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Go wrong   /goʊ rɔŋ/   Listen
Go wrong

verb
1.
Be unsuccessful.  Synonyms: fail, miscarry.  "The attempt to rescue the hostages failed miserably"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Go wrong" Quotes from Famous Books



... "she" are you alluding to?' asked Vandeloup, lazily smoothing his moustache; 'so many of them go wrong, you see, one likes to be particular. The ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... it time you gave up this shop, mother," said he to her. "You are too old now to be working so closely. I've got something saved up for a rainy day, in case any thing should go wrong with me for a time. You will give ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... theatre is like making one's toilet without a mirror. But it is still worse to take a decision without consulting a friend. For a man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters, and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he falls ill, he sends for ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer

... stirring, put it in the first time with her right hand, and always stirred the kettle the same way. If a left-handed person came near the kettle she was mightily vexed—being sure her soap would go wrong. She kept on the fire beside it a smaller kettle of clear lye, to be added at ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... except the bulletins that came from hour to hour reporting little change either for better or for worse. Rose broke the news gently to Aunt Plenty and set herself to the task of keeping up the old lady's spirits, for, being helpless, the good soul felt as if everything would go wrong without her. At dusk she fell asleep, and Rose went down to order lights and fire in the parlor, with tea ready to serve at any moment, for she felt sure some of the men would come and that a cheerful greeting and creature comforts ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... in three weeks. Their feet are always wet, and their circulation goes all wrong. It's the puttees perhaps. And if your circulation goes wrong you can't sleep when you want to, till at last you sleep when you don't want to. Or else your nerves go wrong. I've seen a man jump like a rabbit when ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... settled himself in his chair, and shook his head. "No, not raw. I might's well begin at the start. There's times when my head seems to kind of go wrong, but ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... and the earth's rotation energy. The problem therefore for us to consider is, which of these two banks the tides have drawn on to meet their constant expenditure. This is not a question that can be decided offhand; in fact, if we attempt to decide it in an offhand manner we shall certainly go wrong. It seems so very plausible to say that as the moon causes the tides, therefore the energy which these tides expend should be contributed by the moon. But this is not the case. It actually happens that though the moon does cause the tides, yet when those ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

... calling upon another and began pouring out a stream of personal woes. This had gone wrong, and this, and this other would go wrong. Everything was wrong. And her friend, who knew her quite well, had her get a pencil and paper and asked her if possibly there was one thing for which she could be thankful. Reluctantly from her lips came the mention of some particular thing for which ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... considered as every thing, while the persons who are to teach it, have been considered as secondary objects; but a system, however perfect in itself, will be productive of little good, unless it be committed to persons possessed of some degree of skill; as the best watch will go wrong, if not properly attended to. We cannot, therefore, be too circumspect in the choice of the persons to whom we commit the care and education of the rising generation. There is something so powerful in correctness of deportment, that even infants ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... has its queer people, queer talk, and queer grouping. I draw what is before me, and I can't go wrong. Now, if the sketcher introduces his own person into his foregrounds, and I guess I figure in all mine as large as life (for like a respectable man I never forget myself), he must take care he has a good likeness ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... which it would have most approved itself to Boswell's own judgment. In one point only, and that a trifling one, had Malone to exercise his judgment. But so skilful an editor was very unlikely to go wrong in those few cases in which he was called upon to insert in their proper places the additional material which the author had already published in his second edition. Malone did not, however, correct the proof-sheets. I thought it my duty, therefore, in revising my work to have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... of information regarding many diseases, and the effect of diet upon them, and emphasizes the importance of doing as much thinking for oneself as one can, instead of trusting implicitly to the medicine men, who are liable—even the best of them—to go wrong, at all events, in matters of ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... the farmer, "unless it is something very uncommon. It is better to go wrong sometimes, under a head, than to be endlessly talking and disputing how you shall go. Therefore you must do exactly what he says, even if you know a better way, and see if you do not get ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott

... single white carnation or a few violets in your buttonhole—but no other trimming. Keep the idea of perfect clothes for men in mind, get nothing that the smartest man would not wear, and you can't go wrong. Get boots like those of a man, low-heeled and with a straight line from heel to back of top. Don't have the tops wider than absolutely necessary not to bind, and don't have them curved or fancy in shape. Be sure that there is no elbow ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... When things go wrong, there is always a disposition on the part of each one concerned to shift the blame. The Austrians had complained before the action, and still more afterwards, of the failure of the fleet to aid them. Nelson thought their ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... to her guests grouped around her, but their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with Rex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anything should happen—it would kill her now—yet nothing could go wrong on the eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick would not dare go to Rex with such a story—he would write it—and all those things took time. With care and caution and constant watching she would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever until ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... any rate, nothing but what I could pay to-morrow. Yet I have had my dreary day, ay, after I had obtained what I call a station in the world. All of a sudden, about five years ago, everything seemed to go wrong with me—horses became sick or died, people who owed me money broke or ran away, my house caught fire, in fact, everything went against me; and not from any mismanagement of my own. I looked round for help, but—what do you think?—nobody would help me. Somehow or other it had got ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... the preacher said, were he to select one word as the most important in education, it should be the word, obey. My experience since has fully convinced me of the justice of the remark. Without filial obedience everything must go wrong. Is not a disobedient child guilty of a manifest breach of the Fifth Commandment? And is not a parent, who suffers this disobedience to continue, an habitual partaker in his child's offense against ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... Northern cavalry far behind. Nor was it likely that any further enemy would appear now between him and Jackson's army. Chance had certainly favored him. What a glorious goddess Chance was when she happened to be on your side! Then everything fell out as you wished it. You could not go wrong. ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Well, if you note in the springtime when the trees are beginning to grow, you know the night temperature goes down, while daytime may go up to 75, 80 in the spring. All right, you follow nature, and you'll never go wrong. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... left them even when, as often happened, they were wrestling with difficulties of their own making, or struggling in no-thoroughfares, from which they had to be retrieved like stray sheep by Englishmen without imagination enough to go wrong." ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... other quarries are in the valleys of the Colonnata and of its affluent the Fantiscritti. In the Fantiscritti mines Roman relics have been found. Any boy will do to show the way to the rivers Carrione and Torano, and when there it is impossible to go wrong; but to visit any particular mines a guide is necessary. Fee 4fr. Besides the common road there is a railway for the conveyance of marble blocks from the valley of the Torano to the Marina or Port of Carrara. Many antique Roman statues ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... of children, much advantage could be gained by a careful study of what has been accomplished in such States as Illinois and Colorado by the juvenile courts. The work of the juvenile court is really a work of character building. It is now generally recognized that young boys and young girls who go wrong should not be treated as criminals, not even necessarily as needing reformation, but rather as needing to have their characters formed, and for this end to have them tested and developed by a system of probation. Much admirable work has been done in many of our Commonwealths ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... toward the expense," he said. "If things go wrong, you'll lose heavily. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It doesn't seem the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... on to sofa) I know you do—and see what luck you've brought me. (pointing to letter which she is reading) I told you we shouldn't go wrong if we followed Quayle's advice. Auntie's coming to-morrow, and she's going to do ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient

... the truth to Auntie," Susan said, soberly. "Write her from Honolulu, probably. And wild horses wouldn't get it out of HER. But if the slightest thing should go wrong—-" ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... his lamp and tinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running down the face of the rock. 'What a stupid I am!' he said to himself. 'I am actually at the end ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... be too careful. When you are on a mission of this kind, a mighty safe rule to follow is never to trust a person until he has unmistakably proven himself to be absolutely trustworthy. If you follow that rule, you'll never go wrong. Once in a while, of course, you'll find yourself in a position where you must use your own judgment. In that case, make sure you are dealing with a good patriotic American citizen, and you'll hit the key pretty nearly every time. Guess that little lecture will conclude our conversation ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... someting go wrong mit mine head Since de day ven I make de beeg fight, Und mine heart gets so heafy like lead Ven I dries some more bieces to write. Dot is vy I so seldom don't wrote 'Bout some tings dat vill happen to ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... of his, which divines what she has not spoken, that we must seek for the disturbing element. The mental environment of the child is created by the mother or the nurse. That is her responsibility and her opportunity. The conduct of the child must be the criterion of her success. If things go wrong, if there is constant crying or ungovernable temper, if sleep and food are persistently refused, or if there is undue timidity and tearfulness, there is danger that seeds may be sown from which nervous disorders will spring in ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... God. He is perfectly good, pure and holy (Psalm 25:8; Nahum 1:7; Romans 2:4). Man may have perfect confidence, however matters may seem to him to go wrong with his imperfect vision of the world and the happenings in it, that there is a good God who governs all in the interest of ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... until it has made itself useful to you as those two vital qualities of literature, light and heat. Now if I am to be no mere copper wire amateur but a luminous author, I must also be a most intensely refractory person, liable to go out and to go wrong at inconvenient moments, and with incendiary possibilities. These are the faults of my qualities; and I assure you that I sometimes dislike myself so much that when some irritable reviewer chances at that moment to pitch into ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... deeds, sweet charity, faithfulness, pride, and, chief over all, the impetuous will, lending might and power to feeling:- these are the rib of the man, and from these, deep veiled in the mystery of her very loveliness, his true companion sprang. A being thus ardent will often go wrong in her strenuous course; will often alarm, sometimes provoke; will now and then work mischief and even perhaps grievous harm; but she will be our own Eve after all; the sweet-speaking tempter whom heaven created to be the joy and the trouble ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... bound to do. Marx tried that, and after a good guess about the trusts, went wholly wrong. The first socialist experiment came, not as he predicted, out of the culmination of capitalist development in the West, but out of the collapse of a pre-capitalist system in the East. Why did he go wrong? Why did his greatest disciple, Lenin, go wrong? Because the Marxians thought that men's economic position would irresistibly produce a clear conception of their economic interests. They thought they themselves possessed that clear conception, and that what they knew the rest of ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... hope that he will take the big end of things. There is war between them until the student capitulates, after which the instructor tells him to go as he pleases knowing with this lesson learned he will not go wrong. ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... Oxford is not all beauty and pleasure. Things go wrong somehow. Life drops her happy mask. But this has ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... can be verified it is found to hold good. It is much more probable that he would overlook real analogies than be led astray by merely imaginary ones—which is rather a modern form of error. In textual matters the ancients were not apt to go wrong through over-subtlety, and Eusebius himself does not, I believe, deserve the charge of 'inaccuracy and haste' that is ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... Rogers, sir," said the man. "Everybody knows Old Rogers. But if your reverence minds what my wife says, you won't go wrong. When you find the river, it takes you to the mill; and when you find the mill, you find the wheel; and when you find the wheel, you haven't far to look for the cottage, sir. It's a poor place, but you'll be ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... safer guide than either right or duty. For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty are often still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, will lead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerning pleasure. When men burn their fingers through following after pleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they have gone wrong more easily than when ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... laughed, as she said, "So, then, as soon as the things begin to go wrong, you take the liberty to go wrong too. Every thing works well inside, until it is ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... Duval affair, and I was preparing for such a state of things in case it did come. As I have told you before, I know where there is a magnificent cave for our purpose in the mountains of Virginia, to which it has been my determination to retreat, should anything go wrong here. Well, I intend to take this young lady along with us to ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... you don't. Keep your mind on it as a business proposition and you won't go wrong. Remember, it's the advertiser that pays. Think of that when you write an editorial. Frame it and hang it where every sub-editor and reporter can't help but see it. Ask of every bit of news, 'Is this going to get me an advertiser? Is that going to lose me an advertiser?' ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... practises. And if it were true, as some people superficially say is the case, that evil-doing is the result of ignorance, there would be far less evil-doing in the world than, alas! there is. It is not for the want of knowing, that we go wrong, as our consciences tell us; but it is for want of something that can conquer the evil tendencies within, and lift off the burden of a sinful past which weighs on us. As in the carboniferous strata what was pliant vegetation has become heavy mineral, our evil deeds ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... I want to know why fairies should always be teaching us to do our duty, and lecturing us when we go wrong, and we should never teach them anything? You can't mean to say that fairies are never greedy, or selfish, or cross, or deceitful, because that would be nonsense, you know. Well, then, don't you agree with me that they might be all the better for a little scolding ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... the praise of negative diplomacy. He was keeping his manner right, as she had related to Mrs. Assingham; the case would have been beyond calculation, truly, if, on top of everything, he had allowed it to go wrong. She had hours of exaltation indeed when the meaning of all this pressed in upon her as a tacit vow from him to abide without question by whatever she should be able to achieve or think fit to prescribe. Then it was that, even while holding her breath for ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... accord to me a little confidence; and since she finds in me some facility in the Spanish tongue, of which she wishes to remain the idolater all her life, she loves to speak that tongue with me, catching me up when I go wrong either in the pronunciation or the grammar, as she desires to be corrected herself when she commits ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... her some attention. Common politeness absolutely required it; the attention became a matter of course, and was habitually expected. Still he had not the slightest design of going beyond the line of modern politeness; but, in certain circumstances, people go wrong a great way before they are aware that they have gone a single step. It was presently repeated to Mr. Vivian, by some of Mrs. Wharton's confidantes, in whispers, and under the solemn promise of secrecy, that he certainly was a prodigious favourite of hers. He laughed, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernyshev about the present war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong, and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts of hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples expressed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... at just the wrong place, can devastate any enterprise. One tiny transistor can go wrong ... and ruin a multi-million dollar missile. Which would be one way ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... world made you go wrong, I wonder?" he said. "No one ever goes that side, not even the natives. They say it's haunted. We all landed near the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... is it that giveth not rise to ailments?' (A.) 'That which is not eaten but after hunger, and when it is eaten, the ribs are not filled with it, even as saith Galen the physician, "Whoso will take in food, let him go slowly and he shall not go wrong." To end with the saying of the Prophet, (whom God bless and preserve,) "The stomach is the home of disease, and abstinence is the beginning[FN310] of cure, [FN311] for the origin of every disease is indigestion, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... very well," replied the pacha; "but if I am always to direct him, I might as well be vizier myself; besides, I shall have no one to blame, if affairs go wrong with the Sultan. Inshallah! please the Lord, the vizier's head may sometimes save ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... streets who did not listen and did not care; of the little life that now is so full of pain and hardship and disappointment, of good intentions frustrated, of hopes that deceive, and of fair prospects that turn to ashes, of good lives that go wrong, of sweet natures turned to bitterness in the unaided struggle. His voice grew stronger and clearer, as his body responded to the kindling theme in his soul. He stepped away from the desk nearer the rail, the bowed head was raised. "What ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... think that Isabelle played the part almost as well as Jacqueline? Up to the last moment I was afraid that something would go wrong. When one gets into a streak of ill-luck—but all went off to perfection, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... what he wished. And if he cut his finger, let it go. I offered him peroxide once, he laughed. And when I asked him if his soul was saved He only said: "I see things. I lie back And take it easy. Nothing can go wrong ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... (410/1. "Hereditary Genius: an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences," by Francis Galton, London, 1869. "The Judges of England between 1660 and 1865" is the heading of a section of this work (page 55). See "Descent of Man" (1901), page 41.), but I must exhale myself, else something will go wrong in my inside. I do not think I ever in all my life read anything more interesting and original. And how well and clearly you put every point! George, who has finished the book, and who expressed himself just in the same terms, tells me the earlier ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... said a word about it and did not even allude to it indirectly. It implies a view of the nature and dealings of God with men which is unethical and untrue. Surely, if God knew beforehand that the world would go wrong, the blame for catastrophe was not all man's. If He were so baffled and horror-stricken by the results as the dogmatic theologian makes out, He ought to have been more careful about the way He did His work at the beginning; a world which went wrong so early and so easily was anything but ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... and hedges, but not a soul could he bring in, although Mr. Miller seems to have been so desperately beset that he would have jumped at the blind, the maimed, the halt, and the lame. The good Father was beaten, but then he had a reason—an excellent reason. When things go wrong in Ireland, it is always some other fellow's fault, just as when the French are beaten in battle they always scream Nous sommes trahis! Bad characters had been admitted to the looms. Manager was surprised. Let Father Peter point them out, and away ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... sin, of mischief and misery, who, though the daughter of Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter himself, and thenceforth, cast down from heaven to earth, walks with light feet over the heads of men, and makes all things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their senses, and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast the blame on Ate, and so, ultimately, on Jupiter ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... paused, naturally expecting (as did Fred), that he would hear more of the bell; but it is not necessary to say that, like his companion, he was disappointed. He had fixed the point whence came the noise so firmly in his mind, that he could not go wrong, though a boy of less experience in the woods would have ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... again to look upon it all as nonsense, due to over-excited nerves, and, above all, as EXAGGERATED. I was always conscious of that weak point of mine, and sometimes very much afraid of it. "I exaggerate everything, that is where I go wrong," I repeated to myself every hour. But, however, "Liza will very likely come all the same," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. I was so uneasy that I sometimes flew into a fury: "She'll come, she ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... thing to do," said Roldan, putting his hand funnel-wise to Adan's ear. "We must keep due south until we come to the river. Then, at least, we cannot go wrong." ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... you, Arthur," he said, "but I like you, and don't want to see you go wrong, and be a tool in bad boys' hands. I hope you ask God to help ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... "I don't know as I ever felt it so much before. I hope it don't mean that we're going to have trouble. Sometimes I think I must be psychic—I seem to sense things so. Wish that girl had stayed at home, but, Lord, I'd of done the same thing at her age. That's a youngster's first idea when things go wrong—to run away. As though you could ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... squire; and that's where you Britishers go wrong. But look here: do I speak plain? I'll pay a fair half of all it ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... cats is. You has a cross-eyed cat, and not'in' don't never go wrong. But, say, was dere ever a cat wit' one blue and one yaller one in your bunch? Gee! it's fierce when it's like dat. It's a skidoo, is a cat wit' one blue eye and one yaller one. Puts you in bad, surest t'ing ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... ahead. And I'm after it if I never make the fort again, and the folks we've left behind. Come on. We'll get right back to camp. I need to fix things for the big chance I'm going to take, and you boys'll wait around till I get back. If things go wrong, and this thing beats me, why, just hang on till you figger the food trucks liable to leave you short, then hit a trail over the southern hills and work around back to the fort with word to Marcel and An-ina. Guess there ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... in high circles, gentle in her own, She was the mild reprover of the young, Whenever—which means every day—they'd shown An awkward inclination to go wrong. The quantity of good she did 's unknown, Or at the least would lengthen out my song: In brief, the little orphan of the East Had raised an interest in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... go wrong, don't they?" her husband groaned. "This morning's paper prints a sermon about the tango. Reverend Doctor What's-his-name, the famous New York newspaper preacher, tears the whole tango crowd to pieces. He points out ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a point ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... as with grown people; their trials, which are small to grown-up people, are great to them, and they don't come by chance. And, when we are able to feel this way, young gentlemen, it's easier to bear up when the wind seems dead against you, and to say, when things go wrong, and there's a deal of beating about, and a shipping of heavy seas, as you're taught to say in the Lord's prayer, 'Thy ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... indication of each. In a sense, this first trip of a ship out to the Platform had some of the aspects of defusing a bomb. Calculations were useful, but observations were necessary. He had to report every detail of the condition of his ship and every instrument-reading because anything might go wrong, and at any instant. Anything that went wrong could be fatal. So every bit of data and every intended action needed to be on record. Then, if something happened, the next ship to attempt this journey might avoid the ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... journeyed with her grandmother in high June to Lady Killiow's rose-show, and she remembered being allowed to kneel on the cushions of the 'car' and wonder at the miniature bridges and cascades. By keeping close beside the water she could not go wrong. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... you leave it to me," Rathburn came back. "I have reasons for everything I'm doing. An' don't forget that I'd rather be grabbed for this simple trick of yours in Dry Lake than for one or two jobs over in Arizona. If things go wrong keep your mouth shut—don't talk! If you start talking any time I'll ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... the instant! I repented before night came. In the twilight I got upon my knees and prayed that all my plan might go wrong—if I could call it plan. 'Now,' I said, as the hour approached, 'they are before the priest; they stand there—she in white, perhaps; he tall and grave. Their hands are clasped each in that of the other. They are saying those tremendous words which may perhaps mean so much.' Thus I ran on to ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... unfortunate as Morus? Everything everywhere seems to go wrong with him. Here, at the Hague, having absented himself from Amsterdam for the purpose, he has been writing his Defence of Himself against Milton, doing it cleverly and in a way likely to make some impression, when, suddenly, for some reason unknown even to his printer, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... lot of them," he continued, "and giving them the tongue-lashing of their lives. But much good it would have done, and I managed to hold myself back! I couldn't help telling them that they should have sent for me three days ago, when things began to go wrong. They know well enough how to weep over their misery, but no one can make them use their silly heads. They keep on coming with infected gurry sores as if arms could be saved after they've nearly rotted away, and send for me to see the dying, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... Lennop, "I'm somehow glad you are. But what has happened? Who has hurt you? Did something go wrong at this wonderful dinner of which you told me? Were you not after all quite the prettiest ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... acceptation of the word. That is the noblest title you can boast, higher far than that of earl or duke, emperor or king. In the same way womanhood is the grandest crown the feminine head can wear. When the world frowns on you and everything seems to go wrong, possess your soul in patience and hope for the dawn of a brighter day. It will come. The sun is always shining behind the darkest clouds. When you get your manuscripts back again and again, don't ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... "Why don't 'ee taake an' vollow thik ther gen'leman, zur?" the landlady said, pointing one large red hand after him. "Ur do go down to Urd Gap to zwim every marnin'. Mr. Jan Smith, o' Oxford, they do call un. 'Ee can't go wrong if 'ee do vollow un to the Gap. Ur's lodgin' up to wold Varmer Moore's, an' ur's that vond o' the zay, the vishermen do tell me, as wasn't never any ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... well, Raymond. It's a great responsibility. Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... "We can't go wrong to-day," said Faith, with whom the spirit of enjoyment was well at play. "When mother feels in the mood of it we'll come. We can find you—we know where to look. Weren't you obliged to us for doing the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... worse. My wife never resisted me when I was in these moods and the absence of opposition provoked me all the more. Had she stood up against me and told me I ought to be ashamed of myself it would have been better for me. One afternoon everything seemed to go wrong. A score of petty vexations, not one of which was of any moment, worked me up to desperation. I threw my book across the room, to the astonishment of my children, and determined to go out, although it was raining hard. My dog, a brown retriever, was lying on the ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... that it is worse for a man to go wrong who has had all the benefits of a liberal education, than it is for one who has not had glimpses of higher things, who has not had similar advantages, because where much is given, much is expected. The world has a right to expect ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of action. He reminded him that he had put his time to but little use up to the present, and that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to supply the money for their maintenance. Wolfgang must give him longer notice of their change of plans, as 'otherwise all will go wrong'; and he warns his son to be careful lest he be stranded without money—and 'no money meant ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... hadn't a notion how it was made; he wouldn't tell me till I planked down money to start with; and not a drop of it could be found anywhere. And to think that he had absolutely struck oil, as they say; had nothing to do but sit down and count the money as it came in! That's the third man I've known go wrong in less than a year. Betting and embezzlement; betting and burglary; betting and forgery. I'll tell you some time about the chap who went in for burglary. One of the best fellows I ever knew; when he comes out, I must give him a hand. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... Don Ippolito, "there is something on your mind that you will not speak. I beseech you not to let me go wrong. I love her so well that I would rather die than let my love offend her. I am a man with the passions and hopes of a man, but without a man's experience, or a man's knowledge of what is just and right in these relations. If you can be my friend ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... heard whispering of public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong—too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil: the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil—I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... small canals at any season. There's only one thing which may bother us in the Frisian Meers, where we can't shove with a quant pole, or if we venture out to sea: we have no means of propulsion except the motor, and as we carry no mast, we cannot set so much as a yard of canvas. If anything should go wrong with the motor, brilliant "Lorelei" will instantly become a mere hulk at the mercy of wind and wave. However, as Starr remarked sagely, we can stop in port for wind and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... only object was to overcome and break down his wife, and who stole his child away to let it languish and die. There are some circumstances in which people forget all the shades of character, and take it for granted that a man who can go wrong in one matter will act like a very demon in all. This was doubly strong in Mrs. Dennistoun, a woman full of toleration and experience; but the issues were so momentous to her, and the possible results so terrible, that she lost her accustomed good sense. It ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... for I can scarcely see my horse's head; and as there are several tracks crossing this, we are likely enough to go wrong." ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... wheat—are converted, by some process of labor, into things that feed, clothe and house people. There are four stages in this process—raw materials; manufacturing; transportation; marketing. If there is a failure in one of the four, all of the rest go wrong, as is very clearly illustrated whenever there is a great miners' or railroad workers' strike, or when there is a failure of a particular crop. During the war, all four of these ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... fine thing; take my word for it. It keeps the men from grumbling when nothing else will; except, of course, the grace of God," added Mrs. Bateson piously, "though even that don't always seem to have much effect, when things go wrong ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... little blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go wrong. I was so young, I didn't know how to manage. I shall never be that kind of young again. I grew ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... Everything seemed to go wrong with them. Their passes were blocked; their tries for goal failed; the Palatines would not even help them out with a foul. In their general disorder of plan, they could do nothing to prevent the Palatines from making goal after goal till, when the referee's whistle announced that the first ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... absence of any definite spite, she thought she could not go wrong in thwarting whatever Lucy wished, and her wish had been that David should go. Besides, if she kept him in the house, who knows, she might pique him with Lucy, and even yet turn him her way; so she ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... right," half whimpered the man, "for we're getting tidy nigh now, and I don't want anything to go wrong through my chaps making a mistake. I'll chance it, so you'd best get aboard your vessel. Tell the skipper I shall do it just at daylight. Less than half-an-hour now. Then'll ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... believe it at all," cried young Haight, impatiently. "I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make an effort herself to overcome ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... mother died," this page began. "I had a little ranch in the Pecos valley near Twin Pine crossing, and I had just begun to taste prosperity. After your mother died things began to go wrong. It didn't take me long to conclude that she had been responsible for what success I had had, and that without her I couldn't hope to keep things together. I didn't try very hard; I'll admit that. I just gradually let go all holds and began ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... age, do you suppose, could put in a season with a circus and have all the facilities I have had to go wrong, and come out as well as I have? The way the freaks just doted on me would have turned the heads of most boys, but when I found out that all of them, from the fat woman and the bearded woman, to the trapeze performers, ate onions three times a ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck

... good resolution! But remember, there is a model which must be taken even before that of your father. I mean the pure, sinless example of our Lord; follow this, and adhere to the plain directions of God's word, and you cannot go wrong. And now, good night; God ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... matter. The point is that there are ships where things DO go wrong; but whatever the ship—good or bad, lucky or unlucky—it is in the forepart of her that her chief mate feels most at home. It is emphatically HIS end of the ship, though, of course, he is the executive supervisor of the whole. There are HIS anchors, HIS headgear, his foremast, his ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... child, or the wife of your bosom, is alive still—where you know not, but you feel they are alive; that they are very near you;—that they are thinking of you, watching you, caring for you,—perhaps grieving over you when you go wrong—perhaps rejoicing over you when you go right,—perhaps helping you, though you cannot see them, in some wonderful way. You know that only their mortal flesh is dead. That their mortal flesh was all ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... painted on trees and stone, pointing, thick, black and steady, till it seemed that the ghost of the German endeavour still flung itself along the road. "Nach Verdun! Nach Verdun!" without a pause, with head down. "Nach Verdun," so that no one might go wrong, go aside, go astray, turn back against the order of the arrow. Not an arrow anywhere answered ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... who invariably knows everything about anything, only if you act on his information and go wrong, he generally denies warmly afterwards that "he ever said such a thing." "Simply enough," he continues. "You go to the Society, you give 'em some security,—any security will do, and you could get that easily enough." I nod cheerfully, more to encourage ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand

... possession of his own, to apply the law without respect of persons. For these purposes a high sense of duty was the main requisite. The wisest heads of the community would be at the king's service for the asking; he could hardly go wrong if he heard attentively and weighed impartially the counsel which they had to offer. Admitting that he would be all the more efficient for possessing some practical capacity, some experience of great affairs, was it not probable that a man of average intelligence, who had been trained ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... an eventful voyage. Anchor was weighed in the evening, and very soon, at a great height, all eyes were turned to watch the beautiful sunset. As the shadows of night gathered round them, however, more than one traveller looked anxiously at the gigantic ball above. Supposing anything should go wrong with it! It looked such a tremendous distance down to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... know that Browning had said that—she didn't care who had said it, but it comforted her. If everything had seemed to go wrong in her own little world, it was because she had made it wrong. Here under the wonderful sky was peace, and if she was afraid and out of harmony it was her ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... very well prepared, by a man well accustomed to emergencies, and it was not easy to see how anything could go wrong. Even allowing more time than was necessary, Sabina's visit to the vaults could not possibly occupy ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... experienced cavaliers) had done him an honour that she could no more imagine his resigning than an adventurer a throne to which he is unexpectedly raised. She was a finished example of the pretty woman who views the universe as planned for her convenience. What could go wrong in a world where noble ladies lived in palaces hung with tapestry and damask, with powdered lacqueys to wait on them, a turbaned blackamoor to tend their parrots and monkeys, a coronet-coach at the door to carry them to mass or the ridotto, and a handsome cicisbeo to display ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... believe," he said to her with great solemnity, "that things can really go wrong. I know too much. It isn't men like me who go ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love, and had destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment; when right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my errors, which will never be intentional; and your support against the errors of others, who may contemn ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... them about the same. You follow the method just the same as nature. If you follow nature, you will never go wrong. But you have to watch out for fungus in the case, because if you have excessive temperature, the fungus disease will get in your case and ruin the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various



Words linked to "Go wrong" :   foul up, fall through, bumble, fall flat, succeed, founder, botch up, fail, bollocks up, overreach, fall, louse up, muck up, bodge, mishandle, botch, strike out, bollix up, flub, ball up, fuck up, fumble, bollocks, flop, miss, bobble, muff, screw up, spoil, miscarry, bungle, blow, bollix, fluff, take it on the chin, mess up, shipwreck



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