Then he saw that he had been the victim of a specious and cunning scoundrel, and that, so far from being worth a dollar, he had obligations falling due for over ten thousand dollars more than he had the means to pay.
He was, at heart, a knave; yet a most cunning and specious one.
All sentiments that she regarded as hurtful to Irene in her present state of mind she met with her calm, conclusive mode of reasoning, that took away the specious force of the sophist's dogmas.
Many specious offers of ineffectual reforms were made to them by envoys from the Four Hundred: but they insisted on the one thing which the oligarchy most dreaded, a free assembly of the citizens to be held within the city.
The proposals bore a specious aspect of moderation, and seemed to promise that the new constitution should be something like the old constitution of Cleisthenes.
The very ingenuity of these miscreants excites such admiration of their skill, that their life is gilded with a specious respectability.
He is tempted to elude responsibility; to delay settlements; to prevaricate upon the terms; to resist equity, and devisespecious fraud.
He was so specious in his manner of putting the affair before me, so masterful in the way he held on to the money, he gave me no time to think.
This specious plea assumed that the legal-tender note was simply a promise to pay, with only the qualities of an individual obligation.
Phrasing of a specious type can deceive an individual far more easily that it can deceive a multitude of men.
A system of despotism, veiled under the specious garb of piety and the country's safety, was immediately put in force; and new taxes levied under various pretences, but in reality for the purpose of bestowing wealth on her zealous adherents.
Under the specious pretext of enforcing the Alien Act, this gentleman caused the whole of these injured claimants to be taken and put on board a vessel in the Thames, which was stated to be ready to sail for Holland.
But this is no light scheme; no work, begun for want of other amusement, and deserted when a morespecious or pleasing subject for poetry presented itself.
Possessed of a fine person and specious address, nothing is known of him until twenty years afterwards, when he appeared in London with a tolerable supply of money, and more than a proportionate supply of audacity.
More probably he would regard it critically, cynically, putting his finger through herspecious phrases.
Yet it very shrewdly plagued him, daring even to advance specious arguments upon its own behalf.
And she laughed at the specious half-truth which had appeared so splendid and exhilarating a discovery--the half-truth that nothing is really inevitable unless you yourself will it to be so.
A solution having, in the present case, the speciousargument behind it that in so doing he would spare her, save her pain, in addition to the obvious one that he would save his own skin.
How many times, after an equivoque, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear: "A trip!
He never perpetrated a deed of treachery or cruelty without pleading some specious excuse, so as to convey the impression that in all his actions he was guided by a sense of justice.
In our efforts to surmount these difficulties, another seemingly specioussolution offers, but if we examine it we shall find it as weak as the others.
At first sight, nothing is more specious than the difference marked between mathematical, natural, and moral sciences.
If we reflect well upon this objection we shall find that though it is speciousand under many aspects true, it contradicts nothing which I have asserted.
There is here certainly very little chance for evasion, but there is one so specious as to merit an examination.
Well, I win' it by a specious providence, ain't it?
Specious as these reasons might appear, the other five generals were for speedier and bolder operations.
She would be lifted out of her present occupations and interests; for Sylvie was too clear-eyed to blind herself with the specious reasoning that as the wife of a rich man's son, she would be a greater power in the world for good.
Their specious manners may render them agreeable companions abroad, but at home the evil propensities of their minds will invariably predominate.
Lured by false reasoning, I yielded to the fascinations of a specious sophistry, and for awhile my soul languished under the iron bondage of a powerful and glittering falsehood.
There may be stated here some reasons why this plea of neutrality, though so false, is yet so specious and misleading.
The idea of instructing Catholic and Protestant children together and bringing them up in habits of mutual affection and esteem, was specious and captivating.
Let him by no specious guile Of flattery soothe thee, or by threats appall, Nor slack thy furious fires 'till with a shout I give command, then bid them cease to blaze.
Thy lyre, thy locks, thy person, specious gifts Of partial Venus, will avail thee nought, Once mixt by Menelaus with the dust.
Nor is it to be filched from me by wiles or artifices; rather will I carry it with me to my grave, and perhaps to heaven, than expose it to danger by listening to specious tales and chimeras.
Stevenson describes it as being "the happiest inspiration of mankind, a thing as specious as a statue at the first glance, yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail.
