"Mental reservation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... example of strict probity; that he had repeatedly sworn allegiance to the House of Brunswick; that he had assisted in placing the crown on the head of George I., and that he had abjured James III., "without equivocation or mental reservation, on the true ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... benefiting him, other than by furnishing him a means of amusement in the enforced solitude of his affliction. Mollie did not consider that Hester Le Moyne was a Southern woman, and as such, while she might admire courage and accomplishments in a woman of Northern birth, always did so with a mental reservation in favor of her own class. When, however, one came from the North to teach the negroes, in order that they might overpower and rule the whites, which she devoutly believed to be the sole purpose of the colored educational movement, no matter under what specious guise of charity it might ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... is too good to work," replied Ellen, but she uttered the platitude with a sort of mental reservation. In spite of herself, the attitude of worship in which she had always seen all who belonged to her had spoiled her a little. She did look at herself with a sort of compunction when she realized the fact that she might have to go to work in the shop some time. School-teaching was different, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... equitable administration as the city had never before experienced. Some exceptionable acts they undoubtedly committed; and when Petrarch extols Azzo as another Cato, it is to be hoped that he did so with some mental reservation. Petrarch had proposed to cross the Alps immediately, and proceed to Avignon; but he was prevailed upon by the solicitations of Azzo to remain some time at Parma. He was consulted by the Correggios on their most important affairs, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... she says, writes beautiful verses. Somehow or other, all this praise, and more of the same kind, gave me an idea of an intolerably irreproachable person; and I asked Mrs. Nightingale if Lady Byron were warm-hearted. With some hesitation, or mental reservation,—at all events, not quite ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... up and taking his favourite attitude, with his elbow on the mantelpiece. "Why do you keep me at arm's length? Why do you not tell me plainly what I can do for you, father? There is nothing I would not do, nothing I would not sacrifice, that is—" and he made a mental reservation concerning Valmai. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... without evasion or mental reservation, given a faithful account of the steps by which I have arrived at this barrier, which is likely to be the ne plus ultra of my peregrinations, unless the generous Count de Melvil will deign to interpose ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... no mental reservation. "I know how it is, Cicely. Allyn has been my baby and my boy; but, much as I love him, I can't help seeing that he is cantankerous and cross-grained at times. But it is only at times, Cis; ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... public, to the great distress and disgrace of innocent children and relatives, whilst the grounds have at the same time to be made so general that any sort of human conduct may be brought within them by a little special pleading and a little mental reservation on the part of witnesses examined on oath. When it conies to "conduct rendering life burdensome," it is clear that no marriage is any longer indissoluble; and the sensible thing to do then is to grant divorce whenever it is desired, ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... her mien. He did, however, remember afterwards that she was standing by a great clump of purple starlike flowers and that he thought her the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, excepting, of course, Constantia Wyatt. He made that mental reservation as they walked along together in front of their elders, and then glancing sideways at the wonderful hair again, decided he liked fair hair best. Constantia's was dark. They soon outdistanced the two men who followed at a leisurely pace. Mr. Aston looked ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... and continued, loyal to their own King; thoroughly abhorrent of becoming Russian, as Czarish Majesty has thoroughly resolved they shall. Some few absconded, leaving their property as spoil; the rest swore, with mental reservation, with shifts, such as they could devise:—for example, some were observed to swear with gloves on; the right hand, which they held up, was a mere right FIST with a stuffed glove at the end of it,—SO help me Beelzebub (or whoever is the recording Angel here)! [Helden-Geschichte, v. 141-149: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Louis Bonaparte? He is perjury personified; he is mental reservation incarnate, felony in flesh and bone; he is a false oath wearing a general's ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... mental reservation, then turns to the table and writes a long letter to Martha. He sets the matter before her, tells her he will enter politics, and asks for her advice. Regarding the Committee of Forty, he tells her all he knows, which is to the effect that it has been appointed to investigate ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... smoothly, under the shelter of our infamous laws. Have you really come back here to give your father's honest name, and the example of a man of your own blameless life, in support of conditions that tempt people to marry with a mental reservation, and that weaken every marriage bond with the guilty hope of escape whenever a fickle mind, or secret lust, or wicked will may dictate? Have you come to join yourself to those miserable spectres who go shrinking through the world, afraid of their own past, and anxious to hide it from those ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... accustomed before the visit to Westport. She was the Olga of the portrait with the added graces of a not too obtrusive sympathy and a manner which seemed subtly to suggest self-elimination. He accepted the situation without mental reservation, sat in the chair she indicated with a grateful sigh and watched her pretty hands busy about the tea-tray. Whatever their relations and however directly he could trace his present misfortunes to her very door, the illusion of her friendliness ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... legible or intelligible to myself or any other person in the known world, whereby the secrets of Masonry may be unlawfully obtained through my unworthiness. To all which I do most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, without the least equivocation, mental reservation, or self-evasion of mind in me whatever; $1$2: so help me God, and keep me steadfast in the true ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... from pouring out the vials of her wrath on Nan's devoted head. Only fear lest she might alienate the girl so completely that Roger would lose the wife he wanted had induced her to yield. She had consented at last, but with a mental reservation that when Nan was actually Roger's wife she would tell her precisely what she thought of her whenever occasion offered. Nothing would persuade her to overlook such flagrant faults ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... beneath them. It springs from the ironical temper which refuses to take either self or reality seriously, because it is forever comparing both with the dimly-seen infinite of its dreams. It is a state of mental reservation in which one lends one's self to circumstances for form's sake, but refuses to recognize them in one's heart because one cannot see the necessity or the divine order in them. I am disinterested because I am indifferent; I have nothing to say against what is, and yet I am never satisfied. ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... me to the office of President of the United States, I have, in conformity to the Constitution of our country, taken the oath of office prescribed therein. I have taken this oath without mental reservation and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that is required of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought; I commence its duties untrammeled. I bring to it a conscious ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... reached back at least 25 Years. These little One-Act Plays under the Window did not throw her off for any part of a Minute. Before Florine turned in she was Cross-Examined and required to tell with whom she had danced, and why and how often and what he said. Occasionally the Daughter worked the Mental Reservation. In other Words, she held out on Mother. She said that she had sat out most of the Numbers, but she admitted going through a Square Dance with the Young Man who passed the Plate at the ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... weather, of wind and snow, of fog and rain, of unseasonable intervals of quiet sunshine. The predictions of the wiseacres were not to be trusted; and, at any rate, every forecast was made with a wag of the head that implied a large mental reservation. At sea it was better to proceed with caution. To be prepared for emergencies—to expect the worst and to be ready for it—was the part of plain common sense. And Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay was ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... mental reservation as he spoke; there was no pleading for exception in Grace Kerr's dark eyes that he could grant. Long as he had nestled the romance between them in his breast, long as he had looked into the West and sent his dream out after ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... was sincerely grateful to Ernestine for the warm-hearted way in which she had put her proposal, as if it were a real favor to her. She made this one mental reservation to herself,—it should last only until she found "something better" as a solution. When Milly told the little girl of the new move, Virgie was delighted. "It'll be like having a real man in the house again," she said. "We'll have to teach her how to speak ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... expectation of the Santa Claus that was not, takes us fairly by the throat; there is nothing in Shakespeare that touches the heart more nearly. The loves of Cosette and Marius are very pure and pleasant, and we cannot refuse our affection to Gavroche, although we may make a mental reservation of our profound disbelief in his existence. Take it for all in all, there are few books in the world that can be compared with it. There is as much calm and serenity as Hugo has ever attained to; the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is but the half of a true proposition either signifies nothing or is directly a lie," it must be admitted that "in the same cases in which it is lawful to tell a lie, in the same cases it is lawful to use a mental reservation;" and "where it is lawful to lie, it is lawful to equivocate, which may be something less than a plain lie." Moreover, "it is lawful upon a just cause of great charity or necessity to use, in our answers and intercourses, ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... interpretation of the Fourteen Points which all the belligerents had accepted as the basis of the armistice and consequent peace; and they were not such as any Power could be expected to sign without an effort to get them amended before peace was concluded or a mental reservation to procure their modification as soon as might be thereafter. The German delegates, with Count Brockdorff-Rantzau at their head, did their best to expose the inconsistencies between the Allies' professions and their performance, and ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... it to me as a dead secret, and bound me up to secrecy, too; but I thought as it concerned you so much, it would be no harm to tell you, if you would not tell it again; and so when I was promising, I made a mental reservation in favor of yourself. And so I have told you; and now you mustn't betray ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... will stay outside your house, as you see! These gentlemen of the Opposition, when they give any assurance, always do it with a mental reservation! You can't trust the beggars! Come round the ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... be a mental reservation," said Harold. "There must be no mutual understanding of coming together again. I promised your mother. Because I am a guilty man, I am not to ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was the one element in the combination that she could not count on; and Stanwell, reddening under her look of interrogation, and cursing his own glaring robustness, would affirm that of course, of course, of course, by everything that was holy there was time enough—with the mental reservation that there wouldn't be, even if poor Caspar lived ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... synonymous, are convertible terms. They are accused of perverting education, of abusing the confessional, of corrupting moral and political philosophy, of conforming to the inclinations of the great. They even went so far as to inculcate mental reservation,—thus attacking truth in its most sacred citadel, the conscience of mankind,—on which Pascal was so severe. They made habit and bad example almost a sufficient exculpation from crime. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly determined not to swear. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's precautions with respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid Irish cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but then the time of his stay had not been specified. Various pretexts were invented to detain him. He must be recognised as his father's heir; the cause must be pleaded before the English judges; the young ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin |
