"Specious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon his palette, and he discoursed so eloquently of the superiority of this tint to all others that he succeeded in persuading the worthy innkeeper to have an azure sun depicted on his swinging sign. And not this one alone had yielded to his specious arguments, for he had painted blue lions, blue cocks, blue horses, on various signs in the country round, in a manner that would have delighted the Chinese—who esteem an artist in proportion to the unnaturalness of his designs ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... tested the goodliness of the land, came when the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race—Teutons overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large numbers, not simply ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds; and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to change my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with my middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So I temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as a son-in-law? ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... undeniably good, his argument is rather specious. Acting as an instrument in the process of creation would scarcely give a valid claim to the obedience of the created being. Power may be shown in the act, no doubt; but mere power gives no true claim to the obedience of moral beings. It is a kind of principle ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... thoroughly understood by the common people were the principles of liberty, and with what keen penetration they saw through all shams and specious reasoning, than the decided, nay, fierce, stand they took against the stamp act. This was nothing more than our present law requiring a governmental stamp on all public and business paper to make it valid. The only difference is, the former was levying a tax without representation—in ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... cover of our hospitality you have endeavored to steal away the fairest ornament of our Court; I leave you to the pangs of conscience, if indeed you possess a conscience. But the Baroness is unsophisticated; she has been misled by your fallacious arguments and specious pretence of affection. She has evidently been misled," he said to the Grand Duchess, kindly, "as any ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... hunger forced him into a recruiting-office, no doubt aided by the specious argument that he wanted to teach temperance to Tommy Atkins. The recruiting-officer gazed at the apparition and sent for a surgeon. This surgeon sent for another, and both went over the skeleton, tapping, listening, prodding and counting. "All ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... his soul, where selfishness put on a guise of honesty, all these specious interests were struggling and contending. His first scruples yielded to ingenious reasoning, then came to the top again, and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... and harmoniously marshalled by the poets, and whose personages, imaginary actors to men, are real to those who begin to penetrate the Spiritual World. On the tiers of this Coliseum Monsieur Becker seated the gray legions of Doubt, the stern ideas, the specious formulas of Dispute. He convoked the various antagonistic worlds of philosophy and religion, and they all appeared, in the guise of a fleshless shape, like that in which art embodies Time,—an old ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... stated in a general form, would produce but a slight impression. But when applied to any particular order of facts, to any particular article of industry, to any one class of labor, it is extremely specious, because it is a syllogism which is not false, but incomplete. And what is true in a syllogism always necessarily presents itself to the mind, while the incomplete, which is a negative quality, an unknown value, is easily ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... very day after this plausible proclamation, and specious conduct, the marquis sent 500 men to possess themselves of Roras, while the people, as he thought, were lulled into perfect security by ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... weave them all together Into one web of treason; all will be plain, My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark, Step tracing step, each step a politic progress; And out of all they'll fabricate a charge So specious that I must myself stand dumb. I am caught in my own net, and only force, Nought but a sudden rent, can ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... full many a foreign band, And HE, their Leader, wore in sheath his sword, And offered peaceful front and open hand, Veiling the perjured treachery he planned, By friendship's zeal and honour's specious guise, Until he won the passes of the land; Then burst were honour's oath and friendship's ties! He clutched his vulture grasp, and ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... sayer of particular good things that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal, division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an unfair ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... in the occidental hemisphere made to suffer, not for the amelioration of a race, but in order to satisfy the idiotic ambitions of a handful. Let not this fact be forgotten. Democracy will not forget it. And foreign policy in the future will not be left in the hands of any autocracy, by whatever specious name the autocracy may call itself. Ruling classes have always said that masses were incapable of understanding foreign policy. The masses understand it now. They understand that in spite of very earnest efforts in various Cabinets, the ruling classes have failed to avert ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... world burned before him became a stench in his nostrils. The fetishes he had tossed to the crowd now faced him as real gods; and they were not to be blinded with dust, nor bought with gold. The specious and tortured verbiage of twisted law never for one moment deceived the open ears of Justice, even though it tied her hands, and her voice was the voice of condemnation. Honor—he had sold it. Faith—he had not kept it. Truth—he had distorted to fit whatever garb he had chosen ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... 