"Unconvincing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old to sympathise really with her. They would most likely understand as little as her step-father had done. An Inward Monitor told Betty that the story of the fortune-telling, of the seven stolen meetings with no love-making in them, would sound very unconvincing to any ears but those of the one person already convinced. But she would not be shut up in a convent—no, not by fifty aunts ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... LAPIS LAZULI. Malachite and azurite are usually correctly named, but "lapis lazuli" is a name that is frequently misused, being applied to crackled quartz that has been stained with Prussian blue, or some other dye, to an unconvincing resemblance to true lapis. Such artificially produced stones are sometimes sold as "Swiss lapis." They are harder than true lapis and probably wear much better in exposed ornaments, but they are not lapis and are never of equal color, ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... many arguments in support of this opinion, but they are unconvincing. The latter part of this Sonnet (II. 'Conjectures') refers to a favourite notion of Roman Catholic writers, that Joseph of Arimathea and his companions brought Christianity into Britain, and built a rude church at Glastonbury; alluded to hereafter in a passage upon the dissolution ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... implacable deity of the London slum! Whenever I hear or read the phrase "Salvation Army" then do I see a young exquisite with a white camellia in his buttonhole, gazing like a hypnotised Indian Seer at a crude transparency blotted with unconvincing texts, then rushing off to found a celibate order—from Margarita, who was no more celibate ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... all-round competence of the elder and the incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys, but the fine though unconvincing apologetic arguments of the Book of Ighan flowed from Baha-'ullah's pen at the Baghdad period. But we must now make good a great omission. Let us turn back to our ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... seemed strange.... And now I see that I must have felt—known—all along.... But," said the strange young man, setting down the vase and hurriedly running his fingers through his hair, "I—I realize that this must sound most unconvincing to you. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... our couch let us arise! Hark to the cock's arousing cries! He chides the sluggard's slumbrous ease, And shames his unconvincing pleas. ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... glorious riot of horror, "The Destroying Angel," in "The Dynamiter," that it is "highly fantastic and putting a strain on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... superior in conduct and morals to antiquity, but he said little on the matter. Hakewill develops the suggestion at great length into a severe and partial impeachment of ancient manners and morals. Unjust and unconvincing though his arguments are, and inspired by theological motives, his thesis nevertheless deserves to be noted as an assertion of the progress of man in social morality. Bacon, and the thinkers of the seventeenth century generally, confined their views of progress in the ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... imitation from the Greek and in support of this instances Curculio's use, while running, of the presumed translations from the Greek: agoranomus, demarchus, etc. He also cites as parallels some unconvincing phrases from fragments of New Comedy, while developing an ingenious theory that the device is a heritage from the Greek orchestra, where it could have been performed with a hippodrome effect. Terence berates the practice,[128] but ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... retorted Jack, grinning a little, "somebody else's nerves are kinda frazzled, too. I don't want you to begin worrying over my affairs, Dade. I'm not," he asserted with unconvincing emphasis. "But all the same, I'd like to get my fingers on the fellow ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... amusing than culpable; but the author's philosophy of the unseen, as expounded by Amine or Krantz, is both weak and tiresome, and his religious discourses, coloured by prejudice against the Romanists, are conventional and unconvincing. The closing scene savours ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... using all his means of investigation, can have the subject under his hand at the exact moment of inspiration—of the sudden, fertile, brief creative impulse—would not the experiment itself be a disturbing cause, so that the result would be ipso facto vitiated, or at least unconvincing? ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... in a few words an unconvincing summary of a long and complicated story—one that I detest telling. However, I could not permit you to sit with me at the directors' table of this bank without knowing who I am, what I am, and why I have run that rat into ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... and it is by no means impossible that he would have succeeded had the key been larger and had the situation required less accurately coordinated movements. However, it is fair to say that the evidence of the idea of using the key in the lock was unconvincing. My assistant's observation was, perhaps, misleading in so far as it suggested that idea. It may and probably was purely by accident that the animal used the ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... heaved and slid about. A chair crawled to my lap and at last to the top of the table, apparently of its own motion. A little rocking-chair moved to and fro precisely as if some one were sitting in it, and so on. It was all unconvincing at the time, but as I look back upon it now, after years of experience, I am inclined to think part of it at least was genuine. And this brings me to say to Mrs. Quigg, and to any other doubter, that you have only to step aside into silence ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... extreme, on very tiptoe with enthusiasm over something wholly without literary value or dramatic possibility. One of the hall-marks of genius is the inability to discriminate as to the value of its output. "Simon Wheeler, Amateur Detective" was a dreary, absurd, impossible performance, as wild and unconvincing in incident and dialogue as anything out of an asylum could well be. The title which he first chose for it, "Balaam's Ass," was properly in keeping with the general scheme. Yet Mark Twain, still warm with the creative fever, had the fullest faith in it as a work ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... other plants; the distinction is thus obliterated under the influence of environment. The fixed polarity of cuttings from full grown stems cannot be destroyed; it is the expression of previous development. Vochting speaks of polarity as a fixed inherited character. This is an unconvincing conclusion, as nothing can be deduced from our present knowledge as to the causes which led up to polarity. We know that the fertilised egg, like the embryo, is fixed at one end by which it hangs freely in the embryo-sac and ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... certainly not after anything so short, simple, and unconvincing as that three minutes with the clergyman to-day. The utter unreality of that had seemed to blend with the silent, snowy day, and with the dulled and dreamy condition of her own brain. Snow was falling softly when she had met ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... all Dave's determination to force himself to obey her wish, and the struggle nearly kept him from recalling the original object of his visit. Remembering, he tried to tell Alaire what he had learned from Phil Strange; but so broken and so unconvincing was his recital that he doubted if she understood in the least what he was ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... interest of an inquirer wanes rapidly after the receipt of the first response. In replying to inquiries, the chance of securing a sale with a third letter is much less than the chance with the first, for after receiving the first letter, if it is unconvincing, the inquirer is likely to come to an adverse decision that cannot afterwards be easily changed. In this respect, answers to inquirers are much like unsolicited letters sent out to non-inquirers and planned to create and build up interest. In a number of lines of business the third letter ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... the house now," said Lord Thornaby, looking Raffles in the face. But his manner was that of an actor in an unconvincing part and a mood to play it gamely to the bitter end; and he seemed embittered, as even a rich man may be in the moment of losing ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... been asserted by some writers that Basque navigators discovered the American continent a century before Cabot or Columbus; but evidence in support of such claims is either wanting or unconvincing. "Ingenious and romantic theories," says a critic of these views, "have been propounded concerning discoveries of America by Basque sailors before Columbus. The whale fishery of that period and long afterwards ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... With an unconvincing imitation of the college chum manner, John cleared his throat and said: "Don't forget, Fred, if there's anything I ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... the descriptions of the wistful beautiful West of Ireland in autumn and winter; and above all the horses. Added to all this there are Sinn Fein raids, real and imaginary, to bring things up to date. A rather unconvincing plot, with a dash of Great Expectations in it, yet offers a situation which has plenty of amusing possibilities. Honor and Evie Nutting, two middle-aged spinsters, find themselves the possessors of eight thousand a year, on condition that they spend it all. That ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... his convictions. But I wonder if the Shakspearean tradition is really dying. The general quality of the performance was, it must be confessed, not inspiring. There was little of the king's divinity hedging Claudius; the Queen (an always difficult part) was elaborately unconvincing, though played by a clever actress; Guildenstern and awkward Rosencrantz deserved any fate which awaited them in England. Neither Laertes nor Horatio seemed authentic. But Mr. TOM REYNOLDS' grave-digger had humour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... black-moustached face. She checked her thoughts. She felt they would be too savage; would rend her unendurably. She tried not to listen. She felt the preacher was dealing out "pastoral platitudes." She tried to give her mind elsewhere; but the sound of the voice, unconvinced and unconvincing threatened her again and again with a tide of furious resentment. She fidgeted and felt for thoughts and tried to compose her face to a semblance of serenity. It would not do to sit scowling here amongst her pupils with Fraulein Pfaff's eye commanding her profile from ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... When his tremulous shoulders were no longer visible, the Prophet opened Marcus Aurelius, and, seating himself in a corner of the big couch by the fire, crossed his legs one over the other and began to read that timid Ancient's consolatory, but unconvincing, remarks. Occasionally he paused, however, murmured doubtfully, "Will she have to be carried to bed?" shook his head mournfully and then ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens |
