"Falsehood" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of a new frankness in our public statements and worldwide broadcasts. In the face of a climate of falsehood and misinformation, we've promised the world a season of truth—the truth of our great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government, the rule of law under God. We've never needed walls or minefields or barbed wire to keep our people ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... rogues amongst men, such an amount of vices and crimes, such a superabundance of hypocrites, from people preferring to seem rather than be good, so many who threw such a veil of honesty over their rascalities, that it was perilous, and akin to falsehood, to bestow laudation on anybody." "'Cur in vituperando sis quam in laudando proclivior.' 'Hoc facile est ad explicandum,' Nicolaus inquit, 'quod longa aetas et ante acta vita me docuit. Nam in laudandis hominibus saepius deceptus sum, cum hi deteriores essent quam existimarem, in ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... "It's a falsehood," shouted the man. "If I left out those screws it was because I was dazed—suffering from overwork—work forced upon me that I was not fit to do, but heaped upon me to save your pocket and ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... in spite of the many deceptions and treacheries which she had witnessed in her life, she never looked for falsehood or for cant in others. Even now she only saw before her a woman who had been wrongfully persecuted, who had suffered and had forgiven those who had caused her to suffer. She bitterly accused herself for her ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... subornation of perjury; and if they say no, let us ask them whether these are not going on all over the country at every general election. If they answer yes, as they must unless they be guilty of wilful falsehood, will they then be so good as to tell us how they reconcile their inactivity with sentiments of virtue? Some men, in all former ages, have been held in esteem for their wisdom, their genius, their skill, their ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... cordial looks, to sunny smiles farewell! To sweet consolings, that can grief expel, And every joy soft sympathy bestows! For alter'd looks, where truth no longer glows, Thou hast prepar'd my heart;—and it was well To bid thy pen th' unlook'd for story tell, Falsehood avow'd, that shame, nor sorrow knows.— O! when we meet,—(to meet we're destin'd, try To avoid it as thou may'st) on either brow, Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye, Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how We once were ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... bloodred ways, And lightens with his light the night of story; Love that lifts up from dust Life, and makes darkness just, And purges as with fire of purgatory The dense disastrous air, To burn old falsehood bare And give the wind its ashes heaped and hoary; Love, that with eyes of ageless youth Sees on the breast of Freedom borne her ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was for Pippo to have a man like John to talk to and to influence him in every way. A man like John! That was the thing; not a common man, not one who might teach him the baseness, or the frivolity, or the falsehood of the world, but a good man, who was also a distinguished man, a man of the world in the best sense, knowing life in the best sense, and able to modify the boy's conception of what he was to find in the world, as women ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... said Ben Israel; "there is no treachery in the young man. I have told your Highness how he came to me, and what he knows. Your servant has not spoken words of falsehood, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... The Lord made him as well as you; and died for him as well as for you; and wills his salvation as well as yours; and if you cheat him the Lord will avenge him speedily. If you give way to meanness, covetousness, falsehood, as Jacob did, you will rue it; the Lord will enter into judgment with you quickly, and all the more quickly because he loves you. Because there is some right in you—because you are on the whole on the right road—the Lord will visit you with disappointment and affliction, ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... whom I am speaking descends originally from Falsehood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a son called Phrensy, who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... depicted, within the limited area of your vision, everything that a great city holds of wealth and poverty, beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, luxury and squalor, purity and degradation, truth and falsehood. It is all there, in this narrow environment, with the lights and the shadows meeting and blending, as the noise from below merges ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... from the dominant sophisms of that time, by which philosophers as well as ecclesiastics brought falsehood and hypocrisy within the four corners of a decent doctrine of truth and morality. The churchman manfully argued that he could be most useful to the world if he were well off and highly placed. The philosopher contended that as the world would punish him ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... themselves was correct, or the reverse, we knew not at the time; but we felt assured their intentions were not hostile towards us Europeans, and their quarrels with each other we were determined not to interfere in. We soon discovered their falsehood, for George's eldest daughter informed me that amongst the chiefs who landed with us were several of the most inveterate foes of her father, and that they were only restrained from committing the most dreadful outrages, and carrying off all her relations ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... most successful king under the Celtic system. It was the exact opposite of the feudal one, and this difference proved the source in years to come of an enormous amount of misconception, and of fierce accusations of falsehood and treachery flung profusely from both sides. The position of the over-king or Ard-Reagh was more nearly allied to that of the early French suzerain or the German emperor. He could call upon his vassal or tributary kings to aid him in war times ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... played on their terrors as I played on the lute-strings. I knew that a whisper of the plague would palsy their hearts, and I conquered them with a lying tale." He added, in a graver tone: "For the which falsehood I have but now prayed Heaven to forgive me. I hope my one good deed may be pardoned to one in whom there ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he says. "What is the best: things draped in colour, as by a lens, or the naked things themselves? truth ablaze, or falsehood's fancy haze? ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... person to make that project an accomplished fact. We can point to him as one who, though a politician by predilection and by profession, never stooped to disreputable practices, either to win votes or to maintain himself in office. Robert Baldwin was a man who was not only incapable of falsehood or meanness to gain his ends, but who was to the last degree intolerant of such practices on the part of his warmest supporters. If intellectual greatness cannot be claimed for him, moral greatness was most indisputably ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... 'meeting' was not 'arranged' and why Sir Allan did not have an opportunity of using his silver-mounted duelling pistols is not quite clear. The tempers of our politicians have much improved since that violent scene occurred. No slur on the word of an honourable gentleman, no imputation of falsehood, would now be so hotly ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... periods, and connected with different subjects, yet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men—and a host of other names might be cited—is to overthrow at once and finally the edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... Ninety-foot column crowned by figure of Rising Sun, by Adolph A. Weinman, of New York. Reliefs at base of column, "Day Triumphant"; Time, Light, Truth, Energy, conquering Falsehood, Vice, and Darkness. Ornamental figures under upper bowl looking down into water, suggest Neptune, but are winged, "Spirit ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... manners of the people are equally depraved; they are valiant in oppression, skilful in falsehood, and persevering only in contempt ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... fate of arms once more? And is there not a humble glen, Where we content and poor, Might build a cottage in the shade, A shepherd thou, and I to aid Thy task on dale and moor?— That reddening brow!—too well I know, Not even thy Clare can peace bestow, While falsehood stains thy name: Go then to fight! Clare bids thee go! Clare can a warrior's feelings know, And weep a warrior's shame; Buckle the spurs upon thy heel, And belt thee with thy brand of steel, And send thee forth ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... by shifting of their eyes this way and that, hawking, stammering, etc., but they will ever look you calmly and straight in the face, never at a loss for the right word, or over-anxious to convince you, so that 'twill plague a conjurer to tell if they speak truth or falsehood. And here I would remark, that in all my observations of men and manners, there is no nation in the world to equal the English, for a straightforward, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... from pale to consuming crimson. There was a simple sincerity in Severn's words which was almost irresistible. For a moment he felt like shouting out a loud denial of his falsehood: "She is there! she's alone and in tears, awaiting you. Go to her—and be damned!" But before he could gather his words into his throat, they were arrested by Major Luttrel's cool, clear voice, which in its calmness seemed to cast scorn upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the most trifling remark, and grasped his hand with all sorts of masonic flummery. He had at last lighted upon something in the way of an adventure; he had a friend who was really compromised, and could, without falsehood speak of the dangers he incurred. He undoubtedly experienced a secret alarm at the sight of this man who had returned from transportation, and whose fleshlessness testified to the long sufferings he had endured; however, this touch of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... defaming every honest man; that should prejudge every question, traduce every opponent; that should give no quarter to fair inquiry or liberal sentiment; that should be "ugly all over with hypocrisy", and present one foul blotch of servility, intolerance, falsehood, spite, and ill-manners. The Quarterly ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... falsehood. About a hundred dollars had been lost in an investment, and I made that a pretext for withdrawing you from college. I saw that you were wasting your time and acquiring expensive habits, so I thought the best remedy would be a year of active life, in which you ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... Bishop. "I warn you both against falsehood and fraud; two charges which might frequently be brought against you in your intercourse with the gentry of the country, whom you seldom scruple to deceive and mislead, by gliding into a character, when speaking to them, ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... self, of an indescribably keen sense of right and wrong, a wide charity, together with a justice so stern that it might well be called inexorable, and lastly, a perfect hatred of lies and of all the vices comprised by falsehood. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... 'Good Heavens! my young friend,' I exclaimed, 'I suggest nothing of the sort. I may ask you to risk for my sake a professional ambition which is very dear to you, but certainly not to imperil your young soul by a falsehood. No, sir, if you will deliver me to the Governor of Bayonne as a prisoner on honourable parole—which I will renew here and extend to the gates of that city only—and will then request an interview for the purpose of delivering your letter and explaining how the seal ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of nursery precepts, these unfortunate children were taught equivocation, falsehood, envy, jealousy, and every fault of temper which could render them insupportable to themselves, and odious to others. Those who have lived in the house with spoiled children must have a lively recollection of the degree of torment they can inflict upon all who are within sight or hearing. These ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... as my co-citizens, being in constant personal and business relations with them, in the field of consorted social work, I came face to face with the Jewish "problem" every single day,—and every single day of my life I felt with intolerable keenness all the falsehood and wretched ambiguity of my situation, that of an oppressor against one's will. In the doctor's office, at my desk, in the editorial room, in the street, finally in jail, where together with the Jew I fulfilled the all-Russian prison duty—everywhere ...
— The Shield • Various
... and hate of wrong" Than steely pride are yet more strong; That shame can strike a blow At comradeship more fatal far Than any chance of fateful war When faction howled with Cerberus throat, When falsehood struck a felon stroke, When forgery did its worst To pull its hated quarry down, To dim, disarm, degrade, discrown. Against the array accurst That ancient chief made gallant head, Dismayed not, nor disquieted At rancour's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!' said Elfride, weeping with desperation. 'He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and that was why I told him never to let me see ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... a psychological puzzle to me why women who are otherwise strictly true and honourable in their dealings and abhor the very name of falsehood are much addicted to this sort of fibbing under certain circumstances; for instance, the number of white lies that I actually told at that time was something fabulous, yet the sin of hypocrisy did not lie very heavily on ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... noting character or qualities: as white, whiteness; hard, hardness; great, greatness; skilful, skilfulness, unskilfulness; godhead, manhood, maidenhead, widowhood, knighthood, priesthood, likelihood, falsehood. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... Then anger gave falsehood the bit and she answered, "Rem did NOT keep any letter that belonged to Lord Hyde. Prove that he did so, before you ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... was, and am; unless your honest thoughts Will look upon my penitence, and save me, I must be ever Villain: O good Souldiers You that have Roman hearts, take heed of falsehood: Take heed of blood; take heed of foul ingratitude. The Gods have scarce a mercy for those mischiefs, Take heed of pride, 'twas that that ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... spoke with shut teeth. Under no provocation must Caesar know the falsehood that had lain so long in his mind. He saw it in its full proportion now, and hated himself for his blindness in harbouring ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... action of the separate States. Here he was in accord with Northern abolitionists. If such literature as Helper's volume should find its way into the South, it would be no longer possible to palm off upon the unthinking public the patent falsehood that abolitionists of the North were attempting to impose by force a change in Southern institutions. All that Southern abolitionists ever asked was the privilege of remaining at home in their own South in the full ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... from being punished; when I demonstrated to them that the citizen who has been injured by the order of the sovereign is obliged to solicit from the sovereign permission to obtain redress, they refused to credit so flagrant an abuse, and were tempted to accuse me of falsehood or of ignorance. It frequently happened before the Revolution that a Parliament issued a warrant against a public officer who had committed an offence, and sometimes the proceedings were stopped by the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... at this moment an illustration of the principle. His boyhood and his youth had alike been familiar only with intrigue, deception, jealousy, and falsehood. His habits were at once saturnine and selfish; his temper gloomy and distrustful, and his feelings cold and self-centred. His youth had ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... folks meant everything they said? And looking into her broadly-smiling face and unscrupulous eyes, Darby Dene had his first lesson in the meaning of deceit. He there and then began to realize that there are people in the world to whom falsehood comes easy, who think little or nothing of ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... Branded with falsehood and impiety, the author was happily put on her trial before the civilized world. She collected, arranged, and gave to the press, a mass of unimpeachable documents, consisting of laws, judicial decisions, trials, confessions of slaveholders, advertisements ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties. Guilt, on the contrary, like a base thief, suspects every eye that beholds him to be privy to his transgressions, and every tongue that mentions his name to be proclaiming them. Fraud and falsehood are his weak and treacherous allies; and he lurks trembling in the dark, dreading every ray of light, lest it should discover him, and give him up to shame ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the ladies of the Eagle stamp did not think so. They did not believe that a strong mind means a mind strong enough to exercise its own powers to the ascertainment and reception of truth and the rejection of falsehood and fallacy; strong enough, under the influence of God's love, to perceive the paths of duty in all their ramifications, and to resolve to follow them. They did not believe that a high spirit, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... deliberate falsehood; and this her impression or reminiscence, with all its exaggeration, is entitled to be heard in evidence so far. From this, and from other sources, readers will assure themselves that discontents were not wanting; that King Friedrich was not amiable to everybody at this time,—which indeed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... redolent of native and ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice. Where the temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable dullness opposes every effort to instruct. Where there is cunning but not energy, dissimulation, falsehood, a thousand schemes and tricks are put in play to evade the necessity of application; in short, to the tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which the wrong side is continually ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... reply is that it contains a falsehood and a calumny. I introduced the bill for the Southern Railroad; am strongly in favor of it, and pressed it at every stage as rapidly as the rules of the Senate and the strong opposition to it would allow. This is known by every Senator, and I am quite ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... first by the man's falsehood. Observing the poor fellow's extreme weakness, however, and his evident anxiety lest he should be recognised, the feeling changed to pity. Laying his hand gently on the man's shoulder, he said, with a look of solemnity which perchance made, up ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... discipline; but he may show his participation in the same high feeling by a firm attachment to truth in every point of representation, which is the most just method. For how can good be sought by evil means, or by falsehood, or by slight in any degree? By a determination to represent the thing and the whole of the thing, by training himself to the deepest observation of its fact and detail, enabling himself to reproduce, as far as possible, nature herself, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... correspondent who posted him as a Radical: "While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."—Exchange. ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... affected by new and heretical doctrines such as Lalage's. A certain amount of mental activity is required in order to go wrong. Also, Lalage's professed admiration for truth made its strongest appeal to my supporters, because O'Donoghue's friends were naturally addicted to lying and loved falsehood for its own sake. My side was, in fact, beaten—I have noticed that this is the case in many elections—because it was intellectually and morally the better side. This theory would have been very consoling to ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... art because of its character as appearance and deception, it must be admitted that such criticism would not be without justice, if appearance could be said to be equivalent to falsehood and thus to something that ought not to be. Appearance is essential to reality; truth could not be, did it not shine through appearance. Therefore not appearance in general can be objected to, but merely the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Antichrist (2 Thess 2:7). The spirit, or soul, or life of Antichrist, is that spirit of error, that wicked, that mystery of iniquity, that under colour and pretence of verity, draweth men from truth to falsehood. The body or flesh of Antichrist, is that heap of men, that assembly of the wicked, that synagogue of Satan that is acted and governed by that spirit. But God will destroy both soul and body; He 'shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his daily life he, a truthful man, allowed a little falsehood to creep in. He said that in order to do justice to an unreasonable thing one had to study the unreasonable thing. It was a little falsehood, but it sunk him into the big falsehood in which ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... after another, clumsy and cowardly enough already, was driven by his engines of torture, as if by a pitiless spell, to deny half that he had deposed truly, and confess a great deal that was utterly false—till confusion became worse confounded, and there seemed no truth anywhere, and no falsehood either, and "naught was everything, and everything was naught;" till I began to have doubts whether the riot had ever occurred at all—and, indeed, doubts of my own identity also, when I had heard the counsel for the crown impute to me personally, as in duty bound, every seditious atrocity which, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... own education. He demanded before every thing else that the true spirit of the nation should be recognized, and that it should be looked up to with that humility without which no courage is possible, not even that wherewith to oppose falsehood. Finally he did not attempt to make any defence against what he considered a deserved reproach, that of giving way to a wasteful and inconsiderate expenditure of ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... on the sole evidence of their aptitude for explaining phenomena. He maintains that no hypothesis is legitimate unless it is susceptible of verification, and that none ought to be accepted as true unless it can be shown not only that it accords with the facts, but that its falsehood would be inconsistent with them. He therefore needs a test of inductive proof; and in assigning none, he seems to give up as impracticable the main problem of Logic properly so called. At the beginning of his treatise he speaks of a doctrine ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... of some of the other boys present, they would not have scrupled to answer falsely; but Giacomo had a religious nature, and, neglected as he had been, he could not make up his mind to tell a falsehood. So, after a pause, he faltered out a confession that ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... who were protected by man. In the recent tumult of conquest and deliverance, the tongue of the Copts and the sword of the Arabs were most adverse to the tranquillity of the province. To the former, Amrou declared, that faction and falsehood would be doubly chastised; by the punishment of the accusers, whom he should detest as his personal enemies, and by the promotion of their innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to injure and supplant. He ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... and that a spice of good logic would have put an end to dissensions, which had troubled the world for centuries,—would have prevented many a bloody war, many a fierce anathema, many a savage execution, and many a ponderous folio. He went on to imply that in fact there was no truth or falsehood in the received dogmas in theology; that they were modes, neither good nor bad in themselves, but personal, national, or periodic, in which the intellect reasoned upon the great truths of religion; that the fault lay, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... faith in journalism as a drum for the rousing of the people against wrong. Its beat had led too often to the trickster's booth, to the cheap-jack's rostrum. It had lost its rallying power. The popular Press had made the newspaper a byword for falsehood. Even its supporters, while reading it because it pandered to their passions, tickled their vices, and flattered their ignorance, despised and disbelieved it. Here and there, an honest journal advocated a reform, pleaded for ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... their subjugation. It is certain that he employs them with his most cunning skill, and sways the world most powerfully by their regnant charms. But the lords of creation are likewise the slaves of his will and the dupes of his deception. He bestrides the nib of the statesman's pen and guides it into falsehood and treason. He perches on the cardinal's hat and counsels bigotry and oppression. He sits on the tradesman's counter and bears down the unweighted scale. He hides in the lawyer's bag and makes specious pleas for adroit rogues. He slips into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... bore towards one another a most complex relation. We were all engaged in a spiritual struggle beyond your comprehension: the struggle between anguish and peace; between falsehood and truth. Suddenly this struggle ended in a way that set us free. Everybody was at peace. They loved my memory, and I was happy even in my downfall, because I'd done what should have been done, and cleared away ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... years old to twenty, only three things—to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth. To owe money, or even to buy and sell, was accounted among the Persians disgraceful—a sentiment which they defended by saying that both the one and the other imposed the necessity of telling falsehood. To exact tribute from subjects, to receive pay or presents from the king, and to give away without forethought whatever was not immediately wanted, was their mode of dealing with money. Industrial pursuits were left to the conquered, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... deprave, and taunt they care not whom. Surmises pass for sound approved truths; Familiarity 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' ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... exaggerated the virtues of fox-grape juice, or the Northmen were not such good judges of wine as of ale. Adam goes on to say that corn, likewise, grows in Vinland without cultivation; and as such a statement to European readers must needs have a smack of falsehood, he adds that it is based not upon fable and guess-work, but upon "trustworthy reports (certa ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... derived from the Koranic "Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance" (chapt. xvii.). It is an equivalent of our adaptation from 1 Esdras iv. 41, "Magna est veritas et praevalebit." But the great question still remains, What ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the sort of man he is; he has less sense than a baby! Any miserable peasant who meets him can make him believe anything he wishes. Any great falsehood brings tears to his eyes, and then they can do what they like with him. In that way they take the very shoes off his feet and the bread from his mouth. Bertrande's daughter, messieurs, is no more ill than ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... proved to be fraudulent. If they had left the letter alone their case would have been strong enough for a conviction. As it was, they were fools enough to go into a business of this sort; but they have done so, and as they have been found out, the falsehood which has been detected covers every word of their spoken evidence with suspicion. It will be like losing so much of his heart's blood, but the old fellow will ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... first hour in my new residence I made many wise reflections such as—that Love never was so perfect as when accompanied by Poverty; what a vulgar error it was to call the unmarried state 'Single Blessedness;' how wrong it was of us Virtues never to have tried the marriage bond; and what a falsehood it was to say that husbands neglected their wives, for never was there anything in nature so devoted as the love ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when he was in a merry mood, that four things are excellent and opportune in life—to keep warm, to drink cool, to stand up hard, and to swallow soft. Certain persons have accused him of taking up with a dirty trollops; this is a notorious falsehood, since all his mistresses, of whom one was legitimised, came of good houses and had notable establishments. He did not go in for waste and extravagance, always put his hand upon the solid, and because certain devourers of the people found no crumbs at his table, they have all maligned ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... "Who is false but you? What is false but every word you speak? False in heart, false in word, and false in act." He had laid hold of the bit of ironstone, and he struck the anvil with it at every charge of falsehood. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and overcautious. Conscious as I am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration to you, under such circumstances, I have come here, because I wish you distinctly to understand, as my friend Mr. Perker has said, that I am innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although I am very well aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, sir, I must beg to add that, unless you sincerely believe this, I would rather be deprived of the aid of your talents than have the ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... turning of the will into hate. Now when the body falls away the heavenly soul is thoroughly penetrated with the Love and Light of God, even as fire penetrates and enlightens white-hot iron, whereby it loses its darkness—this is heaven and this is the right hand of God. The soul that dwells in falsehood, lust, pride, envy, and anger carries hell in itself and cannot reach the Light and Love of God. Though it should go a thousand miles or a thousand times ten thousand miles—even climb beyond the spaces of the stars and the bounds of the universe—it would still remain in the same property and ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... this neither falsely nor vainly. His love does not bestow, it discovers, what is indeed most precious in his mistress, and most needful for his own life and happiness. Day by day, as he loves her better, he discerns her more truly; and it is only the truth of his love that does so. Falsehood to her, would at once disenchant and ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... Messer Guido, who came up on that instant and addressed him in very loving terms, charging him with being indeed the poet whose name they had sought so long. Dante not denying this, as indeed denial would have been idle, even if Dante had been willing, as indeed he never was, to utter such a falsehood, saying that he had not done that which he had done, Messer Guido began to praise him in such glowing words as would have made another man happy. But for Dante happiness lay only in the kind thoughts of his lady, and the very shaft of his ambition was only to please her. He listened very quietly ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... it. It was too small for your horses, you said, and you were hard up. You even had it sent round to her stables without her consent. I have heard this story before, sir, and I have furnished myself with proofs of its falsehood. This, gentlemen," he added, drawing some papers from his pocket, "is Mr. Thorndyke's receipt for the two hundred and sixty guineas for a victoria, signed, as you will see, in his own handwriting, and here is the lady's cheque with Mr. ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... audience know that Orestes is not dead; and though the description of the race retains its animation, the report of the catastrophe loses the terror of reality, and appears but a highly-coloured and elaborate falsehood. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... half gasped, "oh, oh! If he rubs his great hand down my back he will feel the corners of the coffee-mill through my ribs as sure as fate! Oh, oh! I am a gone cat!" And with that, in an agony of apprehension lest his guilt and his falsehood be thus presently detected, he humped up his back as high in the air as he could, so that the corners of the mill might not make bumps in his sides and that the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... was prevented from finishing that clay model of Neptune on which I was working in the Loggia. Your Excellency must know that I bought a farm for my life from Sbietta—" To cut the matter short, I related the whole story in detail, without contaminating truth with falsehood. Now when I came to the poison, I remarked that if I had ever proved an acceptable servant in the sight of his most illustrious Excellency, he ought not to punish Sbietta or those who administered the poison, but rather to confer upon them ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... advantage of us," Immelan answered bitterly. "Now listen to me. I have heard it said of you—I have heard that you claim yourself—that you have never told a falsehood. We have been allies. Answer me this question. Have you parted with any of ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... began fumbling for her salts. But a moment later the blood suffused even his neck and brow, and he said passionately, "I don't believe a word of this; Miss Marsden is not capable of such falsehood." ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... people who remark that 'they like dogs in their proper place,' and, as he stingingly adds, say, '"Poo' fellow! Poo' fellow!" and are themselves far poorer!' He knew, because he had taken the trouble to study him, that 'to the dog of gentlemanly feelings, theft and falsehood are ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... love me. I looked round the room for help; I saw the tables, the chairs, the places where she stood or sat, empty, deserted, dead. I could not stay where I was; I had no one to go to but to the parent-mischief, the preternatural hag, that had "drugged this posset" of her daughter's charms and falsehood for me, and I went down and (such was my weakness and helplessness) sat with her for an hour, and talked with her of her daughter, and the sweet days we had passed together, and said I thought her a good girl, and believed that if there ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... scarcely be taken up without the other. He admired himself as an actor, he approved of himself as a logician, and he despised himself—without any heart- burning bitterness—as a liar. He was too clear-headed to be able to bejuggle himself with the reasoning that he had not been guilty of falsehood because he had never specifically and in word denied the charge of the committee. Yet with all his pride in his self- comprehension, he really deceived himself. He supposed himself to have been animated ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... more nights together here," she said—"many more blessed, blessed nights. The stillness of the hills is like all the truth of the world, sifted from the falsehood and made into one beautiful whole. Oh, Maurice, there is a Heaven on earth—when two people love each other in the midst of such ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... but he was in a passion, and gave me a blow. The lady said something to him about his improper conduct, and he said that I was such a careless little rascal, that he lost all patience with me. That hurt me a great deal more than the blow. It was a falsehood, and he knew it; but he wanted to excuse himself. I felt that I was going into a passion, too, but I thought of what you are always telling me about patience and forbearance, and I kept down my passion; I know he was sorry for it ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... ridicules as tedious and without talent, all that he laughs at as useless and without taste, all that which, urged by his labors and those of his like-minded associates, had for eighty years disappeared from ancient history, is again brought back in our day. So short is the triumph of falsehood.' Well may we ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... ancient mythologies as mere allegories, having no application whatever to the womanhood of this generation. It is not civil nor political power that holds the Mormon woman in polygamy, the Turkish woman in the harem, the American woman as a subordinate everywhere. The central falsehood from which all these different forms of slavery spring is the doctrine of original sin and woman as a medium for the machinations of Satan, its author. The greatest block today in the way of woman's emancipation is the church, the canon law, the Bible and the priesthood. Canon Charles Kingsley ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... his place could hold Were falsehood banished from the court, Or truth to princes gain resort? The minister would lose his place, If he could ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... wounded my pride and vanity to the quick, and even the kiss she had given me seemed a very Judas kiss of falsehood and betrayal. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... us and die as our poor papa did?' There was no standing that., so I wrote my lover word that my mind was all distraction, and bid him come to me the next morning, 27th January—my birthday—and spent the Sunday night in torture not to be described. My falsehood to my Piozzi, my strong affection for him, the incapacity I felt in myself to resign the man I so adored, the hopes I had so cherished, inclined me strongly to set them all at defiance, and go with him to church to sanctify the promises ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... your beauty which confesses Some chief Beauty conquering you, By our grand heroic guesses Through your falsehood at the True, We will weep NOT! earth shall roll Heir to each god's ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... alone can break up selfishness, vanity, and pride. It produces sincerity, truthfulness, disinterestedness,—without which any friendship will die. It is not the remembrance of pleasure which keeps alive a friendship, but the perception of virtues. How can that live which is based on corruption or a falsehood? Anything sensual in friendship passes away, and leaves a residuum of self-reproach, or undermines esteem. That which preserves undying beauty and sacred harmony and celestial glory is wholly based on the spiritual in man, on moral excellence, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... have reported to us so very little of the universe, and even that little untruthfully?" He laughed and drummed impatiently upon the table. "At least, he tells us that the boy returned. I fervently believe that in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any crime except falsehood. Oh, no I depend on it, he also ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the first steamer shall waft o'er. Sorry am I to hear the blacks Still bear your ensign on their backs; The stripes they suffer make me sore. Beware of wrong. The brave are true; The tree of Freedom never grew Where Fraud and Falsehood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... miseries of captivity is too illiberal to be imputed to any but those subordinate characters, who, in every service, are too often remiss and unprincipled. This reflection assures me that you will acquiesce in the mode proposed for ascertaining the truth and detecting delinquency on one side, or falsehood on the other. The discussions and asperities which have had too much place on the subject of prisoners are so irksome in themselves, and have had so many ill consequences, that it is infinitely to be wished that there may be no room given for reviving them. The mode I have suggested ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... suspected steward upon ruined tenants and an embarrassed master that the Commons of Great Britain are commanded not to inspect. The whole tenor of the right honorable gentleman's argument is consonant to the nature of his policy. The system of concealment is fostered by a system of falsehood. False facts, false colors, false names of persons and things, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... knowing the good and bad, he solved the riddle of human passions, and with mind, tongue and pen unpurchased, he flashed his matchless philosophy on an admiring world, lifting the curtain of deceit and obscurity from the stage of falsehood, giving to the beholder a sight of Nature in her ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... my boy. You must take it," said the doctor, in such a tone that the poor boy felt he must obey, or confess that he had told a falsehood. ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... security; merely as an act of friendship, and she has invented a story concerning some jewels, which has not the slightest foundation." In vain the viceroy begged him to reflect, and not, by adding falsehood to treachery, force him to take measures of severity. The merchant with oaths persisted in his denial. The viceroy left the room suddenly, and returned with the jewel-case in his hand; at which unexpected apparition, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... for truth, have not I bound myself by the most dire and dreadful oaths, to find my good in evil, my truth in a lie, my glory in black infamy?—Have not I, loving another better than my own life, won thee to love, poor Lucia, and won thee by base falsehood to thy ruin?" ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... hobbies, will regard his own with only a very ironical indulgence. He will not be heard among the dogmatists. He will have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of people and opinions. If he finds no out-of-the-way truths, he will identify himself with no very burning falsehood. His way took him along a by-road, not much frequented, but very even and pleasant, which is called Commonplace Lane, and leads to the Belvedere of Commonsense.[16] Thence he shall command an agreeable, if no very noble prospect; and while others behold the East and West, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tell you this: that one who knows not who he is and to what end he was born; what kind of world this is and with whom he is associated therein; one who cannot distinguish Good and Evil, Beauty and Foulness, . . . Truth and Falsehood, will never follow Reason in shaping his desires and impulses and repulsions, nor yet in assent, denial, or suspension of judgement; but will in one word go about deaf and blind, thinking himself to be somewhat, when he is in truth of no account. Is there anything new in all this? ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... ground in a passion of remorse and grief, I danced round him, proclaiming my hate and guilt, and summoning him to give me up to justice. It was now his turn to quiver under the lash of conscience. He accused himself of the ruin I had wrought—acknowledged his falsehood—cried aloud for mercy—and still I exulted with a fiercer laughter, with a louder demand that he would give me to the gibbet. He endeavored to fly from the spot. I pursued him. I NEVER LEFT HIM AGAIN. There was a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... first I am sure I shall be acquitted from all imputations; and confirmed in the good thoughts of the concerned on either side, who will know for the future what attention they should give to idle reflections, and the falsehood of rumour; and from the last, I have hopes that a plan may be drawn, which will settle at once all disputed pretensions, and restore that fair prospect, which the open advantage of last year's success (indifferent as it was) has demonstrated to be a view ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... the judge of instruction, he recounted very clearly and exactly what had happened in the morning, his resistance, and his son's determination. He explained the reason for the falsehood they told; and here again the chapter ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... instruction; that which had made the greatest noise was upon the infamous fiction of Spelling-Books: "A more lying, roundabout, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we Confuse the clear instincts of truth in our accursed systems of spelling, was never concocted by the father of falsehood." Such was the exordium of this famous treatise. For instance, take the monosyllable Cat. What a brazen forehead you must have when you say to an infant, c, a, t,—spell Cat: that is, three sounds, forming a totally opposite compound,—opposite in every ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he would be telling a falsehood if he were to say that there was no food in his district. He possessed slaughter-cattle and corn, and could help other districts. One of his commandants had recently found a store of maize (consisting of one hundred ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... art a king, why dost thou speak in this wise, counselling a falsehood? Woe unto the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... "Now," said he, "if you will tell me the truth, and, without attempting to deceive, will show me where the White Genius dwells, and will guide me to where King Kaoues is kept prisoner, then I will make you king of Mazanderan. But if you speak a word of falsehood you die." ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... little to Madame du Maine. I said to her: "Niece" (by which appellation I always addressed her), "I beg you will let me know who told you that Madame d'Orleans had taken a counterpoison unknown to us. It is the greatest falsehood that ever was uttered, and you may say so from me to whoever ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... creature. Even had she been otherwise, and had his life depended on tricking her with a pretence of love, he would have valued his life far above her feelings, and would not have hesitated to practise on her a falsehood that many a gentleman has practised on many a maid for no higher purpose than for the sport or for the testing of his powers, and often for no other purpose than the maid's undoing in more than her feelings. How much ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the truth, there seems in either sex but little of what a fond imagination, unacquainted with the falsehood of the world, and warmed by affections which its selfishness has not yet chilled, would reckon friendship. In theory, the standard is raised too high; we ought not, however, to wish it much lower. The honest sensibilities of ingenuous nature should not be checked by the over-cautious maxims ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... second only to that of Christianity, and superior to every heathen system that the world has seen.[1] It forbids the taking of life from even the humblest created animal, and prohibits intemperance and incontinence, dishonesty and falsehood—vices which are referable to those formidable assailants, raga or concupiscence, doso or malignity, and moha, ignorance or folly.[2] These, again, involve all their minor modifications—hypocrisy and anger, unkindness and pride, ungenerous suspicion, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... name of the Church the enemy has turned pale. Still he has devised some explanation which I wish you to notice, that you may observe the ruinous and poverty-stricken estate of falsehood. He was well aware that in the Scriptures, as well of Prophets as of Apostles, everywhere there is made honourable mention of the Church: that it is called the holy city, the fruitful vine, the high mountain, the straight way, the only dove, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... had only heard that the money was lost, at first; and then, from her husband, that it had been found and restored to the owner. It was plain that he had told her a falsehood; that if he had found the money, it was still in his possession. The case was too plain to need much reflection. Mr. Randall and the sheriff knew less than the ferryman, less than his wife and his son; but in the good woman's estimation, it was ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... "It is deceit and falsehood from beginning to end! Go, woman, I will hear no more of it. Why should Marcus have come to you since yesterday if he does not know where I am? You are silent—you will not say? . . . Oh! I understand it all. He—I know ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity!' But till He does come again, it rests with the thinkers of the time to protest against wrongs and abuses, even if they cannot destroy them,—to expose falsehood, even if they cannot utterly undo its vicious work. Seeing, however, that the greater majority of men are banded on the side of wealth and material self- interest, it is unfortunately only a few who ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... declared that "the affected fear and pretended suspicion of a part of the Democratic press in relation to my views are well understood by the people. I have no language to express my scorn and contempt for the whole crew. I have no other reply to make to these common sewers of filth and falsehood. If I had as many arms as Briareus they would be too few to correct the misrepresentations of speeches I have made in the ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... them knows that his own system rests on no surer foundations than the rest, but he maintains it because it is his own. There is not one of them who, if he chanced to discover the difference between truth and falsehood, would not prefer his own lie to the truth which another had discovered. Where is the philosopher who would not deceive the whole world for his own glory? If he can rise above the crowd, if he can excel his rivals, what more does he want? Among ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... after riches are to be found), at least, thank God, such unions are not arranged upon a regular organized SYSTEM: there is a fiction of attachment with us, and there is a consolation in the deceit ("the homage," according to the old mot of Rochefoucauld) "which vice pays to virtue"; for the very falsehood shows that the virtue exists somewhere. We once heard a furious old French colonel inveighing against the chastity of English demoiselles: "Figurez-vous, sir," said he (he had been a prisoner in England), "that these women come down ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... later, on the 19th of August, M. Royer-Collard, when presiding over the distribution of prizes at the general meeting of the University, addressed these words to the young students:—"Today, when the reign of falsehood has ceased, and the legitimacy of power, which is truth in government, permits a more unshackled play to all salutary and generous doctrines, public instruction beholds its destinies elevated and expanded. Religion demands from it pure hearts and disciplined minds; the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Silence we hear the voice of Truth. The temples and the marts of men echo all night and day to the clamour of lies and shams and quackeries. But in Silence falsehood cannot live. You cannot float a lie on Silence. A lie has to be puffed aloft, and kept from falling by men's breath. Leave a lie on the bosom of Silence, and it sinks. A truth floats there fair and stately, like some stout ship upon ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... "Of the falsehood of these suspicions Walsingham had at last an opportunity of giving unquestionable proof. It happened one day that Lieutenant Campbell, impatient at seeing a sailor doing some work awkwardly on the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... a resplendent and happy world. Ahriman instantly made deformity, impurity, and gloom, in opposition to it. All beauty, virtue, harmony, truth, blessedness, were the work of the former. All ugliness, vice, discord, falsehood, wretchedness, belonged to the latter. They grappled and mixed in a million hostile shapes. This universal battle is the ground of ethics, the clarion call to marshal out the hostile hosts of good and ill; and all other war is but a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... kept by an old Revolutionary soldier who became so fond of the boy that he gave him the pet name of "General." This teacher liked him because, though often in mischief, he never tried to protect himself by telling a falsehood, but always ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... it all over—to tell you as much as I know," said the other. "Mother says there is not even an appearance of wrong-doing against her—that she can only be accused by deliberate falsehood. She hasn't told me more than that—and how can I ask? Of course he is capable of ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... hand, I had a strong aversion to removing my wedding ring even for an hour or two. Besides being a silent falsehood, the act would seem almost an omen of evil. I am not generally superstitious, but something made ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity of public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of meanness, than when they are found in the intercourse of private life. In the latter, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... be too complete," replied Honoria, eagerly. "I know that there has been foul play, and that the best and noblest of men has fallen a victim to the hand of an assassin. Oh, sir, if you are able to distinguish truth from falsehood, I implore you to listen to the story which my poor husband refused to believe—the story of the basest treachery that was ever plotted ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... hundred taels. The master-of-camp received this gold, and had it placed in a small box, the key of which he gave to the Moro, telling him to keep it until the promise was fulfilled; but to consider that after treason nothing could be more blameworthy than falsehood. The Moro salaamed low, and said that he would not lie, and that they would fulfil their promise, little by little. And so they did, for, on that same day, four more messengers came with gold; and all entreated and begged ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... Trader, according to your covenant. And that reminds me of another question—is it well-found, well-manned, and a good rapid ship to make the voyage? No falsehood, if you please, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... enraging. Mark Twain had his own ideas as to how far a joke might be carried without violence, and this was a good way beyond the limits. He denounced the Enquirer's statement as a "pitiful, deliberate falsehood," in his anger falling into the old-time phrasing of newspaper editorial abuse. He offered to bet them a thousand dollars in cash that they could not prove their assertions, and asked pointedly, in conclusion: "Will they swallow that falsehood ignominiously, or will they ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... falsehood undismayed, Like heretics in flaming vest arrayed Each angry Don lifts high his injured head, Or 'stands between the living and the dead.' Still from St. Mary's pulpit echoes wide Primo, beware of truth, whate'er betide; Deinde, from deep ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... resting their case on some one of the various arguments, and emphasizing some one of the attributes of the Deity at the expense of the others, had attained only a partial and inadequate view, though true so far as it went. "Since, therefore," says St. Clement of Alexandria,[87] "truth is one (for falsehood has ten thousand by-paths); just as the Bacchantes tore asunder the limbs of Pentheus, so the sects both of barbarian and Hellenic philosophy have done with truth, and each vaunts as the whole truth the portion which has fallen to its lot. But all, in my opinion, are illuminated by the dawn of ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... times in the New Testament. Special mention need be made only of the bearers of the name in the New Testament. (1) A member of the first Christian community, who, with his wife Sapphira, was miraculously punished by Peter with sudden death for hypocrisy and falsehood (Acts v. 1-10; cf. Josh. vii. 1 ff.). (2) A disciple at Damascus who figures in the story of the conversion and baptism of Paul (Acts ix. 10-17, xxh. 12-16.) (3) Son of Nedebaios (Jos. Ant. xx. 5. 2), a high priest who ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for not having learnt anything. I was one day at the table of the minister of the King of——, who has brains enough for four, and he showed as plain as one and one make two, that nothing was more useful to people than falsehood, nothing more mischievous than truth. I don't remember his proofs very clearly, but it evidently followed from them that men of genius are detestable, and that if a child at its birth bore on its brow the mark of that dangerous ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... creates pain and evil cannot be benevolent. If they are unreal, then the error which we make when we think them real is a real error. There is no doubt that we believe we suffer. If the belief is erroneous, then it follows that God willfully called falsehood into existence and deliberately involved us in unnecessary error. It follows once again that God ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... they have been in the family for some time, and you are obliged to part with them; I don't ask you to tell a falsehood, Richard.' ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... the strict tenets of his sect, "thou-ing" and "thee-ing" all those whom he addressed; but he had assented to an omission in this matter on the part of his daughter, recognizing the fact that there could be no falsehood in using a mode of language common to all the world. "If a plural pronoun of ignoble sound," so he said, "were used commonly for the singular because the singular was too grand and authoritative for ordinary use, it was ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... when the dark memory impinged upon peace, she fought and fought until she seemed to be fighting hatred itself. Scorn of scorn and hate of hate! Yet even her battles grew to be dreams. For when the inevitable retrospect brought back Jean Isbel and his love and her cowardly falsehood she would shudder a little and put an unconscious hand to her breast and utterly fail in her fight and drift off down to vague and wistful dreams. The clean and healing forest, with its whispering wind ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... invitation to Barrie. Now the worst had happened despite the risk she had run for its prevention. And Somerled would not meet her eyes. Did this mean that he not only made light of her arguments, but had found out the falsehood on ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a demand for payment in the handwriting of the Brimstead note and had some effect on this little history. It conveyed definite knowledge of the authorship of a malicious falsehood. It aroused the anger and sympathy of Samson Traylor. In the conditions then prevailing Eli was unable to get the money. He was in danger of losing his business. Samson spent a day investigating the affairs of the merchant. His banker and others spoke well of him. He was said to be a man of character ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... bubble bursts, Because the pressure is beyond the means; And they are cast, in anguish and despair, Unto the depths of ruin, there to lie With jeers of many pouring on to them. Unto the speech these times give slippery words, And to the tongue alike a flattering robe; That falsehood seems like unto sacred truth, And enmities the bonds of friendship seem. O rife Perfidity! O Vanity! O Pride! Great are thy ravages among This simple race, who for a lucre strive, And pomp, and gain, with an unquenched thirst; Whose hand is avaricious, and who hold No check ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... libelling the successful candidate, libelling the military, libelling the young gentlemen of Eton, and ascribing Colonel Reid's return to "kitchen-stairs influence" emanating from the Castle..... If there were any fun in the article to which we refer, we might forgive the malice and falsehood, as we are all too much disposed to do, for the joke's sake; but dull as all the articles of Punch have been lately growing, this article on the Windsor Election is the stupidest that we have seen in its columns—a mere display of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... somehow drawn from Brahm's essence, on one occasion when he was awake. Brumha, they say, is the creator of the world, Vrishnoo the preserver, and Siva the destroyer. Brumha has no temple erected for his worship, on account of a great falsehood which he told. I will tell you what it was. Once, as it is said, there was a dispute between him and Vrishnoo, as to who is the greatest. While thus disputing, Siva appeared between the two as a fire-post and told them that he who would find the ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder |
