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Failure   /fˈeɪljər/   Listen
Failure

noun
1.
An act that fails.
2.
An event that does not accomplish its intended purpose.
3.
Lack of success.  "That year there was a crop failure"
4.
A person with a record of failing; someone who loses consistently.  Synonyms: loser, nonstarter, unsuccessful person.
5.
An unexpected omission.  "The mechanic's failure to check the brakes"
6.
Inability to discharge all your debts as they come due.  Synonym: bankruptcy.  "Fraudulent loans led to the failure of many banks"
7.
Loss of ability to function normally.



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"Failure" Quotes from Famous Books



... periods a nation gives itself up to war, trade languishes, the population loses the habit of steady industry, government and administration become corrupt, abuses escape punishment, and the real sources of a people's strength and expansion dwindle. What has caused the relative failure and decline of Spanish, Portuguese, and French expansion in Asia and the New World, and the relative success of English expansion therein? Was it the mere hazards of war which gave to Great Britain the domination of India and ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell

... "but that requires only one thing, the master passion to do, because for us, doing is life. I cannot regret Hamlet's hesitating failure. It was his life. To every man there is but one way, his way, and whether it be failure or success does not depend upon an avenged wrong, a successful marriage, or even a great work done for humanity. The test is, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments, Which free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes, Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps, 15 All the land's produce will be merged in taxes, And the revenue will amount to—nothing! The failure of a foreign market for Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings, And such home manufactures, is but partial; 20 And, that the population of the Pigs, Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw And water, is a fact which is—you ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... first-class professor is put into business and blamed for being impractical. The fellow who has been handling thousands of dollars in college management and running twenty assistants—the man who could have taken the place—has no father to give him the boost necessary, and the other man's failure has queered his chances. He has to go to work as a mere clerk under a man—excuse me, I don't ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... Baltimore this afternoon. Although I had not succeeded in presenting the address before-mentioned to the President, I little regretted the failure, being convinced that it would not be less generally read by the public on that account, and in this I have not been disappointed. I proceeded at once, the next morning, to Philadelphia; and here I concluded to print ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... graduated personal tax imposed. The certificate that this tax had been paid, known as the cedula personal, which also served for personal identification, could be required at any time or place, and failure to produce it was cause for summary arrest. It therefore became, in unscrupulous hands, a fruitful source of abuse, since any "undesirable" against whom no specific charge could be brought might be put out of ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... their march toward civilization includes well-grounded ambitions of art. Mentality, feeling, spirit, all reveal themselves in the canvases. Crudity is apparent, but it comes more from an untutored hand than from failure to grasp the significance of the subject. Many pictures are flamboyant, some are melodramatic, nearly all are big subjects handled with great boldness; what they lack in finish they make up in sincerity. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... of the shingled spire was destroyed, most of the roof, and the great bronze bell lay among the debris on the ground. It is as though the enemy's policy was to intimidate the simple folk through the failure of their super-natural stronghold. "If the church is so pregnable, then what chance have we?"—that is the question which it was hoped would be asked; or so I imagined as I stood before this ruined sanctuary. Where, I wondered, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various

... 'Apprenticeship,' as it was called, was adopted, so absurd, and betraying such ignorance of the principles of human nature, that, did we not know otherwise, we might suspect its author of intending to produce a failure. It was to witness the results of an experiment promising so little good, that our authors visited three islands, particularly worthy ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Nothing beautiful is seen around him, excepting always sky and trees and sea; these, as he is mainly a dweller in cities, he cannot live enough with. But it is, perhaps, in the real estimation in which art is held that we shall find the reason for failure. If the world cared for her language, art could not help speaking, the utterance being, perhaps, simply beautiful. But even in these days when we have ceased to prize this, if it were demanded that art should take its place beside ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... guests were several cotton planters from the South, and English cotton-brokers. One of them had passed a short time among the Mormons, at Nauvoo, and had many amusing stories to tell of them. One I select among many, which is the failure of an intended miracle by ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... the organ. Slowly, as if the grave were unwilling to give up its prey the music began to whimper, wheeze and squeak. It was sounding backward and it sounded three times before the unhappy man saw failure once more blinking at him mockingly. But he was not to be denied. He re-read the score, set it going on the organ, then picked up the tam-tam. "These old Chinese ghosts caused the trouble once and they can cause it again," he muttered; and striking the instrument softly, the music for ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... the church may not invite to the reception at the house afterwards, which may necessarily be limited because of the size of the house or the means of the family. No guest receiving cards for the church should let herself feel aggrieved because of failure to receive the other. Answers to invitations should invariably be sent; many omit this, not thinking it necessary, but ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... to look dignified, but the attempt was an utter failure. Dirty water dripped from her matted hair, while her face and ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... cast in this unpleasant place, from whence flight or retreat was rendered almost impossible, by the laws of discipline and the freak of circumstance. Despite his titles, in face of his great reputation, he knew himself to be a failure, and as he rode southward through the mountain barrier that frowns down over India he was conscious of the knowledge that in all human probability he would never look upon this drear land again. His time was up, he was about to be set on the shelf, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... drawn forth the sword from the stone before St. Paul's. "Now try ye, all my barons; but beware ye be not stained with shame, or any treachery, or guile." And turning away his face from them, King Arthur mused full heavily of sins within his breast he knew of, and which his failure ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... there can be no question as to its identity with another of the same or similar name, the abbreviation of the State should be appended, as in the above, Newark, N. J. There is another Newark in the State of Ohio. Owing to failure to comply with this rule many letters go astray. The date should be on every letter, especially business letters. The date should never be put at the bottom in a business letter, but in friendly letters ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... Court fire bell. The dickens of a row it makes. Uncle Tom, in addition to not liking burglars, is a bloke who has always objected to the idea of being cooked in his sleep, so when he bought the place he saw to it that the fire bell should be something that might give you heart failure, but which you couldn't possibly mistake for the drowsy chirping of ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... which an Emperor was exposed; but neither of them understood the essence of the institution. Far from idealising the Empire overmuch they did not make it ideal enough. The true conception of Empire eluded their grasp and was unaffected by their failure. The policy of Otto the Great is justified by the fact that he, like Charles the Great, gave to a national monarchy the character of a religious office and the sense of a sacred mission. To appreciate his achievement we need only compare the German ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... pay this homage of avoidance which would have been more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequent failure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of her and an itching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconied windows besides those of the unslender ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... by the failure of immediate expectation to revise his poem and omit from the third and the sixth books about one hundred and fifty lines, while adding fifty to heal over the wounds made by excision. As the poem stands, it is a rebuke of tyrannous ambition in the tale ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... a brute, and regretted his failure. But in her presence his cynicism was evanescent. She sat on a little sofa, covered with an Indian shawl; behind her was a great bronze, the celebrated gift of a celebrated Rajah to her mother. Mrs. Young had been on a tour in the East with her husband, and ever since her house had been ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... seems to have been the gradual collapse of the family name from failure of male-issue; and although there is, perhaps, no more romantic chapter in the vicissitudes of many a great house than its final extinction from lack of an heir, such a disaster is all the more to be lamented when resulting from a curse. ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... may be questioned if we are yet arrived at the Patrick Barry stage. What we need is pioneer planters who have the courage to plant nut trees and take a chance against failure and not wait for others to blaze the trail. It needs men of vision and courage to plant the unknown and look with hope and optimism to the future. So many are deterred from planting by the fact ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... penance an hour. I am very sorry I was such a boor. I was in earnest when I said I didn't get the gad when I needed it. I had a big disappointment to-day, and I came in sore and cross. I am ashamed of myself, but you will never see me that way again. I know I will make a failure of my profession if I don't be more polite than Mother ever taught me to be. Won't you let me be your scholar, too? Please do come over to the ravine where it is cool and give me my first lesson. I need ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... even Gianbattista Bordogni, would most likely follow the advice of Don Paolo, in spite of his own protests and arguments to the contrary. He fancied that he himself alone was a free agent. He doubted Gianbattista, and began to think that the boy's character would turn out a failure. This was the reason why he no longer encouraged the idea of a marriage between his daughter and his apprentice, a scheme which, somewhat earlier, had been freely discussed. It had seemed an admirable arrangement. The young man promised to turn out a freethinker after Marzio's ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long siege when the besieged city was, short of defenders or provisions. With equal forces an attack was generally a failure, for the defenders had always a great advantage. But when the number of defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of the assailants would ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most obstinate resistance, like Tarentum; ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... stores largely patronized by industrial workers and farmers, and they were better stores by half than any cooperative stores we had seen in America. For with us the co-operative store is generally a sad failure. Our farmers talk big about cooperation, but they sneak around and patronize the stores that offer the best bargains, and our industrial workers haven't begun to realize how co-operative buying will help them. We found ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... Notwithstanding the failure of the periodicals just mentioned, it was clear that the intellect of the country was beginning to feel its strength and put forth its power. A national spirit that rose above the narrow distinctions of creed and party began to ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... really not going to eat any luncheon, Peter," she said, "I must trouble you to help me to wash up and pack the basket. The fire is out and the water is cold, but it can't be helped. The picnic has been a failure." ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... was sin, it was beyond my power to rid myself of the curse; if I was already condemned of Holy Church because of failure to abide by her decree, then there was naught left but for me to seek my own happiness, and the happiness ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... were, to take it. At least, now, he should not be acting from any selfish impulse, and if there were anything unseemly in what he was going to do, he should have no regrets on that score, even in the shame of failure. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island was one of the men who became a leader early in the war and who in spite of opposition and failure stood by the American cause through all the hard days of ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... The failure of the contractors to live up to their word, with the consequent delay of a year, was a serious blow to me. It meant that I must attack the problem one year older; it placed the initiation of the expedition ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... its progress, and in this way emphasize the ultimate triumph of the series in attaining its predestined culmination. Such events are not extraneous; because, although they tend directly to dispute the progress of the series, they tend also indirectly to further it through their failure to arrest it. The events in any skilfully selected narrative may, therefore, be divided into two classes: events direct or positive, and events indirect or negative. By a direct, or positive, event is meant one whose immediate tendency is to aid the progress of the ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... other hand, Pitt's intended combination in a supreme crisis of his country's destiny with his life-long antagonist, Fox, was a heroic experiment, perhaps, but still only an experiment. The failure of the ministry of "All the Talents" renders it exceedingly doubtful whether such an alliance would have proved successful, and Fox's lukewarm patriotism would have been dearly purchased at the expense of the alienation of the king, perhaps even of his relapse into ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... was a complete failure; but it had set them both in great glee. If truth be told, they ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May

... Bright, "though not so deeply as some natures would have suffered in the same circumstances. Her present situation is far from being enviable. Her father is a hard, grasping man, and he was greatly vexed that her splendid marriage turned out to be such a failure. It must be very mortifying to her to depend upon him mainly for the support of herself and son. I pitied her, and I pitied Mr. Fitzgerald too. He was selfish and dissipated, because he was brought up with plenty of money, and slaves ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... wedded his subconscious thoughts had been to living out the future with her as his revelation of Heaven's poetry! Would he have the courage to maintain his purpose, or, at the sight of her, would he throw himself at her feet, and, admitting failure, plead for ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... was first blazed abroad, it filled all good men with great grief, and to my own heart it brought one of the most sensible sorrows that in all nay life I had felt. Yet his quick return of his own accord, and his readiness to give all satisfaction for that failure, and his kind receiving by the committee of states, among whom he ever sat after his return (though never before) turned our grief suddenly into joy, his absence not lasting above two full days. Yet all men were not ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... only reply in all sincerity that the fact of her having told me so had entirely escaped my mind, which was quite true. Yet ordinarily my memory for trifles is excellent, and I can only attribute to press of other cares my failure now ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... held, also various posts all over these countries, and columns are operating in various districts, the whole affair fills one with wonder and admiration. We expect to reach Deelfontein this evening. An R.A.M.C. man has just been discussing that ghastly failure, inoculation, with another man. Said he: "Inoculation is bally tommy-rot!" Quoth the other, "That be hanged for a yarn. Tommy rot, indeed, it nearly killed me!" It's a fact, the unnecessary suffering which was endured by the poor beggars who ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... However, I never faltered; the symptoms would not lie to me, nor my art fail me; when the right moment came, I applied the treatment, in spite of the timidity of some of my friends, who were afraid of the scandal that might result from a failure; it would be said that the medicine was my vengeful retort to the disinheritance. To make a long story short, it was at once apparent that he had taken no harm; he was in his senses again, and aware of all that went on. The company were amazed; my step-mother thanked ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... that is to be dreaded, and that indirect action is remediable we are encouraged to cultivate the pear, though we have lost more than five hundred of one variety and almost all of the other varieties before we discovered the real cause of the failure. "Where you lose you may find;" success does not indicate merit, and "fools never learn by experience." As a celebrated surgeon said in his lecture. "A good oculist is made at the expense of ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... Arrangement," but Emilius von Aslingen was too powerful an individual to be treated by others as he treated them. Had the fancy-dress ball of the Sovereign been attended by all his subjects, with the exception of this Captain in his Guards, the whole affair might have been a failure; would have been dark in spite of the glare of ten thousand lamps and the glories of all the jewels of his state; would have been dull, although each guest were wittier than Pasquin himself; and very vulgar, although attended by lords of as many quarterings ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... affairs economically. And this is entirely natural. Everybody, Communists included, rails bitterly at the inefficiencies of the present system, but everybody, Anti-Communists included, admits that there is nothing whatever capable of taking its place. Its failure is highly undesirable, not because it itself is good, but because such failure would be preceded or followed by a breakdown of all existing organizations. Food distribution, inadequate as it now is, would come to ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... on a like occasion in Rome. And the cause lay deep. She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception; and now when she looked steadily at her husband's failure, still more at his possible consciousness of failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became tenderness. Will's want of reticence might have been met with more severity, if ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... to arouse the fallen one and lift him to his feet, but his efforts only met with failure, and the other sank back again on his bed of snow. The printer studied a moment. What should he do? Then his eyes caught a gleam of light from a house near by. "Of course," he thought, "Uncle Bobbie Wicks lives there." Stooping again, he gathered the man ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... possible results for the amount expended requires the careful consideration of many geologic factors,—and, what is more important, their arrangement in proper perspective and relationship. Faulty reasoning from any one of the principal factors, or over-emphasis on any one of them, or failure to develop an accurate three-dimensional conception of the underground structural conditions, may lead to failure or extra expense. Success or failure is swiftly and definitely determined. The geologist is usually employed by the company financing the drilling; ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... come, and that America will present to every friend of mankind the cheering proof that a popular government, wisely formed, is wanting in no element of endurance or strength. Fifty years ago its rapid failure was boldly predicted. Latent and uncontrollable causes of dissolution were supposed to exist even by the wise and good, and not only did unfriendly or speculative theorists anticipate for us the fate of past republics, but the fears of many an honest patriot ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... Prussian had shot himself the night before for roulette losses, the event had not thrilled, startled, and impressed the gay Baden gathering one tithe so gravely and so enduringly as did now the unaccountable failure of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna, came upon the scene. He ran out eager and bareheaded, looking right and left, and very full of his mission. It was doomed to be a failure as far as the principal person was concerned, but he approached the others with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself involved in a violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turned out to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... people are rather in a bad state just now for our purposes, for trade here is in a very unprosperous condition; and the recent failure of many of their great mercantile houses does no good to our theatrical ones. The audiences are very pleasant, however, and the company by no means bad. We are here another week, and then take ship for Ilfracombe, and thence ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... second book of poems—'Leaves from Australian Forests'—which was published towards the end of 1869. But though the volume showed a great advance in quality upon its predecessor, it was a commercial failure, and the publisher lost ninety pounds ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... creature, and responsible to Him—God's possession, not his own. He had a great wish to succeed in the schools; a thrill came over him when he thought of it; but ambition was not his life; he could have reconciled himself in a few minutes to failure. Thus disposed, the only subjects on which the two friends freely talked together were connected with their common studies. They read together, examined each other, used and corrected each other's papers, and solved each other's difficulties. Perhaps ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... his faith must be an absolute one, claiming from God everything the love of a perfect Father could give, or the needs he had created in his child could desire; that he must not look to himself first for help, or imagine that the divine was only the supplement to the weakness and failure of the human; that the highest effort of the human was to lay hold of the divine. He learned that he could keep no simplest law in its loveliness until he was possessed of the same spirit whence that law sprung; that he could not love Helen aright, simply, perfectly, unselfishly, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... on the part of the line rider at Sinkhole, or any failure on his part to report every evening, would be the signal for Sudden to sweep the Sinkhole range clean of Rolling R horses. He had worried a good deal because he had forgotten to tell his confederates that they must remember to take care of the ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... ranged there in the window— Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds, And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy? See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges! They're works of art—minutely seen and felt, Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure To spend ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... the professor said, "ever since these facts first came to us through Miela. It would be important. With his expedition here a total failure, I think we might assume that nothing more would be done up there in attempting to conquer the earth. I've tried to make Alan see that we should give the authorities all the information we have. It might help—something ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... he promptly resumed his work on the "Church History," but was much disturbed because of the failure of his correspondents in writing him regularly, so he became particularly active in addressing them. But better still he punctuated his composition of sermons, the gradual unfolding of his Church History, and religious and literary studies in general, with experimental ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... under oath to give Mr. Johnson a fair, non-partisan trial. The only surprise was that, after the exposure of the malignant partisan spirit that sat in judgment upon Mr. Johnson, and the utter and absolute failure to prove any violation of law on his part, but on the contrary, a determination to preserve from infringement the functions of his office and prevent a revolution from fundamental political forms ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... suppress men, but not ideas. Has the failure of the exceptional laws against the socialist party in ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

... pride in his old woman and pride in himself. When I asked him what he thought I, a greenhorn, might expect to earn at "hopping," he sized me up, and said that it all depended. Plenty of people were too slow to pick hops and made a failure of it. A man, to succeed, must use his head and be quick with his fingers, must be exceeding quick with his fingers. Now he and his old woman could do very well at it, working the one bin between them and not going ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... foolish still is it to weep for a worthless husband, especially in public, thus, on the church steps, where all may see. All the other women will be so pleased. It is their greatest happiness to think that their neighbour's husband is worse than their own. Failure is the royal road to popularity. Dry your tears, foolish one, before you make ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... in the afternoon when Sarah Purfoy awoke from her uneasy slumber. She had been dreaming of the deed she was about to do, and was flushed and feverish; but, mindful of the consequences which hung upon the success or failure of the enterprise, she rallied herself, bathed her face and hands, and ascended with as calm an air as she could ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... see that Russia has declined to aid us, And says she knows that Prussia likewise must; So that the mission of Prince Schwarzenberg To Alexander's Court has closed in failure. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... she must suffer. Sometimes she would be overwhelmed, in the midst of all her triumphant business, with a sense of personal failure. She had succeeded where most women are hopeless failures, but where so many women are successful and satisfied she had failed and gone empty. She had no home, beyond what was involved in the walls of this ancient dwelling, the womb and grave ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... uttered in a tone of concentrated resolution. As a flash of lightning in the night shows up in an instant every detail of a wild landscape, so at one glance I seemed to see every possible result of such an action—the detection, the capture, the honoured career ending in irreparable failure and disgrace, my friend himself lying at the mercy ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... looked back Florence was far ahead of her pursuers and going out of sight behind a low knoll. Assured of Florence's safety, Madeline put her mind to her own ride and the possibilities awaiting at the ranch. She remembered the failure to get any of her servants or cowboys on the telephone. To be sure, a wind-storm had once broken the wire. But she had little real hope of such being the case in this instance. She rode on, pulling the black as she neared the ranch. Her ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... and a great amount of practice failure often happens, and blame is laid upon the carver which really belongs to some other person,—the butcher, the cook, the table-girl, or the guest. Not all men who sell meat know or practice the best ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln

... off. For we dreamed in these times, fitful and lurid, coloured dreams; flashes of horrible crises in one's life; Interminable precipices; a river skiff engulfed in a swirl of green sea-water; agonies of repentance; shameful failure, defeat, memories—and then the steady pulsing of the engine, and thick, impermeable darkness choking up the windows again. How I ached ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... been prepared for my failure to get fair treatment. I had learned in New York that lists of abolition houses have been published in the South, and Southern buyers warned not to place orders with them. I wonder if I am thus listed. Our agent in Savannah writes that it is quite useless to solicit orders on account of the prevalent ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... me for permission to try his chance long ago—before I came west to Laramie. I assigned him to bring her through to me. He was distracted at his failure to do so. He has been out with parties all the summer, searching for you both, and has not been back at Laramie more than ten days. Oh, we all knew why you did not come back to the settlements. When we came in he guessed all that you know. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... three men set out together, riding rapidly into the rough hills to the northwest. Scott covered the ground fast, but he searched in vain for sign of antelope. "Indians have been all over this divide," he announced after much hard riding and a failure to find any game. "It doesn't look like venison for supper to-night, colonel. Stop!" he ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... because these men and women must be made to understand; because they must be reached and made to see and know what life may be counted worth living, and how far they are responsible for failure to make better ideals the ideal of every soul nearest them, that the story of the worker must be told over and over again till it has struck home. To seek out all phases of wretchedness and want, and bring them face to face with those who deny that such ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... have been offered him have not been sufficiently manifest," said Von Halber. "Perhaps he has not regarded them as safe, and he fears a failure. In that he is right; a vain attempt at flight would be much more prejudicial to him than to yield himself without opposition. Well, I will see that he has now a sure chance to escape, and you may believe he will ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... Leucocytosis is usually well marked before the injection of antitoxin; after the injection there is usually a diminution in the number of leucocytes. The false membrane may separate and be cast off, after which the patient gradually recovers. Death may take place from gradual failure of the heart's action or from syncope during some ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... junk? From old man Hardy's slop-chest? Hellbeam makes you work for your money when you're driven to wallowing in a muck-hole like the Lizzie. It isn't worth it. You see, you've run into the worst failure you've made in years. But I only wish you could see the sorry ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... care to put in a claim. Not but that she had once been ambitious of distinction, and had been told by loving friends that she possessed talents that it was wrong to bury. There was no one to care now for her success or failure. It mattered little how the years were passed. They would find her a lonely, sorrowing woman, without home or friends. No one, be they never so hopeful, could anticipate happiness in such a future. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... battled all enemies alike,—infidels, emperors, and Pagans. It was his mission to act, rather than to talk. His greatness was in his character, like that of our Washington, who was not a man of words or genius. What a failure is a man in an ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... had been at work in the Regulation; and the unfortunate failure of justice in the case of Fanning had given the corrupt element its opportunity to seize control. In the petitions addressed to Governor Tryon by the leaders of the movement in its earlier stages the aims of ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... giving effect to the Copyright Bill proposed in 1895 by Mr. Hall Caine, "making it obligatory that a book shall be printed and bound in this country in order to secure Canadian copyright, and continue to be so printed and bound in order to retain such copyright, and that upon failure to print in Canada within a reasonable time, provision shall be made by which the Government may issue to a Canadian publisher a license to print in Canada, subject to such safeguards as will secure to the ...
— The Copyright Question - A Letter to the Toronto Board of Trade • George N. Morang

... trying to stop countless millions of murders—a hopeless task. But the watchbirds didn't hope. Without consciousness, they experienced no sense of accomplishment, no fear of failure. Patiently they went about their jobs, obeying each ...
— Watchbird • Robert Sheckley

... unsafe for him," I said savagely, for my temper was sorely tried by my failure, as I ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... brilliant with rings, brows glittered with ferronieres, ear-rings of the newest mode were shining beneath travelling caps and hats, and chains abounded. I could not persuade myself that this masquerade would succeed, but predicted a failure. It really appeared to me that so shallow a distinction could avail nothing against harpies who denied the right of strangers to pass through their country with a few purchases of this nature, that had been clearly ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the report I respectfully ask the immediate and careful attention of Congress to the failure of accord between the two Governments as to the interpretation and execution of the fishery articles of the treaty of Washington, as disclosed in this correspondence and elucidated by the exposition of the subject by the ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... to get Ted to go with her in a race across the prairie, but he politely but firmly declined the honor, on account, as he explained, that he was responsible for the safety of several thousand head of cattle, and as he had been up against one failure with them so far he did not propose to ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... with certain conditions, and, in addition, he obtained compensation, albeit inadequate, for disturbance for non-payment of rent, in cases in which the Court considered the rent exorbitant, and in which failure to pay was due to bad seasons. Thus tenant-right, which Lord Palmerston had dismissed with epigrammatic flippancy as landlord wrong only a few years before, received the sanction of law from his ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... the failure of his message, was rejoiced at the escape of the faithful Mendez. The latter, nothing daunted by the perils and hardships he had undergone, offered to depart immediately on a second attempt, provided he could have persons to accompany him to the end of the island, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... too generous," he said. "You shan't spend any more on me. I'm sorry I talked in that foolish way. It was really only a kind of affectation of indifference. I'm feeling pretty sore with myself for being such a failure; but I'll have another shot and I hope I ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... described the failure of the different organs of the human mind and body: the keepers of the house trembling; the strong men bowing their heads towards the earth to which they were hastening; the grinders, or teeth, ceasing because they were few; the eyes as if they were looking out of darkened ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... the problem which Browning himself was to face, and in his own view triumphantly to solve; and Paracelsus, rising into the clearness of his dying vision, becomes the mouthpiece of Browning's own criticism of his failure, the impassioned advocate of the Love which with him is less an elemental energy drawing things into harmonious fusion than a subtle weapon of ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... method and pains in all, only Sir W. Pen, who must except against every thing and remedy nothing, did except against my proposal for some reasons, which I could not understand, I confess, nor my Lord Bruncker neither, but he did detect indeed a failure or two of mine in my report about the ill condition of the present pursers, which I did magnify in one or two little things, to which, I think, he did with reason except, but at last with all respect did declare the best thing ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... had eaten his first breakfast in the Crescent City; and it was at Chaudiere's again that he was sharing a farewell supper with Bainbridge, of the Louisianian. Six weeks lay between that and this; forty-odd days of discouragement and failure superadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but at the supper-table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetite and the garnishings were ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... safety and apparent innocence—his bed. One visitor had come; at any moment another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure. The money—that was now Markheim's concern; and as a means to that, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... cheerful conviction that they can do right if they try, that they can purify themselves, can live noble and worthy lives, unless this is set before them as the thing which they are to do, and can succeed in doing, they will not waste their energies on what they know beforehand will end in failure, and if they may not live for God ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... saddled with a hopeless debt of twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert, together with another of ten thousand to Brigitte, which his dignity required him to pay with the least delay possible; and, worst of all,—to complete his humiliation and his sense of failure,—he felt that he was not cured of the passionate emotion he had felt for this woman, the author of his great disaster, and the instrument of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... that he himself did not believe it: captain Lewis felt uneasy at this insinuation: he knew the suspicious temper of the Indians, accustomed from their infancy to regard every stranger as an enemy, and saw that if this suggestion were not instantly checked, it might hazard the total failure of the enterprise. Assuming therefore a serious air, he told the chief that he was sorry to find they placed so little confidence in him, but that he pardoned their suspicions because they were ignorant of the character of white men, among whom it was disgraceful to lie or entrap even an enemy ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... the Northern and Southern States will perceive that the selfish policy of other nations would not have so rejoiced over their division, had it not seemed, to those who loved them not, the proof of past failure and the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... was chosen by the King to repair thither and obtain the archduke's adhesion to this proposal. That the latter had distinguished the Italian savant by admitting him to his intimacy during his former stay in Spain, did not save the mission from failure, and where Peter Martyr failed, Cardinal Ximenes was later equally unsuccessful. Ferdinand ended by yielding and, after a final interview with his son-in-law in Remesal, at which Peter Martyr was present, he left Spain on his way to Naples, the latter remaining with the mad queen to observe ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... retirement soon enough, for the agitation and excitement of this new world. God grant that he may never repent of having exposed the unspotted obscurity of his name and his person to the shoals, the squalls and tempests of the pit, and above all (for what does a mere failure matter?) to the wretched bickerings of the wings; of having entered that shifting, foggy, stormy atmosphere, where ignorance dogmatises, where envy hisses, where cabals cringe and crawl, where the probity of talent has so often been misrepresented, where the noble innocence ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... but, for some reason she could not explain, Grace awoke long before the others. She tried to go to sleep again, but, finding that a failure, dressed and went out ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... legalised in Poland; a number of citizens might combine together, choose a marshal (pp. 180, 182, 285), and seek to overthrow the established order; in case of success they became the government, in case of failure they were not liable to punishment. A diet held by a confederacy was not subject to the liberum veto, but adopted decisions by a ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz



Words linked to "Failure" :   fizzle, occurrent, achiever, upset, nonpayment, misfire, unsuccessful person, happening, reversion, unfortunate person, washout, success, lot, ruin, bankrupt, ruination, relapsing, loss, defeat, flop, flame-out, out, relapse, reverting, occurrence, lapsing, nonremittal, nonaccomplishment, acute renal failure, flash in the pan, miscreation, insolvency, circumstances, flunk, skip, destiny, natural event, miss, lapse, chronic kidney failure, misplay, unfortunate, bust, breach, copout, nonachievement, breakdown, abortion, malformation, nonconformity, miscarriage, error, fate, luck, dud, disorder, default, omission, dashing hopes, fail, backsliding, downfall, portion, dead duck, fortune, naught, insolvent, licking, malfunction, disappointment, nonconformance, underdog, failing



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