"Deception" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which touched Ida. She was very anxious to see Bessie, and to talk to her as they could only talk when they were alone. She wanted to know her faithful friend's motive for that cruel deception about Brian Walford. That the frank, tender-hearted Bessie could have so deceived her from any unworthy motive ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... once and should not have to touch anything else—but then I should see /everything!/ I preferred to grope in the dark. I had rubbed a handkerchief sprinkled with perfume over my face, and I shall never forget the deception of this odour. For an instant, in the stupefaction of my terror, I did not recognise the first thing I touched—her necklace—I saw it again on her living body. The box! The corpse gave it to me with a squashing ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... This would make the accounts nearly tally. At any rate in Porter's book are to be found the names of all his killed, wounded, and missing; and their relatives received pensions from the American government, which, if the returns were false, would certainly have been a most elaborate piece of deception. It is far more likely that Hilyar was mistaken; or he may have counted in the Essex Junior's crew, which would entirely account for the discrepancies. In any event it must be remembered that he makes the American killed and wounded ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... indignant reproaches was caused by the discovery of her real name and her relation to a convict. She had been sent out under an assumed name—a highly recommended orphan of honourable parentage. Her distress, her burning cheeks, her endeavours to express her regret for this deception were taken for a confession of guilt. "You attempted to bring dishonour to my home," the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... no means ended by the disappearance of Small and Bud. There came the recollection of his mother's stern face—a face which had never been a motive toward the right, but only a goad to deception. What would she say if he should confess? Just as he had recovered himself, and was about to repeat the old lie which had twice died upon his lips at the sight of Bud's look, he caught sight of another face, which made him tremble again. It was the lofty and terrible countenance ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... heads of the exceptionally hard passages, but Leam had to spell every third word, and then she made a mess of it, Madame did know that eight and seven are fifteen, but Leam could not get beyond five and five are ten and one over makes eleven. If madame thought deception the indispensable condition of pleasant companionship, and lies the current coin of good society—in which she certainly sided with the majority of believing Christians—Leam would be none the worse for a little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... around them-an instinctive consciousness which no argumentation about 'evil being a lower form of good' will ever explain away to those who 'grind among the iron facts of life, and have no time for self-deception'-what good news for them is there in Mr. Emerson's cosy and tolerant Epicurism? They cry for deliverance from their natures; they know that they are not that which they were intended to be, because they follow their natures; and he ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... that a sacrament is a sign of one thing only. For that which signifies many things is an ambiguous sign, and consequently occasions deception: this is clearly seen in equivocal words. But all deception should be removed from the Christian religion, according to Col. 2:8: "Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit." Therefore it seems that a sacrament is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... learn when she would dock," said Dr. Walter Kennedy, head of the big ambulance corps on the mist-shrouded pier, "and we were told it would not be before midnight and that most probably it would not be before dawn to-morrow. The childish deception that has been practiced for days by the people who are responsible for the Titanic has been carried up to the very moment of the landing ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... suffered and a self that could fain suffer no longer. Her mind traveled back to the joys of childish days; they had gone by, and she had never known how happy they were. Scenes crowded up in her memory as in a bright mirror glass, to demonstrate the deception of a marriage which, all that it should be in the eyes of the world, was in reality wretched. What had the delicate pride of young womanhood done for her—the bliss foregone, the sacrifices made to the world? Everything in her expressed love, awaited love; ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... more dismal sounds that were echoing in his heart. Everything about the old house spoke of degeneration, decay; yet in the midst of it lived a man who asked no odds of life, who took what came, and who lived with a zest, an abandon, a courage that were baffling. Self-deception, egotism, cheap optimism—could they bring a man to this state of mind? Hinton wondered bitterly what Opp would do in his position; suppose his sight was threatened, how far would his ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... recommend for my novel—"Deception"—will not do: it would only be appropriate if it were a question of conscious lying. Unconscious lying is not deception but a mistake. Tolstoy calls our having money and eating ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... dare say. All women are. Irony is the weapon of cowardice, and cowardice the vice of weakness. Yet I think I was naturally bold and true. I hate cowardice and deception even in myself—I hate perfidy—I ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... such credentials as he himself carried, and getting full instructions how to proceed, I left him writing at Philemon's table and hastened down the hall to the door he had pointed out. If Providence had been on the side of guilt, the circumstances could not have been more favourable for the deception I afterwards played. No one was in the hall, no one was with Mr. Orr to note that it was I instead of James who executed Mr. Gilchrist's commission. But I was thinking of no deception then. I proceeded quite ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... on which account the land off the Cape from several situations makes like an Island. It appears still more remarkable when to the Southward of it by the appearance of a high round Island at the South-East Point of the Cape; but this is likewise a deception, being a round hill join'd to the Cape by a low, narrow neck of Land; on the South-East side of the Cape there appears to be anchorage, and where ships must be covered from South-East and North-West winds. We saw a Hippa or Village upon the Cape and some few inhabitants. In the night had some ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... they won't suffer, and it will do them good," she said, producing the more palatable viands with which she had provided herself, and disposing of the bad breakfast, so that their feelings might not be hurt, a motherly little deception ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... assumed men's apparel and sought and obtained employment as a teamster in the quartermaster's department. Her features were very large, and so coarse and masculine was her general appearance that she would readily have passed as a man, and in her case the deception was no doubt easily practiced. Next day the "she dragoon" was caught, and proved to be a rather prepossessing young woman, and though necessarily bronzed and hardened by exposure, I doubt if, even with these marks of campaigning, she could have deceived as readily as did her companion. How the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... waiting for him with the despatches. Dick resolved, with his usual cunning it seems, to conceal his possession of these documents, and, at the same time, to prevent the real messenger from revealing the deception by his appearance ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... for Delia Gasgoyne, and for his grandfather and grandmother,—he was not wilfully brutal,—but otherwise he had no shame at all; he would stand openly for his right. Better one honest passion than a life of deception and miserable compromise. A British M.P.?—He had thrown away his reputation, said the papers. By this? The girl was no man's wife, he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... American soldiers. It must be admitted that the French soldiers also suffered revulsion of feeling when the facts became better known. The British War Office methods of stimulating enthusiasm in the campaign against the Bolsheviki was a miserable failure. Distortion and deception will fail in the end. You can't fool all the soldiers all the while. Truth will always win in the end. The soldier has right to it. He fights for truth; he ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... base deceptions that had been practised upon an ancient, a distinguished, and wealthy family. He bade me hope for the best, and always consider him as my friend. The purser spoke to the same effect. I told them that my conviction was that it was they, and not I, who were the victims of deception. I stated that I had never pretended to rank or parentage of any sort; I acknowledged that everything connected with my family was a perfect mystery; but I asked them how they could place any faith in the assertions of a man who was in a mean capacity when I met with him—who had confessed to ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... other, as well as to give universal publicity to the movement of prices of all products. In view of the great practical importance of this system of public advertisement, care would have to be taken to exclude deception or unintentional errors—a problem which, as what follows will show, was solved in the most perfect yet ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... never could forgive the deception; his antipathies to his enemies were not very moderate, but this was adding an insult to his penetration that rankled deeply. He sat in portentous silence, brooding over the exploit of his prisoner, yet mechanically pursuing ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Now it was such a pain to lie to her, and cost me such shame to offer this treachery to one so snow-pure from lying and treachery, and even from suspicion of such baseness in others, as she was, that I was resolved to face about now and begin over again, and never insult her more with deception. I started on the new policy by saying—still opening up with a small lie, of course, for habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... fugitive well illustrate the homely proverb, "The way of the transgressor is hard." He who deceived and cheated his brother soon became the victim of deception and fraud. Most painful of all was the ever-haunting sense of fear because of the consequences of his wrong acts that followed him even in his life as an exile and, like a spectre, confronted him as ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... coastward from the high interior; frequent blizzards form near the foot of the plateau; cyclonic storms form over the ocean and move clockwise along the coast; volcanism on Deception Island and isolated areas of West Antarctica; other seismic activity rare and weak; large icebergs may ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... world which is seen through his eyes, and often he can not distinguish between the two. Many a little heart has quivered over the punishment inflicted for "lying", when willful misrepresentation was not in his thoughts. However, harsh treatment of a vivid imagination may result in real deception later on, for the child can not help "seeing things," too wonderful to be enjoyed alone, and then, perforce, there must be deliberate planning to ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... dupe: one kind, the commonest, goes on believing in its deceiver, no matter what happens; the other, far rarer, has the sense to know it has been deceived if you make the deception as clear as day to it. Mrs. Evelegh was, fortunately, of the rarer class. Next morning, Dr. Fortescue-Langley arrived, by appointment. As he walked up the path, I glanced at him from my window. It was the Count, not a doubt of it. On his way to gull his dupes in Switzerland, he had tried to throw ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... save this one child at least, to love and cherish, and appealed to her parents, Uranus and Gaea, for counsel and assistance. By their advice she wrapped a stone in baby-clothes, and Cronus, in eager haste, swallowed it, without noticing the deception. The child thus saved, eventually, as we shall see, dethroned his father Cronus, became supreme god in his stead, and was universally venerated as the great national god ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... influence nature and that out of this practical effort AND seeking of a harmonious reality arises morality. "Man seeks the truth, a world that does not contradict itself, that does not deceive, that does not change; a real world,—a world in which there is no suffering. Contradiction, deception and variability are the causes of suffering. He does not doubt there is such a thing as, a world as it might be, and he would fain find a road to it."[1] But alas, intelligence and knowledge both are imperfect, and one group seeking a truth that will bring them good crops, fine families, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Marian had died on her way out, showed that Holt was being grossly deceived in relation to that matter. It also gave colour to the idea, that he might be equally the victim of deception about the other. It was in the hope of being able to hold him guiltless I had so closely questioned Marian: for instinct had already whispered me that in his hands, more than in aught else, rested my hope or my ruin. For that reason had I been so ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... young visitors looked at each other, and appeared quite distressed at this suggestion. They had been, and rightly so, taught to consider deception of any kind as falsehood; but Mrs. Ellis did not appear to be of the same opinion, and though she still urged her own ill health and the absence of the nurse, she was evidently inclined to yield to the continued and earnest request ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... of this ward of yours. I think that's a lovely name for her. Don't you?... You're acquiring such a benevolent old attitude. The only thing to be done, I fancy, is to adopt some transparent ruse—some sort of Daddy-Long-Leggish deception." She closed her eyes thoughtfully—"Hiring her as my accompanist, for instance." She rose to dispense Scotch and soda. Stillman sat in thoughtful silence, while Mrs. Condor talked to very trivial purpose. She seemed suddenly to have grown tired of the subject of Claire Robson. The arrival ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... the supreme court. [Cf. Guy Mannering, last chapter.] Maun, must. Menseful, of good manners. Mirk, dark. Misbegowk, deception, disappointment. Mools, mould, earth. Muckle, much, great, big. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... keep this one scrupulously secret.' He then hurried off, leaving Bertrand in a state of utter amazement. This feeling, however, slowly subsided, especially after assuring himself, by the aid of his chamber-lamp, that the note was a genuine one, and not, as he had half feared, a valueless deception. 'This Monsieur Derville,' drowsily murmured Bertrand as he ensconced himself in the bed-clothes, 'is a bon enfant, after all—a generous, magnanimous prince, if ever there was one. But then, to be sure, he wishes to do ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... popular error to which you allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The French are the originators of this particular deception; but if a term is of any importance—if words derive any value from applicability—then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as, in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio' 'religion,' or 'homines honesti,' ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... trying to get all good things for ourselves, and caring nothing for others; if we pray only for ourselves, if we work only for ourselves, if we live only for ourselves, if we see others in want, yet shut up our compassion, how dwelleth the love of God in us? Away with such self-deception, my brothers, if any one of us seems to be religious, and yet stretches out no helping hand to his brother, that man's religion is vain. When we see a fellow man fallen among thieves, and lying by the wayside of life, what do we do? Do we pass by on the other side, without ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... no scruple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... union of souls, unmasked and ridiculed, he felt as if a veil of close meshed lies were being drawn from his reason; he smiled as he saw the head of the charming beast peeping from underneath the card-board wings of the stage-angel; he almost shed tears of amusement at his long, long self-deception; he laughed at his folly. What filth and corruption lay behind this hypocritical morality, this insane desire for emancipation from healthy, natural instincts. It was the ascetic teaching of idealism and Christianity which had implanted this ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... suffragists to make a copy. Eighteen thousand names bore the marks of an Omaha residence. The others were apparently gathered from two-fifths of the counties and presumptively represented 5 per cent. of the legal voters, as required by law. Suspicion that fraud and deception had been used, both in getting genuine signatures and in padding the lists, early gave way to positive conviction. When the investigation was complete it was found that 16,460 of the 32,896 signatures were subject to court challenge and that at least 10,000 of them were the product of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... once she has given it solemn utterance, she recovers her presence of mind, and asserts her native dignity. In her justification of her feelings and her conduct, there is neither sophistry, nor self-deception, nor presumption, but a noble simplicity, combined with the most impassioned earnestness; while the language naturally rises in its eloquent beauty, as the tide of feeling, now first let loose from the bursting ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... thought her pretty. She would be pretty. But how impress him? By what appeal? The pathetic? the tenderly winsome? the gay? She would be gay. Marvellous lies occurred to her—a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in deception. And she would excite his jealousy. Upon that feeling she would play. She would blow hot; she would blow cold. She would reduce him to agony—the most poignant agony he had ever suffered. Then ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... reform. The strength arrayed against her was just then overwhelming; I mean the comparatively honest (because open) strength of armed forces. But, probably from innate inclination towards treachery, Frederick of Prussia selected for himself the part of falsehood and deception. Appearing on the scene in the character of a friend he entered deliberately into a treaty of alliance with the Republic, and then, before the ink was dry, tore it up in brazen defiance of the commonest decency, which must have been ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... appearance on the scene would be of the impossible stepfather and her poor mother. Oh, why had she concealed the position of the man whom her mother had married? Already Aneta had detected her little act of deception with regard to the Martyns of The Meadows. But that, Maggie felt, could be got over. It was easy for a girl to make a mistake in a matter of that kind, and surely there were other Martyns in the country high-born and respectable ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circumstance of detail, which before induced you to be interested, making the distance from truth more palpable. You set out with a supposed reality, and are disappointed and disgusted with the deception; whilst in respect to a work of genuine imitation you begin with an acknowledged total difference, and then every touch of nature gives you the pleasure ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... before, while Archbishop of Jerusalem, had visited England, and there obtained, under false pretenses, a considerable sum of money from Protestant Christians, to print the Holy Scriptures according to the text of his own Church. He now issued a manifesto, first defending himself from the charge of deception, and then warning his flock "not to receive the Holy Scriptures, nor any other books printed and circulated by the Bible-men, even though given gratis, and according to the edition printed by the Propaganda under ecclesiastical authority." Notwithstanding all this, the brethren took a hopeful ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... times, shunning over-anxiously this very deception, I err in too great strictness; and sometimes to that degree, as to wish the whole melody of sweet music which is used to David's Psalter, banished from my ears, and the Church's too; and that mode seems to me safer, which I remember to have been often told me of Athanasius, Bishop ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... good and queenly qualities and accomplishments, Elizabeth had many unamiable traits and unwomanly ways. She was capricious, treacherous, unscrupulous, ungrateful, and cruel. She seemed almost wholly devoid of a moral or religious sense. Deception and falsehood were her usual weapons in diplomacy. "In the profusion and recklessness of her lies," declares Green, "Elizabeth stood without ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Ormont liked her well enough to wink benevolently at her efforts to cheat the world at various issues, and maintain her duel with Time. The world deserved that she should beat it, even if she had been all deception. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... himself, he drew up his hinder leg, and then crossing himself like a good catholic, and salaaming his acquaintance, like a polite Turk, he stepped along the quay, touching the necromancer as he passed him, and thus completely assuring himself, it was no deception of vision. Mr. —— thinking more about this wonderful occurrence than the business of the —— nation he was going upon went his way, and having discharged his duty, hurried back to Pera, where he told this story, where it was universally believed from the veracity and character ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... must walk with God, in entire abandonment and uncertainty, at the risk of sometimes making mistakes, which in the infancy of experience is unavoidable. He who wishes for a particular inspiration, or direction in common matters, which his own reason and judgment can determine, is liable to deception. ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... hope is always disappointed. It becomes hell itself, because there is no hope, and hope must die when it is killed by constant deception." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... hardly refrain from ringing out a great mirthful cry, while his heart beat strangely, and the darkness seemed to ripple, like sunlight in a cup, with suppressed laughter. The thought of the little innocent deception as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise, probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a common bond of silence—at least, on the part of the three younger. It was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing the elder woman ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... But this deception would probably not have stopped our fiery young man if the host had not reflected that the reclamation which his guest ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to her. Now she had suddenly assumed responsibilities. She really wanted to do her college work, all of it, as it deserved to be done, and to do it honestly, without resort to any of the various methods of deception that she had employed almost unconsciously hitherto. She wanted to make life pleasanter for Dora Carlson. She wanted to write the long, newsy letters to Jim and to Judge Watson; letters that brought characteristic replies, confidential from ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... me, Father, if I speak too confidently. I dislike the deception which has obliged me to conceal that I am a Catholic and ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse Him of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the matter, it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that we should never discover the deception that is being played upon us. But, it seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your own confession, has not only detected but exposed it. Well then, what is to be done? Do you suppose that we could, even if we would, continue to lend ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and purposes ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... Duryodhana became exceedingly jealous of them. And the sinful Duryodhana acting like Rakshasa tried various means to drive them away. But what must be can never be frustrated. So all Duryodhana's efforts proved futile. Then Dhritarashtra sent them, by an act of deception to Varanavata, and they went there willingly. There an endeavour was made to burn them to death; but it proved abortive owing to the warning counsels of Vidura. After that the Pandavas slew Hidimva, and then they went to a town called Ekachakra. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to err in fancying themselves righteous, than the reverse; nevertheless, the course and limits of self-deception are indefinite. It is within possibility for a man to believe himself wicked, while his actual conduct is ridiculously blameless, even praiseworthy! Although intending to mislead Balder, Manetho's utterances were true to a degree unsuspected by ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... account of what had occurred, as it was only right that I should know about it. She is most pained that her daughter should have been even slightly implicated in such an affair, and Netta herself seems truly to regret countenancing the deception and screening you. I had a talk with her before school this morning. I cannot exonerate her, but she is at least sorry for her conduct. With this knowledge of your debt, Gwen, and your reasons for concealing it, of course ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... to you that I am no connoisseur in Larinskis; you may as well spare yourself the pains of presenting to me yours. I am a good-natured woman, who has often been made a good dupe, and I do not complain of it. The best reminiscences of my past are of sundry agreeable errors, and of men skilled in deception. I have found it the wisest way to judge by the labels, and never to ask any one to show me the contents of his sack, for I long ago discovered that sacks are very apt to be empty or at best only poorly filled. Let your goddaughter act ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... is that slavery makes its victims lying and mean; for which vices it afterwards reproaches them, and uses them as arguments to prove that they deserve no better fate. I have often, since my escape, deeply regretted the deception I practised upon this poor fellow; and I heartily desire that it may be, at some time or other, in my power to make him amends for his vicarious sufferings ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... conscience brought to the soul through auricular confession. I could give many similar instances, if it were my intention to publish a treatise on this subject, but as I only desire to write a short chapter, I will adduce but one other fact to show the awful deception practised by the Church of Rome when she invites persons to come to confession under the pretext that peace to the soul will be the reward of their obedience. Let us hear the testimony of another living and unimpeachable witness about this peace of the soul, before, during, and after ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks. I might, it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I should risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson. The fall roared beneath me. I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss. A mistake ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... made a strong impression upon the mind of Champlain. The priceless object for which he had been in search so many years seemed now within his grasp. The simplicity and directness of the narrative, and the want of any apparent motive for deception, were a strong guaranty of its truth. But, to make assurance doubly sure, Vignan was cross-examined and tested in various ways, and finally, before leaving France, was made to certify to the truth of his statement in the presence ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... performed in the presence of the members of all the scientific societies now in existence, their knowledge of natural laws could have contributed nothing to its detection or explanation. They could have merely laid it down to trick or deception, just as any of the unscientific persons present could have done, and perhaps did. The miracle was performed in the open. Our Lord must have been on some elevated ground where His voice could have reached some considerable part of the multitude, and on which every act of His could be observed. More ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... world's knowledge of his indifference. How's that? Perhaps having the further humiliation of knowing that his heart belongs to another woman. How's that? That's not what a girl bargains for. His standing to his word is not an act of honor, but a deception. And in talking about 'taking the consequences,' he's patting his personal sacrifice on the back and forgetting all about her and the sacrifice he's putting her to. What's the brief suffering of a broken engagement to that? No: the true consequences that a man should shoulder ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... His eyes were pure blue, like the blue of the speedwell. They were not piercing, but perfectly transparent, indicative of a character which, if it possessed no particular creative power, would not permit self-deception. They were not the eyes of a prophet, but of a man who would not be satisfied with letting a half-known thing alone and saying he believed it. His lips were thin, but not compressed into bitterness; and above everything there was in his face a perfectly legible frankness, contrasting pleasantly ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... This deception, and the fatal consequences arising from it, furnish the most interesting story in the whole ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... which traces were observed in a few English authors, the disposition to charge imposture on the writers of the holy scriptures; so that they not only failed to appreciate the literary excellence of the works, but scarcely even allowed the possibility of unintentional deception on the part of the writers. The doubts were chiefly the reproduction of the English point of view, with the addition of a few physical difficulties;(617) protests of free thought against dogma in natural science. The view entertained concerning deity was eventually grovelling; the greatness ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... Admiration and Esteem for him; but when his Character comes to blaze in its full Light, it is very apparent that his Pride preserved his Rosebud, as well as it destroyed Clarissa; like Milton's Satan, he could for a Time cloath himself like an Angel of Light, even to the Deception of Uriel. ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... surprise and whispered to another that Rose was either not well, or was dazed with happiness. And when Dorothy ventured to hint at the latter alternative, the girl acknowledged it with a strained imitation of her usual smile, and straightway found her thoughts scourging her because of this new deception. ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... with you. That's logic. The man who walks with God is in good company. Get into partnership with Him, but don't try to be the leading member of the firm. He knows more about the business than you do. You may be able for a time to practice deception upon your fellow men, but don't try to fire any blank cartridges at the Author of this Universe. There are a great many ways to inspire a man with true Christian sentiment, and I must say that the least of them is sitting down and quoting ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... his body away. It has been claimed the corporal deceived Hill by pretending to surrender until the General was in his power, then shot him. I investigated this incident at the time and became convinced the corporal practised no deception, and that his deliberate conduct—natural to him—led Hill and his staff to assume he intended ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... went in little groups towards the tennis-lawn, where Phadrig had elected to display his powers, the three Professors instinctively joined each other in a small phalanx of scepticism. If there was any trick or deception to be discovered all looked to them to do it, and they were almost gleefully aware of their responsibility. Figuratively speaking, they each wore the scalps of many spiritualistic mediums, and both Professor van Huysman and Professor Hartley sensed ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... others, against my own inclination, against my own conscience, must be weakness indeed—self-deception; for if my friends wish my happiness, and I make myself miserable, how can that please them? Any sacrifice I could make, except that of principle, I would; but that I never will make, nor will my friends, nor do they, desire ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... so,' answered Elvira. 'The discovery of his deception came upon me suddenly, like a thunderbolt from the clouds of heaven, and I upbraided him for it in the bitterness of my heart, and he answered my reproaches at first with scornful laughter, and afterwards with ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... no deception," he said. "I shorely heard cannon. Mebbe they've quit firin' 'em, an' are comin' on now with the rifles an' the pistols. It must be that. I'm like you, Major, I believe in that boy, Henry Ware, an' he's comin' right now ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... season for deception was at an end; he had lied to gain time for the fugitive, now let him see what truth could effect. He waded through the snow to Strangeways, tapped him on the shoulder, and was made painfully aware of the opinion held of him by the way in which the corporal ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... place you directed; was really affected by the interesting little tale, faithfully believing it to have been taken from the Mag. D'Enf., and was astonished and delighted when I recurred to the letter and found the little deception you had played upon me. It is concisely and handsomely told, and is indeed ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... it," corroborated Sir Justin sternly. "The unfortunate young man has inadvertently confessed his deception." ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... first sensation of a deliberate break with truth causes a real excitement which is often the birth pang of the imagination. More commonly this is seen in childish play, which owes a part of its charm to self-deception. Children make believe they are animals, doctors, ogres, play school, that they are dead, mimic all they see and hear. Idealising temperaments sometimes prompt children of three or four suddenly to assert that they saw a pig with five ears, apples on a cherry tree, and other Munchausen ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... a sort of candid way of reasoning about her faults, and would blame herself, and examine her motives in a manner which disarmed reproof by forestalling it. She was perfectly sincere, yet it was self-deception, for it was not as if it was herself whom she was analysing, but rather as if it was some character in a book; indeed, she would have described herself almost exactly as she is here described, except that her delineation would have been much more clever and more exact. She would not ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the name of irreligion. In opening the columns of the "Free Inquirer" to discussion, in New York, in 1828, she said: "Religion is true—and in that case the conviction of its truth should dictate every human word and govern every sublunary action,—or it is a deception. If it is a deception, it is not useless only, it is mischievous; it is mischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false morality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy; by its fanaticism; by its dogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its promises; ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... presents of trinkets seemed to incline all the natives in Alarcon's favour. At length he discovered that they reverenced the sun, and without compunction he proclaimed that he came from that orb. This deception served him well. Henceforth no service was too great for the natives to perform for these sacred beings. Everything was placed at their disposal. Alarcon's word was their law. They relieved the men entirely of the wearisome task of towing the boats, striving ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... which he occasionally raps the pictures we have just noticed, by way of illustrating his description—something in this way. 'Here, here, here; the lion, the lion (tap), exactly as he is represented on the canvas outside (three taps): no waiting, remember; no deception. The fe-ro-cious lion (tap, tap) who bit off the gentleman's head last Cambervel vos a twelvemonth, and has killed on the awerage three keepers a-year ever since he arrived at matoority. No extra ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... jewelled tree which grew in this island. He pretended to have embarked for this purpose, but really concealed himself in an obscure place. He had an artificial branch made by some goldsmith; but, of course, this deception was at ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... too much at pain and tended to withdraw the will ascetically, lest the will should be defeated. Contempt for mortal sorrows is reserved for those who drive with hosannas the Juggernaut car of absolute optimism. But against evils born of pure vanity and self-deception, against the verbiage by which man persuades himself that he is the goal and acme of the universe, laughter is the proper defence. Laughter also has this subtle advantage, that it need not remain without an ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... it would involve lowering the high integrity of her ideal conceptions respecting delicacy and honor—hardly worth while, merely for the sake of explaining the distinction between a trifling piece of self-deception and mistaken vanity, and the severe and unrelenting sentence which Sophie had passed upon herself. Meanwhile, every word she had uttered had been an indirect, but none the less telling blow upon a sore place in his own ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... self-interested deception, and failure in truth for want of moral courage. Both are bad enough, but the latter is not "loving a lie," not such a ruinous taint and evidence of corruption as ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fence corner, with a gray stump beside him, shrank within himself and stared through half-closed eyes, trembling lest the mighty stranger should detect him. He had a very reasonable notion that the mighty stranger might object to the deception which had been practised upon his eager emotions, and might not find the old rail fence much barrier to his righteous wrath. For all his elation, the boy began to wish that he had not been in such haste to learn moose-calling. "Don't call till you've some idea who'll answer!" ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Innocent deception! I wish I had never detected it, and I am glad to think that the gallant old gentleman never knew that it was pierced. But how comforting it is to know that he was well in his grave before the great revolution of this month set in, to reduce his proof of gentility to a penny, and thus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... escaping official exactions in the shape of taxes or forced labour, and the building of temples a device to acquire property and wealth as well as to evade fiscal burdens. Sometimes the Buddhist priests lent themselves to the deception of becoming nominal owners of large estates in order to enable the real owners to escape taxation. Buddhism in Japan ultimately became a great militant power, ready at all times to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... optical delusion, and makes two lights o' one—one on shore, which is the real one, and one here, which is the deception." But while the Pilot went on to talk of base plates, lewis bats, and all the paraphernalia of his craft, the skipper's eye was fixed on a string of little islands which stood off the end of the western arm ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... led by the provost-marshal to his place upon the coffin, where he was blindfolded. The firing party silently took its place. The muskets were cocked and aimed, while the noise of the retiring ambulance covered the sound. The provost-marshal, with a merciful deception, told the prisoner he must wait a moment and he would return to him before the final order, but stepping quickly out of the range of the muskets, he gave the signal with his handkerchief, and the man fell dead at the volley, which sounded like a single discharge. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... record, great pains were taken to dissipate the mist from its accounts of supposed verities. The writers of the Scriptures, the friends of Rationalism held, were only men like ourselves. They had our prejudices and as great infirmities as we have. They were as subject to deception and trickery, and as full of political and sectarian rancor as partisans in these times. All through the Old Testament we find traces of biased judgment, Jewish national pride, sectional enmity, sectarian superstition, and rabbinical ignorance. It ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the cause of religion and good order," answered Murdoch, "which sanctifies any deception you ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... his own possessions, if he were opposed by any Hellenic power, but should absolutely forego all claim to what in no way belongs to him. {8} If, therefore, you have made a general resolve, men of Athens, to retire from any place of which the king makes himself master, either by surprise or by the deception of some of the inhabitants, you have not resolved well, in my judgement: but if you are prepared, in defence of your rights, even to fight, if need be, and to endure anything that may be necessary, not only will the need for such a step be less, the ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... Perfect self-deception can be a rare, almost a precious thing, ranking with all absurd, delightful faiths from the child's sweet certainty of fairydom to the enthusiast's belief in the potency of ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Louis, as her master had given her family their freedom twenty years previous. She was formerly owned by Major Howe, harness and leather dealer, yet residing in St. Louis. And long may he live and his good works follow him and his posterity forever. My father well knew the deception of the rebels, and was determined to persevere until he had obtained a satisfactory account of his family. A gentleman moved directly from Lawrence to St. Louis, who made particular enquiries for us, and even called at my aunt's. We then heard directly from my father, and commenced correspondence. ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... too late for any soothing deception of Nina. A scene was in full progress in Nina's bedroom, and Harriet's eye had only to go from the prone form on the bed to the crushed newspaper that had drifted to the floor, to know that the secret was out. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... flowed with an impetuous current, bearing down all the mounds of temperance and decorum; while fraud and profligacy struck out new channels, through which they eluded the restrictions of the law, and all the vigilance of civil policy. New arts of deception were invented, in order to ensnare and ruin the unwary; and some infamous practices in the way of commerce, were countenanced by persons of rank and importance in the commonwealth. A certain member of parliament was obliged to withdraw himself from his country, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... in deceptive strategy and ambuscades, stopping short of nothing when he desired to fathom some secret or to set some trap. Deceitful by nature, he willingly had recourse to the vilest trickery; lying when occasion demanded, excelling in the adoption of all disguises and in every species of deception. Further, he was cruel, and had even acted as an executioner. Feofar-Khan possessed in him a lieutenant well capable of seconding his designs ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... then, we will examine their modern meanings. Magic is the unholy art of working secret spells, of using invisible powers, and holding intercourse with the unseen world of ghosts and demons, by means of enchantments. It also means the expert deception of the senses by the tricks of a conjurer, SO-CALLED hocus-pocus and fraud, and a magician is either an evil-minded, superstitious mortal, fool enough to believe in charms, or an expert pretender and ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... said with reference to that intense craving for sympathy so characteristic of the child. It is this which often underlies the disposition to exaggerate its ailments, or even to feign such as do not exist, and in such attempts at deception it often perseveres with almost incredible resolution. Over and over again I have met with instances where the motives to such deception were neither the increase of comfort nor the gratification of mere indolence; but the monopolising the love and sympathy which during some bygone illness had ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... scarcely knew how the subject began, although it might naturally have arisen of its own spontaneous suggestion—Nisida found herself speaking of the long period of deception which she had maintained in relation to her powers of speech ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... manifestations may continue until the menopause or even until old age. It occurs in all races. Children under twelve years are not very often affected. A physician writes: One of the saddest chapters in the history of human deception, that of the Salem witches, might be headed, "Hysteria in Children," since the tragedy resulted directly from the hysterical pranks of girls under twelve years of age. During late years it has been quite frequent among men and boys. It seems to occur oftener in the warm and mild climates ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... when we Reason in Words of generall signification, and fall upon a generall inference which is false; though it be commonly called Error, it is indeed an ABSURDITY, or senseless Speech. For Error is but a deception, in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come; of which, though it were not past, or not to come; yet there was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a generall assertion, unlesse it be a true one, the possibility of it is unconceivable. And words whereby we conceive ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... offer her something. Some time she spent in wandering up and down, thinking to encounter the buildings by chance, so readily is the mind, bent upon prosecuting a hard but needful errand, eased by that self-deception which the semblance of search, without the reality, gives. At last she inquired of a police officer, and was directed to proceed "two blocks up," where she would find ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... half-forgotten dream than as anything I distinctly remember. My mind was then too busy with other things. I was thinking of Ruth, Ruth loving me through long years, and then dying of a broken heart. Through the wilful deception of my brother and mother I had been bereft of everything I loved. Through them I had sacrificed love, hope and comforts; through them my darling—who loved me all the time—was murdered. Oh! If I had but known. If I had but known we might have been happy—so happy! But no, they ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... fear of being observed by the English cruisers had forced him to depart three days earlier than he intended. But when he wrote Bonaparte well knew that he would be at sea before Kleber could receive his letter. Kleber, in his letter to the Directory, complained bitterly of this deception. The singular fate that befell this letter will be ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... often results in spitefulness which makes us cruel and unjust, in jealousy that torments, in deception that sullies all our triumphs, and pride ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... head and gazed nervously in the direction of the girl. "I can't keep up this deception," he said, in a low but distinct voice. "I am Bert Simmons. At least, that is the name I ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... seen what he now saw so clearly in the light of experience, the deadly pitfalls into which journalism, undertaken with any other purpose than the simple setting forth of truth, beguiles its practitioners—perhaps he might have drawn back from the first step of passive deception and have resigned rather than been a party to the suppression of the facts about the Veridian killings. Resigned? And forfeited all his force for education, for enlightenment, for progress of thought and belief, exerted upon millions of minds through The Patriot?... ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was long criticized as leading to universal hypocrisy and deception; and Sydney Smith spoke of "voters, in dominos, going to the poll in sedan-chairs with closely-drawn curtains." The observed effect of a secret ballot has been, however, gradually to exterminate undue influence. The alarm of "the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... had been regarding the victims of their deception with an assumption of innocence, made ineffective by the suppressed laughter ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Persia. The news afforded me great delight; it gave me the right to print these notes; and I have taken advantage of the opportunity of putting my name at the head of another person's productions. Heaven grant that my readers may not punish me for such an innocent deception! ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov |
