"Dissembler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I was aware of that!" Kate's voice went on. "Dolt! Did I catch it? You're a poor dissembler. You're too honest. You might tell the verdict ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... eager passion in the views of another. It was for himself, the monster pleaded; and it was only a mean attempt to quiet my cries for assistance, when he talked of carrying me to Eustace.—Fortunate dissembler, how well he contrives to throw the guilt of his own treasons on ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... That both in him and all things, as is meet, The universal Maker we may praise; Who justly hath driven out his rebel foes To deepest Hell, and, to repair that loss, Created this new happy race of Men To serve him better: Wise are all his ways. So spake the false dissembler unperceived; For neither Man nor Angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By his permissive will, through Heaven and Earth: And oft, though wisdom wake, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... oft proclaims the man;" the voice always does—it is one of the greatest revealers of character. The superficial woman, the brutish man, the reprobate, the person of culture, often discloses inner nature in the voice, for even the cleverest dissembler cannot entirely prevent its tones and qualities being affected by the slightest change of thought or emotion. In anger it becomes high, harsh, and unpleasant; in love low, soft, and melodious—the variations are as limitless as they are fascinating to observe. Visit a theatrical ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... obligations to my lady urged me: I had professed a friendship to her, and could not see her easy nature so abused by that dissembler. ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... of a sudden, some bright day, it is discovered that our next-door neighbour is—a man of genius. Did you ever hear tell of the life of a man of genius but what there were numerous witnesses who deposed to the fact, that until, perfidious dissembler! he flared up and set the Thames on fire they had never seen anything in him; an odd creature, perhaps a good creature,—probably a poor creature,—but a MAN of GENIUS! They would as soon have suspected him of being the Khann of Tartary! Nay, candid ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had killed a man, so tad been done in a Pew, or undone his Neighbour, so ta'd been near enough to th' Preacher. Oh,—a Sermon's a fine short cloak of an hour long, and will hide the upper-part of a dissembler.—Church! Aye, he seemed all Church, and his conscience was as ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Arthur come and put a stop to it! It was not the first time she had waited dinner for him in vain, and though she tried to make Albert think she liked it, she knew she was a very bad dissembler. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horse-leech! Sell my skin for—piece of gold! Want my cloak? Take it!" And the dissembler rolled over, extending his arms. The jester grasped the garment by the sleeves and with some difficulty ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... on political occasions and in some cases to the public through the press, he discussed political affairs with such keenness and sarcasm that unprincipled parasites in his community were much disturbed. In one of his discourses he used the following expression: "A dissembler is one proud of applause—will advertise himself for office—dazzling the public man with high pretext, like aspiring Absolom, 'Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man might come unto me and I would do him justice.' ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... right," said the old dissembler. "Living alone in the wood, she had only God's creatures to play and make friends with; and wild animals, I have heard it said, know those ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... that could only be productive of pain. He was resolved, too, that he would conceal from her the fact that he was affected by her indifference. He could not quite do as he wished, however, for he was too honest to be a good dissembler, and his voice faltered, and his hand trembled, as he uttered a hurried good-bye. His emotions imparted the most painful regret to Grace, whose eyes filled with tears when she turned to bid farewell to ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... at it with eyes that suddenly contracted. Clever dissembler that he was, he could not prevent an involuntary start. He licked his lips, and Cleggett judged that perhaps his mouth felt a little dry. But these were the only signs he made. Indeed, when he spoke it was with something almost like ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... with them, as you know, when Sip Terence and Colonel Grant arrived. He and the colonel were presented to each other, and bowed with a gravity quite cordial on the part of Samoval, who was by far the more subtle dissembler of the two. Each knew the other perfectly for what he was; yet each was in complete ignorance of the extent of the other's knowledge of himself; and certainly neither betrayed anything ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... courtier and dissembler as he was, could scarcely hide the truth of this sally. But he quickly recovered his self-possession ere the king's eye could detect a change. Yet did he not escape the vigilance of his two friends, who suspected the real cause of his absence ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... his face again as quickly as he could, for he was a miserable dissembler, and Edie and Myra exchanged glances. Then, rising slowly with her hand pressed to her breast, Myra made as if she would go to the other side of the table, but her strength failed her, and as her father cleared his throat with a sonorous cough, she clung to the edge, crumpling up the white ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... enter his living image. As the Egyptians call Horus 'the avenger of his father,' perhaps he may become his mother's defender and avenger. If Caesar's spirit wakes within him, he will wrest from the dissembler Octavianus the heritage of which the nephew robbed the son. You swear that the wound ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was addressed as madame, this woman Maintenon, pious murderer, unrivaled hypocrite, unspeakably self-contained dissembler, the woman who lost for France an empire greater than all France, stepped now to the bed-side of the dying monarch, inclining her head to hear what he might have to say. Was Maintenon, the outcast, the widow, the wife of the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... the Duke of Buckingham's being under a cloud (of whom there is yet nothing heard), so that the King is apprehensive of their discontent, and sends him to pacify them, and I think he is as good a dissembler as any man else, and a fine person he is for person, and proper to lead the Pensioners, but a man of no honour nor faith I doubt. So to Sir G. Carteret's again to talk with him about Balty's money, and wrote a letter to Portsmouth about part of it, and then in his coach, with his little daughter ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... secret instructions and could not be inveigled into betraying himself. Baldos went to sleep that night with his mind confused by doubts. His talk with Haddan had left him quite undecided as to the value of old Franz's warning. Either Franz was mistaken, or Haddan was a most skilful dissembler. It struck him as utterly beyond the pale of reason that the entire castle guard should have been enlisted in the scheme to deceive him. When sleep came, he was contenting himself with the thought that morning doubtless would give him clearer ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon |
