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Untrustworthy   /əntrˈəstwˌərði/   Listen
Untrustworthy

adjective
1.
Not worthy of trust or belief.  Synonym: untrusty.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Untrustworthy" Quotes from Famous Books



... difficult to guess more than approximately, for the thick, peaked beard that hid both mouth and chin made him look older than he really was. His beard had been his only drawback from Diana's point of view, for she judged men by their mouths. Eyes were untrustworthy evidences of character in an Oriental, for they usually wavered under a European's. Mustafa Ali's were wavering now as she looked at him, and it occurred to her that they had not seemed nearly so shifty in Biskra when she had engaged him. But she attached no importance ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... overcome the fixed idea of these men, who seemed to enjoy so much the cleverness of their suspicions. It was the most dangerous of tempers to deal with. It made them as untrustworthy as so many lunatics. They were capable of anything, of decoying us alongside, and stoving the bottom out of the boat, and drowning us before they discovered their mistake, if they ever did. Even as it ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... the conspiracy entered into in B.C. 64. [113] Per ignaviam, 'by means of cowardice,' here means, 'with the assistance of cowardly men,' 'such as you are not, since I have evidence of your valour and trustworthiness.' Vana ingenia are men of untrustworthy character. In both cases the abstract quality is mentioned instead of the person possessing it. [114] Diversi, 'separately;' that is, at different times, and in different places. [115] Tetrarcha is a title which properly belonged only to such princes as ruled over the fourth part of a whole ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)

... I shouldn't wonder if that was one reason for his being so untrustworthy, Dolly. Maybe if he finds that we are going to trust him, it will change him, and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart

... of man! Frail, untrustworthy, perishable—yet able to stand unlimited agony, cope with the greatest forces of Nature and build against a thousand years. Passion can blind it—yet it can read in infinity the difference between right and wrong. Alcohol can unsettle it—yet it can create ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney

... called "gameness," and even more than Smith he appreciated the commingling of Scotch shrewdness and Indian craft. He believed Susie to be honest; but he had believed many things in the past which time had not demonstrated to be facts. No, the chance was too great to take; for should she prove untrustworthy or indiscreet, his mission would be a failure. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... say this Invention was found out to entertain Spinola when he came thither to treat of the last Truce." Upon this wonder, which I did not see, civilisation has now improved, the wind being but a captious and untrustworthy servant compared with petrol or steam. None the less there is still a very rapid ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... come in question. But take the third case. A man of ability discovers that the documents which are necessary for the treatment of a point of history are in a very bad condition; they are scattered, corrupt, and untrustworthy. He must take his choice; either he must abandon the subject, having no taste for the mechanical operations which he knows to be necessary, but which, as he foresees, would absorb the whole of his energy; or else he resolves ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... vigilance. But even this was ascribed to weakness and cowardice. Latterly our people have been represented by influential statesmen and on hundreds of platforms in England as incompetent, uncivilised, dishonourable, untrustworthy, corrupt, bloodthirsty, treacherous, etc., etc., so that not only the British public, but nearly the whole world, began to believe that we stood on the same level as the wild beasts. In the face of these ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... general rule I steer clear of friendships with men who are very much opposed to me in character; it saves a lot of bother in the end. However, in this case, although I believed Howard to be a weak, worthless, untrustworthy individual, I could not help liking him. He was talented and of a pleasing—at least to me—personality. When I came into his room he was sitting reading in a long ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... was comparative affluence, for Bruce had not yet learned that clothes are unsafe standards by which to judge the resources of city folks, just as on the plains and in the mountains faded overalls and a ragged shirt are equally untrustworthy guides to a man's financial rating. And the musty odor that met him in the gloomy hallway—he felt how she must loathe it. He had wondered at the early hour she'd set but when Helen came ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... enjoyed it." This charming manner, which was the outward expression of an inborn kindliness, won her entirely to his side before the bed-making was over. That any one so frank and pleasant, with such nice boyish eyes, and so rich a colour, should prove untrustworthy, was unbelievable to that part of her which ruled her judgment. And since this ruling part was not reason, but instinct, she possessed, perhaps, as infallible a guide to opinions as ever falls to the lot of erring humanity. "I know he's all right. Don't ask me ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... composure, "sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Animals are mighty queer." And here Tommy went off in an animated, but, I regret to say, utterly untruthful and untrustworthy account of the habits of California fauna, until he ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... should at that rude period have so firmly rooted themselves in the mind of the governing class; but that their object was rather to consolidate their own power and advance that of the city than to instruct mankind, is clear from the totally untrustworthy character of the special gentile records; and when history began to be cultivated in a literary way, we do not observe any higher motive at work. Fabius and Cincius wrote in Greek, partly, no doubt, because in the unformed state of their own language it was easier to do so; but that ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... it is concluded that similar organic forms were once more widely spread than now, is doubly fallacious; and, consequently, the classifications of foreign strata based on the conclusion are untrustworthy. Judging from the present distribution of life, we cannot expect to find similar remains in geographically remote strata of the same age; and where, between the fossils of geographically remote strata, we do find much similarity, it is probably due rather to likeness of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... hundred people meeting for such an object—what an idea! Three would be too many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all collapses. Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the notes—what a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his life! Better hang ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... development as well as upon the external facts of his career. Without the Koran and the four genuine Epistles of Paul, we should be nearly as much in the dark concerning these great men as we now are concerning the historical Jesus. We should be compelled to rely, in the one case, upon the untrustworthy gossip of Mussulman chroniclers, and in the other case upon the garbled statements of the "Acts of the Apostles," a book written with a distinct dogmatic purpose, sixty or seventy years after the occurrence of the events which it ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... "I fancy you must have been rather 'out of form,' as they say; everybody has his stupid days, and you can't keep up to concert pitch forever. To return to the case. The evidence of the chopper was very untrustworthy, especially when I had heard of Goujon's careless habits—losing shovels and leaving coal-scuttles on stairs. Nothing more likely than for the chopper to be left lying about, and a criminal who had calculated his chances would know the advantage to himself of using ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... you that Nogam is untrustworthy—" he began, meaning to continue: Karslake will stand his ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... the World.—A nation's most valuable property is its boys. A nation which has poor, weakly, vicious boys will have still weaker, more vicious and untrustworthy men. A country with noble, virtuous, vigorous boys, is equally sure of having noble, pious, brave, and energetic men. Whatever debases, contaminates, or in any way injures the boys of a country, saps ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... the next point, this loader took his place in the ranks, and cheerfully received his orders from some comrade, who, the day before, had been as willingly obedient to him. There was little place in the rodeo for weak, incompetent or untrustworthy men. Each owner, from his long experience and knowledge of men, sent as his representatives the most skillful and conscientious riders that he could secure. To make a top hand at a rodeo a man needed to be, in the ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... in the Epistles to the Corinthians and Hebrews . . . and of those, on the other, who because there are some palpable interpolations and marks of comparatively late date in some of the texts, assert broadly that they are all untrustworthy and valueless as evidence. This view I venture to think," he adds, "equally uncritical and groundless with ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... get confused again—my head's going round—and so, for the second alternative: I spend here only fifteen hundred out of the three thousand, that is, only half. Next day I go and take that half to her: 'Katya, take this fifteen hundred from me, I'm a low beast, and an untrustworthy scoundrel, for I've wasted half the money, and I shall waste this, too, so keep me from temptation!' Well, what of that alternative? I should be a beast and a scoundrel, and whatever you like; but not a thief, not altogether a thief, or I should not have brought back ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... naturally hasty and untrustworthy, of doubtful birthright, and now rejected by the Church, John must have rather expected resistance than support from the great men of the realm. He tried to assure himself of those he suspected by taking hostages ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... will wisely ignore all such interpretation, and for two reasons: first, because Spenser's allegories are too shadowy to be taken seriously; and second, because as a chronicler of the times he is outrageously partisan and untrustworthy. In short, to search for any reality in The Faery Queen is to spoil the poem as a work of the imagination. "If you do not meddle with the allegory," said Hazlitt, "the allegory will not meddle ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... the man who can practise it skilfully and apply it sagaciously is on the high road to fortune, and why? Because to know it thoroughly is to know whom to trust and how far; to select wisely a friend, a confidant, a partner in any enterprise; to shun the untrustworthy, to anticipate and turn to our personal advantage the merits, faults, and deficiencies of all, and to evolve from their character such practical results as we may choose for our own ends; but a thorough knowledge is attained only by incessant observation and long practice; like music, it demands ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... Rachel, "may she never be out of your influence, or be left to untrustworthy hands. I should have been much better if I had had either father or brother to keep me in order. Poor child, she has a wonderful charm, not all my fancy, Alick. And yet there is one whose real working talent has been more than that of any ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Long Tom—aboard. Nothing daunted, he started out with this armament, to which some twenty muskets were added, on a privateering cruise in the channel, which was full of British cruisers. Even the Long Tom proved untrustworthy, so recourse was finally had to carrying the enemy by boarding; and in this way four valuable prizes were taken, of which three were sent home with prize crews. But a gale carried away the "Leo's" foremast, and she fell a prey to an English frigate which ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... A dark shadow fell over his government. As difficulties thickened and resistance grew everywhere more determined, the President showed himself harsher and less scrupulous in the choice of his means. The men about him were untrustworthy; to crush them, he filled the offices of government with relatives and creatures of his own who were at once tyrannous and incapable. Thwarted and checked, he met opposition by imprisonment and measures of violence, suspended ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... not always go together in this world. Last of all, it must be observed, that no very weighty secrets were entrusted to me: I bore no letters; and I had been told no more of affairs in general than such as any quick and intelligent man might pick up for himself. Even should I prove untrustworthy or indiscreet, or even turn traitor, no very great harm would be done. If, upon the other hand, I proved ready and capable, all that I could learn in England and, later perhaps, in France, would serve me well in the carrying out of weightier designs ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever. He did not know that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton with truth. He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and now out of the night Soolsby came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the authority of the Church should never have been impaired in the Reformation. Or rather, in his view of that movement, this authority, for truly Christian men, had never been impaired. The intellect is aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy. Its action in religious matters is corrosive, dissolving, sceptical. 'Man's energy of intellect must be smitten hard and thrown back by infallible authority, if religion is to be saved at all.' Newman's philosophy was utterly sceptical, although, unlike most absolute philosophical sceptics, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... seven this morning in the small, unseaworthy, untrustworthy, unrigged steam-launch Moosmee, and after crawling for some hours at a speed of about five miles an hour along brown and yellow shores with a broad, dark belt of palms above them, we left the waveless, burning sea behind, and after a few miles ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... been eyeing the grocer's stock with a curious intensity, immediately became animated and bought a tin of salmon. He went out of the shop with the rest of the money in his hand, for the pockets of his clothes were old and untrustworthy. At the baker's he ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... reputation all over this part of the Amazons, the semi-civilised Indians being quite as severe upon them as the white settlers. Everyone spoke of them as lazy, thievish, untrustworthy, and cruel. They have a greater repugnance than any other class of Indians to settled habits, regular labour, and the service of the whites; their distaste, in fact, to any approximation towards civilised life is invincible. Yet most of these faults are only ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... She frowned,—an untrustworthy frown that was tinged with laughter. "One meets so many people! Yes, it really is frightfully warm, Colonel Grimshaw; they ought to open ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... good order; their assortment of machine tools was admirable. Mr. Fawcett, who accompanied me, was full in his praises of my master, whom he regarded as the greatest pioneer in the substitution of the unerring accuracy of machine tools for the often untrustworthy results ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... town in Scotland, lost Mannering the estate of Ellangowan, and threw the ancient seat of many generations of Bertrams into the clutches of the scoundrelly Glossin. For Colonel Mannering instantly posted off to the south, having first of all sent despatches to Mr. Mac-Morlan by the untrustworthy postilion—the same who arrived a day too ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... they were steadily and insidiously influencing mother against me. We were drifting apart. Mother had through them acquired the belief that I was a rude and untrustworthy fellow, and she feared my boatmen companions were weaning me from her. Whereas I kept away from the house because the Downeses were there. I couldn't stand ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... fastened securely in your own room. But you will have one friend at home. Nancy, I believe, like myself, would do much to serve you, although she is obliged for her own safety, to pretend that she considers you both dangerous and untrustworthy.' ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... man he did not regard women as untrustworthy or unequal to a task requiring courage and judgment. Once he got over the personal feeling he handed the ring to Jorgenson with only one reservation, "You know, Tuan, that she must on no account put ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... apologised for not having forwarded the 3,000 roubles income due on the 1st. This money would be sent on by the next mail. The reason for the delay was that he could not get the money out of the peasants, who had grown so untrustworthy that he had to appeal to the authorities. This letter was partly disagreeable, and partly pleasant. It was pleasant to feel that he had power over so large a property, and yet disagreeable, because Nekhludoff had been an enthusiastic admirer of Henry George and Herbert Spencer. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... between certain accepted and traditional cosmologies and a scientific interpretation of the terrestrial globe and the forms of life which flourish upon it. Finding the supposed sacred and infallible records untrustworthy in one regard, he began to question their veracity at other points. Being of a critical frame of mind, he took the records rather more literally than a sympathetic, allegorical apologist would have done, although ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing

... thine actions are loyal, but, Rolf, thy words are neither wise nor true. It is not wise to attempt to shake my confidence in my followers, and it is not true that many of them are untrustworthy. But, if thou wouldst prove thyself a real friend, go, get thy longships ready with all speed, for we fare south a few days hence, and there will be work for the weapons of stout men ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... established facts in Columbus's life, has proved a sound guide in nautical matters; while the monograph of Mr. Elton, which apparently did not promise much at first, since the author has followed some untrustworthy leaders as regards his facts, proved to be full of a fragrant charm produced by the writer's knowledge of and interest in sub-tropical vegetation; and it is delightfully filled with the names of gums and spices. To Mr. Vignaud I owe ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... the words are true. There is a curse upon the earth: though not one which, by altering the laws of nature, has made natural facts untrustworthy. There is a curse on the earth; such a curse as is expressed, I believe, in the old Hebrew text, where the word "admah"—correctly translated in our version "the ground"—signifies, as I am told, not this planet, but simply the soil from whence ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... projects that varied widely with each succeeding interview. The greater number of his former friends and acquaintances were scattered or dead, and those who remembered him had their hands too full to do more than say a good word for him—saying it, too, more and more faintly as they saw how broken and untrustworthy he was. The story of his behavior on the ship, and correct surmises of the true cause of his manner and appearance, soon became current in business circles, and the half-pitying, half-contemptuous manner of those with whom he ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... of the MS. of a work of which many other copies exist, but of an unique specimen; in short, of the MS. of a work which, on the faith of one single mention, was believed to have been composed thirteen centuries ago. This mention, however, appeared to many critical scholars so untrustworthy, that they looked upon it as the mere result of confusion. Another most important difference is, that this search, which has lasted three years, has been followed by the happiest results: it has brought to light a MS. which, even in this century, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... written evidence be too untrustworthy, there are silent witnesses which cannot lie, that tell the same touching story. Whoever loiters among the ruins of a monastery will see, commonly leading out of the cloisters, rows of cellars half under-ground, low, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... than her boy husband. From numerous sarcastic references to marriage made by the characters in his plays, and from the fact that he soon left his wife and family and went to London, it is generally alleged that the marriage was a hasty and unhappy one; but here again the evidence is entirely untrustworthy. In many Miracles as well as in later plays it was customary to depict the seamy side of domestic life for the amusement of the crowd; and Shakespeare may have followed the public taste in this as he did in other things. The references to love and home and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... with great men because they are cold; but they could not be great men if they were not cold. A physician is often preferred by a family or patient because he is "so sympathizing," as they call it. They forget that a physician is necessarily untrustworthy in the degree that he is sympathetic with his patients. A physician may be thoroughly kind, and out of his kindness there may grow a gentle manner which seems to spring from sympathy; but I say unhesitatingly that in the degree by which a ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... enemies—which may not be in accordance with the Gospel, but I have found it a good wearing creed for honest men." [But he only regarded as "enemies" those whom he found to be double-dealers, shufflers, insincere, untrustworthy; a fair opponent he respected, and he could agree to differ with a ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... Privy Council were weary of Culpeper's neglect of duty. They decided to rid themselves of so untrustworthy an officer and to appoint in his place a man that would remain in the colony and carry out their wishes and policies. An inquisition was held upon his conduct, and his letters patent as Governor-General were declared ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... for a brief period, then turned on his heel. This was the first act in the play. At the fellow's table sat Lieutenant von Stoerer, Doppelkinn's nephew and heir-presumptive. He was, to speak plainly, a rake, a spendthrift and wholly untrustworthy. ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... (Western extremity of N. G.), seeing that we have in reality found the land to be an unbroken coast, which in the chart is marked as islands, such as Ceram and the Papues, owing to misunderstanding and untrustworthy information. ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... so patient. They are mothers and wage-earners and sick nurses, too; they're not the sort of women you describe. Perhaps," she added, with one of her fatal impulses toward concession, "perhaps your friends are untrustworthy and spiteful, as ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... Lorimer's. Under these conditions, he was powerless to act. Moreover, he felt a sudden impatience with Beatrix for allowing the champagne in her own home, when she had learned from months of bitter experience that a single glass could render Lorimer totally untrustworthy. If this were the measure of her influence for good, she might as well have married Lorimer in the first place, without insisting upon those long months of probation. As he had watched the progress of that merry supper in Arlt's honor, Thayer ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... going to wear a horsehair ring, like Belle makes Mamie Sue do, to remind me not to forget and tell. I thought I was stronger-minded than that, but I see I'm not. You see, leather Louise, I must be more trustworthy than just any girl; for if I'm untrustworthy, then it will be a tragedy, because it will prove that I inherited it and so be an evidence against Father in my own mind ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... received by society than you or I will be. You will find when you get free that your position will be very different from what it was, and that anything you say will be viewed with suspicion, as coming from a prejudiced and untrustworthy person, and a well-told falsehood by an official will far outweigh the whole truth if related ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... barrister with antiquarian tastes—was dining with me in my Cornish home, and the talk after dinner fell upon the weekly papers and reviews. On The Speaker he touched with a reticence which I set down at first to dislike for his politics. By and by, however, he let slip the word "untrustworthy." ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the enemy (who, by the rapidity of their movements and their fondness for sallies, were always threatening the northern provinces like a torrent) from extending their inroads any further he was superseded by a count named Maurus, a man cruel, ferocious, fickle, and untrustworthy. This man, as we have related in our account of preceding transactions being one of Julian's body-guard to whom the defence of the palace was expressly committed, while that prince was doubting about accepting the imperial authority, took the chain ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... "And now there is nothing in the way of it." She drew her thumb across the leaf-corners of a book that was lying on the table. "Oh, I know what you will say: how, now that Ephie has turned out to be weak and untrustworthy, there is all the more reason for me to remain with her, to look after her. But that is not possible." She faced him sharply, as though he had contradicted her. "I am incapable of pretending to be the same when my feelings have changed; and, as I told you—as I knew that ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... that Shylock was lending money on at all the same international scale. When communication was slow, difficult, and untrustworthy, money-lending at a distance was made very risky, because it was impossible for the lender to keep the watchful eye on the borrower's operations and credit that is required if he is to feel comfortable in his venture. For a Lombard Street banker to lend ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... "I do not see how you will be holpen by coming to me, and you men of the forest are untrustworthy. But it is ill to live alone; I have no choice. Only he shall be with me who is willing to work at whatever ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... a strange place and its customs are peculiar; nor is any man who has not spent at least ten seasons there qualified to pass judgment on circumstantial evidence. which is the most untrustworthy in the Courts. For these reasons, and for others which need not appear, I decline to state positively whether there was anything irretrievably wrong in the relations between the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid. If there was, and hereon you must form your own opinion, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... is nothing left but a mocking void. Jem Agar lay on his mattress beneath the awning, and stared hard at a bright star near the horizon. He was realising that life is, after all, a sorry thing of chance, and that all his world might be hanging at that moment on the word of an untrustworthy man. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... Slipperiness was perhaps his ruling characteristic, a softness of movement suggesting a cat, and a habit of putting out and drawing back a long, supple, snake-like hand which made you think of a pickpocket. Eyes that looked at you steadily enough impressed you as untrustworthy chiefly because of a dropping of the pupil of ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... the essay (XVI.) which treats of the narrative of the Deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such event as that described ever took place; to exhibit the untrustworthy character of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism; and, finally, to account for its origin, by producing a form of those ancient legends of pagan Chaldaea, from which the biblical compilation is manifestly derived. I have ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... danger. But now that he is out upon the open ocean, he is sure of the first, and keenly apprehensive of the last. For, in less than a single day's sailing, he has discovered that the sailors, besides counting short, are otherwise untrustworthy. Several of them are not sailors at all, but "longshore" men; one or two mere "land-lubbers," who never laid hand upon a ship's rope before clutching those of the Condor. With such, what chance will there be for working ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... industrial organization should know the ins and outs of the thinking machine on which they depend for guidance. With such knowledge each brain will give the greatest results, and without such knowledge the best brain may be untrustworthy. ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness

... limited to 75,000 to 82,000 pounds. Such a marked advantage occurs from the use of high tension steel in compression members, and the danger of sudden failure of a properly made strut is so little, that future practice will favor the use of hard steel in compression, unless the material should prove untrustworthy. In columns, even as long as forty diameters, steel of 90,000 pounds tenacity will exceed the mildest steel 35 per cent., or iron 50 per cent., in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various

... view! For if it had been so, not merely the virtues and vices of the mind would be easily visible, but also its knowledge of branches of study, displayed to the contemplation of the eyes, would not need testing by untrustworthy powers of judgement, but a singular and lasting influence would thus be lent to the learned and wise. However, since they are not so constructed, but are as nature willed them to be, it is impossible for men, while natural abilities are concealed in the ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... century, composed on hints furnished by Dante, and obscure documents of the Compagni family, and expressed in language that has little of the fourteenth century. The one regards it as a faithful narrative, deficient only in minor details of accuracy. The other stigmatizes it as a wholly untrustworthy forgery, and calls attention to numberless mistakes, confusions, misconceptions, and misrepresentations of events, which place its genuineness beyond the pale of possibility. After a careful consideration of Scheffer's, Fanfani's, Gino Capponi's, and Isidoro del Lungo's arguments, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... of Ferroll might be said to have been brooding over the position of what he could scarcely call his country, but rather an aggregation of lands baptized by protocols, and christened and consolidated by treaties which he looked upon as eminently untrustworthy. One day he surprised his sovereign, with whom he was a favourite, by requesting to be appointed to the legation at London, which was vacant. The appointment was at once made, and the Count of Ferroll had now been two years at the Court of ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... and difficult climb the accident was to take place. The very choice of a guide was in itself a confirmation of Chayne's fears. It was a piece of subtlety altogether in keeping with Garratt Skinner. He had taken a bad and untrustworthy guide on one of the most difficult expeditions in the range of Mont Blanc. Why, he would be asked? And the answer was ready. He had confused Pierre Delouvain with Joseph, his cousin, as no doubt many another man had done before. Did not Pierre live on that very confusion? The answer was not capable ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... hands, rose to the height of a desperate occasion, and fought in so resolute a fashion that he was not outdone by the tigerish Basil or the cold-blooded Jerome. The arch-plotter, who kept by the side of his untrustworthy recruit, was astonished at the reckless valour he displayed. Truth to tell, Jerome was half inclined to believe that Windybank had played a double part, and was responsible for the admiral's knowledge of the plot for ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... God and a future life retire into the background; not as finally disproved,—because denial, like affirmation, must, in order to be final, be logically supported; and spirit is, if not illogical, at any rate outside the domain of logic,—but as being a hopelessly vague and untrustworthy hypothesis. The Bible is a human book; Christ was a gentleman, related to the Buddha and Plato families; Joseph was an ill- used man; death, so far as we have any reason to believe, is annihilation of personal existence; life is—the predicament ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... charge was common that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all, and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at six different times resolutions were presented to ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... insists, if you compare Sir Henry Lee's dates with the facts, that Shakespeare died twenty years at least before he actually died. The historical basis, again, of Woodstock and of Redgauntlet is thoroughly untrustworthy, and about all the minuter details of history,—unless so far as they were characteristic of the age,—I do not suppose that Scott in his romances ever troubled himself at all. And yet few historians—not ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... we gradually arrive at the conclusion that the visible attribute of a varying individual is perhaps the most untrustworthy and the most unreliable character for selection, even if it seems in many cases practically to be the only available one. The direct determination of the degree of heredity itself is obviously preferable by far. This degree is expressed by the proportion of its ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... way with mediums," said I. "I have had a good deal of experience with them, and I've come to the conclusion that they all, even the most untrustworthy of them, start with at least some small basis of abnormal power. Is it not rather suggestive that the number of practising mediums does not materially increase? If it were a mere matter of deception, would there ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... few of the humble who are untrustworthy. Continually we discover the great truth that faithfulness and loyalty are general human traits, nowhere more so than among those from whom they should not be expected; nowhere more so than among those who are ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... Colley Grattan, Civilized America, 2 vols. 2nd ed., London, 1859, Vol. I, pp. 284-87. The first edition was printed in 1859 and a third in 1861. In some respects the work is historically untrustworthy since internal evidence makes clear that the greater part of it was written before 1846, in which year Grattan retired from his post in Boston. In general he wrote scathingly of America, and as his son succeeded to the Boston consulship, Grattan probably thought it wiser ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the child has no rights. The only safeguard is the fact that if parents are absolutely brutal, society steps in, removes the untrustworthy guardian, and appoints another. But society does nothing, can do nothing, with the parent who injures the child's soul, breaks his will, makes him grow up a liar or a coward, or murders his faith. It is not very long since we decided that when a parent brutally abused his child, it could ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... travellers returned to Venice. The Pope was dead, and they waited two years fruitlessly for a successor to be elected. As, then, they did not wish the Great Khan to believe them untrustworthy, they decided to return to the Far East, and on this journey they took with them Nicolo's son, Marco Polo, aged ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... of course, what you refer to. I have not myself found any reason to consider Felgate or Stafford untrustworthy. Mr ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... stings of his conscience, though they were painful, did not hurt him so much as those of his feelings. He had owned to himself on this occasion that Crocker must go. Crocker was in every way distasteful to him. He was not only untrustworthy and incapable, but audacious also, and occasionally impudent. He was a clerk of whom he had repeatedly said that it would be much better to pay him his salary and let him have perpetual leave of absence, than keep him even if there were ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... decrees here mentioned are, in the printed text of Delgado, respectively 1692 and 1602—some of the numerous errors which render that text untrustworthy as to dates. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... wherefore Seneca says (De Ira i): "Reason by itself suffices not only to make us prepared for action but also to accomplish it. In fact is there greater folly than for reason to seek help from anger? the steadfast from the unstaid, the trusty from the untrustworthy, the healthy from the sick?" Therefore a brave man should not make ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... the flexible form, and listens to the words that he would admire, only the cynical suspicion is in his mind that she is talking for effect. His general habit was to consider all women mercenary and untrustworthy. Deep in his heart—for he had a heart, though contracted from want of use—lay a hungry desire to be loved, really loved for himself; and the very keenness of the longing, and the anxiety not to be ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... greatest of the Greek physical philosophers, was a native of Abdera in Thrace, or as some say—probably wrongly—of Miletus (Diog. Lart. ix. 34). Our knowledge of his life is based almost entirely on tradition of an untrustworthy kind. He seems to have been born about 470 or 460 B.C., and was, therefore, an older contemporary of Socrates. He inherited a considerable property, which enabled him to travel widely in the East in search of information. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... to Marcus by the Iazyges, requesting peace, but they did not obtain any. For Marcus, knowing their race to be untrustworthy, and, furthermore, because he had been deceived by the Quadi, wished to annihilate them absolutely. [Footnote: Reading [Greek: exelein] (Boissevain) in place of the MS. [Greek: exelthein].] The Quadi had not only made alliances at this time with the Iazyges, but previously, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... the vehicles and varnishes with which they are mixed. Many of these have been blamed, and often with justice, for their injurious effects on pigments. The reputation of the most permanent colour may be ruined, if the vehicle, &c., employed with it be untrustworthy. The presence of lead, for instance, in such materials renders them liable to be blackened by foul air, and by consequence ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... the antecedents of the applicant' any 'such question as "Does he habitually use family prayers and private devotions?"' Neither are the funds of devout shareholders and depositors at all safer than those of the profane when entrusted to the custody of untrustworthy directors, not even though the day's work of the undertaking commence, as that of the disastrous Royal British Bank used to do, with ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... nothing to say about extravagant or untrustworthy wives, who do not come into the subject at all. I am only referring to the magnificent multitude of good, careful, thrifty, typical American wives, whose sole aim in life is to make a happy home for husband and children. Nor am I denying that these women have all their wishes granted, ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit to your noble city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a moment's untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built upon the rock of experience that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to them through the breath of life, Liverpool stood foremost ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... goes through a complicated process of abatement in the way of discounts for six and twelve months' bills, fines for renewal, payments to banks for advances and the like—the 'clean' sums available at any given moment bear quite fantastic and untrustworthy relations to their nominal representatives. It may be strongly suspected, from the admitted decrease of a very valuable practice under Walter Scott pere, and from its practical disappearance under Thomas, that the genius of the Scott ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... intelligent Socialism point, that collective handling which is already urgently needed if the present uncontrolled waste of natural resources and the ultimate bankruptcy of mankind is to be avoided, is quite beyond the capacity of such assemblies; already there is too much in their clumsy and untrustworthy hands, and the only course open to us is an attempt at enlightened Individualism, an attempt to limit and restrict State activities in every possible way, and to make little private temporary islands of light and refinement amidst the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... will find his fleet untrustworthy. The Egyptian sailors hate the Phoenicians. Therefore we can risk a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... multifarious works. Read him wherever you will, in the ninety-seven volumes (equivalent, probably, in the aggregate, to three hundred volumes like the present) which, in one leading edition, collect his productions,—you may often find him superficial, you may often find him untrustworthy, you will certainly often find him flippant, but not less certainly you will never find him obscure, and you will never find him dull. The clearness, the vivacity, of this man's mind were something almost ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... 'Le style c'est l'homme,' is not altogether true as to the character of Cassiodorus. From his inflated and tawdry style we might have expected to find him an untrustworthy friend and an inefficient administrator. This, however, was not the case. As was before said, his character was not heroic; he was, perhaps, inclined to humble himself unduly before mere power and rank, and he had the fault, common to most rhetoricians, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... cheek bones were high and his jaw square and cruel. He settled into his coat-collar the way a cat shortens its neck when it purrs. He, too, was purring, from gratification, perhaps, at having his portrait painted; but, wholly untrustworthy himself, he distrusted the world and held ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce

... your services," went on the old man coldly. "That a Carmody should prove himself absolutely untrustworthy and unreliable is beyond my ken. I do not intend to take you to task for your manner of living. It is a course many have chosen with varying results. You have made your bed—now lie in it. I need only say that I am bitterly disappointed in my ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... himself is, it is equally manifest that his own convictions constitute the matrix in which the discourses and events are imbedded, and that there is nothing in this matrix to render that which it contains unreal or untrustworthy. ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth

... the whole missionary enterprise. While steaming up the Bay of Bengal, the anti-mission chorus appeared at its critical best. J.W. was told as they neared Calcutta that the Indian Christian was servile, and slick and totally untrustworthy. Never had these expert observers seen a genuine convert, but only hypocrites, liars, petty thieves, ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... from the other clerks. He was too quiet and reserved for the wilder spirits, too much of a gentleman for others, and in the eyes of the managers, and especially of the senior partner, a disgraced, untrustworthy youth foisted on the office by Mr. Castleford's weak partiality. That old Mr. Frith had, Clarence used to say, a perfectly venomous way of accepting his salute, and seemed always surprised and disappointed if he came in in time, or showed up correct ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... they might have fabricated or suborned to prove any one of them. It is only the strength and fairness of the hands they hold that is uncertain. Against that you have your certain uncontested possession, the peculiar character and antecedents of this 'Lige Curtis, which would make his evidence untrustworthy and even make it difficult for them to establish his identity. I am told that his failure to contest your appropriation of his property is explained by the fact of his being absent from the country most of the time; but again, this would not ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... whom Sulla had rendered services on their way. Marius was in an awkward position. His declining the suggestion would probably lead to a breach; his accepting it would throw his most aristocratic and bravest officer into the hands of a man more than untrustworthy, who, as every one knew, played a double game with the Romans and with Jugurtha, and who seemed almost to have contrived the scheme for the purpose of obtaining for himself provisional hostages from both sides in the persons of Jugurtha and Sulla. But the wish to terminate the war outweighed ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... of the public mind and inflaming the passions. It is a wise procedure. But at that time the police were too uniformly successful from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. It was annoying and began to look dangerous. At last we came to the conclusion that there must be some untrustworthy elements amongst the London groups. And I came over to see ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... the law, and the isochronism of the pendulum was discovered. An immensely important practical discovery this, for upon it all modern clocks are based; and Huyghens soon applied it to the astronomical clock, which up to that time had been a crude and quite untrustworthy instrument. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... since she has the most certain knowledge of those things which she understands by mind and reason, however that knowledge may be limited by our corruptible body. She believes also the evidence of the senses, which the mind uses through the body, for he is miserably deceived who regards them as untrustworthy. She believes also the holy Scriptures, which ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... power, possessed of infallibility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of human affairs, for smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of the aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy intellect:—and in saying this, as in the other things that I have to say, it must still be recollected that I am all along bearing in mind my main purpose, which is ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... retain nearly every moral and manly virtue, and become a heroic rider and reiver, and hero of song. But if you swindle me out of twenty shillings' worth of quality on each of a hundred bargains, I lose my hundred pounds all the same, and I get a hundred untrustworthy articles besides, which will fail me and injure me in all manner of ways, when I least expect it; and you, having done your thieving basely, are corrupted by the guilt of it to the ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... that is kindly and soothing for mortals, adding honor, has often made things, at first untrustworthy, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... untrustworthy. He roused their suspicions by constant attempts to mislead them, and eventually he had to point the way with a rope round his neck. Nevertheless, they met with no actual opposition during the whole journey other than a few stray ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... thought him shifty, cruel, and untrustworthy, yet in so far as she had reason to believe he had proved himself in every way the contrary since the day before. It scarce seemed credible that he could be serving her from motives purely chivalrous. There must be something ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... &c. v.; enigmatic, paradoxical, apocryphal, problematical, hypothetical; experimental &c. 463. unpredictable, unforeseeable (unknowable) 519. fallible, questionable, precarious, slippery, ticklish, debatable, disputable; unreliable, untrustworthy. contingent, contingent on, dependent on; subject to; dependent on circumstances; occasional; provisional. unauthentic, unauthenticated, unauthoritative; unascertained, unconfirmed; undemonstrated; untold, uncounted. in a state of uncertainty, in a cloud, in a maze; bushed, off ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... been obliged to take this step to save it, and requested that the minister might be told to retire during the conversation, as he had already shown his partiality for the characters whom his Majesty had stigmatized as low, intriguing, and untrustworthy—as ruiners of his good name and his kingdom, and the cause of ill-feeling between the British Government and himself. The King expressed a wish that the minister might remain, that he might have an opportunity to listen to what Captain Bird ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... Jutes came first. In 449, says the Celtic legend (the date is quite untrustworthy), they landed in Kent, where they first settled in Ruim, which we English call Thanet—then really an island, and gradually spread themselves over the mainland, capturing the great Roman fortress of Rochester and coast land as far as London. Though the details of this ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... structures comparable with those of Yucatan." If the only grounds for this statement are, that almost no ruins now remain in that country, and that the early accounts of Spanish writers, of what they themselves saw, are considered, by him, untrustworthy, the weight of probability seems, to the writer of this paper, on the contrary, to lie in quite the other direction. When Cortez left Havana, in 1519, he visited Cozumel, famous for its beautiful temples, and Centla, and certain other towns ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... at Hook-and-Line that night in fear of the sea that was running. She rode so deep in the water, and her planks and rigging and sticks were at best so untrustworthy, that her skipper would not take her to sea. Next morning, however—and Archie subsequently recalled it—next morning the wind blew fair for the southern ports. Out put the old craft into a rising breeze ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... manner of absurdities and errors. The statements of party politicians and party newspapers on most controversial subjects are prejudiced and inaccurate; but there is no subject upon which the professional misleaders of the people are so untrustworthy and so disingenuous as they are upon the subject of Socialism."[26] A leading Socialist organ complained: "Our opponents decline to deal with the fundamental principles of Socialism—its unanswerable indictment of the capitalist ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... that Pendennis is not a fine fellow. He is not as weak, as selfish, as untrustworthy as that George Osborne whom Amelia married in Vanity Fair; but nevertheless, he is weak, and selfish, and untrustworthy. He is not such a one as a father would wish to see his son, or a mother to welcome ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... of George Hodder, "Mr. Punch's Origin and Career," and Mr. Joseph Hatton's delightful but fragmentary papers, entitled "The True Story of Punch." So far as the last-named is based upon the others, it is untrustworthy in its details; but the statements founded on the writer's own knowledge and on the documentary matter in his hands, as well as upon his intimacy with Mark Lemon, possess a distinct and individual value, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... whether the numerals are invariably authentic and accurate; whether the minute particulars of a king's death as told in Chronicles tally with the account in Kings. It is a question whether the Old Testament at large is not a singularly and flagrantly untrustworthy record. It is a question whether its literature as a whole is not to be explained, practically, by "natural causes"; including a causation by deliberate, elaborate, ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... nest, the appendix of to-day, I had watched the gill slit patched slowly to the purposes of the ear and the reptile jaw suspension utilised to eke out the needs of a sense organ taken from its native and natural water. I had worked out the development of those extraordinarily unsatisfactory and untrustworthy instruments, man's teeth, from the skin scutes of the shark to their present function as a basis for gold stoppings, and followed the slow unfolding of the complex and painful process of gestation through which man comes into the world. I had followed all ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... went further; it was loudly proclaimed that the Swedish government had not kept their word, had broken their agreement etc. etc., and, when all of a sudden Sweden became identical with the government of Sweden she was pathetically pointed at as untrustworthy etc. etc. The amount of moral indignation contained in these Norwegian accusations has plainly been made manifest by late events. Their object—to throw on Sweden the responsibility of plans that were designed to be executed in Norway—was too transparent, ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund

... any intimacy between these two men. Reardon regarded his wife's brother as rather snobbish and disagreeably selfish; John Yule looked upon the novelist as a prig, and now of late as a shuffling, untrustworthy fellow. It appeared to John that his brother-in-law was assuming a manner wholly unjustifiable, and he had a difficulty in behaving to him with courtesy. Reardon, on the other hand, felt injured by the turn his visitor's remarks were taking, and began to resent ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... With his untrustworthy Granthis and his half-trained auxiliaries he crossed the Tindar at Kardi, as he had intended, and employed the former, to their intense disgust, in throwing up rough entrenchments round the camp. The Darwanis ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... incurable, irresponsible childishness was as clear to me then as it was on his deathbed, his redeeming and excusing imaginative silliness. Through some odd mental twist perhaps I was disposed to exonerate him even at the cost of blaming my poor old mother who had left things in his untrustworthy hands. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... honors, and brings them into judgment to account for all these advantages and obligations. Let the children of the Covenants take heed lest they forget the duties, forfeit the blessings, prove themselves untrustworthy, and trample their heavenly crown in the dust. Let them fear lest being exalted to heaven they be cast down to hell. The Covenants of the ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... stand; but the hearts of the Thebans failed them, and they came towards the Persians holding out their hands in entreaty for mercy. Quarter was given to them, but they were all branded with the king's mark as untrustworthy deserters. The helots probably at this time escaped into the mountains; while the small desperate band stood side by side on the hill still fighting to the last, some with swords, others with daggers, others even with their hands and teeth, till not one living man ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... the first time that I had experienced a runaway elephant, but I soon found that both my steeds were equally untrustworthy. A few weeks after this event we had completed the morning's march and found the camp already prepared for our arrival, at a place called Kassli, which is a central depot for railway sleepers as they are received from the native contractors. These ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... anything but human beings, that is an excellent method. Human beings, unfortunately, have individualities. They do what, theoretically, they ought not to do, and leave undone those things they ought to do. They are even said to possess souls—untrustworthy things beyond the reach of sociologists. The inductive method—reasoning from the particular to the general—though it lead to a fine crop of errors, should at least help to counterbalance the psychological superficiality of the deductive ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... judged rather from the young people), very superstitious, brave, with much power of enduring pain, cruel, not more revengeful perhaps than is usual among uncivilised natives, friendly one with another, not quarrelsome, but untrustworthy and not over-faithful even in their dealings with one another, though honest as regards boundaries and property rights and in the sense of not stealing from one another within their own communities (this being regarded as a most shameful offence), ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... trustworthy, or less disposed to make trouble in order to profit therefrom, than are spies in private industry. Except in time of war, when a Nathan Hale may be a spy, spies are always necessarily drawn from the unwholesome and untrustworthy classes. A right-minded man refuses such a job. The evil wrought by the spy system in industry has, for decades, been incalculable. Until it is eliminated, decent human relations cannot exist between employers and employees, or even among employees. It destroys ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... as well as an additional expense. By rolling the hogsheads directly on board a ship anchored at his own wharf or only a few miles away the planter eliminated the danger involved in transporting his tobacco in an untrustworthy, heavily laden shallop, and he also saved the increase in freight charges for delivery to the ships by the seamen. Freight rates were the same from his wharf to England as they were from any other point ...
— Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - "The Sovereign Remedy" • Melvin Herndon

... inventions for my young folks?" How many times this question is asked of book-store clerks by fathers! How often is a satisfactory answer given? Often such books are not up to date; usually they are too technical to be interesting; if they are interesting they are often untrustworthy; and none of them covers more than a portion of the ground. "Wonders of Invention" represents an earnest endeavor to meet this wide need within the covers of a single volume. The Editors were fortunate in obtaining for this department the cooperation of steamship companies, great electrical ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... world in justification of their course which bears the semblance of argument; for, in truth, Mr. Calhoun, since Jefferson and Madison passed from the stage, is almost the only thinking being the South has had. His was a very narrow, intense, and untrustworthy mind, but he was an angel of light compared with the men who have been recently conspicuous in the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... prudent if this ex-Austrian officer, ex-dentist's assistant and ex-policeman were to ensure their remaining so. The Ban is accused of having frustrated various designs of this couple. He is further accused of having placed at the head of the Koprivnica internment camp—where 6000 "politically untrustworthy" Serbs were assembled—the mayor, Kamenar, who himself had been dismissed for his political untrustworthiness; and when the military protested, they received no answer, while the mayor—so the wrathful writer hears—has been removed from his post at the internment camp and restored to his former ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... that he would prove the Oracle at Delphi to be untrustworthy by procuring from it a false reply to an inquiry by himself. So he went to the temple on the appointed day with a small bird in his hand, which he concealed under the folds of his cloak, and asked whether what he held in his hand were alive or dead. If the Oracle said "dead," he ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... informed me, warned by Sir Henry Elliott not to trust to my letters or to employ them as authority for his work, for Sir Henry said that I was considered in the Levant, where I was well known, to be an infamous and untrustworthy character. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, though he used my facts, referred them to the authority of a second-hand version. Fortunately for me and my work, Professor Freeman had heard the reports in question, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... shoot It was pretty well known that not many of them occupied Gun Hill, but the number encamped within reach of it was a matter of pure speculation, dependent on the accuracy of Kaffir stories which might be true of one day, but quite untrustworthy twenty-four hours later; so rapid are the Boers in their movements, if they get any suspicion that an ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... impossible to obtain the actual masculinity ratio for the United States, for the Census gives the statistics for only one year in ten and even then is untrustworthy on this point. In a few states birth registration is attempted but the figures thus obtained do not harmonize with the Census and the situation is not greatly improved.[38] The masculinity varies considerably in different parts of the country, and is generally higher in states ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... force of arms if necessary, the secession of their state. As the Civil War became more and more imminent, it became obvious to Union men in both East and West that the existing lines of communication were untrustworthy. Just as soon as trouble should start, the Confederacy could, and most certainly would, gain control of the southern mail routes. Once in control, she could isolate the Pacific coast for many months and thus enable her sympathizers ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... are untrustworthy," the first voice answered. "And with the sky falling, we dare not ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... writing is entirely foreign to their purpose. They are for the most part dry and unemotional in style, and are put together so far as possible chronologically in the order of their importance without the slightest reference to literary effect. While nothing is more untrustworthy generally than personal recollections of events which took place over a third of a century ago, those which are supported by letters and diaries are of inestimable value in construing and reconciling the official reports. But this is not all. The daily journals and other contemporaneous ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... be misled by the common notion that an hypothesis is untrustworthy simply because it is an hypothesis. It is often urged, in respect to some scientific conclusion, that, after all, it is only an hypothesis. But what more have we to guide us in nine-tenths of the most important affairs of daily life than hypotheses, ...
— The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.—The Origination Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley

... "Untrustworthy in one thing, untrustworthy in all," said Aunty Rosa, and Harry felt that Black Sheep was delivered into his hands. He would wake him up in the night to ask him why he ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... (inventive genius,) an utterly untrustworthy and incompetent observer, (profound searcher of Nature,) a shallow dabbler in erudition, (sagacious scholar,) started the monstrous fiction (founded the immortal system) of Homoeopathy. I am very fair, you see,—you can help yourself to either ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... fact that a man who is absolutely untrustworthy about women is often the soul of honor to other men. The younger Wilson, taking his pleasures lightly and not too discriminatingly, was making an offer that meant his ultimate eclipse, and doing it cheerfully, ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... husband of the wilful Pat rather as evidences of Oriental, half-effeminate devilry than as passports to decent society. Oxford had veneered him, but scratch the veneer and one found the sandal-wood of the East, perfumed, seductive, appealing, but something to be shunned as brittle and untrustworthy. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... and Gustavus allied himself with the French emigrant princes who commanded an army at Coblentz; themselves selfish and intriguing, their army undisciplined and ill-provided; Leopold rated them at their proper value and was on his guard against them. Frederick William, untrustworthy as he was, seems to have been sincerely anxious to help the French king. Leopold hoped to avoid war; he distrusted Prussia, and the designs of Catherine on Poland caused both sovereigns to hesitate. In August, however, the diet demanded that Leopold should support certain princes of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... at her but he could not answer her; like all the others, when one looked at her she seemed to shrivel beneath one's eyes and become worthless, malicious, and untrustworthy. ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... is utterly strange to him. The Teutonic sage who evolved the ideal portrait of an elephant from his "inner consciousness" was a commonplace, matter-of fact person compared with the daring visionary who conjures up a complete system of language from the same fertile but untrustworthy source. The piquancy of Senhor Pedro Carolino's New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English is enhanced by the evident bona fides and careful compilation of "the little book," or as Pedro himself gravely expresses it, ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca

... quite as necessary in those cases where the process takes place naturally. Although there is little doubt but that some of the recorded instances of natural or artificial grafting of plants of distant botanical affinities are untrustworthy, yet the instances of adhesion between widely different plants are too numerous and too well attested to allow of doubt. Moreover, when parasitical plants are considered, such as the Orobanches, the Cuscutas, and specially the mistleto (Viscum), ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... heard of, I am assured on the best authority that for years past the banks have not held so much money on deposit as at the present moment. Yet nobody pays his rent. The form of offering Griffith's valuation is gone through, albeit it is known that that calculation is absolutely untrustworthy so far as a pasture county like ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... feeling a pity for her, told her she would not dismiss her without a character, as at first she had determined to do, but would let her stay on for the month, at the end of which time she must go, as she could never keep a maid who had proved so utterly untrustworthy. ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... then, to which this analysis of the clan pedigrees which have been popularly accepted at different times has brought us, is that, so far as they profess to show the origin of the different clans, they are entirely artificial and untrustworthy, but that the older genealogies may be accepted as showing the descent of the clan from its eponymus or founder, and within reasonable limits for some generations beyond him, while the later spurious pedigrees must be rejected altogether. ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... book is ascribed in Charles Knight's untrustworthy Studies of Shakspere, Book XI., to William Richardson (1743-1814), Professor of Humanity in the University of Glasgow. Unfortunately the British Museum Catalogue lends some support to this injustice by giving it either to him ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... the greatest height of the mountains. There are indeed cases recorded in which it is said that "no bottom" was found even at 39,000 feet. It is, however, by no means easy to sound at such great depths, and it is now generally considered that these earlier observations are untrustworthy. The greatest depth known in the Atlantic is 3875 fathoms—a little to the north of the Virgin Islands, but the soundings as yet made in the deeper parts of the Ocean are few in number, and it is not to be supposed that the greatest depth has yet ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... Even Ixtlilxochitl, who, as a native and of royal race, must have had access to all sources of information, and who had the advantage of writing more than three centuries ago, seems to have looked on the native traditions as extremely untrustworthy. See Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... off," said Wallis, rising from the side of a man whom he believed to be sillily drunk and altogether untrustworthy. "You know we get ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... caution to save their own necks. It's the spirit of the law that they violate. But we are getting away from the point," he added, pulling himself up short with an apologetic smile toward Mrs. Nelson. "We were speaking of this Peter Levine. My summing up of him is that he is entirely untrustworthy." ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... there are white men in the country whose word carries no more assurance than the word of any Indian. The Indian is prone to evasion and quibbling rather than to downright lying, though there are many who are utterly unreliable and untrustworthy. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... the Regent, and Huntly, a Catholic, presently, as if in fear of the western clans, joined the Congregation. Mary of Guise had found the great northern chief treacherous, and had disgraced him, and untrustworthy he continued to be. On May 7 the garrison of Leith defeated with heavy loss an Anglo- Scottish attack on the walls; but on June 16 the Regent made a good end, in peace with all men. She saw Chatelherault, James Stewart, and the Earl Marischal; ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... or net to mend, the clever hands of the Eskimo are never idle. Thrifty as a Scot, ingenious as a Yankee, every bit of the little property that he has is well kept. You find around this igloo no broken sled-runner, untrustworthy fishing-gear, nor worn-out dog-harness. Civilisation has nothing to teach this man concerning clothing, house-building, or Arctic travel. Indeed, one may hazard the opinion that the ambitious explorer from the outside, if he reach the Pole at all, will reach it along Eskimo avenues ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron



Words linked to "Untrustworthy" :   unreliable, unfaithful, trustworthy, fly-by-night, devious, dishonest, shady, dishonorable, untrustworthiness, slippery, shifty, tricky, undependable



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