"Find fault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... faith. If, on the other hand, we enrich our souls with the treasures of Indulgences we are charged with relying on the vicarious merits of others and of lightening too much the salutary burden of the cross. But how can Protestants consistently find fault with the Church for mitigating the austerities of penance, since their own fundamental principle rests on faith ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... society because their fathers were professional men, or had large oil-mills. As to the prognostics and headshaking of his aunts and uncles, they had never produced the least effect on him, except to make him think that aunts and uncles were disagreeable society; he had heard them find fault in much the same way as long as he could remember. His father ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... with as much care as ever, for Sibyl was Sibyl still, and could no more change her love for harmony and taste than the leopard could change his spots. But everything was simple, inexpensive, and fashioned by her own fingers, so that although all admired, not even the most censorious could find fault with the appearance of the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... you are out of humour this morning," observed Mr. Hobson, with a provoking forbearance. "I have come to find fault." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... that I could match them in England. There is a heartiness among them that is more like Cornwall than any I have known, and great sociableness." Cornwall, it must be remembered, is largely Celtic. She writes, again, that she has too much gratitude to find fault where she was treated kindly, even if there were room for it, but declares that she was never in a place that more deservedly claimed her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... they shake nothing but wind out of it. It is very likely that neither ministers nor their sermons are perfect—the best garden may have a few weeds in it, the cleanest corn may have some chaff—but cavilers cavil at any thing or nothing, and find fault for the sake of showing off their deep knowledge; sooner than let their tongues have a holiday, they would complain that the grass is not a nice shade of blue, and say that the sky would have looked neater ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... our sea Yahoos find fault with my sea-language, as not proper in many parts, nor now in use. I cannot help it. In my first voyages, while I was young, I was instructed by the oldest mariners, and learned to speak as they ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... if I lose a vessel, I don't want to be talked about as he was. I went mate with him two voyages, and he'd put on his night-gown and turn in comfortably every night, and leave his mates to call him; but I never could do that. I don't find fault with any man that can; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... certificates with much seeming scrutiny, and then ventured a question in the higher branches of mathematics. This I also solved; but I found talent was not exactly what they wanted. The little skinny captain seemed rather disappointed that he could not find fault with me. A difficult problem in spherical trigonometry lay before them, carefully drawn out, and the result distinctly marked at the bottom; but this I was not, of course, permitted to see. I soon answered the question; ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... circumstances, and at all times, subordinate to the civil authorities. They never stopped to inquire whether the laws were good or bad, just or unjust; their business was to obey the laws and not to find fault with them. ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... ever you have them. Nay, this will be thy condemnation, and leaveth no remedy. All the world can not save him that sets lightly by Christ. None of them shall taste of His supper. Nor can you blame Him to deny you what you made light of yourselves. Can you find fault if you miss of the salvation ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... shot! Each session of the Legislature they fight it over, and make some changes, and then a new set of people are dissatisfied. What's meat to one man is poison to another. It's impossible to pass a law somebody wouldn't find fault with." ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... but the Greek crowd forbore to ask why, in so long a period, the enormity had never been discovered. The central situation of She Stoops to Conquer seems impossible to the individual mind, but is eagerly accepted by the crowd. Individual critics find fault with Thomas Heywood's lovely old play, A Woman Killed with Kindness, on the ground that though Frankford's noble forgiveness of his erring wife is beautiful to contemplate, Mrs. Frankford's infidelity is not sufficiently motivated, and the ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... other. "Not and be honest! Ye can't find fault where there isn't fault! Why, he served in France, and him far under age. And I'll ask ye, where was yerself durin' the late War? Supportin' a pensioned father, eh? And a girl that was earnin' her own livin'! And a boy who's never cost ye a cent!—Ah, don't answer me! Don't stain yer soul ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... means, defend our subterranean manners and institutions: my purpose simply is, to examine those of the Europeans, and show how little claim these people have to find fault with other nations. ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... way out of the difficulty," said Blondet, after some thought. "Say that the envy that fastens on all good work, like wasps on ripe fruit, has attempted to set its fangs in this production. The captious critic, trying his best to find fault, has been obliged to invent theories for that purpose, and has drawn a distinction between two kinds of literature—'the literature of ideas and the literature of imagery,' as he calls them. On the heads of that, youngster, say that to give expression ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. "I cannot, certainly," she said, "find fault with Miss Sharp's conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educational system ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pains me to find fault, Sibylla," he fondly whispered. "I have ever your welfare and happiness at heart. More anxiously, I think, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... have not seen since January. They are pleasantly situated, though a good way off. He has a room in the house where he paints. I saw two of his landscapes, views from nature, that were very striking. If I should find fault, I should say they were too warmly colored; and I suspect that is his error, if he has any, from what his wife told me he said of ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... vexed sometimes, and obliged to find fault, but the Boy could always soothe him. "I am sure you love me," he would say. "Your life was not worth living until I came, and you could not live without me now. I am a horrid little brute I know, but I have ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the dance. Stout, good-natured Minna smiles and laughs, never quite completing a sentence, partly from embarrassment, partly because she hardly knows how; but still so sweet and amiable that one cannot find fault with her for so trifling a misfortune. At this point, Lydia suggests, "And Sarah, do you forget her?" I laugh; how could I forget? There she stands in a light blue silk checked in tiny squares, with little ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Rose was very serene and smiling, and she regarded her complacency with growing resentment. Rose could dance as often as she liked with him, and no one would find fault. Rose had had him all to herself throughout the afternoon moreover. She knew very well that had the ski-ing lesson been offered to her, she would not have been allowed to avail ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... to find fault, regret fleetingly though he did. He was in luck to get his hands on any craft and he knew it. The New Moon was an unlovely affair with a bad name among seamen who knew her and no speed or up-to-date engines to brag about; but Barlow himself had leased her and had no ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... the period in which my Romance takes place, the revival of the art of painting was in its infancy. I am aware, therefore, that some scrupulous folks will be apt to find fault with me for having introduced a gallery of pictures with the same confidence as if I were writing a novel of the present day. Yet this seeming anachronism does not exist. The Moors, though they certainly could not boast of a Rafael ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... one thing for him to blame himself; it was another for Don to find fault. "I wanted you to hear me," he ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... questionable as to the rights of spending, and that, really, if he involved the professed poacher in this mysterious affair, he might put his liberty or life into very serious jeopardy. On this account, then, which Grace could not entirely find fault with (though she liked nothing that savoured of concealment), Roger Acton agreed to abide by Mr. Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his connexion with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... write hastily of Victorian lyrical poetry are apt to find fault with its lack of spontaneity. It is true that we cannot pretend to discover on a greensward so often crossed and re-crossed as the poetic language of England many morning dewdrops still glistening on the grasses. ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... the real magnitude of these difficulties when I set about my task; but I am consoled for my pains and anxiety by observing that none of the multitudinous criticisms with which I have been favoured and, often, instructed, find fault with me on the score of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... broadest, deepest, strongest phases. His thought is far above the great sea level of humanity, where stand most of the world's masters. He is like one of those marvelously clear mountain lakes whose water-line runs above all the salt seas of the globe. He is very precious, taken at his real worth. Why find fault with the isolation and the remoteness in view of ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... dedicate themselves to the odious task of depreciating the government organization which stands in their way and of calumniating with indiscriminate invective not only the citizens of particular States with whose laws they find fault, but all others of their fellow citizens throughout the country who do not participate with them in their assaults upon the Constitution, framed and adopted by our fathers, and claiming for the privileges it has secured ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is something like a servant. She tells him what to do, and if he doesn't do it right she can find fault with it. But you are—well, the house is yours. You ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... income for many years; he should deliberately keep his fortunes within bounds; and take his time. All this would have been a truism fifty years ago; the machinery for the other thing didn't exist, and something in the way of a natural condition kept him in the simple path. But I don't find fault with the machinery; the wider field and the larger figures are a direct boon to us. They do, however, impose an ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... married, was forced to confess Katharine would ill answer this character, it being soon apparent of what manner of gentleness she was composed, for her music-master rushed into the room to complain that the gentle Katharine, his pupil, had broken his head with her lute for presuming to find fault with her performance; which, when Petruchio ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... in Philadelphia, in particular, and in connection with our own church?" she asked. "I am not so easily disposed to find fault where the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Ulrica, sweetly. "But what would you, sir? we all, brothers and sisters, are responsible for that. You must know that she is our favorite, and is always indulged. I counsel you not to find fault with our little sister, Count Tessin; that would be to bring an accusation against us all. You have suffered to-day from a shower of her April moods; to-morrow you may rejoice in the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... how then the Ephraimites seized the fords of the Jordan before the arrival of the flying nomads and got the two leaders of the Midianites into their hands. Now we hear in conclusion that the Ephraimites, elated by their success began to find fault with Gideon, but that he pacified their wrath by saying, "What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? God hath delivered into your hand ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... that!" Mona would plead, and she would work harder than ever that there might be nothing for granny to do, or to find fault with. But however hard she worked, and however nice she kept things, she always found that there were still some things left undone, and that those were the very things that, ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to-night! You condemn all the world, and find fault even with yourself—a rare thing in cynics, I imagine. As a rule they are ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the patience and painstaking of the good lady,—for a 'lady' Miss Eyre was in the best sense of the word, though in Hollingford she only took rank as a shopkeeper's daughter. Yet Betty buzzed about her with the teasing pertinacity of a gnat, always ready to find fault, if not to bite. Miss Eyre's only defence came from the quarter whence it might least have been expected—from her pupil; on whose fancied behalf, as an oppressed little personage, Betty always based her attacks. But very early in the day Molly perceived their injustice, and soon ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... heard; and a glass is broken. Mr Jinkins feels that it is time to join the ladies. He proposes, as a final sentiment, Mrs Todgers. She is worthy to be remembered separately. Hear, hear. So she is; no doubt of it. They all find fault with her at other times; but every man feels now, that he could die in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the hollow. Daphne sighed as if she were in pain. She had taken off her veil, and now she was peeling the gloves from her white wrists and warm, unsteady hands. Her face, exposed, hardly sustained the promise of the veiled suggestion; but no man was ever known to find fault with it so long as he had hopes; afterwards—but even then it was a matter of temperament. There were those who remembered it all the more keenly for its daring deviations ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... this was very odd, but you may be sure I didn't find fault with it; so after lookin' all round very careful to make quite sure that it was gone, I lay down again on my back. Well, would ye b'lieve it, shipmates, at that same moment up starts the ghost again as ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... literal and obvious interpretation think that the origin of the Greek and barbarian languages is here described; [the contrast between Greek, on the one hand, and barbarian—in which Hebrew, it seems, is included—on the other, is remarkable]. I would not find fault with them, because they also, perhaps, employ right reason, but I would call on them not to remain content with this, but to follow me to the metaphorical renderings, considering that the actual words of the holy oracle are, as it ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... very strong language for Mr. Jerningham, who was not accustomed to find fault with the proceedings of his superiors. He went about the office all these weeks with a visage of woe and the air of a man conscious that some great evil was at hand. Sir Boreas had observed it, and knew well why that visage was so long. Nevertheless ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... book. What a horrid heritage of murder for conscience' sake has been transmitted to us in this nineteenth century? And is the present fratricidal war in Switzerland unconnected with this principle of blood and persecution! No; and again, no! How, then, can we find fault with the barbarians of the Great Desert? Nay, contrarily, those who follow me through The Desert, will find the Saharan Barbarians infinitely more tolerant than the mild, and the gentle, and the polished, and the educated, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... tortured her night and day. At first the approach of pain was manifested by a nervous anxiety for her husband's presence. She seemed dissatisfied and restless when he was not with her, and after breakfast in the mornings, when he took up his hat to go out, she would beg of him to stay, and find fault with him for leaving her. He reasoned with her very softly, assuring her that he had the most important engagements. On one occasion it was a man who had given him an appointment in order to speak with him concerning a new theatre, of which he was to have the entire management; ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... more kind and encouraging than Miss Lancaster," said Miss Mitchell. "It isn't the great artists who find fault—they understand the difficulties only too well—it's the carping critics who can't perform themselves and yet think they know all about it! Do your best and no one will expect you to do ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... particular province. Toni's household duties, therefore, were confined to the arrangement of the flowers and the care of her husband's desk—a labour of love which she performed with so much good will that Owen felt it would be churlish to find fault with any ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... even chivalrous, they are hospitable to an excess, they are good husbands and kindly masters, they are recklessly brave; and, if they are unduly fond of finery, I, who supply so many of them, should be the last to find fault with them on that score. They are proud, and look down upon us traders, but that does not hurt us; and, if they were to take to trading themselves, there would be no place for us here. But this has nothing to do ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... criticisms. The report was in print; it was that afternoon to be laid before the Conference; in twelve hours the President would be on his way to the United States. Clearly it would have been useless to find fault with the report, especially if the objections related to the fundamental ideas of the organization which it was intended to create. The President having in the report declared the American policy, ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... name, being wonderfully sweet. Well, everybody present seemed mighty well pleased with the song and music, with the exception of one person, a carroty-haired Scotch body; how he came there I don't know, but there he was; and, coming forward, he began in Scotch as broad as a barn-door to find fault with the music and the song, saying that he had never heard viler stuff than either. Well, brother, out of consideration for the civil gentry with whom the fellow had come, I held my peace for a long time, and in order to get the subject changed, I said to Mikailia ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... that is a good deal for a woman to say that has been twice married. Poor dear Sir Harry (between ourselves) thought at first to have got more, but (with a bit of a sigh) he is gone, and we must not find fault with the dead. Nobody could live happier together than us: and he was a very honourable man, quite the gentleman, of ancient family; and when he died I gave Sir Edward ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... anger." For an instant an edge of his Viking savagery made itself felt through his voice; then faded as quickly into cold courtesy. "As to this which I now offer you, however, I think few are proud enough to find fault about it, for I have called you hither to be a Marshal of the kingdom and to have the rule over my Guards. Men from many lands will be among them, and it is a great necessity that I have at their ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... you?" demanded Christie, in a voice of innocent astonishment. "I am so glad. Look you, whenever you come, you always find fault with me for something, so ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... But it has this merit that people who review badly, not only fail themselves, but help others to fail, by giving a bad idea of their works. You will, of course, never read the books you review, and you will be exhaustively ignorant of the subjects which they treat. But you can always find fault with the title of the story which comes into your hands, a stupid reviewer never fails to do this. You can also copy out as much of the preface as will fill your eighth of a column, and add, that the performance is ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... likes to know people before it makes their acquaintance," Mr. Copley remarked. "I do not think you have any cause to find fault." ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female countenance, without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... senior-lieutenant began to correct him and find fault with him: he was to put his right shoulder higher, his cap was not straight, he must place the tip of his little finger on his trouser-seam, and put his feet ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... did not appear any very great sin to him at the time of his committing it, so now, when he was to die for it, such an obstinate partiality towards ourselves is there naturally grafted in human nature that he could not forbear complaining of the severity of the Law, and find fault with its rigour which might have been avoided. What seemed most of all to afflict him under his misfortune was that be saw his son and nearest relations forsake him, and as much as they could shun having anything ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... injure her again. Dr Hodgson explained the importance of trying this experiment to Mrs Piper in her normal state. Mrs Piper, docile as usual, consented. The last appearance of Phinuit occurred on January 26, 1897. Phinuit had formerly said, "They find fault with me, they won't understand that I do all I can, but when they do not hear my voice any longer they will regret me." However, he is not regretted. Whoever the controls Imperator, Rector, Doctor and Prudens may be, since they have controlled the ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... necessary, therefore, that, by one means or another, Elizabeth should be disposed of. The queen had condescended to apologise to him for her second act of clemency, which she excused as being an Easter custom. It was not for him to find fault, he said that he had replied, if her majesty was pleased to {p.128} show mercy at the holy season; but it was his duty to remind her that he doubted whether the prince could be trusted ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... miserable if she can. Money is the magnet; as to Women, one is as well as another, the older the better, we have then a chance of getting her to Heaven. So, your Spouse does not like brats better than myself; now those who beget them have no right to find fault, but I may ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... composed of three men or women, elected by the parents of the parish. Childless people are not allowed to vote. This board of supervisors does not appear to have any definite function except to advise and find fault. The school board elects the teachers, determines the courses of study and methods of discipline, and submits recommendations and estimates for appropriations annually to the municipal council. In both city and country what is called "voluntary instruction" is provided outside of the ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... than an excellence, since the office of painting is to represent not what is, but what the eye sees, and the eye does not see everything; but a defect carried to such a pitch of perfection that one admires, and does not find fault. In this respect the most famous prodigies of patience were Dow, Mieris, Potter, and Van der Heist, but more or less all ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the machinist should overhaul it frequently, which this one never fails to do, especially after a long absence. Whilst he is on his way from Tilsit, "everybody anxiously examines his conscience to ascertain what he has done that this rigid master will find fault with on his return. Whether spouse, family, or grand dignitary, each is more or less disturbed; while the Empress, who knows him better than any one, naively says, 'As the Emperor is so happy it is certain that he will do a deal of scolding!'"[1288] Actually, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... no. Though I hadn't, somehow, expected it. I can't find fault with you for a moment—and I don't . . . This is a deuce of a long dance, don't you think? We've been at it twenty minutes if a second, and the figure doesn't allow one much rest. I'm quite ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... walk, and a full beard, which he was the first in the society to wear. He was extremely industrious, and never wasted even a minute; knew admirably how to use every spare moment. He was cheerful, kindly, talkative; plain-spoken when he had to find fault; not very enthusiastic, but somewhat dry and very practical. In his earlier years, in Germany, he was witty; and to the last he was ready and apt in speech. His conversation centered always upon religion and the conduct ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... like the wild thing she was. But Jake Hoover only laughed, leering at the two girls. He was a tall, lanky, overgrown boy of seventeen, and he was enjoying himself thoroughly. He seemed to have inherited all his mother's meanness of disposition and readiness to find fault and to take delight in the unhappiness of others. Now, as Zara struggled, he twisted her wrist to make her stop, and only laughed ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... find fault with a servant before any one. Have they done wrong, go to your library and ring loudly—that is half the battle; then tell the waiter to call the chambermaid, and then speak. You will find everything easy. They have had time to reflect; to weigh the pros ...
— A Christmas Story - Man in His Element: or, A New Way to Keep House • Samuel W. Francis
... Some martinets might find fault with you, but I should blame you had you not stopped for those few moments. A noble woman, your mother, Dick. I hope that she ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... man have cause either to hate yow for your stubborne frowardnes, or to malice yow for your proud ungentlenes, two faults which co{m}monly yonge men soones[t] fall into in great men's service. [c] Contemne noe poore man, mocke noe simple man, w{hi}ch proud fooles in cort like and love to doe; find fault with your selfe and with none other, the best waye to live honestlye and quiettly in the court. [d] Carrye noe tales, be noe co{m}mon teller of newes, be not inquisitive of other menn's talke, for those that are desirous to heare what they need not, co{m}monly ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... was nothing he could find fault with, the old soldier's prejudices were in no way shaken, and, indeed, his antipathy was increased, rather than diminished, by the young officer's conduct towards Aggie. It might be, of course, that he was only striving to overcome the prejudiced feeling against him; but every ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... up the down to the northward to get a general view of the village, had tea and smoked round the walls again in the warm April sunset. The matter of their conversation remained prehistoric. Both were inclined to find fault with the archaeological work that had been done on the place. "Clumsy treasure hunting," Sir Richmond said. "They bore into Silbury Hill and expect to find a mummified chief or something sensational of that sort, and they don't, and they report ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... dear friends—Sister Agnes, the kind-hearted Major, and his nephew, only to be torn from them—to be plunged back into the cold, cheerless monotony of school-girl life, where there would be no one to love me, but many to find fault. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... than Sahara! In England we have nothing like it at all." Then he mopped himself some more, and went ahead again—seeming glad to have somebody to let out to: "My whole life long I've been finding fault with our August weather in London. I'll never find fault with it again. I'd give fifty pounds to be back there now, even in my office in the City—and I'd give a hundred willingly if I could walk out of this frying-pan into my own home in the Avenue Road! If you know London, sir, you know that St. John's Wood is the coolest part of it, and that ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... the top of 'em! Anybody'd suppose this was a Seamen's Home from the use you put it to! And of all damned silly ways of entertaining people, a garden party's the worse! Who wants to look at other people's gardens except to find fault ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... before. The decision of the judge does not prove that it is wrong for women to vote, it does not even prove that Miss Anthony did wrong in voting. It only shows that one judge on the bench differs in opinion from other equally well qualified judges off the bench. It is not our province to find fault with this decision of the United States Court at Rochester. Miss Anthony may be wrong in attempting to vote; of that we are not certain. But of the greater question back of it, of Miss Anthony's inherent right to vote we have no question, and that after all is the more important ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... blow dealt in retributive justice; but she found it not in her heart to exult or rejoice over them. She felt as if God had more than answered her petition, when she ejaculated, in her anguish of mind, 'Oh, Lord, render unto them double!' She said, 'I dared not find fault with God, exactly; but the language of my heart was, 'Oh, my God! that's too much-I did not mean quite so much, God!' It was a terrible blow to the friends of the deceased; and her selfish mother (who, said Isabella, made such a ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... addressed at that time to the other parts of the Academy curriculum. Either as foundation, or as a super-structure in which it was sought to develop professional intelligence, to inform and improve professional action, there was little to find fault with in detail, and less still in general principle. The previous reasonable professional prejudice had been in favor of the practical man, the man who can do things—who knows how to do them; the new effort was to give the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... as in leading them to forget, that their happiest affections, their candour, and their independence of mind, are in reality parts of themselves. And the adversaries of this supposed selfish philosophy, where it makes self-love the ruling passion with mankind, have had reason to find fault, not so much with its general representations of human nature, as with the obtrusion of a mere innovation in language for a discovery ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... is fortunate enough anyhow. It seems to me that we have something else to do in the world than just to amuse ourselves." At this point it occurred to Phillida that in defending her own view of life she was reflecting on her companion's. "I don't mean to find fault with anybody else's pursuits, Mr. Millard, but ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... the seed of the Malay plot; and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have been the remote cause of our death. It is no doubt difficult for Englishmen to understand the feelings of Malays and Dyaks. We are accustomed in England to find fault with our rulers, and submit to them all the same. But in the East it is different: no breath of blame must touch the Rajah, nor can he be arraigned before any court, except ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... crowd of gaping urchins and slavering cretins, to clear the way for those he guided. His followers were, in the main of a different mood. If the traveller too often reaches the inn hungry and disposed to find fault, he usually quits it good-humored and happy. The restoration, as it is well called in France, effected by means of the larder and the resting of wearied limbs, is usually communicated to the spirits; and it must be a crusty humor indeed, or singularly bad fare, that prevents ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... ourselves and our luggage from time to time, buying new tickets, waiting while they were filled up, waiting at almost every point of the journey, and having to do it with divers companies who had nothing to do with each other but to find fault ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... impudence, you infernal young jackanapes!" bellowed out Colonel Washington. "You dare to insult me before British officers, and find fault with my language? For months past I have borne with such impudence from you, that if I had not loved your mother—yes, sir, and your good grandfather and your brother—I would—" Here his words failed him, and the irate Colonel, with glaring eyes and purple face, and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Commission with rejoicing at the news of Killiecrankie, denied at least that he had rejoiced at the death of the conqueror, for whom he owned "an extraordinary value," such as, in his own words, "no gentleman, soldier, scholar, or civilised citizen will find fault with ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... notice; she was as smart a seaman as Kennedy himself; she was an expert navigator; the heavens and their portents were an open book to her; she issued her orders with the utmost confidence and decision, and never hesitated to find fault if things did not please her; and yet with it all she was most gracious and friendly in her manner to us all, from ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... silvery greys against an evening sky all gold and emerald, or flushed with sunset scarlet. The crown of all this terraced glory is the great cathedral. A square massive tower stands up out of the body of the church. A purist may find fault with the mixture of styles this tower incorporates. The bulk of its structure is Gothic; at the base of the superstructure appears a nondescript medley of styles (nondescript at least in the eyes of a dilettante) ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... lament that his own sons, Lothaire and Carloman, were so much smaller and more backward. He caressed Richard again and again, praised every word he said—Fru Astrida was nothing to him; and Richard began to say to himself how strange and unkind it was of Bernard de Harcourt to like to find fault with him, when, on the contrary, he deserved all this praise from the ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... done to a playful animal; but when Jules drew back, frightened by his foreign speech and rough voice, he began to dislike the timid child. After awhile he never noticed him except to push him aside or to find fault. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... himself to lecture Miss Jessop once, when they were alone, for some remarks she had made to Hodden as she sat in her deck-chair, with Hodden loquacious on her right and Buel taciturn on her left. What right had Buel to find fault with a free and independent citizen of another country? Evidently none. It might have been expected that Miss Jessop, rising to the occasion, would have taught the young man his place, and would perhaps have made some scathing remark about the tendency ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... brought against him, and a thousand and one for supposing him guiltless. Here was a young man, gay, jovial, given to society entirely, and not at all to arithmetic, put into a very trying and awkward position—native clerks who would cheat if they could, English governors who would find fault if they could, a disturbed treasury, an awkward currency, liars for witnesses, and undeniable evidence of defalcation. In a word, an examination was made into the state of the treasury of the island, and a large deficit found. It remained to trace it ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... ye boys are neglectin' what ye ought to do, and takin' for this the time which by right should be spent on other things; because ye've given yer fathers and mothers more cause to find fault with ye durin' the last two or three weeks than for long before, all on account of it; because ye're none of ye so good-natured as ye used to be. I've heard that havin' a bee in the bonnet spoils a body; but ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... before him reversed the wonder of the stereoscope and substituted the Gaston v for the b in binocular," which is certainly a puzzling and roundabout fashion of telling us that he had drunk so much {503} that he saw double. The critics also find fault with his coining such words as "undisprivacied" and with his writing such lines as the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... tell you, Mr Stickleback, you are about as good a critic as a sculptor. My writings, sir, are universally appreciated. To find fault with them shows you are unfit for our acquaintance; and with regard to Mr Pitskiver's recommendation to the city building committee, and your donkey to adorn the pediment of the Mansion-house—you have of course given up all hopes of any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... a somewhat curious fact that when strangers write to authors, about nine times out of ten it is to find fault. The person who is thoroughly pleased does not take the trouble to say so, but the offended one sits himself down and takes pen in hand. However, this is not wholly uncomplimentary, since it proves at least two things: that the author is being read, and that he is making ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... go well, but that if the malady were allowed to grow there would no longer be any resource. Madame de Maintenon grew angry, and all he obtained for his zeal was her anger. She said that only the personal enemies of Fagon could find fault with his opinion upon the King's health, concerning which the capacity, the application, the experience of the chief physician could not be deceived. The best of it is that Marechal, who had formerly operated upon Fagon for stone, had been appointed ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... with me. He found fault with me ten times a day, and openly, before the gents of the office; but I let him one day know pretty smartly that I was not only a servant, but a considerable shareholder in the company; that I defied him to find fault with my work or my regularity; and that I was not minded to receive any insolent language from him or any man. He said it was always so: that he had never cherished a young man in his bosom, but the ingrate had turned on him; that he was accustomed to wrong and undutifulness from ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... occurrences here, although I am conscious of having acted for the good of my country to the utmost in my power; and I trust the whole of my conduct since my first coming upon the station will be entirely approved of by government: it is very possible there may be those who will be disposed to find fault, however unjustly. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... overboard, or anything else; but that I would take very good care that he had neither a morsel to eat or a drop of water to drink; whereupon he again resumed his duty and from that time forward proved to be one of the best men I had with me; indeed I never again had occasion to find fault with him. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... I suppose he will admit it is because Bill has more ability and more experience than Tom; he will also admit that the difference in their wages is a just difference, and indeed I have never heard any one find fault with it. Well, carry out that principle, and some one who has more skill than Montgomery will get more money than he gets. Then there will be some one above him again, and so on till you get to the head ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... It was vain to find fault with herself. Life would seem flat. The mere routine of duties, unsweetened by natural affection, would weary the spirit at times. There was a sweetness wanting to existence—and existence, without that invigorating sweetness, is to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... shoes, and charged her not to permit it another time—but never interfered himself—thus throwing all the responsibility, or rather impossibility, of making Pauline mind, upon his wife, who indeed always got all Pauline's scoldings; for though Mr. Grey might find fault when Pauline was absent, one bright smile and brilliant glance from Pauline present, was sure ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... that it was my part to read Judy a lecture here, though perhaps I might have done so if I had had more influence over her than I had. I wanted to gain some influence over her, and knew that the way to render my desire impossible of fulfilment would be, to find fault with what in her was a very small affair, whatever it might be in one who had been properly brought up. Besides, a clergyman is not a moral policeman. So I took ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... other, likely to arise. Some of the passages singled out are certainly obscure, and hence liable to various interpretations; of others it is less apparent why it was thought requisite to discuss them at length. But this is hardly a matter in which we are entitled to find fault with the Sutrakara; for no modern scholar, either European or Hindu, is—or can possibly be—sufficiently at home, on the one hand, in the religious and philosophical views which prevailed at the time when the Sutras may have been composed, and, on the other hand, in the intricacies ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... things which an uncharitable reader might find fault with as personal. I should not dare to call myself a poet if I did not; for if there is anything that gives one a title to that name, it is that his inner nature is naked and is not ashamed. But there are many such things I shall put in words, not because they are personal, but because ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... does not matter; I shall never wear it now; and, under such a blow as this, I am in no humor to find fault. Indeed, with my grief I neglect my household and my very children. I forget everything; what did I send for you for?" and she looked with lack-luster eyes ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... the slightest degree in the way of prejudice against other names or to find fault with them, let me note a few of them, and then compare Unitarianism with them. Take the word "Anglican," for example, the name of the Church of England. What does it mean? Of course, you know it ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... especially charged in this Degree to be modest and humble, and not vain-glorious nor filled with self-conceit. Be not wiser in your own opinion than the Deity, nor find fault with His works, nor endeavor to improve upon what He has done. Be modest also in your intercourse with your fellows, and slow to entertain evil thoughts of them, and reluctant to ascribe to them evil intentions. A thousand presses, flooding the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... poet can imbue a pack of cards with more poetry than inhabits the forests of America. It is the business and the proof of a poet to give the lie to the proverb, and sometimes to "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear;" and to conclude with another homely proverb, "a good workman will not find fault with his tools."] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of taking great delight in your victuals; feed not with greediness; lean not on the table; neither find fault with ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... it is not the way to people's hearts usually to find fault and upbraid them. There was much truth in what you said to Joe, but truth sometimes irritates by the way and time in which it is spoken, and it seems in this case that the kind of truth you told did not exactly suit the state of the boy's mind. Edith ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... usually officers of high rank, who have made an honorable record for themselves. The latter has entire charge of the post, and the position is a very responsible one; nor is it by any means a sinecure, for when the papers have nothing else to find fault with they pick at ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... "I see nothing to find fault with in it," I replied, "except that I think you are acting unwisely in meddling with the cargo before providing a receptacle for it ashore. I believe it highly probable that when you begin to break ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... Tessa, "when you wanted me to give up reading those novels I was real mad at first. I thought you had no right to find fault with what I did, and that it was very mean in you, who had a comfortable home and a mother and two brothers, to want to take away the only pleasure from me who had nothing. But when you talked with me ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... like men, and remember there is nothing that will so completely take the spirit out of a man as to find fault with him when ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... ready to find fault with herself on every Occasion, that we cannot consent, that a Character so exemplary in the greater Points should suffer merely from the Inattention of the hasty Reader. Let us therefore consider of some of the Objections made against her Story: ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... was likely to be required and he needed all his powers when the shock of the battle should come. He not only refused to continue the chase, but, knowing the character of the thief, tried to dissuade Carson from going further. They had certainly done all that could be asked of them and no one could find fault if, in the face of such difficulty, they should withdraw and return ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... perplexed. He longed to set himself right with her. Her very accusations, her readiness to find fault, which might have made matters clear to some men, only disheartened him with a renewed sense of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... then, that no advance is made, and that the desire is to make me hurry matters, and not conduct them orderly, I have thrice spoken thereof to the queen, who does nothing but make a fool of me, and tell everybody the opposite of what I told her; in such sort that my friends find fault with me, and I know not how to bring her to book, for when I say to her, 'Madame, it is reported that I said so-and-so to you,' though it was she herself who reported it, she denies it flatly, and laughs in my face, and uses me ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... doctor's lameness and Skenedonk's appearance. The Oneida, during his former sojourn in France, had been encouraged to preserve the novelty of his Indian dress. As I had nothing to give him in its place it did not become me to find fault. And he would have been more conspicuous with a cocked hat on his bare red scalp, and knee breeches instead of buckskins. Peasants ran out to look at him, and in return we looked at ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to find fault with me," she concluded merrily, "out with it honestly." Then addressing Frau Lerch, not as though she were speaking to a servant, but to an older friend, she asked her to leave her alone with Herr Adrian a short time; but she insisted positively on having her own way when the dressmaker remarked ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... alleged this prophecy of Daniel, and had inserted this word "in" enclosed in a parenthesis, in order to signify, that it was not in the original, but was suggested by it as necessary to the sense of the original. This "in," in a parenthesis, the zealous Mr. Everett, who loves to find fault, pronounces to be "an absolute interpolation," "and a shameless one too." p. 157 ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... right to find fault with our appetites," grumbled Tom. "We are paying for our meals, and I am going ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... murmured Anne of Austria, who had not the courage to find fault with the duke for having so well preserved her portrait in his heart, "what folly to feed a useless ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not envy Kate. She was proud of her sister, and loved her, though there was an element of anxiety in the love. But she never thought of her many faults. She felt that they were excusable because Kate was Kate. It was as if you should find fault with a wild rose because it carried a thorn. Kate was set about with many a thorn, but amid them all she bloomed, her fragrant pink self, as apparently unconscious of the many pricks she gave, and as unconcerned, ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... fair trial, and that their whole future power and prosperity depend upon its success, they will also find out that it will work, at least far better than they have anticipated. Then their hostility to it will gradually disappear. This great result accomplished, posterity will not find fault with this administration for having delayed complete "reconstruction" ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... question, and the answer must be left to the Supreme Court of Civilization. The weight of the evidence would seem to point to a justification of Germany. Yet no friend of Germany can find fault with those who would wish to defer a verdict until such a time when Germany can present her complete proof to the world, and this may be when the war ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... thing is this," Hsi Jen explained; "whether you really like to study or whether you only pretend to like study is immaterial; but you should, when you are in the presence of master, or in the presence of any one else, not do nothing else than find fault with people and make fun of them, but behave just as if you were genuinely fond of study, so that you shouldn't besides provoke your father so much to anger, and that he should before others have also a chance of saying something! 'In my family,' he reflects within himself, 'generation after ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... drew out all the true and fine and eager and lovable part of them, because he knew it to be there, wished it to emerge. "He was such a comfortable person!" as a simple man once said to me of one of the best of Christians: "if you had gone wrong, he did not find fault, but tried to see the way out; and if you were in pain or trouble, he said very little; you only felt it was all right when ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson |
