"Erring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that the lament of Cicero over his daughter's death should have perished in the barbarian wars. The original title of the book was The Accuser, to wit, something which might censure the vain passions and erring tendencies of mankind, "at post mutato nomine, et in tres libellos diviso, de Consolatione eum inscripsimus, quod longe magis infelices consolatione, quam fortunati reprehensione, indigere viderentur." The subsequent success of the book was probably due ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... suspicion of voluntary participation in the sentiments of Zee; and the superior wisdom of my host might probably suggest some sage extrication from my perilous dilemma. In this resolve I obeyed the ordinary instinct of civilised and moral man, who, erring though he be, still generally prefers the right course in those cases where it is obviously against his inclinations, his interests, and his safety ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... representing that it was easier to counterfeit death than to meet it; and that to do the one afforded the only chance of avoiding the other; and scarcely was Isabel extended upon the floor, when the screen was heard to open upon its harsh hinges, and the confessor to say, "erring daughter, approach." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... not John the beloved disciple, John who lay in the bosom of his Lord. It was Peter, the devoted, stalwart, brave individual, human, erring but glorious Peter. "Thou art Peter, and on this rock ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Nevertheless, the informant would be rewarded. In some far-away country home a treacherous servant would receive postal orders to his or her great delight, but the news she or he had sent in their malice, a tit-bit concerning some poor erring woman or some foolish man, would never see the light of day, and the contributor might look in vain for the spicy paragraph which had been composed ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... for the poet, writing not for fame but for consolation, and uttering from the depths of a half-broken heart his reverent homage to the power of religious truth. Our affection is not colder, and our compassion is more profound, when we contemplate the agitated and erring life of Robert Burns (1759-1796), the Scottish peasant, who has given to the literature of the Anglo-Saxon race some of its most precious jewels, although all which this extraordinary man achieved was inadequate to the power and the vast variety of his endowments. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... under your displeasure, I hope I should not forfeit your affection. I think I may promise that that last misfortune shall never occur through any fault of mine, and I wish I could feel as certain of never erring from my head as from my heart. The goodness of my friends imposes a weight of obligation upon me. My greatest pleasure will be to hear you say, whilst I embrace you, that you do not disapprove of my conduct, and that you retain for ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... repentance—Her life the proof—She has wept her fault in her three years agony. Be still awhile, remorseless prejudice, and let the genuine feelings of my soul avow—they do not truly honour virtue, who can insult the erring heart that would return to her sanctuary. [Looking with sorrow on her.] Rise, I beseech you, rise! My husband and my brother may surprise us. ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... should approximate the life of the Kingdom by living now as he would expect to live then. But, as we have seen from his sayings, Jesus went far beyond this. He demanded an elevation of the accepted ethical standards. It was not simply a matter of erring and lagging individuals, but of the socialized norms of conduct. He had deep reverence and loyalty for the religion of his nation, and never told his followers to break with it. But he asserted boldly that the customary ethics of Judaism, based on the Decalogue and its interpretation by ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... penned the APOLOGY, which assails atheism in the familiar sophistical fashion, but with a most unfamiliar energy and splendour of style, as a manifestation of the foolish pride of a frail and perpetually erring reason. For himself, he was, as we have said, a classic theist, of the school of Cicero and Seneca; and as regards that side of his own thought he is not at all sceptical, save in so far as he nominally protested against ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... presences, and women criminals profited by the removal of the abuses they challenged. Holloway became a home from home, in which beaming wardresses welcomed old offenders, and to which husbands conducted erring wives in taxicabs, much as Ellwood and his brethren marched of themselves from Newgate to Bridewell, explaining to the astonished citizens of London that their word was their keeper. A suffragette's word stood higher than consols, and the war-game ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... The merit of Frank is great, almost beyond the power of expression. I need not tell my Louisa which way affection, were it encouraged, would incline: but I will not be its slave. Nor can I reproach myself for erring on that side; but for acting, in resistance to inclination, with too little reserve. No arguments I believe can shew me that I have a right to sport with the feelings of my father, and my friends; though those feelings ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the robust society of that age? If Fielding, like his elders, indisputably loved good wine, let us remember that none of the heroes of his three great novels, neither that rural innocent Joseph Andrews, nor the exuberant youth Tom Jones, nor erring, repentant Captain Booth are immoderate drinkers. The degradation of drinking is, in Fielding's pages, accorded to brutalised if honest country squires, and cruel and corrupt magistrates; and there is little evidence throughout his life to indicate that the great novelist drank more ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... offence has been committed, is not to resort to the law, but to try the offender again. In this way they have saved many a soul from the ruin which an exposure and punishment would have caused, and have brought back many an erring one to the paths of virtue and integrity. There are men of tried honesty in this city to-day, men holding ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... its glory is that it abolishes all laws, all rights, all powers, and is to itself alone law, right, and power. By the completeness of self-abnegation may the footsteps of love be traced. This partially the author recognizes, choosing it for the conclusion of the whole matter, but erring in that he makes it come with resistance and reluctance, the conquest of love, instead of spontaneously and unconsciously, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... so full of happiness that it expanded with affection for the whole human race, and even warmed with sympathy for this erring woman, who had once possessed and forfeited his faithful ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... said Father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard. Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand To a promising young robber, ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... fantasies are sufficient for acting, and that consents are superfluous. For if, knowing that the imagination gives us not an instinct to work without consent, he ministers to us false and probable fantasies, he is the voluntary cause of our falling and erring by assenting to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... church deal with the Absaloms: the erring youth or those of no religious bias, the careless and pleasure loving? There is such a class. Are you surprised at my stating a fact which seems self evident? I state it because it seems to have been practically forgotten. Some men frame their ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... which, with all Dr. May's faults, had always been part of his character, and had borne him, in faith and trust, through all his trials, had never belonged to her. Where he had been sincere, erring only from impulsiveness, she had been double-minded and calculating; and, now that her delusion had been broken down, she had nothing to rest upon. Her whole religious life had been mechanical, deceiving herself more than even others, and all seemed now swept away, except the sense ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... menial, and dashed down the narrow lane that led to the gate. But, as Incarnacion had truly said, "It was an evil day," for at the bottom of the lane, ambling slowly along as he lazily puffed a yellow cigarette, appeared the figure of the erring Pedro. Utterly unconscious of the accident, attributing the disappearance of his charges to the inequalities of the plain, and, in truth, little interested in what he firmly believed was his purely artificial function, he had ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... and the necessary confederates carefully chosen. Beamish and Bulla went in as partners, the four being bound together by their joint liability. The other three members were tools over whom the quartet had obtained some hold. In Coburn's case, Archer learned of the defalcations in time to make the erring cashier his victim. He met the deficit in return for a signed confession of guilt and an I 0 U for a sum that would have enabled the distiller to sell the other up, and ruin his ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... started, like a guilty thing Vpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard, The Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate Awake the God of Day: and at his warning, Whether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre, Th' extrauagant, and erring Spirit, hyes To his Confine. And of the truth heerein, This present Obiect ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... accused of the crimes vulgarly supposed to attach themselves to religious orders; if they had been charged with falling into the sins to which poor human nature by its frailty is liable; if erring members had been denounced, men who had entered the order through disappointment, or from some other unworthy motive, men such as Sir Walter Scott depicts in his imaginary Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, in his novel, Ivanhoe, we might well believe that some at least of the accusations against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the Lord. At last His pilgrim feet pressed Russia. Through its coast He preached with holy fervor, as was meet, The message of the Lord to erring men. But everywhere with cold indifference, Or anger, or contempt, his words were met: Until, at last, with bleeding feet, he came To bleak Siberia. A churlish crowd Received his message with a ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... mother exclaim when her erring daughter came home at last too broken and diseased to be taken into the family she had disgraced, "There is no place for her but the top floor of the County Hospital; they will have to take her there," and this only after every possible expedient had been tried or suggested. This aspect of governmental ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the stern belief that she had done well by forcing Dahlia's hand to the marriage, though it had resulted evilly. In reflecting on it, she had still a feeling of the harsh joy peculiar to those who have exercised command with a conscious righteousness upon wilful, sinful, and erring spirits, and have thwarted the wrongdoer. She could only admit that there was sadness in the issue; hitherto, at least, nothing worse than sad disappointment. The man who was her sister's husband could no longer complain that he had been the victim of an imposition. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... voice went on, talking with the Saviour about what He had done for this poor erring one, till with a sigh, like a tired child, the eyelids dropped over her frightened eyes and a look of ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... campaigns in the war of 1812 seemed mingled with and subdued by the results of a profound study of the science of war, in this contest. He dared boldly, and executed cautiously, courageously and successfully. Erring in nothing, and failing in nothing, he encountered dangers, and passed through scenes that belong to romance, but which his iron intellect rendered a ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... you will forgive him sooner than we can do. I do not mean him particularly, nor those who have poisoned his ear; but all. Only tell us that your silence is the oblivion of mercy, so mourning for the erring that, for its own sake, it remembers their transgressions ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... practice were stored in a closet, for healing the sick; an amateur soup-kitchen for feeding the hungry was established in a roomy out-building, and this long years before public soup-kitchens became the rage; whilst copies of Testaments were forthcoming on all occasions to teach erring feet the way to Heaven. But her charity did not ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... fail in its objects this method does not save you from pain, and secures you in addition a bad quarrel, and perhaps a heavy beating. Still it has many votaries, and is more often carried off than any other. Thus, if in Bedfordshire, someone catches you erring on a matter of crops, you profess that in London such things are thought mere rubbish and despised; or again, in the society of professors at the Universities, an ignorance of letters can easily be turned ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... of widows' shrieks; and the lamentations of fond mothers and wives, heart-broken, vex the realm; youth and age lie here dishonored together; in vain the sweetheart begs her lover to return from its fatal mists; in vain the pure sister calls with trembling tongue for her erring brother. He will not come back. He is the slave of a tyrant who has no compassion and knows no mercy. Oppose this tyrant, all ye who love the home circle better than the bawdy house; fight him all ye who set honor above ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... what foundation there was for the story, that the Egyptians made settlements on the coast of Devonshire and Cornwall long before the Romans conquered Britain. Her hair was a rich brown, and her figure—of about the middle height—perfect, but erring if at all on the side of robustness. Altogether she was one of those girls about whom one is inclined to wonder how they can remain unmarried a week or a ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... heroic devotion of a soul half weary of life, because unable to believe in its own powers to live up to what it so intensely felt to be, and so reverentially honoured as, the right; the whole picture of this mighty spirit, often darkened, but never sunk,—often erring, but never ceasing to see and to worship the beauty of virtue; the repentance of it; the anguish; the aspiration, almost stifled in despair,—the whole of this is such a whole, that we are sure no man can read these solemn verses too often; and we recommend them for repetition, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... very well and who likes some of his fellow men but not all of them and whose instinct is to punch law-breakers in the nose and not weep over them and lead them to the nearest bar and say, 'Go to it, erring brother!'" ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Christ rose from the dead see how tenderly He dealt with the erring disciple. The angel at the sepulchre says, "Tell His disciples, and Peter." (Mark xvi. 7.) The Lord did not forget Peter, though Peter had denied Him thrice; so He caused this kindly special message ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... by events and her consciousness of its necessity. She would often exclaim to me: 'How happy I was during the lifetime of Louis XV.! No cares to disturb my peaceful slumbers! No responsibility to agitate my mind! No fears of erring, of partiality, of injustice, to break in upon my enjoyments! All, all happiness, my dear Princess, vanishes from the bosom of a woman if she once deviate from the prescribed domestic character of her sex! Nothing was ever framed more wise than ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... attendants sat. From this room access could be had to him without the knowledge of the hundreds of people outside waiting for an audience: wives of exiled officers, officials without employment, mothers come to plead for erring sons who had ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... heart from every impure desire—I can now view you with the holy feelings—the passionless regard, of a father for his daughter. My dear child, forget not your promise to refrain from exposing an erring fellow mortal; and may Heaven ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... orders only from them, dressing them, accompanying them in all their journeys, the confidants and agents of their most unguarded moments, of their most secret habits, and of course subject to their commands,—even to their caprices; they themselves being subject to erring judgment, aggravated by an imperfect education. All that can be expected from such servants is polite manners, modest demeanour, and a respectful reserve, which are indispensable. To these, good sense, good temper, some self-denial, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... hospitals for wounded soldiers in the country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal ways,—telling ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... all answer to inquiries which you are unable to meet satisfactorily—a violation of your conscience to this extent, and in this way; or, on the other hand, a still more painful violation of your conscience in consigning deliberately some young woman—faulty, no doubt, and erring, but yet likely to derive a lesson from her own errors, and the risk to which they have exposed her—consigning her, I say, to ruin, by refusing her a character, and thus shutting the door upon all the paths by which she might retrace her steps. This I state as one amongst the many cases ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... betimes. I do not say it will always prove an unerring guide, for human reason is not infallible, but it will prove the least erring guide that you can follow. Books and conversation may assist it, but adopt neither blindly and implicitly; try both by that best rule God has given to direct us—reason. Of all the truths do not decline that of thinking. The host of mankind ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... she been more mistaken than in her conceptions of his thoughts. In them there was for herself not one kindly impulse; but for the wife whom he had deemed so erring, there was much that was akin to regret, if not to returning affection. The violence of his passion had been so exhausting, that something like a reaction had come. A new contradiction seemed developing itself in his nature. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... themselves before him; "Go; carry forth the tidings of this visitation, that men come to our succor. I ask not vengeance on the deluded and heathenish imitators of the worshippers of Moloch. They have ignorantly done this evil. Let no man arm in behalf of the wrongs of one sinful and erring. Rather let them look into the secret abominations of their own hearts, in order that they crush the living worm, which, by gnawing on the seeds of a healthful hope, may yet destroy the fruits of the promise in their own souls. I would that there ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... letting the pope become a prince instead of a pastor, he had unwittingly brought destruction on the world: next Constantine, William the Good of Sicily, whose death is not more lamented than the lives of those who contest his crown and lastly, next William, Riphaeus the Trojan. "What erring mortal," cried the bird, "would believe it possible to find Riphaeus the Trojan among the blest?—but so it is; and he now knows more respecting the divine grace than mortals do, though even he discerns it not to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... works unassisted by a master. For the smooth and straight road which admits unembarrassed progress must, I fear, be dull as well as smooth; and the hedges need to be close and trim when there is no guide to warn or bring back the erring traveler. The system followed in this work will, therefore, at first, surprise somewhat sorrowfully those who are familiar with the practice of our class at the Working Men's College; for there, the pupil, having the master at his side to extricate ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... prove a thing or two afore ye come possum over this salt-water citizen!' returns Hornblower, spunkily, pulling from the pocket of his pea-coat a fascinating wedge of tobacco, which so tempted the Squire that he could not resist reaching out his hand and supplying his spacious mouth. As nature, ever erring, should be generous to nature, so also did I interrupt here by offering to plead Hornblower's case; to which meritorious object I ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... temptation, that of the duel;[3] but in Anglo-Saxon countries it scarcely presents itself. Death, other than self-inflicted, is much less tempting, and less apt to be resorted to in and out of season. The heroine, whether virtuous or erring, who dies of consumption, has gone greatly out of vogue. A broken heart is no longer held to be necessarily fatal. The veriest tyro realizes that death by crude accident is inadmissible as a determining factor in serious drama; and murder is practically ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... earthly treasures, to amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who can tell how many times the human being lives in the sphere of Instinct before he is prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions, where thought expends itself on erring science, where mind wearies at last of human language? for, when Matter is exhausted, Spirit enters. Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... Wrote the tale in sacred page, As a record to the world, Record sad of vengeance hurl'd. I, a low and humble wight, Beg permission now to write Unto all that in our land Tongue Egyptian understand. May our Virgin Mother mild Grant to me, her erring child, Plenteous grace in every way, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too. Had not his daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his head as this child had flown above ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... it is for an erring man to have a saint for a brother and a rival! Nay, be not angry with me, Rosamund, who cannot tread ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... question will certainly be raised: How can we conceive the mind erring as to the nature of its present contents; and what is to determine, if not my immediate act of introspection, what is present in my mind at any moment? Indeed, to raise the possibility of error in introspection seems to do away with the certainty of ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... free-will in man, notwithstanding of his being lost and drowned in spiritual destruction, labor under manifold delusion, making a heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and philosophical opinions, and so erring as to both. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... causes which combine to blind Man's erring judgment, and mislead the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules Is pride, the never-failing vice ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... unbounded benevolence to glory. Well, has God the power to do it? Yes, is the reply. But do you believe that he will exert his power so as to accomplish it? No says the objector, I believe that he will sentence a large portion of his erring offspring to endless and inconceivable wo. Very well; then you are the best being of the two. And it is a melancholy circumstance to these unfortunate beings, that you are not on the throne of the universe. ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... claim to guide our opinions read Scott at all? Do they know the scene of the hidden and revealed forces in the Trossach glen—the carriage of the Fiery Cross—the sentence on the erring nun —the last fight of her betrayer? Do they know the story of Jeannie Deans? But it is useless to ask these questions or to multiply these instances. Scott is placed. Master of laughter, master of tears, giant of swiftness; crowned king, without ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... that met his eye. His uncle, the Earl of ——, had received his appeal, and had undertaken to discharge his debts, and to restore him to peace and happiness. The Earl of ——, a member of the government, had obtained for his erring nephew an appointment abroad, which he gave him, in the full reliance that his promise of amendment ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... and my mother were friends?" I remarked, in the hope of leading him on to talk further upon the subject. "Friends!" ejaculated Merlani; "well, yes, we were; but that expression is hardly the right one. She was the guardian angel; I the poor, weak, erring mortal over whom she watched. Always listening to her advice and admonitions with the profoundest and most respectful attention, and always anxious to do right, whilst I was in her presence, I had no sooner withdrawn myself and mingled once more with my usual associates, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... mountain, a girl in an angry mood at his side, a seedy chaperon on his trail, an erring cook ahead. Good lord! He recalled that a fellow novelist, whose love scenes were regarded as models by young people suffering the tender passion, had once confessed that he proposed to his wife on a street-car, and was accepted just as the conductor handed ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... dear, only of course in your case it is guided by judgment and common sense—and you will never drive him into doing a thing against his will. Now just suppose you let him go his own way for a time! Six months or a year can't matter so very much out of a lifetime, and you will never regret erring ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... considerate, lightening the burden of their tributes throughout the empire. He also exerted himself in a very beneficial manner in building towns and strengthening the frontiers. He was a strict observer of military discipline, erring only in this respect, that while he punished even slight misconduct on the part of the common soldiers, he allowed the crimes of the officers of rank and of the generals to proceed to greater and greater lengths, and shut his ears against every complaint that ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... tired out, and we slept well, little thinkin' of the ghastly shape that would meet us on the thresholt of the new day. But, oh, my erring but beloved country! why ortn't we to expect it as long as you keep the mills a-goin' that turns out such black, ghastly shadders by the thousands and thousands all the time, all the time, to enwrap ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... gentle, tender, and full of patience and love. How gentle are God's dealings even with sinners! How patient His forbearance! How tender His discipline, with His own erring children! How He led Jacob, Joseph, Israel, David, Elijah, and all His ancient servants, until they could truly say, "Thy gentleness hath made ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... calmly slept the Earth, And the mysterious eyes above, Gazed down with chastened looks of love, Not, as when first they hymned her birth, With ardent songs of holy mirth, But mournfully serene and clear;— As on some erring one we gaze, Whose feet have strayed from wisdom's ways, But who, in error, still is dear. Far o'er yon swiftly flowing stream Fair fell the young moon's silver beam, And gazing on its restless sheen, Stood one whose garb, and port, and mien, Bespoke him of a foreign ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... us that the sinful should never be addressed through their fears; that love can only reform the erring. Perhaps Mrs. Smith was unlike the rest of the race; but the terrors of that night wrought a change in her; and Mr. Payson was surprised one day by Mr. Smith's calling at his cabin with a fine quarter of beef, saying, as ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... But I'm still at the wheel! . . . A man I know calls it hard steering but assures me that there's anchorage ahead. . . . He's a splendid fellow, Gerald; you ought to know him—well—some day; he's just a clean-cut, human, blundering, erring, unreasonable,lovable man whom any woman, who is not a fool herself, could manage. . . . Some day I should like to have you know him—intimately. He's good for people of your sort—even good for a restless, purposeless woman of my sort. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... ordained that the affairs of this lower world shall be controlled—let it not be supposed that we for a moment doubt the truth which Demosthenes took such pains to inculcate upon his countrymen, that fortune in human affairs is for a time omnipotent. That fortune, which "erring men call chance," is the name which finite beings must apply to those secret and unknown causes which no human sagacity can penetrate or comprehend. What depends upon a few persons, observes Mr Hume, is to be ascribed to chance; what arises from a great number, may often be accounted for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... before God without faith. So utterly and roundly does the Apostle reject works and praise faith, that some have taken offence at his words and say: "Well, then, we will do no more good works," although he condemns such men as erring and foolish. ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... were not in the least affected, Fran was one. She saw and heard Hamilton Gregory's impassioned earnestness, and divined his yearning to touch many hearts; nor did she doubt that he would then and there have given his life to press home upon the erring that they must ultimately reap what they were sowing. Nevertheless she was altogether unmoved. It would have been easier for her to ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... contrary, all the vices common to erring creatures seem to be congregated. The people have only the present in their minds, for the future has no sensible vanishing point. Sincerity, honesty, chastity and decency have taken flight to give place to ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... rejoice, Is sure to echo from the human voice, While praise, as faithful as the mystic dove, Flows from the lips, of gratitude and love. Cowper still lives, to truth's clear optics given, Endear'd to earth, and recompens'd by heaven! And O dear lady! who like him, canst feel For erring mortals anxious friendly zeal, And deck, like him, thy monitory page With charms attractive both to youth and age, Whose pure instruction, with a skill refin'd, Suits both the lowly, and the lofty mind: Like Cowper, thou canst ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... was obliged to own that the name was spelt in several different ways in it. He perceived, no doubt, why I had chosen the form liked my own, with the title which the pleasant old turncoat ought to have had from the many masters he served according to their many minds, but never had except from that erring edition. He did not afflict me for it, though; probably it amused him too much; he asked me about the West, and when he found that I was as proud of the West as I was of Wales, he seemed even better pleased, and said he had always fancied that human nature was laid out ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... angel, Heaven knows,' returned brother Charles, shaking his head, 'but an erring and imperfect man; nevertheless, there is one quality which all men have, in common with the angels, blessed opportunities of exercising, if they will; mercy. It is an errand of mercy that brings me here. Pray ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... me spread, A scourge or sceptre offer'd to my view, Alarm'd, from Folly's erring mazes fled, And to my God with humble ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... smith of the Danaans.—"Though the men of Ireland should be fighting for seven years," said Goibniu, "for every spear that falls off its handle, and for every sword that breaks, I will put a new weapon in its place; and no erring or missing cast shall be thrown with a spear of my making; and no flesh it may enter shall ever taste the sweets of life after;—and this is more than Dub the smith of the Fomorians can do." And there was Creidne the Brazier: he would not do less well than Goibniu the Smith would; and there ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Noblesse, that they also must oblige him, and give in. D'Espremenil rages his last; Barrel Mirabeau 'breaks his sword,' making a vow,—which he might as well have kept. The 'Triple Family' is now therefore complete; the third erring brother, the Noblesse, having joined it;—erring but pardonable; soothed, so far as possible, by sweet ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... forgive This erring lip its smiles— Vowed she would make the finest girl Within a hundred miles. He sent her to a stylish school; 'Twas in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, "Two towels ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... on her with more advice That thus without advice begin to love her? 'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld, And that hath dazzled my reason's light; But when I look on her perfections, There is no reason but I shall be blind. If I can check my erring love, I will; If not, to compass her ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... God, the fault is mine; all the faults that have been committed can be traced back to me, therefore I beseech of thee, I call upon thee, to let me bear all the punishment that she has earned by her sins, poor erring creature that she is. O my God, do this for me; remember that I served thee well for many years when I lived among the poor folk in the mountains. For all these years I ask this thing of thee, that thou wilt let me bear her punishment. Is it too much I am asking of thee, O my ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... watchwords and promises ring strong and true. The glory of the preacher is that he, alone of those who bring forth programmes for the lives of men, can tell us how his programme may be carried out. He has a wonderful authority given unto him in his dealings with the weak and erring. He can make to every man who gives himself to Christ, and to the living of the life He asks, the promise that Christ will give to him nothing less than His own very self. To any man who tremblingly, tearfully "makes up his mind to try," the preacher may pledge his Lord ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... cried out something in his native tongue and she breathlessly, imploringly replied. Lorry did not understand their words, but be knew that she had saved him from death at the hand of her loyal, erring guard. Allode lowered his gun, bowed low and turned his back upon ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of God and Saviour of the world, and they bore themselves in spiritual matters as His servants. No kindly feeling of neighbourliness or any fear of man could hinder them from inquiring into the religious condition of a parish or dealing faithfully with an erring minister. They had power to ordain, and laid hands on the bent head of some young probationer with much solemnity; they had also power to take away the orders they had given, and he had been hardened indeed beyond hope who could be present and not tremble when the Moderator, standing in his place, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... hold on as long as possible to the Southern seats.' So far from it, a majority of Southern Senators seemed to think there would be no war; that the dominant party in the North desired separation from the South, and would gladly let their 'erring sisters go in peace.' I could multiply proofs of such a disposition. As to holding on to their seats, no Southern Legislature advised it, no Southern Senator who favored secession did so but one, and none others wished to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... acting, instead of having their thoughts bent upon what they should do or say; and by that means bury a capacity for great things. This, perhaps, cannot be called affectation; but it has some tincture of it, at least, so far as that their fear of erring in a thing of no consequence argues they would be too much pleased in ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... genuine monastic spirit. The invective of what he calls his "Apology" spares neither the softness, nor the ostentation, nor the avarice, of religious houses. It condemns even their stately sanctuaries. "The walls of your church are resplendent, but the poor are not there." It recalls the erring monasteries to real mortification. In another early treatise, "The Degrees of Humility and of Pride," the modes of pride are exhibited forcibly, and with not a little humour. Curiosity, thoughtless mirth, mock humility, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... detain us long. It is upon a subject, the incidents of which are now getting trite, and the moral of which has little that can peculiarly recommend it. To exhibit the repentance of a lovely but erring woman, to show us how her soul may be restored to its primitive nobleness, by sufferings, devotion and death, is the object of Maria Stuart. It is a tragedy of sombre and mournful feelings; with an air of melancholy and obstruction ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... look down, merciful Father on us, two erring, weak, sinful boys; look down and bless us, Lord, for the love thou bearest unto thy children. One thou art taking; Lord, take me to the green pastures of thy home, where no curse is; and one remains—O Lord! bless him with the dew of thy blessing; lead ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There's a land—oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back—and ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... have been permitted to be raised again. But the Republican Party acted from its heart, instead of its head. It was merciful, forgiving, and magnanimous. In the magnificent sweep of its generosity to the erring son, it perhaps failed to insure the exact justice to the other sons which was their right. For, as has already been shown in these pages, Free-Trade, imbedded in the Rebel Constitution, as well as Slavery, entered into and became a part, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... happiness, were revealed in the smile of the red lips; love and passion flashed from the large, brilliant eyes. The choir of the Invisibles now sang in jubilant tones: "The eternal Virgin, the everlasting, holy, and pure being, greets the erring, blesses those that seek, causing them to find, and partake ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... great to serve as text for any sermon; and yet we may learn from him as from a hero of Hebrew or Hellenic story. His life was a tragedy; and like some protagonist of Greek drama, he was capable of erring and of suffering greatly. He had kicked against the altar of justice as established in the daily sanctities of human life; and now he had to bear the penalty. The conventions he despised and treated like the dust beneath his feet, were found in this most cruel crisis to be a rock on which his very ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... destined to play a role as heroic as it was humble in the great drama of the Revolution, and whose devotion, purity, unselfishness and indomitable courage elevated her high above the plane of poor, erring humanity. ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... April, 1823), are not figures, but figurantes; and the combined posse go staggering up and down shameless, as drunkards in the daytime. It is no better when she rules her paper. Her lines "are not less erring" than her words; a sort of unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet,—which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are not bold, like this [here a large blot is inserted], but poor smears, half left in and half scratched out, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... of King Arthur, "with its orchard-lawns and bowery hollows," so exquisitely alluded to by Tennyson, is a kindred spot with the Homeric Elysian plain. Emerson says, "The race of gods, or those we erring own, are shadows floating up and down in the still abodes." This is exactly the meaning of Lucretius also. They are all air-cities, these seats of the celestials, whatever be the creed,—summery, ethereal climes, fanned with spice-winds and zephyrs. Meru, Kaf, Olympus, Elboorz,—they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... where boys and girls of all ages and all temperaments mingled, "Aunt Sai" was the great comforter and counsellor. Her inexhaustible tenderness and mother-love blessed all who came near her and soothed all who had a heartache. The weak and erring found in her a frank but pitying rebuker; the earnest and good, a kind friend and wise helper, and a child never feared to go to her either to ask a favor or to confess ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... Thou wert my nurse in many an hour of pain, My comforter in many an hour of sadness; And when my spirit leaped to joy again, Thou wert the one who joyed most in its gladness. Ay, more than nurse—and more than comforter— Thou taught'st my erring spirit not to err, Gave it a softness nature had not given, As now the blessed ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness: A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher: A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly: A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me than ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... as the absolute wisdom and impeccability of the Stoic. Yet, unlike the Stoic scheme, Christianity is aware of the necessity, and provides for it, that the means of appropriating this ideal perfection should be such as are consistent with the nature of a most erring and imperfect creature. Its motion is towards the divine, but by and through the human. In fact, it offers the Stoic humanized in his scheme of means, and the Epicurean exalted in his final objects. Nor is it possible ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey |
