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Falsehood   Listen
noun
Falsehood  n.  
1.
Want of truth or accuracy; an untrue assertion or representation; error; misrepresentation; falsity. "Though it be a lie in the clock, it is but a falsehood in the hand of the dial when pointing at a wrong hour, if rightly following the direction of the wheel which moveth it."
2.
A deliberate intentional assertion of what is known to be untrue; a departure from moral integrity; a lie.
3.
Treachery; deceit; perfidy; unfaithfulness. "Betrayed by falsehood of his guard."
4.
A counterfeit; a false appearance; an imposture. "For his molten image is falsehood." "No falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper."
Synonyms: Falsity; lie; untruth; fiction; fabrication. See Falsity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Falsehood" Quotes from Famous Books



... roundness, and stiffening in the chill of death. It makes me cold to look upon its rigidness. But just this hour the breath went out; was't that I loved? 'Twas this I clasped and kissed. What is it that we've christened love, that glamours men to madness, and stains with falsehood virgin purity? It made this grewsome charnel vault a part of Heaven—the graves there of those murdered knaves made rests of roses for our heads; it made him spring the bolt and lock us in. Where is the creed's foundation? I've shrived a thousand souls—I cannot now absolve ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris

... inevitable that Man must ever build a state of society around him after the pattern and image of his own interior state. The whole futile and idiotic structure of commerce and industry in which we are now imprisoned springs from that falsehood of individualistic self-seeking which marks the second stage of human evolution. That stage is already tottering to its fall, destroyed by the very flood of egotistic passions and interests, of vanities, greeds, and cruelties, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... said. "Sharp Sword never tells a falsehood. If Onontio is struck down then the British, the Bostonnais and the Hodenosaunee triumph, but my warriors bring me word that our enemies have gathered the greatest force the world has ever seen at the head of Andiatarocte. ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... that there was a volunteer system in England," said the aid, whom we now understood was Colonel Hensen. He spoke in a slightly sarcastic manner, as though he had caught us in a falsehood and was ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... father; for I tell you at this hour, when no one utters a falsehood, if my reputation was lost, my ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... to an end. His long fight with the Rabbis was ending, too. "My cause is as far superior to theirs as truth is more excellent than falsehood: for whereas they are advocates for a fraud that they may make a prey and slaves of men, I contend nobly in the cause of Truth, and assert the natural rights of mankind, whom it becomes to live suitably to the dignity of their nature, free from the burden ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the capacity after a long period of stunned inaction, but in the constant and unwearied labor of love in building and rebuilding, fortifying and extending, that precarious but still impregnable bulwark of falsehood beneath whose protection Camilla Van Arsdale lived and was happy and made the magic of her song. Illusion! Banneker wondered whether any happiness were other than illusion, whether the illusion of happiness ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... trifling occurrences afford a strong presumption that the Ithaca of Homer was something more than the creature of his own fancy, as some have supposed it; for though the grand outline of a fable may be easily imagined, yet the consistent adaptation of minute incidents to a long and elaborate falsehood is a task of the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... is the people's heart! They dote on alteration, and expect To reap advantage from a change of rulers. The bold assurance of the falsehood charms; The marvellous finds favor and belief. Therefore the Czar is anxious thou shouldst quell This mad delusion, as thou only canst. A word from thee annihilates the traitor That falsely claims the title of thy son. It joys me thus to see thee moved. I ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller

... conceive, being inlaid in mosaic with jasper, onyx and lapis-lazuli. Besides these precious marbles of every colour and quantity under heaven, here are abundance of rubies, emeralds, amethysts, aquamarines and topazes, incrusted in the different chapels and altars. Here again is a proof of the falsehood and injustice of the aspersions cast on the French army, as being the plunderers of churches; for if they were so, how comes it that the Certosa the richest of all, was spared? Mr Eustace[119] in his admiration of Church splendour, should at least have given the French no small degree ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... code of ethics justifies a falsehood, especially if the end in view should be immediate. He lies to save himself from punishment, and he will make a cumulative lie, building it up from his imagination until even the artistic element is ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... had grown used to the magnificence of this pageantry of the sea. Now, the sea had the same appeased and gleaming face he had seen four years sooner. But how much his soul had since been changed! Instead of the tumult and falsehood which rent his heart and filled it with darkness, the serene light of Truth, and deeper than the sea's peace, the great appeasement of Grace. Augustin dreamed. Far off the AEolian isles were gloomed in the impending shadows, the smoky ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... lying far, and rarely trodden, beyond that range of conventional morality in which Novelist after Novelist had entrenched himself—amongst those subtle recesses in the ethics of human life in which Truth and Falsehood dwell undisturbed and unseparated. The vast and dark Poetry around us—the Poetry of Modern Civilisation and Daily Existence, is shut out from us in much, by the shadowy giants of Prejudice and Fear. He who ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... inward, vital, formative and causal. Bring all questions of choice or duty to this test; will it work at the heart of things, among the realities and forces? Try your own life by this; remember that mere external is falsehood and death. The letter killeth. Give up all that is only of the appearance, or even chiefly so, in conscious delight and motive—in person, surrounding, pursuit. Let your self-presentation, your home-making and adorning, your social effort ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... that deformity denotes not only privation of a due form, but also a contrary disposition, wherefore deformity is compared to the act, as falsehood is to faith. Hence, just as the deformed act is not from God, so neither is a false faith; and as lifeless faith is from God, so too, acts that are good generically, though not quickened by charity, as is frequently the case ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... doctrine it is, that so often makes men atheists in Spain, and profligates in England, as soon as they unlearn the national creed: and the school which have done the mischief, moralize over the wickedness of human nature when it comes to pass instead of blaming the falsehood which ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... sarcastic, shyly severe, Falsely frank, which fascinates fear! Not handsome—no hero 'half divine,' Features not faultless, fair, and fine; With raven locks, O! 'Rufus the Red,' I can't in conscience cover thy head; Nor shall I stoop to falsehood mean, And swear thine eyes are not sea-green: Discard deceit in thy defence, Secure in wit—a man of sense, So gracefully kind in look and tone, I think his thoughts are all my own! Ah! false as fickle—well ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... alive with excitement. It is not a breathless courier who comes back with the report from an army we have lost sight of for a month, nor a single bulletin which tells us all we are to know for a week of some great engagement, but almost hourly paragraphs, laden with truth or falsehood as the case may be, making us restless always for the last fact or rumor they are telling. And so of the movements of our armies. To-night the stout lumbermen of Maine are encamped under their own fragrant pines. In a score or two of hours they are among the tobacco-fields and the slave-pens of Virginia. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... take, and I entreat you to consider that, if we have faith in a future life, we must believe also that we carry hence not only the record of our acts, whether good or evil, but the memory of them; and that memory, undimmed by falsehood or self-deception, will create for us Heaven or Hell. I do not say—God forbid!—that you should desire death because you are still young, and, comparatively speaking, unspotted from the world; but I say I would sooner see any of you struck down in the flower of his youth than living on to lose, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... respective duties. One William is represented as falling asleep among the Malvern Hills, and sees in his dream a succession of visions, in which great ingenuity, great boldness, and here and there a powerful vein of poetry, are displayed. Truth is described as a magnificent tower, and Falsehood as a deep dungeon. In one canto Religion descends, and gives a long harangue about what should be the conduct of society and of individuals. Bribery and Falsehood, in another part of the poem, seek a marriage with each other, and make their way to the courts of justice, where they ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... "Falsehood belongs to an early period of society, as well as the deferential forms which we style politeness," I replied. "A child does not see the least moral beauty in truth until he has been flogged half a dozen times. It ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... in ever any time between two men, men can say leasing of the hateful one, though he were the best man that ever ate at board, the man that to him were loath, he can him last find! It is not all sooth nor all falsehood that minstrels sing; but this is the sooth respecting Arthur the king. Was never ere such king, so doughty through all things! For the sooth stands in the writings how it is befallen, from beginning to the end, of Arthur the king, ...
— Brut • Layamon

... sought it diligently in the Church, and now that he was about to become her priest he could not make himself believe that he had found it. Now, when bound to her altars, he faced a life of deception, of falsehood, as the champion of a faith which he could ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... religious obedience to Law. I am preaching the texts before me. Such obedience is a religious duty. It is the will of God. I appeal to the texts. They proclaim the Law of God. Peaceful subjection to government is his law; and men are guilty of sophistry and falsehood, when, to excuse wicked evasion of Law or violent resistance, they pretend to appeal to what they call "the higher laws of God." There are no such higher laws. The texts before me are his law. If one man has a moral right, either cunningly to evade or openly to violate Law, under such pleading, ...
— The Religious Duty of Obedience to Law • Ichabod S. Spencer

... 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 ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... violently either in his son's disgust at the falsehood of that holy sepulchre church, nor in his enthusiasm as to the Mount of Olives. In the former, he walked about as he had done in many other foreign churches, looked a little to the right and a little to the left, observed that the roof seemed to be rather out of order, declined entering the sanctum ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... bear it here than anywhere else. Some day all the falsehood will be cleared up, and then we shall be glad that we bore it where he left us. We have decided what we shall do, Adeline and I. We shall try to let the house furnished for the summer, and live in ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... by it the other night, when I went to the theatre," said George; for he could not tell a direct falsehood. "I did not tell you of it at the time, but led you to suppose that I had been at ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... rather an acknowledgment of their allegiance than a burden to their estate; when she had the court of a king, the House of Lords, yea, and the Lord's house, decently kept, constantly frequented, without falsehood in doctrine, or faction in discipline. God of His goodness restore unto us so much of these things as may consist with His ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... that his main desire was to serve the Emperor's interests, to put a curb on the Italians, and to frustrate their design of driving himself, Louis and Maximilian across the Alps. But the most monumental falsehood he reserved for the Pope; his ambassador at the Papal Court was to (p. 060) assure Julius that he had failed in his efforts to concert with Henry a joint invasion of France, that Henry was not in earnest over the war and that he had actually made a truce[115] with France. ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... 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

... of a name; some were inscribed with misspelt prose or rhyme, in deep letters, which the moss and wintry rain of many years had not been able to obliterate. These, these were graves where loved ones slept! It is an old theme of satire, the falsehood and vanity of monumental eulogies; but when affection and sorrow grave the letters with their own painful labor, then we may be sure that they copy from the record on ...
— Chippings With A Chisel (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... you have. But you're too fond of getting into logical coaches and letting yourself be carried away in them." I think this was provoked by a very undergraduate essay arguing that Truth, as actually realised, was uninteresting, while the possible forms of Falsehood, as conceivably realisable in other circumstances, were ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... to believe them, always. Yet I have known them speak sooth as well as other men. But I myself would sooner put confidence in the word of one of the other faith. They hold not with falsehood in a good cause as our father confessors do. Wherefore, if it were for that alone, I would sooner be a heretic, albeit there be many things about my father's faith that I love and ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... and, sighing drained The cup which she so late had tasted; Upon whose rim still fresh remained The breath, so oft in falsehood wasted. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... to pursue the same studies together, those graceful decencies might early be inculcated which produce modesty, without those sexual distinctions that taint the mind. Lessons of politeness, and that formulary of decorum, which treads on the heels of falsehood, would be rendered useless by habitual propriety of behaviour. Not, indeed put on for visiters like the courtly robe of politeness, but the sober effect of cleanliness of mind. Would not this simple elegance of sincerity be a chaste homage paid ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... glorious eternity; they had the sweetness and indefiniteness of the dawn. Soon the mystery of the grotto spread like a perfume throughout the land; it was a ground of joy and edification for pious souls, and corrupt men endeavoured, though in vain, by falsehood and calumny, to divert the faithful from the springs of grace that flowed from the saint's tomb. The Church took measures so that these graces should not remain reserved for a few children, but should be diffused throughout all ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... Not to expect to be cheated, nor to look for falsehood, and yet to see them coming, ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... who felt in her heart, implacable as it was to evil and falsehood, all capabilities of devotion and truth, was condemned to lie, or to lose the love of Prince Andras, which was her very life. There was no other alternative. No, no: since she had met this man, superior to all others, since he loved her and she loved ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... to the stake. But he will not shrink from that last step, if he think the welfare of the church demands it; and there are others who bear a yet more cruel hatred towards all who would be free from the shackles of falsehood and superstition. And much power belongs to them. God alone knows what is coming ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... 1813, his Histoire Critique du Magnetisme Animal. This work gave a new impulse to the half-forgotten fancy. Newspapers, pamphlets, and books again waged war upon each other on the question of its truth or falsehood; and many eminent men in the profession of medicine recommenced inquiry with an earnest ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... that there has been derived from these letters, by his open enemies on one side and his defenders of a rather sickly conscientious sort on the other, one charge against him: this is based on his famous declaration, "I utter falsehood never, but the truth not to every one." ("La falsita non dico mai mai, ma la verita non a ogniuno.")[1] Considering his vast responsibilities as a statesman and the terrible dangers which beset him as a theologian; that in the first of these capacities ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... burglar to confess his pursuits, or to refrain from joining in the cry of Stop Thief when the police get on the track of another burglar. If society chooses to penalize candor, it has itself to thank if its attack is countered by falsehood. The clamorous virtue of the libertine is therefore no more hypocritical than the plea of Not Guilty which is allowed to every criminal. But one result is that the theorists who write most sincerely and favorably ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw

... and now, more than before, they make a display of the inconsistency of their conduct, altogether surpassing themselves in villainy and in lawlessness of every sort. For one could insist emphatically without falsehood that this disease, whether by chance or by some providence, chose out with exactitude the worst men and let them go free. But these things were displayed to the ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... well trained in the creed which allows and encourages the practice of speaking falsehood and even doing evil in a good cause, to feel that any kind of shame attached to a falsehood spoken to conceal from a crafty enemy a thing it would be perilous to others for him to know. And indeed diplomatic falsehood has never been eradicated from the world ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... meeting. Certainly the man had mentioned facts and dates which corresponded, and the minuteness of his details was most striking. Still exactness of details was no positive proof. Indeed, it has been noticed that a falsehood has sometimes gained ground by being exceedingly particular in minutiae. McNabbs, therefore, prudently refrained from committing ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... to Vibius Curius, who was telling a falsehood about his age: "Then when we declaimed at the schools together, you were not born;" and to Fabia, Dolabella's wife, who said she was thirty, "No doubt, for I have heard you say so twenty years." When he saw Lentulus, his cousin—a little man girt with a big sword: "Who," he ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye of each of them. Afterwards as they came back, the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye of each. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... ever said, or will ever say, about it; and can reach our souls directly with edicts from the Dragon Throne of the Eternal.—I watched the linarias yesterday, and their purple delicacy assured me that all the filth, all the falsehood and tragedy of the world, should pass and be blown away; that the garden was full of dancing fairies, joy moving them to their dancing; that it was my own fault if I could not see Apollo leaning down out of the Sun; and my own fatuity, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... slave, she has become A thing I weep to speak,—the child of scorn, The outcast of a desolated home. Falsehood and fear and toil, like waves, have worn Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn, As calm decks the false ocean. Well ye know What woman is; for none of woman born Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... foreteeth of some of the young men; and Colbee, in the room of fulfilling his engagement, is loitering about the lookout house. Nay, so far from wishing even to describe faithfully the person of the man who has thrown the spear, they pretended that he has a distorted foot, which is a palpable falsehood. So that we have our efforts only to depend upon; and I am resolved to execute the prisoners who may be brought in, in the most public and exemplary manner, in the presence of as many of their countrymen as can be collected, after having explained the cause of such a punishment; ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... by them. When asked by one's hostess if one likes what is apparently the only dish provided, or if one has had enough when one is really still hungry, the average courteous man will murmur a gallant falsehood. What harm can be done thereby, and why cause her useless embarrassment? "We simply have to be polite as our race and clime understand politeness, and no one except a naive is really going to take this sort of thing seriously." To thank a stupid hostess for the pleasure ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... tell my dear godfather that I cannot accept his offer," she said to herself; "for, if I should not, he might perhaps write another letter to me to Potsdam, and mother: would then learn prematurely that I told her a falsehood, and am not now at my godfather's house; but when he knows that I cannot come, he will not write again, and no one will discover ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... high Of politicians and their double front, Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie:— Now what I love in women is, they won't Or can't do otherwise than lie—but do it So well, the very Truth seems falsehood to it. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... victim from devouring strife, And slavery, return'd with life; Possessions, honours, parents gone, The very hand that urg'd him on, Now, by its stern repelling, tore The veil that former falsehood wore! ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... impetuosity in his passion. He had, indeed, betrayed his sentiments by no direct speech. He had told her gravely that he was interested in her, and deeply concerned that one so worthy and so amiable should have been brought up in the house of idolaters, should have been taught falsehood ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... "Hail Set-qesu (i.e., Crusher of bones), who comest forth from Suten-henen (Heracleopolis), I have not uttered falsehood. ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... board of governors of the Federal Reserve; Treasury Department; Secret Service. [place where money is manufactured] mint, bureau of engraving. [government profit in manufacturing money] seigniorage. [false money] counterfeit, funny money, bogus money, (see falsehood) 545. [cost of money] interest, interest rate, discount rate. V. amount to, come to, mount up to; touch the pocket; draw, draw upon; indorse &c. (security) 771; issue, utter; discount &c. 813; back; demonetize, remonetize; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... not as a philologist, but simply as a student of geological fact, who, believing his Bible, believes also, that though theologians have at various times striven hard to pledge it to false science, geographical, astronomical, and geological, it has been pledged by its Divine Author to no falsehood whatever. I occupy exactly the position now, with respect to geology, that the mere Christian geographer would have occupied with respect to geography in the days of those doctors of Salamanca who deemed it unscriptural to hold ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... appalling in the pallid looks of people who live mainly in the open air, and the finest air in the world. Doubtless they tell a good story without, as I have already said, any very severe adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood in their gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... "What a barefaced falsehood." exclaimed Selina. "You wicked girl, how could it possibly be the cat? Do you know that you are telling a lie, and that lies are hateful, and that all liars ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... Anderson and Larkins grimaced at him, to remind him that they had told untruths for his sake, and that he must not betray them. It was the justification he wanted; he was relieved to fancy himself obliged to tell the direct falsehood, for which a long course of petty acted deceits had paved the way, for he was in deadly terror of the effects ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... cannot do us any essential injury. The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. Our country continually outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day we live a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... worthy Governance." There was a throne, supported by figures which represented the cardinal virtues, such as Piety, Wisdom, Temperance, Industry, Truth, and beneath their feet were the opposite vices, Superstition, Ignorance, Intemperance, Idleness, and Falsehood: these the virtues were trampling upon. On the throne was a representation of Elizabeth. At one place were eight personages dressed to represent the eight beatitudes pronounced by our Savior in his sermon on the Mount—the meek, the merciful, &c. Each of these qualities was ingeniously ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... imputed to its overwhelming importance and its pressure on his mind. How the spirit of the Governor was extolled by the colonists need not be formally stated, or how his discarded secretary was accused of rashness, perfidy, and falsehood. Maconochie did not himself disdain to acknowledge, that in error of judgment he had forwarded too early, and in a manner seemingly clandestine, a report so decided. The imputation of duplicity was unjust: Franklin was not ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... this: that one who knows not who he is and to what end he was born; what kind of world this is and with whom he is associated therein; one who cannot distinguish Good and Evil, Beauty and Foulness, . . . Truth and Falsehood, will never follow Reason in shaping his desires and impulses and repulsions, nor yet in assent, denial, or suspension of judgement; but will in one word go about deaf and blind, thinking himself to be somewhat, when he is in ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... not Protestant? The question meant everywhere: "Is there anything of nobleness in you, O Nation, or is there nothing? Are there, in this Nation, enough of heroic men to venture forward, and to battle for God's Truth VERSUS the Devil's Falsehood, at the peril of life and more? Men who prefer death, and all else, to living under Falsehood,—who, once for all, will not live under Falsehood; but having drawn the sword against it (the time being come for that rare and important step), throw away the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... had passed, and now his thoughts took a darker turn. MacKay, no doubt, had told the truth, for he was not capable of falsehood, but if those Englishmen were not agents of the English government, did it follow that they were clear of suspicion? There was some mystery about them, for if indeed they had been Cavalier gentlemen who had abandoned the English service, would they be so anxious ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... publication, the general verisimilitude of the news, the consideration of the motive, and so on. I don't trust blindly the accuracy of special correspondents—but why should this one have gone to the trouble of concocting a circumstantial falsehood on a matter of ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... families whose origins came from what is now German-speaking Central Europe ruled in local government during the transition, and distinct though small tribes, mainly German in speech, survived for a short time in the Empire. Like all falsehood, the falsehood of the "Teutonic theory" could not live without an element of truth to distort, and it is the business of anyone who is writing true history, even in so short an essay as this, to show what that ground was and ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... thought of mentioning it, if I had not seen that they had magnified it in England, into a revolt of the New England States against the government of the Congress. A letter from a Dr Walter, who I believe was originally of Massachusetts, is printed as a voucher for this impudent falsehood. As British emissaries may endeavor to circulate this with you, where they have an interest in deceiving, I concluded it proper to furnish you with the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... the horrible truth is ever before me, and this hated scar is the seal of the first lie of my tender young life. I never comb my hair away from my face, so morbidly am I impressed with the fear that those who see it will read the cause of its existence. Oh! Lizzie, that falsehood, and that cruel deception imposed upon a helpless child, were terrible indeed, too terrible to ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... to win you for my wife, how did I know that you were weaving a hideous conspiracy against me? Even when so young, you were a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy. Guilt never overshadowed your brow, nor did falsehood dim the frankness of your eyes. On the day of our marriage I mentally reproached myself for any unworthiness. Wretched fool that I was, I was happy beyond all power of expression, when you, madame, completed the measure of your guilt ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... called out many questions from the committee. Representative Littlefield of Maine inquired: "What do you say, Governor, about Miss McCracken's article in the Outlook?" and he answered: "I call it infamous, to use the proper term. It was an absolute falsehood. It was based upon no facts, because no decent women in Colorado would make the statements that she quotes. She may have found one woman who would say that they were using philanthropy and charity for political ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... especially since the Prince possessed no residences save in Moscow and Naples, as the Nechludoffs very well knew), I could not possibly tell you. Neither in childhood nor in adolescence nor in riper years did I ever remark in myself the vice of falsehood—on the contrary, I was, if anything, too outspoken and truthful. Yet, during this first stage of my manhood, I often found myself seized with a strange and unreasonable tendency to lie in the most desperate fashion. I say advisedly "in the most desperate fashion," ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... the agitated youth, and laying his hand upon his shoulder. The lad shuddered, and shrank from his touch as if he had suddenly come in contact with a viper. "How can you speak in that hardened manner to your father? Are not you ashamed of what you have done? Will you add falsehood to theft?" ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie

... proudly know it, And in the open to each other show it! We meet as equals once for all the year! The wise and foolish shout with kindred laughter; No greater and no smaller fools appear, And Folly flouts the dullard calling after! No tryant reigns! No hoary falsehood waves Imperial scepters ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... better is to be found than the advertising sheet of an old newspaper—never mind. Let the unfortunate man fall to and read the advertisements courageously, and make the best of them. An advertisement is itself a fact, though it may sometimes be the vehicle of a falsehood; and, as some one has remarked, he who has a fact in hand is like a turner with a piece of wood in his lathe, which he can manipulate to his liking, tooling it in any way, as a plain cylinder or a richly ornamented toy. There have been ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... forced to obtain the support of the masses for its wars by flattering proclamations of the national virtues and indignant denunciations of the villanies of the enemy, with, if necessary, a stiffening of deliberate falsehood and a strenuous persecution of any attempt at inconvenient truthtelling. Here there is no question of the Junker being a monster. You must rule ignoramuses according to their ignorance. The priest must work bogus miracles for them; ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... are as certain as any other physical laws, quite independently of the truth, or falsehood, of the hypothesis which Mr. Darwin has based upon them; and that M. Flourens, missing the substance and grasping at a shadow, should be blind to the admirable exposition of them, which Mr. Darwin has given, and see nothing there but a "derniere ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... this administration." As for that variety of humor that is called irony, it demands a duplicity which the straight-out-speaking Roosevelt could not practise. He was like Epaminondas in the Latin prose composition book, who was such a lover of truth that he never told a falsehood even in jest—ne ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers

... in all its sweet excess Rush to this bridegroom, smooth and falsehood-taught. Ah, now! thou yield'st thee to a loathed caress— While thy heart tells thee loud it ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... ruining the French cause in America, hinted that he was in league with corrupt elements in Canada, and in the end even went so far as to request his recall in order that the more pliant Levis might be put in his place. The letters of Montcalm are more reserved. Unlike Vaudreuil, he never stooped to falsehood. He knew that he was under the orders of the Governor and he accepted the situation. When operations were on hand, Vaudreuil would give Montcalm instructions so ambiguous that if he failed he would be sure to get the discredit, while, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... said Betty, with truth, returning inward thanks that to that question she could reply without falsehood. ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... why murmur I As though I felt the worst that love could do? Love may make me leave loving, or might try A deeper plague—to make her love me too; Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see: Falsehood is worse than hate: and that must be If she whom I love ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... second c. 1377, and the third 1393 or 1398. It has been described as "a vision of Christ seen through the clouds of humanity." It is divided into nine dreams, and is in the unrhymed, alliterative, first English manner. In the allegory appear such personifications as Meed (worldly success), Falsehood, Repentance, Hope, etc. Piers Plowman, first introduced as the type of the poor and simple, becomes gradually transformed into the Christ. Further on appear Do-well, Do-bet, Do-best. In this poem, and its additions, L. was able to express all that he ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... entirely in earnest, though personally I do not agree with him. He sees the symptoms, but the diagnosis is wrong. The American has an excellent talent for lying, but in business he has learned that falsehood and deception are poor commercial weapons. Business which is obtained by fraud, any American will tell you, "doesn't stick"; and as every American in his business is looking always to the future, he prefers, merely as a matter of prudence, that ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... stared at him out of his steely blue eyes, but said nothing. He began to understand what Archie was driving at, and a deep disgust for the man before him, who was trying to "put over" this cheap falsehood to "save his face," filled the mason's soul. The others had instinctively drawn away from them, and Clark himself looked as if he wanted to turn on his ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous falsehood for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton, whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy—conspiracy, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the King's instructions. But in despair of producing instances from what he had done, the traitorous had spoken of that which he intended to do. It was boldly said that Sir James Craig intended to oppress the Canadians. Base and daring fabricators of falsehood! on what part of his life did they found such assertions? What did the inhabitants of St. Denis know of him or of his intentions? Let Canadians inquire concerning him of the heads of their church. The heads of the church were men of knowledge, honor, and learning, who had had opportunities of knowing ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... my purse at home," said Arthur, blushing at the falsehood he stooped to utter; "I would really like to join, but can't ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... falsehood of the statements and deductions made by Harsnet, we have little or no concern. Western did not pretend to deny that he had the power of exorcism, or that he exercised it upon the persons in question, but he did not admit the truth of any of the more ridiculous stories which Harsnet ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... resemblance, as guilty adaptation; a style suitable to the subject, as plagiarism; occasional inspiration he calls a lie; translation, a forgery; and the whole, if not a "magnificent mystification," then, in Procurator-Fiscal phrase, a "wilful falsehood, fraud, and imposition." But all this, without proof—and nothing like proof is ever advanced—may be said in an hour, and the argument would remain as it is. Such, in point of fact, has been the sum total of assault, reiterated by every ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various

... covet for America this splendid courage of reserve moral force, and I wanted to point out to you gentlemen simply this: There is news and news. There is what is called news from Turtle Bay, that turns out to be falsehood, at any rate in what it is said to signify, and which if you could get the nation to believe it true might disturb our equilibrium and our self-possession. We ought not to deal in stuff of that kind. We ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... fancies I know of her having made a bet of me?" thought Robert, and it was not his vanity prompted the supposition, though his vanity was awakened by it. "Or is she ashamed of her falsehood?" he thought again, and forgave her at the sight of her sweet pale face. The singing of the hymns made her evident suffering seem holy as a martyr's. He scarce had the power to conduct himself reverently, so intense was his longing to show ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... did not lead to the Apostles' deliverance, but that the trial and scourging followed next day, just as if it had not happened, which has been alleged as a proof of its uselessness, and inferentially of its falsehood, puts us on the right track. It was not meant for their deliverance, but for their heartening, and for the bracing of all generations of Christians, by showing, at the first conflict with the civil power, that the Lord was with His Church. His strengthening ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... in her life-river," she asked herself, "had carried her so easily into falsehood? What strange forces were these," she wondered, "that had set her so suddenly against honesty and truthfulness and law and justice? And this stranger,—this wretched, haggard-faced, drunken creature, who had been brought by ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... flag, pennant, and streamer, went down with her, shouting Vive la Republique! Vive la France! and that the last thing which disappeared beneath the waves was the tri-coloured flag. This splendid fiction, or, more properly speaking, gross falsehood, was seized upon by poets and painters of every grade of genius; poems and pictures on it appearing in great abundance. But the very reverse of all this was the fact. Instead of challenging certain death ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... however, that I, in common with many American scientific gentlemen, have already had of the piratical conjoined with the abusive propensity of a certain class of English savans and writers, I can scarcely expect either liberality or justice from the quarter whence this falsehood has issued. But there is, fortunately, an appeal to my own countrymen, to the impartial and liberal-minded of Continental Europe, and the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... beginning vindictive hostilities against a power which could so easily whip her, and she probably never would have done so had the United States rested content with an honest boundary line. But this President Polk would not do, and by theft and falsehood he at last fairly drove the Mexicans into a war, in which they were so excessively beaten that the administration found itself able to gather more plunder than it had expected. By the treaty of peace the United States not only extended unjustly the southwestern boundary of Texas, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... among them, because if they [the Acadians] are captured, we shall say that they acted of their own accord."[88] In other words, he will encourage them to break the peace; and then, by means of a falsehood, have them punished as felons. Many disguised Acadians did in fact join the Indian war-parties; and their doing so was no secret to the English. "What we call here an Indian war," wrote Hopson, successor of Cornwallis, "is no other than a pretence for the French to commit ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... tell a falsehood to thy parents, nor to thy neighbors, but be always upright in thy words and in thy ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... has the face of falsehood, A man should close his lips as far as may be, Because without his ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri

... ages elapsed before human beings were rash enough, or sufficiently blinded by falsehood and superstition, to attempt to construct a creative force unaided by the female principle. Just here it may not be out of place to refer to the fact that in the attempt to divorce God from Nature have arisen all the superstitions and senseless religious ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... there seems in either sex but little of what a fond imagination, unacquainted with the falsehood of the world, and warmed by affections which its selfishness has not yet chilled, would reckon friendship. In theory, the standard is raised too high; we ought not, however, to wish it much lower. The honest sensibilities ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... shall say that I'm looking at the river," she thought, for in her slavery to her family traditions, she was ready to pay for her transgression with some plausible falsehood. She pushed aside the blind and looked at the river. But it was a dark night and the water was barely visible. Cabs were passing, and couples were loitering slowly along the road, keeping as close ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... a falsehood," was the quiet response of Mrs. Carleton, whose pale cheek slightly flushed. "Your Otto told the truth as you well know. Not only that, but he only obeyed you when he went out in the woods to run into all kinds of danger in search of an animal which I do ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... is not the one to desert a friend in the day of darkness and the hour of need. Be silent I say!—My brother, my poor brother, you tell me, has been murdered. I will see justice done to him: but, Aram! Fie! fie! it is a name that would whisper falsehood to the loudest accusation. Go, Walter! go! I do not blame you!—you may be right—a murdered father is a dread and awful memory to a son! What wonder that the thought warps your judgment? But go! Eugene was to me both a guide and a blessing; a father ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "Holstein does not sing," is a curious proverb; and if it is meant to express the absence of popular poetry in that country, it would be easy to convict it of falsehood by a list of poets whose works, though unknown to fame beyond the limits of their own country, are cherished, and deservedly cherished, by their own countrymen. The best known among the Holstein poets is Klaus Groth, whose poems, published under ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... vindictive, and incredibly deceitful. It is evident that successful beguiling, the power of telling an elaborate, plausible, and imperturbable lie on occasions, is an heroic quality in the Odyssey. Odysseus is not a man who scorns to deceive, or who would rather take the consequences than utter a falsehood. His strength rather lies in his power, when at bay, of flashing into some monstrous fiction, dramatising the situation, playing an adopted part, with confidence and assurance. One sees traces of ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... gentleman present, "the Viscount de Gondrecourt married! Never was there a greater falsehood. And 'her aunt told her so'! Oh! I understand the plot. The countess is passionately fond of Gondrecourt, and jealous of her beautiful niece; but her schemes are vain; the viscount holds her ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... world are carried on. Christianity has not yet been fairly tried. Nations calling themselves Christian are still governed on heathen principles. Christianity has been for the most part perverted and misunderstood. The grossest errors have been taught in its name, are still taught in its name. Falsehood has claimed the authority of truth, and its claim has been granted. The stream which flowed out pure from its source has been caught in foul cisterns, has been led into narrow channels, has been made stagnant in desolate pools and wide-spread weedy marshes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... meeting-house. In his language he always complied with the strict tenets of his sect, "thou-ing" and "thee-ing" all those whom he addressed; but he had assented to an omission in this matter on the part of his daughter, recognizing the fact that there could be no falsehood in using a mode of language common to all the world. "If a plural pronoun of ignoble sound," so he said, "were used commonly for the singular because the singular was too grand and authoritative for ordinary use, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... time there had been a growing demand for a woman's declaration to be issued on July Fourth, 1876. "Let us then protest against the falsehood of the nation"; "If the old Declaration does not include women, let us have one that will"; "Let our rulers be arraigned"; "A declaration of independence for women must be issued on the Fourth of July, 1876," were demands that came from all parts of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... that lies between truth and direct falsehood had always been fatally easy for her to follow; and she followed it now more from natural instinct, and from the child's dread of making people "cross," than from any deliberate intent to deceive. It was so much easier to say nothing. Therefore ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... soft fleece-flecks white as the snow-flake Lay in the trusty guard of wickers woven in withies. Always a-carding the wool, with clear-toned voices resounding 320 Told they such lots as these in song divinely directed, Chaunts which none after-time shall 'stablish falsehood-convicted. ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... it, 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 heavens to deliver unto him that ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... to our heart of hearts; You will find no falsehood there, But the zeal that truth imparts, England's Hope ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... The sad-visaged, world-weary dreamer of the Malvern hills, sorrowing over the vice, the abuses, and the social misery of his time, finding, as he tells us, no comfort in any of the established institutions of his day, because confronted with the fraud and falsehood that infected them all, is one of the most pathetic figures in literature. As Skeat suggests, the object of his great poem was to secure, through the latitude afforded by allegory, opportunities of describing the life and manners of the poorer classes, of ...
— English Satires • Various

... King by ties of gratitude and affection which no change of fortune could dissolve. "I should be glad to do him any service in his private affairs: but I owe a sacred duty to my country; and therefore I was never so wicked as even to think of endeavouring to bring him back." This was a falsehood; and William was probably aware that it was so. He was unwilling however to deal harshly with a man who had many titles to respect, and who was not likely to be a very formidable plotter. He therefore declared himself satisfied, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... through, been found out, or been betrayed, in the course of the disasters, perils, terrible trials, to which it and its fabricators were afterwards exposed. Prove that a body of from twelve to five hundred men could form a plan to palm off a gross falsehood upon the world, and could then adhere to it unfalteringly through the severest disappointments, dangers, sufferings, differences of opinion, dissension of feeling and action, without retiring from the undertaking, letting out the secret, or betraying each other in a single ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the time's accomplished, I must speak! You may conceal your rescued charge no longer. The guilty vauntings of Jehovah's foes, Misdeeming against Him His silence deep, Too long of falsehood's taxed His promises: What do I say? Success imparting life Into their fury, even on our shrines Your cruel stepmother would offer up To Baal idolatrous incense. Let us show The infant monarch, whom your hands ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley

... and impossible in its cruelty, falsehood, and stupidity. The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all the nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces that, notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his heart (efforts which express themselves ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy

... the virtue of truth does not incline to that which is less. For as one incurs falsehood by saying more, so does one by saying less: thus it is no more false that four are five, than that four are three. But "every falsehood is in itself evil, and to be avoided," as the Philosopher declares (Ethic. iv, 7). Therefore the virtue of truth ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... my power to save you from sharing in my ruin. Ought I to have told you at once that I was married? But just that was my secret, and it seemed so much safer while no one knew it but myself. I did not see, as I do now, that I was acting a falsehood. I do not see how I can help doing that. It is as shocking to me as to you. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... of active superstition in the worship of Osiris, Belus, Minerva, and the Queen of Heaven. Therefore, to speak briefly, it may appear very difficult to show that art has ever yet existed in a consistent and thoroughly energetic school, unless it was engaged in the propagation of falsehood, or ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... his friends always to be of courage; this Napoleonism was unjust, a falsehood, and could not last. It is true doctrine. The heavier this Napoleon trampled on the world, holding it tyrannously down, the fiercer would the world's recoil against him be, one day. Injustice pays itself with frightful compound interest. I am not sure but he had better lost ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... jealousy of a gentle, useless sister. She, who is entirely honest, sees the brainless Bianca, whom no amount of schooling will make even passably honest, preferred before her. Lastly, she is humbled into the state of submissive wifely falsehood by a boor who cares only for his own will, her flesh, and her money. In a page and a half of melancholy claptrap broken Katharina endeavours ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... tell thee what that world is like? I was Arsenius, tutor of the emperor. There at Byzantium I saw the world which thou wouldst see, and what I saw thou wilt see. Bishops kissing the feet of parricides. Saints tearing saints in pieces for a word. Falsehood and selfishness, spite and lust, confusion seven times confounded. And thou wouldst go into the world from ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... to tell it to me when the fish came round, and I'm dying to hear the end of it.'" This was on all hands allowed to have been a most ingenious reply; and I said I thought she deserved to be highly complimented for such graceful dexterity in falsehood: to which she answered, "Oh, well, my dear, it's all very fine; but if ever you get the truth, depend upon it you won't like it"—a retort which turned the laugh completely against me, and sent her ladyship off with flying colors; and certainly there was ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... second only to that of Christianity, and superior to every heathen system that the world has seen.[1] It forbids the taking of life from even the humblest created animal, and prohibits intemperance and incontinence, dishonesty and falsehood—vices which are referable to those formidable assailants, raga or concupiscence, doso or malignity, and moha, ignorance or folly.[2] These, again, involve all their minor modifications—hypocrisy and anger, unkindness and pride, ungenerous suspicion, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... was dark and yet too clear. Milly, the meticulously truthful, saw herself convicted of some horrible falsehood. She blushed violently, gasped, and rolled her handkerchief into a tight ball. Mr. Fitzroy ignoring ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... At this amazing falsehood Dickson started, and the man observed his surprise. The eyes were turned on him like a searchlight. They roused antagonism in his peaceful soul, and with that antagonism came an impulse to back up the Poet. "Ay," he said, "she's my auntie Phemie, my ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... to mendacity, though I confess to mendicity I have occasionally fallen. To you, Gammon, I could not lie; I respect you, I admire you, in spite of the great distance between us in education and habits of mind. If I thought you accused me of falsehood, my dear Gammon, it would distress me deeply. Assure me that you don't. I am easily put out to-day. The death of poor Bolsover—my friend before he succeeded to the title. And that reminds me. But for ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... deceit and falsehood from beginning to end! Go, woman, I will hear no more of it. Why should Marcus have come to you since yesterday if he does not know where I am? You are silent—you will not say? . . . Oh! I understand it all. He—I know he would never have ventured it. But it is your 'noble lady Damia'—that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... father, she had all the affection for him which any lover could desire. As for Jones," said he, "whom I am loth to call villain, though his behaviour to you, sir, sufficiently justifies the appellation, his own vanity, or perhaps some wicked views, might make him boast of a falsehood; for if there had been any reality in Miss Western's love to him, the greatness of her fortune would never have suffered him to desert her, as you are well informed he hath. Lastly, sir, I promise you I would not myself, for any consideration, no, not for the whole world, consent to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... love and pleasure—but 'tis all A tale of falsehood. Life's made up of gloom: The fairest scenes are clad in ruin's pall, The loveliest pathway leads ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood." ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart; O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... said Lucy hurriedly, 'of course,'—and then did not know what to say, torn as she was between her Puritan dread of falsehood, her natural woman's terror of betraying Eleanor, and her burning consciousness of the man ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... There is scarcely one proverb which has not got another 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 could ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous



Words linked to "Falsehood" :   truth, dodging, setup, prevarication, statement, misrepresentation, untruth, fabrication, deceit, dodge, deception, fable, contradiction, dishonesty



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