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Deceptive   /dɪsˈɛptɪv/   Listen
Deceptive

adjective
1.
Causing one to believe what is not true or fail to believe what is true.  Synonym: delusory.  "A delusory pleasure"
2.
Designed to deceive or mislead either deliberately or inadvertently.  Synonyms: misleading, shoddy.  "Deliberately deceptive packaging" , "A misleading similarity" , "Statistics can be presented in ways that are misleading" , "Shoddy business practices"



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"Deceptive" Quotes from Famous Books



... domain of political and civil affairs the laws aim at the common good, and are not guided by the deceptive wishes and judgments of the multitude, but by truth and justice. The authority of the rulers puts on a certain garb of sanctity greater than what pertains to man, and it is restrained from declining from justice, and passing ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... The Wyandot leader had yielded, when the majority of the chiefs favored Piqua instead of Chillicothe, but now he would certainly hold them to the agreement. The trail led on unceasingly, but the brightening of the skies was deceptive. The clouds soon closed in again, heavier and blacker than ever. Although it was only mid-afternoon it became almost as dark as night. Then the lightning began to play in swift flashes, so bright that the men ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... blue of innocence was in his eyes, and a gay smile of springtide abode upon his lips. His iron-gray hair, falling naturally like that of the Christ in art, added to his ecstatic air a certain solemnity which was absolutely deceptive as to his real nature; for he was capable of committing any silliness with the most exemplary gravity. His clothes were a necessary envelope, to which he paid not the slightest attention, for his eyes looked too high among the clouds to concern themselves ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... it a ghost of Calvinism, returned with none of its old force but with its old aspect of rigidity? Perhaps: but then, in losing its force, in abandoning its myths, and threats, and rhetoric, this religion has lost its deceptive sanctimony and hypocrisy; and in retaining its rigidity it has kept what made it noble and pathetic; for it is a clear dramatic expression of that human spirit—in this case a most pure and heroic spirit—which it strives so hard to dethrone. After all, the hypostasis of the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... quoth Mr. Wright, "are the shadows of a very remote antiquity." This proposition, thus broadly stated, we deny. Nothing is more deceptive than popular legends; and the "legends" we speak of, if they are to bear that name, have no claim to antiquity at all. They do not go beyond the ballads. They are palpably of subsequent and comparatively recent origin. It was absolutely impossible that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... straight as a die, and one could not possibly lose it; but it was difficult to know where we were, and occasional twinkling lights in houses and cottages on the road only made our whereabouts still more deceptive. ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen

... so deceptive, one would have said that Lord Blight ("Blight," as he was known familiarly to his friends) was a man to be envied. In a revolving book-case in the middle of the spacious library were countless treasured volumes, including a complete edition of Thackeray; outside in the well-kept grounds of the ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... about as deceptive as a fata morgana! What have you been doing, I ask you again, toward realizing this prospect and earning the money ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... kerosene. Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, and began gambling, or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, and no deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to be involved. But remembering that murder has tried of late years to establish itself as an institution in the cars, I was less tolerant of the doings of these "sportsmen" who tried ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... which friends would have described as olive, enemies (with more truth) as dirty green. These defects would have mattered little, of course, in themselves. There's many a bilious countenance, so to speak, covers a warm heart. With Monk, however, appearances were not deceptive. He looked a bad lot, and he ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... it should also be mentioned that nothing perhaps is more deceptive than the size which objects in the sky appear to present. The full moon looks so like a huge plate, that it astonishes one to find that a threepenny bit held at arm's length will a long way more than cover ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... unthrift, Irish destitution, Irish misery, the world has heard enough. I could not wholly avoid them without giving an essentially false and deceptive account of what must be painfully obvious to every traveler in Ireland; yet I have chosen to pass them over lightly and hurriedly, and shall not recur to them. They are in the main sufficiently well known to the civilized world, and, apart from suggestions of ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... all summer like a sort of warmer Brittany, the errant vapors on the Bay of Biscay assemble all in this depth of gulf, stop at the Pyrenean summits and melt into rain. Long showers fall, which are somewhat deceptive, but after which the soil smells of new flowers ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... ridge made to keep the water from encroaching on the low-lying farms, and came upon a most disheartening sight. Beyond several hundred yards of dangerous marsh flowed the river, looking very white in the deceptive light of early morning. The wavelets formed by the steady wind and the current were making a faint, but disconcerting, noise. Though it was only just possible to discern the opposite bank, there seemed to be a ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... Cycle is the process by which information is acquired, converted into intelligence, and made available to policymakers. Information is raw data from any source, data that may be fragmentary, contradictory, unreliable, ambiguous, deceptive, or wrong. Intelligence is information that has been collected, integrated, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted. Finished intelligence is the final product of the Intelligence Cycle ready to ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... made nowadays. Appearances are tremendously deceptive in this respect. We see men making what we choose to regard and call quick success, because at a comparatively early age they acquire position or means. But one needs only to study the conditions of the business life of to-day to see how ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok

... theories as to instructive amusement of children upon those of previous generations of toy-books. Most of what was once considered the "perfume of youth and freshness" in a literary way has been discarded as dry and unprofitable, mistaken or deceptive; and yet, after all has been said by way of criticism of methods and subjects, these chap-books, magazines, gift and story books form our best if blurred pictures of the amusements and daily life ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... they were convinced of it by actual experience. As the canoe rounded a bend in the river, three large white objects appeared in the "reach" before them. A single glance satisfied all that they were swans, though in the deceptive glare of the torch, they appeared even larger than swans. Their long upright necks, however, convinced the party they could be nothing else, and the canoe was headed ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... also somewhat deceptive. We know that Dunois was one of the most intelligent and prudent men of his day, and that he was considered a good speaker. In the defence of Orleans and in the coronation campaign he had displayed considerable ability. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... of Police was no fool. He was an adept at reading character, but he was certainly puzzled after a sharp scrutiny of Brett's clear-cut, intelligent features. Nevertheless, he knew that the criminal instinct is often allied with the most deceptive external appearances. So he turned to ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... foreruns the first promise of spring. The children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive balminess in the air that seemed merely to overlay a ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... from the first, been put upon this architecture, as I think can be shown, and inferences with respect to the social condition and the degree of advancement of these tribes have been constantly drawn from it both fallacious and deceptive, when the plain truth would have been more creditable to the aborigines. It will be my object to give an interpretation of this architecture in harmony with the usages and customs of the Indian tribes. ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... plainly recorded? This occurred some eight years after the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. To teach the abolition of this ordinance at the cross, in the face of these plainly stated instances of baptism, only proves to us the blinding and deceptive power of the spirit ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... rights of Ireland are most deceptive. There are plenty of indications of minerals, but they are of too poor a ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... apparently suffered extremely, being sometimes semi-conscious, and scarcely breathing for hours. We suspected the cause of these peculiar manifestations at the outset, but every suggestion of the possibility of the suspected cause was met with a stout denial and a very deceptive appearance of innocent ignorance on the subject. All treatment was unavailing to check the disease. Though sometimes the symptoms seemed to be controlled, a speedy relapse occurred, so that no progress toward a cure was made. Finally our conviction ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... appearances among the British troops indicated an intention to evacuate Boston; but as these appearances might be deceptive, and he had now received a small supply of powder, General Washington determined to prosecute vigorously a plan he had formed, to force General Howe either to come to an action, or ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... day, one of those warm Indian-summer days that resemble early spring. There is the same suggestion of warmer sunshine yet to come; the air has a scent as of growing things, the kind of muffled hopes and suppressed excitement of April is in the deceptive air. This sort of day is dangerous to charming people not in their very ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... themselves, carefully arranged as to shades—cut the upper end so you need not be tempted to use too long needlefuls, and there your wools are neatly put away, and soon you can distinguish any shade by its position in the case, no matter how deceptive the lamp-light may be. Still, you will not need your case till you have a dozen different colors. If you buy your wools at first by the dozen, which is the cheaper way, be sure that your pinks, blues, greens, etc., have, so far as may be, a yellowish tone. Remember that yellow is the ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... descent from Adam downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling." A responsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all—I had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune—that the company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the like; to all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... atmosphere of ours is enchanting," said the doctor, when assailed by a chorus of doubts. "But it carries its deceptive smiles too far. The very beauty of the Cordillera is a sign of storm. I am sorry to be a croaker; yet we are running into ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... sentimental moral doctrines insisted upon by sectarianism, which is ecclesiasticism run riot, and the higher the education the deeper we delve into the secret motives of that class of mankind, the deceptive outward appearances of which dominate the pages of history, which is, that the greatest and most glorious systems of government, the wisest and most powerful of rulers, the greatest and most liberal statesmen, heroes, and conspicuous conquerors, originated in violations of the Decalogue, and those ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... dear," responded Anna, with deceptive meekness. "Poor Gilbert is gone, and I don't intend to bother my head about him any longer. He was amusing while he lasted, but of what use is a beau ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... deceptive sounds. Noises as regular as footfalls, like a distant padded running. The aliens returning? Or the things they had gone to hunt? Raf crept on—out into the sunshine which filled ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... Duerer,—a mere gridiron of black lines. Would this be better or worse engraving if it were more like a photograph or lithograph, and no lines seen?—suppose, more like the head of Mr. Santley, now in all the music-shops, and really quite deceptive in light and shade, when seen from over the way? Do you think Duerer's work would be better if it were more like that? And would you have me, therefore, leaving the question of technical method of ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin

... nor any track that could betray the existence of man. The stream was fringed with tall bushes, or glided along sloping banks, so that nothing obstructed the view of the low range of hills which closed the eastern end of the valley. With their grotesque shapes, and their outlines lost in a deceptive haze, they brought to mind giant animals, worthy of antediluvian times. They might have been a herd of enormous whales, suddenly turned to stone. These disrupted masses proclaimed their essentially volcanic character. New Zealand ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... remarks thus: "M. Dibdin's expression conveys too general an idea. It is true that popular opinion attributes the erection of our gothic edifices to the ENGLISH: but there exists another opinion, which is not deceptive upon this subject." What is meant to be here conveyed? Either the popular opinion is true or false; and it is a matter of perfect indifference to the author whether it be one or the other. For Mons. Licquet's comfort, I will freely ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... delight, lest she should be reproved for levity—or desire for any thing, lest it should be the very thing she would not be permitted to possess—the proud, warm, frank-hearted Jewess became gradually metamorphosed into the cunning, passionate, deceptive intriguante, only waiting for an opportunity to deceive her guardians, and obtain that which, from being so strictly forbidden, she concluded must be the greatest possible enjoyment—freedom of word and action. Alas! if we may use a homely phrase, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... Its appearance as to height was deceptive; one would have guessed it eighteen feet; measuring it I was surprised to find it only ten. It has four separate boles, springing from one root, leaning a little away from each other, the thickest just a foot in circumference. The ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... which St. Paul has described succinctly as "for me to live in Christ, and to die is gain," as if he had been a pagan. It was not the love of God that was active in his soul, but the love of self; and he happened to exhibit his passion under these restrained and deceptive forms, simply because he had been born and educated in a state of society where they composed an integral part of existence. Covetousness was the deacon's besetting sin; and, as it is a vice that may be pretty well concealed, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... of this awful fact is deftly obscured behind the deceptive and specious plea for "a dollar of the greatest purchasing power." This is one of those artful expressions that are used by the advocates of the gold standard as a kind of thought-deterrent. It seems so obvious, at the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... had that cry for help proceeded? In vain the boy asked himself that question. He was not used to a life in the open and the rising wind was very deceptive. ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill

... case, distance viewed over water is deceptive, and by the time that they had done three-quarters of the course both were feeling pretty well fagged out with their unusual exertions, though neither would admit it; and the fact remained that they ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... relieved by the discovery, our adventurer paused, more particularly to survey so deceptive an object, which seemed to have been constructed on the most efficient principles; probably by some broken down wax figure costumer. It comprised the complete wardrobe of a scarecrow, namely: a cocked hat, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... those distant sky-scrapers, which looked, at the distance, like dream buildings, deceptive structures of the clouds. The waters intervening were palpitant with life. As an hour passed, and then another, the young watchers gave more and more attention to the landscape and less to the house near by. The air was vibrant with the tooting of whistles. The wind was sweeping ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... which they would be more admired, or less esteemed, and which they well know how to hide under the subtle smile of an almost imperceptible mockery. Delighting in the pleasure of mystification, from the most spiritual or comic to the most bitter and melancholy, they may perhaps find in this deceptive raillery an external formula of disdain for the veiled expression of the superiority which they internally claim, but which claim they veil with the caution and astuteness natural to ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... not we who are the "theorists," if by "theorists" is meant the constructors of elaborate and deceptive theorems in this matter. It is our opponents, the military mystics, who persistently shut their eyes to the great outstanding facts of history and of our time. And these fantastic theories are generally justified by most esoteric doctrine, not by the appeal ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell

... the product is of such character that its value is easily destroyed by long hauls over ordinary roads. It has to be marketed within a day or two of the time it is in prime condition, regardless of the conditions of the roads or weather; so that it is quite deceptive to estimate the cost of delivery at the same rate a ton, as for potatoes or wheat, for it always costs more, and sometimes several times more, to deliver tomatoes than it would to deliver the same weight of less perishable crops. In ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... no fears whatever about what she was to undergo. On the contrary, she had rather a desire to know what the sensation of being mesmerised might be. Of the phenomena which were to be developed in the mesmeric state, she knew absolutely nothing; thus all deceptive imitation of them, on her part, was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... there not even a worse stumbling-block in aesthetics, delusive and deceptive, casting a veil of borrowed splendour and sham beauty over everything? They sang of "The Knights' Vigil of Light." What knights' vigil? With patents of nobility and students' certificates; false testimonials, as they might have told themselves. Of light? ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... that 100 fellow under my hand (and I shall be upon the watch for him), I'll tickle his pretty skin! I won't hurt him! oh no! I'll only cut the — — to the liver!' I dare appeal to all present, which of the two they would regard as the least deceptive symptom of deliberate malignity? nay, whether it would surprise them 105 to see the first fellow, an hour or two afterwards, cordially shaking hands with the very man the fractional parts of whose body ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... facilities for divorce, has been a subject of alarm among persons bred under the influences of a more conservative system. It would be difficult to show as yet whether social morality is harmed or helped by the increased freedom. Nothing can be more deceptive and unsatisfactory than the statistics offered on both sides of the question. It is generally admitted, we believe, that in those countries where divorce is most difficult, the number of illegitimate births is largest, and the reputation of married women is most questionable. ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... vestige of water, save in the path of the spring freshets, until they had come in sight of the river; and Kinney had taken the horses on down to drink, riding one and leading the other. It would be nearly three miles to the river from where Thane had left him, but that was where all the deceptive cattle trails were tending. Thane, returning, had made a loop of his track around the hollow, but had failed to round up any spring. Hence, as he informed Mr. Withers, this could not be Pilgrim Station. He made no attempt to express his chagrin at this cruel ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... back to the top of the bluff, and on the way Bertrand explained to the Elder all that had transpired. "It seemed best to Mary and me that you should look the ground over yourself, before any action be taken. We hoped appearances might be deceptive, and that you would have information that would set our fears at rest before news of a mystery should reach ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... drenched in a sudden and depressing thaw. From her crowned ridges down to the swollen river rushing at her feet, she stood shivering in a robe of clinging mist; yet the day was warm with the raw deceptive closeness that chills to the bone and awakens ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... it would be more satisfactory if we adopted an infant," she said to Dr. Weston, who was almost bursting with pent-up laughter. "Perhaps a little girl would be less apt to turn out badly. Boys are so deceptive. To think of that angel face! ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... the Roach House bore both fork and object to a window, where the light was less deceptive, and was presently able to announce confidently that the object was only a hair-pin. Then, observing that his guest looked curiously at a cracker, which, from the gravelly marks on one side, seemed to have been dug out of the earth, like a potato, he hastened ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various

... its own gossamer substance; and beyond this are nothing. Space and time, or, as Koheleth expresses it, the universe and eternity, were placed in our consciousness from the very first, and are as deceptive as the mirage of the desert.[124] Kant would define them to be functions of the brain. A projection of the organ of human thought, the world is woven of three threads—space, time, and causality—which, being identical with the mind, appear ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the spring of 1860 the weather came off exquisitely fine. It was like a hectic flush—the deceptive seeming of health on the cheek of the consumptive. It was a spring without rain, in which the sun was shining beautiful and bright, in which the evenings were balmy and pleasant, and the road good; but to be followed by a summer of scorching heat, of hot winds that burned the vegetation ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... themselves to the bench. A piano is a treacherous companion for the student who can touch, it deftly—dangerous as an idle friend, whose wit is ever brilliant; fascinating as a beautiful woman, whose smile is always fresh; deceptive as the drug which seems to invigorate, whilst in reality it is stealing away the intellectual powers. Every persevering worker knows how large a portion of his hard work has been done 'against the grain,' and in spite of strong inclinations to indolence—in ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... had paled Grace's cheeks. Gregory accepted his own trembling as natural, but Grace's evident fear acted upon his nebulous state of mind in a way to condense jumbled emotions and deceptive longings into something like real thought. If they were in the right, why did they feel such expansive relief when the crowd swept them from the sidewalk to bear them ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... altered them almost as fast as they were written. Some, to be sure, were crude and would have betrayed the fact of alteration to the eye of any careful banker. But many were almost perfect, and all were wonderfully deceptive and showed what could be done by a crook ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... lay before me, clinging to the slope, and as I pushed with great difficulty and many turns to right and left through its tangle a wisp of cloud enveloped me, and from that time on I was now in, now out, of a deceptive drifting fog, in which it was most difficult to ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... who have had little communication with Europeans would be of course the most valuable, though those made on any natives would be of much interest to me. General remarks on expression are of comparatively little value; and memory is so deceptive that I earnestly beg it may not be trusted. A definite description of the countenance under any emotion or frame of mind, with a statement of the circumstances under which it occurred, would ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... Then I tell you, as a medical man, that appearances are sometimes deceptive. This man, for instance—he looks better; he thinks he is recovering; he feels stronger. You observe that he is fatter in the face. His nurse, Fanny Mere, went away with the knowledge that he was much better, and the conviction that he was about to ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... died, and eleven recovered. Consequently, the animals which apparently escaped the disease at the first trial amounted to 45.65 per cent., and those affected to 21.73 per cent. Of these, 23.91 per cent. recovered, and 8.69 per cent. died. But the external appearances in some instances proved deceptive, and six of the eleven animals of the last experiment, which were regarded as having escaped free, were found, on being destroyed, to bear distinct evidence of having been affected. This, therefore, modifies the foregoing calculations, and the ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... Distance also is deceptive and cannot be estimated as under other skies. The far-off mountains are brought near and made to glow in a halo of mellow light. Manifold ocular illusions appear in the mirage and deceive the uninitiated. An indefinable dreamy something ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... without a cloud, distant in the south the shining tips of a mountain range, and distant below in the west the slowly spreading vista of a great, bared ocean-bed, simmering bizarre with reds, yellows and deceptive whites, and ringed about by battlements jagged and ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... bustled away with a great deal of motion that created a deceptive impression of speed. Warham was helping himself to steak again when the coffee came a suspicious-looking liquid diffusing an odor of staleness reheated again and again, an under odor of metal pot not too ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... empty shells with cartridges, looked down on them with a serene smile on his not ill-looking face. His voice, except when raised in accents of command, had in it the musical, drawling, plaintive tone so peculiar to the native Texan—and so deceptive. The other two, younger and rougher men, looked, as they glanced at their victims through the sights of the pistols, as though they longed for the word of permission to riddle the ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... printed words. Even worse, abstract terms, which from century to century have become more abstract and therefore further removed from experience, more difficult to understand, less adaptable and more deceptive, especially in all that relates to human life and society. Here, due to the growth of government, to the multiplication of services, to the entanglement of interests, the object, indefinitely enlarged and complex, now eludes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... is no alternative, there is no pause: my daughter shall not see its deceptive mother die; your father shall not know that his daughter fell disgraced, despised by all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... raised their heads among the beech and oaks. He cut a cross [image: anti-clockwise swastika] thus, on each one of them, because trees are so deceptive. This mark is the old symbol of the Mithras cult, two axes placed sideways signifying the striking of fire. It is an old sign known and respected by the fairies; so he hoped that the good folk would see it and further ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... longer any terrors for them; and, although they waited anxiously for the sun to rise to see whether the Sea Rover was still in sight—for the moon was frequently obscured by clouds, and its light too intermittent and deceptive for them to scan the ocean by—they did not dream of despairing now, even if their worst suspicions should be realised, and the ship have left them to their fate, as the boat offered them a tangible means of rescue, which the raft did not; albeit it ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... that is, explain herself to us, emphasise herself for us. She lets us overlook her, with a supreme unconsciousness, a supreme affectation of unconsciousness, which is of course very conscious art, an art so perfect as to be almost literally deceptive. I do not know if she plays with exactly the same gestures night after night, but I can quite imagine it. She has certain little caresses, the half awkward caresses of real people, not the elegant curves and convolutions of the stage, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... train those stanchest of servants and maddest of masters, the passions, I had got at least far enough always to choose both the time and the ground of a quarrel. So I said: "Very well, Carlotta. Then, that is settled." And with an air sufficiently deceptive to pass muster before angry eyes, I proceeded to talk of ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... the ice seemed to rise like the walls of an inverted tent. "Rubber-ice," his mind told him like a flash. They had attempted to land where the water had but recently frozen over, and was covered with a deceptive coating of snow. Only one hope remained: to rise again. Once the weak rubber-ice—thin, elastic salt-water ice—gave ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... deceptive, and I do not insist upon this analogy. But it has a certain value here. For to-day in Ireland, as then in America, we find a grave question of politics, in itself not unmanageable, perhaps, by a race trained ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... dim and muted loveliness, their grave reticence, the deep and immitigable sadness with which, even at their most rapturous, they are penetrated. This is a score rich in beauty and strangeness, yet the music has often a deceptive naivete, a naivete that is so extreme that it reveals itself, finally, as the quintessence of subtlety and reticence—in which respect, again, we are reminded of its perfect, its well-nigh uncanny, correspondence with the quality of ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman

... his deceptive speech that sounded so lazy while implying so much energy, and turned his black eyes from the papers on his knee to my face, I ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... thickly populated region bordering on foolishness—those self-satisfied, uncomprehending egotists occupying the half-way house between wisdom and folly, known as stupidity—against such my wrath burns fiercely. They are deceptive—so un-get-at-able. They wear the semblance of wisdom, yet it is but a cloak to snare and delude mankind into testing their intelligence. They are not labelled by Heaven, like the fools we may avoid if we will, or to ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... a good time in Texas and escaped some cold weather. This deceptive sort of winter here is grippe-laden. I've had the thing, but I'm now getting over ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... are quite often deceptive. They were in this case. The elderly man was very much annoyed. When he had explained matters forcibly to me I went on down the hill ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various

... bridges and vast water rained through with lights red and grey, the shores lined with the lamps of the watching city. Mr. Whistler's night is the vast blue and golden caravanry, where the jaded and the hungry and the heavy-hearted lay down their burdens, and the contemplative freed from the deceptive reality of the day understand humbly and pathetically the casualness of our habitation, and the limitlessreality of a plan, the intention of which we shall never know. Mr. Whistler's nights are the blue transparent darknesses which are half of the world's life. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... that Phebe felt greatly disappointed; though her eyes grew blind with tears as she thought of Felicita standing here before this deceptive cross and calling herself of all women the most miserable. The cross itself had had no message of peace to her troubled heart. "Most miserable," repeated Phebe to herself, looking back upon yesterday with a vain yearning that she had been there to tell Felicita that she shared her misery, ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... that he was casting a reflection on his son, "I wish my personal means were larger, so I could give Bertram enough and leave Sandymere to you; then I'd know the place would be in good hands. On the surface, you're a happy-go-lucky fellow, but that's deceptive. In reality, you have a surprising grip of things—however, you know my opinion of you. But ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... who was not thinking of our problem, tells us, in describing the movements of these "Zoospores," that, as they swim about, "Foreign bodies are carefully avoided, and the whole movement has a deceptive likeness to the voluntary changes of place which are ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... lazily around a hill, with autumn colors on every side, and autumn's soft winds fanning the air into life, and Olive thought the answer she received was some deceptive ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... right-minded person. But we must—I say we must," Landis raised her finger impressively, and repeated the words as though she intended at that moment to root out the evil with tooth and nail, "We must get rid of this deceptive tendency. It will have an evil effect on Exeter. Perhaps, in time, destroy the ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... that her resolute chin was not deceptive as a guide to temperament. The Dona Pondillo deemed her a spirit when she appeared on the veranda, but Carmela's impetuous kiss soon disabused the worthy ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... very deceptive disease, the nerves alone being affected; the humours and coverings of the eye remaining perfectly transparent and natural, imposes upon the inexperienced observer, but is easily detected by those who ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... the cliffs below Kerselec with Goulven, looking out over the sombre moors among which I had now lost my way, these downs had appeared to me level as a meadow, stretching to the horizon, and although I knew how deceptive is distance, I could not realize that what from Kerselec seemed to be mere grassy hollows were great valleys covered with gorse and heather, and what looked like scattered boulders were in reality enormous cliffs ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... has been expended, and a greater effect produced. Public functionaries, who have been pleased to speak in contemptuous terms of the progress of abolitionism, both in Maine and New Hampshire, will, it is thought, soon be made to see, through a medium not at all deceptive, the grossness of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the billows play With sweet deceptive ray, Where in glad choral song Shout the exulting throng; Where on ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... a little money? Why could one not see these things in people's souls, how was it that nothing revealed to upright hearts the deceits of infamous hearts, how was it that voices had the same sound for adoring as for lying, why was a false, deceptive look the same as a sincere one? And he watched them waiting to catch a gesture, a word, an intonation; then suddenly he thought: "I will surprise them this evening," and he said: "My dear, as I have dismissed ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... of Christ, when you see the repenting sinner smiting his breast and crying: "Oh, God! have mercy upon me a sinner!" shut your ears to the deceptive words of Rome who tells you to force that redeemed sinner to make to you a special confession of all his sins, to get his pardon. But go to him and deliver the message of love, peace and mercy, which you received from Christ: "Thy sins ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... "may arise which may enable a bad man to steal into the place of a good one, or may cause a good man to be disliked as though he were a bad one; for appearances, to which we trust, are deceptive." Who denies it? Yet I can find nothing else by which to guide my opinion. I must follow these tracks in my search after truth, for I have none more trustworthy than these; I will take pains to weigh the value of these with all possible ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... are mighty deceptive in the darkness," explained Ned. "It is very easy to be mistaken on a ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... mechanical, formal things to be done as he had done them every day of a fairly long life; as a clerk would check off the boxes or parcels carried past him by the porters. M. Fille could hardly bear to see him in this mood, and the New Cure hovered round him with a mournful and harmlessly deceptive kindness. But the end had to come, and practically all the parish was present when it came. That was on the day when the contents of the Manor were sold at auction by order of the Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely and irrevocably to do from ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... maiden aunt, who, after having played for some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows, one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile plays only a deceptive and scarcely convincing part in concealing the feelings of anxiety and disapproval that ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... Adultery; Tattooing; Uncleanly; Voluptuous beauties; Deceptive modesty; Intimidating the squaws; Treatment of squaws; Marriage; Courtship; Puberty ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... look cheerful and blessed, but there is one thing I can always say for him, he was an honest man in dealing with the most illusive and deceptive things men have ever dealt in, that is, spiritual values, and the more he observed Brother Dunn, the more ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... her attention once more upon the Albula. "To be sure," resumed M. Moriaz, stroking his whiskers with the head of his cane, "Camille is just the man to make his way through difficulties. He has a youthful air that is very deceptive, but he always has been astonishingly precocious. At twenty years of age he became head of his class at the Central School; but the best thing about him is that, although in possession of a fortune, yet he has a passion for work. The rich man ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... at, gentlemen," said Obed, "but looks is deceptive, as my old grandmother used to tell me. 'Handsome is as handsome does,' and this 'ere hole's done the handsome thing for me and my partners, and I venture to say it hasn't got through doin' handsome things. It's made three of us rich, and it's ready to make ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger

... free people is the preservation of their liberty, and liberty is only to be preserved by maintaining constitutional restraints and just division of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretense of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... Premature wrinkles had withered the delicately modeled forehead beneath the coronet of soft, well-set chestnut hair, invariably wound about her head in two plaits, a girlish coiffure which suited the melancholy face. There was a deceptive look of calm in the dark eyes, with the hollow, shadowy circles about them; sometimes, when she was off her guard, their expression told of secret anguish. The oval of her face was somewhat long; but happiness and health had ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac

... only haphazard work, because the searchlight that began now to play upon the airplanes could reveal only one bomber at a time. Thus the shrapnel burst much above their level, so deceptive ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that, for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... in Germany from the recruits sent from all parts of France; 120,000 men of the national guard were to protect the French soil, in combination with 150,000 soldiers, sick or new, who were still in the military depots. According to the "cadres," which were often deceptive, there were 300,000 men engaged in Spain. On leaving Italy to march to Germany, Prince Eugene had left about 50,000 soldiers in the strongholds. Thus for one man's quarrel, and in his name, there were under arms ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... seductiveness all the more dangerous, because she possessed a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will—all hidden under the specious gloss of a generous, warm, and impassioned nature. Physically her organization was as deceptive as it was morally. Her large black eyes—which, by turns languished and beamed with beauty beneath their ebon lashes—could feign to admiration all the kindling fires of voluptuousness. And yet, the burning impulses of love beat not in her frozen bosom; never could a surprise of either ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... wished the affair hurried up, and the sacrifice consummated without hindrance. He believed that when once the newly-married pair had taken up their quarters at La Thuiliere, the very certainty that Reine belonged in future to another would suffice to effect a radical cure in him, and chase away the deceptive phantoms ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... reason of the patentee claiming as his invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new, the original patent is inoperative or invalid, provided the error has arisen from inadvertence, accident or mistake and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... broad-chested, vigorous and bronzed, Labarta, who was huddled in a great arm chair, began to cry with a childish hiccough as though he were weeping over the misery of human illusions, over the brevity of a deceptive ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... of the black waters that eddied about in tiny whirlpools, deadly to any canoe in summer, and still more deadly in winter, for the ice never formed here as in the rest of the river. Only a thin, deceptive coating ever bridged that death hole, and the man who mistook it for solid ice would never live to cross that river again. So, on the high bank above this death trap old Andy lighted his lantern, year in and year out. Sometimes he was accompanied by his old grey ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... the rocky points of the Sardinian coast, I observed the ruins of a building, but so deceptive is distance, I could not at first determine whether it had been a fortress or a cottage. I asked one of the officers for his telescope; and being still in doubt, questioned him as I returned it. He smiled and said: 'For the last five or six years, I have never passed through the Straits ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... is well also to observe here that what M. Bayle calls a 'triumph of faith' is in part a triumph of demonstrative reason against apparent and deceptive reasons which are improperly set against the demonstrations. For it must be taken into consideration that the objections of the Manichaeans are hardly less contrary to natural theology than to revealed ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... weights have also been tried upon men by careful investigators. In every case it was found that even beer, and very dilute solutions of alcohol, would diminish the height to which the lifted weight could be raised. As an illustration of the deceptive power of alcohol upon people under its influence, it is said that persons experimented upon were under the impression, after the drink, that they could do more work, and do it more easily, although the testing-machine showed exactly ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... watching his opportunity, then, taking a quick step backwards, he had vaulted through the open window with the agility of a cat, and was flying down the empty street at the speed only attainable by that deceptive domestic animal when pressed for time and ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... accompanied by interesting and instructive experiments and in this manner attracted the public to his exhibition. All this time he was promoting his company, but his promoting instinct caused his representations to be extravagant and deceptive, which exposed him to the ridicule and suspicion of learned men. His attempt to obtain certain exclusive rights by Act of Parliament failed because of opposition of scientific men toward his claims and of the ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... the expert hurler from Harmony, mowed down the first three men who faced him, two by way of vain strikes at his deceptive curves, and the other through a high foul, the shouts of the visitors told what an immense number of Harmony people had come across to see their favorites effectually stifle the rising ambition of Chester's athletes on ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... Saturday night. The sun sank under a thin, deceptive web of cloud. The shadow beneath the palmetto grew long over Scip's fresh grave. The stars were dim and few. The wind rose, and the lights in the city, where watchers wept over their sick, trembled on the frail breeze, and seemed to be multiplied, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... to Berlin, I had been frequently warned by Germans, natives of other states, of the boastful and deceptive character of the Prussians. Such was the general opinion expressed; and although I never found them deceptive, the epithet of boastful seemed only too truthfully bestowed. A Prussian is naturally a swaggerer; but then, unfortunately for other ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... be on a bright, cloudless day that we enter Rome. To our northern eyes the rich Italian sun-light gives to everything, even to ruins and rags and squalor, a deceptive grandeur, and a beauty which is not due. No, the day shall be such a day as that on which I write; such a day in fact as the days are oftener than not at this dead season of the year, sunless and ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... horses faster. Finally they reached the summit of the slope. From that height they saw down into a round, shallow valley, which led on, like all the deceptive reaches, to the ranges. There was water down there. It glinted like red ribbon in the sunlight. Not a living thing was in sight. Joan grew more discouraged. It seemed there was scarcely any hope of overtaking Jim ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... to pieces at any moment. She was flying the Japanese mercantile flag, a white flag with a red ball in the centre— which is also the Japanese "Jack," and I soon learned that in her case, as in many others, appearances were deceptive, for I was assured that she was as staunch as staunch could be. She was officered and manned by a Chinese crew, and she was ostensibly loaded with bricks; but surrounded by these bricks, which were only a blind, was a sturdy little closed-in engine and boiler, the smoke from the latter ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... heart at the contemplation of so much active virtue, without rendering oneself liable to the charge of excessive admiration. Through the mists of adversity, a human form may dilate into proportions which are colossal and deceptive. Our judgment may thus, perhaps, be led captive, but at any rate the sentiment excited is more healthful than that inspired by the mere shedder of blood, by the merely selfish conqueror. When the cause of the champion is that of human right against tyranny, of political ind religious ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... borders of her playfulness there seemed ever to hang a fringe of thoughtfulness, as if she felt that the present moment owed all its sparkle and brilliance to the eternal sunlight. And the appearance was not in the least a deceptive one. The eternal was not far from her—none the farther that she enjoyed life like a bird, that her laugh was merry, that her heart was careless, and that her voice rang through the house—a sweet soprano voice—singing snatches of songs (now a street tune she had caught from a ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... me, I found that many of these charges against the negro were true. The black man was deceptive, and he was often dishonest. There can be no effect without a cause, and the reasons for this deception and dishonesty were apparent, without difficult research. The system of slavery necessitated a constant struggle between the slave and his overseer. It was the duty of the latter ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... says the moralist?—"Portray life as it is. Delude not the senses by deceptive appearances. Arouse your hero? call to his aid stern philosophy and sober reason. They will dissipate the rainbow-glories of unreal pleasure, and banish the glittering meteors of unsubstantial happiness. ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... know she had not made a mistake, there at that corral? Other men wore gray hats and rode dark bay horses; other men were slim and tall—and she had only had a glimpse after all, and the light was deceptive down there in the shadows. When that first doubt was molded, and she had breathed into it the breath of life so that it stood sturdily before her, she took heart and created reasons, a whole company of them, ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... fourteen of these monsters of the deep. On the night of the 19th I went on deck to see an iceberg, which was a perfect counterpart of Newstead Abbey. One could almost fancy he saw the ivy creeping over its sides, so deceptive were the shadows that fell upon it from pinnacles and horizontal ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... study and less eye work at school, rather than more eyeglasses to conceal temporarily the effect of abusing children's eyes. Putting glasses on children without changing causal conditions is like giving alcohol to consumptives. The feeling of relief is deceptive. The trouble grows worse. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... prevailed, and he 'took a chance.' He shot the ball back to the quarter. He in turn passed it to the back, who got in a perfect kick that sent it far down the field and close to the enemy's goal. One of the 'Greys' made a grab at it, but it was one of those twisting deceptive punts and bounded out of his hands down toward the southern line. One of his mates was just behind him and, quick as lightning, he caught the ball on the bound, tucked it under his arm and scooted down the field toward our ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... days and years were passed in a moody inactivity, now at Oulton, then at Yarmouth, next in London, finally at Oulton again, where he "died, as he had lived, alone" on July 26, 1881. It seemed for the time as if he had outlived his reputation. Appearances are proverbially deceptive. ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe

... of the younger persons of our drama still exist, but it has been remarked of them, that they avoid conversing of the events of their younger days. Youth is the season of hope, and hope disappointed has little to induce us to dwell on its deceptive pictures. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... at Philadelphia, which has long been regarded as a visionary or deceptive enterprise, is coming out now with the endorsement of engineers who have witnessed its operation and say that it develops a new power which cannot be accounted for by any of the known laws of dynamics. It may, however, be a long time before the proper machinery can ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various

... session of 1847 to the opening of that of 1848 they kept France in a state of constant fever—an artificial and deceptive fever in this sense, that it was not the natural and spontaneous result of the actual wishes and wants of the country; but true and serious in this sense, that the political parties who took the initiative in it found among ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... nor are they taught any handicrafts, and the galling prospect is inevitable that they will have to content themselves with very humble stations in life, dependent even upon the more prosperous Uitlanders. No wonder these Boers fell an easy prey to the seductions and deceptive fallacies of the Afrikaner Bond doctrine of conquest, for dispossessing England of her Colonies, and to resume a free hand for expansion northwards ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... deceptive glamour about mere bigness. Quality may accompany quantity, but it need not. In fact good things are usually done up in small parcels. "I could eat you at a mouthful," roared a bulky opponent to the small and sickly Alexander H. Stephens. "If you did," replied Stephens quietly, "you'd have more brains ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... that I should not have accepted; my heart, if not my head, should have revolted at this deceptive thought. But what did I know. A strange fatality, perhaps a frightful egotism, pushed me on. I accepted. I pressed Sidney in my arms, I took his clothes, and I said to him, 'To-morrow!' with the conviction that I should see him the following day. I left my cell; the jailer ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... erroneous knowledge of things, so long, at any rate, as we confine ourselves to knowledge by acquaintance. Whatever we are acquainted with must be something; we may draw wrong inferences from our acquaintance, but the acquaintance itself cannot be deceptive. Thus there is no dualism as regards acquaintance. But as regards knowledge of truths, there is a dualism. We may believe what is false as well as what is true. We know that on very many subjects different people hold ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... when the throuble was at uts finest an' Jock was bleedin' like a stuck pig, an' little Orth'ris was shquealin' on one leg chewin' big bites out av Dearsley's watch, I wud ha' given my place at the fight to have had you see wan round. He tuk Jock, as I suspicioned he would, an' Jock was deceptive. Nine roun's they were even matched, an' at the tenth—About that palanquin now. There's not the least throuble in the world, or we wud not ha' brought ut here. You will ondherstand that the Queen—God bless her!—does not reckon for ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... to the Mandarin, "the words that have been spoken are bent to a deceptive end. They of our community are a simple race and doubtless in the past their ways were thus and thus. But, as it is truly said, 'Tian went bare, his eyes could pierce the earth and his body float in space, but they of his seed do but ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... into a matrimonial union by an interest which is but skin-deep, and which may fade like the morning flower, are allured by a dazzling meteor, by a mere bubble, beautifully formed and colored, but empty within. It may dazzle the eye, but it blinds us to all its blemishes and inward infirmities. It is deceptive. Often beneath its gaudy veil there lies the viper, ready to poison all the sweets of home-life, and cause its victim to lament over his folly with bitter tears and heart-burning remorse. How soon may beauty fade; and what then, if it was the only basis of your marriage choice? The union ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... owe to the examples and deceptive lessons of a so- called friend, the bitterness that corrodes their hearts, and the remorse which perhaps torments their life! We pass over in silence those societies the evident danger of which is easily perceived, and on that account easily averted; but you have not the same guarantee ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... the world by showing that an infinitely older and more elemental truth could be conveyed by a novel in which no person, good or bad, had any manners at all. Her work represents the first great assertion that the humdrum life of modern civilisation is a disguise as tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a 'bal masque.' She showed that abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte Bronte, following consciously ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton

... entrench ourselves in positions against which they may fire cannon or gatling guns in vain. They are not used to bush-fighting, and will all the time expose themselves to our bullets. Besides, distances here are deceptive; and in their confusion they will make the wildest sort of shooting." It was decided that the rebel forces should make their main stand at an advantageous position, which Dumont had accidentally observed one day when he was out elk-stalking three years ago. This place, he assured his chief ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... mind, and that the brain, the body, and their environment, which is continually acting upon the entire man, are of no importance whatever, would not be worthy even of mere mention if it were not for the fact that this form of delusion has of late become so common, under the deceptive names of metaphysics, Christian science, and mind-cure, when the theory is simply an attempt to get rid of science ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various

... middle-aged generation and by growing opposition on the part of the younger coming generation. This very characteristic feature is brought into prominence by the discussion of Goette. If all signs, however, are not deceptive, this third stage, that of decay, is drawing to an end; soon we shall enter the final stage and with that the tragic-comedy of Darwinism will be brought to ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... the fugitives; I felt that every second was of vital import, and 'twas not until we had come into a stretch of country clear of trees, our horses' hoofs falling silently on the soft turf, that we caught the faint rustle of the sea. I knew not how far distant it was; sounds carry far and are deceptive at night; we smote the flanks of our horses and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... service of removing doubtful knowledge. Such knowledge is the early morning light of every advancing science, and is essential to its development; but the man who is engaged in dispelling that which is deceptive in it, and revealing more clearly that which is true, is as useful in his place, and as necessary to the general progress of the science, as he who first broke through the intellectual darkness, and opened a path into ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... was equal to any call which might be made upon it. By temperament he was restless, but his work had given him a philosophical outlook which in some measure counterpoised that defect by causing him to realize that life was a tricky and deceptive business in which intelligence counted for more than action in the long run. He had a wider outlook and more shrewdness than the average detective, and he already felt a keen interest in the case he had been called ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... rare. Danger, peril, jeopardy, hazard, risk. Darken, obscure, bedim, obfuscate. Dead, lifeless, inanimate, deceased, defunct, extinct. Decay, decompose, putrefy, rot, spoil. Deceit, deception, double-dealing, duplicity, chicanery, guile, treachery. Deceptive, deceitful, misleading, fallacious, fraudulent. Decorate, adorn, ornament, embellish, deck, bedeck, garnish, bedizen, beautify. Decorous, demure, sedate, sober, staid, prim, proper. Deface, disfigure, mar, mutilate. Defect, fault, imperfection, disfigurement, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor



Words linked to "Deceptive" :   deceptiveness, deceive, misleading, dishonest, dishonorable, unreal, shoddy, delusory



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