"Unflattering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing Mr. Vincy, and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of himself in the coarse unflattering mirror which that manufacturer's mind presented to the subtler lights and shadows of his fellow-men; and perhaps his experience ought to have warned him how the scene would end. But a full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters even in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... older than his wife, and was a handsome, clean-shaven elderly man with a hooked nose and a dry manner. The conversation at dinner consisted of vague attempts on Bruce's part to talk airy generalities, which were always brought back by his father to personalities more or less unflattering to Bruce. ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... discover that creeping bushes grew on the hills, and rushes on the bogs; that it was an island, as Biorn had stated, and that forests equal in size to those of Greenland grew in sheltered places. But they had seen nothing to alter their unflattering first opinion. Vikings though they were, warriors who would have been flayed alive without flinching, relief was manifest on every face when the leader finally gave the word ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... misstatements of his excellent friend, Giorgio Vasari, without hurting that worthy's feelings. Nevertheless, we gather from what Vasari says in his second edition that he somewhat resented the appearance of this new biographer. Perhaps this coloured his unflattering account of Condivi as an artist, when describing Michael Angelo's scholars: "Ascanio della Ripa took great pains, but no results have been seen, whether in designs or finished works. He spent several years over a picture for which Michael Angelo had given him the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... the embrace of her adoring swain—rosy, joyous, unabashed—she adjusted her hat from its perilous position on one side of her head, and gazed upon Clive and me with unflattering ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dinner—for Mr Winter gave delightful little dinners, and Mrs Elizabeth More, the housewife at the Duck, was an unusually good cook. Moreover, he was tied down to what he contemptuously designated in his lofty mind "a parcel of women," with the unacceptable and very unflattering sarcasms of Aunt Temperance by way of seasoning. It really was extraordinary, thought Mr Aubrey, that when women passed their fortieth milestone or thereabouts, they seemed to lose their respect for the nobler sex, and actually presumed to criticise them, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... fled beyond the hearing of the voices. She had no curiosity to hear any more of Lady Drummond's unflattering ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to re-adjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had been short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a little smugly how different his goddess ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... some men of C Company sang hymns, and the enemy made overtures for a truce by showing a white flag. About 40 of them appeared on the parapet, and a brisk conversation ensued for several minutes across "No Man's Land." A somewhat unflattering remark from one of the enemy who had a wonderful knowledge of forcible English, ended the ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... of the Commune, M. Maxime du Camp draws the following unflattering picture: "They were wicked and cowardly. Utilized by the police of the Rigaults and the Ferres, they were pitiless in the search for refractory citizens who hid themselves that they might not have the shame of serving the Commune.... From the heights of the pulpits ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... of the editorial output in general was unflattering. It seemed to him bound by formalism and incredibly blind to the immense and vivid interest of the news whereby it was surrounded, as if a man, set down in a meadow full of deep and clear springs, should elect to drink from a shallow, torpid, and muddy trickle. Legislation, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was so preoccupied herself that the unflattering and searching look of Borgert escaped her. She sat down on the divan beside him and took his hand in hers. Her eyes gazed with diffidence at ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... of those practical reasons which will be instantly dismissed, but not without having produced their effect. Let us not make an enemy of this king's son. Besides, can I prevent his loving me? His love has nothing unflattering; is he not the first knight of Troy after Hector? What is there astonishing in his passion for me? If he loves me, shall I be the only one to be loved in ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... a bride! Hermione a future countess! Hermione on the brink of a marriage which would give her not only a great "situation" in the Parisian world but a footing in some of the best houses in England! Regardless of its unflattering implications, Garnett prolonged his stare of mute amazement till Mrs. Newell somewhat sharply exclaimed—"Well, didn't I always tell you that she would ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the moonlight, appealed to them. They crossed. A coachman driving an open carriage hailed confidentially. Alixe entered and with a dexterous play of draperies usurped the back seat. Rentgen made no sign. He had her in full view, the moon streaking her disturbed features with its unflattering pencil. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... irate to notice unflattering accent) Yes, indeed! He busy in the Senate or helping his clients! He wearied out by his labours there, there, that he spends the whole night snoring! It is business away from home that makes him turn up at night all weary—the business of ploughing ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... good taste very much dislike being asked their names. To say "What is your name?" is always abrupt and unflattering. If you want to know with whom you have been talking, you can generally find a third person later and ask "Who was the lady with the grey feather in her hat?" The next time you see her you can say "How do you do, Mrs. ——" ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... day. Marian went back with her friends, and sat by while Selina was dressed for an evening party, heard a description of her home in the country, and gave a very unflattering one of Oakworthy, gained somehow or other a renewed impression of her own superiority to the Lyddells, and went home to indulge in another fit ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... spirits and delighted Golushkin with his sharp, ready wit. The latter had not the slightest suspicion that the "little cripple" every now and again whispered to Nejdanov, who happened to be sitting beside him, the most unflattering remarks at his, Golushkin's, expense. He thought him "a simple sort of fellow" who might be patronised; that was probably why he liked him. Had Paklin been sitting next him he would no doubt have poked ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... unflattering remark there came a pause. Then the girl continued somewhat hesitatingly: "Doubtless many women, Sir John, have seen your virtues more clearly than even I see them. Women have a keener perception of masculine virtues ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... around the boulder he heard voices in greeting, recognized Charles Crayton's voice, and realized that at last they had met up with Young Liverpool. Quickly, Charles plunged into business, and Tarwater heard with great distinctness every word of Charles' unflattering description of him and the proposition to give him passage ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... her. He could see the sleeve of her blue corduroy jacket; her eyes he could not see. She was a stranger. Had he idealized her? He was apologetic for his unflattering doubt, but ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... white-shrouded bear or shark. Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature. .. Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... happened that he missed the easiest balls, fascinated in watching the movements and graceful attitudes of his opponent. Her feet, which even in the unflattering tennis-shoes looked small and dainty, seemed merely to skim over the ground like the wings of a passing swallow; and the most daring bounds and leaps, which in others would have been grotesque, she accomplished with the ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... on Mount Parnassus. Through the subsequent years, which included wanderings in America, and a narrow escape from drowning in trying to swim Niagara, he kept pressing Shelley's widow to marry him. Perhaps because he was piqued by Mary's refusal, he has left a rather unflattering portrait of her. He was indignant at her desire to suppress parts of 'Queen Mab'; but he might have admired the honesty with which she retained 'Epipsychidion', although that poem describes her as a "cold chaste moon." The old sea-captain in Sir John Millais' picture, "The North-West Passage," ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... any humorous appellation which occurred to him. It proved a wise precaution, since directly Bruce's challenge had been sent and it was known that he was Harrah's protege, the papers had made much of it, publishing unflattering snapshots after he had steadily refused to let them take ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... unsophisticated, unadulterated, unvarnished, unalloyed, uncolored; in its true colors; pukka[obs3]. well-grounded, well founded; solid, substantial, tangible, valid; undistorted, undisguised; unaffected, unexaggerated, unromantic, unflattering. Adv. truly &c. adj.; verily, indeed, really, in reality; with truth &c. (veracity) 543; certainly &c. (certain) 474; actually &c. (existence) 1; in effect &c (intrinsically) 5. exactly &c. adj.; ad amussim[Lat]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... products. In so far as that plan involved an advantage to our own Dominions over the Allies who, equally with them, bore with us the heat and burden of the war, it was as impolitic as it was unjust, and as unflattering as it was impolitic, inasmuch as it assumed that the Dominions wanted a "tip" as a reward for their ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... the heat with which they wrote, obscured the issue. That is to say, most of them instead of explaining merely denied, and added comments, more or less unflattering, concerning me. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... remember how you drew Our shapely features all askew, Unflattering really. You made A lame and B too fat And C too curly—what of that! ...
— The Peter Pan Alphabet • Oliver Herford
... persists in tugging at her limed Mantis and refuses to acknowledge any other method of wresting her from the Silene's snare, shows us the Wasp in an unflattering light. What a very poor intellect! The insect becomes only the more wonderful, therefore, when we consider its supreme talent as an anatomist. Many a time I have insisted upon the incomprehensible wisdom of instinct; ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... the crowd. It was rumored that Sandgoist had decided to leave Drammen, and several persons pretended that they had seen him in the streets of Christiania. Could it be that he had ventured into this hall? If he had the wretch would certainly meet with a most unflattering reception. How audacious in him to think of such a thing as being present at this drawing! It was so improbable that it could not be possible. It must certainly be a false alarm, ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... "sermons," "mass meetings," "resolutions," "protests," and "letters of correspondents," regarding this "Popish plot," "this Romanist aggression," "this priestly insolence," and a thousand other names, threats, and unflattering epithets against persons and institutions, whose only connection with the case of Miss O'Clery was, that they belonged to the Catholic church, or dared to speak the truth, or claim their rights. Now the hundred-headed Cerberus of the press is silenced, and skulks into its dark lair, beaten and ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... circumstances more or less distasteful to me until my wife's whim should release us! I had spoken to no woman for many months, you must remember, but my landlady and the Professor's trained nurse, and unflattering though it may sound to the much-desired sex, I had not been conscious of any special lack, after the first ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... up with class A, and a few more young things from the nursery who were wilder than wild rabbits from the wood when we began. Also it should be stated that from the babies' point of view white people are only playthings. "They were very good before you came!" is the unflattering remark frequently addressed to us; and as we discreetly retire, the babies do seem to become suddenly beautifully docile. But even so they might be better, as an unconscious comedy over-seen this ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... taken him rather for granted," she admitted. "Only I've been rather wishing, lately, that Peter wasn't such an unflattering, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... how they waste time in fathoming motives, and how when they say a thing shall be done it is never performed. Yet the memory of his former disinterested and splendid service afforded a guarantee that if they would take advice and listen to unflattering criticism from any one, that man was Gordon. Still, from the most favourable point of view, the mission was fraught with difficulty, and circumstances over which he had no control, and of which he was even ignorant, added immensely to it. There is no doubt that Peking ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... to him the merest prudence that a detective from a private inquiry agency should be installed at the castle while the house was full. Somewhat rashly, he had mentioned this to his wife, and Lady Julia's critique of the scheme had been terse and unflattering. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... eying her with unflattering brotherliness. "And she had so much feeling, too, Mary Virginia! Why, when I was sick once, she wanted me to die, so she could ride to my funeral in the front carriage; she doted on funerals, the little ghoul! She was horribly disappointed when I got better—she thought it ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... quarrelling among them. They are as fond of each other as Lesage's two diables, one of whom said: 'That reconciled us, we kissed each other, and ever since then we have been mortal enemies.'" He also tells that there is a report that in her novel, entitled Horace, she has given as unflattering a portrait as possible of her dear, sweet, excellent friend, Madame d'Agoult, the Arabella of the Lettres d'un voyageur. "The portraits continue," he writes, "all true to life, without being like each other." In the same book, ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... to speak with his comrades, Langdon and St. Clair. He heard the young troops talking freely everywhere, never forgetting the fact that they were born free citizens as good as anybody, and never hesitating to comment, often in an unflattering way, upon their officers. Harry saw a boy who had just taken off his shoes and who was ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... What an unflattering contrast to the unclad natives who had dominated yet blended with the scene-the girl the prototype of a swaying palm, the boy that of a tough young bloodwood beside the creek, among the topmost branches of which a crimson-flowered mistletoe made a splash of colour in harmony with the single ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... at him in a frightened hesitation; saw, too, that even in the quiver of her alarm she had taken in the unflattering details of his appearance—his ordinary business overcoat, the blue silk muffler about his neck, and even the bespattered condition of his rubber shoes. For an instant she glanced uncertainly at Brady's immaculate evening dress showing beneath his open fur-lined overcoat, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... earth." Prone to discuss with his "Britannic frankness" the faults of his countrymen, he cannot bear that any one else should do so. In the "Description of Wales" he breaks off in the middle of a most unflattering passage concerning the character of the Welsh people to lecture Gildas for having abused his own countrymen. In the preface to his "Instruction of Princes," he makes a bitter reference to the prejudice of the English Court against everything Welsh - "Can any good thing come from Wales?" ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... me after that unflattering speech," retorted Patty, and then luncheon was announced, and the girls sat down at the table reserved ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... unflattering a truth for you to believe." She checked herself, looked up at him, hesitated. "It is not absolutely true. It was at first. I am normally interested now. If you knew more about me you would very easily understand ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... his brilliant pupil appealed to it vividly in moments of conjugal depression. Charlotte herself must have had some attraction for M. Heger. Madame perceived the appeal and the attraction, and she was jealous; therefore her interpretation of appearances could not have been so unflattering to Charlotte as she made out. Madame, in fact, suspected, on her husband's part, the dawning of an attachment. We know nothing about M. Heger's attachment, and we haven't any earthly right to know; but from all that is known of M. Heger it is certain that, if it was not entirely intellectual, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... matter which he could not at all be induced to believe. Of the Academic Board in general, of his instructors in large measure, but of the four or five ill-starred soldiers known as "tactical officers" in particular, Mr. McKay entertained very decided and most unflattering opinions. He had won his cadetship through rigid competitive examination against all comers; he was a natural mathematician of whom a professor had said that he "could stand in the fives and wouldn't stand in the forties;" years of his boyhood spent in France had made him master of the colloquial ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... and unflattering reply. "Because he's so obviously gimcrack that no one dares do anything to him for fear he should tumble ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... your unflattering opinions of other people to paper. The letter is a witness whose veracity ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter |
