"Falsehood" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incalculably great, and many a one would be horrified to see another as he really is. Oh, for some Asmodeus of morality, to make not only roofs and walls transparent to his favourites, but also to lift the veil of dissimulation, fraud, hypocrisy, pretence, falsehood and deception, which is spread over all things! to show how little true honesty there is in the world, and how often, even where it is least to be expected, behind all the exterior outwork of virtue, secretly and in the innermost recesses, unrighteousness sits at the helm! It is just on this ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... times in the New Testament. Special mention need be made only of the bearers of the name in the New Testament. (1) A member of the first Christian community, who, with his wife Sapphira, was miraculously punished by Peter with sudden death for hypocrisy and falsehood (Acts v. 1-10; cf. Josh. vii. 1 ff.). (2) A disciple at Damascus who figures in the story of the conversion and baptism of Paul (Acts ix. 10-17, xxh. 12-16.) (3) Son of Nedebaios (Jos. Ant. xx. 5. 2), a high priest who presided ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the design and colouring of the pieces as the exigencies of poetry permit:—the result aimed at being to unite the actual tone and spirit of the time concerned, with the best estimate which has been reached by the research and genius of modern investigators. Our island story, freed from the 'falsehood of extremes,'—exorcised, above all, from the seducing demon of party-spirit, I have thus here done my best to set forth. And as this line of endeavour has conducted and constrained me, especially when the seventeenth century is ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... "That falsehood adds another stone to the many that will sink him in the lake of perdition, if there be one!" muttered Mr. Hamilton, as he departed for the counting-room. The last few sentences had fallen unheeded on Florence's ear, for she sat looking out the window, her thoughts evidently far away. But every ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... from the objects of ancient superstition; disowning in His name the symbols and images that had profaned His Temple. But they have not seen that the utmost which can be effected by human effort, is to substitute impressions relatively correct, for others whose falsehood has been detected, and to replace a gross symbolism by a purer one. Every man, without being aware of it, worships a conception of his own mind; for all symbolism, as well as all language, shares the subjective character of the ideas it represents. The ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... said Bill Mosely, brazenly persisting in his falsehood. "A man that'll steal will lie. Perhaps you will charge us with ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... of music I must be the advocate of Mme. de Stael. She has been accused of falsehood in stating that in the Cottages in Germany a Piano Forte was a necessary piece of furniture. I cannot from my own knowledge go quite so far, but from my short experience of German manners I may safely say there is no nation in which Music is ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... and the Devil, as usual, is the first to seize for his purposes whatever noble impulse comes over men, and this search for the divine of the mass becomes a sham, a fashionable craze. Hence the rage, the boom. This is the inevitable stage of falsehood through which every noble aspiration must pass. By and by the stage of truth must come, and come it shall, in due time. Russian authors will then be read not because it is the fashion and the craze, but because they have a message from the very ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... neither bate his diligence nor hold him back from riches; but it will smite down his avarice and restrain his greed of gold; it will make him abhor the fraud that is gainful, and eschew the speculation that is hazardous, and shrink from the falsehood that is customary, and check the competition that is selfish; and it will utterly destroy the deceptive hand-bill, and the cooked accounts, and the fictitious capital, as well the enormous dishonesties ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... me your pardon, Sir] I wish Hamlet had made some other defence; it is unsuitable to the character of a good or a brave man, to shelter himself in falsehood. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... twenty could lie without a blush and with the air of perfect candor. When dissipation dragged him into the mire of debt, and his allowance would not help him out, he resorted again to the most ingenious devices of falsehood. He pretended that the money wasted in riotous living had been stolen by violence, and, to carry out the deception he studied the part of an actor. Forcing the locks of his trunk and guitar-case, he ran into the director's room ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Hewes and John his son, for terming such as sing in the congregation fools, and William Hewes also for charging Reverend Mr. Corbitt with falsehood in his doctrine, were ordered to pay a fine of fifty shillings each, and to make humble confession in a public ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... have been with a crowd that he disliked, than felt himself alone. He said to me one day, with a face of great solemnity, "What must have been that man's feelings, who thought himself the first deist?" Finding no footing in certainty, he delighted to confound the borders of theoretical truth and falsehood. He was fond of telling wild stories to children, engrafted on things about them; wrote letters to people abroad, telling them that a friend of theirs had come out in genteel comedy; and persuaded George Dyer that Lord Castlereagh was the author of Waverley! The same excellent person walking ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... am unhappily placed in so false a position with regard to this man,"—pointing to Dagober—"that I might be thought to have acted from private resentment for the injury he has done me; perhaps I may so act without knowing it, while I fancy that I am only influenced by love of justice, horror of falsehood, and respect for our holy religion. Well—who lives long enough will know—and may heaven forgive me if I am deceived!—In any case, the law will pronounce upon it; and if they should prove innocent, they will be released in a month ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of George the Fourth's worthless and erring life is more discreditable and dishonorable to him than the manner in which he behaved to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the utter falsehood of the denial which he had given to the reports that a marriage ceremony had taken place between them—a falsehood which, be it remembered, he had declared to Charles Fox upon his honor to be a truthful statement. The moralist may be a little puzzled how to make up his ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... essentials—the scene in the 5th act between Alexis and Gasper bears the strongest resemblance to that between Sir Feeble and Sir Cautious in The Lucky Chance. Mrs. Cowley was ashamed to advance a direct lie, but she was not ashamed to insinuate a falsehood—A Naeuio uel sumpsisti multa, si fateris; uel, si negas surripuisti—Cicero.' The strictures of our stage historian are entirely apposite and correct. Henry, Don Gasper and Antonia of the Georgian comedy are none other but Bellmour, Sir Feeble, and Leticia. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... had it placed in a small box, the key of which he gave to the Moro, telling him to keep it until the promise was fulfilled; but to consider that after treason nothing could be more blameworthy than falsehood. The Moro salaamed low, and said that he would not lie, and that they would fulfil their promise, little by little. And so they did, for, on that same day, four more messengers came with gold; and all entreated and begged the master-of-camp not to be offended at the delay, if there ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... apprehension. At other times, the auditor being in a dreamy, sentimental, and altogether unprincipled mood, he will drink the old man's salt-water by the bucketful and feel none the worse for it. Which is the worse, wilfully to tell, or wilfully to believe, a pretty little falsehood which will not hurt any one? I suppose you can't believe wilfully; you only pretend to believe. My part of the game, therefore, is certainly as bad as the Captain's. Perhaps I take kindly to his beautiful perversions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... we are inclined to over-value great men when their graves have been long green, or their monuments gray above them, but we believe it is only then we estimate them as they deserve. Prejudice and falsehood have no enduring vitality, and posterity is generally anxious to render justice to the mighty dead; we dwell upon their actions,—we quote their sentiments and opinions,—we class them amongst our household gods—and keep their memories green within the sanctuary of our HOMES; we read to our children ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... enterprise, may be accounted the greatest praise. That Goethe ever meditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no direct evidence: but indeed such is the end and aim of high poetry at all times and seasons; for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but the purest truth; and if he would lead captive our whole being, not rest satisfied with a part of it, he must address us on interests that are, not that were, ours; and in a dialect which finds a response, and not a ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... girl, who was the soul of truth, there was deepest shame in the idea that her kinswoman, the woman whom of all the world she most owed reverence and honour, could be deemed capable of falsehood. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... "assisted," or might have done so. Catiline, we believe, has found no formal defender, but the Catilinarian Conspiracy is now generally admitted to have been the Popish Plot of antiquity, with an ounce of truth to a pound of falsehood in the narratives of it that have come down to us from Rome's revolutionary age, in political pamphlets and party orations. Cicero's craze on the subject, and that tendency which all men have to overrate the value of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they quarreled, and their wrath increased, Till Chang said, "Let us leave it to the priest: Lo, here he comes to meet us." "It is well," Said honest Ching: "no falsehood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... baseness to me proves how incapable you are of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. How wretchedly I have been deceived ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... falsehood: thou wert far away, Gathering the lotus down the Egypt-water, Wifely and duteous, hearing not the fray, Taking no stain from ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... depended upon, since for the value of the most trifling sum they would swear to any thing. Nevertheless, although they do not hesitate to call upon God and the Prophet to witness the most flagrant untruths, they will not support a falsehood if put to a certain test. When required to swear by a favourite wife, they refuse to perjure themselves by a pledge which they esteem sacred, and will either shrink altogether from the ordeal or ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... disappointed with the measure of applause bestowed upon his efforts, and complained that the obbligato cadenza—which Mr. Parke had time out of mind played on the oboe in the symphony of the song, "Had I a heart for falsehood framed"—interfered with the effect of his singing, and that the applause which was obtained by the cadenza deprived him of his encore. Accordingly he requested that the cadenza might be suppressed. "Though I thought this ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Except in some of his earlier plays, written before he had found his proper strength, and before his genius had got fairly disciplined into power, there is nothing ambitious or obtrusive in his idealizing; no root of falsehood in the work, as indeed there never is in any work of art that is truly worthy the name. Works of artifice are a very different sort of thing. And one, perhaps the main, secret of Shakespeare's mode in this respect ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... remarkable quickness of perception, he was amazed. Still he did not think of denying it. She would only have to extend her hand to prove that he was telling a falsehood. The blind woman's usually placid face had become stern. "So it is necessary to ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... her quizzically. "Do you mean," he asked, "that, having broken the rule, you intend to evade the penalty by—to put it flatly—a falsehood?" ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... with in his wanderings, shifting from place to place continually, and asking assistance to convey him to his native land. Possibly he was an impostor, one of the multitudinous shapes of English vagabondism, and told his falsehood with such powerful simplicity, because, by many repetitions, he had convinced himself of its truth. But if, as I believe, the tale was fact, how very strange and sad was this old man's fate! Homeless on a foreign shore, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... moon-god it is important to remember that one of the primary functions of this deity, which later became specialized in the Egyptian god Thoth, was the measuring of time and the keeping of records. The moon, in fact, was the controller of accuracy, of truth, and order, and therefore the enemy of falsehood and chaos. The identification of the moon with Osiris, who from a dead king eventually developed into a king of the dead, conferred upon the great Father of Waters the power to exact from men respect for truth and order. For even if at first these ideas were only vaguely ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... contemptible the oft-repeated accusation that sceptics shut out evidence because they will not be governed by the morality of Christianity. You I know will not believe that in my case, and I know its falsehood as a general rule. I only ask, Do you think I can change the self-formed convictions of twenty-five years, and could you think such a change would have anything in it to merit reward from justice? I am thankful ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... figure as that of the same old man she had seen enter the Zabel cottage a few minutes before, there being no reason for indefiniteness on this point, her conscience being sufficiently elastic for any falsehood that would further her ends. And lastly, her manner, under the examination to which she had been subjected, was not that of one who felt herself under a personal attack. It was a strange, suggestive, hesitating manner, baffling ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... heel; and now the masses, degraded and brutalized, in their recoil from her tyranny, cast off all restraint. Enraged at the glittering cheat to which they had so long paid homage, they rejected truth and falsehood together; and mistaking license for liberty, the slaves of vice exulted in their ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... He knew very well that he was not entitled to it. He was at no expense for the boy's clothes, and certainly Bill richly earned the very frugal fare, of which he partook sparingly, and the privilege of a hard bed in the attic. But it had struck him as possible that Mr. Waldo, not knowing the falsehood of his representations, would ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... vehemently declaring that he had only climbed the tree to "have a look at Master Darwin's pigeons," and had not picked so much as a leaf, let alone a walnut; and the gardener, "shaking the truth out of him" by the collar of his fustian jacket, was preaching loudly on the sin of adding falsehood to theft, when the parson's daughter came up, and, in the end, acquitted poor Jack, and gave him leave to amuse himself as ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... a trice we fell on endless 5 Themes colloquial; how the fact, the falsehood With Bithynia, what the case about it, Had it helped me to ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... to meet their Great Judge face to face, can outweigh the reckless evidence of Manchester thieves and pickpockets. Yes; in that hour they told us they were innocent, but were ready to die; and we believed them. We believe them still. Aye, do we! They did not go to meet their God with a falsehood on their lips. On that night before their execution, oh, what a scene! What a picture did England present at the foot of the Manchester scaffold! The brutal populace thronged thither in tens of thousands. ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... tonsure does an undisciplined man who speaks falsehood become a Samana; can a man be a Samana who is still held captive by ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... rend themselves away? Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage; And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage? With eyes that keep their heavenly health—the innocence of youth To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth? Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way— Oh, fly the charmed margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey. Round many a step that seeks the light, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... miserable it is, amongst these evidences of his industry and genius, to find that all his ingenuity turned to the furtherance of a fraud. He seems to have been morally dead to every thing like the disgrace attending falsehood; for, when struggling afterwards in London to appear prosperous while starving, he wrote home to Mr. Catcott, and concludes his letter by stating that he intended going abroad as a surgeon, adding, "Mr. Barrett has it in his power to assist me greatly, by his ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... saying this sentence at the beginning of its most important chapter: "The first duty of a minority is to become a majority." This is a statement which has its underlying truth, but it also has its dangerous falsehood; viz., any minority which cannot become a majority is not worthy of any consideration. But suppose that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority? Women, for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the Rhine made answer, "So be it. If thou swear the oath here, I will acquit thee of the falsehood." Then the Burgundians stood round in a ring, and Siegfried swore it with his hand; whereupon the great king said, "Verily, I hold thee guiltless, nor lay to thy charge the word ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... and Elizabeth sit quietly upon their horses. They have come home. Not by the low road of cowardly surrender; not by the crooked road of compromise and falsehood; not by the soft road of ease and self-indulgence; but by the straight road of faith and courage and ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... so loved peace that during his reign Rome had no wars and no enemies, so that the doors of the Temple of Janus were never once opened while he was on the throne. He built a temple to Faith, that men might learn to avoid falsehood and to act honestly. He taught the people to sacrifice nothing but the fruits of the earth, cakes of flour, and roasted corn, and to shed no blood upon the altars. And so Home was peaceful and prosperous throughout his long reign, and grew rapidly in wealth and population. He died ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which subjects them to the scorn of all they converse with, and renders them at all times suspected, even though they should, as in the case of Hetty, really speak the truth. Such were my reflections upon falsehood, nor could I help altogether blaming the owner of the pincushion for her hasty judgment relating to it. Somebody, she was certain, must have done it; it was impossible it could come so by itself. That, to be sure, was very true; but then she never ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... sovereigns and politicians of the south have lived to witness the practice of the monarch who had most laid to heart the precepts of the "Prince," he would have felt that he had not written in vain, and that his great paragon of successful falsehood, Ferdinand of Arragon, had been surpassed by the great grandson. For the ideal perfection of perfidy, foreshadowed by the philosopher who died in the year of Philip's birth, was thoroughly embodied at last by this potentate. Certainly Nicholas Macchiavelli could have hoped ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... women. At least we believe there are. It is a necessary part of our belief. Who does not think well of mother or sister? But who believes entirely in a mother or a sister? Absolutely and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the profoundest love cannot ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... little thing, and was always train-sick when their jumps began too early in the morning), went straight ahead with her toilet, tried to correct her pallor with a little too much rouge, and with the glaring falsehood that it was clearing up, put on the pathetic little fifteen-dollar suit that she religiously ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... treasure which I had found there was smiling, first became flashing as a mirror of gold in the sunbeam; then it replied, "A conscience dark, either with its own or with another's shame, will indeed feel thy speech as harsh; but nevertheless, all falsehood laid aside, make thy whole vision manifest, and let the scratching be even where the itch is; for if at the first taste thy voice shall be molestful, afterwards, when it shall be digested, it will leave vital nourishment. This cry of thine shall do as the wind, which heaviest ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... so," Phoebe agreed. Her conscience smote her for the deception she was practicing on the dear white-capped woman. "But what's the use of straining at every little gnat of a falsehood," she thought, ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... truth from them and floods their minds with lies. Those in command—officers, educated men, claiming the service of their soldiers and civil guard and the respect of their nation—deliberately hash a daily meal of falsehood and serve up German victories and triumphs on land and sea as sauce to the starvation diet of their ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... him hither to conceal him, eh? You lie, you dog. Another falsehood, and I'll tie you to my horse's tail and drag you all the way to Dukla. What ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... that. He is not accused on light grounds, and if he denies his guilt, must still be tried. But trials are few, for in most cases the guilty man pleads guilty. When he makes a false plea and is clearly proved guilty, his penalty is doubled. Falsehood is, however, so despised among us that few offenders would lie ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... was made was just as convinced that his enemies had been unjustly assailed, and that he himself had been well and courteously treated. In such a situation it was just possible that Mr. Chamberlain would escape from his position with flying colours; would have the Daily News censured for falsehood by a House of Commons that believed in its truth; and have himself declared chivalrous by a Parliament that knows him to be malignant, unscrupulous, and merciless. To prevent such a catastrophe it was a painful but ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... men who falsehood dread In wealth and glory ever grow, As flames with greater brightness glow With oil in ceaseless ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Nor flatt'ring deceit e'er taught my tongue, The tale of falsehood, to disguise my thoughts: To Virtue, and her fair companion, Truth, I've ever bow'd, their holy precepts kept, And scann'd by them the actions of my life. Suspicion surely ne'er disturbs the brave, They never know the fears of ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... the Florentine, Vespucci, when it should, by right of "discovery," have been called after the Genoese, Columbus? The answer to this question involves the following of clews centuries old, through a labyrinth of falsehood and misstatement that was built up three hundred years ago. The first clew may be found on page 197 of this biography, where mention is made of the translation of Vespucci's letter to Lorenzo de ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... designate foreigners in this region except by those in the mandarin offices. Besides the absurdity of charging foreigners with distributing poison, the whole confession bears the evidence not only of falsehood, but, if ever made, of having been put into the man's mouth by those inside the mandarin offices and forced from him by torture, for the express purpose of exciting ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... of abjuration he took the name of Andre d'Entrevergues, the son of Scipio d'Entrevergues, Sieur de Caille, and of Madame Susanne de Caille, his wife. He stated that he was twenty-three years of age, and that he did not know how to write. The falsehood of his story was, therefore, plainly apparent from the beginning. The eldest son of the Sieur de Caille was called Isaac and not Andre; the soldier took the name of d'Entrevergues, and gave it to the father, while the family name ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... Lord has not flatly denied it—he cannot deny it—he knows it as well as the hon. and learned Member for Greenock—he knows it as well as the very man whose hand did the evil— he knows there have been garbling, mutilation, practically and essentially falsehood and forgery, in these despatches which have been laid before the House. Why was it refused to give the original despatches when they were asked for in 1842 by the hon. Member for Inverness-shire (Mr. H. Baillie), and when they were asked for at a later period ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... any reparation possible, and his forgiveness is much more difficult. Art, being the embodiment of the artist's ideal, is truly the corporeal substance of his spiritual self; and that there should be any falsehood in it, any deliberate failure to present him faithfully, it is as monstrous and unnatural as it would be for a man to disavow his own flesh and bones. Here we are every one of us going through life committed and attached to our bodies; ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... a smile,—"It seems to me that your extreme fear of hearing falsehood, must often prevent you from ascertaining the truth. It is true, that wherever the interest of a witness is involved, it has an immediate tendency to make him misstate facts: but so would personal ill-will—so would his sympathies—so ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... wealth of roses at this time of year. I saw Augusta Darrell's eye wander restlessly in that direction many times during dinner, and I felt that the dear girl I loved so fondly was in an atmosphere of falsehood. What was the nature of the past acquaintance between those two people? and why was it tacitly denied by both of them? If it had been an ordinary friendship, there could have been no reason for this concealment and suppression. I had never quite made up my mind to trust Angus Egerton, though I liked ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... wool sold for that season. Mr. Dean subsequently purchased twenty lambs at my sale, that he might have some of the stock; which he sold to me again, when I called upon him some time afterwards. Out of this circumstance, an infamous and scurrilous falsehood was propagated in the columns of the Taunton Courier, representing me as having swindled my friend Mr. Dean out of a flock of sheep. When I come to that period of my history, I shall fully explain the affair to the satisfaction of every candid person, and I shall convince ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... even an abridgment of it.1 A few of the incidents may be noted. The chief object of the Patriarch was to induce him to say, that his faith was like that of the Romish Church. This he declined doing, as it would be a falsehood. The Patriarch offered to absolve him from the sin of falsehood, to which Asaad replied, "What the law of nature condemns, no man can make lawful." Accompanied by a priest, he visited his own college of Ain Warka, but ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... animated, and, but for Jessie's sad face, and her occasional look of surprise, might have made herself believed. But that grave face, so unusual to his darling Jessie, told Uncle Morris that Emily was palming off a falsehood upon them. Guy also was sure she was telling a lie. When she had finished her story, ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... mean time a sudden and tumultuous surprise took possession of the different listeners, which was modified and exhibited according to their respective characters, or to the amount of interest that each had in the truth or falsehood of what had just been announced. The Doge clung to the hope, improbable as it seemed, with a tenacity proportioned to his recent anguish, while Sigismund stood like one beside himself. His eye wandered from the simple and benevolent, but degraded, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... this youth." Hereat calmed was his affright, and his heart was satisfied quite, and he gave her promise of safety and a binding bond and contract not to harm her; whereupon said she to him, "O my brother, womankind was created for mankind, and mankind was created for womankind, and albe falsehood is an excuse, yet soothfastness is more saving and safe-guiding. The whole of this business is mine and I am she who married him and made with him that condition which he accepted for himself, being contented with the covenant and its penalty." Now when Ja'afar heard ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... it that Raymond should confide his dying message to his sworn and most deadly foe? The story seemed to bear upon it the impress of falsehood. Sanghurst, studying her face intently, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... I was, and am; unless your honest thoughts Will look upon my penitence, and save me, I must be ever Villain: O good Souldiers You that have Roman hearts, take heed of falsehood: Take heed of blood; take heed of foul ingratitude. The Gods have scarce a mercy for those mischiefs, Take heed of pride, 'twas that that ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... question had roused him from a reverie. "Because," said he, "I must either have told a falsehood ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... kept silence. Her heart was seething with scorn for this handsome scamp who had put this outrage upon them all. It was bad enough to be a thief, but to this he had added deception, falsehood, and gross ingratitude. Nor did the girl's contempt spare herself. Neither warning nor advice—and Lady Jim had been prodigal of both—had availed to open her eyes about the Westerner. She had been as foolish over him as a schoolgirl ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... nursery, and is the work of the mother. Upon her personal exhibition of truth, justice, virtue, &c., depends the same moral elements in the character of her child. In the nursery we receive our first lessons in virtue or in vice, in honesty or dishonesty, in truth or in falsehood, in purity or in corruption. The full-grown man is the matured child morally as well as physically and intellectually. The same may be said of the spiritual formation and growth of the child. Spiritual culture belongs eminently to the nursery. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... not truthful. You stole it—you know you did. You shall be punished for this falsehood," he stormed, and reached for ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... teach others to cheat, was acting either wisely or prudently, then he was a very foolish and short-sighted man, and altogether mistaken. For be sure and certain, and settle it in your minds, that neither falsehood or dishonesty is ever either wise or prudent, but short-sighted, foolish, certain to punish itself. Such teaching is totally contrary to our Lord's own teaching. Agree with thine adversary quickly, He says, while thou art in the way with him, lest he deliver thee to the Judge. If thou hast ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... that. Your enemies will pretend to believe it, and for a time the people who love to gossip will repeat it to each other. But you will live it down. Every act of your life will contradict the lie, and Tandy's reputation is not of a kind to lead sensible people to believe his falsehood when you have set the truth against it. You are depressed and despondent now. The mood is unworthy ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... All this clumsy falsehood Foy uttered with a wooden face and in a voice which would not have convinced a three-year-old infant, priding himself the while ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... religious upbringing with a strong moral side to it. His private life was, in the usual limited sense, blameless. He was almost ascetic in his habits, except as to smoking. I lived with him four years without ever knowing him to tell a direct verbal falsehood, constantly as he used to practise deceit in other forms. Can you understand the soul of a man who never hesitated to take steps that would have the effect of hoodwinking people, who would use every trick of the markets to mislead, ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... you deceiving me, or are you imposed upon? Alfred insane! It is a falsehood. He came to me the night before the wedding that was to be. Oh, my brother, my darling brother, how dare they say you are insane! That letter you showed me then ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... to-day if not in the junk shop? Where would the lumber market be? the cotton market? the tobacco market? For around Cyrus, standing alone and solitary on his height, there had gathered the great illusion that makes theft honest and falsehood truth—the illusion of Success; and simple John Henry Pendleton, who, after nineteen years of poverty and memory, was bereft alike of classical pedantry and of physical comforts, had grown a little weary of the endless lip-worship of ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... house as his adopted daughter. But she could go forth,—and starve if there was nothing better for her. But as she thought of starvation, she stamped with one foot against the other, as though to punish herself for her own falsehood. He would not let her starve. He would get some place for her as a governess. And she was not in the least afraid of starvation. It would be sweeter for her to work with any kind of hardship around her, and to be allowed to think of John Gordon with her heart free, than ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... presumably always will be difficult for truth to outrun a falsehood. One instance of the way in which such false and erroneous impressions of the Negro's capacity and achievement gain currency and fix themselves in the public mind is shown sometimes in the campaign methods ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... he was on hand at the designated corner. Leila, in order to keep the appointment, resorted to falsehood. She asked permission of her mistress to be allowed to go home for some trivial article, promising to return by a given time. She kept her word as to the time, but the leaven of the adversary was rapidly working. He ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... is true, and to affirm that that which is false is true. These two affirmations, if we regard the mind, are in the same relation to one another as being and not—being; for there is nothing positive in ideas, which constitutes the actual reality of falsehood (II. ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... or of table, rules supreme; there are much laughing and dancing; there is the court of the sovereign people; there any one may be presented who is the son of his own works and has never made mesalliance with falsehood—and Lafayette is the master of ceremonies. The name of this country place is Lagrange, and it is very charming when the hero of two worlds relates to the young people his adventures; then he appears like an epos surrounded by the garlands of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... right, and that perhaps I am not in my true mind. For there are times when I know and see all the falsehood and wickedness of this man's heart as well as ever you can tell it me, and yet I tell you, to my own bitter shame, that I love him so that if he bids me follow him into any disgrace or crime, God ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... concealed twelve of their children under a tub. The Lord, at the parents' request, blessed the twelve with riches and happiness. After he had departed, the parents realized what they had done, and called the Master back. When he heard that they had told him a falsehood about the number of their children, he replied that the blessing was bestowed and there was no help for it. "Oh!" said Adam in anguish, "what will become of them?" The Lord replied: "Let those who are not blessed serve the others, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... marriage" humbug was first preached by Brigham Young, in 1852, when he produced a document bearing the above title, pretending that it was revealed to Joseph Smith a year before his death. Smith's widow and son, both surviving, pronounced this to be a falsehood, a pure invention, but Young was too strongly seated in his chair of authority not to be able to carry his point. This "revelation" was incorporated into the Mormon faith by a meeting of the assembled deacons of the church, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... hearing it craved an answer. He had none. To talk like a lover, or like a man of honour, was to lie. Falsehood hemmed him in to the narrowest ring that ever statue stood on, if he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... would you have?" he says. "What is the best: things draped in colour, as by a lens, or the naked things themselves? truth ablaze, or falsehood's fancy haze? ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... us not forget that the aim of the true satirist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon falsehood: and, as Truth and Falsehood start from the same point, and sometimes even go along together for a little way, his business is to follow the path of the latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... the Spirit of the Lord could never inspire a man to put in the past tense a plain narrative of an event which is yet in the future. The statement when written would be false, and God is not the author of falsehood. ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... proverb that flatly contradicts it, and between the two it would be very odd if there was not a great deal of sound sense somewhere. There is, however, one of the number which, as every candid critic must allow, is based on an egregious falsehood—the proverb, namely, which affirms, against all experience, that whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander. Viewing the goose as the type of woman, and the gander as the type of man, no adage ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Reynard's nephew: "It is a common proverb, Malice never spake well: what can you say against my kinsman the fox? All these complaints seem to me to be either absurd or false. Mine uncle is a gentleman, and cannot endure falsehood. I affirm that he liveth as a recluse; he chastiseth his body, and weareth a shirt of hair-cloth. It is above a year since he hath eaten any flesh; he hath forsaken his castle Malepardus, and abandoned all his wealth; he lives only upon alms and good men's charities, doing infinite ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... abounds in falsehood, though to serve its purpose it is certainly adroitly written. We had not intended to be married on the evening of the mob, so that not only is the speech which the Editor puts in my mouth false, but so also is his statement that we repaired to Phillips' Tavern to have the nuptial rites celebrated. ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... pretending that she had not touched it, after the "usual way of women"? No! He was sure,—absolutely sure—of her integrity. What? In less than an hour's acquaintance with her, would he swear to her honesty? Yes, he would! Never could such eyes as hers, so softly, darkly blue and steadfast, mirror a falsehood, or deflect the fragment of a broken promise! And so, for the time being, in utter fatigue of both body and mind, he put away all thought, all care for the future, and resigned himself to the circumstances by which ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... and he reported to a Union Soldier that Colonel Boone was a rebel of the deepest dye, and further said that he had a company of Texas Rangers hidden, and intended to "clean out the country." The Lieutenant to whom this deliberate falsehood was told, sent fifteen soldiers to the home of A.G. Boone to confiscate his property and to burn him out if they found indications that the report ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... become an accepted truth" (Professor Ray Lankester writes as though the making of truth and falsehood lay in the hollow of Mr. Darwin's hand. Surely "has become accepted" should be enough; Mr. Darwin did not make the doctrine true) "entirely in consequence of Mr. Darwin's having demonstrated the mechanism." (There is no mechanism in the matter, and if there is, Mr. Darwin ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... heart. "Should Hernan become owner of Lunnasting, and a Spanish marquis, what pressure will Colonel Armytage bring to bear to compel Edda to break her promises to me, and to unite herself to him. It was of that the Spaniard was thinking. But no; I have heard and read of the falsehood and faithlessness of women, but I will not believe that Edda Armytage could by any possibility be guilty of such treachery: the very thought is dishonouring to her. Did I think that such a union would ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... ferocious expression. Morality, from his point of view, should exist among individuals only to make them more obedient and disciplined, for morality per se impedes governments and should be suppressed as a useless obstacle. For the State there exists neither truth nor falsehood; it only recognizes the utility of things. The glorious Bismarck, in order to consummate the war with France, the base of German grandeur, had not hesitated to falsify a ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... me." Her voice trembled, but she gave him a little smile. "I cannot pretend that I am not distressed; it would be false, and falsehood is not right. You are very, very kind, and I ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... what she had told me as to the virtue of the females of her race. How singular that virtue must be which was kept pure and immaculate by the possessor, whilst indulging in habits of falsehood and dishonesty! I had always thought the gypsy females extraordinary beings. I had often wondered at them, their dress, their manner of speaking, and, not least, at their names; but, until the present day, I had been unacquainted with ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... a rule it is not only false, but impossible. The historical circumstances, when any are introduced, are for the most part not merely fictions, but exactly that kind of fiction which is, in its beginning, deliberate and interested falsehood." ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... he gave command To search throughout the city's synagogues And mosques for all their idols and graved signs Of gods—these to be broken up and crushed By ax and iron mallet he ordains. Nor sorcery nor falsehood left. King Carle Believes in God and serves him faithfully. Then bishops bless the fountains, leading up The Heathens to the blest baptismal Font. If one perchance resist the King, condemned Is he to die, or hanged, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... there was not a trace in him. He covered his sins with an embroidered cloak of exquisite piety. The bad qualities of both parents were inherited by him. To his mother's covetous acquisitiveness and ingrained falsehood, he joined his father's unscrupulous ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... extraordinary weight. Madame told the King of the adventure her curiosity had led her into, at which he laughed, and said he wished the Police had arrested her. He added a very sensible remark. "In order to judge," said he, "of the truth or falsehood of such predictions, one ought to collect fifty of them. It would be found that they are almost always made up of the same phrases, which are sometimes inapplicable, and some times hit the mark. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... turn to think. But Vincent's peace of mind was of more importance to her than the truth or falsehood of a creed. She had realised that there were things that even her love could not do for him. With a sudden flash of recollection she thought of the young priest she had once met at Audrey's house. If any one could help Vincent now, it might be Mr. Flaxman Reed. She was probably mistaken (nobody ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... utters both falsehood and folly," cried Bertalda; "and she is unable to prove that I am the child of these low people. My noble parents, I entreat you to take me from this company, and out of this city, where they ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... only heard that the money was lost, at first; and then, from her husband, that it had been found and restored to the owner. It was plain that he had told her a falsehood; that if he had found the money, it was still in his possession. The case was too plain to need much reflection. Mr. Randall and the sheriff knew less than the ferryman, less than his wife and his son; but in the good woman's estimation, it was far worse to be guilty ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... would, as Pharaoh was, be destroyed. It is said that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and also that He hardened his own heart. Both statements are true, but looked at from different standpoints. God softens or hardens human hearts as they keep the mind in truth or falsehood. ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... he has he never offered to show. If old manuscripts should now be mentioned, I should, unless there were more evidence than can be easily had, suppose them another proof of Scotch conspiracy in national falsehood. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... do if they should encounter the tramp again; but of the two, Valentine felt the punishment far more acutely than his cousin. He was not accustomed to rows; and for a boy with his naturally high sense of honour, the mere thought that the headmaster suspected him of telling a falsehood was ten times worse than the fact ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... tragical seriousness, masked with a most winning gayety, a light irony, a fine scorn that was rather for herself than for others. She had thought herself out of all sympathy with her environment; she knew its falsehood, its vacuity, its hopelessness; but she necessarily remained in it and of it. She was as much at odds in it as I was, without my poor privilege of criticism and protest, for, as she said, she could not set herself up as ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... Lady Rowardennan of the Castle had promised the orphans, en bloc, that those who passed through an entire year without once falling into falsehood should have a treat or festival of their own choosing. On the eventful day of decision, those orphans, male and female, who had not for a twelve-month deviated from the truth by a hair's-breadth, raised their little white hands (emblematic of their ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... don the judge's gown And play the censor's part, And Fact be cowed by Falsehood's frown And Nature ruled by art; Though Labour toils through blinding tears And idle Wealth is might, I know the honest, earnest years Will bring it ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... I, an honest old fellow,—I may say it, with all my faults; and one who shrinks from falsehood more than from fire; and I find that I, with my bearish temper, am actually driving those about me into it—teaching them to be crafty, tricky, and cowardly! I knew well enough that my gruffness plagued others, ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... arguments, he will in no case withhold arguments when conclusions are held to be unjust. The true value of every sort of journalism, and of discussion also, is in its integrity much more than in its ability. Integrity is violated as much by the suppression of truth as by the suggestion of falsehood. In all cases that interest us sufficiently, and which are legitimately before the public, we shall write precisely as we think, without the slightest regard ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... With this, she had inherited from many generations of gentle-folk a mind and spirit susceptible of the highest culture. Unspoiled by the hot-house, forcing process, that so often leaves the intellectual powers jaded and weak, before they have fully developed, and free from the atmosphere of falsehood and surface culture, in which so many souls struggle for their very existence, the girl took what her teacher had to offer and made it her own. With a mental appetite uninjured by tit-bits and dainties, she digested the strong food, ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... God by the superstitious inventions of this world, because commanded to the contrary, or commended for so refusing. Wherefore, excepting in this one thing—for which I ought not to be rebuked—I shall, I trust, in despite of slandor and falsehood, discover myself at all times a peaceable anl obedient subject. But if nothing will do, unless I make my conscience a continual butchery or slaughter-shop—unless, putting out mine own eyes, I commit myself to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some—I have determined, the ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... Livingstone's stay there, but also of the return of Musa, after leaving him, without any story of his murder; also, at Mapunda, they came on traces of the boy Wikatani, and learned his story, though they did not see himself. The most ample proof of the falsehood of Musa's story was thus obtained, and by the end of 1867, Mr. Young, after a most active, gallant, and successful campaign, was approaching the shores of England[68]. No enterprise could have brought more satisfactory results, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... to accept, and a little figure of a doll dressed in the costume of Lebanon. Then the punishment of imposture began to be felt severely by me. How to accept the poor devil's sweetmeats? How to refuse them? And as we know that one fib leads to another, so I was obliged to support the first falsehood by another; and putting on a dignified air—"Cogia Hassan," says I, "I am surprised you don't know the habits of the British Court better, and are not aware that our gracious master solemnly forbids his servants to accept any sort of backsheesh ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... can glean but little useful information respecting the actual state of a country through which he journeys with as much rapidity as I have done. And still less is he able to secern the truth from the falsehood, or to weigh the probabilities of conflicting testimony. I therefore originally intended to be silent on this subject. There is a story told, I believe, of Voltaire, at least it may be as well told of Voltaire as of any ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... to do this before you came," the girl of the Red Mill said, rather provoked. "You must take me at my word. I cannot do differently. I never told you girls a falsehood ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... freedom of industry imply a clearer recognition of the falsehood of the laissez faire position. The undertaking by the State or the Municipality, or other units of social life, of various departments of industry, such as the railways, telegraphs, post-offices, is a definite assertion that, in the supply of the common services rendered ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... of every moment brought home to Captain Whalley's heart the humiliation of his falsehood. He had drifted into it from paternal love, from incredulity, from boundless trust in divine justice meted out to men's feelings on this earth. He would give his poor Ivy the benefit of another ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Governor's council-table—sitting as the King's councillor among gentlemen of honor—when he declared that he knew not the hiding-place of Caroline de St. Castin. It would cover him with eternal disgrace, as a gentleman, to be detected in such a flagrant falsehood. It would ruin him as a courtier in the favor of the great Marquise should she discover that, in spite of his denials of the fact, he had harbored and concealed the missing lady in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... legislative committees before Dan's relations with the politician began. Since Harwood employed her Bassett had made use of her constantly in the writing of letters. There would have been nothing extraordinary in his calling her to the office for an evening's work; it was the girl's falsehood about Ramsay and the quiet closing of the door of Bassett's inner room that disturbed Harwood. He passed into the library and Rose left without saying good-night. The incident annoyed Dan; Bassett's step had been unmistakable, and the girl's ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... overwhelmed Willis Ford and his confederates with dismay. The feeling was greater in Ford, for it tended to fasten the theft upon him, while Jim Morrison and Tom Calder, though convicted of falsehood, were at all events sustained by the consciousness that nothing worse could be alleged ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... half mournful, half upbraiding host, Duties neglected—high resolves unkept— And many a heart by death or falsehood lost, In lightning ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various |
