"Insincerity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough, but oh for more real praying! We are playing at praying, and caring, and coming; playing at doing—if doing costs—playing at everything but play. We are earnest enough about that. God open our eyes and convict us of our insincerity! burn out the superficial in us, make us intensely in earnest! And may God quicken our sympathy, and touch our heart, and nerve our arm for what will prove a desperate fight against "leagued fiends" in bad men's ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... Her religious knowledge, notwithstanding the pious care of her Moravian instructors in Antigua, is still but very limited, and her views of christianity indistinct; but her profession, whatever it may have of imperfection, I am convinced, has nothing of insincerity. In short, we consider her on the whole as respectable and well-behaved a person in her station, as any domestic, white or black, (and we have had ample experience of both colours,) that we have ever had in ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... go home to the King. I am quite sure that if the inmost sentiments of the bulk of professing Christians about a future life were dragged into light, these would be a revelation of a faith all honeycombed with insincerity. God tests us, and it is a sharp test if we submit ourselves to it; He tests us by His promises. 'Child, wilt thou believe?' is the first testing question put to us by these. 'Wilt thou keep them hid in thy heart?' is the next. 'Wilt thou go out towards them in desire?' is the next. 'Wilt ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... certain insincerity in Mr. Flack's nature was suggested by his present tendency to rare visits. He evidently didn't care for her father in himself, and though this mild parent always took what was set before him and never made fusses she is sure he felt their old ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... What, then, was to prevent the regent, all powerful, from printing more and yet more of it, and giving it to his friends? The regent did so. Never were mistresses better paid than those of Philippe of Orleans, receiving in effect faithlessness in return for insincerity. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... answered. Alix grinned. She had before this accused Peter of violent partisanship with his own sex. He criticized women severely; the Strickland girls had often been angry and resentful at his comments upon the insincerity, extravagance, and ignorance of their own sex, but with Peter, all men were worthy of respect, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... abnormal epithet to a normal thing; but I now know that these small Socialist free papers were talking the plainest common sense when they specifically emphasized as Capitalist the falsehoods and suppressions of their great contemporaries. From the Socialist point of view the leading fact about the insincerity of the great official papers is that this insincerity is Capitalist; just as from a Catholic point of view the leading fact about it was, and is, that ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... Parliament was resolved to hold no conference with the Court till the Queen had performed her promise made to the First President. I thought it a very proper time to let the Court see that the Parliament had not lost all its vigour, and made a motion, by Broussel, that, considering the insincerity of the Court, the levies might be continued and new commissions given out. The proposition was received with applause, and the Prince de Conti was desired ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely dramatic representation. And this would be the case, even though he were surrounded by true-hearted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... misunderstand me; I do not mean that the clerical writer now before us (bishop or not bishop) is more hostile to religion than Voltaire, or is hostile at all. On the contrary, he is, perhaps, profoundly religious, and he writes with neither levity nor insincerity. But this conscientious spirit, and this piety, do but the more call into relief the audacity of his free-thinking—do but the more forcibly illustrate the prodigious changes wrought by time, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... did not seem to know that he had ever deserved well of Bacon. On that cruel day when they saw each other for the last time at the bar of the Lords, Essex taxed his perfidious friend with unkindness and insincerity, but never with ingratitude. Even in such a moment, more bitter than the bitterness of death, that noble heart was too great to vent itself in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stupid, you are not quite so stupid as to have actually fancied that the great preacher said what you reported that he said: you were well aware that you were grossly misrepresenting him. And when I find malice and insincerity in one respect, I am ready to suspect them in another: and I venture to doubt whether you were disgusted. Possibly you were only ferocious at finding yourself so unspeakably excelled. But even if you had been really disgusted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... in regard to his Majesty, the King of Etruria, is that he did not sincerely feel either all the enthusiasm or all the gratitude which he expressed towards the First Consul, and the latter had more than one proof of this insincerity. As to the king's talent for governing and reigning, the First Consul said to Cambaceres at his levee, in the same conversation from which I have already quoted, that the Spanish Ambassador had complained of the haughtiness of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... being indeed always more or less reserved, for himself and his friends; friendship counting for so much in his life, that he is jealous of anything that might jar or disturb it, even to the length of a sort of insincerity, to which he assigns its quaint "praise;" this lover of stage plays significantly welcoming a little touch of the artificiality of play to sweeten the intercourse ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... hatred of sin. For there is scarcely anything which deceives more penitents than that subtle and profound dissimulation by which they oftentime pretend, even to themselves, a violent hatred of sin and a purpose to lead a better life. The unhappy outcome proves their insincerity, for after confession they quickly return to their natural bent, and, as though relieved of the great burden of confession, they live again at ease, careless and unmindful of their purpose; by which one fact they can be convicted of their sad pretending. ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... lavish welcome and would have urged him to eat his fill. They would not question him, he knew. If they suspected his mission, they would cover their suspicion with much amiable talk, and their protestations of welcome would be the greater because of their insincerity. But he did not go down. He made himself more comfortable between the boulders and settled himself to wait and see what ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... shallow, quarrelsome and heathenising, yet not without a directness and a firmness of conviction which gives it a certain dignity in spite of its wrangling and irreverence. Its conservative allies it despised for their wavering and insincerity; to its Nicene opponents it repaid hatred for hatred, and flung back with retorted scorn their denial of its right to bear ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... as "neither good nor bad." The reviewer objected in the English fashion to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up fairly enough: "This book is not without traces of cleverness, but it is marred everywhere by imitation, insincerity, and ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... who was meant. But she repeated, as if at a loss, "The boy?" And immediately accused herself of insincerity. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... into those eyes, that were incapable of insincerity, that, in the present instance, attempted to veil nothing, the priest read all that of which, six years ago on that never to be forgotten November night in New ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... that he had exceeded his powers and that he deserved to be hung, he at the same time, with almost idiotic fatuity, sent the same Count Neuperg back to the Turkish camp to settle some items which yet required adjustment. This proved, to every mind, the insincerity of Charles. The Russians, thus forsaken by Austria, also made peace with the Turks. They consented to demolish their fortress of Azof, to relinquish all pretensions to the right of navigating the Black ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... result of our folly," said the young lady, shaking her head at him. "We have given this child an example of insincerity. We were jesting, my dear. Mr. Van Berg and I did not ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... photographed against in the full splendour of a Hyperborean disguise; but is it worth while to unpack one's valise for that? And anyhow would not the atmosphere of the picture be marred, the pose of the explorer be rendered unnatural by his consciousness of insincerity and his fear of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... far the best known of Milton's prose writings, being the only one whose topic is not obsolete. It is also composed with more care and art than the others. Elsewhere he seeks to overwhelm, but here to persuade. He could without insincerity profess veneration for the Lords and Commons to whom his discourse is addressed, and he spares no pains to give them a favourable opinion both of his dutifulness and his reasonableness. More than anywhere else he affects ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... which also the private life and character of Cicero shine to the most advantage, revealing no vices, no treacheries,—only egotism, vanity, and vacillation, and a way that some have of speaking about people in private very differently from what they say in public, which looks like insincerity. In these letters Cicero appears as a very frank man, genial, hospitable, domestic, witty, whose society and conversation must have been delightful. In no modern correspondence do we see a higher perfection in the polished courtesies and urbanities of social life, with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one of them. No matter what the subject might be, a brain-racking effort was made to squirm it into some aspect or other that the moral and religious mind could contemplate with edification. The glaring insincerity of these sermons was not sufficient to compass the banishment of the fashion from the schools, and it is not sufficient to-day; it never will be sufficient while the world stands, perhaps. There is no school ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thanked Kali that he had acted as his proxy at this ceremony, for he felt that at the swallowing of "a piece" of M'Rua he undoubtedly would have given proof of insincerity and treachery. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... not dream of giving the Roman Catholics a political existence, but to their own constituents they performed an honourable service and gave a great boon. Those, who had insincerely supported the measure, became the dupes of their own insincerity. In the very year of this victory, a Bill for a slight relaxation of the penal laws was passed, but met its death in England.[87] Other Bills followed, and one of them became an Act in 1771. A beginning ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... with Ascher. Gorman and I were there and when he first saw Mrs. Ascher he swore. However he was forced to give her some sort of welcome and he did it pretty well, though I fear Ascher might have noticed a note of insincerity in his voice. But that was only at first. Gorman's temper changed when we reached our seats and Mrs. Ascher threw ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... finding much more than she could have expected in the mingled fear and slight which he inspired her with in such singular measure. These feminine subtleties of motive are beyond any but the finest natures in the other sex, and perhaps all that Jeff perceived was the note of insincerity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... we must all lay it continually and with uttermost humiliation to heart that we all have Captain Anything's opportunism, his self-interest, his insincerity, his instability, and his secret deceitfulness in ourselves. That man knows little of himself who does not despise and hate himself for his secret self-seeking even in the service of God. For, how the love of praise will seduce and corrupt this man, and the love of gain that man! ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... opinion involve practically all the evil consequences deducible from it. For the results of human inconsistency are not all unhappy, and if we do not always act up to virtuous principle, no more do we always work out to its remotest inference every vicious principle. Not insincerity, but inconsistency, has constantly turned the adherents of persecuting precepts into ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... they displayed an increasing tendency toward the drawing of comparisons between the East and the West, with the difference more and more in favour of the latter. Abner felt with growing keenness the formality and insincerity of an old society, its cynical note, its materialistic ideals, the intrenched injustice resulting from accumulated and inherited wealth, the conventions that hampered initiative and froze goodwill. "I shall be glad to get back West ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... her, for there was misery in her eyes and in her laugh and in the very touch of her hand. Misery and insincerity, and that terrible mental state when weakness is roped up between the two and knows, for once in its life, that it has no ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... conscientious artist in life, like any other actor, must often seem to feel more than he really feels at a given moment, say more than he means. In this he is far from being insincere—though he must make up his mind to be accused daily of insincerity and affectation. On the contrary, it will be his very sincerity that necessitates his make-believe. With his great part ever before him in its inspiring completeness, he must be careful to allow no merely personal accident of momentary feeling or action to jeopardise ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... had scattered down the stream to refresh their horses, making a long banner of color in the dark canon. Don Enrique led John along the line, and presented him solemnly to each in turn. The caballeros protested eternal friendship with vehement insincerity, and the girls flashed their eyes and teeth at the blue-eyed young American without descending from their unconscious pride of sex and race. They had the best blood of Spain in them, and an American was an American, be he never ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... powerful team that would need good driving. 'There are some odd tempers and queer ways among them; but on the whole they are gentlemen, and they have a perfect gentleman at their head, who is honest and direct, and who will not brook insincerity in others.' The head of the new government described it to a friend as 'a great experiment, hitherto unattempted, and of which the success must be considered doubtful, but in the meantime the public had regarded it with singular favour.' To ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... she will," the girl declared with pardonable insincerity; "and I really believe that if—if I were not here, Evelyn might make more of an effort to stand on her own feet than she does now. Please don't misunderstand me, Theo,"—her brave voice faltered on the words—"please ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... child,' and her mother kissed her warmly, 'I don't want to hide anything from you. You are my only home-daughter now.' Then recollecting her prudence, she proceeded,—'You are old enough to understand the distress this insincerity of poor Laura's has occasioned,—and now that Amy is gone, we must look ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the reality of direct emotion, but is preoccupied, from the moment of the first shock, in exploring it for its universal principle, and then nourishes it almost in triumph at what he has discovered. This is not insincerity; it is the metaphysical, analytical, and parenthetic mind in action. "I have endeavoured to feel what I ought to ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... bewildered for a moment. The thought flashed into his mind that the Governor had deceived him. In a few moments his thoughts brought together the acts of the Governor in the matter, and now he could see clearly evidence of insincerity and duplicity. He immediately sought out Mr. Denham, a merchant, who came over in the Annis with him, and gave him a history of ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... politeness!" He remembered that the politeness seemed too elaborate, too florid, altiloquent to the extent of insincerity. "To see her again is to love her the more," he insisted. "I have never been to Washington. Probably I'd be able to understand better the manners one is obliged to put on there, if I had been to Washington. I ought to have gone there on my vacation, ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the English are, to say the least, equally puzzled by Japanese levity. The Japanese speak of the 'angry faces' of the foreigners. The foreigners speak with strong contempt of the Japanese smile: they suspect it to signify insincerity; indeed, some declare it cannot possibly signify anything else. Only a few of the more observant have recognised it as an enigma worth studying. One of my Yokohama friends—a thoroughly lovable man, who had passed more than half his life in the open ports of the East—said to me, just before ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... he rose from the long deep sleep that followed his rescue and the surrender of the Council, he did not recognise his surroundings. By an effort he gained a clue in his mind, and all that had happened came back to him, at first with a quality of insincerity like a story heard, like something read out of a book. And even before his memories were clear, the exultation of his escape, the wonder of his prominence were back in his mind. He was owner of the world; ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... against the rules; but they think it is very stupid to get caught. They believe in using their wits to get the best of other people—especially older people, like parents and teachers. They believe in practising concealment, dissimulation and insincerity; but they are very wary of getting saddled with a downright lie. They have the utmost contempt for a "tell-tale," and they include in this opprobrium any boy who hasn't sense enough to keep from older people an inkling of any sort, ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... taught the sanction and the limits of sorrow. Christianity has nothing to do with the false Stoicism and the false religion which is partly pride and partly insincerity, that proclaims it wrong to weep when God smites. But just as clearly and distinctly as the story before us says to us, 'Weep for yourselves and for the loved ones that are gone,' so distinctly does it draw the limits within which sorrow is sacred and hallowing, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... activities which I have spoken of as being hostile to poetry. Although he perceives his subject with the right urgency, he is unwilling to be quite loyal to his perception. He makes some concession to the witty insincerity of the society in which he lives, and his poetry is soiled by the contact. It is not destroyed, not even changed in its nature, but its gold is left for ever twisted in a baser metal with which it does not suit. ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... the faults of Peter, history cannot accuse him of ingratitude, or insincerity, or weak affections,—nothing of which is seen in his treatment of the honest Dutchman, in whose yard he worked as a common laborer; of Lefort, whom he made admiral of his fleet; or of Mentchikof, whom he elevated to the second place in his empire. Peter was not a great warrior, but he created armies. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... with respect to the Eastern Question. Regretted Count Nesselrode's Note,[29] which Baron Brunnow owned nobody would regret more than the Count himself, acknowledged the weakness of Austria, felt sure of Lord Stratford's insincerity towards him and the Government,... as he had to Lord Aberdeen's certain knowledge called "the conduct of the Government infamous" and declared "he would let the world know that his name was Canning." He acknowledged the disadvantage of the course adopted by the Cabinet, which left ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... the same image. Our path will be from Glory to Glory! And some day there will come that supreme moment when we shall be suddenly changed "in a moment, the twinkling of an eye." Oh child of God see your need! It is Christ, the Lord of Glory set before your heart; all worldly mindedness, all insincerity, all discouragement, all unbelief, all unfaithfulness must flee when we follow on to know the Lord and daily behold "as in a glass ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... blacks have a child-like confidence in their chosen leaders, founded partly on their primitive character, and partly on their distrust of the native whites. Both their politicians and their preachers have given abundant evidence of their insincerity during the excitement of emigration by blowing hot and blowing cold; by talking to the negroes one way, and to the whites another; and even to the extent, in some instances, of taking money to use their influence for discouraging and impeding ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... obliged to stoop as he passed along between decks. The prisoners were disposed for a frolic, and kept the officer in their company for some time, flattering him with expectations, till he discovered their insincerity, and left them in no very pleasant humor. As he passed along, bending his body and bringing his broad shoulders to nearly a horizontal position, the idea occurred to our minds to furnish him with some recruits from the colony in the snuff box. A favorable opportunity ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... from it in the majority of cases. The kind of fanaticism which, two hundred years after Elizabeth's accession, elevated Frederick the Great into "the Protestant Hero" could easily, without conscious insincerity, make Religion an excuse for spoiling the Papists in Elizabeth's day; and the privateers who looted a Spanish vessel or one carrying Spanish treasure or merchandise believed as a rule that they were thereby laying up treasure in Heaven as well as on Earth, Their Ethics were derived from the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... had been originally written, and suggested to Ford the advisability of returning to the first text. Then Ford went upstairs to take his paint off, and Hubert walked about the stage with Brown. Brown's insincerity was sufficiently transparent; but men in Hubert's position catch at straws, and he soon began to believe that the attitude of the public towards his play was not so unfavourable as ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... the hungry, the houseless, the ragged; but it also finds them among the rich, cursed with the aimlessness, the satiety, the despair of wealth, wasting their lives in a fool's paradise of shows and semblances, with nothing real but the misery that comes of insincerity and selfishness. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... deceptions and artificialities in trifles, will try in vain to be true in matters of importance; for truth is a thing of habit rather than of will. You cannot in any given case by any sudden and single effort will to be true, if the habit of your life has been insincerity. ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... been tragedy in the Rue des Saladiers, and the newspapers of Paris might have chronicled yet another crime passionnel and the appearance of Blanquette before a weeping jury. But the days of tragedy were over. Paragot thundered invectives against insincerity in Art (we were discussing my famous mythological picture still on the easel at Menilmontant) and Blanquette beamed approval. She remarked, referring to my picture, that she didn't like so many unclad ladies. It was not decent. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... insincerity of your gallantry," she said, "unworn, I see, by working with women. John Crondall would have ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... with smiling insincerity. "I had almost forgotten what you told me. Well, it's easy enough to bribe her to silence. Go offer yourself ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... respectable mainspring of action. But Ferdinand has been credited with neither. Whithersoever he moves one looks in vain for the guiding light of large ideas. Deeper than conscious volition lies the stored-up instinct of barren pettifogging egotism to which a fine moral atmosphere is deadly. Insincerity is second nature to him. He once boasted in my presence that he was a born actor, and it is fair to say that he played his roles—repellent for the most part—as behoves a mummer. The astonishing thing is that he should have got influential politicians to take ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... about his insincerity," said the Colonel, "are you not afraid the others you spend your life teaching may turn out as little credit to ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... presently. "I believe he shook me up more than I realized. He charged me with insincerity; me, who have always made sincerity my special virtue.... Well, there may be ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... consideration and were sufficiently provided with incomes, as witness the treatment of the ex-Emperor Go-Kameyama by Yoshimitsu. But subsequent and repeated neglect of the claims of the Southern branch in regard to the vital matter of the succession betrayed the insincerity of the Ashikaga, and provoked frequent appeals ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... similar assurance. Promises of disarmament were then exchanged; but as Austria declined to stay the collection of its forces in Venetia against Italy, Bismarck was able to charge his adversary with insincerity in the negotiation, and preparations for war were resumed on both sides. Other difficulties, however, now came into view. The Treaty between Prussia and Italy had been made known to the Court of Vienna by Napoleon, whose advice ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... been my delight and misery ever since I knew you. I saw you first, so impetuous, yet self-contained! Incapable of insincerity, devoid of affection and courageously naturally beautiful. Then, to my amazement, I saw that, unlike most women, you understood your instincts; that you dared to define them, and were impious enough to follow them. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... the response of Conchita, given without sign of insincerity, "tell him that I love him as much as he can me. That I loved him from the first moment of our meeting, and shall love him to the end of my life. In reply to his honourable proposal, say to him yes. I am ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... fail to have a salutary effect upon the young, nor can it be with justice said that the bulk of the people are inconsistent in their conduct, though formality and insincerity are sadly frequent enough, and in late years a decadence in seriousness and an increase of frivolity instead have marked the present epoch, especially among those who are exposed to the pernicious influences ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... than the behaviour of Nikitin and Andrey Vassilievitch to Trenchard. There is something about Russian kindness that is both simpler and more tactful than any other kindness in the world. Tact is too often another name for insincerity, but Russian kindheartedness is the most honest impulse in the Russian soul, the quality that comes first, before anger, before injustice, before prejudice, before slander, before disloyalty, and overrides them all. They were, of course, conscious that Trenchard's case was worse than ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... person of the reverend monk all the distinguishing marks of a great preacher, visible in an excellent degree; fixed and unmoved he sat in the possession of truth and wisdom, free from all evil impediments, with a heart cleansed from all insincerity or falsehood. Then with reverent and a joyful heart, great Brahma stood and with hands joined, thus made known his request:—"What happiness in all the world so great as when a loving master meets the unwise; ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... upon our consciences, and to strain and stretch still further the obligation under which we come. We have not done what the worst men and our most malicious enemies have a right to receive from us when we say, with the cowardly insincerity of the world, 'I can forgive but I cannot forget.' That is no forgiveness, and that is no mercifulness It is not enough to stand still, unresisting. There must be a hand of helpfulness stretched out, and a gush of pity and mercifulness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... subject the speaker to a suspicion of insincerity, and should be used very seldom, and ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... teach us to love one another. That is a miserable society, where the absence of affectionate kindness is sought to be supplied by punctilious decorum, graceful urbanity, and polished insincerity; where ambition, jealousy, and distrust rule, in place of simplicity, confidence, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... proved by the increasing anxiety, and even agitation, with which one awaits the moment that shall fulfil the title. It comes, bringing with it that almost intolerable tragedy of the soul, the black loneliness that waits upon insincerity. Then poor deluded Zella, seeing herself, sees also the fate that eventually befalls those who have deliberately falsified the signals by which alone one human heart can speak to and assist another. That is all the plot of the story, told with remarkable insight and a care that is both sympathetic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... "never was there a truer proverb than that which says, 'It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one's time in looking for the sacred Emperor in the low-class tea-shops.' Do Mandarins or the friends of Mandarins travel in mean garments and unattended? Indeed, the person who is now before you is none other than the outcast Kai Lung, the story-teller, one of degraded ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... behind a curtain. Morally, the whole tendency of such a dual system of exclusion and of inclusion was to make a nation of liars, foster confirmed habits of deceit, and create a code of politeness vitiated by insincerity. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... differences, its gnat strainings and camel swallowings, its pretence of grappling with a question while resolutely bent upon shirking it, its dust throwing and mystification, its concealment of its own ineffable insincerity under an air of ineffable candour? Is there not a "lo there!" from that other school with its bituminous atmosphere of exclusiveness and self-laudatory dilettanteism? Is there not enough actual exposition ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... that if he deliberately gives his daughter in marriage to one who will corrupt and destroy her soul with "heathen mysticism," his own must pay the forfeit, and not only is his personal damnation imminent, but his ministry will become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of insincerity. He is entirely convinced of the divine inspiration of this revelation, and I am sure madness would follow any resistance I might make. I have therefore been obliged to promise him that I will break our engagement and end this correspondence, and I beg that you will not make it harder ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... They lived for art and love, and what else was there in life? A few sonatas, a few operas, a few pictures, a few books, and a love story; we had always to come back to that in the end. He spoke with conviction, his only insincerity being the alteration of a plural into a singular. But no, he did not think he had lied; he had spoken what seemed to him the truth at the present moment. Had he used the singular instead of the plural ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... of the colonists, during this period, was "the equality of the rights of all men." And yet the slaves who bore their chains under their eyes, who were denied the commonest rights of humanity, who were rated as chattels and real property, were living witnesses to the insincerity and inconsistency of this declaration. But it is a remarkable fact, that all the Southern colonies, in addition to the action of their delegates, ratified the Non-Importation Covenant. The Maryland Convention on the 8th of December, 1774; South Carolina Provincial ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... comfort if it were spoken in the ear that ought to hear it. No pure, true, loving human heart ever gets beyond being strengthened and warmed to nobler service by words of honest and sincere appreciation. Flattery is contemptible; only vain spirits are elated by it. Insincerity is a sickening mockery; the sensitive soul turns away from it in revulsion. But words of true gratitude are always to human hearts like cups of water to thirsty lips. We need not fear turning people's heads by genuine expressions of thankfulness; on the other hand, nothing inspires such humility, ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... faculties, but a living whole. So deeply rooted in the Western mind is disbelief in the reality of the soul that it is difficult to use the word, when speaking to a Western audience, without exposing oneself to the charge of insincerity,—not to speak of the graver charge of "bad form." A savour either of cant or gush hangs about the word, and is not easily detached from it. That being so, it must be clearly understood that I mean by the soul the nature of Man considered in ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... interpretation of the Dred Scott decision which explained it away as an irresponsible utterance on a subject outside the scope of the case, a mere obiter dictum, is the justification which is called in to save him from the charge of insincerity. His friends, today, admit that this interpretation was bad law, but maintain that it may have been good morals, and that Douglas honestly held it. But many of us have not yet advanced so far in critical generosity, and cannot help feeling that Douglas's position remains political ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... considerable sincerity; with friendliness, much admiration, and an ingenuous vivacity, to M. de Voltaire. Voltaire, at his leisure in Brussels or the Old Palace and its spider-webs, writes much more expansively; not with insincerity, he either;—with endless airy graciosities, and ingenious twirls, and touches of flattering unction, which latter, he is aware, must not be laid ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in looking at the candle drippings through his pocket magnifying-glass, paid slight attention to Paul, but glanced up in time to see that there was a look of insincerity on ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... full such small vanities; moreover, we all like to see winning smiles, beautiful gowns, and graceful gestures; but it is a pitiable misnomer to call such exhibitions reading. But the more subtle forms of insincerity in this art are even more prevalent. To exaggerate some form of emphasis, to exaggerate a gesture or facial expression, to wrest a passage from its meaning, these, and many other devices for forcing immediate approval from an audience, are grossly insincere. There is still a broader plan ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... too, as ardently as your lordship, but I saw no hopes of it. The insincerity of the king and the influence of the queen made it impossible to trust to his promises and declarations. Nay, what reliance could we reasonably have upon laws designed to limit and restrain the power of the Crown, after he had violated the Bill ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... a man should be made drunk with happiness by the writing of a tragedy! That is the great insincerity of the artist. "That cry of agony!—what a triumph of genius was that ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Note also the instance of the scribe who proffered to become a professed disciple, but, probably because of some degree of insincerity or unfitness, was rather discouraged than approved ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... are a curious agglomeration of good patriotism and confusion. So the Minister to England is to avoid slavery; the Minister to France has the contrary. All this is not smartness or diplomacy, but rather confusion, insincerity, and double-dealing. One must conclude that Lincoln and Seward have themselves no firm opinion. The instructions to Mexico would sound nobly-worded but for the confusion and the veil ordered to be thrown upon the cause of secession. That to Italy, above all to Austria, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... neutral power to require one belligerent to encourage by its internal regulations the trade of another belligerent, contradicting her own practice toward all nations, in peace as well as in war, and betraying the insincerity of those professions which inculcated a belief that, having resorted to her orders with regret, she was anxious to find an occasion for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... am not unmindful of the very difficult tasks with which you were called to deal, and no one can ignore the insistent conditions which, during recent years, have called for the continued and almost exclusive attention of your membership to public work. It would suggest insincerity if I expressed complete accord with every expression recorded in your roll calls, but we are all agreed about the difficulties and the inevitable divergence of opinion in seeking the reduction, amelioration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... was, yet the Scots-Irish honesty of him would not accept Mohammed as the prophet of God. It would be like putting Bonaparte above the Lord Buddha. A faith is a very solemn thing and not to be approached lightly. To accept a faith publicly, the tongue in the cheek, was the sin of insincerity and rank dishonesty, having committed which no man should hold up his head. And moreover Moslem women were queer things. For centuries they had been held to be a little more beautiful than a flower, a little less valuable, less ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... knew it was an insincerity—one of the many he and Del were now trying to make themselves believe against the almost hopeless handicap of the unbelief they had acquired as part of their "Eastern culture." He went on: "There's one ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... living in the greater world, really living at last. I have been in the heart of insincerity, and now I have come into the heart, the fiery heart of sincerity. It's there—there"—she pointed to the desert. "And it has intoxicated me; I think it has made me unreasonable. I expect everyone—not an Arab—to be as it is, and every little thing that isn't quite frank, every pretence, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... note on the article under this heading to avoid a possible misconception amongst people outside Ireland. In Ireland there is no religious dissension, but there is religious insincerity. English politicians, to serve the end of dividing Ireland, have worked on the religious feelings of the North, suggesting the danger of Catholic ascendancy. There is not now, and there never was, any such danger, but our enemies, by raising the cry, sowed discord in the North, with the ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... the existence of sin or sorrow with repugnance—shocks far deeper feelings within us than those of taste, and throws over the whole poem to which the tale of Margaret belongs, an unhappy suspicion of hollowness and insincerity in that poetical religion, which at the best is a sorry substitute indeed for the light that is from heaven. Above all, it flings, as indeed we have intimated, an air of absurdity over the orthodox Church-of-Englandism—for ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... his elbows on the dusty writing table in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination, particularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity, and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When Gerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking part in the popular defense ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... indulgent would have thrown greater lustre over her character, let it be remembered that some good qualities appear to be incompatible with others; nor let the seductive and corrupting nature of power be left out in the account. Her insincerity was perhaps the greatest blot in her character and the fruitful source of all the vexatious incidents of her reign. Though unacquainted with philosophical toleration, the only method of disarming the turbulence of religious ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... defeat—proscription; in that of victory—servitude? Is the failure of the negotiation when the king was in the Isle of Wight to be imputed to the suspicions justly entertained of his sincerity, or to the ambition of the parliamentary leaders? If the insincerity of the king was the real cause, ought not the mischief to be apprehended from his insincerity rather to have been guarded against by treaty than alleged as a pretence for breaking off the negotiation? Sad, indeed, will be the condition of the world if ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... of stones and dust where clothes—it is odd any one should have thought of washing—hang in perpetuity; while about the door continue the remnants of a porch, which the stucco falling has left exposed in all its naked insincerity. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... imagined to be reality was but the illusion of a feverish dream. In addition to George Sand's and Paul de Musset's versions, Louise Colet has furnished a third in her Lui, a publication which bears the stamp of insincerity on almost every page, and which has been described, I think by Maxime du Camp, as worse than a lying invention—namely, as a systematic perversion of the truth. A passage from George Sand's Elle et Lui, in which Therese and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... rescued with difficulty. She had spells of being miserable with no cause. She was well and happy, but would burst into tears suddenly, which seemed often to surprise her. Being very sensitive herself, she was morbidly careful of the feelings of others and incessantly committed grave sins of insincerity without compunction in her effort to spare them. To those who confided in her abilities, praised her, and thought she could do things, her nature expanded, but her mother checked her mental growth over and over, instead of helping ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... feeling and reproach in his voice startled my ears, and set my heart struggling for liberty to give an honest response to this appeal. A few simple words would have been enough, but the recollection of all that I knew came back too quickly. The conviction of his insincerity and injustice suddenly bewildered me with anger, keen in proportion to the desolation ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... 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 ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... a favourable soil in the unhealthy culture of the young man's mind. By degrees, insincerity—rather towards himself than towards others—became such a habit of Andrea's mind, that finally he was incapable of being wholly sincere or ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... fulfilling of the law" is held with a fervour which makes any question as to what love is, and how much it involves, seem half-hearted and cold. Those who preach this doctrine remind us—and very justly—of the weakness and insincerity of the "orthodox" moral standard, whether it is enforced by law or by custom. They revolt against the proprietary and possessive view of marriage as giving a woman "a hold over her husband" when he ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about things—but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything for ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... least encouragement. I knew all along she didn't care for me. How is she to blame? A girl is under no obligation to speak of all the men who have wanted to marry her, provided she has done nothing to be ashamed of. There's just one bit of insincerity. It's true she knew of you from me. But she looked you up because she despaired of finding employment; she was at an end of her money, didn't know what to do. I have heard this since I saw you last. It wasn't quite straightforward, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... vital though the issues may be below the surface, there is more clap-trap, insincerity and humbug on the surface of politics than over any equal area on ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... the last five minutes to have undergone some starching process, so changed was his whole manner now; so distant, dignified and stiff. "Mr. Dodd," said he, "I am in a difficult position. Insincerity is no part of my character. When I say I have a regard for a man, I mean it. But I am the young lady's guardian, sir. She is a minor, though on the verge of her majority, and I cannot advise her to a match which, in the received sense, would be a very bad one for her. On the other hand, there are ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... towards another. Next stands love of reputation, which is less secure, since it may lead to asceticism and hypocrisy. Third comes the desire of amity, valuable as the sphere in which amity is sought is extended, but also liable to breed insincerity. Religion would stand first of all if we all had a correct perception of the divine goodness; but not when we conceive of God as malevolent or capricious; and, as a matter of fact, our conception of the Deity is ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... insincerity. I see Mr. Napean and Mr. Hammond also appointed to confer with M. Otto, because they are of the same rank. Is not this as absurd as if Lord Whitworth were to be sent to Petersburgh, and told that he was not to treat but with some gentleman of six feet high, and as ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... is touched thinks insincerity charming]. Only one word. I heard you speak last night. Sublime! Just the sort of impassioned eloquence that your House of ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... kingdom would be left without a single soldier. William, however, could not be brought to believe that the case was so hopeless. He listened too easily to some secret adviser, Sunderland was probably the man, who accused Montague and Somers of cowardice and insincerity. They had, it was whispered in the royal ear, a majority, whenever they really wanted one. They were bent upon placing their friend Littleton in the Speaker's chair; and they had carried their point triumphantly. They would carry as triumphantly a vote for a respectable military ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... help; but it was not possible that the old intimate relations should be resumed. The affection was there, as much on his side as on mine, I believe; but he was now an old man and I was an elderly man, and we could not, without insincerity, approach each other in the things that had drawn us together in earlier and happier years. His course was run; my own, in which he had taken such a generous pleasure, could scarcely move his jaded interest. His life, so far as it remained ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... conditions. It has a tendency to ignore the individuality of people. We may not slight one man simply because we do not like him, nor may we publicly exhibit extreme preference for the one whom we do like. In both cases the rebel against the restraints of social mice shouts the charge of "insincerity." Well, perhaps some of the impulses of sincerity are better held in check; they are too closely allied to the humoring of our cherished prejudices. If "tact consists in knowing what not to say," etiquette consists in knowing what not to do in ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... to the magnetism of new ideas and fatalistic ambitions. What they did not perceive was, that in his nature lay that ingrained tendency to drift before the wind, which is the most dangerous thing in politics. In the mid-sea of events he might change his course without conscious insincerity, but with the self-abandonment of a mind which, under pressure, loses the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... become visibly affected. He tried hard to talk, but to no avail. He looked pleadingly at Lucy and at his brother as if for information, but without results. Lucy's pinched, tear-stained face added to his restlessness, and there was a note of insincerity in Uncle Gilbert's reassuring talk that his brother did not ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... pamphlet disproving entirely the agency of BURNS in this correspondence. To those who are acquainted with previous records in the private history of the world-renowned poet, it is painful to convict him, out of his own mouth, of duplicity in matters of the heart; of insincerity in the profession of simultaneous passion for various lovers; and of other acts which are alike indefensible and disreputable. We must needs marvel too that the 'CLARINDA' of the correspondence should have been doomed by a near descendant to the exposure inseparable ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... saintship he would lull the suspicions of men by a gross emblazonry of religion. It might well happen, therefore, that such a man as Cromwell, working his way upward to the highest post of authority, would deal in much insincerity of phrase, and yet have "the root of the matter" in him. Indeed, nothing is more common in the world than this combination of genuine feelings of piety with a great abundance of cant, habitual or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... to see clearly. Unless a writer has Sincerity, urging him to place before us what he sees and believes as he sees and believes it, the defective earnestness of his presentation will cause an imperfect sympathy in us. He must believe what he says, or we shall not believe it. Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength. This is not so obvious a principle as the first; at any rate it is one more ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... know not. After the middle turn of life's way we consider dangers and joys with a tranquil mind. So I proceed in peace to declare that I have always suspected in the effort to bring into play the extremities of emotions the debasing touch of insincerity. In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility—innocently enough, perhaps, and of necessity, like an actor who raises his voice on the stage above the pitch of natural ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... or was carelessly fastened, the breastplate would be sure to get out of position, so all the subsequent graces largely depend for their vigorous exercise on the prime virtue of truthfulness. Righteousness and faith will be weakened by the fatal taint of insincerity, and, on the other hand, conscious truthfulness will give strength to the whole man. Braced up and concentrated, our powers for all service and for all conflict will be increased. 'The bond of perfectness' is, no doubt, 'Love,' but that perfect bond will not be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... with which Mr. PHILLPOTTS usually succeeds in endowing his characters. Readers of his novels must know by this time that he is not exactly in love with Mrs. Grundy, but here he seems to be insurgent against something, and for the life of me I don't know quite what it is. Perhaps it is insincerity, which is a very good thing to be in rebellion against. There is one very amusing and delightful character, a bibulous old sinner who defied law and order and almost at the last gasp ladled out what he considered justice in a most dramatic manner. His name is William Ambrose, and it is worth ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... mine," she repeated, and a moment after burst into a laugh that was almost startling in its insincerity. "It is so amusing, this chapter of cross-purposes," she cried. "What a sight it has been! a night of thrilling surprises to all of us! I miss Phyllis by half an hour and my husband misses me by less than half an hour. He comes at express speed from Paris to have a talk, a ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... air of insincerity about the Japanese which Ned did not like. It seemed to the boy that he was leading the others on—or trying to lead them on—in a sinister way. The impression was in the lad's mind from the moment of his meeting Gostel that the two men, Itto and Gostel, were in the plot for ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... languid foreign accent, and with an emphatic and bountiful use of adjectives, that gave to our severer generation an impression of insincerity. Yet it was said with truth that Giulia Petrucci had never forgotten ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... sensation was joy that she had escaped: she saw at once the whole complication of events that had deceived and distressed her; and nothing more was now necessary, than to explain them to HAMET; which, however, she could not do, without discovering the insincerity of her answers to the enquiries which he had made, while she mistook him for his brother: 'If in my heart,' says she, 'thou hast found any virtue, let it incline thee to pity the vice that is mingled with it: by the vice I have been ensnared, but I have been delivered by the virtue. ALMORAN, ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... BROWN, Judge of the Illinois Circuit Court: "I have seen much in Liberty that I agreed with, and much that I disagreed with, but I never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it, which makes it an ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... not go to Cambridge—I had my hands full here. I was not sorry for the excuse. There seemed to me a note of insincerity about the whole business. I am short-tempered. I cannot stand being told that the origin of species has still to be discovered, and that specific differences have no "reality" (Bateson's Essay, p. 89). People are of course at liberty to hold such opinions, but decency might ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... great advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the Counts of Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable vassals of the crown of France [d]. But he soon experienced the insincerity of those princes, and was not able to make any impression on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigour and activity as Philip. The most remarkable incident of this war was the taking prisoner in battle the Bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate, who was of ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... may be absolutely; or that it is probable that bread will be found more nourishing than stone, even though it may not be a perfect elixir of life. Even if he denied this, the sceptic's acts would convict his words of insincerity, and practically, at any rate, no one has been or can be a sceptic, whatever the extent ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... insipid, so untrue to Cellini's real place in art, so false to the far from saintly character of the man, that I would rather have declined translating it, had I not observed it to be a good example of that technical and conventional insincerity which was invading Italy at this epoch. Varchi was really sorry to hear the news of Cellini's death; but for his genuine emotion he found spurious vehicles of utterance. Cellini, meanwhile, had a right to prize it, since it revealed to him ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... recurring viciousness, in the treatment of one's own and of other minds, which is always at variance with such habits of thought as are really worth while. There is an every-day "sophistry," of course, against which we have all of us to be on our guard—that insincerity of reasoning on behalf of sincere convictions, true or false in themselves as the case may be, to which, if we are unwise enough to argue at all with each other, we must all be tempted at times. ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... or a justification, but a partial reason—for my slowness in grasping the importance of action in these matters was the corrupt and unattractive nature of so many of the men who championed popular reforms, their insincerity, and the folly of so many of the actions which they advocated. Even at that date I had neither sympathy with nor admiration for the man who was merely a money king, and I did not regard the "money ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... train arrived its noises were drowned by a voice declaiming in the tongue I was not to hear again for months—good Italian. The voice was so loud that one looked for the audience: Whose ears was it seeking to reach by the violence done to every syllable, and whose feelings would it touch by its insincerity? The tones were insincere, but there was passion behind them; and most often passion acts its own true character poorly, and consciously enough to make good judges think it a mere counterfeit. Hamlet, being a little mad, feigned ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... Riggs, and he had possessed himself of part of her baggage with action and speech meant more to impress the curious crowd than to be really kind. In the excitement of arriving Helen had forgotten him. The manner of sudden reminder—the insincerity of it—made her temper flash. She almost fell, encumbered as she was, in her hurry to descend the steps. She saw the tall hunter in gray step forward close to her as she reached for the ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... valid one in its kind; a far more important one, in the extent and gravity of its bearings, was that which met the difficulty in the face. It was that which rests on the answer to the question whether a clergyman is guilty of insincerity, either in reality or in semblance, in continuing to read a service to part of which he strongly objects, though he is completely in accord with the general tone and spirit of the whole. The answer must evidently be a qualified one. Nothing could be worse for the interests ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the tendency to yield to every impression, to change with every impulse, but the capability of being moved by many and various impressions, of responding to an ever-renewed succession of impulses. Byron is defending the enthusiastic temperament from the charge of inconstancy and insincerity.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... your experience; and do you think that my sentiments are the crude opinions of an unpractised man? Sir! I am not fond of conversing with any person, and therefore far from being inclined to maintain an argument in a spirit of insincerity merely for the sake of a victory of words. Mark what I say: it is truth. No Minister ever yet fell but from his own inefficiency. If his downfall be occasioned, as it generally is, by the intrigues of one of his own creatures, his downfall is merited ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... its light should be read the corresponding passages in the other Gospels: in St. Mark's it is so compressed as to be capable of quite a different and false meaning: in St. John's reference, the blinding of the heart seems attributed directly to the devil:—the purport is, that those who by insincerity and falsehood close their deeper eyes, shall not be capable of using in the matter the more superficial eyes of their understanding. Whether this follows as a psychical or metaphysical necessity, or be ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... Alice in connection with gallantry would be wholly impossible. Nor could it be said that Gorringe, in his new capacity as a professing church-member, had disclosed any sign of ulterior motives, or of insincerity. Yet there the facts were. While Theron pondered them, their mystery, if they involved a mystery, baffled him altogether. But when he had finished, he found himself all the same convinced that neither Alice nor Gorringe would ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... affairs. The young politician had not the strength of character or convictions that keeps a man naturally in the forefront of affairs and gives his counsels a sterling value, and on the other hand his insincerity was not deep enough to allow him to pose artificially and successfully as a leader of men and shaper of movements. For the moment, however, his place in public life was sufficiently marked out to give him a secure footing in that world where people are counted individually ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... fact of this dinner point to reconciliation, and to a firm and liberal administration? I believe that any such Government would be the worst of all coalitions. I believe that it would be built upon insincerity, and I suspect it would be of no advantage to the country. Therefore I am not anxious to see such a ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... now perceive the insincerity of your professions. This much I have said to try you. And now to my real motive for sending for you. I have in my possession certain letters, that will ruin ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... French people; but among the educated minority who had political theories of their own, the publication of this reform by Edict produced the worst possible impression. No stronger evidence, it was said, could have been given of the Emperor's insincerity than the dictatorial form in which he affected to bestow liberty upon France. Scarcely a voice was raised in favour of the new Constitution. The measure had in fact failed of its effect. Napoleon's object ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... case the question of morality is not taken into much account. Provided there is nothing politically objectionable in the performance, and it has no tendency to make the people better acquainted with the rottenness of courts, the selfishness, wickedness, and insincerity of men in authority, and their own rights as human beings—provided the theme be Jishn za Zara—"Your life for your Czar," or the exhibition a voluptuous display—provided it be merely a matter of abject adulation or fashionable sensation, the most fastidious censor ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Wesleyan Methodist tracts I had once read when a child; they were flavoured with about the same seasoning of excitation to fanaticism. He that had written it was no bad man, and while perpetually betraying the trained cunning—the cloven hoof of his system—I should pause before accusing himself of insincerity. His judgment, however, wanted surgical props; ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... increased in number, his sense of guilt toward his consort was stamped deeper on his consciousness. He endeavored to make amends by paying her marked respect and treating her at times with distinguished tenderness and consideration. But Versailles was the high seat of elaborate and elegant insincerity, and no one was deceived by the formal courtesies paid by the Sun King to his unhappy wife. The deference that he displayed toward her in public appeared to the eyes of the world to be simply a cloak for essential ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... politician there is no doubt that he at least thought himself to be quite sincere. It may be that, if he had been, his political satires would have galled Tories more than they did then, and could hardly be read by persons of that persuasion with such complete enjoyment as they can now. But the insincerity was quite unconscious, and indeed can hardly be said to have been insincerity at all. Moore had not a political head, and in English as in Irish politics his beliefs were probably not founded on any clearly comprehended principles. But such as they were he held to them firmly. Against his ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury |
