"Fall short" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finished human work can show; the crumbling traces of the half-obliterated design producing somewhat of the effect of the first idea of any thing admirable, when it dawns upon the mind of an artist or a poet,—an idea which, do what he may, he is sure to fall short of in his attempt ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... man must be just and true because he is a man! Surely a man may keep clear of the thing he loathes! For my own honor," he added, with a curl of his lip, "I shall at least do nothing disgraceful, however I may fall short of the angelic." ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... be so ungrateful as to forget to offer Mademoiselle de Gramont the only return in our power, however far it may fall short of what she merits," said he; "the 'Don' here, does not sing; he is not a poet even, except in soul, and all his inspirations flow through his brush; but he interprets poets with an art which I think is hardly less valuable than ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... reading it a second time. I own that I am disappointed in Camoens; but I have so often found my first impressions wrong on such subjects that I still hope to be able to join my voice to that of the great body of critics. I never read any famous foreign book, which did not, in the first perusal, fall short of my expectations; except Dante's poem, and Don Quixote, which were prodigiously superior to what I had imagined. Yet in these cases I had not ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... been seen in the likeness of a cat seated on the cloth of state by the side of the Lord High Commissioner. The man, however, over whose roof so many curses appeared to hang did not, as far as we can now judge, fall short of that very low standard of morality which was generally attained by politicians of his age and nation. In force of mind and extent of knowledge he was superior to them all. In his youth he had borne arms: he had then been a professor of philosophy: ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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