"Dissembler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the worse for making me the victim of it. You have applied to Roderick Duncan for some of his millions; and you two, together, have discovered in the incident a means of coercing me. Oh, it is plain enough. You are a poor dissembler in a matter of this kind, however excellent you may be in others. I see it all, now, as clearly as if you had expressed it in words. You have asked Roderick, by intimation, if not in actual words, to go to your assistance to the amount ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... dissembler!" he laughed. "You couldn't be dishonest if you wanted to the worst way in the world. Well, don't you worry; I'll take ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... inclination, can he, or any body, expect, that I should immediately treat him with complaisance, as if I acknowledged obligation to him for carrying me away?—If I did, must he not either think he a vile dissembler before he ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... in the most luxurious pleasures, or managing court intrigues, the queen became a profound dissembler; and her heart was hardened by sensual enjoyments to such a degree that, when her family and favorites stood on the brink of ruin, her little portion of mind was employed only to preserve herself from danger. As a proof of the justness of this assertion, it ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Constancy profess'd Was but a well Dissembler at the best; And that imaginary Sway She feign'd to give, in seeming to obey, Was but the height of prudent Art, To deal with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... he inquired genially, as he saw her coming out of the electric room. Hinpoha laughed at his pleasantry, but she was flushed and uncomfortable from the excitement of the last moment. Hinpoha was a poor dissembler. She went upstairs until the art room was empty of visitors and then returned swiftly to the electric room for the picture. She slipped it under her middy blouse, where it was safe from detection, and sped upstairs with it. As she crossed the hall ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... of Cali, in Irene, is a masterly sketch of the old and practised dissembler of a ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Claudius of Picenum produced a few more rumours of heresy, 'which my lord and brother Valens has forgotten,' they were disavowed with equal readiness. The hearts of all men melted towards the old dissembler, and the bishops dispersed from Ariminum in the full belief that the council would take its place in history among the bulwarks of ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... there's the devil! true, he thought it Sactity enough, if he had killed a man, so tad been done in a Pew, or undone his Neighbour, so ta'd been near enough to th' Preacher. Oh,—a Sermon's a fine short cloak of an hour long, and will hide the upper-part of a dissembler.—Church! Aye, he seemed all Church, and his conscience was ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard to his conversion to Christianity, no person can doubt who believes that men's actions are an index of their real feelings. It is indeed true that Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity required; and it is also true that he remained a catechumen all his life, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... common sincerity. For it cannot be denied that He everywhere speaks as if He was willing that all men should be saved. Therefore, to say that He was not willing that all men should be saved, is to represent Him as a mere hypocrite and dissembler. It cannot be denied that the gracious words which came out of His mouth are full of invitations to all sinners. To say, then, He did not intend to save all sinners, is to represent Him as a gross deceiver of the people. You cannot deny that ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... temper.] He is crafty, cautious, a great dissembler, nor doth he want wisdom. He is not passionate in his anger. For with whomsoever he be angry, he will not shew it: neither is he rash or over-hasty in any matters, but doth all things with deliberation, tho but with a little advise: asking Counsel of no body but himself. He accounts ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... khwaja's eyes; he looked towards his son and heaved a deep sigh, and said [to him] "I am criminal in the king's eyes; I shall be put to death; what shall I do now? to whom shall I entrust thee?" I threatened him, and said, O dissembler! cease; thou hast made too many excuses [already]; what thou hast to say, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... masters her scruples sufficiently to play the thorough-going dissembler when she meets her husband, and she keeps up the pretence when she declares to Bussy before the Court (III, ii, 138), "Y'are one I know not," and speaks of him vaguely in a later scene as "the man." So, too, when Montsurry ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... my skin for—piece of gold! Want my cloak? Take it!" And the dissembler rolled over, extending his arms. The jester grasped the garment by the sleeves and with some ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... down their commissions upon pretence of having no profit by their places but charge, but indeed is upon the Duke of Buckingham's being under a cloud (of whom there is yet nothing heard), so that the King is apprehensive of their discontent, and sends him to pacify them, and I think he is as good a dissembler as any man else, and a fine person he is for person, and proper to lead the Pensioners, but a man of no honour nor faith I doubt. So to Sir G. Carteret's again to talk with him about Balty's money, and wrote a letter to Portsmouth about part of it, and then in ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... oft proclaims the man;" the voice always does—it is one of the greatest revealers of character. The superficial woman, the brutish man, the reprobate, the person of culture, often discloses inner nature in the voice, for even the cleverest dissembler cannot entirely prevent its tones and qualities being affected by the slightest change of thought or emotion. In anger it becomes high, harsh, and unpleasant; in love low, soft, and melodious—the variations are as limitless as they are fascinating to observe. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... time, the reader is well nigh disgusted with the folly and weakness I have so freely laid before him. I never disclosed it then, and would not have done so had my own sister or my mother been with me in the house. I was a close and resolute dissembler—in this one case at least. My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... of this second conversation, bears testimony to the respectfulness of his Lordship's attention. "There was nothing in his manner which approached to levity, or anything that indicated a wish to mock at religion; though, on the other hand, an able dissembler would have done and said all that he did, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... seeming to know what we know, or to be what we are. But we may never of our own proper motion step forward and court observation as being what we are not, or knowing what is against or beyond our knowledge. We may dissemble occasionally, but not simulate. The dissembler of a secret wishes for obscurity and silence: he wants to have the eyes of men turned away from him and their curiosity unroused. Whatever he says or does is to divest the idea of there being anything particularly ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... face again as quickly as he could, for he was a miserable dissembler, and Edie and Myra exchanged glances. Then, rising slowly with her hand pressed to her breast, Myra made as if she would go to the other side of the table, but her strength failed her, and as her father cleared his throat with a sonorous cough, she clung to the edge, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... imperceptible links is the chain of deception formed! Helen had no intention of acting the part of a dissembler when she formed the desperate resolution of leaving her lonely chamber. She expected to meet reproaches, perhaps punishment, but anything was preferable to the horrors of her own imagination. But when she found herself greeted as a sleep-walker, she had not the moral ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... inveigled into betraying himself. Baldos went to sleep that night with his mind confused by doubts. His talk with Haddan had left him quite undecided as to the value of old Franz's warning. Either Franz was mistaken, or Haddan was a most skilful dissembler. It struck him as utterly beyond the pale of reason that the entire castle guard should have been enlisted in the scheme to deceive him. When sleep came, he was contenting himself with the thought that morning doubtless would give him ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... table with them, as you know, when Sip Terence and Colonel Grant arrived. He and the colonel were presented to each other, and bowed with a gravity quite cordial on the part of Samoval, who was by far the more subtle dissembler of the two. Each knew the other perfectly for what he was; yet each was in complete ignorance of the extent of the other's knowledge of himself; and certainly neither ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... there are like their country—sullen and sad." And then she stopped suddenly, her eyes fixed on the window, whilst her colour came and went. She had not the gift that cynics assert is a special attribute of the sex, and was a bad dissembler; and I here venture to say such women make the best of wives, even though life's passage with them may be at ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... right," said the old dissembler. "Living alone in the wood, she had only God's creatures to play and make friends with; and wild animals, I have heard it said, know those who are friendly ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... contradict it? Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord. Was not I in all places to behold, to see, and to observe thee in all thy ways? My eye saw the thief, and the adulterer, and I heard every lie and oath of the wicked. I saw the hypocrisy of the dissembler. "They have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know, and am a witness, saith the Lord" ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... remain, and will appear ten times worse; with the aggravation of remembering two months that may have some transient roses, but I am sure, lasting thorns. You tell me I do not write with my usual spirits: at least I will suppress, as much as I can, the want of them, though I am a bad dissembler.(695) ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing else but ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... character of King William IV. "Lord Brougham," he writes, "is accustomed to describe William IV as frank, just, and straightforward. We believe him to have been very weak and very false, a finished dissembler, and always bitterly hostile to the Whig Ministry and their great measure of Reform." This is Roebuck all over. He would infinitely rather argue that white was black than quietly coincide ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... cheeks; for she knew the object of his visit, into which he plunged at once. He did not say that he loved her, but he asked her in a straightforward way to be his wife, and then waited for her answer, which was not long in coming, for Ann Eliza was no dissembler. She loved Tom Tracy with her whole soul, and felt herself honored in ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... a look of tenderness). And why, my husband? Deeds alone are irrevocable. Thou once didst swear (fondly clinging to him, and somewhat archly) that all thy projects vanished before my beauty. Thou hast foresworn thyself, dissembler—or else my charms have prematurely withered. Ask thy own heart where lies the blame? (More ardently, and throwing her arms round him.) Return, Fiesco! Conquer thyself! Renounce! Love shall indemnify thee. O Fiesco, if my heart cannot appease thy ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... friend, Kathleen attempted to avoid this part of the accusation. But she was a bad dissembler, ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... warned thee. I said: "Flee these strangers, new-come; most of all flee this man, Their leader smooth-tongued, the dissembler, the traitor!" ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... intention, if the very thought of making a will, which had been horrible to him, did not become even a pleasing kind of meditation. So is it—when Nature imposes an inevitable duty, she gives man the power of inventing a pleasing reason for his obedience; nay, so much of a self-dissembler is he, that he even cheats himself into the belief that his obedience is an act of his own will. In all which he at least proved the value of one of the arguments in favour of marriage; for trite it is to say, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... make and ignore promises and professions as was Elizabeth herself. If they found her fully a match for them at their own game, we can hardly reproach her if we cannot applaud. But it is notable that in England, the arch-dissembler is Elizabeth herself. It is she who manages the undignified but eminently successful trickery of the marriage negotiations. It is she who evades committing herself irrevocably to the Huguenots or to the Prince ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Finett, courtier and dissembler as he was, could scarcely hide the truth of this sally. But he quickly recovered his self-possession ere the king's eye could detect a change. Yet did he not escape the vigilance of his two friends, who suspected the real cause of his absence on ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... therefore—thanks to her fanaticism and the teachings of the priests—become a complete dissembler. She could smile, while in her heart she secretly brooded over hatred and revenge. She could kiss the lips of those whose destruction she had perhaps just sworn. She could preserve a harmless, innocent air, while she observed everything, and took notice of every breath, every smile, every ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... roasted, we shall not be burnt, for we are pretty well quipped and larded, in my opinion. O my jolly dapper boy, thou hast given us a gudgeon; I hope to see thee Pope before I die. I think so, said he, myself; and then shall you be a puppy, and this gentle popinjay a perfect papelard, that is, dissembler. Well, well, said the harbinger. But, said Gargantua, guess how many stitches there are in my mother's smock. Sixteen, quoth the harbinger. You do not speak gospel, said Gargantua, for there is cent before, and cent ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... opinion, is he that in Terence they name Gnatho, an ear-scratcher, a dissembler, a trencher-licker, one that talketh for his belly's sake, and is altogether a man-pleaser. This is a sin of mankind, whose intent is to get all they can ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... a great esteem. "A king of England," said Gourville, "who will be the man of his people, is the greatest king in the world; but if he will be any thing more, he is nothing at all." The king heard at first this discourse with some impatience; but being a dexterous dissembler, he seemed moved at last, and laying his hand on Temple's, said, with an appearing cordiality, "And I will be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... consideration for the feelings of others, he owed a much higher reputation for sincerity than he at all deserved. His eulogists affected to call him James the Just. If then it should appear that, in turning Papist, he had also turned dissembler and promisebreaker, what conclusion was likely to be drawn by a nation already disposed to believe that Popery had a pernicious influence on ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... may praise; Who justly hath driven out his rebel foes To deepest Hell, and, to repair that loss, Created this new happy race of Men To serve him better: Wise are all his ways. So spake the false dissembler unperceived; For neither Man nor Angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By his permissive will, through Heaven and Earth: And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton |
