"Wrong" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or 'folk' version of {Murphy's Law}, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also {Hanlon's Razor}). The label 'Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... this error of a fellow navigator, the Commodore patiently spent considerable of the beautiful summer evening in getting Gadabout turned around; and then again bore down upon the schooner. This time her being in the wrong place did not seem to matter; for we reached her all right, and there probably was no place along that side where we did not remove more or less paint. The captain of the schooner gave us the needed information about the harbour; our lines were cast off, and the houseboat ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Mannouri presented himself early on that day at Grandier's prison, caused him to be stripped naked and cleanly shaven, then ordered him to be laid on a table and his eyes bandaged. But the devil was wrong again: Grandier had only two marks, instead of five—one on the shoulder-blade, and the other on ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... beauty of its alternative. The stronger his conviction, the better; indeed, deliberately choose his deepest-seated prejudice—attack him in the very heart of what you regard as his error. Then, when at last he sees that the opinion which he had thought of as the only possible one is in reality wrong, and that another which he had loathed is in reality right, a tremendous intellectual conversion will have taken place; his own case will constantly act as a warning to him whenever he is again tempted to ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... of deification startles and shocks the modern reader. It astonishes us to find that these earnest and humble saints at times express themselves in language which surpasses the arrogance even of the Stoics. We feel that there must be something wrong with a system which ends in obliterating the distinction between the Creator and His creatures. We desire in vain to hear some echo of Job's experience, so different in tone: "I have heard Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... was to have one of those jolly, naive detective stories which the feminine hand can best weave. But I was deceived, nor do I consider quite fairly. For how was I to know that such an incident had no essential relation to any other in this quiet story of the love affairs of Patience and the wrong boy rejected, and the right man discovered, in time; that it wasn't even introduced so as to throw light on the character of any one concerned? Now I would ask Miss SOPHIE COLES what she would think of me if I began my (projected) ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... him. "Do not grieve, my angel," she said; "you will yet see the wisdom of your Carlotta. Ugolone was old and sick, it is true. A pest upon the villain who sold him to us! May his eyes weep rivers of tears! But you are wrong about the children. They are worth more than Ugolone, the donkeys, and the van, all put together. Did you not see how they pleased the people yesterday? I will teach them to sing more songs, and to dance the ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... woman, for whom he would have gone to death, he had drawn down the curse. He was powerless to help her; all that he could give—the promise of lifelong love and tenderness—was itself a deadly wrong—would blast his life in giving, hers in receiving. In the minutes that he stood there, gazing into her face, all the waves and billows of bitterest realization of helplessness went ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the sea? Of the countries over the water? Of storms and islands and flashing birds, and strange bright flowers? Of all the lands and life I've never seen, and dream of all wrong? Will it tell me those things?—of your life that ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... in a horizontal row before the child. Say: "See these pennies. Count them and tell me how many there are. Count them with your finger, this way" (pointing to the first one on the child's left)—"One"—"Now, go ahead." If the child simply gives the number (whether right or wrong) without pointing, say: "No; count them with your finger, this way," starting him off as before. ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... bride, Thy following Me through the desert, The land unsown. Holy to the Lord was Israel, 3 First-fruit of His income; All that would eat it stood guilty, Evil came on them. Rede of the Lord— Hear the Lord's Word, House of Jacob, 4 All clans of Israel's race! [Thus sayeth the Lord] 5 What wrong found your fathers in Me, That so far they broke from Me, And following after the Bubble(141) Bubbles became. Nor said they: 6 Where is the Lord who carried us up From the land of Misraim?(142) Who led us through the desert, Land of waste and chasms, ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... kist her wearie feet, And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong, As he her wronged innocence did weet. O, how can beautie maister the most strong, And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!"[9] ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... said, "the evil dream is over, and thy voice comes back to mine ear, soft and loving as when I wooed and won thee among the dells of Ida. Thou hearest me not, Oenone, or else I know that, forgiving all the wrong, thou wouldst hasten to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... contempt of that which is rough. Menander will, therefore, be preferred, but Aristophanes will not be despised, especially since he was the first who quitted that wild practice of satirizing at liberty right or wrong, and by a comedy of another cast, made way for the manner of Menander, more agreeable yet, and less dangerous. There is, yet, another distinction to be made between the acrimony of the one, and the softness of the other; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... what we call a vanishing point in drawing. Simple, isn't it? Never could understand why Carter went to so much trouble working out all those ways to locate vanishing points. Me, I just throw 'em in wherever I need 'em. But Carter claimed that was wrong. Said they were all connected together some way, and he was gonna work out a ...
— Vanishing Point • C.C. Beck
... was wrong of him; it was a distinct contravention of an unwritten law among "Commercials" that no person must be interrogated concerning the nature of his business. The big and the little man, once inside the hostel, which is their club as well, are on an equality. I did not remind my questioner ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... life in the deep woods gives one new beliefs. I thought I caught a glimpse of such a figure, but when I tried for a second look it was gone. But whether right or wrong you can see what has happened. Our camp has been destroyed and with it most of the canoes. We have lost much, and the Indians are greatly alarmed. It is superstition, not fear, that ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... crippled master, frightened children and spying servants. This is the county as the author sees it. Linked with this is the life of the farm, where Jenny is brought up by an uncle who hates her; where she tends his bedridden wife; where her cousin Beatrice goes wrong; where Beatrice's betrayer is killed in an accident, and her baby falls into the fire; and where finally the dour uncle himself, after shooting the young squire who has offered dishonourable addresses to Jenny, allows her to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... treatment. Expulsion may occasionally be necessary for class (a), but the few who belong to this class are usually too cunning to get caught. It used to be notorious at school that it was almost always the wrong people who got dropped on. I do not think a boy in the other two classes should ever be expelled, and even when expulsion is unavoidable, it should, if possible, be deferred till the end of the term, so as to make it indistinguishable from an ordinary departure. After all, there is no ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... it, then, you are knocking at the wrong door for not the first time in your life. The very little faith I ever had in professional widows, with twelve small children, all down in the measles, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... foolishly," he said. "For doing wrong I am rightly punished. The gracious rebuke of Antni Sahib I lay upon my forehead and my eyes, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... the agreeable temperature, the attractiveness of the country, and the number of people they daily saw during their voyage, the Spaniards concluded that the country is a very important one, and in this opinion they were not wrong, as we shall demonstrate at the proper time. One morning at the break of dawn the Spaniards landed, being attracted by the charm of the country and the sweet odours wafted to them from the forests. They discovered at that point a larger number of people than they had thus ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... in charge and, when Clive asked him about the patient, his evasive answers were most amusing; like all Orientals he would not commit himself to any definite statement because he might "lose face" if his opinion proved to be wrong. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... the brave men who are risking life and limb in the sacred cause of freedom; and I am proud to say that this is the sentiment of every lady within the circle of my acquaintance. I most sincerely hope that some lady in your Convention will offer a resolution touching a great wrong that has been practiced toward our sick and wounded soldiers in some of the hospitals, namely, the neglect of the proper officers to affix their signatures to discharges made out, in many instances for a long time, until the hope of once more seeing the dear ones at home has faded from the heart ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to allow him a percentage for the use of each saw for a certain period, but afterward repudiated her contract. The action of North Carolina forms the only bright page in this history of fraud and wrong. That State allowed him a percentage for the use of each saw for the term of five years, and promptly collected the money and paid it over to the patentee. For fourteen years Whitney continued to manufacture his machines, reaping absolutely no profit from ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... because they are used not as parts of a tribal system but as mere detritus of a primitive system of science, or philosophy. According to my views they had long since become separated from any such system and it is placing them in a wrong perspective, giving them a false value, associating them with elements to which they have no affinity to divorce them from their tribal connection. The custom, rite, and belief which were tribal, when they were brought to their present ethnographic area, cannot be considered in the varied ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Philadelphians. When Fadus was informed of this procedure, it provoked him very much that they had not left the determination of the matter to him, if they thought that the Philadelphians had done them any wrong, but had rashly taken up arms against them. So he seized upon three of their principal men, who were also the causes of this sedition, and ordered them to be bound, and afterwards had one of them slain, whose ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... too melancholy and too terrible for me to comprehend the right and wrong of it, or how a penitence is best made. Yet, as you ask me, it seems to me that what she will one day become should claim your duty and your future. The weakest ever has ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... not call you a liar," undisturbed. "You wrote it down yourself, and I simply agreed to it. A duel? Well, I shall not fight you. Dueling is obsolete, and it never demonstrated the right or wrong of a cause. Since my part in this affair is one of neutrality, and since to gain that knowledge was the object of your invitation, I will ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Jewdwine had come off well. He had always a tremendous advantage in his hereditary manners; however right you had been to start with, his imperturbable refinement put you grossly in the wrong. And at this point Rickman gave ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... third edition therefore we have the work in the condition in which it would have most approved itself to Boswell's own judgment. In one point only, and that a trifling one, had Malone to exercise his judgment. But so skilful an editor was very unlikely to go wrong in those few cases in which he was called upon to insert in their proper places the additional material which the author had already published in his second edition. Malone did not, however, correct the proof-sheets. I thought ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... on the path of the Gods reaches Hiranyagarbha only, texts such as 'This is the path of the Gods, the path of Brahman; those who proceed on that path do not return to the life of man' (Ch. Up. IV, 15, 6), and 'moving upwards by that a man reaches immortality' (VIII, 6, 6), are wrong in asserting that that soul attains to immortality and does not return; for the holy books teach that Hiranyagarbha, as a created being, passes away at the end of a dviparardha-period; and the text 'Up to the world of Brahman the worlds return again' (Bha. Gi. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... These human energies are given to men for the very purpose that they may flow forth in a thousand modes of activity and industry, and that, thus, men may mutually impart an exalted happiness upon each other. These energies are to be repressed only when they are wrong, when they take a wrong direction, when they conflict with the welfare of the community. When these energies, these human impulses to act, are right, when they aim at useful results, then they must have every facility, every possible channel opened to their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that she had turned up the wrong Street while searching for her Affinity, the Partnership Arrangement ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... moment to suggest that he is not in perfect and serene control of his idea. Only at last, perhaps, we turn back and wonder what it was. What is the subject of War and Peace, what is the novel about? There is no very ready answer; but if we are to discover what is wrong with the form, this is the ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... For my part, if I knew myself innocent I could brave them all. It is the feeling that one is wrong that cows one." And Mrs. Furnival thought of the little confession which she would be called ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... instant of time. So, if a ship could move from one time-period to another, it would lessen the total of matter and energy in the time-period it left, and increase the total when—where—where-when it arrived. And this would mean that the law of the conservation of mass and energy was wrong. But it ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... "especially now-a-days, for they live under different circumstances from those we knew when we were young. Instead of hastily scolding and punishing them, let us rather quietly reason with them, when possible, and show them where they are wrong." ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... aggrandisement of any continental potentate; that, on the other hand, the sovereign, distrusted and thwarted by the legislature, could be of little weight in European politics, and that the whole of that little weight would be thrown into the wrong scale. The Prince's first wish therefore was that there should be concord between the throne and the Parliament. How that concord should be established, and on which side concessions should be made, were, in his view, questions of secondary ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trooper guard, reporting the escape of Running Fox and Anse, had condemned his captive fully as far as the lieutenant was concerned. The troopers had then searched their prisoner and to them a loaded money belt worn by a drifter did not make good sense, either—unless too much sense on the wrong side of the ledger. Drearily Drew had to admit that had he stood in the lieutenant's boots, he would have made exactly the same decision and brought his prisoner back ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... this narrative. When questioned on such a matter, the aged, of forty years ago, would shake their heads in an ominous kind of manner, and remain silent, as if it were wrong on their part to allude to the affair. Others, more bold, would surmise that it was the work of a Spirit, or of the Fairies. By and by I shall give Mr. A. N. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... and her eyes were wild and staring; her features twitched as in a spasm, while she stood there struggling with the invisible power that sealed her lips. There was a sudden movement among the spectators; they were whispering together. They saw that something was wrong. "Do you thus promise?" repeated the minister, after a pause. "Nod, if you can't speak," murmured the bridegroom. His words were the hiss of a serpent in her ears. Her will resisted no longer; her soul was wholly possessed ...
— At Pinney's Ranch - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... things go now, does degrade a man in spite of himself. He says men get coarse and violent in spite of themselves, just as women do when everything goes wrong in the house,—when the flies are thick, and the fire won't burn, and the irons stick to the clothes. You see, you both suffer. Don't lay up this fit of temper ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Buckner replied, "Yes, if you leave before the terms of capitulation are agreed on." Forrest asked, "Gentlemen, have I leave to cut my way out?" Pillow answered, "Yes, sir, cut your way out," and asked, "Is there anything wrong in my leaving?" Floyd replied, "Every person must judge for himself of that?" Whereupon General Pillow said, "Then I shall leave this place." General Floyd turned to General Pillow and told him, "General Pillow, I turn the command over, sir." General Pillow said, ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... taken so strong a hold of us English in later times that it is necessary constantly to insist that our old English kingship was elective. Alfred's title was based on election; and so little was the idea of usurpation, or of any wrong done to the two infant sons of Ethelred, connected with his accession, that even the lineal descendant of one of those sons, in his chronicle of that eventful year, does not pause to notice the fact that Ethelred left children. He is writing to his "beloved cousin Matilda," to instruct ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... metaphors and are highly figurative. Such are "to pass in your checks," "to hold up," "to pull the wool over your eyes," "to talk through your hat," "to fire out," "to go back on," "to make yourself solid with," "to have a jag on," "to be loaded," "to freeze on to," "to bark up the wrong tree," "don't monkey with the buzz-saw," and "in the soup." Most slang had a bad origin. The greater part originated in the cant of thieves' Latin, but it broke away from this cant of malefactors in time and gradually evolved itself from its unsavory past until it developed into a current form ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... projected over the street, and had two wooden figures of wild men who struck the hours with their clubs, was set up in 1671. Unless there was a similar clock before this date, as is not improbable, Scott is wrong in 'The Fortunes of Nigel', where he makes Moniplies stand "astonished as old Adam and Eve ply their ding-dong." The figures, the removal of which, it is said, brought tears to the eyes of Charles Lamb, were bought by the Marquis of Hertford to adorn his villa in Regent's Park, still ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... saw a hornet's nest until she had put her head into it, was seriously alarmed. She came and slipped her arm through his. Not convinced that he was right, and she herself wrong, because that was not natural to her, she was yet profoundly impressed by the obvious fact that the subject was very bad for him. She rubbed her cheek against ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... movements were; as were the rotation of seasons, the balancing of forces, the growth and waning of matter, male and female reproduction, light and darkness; and, in short, to make human actions as harmonious as were all the forces of nature, which never fail or go wrong except under (presumed) provocation, human or other. The Emperor, as Vicar of God, was the ultimate judge of what was tao, or ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... and were as much mine for the time being as if the flowers themselves had belonged to me. Suddenly I turned and glanced up at the many-windowed house with a sort of guilty consciousness that I might possibly be doing wrong. But the house was still asleep—closed shutters or down-drawn blind at every window. I saw before me a substantial-looking red-brick mansion, with a high slanting roof, of not undignified appearance now that it was mellowed by age, but with no pretensions to architectural beauty. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... even a single hour of his company a dash of pitch to the best of women. Kelley speculated on just how long it would take Harford to learn of these hints against his wife. Some of his blunt followers were quite capable of telling him in so many words that the major was doing him wrong, and when they did an explosion would certainly ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... helped to stimulate recruiting and to give Hughes something resembling in a feeble way the sensations of 1914. But Camp Borden was not Valcartier. General Lessard, whom he had ignored in 1914, was sent down to Quebec to encourage enlistments. He went too late. Wrong men had gone earlier. Hughes had never tried to placate Quebec. But in 1916 he himself went down to see Cardinal Begin. For an Orangeman like Hughes that was a desperate measure. He got what he expected—cynicism. Begin afterwards issued ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... alarmed by this narrow escape to consent to Pomp's driving again, and for the moment felt as if she should like to usurp his mother's privilege of spanking him. But the little imp looked so unconscious of having done anything wrong that ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... neutral ground he struck the journalist as really being a very different person to the obsequious and silken footman of Trustall Old Manor. The American had all the courage, both of his race and of his profession, but he realised suddenly that he was very much in the wrong. He was ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... far more to be esteemed of than all their glosses; yet, notwithstanding, in Popedom the glosses of the Fathers were of higher regard than the bright and clear text of the Bible, through which great wrong oftentimes is done to the Holy Scriptures; for the good Fathers, as Ambrose, Basil, and Gregory, have ofttimes written very cold things touching the ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... which he suffered, George could never be brought to acknowledge that he was at all in the wrong. "It may be an error of judgment," he said to the Venerable Chaplain of the gaol, "but it is no crime. Were it Crime, I should feel Remorse. Where there is no remorse, Crime cannot exist. I am not sorry: therefore, I am innocent. Is the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the proportion of 36 to 64. The second person also arranged them properly, but doubted between the 8 feet and 12 feet pots, which received light in the proportion of 16 to 36. The third person arranged them in wrong order, and doubted about four of the pots. This evidence shows conclusively how little the curvature of the seedlings differed in the successive pots, in comparison with the great difference in the amount of light which they received; and it should be noted that there ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... are subject to much abuse. Water is allowed to stand in the jardiniere, the plant is kept in dark corners and hallways, the air is dry, and scale is allowed to infest the leaves. If the plant begins to fail, the housewife is likely to repot it or to give it more water, both of which may be wrong. The addition of bone-meal or other fertilizer may be better than repotting. Keep the plant in good light (but not in direct sunlight) as much as possible. Sponge the leaves to remove dust and scale, using soapsuds. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... righteousness of will, and thence to confound outward and visible success with vital achievement, that strength and energy are always in his eyes, fighting or enduring against some phase of the many- headed hydra of wrong. ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... could you? Indeed, sir. I think you did wrong. The poor brute did not know what he was doing, I dare say, and probably he has been a faithful friend." The girl cast her mischievous eyes towards her companions, who snickered again. The old man was not conscious of the sarcasm. He only saw reproach. His face straightened, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... was coming in which he must bid adieu to his father, perhaps for ever, and bid adieu to the old place which, though he despised it, he still loved, his heart was heavy within him. He felt sure that his father had no special regard for him;—in which he was, of course, altogether wrong, and the old man was equally wrong in supposing that his son was unnaturally deficient in filial affection. But they had never known each other, and were so different that neither had understood the other. The son, however, was ready to confess to himself that the chief fault had been ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... annoyed that a youth who had as yet done nothing to distinguish himself, should be honored and revered as if he were already a hero and public benefactor. Whatever annoyed or displeased him he considered must be wrong; where he disapproved he did not spare his censures, and from his very childhood, Cambyses' reproofs had been dreaded even ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... interested to know that she got a month this morning for assaulting the Sanitary Inspector—pulling his nose, I hear. She told the magistrate it struck her as being a useless nose if it didn't notice anything wrong with her drains. The children came into the ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... a plan, Joe; whether right or wrong, is not very material, as respects the exercise we are seeking; but I am inclined to believe it is the proper one. It will at all events give you a fair opportunity of killing a deer, as you will have to fire as they run, and the great number ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... national costume transferred into the army; and as he is aware that this is not the case in other countries, the foreign Hussar's dress is in his eyes a mere servant's livery; and logically the man is not altogether wrong. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... 110 Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, And see that Tyranny is always weakness, Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain Which their own blindness feigned for adamant. Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right To the firm centre lays its moveless base. The tyrant trembles, if the air but stir The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, 120 With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... above him. We watched him go down the clearing towards the river, where his boat was moored. Presently it came on to rain in earnest. Then Tama seemed to hesitate, it evidently occurring to him that something was wrong. In an undecided sort of way he inverted the umbrella, and held it handle upwards in front of him; but as the rain came thicker and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... they sayd before. Which made answere that they sawe and knew well that the towne was lost for certaine reasons that were told them: by occasion whereof they had gainesaid the ordinance of the sayd lord, and sayd that they had bene wrong enformed of diuers things: and on the other side, that they feared that the Turke would not hold his word. But sithens they sawe that there was none other remedie but to abide the aduenture and fortune, they sayd that they put all to the sayd lord ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... more smiles, and more laughter. What matter if all else in the world went wrong, if the Spirit of Christmas reigned supreme in that ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, May 4, 1876. Samuel D. Babcock, President of the Chamber, was in the chair, and proposed the following toast, to which Mr. Reid was called upon for a response: "The Press—right or wrong; when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... itself. Here was a discouragement. How should they dare break up their homes and cross the ocean to an unknown, uncolonized land, with no assurance of protection and liberty when they arrived there? But the leaders rallied again: "If on the king's part there is a purpose or desire to wrong us," they cried, "though we had a seal as broad as the house-floor it would not serve the turn, for there would be means enough found to recall or reverse it. . . . We must rest herein on God's providence, as we have done before." Not lacking ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the Will at work? Most certainly. What built you up from single cell to maturity? Did you do it with your intellect? Has not every bit of it been done without your conscious knowledge? It is only when things go wrong, owing to the violation of some law, that you become aware of your internal organs. And, yet, stomach and liver, and heart and the rest have been performing their work steadily—working away day and night, building up, repairing, nourishing, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... which to fix your gaze. If you are born beautiful, or born lucky—you have no use for "stars." To a certain extent you are a "star" in yourself. But for nous autres there only remains the exasperation of Little Things which perpetually "go wrong." The only hope, then, for us is to cultivate that state of despair which can view a whole accumulation of minor disasters with indifference. When you are indifferent to "luck" it is quite astonishing what good fortune comes your way. ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... river from the Copper-Mine nearly coincides with what we estimated the Anatessy to be from their statements. In our subsequent journey however across the barren grounds we ascertained that this conjecture was wrong, and that the Anatessy, which is known to come from Rum Lake, must fall into the sea to the ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... an air of affliction. You must be sensible how much I have always loved you by the continual demonstrations I have given you; and I can never change my mind, for even now I love you more than ever. You have enemies, Schemselnihar, proceeded he; and those enemies have done you all the wrong they can. For this purpose they have filled my ears with stories against you, which have not made the least impression upon me. Shake off, then, this melancholy, continued he, and prepare to entertain your lord this night after your accustomed manner. He said many other ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... believed that I should die, but now so terrible were my sensations that I didn't expect to live many hours unless I should be released. I thought over my past life. The numberless wrong and foolish things I had done came back to my recollection, while not a single good deed of any sort occurred to me. I thought of how often I had vexed my father and mother, how impudent I had been to Aunt Deb, how frequently unkind and disagreeable to my brothers and sisters. I tried to be ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... constitutions also usually contain a clause providing for the method by which they may be amended. Another noun, in the plural form of "amends,'' is restricted in its meaning to that of the penalty paid for a fault or wrong committed. In its French form the amende, or amende honorable, once a public confession and apology when the offender passed to the seat of justice barefoot and bareheaded, now signifies in the English phrase a spontaneous and satisfactory ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... care I could have been very happy in the new home; 'but with constant worry over the struggle for existence, this was impossible. Despite my best efforts, matters continued to go wrong, and before the summer was over I had reached the ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... the discoveries of ordinary genius are due to the unassisted and normal condition of the faculty. Morell, in the passage referred to, will probably be thought to be right in the psychological question, and wrong in ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... at once!" Henchard said. "There's something wrong at your house—requiring your return. I've run all the way here on purpose ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... and has to submit by day and by night to our taking his trenches.' Obviously, even the most stupid fellaheen after reading such a sentence must, in the course of time, begin to ask himself how, if trenches are being easily taken by day and by night, we still remain on the wrong side ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... have to follow many false clews. I'm much obliged to you. Either we were on the wrong track, or the Fogers are more clever than I gave them credit for. But I am not done yet. I have something to propose to you. It has come to me in the last few minutes. I saw you in your airship once, and I know you know how ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... true sublime of ecclesiastic absurdity. He is speaking against the custom of dividing the Bible into chapters and verses, and says it often encumbers the sense. This note, though long, I must transcribe, for it would wrong the author to paraphrase his nonsense:—"It is to be wished, therefore, I think, that a fair edition were set forth of the original Scriptures, for the use of learned men in their closets, in which there should be no notice, either in text or ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... all; a very pretty piece of speculative philosophy; of course you were wrong in saying there is no world. The world must exist, to have the shape of a pear; and that the world is shaped like a pear, and not like an apple, as the fools of Oxford say, I have satisfactorily proved in my book. Now, if ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... task, perchance, to win The popular laurel for my song; 'Twere only to comply with sin, And own the crown, though snatched by wrong: Rather Truth's chaplet let me wear, Though sharp as death its thorns may sting; Loyal to Loyalty, I bear No badge but of my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... spread far and wide. The scarlet soldiers were regarded as a distinct species, and the report quickly circulated, that the "Pacha's troops were entirely different from any that had hitherto been seen, as their clothes were red, and their muskets were loaded from the wrong end." ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... thought the cunning Norman was not so far wrong. The Danes pushed up through the little town, and to the minster gates: but entrance was impossible; and they prowled round and round like raging wolves about a winter steading; but ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... times when I do vind Things all goo wrong, an' vo'k unkind, To zee the happy veeden herds, An' hear the zingen o' the birds, Do soothe my sorrow mwore than words; Vor I do zee that 'tis our sin Do meaeke woone's soul so dark 'ithin, When God ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... it hard to explain what satisfaction disobeying Mr. Hildreth and Warren gave her, when her anger was really directed toward her brother. However, she may have reasoned that doing something she knew was wrong was one sure way to ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... directly, MR. IRVING. I have made it my business to acquaint myself with your dramatic career, and I find that you have played as hero at various times in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Corsican Brothers, and The Dead Heart, besides Macbeth. Am I wrong in saying that in each of these pieces you fight ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... this single-hearted girl who had sacrificed everything to a great love so humiliated and touched the heart of the venal courtesan that in spite of all she had at stake, she could not prevail upon herself to do Margherita this great wrong. So, finding that she knew not who the great lady was to whom Raphael was betrothed, Imperia told her of Maria Dovizio's expected visit, as of that of an old friend who had been interested in her as a child at Cetinale, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Canterbury said the acts which by this bill would be repealed, were the main bulwark and supporters of the English church; he expressed all imaginable tenderness for well-meaning conscientious dissenters; but he could not forbear saying, some among that sect made a wrong use of the favour and indulgence shown to them at the revolution, though they had the least share in that happy event; it was therefore thought necessary for the legislature to interpose, and put a stop to the scandalous practice of occasional conformity. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... off so easy every one of us believed he was wrong, and that the chances were ten to one Paul would have to fork over the dollar to pay for having that window pane put in," continued Jack. "But ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... Lucy. "But I wouldn't own him. A saddle will turn on him. He's not vicious, but he'll never get over his scare. He's narrow between the eyes—a bad sign. His ears are stiff—and too close. I don't see anything more wrong with him." ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... hard to be reasonable that he made himself recognizably wrong so far as the present tendency of aircraft development would indicate. With the Night Mail, is the story of a trip by night across the Atlantic from England to America. It is made in a monster dirigible—though the present tendency ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... going because I feel so ill,—not a bit because of what Polly said; I was in the wrong, too, perhaps, but I promise not to let anybody nor anything make me quarrel when I visit you again. Good-bye!' and ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... knit to her joyous companions in the city, to go with me into exile, into a country town, to be the housekeeper of a commonplace cottage filled with aged people! "It is monstrous selfishness; it is wrong," I said, "but I ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... rebukes some egotism or assumption, or petty irritation of bygone years, and confesses that he can now cheerfully accept the fortunes, good and bad, which have occurred to him, "with the disposition to believe them the best that could have happened, whether for the correction of what was wrong in him, or the improvement ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... world, I have seen it divided into twenty different systems of religion. Every nation has received, or formed, opposite opinions; and every one ascribing to itself the exclusive possession of the truth, must believe the other to be wrong. Now if, as must be the fact in this discordance of opinion, the greater part are in error, and are honest in it, then it follows that our mind embraces falsehood as it does truth; and if so, how is it to ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... compel us to adopt the attitude of the life which he is portraying, constraining us to feel the inner necessity of its choices, the compulsion of its delights. It is difficult to abandon ourselves thus to sympathy with what is wrong in life itself, because we have in mind the consequences and relations which make it wrong; yet we all do so at times, whenever we let ourselves go, charmed by its momentary offering. But in the ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... as the reading is in our common Bible, appears to be wrong; because the relative that and its antecedent God are of the third person, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... is the law, as recognized at the present day and established by centuries of precedent, and it completely exonerates Neagle—of course Judge Field needs no exoneration—from any, the least, criminality in what he did. He is acquitted of wrong-doing, not only in his character of attendant servant, but in that of bystander simply. He was as much bound to kill Terry under the circumstances as every bystander in the room was bound to kill him; and in his capacity of guard, especially appointed ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... order and his temperament altogether of the excessive kind, said to me the other day, "When Randall Davidson went to Canterbury, I told those who asked me what would be the result of his reign. He will leave the Church as he found it. I was wrong. He has done much more than that." He went on to say that there was now a far greater charity between the different schools than existed at the beginning of the century, and that if unity had not been attained, at least ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... far as these people were concerned: she thought she had no reason to account to them for it, for they were more worthless than she: what she had done openly, half the women she knew did by stealth, under cover of their homes. She suffered only from the thought of the wrong she had done her nearest and dearest, the only man she had loved. She could not forgive herself for having, in so poor a world, lost an affection ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... you're wrong, my unsuspecting friend. 'T is a bad world, and no place for susceptible minds. Jealousy pursues talent like its shadow—superiority alone wins for you the hatred of inferior men. For instance, why am I here? The editor of my paper will not allow my articles always to appear;—prevents ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... total number of answers given by all subjects when the fingers were close together, 70 per cent. were wrong. An answer was called wrong whenever the subject failed to judge the number correctly. In making out the figures I did not take into account the nature of the errors. Whether involving too many or too few the answer was called wrong. Counting up the number ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... to have appeared here till after being published in London; but everything went wrong. The dedication to Brentano [Antonie v. Brentano, nee Edlen von Birkenstock] was to be confined to Germany, I being under great obligations to her, and having nothing else to spare at the moment; indeed, Diabelli, the publisher, alone got it from me. But everything went ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... but in every war there has always been the side that fought to protect its loved ones and its homes from the brutality of conquerors. There is hideous wrong in every war, but the wrong is in the hearts of those who would rob and oppress those weaker than themselves, not in the patriots and heroes who resist. But I didn't mean to deliver a lecture. I'd rather tell you about the brave boy who ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... have been exercised on the Aborigines of America, the wrong and outrage heaped on them from the days of Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the present period, while they excite sympathy for their sufferings, should extenuate, if not justify the bloody deeds, which revenge prompted the untutored savages to commit. Driven as ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... wrong. When Mr. Carr arrived hurriedly from Sacramento the next evening, he found the house deserted. His daughters were gone; there were indications that they had arrived, and, for some reason, suddenly departed. The vague fear that had haunted his guilty soul after receiving their letter, ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the batch but is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of William Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a stake in the country—or the pension list—or something—by fraud and wrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by Sir Leicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general rising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl necklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets—for it is one appurtenance of their cousinship ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... very good advice, it was probably quite as judicious as other "opinions" for which a hundred and fifty guineas have been cheerfully paid. It was at all events a great comfort to hear that there was nothing constitutionally wrong with "dearest Richard," and that he only wanted a tonic for mind and body. The doctor's verdict was accepted by both parents, but there was an insurmountable obstacle to its being carried into effect in Master Richard ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various |
