied cattle-breeding, or turned pigeon-fancier, or "pomologist," must have been struck by the extreme modifiability or plasticity of those kinds of animals and plants which have been subjected to such artificial conditions as are imposed by domestication. ...
— Time and Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... careless, however botchy, may be the version of Maeterlinck or of anyone else given in such a selection as this, it is assuredly far less careless and far less botchy than the version, the parody, the wild misrepresentation of Maeterlinck which future ages will hear and distant critics be ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... of companies, may by misrepresentation get hold of A's saved money, and may spend it for his own enjoyment, consuming the goods and services which A might have consumed, and giving to A "paper" stock which figures as A's "savings." Here A ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... the phenomena of life, mind, and society in terms of matter, motion, and force under the general evolution formula. This procedure, however, must not be understood as in any wise materialistic. Such an interpretation would be a misrepresentation, it is urged, for the strict relativity of the standpoint limits all conclusions to phenomena, and permits no inference concerning the nature of the "Unknowable." The Principles of Biology take up the phenomena of life. Life is defined as the "continuous adjustment of internal ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... relation of that affair, without interesting myself much in contradicting it, I should certainly have treated this in the same manner, had it not been seemingly authenticated by Mr. Knight's name being subscribed to it. My asserting that the paper contains much misrepresentation, equivocation, and falsity, might make it appear strange that I should apply to you in this manner for information on the subject: but, as it likewise contradicts what I have been told were Mr. Knight's sentiments ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... masonry of the cottage. Every house in the neighbourhood was more or less injured by shrapnel, and one of them was the scene of a sanguinary conflict which was utterly misrepresented by one of the Cape papers. The misrepresentation was to the effect that at the battle of Modder River the house in question was occupied by a number of Boer wounded from Belmont and Graspan in charge of several attendants. It was alleged that two of the attendants deliberately fired upon our troops, who ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... Forensic life is, to a large extent, life in the broad glare of day, under the scrutiny of keen-eyed observers and merciless critics. In every cause there are two attorneys engaged, of whom one is a sentinel upon the other; and a blunder, a slip, an exaggeration, or a misrepresentation, never escapes without instant exposure. The popular reputation of a lawyer, it has been well said, is but the winnowed and sifted judgment which reaches the world through the bar, and is therefore made up after severe ordeal and upon ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... services rendered in showing them, the system would be a great improvement on the present, and the number of strangers in Rome would be rapidly doubled and quadrupled. There might be some calumny and misrepresentation, but these would very soon be dispelled, and the world would understand that the Papacy did not seek to make money out of its priceless treasures, but simply to provide equitably and properly for their preservation and due increase. Here, as we all see, have immense sums been already ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Dr. Beecher says, in his work on Skepticism: "I have never heard a correct statement of the Calvinistic system from an opponent;" and, after specifying some alleged instances of misrepresentation, he adds: "It is needless to say that falsehoods more absolute and entire were never stereotyped in the foundry of the father of lies, or with greater industry worked off for gratuitous ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... fraught with useful instruction." There is no question that these biographies are fraught with useful instruction—all biographies are; but to assert that they must be sought after with avidity is a little too much to be swallowed. Such assertions show either deplorable ignorance or unwarrantable misrepresentation of human nature, and in this case we are convinced it must be the latter. Edwards knew perfectly well—for he seems to have been sane—that nobody but the subjects of these biographies would seek them "with ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... misrepresentation and misunderstanding which took place increasingly, led to animosity on the part of the Dutch. Rightly or wrongly, it was taken as a matter of course that Rhodes favoured the idea of a total annihilation of the Cape Dutch. And as he was considered a kind ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... you that they do not. They never rise beyond the level of misrepresentation, and actually condescend to prove, to discuss, to argue. How different from the temper of the true liar, with his frank, fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, his healthy, natural disdain of proof of any kind! After all, what is a fine lie? Simply that ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... this paragraph, I am bound to say, is a total misrepresentation of the proceedings of the Senate. A majority of the Senate have not anticipated the House of Representatives; they have not assumed the functions of that body; they have not converted themselves into accusers, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... higher title for the Second Person of the Trinity than this very one—Son of God. Now, in the 5th chapter, when the Jews accused Jesus "of making himself equal to God," by calling himself Son of God Jesus even hastens to protest against the inference as a misrepresentation —beginning with: "The Son can do nothing of himself:" and proceeds elaborately to ascribe all his greatness to the Father's will. In fact, the Son is emphatically "he who is sent," and the Father is "he who sent him:" and all would ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... compel the Belfast Unionists either to adopt, on the one hand, an attitude of apparent intolerance which would put them in the wrong in the eyes of the British public, or, on the other, to submit to the flagrant misrepresentation of their whole position which would be the outcome of a Nationalist meeting in the Ulster Hall presided over by the President of the illusory "Ulster Liberal Association," and with Lord Randolph Churchill's son as the protagonist of Home Rule. The threat to stop the meeting forced ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... mumbled as he ate. "He would appreciate that. He loves his own race. He would rather feel that he is a comic misrepresentation of the most hideous Saracinesca who ever lived, than possess all the beauty of the Astrardente and be ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... nothing is more needed in the missionary work of our day than that intelligent and well-poised wisdom which considers all the facts and then draws just distinctions; which will not compensate for conscious ignorance with cheap misrepresentation or wholesale denunciation. ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... and pleasantly Mr. Stackpole went on compounding this cup of entertainment for himself and his hearers, smacking his lips over it, and all the more, Fleda thought, when they made wry faces; throwing in a little truth, a good deal of fallacy, a great deal of perversion and misrepresentation; while Mrs. Evelyn listened and smiled, and half parried and half assented to his positions; and Fleda sat impatiently drumming upon her elbow with the fingers of her other hand, in the sheer necessity of giving some expression ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... on the part of every earnest student and investigator of this phase of American history—has been partly answered already. The work has been derisively called the "Mormon Bible," a name that carries with it the misrepresentation that in the faith of this people the book takes the place of the scriptural volume which is universally accepted by Christian sects. No designation could be more misleading, and in every way more untruthful. ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... make believe is as real to him as the world which is seen through his eyes, and often he can not distinguish between the two. Many a little heart has quivered over the punishment inflicted for "lying", when willful misrepresentation was not in his thoughts. However, harsh treatment of a vivid imagination may result in real deception later on, for the child can not help "seeing things," too wonderful to be enjoyed alone, and then, perforce, there must be deliberate planning to ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... to town: A visit to Sir Barnard: Admission denied: Enquiries after the wounded stranger, who had disappeared: An endeavour to guard against misrepresentation: The fears ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the war for our own reasons and with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither the reasons nor the objects. There is no hate in our hearts for the German people, but there is a resolve which cannot be shaken even by misrepresentation, to overcome the pretensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon purposes to which the German people ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... of his propensity to self-misrepresentation. However great might have been the irregularities of his college life, such phrases as the "art of the spoiler" and "spreading snares" were in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... committee to appoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. The Lords, upon this, were going upon an address to the king against Benson for such a misrepresentation; but the Earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them an assurance that his Majesty would remove him, which was done accordingly. In favour of this man, the famous Sir Christopher Wren, who had been architect to the Crown for above fifty years, who built ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... Moros. Naturally the real object of the military preparations was the Spaniards' justifiable endeavour to be ready to defend themselves against open rebellion when the true situation should ooze out. Nor was their misrepresentation of the Americans mere spiteful calumny; the Spaniards were in great jeopardy, and they instinctively wished to destroy any feeling of welcome which the natives might have for the new-comers for fear it might operate against themselves at the supreme moment of danger. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... conceive that your Lordships, or, at least, some of you, may be desirous that I should avail myself of this, or some other early opportunity, to explain the nature and termination of the transactions in which I have been engaged; and I confess, my Lords, that having been exposed to extreme misrepresentation, and having been vilified in the most extraordinary manner, in respect of these transactions, by persons in another place, who, with the exception of their conduct in this instance, have some claim to be considered respectable, I ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... been thus, and always will be; nor is it desirable in the interests of Truth herself that it should be otherwise. Truth is like money—lightly come, lightly go; and if she cannot hold her own against even gross misrepresentation, she is herself not worth holding. Misrepresentation in the long run makes Truth as much as it mars her; hence our law courts do not think it desirable that pleaders should speak their bona fide opinions, much less that they should profess to do so. ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... unsatisfactory as that in which the people of Johannesburg found themselves in the year 1896. Judgments passed in the heat of the moment upon matters which had not been properly explained, and which in many cases were completely obscured by deliberate misrepresentation, had incurred for the community dislike contempt and mistrust which were wholly undeserved. Those who knew the facts and who were able and willing to speak, the Reformers themselves, were bonded to abstain from politics for three years under penalty ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... What then shall we say of a paper which, professedly established to "counteract the immorality of The Times," adds to normal journalistic follies, offences and mistakes an utter absence of literary honour, systematic misrepresentation, malignity and absolute ruffianism? Let those who hold such language exaggerated glance at my piece justicative, the Saturday's article (June 28, '88) upon Mr. Hitchman's "Biography of Sir Richard Burton." No denizen of Grub Street ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... customers. What I propose to do in the present chapter is to examine some of the detailed statements in Mr. Williams's book and to show that in many cases the inferences he draws are so seriously exaggerated as to amount to a positive misrepresentation of the facts. For the purposes of this examination we cannot do better than begin with the chapter which Mr. Williams devotes to chemicals. "The chemical trade," he tells us, "is the barometer of a nation's ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... referring to individuals; if it does fall into such an error, the sequel is either an abject apology or else an uphill fight in the law courts followed by the payment of heavy damages. It is quite conceivable that the author of this unpardonable misrepresentation imagined himself to be telling the truth and that he erred out of sheer ignorance; but, if so, that merely serves to indicate how badly informed journalists often are of the matters which they are dealing with, when the question at issue ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... with the measure. But could the patriots of the Revolution have foreseen the gigantic growth of slavery, and the use that would have been made of the provision recognizing it, no consideration would have induced them to adopt a course that has been prolific of so much misrepresentation and mischief to the country. They left the suppression of slavery to the States where it existed, but there was no intention to ingraft the idea of property in man in the Constitution, or to favor its extension beyond the original slave States in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... demonstrated by the next grand entrance of the railway brotherhoods upon the public stage. After his victory in the Western territory, Chief Stone remarked: "Most labor troubles are the result of one of two things, misrepresentation or misunderstanding. Unfortunately, negotiations are sometimes entrusted to men who were never intended by nature for this mission, since they cannot discuss a question without losing their temper.... It may be laid down as a fundamental principle without which no labor organization can hope to ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... Massachusetts" in explanation of the Otises turning their coats and becoming partisans of the popular cause. Nothing could well be more unjust and untrue, for both men were of far too honorable a character and too ardently patriotic to justify the slander and give even the slightest color to the misrepresentation. Were it necessary more emphatically to characterize the slander as false, one might confidently point to the happy relations of the Otises with the other patriots of the time—to men of the stamp of the two Adams statesmen, to Hancock, Randolph, Warren, and other leaders of the Revolutionary ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... thought they are unreliable.... They have given form and beauty to much that never existed, except in vague outline or in undeveloped germs in the Japanese mind. In doing this they have unavoidably been guilty of misrepresentation.... The Japanese nation of Arnold and Hearn is not the nation we have known for a quarter of a century, but a purely ideal one manufactured out of the author's brains. It is high time that this was pointed out. For while such works please a certain section ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... proofs. This is the uniform representation of the sophistical spirit which is given by all the best writers who lived nearest to their times, and who are, therefore, to be presumed to have known them best. Grote[904] has made an elaborate defense of the Sophists; he charges Plato with gross misrepresentation. His portraits of them are denounced as mere caricatures, prompted by a spirit of antagonism; all antiquity is presumed to have been misled by him. No one, however, can read Grant's "Essay on the History of Moral ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... to collect from these officers, without change or misrepresentation, statements of their experiences while leading their men in battle or in their divers contacts with the enemy, he sent to each one a questionnaire, in the form of a circular. The reproduction herein ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... found no recognition either in the constitution which he himself had suggested, or in the one finally adopted. To this theory of government the system which he defended was in reality diametrically opposed. Under the guise of protecting the people against misrepresentation at the hands of Congress, it effectually limited the power of the people themselves by tying the hands of their responsible agents. It deprived the people of the power to compel the enactment of law by making the consent of ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... war was so quickly succeeded by its dread reality. Efforts which might fairly be described as stupendous were put forth by the advocates of Kultur to win, if not the approval, at least the strict neutrality of America. That the program of calculated misrepresentation failed utterly was due in great part to the leading newspapers of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and the other main centers of industry and population. Never has the value of a free Press been demonstrated so thoroughly. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... astonished to see in a report of the proceedings of the United States Senate, that a member rose and said that we were not struggling for the principle of Freedom and of Liberty, but rather for the support of our ancient Charter. This, gentlemen, is a misrepresentation of our cause. There is a truth in the assertion that we were struggling for our ancient rights, for the right of self-government is an ancient right. The right of self-government was ours a thousand years ago, and has been guaranteed to us by the coronation oaths of more than thirty of our ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... in administration, it is necessary to overturn the British Constitution, and to build on its ruins four semi-independent Legislatures and one supreme Parliament, is merely to exemplify the cynical imposture of partisan misrepresentation: what Mr. Balfour described as "the dream of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... made me at last completely understand why insidiously, from the first, she had struck me as a creature of tragedy. In showing me the whole of her folly it lifted the curtain of her misery. I don't know how much she meant to tell me when she came—I think she had had plans of elaborate misrepresentation; at any rate she found it at the end of ten minutes the simplest way to break down and sob, to be wretched and true. When she had once begun to let herself go the movement took her off her feet: the relief of it ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... resolutely dishonest, wilful, and malicious sophisms, arranged so as to mask, to the last moment, the real laws of economy, and future duties of men. By taking a simple example, and working it thoroughly out, the subject may be rescued from all but such determined misrepresentation. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... that Carnot dictated to him from a closet in the Luxembourg all the plans of his operations, and that herthier was at his right hand, without whom, notwithstanding Carnot's plans, which were often mere romances, he would have been greatly embarrassed. This twofold misrepresentation was very current for some time; and, notwithstanding it was contrary to the evidence of facts, it met with much credence, particularly abroad. There was, however, no foundation for the opinion: Let us render to Caesar that which is Caesar's due. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... manners. A very dull man may be very urbane, and so may a very dull newspaper. On the other hand, a newspaper which is both brilliant and clever may be sometimes guilty of an injustice, a deliberate and persistent misrepresentation, to attain a particular end—conduct which is sometimes called "journalistic." But the person who is responsible for the performance, for similar conduct would be metaphorically kicked out of a club. But gentlemen are ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... denunciation of Norway by the so-called Grand Swedish party, and the equally vociferous response of the Norwegian journals (of the Left) there is a strong sympathy between the democracy of Norway and that of Sweden, and a mutual respect which no misrepresentation can destroy. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... summing up the three efficient causes that have chiefly aroused and concentrated the antagonism of the Free States. Not a brilliant man, he has that best gift of Nature, which brilliant men commonly lack, of being always able to do his best; and the very misrepresentation of his opinions which was resorted to in order to neutralize the effect of his speeches in the Senate and elsewhere was the best testimony to their power. Safe from the prevailing epidemic of Congressional ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... may be used of motives regarded as forces acting upon the will. Actuate refers solely to mental or moral power impelling one from within. One may influence, but can not directly actuate another; but one may be actuated to cruelty by hatred which another's misrepresentation has aroused. Prompt and stir are words of mere suggestion toward some course of action; dispose, draw, incline, influence, and lead refer to the use of mild means to awaken in another a purpose or disposition to act. To excite is to arouse one from lethargy or indifference ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... his report of this very commonplace occurrence, he could scarcely have used, concerning the movement of heading south, the expression, prit chasse, which, whether rendered "retired," or "retreated," or, as Nelson did, "ran away," was a misrepresentation of the facts, and heightened by the assertion that he pursued till nightfall, and next morning could not see the enemy. Writing to Elliot four days after the affair happened, Nelson mentioned casually his view of the matter. "Monsieur La Touche came out with eight ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... trouble, no further attention has been paid to it from the standpoint of pathological lying. Our acquaintance with some professional criminals, particularly of the sneak-thief or pick-pocket class, has taught us that living conditions for the individual may be founded on whole careers of misrepresentation and lies—for very understandable reasons. Self-accusations may sometimes be evolved with the idea of gaining directly practical results, as when a lover or a comrade is shielded, or when there is danger of a larger crime ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... official embezzles power and turns to his own advantage the authority entrusted to him to use for the public good. We should punish him and try to safeguard the people. The initiative and referendum are valuable because they enable the people to protect themselves from misrepresentation. ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... mere force of majorities to render the teaching high. There is a law already 'voted for' in the case, which majorities can no more repeal than they can the law of gravitation. And here we must take the opportunity of stating—for there has been misrepresentation on the point—what our interest in the teachers of Scotland and of the Free Church really is. Certainly not indifferent to their comfort as men, or to the welfare of their profession, as one of the most important and yet worst remunerated in the community, we frankly confess that ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of Cleanthes, in the same [K]Chapter, is a Misrepresentation of Nature.—"Cleanthes is a very honest Man; he has chosen a Wife, who is the best and the most reasonable Woman in the World: They, each of them, in their respective Ways, make up all the Pleasure and Agreeableness of the Company they are in: 'Tis impossible to meet with more ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... and in his contempt for the general body of the peers than Smith. "To one who understands the case as I do," he writes to Dr. Blair, "nothing could appear more scandalous than the pleading of the two law lords. Such curious misrepresentation, such impudent assertions, such groundless imputations, never came from that place; but they were good enough for the audience, who, bating their quality, are most of them little better than their ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... approaching, the established MERITS of the case either in fact or law, has been held, by the highest tribunal in the land, sufficient to nullify the whole which had been done, and to restore to liberty the dangerous delinquents, reveling in misrepresentation and falsehood concerning the grounds of their escape on punishment—in their delirium of delight and triumph, even threatening an IMPEACHMENT against the officers of the crown, against even the judges of the land, for the part they have borne in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... have brought upon myself all the sufferings which I shall have to record, by a long course of indulgence in this practice purely for the sake of creating an artificial state of pleasurable excitement. This, however, is a misrepresentation of my case. True it is that for nearly ten years I did occasionally take opium for the sake of the exquisite pleasure it gave me; but, so long as I took it with this view, I was effectually protected from all material bad consequences by the necessity ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... good or bad is, ultimately, strength of affection. For it does not matter with what wise purposes, or on what wise principles, the thing is drawn; if it be not drawn for love of it, it will never be right; and if it be drawn for love of it, it will never be wrong—love's misrepresentation being truer than the most mathematical presentation. And although all the reasonings about right and wrong, through which we have been led in this chapter, could never be brought to bear on the work at the moment of doing it, yet this test of right holds always;—if ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Negro authors is fading away, and a jollity that is his own is taking its place. Most of the men and women of the race, who have written enough to win public notice, are known to be persons of a cheerful and jovial disposition. For such a person to live in the role of the miserable is at least a misrepresentation. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... affection felt for this lost benefactor, who had not only been somewhat jealously eyed by certain classes on his first coming, but who had suffered much silently from misunderstanding and also from deliberate misrepresentation, and only by patient continuance in well-doing had at last won the favour ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... Duke had given him an account of what had passed, which was that Lady Lyndhurst had begged him to call upon her, then to dine with her, and upon every occasion had encouraged him. I heard all he had to say, but declined calling on the Duke. As I wished, however, that there should be no misrepresentation in what I said on the subject, I wrote a letter to Cooke, to be laid before the Duke, in which I gave an account of the circumstances under which I had been concerned in the business, stating that I had not expressed any opinion of the conduct of the parties, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... apology was forthcoming from one James Gollop for impersonating the Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger at an important political meeting in the city of Yimville were not immediately forthcoming, legal action would be taken for damages, on the ground of misrepresentation, false pretense and willful intent to damage the reputation and political career of one of the most distinguished men in the state. Another letter was a round robin, signed by several firms, demanding ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... ignores our proceedings both at Boston and Montreal, and yet one would think it was worth while to get the Queen of England as much cheered in New England as she can be in any part of Old England."[2] Grey in turn had to complain, not merely of indifference, but of misrepresentation, and that too in a crisis in Canadian politics, the Rebellion Losses agitation; "I am misrepresented in The Times in a manner which I fear may do much mischief in Canada. I am reported as having said that the connexion between Canada and this country was drawing rapidly to a close. ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... as existing—viz., after JACIT. It would be difficult, perhaps, to adduce a case of more flagrant incorrectness in copying an inscription than Mr. Wilkie's and Lord Buchan's reading of the Cat-stane legend affords. Mr. Gough, in his edition of Camden's Britannia (1784), only aggravates this misrepresentation. For whilst he incorrectly states that the inscription is "not now legible," he carelessly changes Mr. Wilkie's alleged copy of the leading word from CONSTAN to CONSTANTIE, and suppresses altogether the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... this expedition; catalogues of the cruelties practised by the Mexicans have been given, and the sympathizing American public have been called upon to relieve the unfortunate men who had escaped. I will only give one instance of misrepresentation in the New Orleans Picayune, and put in juxta-position the real truth. It will be quite ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat |
