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Deceitful   /dəsˈitfəl/  /dɪsˈitfəl/   Listen
Deceitful

adjective
1.
Intended to deceive.  Synonyms: fallacious, fraudulent.  "Fallacious testimony" , "Smooth, shining, and deceitful as thin ice" , "A fraudulent scheme to escape paying taxes"
2.
Marked by deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another.  Synonyms: ambidextrous, double-dealing, double-faced, double-tongued, duplicitous, Janus-faced, two-faced.  "A double-dealing double agent" , "A double-faced infernal traitor and schemer"



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"Deceitful" Quotes from Famous Books



... channel. He felt suddenly responsible for her, knew that to prevent her going even into the shadow of harm he was prepared to face any danger. It was not her beauty which influenced him, a moment ago he had been ready to despise it if she were a deceitful woman; something more subtle than her beauty appealed to him, herself, the revelation of herself which was in ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... Parliament called him Vladimir Ulianov, and that's what he called himself. He had proved to be reticent, secretive, deceitful, diligent, and utterly unhuman. His lower lip was shaped as though something dripped from it. Blood, perhaps. His eyes were brown and not entirely unattractive. But God makes the eyes; the mouth ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... they are to harden their hearts and become indifferent to their welfare. God forbid! No student of the human heart, of human life, and of the Bible can long ignore the need of a caution upon these lines. The sacred writer knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the human heart as deceitful and desperately wicked. It is deceitful or it would never blind people as it does to the inutility, the futility of much of their goodness. A goodness that is wrapped up in a napkin, and lies unused for the benefit of others, rots and becomes a putrid mass of corruption. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... but a buzz that he got at the dinner and the side-board, where they kept the bottles, and he struck her, I saw him, and Marie, she was here, too, she stepped between them, and called him a drunken, deceitful beast, and a heap more in French. Then one morning when he was gone to New Orleans, and would come home pretty soon, mother and Marie and Miggie went a visiting to Tallahassee, or somewhere, and they never came back again, though pa went after them as ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... with her, to look into her face, to mark how clearly the differing soul changed her from Christie Maclaire. He could not help but like the latter, yet somehow was conscious of totally different atmospheres surrounding the two. With one he could be flippant, careless, even deceitful, but the other aroused only the best that was in him, her own ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... Virginia, when he was removed, and a commission granted to Lord Howard. The new Governor was well fitted for the task of oppression and coercion. Unscrupulous, deceitful, overbearing, resentful, persistent, he proved a dangerous foe to the representative institutions of the colony, and an able defender of royal prerogative. Had he not encountered throughout his ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... illusive ray, Trust not Joy's deceitful smiles; Oft they reckless youth betray With ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... murderer; we kill mere vermin, we exterminate rats, roaches; and what worse than that is this which I have done. Pshaw, he was a reptile, a black beetle that came flying against me. He, my son! Oh, slander, where wilt thou not cast thy slime? the thing that the deceitful, wily woman palmed upon me, he my son, thy brother? preposterous conception. Yet sad has been the creature's end; and sad, sad, sad, I felt this morning when I left my home, with a presentiment which ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... of means, he became the companion and friend of the first Nobles and Princes, and paid the usual tax of such unequal friendships, by, in the end, losing them and ruining himself. The vicissitudes of a political life, and those deceitful vistas into office that were for ever opening on his party, made his hopes as fluctuating and uncertain as his means, and encouraged the same delusive calculations on both. He seemed, at every new ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... difficult part of my negotiation with the savages; for, being themselves superlatively unscrupulous and deceitful, they naturally suspected us of being the same, and would not come alongside, or render up possession of the jollyboat and the three wounded seamen whom she carried, until we on our part had released Oahika. And ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... words of the master who, having himself been deceived at one time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a return of the original symptoms of disease, but even by a return of these symptoms in an aggravated form." (See ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf

... wrongs of it, the thing is finished and done with, and nobody can be more sorry for that unfortunate girl than I am. Also I think that you have behaved very well in coming to tell me about your trouble; but then that is like you, Morris, for you couldn't be deceitful, however hard ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... long years tread the slippery and deceitful path of abhorrent Catholicism, but who to-day stands at the Vatican's door, with the torch of Protestant wisdom, and denounces Popery with a tongue livid with the power ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... perils, tenfold risk of failure and disaster. "O Burlman Reynolds, born of Ebony as thou wert, how couldst thou so far lose sight of the besetting weakness of thy race, as thus, in a moment like this, on the critical edge of hazard and hope, to trust thy limbs and senses to the deceitful embraces of sleep? Black sluggard, avaunt! The Fighting Nigger be ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... own, and that you behave like dogs in their presence. And when you fabricate your records concerning your mythical departed masters, see to it that they do not conflict with the records we fabricated concerning ours. It would be desirable indeed if our Sirian-human society could be based on less deceitful grounds than these, but the very human attitude we are exploiting renders this impossible at the moment. I hate to think of the resentment we would incur were we to reveal that, far from being the mere dogs we seem to ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young

... the Jinnee, "thou shalt assuredly do before long, O impudent and deceitful wretch!" And he laid a long, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... passionately strained as those of the three chief actors in this scene. The old man turned to his daughter and looked at her uneasily. He saw upon her face a smile of triumph which made him expect some shock; but, after the manner of savages, he affected to maintain a deceitful indifference as he gazed at the notaries with an assumed air of calm curiosity. The strangers sat down, after being invited to do so by a ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... also. Ah! the syren that she is! No longer shall I breathe her name but with feelings of hatred and disgust. Ah! that villain too, who is leading her headlong to her own ruin! I hate him also. His affection towards me as a friend and companion has only served as a mantle to cover his deceitful heart. He is a serpent more subtle and venomous than that which entered the Garden of Eden. Ah! the vile wretch that he is! The deed is too base to forgive. I spurn the debased villain. I shall humble his proud heart. I shall crush him to the earth. ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon

... makes the force of impulsion and the target both obey the same law, and yield to the same process of calculation. But is it thus when you touch upon man's innermost and most sensitive part? Is there not danger that the hypotheses may be deceitful, and that you may be accused of toiling in a vacuum? We well know the solid reason that may be opposed to sarcasm of this nature; but is it expedient to lay one's ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... the oars, but they did not row. Sabine sat in the stern facing Christophe, and talked to her brother and looked at Christophe. Talking so, they were able to look at each other undisturbedly. They could never have done so had the words ceased to flow. The deceitful words seemed to say: "It is not you that I see." But their eyes said to each other: "Who are you? Who are you? You that I love!... You that I ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... belt in front. This ha'r is long enough as he's planted at the table that a-way, so it reaches nice to them four nearest kyards,—the king, queen, jack, ten. An' said ha'r is plumb invisible except to eyes as sharp as Faro Nell's. The deceitful Silver Phil will have a stack on one of 'em, coppered with this yere ha'r copper. He watches the box. As the turns is made, if the kyards come his way, well an' good. Silver Phil does nothin' but garners in results. When the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... Despujol. that Rizal had fallen into their trap, sent the day of issuing the "safe-conduct" or special passport, bears the same date as the secret case filed against him in Manila, "for anti religious and anti patriotic agitation." On that same day the deceitful Despujol was confidentially inquiring of his executive secretary whether it was true that Rizal had been naturalized as a German subject, and, if so, what effect would that have on the governor-general's right to take executive action; that is, could he deport ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... his eyes to the pure, shining sky. Ah, the heavens! A lie, too! That heavenly blue with its golden rays and fanciful clouds was an imperceptible film, an illusion of the eyes. Beyond the deceitful web which wraps the earth was the true heaven, endless space, and it was black, ominously obscure, with the sputtering spark of burning tears, of infinite worlds, little lamps of eternity in whose flame lived ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... mentioned the Negro teachers and school entrepreneurs. Naturally these have presented such facts as they thought would serve to open the purses of their hearers. Some have been honest, many more unintentionally dishonest, and others deliberately deceitful. The relative size of these classes it is unnecessary to attempt to ascertain. They have talked and sung their way into the hearts of the hearers as does the pitiful beggar on the street. The donor sees that evidently something is needed, and gives with little, ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey

... elevation to this semi-perfection. It is they which cause us to do immoral acts. "Immoral," has that a meaning from the moment that we do nothing which we are not obliged to do? Yes, just as when led by our deceitful mind we have arrived necessarily at a false idea, the fact of this thought being necessary does not prevent it from being false; we may have been led by necessity to commit a villainous action, but that does not prevent its being immoral. The passions ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... republic. Under the autocratic system of Diocletian, a hierarchy of dependents had sprung up. The rank of each was marked with the most scrupulous exactness, and the purity of the Latin language was debased by the invention of the deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Excellency, your Illustrious ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... was at Newport incognito for his health. She used to talk with him in the parlor, and allowed him to join her upon the piazza. Nobody could find out who he was. There were suspicions, of course. But he paid his bills, drove his horses, and was universally liked. Dear me! appearances are so deceitful! who do you ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... treachery. (He left her publicly, after a pension from England had been procured for him.) He says that the Regent averred that "favourers of God's word should have liberty to live after their consciences," "yet, in the conclusion of the peace" (the eight days' truce) "she has uttered her deceitful mind, having now declared that she will be enemy to all them that shall not live after her religion." Consequently, the Protestants are wrecking "all the friaries within their bounds." But Knox has told us that they declared their intention of thus enjoying liberty ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... reason to apprehend, that in order the better to secure the advantages of this deceitful policy to themselves, they will make proffers to each of the United States. If any of them should listen to them, (which cannot, however, be presumed,) they will urge this, as a proof of their assertions, even if they should decline receiving their proposals and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss per haps. In these new chapters, as in the old ones, I have invented nothing but my comments and one or two deceitful sentences that may keep some poor story-teller's commerce with the devil and his angels, or the like, from being known among his neighbours. I shall publish in a little while a big book about the commonwealth of faery, and shall try ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... of to-day runs riot. Austerity in those days had its sharp angles; in these it is irritable and perverse. Feebleness of intellect then was at least straightforward; in our day it is never aught but deceitful." ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... remarked to Tom that he had better try experiments on himself, or present me with a bathtub along with the next mango, and I have since learned that a Distinguished Person came to the same conclusion when first introduced to this deceitful fruit. ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... under ridicule; he has been unmoved by force or deceitful friendships; will he be frightened from his duty by gossip? No, he cares not what they say, nor who says it. He simply sends Sanballat word that there is not a vestige of truth in the report, nor does he intend to take any notice ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton

... been cunning—I hope not deceitful, inasmuch as I now reveal my cunning. Instead of describing any real picture of his, I have always substituted one he has only talked about. The picture actually associated with the facts related is not the ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... the world. And if we will habitually so look, then the sweetness that we shall experience will destroy all the seducing power of lesser and earthly sweetness, and the blessed light of the sun will dim and all but extinguish the deceitful gleams that tempt us into the swamps where we shall be drowned. Turn away, then, from these things; cleave to Jesus Christ; and though in ourselves we may be as weak as a humming-bird before a snake, or a rabbit before a tiger, He will give us strength, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... deceitful, Emily; I haint long to stay, neither has the saint among us. Her eyes have a strange look in them nowadays, and the veins in the lids show dreadful plain; we must be ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... action, consisted in its tendency to good, and that, therefore the obligation to speak truth was not paramount or intrinsical: that my duty is modelled on a knowledge and foresight of the conduct of others; and that, since men in their actual state, are infirm and deceitful, a just estimate of consequences may sometimes make dissimulation my duty were truths that did not speedily occur. The discovery, when made, appeared to be a joint work. I saw nothing in Ludlow but proofs of candour, and a judgment ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... say "The heart of man is deceitful above all things." The thinking principle within us is so subtle, has passed through so many forms of instruction, and is under the influence and direction of such a variety of causes, that no man can accurately pronounce by what ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... "I am a wretchedly deceitful girl," she told herself. "Why can't I tell them the truth? But, oh, dear, it is harder to now than it was at first." So she summoned voice to say only, "Yes, I did have a real nice time. Green Island is almost as pretty as the Point, ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard

... brother without suitable clothes—that is a foregone conclusion. But, dear me! all women are selfish when it comes to mere pleasure, and Nora is no better than the rest. For my part, I admire dear Terence's downright method of asking for so-and-so, and getting it. Nora is deceitful. I am ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... one thing settled and sealed, so no more need be said about it; yet, notwithstanding of Nanse's being satisfied that the spaewife was a deceitful gipsy, perfectly untrustworthy, she would aye have a finger in the pie, and try to persuade me in a coaxing way. "I'm sure," she would say, "ane with half an e'e may see that our son Benjie has just the physog of an admiral. It's a great shame ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... murder a woman like Vasantasena who used to wear a hundred gems, and now you try deceitful deceivings to hide it! ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... whispers of the guests! Those good people, naturally angry at the thought that two individuals should be married, divided themselves into two parties: one abused Lucy, and the other Lord Mauleverer; the former vituperated her art, the latter his folly. "I thought she would play her cards well, deceitful creature!" said the one. "January and May," muttered the other; "the man's sixty!" It was noticeable that the party against Lucy was chiefly composed of ladies, that against Mauleverer of men; that conduct must indeed be heinous which draws down the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... twenty together, his skin is not white, but flame coloured, his eyes are keen and burning, an evil heart and a sweet tongue has he, for his speech and his mind are at variance. Like honey is his voice, but his heart of gall, all tameless is he, and deceitful, the truth is not in him, a wily brat, and cruel in his pastime. The locks of his hair are lovely, but his brow is impudent, and tiny are his little hands, yet far he shoots his arrows, shoots even to Acheron, and to ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... see the wonderful effects of deceitful mirage, extremely common all over Persia. One sees beautiful lakes of silvery water, with clusters of trees and islands and rocks duly reflected upside down in their steady waters, but it is all an optical deception, caused by the action of the heated ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... loving sympathy,—that I hurl my donations at my conscience, as 'a sop to Cerberus.' I have never injured any one, and if I have no tender love in my heart to expend on others, it is the fault of that world which taught me how hollow and deceitful it is. God knows I have never intentionally wounded any living thing; and if negatively good, at least my career has no stain of positive evil upon it. I am one of those concerning whom Richter said, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... through him, and he fell from his war horse. They bore him to a bed, whereon he suffered excruciating agonies till twilight, when he died the third of the nones of February. From such a death, good Lord, deliver us! The bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his days; nevertheless, my trust shall be in thee, O ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile, Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile? ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... bad and deceitful," said Mrs. Hart, with energy; "you are trusting your life and honor in the hands of a ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... her to confess that she is mistaken. The coronation ends with John's triumph, while the hapless Fides is carried off to be immured in a dungeon. John visits her in her cell, and obtains her pardon by promising to renounce his deceitful splendour, and to fly with her. Later he discovers that a plot against himself has been hatched by some of the Anabaptist leaders, and he destroys himself and them by blowing up ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites any thing akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of good even about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? For aught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and as deceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exception proves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation so likely, that they have one and all contrived it ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... and, above all, to act prudently, and beware of heeding vain flatteries. She says: 'Do not become vain or proud through the praises bestowed upon you. Caprice has more influence upon the world's judgment than either beauty or merit. If reason is lulled to sleep through the power of such deceitful murmurs, the happiness of a whole life is in danger, and one may suddenly fall from a great height, with all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... this class the parable proclaims a warning. A rank, soporific superstition has crept over these free and easy spirits,—a superstition as dark and deceitful as any of the inventions of Rome. Men seem actually to persuade themselves that their very wickedness will supply them with a passport into heaven. They seem to expect that they will be made pets in the great day, because they made no pretension ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... imprisonment of Count Van Buren, who had committed no crime, and whose detention proved that no man, whatever might be promised, could expect security for life or liberty. The ratification of the Ghent treaty, it was insisted, was in no wise distinct and categorical, but was made dependent on a crowd of deceitful subterfuges. He inveighed bitterly against the stipulation in the Edict, that the states should pay the wages of the soldiers, whom they had just proclaimed to be knaves and rebels, and at whose hands they had suffered such monstrous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... it more easily than if it had been a quid of tobacco. And it was a sight to see how Dedele waltzed! She cut such capers, with her tootsies in the air, just like a little dancer at the Elysee Montmartre, who exhibits her fine underclothes; for it would never do to dawdle, iron is so deceitful, it cools at once, just to spite the hammer. With thirty blows, Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, had fashioned the head of his bolt. But he panted, his eyes were half out of his head, and got into a great rage as he felt his arms growing ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... nor advise, nor reprehend the choice Of Marcely Hill; the apple nowhere finds A kinder mould; yet 'tis unsafe to trust Deceitful ground; who knows but that once more This mount may journey, and his present site Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer Thy goodly plants, affording matter ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... as provincial, and governed with so great prudence, that so great a desire for his rule was aroused that, upon the arrival of the time assigned by our rules, the fathers did not wish to make any new trials of conditions which, although in appearance good, afterwards are found deceitful. They had had experience of the prudence of father Fray Diego Alvarez, and accordingly reelected him so that they might enjoy him for the second time; for in truth he had been a father to them. Hence he was elected unanimously, May 6, 1593. His election was very favorably received in the islands, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... Grecian forehead; by thy table seated with the mighty volume of the good Bishop Hopkins spread out before thee; there is peace in thy countenance, my mother; it is not worldly peace, however, not the deceitful peace which lulls to bewitching slumbers, and from which, let us pray, humbly pray, that every sinner may be roused in time to implore mercy not in vain! Thine is the peace of the righteous, my mother, of those to whom no sin can be imputed, the score of whose misdeeds has ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... I done! I have not told of anything that interferes with or belies my love for you. You don't think I planned it, do you? It is in your own mind what you are angry at, Angel; it is not in me. O, it is not in me, and I am not that deceitful woman you ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... Articles, the way in which he does makes me half wish I could. . . . It was full of wisdom and the beauty of holiness, which even I, poor sceptic and outcast, could recognise and appreciate. After all, he didn't get it from the Articles, but from his own human heart, which, he told us, was deceitful and desperately wicked. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... employed to guard the sheep and cattle, or to watch at the door of the house, or to follow the owner on any excursion of business or of pleasure. Gratius says of these dogs, that they have no pretensions to the deceitful commendation of form; but, at the time of need, when courage is required of them, most excellent mastiffs are not to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... a little. "Appearances is sometimes deceitful, Maria. I hadn't wrastled with that pie ez unsuccessful ez I seemed. That was the second slice I'd et sence you left. No, the truth is, I lost my glasses, an' I got erritated an' flew into a temper an' said things. An' the Lord, He punished me. He took my reason away. ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... a profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood, and which Augustus would have rejected with indignation. The principal officers of the empire were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency, your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious and magnificent Highness. The codicils or patents of their office were curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... and touching his strings in concert with his words, he thus said, "O ye Deities of the world that lies beneath the earth, to which we {all} come {at last}, each that is born to mortality; if I may be allowed, and you suffer me to speak the truth, laying aside[3] the artful expressions of a deceitful tongue; I have not descended hither {from curiosity} to see dark Tartarus, nor to bind the threefold throat of the Medusaean monster, bristling with serpents. {But} my wife was the cause of my coming; into whom a serpent, trodden upon {by her}, diffused its poison, and cut ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... it. The first thorough unconscious sleep would seem to be the hopeless destruction of the soul in its perfect oblivion. Death is forever for the first time, shrouded in the misleading obscurities of an unknown novelty. Appearances are often deceitful, yielding obvious clews only to mistakes and falsehoods. They are always superficial, furnishing no reliable evidence ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... loss. And now she found herself incapable by any argument or caress of soothing her sister's sense of heinous offence; for that rite, of which she had partaken with her father, had required charity with all men, and now she found she had been deceitful—she hated Mr. Rugg all the time. Oh, what should she do! how ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... millions of waves to succeed it. Every little wave leaps up as it comes under the light, and smiles toward the round-faced orb above, who seems to smile back upon it. Thou small thing, thou art a fool! The queen, in the beam of whose countenance thou disportest thyself, is altogether deceitful and loves thee not. She has smiled as kindly on thousands who have gone before thee, and will upon thousands who shall come after thee. And more than all, she would send down just as bright and loving a glance, if ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... if one of our railroads tried to operate its train service on such a basis of confidence in the general public there would be a most deceitful hiatus in the receipts from passenger traffic to be reported to a distressed group of stockholders at the end of the fiscal year. This, however, is merely a supposition on my part. I ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... my French, but in spite of that we carried on an animated conversation in French and English, Basque and Spanish. At lunch my talk grew more fluent and Mariquita went more deeply into matters. She desired to know what I thought of the Basques, of whom she was one, and a sudden flicker of the deceitful imagination set me inventing. I told her that I was a Basque myself, though I was also an Englishman. She exclaimed at this. She had never heard of English Basques. How was it I did not speak it? This was a sore point with me. I assured her of the shameful fact that the ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... vigorous and skilful hand which portrays them, but where the human being has been preserved nevertheless, and where, consequently, the lesson given is infinitely more impressive. We can learn little from the strange fantasies of demons—we are not of their kind; but the vices of the deceitful, selfish man or woman humble and warn us. In your remarks on the good girls I concur to the letter; and I must add that I think Blanche, amiable as she is represented, could never have loved her husband after she had discovered that he was utterly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... fairer and of richer wives before, And not a Loah left, thy recompense to be. Go on, twice seven years more, thy fortune try, Twice seven years more God in his bounty may Give thee to fling away Into the court's deceitful lottery: But think how likely 'tis that thou, With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough, Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive, Shouldst even able be to live; Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall In the miraculous year, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... The deceitful monk hastened toward the open trap and kneeling gazed for a moment below. There came up a foul odour that made him flinch and draw back; he drew his handkerchief and placed it to his nose and leant again and looked. There was a faint glimmer that showed in which direction the lights were. He ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... scarce is hidden, Veiled within this fair, deceitful sky; Fly, ere, from his ambush bidden, He descend ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... islets, among which we were becalmed more than once. During this part of our voyage the watch on deck and the look-out at the masthead were more than usually vigilant, as we were not only in danger of being attacked by the natives (who, I learned from the captain's remarks, were a bloody and deceitful tribe at this group), but we were also exposed to much risk from the multitudes of coral reefs that rose up in the channels between the islands, some of them just above the surface, others a few feet below it. Our precautions against the savages, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... half, believed, or, as Dr. O'Farrell asserted, some abnormal development of his subconscious self. All three were ruefully aware that Timmy was often—well, his mother called it "sly," his sister called it "fanciful," his nurse by the good old nursery term, "deceitful." ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... brief, there were here all kinds of shadows of pleasure, all kinds of seeming delight; and to tell the truth, I believe this place would have ensnared me, had not my friend, without ceremony, snatched me far away from the three deceitful towers, to the upper end of the street, and set me down by a castellated palace of prodigious size, and very agreeable at first sight, but vile and terribly revolting on the farthest side, though it was only seen with great difficulty on the side of its ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... see Her once, to curse her fair, deceitful grace, To curse her for my life-long agony; But when I saw her face, I said, "Sweet Christ, forgive both her ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... suited their fancy, but this did not satisfy Lafitte. He had endeavored to take a prompt and honest stand on the side of his country; his offers had been treated with contempt and disbelief; he had been branded as a deceitful knave, and no disposition had been shown to act justly toward him until his services became so necessary to the government that it was ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... told the whole story, accusing Fiordelisa of having betrayed the secret of his visits to make her peace with the Queen, and indeed saying a great many hard things about her fickleness and her deceitful beauty, and so on. The Enchanter quite agreed with him, and even went further, declaring that all Princesses were alike, except perhaps in the matter of beauty, and advised him to have done with Fiordelisa, and forget all about her. But, somehow or other, this advice ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... dread of the Spaniards which led Elizabeth into those perpetual reciprocations of deceitful professions and empty negotiations with the profligate and perfidious court of France, which in the judgement of posterity have redounded so little to her honor, but which appeared to her of so much importance that she now thought herself peculiarly fortunate ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... ourselves as being a unique discovery of the past eight decades: these are Bellepheron's Story; The Story of Cupid and Psyche, one of the most exquisite both in form and matter in any language or age; and the story of The Deceitful Woman and the Tub, which Boccaccio made use of in his Decameron as the second novel for the ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... let's be cool, let's be businesslike,' said I. 'Riches are deceitful, particularly when you haven't counted them; and the first thing we have to do is to arrive at the amount of my- -let me say, modest competency. If I'm not mistaken, I have enough here to keep you in gold buttons all the rest of your life. You collect the ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... own, to lay eggs with that idea in view, to sit upon them three long weeks and hatch out and bring up a nice brood of chicks. It must be quite another to have one's eggs abstracted day by day and eaten by a callous public, the nest filled with deceitful substitutes, and at the end of a dull and weary period of hatching to bring into the world another person's children—children, too, of the wrong size, the wrong kind of bills and feet, and, still more subtle grievance, the wrong kind of instincts, leading them to a dangerous aquatic career, ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... deceitful dreams! Ye silken cords that bind the heart;— Canst thou, Eliza, these entwine, And smile and triumph ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... exactly as we're seeing it, you and I. Yet it's false. It's false in this sense, Polecrab. Side by side with it another world exists, and that other world is the true one, and this one is all false and deceitful, to the very core. And so it occurs to me that reality and falseness are two words for ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... money penny by penny. Sometimes I was fool enough to tell my story in the hopes of getting pity and help—but telling my story always made it worse for me! some thought me crazy and others thought me deceitful, which is not to be wondered at, for I was a stranger and my adventures ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... the most extraordinary efforts are made in France to spread impiety, immorality, the most anti-social theories, under the pretext of spreading education. No longer as formerly, it is in newspapers and books that religion, morality, and the eternal principles of good order are attacked with the most deceitful and formidable weapon of a corrupt system of education. Under cover of an excellent object—and here is the great danger, for we are deluded by this pretext—under the pretext of spreading education and waging war against ignorance, infidelity is spread, war is waged against ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... and reputation would be the sciences; yet scarcely had he tasted their enchantment when his soul became inflamed with an ardent passion after truth. Every one who is acquainted with these sirens, and has heard their deceitful song, must know that, provided he does not make a mere trade of them, he must infallibly miss his aim, from the necessity of assuaging the burning thirst with which they inspire him. Faustus, after he had for a long time groped about in the labyrinth, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... subject of blame. But, be it remembered that it was the effect of a long previous selfishness and self-will; quiet, amiable selfishness; gentle, caressing self-will; but no less real, and more perilous and deceitful. But for this, Henrietta would have thought more of her mother, prepared for her comfort, and braced herself in order to be a support to her; she would have remembered how terrible must be the shock to her grandmother in her old age, and how painful must be the remembrances thus excited of ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Elector of Brandenburg issued a rescript, in 1654, with respect to the case of Anna of Ellerbrock, a supposed witch, forbidding the use of torture, and stigmatising the swimming of witches as an unjust, cruel, and deceitful test. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... the Holy Spirit (v. 4) and the Holy Spirit took Peter and his words and through the instrumentality of Peter and his words convicted his hearers. The Holy Spirit is the only One who can convince men of sin. The natural heart is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and there is nothing in which the inbred deceitfulness of our hearts comes out more clearly than in our estimations of ourselves. We are all of us sharp-sighted enough to the faults of others but we are all blind by nature to ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey

... in some obscure corner, for I never heard of him. As for my old friends, if you mean the Whigs, I never see them, as you may find by my journals, except Lord Halifax, and him very seldom; Lord Somers never since the first visit, for he has been a false, deceitful rascal.(16) My new friends are very kind, and I have promises enough, but I do not count upon them, and besides my pretences are very young to them. However, we will see what may be done; and if nothing at all, I shall not be disappointed; although perhaps ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... children. And oh, that grown-up people would imitate these things; for if they would become in these respects as little children, the sweet cast of mind would be reflected in their faces too, and the ugly looks given by envious discontent, deceitful thoughts, unkind intention and restless want of faith and hope would all be ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... kind of incriminating exposure or deny its reality. They therefore overreacted to other judgments that Collins made, particularly to his attacks upon Christian revelation. These they denigrated as misleading, guileful, sinister, contrived, deceitful, insidious, shuffling, covert, subversive. What they objected to was, first, the way in which he reduced the demonstration of Christian revelation to only the "puzzling and perplexing" argument from prophecy, ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... visible world always preferred to the invisible world? If those who are charged to instruct and to govern men had themselves enlightenment and virtue, they would govern them far better by realities than by vain chimeras; but deceitful, ambitious, and corrupt, the legislators found it everywhere easier to put the nations to sleep by fables than to teach them truths; than to develop their reason; than to excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives; than to govern them ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... but Mr. Brown stopped him by a gesture. "A cousin!" he exclaimed. "Do not excite yourself; be calm. On the face of it, that would seem conclusive; but appearances are notoriously deceitful. Will you assure me on your honor that there is no motive, no family feud, at the bottom of this? Cousins do not go about the world denouncing each other—as a rule. Family pride, affection, a thousand things, prevent them from making such things public; but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... just as they adapt their conscience to the standard of the Code or the Tribunal of Commerce. Having started early to become men of note, they turn into mediocrities, and crawl over the high places of the world. So, too, their faces present the harsh pallor, the deceitful coloring, those dull, tarnished eyes, and garrulous, sensual mouths, in which the observer recognizes the symptoms of the degeneracy of the thought and its rotation in the circle of a special idea which destroys the creative faculties of the brain and the gift of seeing in ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... submit to this fatigue, in order to live at ease ever after: And must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate. Indolence, which, to some persons, affords a safeguard against this deceitful philosophy, is, with others, overbalanced by curiosity; and despair, which, at some moments, prevails, may give place afterwards to sanguine hopes and expectations. Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... no reason to complain, if you had spoken to me without dissembling; you would then have sounded the death-knell of my hope; but my heart could have blamed fortune alone. But to see my love encouraged by a deceitful avowal on your part, is so treacherous and perfidious an action, that it cannot meet with too great a punishment; I can allow my resentment to do anything. No, no, after such an outrage, hope for nothing. I am no longer myself, I am ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... into venom, Passing swiftly from mere liking To desire — that monster ever Feeding on the impossible — Living fire that with intensest Fury burns when most opposed — Flame the wind revives and strengthens, False, deceitful, treacherous foe Which doth murder its possessor — In a word, desire in him, Who nor God nor law respecteth, Of the horrible, of the shocking, Thinks but only to attempt it.— Yes, I dared . . . . But here ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... had been guided by a profound sense of the justice that is in things. Destiny who had brought him to this deceitful place owed him compensation for the fraud, and an apology in person was really no more than his due. What if Miss Tancred were she, the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... people are liars, foretells you will lose faith in some scheme which you had urgently put forward. For some one to call you a liar, means you will have vexations through deceitful persons. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... raised about two feet from the level of the road, and open at the top. During a short walk along this road, I saw numbers of Malay women using its waters for the purpose of ablution; and I could not count the number of the various reptiles of this prolific clime, who, lured by their deceitful flow, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... everlastingly silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of an action which his judgment condemned as ignoble and deceitful. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... they have in common? Their very evil-doing could not be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina Ivanovna's children, but who could tell with what motive and what it meant? The man always had ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... excitement to work out its own ends.[304] The power which had ruled the hearts of mankind for ten centuries was shaking suddenly to its foundation. The Infallible guidance of the Church was failing; its light gone out, or pronounced to be but a mere deceitful ignis fatuus; and men found themselves wandering in darkness, unknowing where to turn or what to think or believe. It was easy to clamour against the spiritual courts. From men smarting under the barefaced oppression ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... decay, It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle; But, when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades Sink in the trial. Comes his ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... period the fair Rebekah begins to get in her work as a disobedient wife, a deceitful, intriguing woman and ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... like Hammond. Who knows? Happy as we are, times may alter; we may be bitten with some impulse towards change, and many things may seem too wonderful for us to resist, too exciting not to catch at, if we do not know that they are but phases of what has been before; and withal ruinous, deceitful, and sordid." ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... devoid of life. No breath of wind stirred leaf or bough, all nature breathed peace, and, lulled to a sense of security, the little party ventured farther among the trees than was prudent. In Indian warfare, appearances were ever deceitful; the greater the apparent security, the greater the need for caution. So it ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... various cities, who imagined that by his means they would be able to obtain much greater power, and to put down democracy throughout Asia; but those who loved plain and honourable dealing in a general thought that Lysander, when compared with Kallikratidas, appeared to be a crafty, deceitful man, conducting the war chiefly by subtilty and stratagem, using honourable means when it was his interest to do so, at other times acting simply on the rules of expediency, and not holding truth to be in itself superior to falsehood, but measuring the value of the one and the other by the profit ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... only among themselves but with surrounding tribes. They were extremely skillful in handling their canoes, which were well made, hollowed out of single logs, and often of great size. In disposition they are described as treacherous and deceitful, especially when their cupidity was aroused. Slaves were common and were usually obtained by barter from surrounding tribes, though occasionally by successful raids. These Indians of Oregon by no means rivaled the Haidas, for their food supply was less certain and they did not have the ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... experience there was not even a common highway; that there were only byways; private paths over other people's grounds; easements beaten out by feet that had passed before, and giving by a subsequent overgrowth of turf or brambles a deceitful sense of discovery to ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... umbrella carriers and fan wavers, and finally, preceded by incense burners and surrounded by servants who cleared away all obstructions by means of their formidable and heavily knotted lashes, the unworthy and deceitful Mandarin Ping Siang, who sat in a silk-hung and elaborately wrought chair, looking from side to side with gestures and expressions of ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... conducted by the guard. The princess entertained him regally, and tried all sorts of tricks to get possession of the magical purse. At last she succeeded in inducing him to go to sleep. While he was unconscious, the deceitful princess stole the purse and left him alone in ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... and be deceitful; and it has often cut me to the heart, to see you show me that affection, which I knew I ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... gave him all the change I had in my pocket, to buy souvenirs for his little folks at home, for you know I told you we had compared notes on sundry domestic points. I really flattered myself that I was doing something quite liberal; but this deceitful Swiss coin! I found, when I came to tell C. about it, that the whole stock only amounted to about twenty cents: like a great many things in this world, it looked more than it was. The good man, however, seemed as grateful as if I had done something, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... and Hadrian's Greek sympathies upon the other, must be reckoned too strong for even such a dipsychic character as his. There is nothing in either Spartian or Dion to justify the opinion that he was naturally cruel or fantastically deceitful. On the other hand, Hadrian's philo-Hellenic, splendour-loving, somewhat tawdry, fame-desiring nature was precisely of the sort to jump eagerly at the deification of a favourite who had either died ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... herself for caring a straw about it, Cecil had forgiven him, and a deceitful sunbeam peeped through in the prospect of meeting at luncheon, only to be again overcast, as the Colonel returned without the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... Knowles had moved on westwards 'towards the Beauce, intending to reach his own estates in Brittany for winter quarters. But his young captains got out of control. Led by a Gloucestershire knight, Sir John Minsterworth, "ready in hand but deceitful and perverse in mind," a considerable section of the troops refused to follow the old "tomb-robber" to Brittany, and determined to spend the winter where they were, under Minsterworth's leadership. Knowles would not give place to his subordinate, and made his way to Brittany with ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... then, when he looked up, and saw Cecil still beside her, and her laughing and talking so pleasantly, while he was miserable and unhappy, the old chill came on his heart again, and he thought—was the last happy week only a deceitful gleam of sunshine, and should he ever take his old place beside ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... released him from the necessity of keeping a night watch. Sagaris, totally ignorant of his master's mission, and of the plans that had just been formed, imagined himself an intermediary in some plot between Marcian and the leader of the horsemen, and performed the deceitful office in ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... God better to-day than I can my own heart. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. xxii. 9). I can believe God better than I can myself. If you want to know the way of Life, believe that Jesus Christ is a personal Saviour; cut away from ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody

... with Ferris until Jack Witherspoon's return. He only lived now to see the Detroit lawyer speeding west, far on ahead of the deceitful Ferris, who would be detained in New York by the quiet consummation of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... the crown of your head to the sole of your foot. You are unclean; you are a leper. Believe not me, but believe God's Word, that over and over again announces, in language that a fool might understand, the total and complete depravity of the unchanged heart: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... dealt debater deceitful decide decision deferred definite descend describe description derived despair desperate destroy device devise dictionary difference digging dilemma dining room dinning disappear disappoint disavowal ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... heard your long tirade, which, to tell the truth, makes me reflect that I have not been so prudent as I ought, and have too readily believed your deceitful speeches, and obeyed you in all things, which is the reason you now think so little of me. Another reason why you speak to me thus, is that you know that I am so much in love with you that I cannot bear to live out of your presence. And for this cause, and ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... hospitable to all friends of mine who have passed through his district. You may therefore assure him that any overture for the advantage of Greece and its internal pacification will be readily and sincerely met here. I hardly think that he would have ventured a deceitful proposition to me through you, because he must be sure that in such a case it would eventually be exposed. At any rate, the healing of these dissensions is so important a point, that something must ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Sir Charles Pomander? No! I am almost sure you do; well, he is a man I do not like. He is deceitful, besides he is a wicked man. There, to be plain with you, he was watching me all that night, the first time you came here, and, because I saw he was watching me I would not know who you were, nor ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... feel so mean and wicked!" she cried. "If I hadn't been so deceitful and treacherous and—and—and everything, maybe all this sorrow wouldn't have come ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... doth slanderously abuse that innocent person. The reporter in such cases must not think to defend himself by pretending that he spake nothing false; for such propositions, however true in logic, may justly be deemed lies in morality, being uttered with a malicious and deceitful (that is, with a calumnious) mind, being apt to impress false conceits and to produce hurtful effects concerning our neighbor. There are slanderous truths as well as slanderous falsehoods; when truth is uttered with a deceitful heart, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... back to punishment. Great is its power. Have ye not heard the gospel of Rhuddyidd the mighty? 'Force is everything! Gentleness won't wash, courtesy is deceitful. Politeness is foreign. Be ye beaten that ye may ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... "So, my dear, we thought as we were driving in this direction we would see how you were getting on; and by great good fortune, or rather as I should say (Jasper, do not hang your head so; it looks so deceitful) by the will of Heaven (and Heaven's will be done, you know, my dear, which must be a great comfort to you in your sore affliction), as Cyrus was driving into ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... great a sufferer to see anybody; but, of course, when I got her message, I had no choice but to go up stairs to the sick-room. I found her bedridden with an incurable spinal complaint, and a really horrible object to look at, but with all her wits about her; and, if I am not greatly mistaken, as deceitful a woman, with as vile a temper, as you could find anywhere in all your long experience. Her excessive politeness, and her keeping her own face in the shade of the bed-curtains while she contrived to keep mine in the light, put me on my guard the moment I entered the room. We were more than half ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... of the year 9 A.D. The long rainy season of the German forests began. Hermann decided that the time had arrived for the execution of his plans. He began his work with a deceitful skill that quite blinded the too-trusting Varus, inducing him to send bodies of troops into different parts of the country, some to gather provisions for the winter supply of the camps, others to keep watch over some tribes not yet subdued. The Roman force thus weakened, the artful German succeeded ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... was deceitful, fond of crooked ways, artificial, given to hiding his wrath, double-faced, and cruel, exceedingly clever in concealing his thoughts, and never moved to tears either by joy or grief, but capable of weeping if the occasion required it. He was always a liar not merely on the spur of the moment; ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... what a number of retired commanders and lieutenants, not to speak of higher dignitaries, are to be found in Krooland. Sierra Leone has been so often described that I will not attempt to draw a picture of its romantic though deceitful beauties. Its blue sky and calm waters, its verdant groves and majestic mountains, its graceful villas and flowering shrubs, put one in mind of a lovely woman who employs her charms to beguile and destroy those who confide ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... dragged a great hole in the ear. These rings were inserted when the children were quite young, and pulled their little faces out of shape, giving an uncomfortable expression. Sarawak Malays always said, "A Sakarran Dyak may be trusted, but a Sarebas is deceitful." It is a curious fact, however, that the Sakarrans, with all their fair words and sleek prepossessing looks, did not embrace the gospel as the Sarebas did. The Rev. Walter Chambers lived at Sakarran for some time, but gathered no converts. He then settled himself among the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... I am deceitful, though all my life I have seen my parents try to seem what they are not; that is, try to seem like rich people, when sometimes father's practice brought him only a few hundreds a year, and there was mother and myself and Tom to support. Tom is my cousin—Tom McDonald—who lived with ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes

... wife to allow Peter Junior a night key. It induced late hours. He would take it from him. And as for Richard—there was no telling what habits he had fallen into during these years of wandering. What if he had come home to them with a clear skin and laughing eye! Was not the "heart of man deceitful above all things and desperately wicked"? And was not Satan abroad in the world laying snares for the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... His alarm appears in the letter, dated July, 1489, which he addressed to his ambassador in Rome: "I dislike these Ultramontanes and barbarians beginning to interfere in Italy. We are so disunited and so deceitful that I believe that nothing but shame and loss would be our lot; recent experience may serve to foretell the future." How true a prophet he was, the subsequent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... threshold into the winter morning without hand-clasp or god-speed from Margaret Malbrouck; but Mrs. Malbrouck was there, and Gregory, looking into her eyes, thought how good a thing it would be for him, if some such face looked benignly out on him every morning, before he ventured forth into the deceitful day. But what was the use of wishing! Margaret evidently did not care. And though the air was clear and the sun shone brightly, he felt there was a cheerless wind blowing on him; a wind that chilled him; and he hummed to himself bitterly a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... we at last learn the secret to boast of; how, in short, ever inquiring of others what we are, and never daring to question ourselves on so delicate a point, in the midst of so much philosophy, humanity, and politeness, and so many sublime maxims, we have nothing to show for ourselves but a deceitful and frivolous exterior, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness. It is sufficient that I have proved that this is not the original condition of man, and that it is merely the spirit of society, and the inequality which ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... little, the druggist made answer as follows:— "Yet appearances oft are deceitful. I trust not the outside. Often, indeed, have I found the truth of the proverb which tells us Ere you share a bushel of salt with a new-found acquaintance, Do not trust him too readily; time will make you more certain How you and he will get on, and whether your friendship is lasting. ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... sighs she, taking that deceitful nod in perfect good faith. "And you would have been good to me too, and let me look in at the shop windows. I should have taken such care of you, and made your tea for you, just" sadly, "as I used to do for ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... mortals, Giver of the bright bloom of youth. Shed thou down a mild light from above upon this life of mine, and my martial strength, so that I may be of avail to drive away bitter cowardice from my head, and to curb the deceitful rush of my soul, and to restrain the sharp stress of anger which spurs me on to take part in the dread din of battle. But give me heart, O blessed one, to abide in the painless measures of peace, avoiding the battle-cry of foes and the ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... there; Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for Achilles' image stood his spear, Griped in an armed hand; himself, behind, Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, Stood for the whole ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... was useless; and, worn out as it had been, in the struggle, and further soothed by the anticipation of continued prosperity, it no longer had the power to goad him. In short, conscience for the time had been overcome, and Rainscourt enjoyed after the tempest a hallow and deceitful calm, which he vainly hoped ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... chronology. The fragments of the next two books are more copious. He tells us that Gaul, then as now, pursued with the greatest zeal military glory and eloquence in debate. [23] His notice of the Ligurians is far from complimentary. "They are all deceitful, having lost every record of their real origin, and being illiterate, they invent false stories and have no recollection of the truth." [24] He hazards a few etymologies, which, as usual among Roman writers, are quite unscientific. Graviscae is so called from ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... written by an uneducated man. Here are three instances of wrong spelling that a man of Mr. Garfield's education could not possibly make. The words "ecomony" and "Companys" in the eighth line and "religeously" in the twelfth line give evidence of a fraudulent and deceitful letter at once. ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... mind that much can be done under cover of the darkness, which is sometimes total for a few minutes before the seance begins, and also that the notes of the melodeon are sufficiently deep and loud to drown not a little rustling. If the Mediums are deceitful I have always felt that in any endeavor to unmask them the odds are heavily in their favor. The methods are manifold whereby confederates may be introduced into the Cabinet: from above, from below, and, ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... in his lifetime, underwent the extremes of abuse and of adulation. Daily, semi-weekly, or weekly did Fenno, Porcupine Cobbett, Dennie, Coleman, and the other Federal journalists, not content with proclaiming him an ambitious, cunning, and deceitful demagogue, ridicule his scientific theories, shudder at his irreligion, sneer at his courage, and allude coarsely to his private morals in a manner more discreditable to themselves than to him; crowning all their accusations and innuendoes with a reckless profusion ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... oh!" and Zoe clasped her hands piteously. But she recovered herself, and said, "After all, appearances are deceitful." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade



Words linked to "Deceitful" :   dishonorable, dishonest



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