'mid the main "Sicilian? O'er the wide-spread ocean borne, "Him whom I love embracing; sheltering close "In Jason's bosom; clasp'd by him, no fear "My soul could harbor. Or if fear I felt, "For him alone I'd tremble; for my spouse. "Spouse, dost thou say, Medea? hid'st thou thus, "With specious names thy crime? Behold the load "Of guilt thou goest to bear! While power remains "The sin avoid."—She said, and duty, shame, And rectitude, before her eyes appear'd; And vanquish'd love address'd his wings to flight. Now to an ancient ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... consequences of a currency exclusively of paper, and we ought not on that account to be surprised at the facility with which laws were obtained to carry into effect the paper system. Honest and even enlightened men are sometimes misled by the specious and plausible statements of the designing. But experience has now proved the mischiefs and dangers of a paper currency, and it rests with you to determine whether the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... is now rejected as a fable by the modern writers, who smile at the vulgar credulity. They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, according to which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge, a more specious narrative of this memorable transaction. No sooner was Timur informed that the captive Ottoman was at the door of his tent than he graciously stepped forward to receive him, seated him by his side, and mingled with just reproaches a soothing pity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... things some influence: provided only that we understand how much we ought to allow them. It is, however, the part of a philosopher, who seeks not so much for what is specious as for what is true, neither utterly to disregard those things which those very boastful men used to admit to be in accordance with nature; and at the same time to see that the power of virtue, and the authority, if I may say so, of ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... in the sanctuaries of Greece, recognised the Persian king as the arbiter of her destinies. Although Athens cannot be entirely exonerated from the blame of this transaction, the chief guilt rests upon Sparta, whose designs were far deeper and more hypocritical than they appeared. Under the specious pretext of securing the independence of the Grecian cities, her only object was to break up the confederacies under Athens and Thebes, and, with the assistance of Persia, to pave the way for her ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... the too flagrant contradiction which existed between ecclesiastical justice and the teaching of Christ, and it gave at least an external homage to the teaching of St. Augustine, and the first Fathers of the Church. Moreover, as it furnished a specious means of evading by the merest form of prohibition against clerics taking part in sentences involving the effusion of blood and death, aud the irregularity resulting therefrom, the Inquisitors used it to ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... explained also the young girl's animosity against the younger officers,—his adversaries; against himself,—their commander. He had previously wondered why, if she were indeed a spy, she had not chosen, upon some equally specious order from Washington, the headquarters of the division commander, whose secrets were more valuable. This was explained by the fact that she was nearer the lines and her lover in her present abode. He had no idea that he was making excuses for her,—he believed himself only just. The recollection ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... more hopeless than this for woman? But these constant presentations of the laws, with the comments and arguments in our Conventions, gradually appealed to the understanding of sensible men and women, and opened the eyes of the community to the wrongs of woman, perpetrated under the specious ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... lift up Earth to Heaven! Ah, that is difficult! Even Christ came down! It is the chief thing I admire in Him, that He 'descended from Heaven and was made Man'. TRES CHER Felix, I shall bewilder you to death with my specious and frivolous reasoning,—and after all, I had much better come to the main fact of what I intended to tell you,—a sort of confession out of church. You know I have already told you I am going to die soon, and that I am a bad man confessedly and hopelessly,—but among other things is this, (and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... advantage in the despotic and summary manner in which the queen took matters into her own hands. It was refreshing to see this great sovereign—who was so well able to grapple with questions of State, and whose very imperiousness of temper impelled her to trample on shallow sophistries and specious technicalities—dealing directly with cases of piracy and turning a deaf ear to the counsellors, who in that, as in every age, were too prone to shove by international justice in order ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in Dante's hell, wherein we meet with tombs inclosing souls which denied their immortalities. But whether the virtuous heathen, who lived better than he spake, or, erring in the principles of himself, yet lived above philosophers of more specious maxims, lie so deep as he is placed; at least so low as not to rise against Christians who, believing or knowing that truth, have lastingly denied it in their practice and conversation—were a query too sad to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... shall nowhere find, not in Grimm, or Dasent, or Perrault. Still, it cannot be denied that true stories are not so good as fairy tales. They do not always end happily, and, what is worse, they do remind a young student of lessons and schoolrooms. A child may fear that he is being taught under a specious pretence of diversion, and that learning is being thrust on him under the disguise of entertainment. Prince Charlie and Cortes may be asked about in examinations, whereas no examiner has hitherto set questions ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... house-party providence responsible for a great number of marriages, and, it may be, for a large percentage of the divorce cases; for, if you desire very heartily to see anything of another member of a house-party, this lax-minded and easy-going providence will somehow always bring the event about in a specious manner, and without any apparent thought ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... that in Pamela he produced an essay in vulgarity—of sentiment and morality alike—which has never been surpassed. In these days it is hardly less difficult to understand the popularity of this masterpiece of specious immodesty than to speak or think of it with patience. That it was once thought moral is as wonderful as that it was once found readable. What is more easily apprehended is the contempt of Henry Fielding—is the justice of that ridicule he was moved to visit it ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... at the Columbian Exposition as a companion piece to a statue of the said Susan B. Anthony, constitute, and are an unlawful interference with the right of privacy, and a gross and unwarranted outrage upon the memory of the said Mary M. Hamilton Schuyler, under the specious pretense of doing honor to her memory; and that the surviving members of her family have been, and are, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... bell; Beware, O camel, when resounds the whistle's shrill, unholy swell; And, native of that guileless land, unused to modern travel's snare, Beware the fiend that peddles books—the awful peanut-boy beware. Else, trusting in their specious arts, you may have reason to condemn The traffic which the knavish ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... doubted also very much whether the wily priest was not mocking him. He knew full well from the accounts he had heard in France of the treachery of which the emissaries of Rome were guilty, and he would not place any confidence in the most specious promises any of them might have made to him. He therefore let the priest talk on, endeavouring as far as he could not to listen to him. At length the fort was reached. Nigel was forthwith thrust into a cell, ordinarily used for the confinement ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... Platonic dreams on beauty. As far as the taste or the instruction of his tutor directed, he is right when they are; and between his own learning and the tuition of the other, his history of art delivers a specious system, and a prodigious number of useful observations." "To him Germany owes the shackles of her artists, and the narrow limits of their aim." Had Fuseli lived to have witnessed the "revival" at Munich, he would have appreciated the efforts made, and still making, there. He speaks ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... beneficent civilization, we have now, just when these goals seemed to be on the point of being attained, the spectacle of the same city and nation rent by religious faction, and relapsing into an even crueller barbarism under all the specious glitter of the ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... kiss his wife if he pleased, and he might do it how he pleased. It was undignified to speculate about it. She tried very hard to drive that home to herself, and she did succeed in imposing it upon her conduct. But she was not convinced. She was too deeply romantic for conviction by any such specious reasoning. That affair in the dark had been the real thing; it implied—oh, everything. Let come what might, let be what was, that was the true truth of the mystery. And to be loved like that ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... said Martin, with the specious warmth she knew. "I did try to git you in bad with Tenney, but don't you know what that sprung from? I'm jealous as the devil. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... regard to that Princess. The Baron de Neni, after having devoted sufficient time and intelligence to the subject, undeceived his sovereign as to the exaggerations of the French ambassador; and the Empress had no difficulty in detecting, among the calumnies which he had conveyed to her under the specious excuse of anxiety for her august daughter, proofs of the enmity of a, party which had never approved of the alliance of the House of Bourbon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Harmony, one of Anna's specious arguments must pop into her head at that instant ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her, but she wouldn't hear it. Pursuit and continuation of the scene, with or without another specious semblance of apology and reconciliation such as had terminated their previous passage-at-arms, was out of the question; the corridor was lively with young women in gayest plumage, fluttering to and from the dressing-rooms, and ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... speaking. The truth had died out of his tone when he mentioned the money, and his words were the specious wheedling of one who knows the generous kindliness of those with whom he is dealing. But Prudence gave no heed to anything but that which found an answering chord in the passionate emotion which swayed her. Hervey's appeal to get away drew from her some ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... status, the announcement caused much comment and discussion among the dominant class. For down deep in the heart of every man is a conception of right. He cannot extinguish it, or separate it from its comparative. What would I have others do to me? Pride, interest, adverse contact, all with specious argument may strive to dissipate the comparison, but the pulsations of a common humanity, keeping time with the verities of God never ceased to trouble, and thus the moral pebble thrown on the bosom of the hitherto placid sea of public opinion, like its physical prototype, creating undulations which ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... Rasputin? My pen fails me. He was one of a few great charlatans of saintly presence and of specious words, fascinators of women, and domineerers of men, who have been sent to the world at intervals through all the ages. Had he lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era he would no doubt have been ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... as at present. He is a fool who objects to luxuries; but he is also a fool who does not protest against the waste of luxuries on those who do not desire and cannot enjoy them. It remains to be seen, by each man who would live a true life to himself and not a merely specious life to society, how many luxuries he truly wants and to how many he merely submits as to a social propriety; and all these last he will immediately forswear. Let him do this, and he will be surprised to find how little money it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you it is possible to hoodwink the insane by any specious show of argument, don't believe them; my own experience is that demented persons can be quite perversely logical ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... to concrete examples, cast a glance at the belief in 'free will,' demolished with such specious persuasiveness recently by the skilful hand of Professor Fullerton. [Footnote: Popular Science Monthly, N. Y., vols. lviii and lix.] When a common man says that his will is free, what does he mean? ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... bring about a contamination of meaning. The verb to gloss, or gloze, means simply to explain or translate, from Greco-Lat. glossa, tongue; but, under the influence of the unrelated gloss, superficial lustre, it has acquired the sense of specious interpretation. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... This specious proposal seduced the assembly. It was adopted amid the most vociferous acclamations, and shouts of "Long live Napoleon II." a thousand times repeated; without its suspecting, that this order of the day, which appeared ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... to the cock-loft was open, though, and the ladder was drawn up so Thornton knew that this seeming of vacancy was specious and that in all likelihood gun barrels were trained ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... rich bankers and American plutocrats had loaned perhaps a billion dollars to England. Since the war was going against England, these rich men were afraid that they would lose their investment. In their emergency they forced war upon Congress. The speech was clever, specious, cunning, shrewdly calculated to stir up passion. And the speech was applauded to the echo. The second speaker made a no less skillful appeal to the prejudices of the members of the secret German-American ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... deceive herself about this love, could reassure her conscience with specious logic, but she never lost her coolness of judgment concerning Hamilton Gregory. His lapses from conventionality did not come from deliberate choice, and she realized the danger of letting his feverish impulse grow cold. Even the ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Moderne, speaking of the water-colours of Forain, Huysmans attributes to them 'a specious and cherche art, demanding, for its appreciation, a certain initiation, a certain special sense.' To realise the full value, the real charm, of A Rebours, some such initiation might be deemed necessary. In its fantastic unreality, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... no little disturbance. Hanging on their skirts were a whole crowd of ignorant, dogmatic atheists, who published a paper called "The Freethinker," which, while it was a villainous and contemptible rag, appealed to the passions and prejudices of the partially educated. To answer the specious arguments of their propaganda an association known as the Christian Evidence Society used to send out lecturers. One of them became quite famous for his clever arguments and answers, his ready wit, and really ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... It now remains to advert to a distinction which is of first-rate importance both for clearing up the notion of cause, and for obviating a very specious objection often made against the view which we have ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... not fail to exert a penetrating influence on human thought. The privileged position of the earth had been a capital feature of the whole doctrine, as to the universe and man's destinies, which had been taught by the Church, and it had made that doctrine more specious than it might otherwise have seemed. Though the Churches could reform their teaching to meet the new situation, the fact remained that the Christian scheme sounded less plausible when the central importance of the human race was shown to be an illusion. Would man, stripped ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... understood and are sure of the proofs. Nevertheless it is sometimes well to show oneself ready to examine certain objections. On the one hand it may serve to rescue people from their error, while on the other we ourselves may profit by it; for specious fallacies often contain some useful solution and bring about the removal of considerable difficulties. That is why I have always liked ingenious objections made against my own opinions, and I have never examined them without profit: witness those which M. Bayle formerly made ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... truth when he is making a speech. Politics could not be carried on if he did. What the public expects and generally insists on is that the inevitable lies should have their loins girt about with a specious appearance of truthfulness. Every speaker must offer distinct and convincing proofs that his statements are strictly accurate reflections of fact. The best and simplest way of doing this is by means of bold challenge. The speaker offers to deposit a large sum of money with the local mayor to be ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... have been once fooled, most of them, and discovered, and slighted at Court, so that till some turn of State shall let them in their adversaries' place, in the mean time they look sullen, make big motions, and contrive specious bills for the subject, yet only wait the opportunity to be the instruments of the same counsels ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... highest professions of respect to the Governor, he nevertheless considered as an insult; but especially the advice, which he deemed both highly derogatory to his integrity as a man, and his fidelity as a governor. The bait thrown out to appearance was specious and flattering, yet the Governor had too much penetration, not to see under its false colours the naked hook. The letter, however, served to give him notice of the association, and the resolution of the people, which it was his duty by all means possible to defeat. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... having met with punishment of this arrogancy and vanity, again exercise themselves in these indifferent things and such as pertain nothing to them, crying out with a loud voice that there is only one thing good, specious, and honorable, the storing up of these things and the communication of them, and that it is not meet for those to live who have them not, but to despatch out of the way and famish themselves, bidding ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... before the cartoons. There is one subject of which there is no cartoon: Christ washing the feet of the disciples the night before His death. But that chapter does not need a commentary. It is for want of some such resting-place for the imagination that the Greek statues are little else than specious forms. They are marble to the touch and to the heart. They have not an informing principle within them. In their faultless excellence they appear sufficient to themselves. By their beauty they are raised above ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... rate, differences in possessions will instantly arise: "In one hand the dime became an eagle as it fell, and in another hand a copper cent. For the whole value of the dime is in knowing what to do with it." Emerson was never deceived by a specious philanthropy, or by claims of equality which find no support in the nature of things. He was a true democrat, but still could say: "I think I see place and duties for a nobleman in every society; but it is not to drink wine and ride in a fine coach, but to guide and adorn ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... liberate the country from the yoke of tyrants. Although I could write volumes to illustrate my assertion, at this occasion I mention only a little of my experience in the Convention to overcome evil with good, and which was in the newspapers announced under the specious title: Philanthropic Convention to overcome evil with good, and which was held on the 10th, 11th and 12th days of September, 1858, in Utica of the State of New-York. The most influential persons in that Convention were Abolitionists of the Garrisonian ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... subversively, for she too was a Suffragette and a Socialist, at the great nine-foot wall round Lord Wemyss's estate, by which they were to cycle for some miles. She pointed out how its perfect taste and avoidance of red brick and its hoggish swallowing of tracts of pleasant land symbolised the specious charm and the thieving greed which were well known to be the attributes of the aristocracy. Rachael was wonderful. She was an Atheist, too. When she was twelve she had decided to do without God for a year, and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of hearts the school-boy regards the periodic sentences which Cicero hurled at Catiline, and which Livy used in telling the story of Rome as unnatural and perverse. All the specious arguments which his teacher urges upon him, to prove that the periodic form of expression was just as natural to the Roman as the direct method is to us, fail to convince him that he is not right in his feeling—and he is right. Of course in English, as a rule, the subject must precede the ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... liar— Whom interrupting then with ire, Thus check'd the Judge: Oh, proud yet mean! And canst thou hope from me to screen Thy foolish heart, and o'er it spread A veil to cheat th' omniscient dead? And canst thou hope, as once on Earth, Applause to gain by specious worth; Like those that still by sneer and taunt Would prove pernicious what they want; And claim the mastership of Art, Because thou only ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... taste and whose temper are adverse to his pursuits, he must courageously prepare for a martyrdom. Should a female mathematician be united to a poet, it is probable that she would be left amidst her abstractions, to demonstrate to herself how many a specious diagram fails when brought into its mechanical operation; or discovering the infinite varieties of a curve, she might take occasion to deduce her husband's versatility. If she become as jealous of his ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... their hangers-on. This, with a considerable business in the coolie trade—which consists in kidnapping wretched coolies, putting them on board ships where all the horrors of the slave-trade are reproduced, and sending them on specious promises to such places as Cuba—is the chief business of the 'foreign' merchants at Swatow. Swatow itself is a small town some miles up the river. I can only distinguish it by the great fleet of junks lying off it. The place where ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... nights to drive through six miles of level mud when you are anxious to reach home and dinner; so much so that, in my egoistical moments, I would have been glad if our administration had adopted the more specious British method. But come now! You cannot raise that objection ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... If I but gave encouragement. Before me She keeps some moderation; but is never Closeted with my wife, but in the end I find my Katherine in briny tears. From the small chamber, where she first was lodged, The gradual fiend by specious wriggling arts Has now ensconced herself in the best part Of this large mansion; calls the left wing her own; Commands my servants, equipage.—I hear Her hated tread. What makes she back ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... horrors, and disgusts of war have never been half enough insisted upon by the teachers of the people; but the worst of evils and the greatest of follies have been varnished over with specious names, and the gigantic robbers and murderers of the world have been holden up for imitation to ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... of their freedom; but their conception of liberty was that of all old nations, a freedom which not only allowed of discipline, but which grew out of it. No people had less wish to exalt the kingly power into that specious tyranny, a paternal Government; the king was with them, and always had been, both formally and really, subject to their choice; bound by many oaths to many duties; the minister, not the master of the people. But their whole conception ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... effected a firm capture of his man some way down the slope. But it was a case of check that entirely precluded his own free movements. They hung together intertwisted in the characters of specious pacificator and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cunning arguments and specious reasons, the white men stated their case through their interpreter, making much of the point that the new enterprise would open an easier {293} trade-route, by which goods could be brought and sold to the natives at rates lower than those ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... not long before he and the man of the house were involved in a warm political discussion, in which were many more assertions than reasons. My host was not a very clear-headed man; while his antagonist was wordy and specious. The former, as might be supposed, very naturally became excited, and, now and then, indulged himself in rather strong expressions toward his neighbour, who, in turn, dealt back wordy blows that were quite as heavy as he had received, and a good ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... against the wealthy occupants of the more southern countries, seem to have left no spots on their escutcheons; and the honors and favors of Queen Elizabeth had been liberally extended to men who would now be deemed freebooters. In short, that system of violence and specious morality, which commenced with the gifts of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the bulls of the Popes, was continued, with more or less of modification, until the descendants of those single-minded and virtuous men who peopled the Union, took the powers of government into their own hands, and proclaimed ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... reservation in favor of her own class. When, however, one came from the North to teach the negroes, in order that they might overpower and rule the whites, which she devoutly believed to be the sole purpose of the colored educational movement, no matter under what specious guise of charity it might be done, she could not go even ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the imperial purple, are sure at least of receiving attention. If they cannot sell everything at their own price, one thing—silence—must, at any cost, be purchased of them. Harold accordingly had to be consoled by the employment of every specious fallacy and base-born trick known to those whose doom it is to handle children. For me their hollow cajolery had no interest, I could pluck no consolation out of their bankrupt though prodigal pledges I only waited till that hateful, well-known "Some ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... are lunatics endowed with a marvellous shrewdness to commit senseless villanies, and to put on a specious seeming. Depend upon it, my unfortunate brother-in-law's wanderings at night were not solely spent in communings with the trees and brooks. Who knows what might be discovered if he were under proper restraint? And it is to you, the only relation I have, that I must turn for ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interest. It will be the task of the historians of the future who will have the necessary material in hand to follow these immense reactions in their various fields and they will find their real point of departure not in dates but in the human attitudes and outlooks which then made a specious show of being final—and ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... had (for who from faults is free?) His father could not, or he would not see. Some warm excesses which the law forbore, Were construed youth that purged by boiling o'er; And Amnon's murder by a specious name, Was call'd a just revenge for injured fame. 40 Thus praised and loved, the noble youth remain'd, While David undisturb'd in Sion reign'd. But life can never be sincerely blest: Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... woman can be, literally broke her into Romanism, treated her like a servant, made her groom the horses, and comb the maid's hair, and when all these efforts failed, sent her to a convent to be finished off. The nuns did by specious reasoning what had been begun by persecution, and young Francoise, at the time she was introduced to Scarron, was a highly respectable member of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... deceived by the specious tale, turned their vessel's prow towards Rossano, and on coming near that city, shifted their course towards the shore. Otho had been eagerly awaiting this opportunity. When they had approached sufficiently near to the land, he suddenly sprang from the deck into the sea, and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... consideration of safety, as well as of conquest, that it ought to be weakened or disarmed: if, being once reduced, it be disposed to renew the contest, it must from thenceforward be governed in form. Rome never avowed any other maxims of conquest; and she every where sent her insolent armies under the specious pretence of procuring to herself and her allies a lasting peace, which she alone would reserve the ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... too quick in observing nor too firm in opposing the beginnings of alteration either in form or reality, respecting institutions formed for their security. The first kind of alteration leads to the last. As violations of the rights of the governed are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner as to touch individuals but slightly. Every free state should incessantly watch, and instantly take alarm at any addition being made to the power exercised over them." Who are a free people? Not those over ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... though his coffers overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who would woo you, is more fully developed. Surely, if this ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... that if I did, I should want a boat lowered down to pick him up, and go in it myself. There, as you say, it is a mad thing for the men to have done. It shows how a whole party can be carried away by the specious arguments of one scoundrel. However, we know our duty, my lad; and that is to re-take the ship, place the worst of the men in irons, and make the others navigate the vessel, unless you advocate our hanging the worst of them instead ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... which were more precious in the sight of good men, and he showed himself incorruptible, and not to be bought at any price. It were easy for him to have turned a deluge of wealth into his house; but he knew that gifts insensibly corrupt,—that the specious pretext of gratitude is the snare in which the greatest souls allow themselves to be caught,—that a man covered with favors has difficulty in setting himself against injustice in all its forms, and that a magistrate divided between a sense of ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... sad result of his childish delight in driving at a tremendous pace in the Bois, which is rebuked by his sage adviser, Madame Carraud. Certainly carriages, horses, and a stable, seemed hardly prudent acquisitions for a man in debt; but Balzac always defended his pet extravagances with the specious reasoning that nothing succeeds like success; and that most of his literary friends did not become rich because they lived in garrets, and were on that account trampled on by haughty publishers and editors. He writes to Madame de ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the governing body of the City is based upon a specious theory, which will soon be found to be utterly untenable. It is pretended that if the Courts of Aldermen and of Common Council were rendered more exclusive, it would be considered a greater distinction to belong to them, and that ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... this outward show of feeling, too unformed and indefinite for thought. She spoke not; but the knight, under cover of his errand, continued the discourse without awakening her alarm. He excelled in that specious, though apparently heedless raillery, which is so apt to slip without suspicion into a lady's ear; and he could ply his suit, under this disguise, with such seeming artlessness and unconcern, that a lodgement in the citadel was sometimes effected ere the garrison ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... making bread prevails, as we lament to say it does to a great extent in this country, one finds five cases of failure to one of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters of New England have abandoned the old respectable mode of yeast-brewing and bread-raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called biscuit, which many of our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days, is wholly unworthy of the men ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... whole knave," subjoined the Varangian. "With the mask of apparent good-humour he conceals his pandering to the vices of others; with the specious jargon of philosophy, he has argued himself out of religious belief and moral principle; and, with the appearance of the most devoted loyalty, he will, if he is not checked in time, either argue his too confiding ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Christine to see her that afternoon, and a promise was a promise, and Christine was a woman who had behaved well to him, and it would have been impossible for him to send her an excuse, since he did not know her surname. These apparently excellent arguments were specious and worthless. He would, anyhow, have gone to Christine. The call was imperious within him, and took no heed of grief, nor propriety, nor the secret decencies of sympathy. The primitive man in him ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... believe. Everywhere men who can point out what is right and best, and can bring others to see it and act upon it, win the day. Another benefit to be obtained from the study of argumentation is the ability to be convinced intelligently. The good arguer is not likely to be carried away by specious arguments or fallacious reasoning. He can weigh every bit of evidence; he can test the strength and weakness of every statement; he can separate the essential from the unessential; and he can distinguish between prejudice and reason. ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... will judge them, they answer carelessly or defiantly Not He! Instead of yielding to the power which lies in all adversity to cleanse the heart and brace the will they became incapable of shame, indifferent to consequences, and so past praying for.(782) And in this they were fortified by the specious dreams and lies of their false prophets, continued to sin, and so fell to their doom, abashed at last but unassoilable.(783) If at any time they were startled by disaster, this found them too enfeebled even for repentance by their habitual insincerity ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... and that the honor of the women should be observed. Sir William agreed to the conditions, but declined signing the articles, pompously intimating that the "word of a general was a better security than any document whatever." The French governor, deceived by this specious parade of language, took the New England filibuster at his word, and formally surrendered the keys of the fortress, according to the verbal contract. Again was poor Acadia the victim of her perfidious enemy. Sir William, disregarding the terms of the capitulation, and ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... of Scotland. They are advocated in the newspaper and periodical press. They have even insinuated themselves into the House of Commons." And, lastly, a bishop in a charge:—It "is daily assuming a more serious and alarming aspect. Under the specious pretence of deference to Antiquity and respect for primitive models, the foundations of the Protestant Church are undermined by men, who dwell within her walls, and those who sit in the Reformers' seat are traducing ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... hand; a book of selected Bible stories on which Dr. Pound had set the seal of his approval, with a glazed picture cover, representing Daniel in the lions' den and an angel standing beside him. On the somewhat specious plea that Holy Writ might have a chastening effect, she was permitted to minister to me in my shame. The amazing adventure of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego particularly appealed to an imagination needing little stimulation. It never occurred to me to doubt that these gentlemen had triumphed over ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... their respective causes, among their own immediate contemporaries. Norman's powers of argument, his eloquence, readiness, and clearness, were thought to rank very high, and, in the opinion of Mr. Everard, had been of great effect in preventing other youths from being carried away by the specious brilliancy of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... religion." It may be retorted, that when he had learnt to reason, he renounced Catholicism. The true fact is, that when Bayle had only studied a few months at college, some books of controversial divinity by the catholics offered many a specious argument against the reformed doctrines. A young student was easily entangled in the nets of the Jesuits. But their passive obedience, and their transubstantiation, and other stuff woven in their looms, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... order to gain mine ends do announce that we are bound to Beaufort when we are in truth making for Monmouth, is it not in accord with the usages of war and the customs of great commanders?' All which specious argument I made no attempt to answer, beyond repeating that he might avail himself of the usage, but that he must not look to me for corroboration. On the other hand, I promised to hold my speech and to say nothing which might hamper him, with ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exhibiting his operation wound to me, paying heavy compliments to English skill in surgery; not, mark you, that he had any but the greatest contempt that all German doctors, too, profess for British medicine and surgery. But he hoped, by specious praise, to be sent to Wilhelmstal and not to join the other prisoners in Ahmednagar. Bottles of soda-water ostentatiously displayed upon his table might have suggested what his bleary eye and shaky hands belied. So I contented ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... seem both friendly and calculating, and hurried on with his specious explanation before the fellow should ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... He is probably conscience-stricken, or at least dissatisfied with his conduct for one reason or another, and endeavouring to justify some base plan of action by re-stating ethics in terms of hunger; a specious line of argument, since hunger is not the rule ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... reconciliation between the two conflicting requirements is effected by a resort to make-believe. Many and intricate polite observances and social duties of a ceremonial nature are developed; many organizations are founded, with some specious object of amelioration embodied in their official style and title; there is much coming and going, and a deal of talk, to the end that the talkers may not have occasion to reflect on what is the effectual economic value of their traffic. And along with the make-believe of purposeful ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... it is persistently alleged that even if He had the power He could not have performed miracles, because miracles are violations of law, and the Lawgiver cannot violate even mere physical laws; but this specious fallacy is refuted by the simple assertion that He introduced a new power or force to counteract or modify others, which counteraction or modification of forces is no more than what is taking place in every part of ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler |
