"Faux" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lilies, or children, or the embodied strophes of a psalter? you ask. I mix my metaphors like an Irishman, but you will see my meaning. All the arts blend in art: "rien ne fait mieux entendre combien un faux sonnet est ridicule que de s'imaginer une femme ou une maison faite sur ce modele-la." Pascal knew; and so did Philip Sidney, "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done"; and the nearer truth seems to be that Art is Nature made articulate, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... cigarette ash to the floor, using language chosen for force rather than elegance; we discuss sports, women, business and a whole group of different emotions, habits and purposes come to the surface, though we were not at all conscious of having repressed them while in the presence of the ladies. A faux pas is where the organizer has "slipped" on his job; lack of tact implies in part a rigid organizing energy, neither plastic nor ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... minute accuracy of scenic or historical details has necessarily elicited an abundant supply; though whether the entire picture is rendered much more natural and real by an accumulation of correct particulars may be questioned. 'La recherche exageree du vrai peut conduire au faux.' It is most doubtful whether laborious research can reconstruct a life-like presentation of a vanished society, its modes of life, its ways of thinking and acting. In vain the novelist or the painter studies archaeology, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... silenced her. She must have made a faux pas. Father and Rev. MacGill laughed outright, and Aunt ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... comme il est figure dans le texte de Du Guez: ainsi la versification de Pathelin ne contenait pas dans ce passage l'hiatus que l'oeil croirait y surprendre. On ne saurait trop repeter que l'ecriture est un faux temoin, surtout par rapport a l'ancien langage, et que la comparaison des erreurs peut ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... think succeeds him? his predecessor.(704) The house of York is returned to the house of Lancaster: they could not keep their white roses pure. I have not a little suspicion that disappointment has contributed to this faux-pas. Sir Thomas made a new will the day before he died, and gave his vast fortune, not to Mr. Yorke, as was expected, but to Lord Macclesfield, to whom, it is come out, he was natural brother. Norton, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Mrs Costelloe, the grocer's wife, from Tuam, an old friend of the widow, who had got into a corner with her to have a little chat, and drink half-a-pint of porter before the ceremony,—"and I'm shure I wish you joy of the marriage. Faux, I'm tould it's nigh to five hundred a-year, Miss Anty has, may God bless and incrase it! Well, Martin has his own luck; but he desarves it, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... referred to; so that during the whole year manifestations of popular resentment towards the Roman Catholic Church, and especially its ecclesiastics, were put forth in almost every part of Great Britain. When the 5th of November arrived, the day upon which the detection of Guy Faux's attempt to blow up the parliament usually receives a popular celebration, there was an outburst of patriotic hostility to the Church of Rome, which the magistrates in London and the great cities of the provinces in vain endeavoured to prevent or moderate. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... dog in every sense—a very sad dog, indeed. The only incident in the piece ever likely to provoke a smile, is the appearance of some comic bearers of grotesque sedan-chairs. When Clarissa is carried out a la GUY FAUX at the end of the Second Act, there is certainly a moment's hesitation whether the audience should cry or laugh. But the sighs have it, and pocket-handkerchiefs remain to the front. On the occasion of the initial performance, some slight amusement was caused ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... maintained, in correspondence with my Continental colleagues, that the clause should be treated as "non avenue," as "un non sens," on the ground that, while, torn from their context, its words would seem ("ont faux air") to bear the Continental interpretation, its position as part of a "Reglement," in conformity with which the Powers are to "issue instructions to their armed land forces," conclusively negatives this interpretation. ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... finding ourselves in the worst inn's worst room, where, however, the beds were clean and good. We are not grumblers, so we drank coffee and were all very happy; and while the rooms were preparing Dumont read to us a pretty little French piece, Le faux Savant! ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... occasion I was witness to a sad faux pas at his dinner-table. It was in the early days of the Crimean War, and an American gentleman who was present was so careless as to refer to Queen Victoria's proclamation against all who aided the enemy, which was clearly leveled at Mr. Baird ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... had invited me to hunt a dragon with them in Flanders,—Count Faux Pas and his Walloons. We hunted day and night, and the quest was barren. They then directed me to this island of Britain, in which they declared a dragon might be found by any man who so desired. They lied in their throats. I have come ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... learned gentlemen should have issued a bulletin, declaring that Queen Elizabeth had been met in Greenwich Park, or at Nonsuch, on May-day of 1603, or in Westminster, two years after, by the Lord Chamberlain when detecting Guy Faux—let them even swear it before twenty justices of the peace; I for one, says Hume, am free to confess that I would not believe them. No, nor, to say the truth, would we; nor would we advise our readers ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... for a certain per cent., (naming it). One of the gentlemen asked, "Are you sure, Mr. Charless? for that was my money Mr. M. lent you, and he informed me that you were to pay him only so much," (naming the per cent., which happened to be less than that agreed upon). Mr. Charless, perceiving his faux pas, expressed a regret that he had so unwittingly mentioned what, it seemed, should have been kept secret; which was all he could do. Mr. M., of course, heard of it. He knew well that he could not ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... naturalists,—"Mirantur nihil nisi pulices, pediculos—et se ipsos;"—nothing they admire but fleas, lice, and themselves! The illustrious SLOANE endured a long persecution from the bantering humour of Dr. KING. One of the most amusing declaimers against what he calls les Sciences des faux Scavans is Father MALEBRANCHE; he is far more severe than Cornelius Agrippa, and he long preceded ROUSSEAU, so famous for his invective against the sciences. The seventh chapter of his fourth book is an inimitable satire. "The principal ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... now in this new field, with some applause, He clear'd hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail, And never craned, and made but few 'faux pas,' And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail. He broke, 't is true, some statutes of the laws Of hunting—for the sagest youth is frail; Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then, And once o'er ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a "howling site bigger," he would come, "if only for the lark of seeing the dilapidated old boy" (his way of referring to his invalid Q.C. Uncle) "shovelled about the Bernese Oberland like a seedy Guy Faux,") crossing the silver streak on that valued, steady-going, and excellently well-found Channel friend, the Calais-Douvres. Of course we made a fresh friend for life on board—one always does. We counted up fifty-seven fresh friends ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... chalk from a blackboard? We, at least, cling fondly to our Tarquins; we shudder when the abyss of historic incredulity swallows up the familiar form of Mettus Curtius; we refuse to be weaned from the she-wolf of Romulus. Your unbelieving Guy Faux, who approaches the stately superstructures of history, not to gaze upon them with the eye of faith and veneration, but only that he may descend to the vaults, with his lantern and his keg of critical gunpowder, in order to blow the whole fabric sky-high,—such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... scheme had been to provide for a positive state of ease on the part of no one save himself, but here was Longmore already, if appearances perhaps not appreciable to the vulgar meant anything, primed as for some prospect of pleasure more than Parisian. Was this candid young barbarian but a faux bonhomme after all? He had never really quite satisfied his occasional host, but was he now, for a climax, to ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... three great Romans of the day, Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Crassus the Rich, for managing Rome among them. Beyond this they know little, because there is little to know. That it was a conspiracy against the ordained government of the day, as much so as that of Catiline, or Guy Faux, or Napoleon III., they do not know generally, because Caesar, who, though the youngest of the three, was the mainspring of it, rose by means of it to such a galaxy of glory that all the steps by which he rose to it have been supposed to be magnificent ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... a la voile aujour-d'hui; je m'eloigne avec un regret infini d'un pays ou l'on est, sans obstacle et sans inconvenient, ce qu'on devrait etre partout, sincere et libre."—"On y pense, on y dit, on y fait ce qu'on veut. Rien ne vous oblige d'y etre ni faux, ni bas, ni flatteur. Personne ne se choque de la singularite de vos manieres ni de vos gouts."—Memoires ou Souvenirs de Monsieur de Segur, volume I, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... familiar, and which they now, after a long interval, enjoyed once more, the burning of the Pope. This once familiar pageant is known to our generation only by descriptions and engravings. A figure, by no means resembling those rude representations of Guy Faux which are still paraded on the fifth of November, but made of wax with some skill, and adorned at no small expense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a chair resembling that in which the Bishops of Rome ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... know you well enough, Your courting Women's like your taking Snuff; Out of mere Idleness you keep a pother, You've no more need of one than of the other. Ladies— Wou'd you be quit of their insipid noise, And vain pretending take a Fool's advice; Of the faux Braves I've had some little trial, There's nothing gives 'em credit but Denial: As when a Coward will pretend to Huffing, Offer to fight, away sneaks Bully-Ruffian, So when these Sparks, whose business is addressing, In Love pursuits grow troublesom and pressing; When they affect to keep ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... abortive attempt, abortive efforts; flash in the pan, lame and impotent conclusion [Othello]; frustration; slip 'twixt cup and lip &c (disappointment) 509. blunder &c (mistake) 495; fault, omission, miss, oversight, slip, trip, stumble, claudication^, footfall; false step, wrong step; faux pas [Fr.], titubation^, bevue [Fr.], faute [Fr.], lurch; botchery &c (want of skill) 699 [Obs.]; scrape, mess, fiasco, breakdown; flunk [U.S.]. mishap &c (misfortune) 735; split, collapse, smash, blow, explosion. repulse, rebuff, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the evening of the fifth of November; the day which the Protestant youth of England dedicate to the memory of that martyr of gunpowder, the firework Faux, and which the youth of Oxford, by a three months' anticipation of the calendar, devote to the celebration of those scholastic sports for which the day of St. Scholastica the Virgin ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... were intended to create merriment. One of the officers was complacent enough to assume them, and caused great diversion by his eccentric gestures. My levee was not quite so successful, as is generally the case, as that tedious old gossip, GUIDO FAUX, obtained admission. As usual he had a grievance. It appears that a report has got abroad that he was executed in the days of our late lamented Monarch, JAMES THE FIRST of Great Britain, and SIXTH of Scotland. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... que l'Enfant a vecu pres de quatre-vingts ans, & qu'il a compose quatre-vingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits d'une longue lecture—il faut convenir que tout ce qui est incroyable n'est pas toujours faux, & que la Vraisemblance n'est pas toujours du cote la Verite. Il n'avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu'il composa Gonopsychanthropologia de Origine Animae humanae. (Les Enfans celebres, revus & corriges par M. de la ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... men from working at the building; and when the men would not work, the chiefs were suspected of preventing it, and a note from Pere Montrouzier greatly wounded Patteson's feelings by calling John Cho faux ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... N'avez-vous jamais vu de fausse monnoie? Savez-vous ce que c'est qu'un louis d'or faux? En bien, je ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... king at this siege, his sonne the duke of Aquitane, otherwise called the Dolphin, the dukes of Burgognie and Bar, and a great number of other earles, lords, knights, and gentlemen; so that the citie was besieged euen till within the Faux burges of that side towards Dun le Roie. The siege continued, till at length through mediation of Philibert de Lignac, lord great maister of the Rhodes, and the marshall of Sauoie, that were both in the kings campe, trauelling betwixt the parties, there ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... certain grave and austere physiognomy, half-Spanish and half-scholastic; and it is easy for the imagination to people its quiet streets with the English and Irish students who frequented its collegiate halls from the days of Guy Faux to the days of Daniel O'Connell. But its importance is now military, not theological. M. Pierre de la Gorce, the accomplished historian of the Revolution of 1848, who lived here seven years as a magistrate, and who still resides ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert |
