"Imperfect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Burke, who were not only passing their lives in governing and taxing people who were unrepresented, but who were quite impenitently determined to resist any attempt to get them represented even in the most imperfect fashion. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... the state of his manuscript papers, that he had designed to publish some of the Speeches which he delivered in those discussions, and with that view had preserved the following Fragments and detached Notes, which are now given to the public with as much order and connection as their imperfect condition renders them capable of receiving. The Speeches on the Middlesex Election, on shortening the Duration of Parliaments, on the Reform of the Representation in Parliament, on the Bill for explaining the Power of Juries in Prosecutions for libels, and on the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... relations. Very little information that could be depended upon respecting their manners and customs was obtained through this intercourse; and it was observed, that they conversed with us in a mutilated and incorrect language formed entirely on our imperfect knowledge and improper application of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... upon her monopoly of the most lucrative traffic in the world, as we have already seen,—upon her exclusive privileges in foreign countries, upon the enlightened zeal of her government, and upon men's imperfect knowledge of geography, and the barbarism of the rest of Europe, as well as upon the indefatigable industry and intelligent enterprise of her citizens. America was still undiscovered; the overland route to India was the only one known; the people of the continent outside of Italy were unthrifty ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... I could discover a cause for the imperfect success of great writers when dealing with classic fiction, in the fact of their endeavoring to be too learned, of their aiming too much at portraying Greeks and Romans, and too little at depicting men, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... our language by "Lycidas", and in the point of passionate eloquence even superior to Milton's youthful lament for his friend. "The 'Adonais', in spite of its mysticism," he writes to Ollier, "is the least imperfect of my compositions." "I confess I should be surprised if that poem were born to an immortality of oblivion." "It is a highly wrought PIECE OF ART, and perhaps better, in point of composition, than anything I have written." "It is absurd in ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... otherwise, we are compelled to confess that God understands an infinite number of creatable things, which he will never be able to create, for, if he created all that he understands, he would, according to this showing, exhaust his omnipotence, and render himself imperfect. Wherefore, in order to establish that God is perfect, we should be reduced to establishing at the same time, that he cannot bring to pass everything over which his power extends; this seems to be a hypothesis most absurd, and most ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... were quartered in wall tents; now, line officers and enlisted men were to occupy shelter tents, which they were to carry on their shoulders; and although a small number of wall tents could be carried in the wagons for field and staff officers, yet so imperfect was the understanding, in or out of the quartermaster's department, of what could or ought to be done, that most regimental field and staff officers were left without any shelter ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... all our interests. We care most about extremes of importance and of unimportance; but extremes of importance are tainted with fear, and a very imperfect fear casteth out love. Extremes of unimportance cannot hurt us, therefore we are well disposed towards them; the means may come to do so, therefore we do not love them. Hence we pick a fly out of a milk-jug and watch with pleasure over its recovery, for we are confident that under no conceivable ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... the inscriptions upon any of these Butsu-soku- seki will be found of more significance than the above imperfect attempts at an explanation of the emblems. The inscriptions upon the monument at Dentsu-In are typical. On different sides of the structure,—near the top, and placed by rule so as to face certain points of the compass,—there ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... imperfect in this case that it is not given. The usual forms and variations are shown in plate LXVI, 50 to 54. The last two, which show the widest variation, ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... have set down for one of the causes of the Dissolutions of Common-wealths, their Imperfect Generation, consisting in the want of an Absolute and Arbitrary Legislative Power; for want whereof, the Civill Soveraign is fain to handle the Sword of Justice unconstantly, and as if it were too hot for him to hold: One reason whereof (which I have ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... was one of those who did not understand a word of English, and he was indebted to the gestures of Deerslayer, and to the expression of an eye that did not often deceive, for an imperfect comprehension of his meaning. Perhaps, too, the sight of the rifle that lay so near the hand of the white man quickened his decision. At all events, he crouched like a tiger about to take his leap, uttered a yell, and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... remain where he is," replied Mr Sudberry, whose imperfect hearing led him to suppose that his spouse had said, "Jacky's inside, my dear!" whereas the real truth was that the boy was neither out ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... a common means of communication therefore has long been recognized; and about that time some one had invented a somewhat imperfect method of universal speech, with the idea of having everybody learn it, and so be able to converse with the inhabitants of all lands without the well-nigh impossible task of learning five, or ten, ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... quite another order of royalty, and another material of riches, than those usually acknowledged. I had even intended to ask your attention for a little while on trust, and (as sometimes one contrives, in taking a friend to see a favorite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, with such imperfect cunning as I might, until we unexpectedly reached the best point of view by winding paths. But—and as also I have heard it said, by men practiced in public address, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavour to follow a speaker who gives them no clue ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the world should have as much truth as possible; and if the world were perfectly kind, perfectly honest and perfectly wise (which last involves the first two), that ideal could be realized. For instance, in our imperfect world a man telling people when he did not like them, would be constantly giving needless pain and making needless enemies, whereas in an ideal world—made up of perfect people, there would be nobody to dislike, or, pardon the Hibernicism, if there were, the whole ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... century may run wild, as youth often does. I see clearly that none of you will ever really be anything worth notice, however you may now fancy it. But do as you like, I shall not imitate you. I mean to keep clear of all these things, and criticize what you do. In every action something imperfect may be discovered, something not right, which I shall make it my business to find out and expose; that will be something, I fancy." And he kept his word, and ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... characteristic of this especial period. What a dream of Science that, interstellary communication established, some being of knowledge and capacities as infinitely excelling our own as our faculties excel those of the lowly monad, wandering on this terrestrial globe, and culling from the imperfect archives of these bygone years a corkscrew, an opera-glass, or, perchance, a pot of long since petrified marmalade, preserved intact by some protecting incrustation of stalagmite from the ravages of time, may dart a penetrating gleam of intelligence through ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... women, noble and brave as they were, has shown more courage, and power of endurance, in facing danger and death to relieve human suffering, than this poor black woman, whose story I am endeavoring in a most imperfect way to give you. ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... propositions in Line Print, or having them spelled into my hand; and somehow, although the propositions were right before me, yet the braille confused me, and I could not fix in my mind clearly what I was reading. But, when I took up Algebra, I had a harder time still—I was terribly handicapped by my imperfect knowledge of the notation. The signs, which I had learned the day before, and which I thought I knew perfectly, confused me. Consequently my work was painfully slow, and I was obliged to read the examples over and over before I could ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... week of October, 1846. He had not come to America without some prospect of employment beside that comprised in his immediate scientific aims. In 1845, when his plans for a journey in the United States began to take definite shape, he had written to ask Lyell whether, notwithstanding his imperfect English, he might not have some chance as a public lecturer, hoping to make in that way additional provision for his scientific expenses beyond the allowance he was to receive from the King of Prussia. Lyell's answer, written by his wife, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... would, of course, have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. But, imperfect as such statistics may be, they give us at any rate some insight into the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... clear: (1) The attainment of our desires for perfection, the satisfaction of our passion for the infinite, is forbidden to us on earth by the limitations of life. We are made imperfect; we are kept imperfect here; and we must do all our work within the limits this natural imperfection makes. (2) We must, nevertheless, not cease to strive towards the perfection unattainable on earth, but which shall ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... in Spinoza's thought, identical with the real and the unreal. The perfect is the completed, the perfected; the imperfect, the uncompleted, the unperfected. These terms have, in their first intention, no specifically ethical significance. Nature is perfect, that is, absolutely real or completed; but in no intelligible sense is Nature ethically good. ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... the local "Eminence," but did not succeed in winning the election when first presented as "the humble" candidate for the State Senate. He stood upon his "imperfect education," his not belonging "to the first families, but the seconds"; and his shunning society as debarring him from the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... annual average cost of cultivating a quarree in cacao, and manufacturing the produce therefrom, is 35 dollars, in the imperfect manner it is carried on at present, thereby giving only 10 ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... connection of Judaism and Christianity is that men are not always ripe for the highest religion; that there is a fulness of time which it may take four thousand years to produce. The Mosaic religion, imperfect as it was, compared with Christianity, was better for Israel during its period and preparation than the religion of Christ would have been." Then, referring to the Mohammedan religion, he says: "It is not denied ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... water tea-tree, and other shrubs—whilst here and there appear a few isolated patches of open grassy plains, scattered at intervals among the scrub. The surface rock is invariably an oolitic limestone, mixed with an imperfect freestone, and in some places exhibits fossil banks, which bear evident marks of being of ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... told her that she lived in his soul, as much as he did in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect. She did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become his, expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after winter. Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the tze and substituting sem or sen, as nenrsem, I am continually talking, from nehren, I speak; the future, nenrtze; biquesen, I am thus singing, from biquen, I sing; future, bequetze, for which there appearing to be no perfect, the imperfect, bquesenru may be used, and the same is the case with the words that end in hon, as merihon, go running; nenerhon, be speaking; biquehon, be singing, of which the future ...
— Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language - Shea's Library Of American Linguistics. Volume III. • Buckingham Smith
... few and simple; and rude as the results of their labor may appear, it is surprising that they do so well with such imperfect appliances, which usually consist of the following articles: A forge, a bellows, an anvil, crucibles, molds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files, awls, cold-chisels, matrix and die for molding buttons, wooden implement ...
— Navajo Silversmiths • Washington Matthews
... Purchas cast upon it. Nor is it relieved from suspicion by the fact that it is in accord with his sworn testimony, and with the sworn testimony of his fellows, before the High Court of Admiralty when he and they were on trial for their lives as mutineers. The imperfect record of this trial merely shows that Prickett and all of the other witnesses—with the partial exception of Byleth—told substantially the same story; and—as they all equally were in danger of hanging—that story most naturally was in their own favor and in ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... soon as you reach the left side or head end of the bolt, feed the wire towards the right. If at any time the layers become rough on account of one turn slipping down between turns of the previous layer, fasten a piece of paraffine paper around the coil as soon as the imperfect layer is completed. Wind on 8 layers, and count the number of turns in one or two of them, so that you can tell about how many turns in all you have around the core. Make a "half-hitch" (see Sec. 110) with the wire when the last layer ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... announcement of what it hardly needs gold eyeglasses to discover—that we really grow every day. Blushes come heavily enough to hands and cheeks when to the shyness of youth are added the glows and chills of imperfect circulation: it does not need the stare of strangers, nor the apologies of Mamma, to stain our doubtful ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... youth, if he is not to be bound for a certain number of years, but to go away as soon as he has learnt a trade? The father, in some cases, may be able to pay for his son learning the trade, and this experiment has sometimes been tried, but generally with very imperfect success. The youth, for the most part, in those cases, considers himself as independent of the master, and gives himself very little trouble ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... matter of evidence. The third illustration of poisoning was poisoning by strychnine. Here again the power of the drug for undergoing oxidation was illustrated. It was noted that although our knowledge of the precise modus operandi of the poison was imperfect, nevertheless that the coincidence of the first fit in the animal after its exhibition with the formation of reduced haemoglobin ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... walk awhile and then find a cafe where we may have something to drink?" asked the duke, his English so imperfect that no writer could ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Antonio, where they expected first to burn powder. Nor were they deceived in their expectations. They found the Texian militia encamped before the town, which, as well as its adjacent fort of the Alamo, was held by the Mexicans, the Texians were besieging it in the best manner their imperfect means and small numbers would permit. An amusing account is given by Mr Ehrenberg of the camp and proceedings of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... Haliburton, who knew Winslow's Journal only by imperfect extracts, erroneously states that the men put on board the vessels were sent away immediately. They remained at Grand Pre several weeks, and were then sent off at ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... science, revealed to Goethe the prophecy of the flower in the leaf. No other than an artistic imagination, however, fulfilled of science, could have attained to the discovery of the fact that the leaf is the imperfect flower. ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... did, indeed, seem to all present crowned with a perfect nimbus of glory. Dr. Pemberton led him back to my presence with his arm encircling his shoulder; Captain Wentworth shook his hand mutely but long, with his eyes dimmed with tears, and words that found imperfect utterance, at last ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... responsibility of any disaster that might occur where it properly belonged. On the 1st of the month he made a full report to his next superior officer, General Wool, at Troy, New York, to be forwarded to the Secretary of War, in relation to the dangers that threatened us, and our imperfect means of defense. He notified them that our provisions would be exhausted by the 20th of the month, and that we were very deficient in ammunition and military supplies generally. The secretary, in his answer to this communication, simply expressed his regret that ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... Tretherick discovered that the sentiment he had fostered while freighting between Stockton and Knight's Ferry was different from that which his wife had evolved from the contemplation of California scenery and her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to beat her; and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly to the ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... which, when pressed against the forehead, and worked by a spring-lever, left the damnable mark upon the skin in deep, rich purple characters. The surface of the branding instrument was peculiarly soft and yielding, so that when, by the automatic inking, the mark was made, there was never an imperfect sign, but every character was truly formed. The ink used, claimed to be absolutely indelible, and those who had tried it, more than two years before, had found no break in any single line or curve ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... they cannot be persuaded that this is an inferior Government, incapable of any duty Providence (through the acts of a wicked Administration, if you choose) may send its way—duties which other nations could discharge, but we cannot. They do not and will not believe that it was any such maimed, imperfect, misshapen cripple from birth for which our forefathers made a place in the family of nations. Nor are they misled by the cry that, in a populous region, thronged by the ships and traders of all countries, where their own prosecution of a just ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... narrow forehead and glasses, two undistinguished women in plain skirts and blouses, and a middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. and Mrs. Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. These were seated in an imperfect semicircle about a very copper-adorned fireplace, surmounted by a ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... sufficient for our purpose to recognize the existence of this the most universal—the most powerful—of human passions, when venturing to offer our counsel and guidance to those of both sexes who, under its promptings, have resolved to become votaries of Hymen, but who, from imperfect knowledge of conventional usages, are naturally apprehensive that at every step they take, they may render themselves liable ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... consciousness with thoughts of the strong, and the health of life; we shut out the diseased, the dwarfed, the imperfect. We force the pictures of hospitals and sanatoriums out of our mind; we look at our bodies no matter how they look, or how much of disease they are then expressing, and we see only the whole, ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... be an imperfect incarnation of Cupid, as she keeps her beau, and not her arrows, in ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... few grammars mention it, one of the uses of the present and imperfect subjunctive in an independent verb is when the verb is accompanied by some word meaning 'perhaps,' usually quizs or tal vez. One can supply an expression of possibility and que, but the fact remains that ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Yet no great number of persons can attain to this science. And hence follows an important result. The true political principle is to assert the inviolability of the law, which, though not the best thing possible, is best for the imperfect ...
— Statesman • Plato
... were corrupt they were so on a smaller scale. Traditions which are deprecatingly called Balkan, but which were at that time suited to a Balkan country, should not be allowed to spread across a country which is so much more than Balkan. Merit does not everywhere in this imperfect world advance you automatically, but an effort is required in Yugoslavia to resist the calls of friendship in appointing men to offices. The army of officials is too numerous; yet many of them are so badly paid ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... pity, have mercy, sir!" said Van Baerle, "don't take me away! Let me look once more! Is what I see down there the black tulip? Quite black? Is it possible? Oh, sir, have you seen it? It must have specks, it must be imperfect, it must only be dyed black. Ah! if I were there, I should see it at once. Let me alight, let me see it close, I ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the imperfect code of human justice under which we live, Mr. Parr," he cried. "This is not a case in which a court of law may exonerate you, it is between you and your God. But I have taken the trouble to find out, from unquestioned sources, the truth about the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... one after another the centuries that have rolled over tide-worn Rouen. Let it be said at once that the "Old Rouen" you will first see is almost completely a French Renaissance city of the sixteenth century. Of older buildings you will find only slight and imperfect remnants, and as you pass monstrosities more modern you will involuntarily close your eyes. But the remnants are there, slight as they are; and they are worth your search for them, as we try together to reconstruct the ancient city of which they ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... often have so much difficulty in learning to know their own characters, it is because most men are scornful mirrors, occupied with nothing smaller than the universe and never dreaming of reflecting women except in a grudging and imperfect fashion." ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... The sun may not rise to-morrow, though it has never failed up to this time. Still it is by this observation of many individual cases that the truth of the propositions that men do believe has been established. We realize that our inductions are often imperfect, but the general truths so established will be found to underlie every process of reasoning, and will be either directly or indirectly the basis upon which ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Mitford remarks, obscure and poor make "a very imperfect rhyme;" and the same might be said ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... telling you that I have found it impossible to put up with the impertinence of that woman"—and now, as he spoke, there came a distorted fire out of his imperfect eye—"impossible! If you knew what I have gone through in attempting it! But that's over. I have the greatest respect for him in the world; a very thorough esteem. He is a hard-working man, and though I do not always approve the style of his wit,—of which, by-the-bye, he thinks too much ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... that (though not so old as to witness the riots of 1768) I am old enough to experience that Time has laid his hand not only on my head to whiten my locks, but in this instance compels me to acknowledge that even the memories of my early days are, like the present, imperfect. The failure is with me, not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... upon this wide continent. One was the gentleman to whom certain letters on literature have been openly addressed, and who has made a library by a process which involves wise selection and infinite self-restraint. This priceless little collection contains no volume which is imperfect, no volume which mars the fine sense of repose begotten in one at the sight of lovely books becomingly clothed, and no volume which is not worthy the name of literature. And there is matter for reflection ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... men and women, you will, I know, extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you perceive—as you must—that their qualities are all their own, their defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... calling cynical or shameless, he has told the whole story of this lifelong depravation. In the present state of knowledge, which in the region of the human character the false shamefacedness of science, aided and abetted by the mutilating hand of religious asceticism, has kept crude and imperfect, there is nothing very profitable to be said on all this. When the great art of life has been more systematically conceived in the long processes of time and endeavour, and when more bold, ffective, and far-reaching advance has been ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Lake Major, and the wide luxuriant estuary of the vale. There lay before me a long straight road for miles at the base of high hills; then, far off, this road seemed to end at the foot of a mountain called, I believe, Ash Mount or Cinder Hill. But my imperfect map told me that here it went sharp round to the left, choosing a pass, and then at an angle went down its ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... surprise the reader to be told that Joseph made no reply to this speech, having a very imperfect acquaintance with the English language, especially the peculiar dialect of that tongue in which Tom Whyte was wont to express his ideas, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... The piece was Tito Manlio Torquato, taken from the well known anecdote in the Roman history. The scenery, decorations and costume were good and appropriate, not so the acting; for the actors as usual were imperfect in their parts. I fully agree with Alfieri that Italy must be united and enjoy a free popular government before one can expect to see tragedies well performed. It is very diverting to see the puppet shows at Naples and ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... kinds of happiness for mortal men: there is that which is carnal and imperfect and hangs on circumstances and the health of the body and such like things; and there is that which is spiritual and perfect, which hangs on nothing else than the doing of the will of God Almighty so far as it is known, so that a man ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... dpend de la faon que notre sang circule.' This have I learnt from a pretty hard course of experience, and would, from sincere benevolence, impress upon all who honour this book with a perusal, that until a steady conviction is obtained, that the present life is an imperfect state, and only a passage to a better, if we comply with the divine scheme of progressive improvement; and also that it is a part of the mysterious plan of Providence, that intellectual beings ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... little boy's eyes with his hands for an instant, significantly, till the baby pushed them down, saying in his imperfect way— ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... reveal my private woe, The secret blots of my imperfect heart, Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert, Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know, That even as I am, thou also art. Thou past heroic forms unmoved shalt go, To pause and bide with me, to whisper low: "Not I alone am weak, not I apart ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... misfortunes removed from the company of those who first seduced him into his vices, he began to have some ideas of the use of life when he was going to leave it; and his thoughts had received certain ideas (though very imperfect ones) of death and a future state, when the punishment appointed by Law sent him to experience them. He died on the 23rd of August, 1726, being then upwards ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.' This law, I am persuaded, is of God. Long have I lived, and never before have I seen it acted on till these Christians came amongst us. They do not, indeed, always practise as they teach; but they are imperfect, therefore they cannot practise fully as they teach, because they teach perfection. This law I shall henceforth follow as I best can. I follow it to-day. If I were in thraldom to you, Heika, just now, I would wish you to set me free, therefore I now set you and your ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... and complexity of the sense organs of sight render them liable to a number of imperfections, or defects, the most frequent and important being those of focusing. Such defects not only result in the imperfect vision of objects, but they throw an extra strain upon the nervous system and may render the ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... saying, but only to afford employment to their tongue. And if these people expect to be heard and regarded—for there are some content merely with talking—they will invent to engage your attention: and, when they have heard the least imperfect hint of an affair, they will out of their own head add the circumstances of time and place and other matters to make out their story and give the appearance of probability to it: not that they have any concern about being believed, otherwise than as a means of being heard. The ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... therefore of a Common-wealth, I will reckon in the first place, those that arise from an Imperfect Institution, and resemble the diseases of a naturall body, which ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... proceeding of them both; to all which is added the word One, to signify that these three are Indivisible. But this mystery shall not be revealed until the coming of Messiah." The Zohar gives also an imperfect illustration of this great Truth, by saying that the Trinity in unity is like "the human voice, which is composed of three ...
— Hebrew Literature
... a paper is a matter of which most people have a very vague and imperfect knowledge. I believe I am very near the truth when I state the gross proceeds of The Times at 45,000l., a year. The present proprietor of The Morning Chronicle gave for it, I believe, 40,000l. The absolute property of The Courier, according ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... Federalist Senate would not confirm the nomination. The Federalists could never forget that Gallatin was a Swiss by birth—an alien of supposedly radical tendencies. The partisan press never exhibited its crass provincialism more shamefully than when it made fun of Gallatin's imperfect pronunciation of English. He had come to America, indeed, too late to acquire a perfect control of a new tongue, but not too late to become a loyal son of his adopted country. He brought to Jefferson's group of advisers not only a thorough knowledge of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... efforts, in its little journeys from one patch of grass to another, by a hundred obstacles, which, trifles though they might be to animals of a higher species, were yet of fatal importance to creatures constituted like itself, he began to find an imperfect, yet remarkable analogy between his own destiny and that of this small unit of creation. He felt that, in its petty sphere, the short life of the humble animal before him must have been the prey of crosses and disappointments, as serious to it, as the more ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... in 131/2 months. It must be admitted that the inclination of the ice-sheet is not sufficient to cause this, and the old idea that the glacier streams flowing down from Inland Plateau provide the necessary impetus is imperfect. It was Simpson's suggestion that "the deposition of snow on the Barrier leads to an expansion due to the increase of weight." Some admittedly vague ideas as to the extent and character of the inland ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... kind are perfect hermaphrodites, while in the other kind the stamens are smaller and shorter than the pistil and eventually bent down and curved under. The two kinds of stamens are shown in Figs. 53 and 54. These may be called imperfect hermaphrodites since they are seldom as fruitful as the perfect hermaphrodites unless fertilized from another plant. Examined with a microscope, it is found that self-sterile plants usually bear abortive pollen and that the percentage of abortive ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... that this was obvious. A critic of great ingenuity, my friend Mr. Andrew Lang, has, with his usual humour, suggested that critics and reviewers are two different kinds, and have nothing to do with each other essentially, though accidentally, and in the imperfect arrangements of the world, the discharge of their functions may happen to be combined in the same person. As a matter of practice, this is no doubt too often the case; as a matter of theory, nothing ought much less to be the case. I think that if I were dictator, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... Carpentaria? Then there was that piece of country discovered by the Dutchman Tasman, and named Van Diemen's Land. Was it an island, or did it join on to New Holland? There were also many islands of the Pacific still to be explored and correctly charted, the map of Eastern Asia was imperfect, and the whole of the coastline of North-Western America ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... "to be just us two together for a little while." And, "What good does it do to keep on?" when Lewisham was pressing. Lewisham wanted very much to keep on at times, but the good of it was a little hard to demonstrate. So his knowledge of the situation remained imperfect ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... Inquiry into the causes of the revolutions of nations is more imperfect and less satisfactory than when [end of page xi] directed to those of individuals, and of single families, if, ever it should be rendered complete, its application will, at least, be more certain. Nations are exempt from those accidental vicissitudes which ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... further efforts to penetrate into the interior. He, however, obtained from one of the Shereefs some particulars respecting the countries to the south of Tripoli, and a memoir from his notes was drawn up by Mr. Beaufoy, which, though in many respects imperfect and erroneous, nevertheless threw a little additional light upon the condition of Africa. No correct information was ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... made a mistake in displaying so much cleverness. The commissary regarded me with astonishment, and I thought a slight suspicion entered his official mind....Oh! scarcely that, for the photographs distributed broadcast by the police department were too imperfect; they presented an Arsene Lupin so different from the one he had before him, that he could not possibly recognize me by it. But, all the same, he was troubled, ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... foundry (then the only one south of Philadelphia), cannon were cast for the American troops during the War of 1812. The artillery and indeed all the military arms of this country were then very imperfect. Foxall was the only founder in America who understood the proper mode of manufacture. Here began the first manufacture of bored cannon in this country, being vastly superior to the old ordnance. The abandonment and recasting of the old-style ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... one view of human life, but it is a transitional and imperfect one,—neither that of the first healthy unconsciousness of childhood, nor of the full consciousness of a soul which has risen to that height of divine wisdom which feels the meaning of all suffering, of all life. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... who continued to write at the same time with himself, we can discover resemblances to his style and traces of his art, still it will always remain doubtful whether we are to consider these as the feeble model, or the imperfect imitation. Shakspeare appears to have had all the flexibility of mind, and all the modesty of Raphael, who, also, without ever being an imitator and becoming unfaithful to his sublime and tranquil genius, applied to his own advantage all ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... trains of reflexion, what colour and substance would therewith have been deducted from it, filled as it is, apart from the more aweful associations of the Christian ritual, apart from Galahad's cup, with all the various symbolism of the fruit of the vine. That supposed loss is but an imperfect measure of all that the name of Dionysus recalled to the Greek mind, under a single imaginable form, an outward body of flesh presented to the senses, and comprehending, as its animating soul, a whole world of thoughts, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... man, addressed to the woman at his side, whom he loves and by whom he is loved, over the imperfection and innocent inconstancy of his love. The two can never quite grow to one, and he, oppressed by the terrible burden of imperfect sympathies, is for ever seeking, realising, losing, then again seeking the spiritual union still for ever denied. The vague sense of the Roman Campagna is distilled into exquisite words, and through all there sounds the sad and weary undertone of ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... only ones we know much about. The immense interval of time that preceded, and the no less vast stretch of time that separated them, is represented in the record of Dinosaur history by a multitude of tracks and a few imperfect skeletons assigned to the close of the Triassic period, and by a few fragments from formations which may be intermediate in age between the Jurassic-Comanchic and the late Cretacic. Consequently we cannot expect to trace among the Dinosaurs, ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... [gamma] lies the wonderful ring-nebula 57 M, of which an imperfect idea will be conveyed by the last figure of Plate 3. This nebula was discovered in 1772, by Darquier, at Toulouse. It is seen as a ring of light with very moderate telescopic power. In a good 3-1/2-inch telescope the nebula exhibits a mottled appearance and a sparkling light. Larger instruments ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... not irremediably lost," said Mr. Phoebus. "Fortunately, you have received the admirable though partial education of your class. You are a good shot, you can ride, you can row, you can swim. That imperfect secretion of the brain which is called thought has not yet bowed your frame. You have not had time to read much. Give it up altogether. The conversation of a woman like Theodora is worth all the libraries in the world. If it were only for her sake, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... but imperfect faith. There was unquestionable confidence in Christ's power, and very genuine desire for healing. But it was a very ignorant faith. She believes that her touch of the garment will heal without Christ's will or knowledge, much more ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... graces and charms of the little Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley. She let the squire exhaust himself in wondering as to the particulars of every event, helping him out in conjectures; and both of them, from their imperfect knowledge of possibilities, made the most curious, fantastic, and improbable guesses at the truth. And so that day passed ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Austria. Her representations will be of no use: you may stake all you have on that; and eventually, since she will be unable to draw back she, too, will begin in her slow, cumbrous manner, hampered by those immense distances and her imperfect railway system, to mobilise also. Then will Germany, already quite prepared, show her hand. She will demand that Russia shall cease mobilisation, and again will Russia refuse. That will set the military machinery of France going. All the time ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... and geography introduced into Japan along with almanac-making in the fifth century were without question very primitive sciences. At this time even in Europe the knowledge of these sciences was not advanced beyond the imperfect notions of the Greeks. It was not until the sixteenth century, when the discoveries of the Portuguese and the Spaniards and the English had revealed the shape and the divisions of the earth, and the ...
— Japan • David Murray
... that the really fine and poignant irony came in. Through her intercourse with Jane and Laura, Rose offered herself for comparison, and showed flagrantly imperfect. But for that, owing to Tanqueray's superhuman powers of abstraction, she might almost have passed unnoticed. As it was, he owned that her incorruptible simplicity preserved her, even at her ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... bold: Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion Blush'd at herself; and she,—in spite of nature, Of years, of country, credit, everything,— To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on! It is judgement maim'd and most imperfect That will confess perfection so could err Against all rules of nature; and must be driven To find out practices of cunning hell, Why this should be. I therefore vouch again, That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, Or with some dram conjur'd to this ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... our family; a feat on which few would have ventured; and I even arrived to such a pitch of perfection at praying, that with the assistance of young and powerful lungs, I was fully able to distance him at any English prayer in which we joined. But in Latin, I must allow, that owing to my imperfect knowledge of its pronunciation, and to some twitches of conscience I felt on adventuring to imitate, him by overleaping this impediment, he was able to throw me back a considerable distance in his turn; so that when we both started for a De Profundis, I was always ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... of circumstances entirely beyond my control, I abandoned the study of the violin in order to become a pianist, I was forced to realize, in view of my very imperfect technical equipment, that in order to take advantage of the opportunities that offered for public performance it would be necessary for me to find some means of making my playing acceptable without spending months ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke |
