"Failure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tired of Weyler, and the complete failure of the great campaign in which he was going "to eat up the Cubans at his leisure," has made Spain lose ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... lower down on the honour roll than he thought. "What lack I yet?" he asked Jesus. Really, he couldn't see that he lacked anything at all—and that alone was a sign of failure, if he had only been wise enough ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... it during the hard times between 1873 and 1876. The history of the whole affair is as curious as it is instructive, and hence we have given a pretty full account of it. It weighed heavy on Father Hecker's heart, though he astonished his friends by the equanimity with which he accepted its failure. His work, if it did not perish in a night like the prophet's gourd, withered quickly into very singular form and narrow proportions. The amazement of Protestant bigots at the appearance of the Catholic tracts, speechless ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley, Liddell, to mention only a few, were men whose very friendship was the surest proof of my father's merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his friends, but in himself;—in the knowledge that his success or failure in life depended entirely on his own efforts; in the fixity of purpose which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway that he had laid down for himself; and in the unflagging industry with which he strove ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... have an exhibit which shows that their march toward civilization includes well-grounded ambitions of art. Mentality, feeling, spirit, all reveal themselves in the canvases. Crudity is apparent, but it comes more from an untutored hand than from failure to grasp the significance of the subject. Many pictures are flamboyant, some are melodramatic, nearly all are big subjects handled with great boldness; what they lack in finish they make up in sincerity. Felix R. Hidalgo's contributions (10-20) won ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... is no doubt of that," bowed Nick. "It may be a case of heart failure. You had better take the proper steps for the removal of the body. This box and wrapping paper, however, I am going to take with me, and ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... observed Valerie threading her needle and turning over the skirt. "Illustrators are very arbitrary gentlemen; a model's failure to keep an engagement sometimes means loss of a valuable contract to them, and that isn't fair either to them or to their publishers, who would be forced to hunt up another artist ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... sufferings would be as nothing; I should rejoice in them as the steps to this triumph. Meminisse juvabit! My dear, I am not a man fitted for subordinate places. My nature is framed for authority. The failure of all my undertakings rankles so in my heart that sometimes I feel capable of every brutality, every meanness, every hateful cruelty. To you I have behaved shamefully. Don't interrupt me, Marian. I have treated ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... counting, and looking, and drowsing, she was glad to be alive. It was not until the next afternoon that she began to be faintly mortified at being alive. It was then that she had felt that she must get that letter—Maurice mustn't see it! Little by little, humiliation at her failure to be heroic, grew acute. Maurice wouldn't know that she loved him enough to give him Jacky; he would just know that she was silly. She had got wet; and had a cold in her head. Snuffles—not Death. He might—laugh!... It was then that she implored Mrs. Houghton ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... suspicious. [With a sigh] All this misunderstanding and suspicion is horrible to me. How stupid the world is! There are times when I feel disgusted with everything, myself included! I'm getting old. I'm a failure. I'm losing my time and wasting my life over this ridiculous paper, which will never be anything but an obscure rag. I shall have ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... true, madam. [Chuckling.] Devilish amusing, that! [He laughs, genially and sincerely, and becomes a much more agreeable person.] Pardon me: I am now laughing because I cannot help it. I am amused. The other was merely an imitation: a failure, I admit. ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... you with the details of this affair, the failure of which, between ourselves, was my chief reason for giving up my connection ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... with you, Brothers and Sisters? To some it has brought success, to others failure. Bad weather, bad temper, lost control, a host of tiny troubles have sprung upon us unprepared; have worked their will, and left us discouraged and weak. Thank God for beginnings! New years, new months, new weeks—after every twenty-four hours, ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... up the crumpled bit of paper and placed it carefully in his shoe. Unless his guess was wrong, another attempt to get it would be made shortly. Undoubtedly the girl had by now reported her failure to ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... been a perfect failure. I said in the very beginning if we followed John and the children's ideas it would be; but as I was in the minority I gave in. Fortunately we did catch the tail end of the London season. The others wanted to go straight ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... had taken her defeat like the little sport she was—even though it must be admitted she had been considerably disappointed and taken aback by her failure—and in her ever since there had been a great respect for ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... earnest counsel to you and father is that you will obey the words of the loftiest and greatest, 'Learn of me, for I meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.' If you cannot do this, your lives will be a more wretched failure than mine has been. Bury your worldly pride in my grave, and learn to be gentle and womanly, and may God forgive you as truly as ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... types—religions of law and religions of redemption. The religions of law portray God as a being outside the world, and distinct from man, One who rules the world by law, and who decrees that man shall obey certain laws of conduct that He lays down. Failure to obey these laws brings its punishment in the present or in a future life, while implicit obedience brings the highest rewards. To such a God is often attributed all the weaknesses of the human being, sometimes in ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... subject, and could not but fail. But where else in the whole world of art shall we receive such blasts of energy as from this giant's dream, or, if you will, nightmare? For kindred reasons, the "Crucifixion of Peter" is a failure. Art can be only life-communicating and life-enhancing. If it treats of pain and death, these must always appear as manifestations and as results only of living resolutely and energetically. What chance is there, I ask, for this, artistically ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... failure of our constitutional Union, as very many do, to be the failure of self-government—to be conclusive in all future time of the unfitness of man to govern himself. Our State governments have charge of nearly all the relations ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... there is a certain grave acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our impotence to solve momentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction of its own. After high aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after bootless toil, after long wanderings, after hope, effort, weariness, failure, painfully alternating and recurring, it is an immense relief to the exhausted mind to be able to say, "At length I know that I can know nothing about anything." ... Ignorance remains the evil which it ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... you. I hired a college boy once as a clerk and he was the worst failure I ever came across. He seemed to have all kinds of sense except common sense. I reckon he was a smart scholar, and he could have made out the bills for the boarders in Latin or Greek if it had been necessary, but ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... Red Angel. How he mounted the pole. How honey was no temptation. George's discovery that Angel had eaten all the honey. The ceremony of raising the flag. Trying to sing the Star-Spangled Banner. The failure. Taking possession of the island in the name of the United States. Significance of the act of taking possession. Heraldry and the bending of the flag on the halliards. The banner and flag in ancient times. Leaving the flag at half-mast. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Arsenius's tears, it is easy to call his grief exaggerated or superstitious: but those who look on them with human eyes will pardon them, and watch with sacred pity the grief of a good man, who felt that his life had been an utter failure. He saw his two pupils, between whom, at their father's death, the Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western, grow more and more incapable of governing. He saw a young barbarian, whom he must have often ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... artistic—not what I call really artistic. I don't go well with Gobelin tapestry and warming-pans. I feel I don't. Robina is not artistic, not in that sense. I tried her once with a harpsichord I picked up cheap in Wardour Street, and a reproduction of a Roman stool. The thing was an utter failure. A cottage piano, with a photo-frame and a fern upon, it is what the soul cries out for in connection with Robina. Dick is not artistic. Dick does not go with peacocks' feathers and guitars. I can see Dick with a single peacock's feather ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... with headright certificates which he could sell to others for whatever price he could wangle. This practice was sometimes repeated by the same unscrupulous ship master who was aided in the irregular procedure by the failure of the clerks of the secretary's office to make careful checks of lists submitted, and also by the fact that he could present his lists to a different county court when importing the same sailors for the ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... been no suggestion of the reputed dangers of the road. But trouble is never far off in Mexico, since the failure of its rapidly changing governments to put down bands of marauders has given every rascal in the country the notion of being his own master. The sun was just setting when, among several groups coming and going, I heard ahead five peons, maudlin with mescal, singing and ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... it—at least for the time being. Your grandfather has told you of the marriage settlement. It is to be two million dollars, set apart for her, to be hers in full right on the day that he dies. We are far from rich, Anne and I. My husband was a failure—but you know our circumstances quite well enough without my going into them. My daughter is her own mistress. She is twenty-three. She is able to choose for herself. It pleases her to choose the grandfather instead of the grandson. Is that ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... regarded perhaps not altogether as an evidence of God's displeasure, but at least as a token that what was asked it was not His pleasure to grant. They make little enquiry concerning the real cause of failure, but take credit to themselves for humbly submitting to God's will. This unenquiring submission is often, however, both sinful and superstitious. Every result has its cause, and it is surely our duty, as far as observation and ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... two countries will be closer to each other than any two countries have ever been before. But if this is to happen we must not be content with admiring each other. Mere admiration will die away; indeed, some part of our present admiration of the French has come from our failure to understand them. There is a surprise in it which they cannot think flattering, and which ought never to have been. Perhaps they also have been surprised by us; for it is certain that we have not known each other, and have been content with those loose ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... about to reply with the obvious charge that Shanklin's own hesitancy had done much to cause the failure, when ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... that he was sustained by his utter despair. He felt so feeble and generally imbecile, that he had not vitality enough to be sensible of failure. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... speaks in another tongue than ours. It must be a very robust devotion to the word of God that is not chilled by such treatment, and can keep an early Christian glow in its readings of the Gospels and Epistles whether they have proved a failure or a success in the examination. In general, Catholic candidates acquit themselves well in this subject, and perhaps it may give some edification to non-Catholic examiners when they see these results. But it is questionable whether the ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... angry use of the scourge condoned. Nevertheless, he fills a serviceable place; and certainly he is not happy in his business. Colney suffered as heavily as he struck. If he had been no more than a mime in the motley of satire, he would have sucked compensation from the acid of his phrases, for the failure to prick and goad, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which Theosophy brings to the western world. Another of them is the stupendous fact that the world is not drifting blindly into anarchy, but that its progress is under the control of a perfectly organized Hierarchy, so that final failure even for the tiniest of its units is of all impossibilities the most impossible. A glimpse of the working of that Hierarchy inevitably engenders the desire to co-operate with it, to serve under it, in ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... with the appearance of careless gayety. She entered her room, drew back the curtains to admit the light, deftly touched her hair at the mirror, and sat down in a rocking chair. She took up a book, an American fad built upon a London failure, and was aimlessly turning the leaves when she heard her ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... rode down very early that day, and some turn of duty took me back by another road. Then, it proved to be the last day on which it was necessary for me to communicate with the ships. Good luck attended me, as I congratulated myself, when informed of the plot and its failure by a Maori who had knowledge of it, Upon what slight chances do things depend! No, they only ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... The failure of Oswald and Alice to return from night row on the Thames; search for them next day; finding of his hat and her handkerchief; comments of London press; persecutions of detectives; persistent impertinence ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... away, and then, in 1864, the arrival of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth seemed to many men of eminence in public life, in letters or in art, an appropriate moment at which to carry the design into effect. A third failure has to be recorded. ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... he checked the chances against him. First of all, he had to face the great chance of failure and the consequent loss of his own life. But there was even recompense in this. He would not die unavenged. The blow that he would thereby deal to his enemies would be terrible beyond any reckoning, but he ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... concierge said, and I looked up and saw a big studio window, and a roof-terrace with dead gourds dangling from a pergola. But she wasn't there, she hadn't been there, and they had no news of her. I wrote to Rechamp of my double failure, he sent me back a line of thanks; and after that for a long while I ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... but judging from the little smile that crossed his face, it was evident that the swamp boy felt pretty confident they would have to take up the hunt. He had sized Larry up pretty readily as a failure in woodcraft, and a sure enough tenderfoot of the ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... crazed by his troubles and disappeared; nor has he ever been heard from since. Your father, having put half of his fortune into the venture, brooded over its loss until his death, which, I am convinced, was largely caused by the failure of the Copper Princess." ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... so situated in life that they can never enter the brilliant sphere in which honest women move, whether for want of a coat, or from their bashfulness, or from the failure of a ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... contrary, Augustine says (QQ. 83, qu. 33): "There can be no doubt that there is no cause for fear save the loss of what we love, when we possess it, or the failure to obtain what we hope for." Therefore all fear is caused by our loving something: and consequently love ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... was cut up in small pieces, and distributed among them; and, at the captain's suggestion, raw fat pork was given the men. This latter, however, was much too salt for them: so that, on the whole, our refreshments were a failure. It is doubtful if they liked the cooked meat half so well as they did the raw, reeking flesh of ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Failure to come into harmony with God is destruction of the individuality, but not of the Divine in man, for that is indestructible: it always was and ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... advance was doomed to failure before it started. There had not been proper preparations. The main force consisting of "M" Company and two platoons of "I" Company and a small detachment of Engineers to blow the track in rear of the Bolo position at 455 was to march many miles by the flank in the afternoon ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... arms of her Beloved, who had charged the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up nor awaken His love until she please. We might well suppose that a union so complete, a satisfaction so full, would never be interrupted by failure on the part of the happy bride. But, alas, the experience of most of us shows how easily communion with CHRIST may be broken, and how needful are the exhortations of our LORD to those who are indeed branches of the true Vine, and cleansed by the Word which He has spoken, to abide in ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... delightful certainty of knowing that she was really invited, she forgot in a measure everything else. In the evening she was annoyed as usual with a call from Stephen Grey. He had that day received news from home that his father's failure could not long be deferred, and judging Eugenia by himself, he fancied she would sooner marry him now, than after he was the son of a bankrupt. Accordingly he urged her to consent to a private marriage at her mother's on Friday evening, the ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... to sincere effort. Differences of interpretation there will be in any review of past events, and others can claim with justice that on many points they were better situated for full understanding than was I. Yet for the period which is specially studied, if there is failure in comprehension it cannot be excused by lack of opportunity to ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... that straggling road. As I think of it now, I behold again those beds of shining bearberry ("resplendent" would be none too fine a word; there is no plant for which the sunlight does more), loaded with a wealth of handsome red fruit. The beach-plum crop was a failure; plum wine, of the goodness of which I heard enthusiastic reports, would be scarce; but one needed only to look at the bearberry patches to perceive that Cape Cod sand was not wanting in fertility after a manner of its own. If its energies in the present instance happened to be devoted to ornament ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... torn the play up and scattered the fragments out of the window of his boarding-house. That was two days ago. The curious lassitude which followed this acces of passion was probably increased by the senior warden's reproaches. But Sam believed himself entirely indifferent both to his literary failure, and to his father's scolding. Neither was in his mind as he climbed the hill, and halted for a wistful moment at the green gate in the hedge; but he had no ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... As the man was her relative, the girl was ready to go at once; but providentially Miss Fiske learned that the brother was well, and the messenger had been seen last with Mar Shimon. So he left, chagrined and enraged at his failure. The patriarch had told him to be sure and hide his purpose from that Satan, Miss Fiske, and in case of failure, to take the girl by force. But the teacher had had some experience in guarding her fold, and ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... overview: Burma, a resource-rich country, suffers from pervasive government controls, inefficient economic policies, and rural poverty. The junta took steps in the early 1990s to liberalize the economy after decades of failure under the "Burmese Way to Socialism," but those efforts stalled, and some of the liberalization measures were rescinded. Lacking monetary or fiscal stability, the economy suffers from serious macroeconomic imbalances - including inflation, multiple official ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... went on eating our dinner and talking of Egypt, Miss Guest doing all the listening, as usual. When we had finished, we kept our places because we had no others. Cleopatra was curious about my friend's failure to arrive, but I put her off with vaguenesses; and said to myself that, for Anthony's sake, it was well that mysterious business had kept him in Cairo. Still, I wondered what the business was: why he would ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... observe again and again in mental disorders, a serious condition of the mind has arisen. When an attempt is made to gain satisfaction in these immature ways at a later stage of development, or when there is a failure to develop at a certain point, the reaction is harmful in both the individual ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... some matches, a little tobacco, a canteen full of water and a razor, Bradley made himself comfortable upon the mat and was soon asleep, knowing that an attempted escape in the darkness without knowledge of his surroundings would be predoomed to failure. ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 24th of November, 1893. The limitation of this earldom being to his heirs male, and on the failure of such to his heirs, with other remainders over, a question arises as to whether or not the dignity is now in abeyance between his ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... just as she had said, into the First Volunteer Corps under Colonel Wood. This required influence. Whose was the influence? It took me some time to find out, but after many and various attempts, most of which ended in failure, I succeeded in learning that the man who had worked and obtained for him a place in this favored ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... This attack was a failure also. Mr. Snodgrass was affected, but he undertook the delivery of the note as readily as if he had been a ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... added? Does not college society already fall into enough locked coteries without this one? No matter how keen is the pride of membership, it does not atone for the disappointments and the heart-burnings of failure. It is hinted obscurely for expiation that it and its fellow societies do somehow confer a benefit on the college by holding out a reward for hard endeavor. This is the highest goal. I distrust the wisdom of the judges. There is an honester repute to be gained in the general estimate of one's ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... collection of aphorisms, sayings, fragments and maxims which form the second part of the Koran, including the "Memorabilia," the reviewer suggests the name "Sterniana." The reviewer acknowledges the occasional failure in attempted thrusts of wit, the ineffective satire, the immoral innuendo in some passages, but after the first word of doubt the review passes on into a tone of seemingly ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... said the first Napoleon, "more than an unsuccessful rebellion." The partial uprising; of the Irish people in 1798 was a rebellion of this class, and the use of such a failure to an able and unscrupulous administration, was illustrated in the extinction of the ancient legislature of the kingdom, before the recurrence of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... from which no water issues to any sea)—skirted an enormous chain of mountain on the right, luminous with glittering white snow—saw strange Indians, who mostly fled—found a desert—no Buena Ventura; and death from cold and famine staring him in the face. The failure to find the river, or tidings of it, and the possibility of its existence seeming to be forbid by the structure of the country, and hybernation in the inhospitable desert being impossible, and the question being that of life and death, some new plan of conduct became indispensable. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... several women, perhaps fifty or sixty, were seated on benches, doing some light jobs of needlework, or pretending to read, or openly dozing away their time. They were all dressed just like Grannie, and took little or no notice when she came in. She was only one more failure, to join the failures in the room. These old women were all half dead, and another old woman was coming to share their living grave. The matron said something hastily, and shut the door behind her. Grannie looked round; an almost wild light lit up her blue eyes for a moment, then it died out, and ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... happily on their small farms. A Methodist church has been built in the village, and has some attendants, but a good many of the older members have adopted the Adventist or Millerite faith, which appears to revive after every failure of prediction, especially in the West, where people seem to look forward with a quite singular pleasure to the fiery end of ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... eradicated, though he and his brothers and sisters always exhibited in their subsequent lives the different systems of cultivation to which they had been subjected. The residence of William with Miss Ap Reece was brought to an abrupt termination by the failure of the County Bank, in which most of her money was placed. Her means were in consequence so straitened that she was obliged to ask Dr ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... as one that contemplated the imposition of a new tax; others viewed him askance as a doctor from the Hospital despatched by higher authority to put an end to the ceremony; and yet others,—the larger number insooth,—deemed that here at last was a Saheb who had found physic a failure and had learned that the Mother alone has power to allay ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... of France, blue field with white lilies), she is always the type of purity, in active brightness of the entire soul and life—(so distinguished from the quieter and restricted innocence of St. Agnes),—and all the traditions of sorrow in the trial or failure of noble womanhood are connected with her name; Ginevra, in Italian, passing into Shakespeare's Imogen; and Guinevere, the torrent wave of the British mountain streams, of whose pollution your modern sentimental minstrels chant and moan to you, lugubriously ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... way, 'Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know!' The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone as before. The effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... point Tannonius Pudens, like the old hand he is, saw that this lie also was falling flat and was doomed to failure by the frowns and murmurs of the audience, and so, in order to check the suspicions of some of them by kindling fresh expectations, he said that he would produce other boys as well whom I had similarly bewitched. He thus passed to another ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... that planet; but there are no canals! The fact that our largest and best telescopes failed to show these imaginary canals, was an insurmountable barrier to the advocates of these markings, but the "Canalites" made their contention ridiculous when they actually suggested that the reason for this failure to perceive them was that our telescopes were too large to see such small markings! How such a statement could have been made is incomprehensible on any supposition, as everybody knows that the whole use of size, or what is called aperture, in a telescope, is to ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... the surprising conclusion that Fletcher's granddaughter was seeking to build herself a fetish of the mere idle bond of blood. The hopeless gallantry of the girl moved him to a vague feeling of pity, and he spoke presently with a chivalrous desire of making her failure easy. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... one and Error manifold, so in regard to the seed sown, the story of failure is long and varied, the story of success is short and simple: "Other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold." The design of the picture is to reveal the various causes which at different times ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... quietly, pointing, "just beyond lies the Dutch border. Once across we are comparatively safe. At least the Germans will not dare to follow us on to neutral ground. At the same time, if we are apprehended by Dutch military authorities our mission will be a failure, because we shall be interned. What ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... in discovering the causes of the failure of a fourth competitor, Madame the Marchioness du Chatelet, for she also entered into the contest instituted by the Academy. The work of Emilia was not only an elegant portrait of all the properties of heat, known ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... his De judiciis divinis (Ingolstadt, 1651), devotes a whole chapter to an exorcism, by the great Canisius, of a spirit that had baffled Protestant conjuration. Among the most jubilant Catholic satires of the time are those exulting in Luther's alleged failure as an exorcist. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... much the same. Come, let us walk on; it is tedious to stand still. I thought you would be a failure in education,' he continued, when she obeyed him and strolled ahead. 'You never showed power that way. You remind me much of some of those women who think they are sure to be great actresses if they go on the stage, because they have a pretty face, and forget that ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... husband, for in such case he and not she is guilty of desertion, and this may be alleged by the wife, with other causes, in seeking a divorce. A wife may be justified in leaving her husband because of his failure to protect her from insult and abuse, and when she leaves him for this cause, her desertion will not be ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... not talk about foreign missions to him. Try his less successful brother—the man who is not successful because you can talk over with him foreign missions or even more idealistic matters; who is a failure because he will make sacrifices ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... material effects, this raid was a failure. But in view of the fact that the Germans had shown that a squadron could actually elude the large number of British warships patrolling the North Sea, and was actually able to strike at the British coast, it was a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... of 3000 men. The death of Kublai prevented any renewal of the attempt; and it is mentioned that his successor gave orders for the re-opening of the Indian trade which the Java war had interrupted. (See Gaubil, pp. 217 seqq., 224.) To this failure Odoric, who visited Java about 1323, alludes: "Now the Great Kaan of Cathay many a time engaged in war with this king; but the king always vanquished and got the better of him." Odoric speaks in high ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... his heroic qualities. "Il n'avait pas assez de sens ni de malice pour conduire ses entreprises," is one phrase of Philip de Commines in regard to the master he had once served. Render sens by genius and malice by diplomacy and the words are not far wrong. Yet in spite of the failure to obtain either a kingly or an imperial crown, the story of those same unaccomplished enterprises contains the germs of much that has happened later in the borderlands of France and Germany where the projected "middle kingdom" might have been erected. A ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... who survived the cruelties were reduced to maniacs and imbeciles. And Helen, as she listened, grew nearly frantic with the sickening suspense. She did not know now where her husband was. He had made several attempts to escape, and with each failure had been removed to safer quarters, so that the chances now of his being exchanged seemed very far away. Week after week, month after month, passed on, until came the memorable battle of the Wilderness, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... of a young man as he looks forward to a scheme or plan of life here during these few short years, how much more is a similar thing true, when we are contemplating not merely the question of a business, or professional or social failure and success, but are looking at the grander and more inclusive theme of the beginning and aim and outcome of life itself We have inherited from the past the idea that this life here, under the blue sky for a few years, as we live it, is a probation, ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... the rough nature of the ground, and the fire of artillery and musketry at short range from behind breastworks. Logan's assault failed with a loss of 600 men, and his troops were withdrawn to the captured skirmish pits * * * The assault was over by 11:30 a.m., and was a failure. ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... table. "Case of Harding vs. Southport, 2043, establishes that a Lobby is responsible for any member on Mars. It is also responsible for informing the authorities of any criminal conduct on the part of its members or any former member known to it. Failure to report shall be considered an admission that the Lobby recognizes the member as one in good standing and accepts ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... with the air of a conqueror that Ranny pushed his way through the packed line of spectators in the gallery. It was with a crushed and nervous air, as of some great artist, conscious of his aim and of his failure, that he presented himself to Violet Usher, sliding slantwise into the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... in silence, not knowing what to say. He had been outspoken in his loyalty. He never had contemplated the possibility of failure on the part of the king to put down the rebellion, but if General Howe were to evacuate Boston, what treatment could he expect from the provincials? The words of Ruth brought the question before ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... in looking back to this time, when coming events were casting their sad shadows before them, to think that no one took the opposite side, and that none among all the number argued before us that we had met with a miserable failure; that no one was ready with a rude word to break the bonds of friendship and to use his eloquence to destroy our habit of life, our trust in one another, our faith in God and the eternal justice of His providence, or to hasten in any way the disruption of ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... opinion, many of the alleged wants of mankind are purely artificial, and we would be better off if they were cut out altogether. Aside from various matters of food and drink and absurdities in garb and ornaments, numbers of our rich women in eastern cities regard life as a failure unless they each possess a thousand dollar pet dog, decorated with ribbons and diamond ornaments and honored at dog-functions with a seat at the table, where, on such occasions, pictures of the dogs, with their female owners sitting by them, are taken and ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... well. They think that you personally are a hard taskmaster and that the attentions and relief which really come from you in times of need, are bestowed on them by persons who feel that they have to help them because of your failure to do the right thing by them. Why don't you, papa, go right among them and tell them that you are going to do everything you can for them, raise their wages, maybe, and make them ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... he was there at that moment. He had indeed anticipated the possibility of a sudden failure in the action of the heart, and he never came to the convent without a small supply of a powerful stimulant of his own invention. The liquid, however, was of such a nature that he did not like to leave the use of it to Maria Addolorata's discretion, for he was aware ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... wallet, and displayed them in open Court. This ended the case; and Benson, after being entertained with sherry and sandwiches in the steward's room, was sent back to his master, And I regret to say that his temper was not at all improved by his failure to better himself. On the contrary, he was unusually cross and disagreeable for several days; but we must, perhaps, make some allowance ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... chat, even the most careless, he was constantly saying things which made you think or left you thoughtful. For many years he wrote to me frequently, and his letters are filled with the most lucid and happy suggestions, explanations or comments. After the failure on the part of one of his friends to attain a deserved object of just ambition, he wrote to me to state his own extreme regret; and this not once, but thrice, as if he was haunted by the sorrow of another's disappointment. At times he was full of the most boyish spirit of jesting, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... table, and the boys went to the dining-room to eat. But nobody had any appetite, and the fine repast prepared by the cook under Mrs. Rover's directions, was much of a failure. Once the telephone rang and the boys rushed to it. But the call was only a local one, ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... the wisdom of such a course, and both Dr. Leslie and his ward suffered much reproach and questioning, as the comments ranged from indignation to amusement. But it was as true of Nan's calling, as of all others, that it would be her own failure to make it respected from which any just contempt might come, and she had thrown herself into her chosen career with such zeal, and pride, and affectionate desire to please her teacher, that the small public who had at first ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... me give you one word of warning. Do not live as I have done—my life has been a failure—five years of stupid sleep, while the enemy waked and worked. Oh, God, forgive me! Sadie, never let that be your record. Let me give you a motto—'Press toward the mark.' The mark is high; don't look away from or forget it, as I did; don't ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... would mean anything, he thought. They would just take their places at the end of the long row of meaningless, disturbing, vicious facts that cluttered up his mind. He wasn't an FBI agent any more; he was a clown and a failure, and he was through. He was going to resign and go to South Dakota and live the life of a hermit. He would drink goat's milk and eat old shoes or something, and whenever another human being came near he would run away and hide. They would call him Old Kenneth, and people would write ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... titan before. For they were now become more courageous than formerly, and that on account of the unexpected good opposition they had made the day before, as they found the Romans also to fight more desperately; for a sense of shame inflamed these into a passion, as esteeming their failure of a sudden victory to be a kind of defeat. Thus did the Romans try to make an impression upon the Jews till the fifth day continually, while the people of Jotapata made sallies out, and fought at the walls most desperately; ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... the world politically, but had added little of value to the world's literature. She read and treasured the best books; but she made no contribution to their number, and her literary impotence galled her sensitive spirit. As if to make up for her failure, the writers of the Knickerbocker, Charleston and other "schools" praised each other's work extravagantly; but no responsive echo came from overseas, where England's terse criticism of our literary effort ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... upon which the estimates of statisticians were based, were founded upon the higher earnings of the best workers; and when the matter was examined, it was found that variation of wages, loss of time, and failure of work, much lowered the average earnings. The taxation of the working classes rose to a higher percentage than that of the upper and middle classes. Mr. Dudley Baxter, who was a Conservative, had admitted this, and had advocated ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... indefinitely, gradually pall upon the imagination, deaden its fineness of feeling, and in the end induce a gloomy and morbid state of mind, a reaction of a peculiarly melancholy character, because consequent, not upon the absence of that which once caused excitement, but upon the failure of its power.[43] This is not the case with all men; but with those over whom the sublimity of an unchanging scene can retain its power forever, we have nothing to do; for they know better than any ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... given by a local magnate and his wife who lived on the outskirts of Penzance. Ishmael had been invited and she with him, under the chaperonage of an elderly cousin of the Parson's who was staying at the Vicarage. And the ball, from Blanche's point of view, had been a failure. She had been received politely, but without enthusiasm; and she had overheard some of the other guests saying that they supposed young Ruan had had to be invited, but that it was really dashed awkward!... And she was beginning to realise that Ishmael, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... this right? No, her head must have been a little lower. Oh, what hope was there of deceiving those keen little python's eyes? The man would surely detect the smallest variation in her attitude. No, it was a pathetic ruse, foredoomed to failure. If he suspected she had moved he would examine the needle, he would see the difference in colour. Her one hope lay in the gloom of the alcove. A few minutes more and she ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... claim the most remote affinity with your career in arms. There is nothing connected with this sad fragment of history, either in fact or hope, to suggest any association with your name or achievements. But as my main object is to show that Ireland's failure was not owing to native recreancy or cowardice, I feel satisfied that of all living men, your position and character will best sustain the sole aim of my present ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... I, grasping him by the arm, "listen to the voice of a dying man and one who has never accomplished anything as yet—indeed, I have been a failure all my life—" ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... at the failure of the expedition. Ridicule is the most powerful of weapons. Man is not half so humorous as the dog or the elephant. With the latter it is an instinct. With the former it is an acquirement. Still, the perception of humor is fairly general. Don't argue with your opponent, ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... knot is what is known as the granny knot, a slurring name which means a failure. The granny knot will not always stay tied, it often slips and it cannot be trusted when ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... And although his own cooler judgment set little store by any addition of frontier strips of alien territory to France, and he would probably have been best pleased to pass the remainder of his reign in undisturbed inaction, he deemed it necessary, after failure in Mexico had become inevitable, to seek some satisfaction in Europe for the injured pride of his country. He entered into negotiations with the King of Holland for the cession of Luxemburg, and had gained his assent, when rumours of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... when the artist had seen him so ugly, asking why he did him so great an indignity with his brush. Spinello awoke from his dream speechless from fear, and shook so violently that his wife hastened to assist him. Yet he ran considerable risk of dying suddenly, through the failure of the heart, owing to this misfortune, and it caused his death a short while afterwards, until when he lived in an utterly dispirited manner with wide open eyes. He died greatly lamented by his friends, and left the world two sons—one called Forzore ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... fools are determined to make her sing again. I can't stand this. I'll see MAX once more, and if he don't do the right thing, I'll say that NILSSON was played out in Europe before she came here, and that she is a complete failure." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... a movement of impatience. "What was it? How can you ask me, when you know as well as I do the wretched failure of my mission. It was the king's wish that the archbishop should marry them. The king's wish is the law. It must be the archbishop or none. He should have been at the palace by now. Ah, my God! I can see the king's ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knobbed themselves up against their system, and so, in every instance it crumbled to pieces. The things are facts, and here; there is no use in denying that; and it is a fact, too, that almost every life seems a wasted failure, compared with what it might have been. Such hard, grimy problems there are in life! They weaken the eyes that look long at them: stories hard to understand, like that of this old machinist, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... disappointments, my fears for myself were but few. People of a sanguine temper are subject to temporary doubt and gloom; but the sky soon clears, and though one bright star may shoot and fall, hope soon creates a whole constellation. The earl and the prelate had both been unprincipled; but the failure was in them, not in me. I could not but remember the terror that Themistocles had excited in a prime minister; and the avidity with which a prelate had endeavoured to profit by my theological talents. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... failure of amusing himself that night; and in the bright, hot morning he got into the train for Swampscott. At the graveyard he saw a woman lay a bunch of flowers on a mound and ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... chrysanthemums rescued from the previous home; and when the fence gave way—as it did before the chrysanthemums flowered—big stones and brickbats were laid in its place. Considered as decoration, the result was a failure; it was the product of an hour's work in which despair and bitterness had all but killed the people's hope; but that it was done at all is almost enough to prove my point. For further illustration I may refer again to that other man mentioned above, who is now under notice ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... principal part in it, and he always behaved as if he had devised the plan himself as much as Oscar. Still, it was necessary to take him in, and ensure his favor; as otherwise he would take his whole party into opposition, and ensure the failure of the enterprise. For the class was divided into two nearly equal parties, and indeed this party-spirit had spread so far that the whole school, even down to the primary class, was divided into two camps, the Oscarians and ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... construction within the country's means, concurrent with a close and steady settlement of the western plains. The Government's first plan of building the road out of the proceeds of the sale of a hundred million acres of prairie lands proved a flat failure. Then in 1880 a contract for its construction and operation was made with the famous Canadian Pacific Syndicate, in which the leading figures were a group of Canadians who {59} had just reaped a fortune out of the reconstruction of a bankrupt ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton |
