"Untruth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not a fair question to ask us," declared another dragonette. "For, if we told you truly, you might escape us altogether; and if we told you an untruth we would be naughty ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... the "Hierosolymarius." We do not quite believe that Bibulus never left the house while an enemy was to be seen; but we think that a man may be expected to tell the truth of himself; at any rate, to tell no untruth against himself. We think that Cicero of all men may be left to do so—Cicero, who so well understood the use of words, and could use them in his own defence so deftly. I maintain that it has been that very deftness which has done him ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... in itself an inducement; he also knew of his deeds of bounty; and lastly, from their frequent intercourse, he had full faith in the sincerity of his proposal; for a more crystalline heart than Shelley's never beat in human bosom. He was incapable of an untruth or of a deceit in any ill form. Keats told me, that, in declining the invitation, his sole motive was the consciousness, which would be ever prevalent with him, of his not being, in its utter extent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... came bothering the colonel again next morning. The colonel again sent for me and asked me what on earth this man wanted now, so I was then obliged to admit the truth. I asked him if he would forgive me for telling him an untruth overnight, and on his consenting, I told him the Portuguese had lost a quantity of money, which he put down at seven thousand dollars. The Portuguese's answer to the question who had placed the money there was that he had himself, but he could bring no witnesses to show that he had really ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... is not and never was a scintilla of truth for the charge of wholesale slaughtering of wounded dervishes, nor that the Sirdar ever issued such an order, or that any reputable person ever received it, or ever had it hinted to him. The accusation is an unmitigated untruth, and absolutely at variance with all that was said and done by the Sirdar before and during the course of the battle and the pursuit. I certainly never heard of the matter until Mr Bennett made the accusation, and I cannot ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... for you, or call it by name. I know this is an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circumstances I would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have no wish ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... meat, and the bouillon, and the wine away again; and hear you, observe well, that I have not eaten a morsel of all this. How could I, indeed; I, that ever since I opened my eyes this morning have done nothing else but eat (a horrible untruth!), and it just now occurs to me that it would therefore be unnecessary to pay money ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... when we knowingly utter what is not true. The other occurs when we promise what we do not mean to perform, and, in general, when we express an intention contrary to the one we really have. These two sorts of untruth may sometimes meet in the same case; but let us here discuss their points ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... gigantic, extensive, vast, massive, unwieldy, bulky. Laughable, comical, comic, farcical, ludicrous, ridiculous, funny, droll. Lead, guide, conduct, escort, convoy. Lengthen, prolong, protract, extend. Lessen, decrease, diminish, reduce, abate, curtail, moderate, mitigate, palliate. Lie (noun), untruth, falsehood, falsity, fiction, fabrication, mendacity, canard, fib, story. Lie (verb), prevaricate, falsify, equivocate, quibble, shuffle, dodge, fence, fib. Likeness, resemblance, similitude, similarity, semblance, analogy. Limp, flaccid, flabby, flimsy. List, roll, catalogue, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... mean by cannot? 1. If thou meanest thou hast no strength to do it, thou hast said an untruth, for "greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). 2. If thou meanest thou hast no will, then thou art out also; for every Christian, in his right mind, is a willing man, and the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... generally admired west front is, from an architect's point of view, the only part of the exterior that is not admirable. It is in actual fact, fraudulent, just as the whole of the upper wall of St. Paul's Cathedral is an artistic untruth. The west wall of Salisbury is a screen without professing to be one. The porches are very small in relation to the great flattish expanse of masonry above them; the dullness of this was much relieved by the series of statues placed in the empty niches about the ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... that we think a certain thing is true or false when we have, as a matter of fact, done little or no thinking about it. We only believe, or uncritically accept, the common point of view as to the truth or untruth of the matter concerned. The ancients believed that the earth was flat, and the savages that eclipses were caused by animals eating up the moon. Not a few people today believe that potatoes and other vegetables should be planted at a certain phase of the moon, that sickness is a visitation ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... parish pinder), "Doad o' Tibs" (bill poster), Jacky Moore (town's crier), Bill Spink, and others. The lecturer objected to each of these, and, in despair, accepted Bill o' th' Hoylus End. I officiated as best I could, and I utter no untruth in saying that I had a good deal to do; for I had to undertake the greater share in entertaining the large number of people present. Mr Leach had well nigh exhausted his stock of lecture "material" on the second evening, and on the third night I had to fill up the time with telling ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... else—She did not allow herself to reach the alternative which his confusion so inevitably suggested:—secrecy, protected by a lie. In the recoil from it she was plunged into remorse for a suspicion which she had not even entertained. Truth was so much to this young creature, that even the shadow of an untruth gave her a sense of uneasiness which she could not banish. She looked furtively at her father, sorting out some papers, his lips compressed, his eyebrows drawn into a heavy frown, and assured herself that she was a wicked girl to have wondered, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... and of equal freedom to communicate it; one that loves me and my art; one to whom I have been beholden for many of the choicest observations that I have imparted to you. This good man, that dares do anything rather than tell an untruth, did, I say, tell me he had lately dissected one strange fish, and he thus described it ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... any one as to your answer, but write to me immediately. I shall be more ready to hear what you have to advance, as I do not remember ever to have heard a word from you before against any human being, which convinces me you would not maliciously assert an untruth. There is not any one who can do the least injury to you while you conduct yourself properly. I shall expect ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... hated to tell tales. She felt it was too bad of her cousin thus to let her bear all the blame, for Muriel, even if she had not spoken, had put the question in writing, so that she had practically told an untruth to Miss Rowe when she denied any knowledge of the affair. Would the other girls in the class, Patty asked herself, also think she was trying to copy her neighbour's sums and gain an unfair advantage? To such an honourable nature the idea was terrible, and she longed to protest ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... betraying his real thoughts, De Guiche had recourse to the only defense which a man taken by surprise really has, and accordingly told an untruth. "I do not find Madame," he said, "either good or bad looking, yet rather good than ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of putting her out of countenance by the course he took; he knew quite well that a woman like Angelique is never more at her ease than when she has a chance of telling an untruth of this nature. Besides, he had prefaced this appeal by the magic words, "My fortune' is yours!" and the hope thus aroused was well worth a perjury. So she answered boldly and in a steady voice, while she looked straight into ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was killed, you remember. I told Pauline I would resent that conduct if it were repeated, and on the same occasion I asked her whether she had engaged herself to him in any shape or form. Her answer was a simple, straightforward negative, and the child is incapable of untruth." ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... watch your tongue, and eyes, and hands, for it is easy to tell, and look, and act untruth," said Mr. Bhaer, in one of the talks he had with Nat about ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... gain possession thereof. Now, say which way went they?" I was sore put to it, for it was like betraying innocent blood to tell these savage men the course my godchild pursued in her escape; and yet to tell an untruth was repugnant to my nature, and I said to the captain, "It is a hard matter for me to point out where my friends ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... You see how useless, for that very reason, my answers have as yet been! Still I have something more to say, and hesitate only because it may imply more confidence than I dare profess, and of all things I dread untruth. But I am honest in this much at least, that I desire with true heart to find a God who will acknowledge me as his creature and make me his child, and if there be any God I am nearly certain he will do so; for surely there cannot be any other kind of God than the Father ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... intention to deceive her, to say that the publishers had advanced him five pounds. But that would be his first word of untruth to Amy, and why should he be guilty of it? He told her all that had happened. The result of this frankness was something that he had not ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... looks upon the gen'leman as legitimate sport. 'An 'orrible lie' between two poor people is fair play from a poor man to a wealthier, just as, for instance, the wealthy man considers himself at liberty to make speeches full of hypocritical untruth when he is seeking the suffrage of the free and independent electors or is trying to teach the poor man how to make himself more profitable to his employer. It is stupid, at present, to ignore the existence of class distinctions; ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... an untruth with those eyes," thought the mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The princess smiled that what was taking place just now in her soul seemed to the poor child ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... everywhere! Nevertheless, we must remain in stupidity and darkness. And where is He, the merciful God, in whose eyes there are no rich nor poor, but all are children dear to His heart.' The people are gradually revolting against this life. They feel that untruth will stifle them if they ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... that I judge them. Genuine transcendental phenomena may extend the accepted limits of probability, but when alleged transcendental phenomena do violence to all probability, that is the unfailing test of hallucination or untruth on the part of those who depose to them. These things could not have occurred as they are narrated, and Dr Bataille is exploiting the ignorance of that class of readers to whom his mode of publication appealed. As products of imagination his marvels are crude and illiterate; ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... old lover because she had placed her affections upon Edwin Lechmere, whom she was endeavouring to "entrap," was not to be mistaken; and the country girl was altogether unprepared for the burst of indignant feeling, mingled with much bitterness, which repelled the untruth. A strong fit of hysterics, into which Mary Charles worked herself, was terminated by a scene of the most painful kind, her father being upbraided by her mother with "loving other people's children better than his own," while the curate himself knelt by the side of his betrothed, assuring ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... believe me, for no one ever is ready to believe anything that can diminish his self-esteem—and why should you believe me? I frankly confess that I do not hesitate to lie when I hope to gain more by untruth than by that much-belauded and divine truth, which, according to your favorite Plato, is allied to all earthly beauty; but it is often just as useless as beauty itself, for the useful and the beautiful exclude each other ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nothing for himself which the world could not have on the same terms. He looked into the calm depths of his own heart and saw that he hated tyranny, pretense, vice, hypocrisy, extravagance and untruth. He knew in the silence of his own soul that he loved harmony, health, industry, reciprocity, truth and helpfulness. His desire was to benefit mankind, and to help himself by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... to befog them," answered the young man; "they have certainly heard of us; and by seeming to tell a little truth frankly it will give me an opportunity of telling more untruth." ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that led to Llan-dhu, where her brother awaited her to consult her about Ruth. Though her eye was as bright and straight-looking as ever, quick and brave in its glances, her hair had become almost snowy white; and it was on this point she consulted Sally, soon after the date of Leonard's last untruth. The two were arranging Miss Benson's room one morning, when, after dusting the looking-glass, she suddenly stopped in her operation, and after a close inspection of herself, startled Sally by ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... reproduced this Note in full because its influence was quite particularly fateful and because it was probably the most unfortunate document that ever passed from Berlin to Washington. Mr. Wilson thought he detected a direct untruth, and the mixture of an uneasy conscience and clumsiness which the German Note appeared to betray prompted the sharp tone of the President's reply. For the sake of his prestige Mr. Wilson was now compelled by the recent course of events to take action, although the ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... being also a man of low stature does not affect the truth or untruth of this fine verse, which may serve to comfort many. One may assume that it was Jack, and not the giant, whom we would need to describe as the true man of the two; and one seems to have heard of some 'fine,' 'manly' fellows, darlings ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... What I see is your untruth. Tell me now, the wish, forsooth, Has invented my offences. From that very chamber there Came a man, I turned my head, When he saw my face he fled Back ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... every one that you are there to give out holy water that is poison. My aunt says so." My face turned purple with shame, and I stammered out, "Please do not believe that, Monsieur Doucet. My little sister is telling an untruth." ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... as an impostor before all the keepers and others, we find him impudently saying, "I'll tell you what I shall do to get up my shooting again." The fellow never had any shooting to get up. But the mere habit of untruth was ingrained in the man. His undignified race, in a dressing-gown, round the Crescent was no doubt concealed from Arabella—she would never have got over that! As a display of cowardice it was only matched by his hypocritical assumption of courage ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... cylinder, which is capable (give it only enough turnings) of making the men, at a shock, into five long, prostrate heaps of clay, lifeless, useless, and offensive, as are the expletives in question, by reason of a succession of just such shocking assaults as the untruth you this ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... second untruth, which is closely connected with the first, is this: That there are but two classes of those who pass hence and are no more seen; classes sharply distinguished, clearly outlined,—on the one hand, of those who at death go straight to heaven, and, ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... head vigorously. "Whoever told your father that, told him an untruth. The Queen fled from Porto Vecchio in that same winter of 'thirty-nine, a few days before Christmas. I myself steered the boat ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... together, her narrow eyes were as enigmatic as ever, but that face, which, like some ideal conception of art, was incapable of anything like untruth and grimace, expressed by some mysterious means such a depth of infinite patience that I felt ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... present, Father, not as mine. You know it is not, and cannot be mine. I have been so unhappy at my untruth, that I think I shall never commit such a ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... often that she cares for me, has always cared for me, ever since the time she was living with her grandfather out on the rock; and an untruth never came from her lips. I'd stake ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... dear children, who was no extremist, but was "moderate in all things," thought it best to let his child enjoy everything that was innocent; that, while an act of disobedience—an untruth, or any direct breach of "The Commandments"—would cause his displeasure, and was followed by a look that penetrated your mother's soul, and was a far greater punishment than the rod of her mother, yet she might dance as much as she pleased, for "dancing was children's ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... certain that falsehood requires to be supported by falsehood. Having commenced in untruth, would it not be expedient to persevere until we reach America? I, at least, cannot now assert a right to my proper name, without ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... hold of my phrase, "State family," and ran wild with it. He declared it to be my intention that women were no longer to be wives but "brood mares" for the State. Nothing would convince him that this was a glaring untruth. His mind was essentially equestrian; "human stud farm" was another of his expressions.[15] Ridicule and argument failed to touch him; I believe he would have gone to the stake to justify his faith that Socialists want to put woman in the Government haras. His ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... account to settle with his Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe his God as intensely as he loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind for the young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, when dread of pain drove him to his first untruth he naturally developed into a liar, but an economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the power of living alone,—a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... tell the truth, that I must live a great lie to save other hearts from being crushed as life has been crushed out of mine. I thought of telling them that my husband had died up here—in the North. And I was fearing suspicion ... the chance that my father might learn the untruth of it, when you came. That is all, Philip. You understand now. You know why—some day—you must go away and never come back. It is to save the boy, my father, ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... which is more sacred than anything else to scouts and gentlemen; the disdain of telling or implying an untruth; ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... tribe is far distant," returned Content, "and I will not lay untruth to my soul by presuming to say whether justice or injustice hath been done them in the partition of the lands. But in this valley hath wrong never been done to the red man. What Indian hath asked for food and ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mr. Lowe, as was also the Rev. J. T. Becher of Southwell. Mrs. Chaworth Musters, who contributed this letter to 'The Life and Letters of Viscount Sherbrooke' (vol. i. p. 46), adds that her grandfather was, naturally, excessively annoyed at having been made the mouthpiece of an untruth, and that the coolness which arose in consequence lasted up to the end of Byron's life. There can, however, be no doubt that Byron made ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... I presume it was Will—and though I do not know what he may have told you, yet I will undertake to say that he has told you nothing but the truth. I am always safe in believing him, and do not believe he would tell me an untruth for any thing ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... facts of natural history, and the sweet mysteries of flowers and forests, and hills and waters, will profitably take the place of the fairy lore of the past, and poetry and romance still hold their accustomed seats in the circle of home, without bringing with them the evil spirits of credulity and untruth. Truth should be the first lesson of the child and the last aspiration of manhood; for it has been well said that the inquiry of truth, which is the lovemaking of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... "You are either crazy or dreaming," said she. "Or, more likely still, you are telling me an untruth so as to excuse yourself and make trouble between him ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... after the servant's revelation, I find the same untruth. He delivers a long rhapsody on brothers' love, saying that it exceeds all other in its unselfishness. Her sole rejoinder—and here she does for one second attain to authenticity—is the question: "What is this for?" He, after some hesitation, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... indebted for the hatchet tale, the story of the colt that was broken and killed in the process, and all those other fine romances of Washington's youth. Weems' literary style reveals the very acme of that vicious quality of untruth to be found in the old-time Sunday-school books. Weems mustered all the "Little Willie" stories he could find, and attached to them Washington's name, claiming to write for "the Betterment of the Young," as if in dealing with the young we should carefully conceal the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... there,' said she, slowly and heavily. And all this time she never closed her eyes, or ceased from that glassy, dream-like stare. His quick suspicions were aroused by this dull echo of her former denial. It was as if she had forced herself to one untruth, and had been stunned out of all power of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... always been obedient to his father and mother. I have never known him to swear or tell an untruth, and he never took anything that was not his own—that is," the poor lady hastened to add when she recalled the painful circumstance, "he never ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... corrupt governments are liable with capricious frequency. Diderot sturdily denied the authorship of the "Letter," lying as thoroughly as he had done in that piece of writing itself, when he invented the name of Inchlif and forged the ideas of Saunderson. This time there was more excuse for his untruth; for the disclosure of his printer's name might have sent that unfortunate man to prison or to the galleys. The imprisonment of Diderot himself, at first severe, was soon lightened at the instance of Voltaire's mistress, Madame du Chatelet. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... habit of lying begins. An untruth is passed over carelessly and the child allowed to cover up its sins without realizing their sinfulness. Likewise, many other evil habits that have wrecked lives and brought sorrow and disgrace into homes may be traced to the same carelessness ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... others do, and the punishment, so far as we can see, bears no observable relation to the wrong done. There is no ethical relation between actions and consequences. Not alone is the incidence of an action dependent upon personal qualities—some will suffer more from having accidentally told an untruth than others will suffer from having committed gross and deliberate fraud—but nature is absolutely careless of whether what I do is motived by good or bad intentions. If I get a wetting through going out to help some one in ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... his old despondency. "But the doubt," he cried—"the doubt! How can I go through this rehearsal with such a doubt in my mind? I cannot and will not. Go, tell them I am ill, and cannot come down again to-night. God knows you will tell no untruth." ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... well be, Ischomachus, you cannot manufacture falsehood into truth." Lit. "Like enough you cannot make an untruth true." ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... good-nature and indifference, upon the mistaken idea which always induces me to take the view of the person with whom I may be conversing. My sister depicted to me in very vivid colours the drawbacks involved in acting like this, and I have given up doing so. I am not aware of having told a single untruth since 1851, with the exception, of course, of the harmless stories and polite fibs which all casuists permit, as also the literary evasions which, in the interests of a higher truth, must be used to make up a well-poised phrase, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... into a white heat. Judy ought to have kept her mouth shut. It was not his place to inform against the school, privately, to the master. "Y—es," he hesitatingly said, for an untruth he would not tell. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... accuracy, precision, exactness, correctness; verity, fact; truism, axiom; fidelity, constancy, loyalty, fealty, steadfastness; candor, frankness, ingenuousness. Antonyms: See untruth. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... doctrines, that it was the text-book and the delight of Camille Desmoulins and Danton and St. Just, that Robespierre read it through once every day." In the perspective of history, no one feels that he has said the last word about a philosophy like Rousseau's after demonstrating its "untruth." Good or bad, it has meant too much for any such easy disposal. What shall we call an idea, objectively untrue, but ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... at once. Perhaps a sudden understanding had dawned on him, pity and a vision of what it meant to live through the eternal Now at Murder Point. He may have been asking himself, "For the lack of one small untruth, shall I thrust this man into Hell?" At any rate, when he answered he spoke gently. "No," he said, "she wore a woman's dress; be sure of it, your girl-friend is ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the face of a woman." And with that the cup was whole again on the moment. "Bring away your wife and your children with you now," he said, "and this cup along with them, the way you will have it for judging between truth and untruth. And I will leave the branch with you for music and delight, but on the day of your death they will be taken from you again." "And I myself," he said, "am Manannan, son of Lir, King of the Land of Promise, and I brought you here by enchantments that you might ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... deliberately bad. Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it is more readily captivated by a big lie than by a small one, since it itself often uses small lies but would be, nevertheless, too ashamed to make use of big lies. Such an untruth will not even occur to it, and it will not even believe that others are capable of the enormous insolence of the most vile distortions. Why, even when enlightened, it will still vacillate and be in ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... distorted as it was by passion, they would have been frightened at his appearance. His hand clutched his knife and he was on the point of stealing toward the warrior who had uttered the irritating untruth, when he seemed to gain the mastery of himself—aided no doubt by the fact that at the same instant his quick ear caught the sound of a paddle, so faint that no one else heard it. He was on the alert in a ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... Elma!" said Carrie, shaking her forefinger in a very knowing manner "She didn't like to tell about Sam, and so she made up that story, did she? Well, it was an untruth. She didn't spend that money on dress; she—well, I will tell you—I ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... than their creeds, and, it should seem, sometimes better than their principles. In which case would his conscience prick him most, when the heat was over—as accessory to the murder or as the utterer of untruth? I cannot but think it a case of instinct, which, acting before conscience, pro hac vice supersedes it. The matter is altogether and at once, by an irresistible decree, taken out of the secondary "Court of Conscience" and put into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... there could be no doubt; but her deception was provoked by his own conduct and by the masterful love that had come upon her. I truly believe that prior to the time of her meeting with Manners she had never spoken an untruth, nor since that time I also believe, except when driven to do so by the same motive. Dorothy was not a thief, but I am sure she would have stolen for the sake of her lover. She was gentle and tender to a degree that only a woman can attain; but I believe she would have ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... this beam, bright with shining rays, which both hears and sees us, that thou, that thou, {I say}, wast begotten by this Sun, which thou beholdest; by this {Sun}, which governs the world. If I utter an untruth, let him deny himself to be seen by me, and let this light prove the last for my eyes. Nor will it be any prolonged trouble for thee to visit thy father's dwelling; the abode where he arises is contiguous to our regions.[116] If only thy inclination ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... with such a recollection of her good father, and such a sister to help her, Maura will not fall into the fault again. And, my dear, I quite see that neither you nor she entirely realised that what you did was deception, though you never spoke a word of untruth.' ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of, "Not at home," or "Engaged," are more frequently questioned than any other social custom. Nevertheless their use is often a necessity, while, on the contrary, their abuse is to be regretted. No suspicion of an untruth need apply to either, for the phrase, "Not at home," is used with the accepted signification of, "Not at home, for the time being, to any visitors." If, however, conscience rebels against this so transparent fraud, there is always the alternative ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... have explained the reason; it was exactly because she said I was dull that I was resolved to convict her in an untruth." ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... other matters of untruth. That, for instance, of the ermine collar embroidered with emeralds. If an understandable reason be required for this, it would be to draw attention away from the green lights which were seen in ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... ever been made from the hostile camp. In the hope—a vain hope—of conciliating opposition, there has too often been a timid surrender of much that can alone give authority to Christian testimony. If Jesus Christ was not competent to decide the truth or untruth of the Divine revelation, which He fully and constantly endorsed as such, how absurd it is to suppose that any eulogies of His character can save Him from the just contempt of all fearless thinkers, no matter ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... in the drawer. The only money I had was the two-dollar bill which had been left over after paying Mrs. Jones. I spread it out before him and looked him straight in the eye—fearlessly—that he might know I wasn't telling him an untruth. ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... know," said Annie, hoarsely, after an effort, as if the untruth would not come easily. "I am worse than Mrs. ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the students, than which nothing can be more obnoxious to the progress of refined art. "But," said he, "while I am urging the advantage of freedom and nature in study to genius, let me not be misunderstood. There is no untruth in the idea that great wits are allied to great eccentricity. Genius is apt to run wild if not brought under some regulation. It is a flood whose current will be dangerous if it is not kept within proper banks. ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... book had contained the smallest untruth, if there had been the least false statement in it, they would have stigmatized him as a calumniator and scandalizer of majesty. But Gotzkowsky had only told the truth. They could not, therefore, punish ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... heart out by the roots sooner than have stepped into happiness over the grave of a principle. And to her, at any rate, it was clear that in this case a very precious principle was being violated, for the whole matter hung upon a deception. Truth was right, and untruth was wrong, and her whole heart was bent upon bringing Philippa to a correct ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech: "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god." For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man hath somewhat of the savage beast; but ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the doctor an opposition to every thing that had if it were but the odor of religion about it, which might well have suggested doubt of his own doubt, and weakness buttressing itself with assertion But the case was not so. What untruth there was in him was of another and more subtle kind. Neither must it be supposed that he was a propagandist, a proselytizer. Say nothing, and the doctor said nothing. Fire but a saloon pistol, however, and off went a great gun in answer—with ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... the blow was given because wearing a white hat they thought I was a Tuscan. If the first reason had been sufficient, the other, miserable as it is, had not been necessary. But all the defence is palpably false, contradictory, and nothing worth. An untruth defended cannot become truth. All these facts, without troubling you further, prove the truth of my statement, which it has been my duty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... still a hale and active man. He had served many years on board of a man-of-war, and had been in every climate: he had many strange stories to tell, and he might be believed even when his stories were strange, for he would not tell an untruth. He could navigate a vessel, and, of course, he could read and write. The name of Ready was very well suited to him, for he was seldom at a loss; and in cases of difficulty and danger, the captain would not hesitate to ask his opinion, ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... he say that he never heard of it, if he means that your majesty never gave such an order to him!" cried Elizabeth-Charlotte. "But if he means that he did not order these massacres, he tells an untruth. He is avenging on the people of Germany the laurels which Prince Eugene has earned in the service of the emperor, and which, but for him, would have redounded to the glory of France. Oh, sire! this war is ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... degree by using three or four microscopes at a time than by using one. "Now" (added Johnson), "every one acquainted with microscopes knows that the more of them he looks through, the less the object will appear." "Why" (replied the King), "this is not only telling an untruth, but telling it clumsily; for if that be the case, every one who can look through a microscope will be able to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... impossibility of doing any thing, because there were too many of them, and because I felt ill-disposed towards them because there were so many of them; and in addition to this, each one separately did not incline me in his favor. I was conscious that every one of them was telling me an untruth, or less than the whole truth, and that he saw in me merely a purse from which money might be drawn. And it very frequently seemed to me, that the very money which they squeezed out of me, rendered their condition worse instead of improving it. The oftener I went ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... This famine of conscience, this indifference to truth, does far-reaching damage in our profession. I assert that it does immensely greater harm than obvious falsehood, because, indeed, the unvarnished lie is much more easily discoverable than the probable truth which is still untruth. Moreover, lies come generally from people with regard to whom one is, for one reason or another, already cautious, while these insinuating approximations are made by people who are not ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... and, oddly enough, has been used to discredit Luke's narrative. It is a remarkable canon of criticism that a reporter is responsible for the truthfulness of assertions which he reports, and that, if he has occasion to report truthfully an untruth, he is convicted of the untruth which he truthfully reports. Luke is responsible for telling what these people found it convenient to say; they are responsible for its veracity. But they did not say quite as much as is sometimes supposed. As the Revised Version ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... head negatively. "Never learnt," he curtly said. And Percival believed that to be an untruth equally with the other. He could not help thinking that the avowal of their immediate return might also be false: it was just as possible that one or other, or both, had followed the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... first, which gives the sole possible chance of your ever making them understand what you mean, you care only to present your opinions; and that you do in such a fashion that they must appear to them false. You even make yourself seem to hold these for very love of their untruth; and thus make it all but impossible for them to shake off their fetters: every truth in advance of what they have already learned, will henceforth come to them associated with your ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... as quiet and measured a way as he could, but his heart was sinking. She would go on questioning; he could not tell her an untruth. She would discover particulars of that great-uncle's provision for him, which he, Swithin, was throwing away for her sake, and she would refuse to be his for his own sake. His conclusion at this moment was precisely what hers had been five minutes ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... not answer that it was her sole reason, unless she told an untruth. Her eyes fell under ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and for putting on every day a fair, open, catholic, Christian mind, commend me to the public life and the public journals of our living day. And it is not that this man may be up and that man down; this cause victorious and that cause defeated; this truth vindicated and that untruth defeated, that public life rolls on and that its revolutions are reported to us. Our own minds and our own hearts are the final cause, the ultimate drift, and the far-off end and aim of it all. We are not made ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... such books, too, as that of the Marquis de Chastelleux, or that of De Rouchefoucault, it becomes a matter of serious inquiry. The truth must be told, whatever it is, for the truth cannot be so bad, whatever it may be, as the untruth which is now repeated ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... effort. Then Heine's notion, which seemed so brilliant at first, that the Dutchman could be redeemed by the unshakable love of a woman, has now all the disagreeable staleness of a decrepit and obvious untruth. It has no essential verity to give it validity, it is no symbol of a fact which is immediately and deeply felt to be a fact. The condition of redemption is entirely arbitrary: it might as reasonably be that the Dutchman should find a woman who would not shrink from eating his weather-stained ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... hard upon my brother," said Kenric. "There lives not a man in the Western Isles better fitted than Alpin for the great office of kingship. He is just, and noble, and trusty. No man in all Bute can say that he ever broke a promise or told an untruth. Think you that because he is hasty with his dirk he is therefore a thoughtless loon, who knows not when a gentle word can do more service than a blow? When did he ever draw dirk or sword without just cause? You do not know him as I do, Dovenald, or you would not ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... behalf, to keep his house, and to forbear all meddling by word or writing, with any whatsoever, till they should further advise and determine in his cause. In defence thereof, he fell into large and particular discourse with the deputies, accusing his enemies of malice and untruth, offering himself to any trial, and to abide what punishment the laws should lay upon him, if he were found guilty of the crimes imputed to him. Touching the cause of his coming, he pretended and protested that he had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... neither chagrined at his ill success, nor jealous of the old huntsman's superior skill, would be to affirm an untruth; but he put the best face he could upon the matter, and praised Grip very highly, alleging that the whole merit of the hunt rested with him. Old Crouch let him go on, and when he had done, quietly observed that the otter they ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... m., morning. maudire, to curse. mchant, wicked. mler, to mingle, mix; se — , to mingle with. membre, m., limb. mme, even; adj., same, very, self; un —, one and the same. mmoire, f., memory. menacer, to menace, threaten. mener, to lead. mensonge, m., untruth. mensong-er, -re, lying. menteu-r, -se, lying. mpriser, to scorn, spurn. mer, f., sea. merci, f, mercy. mrite, m., merit, deserts. mriter, to deserve. merveille, f., marvel, wonder. mesurer, to ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... favour. Yea when ther was speech of their remoovall into these parts, sundrie of note & eminencie of y^t nation would have had them come under them, and for y^t end made them large offers. Now though I might aledg many other perticulers & examples of the like kinde, to shew y^e untruth & unlicklyhode of this slander, yet these shall suffice, seeing it was beleeved of few, being only raised by y^e malice of some, ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... we do not insist on this. God has not so made the world that any perjury or cover of the facts is necessary to serve the cause of goodness. Commend it though English or German critics do, can we not conceive of a speech grander than the untruth which Shakspeare has put ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... that were in it to him. Alas, if we did remember the divine and awful nature of God's Truth, and had not so forgotten it as poor doomed creatures never did before,—should we, durst we in our most audacious moments, think of wedding it to the World's Untruth, which is also, like all untruths, the Devil's? Only in the world's last lethargy can such things be done, and accounted safe and pious! Fools! "Do you think the Living God is a buzzard idol," sternly asks ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... afraid it would be found out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson's cap poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and was fond of his lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... some whiskey to take the taste of that untruth out of your mouth! How can a man of your attainments call that obviously modern fraud by such a name? The place is not nearly two thousand years old! It is probably the tomb of a Syrian queen named Adiabene and ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... energy, an intellect rather Greek in its rapidity than English in sturdiness; and withal a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty passion, love of present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... too warm," she said at length, feebly but obstinately resisting Mrs Clayton Vernon's command. This, to speak bluntly, was an untruth. She ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... into my confidence, my dear sir," he said, "to show that I know you to be stating an untruth. The Countess, on the contrary, is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck. Thanks to the amazing imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay at the Bendler-Strasse, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... you. Once one of us, I couldn't tell you which one, but one of us told a wrong story, a falsehood, an untruth. One of the dreadful things that made our dear Lord kill Ananias and Sapphira dead. Wasn't that awful? Mamma and papa didn't know what to do. A nickel didn't seem much pay for a lie, did it? So they ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Chesterton was able (to quote The Mikado) to get from her husband a good deal of "corroborative detail designed to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative." Of these details some are true, some false, all arranged to support the main untruth of Frances and Gilbert's relation to one another. The thesis of the book is that Gilbert was an unhappy and frustrated man (a) because Frances shrank from consummating their marriage, and (b) because she dragged him ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does not good, but very great harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... fascinating manners. Some people accused him of Orleanism. He was a Republican, and a much more advanced Republican than Thiers. One must have known him very little to believe him to be anything else but what he said he was. Paul de Remusat had a horror of untruth. He was sensitive, and had a very straightforward, strong character. He took no active part in politics, except in private circles, and his advice always prevailed, even in the Chamber and in the Senate. He would never speak ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... was not 'too late' to flog the secret out of some of the slaves. Accordingly, he selected a young slave man for his victim, and flogged him so cruelly that he could scarcely walk or stand, and to keep from being actually killed, the boy told an untruth, and confessed that he and his Uncle Henry killed Webster, the overseer; whereupon the poor fellow was sent to jail to be tried ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... mother evidently felt Hadria's departure as a disgrace to the family. It was pathetic to hear her trying to answer people's casual questions about her, so as to conceal the facts without telling an untruth. Hadria was overwhelmed by this letter. Her first impulse was to pack up and go straight to Dunaghee. But as Algitha was there now, this seemed useless, at any rate for the present. And ought she after all to abandon her project, for which so much had ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... critic will take it as calling the man himself insincere; but the two are distinct, and it needs to be emphasised, for sincere men are making these propagandist plays, of which the manifest and glaring untruth is working mischief to the national mind. A type of such a play is familiar enough in these days when we like to ridicule the West Briton. We are served up puppets representing the shoneen with a lisp set over against the patriot who says all the proper things suitable to the occasion. Now, such ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... we resolved to go on to Cairndow, and had the satisfaction of seeing that our landlord had not told us an untruth concerning the expected company; for just before our departure we saw, on the opposite side of the vale, a coach with four horses, another carriage, and two or three men on horseback—a striking procession, as it moved along between the bare mountain and the lake. Twenty years ago, perhaps, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... one play which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a contemporary writer, would be heard to the conclusion." Whether that is true or not of Johnson's day or of our own—and let us not be too hastily sure of its untruth—at least the man who wrote it in the preface to an edition of Shakespeare lacked neither honesty nor courage. And he had then, as he has still, the reward which the most popular of the virtues will ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... influence, that subtile contagion, finer than anything visible, ponderable, or tangible,—that effluence from eye, voice, tone, manner, which, according to the character which is behind, communicates an impulse of faith and courage, or an impulse of cowardice and untruth; which may be transmitted onward, forward, on every side, like the widening circles in a disturbed lake,—circles which meet and cross each other without disturbance, and whose influence may be strictly ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... convened at the Wauxhall to consider how the amount of female starvation or misery may be reduced, the philosopher throws his window open again, and grins while he caricatures, or rather distorts and exaggerates to positive untruth. M. Gill gets fresh food. The chroniqueurs invent a series of absurdities, which didn't happen yesterday, as they allege. I am out of patience when I see all this mischievous misrepresentation, because I see that ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... cannot tell him an untruth, mother," returned Amabel, artlessly, "for I do not ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... habitually does it, and swears and rails vociferously, can be called properly by that name. Here again it is easy to apply the canon to a newspaper. When a newspaper habitually takes an insulting tone, and deliberately falsifies, whether by assertion of an untruth or by a distortion and perversion of the truth, it is not the work of a gentleman, and if the writer be responsible for the tone of the paper, the manners of that newspaper are ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... in question was carefully misrepresented, and when the self-evident trend, tenor, and aim of the ostensible review were to excite public prejudice against the author on grounds wholly irrespective of the truth or untruth of ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... the singular declaration made by Chateaubriand to Joubert, while relating the details of a nocturnal voyage: "The moon shone upon me in a slender crescent, and that prevented me from writing an untruth, for I feel sure that had not the moon been there I should have said in my letter that it was shining, and then you would have convicted me of an error in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... brings it on them, and that God will remove it in His own way, if they trust in Him: but who, instead of waiting for His time, take their own way, their own bad way, and impatiently hasten the time, and thus bring on themselves judgment! Sometimes, telling an untruth will bring them out of their difficulties, and they are tempted to do so. They make light of the sin; they say they cannot help themselves, that they are forced to it, as Saul said to Samuel; they make excuses to quiet their conscience; and instead of bearing the trial well, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... regarding whose lives and stories your kind presence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness—your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture—your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher, so ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... home at last?" said Hannah. "I did not know it." That was an untruth. She had watched him from behind Grandmother Heath's rose bush. "Where did you come from last? New York? Oh, then you saw Mrs. Leavenworth. How is she? I fell in love with her when I ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... coiled around the top and were sliding down the sides into the waters, and there was not a cracker there for John. And so, with scarcely a grammatical sentence and with most unfitting words, he went on for an hour with a discourse full of wildness and weirdness, and full of untruth, while the people looked on with amazement at the wonderful knowledge and power of the man. Twenty or thirty years ago you might hear many similar sermons. But now, were you to go into the churches in the cities and larger towns of the Black Belt, you would find no place for the old-time preacher ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... who says in effect, that to live again in the serene beauty of art, it is needful that things should first die in reality. Thus Browning's dramatic method, even, is sometimes disastrous in its untruth, as in Caliban's analytical reasoning—an initial absurdity, as Mr. Berdoe has pointed out, adding epigrammatically, 'Caliban is a savage, with the introspective powers of a Hamlet, and the theology of an evangelical Churchman.' Not only Caliban, but several other ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... still harder to suppose that the Regent would make this express condition with the Duke of Ormond, and the moment the duke's back was turned would suffer these women to tease him from me and to bring me answers from him. I am, however, far from taxing the duke with affirming an untruth. I believe the Regent did make such a condition with him; and I will tell you how I understand all this little management, which will explain a great deal to you. This Prince, with wit and valour, has joined all the irresolution of temper possible, and is, perhaps, the man in the world the least ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... hated and distrusted Bill Holmes and that she had, months ago, repelled his surreptitious advances. Luck would have believed, for he had known Annie-Many-Ponies since she was a barefooted papoose, and he had never known her to tell him an untruth. ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... to insert one little word," said I; "he should have said, 'all white men;' for as it now stands, it is a practical untruth, in a country which tolerates domestic slavery in its worst and most forbidding form. It is a declaration of SHAME, and not of INDEPENDENCE. It is as perfect a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... workingmen are going to get up a social revolution," how could that remark arouse hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie? The passage in question, then, shows itself to have been one that makes no sense, either in point of grammar or in point of logic. It is not only untrue with a threefold untruth, but it is contradictory and meaningless. At least it is quite unintelligible ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... beautiful; I saw her come towards me and smile." But noticing that the nuns thought something quite different had happened from what I had told them, I began to persuade myself that I had been guilty of an untruth. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux) |
