"Imperfect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... undoubtedly is faulty, robbed of the thought and beauty of his smooth diction, and gives but imperfect meaning and interpretation to many ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... appetite for popularity and fame; but he will get above this. The Count de Vergennes is ill. The possibility of his recovery, renders it dangerous for us to express a doubt of it; but he is in danger. He is a great minister in European affairs, but has very imperfect ideas of our institutions, and no confidence in them. His devotion to the principles of pure despotism, renders him unaffectionate to our governments. But his fear of England makes him value us as a make weight. He is cool, reserved in ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... plan or invention, be it a statue or picture; and the way they think it over and anticipate it—very often actually seeing the picture in a finished state in imagination—all amounts to foresight and hypnotic preparation in a crude, imperfect form. If any artist who is gifted with resolution and perseverance will simply make trial of the method here recommended, he will assuredly find that it is ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... your face; The best of kings and fathers to embrace. Pardon my tears; 'tis joy which bids them flow, A joy which never was sincere till now. That, which my conquest gave, I could not prize; Or 'twas imperfect ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... that they have any relationship to Him, and that He feels any interest in them. The numbness of moral perception exhibited, is often discouraging; but the mode of communication, either by interpreters, or by the imperfect knowledge of the language, which not even missionaries of talent can overcome save by the labour of many years, may, in part, account for the phenomenon. However, the idea of the Father of all being displeased with His children, for selling or killing each other, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... This sketch, imperfect as it necessarily is, will enable us to institute a comparison between the former revolution and the present. And we cannot but see that it was the slow, lingering, fluctuating course of the former revolution, ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... born capable of learning, but knowing nothing, perceiving nothing. The mind, bound up within imperfect and half grown organs, is not even aware of its own existence. The movements and cries of the new-born child are purely ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... bears inscribed its own date (1100), and the literary perfection of which certainly suggests an anterior literature. J. Bonnett (Archives du Christianisme, for October 16) notices the work very favorably, but considers it imperfect in many particulars, and the author is charged especially with omissions in the catalogue of the defenders of the faith, whose blood was so profusely spilled in their ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Intelligence, who occupies the sphere of real existence, organic unity comprehending multiplicity—the One-Many, as he calls it, or, as we might call it, God as thought, God existing in and for Himself; and the Soul, the One and Many, occupying the sphere of appearance or imperfect reality—God as action. Soulless matter, which only exists as a logical abstraction, is arrived at by looking at things "in disconnexion, dull and spiritless." It is the sphere of the "merely many," and is zero, as "the One who ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... Foreigners have but an imperfect or erroneous idea of the amount of the immense sums Spain has paid to our Government in loans, in contributions, in donations, and in subsidies. Since the reign of Bonaparte, or for these last five years, upwards of half the revenue of the Spanish ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... this her first failure, but her sister comforted her by saying that Edinburgh was not the best market for anything new—London was the place where a new author had some chance. Elsie easily caught at the hope, and retouched some of her most imperfect pieces before sending them to a great London house. To publisher after publisher the manuscript was sent, and after due time occupied in reading it, the parcel returned with ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... virtuosos, though living, has practically retired from the held of art, to omit him from such a volume as this would be an unpardonable omission. In connection with the personal lives of the artists sketched in this volume, the attempt has been made, in a general, though necessarily imperfect, manner, to trace the gradual development of the art of playing from its cruder beginnings to the splendid virtuosoism of the present time. The sources from which facts have been drawn are various, and, it is believed, trustworthy, including French, German, ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... that God would create?' Now, He cannot create perfect beings, 'since, essentially, perfection is one'; if He did so, He would only be adding to Himself. Thus the conclusion is obvious: He must create imperfect ones. Omnipotent Righteousness, faced by the intolerable impasse of a solitary existence, finds itself bound by the very nature of the cause, to create the hospitals at Scutari. Whether this argument ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... more necessary to observe these Rules of proving the Quality of the AETHER, as the imperfect Sorts have been found to disagree with the Stomach, and produce other bad Effects, besides disappointing the Patient's Expectation. The AETHER that has the foremention'd Properties, (for there are Preparations sold by the same name, which are very ...
— An Account of the Extraordinary Medicinal Fluid, called Aether. • Matthew Turner
... his pupil, gives some wonderful etude or a piece with great stretches and arpeggios for the left hand, and gives himself unwearied trouble over it, it is a proof of abundant painstaking; but it is labor thrown away, and only makes the imperfect ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... satisfactorily explained. He traced the various forms and phenomena of the world to numbers as their basis and essence. The "Monad," or UNIT, he regarded as the source of all numbers. The number TWO was imperfect, and the cause of increase and division. THREE was called the number of the whole, because it had a beginning, middle, and end; FOUR, representing the square, is in the highest degree perfect; and TEN, as it contains the sum of ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... my brief and imperfect, and I fear tedious account of Sam's education, and of the companions with whom he lived, until the boy had grown into a young man, and his sixteenth birthday came round, on which day, as had been arranged, he was considered to have finished his ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... scarcely be remarked, in conclusion, that the Hall at Norton Lees, as it appears to the reader, conveys but an imperfect idea of the ancient structure. The walls of the lower story entirely of stone, and the upper, stone and plaster intersected by wood, are original, as is probably the enriched gable, with the pinnacled ornament at its apex; beneath was originally a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... of the Syndicate there was great satisfaction. The news received was incorrect and imperfect, but it was evident that, so far, everything ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... stone, as taken from the quarry, in its rude and natural state. By it we are reminded of our rude and imperfect state by nature. ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... selection. We look for, we desire a further and fuller Revelation of God, even though the Revelation may condemn us. We cannot rest without it. It is intolerable to those who have a sense of justice, for instance, to think that, whilst led by their sense of what is good and right, men execute imperfect justice, there is, after all, no Supreme Moral Governor Who will render to each individual in another life that just retribution which is assuredly not accorded to all in this ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... Such is the imperfect development of our own nationality in this respect that we have really no right as yet to call ourselves a nation in the true sense of the word, nor shall we have while this state of things continues. Thousands have begun to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... of herewith sending you my accompt. It is still an imperfect one, the printing of the Basque Gospel not being charged for, which I have not defrayed, together with some other items, for which I am indebted to my printer, who, having lately fought a duel, is laid up with his wounds, and cannot for the present transact business. ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... handled by the Arab dealers all the sorting is done by hand, the very choice grade selling in the large cities of Europe for the equivalent of nearly three dollars per pound. All machine-sorted coffee is greatly improved by a subsequent hand-sorting to remove the imperfect beans. ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... with the means and the agents of the diffusion of those religions, {25} it tells us nothing of the reasons for their adoption by the Romans. We perceive the how, but not the why, of their sudden expansion. Especially imperfect is our understanding of the reasons for the difference between the Orient and the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... the one side, or those of the several States on the other. Instances of this kind may happen; for infallibility is not the lot of any man or body of men, even the best of them on earth. The human mind in its present state, being very imperfect, is liable to a multitude of errors. Prejudice, that great source of error, often creeps in and takes possession of the hearts of honest men, without even their perceiving it themselves. Honest men will not feel themselves disgusted, when mistakes ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill, behind which, the Frenchman told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort Caroline, three bow-shots distant; but the rain, the imperfect light, and a cluster of intervening houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he sent two officers to reconnoiter. As they descended, they met a solitary Frenchman. They knocked him down with a sheathed sword, wounded him, took him prisoner, kept him for a time, and then stabbed him as ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... you who should not expect it." And then, "I am sorry I said what I did. It was an impulse. We are all imperfect. I've often ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... agreeable offering to him, we shall not fail to receive his paternal blessings. There I shall contemplate nature in her most wild and ample extent; I shall carefully study a species of society, of which I have at present but very imperfect ideas; I will endeavour to occupy with propriety that place which will enable me to enjoy the few and sufficient benefits it confers. The solitary and unconnected mode of life I have lived in my youth must fit me for this trial, I am not the first who has ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... over her failure, stood long with the white rosary in her hand. "Maybe I ought to count the poah pie as I would an imperfect lesson," she thought, hesitating, with a bead in her fingers. Then she said, defiantly: "But I did my best, and the day has certainly been disagreeable enough ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mean, whether there ever was a person bearing that name, for that is a question of no consequence; but whether any such person ever performed all the wonderful things attributed to him;—let him then weigh well the objections to that evidence, (of which I have given but a hasty and imperfect sketch,) and if he then finds it amount to anything more than a probability, I have only to congratulate him on his ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... things. The bud bursting into the glory of the rose, must, if there be feeling in a rose, undergo some such effort before it can make its beauty known; the butterfly but newly freed from the dull husk that hid its splendours, at first must feel the imperfect wings it stretches in the sun to be irksome to its unaccustomed sense. And so it was with Angela; she spread her half- grown wings in the sun of her new existence, and found them strange, not knowing as yet that they were shaped to bear her to the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... was thus in its new form but a very imperfect imitation of its French model, it was still more unlike the English aristocracy. Notwithstanding the liberal phrases in which Catherine habitually indulged, she never had the least intention of ceding one jot or tittle of her autocratic ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... no more t's and dotted no more i's that day. We fear, indeed, that he even left the invoice on his desk unfinished, with the last i imperfect. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... say, that men begin their completeness when the second septenary of years begins, about which time the seminal serum is emitted. Trees first begin their perfection when they give their seeds; till then they are immature, imperfect, and unfruitful. After the same manner a man is completed in the second septenary of years, and is capable of learning what is good and evil, and of ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... to confine the idea of the Supreme Mind within an arbitrary barrier, or exclude from the limits of veracity any conception of the Deity, which, if imperfect and inadequate, may be only a little more so than our own? "The name of God," says Hobbes, "is used not to make us conceive Him, for He is inconceivable, but that we may honor Him." "Believe in God, and adore Him," said the Greek Poet, "but ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... peculiar conformation of the site on which the village has been built has produced an unusual irregularity of arrangement, yet even here an imperfect example of the typical inclosed court may be found, at one point containing the principal kiva or ceremonial chamber of the village. It is probable that the accidental occurrence of a suitable break or depression in the ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... courage in writing this chapter to rely entirely on Rousseau's Confessions, which were written nearly half a century later than the episodes they narrated, and are therefore full of inaccuracies, besides being founded on an imperfect and false knowledge of Madame de Warens's earlier life, and written by a man who was, there can be no doubt, not able to arouse women's passions. Adler shows himself completely ignorant of the historical investigations of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... natural talent or mother wit, as it is called, about the Spaniards, which renders them intellectual and agreeable companions, whatever may be their condition in life, and however imperfect may have been their education: add to this they are never vulgar, nature has endowed them with an inherent dignity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... of the United States to do. It was a herculean task; practically impossible with any large degree of efficiency in view of the almost insurmountable obstacles to be contended with. But step by step the imperfect machinery was set up, and it began to function in the home camps. Then the overseas work was introduced by the first troops going to France, and ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... apply a perfect law to imperfect humanity, and if He had a "beloved disciple," might not Hemstead ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... smothered with kisses even before his howls ceased, and the lodgers were placated with cookies the very next day—but that, too, was "good business"! Her "respectability" had become a deep satisfaction to her. She occasionally referred to herself as "a perfect lady." Her feeling about "imperfect" ladies was of most virulent disapproval. But she had no more spirituality than a hen. Her face was as good-humored, and common, and pretty as ever; and she had a fund of not too refined, but always funny, stories to tell Maurice; so he liked her, after a fashion, and she liked him, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... of the young culprits, although significant of the imperfect discipline of a French man-of-war, may also be considered as in some measure characteristic of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... In spite of imperfect ideals the Orient has endured, while we of the Occident are fast becoming decadent. We, by learning something of the art of love, and of the natural life of married people, from the Hindoos, may perpetuate our civilization. They, ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... of the advance of this epoch, we may mention the appearance of pottery made on the potter's wheel, and baked in an improved kind of furnace. Previous to this epoch all the pottery had been moulded by hand and baked in an imperfect manner in the open air. This may be thought to be but a small improvement. Our civilization, however, depends upon small improvements. Only during the early part of this age, while iron was scarce, and therefore valuable, would it be used for the purpose of ornaments. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... imagine the horror with which darkness, rain, and wind, fill persons who have lost their way in the night; and who, consequently, have not the pleasant prospect of warm fires, dry cloaths, and other refreshments, to support their minds in struggling with the inclemencies of the weather. A very imperfect idea of this horror will, however, serve sufficiently to account for the conceits which now filled the head of Partridge, and which we shall presently ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... there may be found any unacknowledged imitations, I hope I shall not be censured as an intentional plagiarist; for it has been my wish, however I may be esteemed presumptuous, not to be unjust; and I sometimes fear lest an imperfect recollection of another's idea should have appeared to me as a dawning thought of my own. Wherever I could recollect a similar passage, although unnoticed at the time I wrote, it has been either altered ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... Meanwhile M. Victor Ouvrard lived on with strict economy, brushing his old coats till they were threadbare, and never allowing himself a vehicle in the streets of Paris. He was an excellent walker, and we explored a great part of the town together on foot. He kindly took patience with my imperfect French, and often gently corrected me. The long conversations I had with M. Ouvrard on all sorts of subjects, in addition to my daily lessons from masters, got me forward with surprising rapidity. I observed a strict rule of abstinence from English, never calling ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... to keep their heads down, and in the right place. But imperfect horsemen are not to be trusted with running martingales. Running martingales require tabs on the reins, to prevent the rings getting fixed close ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... nobility of thought, and all beauty of sentiment, withered and shrivelled up. Then the dexterous management of a few individuals, base or dull, was the only means of success. But we live in a different age: there are popular sympathies, however imperfect, to appeal to; we must recur to the high primeval practice, and address nations now as the heroes, and prophets, and legislators of antiquity. If you wish to free your country, and make the Syrians a nation, it is ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... existing in the man himself, we must say that the happiness of man is an act. For happiness is the last perfection of man. But everything is perfect so far as it is in act; for potentiality without actuality is imperfect. Happiness, therefore, must consist in the last and crowning act of man. But it is manifest that activity is the last and crowning act of an active being; whence also it is called by the philosopher "the second act." And hence it is that each thing is said to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... present paper: I tell the story on the authority of an intelligent Japanese gentleman, Mr. Taiso Masaki, who told it me with an emotion that does honour to his heart; and though I have taken some pains, and sent my notes to him to be corrected, this can be no more than an imperfect outline. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with torture. Rushworth has noticed the fact, and given some imperfect notes of his speech, when threatened to be racked; but the following is not only more ample, but more important in its essential particulars. When Lord Dorset told him (says the MS. letter) "Mr. Felton, it is the king's pleasure that you should be put ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... which he asserts that "Past Masters of warranted lodges on record are allowed this privilege (of membership) whilst they continue to be members of any regular lodge." And it is, doubtless, on this imperfect authority, that the Grand Lodges of America began at so early a period to admit their Past Masters to seats in the Grand Lodge. In the authorized Book of Constitutions, we find no such provision. Indeed, Preston records that in 1808, at the laying of the foundation-stone of the Covent ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... there depended upon Professor Oppert's estimate of the nature of the documents and that again was often founded on imperfect copies of the text. A great advance has since been made in understanding the contents of the texts then published, and the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... to be gained life must be lost; that beauty, truth, love, are the realities which abide. Goodness has slowly proved itself in the world,—is every day proving itself,—like a light broadening in darkness!—to be that to which reason tends, in which it realises itself. And, if so, goodness here, imperfect and struggling as we see it always, must be the mere shadow and hint of that goodness which is in God!—and the utmost we can conceive of human tenderness, holiness, truth, though it tell us all we know, can yet suggest ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... abundant in grass on the eastern side of the great range, would it not be advisable for the colonists to cultivate this salt-supplying bush, and thereby to produce a vegetable substitute for the rock salt, which is not only expensive, but only a very imperfect remedy for the clay-licking propensities of sheep and cattle on many runs? Thermometer at sunrise, 70 deg.; at noon, 94 deg.; at 4 P.M., 98 deg.; at 9, 86 deg.;—with wet ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... temperate space in Michelangelo's life, without which its excessive strength would have been so imperfect, which saves him from the judgment of Dante on those who "wilfully lived in sadness," is then a well-defined period there, reaching from the year 1542 to the year 1547, the year of Vittoria's death. In [86] it ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... Jean d'Angely had been intrusted by Coligny to competent hands. De Piles had found the fortifications weak and imperfect; he completed and strengthened them.[737] With a small garrison of Huguenots he repaired by night the breaches made by the enemy's cannon during the day, and repelled every attempt to storm the place. When the siege had advanced about two weeks, Charles himself, who ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... word Yankee is nothing more than the word English so transformed by the imperfect pronunciation of the natives of Massachusets—Yenghis, Yanghis, Yankies. The orthography of this much-used epithet, which is not given, we believe, in any English or American work, was communicated to M. Philarete {261} Charles by one of the best-informed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... God in corporeal terms so that all may be made to know of God's existence. This they could not do if the prophets had spoken in metaphysical terms, for not everyone can follow such profound matters. But having come to the knowledge of God in this simpler though imperfect way, we can then advance to a more perfect knowledge of him. The intelligent and philosophical reader will lose nothing by the anthropomorphic form of the Bible, for he can remove the husk and penetrate ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... evident, for instance, in Botticelli) and makes the most of what the majority may have in common—that dominant interest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this Tuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages, and can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up and fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic personalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters born between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans. Leonardo, once independent of Verrocchio and settled ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... more truth in it than any vague metaphorical expression such as the "over-soul." The symbolic ritual of the Mass, for instance, has far more truth in it than any metaphorical expression such as the "life-force." And although both the Cross and the Mass are inadequate and imperfect symbols with regard to the vision of "the sons of the universe," because they are associated with the idea of an historic incarnation, yet in comparison with any modern rationalistic or chemical metaphor ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... too common mixture of law and politics in which the former jealous mistress is apt to take the traditional revenge upon her half-hearted suitor. Such happened in this case; and these two partners, both making the same blunder of yielding imperfect allegiance to their profession, paid the inevitable penalty; they got perhaps work enough in mere point of quantity, but it was neither interesting nor lucrative. Such business, during the four years which he passed with Stuart, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... only apologise that (though not so old as to witness the riots of 1768) I am old enough to experience that Time has laid his hand not only on my head to whiten my locks, but in this instance compels me to acknowledge that even the memories of my early days are, like the present, imperfect. The failure is with me, not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... more than I shall venture to claim for them; but, according to my imperfect recollection, and, what I esteem of far more importance, according to the united testimony of Mr. John Effingham and my father, I think ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... of which we have but imperfect knowledge during which, by some means, she drifted to the small town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Here she met my father, who was availing himself of the waters as a remedy for his chronic enemy, rheumatism. He offered her marriage. She refused. He left the town ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... and come and make the hymns of you; None have understood you, but I understand you; None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself; None but have found you imperfect—I only find no ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... a gude man tae her through the dark an' through the licht, an' she hes tried tae repay him as a puir imperfect wumman can, an' her hert is warm to him, but there hes aye been ae thing wantin'—an' it hes been that wife's cross a' her life—there wes nae ither man, but her husband wesna, isna, canna be her ain a'thegither an' for ever—for the want o' luve—that ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... that the language of an heroic poem should be both perspicuous and sublime. In proportion as either of these two qualities is wanting, the language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary qualification; insomuch that a good-natured reader sometimes overlooks a little slip even in the grammar or syntax, where it is impossible for him to mistake the poet's sense. Of this ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... by Felicia Hemans (Vol. viii., p. 629.)—A surviving relative of the authoress in question begs to answer to the correspondent of "N. & Q." who has produced this lyric from an imperfect MS. original, that the piece has not remained inedited, but is to be found in the several complete editions of Mrs. Hemans's works published by Blackwood. The playful signature of the letter alluded to, as well as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... and the countenance, though no longer wild, assumed the sadness which it had worn through a long course of grief and pain. On beholding this natural consequence of death, the thought perhaps occurred to him that her soul, no longer dependent on the imperfect means of intercourse possessed by mortals, had communed with his own, and become acquainted with all its guilt and misery. He started from the bedside and covered his face with his hands, as if to hide it from those dead eyes.... But his deep repentance ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... north and south; its forests stubbornly resisting the axes of the settlers; its severe extremities of heat and cold; the innumerable inconveniences inflicted by its uncultivated wastes on those who first invaded it; and the imperfect lines of land communication which multiplied all distances in Canada at least four-fold. It was perhaps this sense of distance, and difficulty of locomotion, which first impressed the settler and the visitor. To begin with, the colony was, for practical purposes, more than a month's distance from ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... debility. Food of this description is unsuited to the labourer. It will not maintain strength, nor will it maintain health, and, if long persevered in, it will be followed by some one or other of the prevailing diseases which result immediately from deficient, imperfect, and impoverished blood." ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the Committee acted naturally brought about very imperfect results. The logical consequences of the issue being, for instance, that the Minister for Foreign affairs was debarred from giving instructions directly to the different consuls; his 'wishes' were first to be communicated to the Norwegian Consular administration, on whom ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... brief preliminary remark or two which may render clear any after-evidence which you may call upon me to give. At the time when certain gentlemen tendered their evidence on Shetland truck before the Commission at Edinburgh, I read the brief, necessarily imperfect, and probably inaccurate reports of the same which appeared in the Edinburgh weekly papers. I also read some articles and letters which appeared in the newspapers at the time. About seven months ago I read, as printed I think in a Parliamentary blue ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... last, "oh! Heavens, is it possible that such a thing can exist in this imperfect world? You haven't faked it, Mr. ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... approaches to the Truth; among whom there was one that had a sharper Wit, or truer notions of things than Avenpace, but he was too much taken up with Worldly Business, and Died before he had time to open the Treasury of his Knowledge, so that most of those pieces of his which are extant, are imperfect; particularly his Book about the Soul) and his Tedbiro 'lmotawahhid, i.e. How a Man ought to manage himself that leads a Solitary Life So are his Logicks and Physicks. Those Pieces of his which are compleat, ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... the rough outer bark of several trees in order to examine the inner layers of soft fibrous material. He found several trees that gave promise of furnishing abundance of long, thin strips, but the labor of removing the bark with his rude imperfect tools was so great that he resolved that he would have to find some other ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... had met with three other white men, in very miserable plight, having one horse each, and but one rifle among them. They also had been plundered and maltreated by the Crows, those universal freebooters. The Snake endeavored to pronounce the names of these three men, and as far as his imperfect sounds could be understood, they were supposed to be three of the party of four hunters, namely, Carson, St. Michael, Detaye, and Delaunay, who were detached from Mr. Hunt's party on the 28th of September, to trap beaver on the head waters ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... transcendence—that these two can never be separated, but are related to each other as the less to the greater, as the part to the whole. One naturally shrinks from employing a diagram in dealing with such a topic as this; but perhaps recourse might without offence be had to this method—necessarily imperfect as it is—on account of its essential simplicity, and because it is calculated to remove misapprehensions. If we can think of a very large sphere, A, and, situated anywhere within this, of a very small sphere, a—then the ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... inscriptions upon any of these Butsu-soku- seki will be found of more significance than the above imperfect attempts at an explanation of the emblems. The inscriptions upon the monument at Dentsu-In are typical. On different sides of the structure,—near the top, and placed by rule so as to face certain points of the compass,—there ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... vain. The powers of life were manifestly yielding to the force of the disorder; speaking, which was painful from the beginning, became almost impracticable: respiration became more and more contracted and imperfect, until half past eleven on Saturday night; when, retaining the full possession of his intellect, he ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Turkey, I might wish to convert the Grand Signor to the Christian faith; but when I considered that I should probably be put to death without effectuating my purpose in any degree, I should keep myself quiet.' JOHNSON. 'Sir you must consider that we have perfect and imperfect obligations. Perfect obligations, which are generally not to do something, are clear and positive; as, 'thou shalt not kill.' But charity, for instance, is not definable by limits. It is a duty to give to the poor; but no man ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... of Praise' is to be performed the end of this month for the benefit of old invalided musicians. I am determined, however, that it shall not be produced in the imperfect form in which, owing to my illness, it was given in Birmingham; so that makes me work hard. Four new pieces are to be added, and I have also much improved the three sets of symphonies, which are now in the hands of the copyist. As an introduction to the chorus, 'The Night ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... nothing is more significant than the use of the imperfect in countries where its use is not customary and where as a rule only the perfect is used; not "I was going,'' but "I have gone'' (went). In part the reading of newspapers, but partly also the unfortunate habit of our school teachers, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... not imply that the old woman herself is a fiction. Borrow insisted upon Norfolk as his county, "where the people eat the best dumplings in the world, and speak the purest English." He even spoke with a strong, if imperfect, East Anglian accent. As a matter of fact his father was Cornish and his mother of Huguenot stock. It would be absurd to argue from this obvious exaggeration of the actual facts that Borrow was ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... moderate circumstances; and now lives in the county of Erie, a short distance from Buffalo. The limited means of the family prevented the old gentleman from giving his son Millard any other or better education than was obtained in the imperfect ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... But Violante was not aware that if the beauty had been there the devotional aspirations would not have been there! That, which causes more deeply implanted in her nature than she knew of were impelling her to desire and to yearn for, the imperfect teaching of the world around her had led her to imagine to be unattainable save by the gifts of personal beauty. And, knowing that if that were so there was no hope for her, her bruised heart had sought the only refuge which seemed to be open to ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... during which, with the exception of one anonymous work, he never indulged in composition, the irresistible desire of communicating his conclusions to the world came over him, and after all his almost childish aspirations, his youth of reverie and hesitating and imperfect effort, he arrived at the mature age of forty-five before his career as a great author, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... acquaintance accidentally; the chance which led to it was caused by the peculiar conditions of the Yakut spring. My readers will probably only have a very imperfect ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... know that like all human Our work is imperfect at best, And will bristle with imperfections Till our hands shall be at rest; But to justify our blunders Or pass them lightly o'er, Is the fatal way of inviting ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... was the reform of the calendar. The republican calendar, which strangely enough was still the old decemviral calendar—an imperfect adoption of the -octaeteris- that preceded Meton (117)—had by a combination of wretched mathematics and wretched administration come to anticipate the true time by 67 whole days, so that e. g. the festival of Flora was celebrated on the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... in one individual, frequently costs more than bread to many families, and even provinces. It may appear withal, that the rule of equality, as it would be highly USEFUL, is not altogether IMPRACTICABLE; but has taken place, at least in an imperfect degree, in some republics; particularly that of Sparta; where it was attended, it is said, with the most beneficial consequences. Not to mention that the Agrarian laws, so frequently claimed in Rome, and carried into execution in many Greek cities, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... than sixty thousand men, and two thousand five hundred guns. Doria was in chief command, and Capello and Grimani led the Venetian and Roman contingents. Barbarossa had fortunately received but an imperfect report of the enemy's strength and so boldly pursued his northerly course up the Adriatic. When he reached Prevesa, the combined fleets had gone on to Corfu, and he was able to enter unopposed the spacious gulf of Arta, where all the navies ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... God. As we are not free from faults ourselves, we must not expect too much from others. Be yourself very humble and child-like, and this character will act sympathetically on others. Jesus Christ was full of sweetness and charity. How patiently did he bear with his imperfect disciples, even with Judas, without anger, without ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... later, we find on reading the paper that its author discussed merely the effect of toxins in disease upon the body-cells and the germ-cells, causing in the offspring either various forms of arrested and imperfect development or some degree of immunity. In the latter case he argues that the action of the toxin of the disease has been to set up certain molecular changes, certain alterations in the composition of the cell-substance so that the latter responds ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... those who did not understand a word of English, and he was indebted to the gestures of Deerslayer, and to the expression of an eye that did not often deceive, for an imperfect comprehension of his meaning. Perhaps, too, the sight of the rifle that lay so near the hand of the white man quickened his decision. At all events, he crouched like a tiger about to take his leap, uttered a yell, and the next instant his naked body disappeared in the water. When ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Master, "is but the insignificant effect of an imperfect cause not complete in itself; it is but the shadow that follows the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... union which is founded upon the same pleasures and the same occupations does not deserve the name of friendship because it usually comes from a certain egotism which causes us to love that which is similar to ourselves, however imperfect we may be." She dwells also upon the mutual offices and permanent nature of true friendship, adding, "He who loves his friend more than reason and justice, will on some other occasion love his own pleasure and ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... the line or key-block of a design first, as one is then able to detect faulty registering or imperfect fitting of the blocks and to correct them at once. But there are cases in which a gradated tone, such as a sky, may need to be printed before the ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... in the entire universe but one mate for each man and each woman; and if the union of perfect mates is the only truly spiritual union; if this union precludes the possibility of "temptation" in any other direction, what is to be done with all the marriages which we know to be imperfect; wherein it is evident that soul-union is not present? Are they immoral, and are they to be abandoned? And is marital infidelity ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... departments whose accounts he criticized. It was contemplated by the admiralty in 1885 to make the accountant-general the assistant of the financial secretary, and to raise him to the position of a permanent officer of finance instead of being an officer of account invested with imperfect authority in the direction of control. A select committee of the House of Commons reported that the accountant-general possessed no financial control over the departments, and that there was an urgent need for establishing such a control. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... at their hands. These same grateful acknowledgements are due to my fellow citizens generally, whose support has been my great encouragement under all embarrassments. In the transaction of their business I can not have escaped error. It is incident to our imperfect nature. But I may say with truth my errors have been of the understanding, not of intention, and that the advancement of their rights and interests has been the constant motive for every measure. On these considerations ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... appreciation of Channing's poems. When "Monadnock" was written, he made a special visit to Boston to talk it over, and the fine lines of Channing were always ready in his memory, to come to the front when called for. His love and loyalty to Elizabeth Hoar should never be forgotten, in however imperfect a rehearsal of his valued companionships. One morning at breakfast I heard him describing her attributes and personality in the most tender and engaging way to Mrs. Stowe, who had never known her, which I would give much to ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... to write Concerning Disappointment and Success. In the days when I studied metaphysics, I should have objected to that title, inasmuch as the antithesis is imperfect between the two things named in it. Disappointment and Success are not properly antithetic; Failure and Success are. Disappointment is the feeling caused by failure, and caused also by other things besides ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... exceptions? It is difficult, if not impossible, for us, with our still imperfect knowledge of the calendar system formerly in vogue among the Mayas, to give a satisfactory answer to this question. But we reserve further notice of it until other parts of the series have ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... time came at last for a real meeting, not a week's visit in town where she was fully occupied, and he did not well know what to do with himself—or a hurried rapid meeting at school, where Jock's pride in introducing his tutor to his sister was a somewhat imperfect set-off to the loss of personal advantage to himself in thus seeing Lucy always in the company of other people—his being was greatly moved with diverse thoughts. Lucy was all he had in the world to represent the homes, the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Finding how imperfect was my knowledge of English I set to work reading through some English books with the help of a dictionary. From my earliest years it was my habit not to let any want of complete comprehension interfere with my reading on, quite satisfied with the structure which my imagination reared on the ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... worlds, reduced to knowing whether or not the infinity of endeavours and combinations be equal to that of eternity? Or, lastly, to come to the greatest probability, is it we who deceive ourselves, who know nothing, who see nothing and who consider imperfect that which is perhaps faultless, we, who are but an infinitesimal fragment of the intelligence which we judge with the aid of the little shreds of thought which it has vouchsafed to ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... great crimes of kings and the virtues of heroes, it is no less true of the humblest faults and most hidden virtues of ordinary life. Many a youthful Marcus Aurelius is still about us; many a Macbeth, who never stirs from his room. However imperfect our conception of virtue, still let us cling to it; for a moment's forgetfulness exposes us to all the malignant forces from without. The simplest lie to myself, buried though it may be in the silence of my soul, may yet ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the animal and vegetable kingdom. We shall find it impossible to refrain from asking ourselves what the end of this mighty movement is to be. In what direction is it tending? What will be its upshot? To give a few imperfect hints towards a solution of these questions is the object ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... and enlightened men have been divided in opinion concerning this point, does this not prove, that it is not to be expected we should come to a satisfactory conclusion about this question in the present imperfect state of the church?—This question was thus removed: If this ordinance is revealed in the Bible, why may I not know it, as the Holy Spirit is the teacher in the church of Christ now as well as formerly? 2. There have been but few of my friends baptized, and the greater part of them ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... an imperfect knowledge of their alphabet, enabling me to spell out here and there a word of little meaning; but the great ocean's never-ceasing speech was ever plain to me, and many a midnight hour I have paced the cool sands that girt my island home, and listened with reverential awe to the secrets ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... events that have lately happened in my family. Make what use of the tale you shall think proper. If it be communicated to the world, it will inculcate the duty of avoiding deceit. It will exemplify the force of early impressions, and show the immeasurable evils that flow from an erroneous or imperfect discipline. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... the truth or deliberately imposing upon the credulity of the public. Some—perhaps all of them, are men of sincerity and probity; but, deluded themselves, they help to delude others. Their vision is imperfect; and 'if the blind lead the blind,' we may expect to find them in ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... of some speedy millennium is gone. We see that the general advance must be slow. But we also see that the imperfect condition is not so terrible as it was once supposed: it does not incur hell; it does not imply total depravity; it may even serve as stepping-stone ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... come back into the world of consciousness to stay. Accepting her nurse's support, but giving no sign of waning faculties or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite clearly and with her eyes fixed ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... and ease. It was Gilbert himself who revealed to me his patron's villany. It was time for the vultures to quarrel when they could not both fatten on my prostrate carcass; but they were bound together by the dark doings of years, and it was only by imperfect hints and innuendoes that I was made aware of their treachery. If proofs existed to convict my uncle, Gilbert could not afford to produce them. The price was life, or something short of it; but I heard enough for satisfaction. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... speaks of Assyrians; this is an error which is to be explained by the imperfect state of historical knowledge in Greece at the time of the Macedonian supremacy. We need not for this reason be led to cast doubt upon the historic value of the narrative: we must remember the suzerainty which the kings of Babylon exercised over Syria, and read Chaldaeans where Manetho has written ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... bring. I want a home. Not too homey a home, in the strictly domestic sense (Aunt Caroline is strictly domestic) but a—a congenial home. I want the advice and help of a clever woman together with the sense of permanence and security which, in our imperfect state of civilization, is made possible only by marriage. And I, too, have my secret fear. I am afraid that some day I may be driven—in short, I am afraid ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... attitudes of vehement attack and resistance, had to be modelled; and the conditions of the myth required that one at least of them should be brought into harmony with equine forms. Michelangelo wrestled vigorously with these difficulties. He produced a work which, though it is imperfect and immature, brings to light the specific qualities of his inherent art-capacity. The bas-relief, still preserved in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, is, so to speak, in fermentation with powerful half-realised conceptions, audacities of foreshortening, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... one of the most remarkable and most difficult figures of the Maya manuscripts, and shows, at the same time, how imperfect must be the information we have received in regard to the Maya mythology, since from the frequency of his representations he is obviously one of the most important deities and yet can be identified with none of the representations ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... quite satisfactory. You can readily understand that we cannot burn any fuel that gives off a waste product such as coal dust or cinders, because if we did such matter would get into the melt and speck the glass, causing it to be imperfect. Much of the work done by the earliest glass-makers was specked in this way, and in fact the genuineness of old glass is sometimes determined from these ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... together in all their studies, and particularly in what concerned these books of Polity—this Dr. Spencer, the Three perfect books being lost, had delivered into his hands—I think by Bishop Whitgift—the imperfect books, or first rough draughts of them, to be made as perfect as they might be by him, who both knew Mr. Hooker's handwriting, and was best acquainted with his intentions. And a fair testimony of this may appear by an Epistle, first, and usually printed before Mr. Hooker's Five ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... generate that quality. Remember, your mind will at first rebel, but a very little persistence will lead to complete success. Repeat the auto-suggestions daily at the same time. See that it manifests in Action. Act it out as often as possible. Of course your efforts will be imperfect to begin with, but, never mind, go ahead, keeping firm hold on your "I can and I will" in spite of all things and success is quite certain. Once you have developed these seven qualities, you can ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... "I ordered you to leave one of the four and twenty windows of this hall imperfect, and you executed my command punctually. Now make it like ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester |
