"Find fault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for you," jibed Logan. "Always trying to find fault." He winked at Ruiz and rubbed his ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... not one to find fault unnecessarily. I know it is the duty of a Christian to be patient and long-suffering; but there is a limit to one's endurance, and I regret to say that you have passed that limit. I should not be fulfilling my duty to a young person who is under my charge if I refrained from pointing out ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... find fault with such a sweet, winning young creature, I shall think it is all because you will not endure a mistress at Gowanbrae ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their fellows, and this was such a horse. He was such a creature that, if he had been led to a barrier, the entire crowd at the race track would rise as one man and say: "What is that horse?" There were points in which some critics would find fault; most of the men of the mountain-desert, for instance, would have said that the animal was too lightly and delicately limbed for long endurance; but as the man of men bears the stamp of his greatness in his forehead and his eyes, so it was with the black stallion. ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... have faith," she admonished him, "if you are to win your inheritance; and not question or doubt or find fault, or—or make fun of anything. It says right here on the title-page, 'And now if there be faults, it be the mistake of men; wherefore condemn not the things of God that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.' ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... you at any time pry into his secrets; and keep close what is intrusted to you, though put to the torture, by wine or passion. Neither commend your own inclinations, nor find fault with those of others; nor, when he is disposed to hunt, do you make verses. For by such means the amity of the twins Zethus and Amphion, broke off; till the lyre, disliked by the austere brother, was silent. Amphion is thought to have given way to his brother's humors; ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... without knowing it, I have been one of Fourier's partisans. Jerome Lalande placed Napoleon and Jesus Christ in his catalogue of atheists. The Fourierists resemble this astronomer: if a man happens to find fault with the existing civilization, and to admit the truth of a few of their criticisms, they straightway enlist him, willy-nilly, in their school. Nevertheless, I do not deny that I have been a Fourierist; ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... 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 rail with ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... had gone he commanded his young men to let her glean among the sheaves and to drop some handfuls purposely for her, and not to find fault with her or ...
— Wee Ones' Bible Stories • Anonymous
... for some time; then he said, but with a voice slightly broken, "I don't understand you, Phil. You must have taken some fancy into your mind which my slower intelligence—Speak out what you want to say. What do you find fault with? Is it all—all ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... looked at Ruth, who was covered with confusion, but she stammered, "I seem to be the only one to find fault to-day, but indeed, auntie—if you want my ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... are courteous, and 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 ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... greatly flagged after her father's death. Hunting did not seem to have the power to comfort and help her that she had expected to find in him. She could not definitely find fault with a single act, save his treatment of Gregory; he was devotion itself to her, but it was to her alone. He proved no link between her and God. Even when in careful phrases he sought to use the "language of Canaan," he did not speak it as a native, and ever left a vague, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... existing at this present time." He very seldom ventured to make the remark to Captain Savage, but to the first lieutenant he did very often. "I've been as close to it as possible, sir, I do assure you, although you find fault; but 27,672 years ago you were first lieutenant of this ship, and I was carpenter, although we recollect nothing about it; and 27,672 years hence we shall both be standing by this boat, talking about the repairs, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... find fault with their living in the market-place; but I commend it. For if it had been bad, Homer would never have been for representing Nestor as an orator; nor all the other wise men. I will return, then, from thence to the tongue, which this fellow says our youths ought not to exercise, while ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... Brahman who had two wives and as he knew something of herbs and simples he used to leave his wives at home and go about the country as a quack doctor; but whenever he came home his two wives used to scold him and find fault with him for no reason at all till they made his life a burden. So he resolved to leave two such shrews and one day when they had been scolding as usual he put on the garb of a jogi and in spite of their protests went out ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... fair lady by his arms in another land ought by right to come to a royal court. It was well we waited for Erec; for now you can bestow the kiss upon the fairest of the court. I should think none would find fault with you! for none can say, unless he lie, that this maiden is not the most charming of all the damsels here, or indeed in all the world." The King makes answer: "That is no lie; and upon her, if there is no remonstrance, I shall bestow the honour of the White Stag." Then he ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... not find fault; it needed to be done, but happily—let us hope—it is done, and a more enticing field is now open, namely: to make personal acquaintance with the birds, find out how they live, their manners and customs, and their individual characters. This is one of the most charming studies ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... sentiments, so far as it shall approve them. More than twenty years have elapsed since Congress first ceased to receive such a communication from the President as could properly be made the subject of a general answer. I do not mean to find fault with this relinquishment of a former and an ancient practice. It may have been attended with inconveniences which justified its abolition. But, certainly, there was one advantage belonging to it; and that is, that it furnished ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... that 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 ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... "I find fault with her," I replied, "for giving to the world the spectacle, supremely irritating even for a profane being like me, of triumphant nullity and haughty vice. I am not worth much, it's true, and I have no right to judge, but there is in me, as well as in any theatrical audience, a certain sentiment ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... with her running. Toby never dared to wait for her, lest his master should find fault with him for stopping; but Rosalie often got down from the caravan, to gather wild flowers, or to drink at a wayside spring, and, as she was very fleet of foot, she was ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... my royal master's message. Here is His Majesty's letter in autograph, and here is his glove, and if any gentleman of Crim Tartary chooses to find fault with His Majesty's expressions, I, Tuffskin Hedzoff, Captain of the Guard, am very much at his service,' and he waved his lance, and looked at the assembly ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the bottle before him reversed the wonder of the stereoscope and substituted the Gascon v for the b in binocular," which is certainly a puzzling and roundabout fashion of telling us that he had drunk so much that he saw double. The critics also find fault with his coining such words as "undisprivacied," and with his writing such lines as the famous ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Parliamentary 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 me for."[2] ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... these feelings and condition do not agree with the words; we do not here, as with the Scripture, do violence to our common sense and conscience, by insisting upon it that we agree with the words, but we find fault with the words as being at variance with the matter of fact. Some say that the language of the General Confession is too strong a statement of sin; that the language of the Communion Service, of the Baptismal Service, and above all, of the Burial Service, is too full of encouragement ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... simply couldn't marry a man who wasn't handsome. He is good-tempered too, and has lovely, curly, black hair. He's rather too perfect—I don't believe I'd like a perfect husband—somebody I could never find fault with." ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rights to have been ready before the 1st of January, but Cerizet was working unaccountably slowly; all the work of composing fell to him; and Mme. Sechard, knowing so little, could not find fault, and was fain to content herself ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... years later, showed themselves extremely critical of Mr. Barton's discourses and demeanour. But in the interim they had tasted that dangerous fruit of the tree of knowledge—innovation which is well known to open the eyes, even in an uncomfortable manner. At present, to find fault with the sermon was regarded as almost equivalent to finding fault with religion itself. One Sunday, Mr. Hackit's nephew, Master Tom Stokes, a flippant town youth, greatly scandalized his excellent relatives by declaring ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... he, "who with much care and diligence has gathered the flowers from far and near for his herb garden. We all know that there is not a more beautiful garden to be found in all Skane, and it is not befitting that you, who live in the wild forest all the year around, should find fault with his work." ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... about words may result, the sole cause of which was the obscurity of Bulow's text, I find fault only with those retreats made along several diverging roads, under pretense of covering a greater extent of frontier and of threatening ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle; knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of hers—one to whom she could speak every thought, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... also to his former titles of victory, that while he alone held the reins of empire he was neither disturbed by intestine commotions, nor did any barbarians venture to cross his frontiers; but all nations, eager at all times to find fault with what is past, as mischievous and unjust, were with marvellous unanimity agreed ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... that Sir Lionel's appearance was the best thing about him; but in saying so I should belie his manner, with which it was certainly difficult for any one to find fault. It was what the world calls happy, meaning thereby, that so great was the possessor's luck that he was able to make it pleasant to all men, and to all women—for a while. Mrs. Bertram—she had not lived to be my lady—had, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... part, are only readers; whence it comes that they almost always find fault with us on wrong grounds, or compliment ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... have been at once miserly and a financial genius, a fine father, and a public-spirited citizen. What is worse yet, his "defect" is of distinct advantage to his son-in-law and daughter, who are his heirs, and for that reason should not find fault with him, even if they have to wait a little for their wedding. I do not believe, therefore, in simple characters on the stage. And the summary judgments of the author upon men—this one stupid, and that one brutal, this one jealous, and that one stingy—should be challenged by the naturalists, ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... people on the Public Works were seen loitering about the roads; that the Government then introduced task work; that it met great opposition, but that the Lord Lieutenant remained firm, and had it carried out; an announcement which was received with "loud cheers." And no one would be inclined to find fault with task work, if the people had strength enough left to earn fair wages at it, but they had not—a fact which was, long before, evident to everybody but the Government; but even they saw it, or at least were compelled to acknowledge ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... as too many critics are wont to do, forgot and forget that 'the prettiest girl in the world' not only cannot give, but ought not to be asked to give, more than she has, must have been, and must be, very unreasonable if they find fault with the subject and stuff of the Lay. Jeffrey's remark about 'the present age not enduring' the Border and mosstrooping details was contradicted by the fact, and was, as a matter of taste, one of those strange blunders which diversified his often admirably acute critical utterances. ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... not to be indifferent when a friend finds fault, even if he should find fault without reason, but to try to restore him to his usual disposition; and to be ready to speak well of teachers, as it is reported of Domitius and Athenodotus; and to ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... enough the substitution of Patty for herself as premiere danseuse, and had even said she preferred the part that had been assigned her. But when the Bear dance began to be talked about with such enthusiasm, she commenced to find fault. ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... to him of this he is roused to anger and demands, "What are they for?" So far is he from having any thankful thoughts for all that has been given him for nothing and done for him and for his, if he has anything to say at all on the matter it is to find fault with the hospitals and cast blame on them for not having healed him more ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... could not eat my dinner in the great room—and, when I took up the large knife to carve for myself, tears rushed into my eyes.—Do not however suppose that I am melancholy—for, when you are from me, I not only wonder how I can find fault with you—but how I can doubt ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Townsend, ordering him to relieve and send back to Washington the officers on duty, and to seize and destroy the plates. A telegraphic correspondence followed, bringing in the photographers, Henry Ward Beecher, H. J. Raymond, and the military officers, with the proof that there was nothing to find fault with, but rather the desirable preservation of a memento of a memorable scene. There was a retreat, but no apology by the Secretary. (Official Records, vol. xlvi. pt. iii. pp. 952, 965, 966). The other was the permission given the Episcopal clergy in Richmond to continue Divine service in the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... patricians themselves in their struggles with the people, the few political executions ordered by Augustus sink into comparative insignificance, and it will generally be seen that those who most find fault with him are ready to extol the murderers of Julius Caesar as devoted patriots, if not as glorious martyrs to ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... fetch it. Combative on the platform in defense of any cause I cared for, I shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the house, and am a coward at heart in private while a good fighter in public. How often have I passed unhappy quarters of an hour screwing up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to reprove, and how often have I jeered myself for a fraud as the doughty platform combatant, when shrinking from blaming some lad or lass for doing their work badly. An unkind look or word has availed ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... 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 every limb quivering with wrath, ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... offending your relations, timid maid? When your venerable foster-father hears of it, he will not find fault with you. He knows that the law permits us to be united without consulting him. In Indra's heaven, so at least 'tis said, No nuptial rites prevail,[39] nor is the bride Led to the altar by her future ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... to form a cluster about the "North American Review" did not take definite shape until 1815. There is no such memorial of the growth of American literature as is to be found in the first half century of that periodical. It is easy to find fault with it for uniform respectability and occasional dulness. But take the names of its contributors during its first fifty years from the literary record of that period, and we should have but a meagre list of mediocrities, saved from absolute poverty ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... It is really astonishing how richly and beautifully everything was arranged in so short a period. Such pomp and superfluity were exhibited there, and the richly-fanciful illuminations were so admirably managed, that I felt quite at ease; I had nothing to find fault with, and I could not but praise the ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... but not lacking in natural affection. The young girl whose guileless belief in everybody forces the worst people to assume the characters her purity and innocence endows them with, is to the foul prison what Picciola was to Charney. Nor will the moralist find fault with the author whose kind heart teaches him to include misfortune in his catalogue ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... any isolated European country, or even the whole of the Continent in unison, can, after the exhaustion produced by the war, introduce a successful form of Communism at the present moment, owing to the hostility and economic supremacy of America. To find fault with those who urge these considerations, or to accuse them of faint-heartedness, is mere sentimental self-indulgence, sacrificing the good we can do to the satisfaction of ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... brought the dog and two cats from the ship. The dog would fetch things for me at all times, and by his bark, his whine, his growl, and his tricks, he would all but talk to me; yet he could not give me thought for thought. If I could but have had someone near me to find fault with, or to find fault with me, what a treat ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... the Major began to look uneasy, for it was one thing to find fault with Bridgie for not having given an invitation in the past, and quite another to be asked to sanction a ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... indirect tax is thus collected. Should any difficulty arise, it is between the dealer and the taxpayer who comes to his shop to lay in his little store; the latter grumbles, but it is at the high price which he feels, and possibly at the seller who pockets his silver; he does not find fault with the clerk of the Exchequer, whom he does not see and who is not then present In the collection of the direct tax, on the contrary, it is the clerk himself whom he sees before him, who abstracts the precious piece of silver. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... 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 heard, he said: 'It is a brave wench; I love her more than ever, and long to have some chat with her'; and hurrying the old gentleman for a positive answer, he said: 'My business ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... made its channel when the hills around had their first foundation. You must not find fault with the workmanship, for God himself ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... passengers, or patients, find fault and complain, either the one if they be well carried, or the others if well cured? Do they take care for any more than this; the one, that their shipmaster may bring them safe to land, and the other, that their physician ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... 'Dear Jim, sorry you went off in such a hurry; but after my performance in May I have no right to find fault. We all miss you, I think: the house has grown dull. Herbert continues to fall over the banisters, and at intervals over the rocks: at all hours, but especially when laid up for repairs, he howls for you and bear-stories. Our ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... subsided into a trot, the boys behind in full chase, laughing and cheering away as hard as they could. Trot—trot, went the pony, and Fred thought it was horrible, for it rucked his trousers up, and shook and bumped him ten times more than when he was cantering. But Fred was too much of a stoic to find fault, and sat it out famously, for Harry now caught up to him, and, seizing the halter, ran by his side till they reached the fence ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... two Frogs as his daily allowance, that he might use as his regular supply for breakfast and dinner. The Snake maintained himself on that allowance; and inasmuch as the attention he paid to the Frog-king involved a benefit to himself he did not find fault with it. ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... your men 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 he is doing ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... Azzeccagarbugli,—and the capons, in that awkward predicament, finding no better occupation than to peck at each other? "As is too often the case with companions in misfortune," observes the author, in his quiet, humoristic way. We were just as wise. Instead of saying, Mea culpa, we began to recriminate, and find fault with everything and everybody. It was the fault of the Ministers, of the Camarilla, of the army, of the big epaulets, of the King. Dynastic interest, of course, was not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... everything right. The zeal for reform is commendable, but not always according to knowledge. Certain forms of folly cure themselves, if not flattered by grave rebuke, and others do not come within the province of her who has her hands full already. It is easier for us all to find fault than to overlook. It "just drives our woman-reformer wild to hear some people talk!" The least aggressive of us knows for herself the impotent vexation of attempting to convince one who is too dull, or too dogged, to see reason. Why, then, yield to the disposition to attempt the impracticable? ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... bad motive; and if we are ill-dressed it will call us mean; it will style our gaiety dissoluteness and our mortification gloom. It will exaggerate our failings and publish our faults; and if it cannot find fault with our actions it will attack our motives. Whatever we do the world will find fault. If we spend a long time at confession it will ask what we can have to say; if we take but a short time, it will say that we do not tell everything. If one little ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... nobody 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 ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... me a vast deal of good from being so cantankerous. He would do anything for us; fetch, carry, or turn himself into a crutch for Bigley to lean upon, as he hopped down the garden to a chair; but he must be allowed to snarl and find fault, and snarl ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... ladies and gentlemen said she was so pretty, and even her governess did not dare to find fault with her!" ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... having given thee endurance and greatness of soul? For having made such things to be no evils? For placing happiness within thy reach, even when enduring them? For open unto thee a door, when things make not for thy good?—Depart, my friend and find fault no more! ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... here in the midst of the very best society Europe affords. That is to say, the very worst. The dukes and the money-lenders, the Jay Goulds and the Reinachs. The idlest, the cruellest: the hereditary drones, the successful blood-suckers. But to find fault with them only for trying to win one another's ill-gotten gold at a fair and open game of trente-et-quarante, with the odds against them, and then to say nothing about the way they came by it, is to make a needless fuss ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... court at the ensuing elections for members of parliament. These assertions were supported by many incontested facts and shrewd arguments, notwithstanding which, the majority were so little disposed to find fault, that the inquiry issued in a joint address to the queen, containing resolutions, that timely and effectual care had been taken to disappoint the designs of her majesty's enemies, both at home and abroad. A bill, however, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... why Othello came so often to her father's house, and was perfectly secure of his love before she gave him that very broad 'hint to speak.' I may add that those who find fault with her forget that it was necessary for her to take the first open step. She was the daughter of a Venetian grandee, and Othello was a ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... a noise?" she asked with a smile; "a shocking noise, my little brother calls it. He did not wish to find fault with me himself the other day, so he whispered to me while he was playing with some wooden animals, 'Rosa, these deer say to me that you make a shocking noise.' But this is what you mean, I suppose," and she began ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... think; but I doubt whether the creeper himself is troubled with such suggestions. He seems, to say the least, as well contented as the most of us; and, what is more, I am inclined to doubt whether any except "free moral agents," like ourselves, are ever wicked enough to find fault with the orderings of Divine Providence. I fancy, too, that we may have exaggerated the monotony of the creeper's lot. It can scarcely be that even his days are without their occasional pleasurable excitements. After ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... reflection may make clear. No one, I take it, will dispute the splendour, the perfection of the Laconian constitution. Imagine one of the ephors there in Sparta, in lieu of devoted obedience to the majority, taking on himself to find fault with the government and to oppose all measures. Do you not think that the ephors themselves, and the whole commonwealth besides, would hold this renegade worthy of condign punishment? So, too, by the same token, if you are wise, do you spare yourselves, not him. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... like 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, in ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... wrong, she's fond of Gregory. Of course, I've told you this already, but I must try to make it clear how that fact bears upon the business in hand. Sally certainly fought for him, and there's no doubt that one could find fault with several things she did; but the point is that she's evidently determined on making the most of him now she has got him. In some respects, at least, she's absolutely straight—one hundred cents to the dollar ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... was a 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 'to-do about her boy, not from affection, but to have ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... harnessed,' interrupted a servant girl coming in—the same girl I had seen in the passage. Her face, still looking half-awake, struck me this time by the expression of coarse insolence to be seen in servants when they know that their masters are in their power, and that they do not dare to find fault or ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... anxiety, which would make them feel the value of the French alliance."[129] While acknowledging the generous sympathy of many Frenchmen for their struggle, Americans need not blind themselves to the self-interestedness of the French government. Neither should they find fault; for its duty was ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the official at the door when our train would start, and when he said at half past three, I said, 'How tiresome!' Rose says the railroads belong to the state here, and that if I find fault with the time-table, it's constructive censure of the Emperor, and that's lese-majesty." She gave way to her mirth, while the boy studied March's face with an ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... prose works must be given to the Essays in Criticism, which raised the author to the front rank of living critics. His fundamental idea of criticism appeals to us strongly. The business of criticism, he says, is neither to find fault nor to display the critic's own learning or influence; it is to know "the best which has been thought and said in the world," and by using this knowledge to create a current of fresh and free thought. If a choice ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... 