"Fall short" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... squeezing his red hands between his knees. 'That's my cherished dream. Of course I know very well how far I fall short of being—to be worthy of such a high—I mean that I am too little prepared, but I hope to get permission for a course of travel abroad; I shall pass three or four years in that ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... ——— says that Home is unquestionably a knave, but that he himself is as much perplexed at his own preternatural performances as any other person; he is startled and affrighted at the phenomena which he produces. Nevertheless, when his spiritual powers fall short, he does his best to eke them out with imposture. This moral infirmity is a part of his nature, and I suggested that perhaps if he were of a firmer and healthier moral make, if his character were ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Diamonds have this capacity in a high degree, and, unless they had it, would not bear any price. Value in use, or, as Mr. De Quincey calls it, teleologic value, is the extreme limit of value in exchange. The exchange value of a thing may fall short, to any amount, of its value in use; but that it can ever exceed the value in use implies a contradiction; it supposes that persons will give, to possess a thing, more than the utmost value which they themselves put upon it, as a means of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... tragic hero it is not enough to fall short of infamy. He must have some sort of distinction. He must be a towering personality. One does not go to the theater to be convinced in a moral or political argument, but to be carried along with a rush of feeling, for which the old term sympathy is perhaps as good a name ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... washed with rufous; the ears and tail dusky brown; feet pale yellowish, and more or less brownish above; the tail varies in length, but is generally longer than the body and head, although it may occasionally fall short of that length" ('Anat. and Zool. Res.' ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... was really left in this way, as explained by Professor Dowden. Sir Bysshe's possessions did not, probably, fall short of L200,000. One portion, valued at L80,000, consisted of certain entailed estates, but without Shelley's concurrence the entail could not be prolonged beyond himself; the rest consisted of unentailed landed property ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... invest with suitable powers, the men whose ability is, at any given moment, calculated to raise labour to the highest pitch of productiveness—how to give power to these, and to take it away from others in exact proportion as their talents, as exhibited in its practical results, fall short of the maximum which is ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... idea. It wouldn't be you if you hadn't. But I am afraid that, this time, you will fall short of ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... But when he says that there is something greater and yet not exceeding, it were worth the while to ask, whether these things quadrate with one another. For if they quadrate, how is either the greater? And if they do not quadrate, how can it be but the one must exceed and the other fall short? For if neither of these are true, the other both will and will not quadrate with the greater. For those who keep not the common conceptions must of necessity ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... their name is still used by Turkish mothers as a bugbear to frighten their children. But the stories have always seemed to me incredible; now I perceive they were true, and that the present members of the Order in no way fall short of the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... meet with, particularly in the work against Celsus (see, for example, VI. 2) is the thought that Christ has come to improve all men according to their several capacities, and to lead some to the highest knowledge. This conception appears to fall short of the Christian ideal and perhaps really does so; but as soon as we measure it not by the Gospel but by the aims of Greek philosophy, we see very clearly the progress that has been attained through this same Gospel. What Origen has in his eye is mankind, and he is ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... is in itself a ground of recommendation," answered his Grace; "though at times a man may fall short of what he ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... existence of a being corresponding to a pure transcendental idea. But I cannot admit that this being exists absolutely and in itself, because all of the conceptions by which I can cogitate an object in a determinate manner fall short of assuring me of its existence; nay, the conditions of the objective validity of my conceptions are excluded by the idea—by the very fact of its being an idea. The conceptions of reality, substance, causality, nay, even that of necessity in existence, have no significance out of the sphere of ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... head massive. A short-cut beard concealed his chin, but his mouth was of iron and his eyes were hard and keen. He was of no more than the average stature by reason of his breadth and girth; he seemed even to fall short of it, which was not however the case. A man not easily led or controlled, a man of passions and prejudices, emphatically not a man to be ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... the supplies fall short, I will go out and get some oysters. I know the colonel likes oysters. Sit still, and let us talk while ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... never have cause to repent of any confidence you may think proper to place in me, and that it will always be my endeavour to deserve the good opinion which you have formed, although human weakness may in some instances cause me to fall short. In giving you these assurances I do not depend upon my own strength, but I look to Him who has been my unerring guide through life, and in whose continued protection and assistance ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... mean by this sudden sweetness—this sudden sauciness? Is she holding out the olive-branch to him? If so, he will accept it. After all, he may have wronged her in many ways; and at all events, her faults—her very worst fault—must fall short ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... his training of nerve and hand should fail now! Christ pity him, if that whirling loop should miss its mark, or fall short! ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... the Postmaster-General herewith communicated contains a detailed statement of the operations of his Department during the past year. It will be seen that the income from postages will fall short of the expenditures for the year between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000. This deficiency has been caused by the reduction of the rates of postage, which was made by the act of the 3d of March last. No principle has been more generally acquiesced in by the people ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... never forget the feeling which possessed me when I made this terrible leap. If my foot should slip, if I should fall short, if I should fall and be dashed to pieces! It was only a second; but I seemed to live a whole lifetime in that second. I landed safely, however, and was soon ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... forlorn and dreary looking place in these United States. To describe the irregular rows of shanties bordering on impassable sloughs of mud, the scenery, the pigs, and the people, were a thankless task, as the most eloquent words would fall short of the reality. In one of the principal streets the blackened stumps still stand so thickly that the laden wagons meander among them as sinuously as the path which foxes and squirrels wore there only three years ago,—while in curious contrast with this avenue and the surrounding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... words "Heaped verdure" should be written; and others upheld that the device should be "Embroidered Hill." Others again suggested: "Vying with the Hsiang Lu;" and others recommended "the small Chung Nan." And various kinds of names were proposed, which did not fall short of several tens. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... There's not much we do understand, any of us. That's where I think books fall short—they explain things just as far as the writer understands. And whiles he doesna understand very far, but he's got a trick of putting things nicely. Most things you know without understanding: you do them blindly and someday you see they've been right. That's what I mean about God making ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... learned to know themselves better. They have been made cognizant of their weaknesses and their strength—what they are capable of and where they fall short. ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... They divided the year into twelve lunar months, each of which, having its own name, was distinguished by its appropriate festival. *11 They had, also, weeks; but of what length, whether of seven, nine, or ten days, is uncertain. As their lunar year would necessarily fall short of the true time, they rectified their calendar by solar observations made by means of a number of cylindrical columns raised on the high lands round Cuzco, which served them for taking azimuths; and, by measuring their shadows, they ascertained the exact times of the solstices. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... think of it, still makes me shudder, as it did on the day I beheld it; and I would wish it were possible for me to forget it, rather than be compelled to describe it. All the horrors imagination can conceive, relative to that day of blood, would fall short of the reality. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... our neighbour is not only to wish him well, but also to do him all the good that it is in our power to do. If we fall short of this, we deserve the reproach of St. James, addressed to those who, though they have ample means for giving material aid to the poor, content themselves with ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... when we are no longer thinking of them. If that does not prevent us from thinking that we are their efficient cause, what reliance shall one place on the proof of feeling, which to M. Jacquelot appears so conclusive? Does our authority over our ideas more often fall short than our authority over our volitions? If we were to count up carefully, we should find in the course of our life more velleities than volitions, that is, more evidences of the servitude of our will than of its dominion. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... will win his bet; and anyone who bets that in India in any three consecutive years, the snakes will kill 53,500 persons, will lose his bet. In India the snakes kill 17,000 people a year; they hardly ever fall short of it; they as seldom exceed it. An insurance actuary could take the Indian census tables and the government's snake tables and tell you within sixpence how much it would be worth to insure a man against death by snake-bite there. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... capital. The vast crop of our neutrality is all seed-wheat, and is sown again to swell, almost beyond calculation, the future harvest of prosperity. And in this progress, what seems to be fiction is found to fall short of experience. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... honest of purpose," the girl went on slowly, "and when one is that, I think it shows in one's eyes. To be sure, I often fall short of my intentions. I mean to do right, and almost as frequently ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... enlist in the army just as they might take up any other trade. There is, however, a body called the militia. This, like the army, consists of volunteers; but is not liable for service abroad, and only goes out for a short period of training, annually. However, by law, should the supply of volunteers fall short, battalions can be kept at their full strength by men chosen by ballot from the population. But this is practically a dead letter, and I am told that the ballot is never resorted to; though doubtless it would be, in the case ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... lay himself down on the snow and repose in comfort; and if in his wanderings across the numerous lakes with which his country abounds, he should fall short of provisions, he has only to cut a hole in the ice, when he seldom fails of taking a blackfish, or a bass, which he broils over his little wood fire with as much skill as ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... dismay. Then an immense explosion took place, which shook everything around.[76] The village cattle, loosened from their confinements, ran about in wild confusion, and mixed themselves with the horrors of the night: in short, my words fall short of any description that could be made of this awful scene of devastation; and I must bless the mercy of that Almighty hand which hath spared me in the destruction that ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... demanding a direct and central highway for its great inland commerce, according to the best estimates (those of Poor), cannot fall short of fifteen millions, and most probably exceeds that number. It is now conclusively established that the centre of gravity of our national population has crossed the Appalachian chain. Professor Hilgard of the Coast Survey prepared a year ago, at the request of the Hon. J. A. Garfield of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... prisoners that the enemy lost in the battle of the Ouisconsin sixty-eight killed and a very large number wounded; his whole loss does not fall short of three hundred. After the battle on the Ouisconsin, those of the enemy's women and children, and some who were dismounted, attempted to make their escape by descending that river, but judicious measures being taken by Captain Loomis and Lieutenant Street, ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... you be quiet without you have a bellyful of the milk of God's word? Can you be satisfied without you have peace with God? Pray you consider it, and be serious with yourselves. If you have not these marks, you will fall short of the kingdom of God, you shall never have an interest there; there is no intruding. They will say, "Lord, Lord, open to us; and he will say, I know you not." No child of God, no heavenly inheritance. We sometimes give something to ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which reason and understanding fall short, and which therefore produces effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this demonic power in the highest ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... may believe the politicians of Nice, the king of Sardinia's whole revenue does not fall short of twenty millions of Piedmontese livres, being above one million of our money. It must be owned, that there is no country in Christendom less taxed than that of Nice; and as the soil produces the necessaries of life, the inhabitants, with a little industry, might renew ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... annually entailed on the inhabitants of the three kingdoms by the depredations of the criminal classes. The exact amount of this loss it is impossible to estimate, but, according to the figures in the police reports, it cannot fall short of ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods, and their gifts, and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... canal duty; that is, when it shall not be so shamefully profligate in expenditures of power—to double the average speed of horses, or lessen the general average of ten days on the canal to five days, of which the down trips may overrun and the up trips fall short, as with ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous
... exceed a certain minimum, the minimum comes to be the maximum: it becomes the general practice not to aim at more; and as in every thing there are some who do not attain all they aim at, however low the standard may be pitched, there are always several who fall short of it. When, on the contrary, the appointments are given to those, among a great number of candidates, who most distinguish themselves, and where the successful competitors are classed in order of merit, not only each is stimulated to do his very utmost, but the influence is ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... milk rations for their children. These rations would be adequate if they could be obtained, but many times they fall short. Every effort is made to treat all children, rich and poor, alike. The price of milk is regulated, but parents who cannot afford to buy it are given it free or at cost. Dried and condensed milk are used where they can be obtained and fresh milk cannot. Thousands of ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker
... may still restore a household that was almost lost, and raise it above what it ever was by mutual affection and unity. My annuity is more than enough to support me; and should it fall short, as I think can hardly happen, my son will assist me with a ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... life of Washington, and made it unique in the annals of nations; it enabled Shakspeare to incarnate the elements of humanity in dramatic creations, and Kean to reproduce them on the stage; it is the grand law of the highest achievements in statesmanship, in letters, and in art, without which they fall short of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the general hours of work, then, should be among the primary aims of social reform. There need be no fear that with shortened hours of labor the sum total of production would fall short of human needs. This, as has been shown from beginning to end of this essay, is out of the question. Human desires would eat up the result of ten times the work we now accomplish. Human needs would be satisfied with a fraction of it. But the real difficulty in the shortening ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... knew that if help did not come speedily she would be undone. She prayed for Divine aid. She could not believe that God would look down from Heaven and see these fiends prevail. God's ways, she was aware, were sometimes inscrutable, and seemed to fall short of justice, but she knew that sooner or later they invariably worked out retributive justice more terrible than man's. This was to be made plain to her sooner than she imagined, and unexpectedly, as God's ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... Godrick and the Lesser Crafts had was that they by no means lacked men, and those of the best; and though they were shut out from chaffer with the merchants of the City, yet whereas the whole countryside was open to them because of the riders of Longshaw, they were not like to fall short of victuals. Though true it is that the King's men set swift keels on the Sundering Flood stuffed of men-at-arms, and these would land on the eastern bank so far as a twenty or thirty miles up, and plunder and ravage the ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... who speaks from that life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part. I dare not speak for it. My words do not carry its august sense; they fall short and cold. Only itself can inspire whom it will, and behold! their speech shall be lyrical and sweet, and universal as the rising of the wind. Yet I desire, even by profane words, if I may not use sacred, to indicate the heaven of this deity, and to report what ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... there's no telling; thee mustna lose heart. She's made out o' stuff with a finer grain than most o' the women; I can see that clear enough. But if she's better than they are in other things, I canna think she'll fall short ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... The Liberator stated that "nearly all the waiters in the hotels have fled to Canada. Sunday 30 fled; on Monday 40; on Tuesday 50; on Wednesday 30 and up to this time the number that has left will not fall short of 300. They went in large bodies, armed with pistols and bowie knives, determined to die rather than be captured."[8] A Hartford despatch of October 18, 1850, told of five Negroes leaving that place for Canada;[9] Utica reported under ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... you best of all For those defects by which you fall Short of the pattern you should follow; As I would fain be loved for mine, Speaking as one whose own design Lacks something of the perfect line Affected ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... members vote by States, and that where there is only a single member present from a State, his vote is lost, it will justify a supposition that the active voices in the Senate, where the members are to vote individually, would rarely fall short in number of the active voices in the existing Congress. When, in addition to these considerations, we take into view the co-operation of the President, we shall not hesitate to infer that the people of America would have greater security against an improper use of the power ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... of Paris is considerably more than a million. The number of births in a year is a little more than thirty thousand, and of these, ten thousand are illegitimate. This fact speaks volumes in reference to the morals of Paris. The deaths usually fall short of the births by about four thousand. The increase of population in France is great, though it is now a very ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... denial of due process is to be tested by an appraisal of the totality of facts in a given case. That which may, in one setting, constitute a denial of fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice, may, in other circumstances, and in the light of other considerations, fall short of such denial."[825] Accordingly, an indigent farm laborer was deemed not to have been denied due process of law when he was convicted of robbery by a Maryland county court, sitting without a jury, which was not required by statute[826] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... presume to declare myself competent to effect so much, and I am more conscious than my critics how far I fall short of my high aim; but the modest attempt, made with the resolution to accept all criticism offered with courtesy and good faith, does not imply culpable presumption ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... but not mortally. It is his misfortune to be wounded in almost every battle he fights. Nevertheless, he has gained a glorious victory. Our loss in killed and wounded will not exceed 5000; while the enemy's killed, wounded, and prisoners will not fall short of 13,000. They lost, besides, many guns, tents, and stores—all wrung from them at the point of the bayonet, and in spite of their formidable abattis. Prisoners taken on the field say: "The Southern soldiers would charge into hell if there was a battery before them—and they would ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... will often see the like. The main object may fail or fall short, but the earnest painstaking will always be blessed some way or other, and where we thought it most wasted, some fresh green shoot will spring up, to show it is not we that give the increase. I suppose you will write to Richard ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... endear them more, and let them see We scorn to come behind in courtesy, We'll follow the new mode which they begin, And treat them with a room, and couch within: For that's one way, howe'er the play fall short, To oblige the town, the city, and ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... beautiful things, a little too tolerant of dull, well-meaning and industrious men and arrogant old women. It suffers hypocrites gladly, because its criticism is poor, and it is wastefully harsh to frank unorthodoxy. But its heart is sound if its judgments fall short of acuteness and if its standards of achievement are low. It needs but a quickening spirit upon the throne, always the traditional centre of its respect, to rise from even the appearance of decadence. There is a new quality seeking expression ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... poor soul do to run? For this very thing is that which afflicteth me sore, as you say, to think that I may run, and yet fall short. Methinks to fall short at last, O, it fears me greatly. Pray tell me, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... meetings; how, when the ways were forelaid and passages stopped, he swam through rivers to reach a meeting; and now, said he, that I am grown old in the profession of religion, and have long been an instructor and encourager of others, that I should thus shamefully fall short myself, is matter of shame and sorrow ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... to be woven into one indissoluble substance. Several striking examples have been preserved of the mode of pleading in the reign of Edward II, in which the exceptions taken for the defendant, and the replies supporting the mode of proceeding on behalf of the plaintiff, in no respect fall short of the most admired shifts, quirks and subtleties of the great lawyers ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... common objects of vulgar ambition he had a scorn too deep for words. He never sought, and he did not greatly value, the praise of men. He had a message to deliver, in which he profoundly believed, and he could no more go beyond it, or fall short of it, than Balaam when he was tempted by Balak. Contemporaries without a hundredth part of his talent, even for practical business, attained high positions, or positions which the world thought ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Another girl, one of the noblest I ever knew, also found the practical details of life easy, but she was always tossed about from one occupation to another, and from one home to another, because when she found every reality fall short of her ideal she had not the good sense to work quietly to improve the matter, but went about proclaiming her disgust. The first thing we all need is to have our wills so trained that when we see the right, we may instantly do it, and after ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... He's laughed!" cried Lupin, jumping for joy. "You see, baby, what you fall short in is the power of smiling; you're a trifle serious for your age. You're a very likeable boy, you have a charming candor and simplicity—but you have no sense of humor." He placed himself in front of ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... demonstrations of your singular affection; and this it is that enhances both our crime and our grief, that we should have carried our ingratitude to such a pitch as to have offended our best friend and greatest benefactor: hence, whatever punishment you may inflict upon us, it will still fall short of what we deserve. But alas! the evil we have done ourselves is worse than innumerable deaths: for what can be more afflicting than to live, in the judgment of all mankind, guilty of the blackest ingratitude, and to see ourselves deprived of your sweet and gracious protection, which was our bulwark. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... of the grandest aristocracy on earth, or a more dainty lady of the olden times, had never, since its foundation, done the honors of Houghton Castle. But the sweet old lady was already forced to exert all her strength, that nothing should fall short of the old hospitality on this the last fete she ever ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... then either produce a paroxysm of tertian fever; or may still become greater, and continue so till the next period of greatest terrene gravitation, and then produce a paroxysm of quartan ague. And lastly, the periodical times of these paroxysms may exceed, or fall short of, the time of greatest diurnal terrene gravitation according to the time of day, or period of the moon, in which the first fit began; that is, whether the diurnal terrene gravitation was then in an increasing or ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... wanted to teach you a little lesson," continued Lord Hastings. "In the future, perhaps you will neither fall short nor go beyond your orders. I ordered you to Gravesend. You should not have ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... exactly," he admitted. "But from the ship's actions, I'd say we were aiming for the far side of the asteroid belt. Anyway, we'll fall short of Jupiter." ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... not a small event! Why 'small'? Costs it more pain that this, ye call A great event, should come to pass, Than that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!" ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... traverse the wrong path, to accomplish the wrong work, and do many things in the wrong way, is a clear proof that his course in life is not arbitrarily fixed, that he has been left to the freedom of his own will, and may therefore fall short of the best, though he may be fortunate enough to attain the good or the better. Hence devolves upon every one the responsibility of putting and finding an answer to the question—How shall I make the ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... that I would wish to have equal sincerity and boldness in saying what I thought— if I really thought any thing at all—concerning the art which I spent so great a share of my time at Venice in looking at. But I fear I should fall short of the terseness as well as the candor I applaud, and should presently find myself tediously rehearsing criticisms which I neither respect for their honesty, nor regard for their justice. It is the sad fortune of him who desires ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... pretend to give the precise words, but, as nearly as I can from scanty memorandums and vague recollections, the leading ideas of Scott. I am constantly sensible, however, how far I fall short of ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... seek in vain for evidence of the kind we desire; and this absence of evidence with such an apparent wealth of material is held by many persons to throw doubt on the theory of evolution itself. They urge, with much appearance of reason, that all the arguments we have hitherto adduced fall short of demonstration, and that the crucial test consists in being able to show, in a great number of cases, those connecting links which we say must have existed. Many of the gaps that still remain are so vast that it seems incredible to these writers that they could ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... absolutely convinced, through his private source of information, that Henry was due to fall short of his quota by four or five thousand dollars; nothing but a miracle could save him, and Mr. Mix was a sceptic in regard to miracles. He was positive that in a brief six months Miss Starkweather would receive at least a half million; and Mr. Mix, at fifty-five, wasn't the type of man who could ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... line and plummet whereby every act of every man shall be measured; and he whose righteousness is not found every way answerable to this law, which all will fall short of but they that have the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... all the best people, and many who fall short of perfection, go westward to the Cornish Riviera. It is the thing to do. The taxi, the station 'bus, the private automobile, and even the almost extinct four-wheeler, high laden with luggage, by common consent roll down the slope into Paddington and deliver up their ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... request was his hearing, from Oedidee, and our Otaheitean passengers, that we had so done at their island. The chief would have had us fire at the hills; but I did not approve of that, lest the shot should fall short and do some mischief. Besides, the effect was better seen in the water. Some of the petty officers, who had leave to go into the country for their amusement, took two of the natives with them to be their guides, and to carry their bags, containing nails, hatchets, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... advantages which reasonable labor and its restraining influence afford both body and mind. Parental drudgery and self-denial for the purpose of relieving children from the necessity of wholesome effort is mistaken generosity. It makes parent and child alike fall short of the high purposes for which life is given. For life is intended for more important purposes than mere money-getting or the pursuit of objects from which man is utterly divorced at death. Poor indeed must be the soul if, at death, it ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... answered, each for himself, these questions, and others like them that will suggest themselves—answered them by the most earnest efforts of which our natures are capable—and remembered at the end how far our natures fall short of his, and told ourselves that our answers are insufficient—then let us recall, once more, that he chose ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... creating two classes of men's sewed straw hats, with a different principal competing country and a separate rate of duty for each class. Under the circumstances, to confine the findings of the commission to an increased duty on lower-priced hats is, in one important particular, to fall short of the statutory responsibility undertaken when the commission ordered an investigation of the adequacy of the present 60 per cent ad valorem duty as a measure of equalized costs in the United States and foreign countries. A partial conclusion from the commission's ...
— Men's Sewed Straw Hats - Report of the United Stated Tariff Commission to the - President of the United States (1926) • United States Tariff Commission
... Chinese, e.g., not pervaded with an adequate patriotic spirit, comes into the Concert of Nations not as a Power but as a bone of contention. Not that the Chinese fall short in any of the qualities that conduce to efficiency and welfare in time of peace, but they appear, in effect, to lack that certain "solidarity of prowess" by virtue of which they should choose to be (collectively) formidable rather ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... bound them together by common honours and reputations, by intermarriages, and by the choice of rulers who combine both qualities. The temperate are careful and just, but are wanting in the power of action; the courageous fall short of them in justice, but in action are superior to them: and no state can prosper in which either of these qualities is wanting. The noblest and best of all webs or states is that which the royal science ...
— Statesman • Plato
... Butler, Prior of the Order of Saint John, afterwards created by Henry V., for his distinguished service, Earl of Kilmain. With McMurrogh were O'Byrne, O'Nolan, and other chiefs, besides his sons, nephews, and relatives. The numbers on each side could hardly fall short of ten thousand men, and the action may be fairly considered one of the most decisive of those times. The Duke was carried back wounded into Dublin; the slopes of Inchicore and the valley of the Liffey were strewn with the dying and the dead; ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... parts of the empire, by means of canals, it is the more surprizing what the motives could have been that, till this moment, have restrained them from facilitating an intercourse by means of good roads, in such parts of the country as have no inland navigations. In this respect they fall short of most civilized nations. Except near the capital, and in some few places where the junction of the grand canal with navigable rivers is interrupted by mountainous ground, there is scarcely a road in the whole country ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... to do is to render, by any means in his power, as true an impression of any picture which he wishes to express as possible. A photographic artist strives for the same end and in two points only does he fall short of the painter—in color and in the ability to render so accurately the relative values, although this is to a great extent compensated by the tone of the picture. How then is photography superior to ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... determining invariably the human stature, although there is a standard, as in other animals, from which deviations are not very considerable in either direction. Some varieties exceed, others fall short of, the ordinary stature in a small degree. The source of these deviations is in the breed; they are ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the Papal Aggression Bill, finding it militating against the line which he had taken as Secretary of State with regard to the Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, and particularly the Bequest Act, and considering that after Lord John's letter the Bill would fall short of the high expectations formed in the minds of the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... satisfied with, the country over, and so great is their admiration for this most beautiful of all flowers that these few blossoms encourage them to keep on, season after season, hoping for better things, and consoling themselves with the thought that, though results fall short of expectation, they are doing about as well as their neighbors in this ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... colewort." To another multitude, poverty involves loss of rank,— a letting down among strangers whose manners are ungenial, and their thoughts unfamiliar. For these there may be solace in retirement, or the evil may fall short of its threats. The reduced gentlewoman may live in patient solitude, or may grow into sympathy with her neighbours, by raising some of them up to herself, and by warming her heart at the great central fire of Humanity, which burns on under the crust of manners as rough as ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... especially of these matters that I wish to speak. What I want to talk about is the awful propriety, the terrible morality, of the ant [1]. Our most appalling ideals of conduct fall short of the ethics of the ant,—as progress is reckoned in time,—by nothing less than millions of years!... When I say "the ant," I mean the highest type of ant,—not, of course, the entire ant-family. About two thousand ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... with anxious, fervent words to be good. How ill he had succeeded as to that "goodness"! That dear tender mother had not grudged him the freedom of youth; often she had told him that she had no wish to see him a priggish, model boy, but had urged him not to lag behind the others, nor to fall short of his goal. This was chiefly because of the stingy, well-to-do relations, whose goodwill she had to secure in order that he might not have an utterly joyless youth. She had borne every burden, and was prematurely aged through ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... things of this world at their worth. Boys at college indulge in this too generous fallacy. For grown-up men there is less excuse. They ought to know that obscure uneducated women are all the more likely on that account to fall short of magnanimity, self-control, self-containing composure, than girls who have grown up with a background of bright and gracious tradition, however little their education may have done to stimulate them to make the foreground like it. To have a common past is the first secret of happy association—a ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... was founded by Pius V., in order to relieve the Holy Office of that part of its duties which relates to written and printed thought: censorship of the press would be the proper term, if censorship, even in its most rigid form, did not fall short of the attributes and functions of this odious tribunal. It is composed of cardinals and ecclesiastics, many of them distinguished by their learning, some, doubtless, by their piety,—but all leagued ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... must derive supplies from improper sources; that it gives to the wrong objects, and is usually accompanied with intemperance. Illiberality is incurable: it is confirmed by age, and is more congenial to men generally than prodigality. Some of the illiberal fall short in giving—those called stingy, close-fisted, and so on; but do not desire what belongs to other people. Others are excessive in receiving from all sources; such are they that ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... the terminals of a dynamo at full load fall short of their value on open circuit. The difference of the two values ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. I have also exhibited 'Deferentia,' 'Fides,' 'St. George,' and 'Sybil.' I have one work, 'Merlin and Vivian,' now being exhibited in Paris. In my opinion complete finish ought to be the object of all artists. A picture ought not to fall short of what has been for ages ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... cause; and I know, too, that some short time before his death he burnt a large number of his designs, sketches, and cartoons, that none might see the labours he had endured, and the trials to which he had subjected his spirit, in his resolve not to fall short of perfection. I have myself secured some drawings by his hand, which were found in Florence, and are now in my book of designs, and these, although they give evidence of his great genius, yet prove also that the hammer of Vulcan was necessary to bring Minerva from the head of Jupiter. He would ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Lecture Hall had been publicly dedicated to the service of the New Wanley Commonwealth, and only in one respect did the day's proceedings fall short of Mutimer's expectations. He had hoped to have all the Waltham family at his luncheon party, but in the event Alfred alone felt himself able to accept the invitation. Mutimer had even nourished the hope that something might happen before that day to allow of Adela's appearing not merely ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... service by foreign maids are now in demand. Many mills and factories which Negroes were prohibited from entering a few years ago are now bidding for their labor. Railroads cannot find help to keep their property in repair, contractors fall short of their plans for failure to hold mechanics drawn into the industrial boom and the United States Government has had to advertise for men to hasten the preparation ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... respect to Mr. Blodget's not advancing more than precisely 1/4 part of the outsets is what I never before understood; I am sure by his situation that he can do but a little part of the Business and therefore think he ought to excell in his proportion of Supplys rather than to fall short." ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... to do so. I am a man of nerve and iron will, and I can die like one. You have shackled me hand and foot and placed me in this death trap, but your ears shall not be greeted with any moans or cries of complaint. The vengeance you have mapped out will fall short in that." ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... second are absolutely necessary to them as men. The third and fourth are equally as necessary to them as an army. And the fifth is their just due. Now if the sum which shall be raised should fall short, either by the several acts of the states for raising it, or by the manner of collecting it, the deficiency will fall on the fifth head, the soldiers' pay, which would be defrauding them, and eternally disgracing ourselves. It would be a blot on the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... self-sufficiency or mercenary servility—that to succeed, a man should write down to the public. Quite the reverse. To succeed, a man should write up to his ideal. He should do his very best; certain that the very best will still fall short of what the public can appreciate. He will only degrade his own mind by putting forth works avowedly of inferior quality; and will find himself greatly surpassed by writers whose inferior workmanship has nevertheless the indefinable aspect of being the best they ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... was exactly such as takes place in councils, assemblages, committees; that is to say, each person spoke, not because he had any thing to say or to ask, but because each one cudgelled his brain for something that he could say, so that he might not fall short of the rest. But, among all these discussions, no one alluded to that beneficence of which I had so often spoken to them all. Mortifying as this was to me, I felt that it was indispensable that I should once more remind them of benevolence, that ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... money. If Ramses III. did not succeed in becoming one of the most powerful of the Theban Pharaohs, it was not for lack of energy or ability; the depressed condition of Egypt at the time limited the success of his endeavours and caused them to fall short of his intentions. The work accomplished by him was not on this account less glorious. At his accession Egypt was in a wretched state, invaded on the west, threatened by a flood of barbarians on the east, without an army or a fleet, and with no resources ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... performance of certain tasks. These tasks may appear to the examiner to be very easy, indeed; but we must bear in mind that they are often anything but easy for the child. Real effort and attention are necessary for his success, and occasionally even his best efforts fall short of the desired result. If the tests are to display the child's real intellectual ability it will be necessary, therefore, to avoid as nearly as possible every disturbing factor which would divide his ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... their output will reveal a lack of those qualities that make for the larger good of democratic society. Democracy must be grooved into habits of thought and action or the graduates of the schools will fall short of achieving the highest plane of living in the community. They will not be in harmony with their environment, and friction will ensue, which will reduce, in some degree, the level of democracy. Hence, the large ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... now feel it my duty to assure your lordship, that nothing could surpass the zeal, courage, and readiness, of every description of officers and men under my command; and I am sorry that my words fall short of their merit, though we could not accomplish the object we were ordered to. I have ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... in what has thus far been given a satisfactory explanation of the meaning and use of the lines of numerals and also of their relation to the day columns, but we still fall short of a complete interpretation, inasmuch as we are unable to give the series a definite location in the Maya calendar or in actual time. It is apparent, however, that the series cannot by any possible explanation be made to agree with the calendar system as usually ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... Somme, and so continue its march northward. It was more than once forced to fight on its march with the people of the towns and country through which it was passing; provisions were beginning to fall short; and Edward sent his two marshals, the Earl of Warwick and Godfrey d'Harcourt, to discover where it was practicable to cross the river, which, at this season of the year and so near its mouth, was both broad and deep. They returned without having any satisfactory ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... great men were prepared to welcome, and fine ladies to invite and bring out, the heir to the statesman's grave repute,—yet wonder and curiosity soon died away; the repute soon passed out of date, and its heir was soon forgotten. Politicians who fall short of the highest renown are like actors; no applause is so vivid while they are on the stage, no oblivion so complete when the curtain ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be painted—Gautier has painted them—but the standard for each art is set by what it can do uniquely well. If the poet works in the domain of the painter, we tend to judge him by the alien standards of another art, where he is bound to fall short; while if he works within his own province, we judge him by his own autonomous laws, under ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... am not on oath, and, should I fall short of verbal accuracy, I do not need to fear the engines of the law, what seemed ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... present moment three systems of mooring are in an experimental stage: one, known as "the single-wire system," is now practically acknowledged to fall short of perfection; the second, "the three-wire system," and the third, "mooring to a mast," both have their champions, but it is probable that the last will be the one finally chosen, and when thoroughly tried out with its imperfections eliminated will ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... her self-sacrifice. There are moments when I dare not think of it, but there are others when I rise in spirit to where she ever dwells; then I can thank God that I love the noblest lady in the world, the most gracious and beautiful, and that there was nothing in my love that made her fall short in her high duty. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... having laid in a fresh stock of beef, water, and wine, set sail from the island of Madeira, in the night of the 18th of September, and proceeded on his voyage. By the 7th of November several articles of the ship's provisions began to fall short; for which reason, the lieutenant determined to put into Rio de Janeiro. This place he preferred to any other port in Brazil or to Falkland's Islands, because he could there be better supplied with what he wanted, and had no doubt of meeting with a ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... thought—travels downwards, its influence is felt by philosopher and poet, astronomer and chemist; it has its pronounced effect on their character, morals, ideals, their sense of duty, habits of labour, intellectual vigour. If the myriad, uniform, petty ideas in the valley fall short of a certain elevation, no great idea shall spring to life on the mountain-peak. Down there the thought may have little strength, but there are countless numbers who think it; and the influence this thought acquires may be almost termed atmospheric. ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... entirely too low to protect others. As long as a tariff rate is too low to exclude every unit of the foreign product its importation is conclusive proof that for some home producers the tariff rates fall short of the "true principle" (better proof, indeed, than the most elaborate investigation by any tariff board could be). The indubitable truth is that no trade ever can take place (in a monetary regime) unless the monetary price is lower in the exporting than it is in the importing country. This ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... could find adequate terms in which to describe her marvellous charms. You must therefore picture to yourself the most perfect features, joined to a brilliant and delicate complexion, and an enchanting expression, and even then imagination will fall short of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... spirit," said I, "it certainly was not to the better sort she belonged." "Have a care," cried the marechale; "I have already formed a thousand conjectures as to what this woman has been telling." "And all your suppositions," replied I, "would fall short of the reality. Listen, my dear marechale," added I, rising, and taking her arm to proceed homewards, "I have been strictly prohibited from admitting any counsellor but the duc d'Aiguillon and the chancellor; still I can have no reserves ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... is nevertheless inconsistent with the fixedness of Egypt which Plato wishes to impress upon Hellenic institutions. He is inconsistent with himself as the truth begins to dawn upon him that 'in the execution things for the most part fall short of ...
— Laws • Plato
... beside tobacco came in the same way to the side of the lodge—sometimes a whole bear, then a wampum-robe, then a string of birds—and the Sand-Spirits altogether led an easy life; for they were not at the trouble to hunt or clothe themselves; and whenever the housekeeping began to fall short, nothing would happen but a wonderful storm of dust, all the sand-hills being straightway put in an uproar, and the contributions would at once begin to pour in at the side windows of the lodge, till all ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... to introduce useful plants. He loved music—especially Handel—and had an organ in his house. He cared nothing for poetry: 'Prose,' he said,[351] 'is when all the lines except the last go on to the margin. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it.' He was courteous and attentive to his guests, though occasionally irritable when his favourite crotchets were transgressed, or especially if his fixed hours of work ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... the support of those faithful ones which he had been wont to see in imagination with him: their conscious communion with God was the only good life, the life which he must seek to attain and from which he feared above all things to fall short; and that being so, it would have been easier, far easier, to call his new belief folly, heresy, nay, blasphemy if that were needful, and to repent of it, if he could have done so. He could not, do what he would; he saw his ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... then two bow-windows, and then two front doors again, and so on all up the street and all down the street. Life was monotonous, but on the whole respectable. Annie came of an economical family, and, previous to the wedding, she had been afraid that William Henry's ideal of economy might fall short of her own. In this she was mistaken. In fact, she was startlingly mistaken. It was some slight shock to her to be informed by William Henry that owing to slackness of work the honeymoon ought to be reduced to two days. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the strain of his conversation ran about thus: "Behold, gentlemen, I have brought before you a living Californian! Notwithstanding the shabbiness of his hat, and the strange and uncivilized aspect of his clothes, he is the richest man in that land of gold! Yes, gentlemen, his income can scarcely fall short of ten millions of rubles per annum. Make way, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne |
