"Inaccuracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bellows? Mathematical exactness is not requisite for our purpose, and though we could not pretend to the precision of our best globes, yet a balloon of this sort would compensate by its size and convenience for its inaccuracy. It might be hung by a line from its north pole, to a hook screwed into the horizontal architrave of a door or window; and another string from its south pole might be fastened at a proper angle to the floor, to give the ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... cannot be concentrated; it cannot last long. The very strain and effort involved makes it extremely fatiguing. The results of work done under such conditions must be poor. There can be but little thoroughness, for the worker will do just as much as he must to pass muster, and no more. Inaccuracy and superficiality will characterize such work. Just as training in giving concentrated attention results in power along that line, so frequent necessity for forced attention develops habits of divided attention which in time will hinder the ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... and provokingly debonaire. There was comment upon everything under the sun; assaults upon all the idols of antiquity, of mediaevalism, of neo-boobism. There were raw chunks of philosophy, delivered with gusto and sometimes with inaccuracy. There were subtle jabs at well-established Babbitry. And besides, of the thousand and one Hechts visible in the sketches, there were several that appear rarely, if at all, in his novels: The whimsical Hecht, sailing jocosely on the surface of life; the witty Hecht, flinging ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... conditionally) and the point relative to tracing the boundary along the forty-fifth degree of latitude. This point, he observed, Mr. McLane wished to dispose of by adopting the old line of Collins and Valentine, which was suspected of great inaccuracy by both parties, and the only motive for retaining which was because some American citizens have made settlements upon territory that a new survey might throw into the possession of Great Britain. Sir ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... will no doubt give rise to inaccuracy,—chiefly because the ear, quick and true as may be its operation, will occasionally break down under pressure, and, before a sentence be closed, will forget the nature of the composition with which it was commenced. A singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... struggling around the sweet lips of that dear girl, after I had thus delivered myself, as I fancied, with a most accurate inaccuracy; but she succeeded in repressing it, though those provoking eyes of hers continued to laugh, much of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... another inaccuracy to nail to the counter of Dame False Rumour's shop. That I stopped Lika Joko because ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Unfortunately, we cannot in this case prove or disprove the point by internal evidence. There is, however, one factor we must be especially careful not to forget in our calculations—namely, George Sand's habitual unconscientious inaccuracy; but the nature of her narrative will indeed be a sufficient warning to the reader, for nobody can read it without at once perceiving that it is not a plain, unvarnished recital ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... she has seen in the interval too great a variety of places, to retain an exact recollection of every spot in this delightful dale; but its general features remain strongly fixed in her memory; and she hopes that her young readers will not find her tale less interesting from any slight inaccuracy which they may discover in ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... believe we have a more trustworthy historian than Dr. Hale, so far as giving us the motive and pith and essence of great transactions. He is sometimes criticised for inaccuracy in dates or matters that are trifling or incidental. I suppose that comes from the fact that while he stores away in his mind everything that is essential, and trusts to his memory for that, he has not the time, which less busy men have, to verify every unsubstantial detail before ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... increasing with the number of the wheels used. It is stated that with three wheels practically useful results can be obtained, although in this case the error, if the instrument is consistently handled so as always to produce the greatest inaccuracy, may ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... "Choiseul, how can one distinguish the true Bible of Sixtus V.?" "Sire, (replied the unsuspecting minister) I never was acquainted with that book." Then, addressing himself to Mercier, the king repeated to him—without the least hesitation or inaccuracy—the lesson which he had learnt in the library of Ste. Genevieve. There are few stories, I apprehend, which redound so much ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the inaccuracy of the American press. Editors do not distinguish between half notes and full shouts, but no one need take this seriously as crime and headlines will soon make their readers forget either what Lord Lee has ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance. Many of those who have made it their vocation to denounce the great industrial combinations which are popularly, although with technical inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especially to hatred and fear. These are precisely the two emotions, particularly when combined with ignorance, which unfit men for the exercise of cool and steady judgment. In facing new industrial conditions, the whole history of the world shows that legislation ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... which generally happens in July and August. 3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three days, the autumn was far advanced. 'Autumno praecipiti haedorumque improbo sidere exorto.' To reconcile these apparent contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king, some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the seasons."—Gibbon, cap. xix.; ed. Bohn, vol. ii. 320. "Clinton, F.R., i. 442, sees no such difficulty as Gibbon has here supposed; he makes Sapor to have passed the Tigris in May, reached the Euphrates July 8th, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... VIII., there is some inaccuracy in regard to the number of killed in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry. According to the official report of Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S.A., who commanded the military force that relieved Harper's Ferry, the insurgents numbered in all nineteen men,—fourteen ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... with the author, may give no unfair notion of the character of his mind. In the progress of his work he follows down the line of Inca princes, whose exploits, and names even, by no means coincide with Garcilasso's catalogue; a circumstance, however, far from establishing their inaccuracy. But one will have little doubt of the writer's title to this reproach, that reads the absurd legends told in the grave tone of reliance by Montesinos, who shared largely in the credulity and the love of the marvellous which ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the detail parts still continued to be executed by hand labour, in which the chisel and the file were the chief instruments employed. The results were consequently very unsatisfactory, both as regards inaccuracy ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... vexed questions of the Waterloo Campaign in an Essay, "The Prussian Co-operation at Waterloo," in my volume entitled "Napoleonic Studies" (George Bell and Sons, 1904). In that Essay I have pointed out the inaccuracy or exaggeration of the claims put forward by some German writers to the effect that (1) Wellington played Bluecher false at Ligny, (2) that he did not expect Prussian help until late in the day at Waterloo, (3) that the share of credit for the victory rested in overwhelming ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... before us!" the fact is merely that our special attention has been drawn to some tiny manifestation of life upon the boundless surface of matter that we deem inactive, and choose to describe, with evident inaccuracy, as nothingness and death. A purely fortuitous chain of events has allowed this special manifestation to attract our attention; but a thousand others, no less interesting, perhaps, and informed with no ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... ordinarily liable to be affected by prejudice, and by the limitations of each witness's powers of observation and opportunities of ascertaining the truth. But after all deductions for prejudice, mistake, inaccuracy and every other shortcoming, there is left a strong, an invincible consensus of testimony, honest, independent and full of undesigned corroborations, to the development of the mind of all races in the lower culture along the lines here indicated. Nay, more; ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... "howlers." Lecky exposed, with calm ruthlessness, some of Froude's exaggerations—to call them by no worse name—in his Story of the English in Ireland. When his Erasmus was translated into Dutch, the countrymen of Erasmus accused him of constant, if not deliberate, inaccuracy. Lord Carnarvon once sent Froude to South Africa as an informal special commissioner. When he returned to this country he wrote an article on the South African problem in the Quarterly Review. Sir Bartle Frere, who knew South ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... and youth under the protection and the roof of Madame de Balzac, it was quite natural that every time I saw another inaccuracy or falsehood concerning her or her great husband find its way into the press, I should be deeply affected. At last I began to look with suspicion at all the books dealing with Balzac or with his works, and when Miss Floyd asked me to look over her manuscript, it was with a certain ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... it shows that the writer has disciplined himself to accuracy of statement. Many a falsehood is not an intentional lie, but an undesigned inaccuracy. Three of our human faculties powerfully affect our veracity: one is memory, another is imagination, and another is conscience. Memory takes note of facts, imagination colours facts with fancies, and conscience brings the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... discrimination of characters; and that what any one says might, with equal propriety, have been said by another. The general design is, perhaps, open to criticism; but the composition can seldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in self-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarcely a line is left unfinished; nor is it easy to find an expression used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expressed. ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... received by the Church, from which fragments have been lost; while others consider it a mere fragment itself. It is written in Latin, which by some is represented as most corrupt, whilst others uphold it as most correct. The text is further rendered almost unintelligible by every possible inaccuracy of orthography and grammar, which is ascribed diversely to the transcriber, to the translator, and to both. Indeed, such is the elastic condition of the text, resulting from errors and obscurity ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... note half an hour ago," said Mrs. Liddell, with pardonable inaccuracy, feeling her spirits rise in the delightful atmosphere, flower-scented, and stirred by the laughter and joyous ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... her belief she had acquired it; Greek and Latin were beyond her scope, but from modern essayists who wrote in the flamboyant style she had gathered enough knowledge of these literatures to be able to discourse of them with a very fluent inaccuracy. With all schools of painting she was, of course, quite familiar; the great masters—vulgarly so known—interested her but moderately, and to praise them was, in her eyes, to incur a suspicion of philistinism. From her preceptors in this sphere, she had learnt certain names, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... make its way to the sources of the Red River, the other, under Captain Bell, to go down the Arkansas as far as Port Smith. The two detachments separated on the 24th July. The former, misled by the statements of the Kaskaia Indians and the inaccuracy of the maps, took the Canadian for the Red River, and did not discover their mistake until they reached its junction with the Arkansas. The Kaskaias were the most miserable of savages, but intrepid horsemen, excelling in lassoing the wild mustangs ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... point and put in such graceful language that whilst it challenges you, it commands your respect by its very gracefulness. But it is just this attitude based upon insufficient or false information which has ruined many a cause in the British Isles. The superficiality, the one-sidedness the inaccuracy and often even dishonesty that have crept into modern journalism, continuously mislead honest men who want to see nothing but justice done. Then there are always interested groups whose business it is to ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... assembled on such occasions, constituted ecclesiastical judicatories. A modern writer, of high standing in connexion with the University of Oxford, has affirmed that "bishops alone had a definitive voice in synods," [619:2] but the testimonies which he has himself adduced attest the inaccuracy of the assertion. The presbyter Origen, at an Arabian synod held about A.D. 229, sat with the bishops, and was, in fact, the most important and influential member of the convention. About A.D. 230, Demetrius of Alexandria "gathered a council of bishops and of certain presbyters, which ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the little body from standing erect, because at first the characteristic of the infant is that it does not rise to its feet? Indeed, we do something of the same sort when we deliberately prolong the poverty and inaccuracy of childish speech; instead of helping the child by making him listen intently to the distinct enunciation of speech sounds, and watch the movements of the mouth, we adopt his rudimentary language, and repeat ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... felt as if tripping over her own inaccuracy of recollection of him. "I never saw such a change in any one, my dear," she told Lucina the next day. "I could scarcely believe he was the little boy who used to weed my garden, and with so few advantages as he has had it ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of its trend, disregarding details, was a masterly tracing of current evils to their remote causes. He may have erred in some of his minor statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much, but attempts to discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself to ridicule were he to complain of some famous historical painting that it had not been drawn to exact scale. Rizal's writings were intended to bring out in relief ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... Savoy in March 1905, concerning Madame du Barri, called forth the usual complaints about inaccuracy in detail and undesirability of subject. The latter point is not our theme, and may be dismissed with the remark that there was nothing in the life of the creature as presented upon the stage to serve ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Commission. In a despatch dated July 26th—the day after the Settlement debate in the House of Commons—Mr. Chamberlain replied at length to the arguments put forward by the Schreiner Ministry in favour of a general amnesty, and exposed in particular the historical inaccuracy of the appeal to the "Canadian precedent." At the same time he stated that Her Majesty's Government, while they could not be a consenting party to a policy condoning adhesion to the enemy in the field, had no doubt that "such a measure of ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... to obtrude his penitence or to be much more subdued in manner than usual. Mr. Audley made him bring his books to the dining-room after breakfast, and the examination quite exonerated the authorities at Oxford from any prejudice except against inaccuracy, and showed that a thorough course of study was needful before he could even matriculate; and Clement in his present lowliness was not incredulous of any deficiency at St. Matthew's, but was ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... subsequent sneezing and running at the nose, followed by tetanic symptoms and two days' suffering, nor did the effects disappear for nine days. It is a remarkable fact that the plant stings violently only at this season. I frequently gathered it with impunity on subsequent occasions, and suspected some inaccuracy in my observations; but in Silhet both Dr. Thomson and I experienced the same effects in autumn. Endlicher ("Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom") attributes the causticity of nettle-juice to bicarbonate of ammonia, which Dr. Thomson and I ascertained ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... other "four poets" except Byron. Another literary dictum is that Macpherson's "Ossian" is genuine because a book which followed it and was undoubtedly genuine bore a strong resemblance to it. An opinion that shows as fully as any single one could Borrow's vivid and vague inaccuracy and perversity ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... been able to find no inaccuracy in the 1888 edition, which is indeed stated in the introduction to be entirely by mechanical process, without hand intervention; but being reproduced by printer's ink in black only, not only do the colors not appear, but the chromatic values are actually far inferior to the photographs of 1864. ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... from Subiaco, who had spent some years in breaking stones out of consideration for the Government, as a general confession of the inaccuracy of his views regarding foreigners, was by no means astonished when he saw Nino appear with a woman in his arms. Together they seated her on one of the mules, and ran beside her, for there was no time for Nino to mount. They had ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... been so in the case of this great man. In the endeavour to depose him from the impossible position to which his panegyrists had exalted him, his detractors have gone to any length. The principal charges brought against his biological work have been inaccuracy and hasty generalization. In support of the charge of inaccuracy, some of the extraordinary statements which are met with in his works are adduced. "These," Professor Huxley says, "are not so much to be called errors as stupidities." Some, however, of ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he is commenting, falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of five years with respect to the publication of Goldsmith's ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... without reserve. No woman ever had more than she has, 'le ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manieres engageantes, et le je ne sais quoi qui plait'. Desire her to reprove and correct any, and every the least error and inaccuracy in your manners, air, address, etc. No woman in Europe can do it so well; none will do it more willingly, or in a more proper and obliging manner. In such a case she will not put you out of countenance, by telling you of it in company; but either intimate it by some sign, or wait for ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... it, but checked himself, repeating less politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed my many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles. The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... erroneous notions as to its authorship, which they have circulated with complete assurance; but they have not felt it incumbent upon them to support their own views or to combat those of other people. It has, moreover, been frequently stated with equal confidence and inaccuracy that the authorship has never been settled. An early and persistent version of the genesis of the travels was that they took their origin from the rivalry in fabulous tales of three accomplished students at Goettingen University, Buerger, Kaestner, and Lichtenberg; another ran that Gottfried ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... last time, play was resumed. Again did the coach follow the carefully arranged maneuvers. Up to the present he had found it necessary to stop them in the midst of the play to start afresh, because of some inaccuracy. Not once did ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... is an inaccuracy of Nennius; Maximus and Maximianus were one and the same person; or rather no such person as Maximianus ever reigned in Britain. (2) Geoffrey of Monmouth gives the title of consul to several British generals who lived after this time. It is not unlikely that the town, name, and dignity, ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... unfairly. I am very sorry for it. I rebuked you in the presence of the whole family, and now I ask your forgiveness in their presence." It must have taken some courage to do that. It was right, was it not? Never be ashamed to apologize for domestic inaccuracy. Find out the points; what are the weak points, if I may call them so, of your companion, and then ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... any inaccuracy is however made, except the general denial "that the German authorities with empty promises put off the American Minister" and also the equally general statement that no promise was given to our embassy to advise it ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... inaccuracy of all maps it is impossible to determine exactly how much ground is visible from any given point—that is, if a correct reading of the map shows a certain point to be just barely visible, then it would be ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much consciousness of accuracy, but I did not. However this may be, Mr. Darwin pins himself down with every circumstance of preciseness to giving Dr. Krause's article as it appeared in Kosmos,—the whole article, and nothing ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... conscious that he matured slowly; that he had none of the facile grasp of difficult things which characterised some of his more able companions; his progress was always slow, and he arrived at mastery through a long wrestling with inaccuracy and half knowledge; his perception was quick, but his grasp feeble, while his capacity for forgetting and losing his hold on things was great. He therefore made a deliberate choice in the matter, guided, he now felt, rather by a kind of intuition than by any very ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... at my old idleness and foolish waste of time when I might have made myself a decent scholar. I cram up passages, instead of applying a scholarly habit of mind to the examination of them. And now too, it is harder than ever to correct bad habits of inattention, inaccuracy, &c. I am almost too weary oftentimes to do my work anyhow, much less can I make an effort to improve my way of doing it. But I must be content, thankful to get on somehow or other, and to be able to teach ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... any changes, is to attribute these changes not to a force, but to the absence of a force. And this is true. Strictly speaking, the changes should be attributed to those forces which come into action when the antagonist force is withdrawn. But though there is inaccuracy in saying that the freezing of water is due to the loss of its heat, no practical error arises from it; nor will a parallel laxity of expression vitiate our statements respecting the multiplication of effects. Indeed, the objection serves but ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... different circumstances, and with no design of collective re-issue in any particular form, will always present these repetitions; and they serve to emphasize the author's message. The lapse of time will also account for the apparent inaccuracy of a few statements, and for the fact that some of the occurrences alluded to in the future tense were accomplished during Sir Walter Besant's lifetime. 'As We Are and As We May Be' is the exposition of a practical philanthropist's ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... abundant actual knowledge. The work ended, so far as can be judged, with the close of the second Punic War. It long remained the great quarry for subsequent historians; and though Polybius wrote the history of the first Punic War anew from dissatisfaction with Pictor's prejudice and inaccuracy, he is one of the chief authorities followed in the earlier decads of Livy. A younger contemporary of Pictor, Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who commanded a Roman army in the war against Hannibal, also used the Greek ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... reasonableness of an universal rejection of our proposal be denied, if this catalogue were to be compiled with no other view, than that of promoting the sale of the books which it enumerates, and drawn up with that inaccuracy and confusion which may be found in those that are ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... my lord, you have observed that sometimes a hasty and involuntary inaccuracy gives quite a wrong color to a thing. I assure you I have suffered by this. It is said that the moment Mr. Atkins proposed to drag my mere, I fainted away. In this account there is an omission. I shall prove that Mr. Atkins used these words: 'And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... passage is from Mr. Hallam's account of Campanella and his disciple Adami. My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam's work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second. I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... plausible occasions, reviling it rather bitterly when it mortified me, and in general remembering its doings and sufferings with a tenacity which is too apt to raise surprise if not disgust at the careless inaccuracy of my acquaintances, who impute to me opinions I never held, express their desire to convert me to my favourite ideas, forget whether I have ever been to the East, and are capable of being three several times astonished at my never having told them before of my accident in the Alps, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... great novelist as an impersonator of his more remarkable creations. Everybody who has seen him, who has heard him, who has carefully watched him, though it may be but at a single one of these memorable readings, will recognise at a glance the accuracy or the inaccuracy of the delineation. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... something predicable of the whole moral and intellectual nature, and not of any special faculty; so that, when we find a man using words without any sense of their meaning, and assuming to be familiar with things of which he is wholly ignorant, we are justified in suspecting him of an habitual inaccuracy of mind, which to a greater or less degree disqualifies him both as observer and reporter. We say this with no intention of imputing any wilful misstatements to Mr. Russell, but as something to be borne in mind while reading his record of private conversations. A scrupulous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... "objects," and "relations" with "impressions on the human mind," Mr. Mill bases his whole criticism on this tacit petitio principii. He is not aware that though Reid sometimes uses the term relative in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton expressly points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper sense.—(See ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... knowledge of literature with which he has been too seldom credited to the full. When he published Waverley he had been reading all sorts and conditions of books for some five-and-thirty years, and assimilating them if, as the pedants will have it, with a distressing inaccuracy in particulars, with a general and genial fidelity of which the pedants do not even dream and could not comprehend, or they would not be pedants. He was thus furnished with infinite stores of illustrative matter, never to overpower, but always to accompany and season, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Wiclif version: "The best translation is to translate after the sentence, and not only after the words, so that the sentence be as open in English as in Latin." That makes for accuracy. It is quite impossible to put any language over, word for word, into another without great inaccuracy. But when the translators sought to take the sentence of the Hebrew or the Greek and put it into an exactly equivalent English sentence, they had larger play for their language and they had a fairer field for accuracy. ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... fellow, I am sure I beg your pardon. My cousin certainly gave her family to understand that she had paid your debts. No doubt this was not the case. We all know that women are somewhat given to exaggeration and inaccuracy. Think ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... retort by quoting Mr. Grant Allen, in his book on The Colour Sense, to the effect that the blueness of sea and sky is mainly poetical illusion or inaccuracy, and that sea and sky are found blue only in one experiment out of fourteen. At morning and evening they are usually in great part stained golden. Blue certainly has one advantage over yellow, in that it has the privilege of colouring some of the prettiest eyes in the world. ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... reader to bear it in mind that all this is literally as it was given by an old gypsy, and that I am not responsible for its accuracy or inaccuracy. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... June, when the bill was brought up for a second reading; the amendment was its postponement for six months, and was carried by a large majority. This decided the fate of the Peel administration. During the debate Lord George Bentinck gave an unhappy proof of his inaccuracy of statement and party spirit. He accused Sir Robert Peel of having made up his mind in favour of Roman Catholic emancipation, before he turned Mr. Canning out of office on that very question. This allegation was made in terms of the bitterest reproach, and was placed in such a form ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in which they thus use the word "wrong" is merely that of falseness or inaccuracy in conclusion, not of moral delinquency. But there is, as I have stated, a duty, more or less imperative, attached to every power we possess, and therefore to this power over the lower senses as ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... generally rough and puzzling, bringing before us no familiar landmarks by which to guide our course. My map proved utterly useless, confusing me by its wrong location of streams, and its inaccuracy in the estimation of distances. We must have wandered far to the north from our direct course, led astray in the dark, and by our desire to advance swiftly. For there soon came to us warning signs that we were indeed being pursued; and some evidence ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Penryth; because we find it sometimes done at a time when these possessions were not in the hands of the kings of Scotland. It is probable that the homage was performed in general terms, without any particular specification of territory; and this inaccuracy had proceeded either from some dispute between the two kings about the territory and some opposite claims, which were compromised by the general homage, or from the simplicity of the age, which employed few words in every transaction. To prove this, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... view of life, one may reject it, one may show its inaccuracy and its erroneousness, but we cannot judge of the Christian teaching without mastering this view of life. Still less can one criticise a subject on a higher plane from a lower point of view. From the basement one cannot judge of the effect of the ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... recall when on a certain season the lucky sport of print and fancy was an Englishman. In one of those farragos of stupidity and inaccuracy which are syndicated and sent from abroad to America, I found the following piece with the stuff and nonsense habitually worked off on the American ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... conversant with the principles of mechanics, it may seem difficult to realise the degree of accuracy of which such a method is capable. Yet there can be no doubt that his moons inform us of the mass of Jupiter, and do not leave a margin of inaccuracy so great as one hundredth part of the total amount. If other confirmation be needed, then it is forthcoming in abundance. A minor planet occasionally draws near the orbit of Jupiter and experiences his attraction; the planet is forced to swerve from its path, and ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... differ in sentiments from each other, merely from the inaccuracy of terms, as we are not obliged to speak always with critical exactness. Something of this too may arise from want of words in the language to express the more nice discriminations which a deep investigation discovers. A great deal, however, of this difference ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... does not properly represent that of the rocks of the Trossachs. The objection is utterly futile, for there is not a single spire or pinnacle from one end of the Trossachs to the other. All their rocks are heavily rounded, and the introduction of the word "spire" is a piece of inaccuracy in description, ventured merely for the sake of the Gothic image. Farther: it has been said that if I had substituted the word "gable," it would have spoiled the line just as much as the word "pediment," though "gable" is a Gothic word. Of course it would; but why? Because "gable" is a term ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... and fast classificatory system broke down, and individuality came to its own. Yet there had always been a clearly felt difference between the conclusions of the biological sciences and those dealing with lifeless substance, in the relative vagueness, the insubordinate looseness and inaccuracy of the former. The naturalist accumulated facts and multiplied names, but he did not go triumphantly from generalisation to generalisation after the fashion of the chemist or physicist. It is easy to see, therefore, how it came about that the inorganic sciences were regarded as the true scientific ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... only in his choice of subjects, but in the possession of a picturesque and fascinating style, which has given his histories a remarkable vogue. Fault has been found with him on the ground of historical inaccuracy, but such criticism is, for the most part, unjustified. His thoroughness, his judgment, and his critical faculty stand unimpeached, and place him very near the head ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... le plus d'etre mis au rang des mensonges imprimes, et surtout des mensonges insipides.'' The Ana, indeed, from the popularity which they now enjoyed, were compiled in such numbers and with so little care that they became almost proverbial for inaccuracy. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... observed that Mill's presentation of it [in his Essay on Theism] is merely a resuscitation of the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, and Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first-named writer treated this whole subject with a feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising in him; for while he has failed to assign anything like due weight to the inductive evidence of organic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... be a whimsical conclusion to the study of a personality so perplexing and vagarious as Sir John Willison. But he himself, having a high sense of humour, will appreciate its psychological justice as much as he regrets its historical inaccuracy. Sir John has always aimed at being a big Canadian, and he has usually succeeded. He did his share of contribution to right thinking about the war, as he did in vicarious action when he lost one of his ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... escape on that plea;—but when I came to sift it, I thought that it would be false. But let me tell you that the delight of political life is altogether in opposition. Why, it is freedom against slavery, fire against clay, movement against stagnation! The very inaccuracy which is permitted to opposition is in itself a charm worth more than all the patronage and all the prestige of ministerial power. You'll try them both, and then say if you do not agree with me. Give me the full swing of the benches below ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... able to divine the latent meaning of the objectors, it seems to originate in a presupposition that the people will be disinclined to the exercise of federal authority in any matter of an internal nature. Waiving any exception that might be taken to the inaccuracy or inexplicitness of the distinction between internal and external, let us inquire what ground there is to presuppose that disinclination in the people. Unless we presume at the same time that the powers of the general ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... used in preparing your remarks, and I desire no more than that it be used with accuracy. In a single reading of your remarks, I only discovered one inaccuracy in matter, which I suppose you took from that paper. It is where you say: "The undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion you have expressed that the Constitution is different in time of insurrection or invasion from what it is in time ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... floor, a sixth glass was found, similar in form to the others, but much smaller. Its smell showed that it had contained brandy. Then these two women had not been with the murderer, and therefore he could not have fought because the other men had insulted them. This discovery proved the inaccuracy of Lecoq's original suppositions. It was an unexpected check, and he was mourning over it in silence, when Father Absinthe, who had not ceased ferreting about, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... be no doubt, notwithstanding the slight inaccuracy, that our young friend had turned up; and so she had. Would to heaven we had ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Rogers told us that morning, I remember he had much to say of Byron's forgetfulness as to all manner of things. As an evidence of his inaccuracy, Rogers related how the noble bard had once quoted to him some lines on Venice as Southey's, "which he wanted me to admire," said Rogers; "and as I wrote them myself, I had no hesitation in doing so. The lines are in my poem ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Killiecrankie, in this collection, also the ballads of Loudoun Hill, The Battle of Philiphaugh, and others much earlier than 1719. New styles of popular poetry on contemporary events as Sherriffmuir and Tranent Brae had arisen. (5) The extreme historic inaccuracy of Mary Hamilton is paralleled by that of all the ballads on real events. The mention of the Pottinger is a trace of real history which has no parallel in the Russian affair, and there is no room, says Professor Child, for the supposition ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... A trifling but characteristic inaccuracy concerning the Peace Commission may as well be corrected before the subject is left. This is the statement, apparently originating from Malay sources, but promptly indorsed in this country by unfriendly critics, to the effect that the representative of Aguinaldo was uncivilly refused ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... a treasure-ship somewhere farther west?' I asked. 'We heard of it at Wangeroog' (my first inaccuracy). 'They said a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... is any novelty in the assertion, it is owing to a want of observation and reflection, and to not attempting to trace the real nature of the phenomena in which we take part, and which occur every day. The habitual inaccuracy of observation has led to the use of many proverbs and aphorisms in the interpretation of things which have been transmitted from one generation to another, and are now accepted as indubitable axioms. These are to be found in every branch of knowledge, and we have an instance in ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... Inaccuracy and sensationalism Mr Bennett is welcome to, and to the sort of notoriety it has brought him. Cheap maudlin sentiment may profess a pity for those "dervish homes ruined" by the successes of British arms. The dervishes in their day had no homes. Nay, they made honest profession that their ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... in other sources are often given. But it would be a great mistake to assume that the annals are always trustworthy. Earlier historians have too generally accepted their statements unless they had definite proof of inaccuracy. In the last few years, there has been discovered a mass of new material which we may use for the criticism of the Sargonide documents. Most valuable are the letters, sometimes from the king himself, more ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead
... with their usual inaccuracy, have made it appear that the Dauntless was the winner, but among thinking men there is but one opinion in regard to the matter, an opinion fully explained and corroborated in the following, published by Mr. ASHBURY, immediately on the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... slaveholder is the thought of one who had sufferd, and now I thought it a duty incumbent upon me to cry aloud and spare not, &c., by sending these few lines where the slaveholder may hear. You will still further oblige your humble servant also, to correct any inaccuracy. My respects to you and your family and all ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... had enough printed blanks for the paroles, and it was a matter of mutual interest to get their issue completed with as little delay as possible. The Official Records, moreover, confirm his statement as to the abbreviated returns and the numbers they gave, while making clear their loose inaccuracy. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 1382; pt. i. p. 1059; pt. iii. p. 839.] The most important fallacy in the Confederate return of "effectives" was that by giving only the arms-bearing men answering to the roll-call, it omitted the growing large class of stragglers ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... sirs, and too many compliments," said Montfanon, brusquely. "Sit here," he continued, relinquishing his armchair to Florent, "and inform the two men of our names and address, adding that we are at their service and ignoring the first inaccuracy on their part. Let them return!... And you, Dorsenne, since you are afraid of wounding that gentleman, I will not prevent you from going to his house—personally, do you hear—to warn him that Monsieur Chapron, here present, has chosen ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... Saint Simon alone; he is prejudice and inaccuracy itself! I know he is on your side, but that doesn't count; but I will, to be agreeable to you, acknowledge that you are better looking and ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... be glad to see answered. Bayle (art. Froissart) quotes a German critic as affirming that in the Lyons edition of Froissart, by Denys Saulvage, 1559: "Omnia qu Aul Gallic displicebant, deleta, vixque decimam histori partem relictam esse." Does Col. Johnes notice this inaccuracy in the edition generally procurable? And does he state whether he saw, or consulted, or received any benefit from the existence of the MS. copy of Froissart, once ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... while the helmsman is steering on the port tack, and the ship, by what appears a miracle, is lying over to the wind; and, again, Toby is actually shown in the Almanac for 1895 drawing a cork from a champagne bottle with a cork-screw! Then photographers are as resentful of inaccuracy as bicyclists; and the fact that Mr. Hodgson in the second of his two drawings, "To be well shaken before taken" (August, 1894), representing an "'Arry on 'orseback" first whipping up his horse before being photographed, and then posing before the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... our readers in advance, that if they make such a testing device they will be astonished at the inaccuracy which they will find in the escapements of so-called fine watches. The lock, in many instances, instead of being one and a half degrees, will oftener be found to be from two to four degrees, and the impulse derived from the escape wheel, as illustrated at Fig. 76, will often ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... should not have been thus strict in our examination of these preliminary statements, if the question had been one of terms merely, or if the inaccuracy of thought had been confined to the Essay on Antagonism. If upon receiving a writer's terms of argument in the sense—however unusual or mistaken—which he chooses they should bear, we may without further error follow his course of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... apparently inseparable from Bellarmin's interpretation has induced many, even among Roman Catholic writers, to discard that acceptation altogether, and to substitute others, which, though involving no grammatical inaccuracy, are still not free from difficulty.[37] After weighing the passage with all the means in my power, and after testing the various interpretations offered by writers, whether of the Church of Rome or not, by the sentiments ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... challenged him to single combat; to which he made answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence of personal resentment, as well as ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... those present were greatly struck, by this numerical inaccuracy, he tried to turn their thoughts in another direction by asking the superior if it were true that she knew no Latin. On her replying that she did not know a single word, he held the pyx before her and ordered her to swear by the holy sacrament. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... duties,—but also to conduct under this cover measurements and observations of at least approximate correctness. This duty was performed with singular diligence and success, with the double result of revealing the hopeless inaccuracy of existing charts and of placing in Exmouth's hands a working plan of the ground, perfectly ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... another. Plank's name headed column after column. Already becoming familiar in the society and financial sections, it began to appear in neighbouring paragraphs. Who was Plank? And the papers told people with more or less inaccuracy, humour, or sarcasm. What was he trying to do? The papers tried to tell that, too, making a pretty close guess, with comments good-natured or ill-natured according to circumstances over which somebody ought to have some control. What was Harrington trying to do to Plank—if ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... difficult to guarantee in a few that sympathy with all earnest books which does not preclude rigid honesty in the application of firmly held principles, it is more difficult with the many. And if it is hard to exclude bias, inaccuracy, over- statement, and inadequacy from the work even of a small and chosen group, it is still harder to be certain of complete competence if the net ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... Apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to divide out the offices in advance. This Testament was not written for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust. These facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. They were in the wastebaskets of forgetfulness. They depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant winds. And finally, when reduced to writing, some gentleman would write by the side of the passage his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a part of the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll |
