Ignis fatuus

Fiery spirits or devils are such as commonly work by blazing stars, fire-drakes, or ignes fatui; which lead men often in flumina aut præcipitia, saith Bodine[…]

An Ignis Fatuus, that bewitches, / And leads Men into Pools and Ditches

[…] they think this is written on purpose to be published; and that this defence is so published, that it may serve as an Ignis fatuus to mislead them […]

He cursed the journey he had been led to take after what had proved but an ignis fatuus, deluded as he had been by false expectations;[…]

Henrietta’s career, however, was not so successful as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an ignis fatuus.

A reality which is neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which the thing in itself has unfortunately dwindled in the hands of Kant), is the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis fatuus in philosophy.

Like some ignis fatuus belated upon the road behind them which all could see and of which none spoke. For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies.

But he was slow – painfully slow, hour after hour slow, sweating and struggling in front of his own class slow – to accept the truth about the simple statement: the truth being that it is an ignis fatuus.