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 ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... I find fault also with the isolation in which communal societies live. They would be the better if they communicated fully and frequently among each other, and interchanged thoughts and experiences. Not only do the different societies hold aloof from each other, but among the ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... offer suggestions or make 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, his commissioned representatives were bound to acquiesce in his decision whatever ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... wretched weather according to us. The weather is like the government—always in the wrong. In summer-time we say it is stifling; in winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find fault with it for being neither one thing nor the other and wish it would make up its mind. If it is fine we say the country is being ruined for want of rain; if it does rain we pray for fine weather. If December passes without snow, we indignantly demand to know ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... her way rapidly into one of those favoritisms which are so common in girls' boarding-schools. She always had a pleasant word for every one, and always was ready to do a kind, generous act. She was so pretty, too, and dressed so simply and neatly, that there was nothing to find fault with, even if the girls had not been, as girls are, in truth, as a class, generous, noble, on the alert to see what is good, rather than what is otherwise, in those with whom they live. As for Dorothy, she ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... were I his wife! (But what have I done to myself, to make such a supposition?) I should never have comfort but in his absence, or when I was quarreling with him. A splenetic woman, who must have somebody to find fault with, might indeed be brought to endure such a wretch: the sight of him would always furnish out the occasion, and all her servants, for that reason, and for that only, would have cause to blame their master. But how grievous and apprehensive ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the seventeenth or eighteenth century would have admitted—it is hard to see how Dryden could have reached a substantially different result. Nor, if comparisons of this sort are to be made at all, is there much—so far, at least, as Shakespeare is concerned—to find fault with in the verdict with which he closes. Yet it is impossible not to regret that Dryden should have failed to recognize the finer spirit and essence of French tragedy, as conceived by Corneille: the strong-tempered heroism of soul, the keen sense ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... "Don't find fault with nature," said Chris dogmatically. "I wasn't finding fault. I only say it seems queer. I want to thoroughly understand ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God," quoted I, and in came Mr. Dudley, as he usually did when not wanted; though I've no reason to find fault with him, notwithstanding his blank treatment of me. He never took any notice, because he was in love with Lu. Rose never took any notice of me, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... men who have replied to my question concerning the faults of young women have done so in most kindly spirit, for to a noble soul it is always an unwelcome task to find fault; it is much easier to name the beautiful things in those we ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller
... heated, and tired, and hungry, and cross. It was all very well for a lady boarder to loll on an ottoman, play with her rings, and find fault. It was all very well for a gentleman boarder to fire poor jokes; but they couldn't either of them know how every word cut like a lash. When the doctor said, carelessly, "Some people think themselves great cooks, my lady; but the proof ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... whenever a new Parliament was formed. He would present himself with his certificate of election, whether his party, with all the insolence of victory, occupied the benches on the Right, or hungry and defiant, and reduced in numbers, was huddled on the Left, determined to find fault with everything the reigning Ministry did. Two sessions as part of the minority had won him a certain intimacy with the leader in that frank comradeship that Oppositions always have, since, from leader down to the most silent member, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of a fine day, in their season. It is probable the world elsewhere never saw anything approaching the beauty and magnificence that is here daily seen, at certain times, so far as beauty and magnificence are connected with equipages, including carriages, horses and servants. Unable to find fault with the tout ensemble, our mate made a violent attack on the liveries. He protested it was indecent to put a "hired man"—the word help never being applied to the male sex, I believe, by the most fastidious New England purist—in a cocked hat; a decoration ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... satire. The folly of senile dotage is throughout exposed as unsparingly, though with a difference in the imitation, as in the original. Even Joseph Warton and Bowles, affectedly fastidious over-much as both too often are, and culpably prompt to find fault, acknowledge that Pope's versions are blameless. "In the art of telling a story," says Bowles, "Pope is peculiarly happy; we almost forget the grossness of the subject of this tale, (the Merchant's,) while we are struck by the uncommon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... a part of the artist's equipment to find fault as it is to praise, for he wants by nature the true value with which he may relate himself to the sense of beauty. It seems, perhaps only to me, that in Brooke's poems there is but a vigorous indication to poetic expression, whereas doubtless the man himself was being excessively ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... with the other he flourished his whip, among a 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 ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... to leave the house as quickly as possible, he persuaded us to stay, if only for an hour, saying that our hasty departure would be a terrible outrage upon our host, whom, in any case, we could not find fault with. As to the stupid old woman, the Babu promised us to pacify her speedily enough: he had his own plans and views. In the meantime, he said, we had better go and examine the ruins of an old fortress ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... 