"Fault-finding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that it is absolutely necessary for the good of your service to moderate your conduct, and not to single out with too great severity faults committed either against his service or against the respect due to your person or character." Colbert rightly felt that fault-finding letters were not sufficient to keep within bounds a temperament as fiery as that of the governor of Canada; on the other hand, a man of Frontenac's worth was too valuable to the colony to think of dispensing with his services. The wisest course was to renew the Sovereign ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... parish, and his products gained prize after prize at successive agricultural exhibitions. But Mr. Gourlay was nothing if not critical, and certain of his surroundings afforded legitimate grounds for fault-finding. There were many and serious defects in the system of administering the poor-laws of Great Britain in those days, and the administration in the parish of Wily was attended by some specially objectionable features. ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... plenty to do the other thing. The enemy of souls, when he is not able to turn back God's soldier, will do all he can to wound him, and if he can hire some fool of a Christian to do it, all the better for his purpose. It will be easy to discourage by quarrels, jealousy and fault-finding. In fact, it requires so little mental ability to find fault, there is no difficulty in finding someone to do that, but don't let it be you. Someone else will see to it that the new Minister has not too easy a time of it. But do ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my utterest hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters—and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two lines of a legend that delighted ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... opinion of myself, so I know I ain't bragging when I say I'll make a pretty good husband. You'd find I was no hand at nagging and fault-finding. I can guess what it must be for a woman like you to be independent. Well, you'd be independent as my wife. No strings on you. You could follow your own sweet will, and nothing would be too good for you. I'd give ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... nothing. She had long realized the uselessness of any excuses. To be answered merely gave her stepmother occasion for further fault-finding—you might, as Cecilia told Bob, have a flawless defence for the sin of the moment, but in that case Mrs. Rainham merely changed her ground, and waxed eloquent about the sin of yesterday, or of last Friday week, for which there might happen to be no defence ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Garrick's time, and long afterwards, were habituated to the defective system of theatrical costume—had grown up with it. To them it was part of the stage as they had always known it, and they saw no reason for fault-finding. And it is conceivable that many plays were little affected by the circumstance that the actors wore court suits. It was but a shifting of the period of the story represented, a change of venue; and Romeo, in hair-powder, interested just as much as though he had assumed an auburn ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... her eyes with surprise; here was this annoying formality again, which Gifford's fault-finding seemed to have banished. "Let you write?" she said impatiently. "Why, you know I depended on your writing, Giff, and you must tell me everything you can think of. What's the good of having a friend in Lockhaven, if ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... forces sent out by any particular life are those of hatred or jealousy or malice or fault-finding or criticism or scorn, these same thought forces are aroused and sent back from others, so that one is affected not only by reason of the unpleasantness of having such thoughts from others, but they also in turn ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... a moment, seeing by the faces around him that Joan had put into words what the others felt, then he pulled his complacency together and fell to fault-finding again. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... developed; or else, if it is practical and particular at all, it must be so with reference to their own daily experience in life—in which case it becomes more irksome still, as they necessarily regard it as an indirect mode of fault-finding. Indeed, this kind of advice is almost certain to assume the form of half-concealed fault-finding, for the subject of the counsel given would be, in almost all cases, suggested by the errors, or shortcomings, or failures which had been ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... fault-finding humour this morning," said Bertram as they walked towards the camp. "Let's enjoy ourselves in spite of circumstances. Do you know, I hold it to be exceedingly wise as well as philosophical, to make the best of things ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... now about her aunt's constant fault-finding; there was something in her grief more bitter even than the tears she shed for her mother; it seemed to the girl that day by day she was becoming more and more clumsy and stupid; she broke the crockery, and even the furniture; she spoiled her frocks; and, worst of all, ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... was surely the most fitting companion for a widowed mother. The house Mrs. Meadowsweet lived in fitted her requirements to perfection. In short, she was fat and comfortable, both in mind and body; she never fretted, she never worried; she was not rasping and disagreeable; she was not fault-finding. If her nature lacked depth, it certainly did not lack affection, generosity, and a true spirit of kindliness. If she were a little too well pleased with herself, she was also well pleased with her neighbors. She was not especially appreciated, for she was ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... selfishness, and in a certain sense selfish persons are the easiest to live with; they hate trouble, and therefore do not trouble other people; they never beset the lives of their fellow-creatures with thorny advice and captious fault-finding; nor do they torment you with the waspish solicitude of excessive affection that must know all ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... the protection and safety of the colony, involving as it did some expense, was by no means satisfactory to the Company of Associates. [86] Their general fault-finding and chronic discontent led the Duke de Montmorency to adopt heroic measures to silence their complaints. In the spring of 1621, he summarily dissolved the association of merchants, which he denominated the "Company of Rouen and St. Malo," and established ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... pounds worth of gold to lay on the table, deserved something at their hands, though ice was all he actually received; but Eustace, when he came to us while the bride was changing her dress, was in a fretful, fault-finding mood, partly it may be from the desire to assert himself, as ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hooker's salvation in any measure depended on Sedgwick's so doing. Hooker had the power in his own hand, if he would only use it. But it should be determined whether Hooker had any legitimate ground for fault-finding. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... "likewise bring out the idea of 'pinning the chrysanthemums in the hair' so thoroughly that one couldn't get a loop hole for fault-finding." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... disprove the goodness of that Being by whom those powers were given for a higher and a nobler purpose? A fracture in the dome of St. Paul's would, no doubt, present as great difficulties to an insect lost in its depths, as the disorders of this little world presented to the captious and fault-finding spirit of M. Voltaire; and would as completely shut out the order and design of the whole structure from its field of vision, as the order and design of the magnificent temple of the world was excluded from the mind of this very ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... the coal fatigue, I was put in charge of a dozen privates, young and old, in one of the bottom rooms of the castle. Some of the young bloods were very generous in their fault-finding and acts of disobedience. One of the old fellows actually point-blankly refused to wash and scrub the benches in the room—which I had ordered him to do. By this time their pleading and other things had somewhat "softened my heart towards them," and the thought ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... will be a mortal sin if you scold us for coming to you without being summoned by your majesty. This is through—out all Prussia a festal day, and no one should desecrate it by scolding or fault-finding—not ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... sarcasm he seldom allowed himself to use. But his patience was not exhausted. McClellan had always more soldiers than the enemy, at Antietam nearly double his numbers, yet his constant cry was for re-enforcements. Regiments were sent him that could ill be spared from other points. Even when his fault-finding reached the height of telegraphing to the Secretary of War, "If I save this army now I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army," the President answered him kindly and gently, without a sign of resentment, ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... being transplanted to Europe, dissatisfied with the climate, displeased with the soil, discontented with its associates. It struck me as very much like a good number of excellent and very useful souls with whom I am acquainted, who never take a cheerful view of life, are always fault-finding, hole-picking, worry-discovering, eminently good in their place as febrifuges, but not calculated to brighten ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... excited; and it was as though this excitement suddenly revealed to me the full extent of the change that had taken place in him since he had left college. As he stood facing me, almost glaring at me through his eye-glasses, I beheld a slim, nervous, fault-finding doctrinaire, incapable of understanding the world as it was, lacking the force of his pioneer ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and her holiday finery must have been relatively costly, she made the best of it with a smile and cheerful words. The other was well sheltered; but she took the disappointment of her hopes and the possibility of a little spattering from a leaky window with frowns and fault-finding." ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... to refrain from fault-finding, and not in a reproachful way to chide those who uttered any barbarous or solecistic or strange-sounding expression; but dexterously to introduce the very expression which ought to have been used, and in the way of answer or giving confirmation, or joining in an inquiry ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... Zenobia's fault-finding was of the silent kind, but not the less penetrating for that. During the first months Ethan alternately burned with the desire to see Mattie defy her and trembled with fear of the result. Then the situation ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... machine but for which, in the last twenty-four hours, she had found another use. The apartment was very comfortable and Mrs. Donovan kept it as neat as wax. There was never any dust on her floors if the fault-finding tenants did say there was in ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... with her, glancing over his spectacles to see if she by any possibility could be amusing herself at his expense—good, old, fussy, fault-finding Veritas; but indeed Francesca's eyes were so soft and lovely and honest that the more he looked at her, the less he could do her the injustice of suspecting ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... made a sensation." Friends and champions, the press, the public "turned up their thumbs." Gifford shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective" (letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh, was regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the Quarterly, was fault-finding and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa" (letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority in the land," his Majesty King George IV., "expressed his disapprobation of the blasphemy and licentiousness ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... impassible. It made no difference to her whether they remained here, or went to Depford Beach. She evinced neither pain, pleasure, nor interest; but she liked best to be alone. She endured Sylvie with rather more equanimity than she did her mother, but even the fault-finding energy would have been welcome to the doctor. Nothing ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... blushed faintly. She was forty-five, and looked ten years older. She was a tired, worn out, faded little woman, drained of her youth and vitality by the hourly exactions of the fault-finding invalid mother whom she had so recently laid away in the church-yard with unselfish filial tears. But there was something attractive in the sweet patience of her thin face, and the look in her brown eyes as she turned them on her faithful middle-aged lover was one of the trump cards ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... plains to the doors of the settlement and housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... honey in the universe will not sweeten it. There is such a thing as making vinegar of molasses, but I never heard of making molasses of vinegar. Do you wish to know the turning process? Grumbling—everlasting fault-finding—at breakfast, dinner, and supper, the same old tune. I don't see how the man who boards can endure it; he is obliged to swallow his food without complaint. The landlady at the head of the table is a very different-looking individual ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... overlooked; but among the hills I fear no harsh, no indifferent word: each treasure of beauty breathes to me of One who knows my every heart-beat, One whom I can love without fear of wound or disenchantment. The mountain clefts have no unkind words, no fault-finding, no ridicule, no rash judgments for the sons of men. They offer clear springs, fresh fruits, and festal flowers, peace and rest ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... equipment. Sometimes he wished that she were beginning a few years later, when her position could be better recognized and respected, and she would not have to fight against so much of the opposition and petty fault-finding that come from ignorance; and sometimes he rejoiced that his little girl, as he fondly called her, would be one of the earlier proofs and examples of a certain noble advance and new vantage-ground of civilization. This has been anticipated through all ages ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... anxious care, detecting in every little fault the germ of some evil tendency in the future, while the other enticed them into follies, it is true, but opened their minds to joyous impressions, and attained more by kisses and kind words than Selene could by fault-finding. The children would call Selene when they wanted her, but would fly to Arsinoe as soon as they saw her. Their hearts were hers, and Selene felt this bitterly; it seemed to her to be unjust, for she saw clearly that her sister could ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Coleridge planned a Pantisocracy where all the virtues were to thrive. Lamb did something far more difficult: he played cribbage every night with his imbecile father, whose constant stream of querulous talk and fault-finding might well have goaded a far stronger man into ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... in the escape, all were alike ready to aver that, during the night, they had witnessed very strange sights and heard very strange sounds. When they carried back this report, the good-natured De Soto, convinced that fretting and fault-finding would do no good, appeased their alarm by ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... do not even see what you have received, and from whom; some of you being blinded to the giver, and not even acknowledging your benefactor, and others, through meanness of spirit, betaking yourselves to fault-finding and making charges against God. Yet I will show to you that you have powers and means for greatness of soul and manliness; but what powers you have for finding fault making accusations, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... to do so, and the result showed that Elsie had been a tale-bearer ten times only during the week. The child tried very hard to cure herself of fault-finding, and she was soon "out of Coventry," and as time went on nobody on seeing her sang ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... to go home to those two cross, fault-finding sisters!" she resumed. "They might reproach me all day long with coming home to be kept. As if it were my fault that I am left without anything. Oh, Lionel! don't turn me out! Let me stay until I can see what is to be done for myself. I shall not hurt you. It would ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... all comfort may be prevented by an unkind, a sour, crabbed temper of mind,—a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion or temperament. A spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied temper; a constant irritability; little inequalities in the look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied—your husband or your wife cannot tell why—will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render life ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... who leads the child to cultivate the strictest care in his thoughts and in his words, as they relate especially to those about him, has helped to lay the foundation of a life of true worth to his fellows. The tendency is toward a habit of fault-finding criticism which not only harms the object of the disparaging words, but which injures and undermines the usefulness of the life of the ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... few weeks after her aunt's departure were very trying ones to Dexie. There seemed much fault-finding that was really unnecessary, but Dexie honestly tried to do her best. She could see her own failures as well as her successes, and when she found that much of Nancy's ill-temper was due to Gussie's interference in the kitchen, she laid the matter before her father, and that put ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... ever since! There hasn't been a Christmas present or a funeral wreath bought in this house since I came into it I didn't pick out and pay for out of my own pocket. And all the thanks I get for it is this perpetual fault-finding, and I wish I was dead like this poor saint here. She spent her life slaving for you. And what thanks did she get for it? Oh, you ought to go down on your ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... to me—and I am here only stating a personal view—both possible and desirable, is to live as far as we can by the law of beauty, not to submit to anything by which our soul is shamed and insulted, not to be drawn into strife, not to fall into miserable fault-finding, not to allow ourselves to be fretted and fussed and agitated by the cares of life; but to say clearly to ourselves, "that is a petty, base, mean thought, and I will not entertain it; this is a generous and kind and gracious thought, and I will ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... turn it was to take a music-lesson reported Signor Foresti as unbearable, testy, and fault-finding. ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... charges wildly up the steep mountain-slope, unseating his rider and making for the mountain-top like the all-possessed. His rider takes the sensible course of immediately pursuing the pony, instead of wasting time in unprofitable fault-finding with me. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... had coloured, but William's words did not hit very sore. Since John's talk with her about the matter referred to she had thought of it humbly and wisely; it is only pride that makes such fault-finding very hard to bear. She was very sorry, however, that they had fallen out again, and that her own passion, as she feared, had been the cause. A few tears had to be wiped away before she could see exactly how the old tree stood; then, taking up her pencil, she soon forgot everything in her work. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... themselves on their plain speaking. An ability to put things pleasantly is really far more valuable. Even fault-finding can ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... had left the marks of age. The years intervening since she had left her home, had, in some degree, softened the opposition to her unsanctioned marriage with George. The more Mrs. B. had about her, the more ener- getic seemed her directing capabilities, and her fault-finding propensities. Her own, she had full power over; and Jane after vain endeavors, be- came disgusted, weary, and perplexed, and de- cided that, though her mother might suffer, she could not endure her home. They followed Jack to the West. Thus vanished ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... children, or always on a single child. Shall obedience be implicit, and how early in the child's life shall it be exacted? On marriages. On the true issues of life. When shall ambition and the spirit of emulation be encouraged, and when repressed? The possibility of too much fault-finding making a child callous. If mere common sense discovers so many subjects, what number may not learning and wisdom discover when their attention shall be ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... had the grace to feel a passing emotion of gratitude to this kind benefactor, and shame that she herself had been so ready with fault-finding instead ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... was matched with a man as cool, skilful, prompt, and daring as himself. The traces that have come down to us indicate, in Ribaut, one far above the common stamp: "a distinguished man, of many high qualities," as even the fault-finding Le Moyne calls him, devout after the best spirit of the Reform, and with a human heart ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... were equally distinct as to character. Olympias was delicate, with a failing of delicate people—a disposition to complaining and fault-finding. Elaine was full of fun, ready to barter any advantage in the future for enjoyment in the present. Diana was caustic, proud of her high connections, which were a shade above those of her companions, and inclined to be scornful towards everything not immediately ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... sentiments conveyed by the diction are those of a nature sear and withered. And it is in this combination of brisk words and decayed feelings that his writing represents the talk and mind of Paris. He and Paris are always fault-finding: fault-finding is the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... found out quite lately that Mr. Mayne did not approve of her intimacy with Dick. His manner had somewhat changed to her, and several times he had spoken to her in a carping, fault-finding way,—little cut-and-dried sentences of elderly wisdom that she had ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... naturally, in Friendship of which utility is the motive: for they who are friends by reason of goodness, are eager to do kindnesses to one another because this is a natural result of goodness and Friendship; and when men are vying with each other for this End there can be no fault-finding nor contention: 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 ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... you a shirker, Bob, and ordered Helen to leave you alone. Now I see you're the better man and I'm a confounded, fault-finding prig. But you're not vindictive, and we'll let that go. The trouble is, I'm obstinate and sure of what I can do—at least, I was, though my confidence has got shaken recently. Well, I think I can finish this contract, but don't know. I've lost a good deal of money, and would ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic And then fairly hooted, as if he would say: "Your learning's at fault this time, any way; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good-day!" ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... from fear of snapping the flower." This is plain- spoken criticism, but I do not think that any reader who is competent to pronounce judgment on the point will be inclined to deprecate its severity. Nay, in order to get done with fault-finding as soon as possible, it must perhaps be added that the admitted turgidness of the poems is often something more than a mere defect of style, and that the verse is turgid because the feeling which it ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Jurgen, has nowhere any precedent. Why, it deafens, it appals, it submerges you in an uproarious sea of fault-finding; and in a word, you might as profitably oppose a hurricane. Yet you want her back! Now assuredly, Jurgen, I do not think very highly of your wisdom, but by ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... unfortunate you have been all your life, Mrs. Scattergood," sighed Janice. There was laughter in her eyes if her lips were grave. Mrs. Scattergood's fault-finding character was well ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... upstairs to his room, and first washing himself with unusual care for a boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair. He was not going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for fault-finding. While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang, and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some trepidation ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the apostrophe upon Hawthorne's marriage, [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 242,] and that excellent description of the performances of a trance medium at Florence, but continues in an ascending climax of fault-finding until he (or she) reaches the passage from Hawthorne's Roman diary concerning Margaret Fuller. ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage—women who have no virtues save one tied like millstones to some of earth's noblemen; great-hearted and great-souled women mated with clods. I see people insanely jealous of one another, suspicious, fault-finding, malicious; covertly sending barbed shafts to one another through the medium of general conversation. As if love were ever to be held captive, or be won by cords and chains! As if the freest thing on earth would for a moment enter into bondage, or minister unto selfishness ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons in charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... time of war is no place for a "sissy-boy;" it will make a man of him quicker, in my opinion, than any other sort of experience he could undergo. And suffice it to say, on the food question, that my life as a soldier forever cured me of being fastidious or fault-finding about what I had to eat. I have gone hungry too many times to give way to such weakness when sitting down in a comfortable room to a table provided with plenty that was good enough for any reasonable man. I have no patience with a person who is addicted ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... Unconsciously men narrow the sphere of their sympathies. The mainspring of life—love—grows slowly rusty for want of use, and from some hearts that were once true fountains of joy to those around them, the living water almost ceases to flow. Criticism, and fault-finding, and censoriousness too often take the place of generous labour for the welfare of the world. This may, no doubt, arise in part from the natural desire that others should profit by our past experiences, which renders us the more observant of their conduct the more we love. But, no matter ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... the patient of making frequent and unjust complaints, and epileptics invariably charge some one with having injured them while they have been unconscious during an attack. Then, too, living at home, they are often dangerous to younger members of a family, and they are fault-finding, exacting, and irritable generally. The seizures frequently come on without warning, and the patient drops where he stands, often injuring himself severely. The last annual report of the Craig Colony records more than four hundred injuries within the year to patients ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... thy foes. Indeed, they can frighten Indra himself in great battle, let alone the covetous and wicked-minded sons of Dhritarashtra. O thou of mighty arms, for thy good I made great efforts to prevent the battle by bringing about peace. By that we have been freed from the debt we owed to virtue. Fault-finding persons will not be able to reproach us for anything. Foolish Duryodhana, destitute of understanding, regardeth himself as skilled in weapons, and though really weak thinketh himself to be possessed of strength. Array thy troops soon, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... statue. He found the father the exact antithesis of the daughter: a nervous, fretful, irritable individual (gout had him by the heels at the time), who was as full of "yaps" and snarls as any Irish terrier, and as peevish and fussy as a fault-finding old woman. Added to this, he had a way of glancing all round the room, and avoiding the eye of the person to whom he was talking. And if Cleek had been like the generality of people, and hadn't known that some of the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... waited to walk over with them, was in a fault-finding state of mind. It developed that he could not attend the meeting in the parlor; his superior had ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... through her morning's work she hardly knew how, though her father was dry and fault-finding all the time. Her eyes were so full of tears when she was released that she hardly saw where she was going, and nearly ran against her aunt, who had just walked into the hall. Mrs. Egremont was too prudent a woman to let her burst out there with her grievance, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of persons, in shunning this evil, go to the other extreme, and are very strict and pertinacious in regard to every requisition. With them, fault-finding and penalties abound, until the children are either hardened into indifference of feeling, and obtuseness of conscience, or else become excessively irritable ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... grandfather to the Hall in June, his dotage seemed to settle upon him. He became a trembling old man, at times so peevish that we were obliged to summon with an effort what he had been. He was suspicious and fault-finding with Scipio and the other servants, though they were never so busy for his wants. Mrs. Willis's dainties were often untouched, and he would frequently sit for hours between slumber and waking, or mumble to himself as I read the prints. But about the time of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Earl of Warwick, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges), yet to us, reading history in the perspective of three hundred years, the disagreeable impression of Weston's letter outweighs the satisfaction for the patent. When the Fortune sailed away it was like the departure of a rich, fault-finding aunt, who suddenly descends upon a household of poor relations, bringing presents, to be sure, but with such cutting disapproval on her lips that it mars the entire ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... or inspires little desire to enter a state which offers so few attractions? Christianity, by exaggerating every duty, has made our duties impracticable and useless; by forbidding singing, dancing, and amusements of every kind, it renders women sulky, fault-finding, and intolerable at home. There is no religion which imposes such strict duties upon married life, and none in which such a sacred engagement is so often profaned. Such pains has been taken to prevent wives being amiable, that their husbands ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... public life that she prefers it, that she has no desire for a home and little ones. Often her choice has been the lesser of two evils,—more to be desired than a life, married, but loveless; one in which she must slave from morn till eve and then receive as recompense curses and fault-finding. ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... Jesus intentionally omitted the ceremonial washing of hands, which all others in the company scrupulously performed before taking their places at table. This omission caused a murmur of disapproval if not an open expression of fault-finding. Jesus utilized the occasion by voicing a pungent criticism of Pharisaic externalism, which He likened to the cleansing of cups and platters on the outside, while the inside is left filthy. "Fools" said He, "did not he that made that which ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... can stand without becoming a drone. Criticism? Yes, but no quibbling, no nagging. Criticism is something more than fault-finding. The teacher exalts his profession, ennobles his art, and begets consideration for himself when he maintains the highest standards for ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... effective that the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious requirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do this was become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful heaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no heart-burnings. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... alienated from her, and the more we came to regard her as our enemy. If she really meant to be our friend after the best fashion she knew, it was at least an uncomely kind of friendship, that showed itself in constant opposition, fault-finding, and complaint. The real mistake was that we were boys. There was something in her altogether antagonistic to the boy-nature. You would have thought that to be a boy was in her eyes to be something wrong to begin with; ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... Betsy Butterfly guess what Mrs. Ladybug intended to say to her. And if she had known what it was she would have been merely amused. For Betsy was entirely too sweet-tempered to take offense at anybody's fault-finding—least of all that of Mrs. Ladybug, who was really a good-hearted soul, when she wasn't jealous. And when Betsy went to the flower garden early the next morning she felt kindly towards the whole world, not even excepting Johnnie Green, though he had ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Owen thought him a reprobate. To his own blunt and reserved nature, the expressions, so charming to poor Miss Charlecote, had been painfully distasteful. Sentiment, profession, obtrusive reverence, and fault-finding scruples had revolted him, even when he thought it a proof of his own irreligion to be provoked. Afterwards, when both were schoolboys, Robert had yearly increased in conscientiousness under good discipline and training, but, in their holiday meetings, had found Owen's standard ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boy as he is, he is too much of a man to speak of it. He exposed himself to the sun too much yesterday, but since it came of his earnest desire to learn, and to make this journey as useful as the opportunities will allow, no one seeks to discourage him by fault-finding. We missed him an hour from the camp, and then found him some distance away, by the edge of a brook, and with no umbrella to protect him from the fierce sun. If he had been used to going without his umbrella, it would have been well enough, of course; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the situation—arm-chair critics at a safe distance—levelled some darts of fault-finding at Colonel Irvine at Prince Albert, and I write a paragraph or two in reply, because I know whereof I speak. I have some reasons for claiming to know Prince Albert, which was founded as a mission and named by some of my relatives in 1866. At the ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... and showed her kindly when she was wrong, and have been thankful for the love she gave him, whatever her faults. That wasn't my way. I got angry, and made her life a burden to her. I must have things done exactly as I wished; if not, there was no end to my fault-finding. And yet, if you'll believe it, I loved my wife as truly as man ever did. Jenny couldn't understand that—and how should she? At last she began to deceive me in all sorts of little things; she got into debt with shop-people, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... before Germany learned of the new prodigy: for reasons which will be treated later, the growth of the Sterne cult in Germany was delayed, so that Yorick was in the plenitude of his German fame when England had begun to look askance at him with critical, fault-finding eye, or to accord him the more damning ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Pierrette "my dear," or "little one." Then she abandoned the gentler terms for "Pierrette" only. Her reprimands, at first only cross, became sharp and angry; and no sooner were their feet on the path of fault-finding than the brother and sister made rapid strides. They were no longer bored to death! It was not their deliberate intention to be wicked and cruel; it was simply the blind instinct of an imbecile tyranny. The pair believed they were doing Pierrette a service, just as they had thought their harshness ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... considered that his authority was still too feebly constituted, and even too much disputed in a portion of the kingdom, to allow him to put it to such a test; and honest and sensible patriots had been of the same opinion D'Aubigne himself, the most independent and fault-finding spirit amongst his contemporaries, expressly says, "The troubles which were not yet extinguished in France did not admit of a larger convocation; the hearts of the people were not yet subdued and kneaded to obedience, as appeared from the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... my fault-finding I love my children, as I call them, for all are not butterflies. Many find wealth no temptation to forgetfulness of duty or hardness of heart. Many give freely of their abundance, pity the poor, comfort the afflicted, ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... American Association, Western League, Southern Association, New England League, Pacific League and the different state leagues. Professional base-ball has not been free from certain objectionable elements, of which the unnecessary and rowdyish fault-finding with the umpires has been the most evident, but the authorities of the different leagues have lately succeeded, by strenuous legislation, in abating these. Of authorities on base-ball, Henry Chadwick (d. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... run away with his brother's wife, life at home had been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and fault-finding, constantly wounding the boy's pride; and Olaf was always getting her ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the fact that your sister is my wife. As this demand has been made upon me it was natural that I should wish to discuss it with some one whom I can trust. I tell you all the facts, but I am not going to listen to any fault-finding ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... mother, instantly flaring up. "I'd rather see the evil one himself put in an appearance than your Aunt Marcia. Of all the fault-finding, critical, sharp-tongued creatures in the world she is the worst. Why, I'd let burglars carry away every stick and stone I possess and myself thrown in before I would ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... the little town of Tipton with his aunt, Miss Tabitha Brown. His father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South, seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly, fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not enjoyed ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... creature came prancing to land with flashing eyes and waving tail and a long russet-coloured mane; a bridle beset with gold it had. Eisirt mounted and bade AEda come up behind him. "Thy boat is little enough for thee alone," said AEda. "Cease fault-finding and grumbling," then said Eisirt, "for the weight of wisdom that is in thee will ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... herself open to the charge of flattery, is it not less of a fault than to merit the reputation for brutal fault-finding? Who would not rather be ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland |
