"Specious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chaffing of his chronies, partly on account of it, Opdyke lent himself more and more to the assimilating process. He sought out Scott more often, had him in his room, taught him to fill a pipe and smoke it after the fashion of a gentleman, dropped into his ears specious hints regarding manners, and about the efficiency of one's mattress as frugal substitute for a tailor's pressboard. To be sure, upon that latter count Scott took him with unforeseen literalness; and, in his zeal to carry out his ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... of the Senate in 1857, I was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I made a very earnest and carefully prepared speech against the asserted right of the jury to judge of the law in criminal cases. It is a popular and specious doctrine. But it never seemed to me to be sound. Among others, there are two reasons against it, which seem to me conclusive, and to which I have never seen a plausible answer. One is that if the jury is to judge of the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... dream as having both censored and uncensored features has led us to divide the dream into its specious or manifest content (face value, which is usually nonsensical) and its latent or logical content. We should say that while the manifest content of the dream is nonsensical, its true or latent content is usually logical and expressive of some wish that has been ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... may surely both conceive and pardon the earnest questioning of simple disciples (who knew not, as we do, how much had been indeed revealed), and measure with some justice the strength of the temptation which betrayed these teachers into adding to the word of Revelation. Together with this specious and subtle influence, we must allow for the instinct of imagination exerting itself in the acknowledged embellishment of beloved truths. If we reflect how much, even in this age of accurate knowledge, the visions of Milton have become confused in the ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... rapparee promised him mountains of wealth, and an English company was found to advance large sums of moneyI fear on Sir Arthur's guarantee. Some gentlemenI was ass enough to be onetook small shares in the concern, and Sir Arthur himself made great outlay; we were trained on by specious appearances and more specious lies; and now, like John Bunyan, we awake, and behold it is ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... nazparoli. Speaker parolanto. Spear lanco. Special speciala. Specialise specialigi. Specialist specialisto. Speciality specialo—eco. Specie monero. Species speco. Specimen modelo. Specious versxajna. Speck makuleto. Spectacle (a sight) vidajxo. Spectacles okulvitroj. Spectator rigardanto. Spectre fantomo. Spectrum spektro. Speculate spekulacii. Speculation spekulacio. Speculative spekulativa. Speculate (theorise) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... But, if she did not displease him and yet saved him from final disaster, he would, perhaps, be grateful to her—and perhaps, speak with approval—or remember it—and his Noble Mother most certainly would—if she ever knew. But behind and under and through all these specious reasonings, was the hot choking burn of the mad jealousy only her type of luckless woman can know—and of whose colour she dare not show ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... industry) that his worldly affairs were more prosperous than ever they had been before his marriage. But the fumes of the lead-works affected his appetite, too, and his spirits: and when these flag a man has an easy and specious remedy in brandy-and-water. By and by it became a habit with him, when his men ceased work, to stroll down to the "Turk's Head" for a "stiffener" before his meal. The men he met there respected him for a flourishing tradesman and flattered him. He adored his wife still. In his eyes no ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... means excessive, and the boys' keep not too extravagant, judging by the meals they had. Dr Hellyer was "an ignorant, uncultivated brute," Tom averred, and his degree of "Doctor" was only derived from the fact of his having paid ten dollars to an American university to air this specious prefix ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thoughts and give our second best."... "We do a good deal of shirking in this life on the ground of not being geniuses. The truth is, there is an immense amount of humbug lurking in the folds of those specious theories about genius. Let a man or woman go to work at a thing, and the genius will take ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... the little shanty beside the road, would she have gone out to him in the mere leaping of youth and womanhood? Was it the moment, after all, and not the man? Or was it something more unerring still—more profound—the prophetic call of individual to individual, despite the specious pleading of the race? But she put the thought aside and returned casually ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Theos, "I am a stranger, and in a great measure ignorant of this city's customs, . . but I confess I am amazed to hear a Priest uphold so specious an argument! What! ... must divine Religion be dragged down from its pure throne to pander to the selfish passions of the multitude? ... because men are vile, must a vile god be invented to suit their savage caprices? ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... she could love, If I but gave encouragement. Before me She keeps some moderation; but is never Closeted with my wife, but in the end I find my Katherine in briny tears. From the small chamber, where she first was lodged, The gradual fiend by specious wriggling arts Has now ensconced herself in the best part Of this large mansion; calls the left wing her own; Commands my servants, equipage.—I hear Her hated tread. What makes she back ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Nais, found Lucien in the room, they met him with the overwhelming graciousness that well-bred people use towards their inferiors. Lucien thought them very kind for a time, and later found out the real reason for their specious amiability. It was not long before he detected a patronizing tone that stirred his gall and confirmed him in his bitter Republicanism, a phase of opinion through which many a would-be patrician passes by way of prelude to his introduction to ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... "Some persons, however, shout that the assistance of the Holy Spirit is extenuated and diminished if even the least particle be attributed to the human will. Though this argument may appear specious and plausible, yet pious minds understand that by our doctrine— according to which we ascribe some cooperation to our will; viz., some assent and apprehension (qua tribuimus aliquam SYNERGIAM voluntati nostrae, videlicet qualemcumque assensionem et apprehensionem)— ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... outbreak of popular hostility. Old methods of defence were plainly useless; some new plan of campaign must be devised against the double assault of political radicalism and theological liberalism. To Newman both alike were of the devil; theological liberalism especially was only specious infidelity. He never had the slightest inkling that a deep religious earnestness and love of truth underlay the revolt against orthodox tradition. His fighting instincts were aroused. When Keble attributed the scheme for suppressing some Irish bishopries to 'national apostasy,' he rushed ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... call worthy of the name, is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than for himself; whose high purpose is adopted on just principles, and is never abandoned while heaven or earth affords means of accomplishing it. He is one who will neither seek an indirect advantage by a specious road, nor take an evil path to secure ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of observation: these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the insinuatingly soft; and friendship with ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... perception, has great interest, but not the interest merely of a longer list, for it is to be remembered that the longest list would be no nearer to an exhaustive analysis than the shortest. It is not a specious completeness, but a sense of infinity that can never be completed,—greater intensity, not greater extension,—that distinguishes modern landscape-art. Hence there is no incongruity in the seeming license that it takes with the firm order of Nature. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... and laughing gracefully. Olive chose him who flattered her the most outrageously; and Alice strove hard to talk to the least objectionable of the men she was brought in contact with. Amid these specious talkers there were a few who reminded her of Mr. Harding, and she hoped later on to be able to turn her present experiences to account. There was, of course, much dining at cafes and dining at the casinos, and evening walks along the dark shore. Alice often feared for her sister, but the girl's ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... if she be willing to 'help the Lord against the mighty;' for if she has no care of the liberty of mankind she deserves not her own. But because in this you may be deceived by pretences, which, continuing for a while specious, may afterward vanish; the other is more certain, and that is if she be capable of an equal agrarian; which that it was not observed by excellent AEmilius in his donation of liberty, and introduction of a popular state among the Macedonians, I am more than moved to believe ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... of the young King, neither constituents nor representatives had been bought with the secret service money. To free Britain from corruption and oligarchical cabals, to detach her from Continental connections, to bring the bloody and expensive war with France and Spain to a close, such were the specious objects which Bute professed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... beggar! the knave! the specious hypocrite! the vile, insinuating, infamous menial!—Stand apart from my niece, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... resumed his oration by saying: "Such, my lord, is the statement you will probably hear from my brother on the opposite side of the case. I shall now show your lordship how utterly untenable are the principles and how distorted are the facts upon which this very specious statement has proceeded." And so he went over the same ground and most angelically refuted himself from the beginning of his former pleading ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... named it Specious Arithmetic, on account of the species of the quantities involved, which he represented symbolically by the various letters of the alphabet. Sir Isaac Newton introduced the term Universal Arithmetic, since it is concerned with the doctrine of operations, not affected on numbers, but ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... called Zardan forth, and, to try his disposition, said unto him, "Thou hast heard what sort of discourses this babbler maketh me, endeavouring to be-jape me with his specious follies, and rob me of this pleasing happiness and enjoyment, to worship a strange God." Zardan answered, "Why hath it pleased thee, O prince, to prove me that am thy servant? I wot that the words of that man have sunk deep into thine heart; ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... as one gentleman was allowed to play his favourite instrument whenever he chose, for his own but no one else's gratification, he could not see why he (Mr. Bouncer) might not also, whenever he pleased, play for his own gratification his favourite instrument - the big drum. This specious excuse, although logical, was not altogether satisfactory to Mr. Slowcoach; and, with some asperity, he ordered Mr. Bouncer never again to indulge in, what he termed (in reference probably to the little ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... almost prohibitory. As an investment mining shares, even of the best, are not to be recommended. Mines are apt to get worked out when the source of income fails and there is an end to the concern. More- over, hundreds of companies are promoted which have a specious appearance on the prospectus, and are puffed in every imaginable way, when they have not an ounce of ore or a yard of ground to call their own. Of course, there are genuine undertakings which answer well and yield large profits, but it is extremely difficult to discriminate between ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.
... relapsed into the same positions, is in every case rejecting a religious system which has proved itself the mightiest of all civilisers, and the constant champion of the rights and dignity of men. He offers in the stead of Christianity a specious phase of paganism, by which the nineteenth century after Christ may be assimilated to the golden age of Mencius and Confucius; or, in other words, may consummate its religious freedom, and attain the highest pinnacle ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... subject to serve at the call of the law, as were the policemen. He was not a dictator merely, he was part and parcel of the strength that he invoked. The reason for obedience rested on the same ground in each case—service in which each stood equal. It is a specious form of mistake to suppose that "men can legislate just what they wish to." They can legislate only what the majority decrees, and they can legislate effectively only what they have power to enforce. Had the saloon-keepers ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... vision of certain vegetarian restaurants, where, at a minim outlay, I have often enough made believe to satisfy my craving stomach; where I have swallowed "savoury cutlet," "vegetable steak," and I know not what windy insufficiencies tricked up under specious names. One place do I recall where you had a complete dinner for sixpence—I dare not try to remember the items. But well indeed do I see the faces of the guests—poor clerks and shopboys, bloodless girls and women of many sorts—all endeavouring to find a relish in ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... how thoroughly understood by the common people were the principles of liberty, and with what keen penetration they saw through all shams and specious reasoning, than the decided, nay, fierce, stand they took against the stamp act. This was nothing more than our present law requiring a governmental stamp on all public and business paper to make it valid. ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... aid of injustice and chicanery. He denies holding any such opinion himself; yet, in order to exhibit the truth more vividly through the force of contrast, he pleads with the utmost ingenuity the cause of injustice against justice; and endeavors to show, by plausible examples and specious dialectics, that injustice is as useful to a statesman as justice would be injurious. Then Laelius, at the general request, takes up the plea for justice, and maintains with all his eloquence that nothing could be so ruinous to states as injustice and dishonesty, and that ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Marcy approvingly. "You did well to stand on the defensive. Don't let them fool you with any of their specious talk. They're treacherous as Indians, and would burn your house over your head to-morrow, if they were ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... unfortunately prove abortive; if I should fail to rouse the friends of peace and humanity to its succour and relief, I shall have experienced a sufficient mortification, without undergoing the additional one of being classed with a band of ruffian levellers, who under the specious pretext of salutary reform seek, like the jacobin revolutionists of France, the subversion of all order, and the substitution in its stead, of a reign of terror, anarchy, and rapine, amidst the horrors of which they may satiate their avarice, and glut ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... specious argument! And why must every bright delightful fruit be forbidden by dull care or justified by flagrantly untenable artifice? Who but a fool would boggle over this chance, this gloriously deserved crown of the adventure, this gay, random ride over the deserts with Arlee?... To her ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... to the verdict of the mass of mankind, is a good quality. It sweetens the soul and makes for a kindly understanding of one's fellows. But arrogance would have served Bill better now. It was his fatal habit of self-depreciation that was making Claire's words so specious as he stood there trying to cast them from his mind. Who was he, after all, that he should imagine that he had won on his personal merits a girl ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... forgotten that restorers of to-day, even at Salisbury, have effaced much interesting work of past time on the same pretext: that it failed to accord with the rest of the work to which it was obviously a late addition. This plea, specious and even excellent in theory, has probably done more irreparable injury to our ancient buildings than even the iconoclasts of the Reformation. A shattered ruin may convey a clear idea of its original state, while a smooth, pedantic restoration will ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... he anchored in the harbor and opened negotiations with the Swedish senate, then the great source of power in the land. He promised to govern the kingdom in the way they might decide upon and be to them a mild and merciful father. While some of them were seduced by his specious promises, the majority had no fancy to make him their "father." But they made a truce with him until the matter could be decided, the Danes being allowed to buy provisions in the town, and on their side selling salt to the citizens, this being at ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... presence, Feng Su would readily give vent to specious utterances, while, with others, and behind his back, he on the contrary expressed his indignation against his improvidence in his mode of living, and against his sole delight of eating and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... character are naturally conducted between your Foreign Office and the Foreign Office of my country. These few lines come from man to man. I think that it occurred to my friend that it might save a great deal of trouble, a great deal of specious diplomacy, and a great many hundred pages of labored despatches, if, at the bottom of it all, he knew your true feelings concerning this question. It is, after all, a simple matter," Mr. Coulson continued, "and yet it is a matter with so many ramifications that after much discussion it might ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of safety, as well as of conquest, that it ought to be weakened or disarmed: if, being once reduced, it be disposed to renew the contest, it must from thenceforward be governed in form. Rome never avowed any other maxims of conquest; and she every where sent her insolent armies under the specious pretence of procuring to herself and her allies a lasting peace, which she alone would ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... who builds on the frame of mind that delights in cheap rhetoric while Rome is afire! At the moment of hazard, the Sons of Liberty showed the white feather, were full of specious words, would not act. The Confederate soldiers, indignant at this second betrayal, had to make their ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... Yankee girl,—simple, warm, outpouring in the sympathetic German woman,—and Faust, gallant, ardent, winning in the bright-eyed Italian,—thoughtful, tender, fervent in the intelligent German,—are background figures in the picture your memory paints; while the ubiquitous, sneering, specious, cunning, tempting, leering, unholy Mephistopheles is a character of himself, in the foreground, whose special interpreter you do not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... to the burden of the mass of society. You thus only create interminable complications. If you can prove that the increase of price resulting from protection, falls upon the foreign producer, I grant something specious in your argument. But if it be true that the American people paid the tax before the passing of the protective duty, and afterwards that it has paid not only the tax but the protective duty also, truly I do not ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... your table. To be sure, fastidious taste must be repressed, and, as it were, brought under control, if you spare that expense in which one consults rather his own gratification than the feelings of others. But why all this? I write, so that the luxury of some under the specious guise of economy may not impose upon you as a well-disposed youth. And so, out of pure good-will to you, I draw instances from my experience to advise or warn you. There is nothing to be more carefully avoided than that upstart society ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... "For shame!" You are forsooth entitled to exclaim; We to chaste ears it seems must not pronounce What, nathless, the chaste heart cannot renounce. Well, to be brief, the joy as fit occasions rise, I grudge you not, of specious lies. But long this mood thou'lt not retain. Already thou'rt again outworn, And should this last, thou wilt be torn By frenzy or remorse and pain. Enough of this! Thy true love dwells apart, And all to her seems flat and tame; Alone thine image fills her heart, She loves thee ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Treatise, wherein I do not pretend to present my Reader with a compleat Fabrick, or so much as Modell; but only to bring in Materials proper for the Building; And if I did not well know how Ingenious the Curiosity and Civility of Friends makes them, to perswade Men by specious allegations, to gratifie their desires; I should have been made to believe by persons very well qualify'd to judge of matters of this nature, that the following Experiments will not need the addition of accurate Method and speculative Notions ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... specious prologue means no good, I trow. Thou wert to tell me wherefore for five days We may pretend to be God's people still; Why thou didst not make us over to death Soon as the ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... that the gift of tongues, according to the Scripture, was the last and the least important of all the gifts, and that we were urged to desire earnestly the greater gifts (1 Cor. xiii. 31; 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 12, 14, 18, 19, 27, 28). A little later I was tempted to fall into another error, more specious but in reality just as unscriptural as this, namely, that if one were baptized with the Holy Spirit, he would receive the gift of an evangelist. I had read the story of D. L. Moody, of Charles G. Finney and of others who ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... to destroy our institute. Let us be careful that he does not withdraw from it the spirit of piety, simplicity, poverty, recollection, and mortification, interior and exterior, in order to introduce, under specious pretexts, the inevitable ruin of a ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... for instance, that a robber chief, Marianazzo, refused the Pope's pardon, alleging that the profession of brigandage was more lucrative and offered greater security of life than any trade within the walls of Rome. Thus the bandits of that generation occupied the specious attitude of opposition to oppressive governments. There were, moreover, many favorable chances for a homicide. The Church was jealous of her rights of sanctuary. Whatever may have been her zeal for orthodoxy, she showed herself an indulgent ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... him, and that he had long foregathered with the Pretender, of whom he spoke in a mock-tragedy style as "the young man Thomas Kuli Khan." When upon his defence, he told many Lies, and strove to Butter their Lordships with specious Compliments and strained Eulogies; but 'twould not serve. The Lords being retired into their own chamber, and the question being put whether Simon Lord Lovat was guilty of all the charges of high treason ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Dishonour, shame, ignominy, a long prison sentence, stared him in the face, and there was but one alternative—to link hands with this unseen, mysterious accomplice. Well, he could at least temporise, he could always "queer" a game in some specious manner, if he were pushed too far. And so, in the next morning's NEWS-ARGUS, Jimmie Dale had answered "yes." And then had followed those years in which there had been NO temporising, in which every plan was carried ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the ear of an audience, rather than on sustained epic dignity and ordered development of his story. But although he cannot give real unity to his epic, he succeeds, by dint of his astonishing fluency and his mastery over his instrument, in giving a specious appearance of unity. The sutures of his story are well disguised and his inconsistencies of no serious importance. He fails as an epic ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... bore a specious appearance, and seemed well calculated for the end which they professed to be the object of all these innovations; they ordered that four knights should be chosen by each county; that they should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... quite as convincingly, as Thorpe's collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. Almost all Elizabethan sonnets are not merely in the like metre, but are pitched in what sounds superficially to be the same key of pleading or yearning. Thus almost every collection gives at a first perusal a specious and delusive impression ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... fact is deftly obscured behind the deceptive and specious plea for "a dollar of the greatest purchasing power." This is one of those artful expressions that are used by the advocates of the gold standard as a kind of thought-deterrent. It seems so obvious, ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Puritan soldier and magistrate was not a man to be turned aside from his well-considered scheme, either by dread of the wizard's ghost, or by flimsy sentimentalities of any kind, however specious. Had he been told of a bad air, it might have moved him somewhat; but he was ready to encounter an evil spirit on his own ground. Endowed with commonsense, as massive and hard as blocks of granite, fastened together by stern rigidity of purpose, as with iron clamps, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... system of infidelity, under the specious name of philosophy, light, and science, spread with such untiring industry over the European mind, that unhinged the whole framework of society, and prepared it, like a vast magazine, for an awful explosion. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... the common defense (or in the defense of the like conditions of life for their fellowmen elsewhere) that the citizens of such a commonwealth can without shame entertain or put in evidence a spirit of patriotic solidarity; and it is only by specious and sophistical appeal to the national honour—a conceit surviving out of the dynastic past—that the populace of such a commonwealth can be stirred to anything beyond a defense of their own proper liberties or the liberties of like-minded men ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who would woo you, is ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... of the General Government, naturally led up, as we shall see, not only to threats of disunion, but ultimately to a dreadful sectional War waged in the effort to secure it. That Jefferson, when he penned them, foresaw the terrible results to flow from these specious and pernicious doctrines, is not to be supposed for an instant; but that his conscience troubled him may be fairly inferred from the fact that he withheld from the World for twenty years afterward the knowledge that he was their author. It is probable that in this case, as in others, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... that which warms the heart and elevates the feelings. There was, indeed, about Winterblossom, nothing that was either warm or elevated. He was shrewd, selfish, and sensual; the last two of which qualities he screened from observation, under a specious varnish of exterior complaisance. Therefore, in his professed and apparent anxiety to do the honours of the table, to the most punctilious point of good breeding, he never permitted the attendants upon the public taste to supply the wants of others, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... thousand dollars in the city. It doesn't cost Slocum two hundred dollars. It is no more than just that the laborer should have a share—he only asks a beggarly share—of the prosperity which he has helped to build up." This was specious and taking. Then there came down from the great city a glib person disguised as The Workingman's Friend,—no workingman himself, mind you, but a ghoul that lives upon subscriptions and sucks the senses out of innocent human beings,—who managed to set the place by the ears. ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... together in business. One man set his standards high. Intellectually, he knew the value of ethics in conduct. He truly wished to make practical in his dealings the high principles he admired. But his cupidity was strong and his will and courage were weak, so he oftentimes argued himself, by specious casuistry, into words and acts which were untruthful and dishonest. Oftentimes, indeed, they came dangerously near to actual crimes against the laws of the State. The other man had rather limited standards of honesty. His motto was, "Let the buyer beware!" If those with whom he dealt were as ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and mentality directly associated with it, and you cannot get beyond that; it isn't in human nature to do so. The Self is limited by this corporeal phenomenon and doubtless it perishes when the body perishes." But here again the conclusion, though specious at first, soon appears to be quite inadequate. For though it is possibly true that a man, if left alone in a Robinson Crusoe life on a desert island, might ultimately subside into a mere gratification of his corporeal needs and of those mental needs which were directly concerned with ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... any sin connected with them will no more adhere to him than dust to a cloud. Look at all the stories of the amours of the gods. Are they the less worshipped on that account? I think, therefore, that virtue is a hundred times superior to the other two.' With many such specious arguments as these, and by her winning ways, she contrived to make him madly in love; so that, forgetting all his religious duties and former austerities, he thought only how to ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... wound to me, paying heavy compliments to English skill in surgery; not, mark you, that he had any but the greatest contempt that all German doctors, too, profess for British medicine and surgery. But he hoped, by specious praise, to be sent to Wilhelmstal and not to join the other prisoners in Ahmednagar. Bottles of soda-water ostentatiously displayed upon his table might have suggested what his bleary eye and shaky hands ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... Loo's fears of being reminded of their former intimacy; but he had not told her how its discontinuance after they had left Heavy Tree Hill had affected her son, and how he still cherished his old admiration for that specious rascal. Nor had he told her how this had stung him, through his own selfish greed of the boy's affection. Yet now that it was possible that she had met Van Loo that evening, she might have become aware of Van Loo's power over her child. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... Branwen should believe him. Tinsel, indeed! then here was yet more tinsel which she must receive as gold. He was very angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the pin-prick spurred him to a counterfeit so specious that consciously he gloried in it. He was superb, and she believed him now; there was no questioning the fact, he saw it plainly, and with exultant cruelty; then curt as lightning came the knowledge that what Branwen believed was ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Probabilem: specious. Nesciunt: Halm with his one MS. G, which is the work of a clever emendator, gives nescient to suit malent above, and is followed by Baiter. It is not necessary to force on Cic. this formally accurate sequence ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "Specious enough to satisfy the Convention itself if ever I should be called to task," answered Charlot, with heat. "Do you propose to draw the attention of the Executive to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... to which they had recourse on entering France, evinces consummate artifice of plan, and not a little adroitness and dexterity in the execution. The specious appearance of submission to papal authority, in the penance of wandering seven years without lying in a bed, combined three distinct objects. They could not have devised an expedient more likely to recommend them to the favor of ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... not publicly appear: he told all the people, with infinite joy, that the Prince had confessed the whole plot, and that he would give it, under his hand and seal, in order to have it published throughout all France, for the satisfaction of all those who had been deluded and deceived by our specious pretences; and for the terror of those, who had any ways adhered to so pernicious a villainy: so that he met with nothing but reproaches from those of our own party at Court: for there were many, who hitherto were unsuspected, and who ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the puerility of applying to industrial competition phrases applicable to war,—a way of speaking which is only specious when applied to competition between two rival trades. The moment we come to take into account the effect produced on the general prosperity, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... specious nonsense," returned the ghost, throwing a quart of indignation into the face of the master of Harrowby. "It may rank high as repartee, but as a comment upon my statement that you do not know what you are talking ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... apples likewise fall of themselves, so in this ease of execution the falsest work may agree with the best. That the similarity is purely specious needs not be urged; yet in practically distinguishing between the two there are not a few that fail. The most precious work is performed with a noble, though not idle ease, because it is the sincere, seasonable, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... schemes can hardly be ranked with follies: you, who know what scheme it was, who know the intoxicating influence of a specious project, and, especially, the wonderful address and plausibility of Catling, the adventurer who was my brother's prime minister and chief agent in that ruinous transaction, will not consider their adopting the phantom as any proof of the folly of either father or son. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... preparations for the expedition that was to make both Egypt and himself rich beyond computation. Then followed a conversation with Haji Wali, whom age—he was 77—"had only made a little fatter and a little greedier," and the specious old trickster promised to accompany the expedition. As usual Burton began with a preliminary canter, visiting Moilah, Aynunah Bay, Makna and Jebel Hassani, where he sketched, made plans, and collected metalliferous ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... general course of events at sea; to maintain, if necessity arise, not arbitrarily, but as those in whom interest and power alike justify the claim to do so, the laws that shall regulate maritime warfare. This is no mere speculation, resting upon a course of specious reasoning, but is based on the teaching of the past. By the exertion of such force, and by the maintenance of such laws, and by these means only, Great Britain, in the beginning of this century, when she was the solitary power of ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... end, dele. and add— , which latter deals with certain specious arguments adduced by these writers against the a priori possibility of a ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... call followed her, but she wouldn't hear it. Pursuit and continuation of the scene, with or without another specious semblance of apology and reconciliation such as had terminated their previous passage-at-arms, was out of the question; the corridor was lively with young women in gayest plumage, fluttering to and from the dressing-rooms, and ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... corner, Roland was to some extent consoled by the praise bestowed upon him by Miss Verepoint. She said it was much better to buy a theater than to rent it, because then you escaped the heavy rent. It was specious, but Roland had a dim feeling that there was a flaw somewhere in the reasoning; and it was from this point that a shadow may be said to have fallen upon the brightness ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... immediate future, no man can foresee what dangers and difficulties will arise. The only path of safety lies in the straight line of consistent action; avoiding sinister expedients and untried men; despising the arts of the demagogue, when they present themselves in the most specious of all forms, that of using military success as the pretext for ambitious designs; and doing justice to the great soldier, as a soldier, according to the value of his achievements, not forgetting that 'peace hath her victories not less renowned ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... in the South—not so much, perhaps, from intelligent conviction as under the delusive hope that it would afford a satisfactory settlement of the "irrepressible conflict" which had been declared. The terms "popular sovereignty" and "non-intervention" were plausible, specious, and captivating to the public ear. Too many lost sight of the elementary truth that political sovereignty does not reside in unorganized or partially organized masses of individuals, but in the people of regularly and permanently constituted States. ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... were guarded against any possible infringement." And they contrived, by an artful and technical interpretation, to find statutes which favored their ends. They wrought out asceticism into a system, and observed the most painful ceremonials—the ancestors of rigid monks; and they united a specious casuistry, not unlike the Jesuits, to excuse the violation of the spirit of the law. They were a hierarchical caste, whose ambition was to govern, and to govern by legal technicalities. They were utterly deficient in the virtues of humility and toleration, and as such, peculiarly offensive ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... and secluded life which Agnes had led with the specious and fatal brilliancy which had been the lot of her mother,—her simple peasant garb with those remembered visions of jewelry and silk and embroideries with which the partial patronage of the Duchess or the ephemeral ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... I tell the truth, Bukta," he said, leaning forward, the dried muzzle on his shoulder, to invent a specious lie. ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... real to him, that the creatures of his mind become things, as clear to the memory as if we had seen them. But Spenser's are too often mere names, with no bodies to back them, entered on the Muses' musterroll by the specious trick of personification. There is likewise, in Bunyan, a childlike simplicity and taking-for-granted which win our confidence. His Giant Despair,[296] for example, is by no means the Ossianic figure into which artists who mistake the vague for the sublime have misconceived it. He is the ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... was a Suffragette and a Socialist, at the great nine-foot wall round Lord Wemyss's estate, by which they were to cycle for some miles. She pointed out how its perfect taste and avoidance of red brick and its hoggish swallowing of tracts of pleasant land symbolised the specious charm and the thieving greed which were well known to be the attributes of the aristocracy. Rachael was wonderful. She was an Atheist, too. When she was twelve she had decided to do without God for a year, and it had worked. Ellen had not got as ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... meaning but in reality have none, and nine out of every ten men who read your book will believe you. Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge, and presto! you are infallible in all. Who can contradict you, if you only wrap up your assertions in specious phrases that not one man in a million attempts to ascertain the real meaning of? We like so much to be saved the trouble of thinking, that it is far easier and more comfortable to be led than to contradict, to fall in quietly with the great flock of sheep that jump blindly after their leader than ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... the most ravishing and rapturous bliss. We cling to our stations in our fellow-creatures' minds and memories; we know too well the frail tenure on which we are in this world great and considered personages. Experience makes us shrink from the specious sneer of sympathy; and when we are ourselves falling, bitter Memory whispers that ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... of a specious argument is that there's always some truth in it, and it seems like ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... conversion; and I surely fell by a noble hand. I have since examined the originals with a more discerning eye, and shall not hesitate to pronounce, that Bossuet is indeed a master of all the weapons of controversy. In the 'Exposition,' a specious apology, the orator assumes, with consummate art, the tone of candour and simplicity; and the ten-horned monster is transformed, at his magic touch, into the milk-white Hind, who must be loved as soon as she is seen. In the ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... car. He is visibly disgusted with his orders. That he, a Red Cross Field Ambulance chauffeur, should be told to drive four—or is it all five?—women to look at the massing of the French troops at Courtrai! He is not deceived by the specious pretext of the temporary hospital. Hospitals be blowed. It's a bloomin' joy-ride, with about as much Red Cross in it as there is in my hat. He is glad that it ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... well-poised a government;—a government which has all the advantages of liberty beyond a commonwealth, and all the marks of kingly sovereignty, without the danger of a tyranny. Both my nature, as I am an Englishman, and my reason, as I am a man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious name of a republic; that mock appearance of a liberty, where all who have not part in the government, are slaves; and slaves they are of a viler note, than such as are subjects to an absolute dominion. ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... finished my supper, a neighbour came in, and it was not long before he and the man of the house were involved in a warm political discussion, in which were many more assertions than reasons. My host was not a very clear-headed man; while his antagonist was wordy and specious. The former, as might be supposed, very naturally became excited, and, now and then, indulged himself in rather strong expressions toward his neighbour, who, in turn, dealt back wordy blows that were quite as heavy as he had received, and a good ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... term, it can signify no more but this, that it may, or ought to be called by that name; or that these two names signify the same idea. Thus, should any one say that parsimony is frugality, that gratitude is justice, that this or that action is or is not temperate: however specious these and the like propositions may at first sight seem, yet when we come to press them, and examine nicely what they contain, we shall find that it all amounts to nothing but ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... reasoning of this woman of the world in which she lived; and blamed myself for my infatuated idolatry. I myself had not loved Pauline because she was poor; and had not the wealthy Foedora a right to repulse Raphael? Conscience is our unerring judge until we finally stifle it. A specious voice said within me, 'Foedora is neither attracted to nor repulses any one; she has her liberty, but once upon a time she sold herself to the Russian count, her husband or her lover, for gold. But temptation is certain to enter into her life. Wait till that moment comes!' She lived remote from humanity, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... the neighbourhood with the character of a man worth a million pounds who is to make everybody's fortune; at this time, however, he is not worth a shilling of his own, though he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand pounds, part of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part from certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the year '49 he is really in possession of the fortune which he and his agents pretended he was worth ten years before—he is ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... engine of discipline may be rendered not only the most effective, but essentially the most lenient, and when duly reported and checked, far more likely to contribute to the peace and comfort of the men themselves, than any of the specious but flimsy substitutes alluded to. Solitary confinement, for example, I take to be one of the most cruel, and, generally speaking, one of the most unjust of all punishments; for it is incapable of being correctly ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... are the pillars on which the glorious fabric of our independence and national character must be supported. Liberty is the basis, and whoever would dare to sap the foundation, or overturn the structure, under whatever specious pretext he may attempt it, will merit the bitterest execration and the severest punishment which can be inflicted ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... lies deep in Dante's hell, wherein we meet with tombs inclosing souls which denied their immortalities. But whether the virtuous heathen, who lived better than he spake, or, erring in the principles of himself, yet lived above philosophers of more specious maxims, lie so deep as he is placed; at least so low as not to rise against Christians who, believing or knowing that truth, have lastingly denied it in their practice and conversation—were a query too sad to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... not I! A stern high duty Now nerves my arm and fires my brain. Perish the dream of shapes of Beauty! And that this strife be not in vain To war on fraud intrenched with power, On smooth pretence and specious wrong, This task be mine tho' Fortune lower— For this ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... this plausible proclamation, and specious conduct, the marquis sent 500 men to possess themselves of Roras, while the people, as he thought, were lulled into perfect ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... continue so. But these are men that have been once fooled, most of them, and discovered, and slighted at Court, so that till some turn of State shall let them in their adversaries' place, in the mean time they look sullen, make big motions, and contrive specious bills for the subject, yet only wait the opportunity to be the instruments of the same counsels which ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... their butchery and personally interposed to prevent its further continuance? From the moment when his will was unmistakably made known to the Indians the massacre ceased; and if he had been true to himself and his solemnly-plighted word from the beginning, that massacre would never have begun. By no specious argument can he be held guiltless of the blood of those luckless victims whose dismembered limbs were left to fester ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Lordship knows, and I am sufficiently sensible in my own English.[27] For I am often put to a stand in considering whether what I write be the idiom of the tongue, or false grammar and nonsense couched beneath that specious name of Anglicism, and have no other way to clear my doubts but by translating my English into Latin, and thereby trying what sense the words will bear in a more stable language." Tantae molis erat. Five years later: "The proprieties and delicacies of the English are known ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... for twelve years, and, like Clement of Alexandria, examined, first, the temple, and next the god. A passing glance at these is not sufficient; it was also necessary to understand the theology on which this cult is founded. This one, explained by a very specious theology, like most others, is composed of dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were proclaimed, indeed, at that date, having been previously ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Claris Orat. s. 243. FURNIUS may be supposed, not without probability, to be the person with whom Cicero corresponded. Epist. ad Familiares, lib. x. ep. 25, 26. With regard to Terrianus we are left in the dark. The commentators offer various conjectures; but conjecture is often a specious amusement; the ingenious folly of men, who take pains to bewilder themselves, and reason only to shew their ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... state of savagery during almost his whole existence on the earth, and which still perpetuate all sorts of primitive barbarism in modern society. The conservative "on principle" is therefore a most unmistakably primitive person in his attitude. His only advance beyond the savage mood lies in the specious reasons he is able to advance for remaining of the same mind. What we vaguely call a "radical" is a very recent product due to altogether exceptional and ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... course of evil practices, any uniform method of proceeding will serve the purposes of the delinquent. Innocence is plain, direct, and simple: guilt is a crooked, intricate, inconstant, and various thing. The iniquitous job of to-day may be covered by specious reasons; but when the job of iniquity of to-morrow succeeds, the reasons that have colored the first crime may expose the second malversation. The man of fraud falls into contradiction, prevarication, confusion. This hastens, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... indeed as if he had found even now—as he had so often found at lessons—still some other delicate way to ease me off. Wasn't there light in the fact which, as we shared our solitude, broke out with a specious glitter it had never yet quite worn?—the fact that (opportunity aiding, precious opportunity which had now come) it would be preposterous, with a child so endowed, to forego the help one might wrest from absolute intelligence? What had his intelligence been given him for ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... discovery of any force latent in Christendom which may check the force of its cupidity, and put a stop to the exploitation and subjugation of Eastern countries for the sake of advancing its own material interests, under the specious pretext of introducing the ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... change of scenes the passions are interrupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at last the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily experience feel it to be false. The interchanges of mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the intended vicissitudes of passion. Fiction cannot move so ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... redemption. But though he won the reputation of a saint, he could not free himself from the desires of the flesh. He was helpless; he could do nothing. Then he read in Augustine that virtue without grace is but a specious vice; that God damns and saves utterly without regard to man's work. He read in Tauler and the other mystics that the only true salvation is union with God, and that if a man were willing to be damned for ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could advance a step. Were such the case, how much less would there be of fine-spun theory and specious argument; how much more of practical truth! Always supposing the logical combatants did not lose their patience and resort to material means and knock-down arguments; of which, judging by the spirit ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... stated in a general form, would produce but a slight impression. But when applied to any particular order of facts, to any particular article of industry, to any one class of labor, it is extremely specious, because it is a syllogism which is not false, but incomplete. And what is true in a syllogism always necessarily presents itself to the mind, while the incomplete, which is a negative quality, an unknown value, is easily ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... system is disadvantageous to the managers, since they have to pay fancy prices for the services of players, no better than others who could be engaged at humble rates, because they have acquired a specious importance by advertisement. The result has been a prodigious increase of salaries, without any corresponding gain in revenue, for although the much-"boomed" artist may attract people to a particular theatre, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... King, praying him, as a member of the Covenant with themselves, to remember his obligations to that sacred institution and zealously to prosecute its blessed work in all his three kingdoms. Toleration in things religious was especially denounced as a vast mischief disguised under the specious pretence of liberty for tender consciences. Schismatics were to be stamped out as sternly as Papists and Prelatists; and by Schismatics were meant all men, members of their own Church no less than of others, who ventured to differ from them on any ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... symptom at the present day lies just in the fact that while the papers written for the mob used to be written by vulgar, noisy, self-made, half-educated demagogues, they're sent out now with all the authority and specious respectability of decently instructed and comparatively literary English gentlemen. Now, nobody can deny that that's a thing very seriously to be regretted; and for my part I'm extremely sorry your brother has been ill-advised enough to join the mob that's trying to pull down our comfortably ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... self-assurance. What right had he, was Morgan's indignant thought—and he made the criticism as of a mere external fact from which he stood aloof—to be so friendly with Margaret? How was it that she should show such little insight as to be imposed upon by so specious a personality? No doubt she ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses may be so interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, nor any reason be assigned why one should be ranged before the other. When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive series be formed of senses ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... nature to their king; especially when they have had the least encouragement to it, by his approbation of them on the stage. But, I confess, I want the confidence to follow their example, though, perhaps, I have as specious pretences to it, for this piece, as any they can boast of; it having been owned in so particular a manner by his majesty, that he has graced it with the title of his play, and thereby rescued it from the severity (that I may not say malice) of its enemies. But though a character ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... knowledge of the Latin tongue; they had only learnt, hitherto, the first person singular and the nominative case—so he says; and then proceeds to demonstrate, with unanswerable arguments, that Greek was the spoken language of Nepenthe at this period. Several scholars have been swayed by his specious logic to abandon the older and sounder interpretation. There are yet other conjectures about the word Dodekanus, all more or less ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of particular good things that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story; an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or something that would form a contrast, and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and epigrammatism of the general style . . . . The greatest ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... form. A reconciliation between the two conflicting requirements is effected by a resort to make-believe. Many and intricate polite observances and social duties of a ceremonial nature are developed; many organizations are founded, with some specious object of amelioration embodied in their official style and title; there is much coming and going, and a deal of talk, to the end that the talkers may not have occasion to reflect on what is the effectual economic value ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... defying and resisting me, has appeared so fraught with probable dishonour, that I still turn upon them, in spite of the greater or less success of final dissimulation, a rueful and wondering eye. These productions have in fact, if I may be so bold about it, specious and spurious centres altogether, to make up for the failure of the true. As to which in my list they are, however, that is another business, not on any terms to be made known. Such at least would seem my resolution so far as I have thus proceeded. Of any attention ever arrested by the pages ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... of yourself, won't you?" There was genuine concern in the big man's voice as he went on with specious flippancy. "Miss Copley left a dagger kicking around; let's hope she hasn't dropped an automatic or a machine-gun here and there. If Mr. Monk got the idea that you knew ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... should beware of trusting to our own understandings, or to the judgments of other men; nor should we look to what suiteth most our own humours, nor to what appeareth most specious and plausible, for ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... applause of the professors of modern liberalism, because, on a cursory glance, it appears to embrace all sects and denominations of Christians. It is proper, therefore, to set the matter in a true light, by showing that this liberality of sentiment is more specious than real; that Mr. Noel is throwing out false colours, and that while, in no measured terms, he condemns the supposed want of brotherly-kindness in the members of the Church of England, his own apparent liberality is resolvable into nothing ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... such meetings in the public school, the consent of the local school board must be obtained. This ought not to be granted if those seeking permission are either cranks or quacks. The Viavi people are said to be obtaining such permission for use of schoolhouses under the specious plea of social hygiene. Others, well intentioned but with extreme purist ideas and unwise methods, occasionally volunteer their services. The school authorities should be cautious. But when those who apply are intelligent ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... times,[273] 'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes, Save vague tradition; and the gloomy vaults That hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults; And half a column of the pompous page, That speeds the specious tale from age to age; Where History's pen its praise or blame supplies, And lies like Truth, and still most truly lies. 190 He wandering mused, and as the moonbeam shone Through the dim lattice, o'er ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... which the paper carried; dubious financial proffers, flamboyant mercantile copy of diamond dealers, cheap tailors, installment furniture profiteers, the lure of loan sharks and race-track tipsters, and the specious and deadly fallacies of the medical quacks. Appealing as it did to an ignorant and "easy" class of the public ("Banneker's First-Readers," Russell Edmonds was wont to call them), The Patriot offered a profitable field for all the pitfall-setters ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... said, as "Ma chere cousine." Pompadour was delighted, and could hardly do enough for her imperial friend. She ruled the King, and could make and unmake ministers at will. They hastened to do her pleasure, disguising their subserviency by dressing it out in specious reasons of state. A conference at her summer-house, called Babiole, "Bawble," prepared the way for a treaty which involved the nation in the anti-Prussian war, and made it the instrument of Austria in the attempt to humble ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... their degradation there was no plea either of expediency or of a right secured by conquest. The extinction of what still ranked as a great royal house was accomplished by chicane, was due to a boundless ambition, and was rendered utterly abhorrent to all divine-right dynasties by the specious pretext of reform under which it was accomplished. This ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... first step toward the realisation of which involved an act of piracy. But when I came to talk to him I soon found that he was even worse to deal with than the boatswain; for although perhaps not quite so ignorant as the latter, he was still ignorant enough to be convinced by the specious arguments of the Socialist, to readily accept the doctrine of perfect equality between all men, and—like most of those whose labour is of an arduous character, and whose life is one of almost constant hardship and ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... success there was but little or no manifestation of displeasure on the part of the whites. Just as soon, however, as they became the masters of the situation, the property of many Negroes was seized, and sold upon the specious plea—"for delinquent taxes"; and the Negroes were driven from eligible places to the outskirts of the larger towns and cities. No Negro was allowed to live in the vicinity of white persons as tenants; and it became a social crime to sell property to Negroes in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... future who will have the necessary material in hand to follow these immense reactions in their various fields and they will find their real point of departure not in dates but in the human attitudes and outlooks which then made a specious show of being final—and were not final ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... He tells us that Theology is impossible, for this reason, that, in the view of the Positive Philosophy, all knowledge of causes is absolutely excluded; nay, he admits that Theology is inevitable if we inquire into causes at all. We know of no simpler or more effectual method of dealing with his specious sophistry on this subject, than by showing that, if his general principle be conclusive against the knowledge of God, it is equally conclusive against the knowledge of any other being or cause; just ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... to advert to a distinction which is of first-rate importance both for clearing up the notion of cause, and for obviating a very specious objection often made against the view which we have taken ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... nuts when ripe, being lighter than water, rose to the surface, instead—as is the habit of supermarine arboreal produce—of falling to the ground. Scarcely could a more splendid illustration of the fallacies of hypothetical reasoning be found, than the pages that contain this specious and far-fetched argument. Even the celebrated Rumphius, who wrote so late as the eighteenth century, assures his readers that 'the Calappa laut,' the Malay term for the nut, 'is not a terrestrial production, which may have ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... evening, Calvin Ross Shelby, congressional candidate for the suffrages of an intelligent people, stultified alike his hearers and himself. We shall not dignify his specious appeal to local pride with the easy exposure of its fallacy; the victory were too cheap; but since he glibly sought to establish a parallel between his own questionable political methods and the legendary deeds of the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... the total abnegation of principle here implied could never have been openly avowed by a responsible agent, speaking for the most polished community in Greece. Even the worst criminals seek to give some specious colour to their villainy; and the condemned felon, who will face death without a tremor, shudders at the cry of execration which greets his appearance at the scaffold. So hard it is, even for the most depraved, to stifle the last embers of the moral sense. We cannot suppose, then, that an ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell |