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. ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... man, and soon became as favorably known as Strong, so the pupils had nothing more to find fault with, so far as their ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... and the cactus and the palm and the umbrella-tree and the live-oak and the riotous flowers and the thousand novel forms of vegetation, to give everything a prosaic look. But why should the tourist find fault with this? The American likes it, and he would not like the picturesqueness of the Spanish or the ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... comes to passe, that in all places, men that are grieved with payments to the Publique, discharge their anger upon the Publicans, that is to say, Farmers, Collectors, and other Officers of the publique Revenue; and adhaere to such as find fault with the publike Government; and thereby, when they have engaged themselves beyond hope of justification, fall also upon the Supreme Authority, for feare of punishment, or shame of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Sproule, doesn't improve any on acquaintance. But I've got so I don't mind him much. I don't think he's really as mean as he makes you believe. He's having hard work with his studies nowadays, and has less time to find fault with things. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... much jaded. She had lost her sausage-stick, but not her voice; for she began talking with the utmost velocity, as if every one was dying to hear her, and no one could say anything to the purpose but herself. How she did chatter! But she had arrived so unexpectedly that no one had time to find fault with her or her talking, so she went on. Now ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... of your own," exclaimed Mrs. Pinckney. "Of course you have, or you wouldn't be here, you dear creature! It is well for me that you are here, though," kissing her affectionately. "Now, everything must be just right when this haughty, fastidious brother-in-law of mine comes. He isn't apt to find fault, but I am conscious that he is secretly criticising my dress, my dinners, the gaucheries of the servants, my moral qualities, even the way I turn my sentences. I shouldn't mind trying to talk my very best English if he were not prying into my motives: it is difficult to be on one's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... seaman, and he could make out in a boat that did a bit of tumbling. He was the sort of man to do a good job with a tool that did not suit him if he could not get just the sort of tool he wanted, and never find fault with it either. The necessary amount to purchase the launch was subscribed by a friend of the Mission. Grenfell bought it and was mightily pleased that this last need was filled. Later the little launch ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... down the side of the vessel into a beautiful sledge, and then, half smothered in costly furs, to be whirled along the frozen Neva to a ball at the Winter Palace, there to valse with one's Mary among all the beauty and chivalry of St. Petersburg, and never a soul to find fault with one's valsing, which at first was far from perfect, or one's attire, which was not that of the fashionable world of the day, nor was Mary's either. We were aesthetic people, and very Greek, who made for ourselves fashions of our own, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... 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
... couch and drowged round waitin' on him, for he wuz dretful notional and hard to git along with. But she loved to be jawed at, dearly, for she said it made her think he would git along, and when he would find fault with her and throw things, she smiled gladly, thinkin' ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... since no one is annoyed at one who entertains for him the sentiment of Friendship and does kindnesses to him, but if of a refined mind he requites him with kind actions. And suppose that one of the two exceeds the other, yet as he is attaining his object he will not find fault with his friend, for good is the ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... to avert. But to the masses the notion was unthinkable; the idea of surrender would not bear discussion; it was never discussed. Against Martial Law as such we did not so much complain; it was an evil, but to some extent a necessary evil; and however prone we were to find fault, however scathingly we condemned the machinations of the "Law," or the stern "will" of its maker, the possibility of yielding to the other enemy was never entertained for one moment. No proposal of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... which it is easier to find fault with than the Gerusalemme when estimated by the satiated critical spirit of modern times, which insists upon brevity, and demands in each line a certain poetic excellence; especially if the poem is known only through the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... "the time of my life" in the spending, and I would not whine. I felt a little nervous when I thought of going over the figures with Polly,—she was such a judicious spender of money. But I knew her criticism would not be severe, for she was hand-in-glove with me in the project. I tried to find fault with myself for wastefulness, but some excellent excuse would always crop up. "Your water tower is unnecessary." "Yes, but it adds to the landscape, and it has its use." "You have put up too much fencing." "True, but I wanted to feel secure, and the old fences were such nests of ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... long 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
... I don't care. In fact, I think I had better not understand you. I might not like it. That wouldn't suit me at all, you know. I want to marry your sister, that's all; to do it as quickly as possible, and to find fault with nothing. I don't care how I do it. I am not marrying you, you know, sir. I have got my leave, and that is all ...
— The American • Henry James
... You have witnessed them. Moreau, who has a higher military reputation than he, came over to me at once. However, I repent of having cajoled Bernadotte. I am thinking of separating him from all his coteries without any one being able to find fault with the proceeding. I cannot revenge myself in any other manner. Joseph likes him. I should have everybody against me. These family considerations are follies! Goodnight, Bourrienne.—By the way, we will sleep in ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... 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 ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... "I can but rudely express to you what I have to find fault with in the explanation which this old man hath given of our purpose in coming hither. Certain it is, we neither owe Alexius fealty, nor had we the purpose of paying him any, when we took the vow upon ourselves which brought us against Asia. We came, because ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... in a separate dwelling. They were married, and all the house he had for her was the kitchen; but she did not at first complain, because she was afraid to make her husband unhappy. At last she became so tired of her life, that she began to find fault; but at first was very gentle. At last she scolded incessantly, and the man, to keep her quiet, told her he would go to the bush (forest), and fetch wood to build her a new house. He went away, and in a few hours brought some wood. The next day his wife told him to go and fetch some more. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... was insensible for a few seconds; but as soon as he came to himself, and discovered that he was in a strange place, he began to grumble and find fault. ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... far back as you will, you will find a continual outcry against the established method, but no attempt to suggest a better. The literature and science of our day tend rather to destroy than to build up. We find fault after the manner of a master; to suggest, we must adopt another style, a style less in accordance with the pride of the philosopher. In spite of all those books, whose only aim, so they say, is public utility, ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... 'We both are not free agents, but are dependent on Kala, and ordained to do our appointed work. Thou shouldst not find fault with us if thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in fashion; it directs invention to the minutiae of dress, and confirms the sway of the conventional, so as to give la mode the force of social law to an extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick, "nothing must be spared for the back; and if you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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, he has scarcely arrived ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... cause for 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 head a man I can trust, while it is also pleasing to the English that that man be an Englishman. Concerning ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... glad, for he is such a nice man. Chester, I wish your father were more susceptible to the gospel. I can't understand him. He never opposes, nor does he now find fault with me; but as for himself—well, he says he's going back to ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... to the 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 barndoor, 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 ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... them, desired their love, and 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 ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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; they compared my work with that which had been prepared for them; ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... himself. As he was still violently in love with Lady Laura, any other love was of course impossible; but, nevertheless, there was something offensive to him in the story as it had been told. "If it be wisdom on her part," said he, answering Lady Laura's last words, "you cannot find fault with ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... his ranch never ought to own a ranch. I said, 'Why in the devil don't you get some hinges and hang your gates?' Ambrose spoke up, and said, 'Sometimes the boss seems pleasant enough, but he does like to find fault and tell you what big things he has done. To hear him talk you would think that his ranch was the only ranch that was worth anything. He told his visitors to-day that his place would pay the interest on one hundred thousand dollars. You ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... fill my hands, and without leaving the shelter of Thine Arms, or even turning away, I will distribute Thy treasures to the souls who come to me asking for food. Should they find it to their taste, I shall know that this is due not to me, but to Thee; and if, on the contrary, they find fault with its bitterness, I shall not be cast down, but try to persuade them that it cometh from Thee, while taking good care to make ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... and I cannot resist the wish to meet you at least once more, and talk over the circumstances of our former friendship. From a practical point of view this may seem superfluous, as the matter has been definitely settled. I have no desire to find fault with you; on the contrary, I wish to set myself right with regard to my own actions, and to assure you of my good wishes. In other words, since we must part, I would rather we parted friends than enemies. If nature and society—or Fate, to put it another way—have decreed that we cannot live ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt |
