"Prevarication" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... style is not that of Milton, who soared aloft into the eternal mansions and opened their portals to our astonished and admiring gaze, picturing to us "God in His first frown and man in his first prevarication." Nor is it that of Shakespeare, whose deep and subtle mind fathomed "the dark abysses of the human heart," and laid bare and naked the varied doings of mankind! Nor is it, least of all, that of Dante, who, with even greater boldness ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... to the point, she always did; as a hunter goes at a hedge, so her ladyship without prevarication went at the matter she had in hand—"I have been talking ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... the utter difficulty of answering. "Basil"—she began, and stopped, not finding another word to add. For prevarication was an accomplishment Diana knew nothing of. She closed her eyes, that they might not ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... to see his head roll at your feet confess yourself to me, and no prevarication. You have given me ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... hypocrisies in prayer, in my ostentation, and the mingling a respect of myself in preaching thy word; I have sinned in my fasting, by repining when a penurious fortune hath kept me low; and I have sinned even in that fulness, when I have been at thy table, by a negligent examination, by a wilful prevarication, in receiving that heavenly food and physic. But as I know, O my gracious God, that for all those sins committed since, yet thou wilt consider me, as I was in thy purpose when thou wrotest my name in the book of life in mine ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... that Johann might well develop into a typical pathological swindler. He came of a family of five brothers and sisters, one of whom was incarcerated for a year on account of stealing. One sister was noted for her tendency to prevarication. Several of them were remarkably unstable, at least early in life. All of them are said to have learned very unwillingly in school. One brother of the father was ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... course, some few bullies and blackguards, or who would speedily have become so if left to their own devices, and there were cowards, and boys who carelessly told an untruth, or were addicted to the too common vice of prevarication. There were also vicious boys, or who would have been vicious had they not been watched and restrained. These were exceptions to the general rule. The Doctor's system, embracing the law of kindness, answered well, and ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the accomplishments of the prophet Elisha than his beneficiaries. He raises the dead, surpasses our Standard Oil Company in the production of that valuable article of commerce, cures one man of leprosy and cruelly fastens the disease on his servant for being guilty of a pardonable prevarication. Only one of the women mentioned has a name. One is the widow of a prophet, whom Elisha helps to pay off all her debts; for another he intercedes with the Lord to give her a son; another, is the little captive maid ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... all proudly. "I eloped with no man. That was simply a little prevarication to worry you, my uncle, after the manner in which you have worried me. I was on my way to Dresden, it is true, but only to hide with my old governess. This gentleman jumped into my compartment as the train drew ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... sleeping even had his anxieties about his immediate future not sufficed to do so. As for Sir Terence, his was the most deplorable case of all. This man who had lived a life of simple and downright honesty in great things and in small, a man who had never stooped to the slightest prevarication, found himself suddenly launched upon the most horrible and infamous course of duplicity to encompass the ruin of another. The offence of that other against himself might be of the most foul and hideous, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... is made upon any other than reciprocated affection, is an unreasonable and irreligious one. "Parents have no right," says Paley, "to urge their children upon marriage to which they are averse;" "add to this," says he, "that compulsion in marriage necessarily leads to prevarication; as the reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is expected to take place." To proceed to marriage, therefore in the face of absolute dislike and revulsion, is irrational ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... our Queen, The Church of England's glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory; Occasional Conformists base, I damn'd their moderation, And thought the Church in danger was, By such prevarication. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... involve the quotation of passages so uninteresting to the general reader, that we shall ask him to be content with our assurance that these disgraceful attempts to injure a literary opponent and former friend assume severally the form of direct misstatement, suppression of the truth, prevarication, and cunning perversion; the manner and motive throughout being very shabby.[F] The purpose of all these attacks upon Mr. Dyce is not only to wound and disparage him, but to secure for the writer a reputation for superior sagacity and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... any other man whom my darling expects to marry?" he asked, and Edith was glad he put the question in this form, as without prevarication ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... not have gone down to The Haws that Christmastide, but feared that his failure to do so might seem strange. The needful prevarication cost him so many pangs that he came very near to confessing the truth; he probably would have done so, had not his mother been ailing, and, it seemed to him, little able to bear the shock of such a disclosure. So the honest deception went on. Will was supposed to be managing a London branch of ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... sake who wrote it; because she thought so well of him, and desired still to think so well, that she was sorry at any faults which rendered him less worthy of her good opinion. The cold civility of his letter had this effect—her clear, her acute judgment felt it a kind of prevarication to promise to write and then write nothing that was hoped for. But, enthralled by the magic of her passion, she shortly found excuses for the man she loved, at the expense ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... gave him precedence, and stepped into another apartment to hear his story. He accused Holbein of the violence, but suppressed the provocation; whereat Henry broke into a towering Tudor rage, and, after reproaching the nobleman for his prevarication, said, "You have to do with me, Sir. I tell you, that of seven peasants I could make seven earls like you; but of seven earls I could not make one Holbein. Do not molest him, if you value your head." And as second-hand heads, though plentiful about those days, were found ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... all kind of precaution to defeat the motion; and succeeded—if it can be called success to have quashed the demand, and thereby confirmed the suspicions. After several councils, it was determined, that all the cabinet councillors should severally declare the insufficience and prevarication of Fawcett's evidence: they did, and the motion Was rejected by 122 to 5.(371) If one was prejudiced by classic notions of the wisdom and integrity of a senate, that debate would have cured them. The flattery to Stone was beyond belief: ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... sometimes than a philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself, protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Spaniards to a banquet, when he made them all be cruelly murdered, only reserving Don Juan Serrano alive, in order to procure a supply of artillery and ammunition for his ransom. With these conditions the Spaniards would have willingly complied, but found so much prevarication and treachery in the conduct of the natives, and were so intimidated by the miserable fate of their companions, that they put to sea, leaving the unfortunate Serrano to his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... true; and this is not the place for prevarication. You wandered from your course. How ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my interlocutor with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... adversary. In examining and cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness, or involve him in self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle, and straightforward, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... ascertained that she regularly lost weight daily. At the expiration of the ninth day of this strict watching, Dr. Fox found her evidently sinking and told her she would soon die unless she took food. After a little prevarication, the woman signed a written confession that she was an impostor, and had "occasionally taken sustenance for the last six years." She also stated that during the first watch of three weeks her daughter had contrived, when washing her face, to feed her every morning, ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... own the truth, and produce the letter," she resumed, "I will give you this, as your reward for finding, and restoring to me, something that I had lost. If you persist in your present prevarication, I can, and will, make that sheet of note-paper you have stolen from me nothing but waste paper in your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm with my interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm? Suppose I interfere before the week is out? Suppose ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... over a miserable pittance just enough to cover the expenses of bed and board. This might, and possibly does, make them "feel big," but that feeling is a false one, and the "bigness" experienced is certainly not in their moral worth, in many cases such conduct is a prevarication against the law of God. This applies with equal force to young women whose vanity overrides the claims of charity and justice, and who are said to "put all their earnings on their backs," while they eat the bread ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... log for no eye but my own. I shall describe it all fully as a preparation for an official account, which must be drawn up when Elliott gets back. Billy Dawson used to say that there were three degrees of comparison—a prevarication, a lie, and an official account. We at least cannot exaggerate our success, for it would be impossible ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... It was a feeble communication, and Phoebe thought that her love for Will might have inspired words more forcible; but relief annihilated any other emotion; she felt thankful that the lying, evasion, and prevarication of the last horrible ten days were at an end. From the nightmare of that time her poor, bruised conscience emerged sorely stricken; yet she felt that the battle now before her was a healthy thing by comparison, and might serve to brace her moral ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly repented. "Besides, they didn't ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... to accuracy in all his statements, and to speak of his faults and omissions without prevarication or disguise. Hence arose that noble openness of soul, and contempt of deceit in others, which ever distinguished him. Once, by an inadvertence of his youth, considerable loss had been incurred, and of such a nature as to interfere with the plans of his mother. He came to her, frankly ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... sternly upon the countenance of M. Pernon, Louis said, "If you reveal every circumstance relative to the death of Madame, I promise you full pardon. If you are guilty of the slightest concealment or prevarication, your life ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... tumbler touched my lips, and, girls, I was so sure that she would take me down to Miss Ashton,—and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'—that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... toward prevarication, or concealment of their childish misdemeanors, should be treated as a grave fault. To prevent, as far as possible, all attempts at disguising the truth, penalties for faults should rarely be of so severe a nature that the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... and the young borderer in private conversation, enabled him to effect his design with sufficient clearness. Faith heard him without betraying any of her ordinary waywardness, and answered with as little prevarication as the subject ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... defenders of the principles and methods of the Jesuits affirm that, in their advocacy of dissimulation and prevarication in the interests of a good cause, the Jesuits do not intend to justify lying, but are pointing out methods of proper concealment which are not within the realm of the lie. In this (waiving the question whether these ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... for all that the others have done. You are only responsible in the immediate future for your share of duty, in doing the wisest and best thing which may present itself. And if you can induce Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother's wife, by telling her the truth without prevarication, you will have done something to atone for the past evil which, you cannot undo. I am not preaching to you, my dear friend. Pray look upon me as a man and not as a priest. Indeed, I would rather that you should never ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... This prevarication, which was equal to a refusal, offended the Bretaks, as it was an infringement of the Sakai custom of sharing like brothers all they possessed. They insisted upon their right and at last obtained a handful of ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... representatives abroad to be accompanied by their wives. France has seen such times—England and America have glanced that way. Women, like men, often do not know that the big prizes gravitate where they belong; instead, they set traps for them, lie in wait and consider prevarication and duplicity better than truth. When women use their beauty, their wit and their pink persons in politics, trouble lies low around the corner. But this sister of Seneca was never seen in public ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... said nothing of the kind, but Blank's prevarication had its intended effect, and fortunately, before the lapse of another six hours, there was ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... public, for fear of obtaining some unworthy charge against me instead of gratitude. But, as it is, when the performance will follow the promise this very day, I feel entirely confident not only of avoiding any shame for prevarication but of surpassing all mankind in good repute. [-4-] You all see that I am so situated that I could rule you perpetually. All the revolutionists either have been disciplined and been made to halt or have had pity shown them and so have come to their senses. My helpers have been made devoted ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... &c. v. misrepresentation; mendacity, perjury, false swearing; forgery, invention, fabrication; subreption[obs3]; covin[obs3]. perversion of truth, suppression of truth; suppressio veri[Lat]; perversion, distortion, false coloring; exaggeration &c 549; prevarication, equivocation, shuffling, fencing, evasion, fraud; suggestio falsi &c (lie) 546[Lat]; mystification &c (concealment) 528; simulation &c (imitation) 19; dissimulation, dissembling; deceit; blague[obs3]. sham; pretense, pretending, malingering. lip homage, lip service; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... over my mind the savage and exulting eye of Thornton, when it read the damning record of Glanville's guilt; and in spite of my horror at the crime of my former friend, I trembled for his safety: nor was I satisfied with myself at my prevarication as a witness. It is true, that I had told the truth, but I had concealed all the truth; and my heart swelled proudly and bitterly against the miniature which I still ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... prevarication of the encomendero may be understood, it is to be noted that about one year ago, the inhabitants of the encomienda of this man and other fellow-citizens of his attempted to make an incursion into the land of these Tuy chiefs, under the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... Sing swear by the live chicken. You see, a Chinaman will always tell the truth when he has to cut a live chicken's head off over it. If he happens to be guilty of anything and says he isn't and cuts the fowl's koko off,—he is sure to die for his prevarication. We all die, anyway, of course," commented Jim, "but not so suddenly, evidently. Then, if John is accused by someone of doing something he didn't do and he pleads innocent and cuts the infernal bird's headpiece ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... have heard it said that a man should sin like a gentleman; but I am much disposed to think that the gentleman nature appears in the non-sinning lucid intervals.)] When I speak of sin I will be understood to mean the venial offences of prevarication and sleeping in church. I am not thinking of sheep-stealing or highway robbery. My clever friend's work consists chiefly in reducing files of correspondence on a particular subject to one or two leading thoughts. Upon these he casts the colour of his ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... not prevarication only a mean lie? Oh, Terence, I am so deeply grieved! I know not what ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... to explain it?" inquired Polly, with maiden's curiosity in learning to what extent of prevarication a deacon would go in order to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to the governor to arrange the capitulation, but when he was met by prevarication and pleas for delay the bombardment was once more resumed. A few minutes of this sufficed to bring the defenders to reason, and by five o'clock the English flag flew upon ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... seventy Paris newspapers and as many local gazettes in the large towns of the provinces expose, with supporting documents, details and figures, not merely their former crimes, but, again, their actual corruption, their sudden opulence founded on prevarication and rapine, their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to the inner door. He had had too much experience in such matters to attempt any prevarication. The three men crossed the room quickly and Bellamy followed in the rear. He heard a cry of disappointment from the foremost as he opened the door. The ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to have your admission of that without any of the prevarications that are usual in your kind. And I will say this, that here prevarication would avail you little. For we always have the truth in the end. Be sure ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the note at night, and again in the morning; it had seriously perplexed and startled him; and it had left his mind far too disturbed to allow him the possession of his ordinary resources. He hesitated; and his answer, when he succeeded in making it, began with a prevarication. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the moon, and to the moon appropriately he goes. Mediaevalism can hardly be called anything but a rather enfeebling dream. If it were a real effort to live in the Middle Ages, your life would be one perpetual prevarication. You would be drawn by the steam engine to lecture against steam; you would send eloquent invectives against printing to the press, and you would be subsisting meanwhile on the interest of investments which the Middle Ages would have condemned as usury. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... seems ubiquitous throughout the range of physical phenomena of spiritism, and false pretence, prevarication and fishing for clues are ubiquitous in the mental manifestations of mediums. If it be not everywhere fraud simulating reality, one is tempted to say, then the reality (if any reality there be) has the bad luck of being fated everywhere to simulate fraud. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... enough to imagine that the vision represented Edna? But the worst of it was that the Fairy could not explain her real intention just then without landing herself in fresh difficulties. So she sought refuge in prevarication. ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Oldfield, when they were shut in alone, "I'll have a straightforward statement, without any prevarication, or I give you over at once into custody. If you can't clear yourself, and I don't see how you possibly can, there's the jail before you, the only place ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... affairs and from disobedience to the civil rulers in temporal matters. At Drogheda the new Oath of Allegiance framed by James I. was condemned as being opposed to faith and religion; Catholics were commanded not to have recourse to prevarication or wavering in regard to it, but to reject it openly, and were warned against attendance at divine worship in Protestant churches even though they had previously made a declaration that they meant only to pay a mark of respect to the civil rulers.[30] ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... capacity not only to work oneself, but to make others work, begets success. I should hesitate to say of General White that he 'used' others, but his prudent selection of subordinates ensured that all units in his Brigade were well commanded. He was more than a good judge of character: hollow prevarication was useless with him, and bluff—though, when he liked, he was himself a master of it—a dangerous policy. Among the shrewd qualities of this man there were the abilities to summarize rapidly whatever ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... be as well to state that Smith's veracity about theatrical things in general was not what it should be. His stories never could keep companionship with truth. He had so ingenious a manner of prevarication that he actually believed his own tales. If what Smith at odd times, when he happened to be in the vein, related of himself was true, then he might be credited with having acted in nearly every city this side of the Rockies and have supported all the great stars. He was closely ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... through whom he had recovered his episcopal city? Wherefore did he not assert his right and do his duty as metropolitan and censure and suspend his suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, who was guilty of prevarication in the administration of justice? Why did not the illustrious clerics, whom King Charles had appointed deputies at the Council of Bale, undertake to bring the cause of the Maid before the Council? And finally, why did not the priests, the ecclesiastics of the realm, with one voice demand an appeal ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Caesar's behalf; but I differed from Antony so largely in result that the comparison is seriously disturbed. There was no more spring in my auditor than in a bag of sand. The honest fellow's double-breasted ignorance stood solidly in the way, rendering prevarication or quibble, or any form of subterfuge unnecessary on his part. He merely formed himself into a hollow square and casually glanced at the impossibility of those particular bullocks loafing on his paddock. If they came across the river again, he would ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... her face as she spoke, and gradually began to perceive the working of her mind. He was so true to himself that he did not understand that there should be with her even that violet-coloured tinge of prevarication which women assume as an additional charm. Could she really have thought that he was attending to his own possible future interests when he warned her as to the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... intensified by the aroma of his drugs and the gleam of his lancet. Once I had been his patient and then I had trembled at his approach. When he took my little wrist in his big hand, I remember with what reluctance I stuck out my quivering tongue, black, as I feared with evidences of prevarication. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Secret Correspondence with the Court. His prevarication and double-dealing as a popular leader in the pay of the king had long been known. At least twenty persons were in the secret. One man, leaving Paris hurriedly, left one paper, the most important of all, lying ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... his book—a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lying indeed! Why, you hate prevarication. As for murder, your friends know you too well to mention the subject in your hearing, except in immediate connection with capital punishment. You are, of course, willing to make some allowance for Cellini's time and place—the first half of the ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... ma'am, excuse me. I heard Miss Susan say she was gone out. Miss Susan is incapable of prevarication. ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... of any delightful girl but you!" he broke in with a voice that, as he afterwards learned, struck Mrs. Rooth's ears in the garden with affright. "I simply hold you, under pain of being convicted of the grossest prevarication, to the strict sense of what you ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... taught him how to practise bribes in such a manner as to defy detection, and instead of punishment to plead merit. I am not bound to find order and consistency in guilt: it is the reign of disorder. The order of the proceeding, as far as I am able to trace such a scene of prevarication, direct fraud, falsehood, and falsification of the public accounts, was this. From bribes he knew he could never abstain; and his then precarious situation made him the more rapacious. He knew that a few of his former bribes had been discovered, declared, recorded,—that for the moment, indeed, he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... face of such evasion and prevarication it was out of the question to let the matter drop. On the 22nd of April the Government was forced to publish a second White Paper,[79] which contained a large number of highly important documents omitted from the first. But it was ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... companion infinite service. The buffoon, though accustomed to deception and frauds, had sufficient mother-wit to comprehend the critical position in which he was now placed, and that it was wiser to be sincere, than to attempt effecting his ends by any of the usual means of prevarication. He answered the judge, therefore, with a simplicity which his ordinary pursuits would not have given reason to expect, and apparently with some touches of feeling that ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... profit, and were not likely to be too carefully tested: while it is easy to see how the insulting interrogatories would be angrily resented, and answers be refused, or given in the most injudicious manner, by perfectly innocent persons; while demands for inventories of valuables were met by prevarication and concealment, when the object of the commissioners was suspected of being spoliation. The letters of Leyton and Legh convey the impression that the fouler the scandals unearthed or retailed, the more ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... nor any external manifestation of contempt even in your expressive countenance, you will certainly be unable to preserve kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting words have wounded your refinement and self-respect. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... which would follow. Haunted with this fear, he told her to say that she was his sister—which was not a direct falsehood, but only so by implication. According to the Jewish mode of reckoning relationship, she might be called a sister; and Abram stooped to this prevarication under that terrible dread which, in the case of Peter, drove a true disciple of Christ to the brink ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... a glance on the group; but when he perceived his man, Roque, whose presence deprived him of the little opportunity left for prevarication, hope forsook him, and the presence of mind which had served him on so many occasions proved utterly insufficient at this critical moment. He foresaw that any attempt at exculpation would be as fruitless ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... pertinacious duplicity of a negro, then said, "Well, let that subject drop, and consider the present Kamrasi promised you when you gave him the Uganga" (meaning the watch); "Kamrasi's horn is not ready yet." This second prevarication completely set my dander up. If I did not believe in his dangers of the way before, it quite settled my opinion of the worth of his words now. I therefore tendered him what might be called the ultimatum to this effect. There was no sincerity in such haggling; I would not submit ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... seen him this morning," murmured Penelope, thoroughly enjoying the unexpected situation. Her conscience was not troubled by the prevarication. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... with all the emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be for ever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinized ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... a violent effort recovered his equanimity, and said,—'Prevarication or denial I suppose to be useless. You have probably outbid me for the confidence of this miserable villain. What ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... much," said Mr. Romaine, "if you call it prevarication. The order in question emanated from the Count himself. He does not wish ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... asked if she was quite certain that General Clavering ever was at any of her parties; she replied, 'So certain, that I always told him he need not use any ceremony, but come in his boots.' It will be remembered that General C. was sent to Newgate for prevarication on that account, not having recollected in ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... concealment is excusable, yet these are very rare exceptions, which occur but seldom in most men's lives; and as a general rule a strict adherence to the truth is the only just and safe course, even though it may apparently lead one into a difficulty. There is something degrading in a falsehood or prevarication, which must injure the self-respect of a man of proper feeling. It is a sin! There is no disguising it. People often tell falsehoods to conceal what they have done wrong, but that does not make the sin less; it is only adding ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... candor. Henceforth let no man of us lie, for we have seen that openness wins the inner and outer world, and that there is no single exception, and that never since our earth gather'd itself in a mass have deceit or subterfuge or prevarication attracted its smallest particle or the faintest tinge of a shade—and that through the enveloping wealth and rank of a state, or the whole republic of states, a sneak or sly person shall be discover'd and despised—and that the soul has never once been fool'd and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... after the lapse of hard upon half a century, yet it was a hundred to one that the whole would be claimed in the king's name under a talk of restitution, which signified that we should never hear more of it. On the other hand prevarication would not fail to excite suspicion, and on our not being able to satisfactorily account for our possession of the ship and what was in her, it might end in our actually being seized as pirates and ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the amendments was one continued instance of the grossest bigotry, and the most material passages were turned with all the Jesuitical prevarication imaginable. As much as it was his interest at that time to cultivate the respect which many of the Tories really had for the memory of the late Queen, and which many others affected as a farther mark of their opposition to the Court and to the Whig ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... dozing prevarication. It made her forget that he was no longer a sleep-loving schoolboy. She went quietly to his bedside and laid a hand on his ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... hour ago. "Don't be frightened," he said gently; "I won't hurt you more than I must. Ever since we married I have done my utmost to help you, spare you, shield you; but now—we've got to arrive at a clear understanding, once for all. First I want you to answer a question or two, straightly, without prevarication. You went out ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... wished to save appearances: she would, if possible, make the world believe that the decree of Providence alone denied to her a mother's honors. She had the cruel courage to conceal the truth by prevarication. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... even then it was in his power to have waited much longer, and he ought to have done so. But the man was over-weighted; the position was too much for him, and he gave way when a stronger mind might have stood firm. The worst point about him appears to be his want of consistency and miserable prevarication; but this may have been weakness rather than absolute absence of principle, or of any due sense of right or wrong. He was unfit to direct, but he might have been directed. Mr. Burke has been blamed for trusting Brahe; but he was the best of those who remained behind, and ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... hundred years ago business was transacted mostly through fairs and ships, and by pedlers. Your merchant of that time was a peripatetic rogue who reduced prevarication to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... as to various matters, in the usual way, but tending, of course, to damage him by the answers which the questions necessitated—a horrible, but, perhaps, necessary ordeal perpetuated in our law-procedure. In these answers there was something like prevarication; so that the magistrate, Mr Sergeant Runnington, asked the witness at the close of the examination, whether he had any previous acquaintance with the gentlemen who had engaged him at half-a-crown a game, and then so candily communicated to him all ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... it would be if one could foresee the result of every action! Hester Alden's slight prevarication to Robert Vail, when she told him that her father had been Miss Debby's brother, carried with it a long series of misunderstandings. Had Robert Vail known the ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... the said John Brown be, for his said prevarication, taken into the custody of the serjeant at arms attending ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... the same name, who is also a tenant of Mr. D'Esterre, and who has since been served by his landlord with a notice of ejectment for arrears, although he had paid up six months' dues two months only before the service. Father Little charged the landlord in this case with prevarication and other evasive proceedings in the course of his negotiations with the tenants; and Colonel Turner did not contest the statements made by him in support of his contention that the Rosmanagher difficulty might have been ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... fire did the preceptress consider sending Amy Gregg home, for the origin of the fire was plainly an accident, though bred in carelessness. For prevarication, however, Mrs. Tellingham was ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... French have not suffered in their linen trade with Spain, by not making their cloth of due breadth; and whether any other people have suffered, and are still likely to suffer, through the same prevarication? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... fortunate, for he comes to us several times each summer and is one of the family, Lady Morley accompanying him. He is as fond of the yacht as I am myself, and, fortunately again, it is the best medicine for both of us. Morley is, and must always remain, "Honest John." No prevarication with him, no nonsense, firm as a rock upon all questions and in all emergencies; yet always looking around, fore and aft, right and left, with a big heart not often revealed in all its tenderness, but at rare intervals and upon fit occasion leaving no doubt of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... the university rules were, as regards the bookselling trade, they were, nevertheless, sometimes disregarded or infringed; some ventured to take more for a book than the sum allowed, and, by prevarication and secret contracts, eluded the vigilance of the laws.[75] Some were still bolder, and openly practised the art of a scribe and the profession of a bookseller, without knowledge or sanction of the university. This gave rise to much jealousy, and in the University of Oxford, ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... who seemed to be justifying Richard's fears of the consequence of exciting his father's anger. At home, he shrank and hesitated at the simplest question if put by his father suddenly; and the appearance of cowardice and prevarication displeasing Dr. May further, rendered his tone louder, and frightened Tom the more, giving his manner an air of sullen reserve that was most unpleasant. At school it was much the same—he kept aloof from Norman, and threw ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... even in a world of peace; in short, they are ambulating humbugs, and the would-be respectables that wear 'em are a huge fraternity of "false pretenders." Don't trust 'em, reader; they are sure to do you! there's deceit in their straps, prevarication in their trousers, and connivance in their distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... are sure is impossible—any such thing were to happen, how could we resist any error?—how could we correct those who err? If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace, what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made any attempt against the public laws, you could not endure it; ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... Justice—his great mind." Desiring to be better acquainted with the particulars of this assertion, he turned up the page referred to, and there found, to his entire satisfaction, "Mr Justice Best said he had a great mind to commit the witness for prevarication." ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... for Joshua Peck, and examined him on oath, and after much prevarication, he gave nearly the same account how the business was to be conducted as the others had done, except as to the manner how the officers were to be made prisoners, which was, "that after "they had secured me, they were to go to Mr. Dunavan's house at "the entrance of the vale, and take him and conduct ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... only two or three people can answer, and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long. I tell you, my lady, that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboy's death. Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery? No! Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence, which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength. Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled? Do you think I shall fail to discover those missing links? No, Lady Audley, I shall ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... was that he looked me straight in the eye. It takes practice to lie convincingly. And the Space Academy doesn't list the Art of Prevarication ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... humanity—has not been in error as to the REALITY of a fact essential in human nature,—a fact which it has designated by the words ORIGINAL PREVARICATION, let us further interrogate Christianity, humanity, as to the MEANING of this fact. Let us not be astonished either by metaphor or by allegory: truth is independent of figures. And besides, what is truth to us but the continuous progress of our ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... professor. What Luther has said about the rigor of his monastic life is perfectly true, but it was no reason why in 1512 he should counsel men to become monks. He had not yet come to the full knowledge of the wrong principles underlying that mode of life. To adduce such inaccuracies as evidence of prevarication is itself an insincere act and puts the claimant by right ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... he saw no reason for being joyful over the lie he had told. He was getting deeper and deeper into the mire of deceit and prevarication, and there seemed ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... favourite themes for the display of his humour was the subject of prevarication. He seemed never to tire of ringing the changes upon the theme of the lie, its utility, its convenience, and its consequences. Doubtless he chose to dabble in falsehood because it is generally winked at as the most venial of all moral obliquities—a fault which is the most thoroughly ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... Legrand, hissing out the syllables from between his clenched teeth, "you infernal black villain! speak, I tell you! answer me this instant, without prevarication! ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... listen to me." And in a voice that trembled with emotion, he rapidly related all he had learned by his visit to the baron, softening the truth as much as he could without concealing it. But prevarication was useless. Madame Ferailleur's indignation and disgust were none the less evident. "That woman is a shameless creature," she said, coldly, when her ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... remarkable. God, the infinite spirit of the universe, paid Balaam a visit; and although he knows everything, past, present, and to come, he asked the prophet "What men are these with thee?" Balaam gave a straightforward reply, for he doubtless knew that prevarication and subterfuge were useless with God. Said he, "Balak the son of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... scrapes, he had done things for which he was sorry, and he was even now suffering the consequences of doing what was wrong, but instead of attempting to get out of the difficulty by twisting and turning and prevarication and falsehood, he always endeavoured to escape by going straightforward, boldly telling the truth, and, if needs be, doubling his fist, or drawing his sword and fighting his way out. Thus the sophistries ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... entomologist; the child of science. Science yearns ever to know and to tell. Truth for truth's sake! He had no strong moral feeling against a lie; but he had never had the slightest use for a lie, and a prevarication on his tongue would have been as strange to him as castanets in his palms. Guile takes alertness, adroitness; and the slim pennyworth of these that he could command he used up, no doubt, on Fontenette. I noticed that after an hour with the Creole he always looked ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... repulsive breath, and clothing tainted with offensive odors. He poisons the atmosphere that others must inhale, and disputes their rights to breathe a pure, untainted air. The free use of tobacco by young people dulls the acuteness of the moral senses, often leads to prevarication and deceit in the indulgence, and is apt to draw one downward to bad associates. It is not the speed but the direction that tells on the future character and destiny ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Prevarication of every kind partakes of the very essence of lying, being not only subversive of social happiness, by preventing all confidential intercourse amongst mankind, but diametrically opposed to the commands of God. Every species of wilful deceit, as the use of ambiguities ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... me; but I have most particular business with a gentleman in this neighborhood; and having travelled all the way from Paris, expressly to have it settled, I beg that I may be excused the pain of prevarication. The circumstance of my having served under the great Duke of Malborough against my own King and countrymen is sufficiently explained when I acquaint you, that I was then a French Protestant refugee; but now, without changing my religion, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... question. I want you to tell me the truth, of course. That is, if you can. How did it all happen—you must tell me everything just as it occurred, without concealment or prevarication." ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... me on the approach of an election, and telling me, if I expected to continue in his cure, that I must bring my nephew to vote for one Colonel Courtly, a gentleman whom I had never heard tidings of till that instant. I told the rector I had no power over my nephew's vote (God forgive me for such prevarication!); that I supposed he would give it according to his conscience; that I would by no means endeavour to influence him to give it otherwise. He told me it was in vain to equivocate; that he knew I had already spoke to him in favour of esquire Fickle, my ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... for realities: but in the calmest and clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out of the wilderness. Yet such was the consequence of his prevarication that he could not obey the call. It was now too late to require the assistance of Roger Malvin's friends in performing his long-deferred sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible than ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "An unworthy prevarication," replied Catherine, "by which you seek to work my ruin, and accomplish your union with Anne Boleyn. And you will no doubt succeed; for what can I, a feeble woman, and a stranger in your country, do to prevent it? You will succeed, I say—you will divorce me and place her upon the throne. But mark ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... also the less dexterous—has betrayed himself and is expelled. When will Bernstorff's turn come? That it will come, indeed must come, is self-evident. The artist sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white man can, in a wholehearted spurning of lies, ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... be done out of our Russians by any mere UNDER-SECRETARY FOR WAR; certainly not one who is capable of such prevarication. And anyhow, why should the Germans do ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... in common, and telling the truth was unimportant. If one asked them about anything they had no interest in, they might tell the truth or might not. If they had interests, these were served by their replies. This is as in diplomacy to-day, when the interests of one's country allows prevarication, and even in Christian ethics both patriotism and self-preservation, as well as hospitality, permit flat falsehood. Our own spies are honest heroes, and the man who would not deceive a man who sought to kill him or burn his house would ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... this government! Who is at the Elysee and the Tuileries? Crime. Who is established at the Luxembourg? Baseness. Who at the Palais Bourbon? Imbecility. Who at the Palais d'Orsay? Corruption. Who at the Palais de Justice? Prevarication. And who are in the prisons, in the fortresses, in the dungeons, in the casemates, in the hulks, at Lambessa, at Cayenne, in exile? Law, honour, intelligence, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... justice, he will resort to appealing to the mercy of the judge, to evade compliance with the law, to the non-fulfillment of any duty, and to live only to enjoy his rights; he will resort, in dealing with human authorities, to the use of the same methods of propitiation, adulation, prevarication, humiliation, and deception which dominated the same God and triumphed over the power of ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... the truth," said Fanny, raising her voice to a somewhat insolent tone. "The club does not permit the slightest vestige of prevarication. Is ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... the throne. The Church of England's glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory: Occasional conformists base, I damn'd their moderation, And thought the church in danger was By such prevarication, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... lie, cunning, double-dealing, fraud, lying, deceit, duplicity, guile, prevarication, deceitfulness, fabrication, hypocrisy, trickery, delusion, falsehood, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... landlady came up to talk a little with Sue, and gather something of the circumstances of the family she had taken in. Sue had not the art of prevarication, and, after admitting several facts as to their late difficulties and wanderings, she was startled by ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a moral tome, an' no prevarication. It was plumb drippin' with moral from start to finish. You see Eve she set the ball a-rollin' when she swiped them apples. That was where she done dead wrong, and that was the 'Sin' as mentioned in the name of the ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... him in so stern a mood, and she trembled. In a confusion of ideas, probably not intending a wilful prevarication, she answered hurriedly— ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... me, she alone had entered into the source of that prevarication, the complex feelings from which it sprang. But at that moment I could not forgive her for humiliating ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... facie curiae. "Some contempts," says Blackstone, "may arise in the face of the court, as by rude and contumelious behaviour, by obstinacy, perverseness or prevarication, by breach of the peace, or any wilful disturbance whatever"; in other words, direct insult to or interference with a sitting court is treated as contempt of the court. It is immaterial whether the offender is juror, party, witness, counsel, solicitor or a stranger to the case at hearing, and occasionally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... of impressions on the Washington Government. The clumsy prevarication of attempting to show that a steamer other than the Sussex had been torpedoed in the belief that it was a war vessel merely sufficed to complete the accumulating circumstantial evidence in the possession of the Government that the Sussex had been torpedoed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... broke the window?" I asked, as I extricated the four-year-old witness from Harriet's chiffon and violets. I doubted if young Susan had attained the years of prevarication ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... papa, though not in an unkindly tone, as they entered the dining-room. 'I want to ask you a few questions. Mind, I must have truthful and straightforward answers—no prevarication.' ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring |
