"Dissembling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... both by her mask and fan, She never would so much as name a man. Not name a man? quoth I; yet be advis'd; Not love a man but me! let it be so. You shall not think, quoth she, my thought's disguis'd In flattering language or dissembling show; I say again, and I know what I do, I will not name a man alive but you. Into her house I came at unaware, Her back was to me, and I was not seen; I stole behind her, till I had her fair, Then with my hands I closed both her een; She, blinded ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... wanted to have you say to me," he answered, dissembling his feelings in a glance which would have ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... with so much gravity, that I hardly knew whether to attribute it to some intention of dissembling a little with his friend, or to an involuntary expression of the experience of a mind that felt the sorrows of a genuine scepticism. It ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... and demanded both Principal and Interest. I was then at my Lodging, but being sent for, I was strangely surpris'd to see the Clerk of my Company, who was also a Sergeant, metamorphos'd into my Brother. He shrunk two Inches lower at the Sight of me; but dissembling the matter, I am glad to see thee alive Sergeant said I, for I took it for granted you were kill'd at the Battle of Launden; and I, reply'd the impudent Villain, thought you had, otherwise I had not been here: but if you please, noble ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... danger to bee cast away. Whilest he was thus perswading, he caused the lead to be cast, and hauing craftily brought the shippe in three fadome and a halfe water, he suddenly began to sweare, and teare God in pieces, dissembling great danger, crying to him at the helme, beare vp hard, beare vp hard, so we went off, and were disappointed of our ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... openness of disposition, and too little acuteness and nicety of understanding. It is remarkable that, with greater violence of passion, the Southern nations possess, nevertheless, in a much higher degree the talent of dissembling. In the North, life is wholly founded on mutual confidence. Hence, in the drama, the spectators, from being less practised in intrigue, are less inclined to be delighted with concealment of views and their success by bold artifice, and with the presence of mind which, in unexpected ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... to speak every Thing they think, and if so, it would perhaps furnish a very strong Argument to the Cartesians, for the supporting of their [Doctrine,[2]] that the Soul always thinks. But as several are of Opinion that the Fair Sex are not altogether Strangers to the Art of Dissembling and concealing their Thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that Opinion, and have therefore endeavoured to seek after some better Reason. In order to it, a Friend of mine, who is an excellent Anatomist, has promised me by the first Opportunity to dissect a Woman's Tongue, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... his son held him back, and spoke in words of entreaty "Father, don't go in a hurry, and be not amniote with the maiden! I alone have to bear the blame of all this confusion, Which our friend has increased by his unexpected dissembling. Speak then, honour'd Sir! for to you the affair I confided; Heap not up pain and annoyance, but rather complete the whole matter; For I surely in future should not respect you so highly, If you play practical jokes, instead ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... conveyed in the word "humbug"—as most people do when that accusation of shrewdness and deep dissembling is brought against ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... art a happy man," said the Dishonest Gain, "and thy bleeding head is but mere dissembling. Who ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... child and parents. Those parents are wisest who train their sons and daughters in the utmost liberty both of thought and speech; who do not instill dogmas into them, but inculcate upon them the sovereign importance of correct ways of forming opinions; who, while never dissembling the great fact that if one opinion is true, its contradictory cannot be true also, but must be a lie and must partake of all the evil qualities of a lie, yet always set them the example of listening to unwelcome opinions with patience and candour. Still all parents are not wise. ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... answer, dissembling what pique he might have felt, and putting real interest into his words. "Is Molly Brant, then, come down from the Castle? What does she at the Hall? I thought Lady Johnson would have ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... methinks you long to know whether there be no remedies for you to be had, that you may also be as well arm'd against the rigid natured, subtle and dissembling Lovers, as well as they have against the vitious Gentlewomen; take notice, that since you have subjected your selves to that foolish fashion of these times, never of your selves to go a wooing; but with patience will expect who will come ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... his enimies, delude their sight by one meanes or other, y they diue not into his subtilties: how he must be familiar with all & trust none, drinke, carouse and lecher with him out of whom he hopes to wring anie matter, sweare and forsweare, rather than be suspected, and in a word, haue the art of dissembling at his fingers ends as ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... out upon the hot, sunlit courtyard. There, as Anjou himself tells us, they found themselves hemmed about by some two hundred sullen, grim-faced gentlemen and officers of the Admiral's party, who eyed them without dissembling their hostility, who preserved a silence that was disturbed only by the murmurs of their constant whisperings, and who moved to and fro before the royal group utterly careless of the proper degree of ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the wife of his host and comrade in dishonourable and unlawful love, and as she made show of willingly giving ear to him, he was persuaded that he had won her. But she was virtuous, and, while dissembling towards him, deceived his hopes and made known his viciousness to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... 'Temple,' said I, dissembling a little; 'I tell you candidly: you won't please me by doing anything disagreeable to you. A dog pulled by the collar is not much of a companion. I start for Julia to-morrow before daylight. If you like your bed best, stop ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... behind, my stay May aid the cause; dissembling I must learn, Necessity shall teach me how to vary My features to the looks of him I serve. I'll thrust myself disguis'd among the croud, And fill their ears with murmurs of the deed: Whisper all is not well, blow up the sparks Of discord, and it ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... Central Office man over there," she observed obliquely, dissembling considerable uncertainty as to what a Central Office man ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... lamentable burials of these so famous Princes, the King, taking occasion of the death of these principall men of his armie, agreed, making none priuie thereto, to receiue the money which was offered him for his differing off the siege of the citie of Sagitta, yet dissembling to make peace, with the Saracens, but that he ment to go through with the worke, that he had begunne. Whereupon sending a message vnto Iaphet, hee aduised the English souldiers to come downe to Acres with their fleete, and to conferre and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... striving for a masterly finish to the unequal combat. He arose, dissembling cheerful confidence, straightened the frame of a steel-engraved Daniel Webster on the wall, and thrice paced the length of the room, falsely appearing to be engaged ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... of the situation in its remotest bearings, and determination to practice dissembling, cautious craft, Paul's decisive acts in this brooding tragedy were to be the result of ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... constant pressure of the mind; the perpetual repetition of its acts. You detect at once a conceited, or foolish person. It is stamped on his countenance. You can see on the faces of the cunning or dissembling, certain corresponding lines, traced on the face as legibly as ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... his Courage or Behaviour." On the 6th January a gang of pirates "got privately ashoar together," and held a fo'c's'le council under the greenwood. They "held a Consult," says Sharp, "about turning me presently out, and put another in my Room." John Cox, the "true-hearted dissembling New-England Man," whom Sharp "meerly for old Acquaintance-sake" had promoted to be captain, was "the Main Promoter of their Design." When the consult was over, the pirates came on board, clapped Mr Sharp in irons, put him down on the ballast, and voted an old ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the terrible casualty which ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... merchants of Calicut, by the governor's procurement, with fair promises of part payment shortly. But it is not the custom of the best or the worst in this country to keep their words, being certain only in dissembling. Mr Woolman was desirous of going to Nassapore to make sales, but the governor put him off with divers shifts from time to time. The 3d July, our messenger for Surat returned, reporting that he had been set upon when well forwards on his way, and had his money ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... us if we're kind; And yet upbraid us if we seem severe! Do you, t' encourage us to tell our mind, Yourselves put off disguise, and be sincere. You talk of coquetry!—Your own false hearts Compel our sex to act dissembling parts. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... scheme to which they were made parties, simply as perpetrators of its murders and outrages. Here it is equally vain to look for revelations from the mercenary workers, who know nothing, or from the elevated leaders, who know all, but have an interest of life and death in dissembling their knowledge. Revelations of any value from those who cannot, and from those who will not, reveal the ambitious schemes communicated to a very few, are alike hopeless. In default of these, let us examine if any one incident, or class ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... pollicemur, cras ludos circenses Persicos donabimus. Alexander, says Eckhel, had too much modesty and wisdom to permit himself to receive honors which ought only to be the reward of victory, if he had not deserved them; he would have contented himself with dissembling his losses. Eckhel, Doct. Num. vet. vii. 276. The medals represent him as in triumph; one, among others, displays him crowned by Victory between two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. P. M. TR. P. xii. Cos. iii. PP. Imperator paludatus D. hastam. S. parazonium, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Then Satan, awhile dissembling his rank, A piece of amorous fun tries: Quoth he, "I'm a Netherlander born; Fair Virgin, receive not my suit with scorn; I'm a Prince in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... namely, Domnus, Timaeus, and Cyril. If it was for too much favoring Paul of Samosata, condemned at Antioch in the year 269, he must have been deceived, for want of a sufficient penetration into the impiety of that dissembling heretic. It is certain, at least, that he died in the catholic communion; which also appears from a fragment of a letter written by him to the church of Antioch, and still extant in the Alexandrian Chronicle. Though a priest of Antioch, we find him at Nicomedia, in ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... actor, "stricken in age, melancholick, ruling after the crabbed forwardness of his doting will, impartial, for he loved none but himself, politic because experienced, familiar with none except for his profit, skillful in dissembling, trusting no one, silent, covetous, counting all things honest that were profitable." This characterisation cannot possibly have referred to Shakespeare in the year 1585. When it is noticed, however, that nearly all of Greene's later attacks are directed against the Theatre and ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... Then pretending to be highly pleased with his nephew, Pelias entertained him sumptuously for five days, during which time all was festivity and rejoicing. On the sixth, Jason appeared before his uncle, and with manly firmness demanded from him the throne and kingdom which were his by right. Pelias, dissembling his true feelings, smilingly consented to grant his request, provided that, in return, Jason would undertake an expedition for him, which his advanced age prevented him from accomplishing himself. He informed his nephew that the shade of Phryxus had appeared ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... Hawke was not in the least, nor for one moment, deterred by the dangers before him, whose full extent he, as a skilful seaman, entirely realized; but his was a calm and steadfast as well as a gallant temper, that weighed risks justly, neither dissembling nor exaggerating. He has not left us his reasoning, but he doubtless felt that the French, leading, would serve partially as pilots, and must take the ground before him; he believed the temper and experience of ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... for the space of four hours, and, considering the hints which he had thrown out of possessing an influence of the most interesting kind over the fortunes of Quentin Durward, what should assure him that this train was not of his laying? And if so, was it not probable that such a dissembling villain had set it on foot to conceal some new plan of treachery—perhaps to seduce Isabelle out of the protection of the worthy Bishop? This was a matter to be closely looked into, for Quentin felt a repugnance to this individual proportioned to the unabashed ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... open-mouthed and staring, for out from the gloom of the smithy issued Black George himself, with Prue upon his arm. The Ancient stared also, but, dissembling his vast surprise, he dealt the lid of his snuffbox ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... no use dissembling with me, I know all. Be easy; we are playing a game in which you are laying one against a thousand; moreover, here is something on account to compensate you for the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this to urge all to learn how properly to differentiate between the Law and the Gospel, in order to avoid dissembling. When it come to the article of justification we must not yield, if we want to retain the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... to find the object of his search at the post office, where Benny was seated on a barrel, pensively kicking his heels. Dissembling his eagerness, John nodded a greeting in his direction, and, passing over to the corner of the grocery sacred to the Government pigeonholes, asked for ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... even to restraint; but who could say whether she was curable or not, until she was able to make a clean breast of her symptoms instead of concealing them? In their eagerness to stamp out disease, these people overshot their mark; for people had become so clever at dissembling—they painted their faces with such consummate skill—they repaired the decay of time and the effects of mischance with such profound dissimulation—that it was really impossible to say whether any one was well or ill till after an intimate acquaintance of months or years. Even ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... quietly; yet where untrue reports and lies turn to the hindrance of God's truth, they be in no ways to be tolerated and suffered. Wherefore these be to signify to the world that it was not I that did set up the mass at Canterbury, but a false, flattering, lying, and dissembling monk, which caused the mass to be set up there without my advice and counsel: and as for offering myself to say mass before the Queen's Highness, or in any other place, I never did, as her Grace knoweth well. But if her Grace will give me leave, I ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... Not everyone who hides the truth about a crime is guilty of collusion, but only he who deceitfully hides the matter about which he makes the accusation, by collusion with the defendant, dissembling his proofs, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... (a.u. 834)] [Sidenote:—1—] Domitian was both, bold and passionate, both treacherous and given to dissembling. Hence, from these two characteristics, rashness on the one hand and craftiness on the other, he did much harm, falling upon some persons with the swiftness of a thunderbolt and damaging others by carefully prepared plots. The ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... interrupted, holding up her riding rod. "I'll have no dissembling, there hath been enough of that, Giles Headley. Thou hast sold him, soul and body, to one of yon cruel, bloodthirsty plundering, burning captains, that the poor child may be slain and murthered! Is this the fair promises you made to his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as who should say, Lately come out of the fire, I would go thrust my self into the flame. Let Maistres nice go Saint it where she list, And coyly quaint it with dissembling face. I hold in scorn the fooleries that they use: I being free, will never subject my self To any such as she ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... human form, that bears a heart, A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruined maid, and their ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... honor, bringing in their train a decadence of all good and sound habitudes. What can be more fatal to a State than to exile, as malcontents, honest citizens, simply because they do not hold the opinion of the multitude, and because they are ignorant of the art of dissembling! What can be more fatal to a State than to treat as enemies and to put to death men who have committed no other crime than that of thinking independently! Behold, then, the scaffold, the dread of the bad man, which now becomes the glorious theater where tolerance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... the dissembling queens wept and groaned more bitterly than before; and, after pressing them again and again to tell him, queen Badoura at last answered thus: Sir, our grief is so extraordinary, and so just, that we ought not to see the light of the sun ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... that morning from the country, she had reached Paris at one o'clock and Miss Painter's landing some ten minutes later. Miss Painter's mouldy little man-servant, dissembling a napkin under his arm, had mildly attempted to oppose her entrance; but Anna, insisting, had gone straight to the dining-room and surprised her friend—who ate as furtively as certain animals—over a strange meal of cold mutton and lemonade. Ignoring the embarrassment ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the lady, hearing of my arrival, and that I was not well, came to me in haste; and seeing me pale and dejected, said, "My dear love, what is the matter with you?" "Madam," I replied, dissembling, "I have a violent pain in my head." The lady seemed to be much concerned, and asked me to sit down, for I had arisen to receive her. "Tell me," said she, "how your illness was occasioned. The last time I had ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... To wonder whence my rapture is inspired; But soon the smile which dawns upon thy lip Shall tell it, and the tenderer bloom o'er all 370 That soft cheek springing to the marble neck, Which bends aside in vain, revealing more What it would thus keep silent, and in vain The sense of praise dissembling. Then my song Great Nature's winning arts, which thus inform With joy and love the rugged breast of man, Should sound in numbers worthy such a theme: While all whose souls have ever felt the force Of those enchanting passions, to my lyre Should ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... it before that," replied Trent with a slightly crestfallen air. "And I thought I was acting the part of a person who was not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good at dissembling. I shouldn't wonder if even old Peppmueller noticed something through his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may have been as an undeclared suitor, I am going to be much worse now. Here's the place," he ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley |
