"Ambiguous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warmed to the girl. I respected her brave departure—I rejoiced that it was needless. Willingly I would have quieted her distress with some hopeful, ambiguous word, but that would have been trenching, as no one ever ought to trench, on the lover's sole right. So I held my tongue, watching with an amused pleasure the colour hovering to and fro over that usually impassive face. At last, at the opening of the study-door—we stood ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... discovered, with that cautious perception which is an instinct with rustic minds, that before them stood a man completely ignorant of the customs of the country, and very poorly informed on Claude de Buxieres's affairs. They made no scruple of mystifying this "city gentleman," by means of ambiguous statements and cunning reticence. The young man could get no enlightenment from them; all he clearly understood was, that they were making fun of him, and that he was not able to cope with these country ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... man has received." MIGHT seem!! The passage alluded to expresses, that if Mr. Gilchrist be the reviewer of "a certain poet of nature," his praise and blame are equally contemptible."—Mr. Bowles, who has a peculiarly ambiguous style, where it suits him, comes off with a "not to the poet, but the critic," &c. In my humble opinion, the passage referred to both. Had Mr. Bowles really meant fairly, he would have said so from the first—he would have been eagerly transparent.—"A ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... signified by them has not more than one appellation; nor by paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot be described. When the nature of things is unknown, or the notion unsettled and indefinite, and various in various minds, the words by which such notions are conveyed, or such things denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... my visit to the Fox family. The spirits of our deceased relatives and friends announced themselves, and generally gave a correct account of their earthly lives. I must confess, however, that, whenever we attempted to pry into the future, we usually received answers as ambiguous as those of the Grecian oracles, or predictions which failed to be realized. Violent knocks or other unruly demonstrations would sometimes interrupt an intelligent communication which promised us some light on the other life: ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
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