"Speciously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... malcontents, who urged the King of the Goths to invade Italy, was enforced by a lively sense of his personal injuries; and he might speciously complain that the Imperial ministers still delayed and eluded the payment of the four thousand pounds of gold which had been granted by the Roman senate, either to reward his services or to appease his fury. His decent firmness was supported by an artful moderation, which contributed to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... prudent remonstrances, the senate appointed three commissioners to go and make their complaints to Carthage, and to demand that Hannibal should be delivered up to them. On their arrival in that city, though other motives were speciously pretended, yet Hannibal was perfectly sensible that himself only was aimed at. The evening being come, he conveyed himself on board a ship, which he had secretly provided for that purpose; on which occasion he bewailed his country's fate more than his own. Saepius ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... thought no more of her than he might of some man friend; but the approach had become a matter of embarrassing difficulty with him. There had even been occasions when he had walked past the cottage and ridden home without seeing her, trying speciously to convince himself that such had all along ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... an invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East. Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was assassinated: the soldiers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... he reasoned thus speciously and philosophically, there was a moment when his brow grew clouded and his eyes lost their sparkle. He was thinking of that night in the inn at Boisvert, when he had knelt beside her and she had lied to him. He was thinking of the happiness, that for a few brief hours had been his, until he discovered ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... its first laurels on the stage, the fortunes of the London theatres were menaced by two manifestations of unreasoning prejudice on the part of the public. The earlier manifestation, although speciously the more serious, was in effect innocuous. The puritans of the city of London had long agitated for the suppression of all theatrical performances, and it seemed as if the agitators triumphed when they induced the ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... and reputation. Coming together, therefore, from all parts into the city, they banished Aristides by the ostracism, giving their jealousy of his reputation the name of fear of tyranny. For ostracism was not the punishment of any criminal act, but was speciously said to be the mere depression and humiliation of excessive greatness and power; and was in fact a gentle relief and mitigation of envious feeling, which was thus allowed to vent itself in inflicting no intolerable injury, only a ten years' banishment. But after ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch |
