"Dishonest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... check a child's spirit, but tend to make him dishonest. Ask a child now what he thinks, and, ten to one, he mentally refers to some eminent exemplar of all the virtues for instructions, and, instead of telling you what he does think, quotes listlessly what he ought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Washington, to tell the Great Father what their agent was doing—that he stole their goods and sold them back again; and they bade the colonel say that there would be trouble unless some one were put in the dishonest man's place. With the innate logic for which the Indian is noted, they declared that they had as much right to steal from passing caravans as the agent had to steal from them. No notice was taken of so trifling a matter as ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... will usually make the better showing, and may therefore be considered permissible in the case of those teams which, because of unfamiliarity with their opponents' methods, can take no chances. This plan of preparation is in no way harmful or dishonest, but lacks some of the more permanent ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... ruffian, the gambler, and the beggar, may without inhumanity be handed over to the law, and made to understand that a State which is too humane to punish will also be too thrifty to waste the life of honest men in watching or restraining dishonest ones. That is why we do not imprison dogs. We even take our chance of their first bite. But if a dog delights to bark and bite, it goes to the lethal chamber. That seems to me sensible. To allow the dog to expiate his bite by a period ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... considerable, and his mode of life far from extravagant. But just before the date of our controversy he had been induced to assist the brother of his lost wife, who was a junior partner in a London bank, with the loan of his accumulated savings. This man proved dishonest; he embezzled that and other sums intrusted to him, and fled the country. The same sentiment of conjugal affection which had cost Dr. Lloyd his fortune kept him silent as to the cause of the loss. It was ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at all egotistical, Ruth Fielding felt confident that had any one of these scenario writers come into possession of her lost script, and been dishonest enough to use it, he would have turned ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... hurrying upstairs I found a bottle of methylated spirits on my wife's toilet-table. Strange as it may seem to the sober reader, I drank greedily of the unfamiliar beverage, and feeling refreshed and thoroughly kinetic, settled down once more to an exhaustive exposure of the dishonest off-handedness of the external Examiners at University College. I may add that I had taken the bread-knife (by Mappin) from the pantry, as it promised to be useful in the case of unforeseen Clerical emergencies. I should have preferred the meat-chopper with which the curate had ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... rebuke humbly. "If you divined the intensity of my sufferings, you would be lenient," he murmured. "Nevertheless, it was dishonest of me to moan so bitterly before seven o'clock, when my claim to the room legally begins. ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... at the others. "Unless the shares are taken care of my way, the largest shares will go to the dishonest, the most powerful, and the luckiest. Unless the division is made as we originally agreed, we'll end up trying to cut each other's ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... should be trained to strict honesty, both in word and deed. It is not merely teaching children to avoid absolute lying, which is needed. All kinds of deceit should be guarded against; and all kinds of little dishonest practices be strenuously opposed. A child should be brought up with the determined principle, never to run in debt, but to be content to live in an humbler way, in order to secure that true independence, which should be the noblest ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... hard to find a parallel in history for the rapacity combined with unscrupulousness and ingenuity displayed during that fateful period by dishonest individuals, and left unpunished by the state. Doubtless France was not the only country in which greed was insatiable and its manifestations disastrous. From other parts of the Continent there also came bitter complaints of the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... small children. In a little time after his commitment, he had friends who offered to pay ten shillings in the pound of what he owed, and to give security for paying the remainder in three years by instalments. The honest quaker did not charge the bankrupt with any dishonest practices, but he rejected the proposal with the most mortifying indifference, declaring that he did not want his money. The mother repaired to his house, and kneeling before him with her five lovely children, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... locate and file a patent to the diamond field, of which no one, save myself, at present knows the exact location? Why, even if the postal authorities do their very best to put the papers in the proper hands, anyone like a dishonest clerk might get the papers in his hands. The temptation would be powerful for anyone who had the papers to locate the mine at ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... began to write inept letters, some of which were printed; and then the editors, being accused of running after sensations, pointed to their correspondents as evidence of a public opinion which they could not control, and to which they were compelled to give utterance. They were, in fact, not dishonest but only self-deceived. They really persuaded themselves that they were responding to a general sentiment, though, such as it was, their own reports and articles had called it into existence. The "gentleman in ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Hermenstein in order not to be recognized too soon as the 'renegade from the Roman Church,' but that sort of thing is to be expected. Society never gives you credit for honest motives, but only for dishonest ones. We who know Sylvie, also know what her love for her husband is, and that it is love alone which inspires all her actions in regard to him. Her chief anxiety at present seems to be about Angela's health, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... to a particular form of wrong-doing punishable by law. Of the larger army of bad men they represent a minority, who have been found out in a peculiarly unsatisfactory kind of misconduct. There are many men, some lying, unscrupulous, dishonest, others cruel, selfish, vicious, who go through life without ever doing anything that brings them within the scope of the criminal code, for whose offences the laws of society provide no punishment. And so it is with some of those heroes of history who have been made ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... been cast upon it, he wishes it to be understood that he speaks only for the freeholders, who have homes of their own, which they have an inducement to improve and beautify, and who have land of their own which no dishonest motive prompts them to neglect, and for the estate laborers whose condition most nearly resembles theirs. If the blacks on many plantations are little disposed to adorn homes from which they may be ejected at any time; if they are discouraged from the minor industries essential to comfort, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not do so dishonest* a thing, *dishonourable That thilke* womb, in which your children lay, *that Shoulde before the people, in my walking, Be seen all bare: and therefore I you pray, Let me not like a worm go by the way: Remember you, mine owen Lord so dear, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... comparatively a small body, is tried by its failures. The whole is condemned in the person of a few; while a majority—the bulk of men—estimate themselves by their successes. One great man sheds glory on his race, while one villain is condemned alone. The popular judgment, that lawyers are insincere and dishonest, because they appear on both sides of a case, with equal zeal, when there can be but one right side, is not peculiar to the bar. It should be remembered that learned and pious divines take opposite ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... luxuries, and I am a ruined man. I am no saint! I love life and all that makes life beautiful and desirable—and to procure its pleasures I must fight with the weapons of the age. No doubt, it is grand to be honest; but in my case it is so impossible, that I prefer to be dishonest—to commit an act of shameful infamy which will yield a hundred thousand francs a year. This man is in my way—I suppress him—so much the worse for him—he has no business to be in my way. If I could have met him openly, I would ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... calumny the occasion of manifesting their resolution to make me infamous. But that, my friend, is beyond her compass. I have done my duty to Scotland, and that conviction must live in every honest heart—ay, and with dishonest too—for did they not fear my integrity, they would not have thought it necessary to deprive me of power. Heaven shield our prince! I dread that Badenoch's next shaft may ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... maltrankvileco. Uneasy maltrankvila. Unemployed senokupa. Unendurable nesuferebla. Unequal neegala. Unerring neerara, certa. Uneven neebena, malglata. Unexpected neatendita. Unexpectedly neatendite. Unexpressed neesprimita. Unfair (dishonest) malhonesta, malrajta. Unfaithful malfidela. Unfasten malligi. Unfavourable malfavora. Unfeeling sensenta. Unfeigned sincera. Unfilial nefila. Unfold (open) malfaldi, malvolvi. Unfold (disclose) malkovri, malkasxi. Unfold (relate, tell) rakontadi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... "why can't you just tell the men what Mr. Grady wants you to do and show them that he's dishonest? They know they've been treated ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... outbreak among the Helvetii, which had been provoked by the dishonest rapacity of the twenty-first legion, was speedily quelled by the Roman general Aulus Caecina. Aventicum surrendered (A.D. 69), but Julius Alpinus, a chieftain and supposed ring-leader, was singled out for punishment ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... of her thoughts she could recall only a physical pain which had entered her bosom while she looked at the large white envelope upon the blotter. "Before this I had never lied in my life," she said, "I had never been capable of the slightest dishonest act, I had even taken a pride in my truth like the pride some women take in beauty—and yet I did this thing without effort and I do not know now why I did, nor what I thought of at the time, nor whether I regretted ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... a proud mincing peat, and as perverse as he is officious. She dotes as perfectly upon the courtier, as her husband doth on her, and only wants the face to be dishonest. ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... thought easily to new forms of knowledge. Morally, the discipline of a good school tends directly to form the habits I mentioned above. The pupils are trained to steady industry and perseverance, to scorn dishonest work, and to control temper. The girls who leave school so trained, though they may know nothing of cooking or housekeeping, will become infinitely better cooks and housekeepers, as soon as they have a motive for doing so, than the uneducated ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... bewitched him. Then the whole affair may come to nothing and the race be declared off. There are stories about injurious herbs that have been given in pinole or water, and actually made some racers sick. It may even happen that some dishonest fellow will pay to the best runner of one party a cow if he lets the other party win. But, as a rule, everything goes on straightforwardly. No one will, however, wonder that there are six watchmen appointed by each side ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... to the popular statement at El-Wijh; namely, that the visiting doctors and the resident sanitary officers naturally prefer the shorter to the longer voyage, and the nearer station to that further from home. Moreover, inasmuch as, if inclined to be dishonest, they find more opportunities in the north, it was their interest to transfer the establishment to Tor. The local authorities, the people assured me, were induced to report that the single fort-well had run dry; that the condensers had ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... convict that during Sunday afternoon he will sit quietly in his cell and meditate about his past misdeeds. I would be dishonest if I did not state that my thoughts were now more taken up with the probable outcome of the course I had adopted than of lamenting over my past shortcomings. I reasoned that I was not only pursuing an original, but a safe course. Original, in that no one, so far as ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... can a man learn all this and not know better than another how to economize what he has, and how to appreciate the numberless superfluities of life? Is he not made, by the knowledge he has of how little he really needs, more independent and less liable to dishonest exertions ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... shore-boats rowed by white-clad Asiatics, who clamoured fiercely for payment before coming alongside the gangway-ladder. The feverish and shrill babble of Eastern language struggled against the masterful tones of tipsy seamen, who argued against brazen claims and dishonest hopes by profane shouts. The resplendent and bestarred peace of the East was torn into squalid tatters by howls of rage and shrieks of lament raised over sums ranging from five annas to half a rupee; and every soul ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... courage and hypocrisy in veiling others; he was the slave of the forms which Crauford subjugated to himself. He was only so far resembling Crauford as one man of the world resembles another in selfishness and dissimulation: he could be dishonest, not villanous,—much less a villain upon system. He was a canter, Crauford a hypocrite: his uttered opinions were, like Crauford's, different from his conduct; but he believed the truth of the former even while sinning in the latter; he canted so sincerely ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is well acquainted with his habits, is no friend to him; for he not only takes what is required for his immediate wants, but hoards a variety of articles in large quantities for future use. It would seem as if he were aware when he was engaged in an honest and when in a dishonest expedition; for while searching for food in the the wood or open field, he is extremely noisy,—but when he ventures into a barn, to take what does not belong to him, he is silent and stealthy, and exhibits all the peculiar manners ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... out for the heart of man Against thee and such custom. O hard to be borne, Often hard to be borne is woman's beauty!— And well I guess it does but cover up Enmity, hanging falseness between our souls, And buy at a dishonest price the mouth True nature hath for thee, to speak thee fair. Were not man's thought so gilded with thy beauty, Woman, and caught in the desire of thee, O, there'ld be hatred in his use of thee. You should ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... after the other, all barriers, the Wilmot proviso, the Missouri Compromise, the right of majorities in the Territories, the very sovereignty of the States annulled by the Dred Scott decision, the South had succeeded in drawing the United States into those violent and dishonest political practices which filled the administration of Mr. Buchanan. The barriers of public probity, and the right of men, yielded in turn; the administration dared write officially that Cuba was necessary to the United States, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... responsible for this misfortune and his alarm will grow with the days that pass. Finally, when his state of mind becomes desperate, you will give me his address and he will hear from me. I shall have no trouble, at that crisis, in bringing my dishonest partner to terms." ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... Mrs. Wagner repeated. "Haven't you seen me examine everything? And mind, if there had been any dishonest person about the house last night, the key of my desk is the only key that a thief would have thought worth stealing. I happen to be sure of that. Come! come! don't be down-hearted. You know I never deceive you—and ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... Objector. 'How?' you will ask. 'Is not the plain truth good enough for men? And if poetry must win acceptance for her by beautiful adornments, alluring images, captivating music, is there not something deceptive in the business, even if it be not downright dishonest?' Well, I think you have a right to ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... virtuous Cato driven to kill himself? and rebel Caesar so advanced, that his name yet after 1600 years, lasteth in the highest honour? And mark but even Caesar's own words of the fore-named Sulla, (who in that only did honestly, to put down his dishonest tyranny,) literas nescivit, as if want of learning caused him to do well. He meant it not by poetry, which not content with earthly plagues deviseth new punishments in hell for tyrants: nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth occidendos esse: but no doubt by skill in ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... your money. That is punishment enough. And Archie, too—" She paused, a fierce note of defiance ringing out with her last words. Beatrice made no answer, and the two women looked at each other in significant silence. "You don't mean that—that it was—dishonest?" ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... written a pantomime, carrieth it in his pocket, and straight there cometh a dishonest person, who, taking the same, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... right in an' voted dat it was a gran idee, An' de dinneh we had Christmas was worth trabblin' miles to see; An' we eat a full an' plenty, big an' little, great an' small, Not beca'se we was dishonest, but indignant, sah. ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... distant from Gilbert's boarding-house, and walked toward it. But, in order to change his appearance, he applied to his upper lip a false black mustache, which he had bought for the purpose, and, a little discomposed by his dishonest intentions, walked up the steps and rang the bell. It was ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... we gather that Heywood considered it dishonest to sell the same play to the stage and to the press; that some of his plays were stolen through stenographic reports taken in the theater and were printed in corrupt forms; that, in order to counteract this, he obtained the ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... of a culture of conspiracy and misinformation, democracy offers freedom of speech, independent media, and the marketplace of ideas, which can expose and discredit falsehoods, prejudices, and dishonest propaganda. ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... end. A story was started that authenticated copies of the same papers had been received from England by somebody. There was a prudent abstention from any inquiry into the truth of this statement. "I know," said Franklin, "that could not be. It was an expedient to disengage the House." Dishonest as it obviously was, it was successful; members accepted it as a removal of the seal of secrecy; and the documents having thus found their way before the Assembly were ordered to be printed. That body, greatly incensed, immediately voted a petition ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... that the beneficiaries of the construction company should pay into the Sycamore treasury enough money to repair the losses occasioned by dishonest work. Interest on the Sycamore bonds was due the 1st of April. The November payment had been made with money advanced by half a dozen country banks through negotiations conducted by William Holton. On the day that Jack Holton was persuading Alec Waterman to thrust himself forward as the people's ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... which she had found in her mother's effects, Echford Flagg's own spelling was fantastically original. But under the layers of ugly malediction she had found pathos: he said that he'd had no schooling of his own, and on that account had been led to turn his business over to the better but dishonest ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Ingred, lowering her head, for it was painful to stretch her neck in so uncomfortable a position. "It was put up in the seventeenth century, when the whole place was full of those old-fashioned high pews. People were very dishonest in those days, and thieves used to come to church on purpose to pick pockets. So they always used to keep somebody stationed up there, looking down through the holes over the congregation to see that no purses ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... perhaps, to help. His lieutenants had proved Marvin's unerring instinct in judging character. Not one single case came to the old employer's mind of a man who had failed to turn out exactly as he expected. Yet the most trusted man of all, Raymond Owen, the secretary, was disloyal and dishonest. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe, and in America as well. In conjunction with two accomplices, he had succeeded in possessing himself of large sums of money by the most criminal means. He also acted secretly as the "banker" of his convict brethren, whose dishonest gains were all confided to his hands for safe-keeping. He would have been certainly captured, on venturing back to France, along with his two associates, but for the daring imposture in which he took refuge; and which, if the true Baron ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... Spirit, he appears before his congregation on Sabbath, knowing he has an honestly gotten message to lavish on them; just as there can be no coward and craven more abject than a minister with any conscience who appears in the pulpit after an idle, dishonest week, to cheat his congregation with a diet of fragments seasoned ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... despair of saving the Colony from those evils which threaten it by the turbulent and dishonest conduct of vagrants who are allowed to infest the country in every part; nor do we see any prospect of peace or happiness for our children in a country thus distracted ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... sir, however," answered Mr Paget, "by wise and prudent, or by foolish conduct, or by honest or dishonest dealings with our fellow-men. The upright man is not degraded by loss of fortune, and I have no doubt many persons of education go out in second-class cabins ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... Springer choked back further heated words which were boiling to his lips. What right had he to rail against Newbert? Under the circumstances, his failure to warn his former teammates made him fully as dishonest and deserving of contempt as the Wyndham pitcher—far more so. The white anger of his face turned to a crimson ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... Dollars. Doubloons. I line up with the thickwads now, Spike. I don't have to work to turn a dishonest penny ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... Fifth: He was dishonest. It is a short journey from unholy ambition to dishonesty. The spirit of God Himself calls ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... very well; and the people, pretty well. There's an old women we don't like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths; but I don't think she is dishonest—so Mary Quince says—and that, you know, is a point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says they don't mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people; ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... railleries—often in nothing else. The stage character of the tailor is stereotyped from generation to generation; his goose is a perennial pun; and his habitual melancholy is derived to this day from the flatulent diet on which he will persist in living—cabbage. He is effeminate, cowardly, dishonest—a mere fraction of a man both in soul and body. He is represented by the thinnest fellow in the company; his starved person and frightened look are the unfailing signals for a laugh; and he is never spoken to but in a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... seals, and hunting for carcasses of whales which have been killed by American whaling vessels, stripped of blubber, and then cast ashore by the sea. They are cruel and brutal in disposition, insolent to everybody, revengeful, dishonest, and untruthful. Everything which the Wandering Koraks are they are not. The reasons for the great difference between the settled and the Wandering Koraks are various. In the first place, the former live in fixed villages, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... mean, deceitful, dishonest, cruel. But it's not your antiquated laws—it's my own and original ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... for many years," the President said thoughtfully, "and I never knew him to do a dishonest thing. He's full of horse sense. I've heard rumors that in his early days in the Far West he got in with a bad crowd, but he threw them off and any one that knew details has decently forgotten them. I've tried several times to speak to him about this new alliance but although ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to a fixed term. It could be broken at any moment. To this argument there was only one possible answer, that of his conscience. If once he were convinced that things were not right, it would be dishonest to participate in their profits. And he was convinced. Mr. Jackson's arguments and his damning document had thrown a flood of light upon many matters which he had suspected but never quite understood. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... himself astray, and perhaps his neighbour too. We were all out-lying about your camp, friend squatter, as by this time you may begin to suspect, when we found that it contained a wronged and imprisoned lady, with intentions neither more honest nor dishonest than to set her free, as in nature and justice she had a right to be. Seeing that I was more skilled in scouting than the others, while they lay back in the cover, I was sent upon the plain, on the business of the reconnoitrings. You little thought that one was ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... change its aspect. They also allowed the raft to drift night and day for nearly five hundred miles without a pause. Then, again feeling safe from pursuit, they tied up just below the City of Alton, Illinois, and prepared to resume their dishonest business. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... accompanied him in the many disputes and difficulties which arose with his Irish tenantry; and, apart from the insight which this must have afforded her into the character and idiosyncrasies of the people, she no doubt very early acquired that exact knowledge of leases and legacies and dishonest factors which is a noticeable feature even of her children's books.[23] It is some time, however, before we hear of any successor to "Generosity"; but, in 1782, her father, with a view to provide her with an occupation for her leisure, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... others on that windy porch, she watched the progress of the search, which every moment made it not only less impossible for her to attempt the restoration upon which the reward depended, but must have caused her to feel, if she had been as well brought up as all indications showed, that it was a dishonest act of which she had been guilty and that, willing or not, she must look upon herself as a thief so long as she held the jewel back from Mr. Deane or its rightful owner. But how face the publicity of restoring it now, after this elaborate ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... own historian, who sets forth scenes of depravity which turn common wickedness into virtue, and declares "that the earth would have swallowed them, if the Romans had not swept them from its face?" No iniquity in the ages since; throughout the cities of the dispersion, where they are proverbially dishonest, and professedly ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... suppose that there was equivoque in my former rejection of this honour (as an honour I regard it). May I assure him that I would scorn in this and in every other case to deal in equivoque; I believe language to have been given us to make our meaning clear, and not to wrap it in dishonest doubt? ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... the decision by the court was valid but the cousin who won the case was a useless administrator of his fortune, and lost it all through bad advice and dishonest acquaintances. ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... indiscreet, the matter is out of your hands. Therefore, be careful what you write. You cannot tell what use your correspondent may make of it. Your friend may be trustworthy, but careless; some one may be dishonest enough to read it; it may be lost. It is a good plan to write nothing you would not be willing to have read before a roomful of people who know that ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... this box belong to the boy. If you are honest you will see that it comes into his hands at the proper time. If you are dishonest, then God help the boy and ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... can see now that if I had wanted to be dishonest you could not have stopped me. My honesty proven, what must have been my motive in staying here to take your insults, to submit to your boorishness? I will tell you; you may believe me or not, as you please. I was grateful ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the State from this condition of things is, unhappily, not only the loss of creative statesmanship at the head of the nation—serious as that is. The danger is greater. Small men are more likely to fall into dishonest ways than big men. There lies, I think, our greatest danger. It seems to me, observing our public life with some degree of intimacy, that there is a growing tendency for the gentleman to fall out of the political ranks and for his place to ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... difficulties at once by making the plunge in obedience to this or that plausible sign or train of reasoning, but his conscience and good faith will not let him take things so easily; and yet he knows that if he hangs on, he will be accused by and by, perhaps speciously, of having been dishonest and deceiving. So subtle, so shifting, so impalpable are the steps by which a faith is disintegrated; so evanescent, and impossible to follow, the shades by which one set of convictions pass into others wholly opposite; ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... period towards its later periods." Thus the two periods of activity are conceived to be at the two opposite poles of a sphere which in some way represents for him the system of Nature.); I have not a doubt that before many months are over I shall be longing for the most dishonest species as being more honest than the honestest theories. One remark more. If you feel any interest, or can get any one else to feel any interest on the aberrant genera question, I should think the most interesting way would be to take aberrant genera in any great natural family, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... considerable time in Crotona, in the South of Italy, where he taught pupils, their course of study extending over five or six years. The Pythagorean Society founded by him did much good at first, but its members ultimately became greedy of gain and dishonest, and the Society in the lifetime of its founder was subjected to persecution and dispersed by angry mobs. Pythagoras possessed a prodigious mind. He is best known for his teaching in reference to the transmigration ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... to all motives. Men refrain from theft and other dishonest conduct from the dread of disgrace and punishment, because they see that "honesty is the best policy," and from a sense of justice and regard to the rights of property, or a sense of honor which makes a mean ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... frankly that there were many within his own party who mistrusted him—who believed him insincere, if not actually dishonest, and refused to support him. For a fourth time, in 1892, he attempted to get the nomination, but his name had lost its wizardry, and he was defeated by Benjamin Harrison. There are few more pitiful stories in American politics than that of this brilliant and able man, consumed by the desire for ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead. Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi's praise of that beast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the other ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... no visitor to enter the apartment if she can help it. Concrete selfishness is her chief mark. She avoids responsibility; sidesteps every duty that calls for honest effort; is secretive, untruthful, indolent, evasive and dishonest. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... from being an evil, may be the greatest good; nor when he prefers beauty to virtue—not reflecting that the soul, which came from heaven, is more honourable than the body, which is earth-born; nor when he covets dishonest gains, of which no amount is equal in value to virtue;—in a word, when he counts that which the legislator pronounces evil to be good, he degrades his soul, which is the divinest part of him. He does not consider that the real punishment of evil-doing ...
— Laws • Plato
... to obtain more. Our Philosopher immediately took the Gold, and putting it into his Pocket, told the other he had now altered his Mind, and should bury it no more, till he found a Man more worthy of his Confidence. See what People lose by being dishonest. This calls to my Mind the Words of ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... that he had confessed it to Representative Blackburn, of Kentucky; that he had tendered his resignation, which had been accepted by the President; and that he was still subject to impeachment,—would be impeached and tried by the Senate. I was surprised to learn that General Belknap was dishonest in money matters, for I believed him a brave soldier, and I sorely thought him honest; but the truth was soon revealed from Washington, and very soon after I received from Judge Alphonso Taft, of Cincinnati, a letter informing me that he had been appointed Secretary of War, and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... distinction between rightful concealment as concealment, and concealment for the purpose of deception. "There are things which men have a right to keep secret," he says, "and if a prurient curiosity prompts others officiously to pry into them, there is nothing criminal or dishonest in refusing to minister to such a spirit. Our silence or evasive answers may have the effect of misleading. That is not our fault, as it was not our design. Our purpose was simply to leave the inquirer as ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... "Excessive capitalization of corporations, dishonest management by their executive officers, the destruction of the rights of the minority, the theft of public utilities, the subordination of public interests to private gain, the debauchery of our local legislatures and executive officers, and the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... thought us, had we not been able to distinguish light from darkness. You, who ever were, I believe, one of the frankest-hearted girls in Britain, and admired for the ease and dignity given you by that frankness, were growing awkward, nay dishonest. Your gratitude! your gratitude! was the dust you wanted to throw into our eyes, that we might not see that you were governed by a stronger motive. You called us your friends, your sisters, but treated ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... led her to infer that her old friend was both a treacherous and dishonest man, and entirely unworthy to be trusted in any capacity. Seemingly the conversation was not meant for her ears, but Mr. Fledgeby had planned that she should hear it, and that it should have the ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Grove Avenue. India, the Spanish-American countries, might show something fouler as far as mere filth, but nothing so incomparably mean and long. The brick blocks, of many shades of grimy red and fawn color, thin as paper, cheap as dishonest contractor and bad labor could make them, were bulging and lopping at every angle. Built by the half mile for a day's smartness, they were going to pieces rapidly. Here was no uniformity of cheapness, however, for every now and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... For it is plain that a man will never learn God's will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for God's will, and do not believe that God's will governs the world. Neither must he, as the Psalm says, 'stand in the way of sinners'—of profligate and dishonest men who break God's law. For if he follows their ways, and breaks God's law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or nothing about God's law, save in the way of bitter punishment. For let him but break God's law a little too long, and then—as the 2nd Psalm says—'God ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... a hand cut off rather than "give notice" to her beloved lady, as a matter of fact, she was pining; Tim was growing impatient. His affairs were marching well. Something had been saved out of the disaster caused by his dishonest partner. He had got in with a "good man," and they believed that together they would some day "beat the world" with their apples. Already they had obtained a London market. There wasn't much ready money to spare yet; but Tim could manage to pay Kate's way from San Francisco to Portland, and ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Elfride played by rote; Stephen by thought. It was the cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, she considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? To let him checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing was above the average among women, and she knew it), she allowed him to give ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... little old gentleman. "He's out collecting some pay for me now—from a dishonest fellow who didn't settle for two dozen ears that I boxed ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... in exchange, extortion alone affixed the price. These examples could not fail to have a deteriorating effect upon their untutored minds; and we find them accordingly losing their former regard for truth, honesty and fidelity; and becoming instead deceitful, dishonest and treacherous. Many of their ancient virtues however, are ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... order that you may assist the Judex and his staff in collecting the Bina and Terna, before the first of March, and may forward them without delay to the Count of Sacred Largesses. Let there be no extortion from the cultivator, no dishonest surrender of our rights.' ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... ever a good-looking man, women didn't try to capture and seduce? Manly beauty is the red rag that enthralls and excites women and renders them dishonest, though their honor doesn't lodge at the point they designate ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... been little influenced by the sallies of impulse or the miserable expediencies of faction—his schemes denote a mind acting on gigantic systems; and it is astonishing with what virtuous motives and with what prophetic art he worked through petty and (individually considered) dishonest means to grand and permanent results. He stands out to the gaze of time, the model of what a great and fortunate statesman should be, so long as mankind have evil passions as well as lofty virtues, and the state that he seeks to serve is surrounded by powerful and restless ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dear, that Chang-how is the guilty party; but the idea I meant to convey before you knocked me down with those big words was this—that Anarky, knowing what people think of the Chinese, indulges her dishonest yearnings, believing we shall suppose the thief to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... "Blessed are the poor in spirit," referring not to those who are temporally poor. The wicked are poor as well as the righteous. O, how dreadfully miserable are the wicked poor! a miserable life here, followed by a miserable hereafter. Many poor persons are haughty, ungodly, dishonest, profligate and unhappy. Neither does it mean voluntary poverty, or to turn mendicant monks and friars. It means the humble, those who are deeply sensible of their spiritual or mental and moral wants; in other ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... least sincere. Whatever brutalities he committed in his life, he did not talk sentiment and religion and humanitarianism as he pulled his victims to pieces, and he did not pull his victims to pieces for the sake of gold. He was an honest devil, a far higher thing than a dishonest man." ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... an expert and practical penman, being, as we have said, private secretary to his uncle, Signor Latrezzi; and thus being quite an expert in the use of the pen, he was the more easily able to prosecute his dishonest purpose, Thus he commenced carefully to write a note addressed to Carlton, and purporting to come from Florinda, in answer to his note of that evening. With her note open before him, and carefully noticing its style and manner, both in chirography and composition, he cunningly ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... an immense sweep, and the vigour of his intellect, his penetration and sagacity, enabled him to form mighty plans and work them out with success; but it is impossible to believe that he was a high-minded man, that he spurned everything that was dishonest, uncandid, and ungentlemanlike; he was not above trick and intrigue, and this was the fault of his character, which was unequal to his genius and understanding. However, notwithstanding his failings he was the greatest man we have had for a long time, and if life had been spared to ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... puts in missionary boxes, I reckon, and, 'cepting ez freight, don't cost nothin'. I found 'em tucked in the ribs o' the old Pontiac when I bought her, and I nailed 'em up in thar lest they should fall into dishonest hands. It's a lucky thing, Mr. Renshaw, that they comes into the honest fingers of a square man ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... cried Elizabeth. "How abominable! I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you! If from no better motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest—for dishonesty ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... on the subject was that Rovinski could do nothing but act as a spy, and afterwards make dishonest use of the knowledge he should acquire; but the man had put himself into Clewe's power, and he could not possibly get away from him until he should return to Cape Tariff, and even there it would be ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... leaving Venice to reside in Ravenna, he decided that, in spite of his absence, these pensions should continue until the expiration of his lease of the Palazzo Mocenigo. Venice watched him as jealously as a miser watches his treasure, and when he left it the honest poor were grieved and the dishonest vexed. Listening to these, one might have been led to believe, that Lord Byron had by a vow bound himself and his fortune to the service of Venice, and that his departure was ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Flannigan, and in this manner secured for herself as well as for the dame a means of livelihood for the next few days, Hester started off for Paradise Row. It was a fact that there was not a more dishonest nor evil-minded old woman in Liverpool than this same Mrs. Flannigan; but Hester was firmly convinced that she would be true to her word, and not rob her of a farthing, and this proved ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... crimes, and almost wept over its disastrous results. Commencing with the infamous Marat he eventually reached the rascal of a judge who had offended her. He abused his scandalous conduct in good set terms, and was exceedingly severe upon the dishonest scamp of a painter. However, he thought it best to let them off the punishment they so richly deserved; and ended by suggesting that it would perhaps be prudent, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... one year now I say to mineself, 'Carl Heinzman, you vas one dirty scoundrel. You vas dishonest; a sneak; a thief'; I don't like to call myself names like dose. It iss all righdt to be smart; but to be ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... aside, out of hearing. He forgot his private embarrassment in speculation as to the young woman's character. That she was acting distress and penitence he could hardly believe; indeed, there was no necessity to accuse her of dishonest behaviour. The trivial concealment between him and her amounted to nothing, did not alter the facts of the situation. But what could be at the root of her seemingly so foolish existence? Emmeline held to the view that she was in love with the man Cobb, though perhaps unwilling ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... and think only of the peasants. And that was inevitable, because I was convinced that there was absolutely nobody in the district except me to help the starving. The people surrounding me were uneducated, unintellectual, callous, for the most part dishonest, or if they were honest, they were unreasonable and unpractical like my wife, for instance. It was impossible to rely on such people, it was impossible to leave the peasants to their fate, so that the only thing left to do was to submit to necessity and see to setting ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... efforts in Washington had been able to assist in this work. Clay was away on a long absence in some of the eastward islands when Laura's troubles began, trying (and almost in vain,) to arrange certain interests which had become disordered through a dishonest agent, and consequently he knew nothing of the murder till he returned and read his letters and papers. His natural impulse was to hurry to the States and save his sister if possible, for he loved her with a deep and abiding affection. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the thing itself—the fact of my son's being so mean, so dishonest as to run into debt, when he knows I hate it—that I have cause to hate it, and to shrink from it as I would from—But this is idle talking. I see you smile. You do not know all ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... noblest qualities of the head and the heart are despised in the comparison. As wealth is the point of honor, it must be sought at every hazard, and the mortifying occurrences of the last twenty years, the dishonest bankruptcies, the numerous forgeries, perpetrated by the first people in social position, on a scale never known before, the innumerable defalcations which have crowded the papers, until they have become a matter of course; the insatiable craving ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... not deserve such gentleness, monseigneur," said Moreau, with tears in his eyes. "Yes, you are right; if I had been utterly dishonest I should now be worth five hundred thousand francs instead of half that sum. I offer to give you an account of my fortune, with all its details. But let me tell you, monseigneur, that in talking of you with Madame Clapart, it was never in derision; ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... dishonest, even that she was robbing some one who could not defend himself; and accordingly she added, repentantly, ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... classed him with Mr. Bryan, as "visionary."[149] And after Senator La Follette had become recognized as perhaps the most effective radical the country has produced, Mr. Berger still persisted in referring to him as "personally honest, but politically dishonest," and was quoted as saying, with particular reference to the Senator and his ideas of reform, and to the great satisfaction of the reactionary press: "An insurgent is 60 per cent of old disgruntled politician, 30 per cent clear hypocrisy, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... of the Accounts department gets his pension, as a matter of course, in accordance with those rules, whether his service has been able and faithful or not. The pension list is often the last refuge of incompetent and dishonest officials, to which they are gladly consigned by code-bound superiors, who cannot otherwise get rid of them. Nor am I certain that British rule 'grows more and more upon the affections' of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... proof than geography does, that the learned Council members who put Greenland in the Western Hemisphere, within the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine, were either ignorant or dishonest. The Monroe Doctrine, closing the Western Hemisphere to further European colonization, was proclaimed in 1823. Denmark, a European nation, colonized Greenland, proclaiming sole sovereignty in 1921, without any hint of protest from the United States that this European ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... where your uncle lives—Amersham Place, not far from Dunstable; you have a great part of Britain to get through; and for the first stages, I must leave you to your own luck and ingenuity. I have no acquaintance here in Scotland, or at least' (with a grimace) 'no dishonest ones. But further to the south, about Wakefield, I am told there is a gentleman called Burchell Fenn, who is not so particular as some others, and might be willing to give you a cast forward. In fact, sir, I believe it's the man's trade: a piece of knowledge that burns ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is ours, and no body alive hath more. Why are the Laws levell'd at us? are we more dishonest than the rest of Mankind? What we win, Gentlemen, is our own by the Law of Arms, and the ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... soon as his vision was adjusted he had determined within himself to become their leader. The day when a legislator meant a statesman was done with; it meant merely a man like other men, to be juggled with by shrewder politicians or to be tricked by more dishonest ones. They plunged into errors, and lived to retrieve them; they walked blindfold into traps, and with open eyes struggled out again. For he found them honest and he found them faithful where their ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... in every direction and by every route, this strange and heterogeneous mass of men, the representatives of every occupation, honest and dishonest, creditable and disgraceful; of every people under the sun, scattered through the gulches and ravines in the mountains, or grouped themselves at certain points in cities, towns and villages of canons or adobe. Perhaps never in the world's history did cities spring into existence so instantaneously, ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... one of the characters in which the author delighted: he has, with great subtilty of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... how you mean. Still, it is a very good thing their father is so much better. I think they have a great deal to thank you for, mamma—you, and Francie too, in her way. I think they should know I have not helped at all; it makes me feel almost—dishonest. If Francie writes to Bessie, couldn't she ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... struggles almost hopelessly! George Henry went down hill, though setting his heels as deeply as he could. His later plans failed, and there came a time when his strait was sore indeed—the time when he had not even the money with which to meet the current expenses of a modest life. To one vulgar or dishonest this is bad; to one cultivated and honorable it is far worse. George Henry chanced to come under the latter classification, and so it was that to him poverty assumed a phase especially acute, and affected him both ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... honest. Dishonesty is a losing game. A wise man was once asked what one gained by not telling the truth. The reply was, "Not to be believed when he speaks the truth." He was right. There are a great many other respects, too, in which a dishonest person suffers by his dishonesty. I must tell you what a lie once cost me. I was about nine years old, perhaps. In justice to myself, I ought to say that I was not much addicted to this vice; but told a fib once ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... made or modified facts. They gave fanciful interpretations to prophecies. And they tried to make prophecy prove what it could not prove, however unquestionable and miraculous the fulfilment might be. The manner in which Nelson and Keith dealt with prophecy was often childish, and even dishonest. A careful examination of their works left a most ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Earl, once President Of Englands Counsel, and her Treasury, Who liv'd in both, unstain'd with gold or fee, And left them both, more in himself content, Till the sad breaking of that Parlament Broke him, as that dishonest victory At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty Kil'd with report that Old man eloquent, Though later born, then to have known the dayes Wherin your Father flourisht, yet by you 10 Madam, me thinks I see him living yet; So well your words his noble vertues ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... and directed by Montecatino, the omnipotent persecutor, and hypocritical betrayer. In his heedlessness Tasso left books and papers loose about his rooms. These, he had good reason to suppose, were ransacked in his absence. There follows a melancholy tale of treacherous friends, dishonest servants, false keys, forged correspondence, scraps and fragments of imprudent compositions pieced together and brought forth to incriminate him behind his back. These arts were employed all through the year which followed his return ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds |
