"Fault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forbear are two good bears to have in every home, in order to keep peace in the family. Grin and bear it, is another good one. Impatience, scolding and fault-finding are three black bears, that make every one feel badly and ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... opponents of a truant school at Albany. We backed up Roosevelt in his fight in the Police Board, and—well, I shall never get time to tell it all. But it was a great year. That it did not keep the Good Government clubs alive was no fault of my programme. It was mine, I guess. I failed to inspire them with the faith that was in me. I had been going it alone so long that I did not know how to use the new tool that had come to hand. There is nothing like an organization if you know how to use it. I did not. Perhaps, also, politics ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... ourselves, and it is all my fault!" she said, for the first time that evening permitting her voice to fall to a becoming tone. 'Why, here we actually are, two ladies conversing together, and ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... him to play the part of host with unforced geniality. The others joined him in a hearty effort to show their guest the high regard in which they held him, and if Cortlandt did not enjoy himself, it was entirely his own fault. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... this revolt is the fault of the Bashi-Bazouks. I said the other day, 'If the people of this country were Ryahs or Christians, I might understand your bad treatment of them, but I do not when I see they are Mussulmans, as you.' Upon which the Darfourians were delighted, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... took to her, as she had not the faculty of winning affection. She was thoroughly trustworthy, and would, I believe, have given her life for the child, but she was certainly rather precise in manner, and was perhaps a little too peremptory in giving her orders. That was, I admit, a fault on the right side, for Stephanie is so accustomed to adulation on the part of the servants, that she rather needs a firm hand over her. However, the child has scarcely mentioned Claire's name since her return, while yours is incessantly ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... pure and benign light of revelation; have had a meliorating influence on mankind, and increased the blessings of society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a nation; and if their citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... came the Huron and hunter, and into the woods they plunged, following the trail now with the greatest readiness. A short distance further they reached the banks where Edith had concealed herself, and here, for a time, even the red-skin was at fault. He saw that the shrubbery had been passed by most of the pursuers without their having approached closely enough to make an examination. From the circuit which Dernor had made to reach these bushes, the quick-witted Huron rightly suspected that he had turned them to some account. ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... treatment should be principally relied upon to cure ulceration of the neck of the womb. Put the system in perfect order and the local ulceration cannot fail to heal. If you have a sore or ulcer upon the leg you very naturally reason that there is a fault in the system at large or in the blood. You do not apply caustics to the sore, but you go to work to restore the blood and system to a normal or healthy condition and as soon as this is accomplished the open and rebellious sore, or ulcer, heals of its own ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... What a horrid heritage of murder for conscience' sake has been transmitted to us in this nineteenth century? And is the present fratricidal war in Switzerland unconnected with this principle of blood and persecution! No; and again, no! How, then, can we find fault with the barbarians of the Great Desert? Nay, contrarily, those who follow me through The Desert, will find the Saharan Barbarians infinitely more tolerant than the mild, and the gentle, and the polished, and the educated, and the civilized, and the Christianized professors of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... speaking at the time. He had a little fault in the way of often showing a disposition to look at the darker side of things; and doubtless being unusually tired, after a hard day's tramp, with such a heavy pack on his back, had something to do with his spirit of ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Drift, don't say that, please! It was my fault—all my fault, and I have been so sorry ever since. And you will be friends now, won't you? I do so want to be, because ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... that his close observation had not been at fault. The chimney over the river gable was a painted chimney, a mere invention. Yet, surely Santa ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... get peace of mind, but in vain. The recollection of what had passed burned his conscience. In his soul—in the very depths of his soul—he knew that he had acted in a base, cruel, cowardly manner, and that the knowledge of this act of his must prevent him, not only from finding fault with any one else, but even from looking straight into other people's eyes; not to mention the impossibility of considering himself a splendid, noble, high-minded fellow, as he did and had to do to go on living his life boldly and merrily. There ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... he said, "be sure Val is with you. I have a secret to tell him—a kind of atonement to make; some news to give him that he won't quite relish, perhaps. But that's no fault ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... two or three hours from the Bethune road, aren't we? And how many hours, think you, from the road to an ambulance where they can operate? And then, when are they going to pick us up? It's nobody's fault, I dare say; but you've got to look facts in the face. Oh, I know it isn't going to be any worse from now than it is, but it can't be long, seeing I've a hole all the way through my parcel of guts. You, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... to tell tales of H. O., for he is very young, and whatever he does he always catches it for; but I will just allude to our being told not to eat the greengages in the garden. And we did not. And whatever H. O. did was Noel's fault—for Noel told H. O. that greengages would grow again all right if you did not bite as far as the stone, just as wounds are not mortal except when you are pierced through the heart. So the two of them bit bites out of every greengage they ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... I've only been back a very short time." (She noticed he did not say how long.) "And I want to know when I may come down and see you all? I hope you and Mr. Tosswill will believe me when I say it wasn't my fault that I didn't come to Beechfield last year. I hadn't ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... disease doth seldom fail, One nail best driveth out another nail. If you would see love mingled oft with hate, Bitter with sweet, behold fierce Herod's state, Beset with love and cruelty at once: Enraged at first, then late his fault bemoans, And Mariamne calls; those three fair dames (Who in the list of captives write their names) Procris, Deidamia, Artemisia were All good, the other three as wicked are— Semiramis, Byblis, and Myrrha named, Who of their crooked ways are now ashamed Here be the erring knights in ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Hooker's salvation in any measure depended on Sedgwick's so doing. Hooker had the power in his own hand, if he would only use it. But it should be determined whether Hooker had any legitimate ground for fault-finding. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... night, and she wore nothing over her white dress. I could see her tall, shapely figure and shining eyes, and the firm contour of her beautiful face, which, if any fault might be found with it, erred in being too regular. She looked like a woman formed by nature to meet dangers and difficulties, and to play a great part; even here, at midnight, in the midst of these desperate ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... soldier, caught, through no fault of his, in a powerful trap, manoeuvred ably. His guns were well served, and while they stayed for a moment the Confederate advance, he made dispositions for a determined stand. The longer delay here, the greater chance at Strasburg! A courier ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the bank of the igaripe, the araguatoes were evidently at fault. Their intention had been to proceed down along the main river, and the creek now interfered. Its water lay directly across their course, and how were they to get over it? Swim it, you may, say. Ha! little do you ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... they have culture among them. They do not, of course, value it; the Americans, for aught I know, value it more; but they produce it, and the Americans do not. I have visited many of their colleges and universities, and everywhere, except perhaps at Harvard—unless my impressions are very much at fault—I have found the same atmosphere. It is the atmosphere known as the "Yale spirit," and it is very like that of an English Public School. It is virile, athletic, gregarious, all-penetrating, all-embracing. It turns out the whole university to sing ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... sulky schoolboy. It isn't like you, this. You surely don't want me to humble myself more than I have done.' She gave a little laugh. 'Why, Bill, I'm proposing to you! I know I've treated you badly, but I've explained why. You must be just enough to see that it wasn't altogether my fault. I'm only human. And if I made a mistake I've done all I can do to ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... overboard together this evening, and were lost, though we didn't fail to look for them. It may be a consolation to you to know that they always did their duty, which wasn't much, nor very well done, nor of any use to anybody, but that was no fault of theirs, seeing that they didn't know better. Then you'll not fail to remember that there's no longer any chance of your son being hung, which has been the fate of many a pretty man, either by mistake or because he deserved it, and ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... so must have them and love them; Teach them as best we can, and let each of them follow his nature. One will have talents of one sort, and different talents another. Every one uses his own; in his own individual fashion, Each must be happy and good. I will not have my Hermann found fault with; For he is worthy, I know, of the goods he shall one day inherit; Will be an excellent landlord, a pattern to burghers and builders; Neither in council, as I can foresee, will he be the most backward. But thou keepest shut up in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... hastily withdrew, and his father exclaimed in paternal distress, "Out, alas! as much too hot as his brother is too cold; but it is the manlier fault.—Gloucester," said he to that celebrated earl, "take sufficient strength, and follow Prince Richard to guard and sustain him. If any one can rule him, it must be a knight of thy established fame. Alas, alas! for what ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Great fault has been found with the prints which have been employed to expose slavery at the North, but my friends, how could this be done so effectively in any other way? Until the pictures of the slave's sufferings were drawn and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... is a very strange being. It appears that he has been annoyed by some traveller, who has published a work in which he has found fault with the accommodations at Sault St Marie, and spoken very disrespectfully of our host's beds and bed-furniture. I have never read the work, but I am so well aware how frequently travellers fill up their pages with fleas, and "such small ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... said D'Artagnan. "It is a wretched bed, but that is not my fault, and it is you who have chosen it." With these words he drew in his turn and ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... recovered his power of articulation, Isaac began to pour out a medley of lamentations and petitions for mercy. The captain was inexorable. "Very sorry, you know, Hakkabut. It is not my fault that the packet is short weight; but I cannot pay for a kilogramme except I ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... to refuse The offer which they most would chuse. —No fault: in women, to confess How tedious they are in their dress; —No fault in women, to lay on The tincture of vermilion; And there to give the cheek a dye Of white, where Nature doth deny. —No fault in women, to make show Of largeness, when they're nothing so; When, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... made a salutation and a curtsey, and confessed his fault. He next gave way to entreaties, saying: "Don't punish the young servant, for it is simply I who begged ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... me with your compliments," said the Idiot. "I am sorry I am so young, but I cannot be brought to believe that that is my own fault. One must live to attain age, and how the deuce can one live ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... on his musings, "end this idle talk, and tell me of Owen. Then I will go hence and leave you to work what you will here. I had no wish to disturb your rites, whatsoever they were. If aught has happened amiss, it was your own fault, not mine. Your ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... out Polly, and hid her face in her hands amid a torrent of tears. "It is all my fault!" she moaned. "It is all my fault! If I hadn't asked her, she ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... now, good Harry, hast thou hid my fault? The boy that knew I train'd his Maister forth, Lies speechlesse, and even at the point of death. If you prove true, I hope ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... more interested in them than in yours, and he can't see them starve. So he cuts the price of labour and out you go. But you mustn't blame him, poor devil. He can't help it. Wages always come down when two men are after the same job. That's the fault of competition, not of the man ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.—O diem praeclarum!—then nothing which has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should think me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... your sight, no fault i'th letter; Medina, you shall find that free from Errata's: And for a proofe, If I could breath my heart in welcomes forth, This Hall should ring naught else. Welcome, Medina; Good Marquesse Daenia, Dons of Spaine all welcome! My dearest love ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... deny them that, and its constant presence made them great in a way and measure of which this generation, it is to be feared, can have but a very inadequate conception. If men now-a-days find their tone antipathetic, it would be modest at least to consider whether the fault be wholly theirs,—whether it was they who lacked, or we who have lost. Whether they were right or wrong in their dealing with the Quakers is not a question to be decided glibly after two centuries' struggle toward a conception of toleration very imperfect even yet, perhaps impossible ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Sarah's fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a blight on her and set the blood rotting in her veins! It's not that I want to clear myself. I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was. But she would have forgiven ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 1669, a court-martial was held about the loss of the Defyance. The sentence was, "That the gunner of the Defyance should stand upon the Charles three hours with his fault writ upon his breast, and with a halter about his neck, and so be made incapable of any service." The ship was burnt by the gunner allowing a girl to carry a ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... certainly in the right," says the doctor; "there is a most blameable remissness with regard to these matters; but the whole blame doth not lie there; some little share of the fault is, I am afraid, to be ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... to be extravagant, its probability is much strengthened by the fact that whatever he had they always came into the possession of sooner or later. If he had any faults, therefore, they must have known it. They would never have allowed anything so valuable as a fault to escape them. ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... though I can't see ez how it's yer place to top the officer over me, Mister Steenbock," retorted the skipper, with some of his old heat. "Ye've hed yer say, an' the men hev hed their'n; an' now I'll hev mine, I reckon! The nigger wer in fault in the fust place, an' I'm sorry I wer tew hard on him; but, now he's gone overboard, thaar's nuthin' more to be done, fur all the talkin' in the world won't bring him back agen! I'll tell ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... an hour later, she came downstairs again of her own accord, and bravely acknowledged her fault. "Wasn't it ridiculous of me?" she said. "To think I accuse others of being unkind when I behave like that! Monsieur l'Abbe must have a very bad opinion of me." Then, after kissing Mere-Grand, she added: "You'll forgive ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... with a gullet you could put your finger in. Too much energy's your mate's complaint. Nobody could tell what that man would do when he gets steam up. Understand, we're boiler-making specialists, sent out on awkward jobs; and he'd put in work that would disgrace a farmer! For all that, it was Bill's fault for speaking his mind too free—he got thrown behind ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... great extent, my fault that these poor girls find themselves in the unfortunate position which they occupy to-day. I have been a widow for nearly seven years; but, having been early left an orphan, with no friends in England ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... temper makes a new enemy, and comes nearer than ever before to losing an old friend, shows very blackly to him in the calendar, and, by way of aggravation, Robert Elsmere says to himself at once that somehow or other there must be fault of his ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... frequently from witnesses: "My memory is too weak to answer this question,'' "Since receiving the wound in question my memory has failed,'' "I am already too old, my memory is leaving me,'' etc. In each of these cases, however, it is not the memory that is at fault. As a matter of fact the witness ought to have said "I am too stupid to answer this question,'' "Since the wound in question, my intellectual powers have failed,'' "I am already old, I am growing silly,'' etc. But of course no one will, save very ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... capable of foreseeing the consequences of all acts. Being so, when thou didst yet refuse to follow the counsels of thy well-wishers, it seems that all this is the result of destiny. Do not grieve, O tiger among men! All this is thy great fault. In my opinion, thou art thyself the cause of the destruction of thy sons. O monarch, Vikarna hath fallen, and Chitrasena also of great prowess. Many other mighty car-warriors and foremost ones among thy sons have also fallen. Others, again, among thy sons whom Bhima ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... The greatest fault that thinking men find with this sort of girl is, that she becomes sillier every day that she lives. I have heard women complain of the degeneracy of the boys who seek their daughters in marriage; but when I look ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... While there is a threatened bread famine, beer is still manufactured. And that which was intended to provide food for the people is being used to make beer. If the Germans bring us to our knees, it will be our own fault. If the resources of the nation had not been squandered in this way, we could laugh at all the Germans say ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... of Sinai to one of the peaks which overlook this plain, in order that the Israelites might witness the awful ceremonies attending the promulgation of the Law which took place upon the holy mountain. If this hypothesis is founded on truth, then tradition is at fault, which has given to another part of this region the name of Sinai, and a capacious plain beneath it; we must throw aside all our faith in such tradition, and commence investigations which shall elicit the whole truth ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... priestly office; since from his mouth had issued a purposed falsehood, the which the sacred canons define to be sacrilege in the mouth of a priest. Whereby it is to be considered how deeply should they repent who of their own fault have fallen into the heaviest offences, when this holy man so deeply repented of, and so strictly atoned for, one falsehood alone. Alas! what hearts of clay do they bear unto the resistance of sin, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... costive outlay. Therefore, on my own account, I had a satisfaction at seeing the abridgement which you made of our former inebrieties; but there are other persons of a conjugal nature, who look upon such castrations as a deficiency of their rights, and the like of them will find fault with the best procedures." ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... nation in debt, and expect the parliament should pay the money. The courtiers answered, that if anything had been raised without necessity, or ill applied, it was reasonable that those who were in fault should be punished; but as this expense was incurred to improve advantages, at a time when the occasion could not be communicated to parliament, the ministry was rather to be applauded for their zeal, than condemned for their liberality. The question being put, the majority voted that those sums ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew: 'Twas certain he ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... that she was obliged to survey him. If he had drawn her towards him, she would never have surveyed him—never have said, "Is he worth living for?" but would have felt him simply a part of her own life. Now she said bitterly, "It is his fault, not mine." In the jar of her whole being, Pity was overthrown. Was it her fault that she had believed in him—had believed in his worthiness?—And what, exactly, was he?— She was able enough to estimate him—she who waited on his glances with trembling, and shut her best soul in prison, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... accomplishment of his object. He tried, in particular, on this occasion, for the possession of Malta, all the arts of that powerful eloquence which flowed so naturally from his pen; and he might well say, as he did, in a letter of the 10th of November, to Mr. Nepean, "it has been no fault of the navy, that Malta has not been attacked by land; but we have neither the means ourselves, nor influence with those who have the power." In short, the history of this protracted siege, including all the military and political perplexities with which ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... the publication of the first edition of this work, the figure in question has appeared from the pencil and burin of Mr. Cotman; of which the only fault, as it strikes me, is, that the surface is too rough—or ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... these, she sat opposite, watching me (as I thought) and endeavouring to sustain something like a conversation—consisting chiefly of a succession of commonplace remarks, expressed with frigid formality: but this might be more my fault than hers, for I really could NOT converse. In fact, my attention was almost wholly absorbed in my dinner: not from ravenous appetite, but from distress at the toughness of the beefsteaks, and the numbness of my hands, almost palsied by their five-hours' ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... introduced to me by an old Harrow acquaintance, —who made me many professions at parting, and wanted me vastly to name some way in which he could be useful to me; but the relying on acquaintances, or seeking of friendships, is a fault which I think I shall always have prudence ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... someone, in so far as this evil is a means of just vengeance. Now vengeance is wrought by the infliction of a punishment: and the nature of punishment consists in being contrary to the will, painful, and inflicted for some fault. Consequently an angry man desires this, that the person whom he is hurting, may feel it and be in pain, and know that this has befallen him on account of the harm he has done the other. The hater, on the other hand, cares not for all this, since he desires another's evil ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... 7. This last fault, of damaging a word by wrong use, might come under the general head of 'Abuse of words'. This is a wide and popular topic, as may be seen by the constant small rain of private protests in the correspondence ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... thought in a little panic. "It's my own fault." But when she tried to pull her hand away, her ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... [or not], and although she went round about through her town uttering cries [for help], there was none who came at [the sound of] her voice. Now mine own heart was grievously sad for the sake of the child, and [I wished] to make to live [again] him that was free from fault. [Thereupon] I cried out to the noble lady, "Come to me. Come to me. Verily my mouth (?) possesseth life. I am a daughter [well] known in her town, [and I] can destroy the demon of death by the spell (or, utterance) ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... further, declaring that he would take no refusal from you, either; or, rather, that he would take it so often as to wear out your patience, and secure you by proving that resistance was useless. He had one decided fault to find with you, also. He much regrets ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... them? Why should they mind showing them? Now I want you to promise me that, from this day forth, you'll take yourself and your art seriously; that you'll work hard—you've been idling shamefully lately" (oh, Audrey! whose fault was that?)—"and finish some great picture before the year's out" (he had only five weeks to do it in, but that was a ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... the fault, And well my life shall pay: I'll seek the solitude he sought, And stretch me ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... was not my fault. You know what Aunt Maria is, she kept us ten minutes after the carriage was round, and then ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... face of Tess, which had become ash-pale at his intelligence. Her mother looked hopelessly at fault. "What shall we do now, Tess?" she said bitterly. "Here's a welcome to your ancestors' ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... shall by our laws be the judges of all works; by our laws, prose and verse will both alike be submitted to us. No one will have wit except us or our friends. We shall try to find fault with everything, and esteem no one capable of writing ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... same condition of affairs is true in a more or less degree in the entire State and throughout the country and even the world. People are suffering to-day in this town for food and clothing and fuel through no fault of their own. The same thing is true of thousands and even hundreds of thousands all over the world. It is an age that calls for heroes, martyrs, servants, saviors. And right here in this town, where distress walks the streets and actual want already has its clutch on many a poor ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... this time was adjutant of engineers at Chatham, a post a good deal esteemed by officers of his rank. He had lost the opportunity of seeing active service in India, but he was determined that it should be no fault of his if he were not sent out to China. He resigned his appointment at Chatham, an act which greatly annoyed his father and many of his friends. Even a high official in the War Office considered that he was damaging his ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... knew his battalion-drill by heart and backwards. Was it his fault that his officers were fools and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... and very decently on the whole, his consciousness of the importance of not being selfish, and it was true that he had never sinned in that direction without promptly enough trying to press the scales the other way. He often repaired his fault, the season permitting, by inviting his friend to accompany him to the opera; and it not infrequently thus happened that, to show he didn't wish her to have but one sort of food for her mind, he was the cause of her appearing ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... Whitelocke that divers of his own family were absent, whereas, by his orders, they were all enjoined to a constant attendance, especially at those religious exercises; nevertheless some of them (particularly Mr. Castle and Andrew Potley) were therein more in fault than others, and, after many admonitions, would not reform, but made it their common practice almost every Lord's Day in the afternoon to be absent, and to go abroad and take the air. Whitelocke considering the reproach and scandal, and the ill example hereby to his family, and the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... unless relieved of the disability by a two-thirds vote of Congress, the most influential class of those who had taken an active part in the rebellion; and it safeguarded the public debt. With only one of its provisions serious fault could be found;—not with that which guaranteed to the freedmen the essential civil rights of free men, nor with that which excluded the freedmen from the basis of representation—so long as they were not permitted to vote. Only the advocates of negro suffrage might logically have objected to this ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... own nature and place in the universe. If his knowledge of things so essential be denied, what trust can we place in any other of his utterances? To those who reason in this way, Christ cannot possibly be divine—he is only a fallible man, self-deceived, and so, deceiving others. The fault of the critics lies in their presupposition. They have begun wrongly, by leaving out the primary fact in the subject they investigate, namely, that the preincarnate Christ was the author and inspirer of the Scripture which he afterward interpreted. He used human agents, ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... receives a death-wound with a quaint remark, and dies forthwith, like Atli in the story of Grettir, who was thrust through as he stood at his door, and said, "Those broad spears are in fashion now," as he went down. This scene is one of the best of its kind; there is no fault to be found with it. But there are possibly too many scenes and speeches of the same sort; enough to raise the suspicion that the situation and the form of phrase were becoming a conventional device, like some of the "machines" in the secondary ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... his likable personality, made a hero of Schley, but his fellow naval officers felt differently. A court of inquiry held in 1901 found Schley to be at fault, but despite this decision he retained his public popularity, a tribute to his affability ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... creation, he could have suggested a much better and simpler plan for the universe. Some centuries were to elapse before Copernicus was to show that it was not the plan of the universe, but man's interpretation of it, that was at fault. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... letter P has alphabetical precedence of W. Her limitations were of course the same as ever, and from her sons she had only learnt to be ashamed of announcing them too vehemently. Sidwell it was who had led her to that degree of genuine humility, which is not satisfied with hiding a fault ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... nothing to find fault with on the ornamental side of a girl who had gone in so heartily for the serious business of life, nine-tenths of whose hours were occupied with grave tasks, to which Hester owned honestly that she with all her ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... behaved wonderfully well. She never cried except she was in some trouble, and even then you could seldom have seen a tear on her face. She did all that was required of her, grew longer and broader and heavier, and was very fond of a lighted candle. The only fault she had was that she wouldn't give Willie quite so many smiles as he wanted. As to the view she took of affairs, she seemed for a long time to be on the whole very well satisfied with life and its gifts. But when at last ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... cloth, took care that the best portion should fall to the grand-daughter of the chief, the pretty, good-humoured "Snow-bird." The old man was not insensible to the noble sacrifice which had been made by the devoted Indiana, and he signified his forgiveness of her fault by graciously offering to adopt her as his child, and to give her in marriage to one of his grandsons, an elder brother of the "Snow-bird;" but the young girl modestly but firmly refused this mark of favour, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... Alexandretta, or any other part of Syria or Egypt, I shall get information. You will, I am sure, and so will our country, easily conceive what has passed in my anxious mind; but I have this comfort, that I have no fault to accuse myself of: this bears me up, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... on each side of the door, symbolizing the Church and the Synagogue, were both headless when Mr. Cottingham restored the doorway, between 1825 and 1830. Much fault has been found with him for turning the first, which is thought to have been like the other a female figure, into a mitred, bearded bishop holding a cross in his right hand and the model of a church in his left. The blindfolded ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... Timmendiquas gravely; "they took your soldiers, but your soldiers returned without them. Now they hold two of your men captive, but it is no fault of the Wyandots or their brethren of the allied tribes. We wait here in peace, while the other presents that you have promised us ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... only released in the end by paying an immense fine which completely ruined him. Elizabeth not only over- acted her part in making these pretences, but most basely reduced to poverty one of her faithful servants for no other fault than obeying her commands. ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... on one hateful supposition; but Stane's words had made it clear that the girl had come to warn them, and if there was anything behind that warning, if, as she suspected, the girl loved Stane with a wild, wayward love, that was not the man's fault. She remembered his declaration that he had never seen Miskodeed except on the two occasions at Fort Malsun, and though Ainley's evil suggestions recurred to her mind, she dismissed them instantly. ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... of Canterbury, and knelt while the monks flogged him on the pavement in the Chapter House, doing penance for Becket's murder. The clergy had won the battle in the twelfth century because they deserved it. They were not free from fault and weakness, but they felt the meaning of their profession. Their hearts were in their vows, their authority was exercised more justly, more nobly, than the authority of the crown; and therefore, with inevitable justice, the crown was compelled to stoop ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... And that is where a more impetuous man would have acted upon instinct more wisely than did I upon reason. Instead, I opened the door, and, crossing the common room, I flung myself down a passage that I thought must lead to the chamber in which they were closeted. But in this I was at fault, and ere I had come upon a waiter and been redirected some precious moments were lost. He led me back through the common room to a door opening upon another corridor. He pushed it wide, and I came suddenly face ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... jumble of contradictions was steadily repeated by the Hegelian philosophers, and indeed the mathematicians were accustomed to state their own principles so loosely and confusedly that there was a great deal of excuse for the suspicion that the fault lay with Mathematics ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... seemed to be always the same—laughter, silly, idiotic chuckles. I was in a very fair rage before I got my lamp to light, and I upset a large box of matches on the floor. Murray came and helped to pick them up, and he bumped my nose with his head. I felt sure that it was his fault and told him so, and he said I could jolly well pick up my own matches; so I apologized, for though my nose hurt there were a lot of matches still on the floor, and it was no use making my nose out worse than it was to spite ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... blackened shreds of the English papers the red glow beat upwards upon the beautiful, pallid, sphinx-like face—the face of a poet, of a philosopher—of anything rather than of a ruthless and ambitious soldier. I have heard folk remark that no two portraits of the Emperor are alike, and the fault does not lie with the artists but with the fact that every varying mood made him a different man. But in his prime, before his features became heavy, I, who have seen sixty years of mankind, can say that in repose I have never looked upon a more ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... loss," he said to himself; "but it might have been but for Dab. There's the making of a man in him. Wonder if he'd get enough to eat if we sent him up yonder. On the whole, I think he would. If he didn't, I don't believe it would be his fault. He's got to go, and his mother'll agree, I know. Talk about mothers-in-law. If one of 'em's worth as much as she is, I'd like to have a dozen. Don't know, though. I'm afraid the rest would have to take back seats while Mrs. Kinzer was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... it proved the alter ego and speaking likeness of my embossed Bombay cap and golden spectacles, she found the fault that it rendered my complexion of a too excessive murksomeness; not reflecting (with feminine imperceptivity) that, the material being black as a Stygian, this criticism applied to the portraitures of ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... basis can be found to serve as a common denominator between different groups, as, for instance, in the Koran for all Mahomedans and in the Shastras for the great majority of high-caste Hindus. At any rate, if the effort is made and fails through no fault of ours, but through the inability of Indian parents to reconcile their religious differences, the responsibility to them will no longer ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... corruption. They buzzed about the table and got into the dishes; their dead, drowned and mangled bodies were polluting all the food, till Caleb remarked during one of his ever-increasing visits: "It's your own fault. Look at all the ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... courageous are the old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and God are alike—the very things we call faults in men are attributed to the Almighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to be jealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; and the very faults of men have in them something that interprets the power and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret the virtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifests Himself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; He ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... The critics find fault with the coloring of Mr. West. But in his works, as in those of Raphael, we do not look for coloring. It is dignity of character, fine expression, delicate design, correct drawing and beautiful disposition of drapery which fix the suffrage of the real judge. All which ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Withdrawing from the world, he adopted a course of ascetic practices, in which he continued till he died—in his thirty-ninth year. He wore about his waist an iron girdle armed with sharp points; and this he would press smartly with his elbow when he detected himself at fault ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... my fault, sir, that she couldn't get rid of him —she would have if she could. That's been the whole trouble from the beginning. [Looking suddenly at WALTER] . . . If anybody would help her! It's only money wants ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... no attention to the fault-finding, shrill declamation of the unhappy voice. He said, in ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... indulge in magical incantations to make him declare whether he is the victim of fate or of the carelessness of the doctor, who failed to fast properly or gave the wrong remedy. If the man died through the fault of the doctor, the relatives take vengeance on the latter. Whenever the women succeed in obtaining the piece of meat which the bovites hold in their mouths, they wrap it with great respect in cloths and carefully preserve it, esteeming ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... people staying there till the rain was over, and to talk to one another. And among the rest, here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Etheridge the poet, the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned, while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... was the reply, "but it will be the fault of the patient, not the cure. Besides, what does it matter whether you die to-day ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... own fault, and therefore you will not deserve to be pitied. Is it not in your own power to preserve all your friends by an honest confession of your faults? Your father will be pleased, Harry Sandford will heartily forgive you, and I ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... hand, his manner to me was cordial, with the somewhat rough and unpolished geniality of a man of a coarse and violent temperament striving to conquer his natural disposition and render himself agreeable, I could find no fault with the arrangements he proposed to make for my own comfort and that of my men. And his expressions of sympathy with us in our misfortunes were everything that could be wished for; but, somehow, they did not ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... certainly! What else do you call it for a man with two little daughters, and divorced by his wife for his own unforgivable fault, to ask any woman to marry him! Yes, I know, you see. Lavinia Dorman is ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... a coffee house venting a parcel of common place abuse on the clergy, in the presence of Mr. Sterne, and evidently leveled at him, Laurence introduced a panegyric on his dog, which he observed had no fault but one, namely, that whenever he saw a parson he fell a barking at him. "And how long," said the youth, "has he had this trick?" "Ever ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... there had been a misunderstanding, and that the shame which he had suffered had been all my fault, because I had been absent for my selfish pleasure at the moment when I might have saved him by a ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... a better house once," went on Mrs. Harbonner; "I didn't always use to eat over a bare floor. I was well enough, if I could ha' let well alone; but I made a mistake, and paid for it; and what's more, I'm paying for it yet. 'Taint my fault, that Hephzibah sits there cuttin' rags, ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... time you spoke that my cousin was not so much at fault in forgetting his conversation as you thought. We had a talk to night about the mine, and when he calls upon you tomorrow, as he intends to do, I want you to know that I said nothing whatever to him of what you told me. He mentioned the subject first. I wanted you to know ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... sighed. There was little in common between mother and daughter; but that, to a grave extent, was the woman's fault. She had never tried to understand her child's complex nature, and somewhat resented Beth's youth and good looks, which she considered contrasted unfavorably with her own deepening wrinkles and graying hair. For Mrs. De Graf was vain and self-important, and still thought herself ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... whole year, I performed my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this" (he tapped the jug with his finger), "for I have feelings. But even so, I could not please her; and then I lost my place too, and that through no fault of mine but through changes in the office; and then I did touch it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at last after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magnificent capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a situation.... I obtained ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the nature of the species whose habits he describes. Fabre himself, by dint of criticizing with so much humour the abuse of classifications, has sometimes allowed himself to fall into the same fault. (7/28.) He has taken good care, however, not to neglect the systematic study of species; witness his "Flora of the Vaucluse" and that careful catalogue of Avignon which he has not disdained to republish. (7/29.) The truth is that "if we do not know their names the knowledge of the things ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... shouted angrily, "what right have I to ask the creatures to go hungry? Am I to beat them when they cry? It's not their fault that they want food, and it's not my poor man's fault that they haven't any. He's ready to work at his trade if anybody wants him to do so, and if he can't get work and if the children are hungry ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... him—to have the whole condoned. As for Henry, he let these things pass in silence, sometimes with a sad and sometimes with a black look. There was no rivalling the dead, he knew that; and how to censure an old serving-man for a fault of loyalty was more than he could see. His was not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is going to hell—(I'm sure it's no fault of mine)—and that now all subordination is destroyed, and that upstarts join the ship who, because they have a five-pound note in their pocket, are allowed to do just as they please. He said he was determined ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... probationary days there, his letters to his mother and sister testify; his gifts, also, extracted from his necessities, are evidences of the bent of his mind—fans and china—luxuries rather than necessaries; but in this, it must be remembered, his judgment was in fault, not his affections. In all things he was swayed and guided by his pride,—his indomitable pride. The period, brief as it was, of his sojourn in the great metropolis proved that Walpole, while he neglected him so cruelly, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various |
