"Unsay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... needn't try to smooth it down," she continued, interrupting her guest's efforts to mollify her by a few deprecating words. "You can't unsay it, now it's said; and saying it's no worse than thinking it. I don't envy you your thoughts, though. I've always stood up for Sally, and I always shall, and anybody that is stupid enough to suppose, because I stand up for her, I justify what she did that was wrong, is welcome: ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Rodrigo. I must confess it, sire, I have said too much to be able to unsay it. Rodrigo has noble qualities which I cannot hate; and, when a king commands, he ought to be obeyed. But to whatever [fate] you may have already doomed me, can you, before your eyes, tolerate this union? And when you desire this effort from ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... not go with you, madam," I repeated. "I love you too well. I have done you so much wrong, meaning to do right, that I dare not now risk an act which I know to be wrong. Oh," I cried, as my distress grew, "oh, unsay those words, Aurelia! You could not mean them, they were ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... all over, so try to forget it. I know that Hugh felt sorry for his burst of temper the moment after, but he could not unsay the words, and I would not forgive them—that is why he felt so badly when we parted on the train. I did not intend to tell you of it, Lancy; so do ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... or another, he quickly got Mansoul to slight, neglect, and despise whatever Mr. Recorder could say. For, besides what already you have heard, Diabolus had a way to make the old gentleman, when he was merry, unsay and deny what he in his fits had affirmed. And, indeed, this was the next way to make himself ridiculous, and to cause that no man should regard him. Also now he never spake freely for King Shaddai, but also by force and constraint. Besides, he would at one time be hot against ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... has fallen away from this,—if half the remaining moiety is doubtful, skeptical about it,—if, therefore, we are already a house divided against itself and tottering to its fall,—to what is all due? Simply to the fact that no nation can long unsay its central principle, and yet preserve it in faithfulness and power,—that no nation can long preach the sanctity of natural right, the venerableness of man's nature, and the identity of pure justice with political interest, from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Napoleon drew have been effaced; the kingdoms that he set up have disappeared. But all the armies and statecraft of Europe cannot unsay what you have said. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... command by Madeline. A woman who had lost her child two years before, was pointed out by her as having throttled it. Afraid of being tortured, she fled or hid herself. Her husband, her father, went weeping to Sainte-Baume, hoping of course to soften the inquisitors. But Madeline durst not unsay her words; so she renewed ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... entertainment and trade to our nation than the Portuguese, which I thought very reasonable, as the Portuguese had always been injurious, and had done many vile things against them. Yet, unless we continue able to resist the Portuguese, they will soon unsay that speech for their own ease. When he had viewed our ship, with our ordnance and defensive preparations, we sent him and his train on shore in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... impossible that God should lie; not fitting, that man should. The people's forementioned example teaches constancy, they stood to it. The covenants ordinary epithet [everlasting] implies continuance: neither can God, nor should man play the children, say and unsay. All our covenants in Him should be yea; not yea, and nay. If we prove loose, we prove false, and lie unto God that made us. Take heed to your covenant. This stone, these walls, these pillars, these seats shall witness against you, that ye denied Him: to falsify the engagement, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... it, and not to unsay it by any explanations, because I think it is good for us to face the fact in the unadorned form in which it probably presents itself to the minds of ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... whereupon Rev. J.F. Lovering of the Unitarian church came out with a reply, in which he characterized Mr. Blake's charges as "unmitigated falsehoods" and "an insult to every member of the convention," and demanded of the author to "unsay his words." ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... adore me on the Throne of Hell, With Diadem and Scepter high advanc'd 90 The lower still I fall, onely Supream In miserie; such joy Ambition findes. But say I could repent and could obtaine By Act of Grace my former state; how soon Would highth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc'd so deep: Which would but lead me ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... risk of seeming brutal, Honor, I warn you that I'll not give you one minute's peace till you unsay those ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... "Insolent serf! unsay thy words, or maintain them with thy sword!—Crouch, like a low-born slave as thou art, and beg Macpherson's pardon, if thou darest ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... do so, at any rate for the present. You will own that it might be possible that you would have to unsay what ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... question about which all true men do care, such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists; reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Something that he had never felt before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of all past deeds and words,—the unkind words once said, which no tears could unsay,—the kind ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could give a past reality. There were particular times in their past history that he remembered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly,—doing some little thing for him, and shyly watching for the word of acknowledgment, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... attempt to induce the prophet to take back his ruthless sentence? "Come," he might say, "you remember what you said. If you unsay that sentence, I will set you free. I cannot, out of respect for my consort, allow such words to remain unretracted. There, you have your freedom in your own hands. One word of apology, and you may go your way; and my solemn bond is yours, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... up and fingering his hat round and round, "I said I talked no doctrine now; but I must unsay that; and—you will not think me impertinent ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd. In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length, That reacheth from the restful English Court As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?' Amongst much other talk that very time I ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Three days, perhaps, three long, interminable days to think of him and to long for him. Could she live three days? She sprang to her feet. She must see him again—now—this minute; hear him unsay that awful thing. Why, he couldn't belong to Madelene Waldstricker! Like a deer, Tess sped along the rocks in the direction of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender wing against her curls as he shot by her. To him she paid no heed save ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... with doings which not will, But misery, hath wrested from me. Where 470 Easily canst thou find one miserable, And not inforced oft-times to part from truth, If it may stand him more in stead to lie, Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? But thou art placed above me; thou art Lord; From thee I can, and must, submiss, endure Cheek or reproof, and glad to scape so quit. Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, Smooth on the tongue discoursed, ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... not so certain. Never yet had she had opportunity to unsay the cutting words with which she had met him that bitter night. Time and again in her heart of hearts had she planned how those unsaying words should be said, and said just as soon as ever he came, but he came rather ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... hath, he consenteth to the bargain, and is not satisfied with any thing in himself, that draweth back, or consenteth not, and with the little skill or strength he hath is writing down his name, and saying, even so I take him; and is holding at this, peremptorily resolving never to go back, or unsay what he hath said; but, on the contrary, is firmly purposed to adhere, and as he groweth in strength, to grip more firmly, and adhere to him, he may conclude that the bargain is closed already, and that he ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... he had done wrong; and Herbert knew that he also, he himself, had done wrongly. He was aware that there was something which he did not understand. But he had promised to see Clara either that day or the next, and he could not bring himself to unsay all that he had said to her. He left his father's room sorrowful at heart, and discontented. He had expected that his tidings would have been received in so far other a manner; that he would have been able to go from his father's study upstairs to his mother's room with so exulting a step; that ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... troublesome rogue comes down to the corner of his cage nearest to me, and as if he understood that I had said something about him begins to talk and remonstrate in a low, loving tone. I do feel reproached, and I must unsay it. His business, his manifest destiny, is to hammer and peck the shells of nuts, and to hide them away where they will grow; and if cruel man confines him in a house, he must exercise his untiring energy, his demon of work, in what he finds there,—and ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... break off negotiations rather than entertain such hard conditions." "So much the worse for France," rejoined the English general; "for when the campaign is once begun, things will go farther than the king thinks. The allies will never unsay their preliminary demands." And he set out for England without even waiting for a favorable wind ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of that In sight of all this misery and woe! Then I unsay the curse which I have spoke, Then thou art guilty, too, and I—and she! We stand like them within the sinners' row; Pardon we, then, that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... you can say and unsay things at pleasure: that you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public: that you have one story for us, and another for ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... it is, child, that is troubling you," he said; "there can be nothing, nothing under heaven that could make me wish to unsay what I have said, nothing that could make us wish to undo what we have done. Nothing can rob me now of the knowledge that you love me. Tell me ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... unsay that graceless word! I am a mother crowned with joy, And yet I feel a bosom pang To ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... like this, and many a worse night, I have sat on the stones of the street, hushing you in my arms. Unsay those words without even saying you are sorry for them, and my arms are open to you still, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... are sorry," she interrupted, and in spite of his contrition he found her angry voice delicious, it was still so sweet, hot with indignation, but ringing, not harsh. "Don't say you didn't mean it; because you did! You can't unsay it, you cannot alter it! Ah!" She drew in her breath with a sharp sigh, and covering her face with her hands, sank back upon the bench. "I will not cry," she said, not so firmly as she thought ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... cannot be sure; and even if such be the case, is it the fault of your character, or of another's perceptions? But now, let me unsay what I said in anger. In one thing, and in all things, I deeply respect you. If you think scarcely enough of yourself, and too much of others, what is that but ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... lady!" he exclaimed passionately,—"oh, hear me, before you dismiss me for ever from your presence. I cannot unsay what I have said—I have dared to tell you that I love you with the fondest, the deepest devotion—I have done so from the first moment I saw you; but hear my excuses. I felt myself alone and desolate in the world; I beheld you, bright, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... which I then said I unsay. That which I now say is true. (This to the priest who reminded him that he had accused the Princess Elizabeth of treason to the council, and that he now alleged ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... principle. Or it might so happen that I got simply confused, by the very clearness of the logic which was administered to me, and thus gave my sanction to conclusions which really were not mine; and when the report of those conclusions came round to me through others, I had to unsay them. And then again, perhaps I did not like to see men scared or scandalised by unfeeling logical inferences, which would not have touched them to the day of their death, had they not been made to eat them. And then I felt altogether the force of the maxim of ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... his vigil was forever memorable. The most rational of men was for an hour the most passionate. He reviled himself with transcendent bitterness, he accused himself of cruelty and injustice, he would have lain down there in Roderick's place to unsay the words that had yesterday driven him forth on his lonely ramble. Roderick had been fond of saying that there are such things as necessary follies, and Rowland was now proving it. At last he grew almost used to the dumb exultation ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... commenced the canvass, I can't say to what opinions the poor Colonel did not find himself committed by the time when the election was over. The worthy gentleman felt himself not a little humiliated by what he had to say and to unsay, by having to answer questions, and submit to familiarities, to shake hands which, to say truth, he did not care for grasping at all. His habits were aristocratic; his education had been military; the kindest and simplest soul alive, he yet disliked all familiarity, and expected ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coming to his recollection, he could hold his peace, and did so. There was nothing to come—not likely to be—that could unsay that revelation that he had been a married man, and did not know of his wife's death; not even that he and she had been divorced, which would have been nearly as bad. He knew the worst of it, at any rate, and Rosalind need never ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... no brandy. It isn't good for me.... But I like to have the gruel, you know." She would not unsay the gruel, because she was sure this kind-hearted woman would take pleasure in getting it for her. Not that she ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... in this last missive had proceeded to unsay the advice which he had formerly bestowed upon the States, by complaining that his earlier letters had been misinterpreted. They had been made use of, he said, to authorize the very error against which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... are, in many instances, wrongly divided, and assigned to the wrong persons. It might have arisen from inadvertence; it might have arisen from the foolishness of some Jewish transcriber, who resolved, at all costs, to drag the book into harmony with Judaism, and make Job unsay his heresy. This view has the merit of fully clearing up the obscurity; another, however, has been suggested by Eichorn, who originally followed Kennicott, but discovered, as he supposed, a less violent hypothesis, which ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... drew him to Bryanston Square, where Miss Ponsonby was very kind and warm, the more so because she had discovered how much easier it had been to say than to unsay, and strongly regretted the injustice she had done him. He had the satisfaction of talking for a good hour about Mary, and of sending a message, that he did not write because he wished to be guided by her in everything, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... away to Lizzie Robertson's for an hour. My heart is knocking at my lips, and I'll be saying what I would give my last bawbee to unsay. Keep ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... a hard thing for you, my dear. Your way is sweet to you. Offer it as a sacrifice; bind the sacrifice, even with cords, to the altar, if it be necessary. I mean, say to Bram Van Heemskirk words that you cannot unsay. Then there will be only one sorrow. It is hope and fear, and fear and hope, that make the heart sick. Be kind, and slay ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... huskier note he added: "Eighteen years ago a woman nearly spoiled my life. She was as beautiful as you, but her heart was tainted. Since then I have never believed in any woman—never till now. I have said that all were purchasable—at a price. I unsay that now. I have not believed in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... interest, as much as common justice, demanded that they should have a voice in the councils of the nation, such as would truly proclaim their wants, their rights, their wrongs; and I have seen no reason since then to unsay my words. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... expected an instant answer in thunderbolts and flames. They gave me more room in the bed forthwith, and then the elder sat up and expressed his sense of my awfulness. I was already a little frightened at my temerity, but when he asked me categorically to unsay what I had said, what could I do but ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs To loathed lameness! All beholding sun, Strike in thine envy those life darting eyes With thine own blinding beams! Lucr. Peace! Peace! For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words. When high God grants he punishes such prayers. Cen. (Leaping up, and throwing his right hand toward Heaven) He does his will, I mine! This in addition, That if she have a child— Lucr. Horrible thought! Cen. That if she ever have a child; and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... began, you know," said Bobbie, honestly, "about coals and all that. Don't you think you'd better both unsay everything since the wave, and let ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... of Henley's well known poem. As for regretting nothing, a man at forty would be glad to unsay and undo many things. At seventy, and decidedly at eighty-nine, these things have so diminished in importance that it is not worth while ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... appointee, could not accept; on which the Secretary again resigned, and Lincoln at once accepted his resignation, with these words: "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity, I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relations, which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... and her bosom heaved, but she did not move, and Lucy was too much a Drayton to unsay what her father had said, or to ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... side of which the apple trees were beginning to grow tall. Barbara was in the garden cutting sweet peas into her apron and Ralph, beside her, was standing in silence, watching the bees. A dozen times the girl had read that same thought in his mind, that he would give ten years of life to unsay the words that had driven his brother away and that had taught himself such a bitter lesson. Then suddenly Barbara uttered such a cry of joy that even the bees hummed and hovered lower, and slow old ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... unsay it. But that reason won't exist as far as you are concerned. You will come and go exactly as you like always. No ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... knew;—all that I knew. You knew all that her mother knew. No, Lord Scroope. It cannot be that you should be so unutterably a villain. You are your own masther. Unsay what you have said to me, and her ears shall never be wounded or her heart broken by a hint ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... assurance; yet though the Vaal turned not back Great Britain did; and to that magnanimous forgetting of the nation's oft-repeated pledge was due in part this new war and its intolerable prolonging. It does not pay thus to say and then unsay. Thereby all confidence, all sense of ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... some higher one have led me into temptation? What shall I do, whither shall I fly, to escape infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Hell is around me, I myself am Hell! There is no hope for me. Submission is the only way left, and I could not unsay what I have said; I could never bridge the gulf made by my revolt. Farewell to remorse! Good is forever lost to me, and I must now make Evil my good. I can at least divide the empire of the world with ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Go bid our moving plains of sand lie still, And stir not, when the stormy south blows high: From top to bottom thou hast tossed my soul, And now 'tis in the madness of the whirl, Requir'st a sudden stop? unsay thy lie; That may in time ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... No, no—that was not fair or kind, Wicker. I unsay it. Mr. Crow and all of them have been good to you. Forgive me the sarcasm. Mr. Crow is perfectly impossible, but I like him. He has a heart, and that is more than most of us can say. And now let us return to earth once more. When will ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... bad man, or I have been a foolish woman too many years to mend now. I am down, and down I must be. I have made my bed, and I must lie on it, and die on it too. Oh my dear brother or sister in Christ, whoever you are who says that, unsay it again for it is not true. Ezekiel tells you that it is not true, and one greater than Ezekiel, Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Lord, your God, tells you it ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... "how can you talk such nonsense? The thing is growing beyond a joke. Unsay your words; they are a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... with a lance Becomes thee well—art grown wild beast thyself. How darest thou, if lover, push me even In fancy from thy side, and set me far In the gray distance, half a life away, Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear! Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, Broken with Mark and hate and solitude, Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. Will ye not lie? ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... was effected was something curious. Mr. Lushington, who by this time was got completely over, himself tells you that in conferences with Major Calliaud, and by arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare that he believed that the affidavit which he made at Patna, and while the transaction was recent or nearly recent, must be a mistake: that he believed (what is amazing indeed for any belief) that ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... modest? As for Jeffrey, it is a very handsome thing of him to speak well of an old antagonist,—and what a mean mind dared not do. Any one will revoke praise; but—were it not partly my own case—I should say that very few have strength of mind to unsay their censure, or follow it up with praise of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he gasped, "can this thing be? My wife! the mother of my child! It is a lie! I can't believe it; I won't believe it. Have pity on me, woman, and think again, and unsay your words; for, if 't is so, there will be murder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... he; and I never saw a man look so cast down: he took up the halfpenny off the flag, and walked away quite sober-like by the shock. Now, though as easy a man, you would think, as any in the wide world, there was no such thing as making him unsay one of these sort of vows, which he had learned to reverence when young, as I well remember teaching him to toss up for bog-berries on my knee. [VOWS.—It has been maliciously and unjustly hinted that the lower classes of the people of Ireland ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... commercial relations to, in a great degree, is, the extreme weakness and tottering condition of our naval establishments. I do not mean to complain of the distribution of our naval establishments; though, at the same time, I by no means intend to unsay what I have said in respect to the expeditions to Spain, which I cannot approve of; but I repeat my expression that I consider our naval establishments to be in too weak and tottering a condition to answer the purpose for which they were intended, which was to give ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... into his heart and conscience, and he knew that Tom Slade had not deigned to answer these charges and recriminations; would not answer them, any more than the rock of Gibraltar would deign to answer the petulant threats and menaces of the sea. Oh, if he could only unsay those words which he had hurled at Tom, his friend and companion! What mattered it who bunked in the cabins, so long as he knew what he knew now? How small and trifling seemed Tom's act of carelessness ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh |
