Literary notes about false (AI summary)
Writers often deploy the word “false” as a sharp tool for exposing deception, misrepresentation, or misplaced honor. In some works it characterizes dishonesty in human nature—a “false heart” that betrays sincere emotion [1] or a “false coin” symbolizing insincere politeness [2]—while in other texts it criticizes wrongful claims and misleading actions, such as false accusations that lead to unjust punishment [3] or false intelligence that misguides entire military strategies [4]. The term also emerges in reflections on the nature of truth itself, where discussions of false wit [5] or false theories challenge the reader to differentiate between appearance and reality [6, 7]. Thus, “false” functions as a recurring motif to question authenticity and expose the gaps between belief and fact throughout literary discourse.
- could I plunge this dagger into his false heart, I should then die satisfied!”
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. Smollett - For politeness is like a counter—an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer - After the Restoration, Harrington was sent to the Tower by Charles II on a false accusation of conspiracy.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele - But he was no longer there, having withdrawn on the previous evening to La Bassee, misled by false intelligence of the enemy’s movements.
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Much false wit has been expended in this easy exercise.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - A belief is rendered true or false by relation to a fact, which may lie outside the experience of the person entertaining the belief.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell - Why was a false, deceptive look the same as a sincere one?
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant
