"Err" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to us, in all this, is our beloved Lord! Surely, if He, "God only wise"—the Self-existent One, to whom "all power was committed;"—the Sinless One, never liable to err, on whom "the Spirit was poured without measure"—if He manifested such habitual dependence on His heavenly Father, how earnestly ought we, weak, erring, fallible creatures, to seek to live every ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... my mother; and when she prohibits an indifferent thing, I, as a good child, am bound to obey her, particularly when I have the promise of Christ that she can never err—that 'the gates of hell can never prevail against her.' We have an instance in this very county," said Paul, now warming into the argument, "of the effects of a prohibitory law. A few years ago it was no harm ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... Legalistic quibbles have no place in the answer to a complaint. The customer is rightly or wrongly dissatisfied; business is built only on satisfied customers. Therefore the question is not to prove who is right but to satisfy the customer. This doctrine has its limitations, but it is safer to err in the way of doing too much than in ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... infallibility. Doubtless the Jews of Palestine distinguished the canonical from the apocryphal or deutero-canonical books on grounds satisfactory to themselves; but their judgment was not infallible. A senate of Rabbis under the old dispensation might err, as easily as a synod of priests under the new. Though they may have been generally correct, it must not be assumed that they were always so. Their discernment may be commended without being magnified. The general feeling of leaning upon the past was ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... between the first and the third. Of a given area allotted to the hot rooms, from one-half to two-thirds may be devoted to the tepidarium, and from one-third to one-half to the super-heated rooms, always remembering that it is well to err on the side of providing a large and roomy tepidarium. Of the space allowed for the smaller rooms, one-quarter to one-third may be given to the hottest, and the remaining space to the ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... that while a perception of the ridiculous, perhaps to excess, is characteristic of the British mind, and is at the bottom of many defects in the national manners, commonly attributed to less venial feelings, our Transatlantic descendants err in just the opposite direction. The Americans seldom laugh at any body, or any thing—never at themselves; and this, next to an unfortunate trick of insolvency, and a preternatural abhorrence of niggers, is perhaps the besetting sin of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... great numbers who are constantly importuning me for personal interviews in behalf of favourite causes err in supposing that the interview, were it possible, is the best way, or even a good way, of securing what they want. Our practice has been uniformly to request applicants to state their cases tersely, but nevertheless as fully as they think necessary, in writing. Their application ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... category of private revelation. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are infallible; private revelation is fallible. However, her visions are neither mere human meditations nor pious fiction. Her account of events in the lives of Jesus and Mary were revealed to her by God. Although God cannot err in anything He does, errors can be introduced into private revelation by a misunderstanding on the part of the person who receives the revelation, or by an error made by the person who writes down or transmits the revelation. Sacred Scripture ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... and a fairer, or a modester, or a tenderer, and yet, unless my judgment err, a firmer at need, is not to be found among all the excellent of her excellent sex. But thou wouldst scarce think of bestowing Adelheid in reward for such a service on one so little known, or without her wishes ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... commandments of the New Testament, the world would be in the Millennium; and all the sin and crime, and ninety-nine-hundredths of all the sorrow, of earth would have vanished like an ugly dream. Here is the guide for you, and if you take it you will not err. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... writers would make it plain to our hearts and understandings, that God himself would teach us its true meaning, and save us from error, we shall, I venture to say, be taught all necessary knowledge, and be led in the way to eternal life, and not suffered to err: we have God's promise that it shall be so. 'If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... yet one thing upon which, mayhap, I not to have thought sufficient; for it doth be this, that they who did err, as I have shown, shall be the greater for their Pain; and let this be to cheer you, if that you have done foolishly, and thought not upon that day when the Beloved shall come; for Pain is but the voice of Development or Destruction; ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... and virtue all your actions guide; You only err in choosing of your side. That party I, with honour, cannot take; But can much less the care of you forsake: I must not draw my sword against my prince, But yet may hold a shield in your defence. Benzayda, free from danger, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... "What can you do?" "What can you do to add to the nation's yearly output of things done—of a solid plus on the right side of the yearly balance?" It is a brutal way of putting things. It does not make for poetry and art. It may be sordid. I believe as a people we Canadians, perhaps, do err on the sordid side of the practical, but it also makes ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... she learns to reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. 10. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken. 11. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... more into detail, and assured him of his belief in the truth of the story. After some deliberation, Mr. Lincoln, evidently scarcely more than half convinced, but still preferring to err on ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... leaders of the people caused them to err by changing the Terms of Communion in the year 1822, and the Testimony in 1837. While these changes were made in the Covenanted Church's organic law some of the most popular and influential ministers—theological ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... accompanied by his palinode as to their accuracy. His materials have been since used for the basis of more than one narrative, not inaccurate, in French, German and Spanish journals of high authority. It is seldom the case that French writers err by prolixity. They have done so in this case. The present narrative, which contains no sentence derived from any foreign one, has the great advantage of close compression; my own pages, after equating ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... government not intermeddle at all. The smallness of the sum to be redemanded will place this cause in the class of those in which no appeal to the higher tribunal is permitted, even in the case of manifest error, so that if the magistrate should err, the government has no means of correcting the error. 2. The second mode of proceeding would be, to indict the officer in the Supreme Court of the United States; with whom it would rest to punish him at their discretion, in proportion to the injury ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... They err who will maintain through thick and thin upon a mere theory and without any true experience of the world, that it matters not what the outside of a letter may be so long as the contents provoke terror or amusement. The outside of ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... man with a pretty daughter, Georgie. Meseemed you've been spending the evening noticing something of that sort—or do I err?" ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... do not ourselves give any credit to such rumors; but how strange, by the way, that such an expression should drop from our pen on such a subject? No, we believe them to be perfectly solvent; or, if we err in supposing so, we certainly err in the company of those on whose opinions, we, in general, are disposed to rely. We are inclined to believe, and we think, that for the credit of so respectable a firm, it is our duty to state it, that the rumor affecting ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... everything." The passage about conscience contains, as Taylor observes, a dogma which is only to be found implicitly maintained in the Scholia of Olympiodorus on the First Alkibiades of Plato. Olympiodorus says that we shall not err if we call "the allotted daemon conscience;" on which subject he has some further remarks. This doctrine of the sameness of conscience and the internal daemon seems to be that of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (ii. 13): "It is ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... within reality. The ant in whom such complex instincts are developed, knows probably nothing at all about its little world, but knows everything necessary within its little world. It does not err, it does the right thing at the right time, and that because it is in tune with its universe, hence acts from pure instinct in the right way. If intellect were to enter into the case, its actions might become less reliable, and it would blunder far ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... fortunate: for by wisdom no man would ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... this constant urging, coupled with irascibility and energy, for three long hours. Carrie came away worn enough in body, but too excited in mind to notice it. She meant to go home and practise her evolutions as prescribed. She would not err in any way, ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Somerville prove to be. But, alas! by what fatal infatuation was Mr Somerville induced to leave me my own master at an inn, with ten pounds in my pocket, instead of taking me with him to his own residence, and keeping me till he had heard from my father? The wisest men often err in points which at first appear of trivial importance, but which prove in the sequel to have been ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Bacon erred, you may say that he erred from want of knowledge—the knowledge that moralists and preachers would convey. But Lord Bacon had read all that moralists and preachers could say on such matters; and he certainly did not err from want of intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies, did not insist on this intellectual culture as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... standeth by to behold and visit all that thou doest; whether in the body or in the soul, thou surely wilt not err in any prayer or deed; and thou shalt have God to dwell ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... sixty-five, his development has proceeded no further than we here find. He is now willing to extend toleration to all sects who make the Scriptures their sole rule of faith. Sects may misunderstand Scripture, but to err is the condition of humanity, and will be pardoned by God, if diligence, prayer, and sincerity have been used. The sects named as to be tolerated are, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Arians, Socinians, Arminians. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... take— Start not! still chaster reader—she 'll be nice hence— Forward, and there is no great cause to quake; This liberty is a poetic licence, Which some irregularity may make In the design, and as I have a high sense Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit To beg his pardon when I err ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... doubted whether it would be necessary for the Duke to write in so sharp a style to the office as I had drawn it in: which I yield to him, to consider the present posture of the times and the Duke of York, and whether it were not better to err on that hand than the other. He told me that he did not think it was necessary for the Duke of York to do, and that it would not suit so well with his nature nor greatness; which last perhaps is true, but then do too truly show the effects of having princes in places where order ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... function indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to falsehood—vanity and fear. Never seek self-glorification by a falsehood. If fame is not to be won legitimately, do without it; and never seek to screen yourself by a falsehood—this is mean and cowardly in the last degree. 'To err is human;' we are all liable to make mistakes sometimes; such a person as an infallible man, woman, or child has never yet existed, and never will exist. Therefore, if you make a mistake, have the courage to manfully acknowledge it and take the consequences; I will answer for it that they ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... hope you will remember, dear Lady Delacour," said Belinda, "that there is nothing in which novelists are so apt to err as in hurrying things toward the conclusion: in not allowing time enough for that change of feeling, which change ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... together, as right hand and left hand, as science and art, as theory and practice. Rede-craft may call for books and hand-craft for tools, but it is by the help of both books and tools that mankind moves on. Indeed, we shall not err wide of the mark if we say that a book is a tool, for it is the instrument which we make use of in certain cases when we wish to find out what other men have thought and done. Perhaps you will not be as ready to admit that a tool is a book. But take for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... of our race diametrically opposed to the flattering opinion referred to above, namely, the humiliating judgment that all men habitually err, or that illusion is to be regarded as the natural condition of mortals. This idea has found expression, not only in the cynical exclamation of the misanthropist that most men are fools, but also in the cry of ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... people their fathers were as prone to err as we are; that we ought to weigh in the scales of truth and justice what they did, in order to the imitation of them when right and the forsaking of them when wrong. If they were with us, provided they were ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... this issue, they took the opportunity to amend the generally accepted doctrinal statements of the Presbyterian churches by mitigating those utterances which seemed to them, as they have seemed to many others, to err in the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... written, perhaps, as one who dreads saying 'Peace, where there is no peace.' I would rather err on the side of emphasising criticism and difficulty than the other way. There is, indeed, little room for complacency in a Christian, still less in an English Churchman, at the front. Yet in 'padres' hope and expectation should predominate, and these as based less upon results achieved ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... the shore with mighty strokes. When he found not him that had been named, he fell into a fury; he saw Hagen, and spake wrothfully to the hero, "Thy name may be Amelrich, but, or I err greatly, thy face is none of his. By one father and one mother he was my brother. Since thou hast deceived me, thou canst stay where ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... preceding speaker's son expressing his opinion on another occasion): "My father as a Confucian is kind to people negatively. We want to be kind positively because it is right to be kind. As to filial obedience, even fathers may err; we are righteous if we are right. My father is a Shintoist because it is our national custom. He wants to respect his ancestors in a wide sense and he desires that Japan, his family and his ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... the draft included the words "The whole People will not probably mistake their own true Interests, nor err in their Judgment of the Men to whom they may safely commit the Care ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... cause thee to err from this way of the teaching, since apart from God it teacheth thee. For if thou art able to bear all the yoke of the Lord, thou wilt be perfect; but if thou art not able, do what thou art able. And concerning foods, bear what thou art able; but against that which is sacrificed to idols be ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... in too great haste to accomplish his own will. This is apt to be the error of the young. They are sanguine of success, and they rush into the battle of life without waiting to put on the armor of faith. What the young want in setting out, Tom, is a Guide and a Helper, who cannot err, and will not forsake them. An old man in our town used to say, 'Never try to kick open the door of Providence.' I want you, Tom, to wait patiently till Providence opens the door for you. Then you need not be ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... pervert my judgment, did I not set a watch upon his motions, and find them all to harmonize with his frank and gallant bearing? I see no cause to alter my conduct or withdraw my confidence. Yet will I be guarded in our intercourse. If I err, it shall be on the side of prudence; but this matter whereunto he hath called my attention, shall forthwith be searched. It were shame if the cruelty whereof he complains has been practised. Ah me, the eye of the ruler cannot be everywhere! There be those ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the Alcazar show you the chambers in which dwelt this gracious lady, and the garden-fountain wherein she bathed in summer. Moralists, anxious to prove that the way of righteousness is hard, say that beauty dies, but they err, for beauty is immortal. The habitations of a lovely woman never lose the enchantment she has cast over them, her comeliness lingers in their empty chambers like a subtle odour; and centuries after her very ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... that thereby, beside the happy issue which is to mark this day's discourses, you may understand how holy, how puissant and how full of all good is the power of Love, which many, unknowing what they say, condemn and vilify with great unright; and this, an I err not, must needs be exceeding pleasing to you, for that I believe you all ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... he hath not err'd. Forgive me, Heav'n, Rash words like these when all are born to sin! I deem'd that he had nothing to confess Except the warring of his youthful passions, O'er which he strives to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... all came now from California, no matter what French chateau they named it after, but burgundy you could not err in. His guests were now drinking the different wines, and to much the same effect, I should think, as if they had mixed them all in one cup; though I ought to say that several of the ladies took no wine, and kept me in countenance after the first taste I was ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... intervals along the way by which the pious Brahman would travel. When the venerable man came to the first thief he was accosted: "Brahman, why do you carry a dog?" Now, a dog is an unclean beast which no Brahman must touch. And the Brahman, after looking at his goat, said: "You do err; this is a goat." And when the old man reached the second thief, again he was accosted: "Brahman, why do you carry a dog?" So the Brahman put his goat on the ground, and after narrowly scrutinizing it, he said: "Surely this is a goat," and went on his way. When he came to the ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell
... square recesses cut into the hillsides, with perpendicular walls unmarred by crack or crevice, and perhaps you fancy that a house grew out of the ground there, and has been removed in a single piece from the mold. If you do, you err. But the material for a house has been quarried there. They cut right down through the coral, to any depth that is convenient—ten to twenty feet—and take it out in great square blocks. This cutting is done with a chisel that has a handle twelve or fifteen feet long, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to pieces by the Russo-Japanese War. This may illustrate the blunders of foreign criticism, perhaps, rather than any inadequacy in the racially representative character of Japanese art. But it is impossible that critics, and artists themselves, should not err, in the conscious endeavor to pronounce upon the infinitely complex materials with which they are called upon to deal. We must confess that the expression of racial and national characteristics, by means of only one art, such as literature, or by all the arts together, is at ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... said Shears, at last abandoning his silence, "you talk a great deal too much and you often err through ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... behalf of government. The minute I get it I'll wire you to Sialpore and confirm by letter. Now you'd better get back to your post in a hurry. And don't forget, it would be difficult in a case like this to err on the side of silence, Samson. Who'll have ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... am," the beautiful voice went on, "hath He died. And in the ages to come, women such as I, and all women who sorrow, and all men who err and are deceived, and all the helpless world, will know that this was the Friend of the human soul." Not a gesture, not a movement, only that slight, pathetic figure, with pale, agonised face, and eyes that looked—looked—looked beyond them, over their heads ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... still in the midst of that emergency; and if we are faced, as I think for this decade we must expect to be faced, with that dilemma which I indicated earlier, I should prefer, and I hope that every Liberal will prefer, to err by putting the scale of relief somewhat too high for prudence and equity rather than obviously too ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... but in passive fortitude, and in that strong reliance on Heaven natural to great and generous characters. Rebecca, however erroneously taught to interpret the promises of Scripture to the chosen people of Heaven, did not err in supposing the present to be their hour of trial, or in trusting that the children of Zion would be one day called in with the fulness of the Gentiles. In the meanwhile, all around her showed that their present state ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... only, I could have stood it. He is a man, and though a champion for truth, he may err, he does err. And he speaks wild words which he contradicts himself. But the Word of God! Oh, that is too much! To take it out of the hands of the poor and needy, who hunger to be fed, and to cast it to be burnt like the dung of the earth! Surely God will look down! Surely ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... At all events, he mounted the scaffold with Heath, the Bishop of Worcester, at his side; and then deliberately said to the crowd, that his rebellion and his present fall were owing to the false preachers who had led him to err from the Catholic faith of Christ; the fathers and the saints had ever agreed in one doctrine; the present generation were the first that had dared to follow their private opinions; and in England and in Germany, where error had taken ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... Physique occult ou traite de la baguet divinitoire, &c. But concerning the exploration, and superstitious original, see Sir Thomas Brown, Vulg. Err. cap. xxiv. sect. 17. and the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... proof of my going to err; besides, there is a great difference between the ravings of idealogues and the facts based on sound, economic science." Novodvoroff's voice filled the room; he alone was speaking, all ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... date of Theodoric's birth is not accurately determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing it between the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... intimacy which have no better reason than 'He didn't come to see me often enough'; 'He hasn't written to me for ever so long'; 'He does not pay me the attention I expect.' It is a poor love which is always needing to be assured of another's. It is better to err in believing that there is a store of goodwill in our friends' hearts to us which only needs occasion to be unfolded. One often hears people say that they were quite surprised at the proofs of affection which came to them when they were in trouble. They would have been happier ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... all prone to err, we are also very apt to do to others as they really do to us. If they treat us well, we treat them well; if badly, we treat them so also. I believe such to be in accordance with our nature, and if we do not always do so our failure ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... stuffed with words of as many syllables as he had the good fortune to discover. His wife's views were hardly better. Her interference consisted only in the invariable repetition of a formula—"Come, now, be good lads, do!"— which certainly did not err on the side of severity. But the grandmother, if possible, made matters worse. She had brought up her own children in abject terror and unanswering submission; and Nature, as usual, revenged herself by causing her never ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... she is no longer hard. She is contrite, she has confessed all to me. The pride of her heart has given way, and she leans on me for help and desires to be taught. This fills me with trust, for I cannot but think that the brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge. She is going to write a letter to the friends at the Hall Farm for me to give them when she is gone, and when I told her you were here, she said, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need were, To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . . Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night? I did not err: there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night, And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. I cannot hallo to my brothers, but Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest I'll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits Prompt me, and they ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... of the plastic arts when he said, "Our marbles have almost colour." That is just where we err. We are incessantly striving to make Sculpture at once a romance-writer and a painter, and of course she loses all dignity and does but seem the jay in borrowed plumes of sable. Conceits are altogether out of keeping with marble. They suit a cabinet painting or a piece ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... but this is certain, that what age reads without difficulty youth will read without strain, and in view of the excessive burden put upon the eyes by the demands of modern life, it may be worth while to consider whether it is not wise to err on the safer side as regards the size of type, even ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... new to me, but by no means to Trevanion, who was fully aware of the immense consequence of not giving even a momentary opportunity for aim to my antagonist; and in this mode of firing the most practised and deadly shot is liable to err—particularly if the signal ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... much to eat, the right quantity depending much upon age, sex, occupation, season, and climate, but the quantity is quite as important as the quality. Appetite would be a sure guide in both respects were it not so often perverted and diseased. As a general rule, we eat too much. It is better to err in the other direction. An uncomfortable feeling of fullness, or of dullness and stupor after a meal is a sure sign of over-eating, so whatever and whenever you eat, eat slowly, masticate your food well, and DO NOT ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... eminence, in Nature's plan Rise the reflective faculties of Man! Labour to Rest the thinking Few prefer! Know but to mourn! and reason but to err!— In Eden's groves, the cradle of the world, Bloom'd a fair tree with mystic flowers unfurl'd; 450 On bending branches, as aloft it sprung, Forbid to taste, the fruit of KNOWLEDGE hung; Flow'd with sweet Innocence the tranquil ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... moment, and then said, slowly: "I called you my friend last July, and when I speak in the mood I was in then I mean all that I say. Friends should be very frank when the occasion requires, or else they are but acquaintances. I am going to be very frank with you to-day, and if I err, charge it to friendship only. Ida Mayhew loves you, Mr. Van Berg; she has loved you almost from the first; and now that her life has become so noble and beautiful, I am greatly mistaken if you do not return her affection. If this be true, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... reliance upon it; and yet it is as true to-day as when the old Latin maximist first penned it, with the plurality of the gods of his dependence fully manifest in the original "Dii" or "Deis." The people do not often err materially or long. They may throne a wooden god or a baboon for a short moment, but that moment soon passes. As a political body no demagogue with words supplying the place of brains, can long override them; ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... living where the sun Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire Themselves and others, I consent and run To every mire; And by this world's ill guiding light, Err more than I ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... all has been said that an enemy could in justice say in blame of his metrical peculiarities. Unquestionably he does occasionally, like Robert Browning, err in the direction of cacophony. But when we turn to the broader part of prosody, we must perceive that Mr. Hardy is not only a very ingenious, but a very correct and admirable metricist. His stanzaic ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... seeming impossibility again a great promise for us. If we believe it at all, I think we must believe it because the resurrection of Jesus Christ says so, and because the Scriptures put it into articulate words as the promise of His resurrection. 'Ye do err,' said Christ long ago, to those who denied a resurrection, 'not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.' Then knowledge of the Scriptures leads to belief in the resurrection of the dead, and the remembrance of our ignorance of the power of God disposes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... opinion prevailed that the government of Britain would be conferred upon him; an opinion not founded upon any suggestions of his own, but upon his being thought equal to the station. Common fame does not always err, sometimes it even directs a choice. When Consul,[136] he contracted his daughter, a lady already of the happiest promise, to myself, then a very young man; and after his office was expired I received her in marriage. He was immediately appointed governor of Britain, and the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... the strong points of apologists for revelation: the scientific accuracy of Moses should stand at the head of their evidences; and they might urge with some cogency, that since Aristotle, who devoted himself to science, and lived many ages after Moses, does little else than err ingeniously, this fact, that the Jewish Lawgiver, though touching science at a thousand points, has written nothing that has not been "demonstrated to be exactly and strictly true," is an irrefragable proof of his having derived ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... opinion of every author, of every sentiment, with that submissive diffidence, which showed an unlimited confidence in my understanding. I saw myself revered, as a superior being, by one whose judgment my vanity told me was not likely to err: preferred by him to all the other visitors of my sex, whose fortunes and rank should have entitled them to a much higher degree of notice: I saw their little jealousies at the distinguished attention he paid me; it was gratitude, it was pride, it was love! Love which had made too ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... thy visions; never more will the light of those eyes be fed by celestial commune; never more can my soul guard from thy pillow the trouble and the disease. Not such as I would have vainly shaped it, must be thy lot. In common with thy race, it must be thine to suffer, to struggle, and to err. But mild be thy human trials, and strong be thy spirit to love and to believe! And thus, as I gaze upon thee,—thus may my nature breathe into thine its last and most intense desire; may my love for thy mother pass to thee, and in thy looks may she ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... daffodils; they seldom died; And no one thought of them as provender; The children fed them weekly for a treat, And my wife said, "The little things—how sweet! If you imagine I can ever eat A rabbit called Persephone, you err." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... always been given to understand, yet in his own age misunderstood, by his wife especially! And, to crown all, unless I err, drowned ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... not recall the figure of things. When the mind regards bodies in this fashion, we say that it imagines. I will here draw attention to the fact, in order to indicate where error lies, that the imaginations of the mind, looked at in themselves, do not contain error. The mind does not err in the mere act of imagining, but only in so far as it is regarded as being without the idea, which excludes the existence of such things as it imagines to be present to it. If the mind, while imagining non-existent things as present to it, is at the same time conscious that they do not ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... late at night, And all night long, the selfsame song,—- "Rattle and clank and whirr." Day in, day out, all day, all night,— "Rattle and clank and whirr;" With faces tight, with all our might,— "Rattle and clank and whirr;" We may not stop and we dare not err; Our men are risking their lives out there, And we at home must do our share;— But it's long and long the day is. We'll break if we must, but we cannot spare A thought for ourselves, or the kids, or care, ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... on open sea in a swimming-match, in which ye both wantonly exposed your lives, and no man, either friend or foe, could turn you from the foolish venture? Ase'nnight ye twain toiled in the realm of the waters, and, if I err not, he outdid thee in swimming, for he had greater strength. Wherefore I fear me much that thou mayest meet with sorry luck if thou darest to bide here for Grendel for the ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... whom recognition can injure. He reverences his art too highly to magnify his own exposition of it; and when he reads what I have set down here, he will smile and shake his head, and mutter that I have divined the perfect idea in the imperfect embodiment. Unless I greatly err, however, no one but himself is competent to take that exception. The genuine artist is never satisfied with his work; he perceives where it falls short of his conception. But to others it will not be incomplete; for the achievements of real art are ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Gilbert's musical comedy "Babette's Love." "To err is human, to forgive divine" reminds us of a familiar contrast. "Human nature is like a bad clock; it might go right now and then, or be made to strike the hour, but its inward frame is to go wrong," is a simile that emphasizes the popular notion that man's behavior tends to the perverse. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... was first tried in 1880. It possessed tensile strength of 24 to 25 tons per square inch. It was then considered advisable not to exceed this, and err rather on the safe side. This shaft has been in use eight years, and no sign of any flaw has been observed. Since then the tensile strength of mild steel has gradually been increased by Messrs. Vickers, the steel still retaining the elasticity and toughness to endure fatigue. This has only been ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... expedition to invade Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege, Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find Some easier enterprise? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven Err not)—another World, the happy seat Of some new race, called Man, about this time To be created like to us, though less In power and excellence, but favoured more Of him who rules above; so was his will Pronounced among the Gods, and by an oath That shook Heaven's whole circumference ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... choice of the Korean and the ocean routes to China from Japan, were he required to make a choice. In the face of the certainty of Korean hostility, however, Hideyoshi's selection was certainly open to criticism. Nevertheless, the event showed that he did not err in his calculations so far as the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of definite data pertaining to the effects of radiation is due to the failure of most investigators to determine accurately the quantities and wave-lengths of the rays involved. For example, it is easy to err by attributing an effect to visible rays when the effect may be caused by accompanying invisible rays. Furthermore, it may be possible that certain rays counteract or aid the effective rays without being effective alone. In other words, the physical measurements have been neglected ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... apparently never heard of it—that it was the MEDICAL journals of England whose indignant condemnation of vivisection cruelties led up to its attempted regulation by law? The public assumes that authorities like these are not likely to err concerning methods of medical instruction or research. In the mind of the average man, every prepossession is in their favour; he cannot easily bring himself to believe that if cruelty ever existed, THEY should be so completely ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... "I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she brought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste, that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes—a brief space, but sufficing to wring my whole ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... quickened breathing, then put the question how she could know this; and Adrian, with a significant smile, replied that her heart would tell her, and if it should ever err—of this he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... questions that she longed to ask. She had sought the Sabbath-school this morning in search of help. She felt blind and lame, unable to take a step in any direction lest in her ignorance she should err, as already she had. Something in her way of speaking of these things must be radically wrong. She had misled this good man. It was no use ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... tend to err in one certain direction from the truth, as in the examples just cited, psychology speaks of a "constant error", and evidently the knowledge of such constant errors is of importance wherever the facts are ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... answered him, "twice you spoke, unless I err, of the necessity of a clerk's fee, as ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... repeat, no degradation, no reproach in this, but all dignity and honourableness: and we should err grievously in refusing either to recognize as an essential character of the existing architecture of the North, or to admit as a desirable character in that which it yet may be, this wildness of thought, and roughness of work; this look of mountain brotherhood between the cathedral and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... element of uncertainty, I grant you," says Jurgen. "Still, one can rarely err by keeping on the safe side. This person is, in any event, a very ill-bred fellow, with probably immoral intentions. Yes, caution is the main thing, and in justice to ourselves we will ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... and harmful has its foundation only in the mind. And what harm is done or what is there strange, if the man who has not been instructed does the acts of an uninstructed man? Consider whether thou shouldst not rather blame thyself, because thou didst not expect such a man to err in such a way. For thou hadst means given thee by thy reason to suppose that it was likely that he would commit this error, and yet thou hast forgotten and art amazed that he has erred. But most of all when thou blamest a man ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... you err. Chaste as she is, she would as soon give up Her honour, as betray me to the king: I tell thee, she's the character of heaven; Such an habitual over-womanly goodness, She dazzles, walks mere angel upon earth. But see, she comes; call the cardinal Guise, While Malicorn attends for some ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... we'll do as you say," exclaimed the lady. "It's the right thing to err on the safe side, and I won't take any chances. But it will be bad for the men to have to work in this darkness. When ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not know that this is true, and if doubtful, we should follow principle. In this, as in many other elections, they would be guided by reputation, which would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present mode of appointment. In one State of the Union, at least, it has been long tried, and with the most satisfactory success. The judges of Connecticut have been chosen ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with political wisdom, and Marshall's opinion was, it is said, rejected by the Court in but two cases, and had it in these instances been followed, would have improved the Constitution. Unfortunately, while one may often secure the fairness one cannot ensure the wisdom of the Bench. Judges err; a final Court of Appeal must often give decisions which are or are supposed to be erroneous, i.e., not a just deduction from the facts and principles which the Court is called upon to consider. No historian will, it is likely, ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... revoked by none, and he alone can revoke the sentences passed by others. He can be judged by none. None may dare to pronounce sentence on one who appeals to the See Apostolic. To it shall be referred all major causes by the whole Church. The Church of Rome never has erred, and never can err, as Scripture warrants. A Roman pontiff, canonically ordained, at once becomes, by the merit of Saint Peter, indubitably holy. By his order and with his permission it is lawful for subjects to accuse princes.... The Pope can loose subjects from the oath of fealty.' ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... Tai-yue laughed. "O-mi-to-fu!" she exclaimed. "You are indeed my very good cousin! But you've also (to Pao-yue) come across your match. And this makes it clear that requital and retribution never fail or err." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... known to shout or be over vehement or angry, even when he had to correct; he touched offences, but pardoned offenders, saying that the doctors' was the right model, who treat sickness but are not angry with the sick. It is human, he thought, to err, but divine (whether in God or man) ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... made frequent blood examinations will have observed that in this respect extraordinary variations occur. In some cases scarcely a drop of blood can be obtained, while in others the blood flows freely. One will not err in assuming in the former case a diminution of the quantity ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... "I know not thy creed, woman, nor care to learn it! But, all the same, thou art deceived in thy vain imaginings. The Eternal Justice cannot err—call that justice Christ or Odin as thou wilt. I tell you, the soul of the innocent bird that perishes in the drifting snow is near and dear to its Creator—but the tainted soul that had yonder vile body for its tenement, was but a flame of the evil one, and accursed ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... sinners, are the young ones to suppose the words are mere form, and don't apply to us?—to some outcasts in the free seats probably, or those naughty boys playing in the churchyard? Are they not to know that we err too, and pray with all our hearts to be rescued from temptation? If such a knowledge is wrong for them, send them to church apart. Go you and worship in private; or if not too proud, kneel humbly in the midst of them, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... children; and he was already rather late before setting out on a four-miles drive to meet Dr. Minchin on the other side of Tipton, the decease of Hicks, a rural practitioner, having increased Middlemarch practice in that direction. Great statesmen err, and why not small medical men? Mr. Wrench did not neglect sending the usual white parcels, which this time had black and drastic contents. Their effect was not alleviating to poor Fred, who, however, unwilling as he said to believe that he was "in for an ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... out as kindly as ye may this episode of just indulgence; there is wisdom in this lesson of benevolence, and after-sweetness too, though the earliest taste of it be bitter; think it out; be humbler of your virtue, scarcely competent to err; be more grateful to that Providence which hath filled your lot with good; and be gentler-hearted, more generous-handed unto those whose daily life ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... then for me, first to state wherein Hartley differs from Aristotle; then, to exhibit the grounds of my conviction, that he differed only to err: and next as the result, to show, by what influences of the choice and judgment the associative power becomes either memory or fancy; and, in conclusion, to appropriate the remaining offices of the mind to the reason, and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... platform—that is why so few speeches read well in the reports on the morning after: statements appear crude and exaggerated because they are unaccompanied by the forceful delivery of a glowing speaker before an audience heated to attentive enthusiasm. So in preparing your speech you must not err on the side of mild statement—your audience will inevitably tone down your words in the cold grey of afterthought. When Phidias was criticised for the rough, bold outlines of a figure he had submitted in competition, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... so's not to wake up the ol' folks. The ground is frozen hard; we stub our toes on the frozen ruts in the road. When we come to the minister's house, Laura is standin' on the front stoop, a-waitin' for us. Laura is the minister's daughter. She's a friend o' Sister Helen's—pretty as a dag'err'otype, an' gentle-like and tender. Laura lets me carry her skates, an' I'm glad of it, although I have my hands full already with the lantern, the hockies, and the rest. Hiram Peabody keeps us waitin', for he has overslept himself, an' when ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... arose those two great orders of border chivalry, the Skinners and the Cowboys, famous in the heroic annals of Westchester county. The former fought, or rather marauded, under the American, the latter under the British banner; but both, in the hurry of their military ardor, were apt to err on the safe side, and rob friend as well as foe. Neither of them stopped to ask the politics of horse or cow, which they drove into captivity; nor, when they wrung the neck of a rooster, did they trouble ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... incident at that time when I lived in a constant turmoil of episodes even stranger, but by one of those accidents which sometimes seem to be directed by the hand of an impish fate, I was to learn who or what my visitor was. When I say I was to learn what she was, perhaps I err; more correctly I was to learn what she was not, namely, an ordinary ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... expression, and of the sense of literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say, beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the Godlike and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err in saying that if science were made a foundation of education, instead of being, at most, stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this state ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... don't want even to pretend that there is any humor in the situation. Yet, unless I err greatly, before many hours have passed you will agree with me that nothing more directly fortunate in your behalf could have occurred than Schmidt's interference as Lord Valletort's legal adviser. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the old gentleman, "I dare say I did. It is human to err, my dear, especially about dinner on a fine evening. Besides, I have made amends and brought you a visitor, our new neighbour, Colonel Quaritch. Colonel Quaritch, let me introduce you to my daughter, Miss ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... I stood, O'er the floor of plain and flood Seemed to me, the towering hill Was not altogether still, But a quiet sense conveyed: If I err not, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... voice—"I implore you to be seated, and to excuse the conduct of the party who has just absented himself. The talent of the Mysterious Foundling has overcome people in that way in every town of England. Do I err in believing that a Rubbleford audience can make kind allowances for their weaker fellow-creatures? Thanks, a thousand thanks in the name of this darling and talented child, for your cordial, your generous, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... clearer signs of logical powers than accuracy of deduction. On the other hand, the definition of logic as a 'science treating of the operations of the understanding in the search of truth,' though wide enough, would err through including truths known from intuition; for, though doubtless many seeming intuitions are processes of inference, questions as to what facts are real intuitions belong ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... ear. It seems too cruel! But I will watch her with this man. Her ignorance of the world may have caused her to be more familiar with him than the rigid usages of society would permit. And yet she is generally so dignified, so reserved—apt to err on the side of coldness rather than of warmth. I must ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... freedom—they are already encased by the insidious nets; the harpoon is already pointed, which shall surely pierce them. Delancey plunged headlong into pleasure's vortex—touched each link between gaiety and crime. He wandered from the paths of virtue from the infatuation of folly, and continued to err from the fascinations of sin. He was suddenly recalled to himself, by one of those catastrophes often sent by Providence, to awaken us from intoxicating dreams. His companion, with whom he had resided during his stay in Vienna, lost his all at a gaming table. Although he ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... have written a short and very civil answer, directed to the "Rev. Dr. Prescot." God knows whether he is a clergyman or a doctor, and perhaps I may have betrayed my forgetfulness; but I -thought it was best to err on the over civil side. Tell me something about him; I dread his Discourses. Is he the strange man that a few years ago sent me a volume of an uncommon form, and of more ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... design. Again, was there ever city rebelling that did not believe that it possessed either in itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise? All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is no law that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the list of punishments in search of enactments to protect them from evildoers? It is probable that in early times the penalties for ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides |
