The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

Every quotation a nineteenth-century speaker or writer might want, grouped under its subject, with the author, the date and the source given as exactly as Hoyt could manage.

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Faults: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings.— SHIRLEY — Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Sc. 3.
Alas, by what rude fate Our lives, like ships at sea, an instant meet, Then part forever on their courses fleet.— E. C. STEDMAN — Blameless Prince. St. 51.
When fate has allowed to any man more than one great gift, accident or necessity seems usually to contrive that one shall encumber and impede the other.— SWINBURNE — Essays and Studies. The
Poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its com ing beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.— BAYARD TAYLOR — Ad Amicos.
And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding men.— TENNYSON — In Memoriam. CXXIV.
That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high. S.— EDMUND WALLER — To a Lady Singing
a Song of his Composing. Ep. XIV. I saw him even now going the way of all flesh.— JOHN WEBSTER — Westward Ho. Act II. Sc. 2.
This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin.— WHITTIER — The Crisis. St. 10.
Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, Not for thy faults, but mine.— BYRON — Childe Harold. Canto IV. St. 77.
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.— CARLYLE — Heroes and Hero-Worship. Ch. II.
Men still had faults, and men will have them still; He that hath none, and lives as angels do, Must be an angel.— WENTWORTH DILLON — Miscellanies.
On Mr. Dryden's Religio Laici. L. 8. Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth; If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.— GOLDSMITH — Retaliation. L. 24.
Do you wish to find out a person's weak points? Note the failings he has the quickest eye for in others. They may not be the very failings he is himself conscious of; but they will be their next-door neighbors. No man keeps such a jealous lookout as a rival. J. C. and A. W. HARE-Guesses at Truth. Bad men excuse their faults, good men will leave them.— BEN JONSON — Catiline. Act III. Sc. 2.
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.— LOWELL — A Fable for Critics. L. 28.
The glorious fault of angels and of gods.— POPE — To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. L. 14.
And oftentimes, excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach, Discredit more in hiding of the fault, Than did the fault before it was so patched.— Shakespeare — King John. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 30.
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done; Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor.— Shakespeare — Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 37.
Every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow-fault came to match it.— Shakespeare — As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 372.
Faults that are rich are fair.— Shakespeare — Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 13.
Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault.— Shakespeare — Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 136.
Her only fault, and that is faults enough, Is that she is intolerable curst And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure That, were my state far worser than it is, I would not wed her for a mine of gold.— Shakespeare — Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 88.
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. All men make faults.— Shakespeare — Sonnet XXXV
Ea molestissime ferre homines debent quæ ipsorum culpâ ferenda sunt. Men ought to be most annoyed by the sufferings which come from their own faults.— CICERO — Epistolæ Ad Fratrem. I. 1.
Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille est Qui minimis urgetur. No man is born without faults, he is best who has the fewest.— HORACE — Satiræ. I. 3. 68.
Culpa tenet suos auctores. A fault finds its own authors. Law Maxim. Quia, qui alterum incusat probi, eum ipsum se intueri oportet. Because those, who twit others with their faults, should look at home.— PLAUTUS — Truculentus. I. 2. 58.
Amici vitium ni feras, prodis tuum. Unless you bear with the faults of a friend, you betray your own.— SYRUS — Maxims.
Invitat culpam qui delictum præterit. He who overlooks a fault, invites the commission of another.— SYRUS — Maxims.
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