"Untruth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can offer is the word of a noble lady who never told an untruth. God omnipotent, God omnipresent knows that my heart beats with admiration, reverence, and love for the king. I would rather die than ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time That brought him up to manhood's prime. Again, he wanders forth at will, And tends a flock from hill to hill: His garb is humble; ne'er was seen Such garb with such a noble mien; ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness—your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture—your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pure as the driven snow, she did not require to be told that there were impurities in the world. If it was meant to be insinuated that he was untrue to her, she simply disbelieved it. But what if he were? His untruth would not justify hers. And untruth was impossible to her. She loved him, and had told him so. Let him be ever so false, it was for her to bring him back to truth or to spend herself in the endeavour. Her father did not understand ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... happen that the testimony of a witness must occasion the death of a person, whatever the cast of the latter,—the witness shall, in such case, speak untruth.[163] For their purification [after giving such false testimony] the twice-born must make ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... sadly; "that came when you told an untruth one day, and this when you did not mind mamma. All these blots and scratches that look so ugly, both in your book and in Carl's, were made when you were naughty. Each pretty thing in your books came on its ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... was Will—and though I do not know what he may have told you, yet I will undertake to say that he has told you nothing but the truth. I am always safe in believing him, and do not believe he would tell me an untruth for any thing that ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... said that there were no inexact statements made by the communicator during all these sittings? There are some, but very few. I shall speak of them in the following chapter. In any case, there is no trace of a single intentional untruth in ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... as mine. You know it is not, and cannot be mine. I have been so unhappy at my untruth, that I think I shall never commit such ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... Orsola! Are you aware that you are accusing me of being guilty of punishable defamation and slander? I say that the Signorina Paolina Foscarelli committed murder? Who on earth could ever have told you so monstrous an untruth? Allow me to assure you that I never said ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... from being crushed as life has been crushed out of mine. I thought of telling them that my husband had died up here—in the North. And I was fearing suspicion ... the chance that my father might learn the untruth of it, when you came. That is all, Philip. You understand now. You know why—some day—you must go away and never come back. It is to save the boy, my ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... too late with my invitation to the sophomore dance. Without giving her time to answer I put in my application for the position of escort. Then"—Elfreda paused, a slight flush rose to her round face, "then she looked me in the eye and told me a deliberate untruth. She said she had refused one invitation because she had not been interested in the reception, but that she had changed her mind. She thanked me and said she would be pleased to go. I bowed myself out without further ado, but Miss Taylor gave me the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... His manners were rude though kind; he had wonderful personal popularity, and was the freest possible from cant, pretence, or any sort of demagogueism. He was as incapable of a mean thought as of uttering the slightest approach to an untruth, or practising a possible insincerity. He was a favorite with the young lawyers and students, who imitated his rude manner and strong language; was a dangerous advocate, and had much influence with courts. In all these early years he was known as Frank Wade; "Ben" ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... says 'praps.' I don't say 'praps,' when people go settin' class agin class. Praps nobody's windows was broke! Evidence! Hasn't our minister told us George Allen has been to London? He wouldn't tell us an untruth. Due respec', Brother Scotton—no lawyering—none of that—of them functions—'specially when it's infidels and ricks may be afire—aught ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... that to Porson These best of all verses belong, He is an untruth-telling whore-son, And so shall ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... of reward? Yes, you have the Church with you there. It deals with our ordinary everyday morality, in very much the same way. Tells a maximum of untruth so that a necessary minimum may spring out of it. How many Christians to-day really believe ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... distress. As for the account I meant to give to the party to whom I intended to apply, it would depend on circumstances. If the French remained on the spot, I could relate the affair with the prize-crew of the Speedy; if the English, that of the Polisson. In neither case would an untruth be told, though certain collateral facts might be, and probably would have ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... was never discontented, nor did he ever grumble, whatever he was desired to do. And then you might believe Harry in everything he said; for though he could have gained a plum-cake by telling an untruth, and was sure that speaking the truth would expose him to a severe whipping, he never hesitated in declaring it. Nor was he like many other children, who place their whole happiness in eating: for give ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... can feel but one impression, which becomes in their hearts the distinctive seal and mark of their lives, for good or for evil. Corona was indeed so loyal and good a woman, that the strong pressure of her love could not abase her nobility, nor put untruth where all was so true; but the sign of her love for Giovanni was upon her for ever. The vacant place in her heart had been filled, and filled wholly; the bulwark she had reared against the love of man was broken down and swept away, and the waters flowed softly over its place and remembered ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... penknife, and, when he was afraid it would be found out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson's cap poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and was fond of his lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... betraying his real thoughts, De Guiche had recourse to the only defense which a man taken by surprise really has, and accordingly told an untruth. "I do not find Madame," he said, "either good or bad looking, yet rather good than ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... nice little speech a perjury instead of a simple untruth, and I should say no, again, on other, ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... that Sir Bartle Frere "sent to govern the Transvaal Sir Owen Lanyon, an officer unfitted by training and character for so delicate and difficult a task."[154] The following passage, which the present writer subsequently published, affords precise and overwhelming evidence of the absolute untruth of Mr. Bryce's assertion. It appears in a letter written by Sir Bartle Frere on December 13th, 1878, to Mr. (now Sir) Gordon Sprigg, then Premier ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... the omission to invite the Lord of all creatures. Dadhichi alone, desirous of leaving that spot, then said, "By worshipping one who should not be worshipped, and by refusing to worship him who should be worshipped, a man incurs the sin of homicide for ever. I have never before spoken an untruth, and an untruth I shall never speak. Here in the midst of the gods and the Rishis I say the truth. The Protector of all creatures, the Creator of the universe, the Lord of all, the Puissant master, the taker of sacrificial ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... have I met your brother's face? Compelled myself—if not to speak untruth, Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside The truth, as—what had e'er prevailed on me Save you to venture? Have I gained at last Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too? Does a new life, like a young ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... respectability of the lover; but the whole thing had come upon her so suddenly that she was at a loss what to do or what to say. It certainly did not seem to her that Arabella was in the least afraid of being found out in any untruth. If the girl were about to become Lady Rufford then it would be for Lord Rufford to decide whether or no she should hunt. Soon after this the Duke came in and he also alluded to his niece's costume ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... know, or rather believe you love me. You would not tell me an untruth, but I do not understand why it ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... "Why, mother, you just said that I was queer; and this old man was queer; and my father must have been queer, too." But she glanced at the placid old face, and forbore. There was a truth as well as an untruth in the inconsistent sayings, and both lay too deep for the childish ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... sorry; I am glad," she replied. "Why should I tell an untruth about what is so great a matter to both of us? But it cannot ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... lied to him. Of that there could be no doubt; but her deception was provoked by his own conduct and by the masterful love that had come upon her. I truly believe that prior to the time of her meeting with Manners she had never spoken an untruth, nor since that time I also believe, except when driven to do so by the same motive. Dorothy was not a thief, but I am sure she would have stolen for the sake of her lover. She was gentle and tender to a degree that only a woman can ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... sacrifice himself for the public weal. Into his pictures of this man, attired in the long black coat of conventional respectability, with the smug face of pharisaism, he could get nothing but cant and hypocrisy; but in his caricatures of Clayton there was that which pained him worse—disloyalty, untruth, and now and then, to the discerning few who knew the tragedy of Kittrell's soul, there was pity. And thus his work declined in value; lacking all sincerity, all faith in itself or its purpose, it became false, uncertain, full of jarring notes, and, in short, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... interrupt you to save you from speaking an untruth! Because the way to attain to a place of honour in your Majesty's heart is not to admire you as I do, but, on the contrary, to shout out: "I despise ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... all government is either a Jewish government, or a church government, or a heathenish government, and that there is no third. Yes, Sir, yourself hath given a third (for you have told three), but transeat cum caeteris erroribus. To the matter. This is a perverting of scripture to prove an untruth; for the government of generals, admirals, majors, sheriffs, is neither a Jewish government nor a church government, nor a heathenish government. Neither doth the Apostle speak anything of government in that place. He maketh a distribution of all men who are in danger to be scandalised—not of governments; ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... shall always be ready to give glory to God," answered the old man stoutly; "but I do not see that it would glorify Him to confess to a pack of lies. You have known me for many years, Master Gedney, but did you ever know me to speak an untruth, or seek to injure any innocent persons, ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... we played for, I thought it proper to inform him it was fifty cents, although it happened to be a quart of wine; but if I had told him of that, he would probably have fined me for having a blow. There was no untruth in the case, as the wine cost fifty cents. I have not played at all this term. I have not drank any kind of spirits or wine this term, and shall not till the last week." [Footnote: Horatio ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... steadily pursue. If some mishap howe'er should chance to glide; And make you limp on one or t'other side, Endeavour, of the fault, to make the best, And keep the secret locked within your breast; Your own consideration never lose; Untruth 'tis pardonable ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... lame representation of men's discourse, or their practice; suppressing some part of the truth in them, or concealing some circumstances about them which might serve to explain, to excuse, or to extenuate them. In such a manner easily, without uttering any logical untruth, one may yet grievously calumniate. Thus suppose a man speaketh a thing upon supposition, or with exception, or in way of objection, or merely for disputation sake, in order to the discussion or clearing of truth; he ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... quit the country, and through repeated delays his departure was retarded a whole year. Meanwhile his long sojourn in Africa, the report of his failures, and perhaps whispers of his insanity, had sown the seeds of discontent in Asia; and as Darius said in after-years, when recounting these events, "untruth had spread all over the country, not only in Persia and Media, but in other provinces." Cambyses himself felt that a longer absence would be injurious to his interests; he therefore crossed the isthmus in the spring of 521, and was making his way through Northern Syria, perhaps ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... speak plainly. After my long experience, after my patience and forbearance, I have surely the right to protest against the untruth (would that I could apply to it any other word!) that evangelical religion, or any religion in a violent form, is a wholesome or valuable or desirable adjunct to human life. It divides heart from heart. It sets up a vain, chimerical ideal, in the barren pursuit of ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse." I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere preamble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of Parliament might begin with a "Whereas." It is because ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... my brother," said Kenric. "There lives not a man in the Western Isles better fitted than Alpin for the great office of kingship. He is just, and noble, and trusty. No man in all Bute can say that he ever broke a promise or told an untruth. Think you that because he is hasty with his dirk he is therefore a thoughtless loon, who knows not when a gentle word can do more service than a blow? When did he ever draw dirk or sword without just cause? You do not know him as I do, Dovenald, or you would not breathe a word in his ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... instance of dramatic "irony," by which the poet makes words to be spoken, of which the spectator already knows the untruth. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... great deal of untruth spoken of mother's love, a great deal of misconception about it, as there is about most very strange, and very wonderful and beautiful things. But are you so sure that if your husband had stamped himself upon a boy this force within ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... by my own feelings how much the reader is shocked by this rude word lies, I should really be much gratified if it were possible to supplant it by some gentler or more courteous word, such as falsehoods, or even fibs, which dilutes the atrocity of untruth into something of an amiable weakness, wrong, but still venial, and natural (and so far, therefore, reasonable). Anything for peace: but really in this instance I cannot indulge the reader. The instincts of morality will not allow of it, and still less the passion which ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... find one beautiful enough; but the Prince of Spirits promised to supply one as soon as Zeyn should bring him a maiden at least fifteen years old, and of perfect beauty; only the maiden must not be vain of her charms, and she must never have told an untruth. Zeyn employed his magic mirror, and for a long time without success, as it always became blurred when he looked into it in the presence of a girl. At last he found one whose image was faithfully and brilliantly ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... stopped beating. There was only one thing that could prevent it, and that was for her to write him another letter, contradicting the first. It sounded easy to say it, but it would mean that her father would know she had told an untruth, and she shrank back miserably from the revelation. She admired her father and cared much for his opinion of her, and to be branded as a liar in his sight was more than she could bear. He would ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... detention. It would be unjust to say that this system prevails universally throughout Russia. There is a small circle around the imperial presence said to be exempt from corruption; and there may possibly be a few dignitaries of the government, in remote parts of the empire, who will not tell an untruth unless in their official correspondence, or steal except to make up what they consider due to them for public services; but the circle of immaculate ones is very small, and commences very near the Czar, and the other exceptions referred to are exceedingly rare. Thieving may be said to begin ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... and active man. He had served many years on board of a man-of-war, and had been in every climate: he had many strange stories to tell, and he might be believed even when his stories were strange, for he would not tell an untruth. He could navigate a vessel, and, of course, he could read and write. The name of Ready was very well suited to him, for he was seldom at a loss; and in cases of difficulty and danger, the captain would not hesitate to ask his opinion, and frequently ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... It is no question of distaste, but of a great wrong. He was not trying to escape; he told you an untruth, ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... be told, the "little deacon" had not been a month in attendance at school before he was up to every imaginable species of mischief that the fertile brain of a school-boy could conceive—provided its execution did not involve unequivocal untruth ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... brought from their native wilds in Africa. Sir, I believe if the gentleman were master of all languages, if he were to attempt to put into a sentence the quintessence, the high-wines, and sublimation of an untruth, he could not have more concentrated his language into ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... never spoken an untruth for her own advantage. Now, as she spoke, the sense that her course was chosen gave her courage. She looked Gilbert at length boldly in the face. His confidence in her was so great that, his own desires aiding, he believed her to the full. Thyrza's suffering, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... not so, that all sins were given up at once. My wicked companions were given up; the going to taverns was entirely discontinued; the habitual practice of telling falsehoods was no longer indulged in, but still a few times after this I spoke an untruth.—At the time when this change took place, I was engaged in translating a novel out of French into German, for the press, in order to obtain the means of gratifying my desire to see Paris, &c. This plan about the journey was now given up, though I had ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... often say that we think a certain thing is true or false when we have, as a matter of fact, done little or no thinking about it. We only believe, or uncritically accept, the common point of view as to the truth or untruth of the matter concerned. The ancients believed that the earth was flat, and the savages that eclipses were caused by animals eating up the moon. Not a few people today believe that potatoes and other vegetables should be planted at a certain phase of the moon, that sickness is a visitation ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... unsparing of her tongue for others—or for herself. Though Christine's lips and cheeks glowed, and her eyes had wonderful warm lights, incredulity was constantly signalled from both eyes and lips. She was a fine, daring little animal, with as great a talent for untruth as truth, though, to this point in her life, truth had been more with her. Her temptations ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thought very differently. Indeed, the very meaning of most religions and philosophies has been that they should be refuges from the wickedness and unhappiness of the world. According to them the world has been a very weary world, full of wickedness and of deceit, of war and strife, of untruth and of hate, of all sorts ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... are very critical and there is much gossip going on among them. They also laugh at the Mexicans, and say that the hair on their faces is like the fur on a bear. Squint-eyes also afford them much amusement. They are smart, attentive and patient. They have no qualms of conscience about telling an untruth, but my experience with them shows appreciation and gratitude for benefits received. An Indian whom I had occasion to treat to a good meal, many months afterward at a feast came up and said to me, "You were good to me when I was very hungry," and he proved his thankfulness ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... anything spoken by him relative to the cause in hand and suggested in the client's instructions, even though it should reflect on the character of another and prove absolutely groundless, but if he mention an untruth of his own invention, or even upon instructions if it be impertinent to the matter in hand, he is then liable to an action from the party injured. Counsel may also be punished by the summary power of the court or judge as for a contempt, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... had previously a doubt as to the other man who stood between himself and Anna, that doubt was now removed, and laying aside all thoughts of self, he exclaimed: "I tell you there is a great wrong somewhere. Arthur never told an untruth; he thought that you refused him; he thinks so still, and I shall never rest till I have solved the mystery. I will write to ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... tell every one that you are there to give out holy water that is poison. My aunt says so." My face turned purple with shame, and I stammered out, "Please do not believe that, Monsieur Doucet. My little sister is telling an untruth." ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... which he advances false statements of fact, or contests true statements, surpass my expectations, although I have been led to expect a good deal in this direction. These qualities are supplemented by a surprising degree of coolness in dropping a subject or making a change of front, as soon as the untruth which he has taken as his point of departure is identified beyond the possibility of evasion. In case of necessity he covers a retreat of this sort by an ebullition of moral indignation, or by an attack, often of a very personal character, which ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... despised herself for it, however, and therefore, as she grew stronger, she became her natural straightforward self again, only, if anything, all the more scrupulously accurate for the degrading experience. For she soon perceived that there is nothing that damages the character like the habit of untruth; the man or woman who makes a false excuse has already begun to deteriorate. If a census could be taken to establish the grounds upon which people are considered noble or ignoble, we should find it was in exact proportion to the amount of confidence that can be placed first of all in their sincerity, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... variety in this group of astral colors, another shade of green shows intellectual tolerance of the views of others. Growing duller, this indicates tact, diplomacy, ability to handle human nature, and descending another degree or so blends into insincerity, shiftiness, untruth, etc. There is an ugly slate-colored green indicating low, tricky deceit—this is a very common shade in the colors of the average aura, I am sorry to say. Finally, a particularly ugly, muddy, murky green indicates jealousy and kindred feelings, ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi
... fully why this utterance was so momentous in the spring of 1858.[77] By it Lincoln came before the people with a plain statement of precisely that which more than nine hundred and ninety-nine persons in every thousand, especially at the North, were striving with all their might to stamp down as an untruth; he said to them what they all were denying with desperation, and with rage against the asserters. Their bitterness was the greater because very many, in the bottom of their hearts, distrusted their ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... to convince the sergeant of the untruth of this statement, he sent him with some trifling commission to Lieutenant von Trenck. The sergeant returned triumphantly; the baron was not at home, and his servant was most anxious about him, The captain shrugged his shoulders silently. The clock struck eight; ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... think that! But it is ingrained in your country-women. You can't help it. It's in your blood to keep things back. I've met numbers of English ladies who, I'm ready to believe, would be incapable of telling an untruth. But I've never met one of whom I could be sure that she would tell me the whole truth. Don't you see this case in point," she pursued, with a little laugh, "I could not drag it out of you that you disliked ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... were cautioned by our dear Teacher to-day to beware of self-esteem and of all signs that would indicate an untruth. We were referred to the condition of Ananias and Sapphira, who intended to deceive the Apostle. Would that I were wholly free from that same Evil Spirit which tempted those persons in ancient times. The Spirit of Truth must have dominion in the mind ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... easily may beleeve it, since we see In this worlds practise few men better be. Justice to live doth nought but justice neede, 130 But policie must still on mischiefe feede. Untruth, for all his ends, truths name doth sue in; None safely live but those that study ruine. A good man happy is a common good; Ill men advanc'd live of the common ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... her face, confronting him with this untruth, he saw enough of the last perversion and distortion of good surviving in that miserable breast, to be stricken with remorse that he ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... Jesus was there crucified. And though it be called the sin against the Spirit, yet as I said before, every sin against the Spirit is not that; for if it were, then every sin against the light and convictions of the Spirit would be unpardonable; but that is an evident untruth, for these reasons—First, Because there be those who have sinned against the movings of the Spirit, and that knowingly too, and yet did not commit that sin; as Jonah, who when God had expressly by His Spirit bid him go to Nineveh, he runs thereupon quite another way. Secondly, Because the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... country for settlement. But, above all, a committee of the British House of Commons took evidence that year upon all sorts of questions concerning the North-West, and particularly its suitability for settlement, much of which was valueless owing to its untruth. Nevertheless, the Imperial Committee, after weighing all the evidence, reported that the Territories were fit for settlement, and that it was desirable that Canada should annex them, and hoped that the Government would be enabled to bring in a bill to that end at the next ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... to their utmost the parental resources; and it must be admitted she was the torment of her teachers. Her wild exuberant spirits overleaped the bounds of school life, and sometimes made order and discipline difficult of enforcement. She was never known to tell an untruth, but at the same time she would never confess to a fault. Imprisoned often for punishment in a room, she would steadfastly refuse to admit that she had done wrong, and, maternal patience exhausted, the mutinous little culprit had commonly to be released impenitent and ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... the first time the thought suggested that maybe the sailor, dying in the Boston hospital, had told him an untruth, and such a shuddering, overwhelming feeling of disappointment came over the poor fellow at that moment that he grew dizzy and sick at heart, and came nigh ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... impatient was he of the limitations of our daily thought. This habit, of course, is a little chilling to the social affections; and though the companion would in the end acquit him of any malice or untruth, yet it mars conversation. Hence, no equal companion stood in affectionate relations with one so pure and guileless. "I love Henry," said one of his friends, "but I cannot like him; and as for taking his arm, I should as soon think of taking the ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... to the goal without impediment. I was struck a few days ago with the untruth, so far as Hawthorne is concerned, of a passage in the Preface to Endymion. Keats says: "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and specimens, were features of a reigning fad. The Renaissance was an affair of the upper and middle classes. It never could spread to the masses. Classical learning came to be valued as a caste mark. Then it became still more truly an affectation, and was tainted with untruth. The masses were superior in the sincerity and truthfulness of their mores by the contrast. The humanists were pagan and profane, but did not follow their doctrines into a reformation of the church. They exaggerated the knowledge of the ancients ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... him to his presence. When he appeared, the sultan said, "Art thou a judge of horses?" He replied, "Yes, my lord: "upon which the sultan exclaimed," It is well! but I swear by him who appointed me guardian of his subjects, and said to the universe, Be! and it was, that should I find untruth in thy declaration, I will strike off thy head." The man replied, "To hear is to submit." After this they brought out the colt, that he might ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... a time, than by using one. 'Now, (added Johnson,) every one acquainted with microscopes knows, that the more of them he looks through, the less the object will appear.' 'Why, (replied the King,) this is not only telling an untruth, but telling it clumsily; for, if that be the case, every one who can look through a microscope will be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... untruth? If what he had felt then was all the time based upon a lie, how could there be anything worth the living for in that which he had left? The rapture, the deep and sacred joy, when through his fatherhood he had felt kin to God Himself—what of that? What of the life, the religion, the love, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... I"—and she stopped, as though about to suggest that Helen should adopt a child at once. Mrs. Dale usually blamed John and Helen with equal impartiality, but to-day the fault seemed to belong entirely to her niece. She was very much puzzled to know how she was to "make excuses" without telling an untruth. "I'll just speak to Giff about it," she thought; "it all depends on the way Deborah Woodhouse hears it, and Giff is really quite sensible, and can advise me what to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... intention to deceive her, to say that the publishers had advanced him five pounds. But that would be his first word of untruth to Amy, and why should he be guilty of it? He told her all that had happened. The result of this frankness was something that he had not ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... lives and stories you have curiosity and sympathy appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness; your scorn of untruth, pretension, imposture; your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... to combat strongly enough this tendency to self-delusion, which inclines us to become the prey of untruth, by preventing the birth of ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... startled, was fascinated by this untruth, and, to cut the matter short, I persuaded him to begin with me a series of secret sittings, in which I proposed to try to impart to him, to infuse into him, as it were, some of my undoubted power—the power which he daily ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... never thought of questioning. A lie is indeed a thing in its nature unbelievable, but there is a false belief always ready to receive the false truth, and there is no end to the mischief the two can work. The awful punishment of untruth in the inward parts is that the man is given over ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... bodily hurt, and perhaps put him to a cruel death. At least our own priests will assoil us for such sins. They suffer us to do evil that good may come—if not openly preaching the doctrine, yet by implication. I hold that no blame attaches to Anthony for speaking an untruth to save ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... quite frightened at his master—the first time he had heard an untruth from him. "What shall ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... England; and then breaks into a diatribe against foreigners who purchase and carry away such treasures, "not to make a serious study of them, but for mere vain-glory ... or in order to write books contradicting the very MSS. that they have bought, and with that dishonesty and untruth which are so ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... more or less a laudable make-believe—a make-believe that requires some little effort. Then Heine's notion, which seemed so brilliant at first, that the Dutchman could be redeemed by the unshakable love of a woman, has now all the disagreeable staleness of a decrepit and obvious untruth. It has no essential verity to give it validity, it is no symbol of a fact which is immediately and deeply felt to be a fact. The condition of redemption is entirely arbitrary: it might as reasonably be that the Dutchman should find a woman who would not shrink from ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... answered Marjorie, turning away with a burning face. She felt rather guilty, as though she had gone near to speaking an untruth, although no actual falsehood had passed her lips. Nobody heeded her as she slipped through the crowd of donkey boys and onlookers. Some offered her their beasts, but she smiled and shook her head, and hurried back to the main route through the larger ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... ago: and as I cannot too earnestly repeat, I may be wrong now. But I have done my duty in giving you reason for suspending your judgment of Mr Enderby. This being done, we will talk of something else.—Now, do not you think there may be some difficulty in preserving my pupils from a habit of untruth?" ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... slain for his untruth By judgement of Alla hastily; And yet Constance had of his death great ruth;* *compassion And after this Jesus of his mercy Made Alla wedde full solemnely This holy woman, that is so bright and sheen, And thus hath Christ ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... I am so glad that you came just as you did, for if it had fallen it would have frightened me terribly," Violet answered, and she uttered no untruth, for she was glad that Sarah came just as she did, because she was getting very anxious to go to Wallace and she would have been frightened if the ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... box and all its contents should be burnt without opening or disturbing anything. And lest anyone should plead ignorance of the contents, I swear by the God I worship and by all that is most sacred that no untruth is here asserted. If anyone should contravene my wishes that are just and reasonable in this matter, I charge their conscience therewith in discharging my own in this world and the next, protesting that such ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... reason comprehensible a mother Should for a stranger blurr her daughters fame, Were it untruth. I am confirmd; this favor Transcends requitall: if a man misled By error gainst the diety, gross enough For his damnation, owe a gratitude To his converter, I am engag'd to you For my delivery ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... young priest and his surroundings, admiring the beautiful view from the window, and, turning inward to a poor wreath of paper flowers hanging over a holy-water fount attached to the wall, praised for their resemblance to natural flowers. (Was that untruth unforgiven?) ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... might be true, but there was the mathematics examination of the year before. Miss Hale had argued as Dorothy did. In the hope of ultimately winning Eleanor by kindness, she had not let Miss Meredith know that Eleanor had told her an untruth. For a while afterward Eleanor had been scrupulously honorable, but now she had done something infinitely more dishonest than the deception of Miss Meredith. No doubt Dorothy regarded the affair of the story as a first offense, and Betty could not tell ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... sudden gravity; "I can't, truly. I've alway looked for Jenny to be my wife one day, ever since I was as high as those palings; but I'll not win her by untruth. There'd be no blessing from the Lord on that sort of work. I can't, ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... her a second untruth, I interrupted her by saying, "I trapped your brother into acknowledging that ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... contrary, it must guide this so that the discovery of the contradictions which unavoidably adhere to sensuous form shall not mislead the youth into the folly of throwing away, with the relative untruth of the form, also the religious ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... conscious in living that we live, the ill dream is but just beginning. Now if Shelley was but too conscious of the dream, in other respects Dryden's false and famous line might have been applied to him with very much less than it's usual untruth. {5} To the last, in a degree uncommon even among poets, he retained the idiosyncrasy of childhood, expanded and matured without differentiation. To the last he was ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... the light, With dark forgetting of my cares, return; And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth; Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn Without the torment of the night's untruth. Cease, Dreams, th' imag'ry of our day-desires, To model forth the passions of the morrow, Never let rising sun approve you liars, To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain; And never wake to feel ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... follow the great Las Casas, who called all the historians of the Conquest of Mexico liars; and though his labored refutation of their fictions has disappeared, yet, fortunately, the natural evidences of their untruth still remain. Having before me the surveys and the levels of our own engineers, I have presumed to doubt that water ever ran up hill, that navigable canals were ever fed by "back water," that pyramids ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... cold with envy to hear her say that, for she feared that Katipah was too good and simple to tell her an untruth, even in mockery. But she put a brave face upon the matter, saying only, "I will believe in that fine husband of yours ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... contradictory to the nature around him, was no proof that they were not of God. But on the other hand, that they demanded what seemed to him unjust,—that these demands were founded on what seemed to him untruth attributed to God, on ways of thinking and feeling which are certainly degrading in a man,—these were reasons of the very highest nature for refusing to act upon them so long as, from whatever defects it might be in himself, they bore to him this aspect. He saw that while they appeared ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... was all over town that Yasmini had been closeted with the commissioner on the morning of her recent escape. She herself had deliberately sown the seeds of that untruth. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... bull &c (absurdity) 497; haplography^. illusion, delusion; snare; false impression, false idea; bubble; self-decit, self-deception; mists of error. heresy &c (heterodoxy) 984; hallucination &c (insanity) 503; false light &c (fallacy of vision) 443; dream &c (fancy) 515; fable &c (untruth) 546; bias &c (misjudgment) 481; misleading &c v.. V. be erroneous &c adj.. cause error; mislead, misguide; lead astray, lead into error; beguile, misinform &c (misteach) 538 [Obs.]; delude; give a false impression, give a false idea; falsify, misstate; deceive &c 545; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... were alone at stake, had she stooped to an untruth. Fearlessly, and whatever might be ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... upon by them, when the actual character of the book in question was carefully misrepresented, and when the self-evident trend, tenor, and aim of the ostensible review were to excite public prejudice against the author on grounds wholly irrespective of the truth or untruth of his ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... boast. For all you I might have been slain. When ye saw two knights leading me away, beating me, ye left me for to succour a gentlewoman, and suffered me to remain in peril of death. Never before did any brother to another so great an untruth. And for that misdeed now I ensure you but death, for well have ye deserved it. Therefore guard yourself from henceforward, and that shall ye find needful as soon ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... very human in their way, as what else should they be, children of men and women as they are? Just as with human friends so with book friends, first impressions are often misleading; good literary coin sometimes seems to ring untrue, but the untruth is in the ear of the reader, not of the writer. For instance, Trollope has many odd and irritating tricks which are apt to scare off those who lack perseverance and who fail to understand that there must be something admirable in that which was once ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... easier to open than to shut, and cost much in repairs. In short, at that period, there was no fresh device in love invented, that had not its origin in the good convent of Poissy. You may be sure there is a good deal of untruth and hyperbolical emphasis, in these proverbs, jests, jokes, and idle tales. The nuns of the said Poissy were good young ladies, who now this way, now that, cheated God to the profit of the devil, as many others did, which was but natural, because our nature is weak; and although ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... respectest her as thou oughtest: for thou knowest that men and women, all the world over, form their opinions of one another by each person's professions and known practices. In this lady, therefore, it would be unpardonable to tell a wilful untruth, as it would be strange if I kept my word.—In love cases, I mean; for, as to the rest, I am an honest, moral man, as all who know ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... some such rumours current among us," answered Jafnhar, "but they are hardly credible; however, there is one sitting here can impart them to thee, and thou shouldst the rather believe him, for never having yet uttered an untruth, he will not now begin to deceive thee ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... mother would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I brought you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had not assured her of that, it might be different; but she who so hates an untruth, and who said to the Squire, 'Frank says this will clear him; and with all his faults, Frank never yet ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... with Matthew would not gain by a literal detail of facts. Like the wanderer in the 'Excursion,' this schoolmaster was made up of several, both of his class and men of other occupations. I do not ask pardon for what there is of untruth in such verses, considered strictly as matters of fact. It is enough if, being true and consistent in spirit, they move and teach in a manner not unworthy of a ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... judge the people or the question out of the 'Times' newspaper, whose sole policy is, it seems to me, to get up a war between France and England, though the world should perish in the struggle. The amount of fierce untruth uttered in that paper, and sworn to by the 'Saturday Review,' makes the moral sense curdle within one. You do not know this as we do, and you therefore set it down as matter of Continental prejudice on ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... do not feel pleased and flattered at your proposal would be to tell a useless untruth," the thing began speciously. "But how are we situated, what hope of happiness with our unsettled prospects and worse than small means? Industry has doubtless never been and never will be wanting on your part, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have written to my uncles ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... like that potion when it is drunk by the spirit. It perverts every moral and spiritual sense. The envious is more fatally stricken than the blind. He gazes upon untruth and thinks it true. He looks upon confusion and thinks it order. Envy is colour-blind. It is like jealousy, of which it is a blood-relation. It never sees anything in its ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... true that I like you—that I pity you; but you forbid me to say that—well it is true, I say, that I like you; but I can't say more. The only girl I love in the sense you mane, is Mave Sullivan. I could not tell you an untruth, Sarah; nor don't desave yourself. I like you, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... soul to the devil, and was hunting the rubbish on the common over, for sufficient money to buy it back. Which was, of course, sheer nonsense, and if the children had been as good as all children should be, they never for a moment would have believed such a stupid untruth. ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... and Mr. Wallace, the chief of police, were warm friends, and he felt confident that Miller would not tell him an untruth; but it was deemed best to introduce Manning as a friend of Duncan's, from Chicago, who wanted to see him upon a matter of business. Of course, it had not yet reached the public ear that Thomas Duncan was suspected of complicity in the robbery, as we had kept that fact entirely ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... all untruth and misrepresentation. How much better, and how much more in keeping with the divine character, and the divine revelation to say, without any halting or doubt, that God loves every man whom He has made; that He has provided for every man's salvation; that if men do not accept the provision ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... answered the honest guide. "The tale, as you call it, will have travelled across the mountains sooner than they who bore it—though I never knew how such a miracle could pass—but so it is; report goes faster than the tongue that spreads it, and if there be a little untruth to help it along, the wind itself is scarcely swifter. Honest Jacques Colis has bethought him to get the start of his story, but, my life on it, though he is active enough in getting away from his mockers, that he finds it, with all the additions, safely housed at the inn at Turin when he reaches ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... this untruth, and attributes it to mere forgetfulness. We leave it to him to reconcile his very charitable supposition with what he elsewhere says of the remarkable ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seems) thou art actuated by ignorance. Thou believest thyself to be conversant with virtue, but thou dost not know, O Partha, that the slaughter of living creatures is a sin. Abstention from injury to animals is, I think, the highest virtue. One may even speak an untruth, but one should never kill. How then, O foremost of men, couldst thou wish, like an ordinary person, to slay thy eldest brother, the King, who is conversant with morality? The slaughter of a person not engaged in battle, or ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... in his life been guilty of evil conduct, or even crime. Those, according to him, were called good, who knew how to conceal their thoughts and acts; but if one only embraced, flattered, and questioned such a man sufficiently, there would ooze out from him every untruth, nastiness, and lie, like matter from a pricked wound. He freely confessed that he sometimes lied himself; but affirmed with an oath that others were still greater liars, and that if any one in this world was ever ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... continually reminded of his ardent attachment to his Saviour, and his intense love to the souls of sinners. He was as delicate in his expressions as any writer of his age, who addressed the openly vicious and profane—calling things by their most forcible and popular appellations. A wilful untruth is, with him, 'a lie.' To show the wickedness and extreme folly of swearing, he gives the words and imprecations then commonly in use; but which, happily for us, we never hear, except among the most degraded classes of society. Swearing was formerly considered to be a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "good fruit." It must be sound. No disease must lurk within it. My virtues are so often touched with defilement. There is a little untruth even in my truth. There is a little jealousy even in my praise. There is a little superciliousness even in my forbearance. There is a little pride even in my piety. It is not "whole," not holy. God ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... fine and generally admired west front is, from an architect's point of view, the only part of the exterior that is not admirable. It is in actual fact, fraudulent, just as the whole of the upper wall of St. Paul's Cathedral is an artistic untruth. The west wall of Salisbury is a screen without professing to be one. The porches are very small in relation to the great flattish expanse of masonry above them; the dullness of this was much relieved by the series of statues ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... something, and we cannot tell her an untruth," replied Elfreda after brief reflection. "I should advise telling her all except about the hat. We can conveniently forget about the hat. He was taken prisoner by two men, probably in the belief that it was some one ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... untruth, but she did not wish to complain of Norman, so she hung down her head, as if she ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... always been obedient to his father and mother. I have never known him to swear or tell an untruth, and he never took anything that was not his own—that is," the poor lady hastened to add when she recalled the painful circumstance, "he never ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... attended the Commissioners of the Treasury about the victualling-contract, where high words between Sir Thomas Clifford and us, and myself more particularly, who told him that something, that he said was told him about this business, was a flat untruth. However, we went on to our business in, the examination of the draught, and so parted, and I vexed at what happened, and Brouncker and W. Pen and I home in a hackney coach. And I all that night so vexed that I did not sleep almost all night, which shows how unfit I am for trouble. So, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... dealing Elizabeth had few equals and no superior. So profound was her dissimulation that her most confidential advisers never felt quite sure that she was not deceiving them. In her diplomatic relations she never hesitated at an untruth if it would serve her purpose, and when the falsehood was discovered, she always had another and more plausible one ready to take its place. In all this her devotion to England stands out unquestioned and justifies the saying, "She lived and lied ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... experience, and of equal freedom to communicate it; one that loves me and my art; one to whom I have been beholden for many of the choicest observations that I have imparted to you. This good man, that dares do anything rather than tell an untruth, did, I say, tell me he had lately dissected one strange fish, and he thus ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... ye hired bravos of the bar that stab justice in the dark, ye Jesuit priests that "lie for God," listen all, and learn how to do it! What are your timid devices, compared with this of benumbing your adversary at the start by an outright electric shock of untruth? But a man must be supported by a powerful sense of sincerity to be capable of a statement so royally false that the truth itself shall look tame and rustic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... business. Creditors have hearts and they have good impulses. They appreciate friendship and especially gratitude. Don't believe a word of that great untruth "There ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... told these lads, "was the spirit which rises in revolt against untruth; the spirit which, as I have shown you, has appeared and reappeared, and in due time will appear again, unless God be a delusion and man be as the beasts that perish. For it is but the inflashing upon the conscience with overwhelming force of the nature ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... or twenty hurt and dishevelled men ranged against the tower wall, then back into a face impossible to associate with untruth. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there,' said she, slowly and heavily. And all this time she never closed her eyes, or ceased from that glassy, dream-like stare. His quick suspicions were aroused by this dull echo of her former denial. It was as if she had forced herself to one untruth, and had been stunned out of all ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... you have explained the reason; it was exactly because she said I was dull that I was resolved to convict her in an untruth." ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bouillon, and the wine away again; and hear you, observe well, that I have not eaten a morsel of all this. How could I, indeed; I, that ever since I opened my eyes this morning have done nothing else but eat (a horrible untruth!), and it just now occurs to me that it would therefore be unnecessary to pay money for ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... will try to get some Christian lady to teach them. I hope I may save the women. I could never locate them in Chinatown, and the Chinamen told me there were only two in town, but I find they told me an untruth, and I will ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... I was on my guard against its being lack of courage, rather than a conviction of its untruth, which held me back from embracing it. I thought it a true postulate that everything seemed permeated and sustained by a Reason that had not human aims in front of it and did not work by human means, a Divine Reason. Nature could only be understood from its highest forms; the Ideal, which revealed ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... make his peace with James. How was that to be done? Gowrie entreated for the kind offices of Melville and Arran. They advised him to write to the King confessing that he had been in several conspiracies against his person which he could reveal in a private interview. 'I should confess an untruth,' said Gowrie, 'and frame my ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... dynasty' and so forth; that the enormous French revolution meant only that! The man was 'given up to strong delusion that he should believe a lie;' a fearful but most sure thing. He did not know true from false now when he looked at them; the fearfulest penalty a man pays for yielding to untruth of heart. Self and false ambition had now become his god: self-deception once yielded to, all other deceptions follow naturally, more and more. What a paltry patch-work of theatrical paper-mantles, tinsel and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... your idea of a competent driver, eh? He hasn't that reputation on earth. Was it an untruth that credits him with a fine smash-up when he tried to drive ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... anything on earth anyone told her, because, although she had plenty of humor, she herself never would deviate from the absolute truth a moment, even in jest. I do not think she would have told an untruth to save her life. Well, of course we used to play on her to tease her. Frank would tell her the most unbelievable and impossible lies: such as that he thought he saw a mouse yesterday on the back of the sofa she was lying on (this would make her bounce up like a ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... and which, being confined for a while to their limited number, I never chose to notice. But of late years I have got to read,—not merely hear,—of the play's failure 'which all the efforts of my friend the great actor could not avert;' and the nonsense of this untruth gets hard to bear. I told you the principal facts in the letter I very hastily wrote: I could, had it been worth while, corroborate them by others in plenty, and refer to the living witnesses—Lady Martin, Mrs. Stirling, and (I believe) Mr. Anderson: ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and unadulterated untruth. The author should know that these words have meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had the text upon which he founds his ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... Jenny cross the stream? Whom did she ask to help her? What can you tell about Andrew? Who was Jenny Murdock? What did Jenny wish Andrew to do? Why could he not go with her? Would it have been right for Andrew to have told an untruth even to help Jenny out of trouble? What did he finally do? What does this lesson teach us to do in ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a certain point," we consented. "But we should prefer to call it confirmed in our convictions. Wherever we have liked or disliked in literature it has been upon grounds hardly distinguishable from moral grounds. Bad art is a vice; untruth to nature is the eighth of the seven deadly sins; a false school in literature is a seminary of crime. We are ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... tol' dat Home Loan man what was here las' week. I 'members a pow'ful lot 'bout slavery times an' 'bout 'fore surrender. I know I was a right smart size den, so's 'cording to dat I mus' be 'roun' 'bout eighty year old. I aint sho' 'bout dat an' I don't want to tell no untruth. I know I was right smart size 'fore de surrender, as I was a-sayin', 'cause I 'members Marster comin' down de road past de house. When I'd see 'im 'way off I'd run to de gate an' start singin' dis ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... a time when I was the idol of Buenos Ayres, and the pet of Rio Janeiro! Do not think I would tell you an untruth! No! I know myself. Bad at Paris, I am excellent in the provinces. In Paris you play for yourself; in the provinces you play for the others! And then what ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... highest heaven. Again, others have said that God is the formal principle of all things; and this was the theory of the Almaricians. The third error is that of David of Dinant, who most absurdly taught that God was primary matter. Now all these contain manifest untruth; since it is not possible for God to enter into the composition of anything, either as a formal or a material principle. First, because God is the first efficient cause. Now the efficient cause is not identical numerically with the form of the thing caused, but only specifically: ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the true way to befog them," answered the young man; "they have certainly heard of us; and by seeming to tell a little truth frankly it will give me an opportunity of telling more untruth." ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... favour forever; and your mother would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I brought you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had not assured her of that it might be different; but she, who so hates an untruth, and who said to the squire, 'Frank says this will clear him; and with all his faults, Frank never ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little matter by what means. Abandon all hope of a life to come, and "from that instant there is nothing serious in mortality." In order that the world should be governable, ethical, happy, virtuous, magnanimous, is it possible that it should be necessary for the world to believe in an untruth? ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... well-intended falsehood escape your lips; for Heaven, which is entirely Truth, will make the seed which you have sown of untruth to ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... seemed then so trivial! But there is no reason to doubt my uncle, Mr. Headland, for he loves Nigel dearly, and if there was any way in which he could help to unravel this so terrible plot against him—Oh! I am sure he must have told me so, sure! There would be no point in his telling an untruth over that." ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it is more readily captivated by a big lie than by a small one, since it itself often uses small lies but would be, nevertheless, too ashamed to make use of big lies. Such an untruth will not even occur to it, and it will not even believe that others are capable of the enormous insolence of the most vile distortions. Why, even when enlightened, it will still vacillate and be in doubt about the matter and will nevertheless ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... quiet and measured a way as he could, but his heart was sinking. She would go on questioning; he could not tell her an untruth. She would discover particulars of that great-uncle's provision for him, which he, Swithin, was throwing away for her sake, and she would refuse to be his for his own sake. His conclusion at this moment was precisely ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy |
