"Disingenuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... received the grace of God in vain. And what a thing will it be to be turned off at last, as one that abused the love of Christ; as one that presumed upon his lusts, this world, and all manner of naughtiness, because the love of Christ to pardon sins was so great! What an unthinking, what a disingenuous one wilt thou be counted at that day; yea, thou wilt be found to be the man that made a prey of love, that made a stalk ing-horse of love, that made of love a slave to sin, the devil, and the world; and will not ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... remained in Paris until he succeeded in procuring permission to spend the next six months in Corsica, at his own charges. He was quite as disingenuous in his request to the Minister of War as in his memorial to the intendant for Corsica, representing that the estates of Corsica were about to meet, and that his presence was essential to safeguard important interests which in his absence would be seriously compromised. Whatever such a plea ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... it. His discovery might have been expected to hasten rather than retard the truth, and a first impulse in any man had made the facts instantly clear; but Clement rarely acted on impulse. His character was subtle, disingenuous, secretive. Safe in absolute possession, the discovery of Martin's attachment did not flutter him. He laughed in his mind; then he pictured Chris the wife of this man, reviewed the worldly improvement in her position such a union must effect, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... all the virtues for instructions, and, instead of telling you what he does think, quotes listlessly what he ought to think. So that his mincing affectation is not merely ungraceful, but is a sign of an inward taint, which may prove fatal to the whole character. It is very easy to make a child disingenuous; if he be at all timid, the work is already half done to one's hand. Of course, all children are not bad who are brought up on such books,—one circumstance or another may counteract their hurtful tendency,—but the tendency is no less evident, nor is it a vindication of any system to prove that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... end. They seem incapable of that plain speaking to the world audience which alone can bring about a peace. They keep on with the tricks and feints of a departed age. Both on the side of the Allies and on the side of the Germans the declarations of public policy remain childishly vague and disingenuous, childishly "diplomatic." They chaffer like happy imbeciles while civilization bleeds to death. It was perhaps to be expected. Few, if any, men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to changed conditions, however novel and challenging the changes may be, and nearly all the leading ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... Theophanes, who was anxious to give Pompey the opportunity for holding a new command, and gaining further wealth. But Theophanes's want of honesty does not go so far to make this story credible as does Pompey's own nature, which was averse, with all its ambition, to such base and disingenuous ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... disingenuous. According to our investigation, Ciganowic, by order of the police prefect in Belgrade, left three days after the outrage for Ribari, after it had become known that Ciganowic had participated in the outrage. In the first place, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... belong to any of the suffrage or other woman's organizations in New York, may I say in your columns that for the honor of my sex, if for no other reason, I hope the Mayor will consent to the obliteration of those disingenuous posters addressing "American citizens," and so cunningly worded and signed as to produce an impression of representing the women of the United States? If the people that are spending their thousands so freely had come out frankly and stated that they were pro-German, and that the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... the country by the newspapers, and he was ruined by his timidity. If he had admitted that he was an owner of stock in the Credit Mobilier Company, not much could have been made against him. His denials and explanations, which were either false or disingenuous, and his final admission of a fact which implied that he had been in the receipt of a quarterly payment from a post- office contractor, completed his ruin. There was a time when the country over-estimated his ability. He was a genial, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... obscure, and also rather disingenuous. It will be remembered that those clauses of the Reparation Chapter which dealt with the issue of bonds by Germany produced on the public mind the impression that the Indemnity had been fixed at $25,000,000,000, or at any rate at this figure ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... Child be of so disingenuous a Nature, as not to stand corrected by Reproof, he, like the very worst of Slaves, will be hardned even ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the plea of defensive preparation advanced by the statesmen, Prussian and others, in apology for competitive armaments is a diplomatic subterfuge,—there are indications that such has commonly been the case; but even if it commonly is visibly disingenuous, the need of making such a plea to cover more sinister designs is itself an evidence that an avowedly predatory enterprise no longer meets with the requisite popular approval. Even if an exception to this rule be admitted in the recent attitude of the German ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty, and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... be, Than hopeful and ingenious youth to see, When they with rev'rence follow where we lead, And in straight paths by our directions tread? 260 And e'en my conversation here I see, As well received by you, as yours by me. 'Tis disingenuous to accuse our age Of idleness, who all our powers engage In the same studies, the same course to hold; Nor think our reason for new arts too old. Solon the sage his progress never ceased, But still his learning with his days increased; And ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... in his prime a good worker and not a bad representative of the mountaineer of his state. One must not, then, fasten on old Timothy as a character distinctively Irish, at least in this phase of his character. He surely is universal, a representative of one type of disingenuous countryman. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... been disingenuous. But she had sheltered Nan from the cave-man that dwelt in Roger—oddly at variance with the streak of conventionality which lodged somewhere in his temperamental make-up. And she was quite sure that, if Lord St. John knew, he would be glad that his death should have succoured Nan, just as ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... he meant, and there was some truth in it. For Vicky was a mystery, and I was not by any means sure, that she didn't hoodwink us when she chose to. Much as I liked and admired the girl, I was forced to believe she was not altogether disingenuous. And she was clever enough to hoodwink anybody. But if Stone's deductions were to be depended on, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... the lips" [Macbeth]; ambiguas in vulgum spargere voces [Lat]; deceive &c 545. Adj. false, deceitful, mendacious, unveracious, fraudulent, dishonest, faithless, truthless, trothless; unfair, uncandid; hollow-hearted; evasive; uningenuous, disingenuous; hollow, sincere, Parthis mendacior; forsworn. artificial, contrived; canting; hypocritical, jesuitical, pharisaical; tartuffish; Machiavelian; double, double tongued, double faced, double handed, double minded, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... naturalism hitherto has not been developed in all its extent: unprejudiced persons however, will, at least, be enabled to know whether the author has reasoned well or ill; whether or not he has attempted to disguise the most important difficulties; distinctly to see if he has been disingenuous; they will be competent to observe if, like unto the enemies of human reason, he has recourse to subterfuges, to sophisms, to subtle discriminations, which ought always to make it suspected of those who use them, either that they do not ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... then till the bird came back to the lure, fill his void mouth with grapes. He talked of the relations of the sexes, and love—a passion he held in great contempt as being in its essence complex and disingenuous—and afterwards we found we had learnt much of what the marriage laws ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... see nothing else," said Vittoria, whose torture at the sight of the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous pleading ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Though it is plain she thinks little of our taste in general, her disapproval is usually silent. It is therefore with almost choking pride that we receive her praise, though it is often, we fear, of a disingenuous nature. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... purchase almost anywhere. I once carried one from Chicago to Cape Town to find on arriving I could buy the bed there at exactly the same price I had paid for it in America. I also found them in Tokio, where imitations of them were being made by the ingenious and disingenuous Japanese. They are light in weight, strong, and comfortable, and are undoubtedly the best camp-bed made. When at your elevation of six inches above the ground you look down from one of them upon a comrade in a sleeping-bag with ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... truth, he greatly diminished his popularity. Burke undermined his influence in the city by two clever publications: in the first of these he gave an account of the late short administration, and in the second he gave a humorous and ironical reply to it, in which the disingenuous conduct of their successors was ably exposed. The wit of Chesterfield ably seconded the pen of Burke; and the Earl of Chatham soon found that though he was dignified by the king, he had shorn himself of all his honours in the sight of the people. The influence which the Earl of Bute was supposed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... now chiefly known for an extravagantly eulogistic life of Cicero (1741), in which, as Macaulay observes, he 'resorted to the most disingenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions of facts.' The book is written in a forcible and lively style. A man of considerable learning, Middleton was a violent controversialist, who liked better to attack and to defend than ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... a popular vote in Massachusetts was unfair and misleading; the epithets applied to the "Moderate" or loyal party were offensive and unjust; and the statements of Palfrey, respecting the acts of the King immediately following the vacation of the Charter, are very disingenuous, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... is an organized conspiracy over the whole South to keep the negro in a state of peonage is frequently advanced by ignorant or disingenuous apologists for the negro, but this belief cannot be defended. The merchants usually prefer to sell for cash, and more and more of them are reluctant to sell on credit. In some cotton towns no merchant ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... went home, comforted more than she could have thought possible by the mere telling of what had accompanied her so long, she knew that she had not been wholly disingenuous. That Killigrew would cease to want her for at least a good while to come she did not believe, and it was not that dread which had sent her shaking for the first time to the help from which she had hitherto held proudly aloof. As ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... favorable to the royal cause,[***] and is even asserted by the king himself in a declaration,[****] that a most disingenuous, or rather criminal, practice prevailed in conducting many of these addresses. A petition was first framed; moderate, reasonable, such as men of character willingly subscribed. The names were afterwards ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Halicarnasseus, and Diodorus Siculus. The specious gilding of Tacitus I have endeavoured to shun. Mariana, Davila, and Fra. Paulo, are those amongst the moderns whom I thought most worthy of imitation; but I cannot be so disingenuous, as not to own the infinite obligations I have to the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan, and the Tenter Belly of ...
— English Satires • Various
... reasonable; but above all the wonderful element was the quick wit and ready skill with which he turned to his own service every query which was designed to embarrass him; and this he did not in the vulgar way of flippant retort or disingenuous twistings of words or facts, but with the same straightforward and tranquil simplicity of language with which he delivered evidence for the friendly examiners. Burke likened the proceeding to an examination of a master ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... we can prove it to you," answered Mrs. Meredith. "I went to see the people, and you could prove anything straightforward by merely showing them to the Houses in session. They could not conceal a disingenuous thought among them—the delightful giant, the boy with the eyelashes, the radiant girl, and the old black ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... past been constantly soliciting to have the accounts of the commissioners settled, on the issue of which I freely put my reputation, and every thing dear in life. My solicitations have been unsuccessful, whilst my enemies, taking the base and disingenuous advantage of the circumstances before mentioned of my leaving France, raise a cry against me and say—where are his accounts? why did he not bring them out? if they were not settled, why did he not stay and settle them? I must confess, that when I reflect that these very ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... they were not all so ready, were none of them less staunch; and I may say here at once that the inquiry came to nothing at the time, and the death of Goguelat remained a mystery of the prison. Such were the veterans of France! And yet I should be disingenuous if I did not own this was a case apart; in ordinary circumstances, some one might have stumbled or been intimidated into an admission; and what bound us together with a closeness beyond that of mere comrades was a secret to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... generals wrote very plainly in explaining the situation to their superiors at home. To be sure, Gage was a trifle disingenuous in reviewing the past. While admitting that the recent trials at arms proved the rebels "not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be," he ignored his original boast concerning lions and lambs. In stating that in all previous wars the Americans had never showed so much "conduct, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... multitude of locked souls with labels of smiling faces the sensitive nature feels itself mocked, and is soon distraught. It cannot suffer convention gladly for an ultimate good, but is chilled by this everlasting urbanity, which must, it fancies, be compact of irony and conceal a disingenuous soul. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... to return. So, on all these considerations, Horace decided that silence was his only possible policy, and, though some moralists may condemn his conduct as disingenuous and wanting in true moral courage, I venture to doubt whether any reader, however independent, straightforward, and indifferent to notoriety and ridicule, would have behaved otherwise in Ventimore's extremely delicate ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... him only the family traitor, and he would go about the streets of his town the subject of their implacable denunciation, the community's obloquy, and Aurora's cold evasion. So much, should he sell. On the other hand, to decline to sell was to enter upon that disingenuous scheme of delays which would enable him to avail himself and his people of that favorable wind and tide of fortune which the Cession had brought. Thus the estates would be lost, if lost at all, only when the family could afford to lose them, and Honore Grandissime would ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... disposition to brood over their wrongs, and, when they had worked themselves up into hating their enemies, imagined that they were only hating the enemies of heaven. In the New Testament there was little indeed which, even when perverted by the most disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance the indulgence of malevolent passions. But the Old Testament contained the history of a race selected by God to be witnesses of his unity and ministers of his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sufficiently proves the utter hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... little anthology of thirty leaves has been singularly unfortunate in its title-pages. It was first published in 1599 as The Passionate Pilgrims. By W. Shakespeare. At London. Printed for W. Jaggard, and are to be sold by W. Leake, at the Greyhound in Paules Churchyard. This, of course, was disingenuous. Some of the numbers were by Shakespeare: but the authorship of some remains doubtful to this day, and others the enterprising Jaggard had boldly conveyed from Marlowe, Richard Barnefield, and Bartholomew ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of a typical prosecution, arbitrary, unintelligent and disingenuous, is to be found in Sumner and Indecency, by Frank Harris, in Pearson's Magazine ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... that the Government was not inclined at present to change its policy but could make no promises for the future[798]. This appeared to Adams to be an assurance against any effort by Great Britain and has been interpreted as disingenuous on Russell's part. Certainly Adams' confidence was restored by the interview. But Russell was apparently unconvinced as yet that a suggestion of armistice would necessarily lead to the evil consequences ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... the letter is, it contrasts well with the disingenuous querulousness of the Eusebians. Nor is Julius unmindful to press as far as possible the claims of the Roman see. His one serious mistake was in supporting Marcellus. No doubt old services at Nicaea counted ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... services of Marx, who declined them at the very time when he was suffering awful privations. Marx himself has noted more than one instance of individual idealism triumphing over material interests and class environment, and, by a perversity that is astonishing, and not wholly disingenuous, some of his critics, notably Ludwig Slonimski,[81] have used these instances as arguments against his theory, claiming that they disprove it! We are to understand the materialistic theory, then, as teaching, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... of accidents I had come to witness their disembarkation, and how I had determined to remain, partly from the interest which had been wakened in me by Northmour's guests, and partly because of his own murderous attack. As to the former, I fear I was disingenuous, and led her to regard herself as having been an attraction to me from the first moment that I saw her on the links. It relieves my heart to make this confession even now, when my wife is with God, and already knows all things, and the honesty of my purpose even in this; for while she lived, although ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it upon Christie in the way which should make it most acceptable to her feelings. It is only necessary to add that my plan succeeded, and that Widow Steele even yet keeps the Treddles Arms. Do not say, therefore, that I have been disingenuous with you, reader; since, if I have not told all the ill of myself I might have done, I have indicated to you a person able and willing to supply the blank, by relating all my delinquencies ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... that?" says she at last, stammering a little, and feeling somewhat disingenuous. She had known, yet now she is trying to pretend ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Hills was Cromwell's printer, yet afterwards he turned Papist in the reign of King James II. in order to be that King's Printer; and it was at that time he used to relate this story; so that little credit is due to his testimony. It is almost impossible to believe Milton capable of such disingenuous meanness, to serve so bad a purpose, and there is as little reason for fixing it upon him, as he had to traduce the King for profaning the duty of prayer, with the polluted trash of romances; for in the best books ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... power to decide eventually, according to their own largest good, whether such self-government shall be accompanied by independence. A present declaration even of future independence would retard progress by the dissension and disorder it would arouse. On our part it would be a disingenuous attempt, under the guise of conferring a benefit on them, to relieve ourselves from the heavy and difficult burden which thus far we have been bravely and consistently sustaining. It would be a disguised policy ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... undisguisedly with the French; the English will never think nor talk clearly until the get clerical "Greek" and sham "humanities" out of their public schools and sincere study and genuine humanities in; our disingenuous Anglican compromise is like a cold in the English head, and the higher education in England is a training in evasion. This is an always lamentable state of affairs, but just now it is particularly lamentable because quite tremendous opportunities for the ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... understanding, so much as a little common honesty. "There is indeed no surer mark of a false and hollow heart, than a disposition thus to quibble away the clear injunctions of duty and conscience[81]:" It is the wretched resource of a disingenuous mind, endeavouring to escape from convictions before which it cannot stand, and to evade obligations ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... he had of thinking openly in the sight of God, enabled him to see the adventure of Lady Sunderbund without illusion and without shame. He saw himself at once honest and disingenuous, divided between two aims. He had no doubt now of the path he had to pursue. A stronger man of permanently clear aims might possibly turn Lady Sunderbund into a useful opportunity, oblige her to provide ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... but is entirely ignorant of his patron's prowess, the opinions of the illiterate concerning the personal characteristics of the genius obtain a very remarkable value as being honest criticism by man of man, uninfluenced by the spirit either of disingenuous adulation or of equally disingenuous depreciation. That these opinions are in the eyes of a disciple of the great man quaint, almost insolently crude is a matter of course. But when they tend to show the master not only great in letters but great in heart, soul, human kindness, ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... modern wit; and, with Steele to echo him, used to depreciate Dryden, whom Pope and Congreve defended against them[194]. There is no reason to doubt, that he suffered too much pain from the prevalence of Pope's poetical reputation; nor is it without strong reason suspected, that by some disingenuous acts he endeavoured to obstruct it; Pope was not the only man whom he insidiously injured, though the only man of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the upshot left him gasping so piteously on the ground selected for their tournament—not even then did the author of Hypatia display such a daring and immedicable capacity of misrepresentation based on misconception as when this most ingenuously disingenuous of all controversialists avowed himself "aware of no canons of internal criticism which would enable us to decide as boldly as Mr. Gifford does that all the indecency is Dekker's and all the poetry Massinger's." ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... The greatest part of these fictitious writings undoubtedly flowed from the fertile invention of the Gnostic sects, though it cannot be affirmed that even true Christians were entirely innocent and irreproachable in this matter" (Ibid, p. 55). "This disingenuous and vicious method of surprising their adversaries by artifice, and striking them down, as it were, by lies and fiction, produced, among other disagreeable effects, a great number of books, which were falsely attributed ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... Executive had to cope. How well he met, and how entirely he for the time overcame these enemies of the peace of the republic, we leave the historian to relate; but our retrospect would be incomplete and disingenuous, did we not accord the meed of praise justly due to high moral excellence and intellectual and administrative honesty and talent, as developed in the administration of ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... this book's miraculous stupidities were studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume carefully through and keep that opinion. It was written in serious good faith and deep earnestness, by an honest and upright idiot who believed he knew something of the ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... What he was about to say seemed so disingenuous, even though it had originated with Tutt ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... this. He was uneasy at the thought of it; for other and no less disingenuous fanatics regarded Wurzelmann's behaviour merely ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... supported by plausible arguments; still it is not mine. Charlatanism was too important a part for such a man to play, and sincerity too insignificant a one. I would rather think Fourier ignorant (which is generally admitted) than disingenuous. As for his disciples, before they can formulate any opinion of their own, they must declare once for all, unequivocally and with no mental reservation, whether they mean to maintain property or not, and what they mean by their famous motto,—"To each according ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... that just a little disingenuous? Don't you know why not? Here am I,' he went on, 'as I do most solemnly believe, as madly in love as ever man was in the history of the world; petted, encouraged, and caressed, and ignored, and repulsed, until in the insane weakness of my own ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... commonplace and helpless preaching. The word "Reserve" was enough. It meant that the Tract-writers avowed the principle of keeping back part of the counsel of God. It meant, further, that the real spirit of the party was disclosed; its love of secret and crooked methods, its indifference to knowledge, its disingenuous professions, its deliberate concealments, its holding doctrines and its pursuit of aims which it dared not avow, its disciplina arcani, its conspiracies, its Jesuitical spirit. All this kind of abuse was flung plentifully on the party as the controversy ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... of hostile laws daily accumulated on one another, the American leaders seem to have had the greatest difficulty in bringing up their people to a declaration of total independence. But the Court Gazette accomplished what the abettors of independence had attempted in vain. When that disingenuous compilation and strange medley of railing and flattery was adduced as a proof of the united sentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was a great change throughout all America. The tide of popular affection, which had still set towards the parent country, began immediately to turn, and to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... protection, under false names and pretended descriptions, to known oppression, asserting that the reputation of the Company was saved by removing this apparent participation, when the new as well as the old arrangements were truly and substantially acts of the British government, was disingenuous, deceitful, and used to cover unjustifiable designs: since the said Warren Hastings well knew that all oppressions exercised by the Nabob of Oude were solely, and in this instance particularly, upheld by British force, and were imputed to this nation; and because he himself, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Senator Patterson of New Hampshire were found by the Committee, and believed by the people to have been disingenuous in their account of the transaction. The Senate Committee of investigation reported a resolution for the expulsion of Senator Patterson. The case was a very hard one indeed for him. The Senate adjourned, and ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... inquired Quinby, who hovered obligingly at my elbow. It was really necessary to be as disingenuous as possible, more especially with a person whose own ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... that month, but it was not till the 24th of July that he was ordered to appear before the Council and required to take an oath to answer all the questions put to him. He refused and protested, and was tortured in the boot, but, spite of the awful agony, remained "obstinate and disingenuous," whereupon the Privy Council "resolved to use all methods necessary to bring the said Mr William Spence to a true and ingenuous confession, and for expiscating the truth in so important a matter, do recommend ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... This was disingenuous, and she felt humiliated by her subterfuge. Anything but a sudden decision was asked of her. Before leaving Chelsea she had 'foreseen this moment, and had made preparations for the possibility of never returning to Miss Barfoot's ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... returned to me, and in that instant I gave her an answering look, which, quite involuntarily on my part, meant a grave and serious offer of my best and bravest efforts in her behalf. Disingenuous she might be, untruthful she might be, yes, even a criminal she might be, but in any case I was her sworn ally forever. Not that I meant to defeat the ends of justice, but I was ready to fight for her or with her, ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... you to delude yourself with the hopes of sudden wealth (and when I say sudden, I would give you a term of ten years) from the practice of the law, unless you should plunge into that practice with the most unqualified disregard to all that rectitude demands, would be to act the cowardly disingenuous hypocrite; and entirely to forget the first and best duties ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Sparrow-grass in jars, How often have ye saved from scars Of shame, and deep embarrassment, The disingenuous farmer-gent, To whom some wondering guest has cried, "How do you raise such Pease and Sparrow-grass?" Whereat the farmer-gent has not denied The compliment, but smiling has replied, "To raise such things you ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... Mr. Davis nominated Alexander H. Stephens, R.M.T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell, as informal commissioners, and directed them, "in conformity with the letter of Mr. Lincoln," to go to Washington and informally confer "for the purpose of securing peace to the two countries." This was disingenuous, and so obviously so that it was also foolish; for no conference about "two countries" was "in conformity" with the letter of Mr. Lincoln. By reason of the difficulty created by this silly trick the commissioners were delayed ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... Thus, utility is no longer that inert capacity, so to speak, which things possess of serving for our enjoyments and in our researches; venality is no longer the exaggeration of a blind fancy or an unprincipled opinion; finally, variability has ceased to explain itself by a disingenuous discussion between supply and demand: all that has disappeared to give place to a positive, normal, and, under all ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... corner of a colonial mantel, a soft straw outing-hat held negligently in one hand, one hip sunk lower than the other, a faint, elusive smile playing dimly around her mouth. The smile was really not a smile, but only the wraith of one, and the eyes were wide, disingenuous, mock-simple. The picture because of its simplicity, appealed to him. He did not know that Mrs. Carter had never sanctioned its display. "A personage," was Cowperwood's comment to himself, and he walked into the photographer's office to see what could be done about its ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the room; nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Nevertheless he was uneasy. The suspicions of a frank, trustful nature when once aroused are apt to be more general and far-reaching than the specific distrusts of the disingenuous, for they imply the overthrow of a whole principle and not a mere detail. Clarence's conviction that Susy had seen Pedro recently since his dismissal led him into the wildest surmises of her motives. It was possible ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... us into thinking them hypocrites. And an increasing number of cases will crowd into our field of inquiry, cases in which there is really no question of hypocrisy at all, cases in which people were so ingenuous that they seemed absurd, and so absurd that they seemed disingenuous. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Church again disturbed her peace. Eusebius Pamphilius says that immediately after the synod Egypt became agitated by intestine divisions; but he does not give the reason for this. From this he has gained the reputation of being disingenuous and of avoiding the specification of the causes of these dissensions from a determination on his part not to give his sanction to the proceedings at Nicaea. Yet as we ourselves have discovered from various letters which the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... forfeited the bliss of primeval paradise, he was seduced by his fair partner, who had already listened to the wily suggestions of the serpent; but Abraham, so far from being tempted by his wife, appears to have been the sole contriver of this disingenuous artifice, and employed all his influence to induce her to transgress. In following him from his original residence into Canaan, and subsequently to Egypt, she obeyed the dictates of affection and of religion; but when she suffered herself to be persuaded into a deceitful action, she sacrificed ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... consists; spiritual pride calling itself piety, and censoriousness affecting the name of zeal for our neighbour's salvation; insubordination pervading every order of society; all clamouring for their own way, and 'meaning licence, when they cry liberty;' the most disingenuous shifts and dishonest contrivances resorted to, not merely without punishment, but without fear of censure; when I see all this, can I say that morals are improved, because theatres are turned into conventicles, and banquets ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... such like, that a little more mingling in society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage island, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strove for years to acquire, and rarely acquired ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... his disingenuous cowardice in attacking the people when he meant Christ. He blunders, too, in his scolding; for nobody had come to be healed. They had come to worship; and even if they had come for healing, the coming was no breach of Sabbath regulations, whatever the healing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the explanation, that such proof must include the disproving of the assertion made in the Earl's will. As it was the intention of the heir to set aside that will, such assurance was, to say the least of it, disingenuous. But the whole thing had now become so confused that it could hardly be expected that lawyers should ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... no response. The grey eyes, meeting eyes dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... service the following Monday he simply gave a half sigh, half grunt of disgust, and let the longed-for vacation go; for one of his pet theories was that the jury system was the chief bulwark of the Constitution, the cornerstone of liberty. Had he only been disingenuous enough he need never have served on any jury, for no lawyer for the defense hearing him enlarge on what he considered the duties of a juryman to be, would ever have allowed him in the box. But when other chaps on the panel presented their excuses to the judge and ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... was either confused or deliberately disingenuous, since he shifts his ground several times. On occasion he argues merely in the role of a moderate man who is shocked by the extravagances of the playwrights, and on other occasions as an ascetic to whom all worldly diversion, however innocent of any obvious ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... at this disingenuous creature. He was saving me for the dry hour. He could point out Mulehaus in any passing chair, and I would give some coin to be ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... are disingenuous in regard to these irregularities of conduct was forced upon me some years ago in a conversation with Kendall Brown, who, for all his eccentricities, is a ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... Transvaal, where "Home Rule" was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union. Unionists and Imperialists can choose ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the least of it, is disingenuous. I have done no such thing. This general animadversion is only justified by a reference to the pedantry of the Norman Mallet de Graville—and it is expressly stated in the text that Mallet de Graville was originally intended ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... many of their number, and especially Sullivan. He speaks, however, in high terms of Henry and Small; and both of these, in their letters referred to above, paint the conduct of the French and Indians in very dark colors, throwing the blame on them. Legrace is certainly disingenuous in suppressing all mention of the wrongs done to the Americans. For Filson's career and death in the woods, see the excellent Life of Filson, by Durrett, in the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... detail which it would be disingenuous to slur over. It is this. We are told that Saint Joseph was awkward and backward in his development. As a child his boy-comrades used to laugh at him for his open-mouthed staring habits; they called him "bocca-aperta" (gape-mouth), and in the frontispiece to Montanari's life of him, which ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... this subject, I cannot but take notice how disingenuous our adversaries appear: All that is dull, insipid, languishing, and without sinews, in a poem, they call an imitation of nature: They only offend our most equitable judges, who think beyond them; and lively images and elocution ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... The undefined, if not disingenuous, attitude of modern thinkers to this phenomenon is striking. It takes three forms in cultivated society. One section look at it as an incidental phenomenon, arising out of the special political situation of Europe, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... phrase on the priest's lips was disingenuous for he knew that a priest should not speak lightly on that theme. The phrase had been spoken lightly with design and he felt that his face was being searched by the eyes in the shadow. Whatever he had heard ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... very heavily, I very civilly requested him to remove his Hand; for which he pulled me by the Nose. I would not resent it in so publick a Place, because I was unwilling to create a Disturbance; but have since reflected upon it as a thing that is unmanly and disingenuous, renders the Nose-puller odious, and makes the Person pulled by the Nose look little and contemptible. This Grievance I humbly request ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... it back, and get the value in money. I hear that Isaacs sold it again and made another profit; but that's like those traders." The disingenuous candor of Teresa's manner was in exquisite contrast to Dunn. He rose and grasped her hand so heartily she was forced ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... fenced with,' cried his father. 'There must be an end of disingenuous answers. What did you ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there ever since the early Forties A more grotesque and shameless mockery Of the austere and holy principles Which Liberalism like an altar-flame Has guarded through the loose irreverent years Than this inept, this disingenuous, This frankly disingenuous attempt; To smuggle past the barrier of this House An article so plainly contraband As this unlicens'd and contagious Bill— A Bill which, it is not too much to say, Insults the conscience ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... been defined to be a bundle of habits; till the bundle is made up, we may continually increase or diminish it. Children who are zealous in defence of their own perfections, are of all others most likely to become stationary in their intellectual progress, and disingenuous in their temper. It would be in vain to repeat to them this sensible and elegant observation—"To confess that you have been in the wrong, is only saying, in other words, that you are wiser to-day than you were ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... It was in this assurance of Helen's choice that she found a refuge when questionings and wonders came to drag her down to suffering again. There were many things that menaced the lull of safety, things she could not bear yet to look at. The sense of her own abandonment to weak and disingenuous impulses was one; another shadowed her unstable peace more darkly. Had Helen really minded losing Franklin—apart from his money? What had his value really been to her? What was she feeling and doing now? What ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... a favourable reception to any further matrimonial project on Mirliflor's behalf—at all events from her. So she merely informed him that Mirliflor had left Clairdelune to seek a bride for himself, and that he might be absent for some time. She did not mention his transformation, and was disingenuous enough to agree with the King that the Prince had behaved most unfilially in departing without permission. But King Tournesol was too glad that his son's thoughts had again turned to marriage to ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Miss Wimple?" Because that provident angel had, without explanation, exacted from her a promise that she would in no case write first. In truth, Miss Wimple foresaw her own various suffering, and sought to spare Madeline some cruel pangs, and herself the hard trial of disingenuous correspondence.] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... unless the laity muzzled them. He held that the reformers had been calumniated, that their services were in danger of being forgotten, and that the modern attempt to ignore the Reformation was not only unhistorical, but disingenuous. He wrote partly to rehabilitate them, and partly to prove that Henry VIII. had conferred great benefits upon England by his repudiation of Papal authority. He took, as he considered it his duty to take, the side of individual liberty against ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... to stultify the findings of the Commission on the ground that its report was based on a fallacy, since Ireland has no more right to be considered as a separate entity than an English county, is remarkably disingenuous in view of the acknowledgment of this in the separate treatment which she received in the matter of grants made in relief of local taxation and for the establishment of free education in the years ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... disingenuous thing to ask for advice, when you mean assistance; and it will be a just punishment if you get that which you ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Landor.—Plato is disingenuous and malicious. I fancy I have detected him in more than one dark passage, a dagger in his hand and a bitter sneer on his countenance.[52] He stole (from the Eyptian priests and other sources) every idea his voluminous books convey. [53] ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... only stooped to explain—" He broke off, with a savage gesture. "Forgive me! What right have I to reproach or blame you? The whole fault was mine. Well, I believed you as disloyal and disingenuous as I had known you to be loyal and candid. And I went away. I went down into hell. You've at least the satisfaction of knowing that I paid for my distrust—paid for it to the last ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love. It's always the most amusing thing in the world; but to see it trying to pass itself off in poor old Kenby as duty and humanity, and disinterested affection for Rose, was more than I could stand. I don't apologize for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sense of those words. She had simply instincts—most of the bad instincts of an animal; none of the good. The great motive power which really directed her, was Deceit. I never met with any human being so inherently disingenuous, so naturally incapable of candour even in the most trifling affairs of life, as she was. The best training could never have wholly overcome this vice in her: the education she actually got—an education ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Among the virtuous inhabitants of the plain, every one seeks to influence another by motives which are of weight with himself, and utters the sentiments of his own heart. Where have you learned the disingenuous and faithless arts you employ? To what purpose have you cultivated them, and whose good opinion do you flatter yourself they will obtain for you? False, perfidious Roderic! the more I see of you, the more I fear ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... ordering Gen. Sedgwick forward at the time named, was to relieve me from the position in which I found myself at Chancellorsville on the night of the 2d of May." This statement is not only characteristic of Hooker's illogical method, but disingenuous to the degree of mockery. For this position, it will be remembered, was a strongly intrenched line, held by eighty thousand men, well armed and equipped, having in their front less than half their number of Confederates. In view of Hooker's above-quoted ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... name, determine that he is fit? The last statute relative hereto declared the presentation void, unless accepted. Nor is there in being any, but the law of sin and death within them, the law of itch after worldly gain, that obliges candidates to accept. How unmanly, how disingenuous, to blame the civil law with the present course of intrusions!—Since the resurrection of Christ, we think we may almost defy any to produce an instance of bloody squabbling, or like outrageous contention, in the choice of a pastor, where none but the visible members of Christ's mystical ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... the sight of the fifty dollars which I tendered him. However, my generosity was not wholly disingenuous. I felt that it would be wise to make one stanch friend in that unfriendly city; and money does bind, though ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers' perjuries Jove laughs"—and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of forswearing their occupation. This though is not my case. The tender cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is favourable to the Sonnet or ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... opinions and was extremely stubborn. In dealing with men, he thought too much of what was due to himself and too little of what was due to others. As a lad he lacked frankness, and in later life was disingenuous and intriguing. When he was displeased his temper was sullen and resentful. He was always overcareful about money, and in old age this tendency developed into parsimony. His education was deficient; it had not been carried on steadily, and he had been ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the intermeddling of this second Intendant of the Jardin. In his budget of expenses[28] sent to the Minister of the Interior, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre took occasion to refer to Lamarck in a disingenuous and blundering way, which may have both ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... forward one of limited extent, it would be considered that they had no ulterior object, and that the limited measure, if conceded, should be taken in full of every thing to be expected from the Legislature. This would be disingenuous. It is the most fair and honest mode of dealing, on the part of those who are of opinion that the exigency of the case calls for a comprehensive measure, to declare at once what is the utmost extent of the objects they have in view, and what is the exact amount of the measure ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... terrible example of justice took place towards the close of this month, which I record with regret, but which it would be disingenuous to suppress. Six marines, the flower of our battalion, were hanged by the public executioner, on the sentence of a criminal court, composed entirely of their own officers, for having at various times robbed the public ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... 'strong-minded' you mean a wholesome dislike to the involving of a straightforward situation in a tangle of disingenuous sophistry, I plead ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... parts of it which he understands best, lest he should grow obscure. But these parts he must develop fully, and he has no right to omit anything that may serve the purpose of truth, whether it please or not. As it would be disingenuous to sacrifice truth to popularity, so it is trifling to appeal to the reason and experience of mankind, as every philosophical writer does, or must be understood to do, and then to talk, like Plato and ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... oppose these attempts to alter the methods of government which had been in vogue for half a century was inevitable, though some of the means they employed were certainly disingenuous. Their leaders, both lay and clerical, were unsurpassed in genius for argument and at this time outdid themselves. When Palmer was able to show that, according to English law, their land-titles were in many cases defective, they fell back on an older title ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... says the author of "Piozziana," "that I thought, as I still do, that Johnson's anger on the event of her second marriage was excited by some feeling of disappointment; and that I suspected he had formed some hope of attaching her to himself. It would be disingenuous on my part to attempt to repeat her answer. I forget it; but the impression on my mind is that she did not contradict me." Sir James Fellowes' marginal note on this passage is: "This was an absurd notion, and ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... sequel, a broad hint that Paul never saw his Ephesian friends again, the natural view is open that the sequel to the two years' preaching was too well known to call for explicit record. Nor would such silence touching Paul's speedy martyrdom be disingenuous, any more than on the theory that martyrdom overtook him several years later. The writer views Paul's death (like the horrors of Nero's Vatican Gardens in 64) as a mere exception to the rule of Roman policy heretofore illustrated. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
