"Guileful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this miracle, and say, How camest thou speakable of mute, and how To me so friendly grown above the rest Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight? Say, for such wonder claims attention due. To whom the guileful Tempter thus replied. Empress of this fair world, resplendent Eve! Easy to me it is to tell thee all What thou commandest; and right thou shouldst be obeyed: I was at first as other beasts that graze The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low, As was my food; nor ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... named Valgard, he kept house at Hof by Rangriver, he was the son of Jorund the Priest, and his brother was Wolf Aurpriest (1). Those brothers, Wolf Aurpriest, and Valgard the Guileful, set off to woo Unna, and she gave herself away to Valgard without the advice of any of her kinsfolk. But Gunnar and Njal, and many others thought ill of that, for he was a cross-grained man and had few friends. They begot between them ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... naturally cruel; but he was ruthless if it served his purpose, and could take pitiless vengeance for an insult or a wrong. He was too strong to prefer deceit when force would serve as well, but his diplomacy was subtle and guileful, and no scruple turned him aside from his aim. His temper, originally forgiving, was soured by opposition toward the end of his life, and his tyrannical tendencies were strengthened by the long exercise of uncontrolled power. His passionate devotion to the chase is only too clearly ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... leaves before the blast. "When he began to weave his words, one might have deemed him churlish, nay a fool, but when from his chest came his deep voice, and words like unto flakes of winter snow, then who could with him contend?" Thus Homer of Odysseus the Guileful, thus as truly of Themistocles ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... feast sped on the fairer, far into the night, but amidst the mirth Sigmund and Signy were sad at heart. And before the sun was risen next day Signy came to her father in secret and begged him to stay in his own country rather than trust the guileful heart and murder-loving hand of Siggeir. But Volsung answered that he must go to be Siggeir's guest, for he could not break his pledged word through fear of peril. So on the morrow the smooth-speeched Siggeir departed with Signy, and when ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... skilled in the tactics of nursing. She was from New England, and knew well the first guileful footsteps of that soft, insidious disease, which sweeps away so many of the fairest and loveliest, and, before one fibre of life seems broken, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... yields to its enticements launches upon a whelming tide, and trusts his feeble bark among the dimpling eddies of a whirlpool! And thus it fared with the worthies of Pavonia, who, little mistrusting the guileful sense before them, drifted quietly on, until they were aroused by an uncommon tossing and agitation of their vessels. For now the late dimpling current began to brawl around them, and the waves to boil and foam with horrible fury. Awakened as if from a dream, the astonished Oloffe bawled ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... mittens had been settled, the great case of Gonorowsky vs. Gonorowsky was called. On either side of the desk stood a diminutive Gonorowsky; Eva still plaintive, and Sadie, redly, on the defensive. Directly in front stood that labourer defrauded of his hire, that tool in the hands of guileful woman—Isidore Belchatosky. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... checked but not smothered by his companion's evident desire to say nothing concerning himself, was busy thinking of various guileful schemes with which to entrap the castaway into the disclosure of his identity. Having prepared his bait, he proceeded to ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... by a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing—along with a ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... long did maiden shame restrain her. At one moment the word rose on the end of her tongue, at another it fluttered back deep within her breast. And often through her lovely lips it strove for utterance; but no sound came forth; till at last she spoke with guileful words; for the bold Loves ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... taught me that the more beautiful a woman's face the more guileful is her heart; and your face is wonderfully beautiful, and, as for your heart—you ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... these. And the padding footsteps that followed, hurrying when she hurried and slackening when she went more slowly, and stopping dead when she paused and looked round, conveyed to her a haunting sense of something sinister, and at the same time greedy and guileful, that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... my lord,' she said, 'be not angry with thy wife. Always the fear was in my heart that some guileful stranger should come here professing to be Odysseus, and that I should take him to me as my husband. How terrible such a thing would be! But now my heart is freed from all doubts. Be not angry with me, Odysseus, for not throwing myself on thy neck, ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... that the most important step towards the solution of the mystery was to lay hold of Nepcote, and to that end he directed his own efforts and that of the service of the great organization at his command. As the days went on, he supplemented his original arrangements for Nepcote's arrest with guileful traps. The female dragon who guarded masculine reputations at 10, Sherryman Street, was badgered into cold anger by pretty girls, who sought with tips and blandishments to glean scraps of information about the missing tenant. Scented letters in female handwriting, marked "Important," appeared ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... who's guileful that a-way. As he sees the little Sue girl archin' for another buck, he pulls out a paper an' makes a bluff. 'Yere it is,—four hundred an' ninety-three dollars an' seventy-four cents. I puts it down all accurate, 'cause I don't allow no ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... readily reply to this kind of incriminating exposure or deny its reality. They therefore overreacted to other judgments that Collins made, particularly to his attacks upon Christian revelation. These they denigrated as misleading, guileful, sinister, contrived, deceitful, insidious, shuffling, covert, subversive. What they objected to was, first, the way in which he reduced the demonstration of Christian revelation to only the "puzzling and perplexing" argument from ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... of lions. Thou hast represented thy king as detested by his subjects, and surrounded by secret treason, but I behold his tents whitening the hills and dales, while thousands are hourly flocking to his standard. Wo unto thee if thou hast dealt deceitfully with us, or betrayed us with guileful words.' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... say that he was not the sonne Of mortal sire or other living wighte, But wondrously begotten and begoune By false illusion of a guileful sprite On ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... tool of Catherine de Medici's," said I, speaking with all the more contempt when I compared the guileful court beauty, Mile. d'Arency, with the pure, sweet woman before me; "one of those creatures whom Catherine called her Flying Squadron, and she betrayed a very honest gentleman ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... is!" she mused uncomfortably. "Here I may not depart for fear a happy-go-lucky young man will play a tin whistle on the steps of the van, and I will not go home. What in the world am I to do with him? Are you an orphan?" she asked with guileful curiosity. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... bade them cover their nakedness with some simple garments, and bade them set forth and depart from paradise into a harder life. Behind them, by God's command, a holy angel with a 945 fiery sword shut the gate of their blissful home of peace and joy; nor may any guileful sin-stained man ever fare thither again, for the warder has might and strength 950 who keeps for the Lord that greater life rich in glories. Yet the Almighty, our First Father, would not take away all comforts from Adam and Eve, though they had fallen away from him: but he still let the lofty roof ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... emotion of his heart. A human face was placed close to the unblemished glass, and every feature was distinctly revealed by the lamp that still lay upon the table. The glaring eye was fixed on the taller of the officers; but though the expression was unfathomably guileful, there was nothing that denoted any thing like a recognition of the party. The brightness of the wood fire had so far subsided as to throw the interior of the room into partial obscurity, and under the disguise of his hood it was impossible for ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... and more perilous that we twain should be longer together. But I would say one thing yet; and maybe another thereafter. Thou hast cast thy love upon one who will be true to thee, whatsoever may befall; yet is she a guileful creature, and might not help it her life long, and now for thy very sake must needs be more guileful now than ever before. And as for me, the guileful, my love have I cast upon a lovely man, and one true and simple, and a stout- ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... similar (the verses excepted) to thousands of consular reports with which "Livres Jaunes" and "Blue Books" have since been filled. The author points out for each country the goods to be imported and exported, and the guileful practices to be feared in foreign parts; he insists on the necessity of England's having a strong navy, and exaggerates the maritime power of rival countries, so that Parliament may vote the necessary supplies. England should be the first on the sea, and able ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way: While subtile Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong: Hark, injur'd Want recounts th' unlisten'd tale, And much-wrong'd Mis'ry pours th' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of the passive state, Till healing Wisdom should avail no more, And Freedom loath to tread the poisoned shore: Then, like some guardian god that flies to save The weary pilgrim from an instant grave, Whom, sleeping and secure, the guileful snake Steals near and nearer thro' the peaceful brake,— Then Curio rose to ward the public woe, To wake the heedless and incite the slow, Against Corruption Liberty to arm. And quell the enchantress by a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and the Reverend John, buffer-state and general confidant, had worked for a week to bring about a good understanding. He was fat, clean-shaven, except for a big mustache, of an imperturbable good temper, and, those who loved him least said, a guileful Jesuit. He smiled benignantly upon his handiwork—four sorely tried men ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... thought of his fevered face and his pitiful little moans and sighs; of the guileful flatteries of Ambition that had deafened her mother ears to the pleadings of her sick babe; of the brilliant theatre and the applause of royalty and of the last moments of her ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... is this true of vaudeville—and the writer daring enough to attempt to administer even homeopathic doses of instruction, must be a master-hand to win. Once in a generation a Shaw may rise, who, by a twist of his pen, can make the public think, while he wears a guileful smile as he propounds philosophy from under a jester's cap; but even then his plays must be edited—as some of Shaw's are—of all but the most dramatic ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... For, sooth to say, it is no sort of life For shepherd fit to live in that same place, Where each one seeks with malice and with strife To thrust down other into foul disgrace Himself to raise; and he doth soonest rise That best can handle his deceitful wit In subtle shifts.... To which him needs a guileful hollow heart Masked with fair dissembling courtesy, A filed tongue furnisht with terms of art, No art of school, but courtiers' schoolery. For arts of school have there small countenance, Counted but toys to busy idle brains, And there professors find small maintenance, But ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... enchanters. His mother was Matilda, a nun, who was seduced by a "guileful sprite," or incubus, "half angel and half man, dwelling in mid-air betwixt the earth and moon." Some say his mother was the daughter of Pubidius, lord of Math-traval, in Wales; and others make her a princess, daughter of Demetius, king of Demet'ia. Blaise baptized the infant, and thus ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... "'tis an excellent strategy in faith, and yet 'twere wiser methinks to suffer me in Roger's place: for being guileful in war, so should I be a very beguiling miller, whereas Roger, an we plastered him with flour, would ne'er be other ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... motive of the woman - the hinge of the whole well-invented plot - until the instant of that highly dramatic declaration. It was not his tale; it was the little people's! And observe: not only was the secret kept, the story was told with really guileful craftsmanship. The conduct of both actors is (in the cant phrase) psychologically correct, and the emotion aptly graduated up to the surprising climax. I am awake now, and I know this trade; and yet I cannot better it. I am awake, and ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... house after us, and demanded our names, which we might reasonably have refused to give till we had been legally convened before some civil magistrate who had power to examine us and demand our names; but we, who were neither guileful nor wilful, simply gave him our names, which he took ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... man may be a surpassingly fine critic, since he recks not of style. Guileful is the woman who leads her liege to the millinery and lets him choose, taking no heed of the price and the attendant shock ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... thy lungs; If, waft'd on the desert's flaming wing, They from the south heap fire upon the brain, Refreshment from the west at first they bring, Anon to drown thyself and field and plain. In wait for mischief, they are prompt to hear; With guileful purpose our behests obey; Like ministers of grace they oft appear, And lisp like angels, to betray. But let us hence! Gray eve doth all things blend, The air grows chill, the mists descend! 'Tis in the evening first our home we prize— Why ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... That guileful practitioner, as might have been expected, had written the article himself; Angouleme and L'Houmeau, thus put on their mettle, thought it incumbent upon them to pay honor to Lucien. His fellow-citizens, assembled in the Place du Murier, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... underminings only us'd; And novel wits, that love none but themselves, Think wisdom's height as falsehood slyly couch'd, Seeking each other to o'erthrow his mate. O friendship! thy old temple is defac'd: Embracing envy,[103] guileful courtesy, Hath overgrown fraud-wanting honesty. Examples live but in the idle schools: Sinon bears all the sway in princes' courts. Sickness, be thou my soul's physician; Bring the apothecary Death with thee. In earth is hell, hell true[104] felicity, Compared ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... sorer to thee than slaughter by shot of shaft. As for thy promise to provide me a store against want however sore and teach me tricks, to plunder whatso bounteous vineyards I please, and spoil fruit-laden trees, how cometh it, O guileful traitor, that thou knowest not a wile to save thyself from destruction? How far art thou from profiting thyself and how far am I from accepting thy counsel! If thou have any tricks, make shift for thyself to save thee from the risk, wherefrom I pray Allah to make thine ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... ears to wash those words away! And couldst thou dream that I ...? I feel impure Still at the very hearing! Know for sure, Woman, naught but mine honour saves ye both. Hadst thou not trapped me with that guileful oath, No power had held me secret till the King Knew all! But now, while he is journeying, I too will go my ways and make no sound. And when he comes again, I shall be found Beside him, silent, watching with what grace Thou and thy mistress shall greet him face to face! ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... they stand, They clear from doubt her brave but wavering band; Colonial charters in their hands they bore, And lawless acts of ministerial power. Some injured right in every page appears, A king in terrors and a land in tears; From all his guileful plots the veil they drew, With eye retortive look'd creation thro, Traced moral nature thro her total plan, Markt all the steps of liberty and man; Crowds rose to reason while their accents rung. And INDEPENDENCE thunder'd from ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... which makes Luther speak of the guileful being looking out of Erasmus's features. His piety is too even for them, too limp. Loyola has testified that the reading of the Enchiridion militis Christiani relaxed his fervour and made his devotion grow cold. He saw that warrior of Christ differently, in the glowing colours of the Spanish-Christian, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... came out from here to say good-bye to me in the garden. She had the opportunity. She was preternaturally animated and demonstrative at the station—your sex's little guileful way ever since the world began. She had the stolen key about her. She's going straight to Jaffery's flat ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke |
