"Untruthfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their recurrence. In other cases the recollection is very confused and vague, and strong suspicions fill the mind that the real condition is grossly exaggerated by the friends for some deterring effect. In common with opium and alcoholics, there is moral paralysis, untruthfulness, and low cunning in order to conceal and explain the condition by other ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... into two armed camps full of distrust of each other. The Ambassadors of the Great Powers knew the Kaiser intimately enough to realize what his intentions, in spite of everything, were, and it required an untruthfulness only explicable by the psychological effect of war to permit the suggestion of a hateful and distorted picture of him as a tyrant seeking for the domination of the world and ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... or deceives, to conceal some act of disobedience from his parents or teachers, and thereby lays the foundations for habitual untruthfulness, he pays too dear for the whistle; and he will learn the truth of it when he becomes older, and cannot command the confidence of his friends and neighbours, but is branded by them as an unreliable, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... of faults, but untruthfulness isn't one of them. I confessed everything—at least, almost everything. I didn't tell about the telescopes and deaf-mute alphabet, and Aunt was too horror-stricken to think of asking how I first made Mr. Shelmardine's acquaintance. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... when he let off steam, as at a ball game. If he had conveyed the truthful impression that he was nearly always quiet, and had taken pains to admit that occasionally he "let loose," but only in proper surroundings, he would not have killed his chances by the negative suggestion of untruthfulness. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... of an untruthfulness that was more than merely technical was based not so much on the bare fact of a kissing-relation having come about, as upon a particular example. She knew it was the merest hypocrisy to make believe that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... Helen asked, at last, coldly. She did not mean to be unkind, but she was troubled at the girl's untruthfulness. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... any true logical culture, so that he seems, in his productions and conduct, not to discern the sequences of statements, the coherence of propositions, nor the consistency of actions, thereby entangling him in expressions and declarations that have the aspect of untruthfulness—his language often actually bearing that character, without his discerning it. His writings present many instances of this infirmity. Some have already been incidentally adduced. In his Life of Phips, avowing himself the author of the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... of my sweet Princess and feel that she would approve—for never shall I see her dear face again—and in making this marriage she would know I was inclined to it from pity and not from any untruthfulness to her most ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... have any taint of the blood which you discover inclines you toward guile, insincerity, and untruthfulness fortify yourself by the reflection that insincerity is a losing game. Put it on the low ground of self-interest, and be truthful, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... grandfather, and—well, there's no use telling you what you know already. But of course it isn't as bad as some troubles, and even though I'm afraid I can't deny that it has come through your fault, it isn't as bad as if your fault had been a worse one—unkindness, or untruthfulness, ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... that a play is really bad only when the audience does not believe it; for a dramatist is not capable of a single fault, either technical or otherwise, that may not be viewed as one phase or another of untruthfulness. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... the untruthfulness of which a naturalist would complain in this description—for no birds under such circumstances of distress sing, but merely repeat each its own peculiar piercing cry, never at any other time heard, and which cannot ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... The phase of untruthfulness in the defence of unrestricted experimentation deserves far more attention than can here be accorded. One is loth to regard as possible any intent to deceive; the inaccuracy and exaggeration are undoubtedly due chiefly to ignorance on the part of men who ought to be well-informed, because ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... looked fairly at him, intently searching his eyes for indications of untruthfulness. Then she drew a long ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... race the ethics of which otherwise might serve as a model for many so-called civilised communities, these natives being free to an unusual degree from the fault of appropriating what belongs to others and from untruthfulness. The fact that the Dayaks are amiable in disposition and inclined to timidity renders this phase of their character still more inexplicable. The inevitable conclusion is that they are driven to this outrage by religious influences and lose their self-control. As of related interest I here note ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... to be expected—rather the reverse. The old moral ideals of Japan were at least quite as noble as our own; and men could really live up to them in the quiet benevolent times of patriarchal government. Untruthfulness, dishonesty, and brutal crime were rarer than now, as official statistics show, the percentage of crime having been for some years steadily on the increase—which proves of course, among other things, that the struggle for existence has been intensified. The old standard of chastity, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... Nov. 12, 1885, sought to impress upon the minds of his audience the full significance of the above characterization. He said: "This quite unique description means a great deal, I can assure you; for Western American lying is not to be measured by any of our puny European standards of untruthfulness." ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... part the faults which historians have usually ascribed to him—his meanness and ingratitude toward his most devoted followers, his chronic obstinacy which only feigned compliance, and his incurable untruthfulness. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... forbidden things and untruthfulness. His reply was: "But, Dad, it hurts like sixty. Won't ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... in her agony and indignation, for it was as if her father had accused her of untruthfulness; but an imploring look from her mother, just as she was going to speak, silenced her, and she suffered to herself till her father had gone, and then indignantly declared that John Grange was incapable ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... I can be. I do not like to have a fool for the hero of my history; but this being a history and not a romance, I must tell you of events just as they happened, and of persons exactly as they were, else my conscience will smite me for untruthfulness. Dorothy's last assault was too much for John. He could ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... Frances Freeland loved best in life; and, with the untruthfulness in which she only indulged when she gave things away, or otherwise benefited her neighbors with or without their will, she added: "It's quite wasted; I never wear it myself." And, seeing Nedda's smile, for the girl ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... has been suppressed by those who are in charge of children is the fear that it will lead to the formation of habits of untruthfulness. It is very hard to realize, unless you understand the child's nature, that the child is not lying when he says something that is manifestly not so to you and the other adults. I have heard children reproved for lying when I was sure that they had no idea of what a "lie" is. In one family an older ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... clever enough to prevent my pouncing on Mr. Holmes at the reveille gun tonight," mused the O.C. "I can hardly suspect Mr. Prescott of untruthfulness, but I wonder whether he has been clever enough to baffle me in this monument affair, without telling ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... practical beginning, and spoke a few forceful things on the necessity of absolute truth as to fact in every communication between man and man, telling them that, so far as he could understand His words recorded, our Lord's objection to swearing lay chiefly in this, that it encouraged untruthfulness, tending to make a man's yea less than yea, his nay other than nay. He said that many people who told lies every day, would be shocked when they discovered that they were liars; and that their lying must be discovered, for the Lord said so. Every untruthfulness was a passing hypocrisy, and ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... as no other man ever was, with the unreality and untruthfulness of popular opinion, and tells mankind that they must be and not seem. How are they to be? At any rate they must have the spirit and desire to be. If they are ignorant, they must acknowledge their ignorance to themselves; if they are conscious of doing evil, they must learn to do well; if they ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... said Eileen, "but you talk so earnestly one would almost imagine that you had suffered at some time through the insincerity and untruthfulness ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... had exhausted the power of panegyric when they went so far as to term him the American Scott. This fact was triumphantly paraded at a later period by a writer in Blackwood, presumably Wilson, as one of the convincing proofs of the untruthfulness of the charge made by Barry Cornwall, that authors from this country were treated with systematic unfairness in English reviews. "Were we ever unjust to Cooper?" he asked. "Why, people call him the American Scott." This ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... a choice of difficulties; but, is there any real difficulty in the case? Does not the common sense of mankind declare that the mode of proceeding which we have described is the only proper one, and that there is no real untruthfulness in it? It may be noticed too that even scientific men continually make use of it amongst themselves, and in their intercourse with others, and this without any charge of untruthfulness being brought against them. What objection then can possibly ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... in attendance on a patient sees that there is cause for grave anxiety in the patient's condition, and deems it important to conceal his fears, so far as he can without untruthfulness, he may, in answer to direct questions from his patient, give truthful answers that are designed to conceal what he has a right to conceal, without his desiring to deceive his patient, and without his being responsible ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... remained in the action all day, never leaving the field for one moment. He also says that he discovered that the attack by General Reno's corps was without sequence. This is also untrue, and when said of an officer who so nobly fought and died on that same field, it partakes of something worse than untruthfulness. Every officer present who knew anything of the battle knows that Reno performed a most important part in the battle, his corps driving the enemy from the heights on one side of the main pike, whilst that of General ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... life is lived more easily with a beard than without one, since with a beard lies are more easily told—they can be told, and then hidden in the masses of hair. Hence we ought to go through life with our faces naked, since such faces render untruthfulness more difficult, and prevent their owners from prevaricating without the fact becoming plain ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... a trial by battle. But he is sick, and can not fight; then to save his honour his friend Amile puts on the armour and helmet of Amis, and so pretending to be Amis, goes to the meeting place, and wins the fight gloriously. But this was an act of untruthfulness; he had gone into battle under a false name, and to do anything false even for a good motive is bad. So heaven punishes him by afflicting him with the horrible ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... had commanded their presence in her office that eventful morning it was not in connection with the conflicting statements of Ellen Seymour and Mignon La Salle. Satisfied that Mignon was the real offender, she had read that young woman a lesson on untruthfulness and treachery in the presence of the team that left her white with mortification, her stormy black eyes alone ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... more charming, until she seemed fit for a queen, and her unseen house a palace. Nan's playmate took pleasure in repeating these glowing accounts to her family, and many were the head-shakings and evil forebodings over the untruthfulness of the heroine of this story. Little Susan Dyer's only aunt, who was well known to her, lived as other people did in a comparatively plain and humble house, and it was not to be wondered at that she ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... learnt, to my great concern, that it had given offence to his daughter Florence, the widow of one of the heroes of the Indian Mutiny, Colonel Baird Smith. Mrs. Baird Smith complained, in a letter to the newspapers, that I had accused her father of untruthfulness, and requested the public to suspend their judgment until the publication of certain new documents, in the form of letters, which had been discovered. I might have replied, if my intent had been hostile, that little fault could be ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... to the child or savage as to the philosopher; though the former through carelessness or poverty of language will perhaps say: "I saw," instead of: "I dreamt I saw." Children will speak as it were historically of even their day-dreams and imaginings, not from any untruthfulness or wish to deceive, but from that romancing tendency rightly reprehended in their elders, who should be alive to the conventional value of language. But the first and most natural use of speech is simply to express and embody the thought that is in us, not to assert, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell |
