"Mental reservation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mental reservation. "I know how it is, Cicely. Allyn has been my baby and my boy; but, much as I love him, I can't help seeing that he is cantankerous and cross-grained at times. But it is only at ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... all the world besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's precautions with respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid Irish cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but then the time of his stay had not been specified. Various pretexts were invented to detain him. He must be recognised as his father's heir; the cause must be pleaded before the English judges; the young ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... assented Mrs Fyne with an air, however, of making some mental reservation which I did not pause to investigate. "Her life!" I repeated. "That girl must have had a mighty bad ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... his throne when he found he could not resume that absolute power he had possessed before his abdication at Fontainebleau. He was obliged to submit to the curb of a representative government, but we may well believe that he only yielded, with a mental reservation that as soon as victory should return to his standards and his army be reorganised he would send the representatives of the people back to their departments, and make himself as absolute as he had ever been. His temporary submission ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Matt. I think your decision is a just man's, and it's a true lover's, too. It does your heart as much honor as your head," and Wade gave him his hand now, with no mental reservation. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... be a mental reservation," said Harold. "There must be no mutual understanding of coming together again. I promised your mother. Because I am a guilty man, I am not to ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... surprise at Ghent's attitude towards him, as the city had always professed great personal attachment to him. But there was a difference between being heir and sovereign. The agreement was signed, with a mental reservation on the part of the Duke of Burgundy. He only intended to keep his pledge until he could see his way clear to make terms better to ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... terms, hard as he might think them. Instructed by the Magi, he made the required prostration at the moment of sunrise, with his face turned to the east, and thought thus to escape the humiliation of abasing himself before a mortal by the mental reservation that the intention of his act was to adore the great Persian divinity. He then swore to the peace, and was allowed to return with ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... have some theatricals at one of the cottages, and the lady at whose house they were to be given made haste to invite all the picnic party before it dispersed. Mrs. Pasmer accepted with a mental reservation, meaning to send an excuse later if she chose; and before she decided the point she kept her husband from going after dinner into the reading-room, where he spent nearly all his time over a paper and a cigar, or in sitting absolutely silent and unoccupied, and made him go to their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sensitive ear that his friend was speaking with a large mental reservation, but wisely reflecting that the matter did not concern him, he said no more, and when evening came, he went, willingly enough, to make the acquaintance of the man who was then counted as one of the greatest political powers in the country. Nor had he any premonition that in the near future he ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... prime of beautiful womanhood, pleasing to the eye, and agreeable to the mind. Women will regard you with more or less mental reservation, and men will ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... oaths, namely: "I solemnly swear (or affirm) that I recognize and accept the supreme authority of the United States of America in the Philippine Islands and will maintain true faith and allegiance thereto; that I impose upon myself this obligation voluntarily without mental reservation or purpose of evasion ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... and obstinate, he had modified this tendency of his character by reason and still more by religion. Assiduous in his duties, without arrogance or vanity, regarding his role as Prince as a mission given him by Providence, which he wished to fulfil conscientiously, he had not the slightest mental reservation in favor of restoring the old regime, and showed, perhaps, more favor to the lieutenants of Napoleon than to the officers of the army of Conde, his companions in arms. To sum up, he was not an attractive prince, but he merited respect. The Count of Puymaigre thus ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... deceive, no part of the definition, intrinsically and always wrong, why God cannot lie, not against commutative justice, mental reservation not in every ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... the father and five sons of a backwoods family from the northwest—Pine, by name. They were all tall, heavily built men, slow moving, slow speaking, with clear, steady eyes, a drawling way of talking, and the appearance always of keeping a mental reservation as to those with whom they conversed. I suppose they were ignorant enough men, as far as education goes, but they always impressed me as being somehow a superior type. Possibly it was because of the fact that they perfectly corresponded to their ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... with her mother if she could possibly help it. In the first place, it was not filial, and in the second, it was perfectly useless, as there was always a mental reservation in Mrs. Ross's mind, and she could seldom be induced to decide any ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the laity. Conscienceless persons subscribe to the creed without any particular hesitation, but the truly conscientious suffer the greatest embarrassment They must either refuse altogether and withdraw from all connection, or else subscribe with a mental reservation amounting ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... defiance a man who had boasted a long career of success was the way to rouse his pride, and determine him to overcome her resistance. Angelique was not mistaken. Bigot saw her resolution, and, although it was with a mental reservation to deceive her, he promised to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was full of stories of his deeds. We can scarcely call these historical tales: they are legendary; yet it may well be that a stratum of fact underlies the aftergrowth of romance; certainly they were history to the people, and as such, with a mental reservation, they shall be history to us. We propose, therefore, here to convert into prose "a lytell ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre believed it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to be indubitably man's ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... probity; that he had repeatedly sworn allegiance to the House of Brunswick; that he had assisted in placing the crown on the head of George I., and that he had abjured James III., "without equivocation or mental reservation, on the true ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, who brings to life the memory of the dead only to deny with word trickery the terrible evidence of death, he who rewards the martyrs with the soft soap of false promises—all these people tell lies, lies, lies! Through their words I can hear the mental reservation they are chewing over—"Around us, the deluge; and after us, the deluge." Or else they do not even lie; they see nothing and they ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... of the question in its just evidence, and having done so I willingly dismiss it with the remark that I am not talking to middle-aged nor to old men. My appeal is to young men, and I say to you without qualification, without a suspicion of mental reservation, you do not need strong drink. There are conceivable circumstances where it may be medically prescribed, but such prescription from competent men has well-nigh reached the vanishing-point. Near as any statement ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd |
