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Fault-finding   Listen
noun
Fault-finding  n.  The act of finding fault or blaming; used derogatively. Also Adj.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fault-finding" Quotes from Famous Books



... receipts were practically the same, nor was there anything to change the situation from a financial point of view. The stockholders had voted themselves into a mood of temporary quiescence, and the opera pursued its serious course unhampered by more than the ordinary fault-finding on the part of the representations of careless amusement seekers in the public press, and the grumbling in the boxes because the musical director and stage manager persisted in darkening the audience room in order to heighten the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... am not for one moment flattering myself that I can make my fault-finding with our librarian's assistants amount to much—fill out ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... thus, at the outset of his career, as commander of the Confederate army, saved the capital by a blow at the enemy as sudden as it was resistless. The class of persons who are never satisfied, and delight in fault-finding under all circumstances, declared that a great general would have crushed the enemy on their retreat; these certainly were in a minority; the people at large greeted Lee as the author of a great deliverance worked out for them, and, on his return to Richmond, he was received ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... surprising that it should be so. It has been well said that "the contrast between the ideal of honour and the practice of pecuniary corruption has always been a peculiar feature of Spain and her settlements." If we hear one thing oftener than another said of Spain, it is fault-finding with her public men; the evils of bribery, corruption, and self-seeking amongst what should be her statesmen, and, above all, her Government employees, are pointed out, and by none more than by Spaniards themselves. There is a good deal of truth at the bottom of these charges; they ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... and caused no trouble after having been removed from the first cell and does not know why they transferred her over here. Her entire sojourn here on this occasion was characterized by irritability, impulsiveness and destructiveness to property. She was fault-finding to a great extent and threatened the life of some of those about her. She was surly, selfish, and showed a marked tendency to lying. She was shrewd in her endeavors to get herself into the good graces of those in charge of her and on one occasion stated that she was pregnant ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... waited to walk over with them, was in a fault-finding state of mind. It developed that he could not attend the meeting in the parlor; his superior had ordered that ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... unaccustomed to the care of children it was doubtless very annoying. During the day I received a severe box on the ear from Aunt Patience, for saying to her in an outburst of childish anger, when provoked by her continued fault-finding, ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... with her, glancing over his spectacles to see if she by any possibility could be amusing herself at his expense—good, old, fussy, fault-finding Veritas; but indeed Francesca's eyes were so soft and lovely and honest that the more he looked at her, the less he could do her the injustice ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... not crying now about her aunt's constant fault-finding; there was something in her grief more bitter even than the tears she shed for her mother; it seemed to the girl that day by day she was becoming more and more clumsy and stupid; she broke the crockery, and even the furniture; she ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... Garrick's time, and long afterwards, were habituated to the defective system of theatrical costume—had grown up with it. To them it was part of the stage as they had always known it, and they saw no reason for fault-finding. And it is conceivable that many plays were little affected by the circumstance that the actors wore court suits. It was but a shifting of the period of the story represented, a change of venue; and Romeo, in hair-powder, interested just as much as though he had assumed an auburn wig. The characters ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... as a statue. He found the father the exact antithesis of the daughter: a nervous, fretful, irritable individual (gout had him by the heels at the time), who was as full of "yaps" and snarls as any Irish terrier, and as peevish and fussy as a fault-finding old woman. Added to this, he had a way of glancing all round the room, and avoiding the eye of the person to whom he was talking. And if Cleek had been like the generality of people, and hadn't known that some of the best and "straightest" men ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... said Charley, when he was at length released, and, shinning down a rope, sat down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy, as Tom Aldridge took up the sculls and shoved off from the ship. "He's got as much to say as Noah's great-grandmother. And the gist of it all, fault-finding, of course." ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... "turned up their thumbs." Gifford shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective" (letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh, was regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the Quarterly, was fault-finding and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa" (letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority in the land," his Majesty King George IV., "expressed his disapprobation of the blasphemy and licentiousness of Lord Byron's writings" ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... kept her sewing machine but for which, in the last twenty-four hours, she had found another use. The apartment was very comfortable and Mrs. Donovan kept it as neat as wax. There was never any dust on her floors if the fault-finding tenants did say there was ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... was forty-five, and looked ten years older. She was a tired, worn out, faded little woman, drained of her youth and vitality by the hourly exactions of the fault-finding invalid mother whom she had so recently laid away in the church-yard with unselfish filial tears. But there was something attractive in the sweet patience of her thin face, and the look in her brown eyes as she turned them on her faithful ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... more than flippant fault-finding, frequently gains a cheap reputation for wisdom; and, on the other hand, an optimism, which is really the result of much reflection and experience, may be regarded as the product of a superficial spirit that has never known the deeper evils of life. But, if pessimism ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... people pride themselves on their plain speaking. An ability to put things pleasantly is really far more valuable. Even fault-finding can be pleasantly done. ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... important accessory, if not the main, fundamental and primary source of the trouble. His wife, using his poor earning capacity as a weapon, and with the demand for "more money" as her battle-cry, carried on a campaign of complaint, grumbling, nagging, fault-finding, insult and abuse, but little short of persecution, making conditions wretched and miserable at home. Things at length became quite unbearable to him—so much so that, feeble in willpower and lacking ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... and one to which children, sensitive as they are to the feeling of their elders, react most unfavorably. The child of divorced parents is handicapped; perhaps not so often or so seriously as when held for years in an atmosphere of mutual hatred, suspicion, fault-finding, and distrust—handicapped, however, by many social embarrassments, by shock to affection given, perhaps, to both parents equally, and by the often great difficulty of finding a suitable home for the child of the divorced couple. The child that ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... whether a tire is well welded or not, and then pronounce upon its merits with great emphasis, but there their ambition rests satisfied. It is the same peculiarity among ourselves which leads us in other matters, such as book-making, to attain the excellence of fault-finding without the wit to indite a page. It was in vain I tried to indoctrinate the Bechuanas with the idea that criticism did not imply any superiority over the workman, or even ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... any adequate protection against these monsters of the deep?" asked Mr. Hardley in a fault-finding voice. "I should think you ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... hypocrisy) has not its attractive guise. Without knowing herself romantic, Joanna was apt to quarrel in her own mind with cleverer girls, accomplished girls, pleasant girls, even good girls, sensible women, business women, nay religious women, until she feared she must be fault-finding, satirical, sour—as her sisters protested at intervals. Joanna, sour? Joanna, so charitable and sympathizing? Take comfort, Joanna; the spirit is willing, though ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... you're in a fault-finding humour this morning," said Bertram as they walked towards the camp. "Let's enjoy ourselves in spite of circumstances. Do you know, I hold it to be exceedingly wise as well as philosophical, to make the best ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... had the grace to feel a passing emotion of gratitude to this kind benefactor, and shame that she herself had been so ready with fault-finding instead ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... see; but boy as he is, he is too much of a man to speak of it. He exposed himself to the sun too much yesterday, but since it came of his earnest desire to learn, and to make this journey as useful as the opportunities will allow, no one seeks to discourage him by fault-finding. We missed him an hour from the camp, and then found him some distance away, by the edge of a brook, and with no umbrella to protect him from the fierce sun. If he had been used to going without his umbrella, it would have been well enough, of course; but he was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... fault-finding, n. carping, criticism, grumbling, murmuring, captiousness, cavil, reprehension, dissatisfaction, animadversion, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... talking, Jurgen, has nowhere any precedent. Why, it deafens, it appals, it submerges you in an uproarious sea of fault-finding; and in a word, you might as profitably oppose a hurricane. Yet you want her back! Now assuredly, Jurgen, I do not think very highly of your wisdom, but by your bravery I ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... that nothing does so much good to a young player as a few words of approbation spoken in the right way and at the right time. It braces him up, gives him needed confidence in himself, and goes a long way further toward making him a first-class player than does continual fault-finding. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... know the situation—arm-chair critics at a safe distance—levelled some darts of fault-finding at Colonel Irvine at Prince Albert, and I write a paragraph or two in reply, because I know whereof I speak. I have some reasons for claiming to know Prince Albert, which was founded as a mission and named by some of my relatives in 1866. At the time of the rebellion there were ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... first washing himself with unusual care for a boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair. He was not going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for fault-finding. While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang, and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some trepidation ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... who "can't believe" Fatal rencontre "Fault-finding" Favorite amusements of slaveholders Fear, the only motive of slaves Feast for slaves Feeding insufficient Feeble infants Felonies on account of slavery " perpetrated with impunity Female ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... opposition which some of these papers have met with suggests the inference that they contain really important, but unwelcome truths. Negatives multiplied into each other change their sign and become positives. Hostile criticisms meeting together are often equivalent to praise, and the square of fault-finding turns out to be the same thing ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... slipped away, and I had grown to be a tall strong boy of fifteen; and in spite of my aunt's constant fault-finding I received sufficient encouragement from Uncle Joe to go on with my natural history pursuits, collecting butterflies and beetles, birds' eggs in the spring, and stuffing as many birds ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... provocations and disappointment. Now, the tendency of every sensitive mind, when thwarted in its wishes, is, to complain and find fault, and that often in tones of fretfulness or anger. But there are few domestics, who have not heard enough of the Bible, to know that angry or fretful fault-finding, from the mistress of a family, when her work is not done to suit her, is not in agreement with the precepts of Christ. They notice and feel the inconsistency; and every woman, when she gives way to feelings of anger and impatience, at the faults of those around her, lowers ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... would find them very vulnerable to criticism, which nowadays has become a synonym for fault-finding; at least this carping proclivity characterizes the class who seem desirous only of earning reputation as literary Jeffreys. I am aware, sir, that I ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... and all comfort may be prevented by an unkind, a sour, crabbed temper of mind,—a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion or temperament. A spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied temper; a constant irritability; little inequalities in the look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied—your husband or your wife cannot tell why—will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... off my money ever since! There hasn't been a Christmas present or a funeral wreath bought in this house since I came into it I didn't pick out and pay for out of my own pocket. And all the thanks I get for it is this perpetual fault-finding, and I wish I was dead like this poor saint here. She spent her life slaving for you. And what thanks did she get for it? Oh, you ought to go down on ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... were to pass their lives. I could see enough in America to find fault with, through the creaks of the drawer, and if an American, I might have indulged a little in the same way myself, for I am not one of those who think fault-finding belongs properly to the stranger, and not to the native. It is the proper office of the latter, as it is his duty to amend these faults; the traveler being bound in justice to look at the good as well as the evil. But, according to my companions, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... was a fault-finding, tyrannical chief, ignorant, vulgar, and malicious. In the Mississippi book the author gives his first interview with Brown, also his last one. For good reasons these occasions were burned into his memory, and they may be accepted as substantially correct. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... diction wants vigour; on the contrary, it is crisp with hoar-frost. But the sentiments conveyed by the diction are those of a nature sear and withered. And it is in this combination of brisk words and decayed feelings that his writing represents the talk and mind of Paris. He and Paris are always fault-finding: fault-finding is the attribute ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... preacher's utterance is almost, if not quite, as important as its words. Lacking the accent of pity, the accusations of the preacher will degenerate into scolding, and of all scolds the pulpit scold is the most objectionable. Without a pitiful heart his exposure of human nature will become mere fault-finding, and a fault-finding ministry is a ministry of desolation. Again, without a pitiful heart the preacher's utterance of the divine judgment will be but more or less terrifying threats, and the pulpit is not set up to threaten but to pronounce. We have heard ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... very apt by the time he had been more or less summarily discharged from half a dozen places he had become a good workman, and henceforth had no trouble about retaining any situation as long as he refrained from beer and restrained his temper; but at the slightest fault-finding on the part of the master he would fly into a passion and throw up the situation, and this, especially, if he suspected that anything had leaked out about ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... of mine. In the first place, the matter lies entirely with the Marshal. And then, my good fellow, we are blamed for so many things, that one more or less! We are not at the maiden stage in our experience of fault-finding. Under the Restoration, men were put in simply to give them places, without any regard for the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic. And then fairly hooted, as if he should say: "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... given to criticism. Along with exposition of my own views there has always gone a pointing out of defects in those of others. And if this is a trait in my writing, still more is it a trait in my conversation. The tendency to fault-finding is dominant—disagreeably dominant. The indicating of errors in thought and speech made by those around has all through life been an incurable habit—a habit for which I have often reproached ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... Unconsciously men narrow the sphere of their sympathies. The mainspring of life—love—grows slowly rusty for want of use, and from some hearts that were once true fountains of joy to those around them, the living water almost ceases to flow. Criticism, and fault-finding, and censoriousness too often take the place of generous labour for the welfare of the world. This may, no doubt, arise in part from the natural desire that others should profit by our past experiences, which ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... the world would cry out astonished. I know a little girl, ten years old, of nervous temperament, whose whole physical condition is disordered, and seriously, by her mother's habitual atmosphere of rude fault-finding. She is a sickly, fretful, unhappy, almost unbearable child. If she lives to grow up, she will be a sickly, fretful, unhappy, unlovely woman. But her mother is just as much responsible for the whole as if she had deranged ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... began by calling Pierrette "my dear," or "little one." Then she abandoned the gentler terms for "Pierrette" only. Her reprimands, at first only cross, became sharp and angry; and no sooner were their feet on the path of fault-finding than the brother and sister made rapid strides. They were no longer bored to death! It was not their deliberate intention to be wicked and cruel; it was simply the blind instinct of an imbecile tyranny. The pair believed they were doing Pierrette ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... petition for the aid of the Holy Spirit, Aunt Faith closed her prayer, and the morning worship was concluded by the ancient ascription of praise to Jehovah. The conversation at the breakfast-table was bright and happy; there was no gloomy or sullen look, no fault-finding. When the children were little, their tempers often showed themselves on Sunday as well as on other mornings, but patience overcomes many obstacles, and Aunt Faith's unvarying effort had been so far crowned with success, that as they ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... whether we are not frequently too exacting with children,—too much given to fault-finding? Were it not that the business of play is so engrossing to them, and life so fascinating a matter on the whole,—were it not for these qualifying circumstances, we should harass many of them into dark ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... servants do their own will both with it and the poor children. I have been very wretched, Uncle John, lately, and I am afraid I have drunk more than I ought to have done. Robert and I do not hit together as we used to; he is always fault-finding, and ever since that visit from his cousin who is settled in America he has been dissatisfied and heartless. His cousin has made himself a rich man in ten years there; and Robert says we shall ne'er make money here till we are ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Ran go home next week," she said, slowly. "I hoped—I wanted so much to send Lucy away with—I can't express it—a little bit higher ideals than any she has known before. I thought we were succeeding; she has seemed more considerate and less fault-finding." ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... she had been exerting herself to the utmost to amuse the young guests, her efforts thwarted again and again by the petulance and unreasonableness of Walter and Enna; she had also borne much teasing from Arthur, and fault-finding from Mrs. Dinsmore, to whom Enna was continually carrying tales, until, at length, no longer able to endure it, she had stolen away to her father to seek ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and sowed fault-finding among the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... band were implicated in the escape, all were alike ready to aver that, during the night, they had witnessed very strange sights and heard very strange sounds. When they carried back this report, the good-natured De Soto, convinced that fretting and fault-finding would do no good, appeased their alarm by saying, with a ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... cousin flung Margaret on her own resources. A friend had procured her employment as the "companion" of a rich, eccentric old lady, infirm of health and temper. Margaret lived with her for five years, and to the young girl they seemed treble the time. Her employer was fault-finding, peevish, unreasonable, and many a time Margaret's patience almost failed her—almost, but not quite. In the end it brought her a more tangible reward than sometimes falls to the lot of the toiler. Mrs. Constance died, and in her will she left ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... grumbling and complaint, aiding the very worst form of disunion. Could we prevail with one prayer upon the heart of every Federal freeman, it would be to implore him in this hour of trial not to withold his warmest support from the Administration and to fall into the common weakness of fault-finding and despairing. Such enormous wars as this never have been ended in a few months; wars especially which involve the deepest antagonism of social principles in existence. And our winnings have been neither few nor light. The Southern Border States, with little exception, are ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... right. "Thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just." Hope has been defamed more than any other of the joys of life, just as the most charitable become the target of the greater portion of the malignity of fault-finding fellow-creatures. Treat Hope fairly, my young friend, and she will never desert you, neither will she poison your expectations, as did the hags ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... have had a pleasant evening, have we not? But I need not tell you that our talk had best not be repeated. We have said not a word that is disloyal to His Majesty: but even a little fault-finding is apt to be ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... embarrass him. If it were necessary on public grounds to set right the error, he (Pitt) would do so himself on some fit occasion. Malmesbury and Canning did their utmost to spur him on to a more decided opposition; and the latter wrote him a letter of eight pages "too admonitory and too fault-finding for even Pitt's very good humoured mind to bear."[648] Pitt replied by silence. In vain did friends tell him that Ministers had assured the King of his intention to bring forward Catholic Emancipation if he returned ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... leader fit to stand with Cortes and Pizarro; but he was matched with a man as cool, skilful, prompt, and daring as himself. The traces that have come down to us indicate, in Ribaut, one far above the common stamp: "a distinguished man, of many high qualities," as even the fault-finding Le Moyne calls him, devout after the best spirit of the Reform, and with a human heart under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... passed away. At length the baron, leaning upon his daughter's arm and on a staff, ventured out into the open air, to sit silently in the shadow cast by the castle walls, or to listen for every trifle which might afford possible scope for fault-finding. At these times his dependents in general would go a good deal out of their way to avoid him, and as Anton never did this, he was not unfrequently their scapegoat. Every day the baron had to hear, in return for his cross-questioning, "Mr. Wohlfart ordered this," or "Mr. Wohlfart ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... do with the individual, empirically regarded; that admits of degrees of better and worse, since here chance and speciality have received authority from the Idea to exercise their monstrous power; much, therefore, in particular aspects of the grand phenomenon, might be criticized. This subjective fault-finding—which, however, only keeps in view the individual and its deficiency, without taking notice of Reason pervading the whole—is easy; and inasmuch as it asserts an excellent intention with regard to the good of the whole, and seems to result from a kindly heart, it feels authorized to give itself ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... me—and I am here only stating a personal view—both possible and desirable, is to live as far as we can by the law of beauty, not to submit to anything by which our soul is shamed and insulted, not to be drawn into strife, not to fall into miserable fault-finding, not to allow ourselves to be fretted and fussed and agitated by the cares of life; but to say clearly to ourselves, "that is a petty, base, mean thought, and I will not entertain it; this is a generous and kind and gracious thought, and I will ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... abode. His farm was a model for the emulation of all the landholders in the parish, and his products gained prize after prize at successive agricultural exhibitions. But Mr. Gourlay was nothing if not critical, and certain of his surroundings afforded legitimate grounds for fault-finding. There were many and serious defects in the system of administering the poor-laws of Great Britain in those days, and the administration in the parish of Wily was attended by some specially objectionable features. These erelong became painfully apparent to the keen eyes of Mr. Gourlay, who began ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... COLE said: That we are still so far from enfranchisement is mainly the fault of women themselves. Home talks, not Mrs. Caudle's fault-finding lectures, will do more toward convincing men of the righteousness of their demand, than all the public harangues to which they can listen. Comparatively speaking, there are few men who do not listen and heed the counsels of a good wife, few who will not yield a willing or ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... marriage—women who have no virtues save one tied like millstones to some of earth's noblemen; great-hearted and great-souled women mated with clods. I see people insanely jealous of one another, suspicious, fault-finding, malicious; covertly sending barbed shafts to one another through the medium of general conversation. As if love were ever to be held captive, or be won by cords and chains! As if the freest thing on earth would ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... lays herself open to the charge of flattery, is it not less of a fault than to merit the reputation for brutal fault-finding? Who would not rather be a ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... WILL have my fault-finding at last! So you can decypher my utterest hieroglyphic? Now droop the eyes while I triumph: the plains cower, cower beneath the mountains their masters—and the Priests stomp over the clay ridges, (a palpable plagiarism from two lines of a legend that delighted my infancy, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... her morning's work she hardly knew how, though her father was dry and fault-finding all the time. Her eyes were so full of tears when she was released that she hardly saw where she was going, and nearly ran against her aunt, who had just walked into the hall. Mrs. Egremont was too ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... battle, let alone the covetous and wicked-minded sons of Dhritarashtra. O thou of mighty arms, for thy good I made great efforts to prevent the battle by bringing about peace. By that we have been freed from the debt we owed to virtue. Fault-finding persons will not be able to reproach us for anything. Foolish Duryodhana, destitute of understanding, regardeth himself as skilled in weapons, and though really weak thinketh himself to be possessed of strength. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... absolutely necessary for the good of your service to moderate your conduct, and not to single out with too great severity faults committed either against his service or against the respect due to your person or character." Colbert rightly felt that fault-finding letters were not sufficient to keep within bounds a temperament as fiery as that of the governor of Canada; on the other hand, a man of Frontenac's worth was too valuable to the colony to think of dispensing with his services. The wisest course was to renew the Sovereign ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... errand, and the boy whitened as he turned to obey. Mr. Chase's prompt, old-fashioned methods were something new to him. Fault-finding at home had always been reserved for quiet talks alone with father or mother; they were never made big public affairs ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... part of our plan has gone clean off the rails. Keyes, Braithwaite, Aspinall, Dawnay, Godfrey are sick—but their disappointment is nothing to mine. De Robeck agrees that we don't know enough yet to warrant us in fault-finding or intervention. My orders ought to have been taken before a single unwounded Officer or man was ferried back aboard ship. Never, since modern battles were invented by the Devil, has a Commander-in-Chief been so accessible to a message or an appeal from any part of the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... supposed to be specially conversant with all questions relating to foreign affairs. It was understood that Mr. Sumner did not intend to find fault either with England or with the government of his own country as to its management of this matter; or that, at least, such fault-finding was not his special object, but that he was desirous to put forth views which might lead to a final settlement of all difficulties with reference to the right of ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... to ask such questions as these, if we do not ask them out of any carping, fault-finding spirit, trying to pick holes in the Bible, from which God defend us and all Christian men. If we ask such questions in faith and reverence—that is, believing and taking for granted that the Bible is right, and respecting it, as the Book of books, in which our own forefathers and ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... had run away with his brother's wife, life at home had been hard for little Eric. His mother and Olaf both suspected him of complicity. Mrs. Ericson was harsh and fault-finding, constantly wounding the boy's pride; and Olaf was always getting her ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... cheeks blanched and their eyes half quenched with midnight work, toward premature graves, to have the "proof-sheet" of their life corrected by Divine mercy, glad at last to escape the perpetual annoyances of a fault-finding public, and the restless, impatient cry ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... are inclined to be irritable, suspicious, jealous, fault-finding, envious, etc., dwell ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... out the idea of 'pinning the chrysanthemums in the hair' so thoroughly that one couldn't get a loop hole for fault-finding." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... and forbear are two good bears to have in every home, in order to keep peace in the family. Grin and bear it, is another good one. Impatience, scolding and fault-finding are three black bears, that make every one feel badly and look ugly. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... out quite lately that Mr. Mayne did not approve of her intimacy with Dick. His manner had somewhat changed to her, and several times he had spoken to her in a carping, fault-finding way,—little cut-and-dried sentences of elderly wisdom that she had not understood ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... prepared to take her nap in the quiet of her neat flat. She would select a plump, after-lunch chocolate from the box in her left-hand bureau drawer, take off her shoes, and settle her old frame in comfort. No noisy grandchildren to disturb her rest. No fault-finding daughter-in-law to bustle her out of the way. The sounds that Anna made, moving about in the kitchen at the far end of the long hall, were the subdued homely swishings and brushings that lulled and soothed rather than irritated. At half-past ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... Territory of Alaska." The prince governor then surrendered his insignia of office, and the thing was done. In a few months' time fifty ships and four hundred people had deserted Sitka; and to-day but three families of pure Russian blood remain. Perhaps the fault-finding which followed this remarkable acquisition of territory on the part of the United States government—both the acquisition and the fault-finding were on the part of our government—had best be left unmentioned. Now that the glorious waters of that magnificent archipelago have become ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... out signals of approaching low spirits. He had kicked his own dog on the porch of the Occidental Hotel, and refused to apologise. He had become capricious and fault-finding in conversation. While strolling about he reached often for twigs of mesquite and chewed the leaves fiercely. That was always an ominous act. Another symptom alarming to those who were familiar with the different stages of his doldrums was his increasing politeness ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... world needs building up rather than tearing down, a remedy for an ailment rather than fault-finding, the greatest of men cannot be mere satirists. Shakespeare displays some fellow feeling for the object of his satire, but Jonson's satire is cold and devoid ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... bacon with her own hands, and not that Lydia would not, as usual, serve it. The girls were not needed. But Pa always made it impossible for them to be idle and comfortable over their own meal. If he did not actually ask them to fetch butter or water, or if he could find no reasonable excuse for fault-finding, he would surely introduce some dangerous topic; lure them into admissions, stand ready to pursue any clue. He did not like to see young girls care-free and contented; time enough for that later on! And as years robbed him of actual dignities, and as Monroe's estimate of him fell lower ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... with friendly consideration, and appeared to have perfect confidence in him. For some reason which he could not understand, however, Willis Ford was far from cordial, often addressing him in a fault-finding tone, which at first disturbed Grant. When he found that it arose from Ford's dislike, he ceased to trouble himself about it, though it annoyed him. He had discovered Ford's relationship to Mrs. Estabrook, who treated him ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger

... Alexander[167] the grammarian, to refrain from fault-finding, and not in a reproachful way to chide those who uttered any barbarous or solecistic or strange-sounding expression; but dexterously to introduce the very expression which ought to have been used, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges), yet to us, reading history in the perspective of three hundred years, the disagreeable impression of Weston's letter outweighs the satisfaction for the patent. When the Fortune sailed away it was like the departure of a rich, fault-finding aunt, who suddenly descends upon a household of poor relations, bringing presents, to be sure, but with such cutting disapproval on her lips that it mars the entire pleasure ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... it, and if he is so certain that we shall be out of the Silver City in that time there can be no reason for any fault-finding." ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... Butterfly guess what Mrs. Ladybug intended to say to her. And if she had known what it was she would have been merely amused. For Betsy was entirely too sweet-tempered to take offense at anybody's fault-finding—least of all that of Mrs. Ladybug, who was really a good-hearted soul, when she wasn't jealous. And when Betsy went to the flower garden early the next morning she felt kindly towards the whole world, ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... croaking which caused the reverses of the army of the Potomac—sheer grumbling. Now the truth is coming out, and we are beginning to see the disadvantages of eternal fault-finding. The truth is that the war in the Crimea was much worse conducted than this of ours has been—even as regards swindling by contracts—and it was so with every other war. We have no ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... advantage, to them, might be hoped. But under this rule, how different! Men fully admitting the justice of their sentence, and having come with the purpose of serving it out submissively, and with not a word of fault-finding, would go away complaining of the wrongs done them in the general prison fare, their hearts filled with bitter feelings, prompting them to execrate those from whom they had suffered these wrongs, and curse the State for putting such ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... conscientious people who always know their own mind and do their very best, she did not like to be found fault with; she secretly found such fault with herself that she thought that was fault-finding enough. Also, she was somewhat rigid in sticking to the ways she thought were right, and in the selection of these ways she was not always quite infallible. On a les defauts de ses qualites; and a little obstinacy is often the fault of a very ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... not so much as puts her in. She's easy put out, is Mall: and 'tis no good on earth essaying to pull her in again. You'd best let her be. She'll come in of hersen, when she's weary of threapin'." [Grumbling, fault-finding.] ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... this apartment, where, as Robert says, we are as pleased as if we had never lived in a house before. Well, I assure you the rooms are perfect in comfort and convenience; not large, but warm, and of a number and arrangement which exclude all fault-finding. Clean, carpeted; no glitter, nothing very pretty—not even the clocks—but with sofas and chairs suited to lollers such as one of us, and altogether what I mean whenever I say that an 'apartment' on the Continent is twenty times more really 'comfortable' than any of your small houses in England. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... found. Milton also for the most part avoids it, and this, though in his time others freely allowed it. How soon all this was forgotten we have striking evidence in the fact that when Dryden, in one of his fault-finding moods with the great men of the preceding generation, is taking Ben Jonson to task for general inaccuracy in his English diction, among other counts of his indictment, he ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... work was not what Rosalie minded most. There was fault-finding from morning till night, without one single word of praise and encouragement; there were unkind, cruel words, and even blows to bear. But what was worse than all these was that the child had to wait upon many of the rude and noisy and ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... literary productions into comparison with recognized principles and ideal standards; it investigates them in their matter, form, and spirit; and, as a result of this process, it determines their merits and their defects. The end of literary criticism is not fault-finding but truth. The critic should be more than a censor or caviler. He should discover and make known whatever is commendable or excellent. At its best, criticism is not a mere record of general impressions but the statement ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... his wife, "don't let us have any fault-finding. I'm sure Horace has done it all delightfully—yes, delightfully; and even if he has been just a little extravagant, it's not as if he was obliged to be ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... matron now, and entitled to be left alone, according to the laws of the world; but then she was so childish, and so fond of playing bagatelle with Jack De Baron! He had never had occasion to find fault with her; not to say words to her which he himself would regard as fault-finding words though she had complained more than once of his scolding her. He would caution her, beg her to be grave, ask her to read heavy books, and try to impress her with the solemnity of married life. In this way ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... what it amounted to. They—they drove him to it with their everlasting criticism and fault-finding and complaining." ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... her zenith was past, and her plain stage began. Her charm departed never to return, and she slipped back into insignificance. At eight she could no longer be considered a baby to play with, and a good deal of fault-finding was deemed necessary to counteract the previous spoiling. In Henrietta's youth, sixty years ago, fault-finding was administered unsparingly. She did not understand why she was more scolded than the others, and decided that it was because Ellen and Miss Weston and ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... determined to give Lancy no chance for fault-finding, but to have as little to do with ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... wondered if the story of the fray had reached Bristol, for birds of the air do carry a matter even from the loneliness of the upward path to the table-land of the Mendips. But the day dragged wearily on to evening, and still no news. Mrs Lambert was very fractious and fault-finding, and complained that a hole in a bit of lace had been so ill mended that she must have every thread unpicked. Then the water for the tea was smoked, and the 'muffin' too much buttered, with a dozen more grievances of a like ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... acre, I could do much better by cultivating more. I presume this hankering after additional acres must be a national weakness, as there were numerous disquisitions on the subject scattered through my agricultural papers, in many of which I noticed that there was great fault-finding because men in this country undertook the cultivation of twice as much land as they could properly manage. The propensity for going on and enlarging their possessions seemed a very general one. Thus even I, in my small way, was insensibly becoming a disciple of these deluded people. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... at John Hammond critically, eager to find fault with his appearence; but unluckily for her present humour there was not much room for fault-finding. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... hands from his and sat again in the chair before the mirror. "Len," she said with a touch of petulance in her voice, "you get into grouches and spur your imagination to all sorts of absurdities. I'm very sleepy. Why can't you reserve your fault-finding ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... spirit of fault-finding that she had remarked to her daughter as to her use of that Christian name. What would be better than that they should be to each other as Herbert and Clara? But the cautious mother had known how easy it ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... low fever soon after Ben's second marriage, and when he rose from his bed he seemed to have grown ten years older. He was more childish in his fault-finding, and more irritable than ever before, and this new wife of Ben's had little patience with him. She was not at all like Edith. She bullied him, and frightened him into silence when he began to find fault with her extravagances. For ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... evident, however, from the way Clayton neglected the mistakes of the pets of his own eleven, and his constant and petty fault-finding with the three Lakerimmers, that he was determined to keep them from the varsity, even if he had to keep second-rate players on the team, and even if he imperiled the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... shirker, Bob, and ordered Helen to leave you alone. Now I see you're the better man and I'm a confounded, fault-finding prig. But you're not vindictive, and we'll let that go. The trouble is, I'm obstinate and sure of what I can do—at least, I was, though my confidence has got shaken recently. Well, I think I can finish this contract, but don't know. I've ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... Brown. His father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South, seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly, fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not enjoyed life ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... her kindly when she was wrong, and have been thankful for the love she gave him, whatever her faults. That wasn't my way. I got angry, and made her life a burden to her. I must have things done exactly as I wished; if not, there was no end to my fault-finding. And yet, if you'll believe it, I loved my wife as truly as man ever did. Jenny couldn't understand that—and how should she? At last she began to deceive me in all sorts of little things; she got into debt with shop-people, she showed me false accounts, she pawned things without ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... quantity should be taken; but this is merely the effect of the diminished amount of the stimulant. Sleep will probably be found to be of short continuance as well as a good deal broken. Reading has ceased to interest, and a fidgety, fault-finding temper not unlikely has begun to exhibit itself. At this point, I am satisfied, most opium-eaters who have endeavored in vain to renounce the habit, have broken down. Their resolution has failed them not because they were unable to stand much greater punishment than had yet been inflicted, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... consider economy out of place here; the cakes and pies and knick-knacks were counted a necessity, as well as more substantial food. Don't say Mr. Murray should not have chosen such a wife. He did not. This gloomy, fault-finding woman, bore no resemblance to the sweet, bright girl, he married. It had all come about so gradually that neither realized the ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... was always in the air. The minds of boys and girls, youths and maidens, men and women were all full of it; but it was not often openly discussed as a pleasant topic—in fact, not much mentioned at all except for fault-finding purposes; for it was the custom to be censorious on the subject, and naturally those were most so who knew most about it, like the vicar, who had married four times. He was so rabid that he almost went the length of denouncing ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... must and shall cease. I will not permit my father's sensitive nature to be wounded as it has been. You shall not spoil this first bright day he has had after so many years. If you care for him why don't you try to win his affection? and whoever heard of a heart being won by whining and fault-finding? But of this be sure, you shall not spoil this day. I charge you as a wife and a lady to cease this childish petulance, and come down ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... There was a subtle tone of fault-finding in his employer's voice which already augured ill for their debate on the sheep question, and his nerves responded instinctively to the jab. Fate had not been so kind to him that day, that he was prepared to take very much from any man, and so he remained quiet ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... than you. His confession betrays his weakness of character just as your repining and fault-finding betrays yours. ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... proved bad by all that we know. A swaggerer could not have made a fast friend of Dryden—grown mellow, indeed, but by no means beggared of his fire—on his first coming to town, nor kept the intimacy of Swift, nor avoided the fault-finding of Dennis. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that Congreve's famous remark to Voltaire, that he wished to be visited as a plain gentleman, was the remark (if it was made) of a snob: it was clearly a legitimate deprecation, spoken by a man who had written nothing notable for twenty-six ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... form raised it for the first time to the rank of a science. In his monographic works also, he endeavours to examine impartially the history of dogma, and to acquire the historic stand-point between the estimate of the orthodox dogmatists and that of Gottfried Arnold Mosheim, averse to all fault-finding and polemic, and abhorring theological crudity as much as pietistic narrowness and undevout Illuminism, aimed at an actual correct knowledge of history, in accordance with the principle of Leibnitz, that the valuable ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... fault-finding and of theft. Knowing this to be true, I most earnestly recommend the sending of parcels. True, a large proportion of them are not received, but those that are represent the one salvation of the prisoner-of-war in German hands. ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... misconstrued. The written words convey a meaning very different from that which would have been given by the spoken word, the tone of voice, the smile, and the personal presence. So in our writing we must avoid all that which even borders on complaint, or which may seem critical or fault-finding ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, and the Army Estimates were under discussion in a very thin House—a wrangling, fault-finding debate. In the middle of it Willie Redmond got up, and said that as he was not likely to be there again, he had one or two things to say which he thought the House would be glad to know. Speaking as one of the oldest members, who had all but completed his thirty-third year ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... time on to do the work of apostles, had been with the Lord in nearly all of his public ministry and life. They knew how he had overcome in temptation; how victorious he had been in his conflicts with the accusing and fault-finding Jews, and how patient and forgiving he had been in his trial before Pilate and the high priest. They were witnesses of the purity of his character and life; of the disinterested love he bore toward all within his reach; of the good will toward men manifested by his ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... fellow-sufferers." Contrariwise, he will be the more pained in proportion as he thinks himself inferior to others; hence none are so prone to envy as the dejected, they are specially keen in observing men's actions, with a view to fault-finding rather than correction, in order to reserve their praises for dejection, and to glory therein, though all the time with a dejected air. These effects follow as necessarily from the said emotion, as it follows from the nature of a triangle, that the three angles are equal to two ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... had had a hard time at the office, for it seemed that my patient forbearing way of receiving all the fault-finding made Mr Dempster go home at night to invent unpleasant things to say, till, as I had listened, it had seemed as if my blood boiled, and a hot sensation came ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... very much excited; and it was as though this excitement suddenly revealed to me the full extent of the change that had taken place in him since he had left college. As he stood facing me, almost glaring at me through his eye-glasses, I beheld a slim, nervous, fault-finding doctrinaire, incapable of understanding the world as it was, lacking the force of his pioneer forefathers. I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... little enjoyment of that which is the glorious and eternal portion of the Saints of God. How great the haste and hurry of present day life! How little quietness and contentment! In suffering and loss, murmurings, fault-finding and words of forced resignation are more frequently heard than joyful songs of praise. Unrest instead of rest, discontent instead of contentment, anxiety instead of simple trust, self exaltation instead of self abnegation, ambitiousness instead of lowliness of mind are found ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein

... so effective that the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious requirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do this was become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful heaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no heart-burnings. ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... it again, sir!" And then turning hurriedly away with a feeling of annoyance at his display of fault-finding with one who he felt now had probably saved his cousin from serious hurt, he went on after his hat, but only to meet the pigmy half way to the spot where it had fallen, holding out the missing straw at ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable. Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have them, in favor of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship. They are all public servants engaged in a common cause, aiming at the enlightenment and improvement of the community; they should cherish a just pride in being selected for this great service, and ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... exaggerated opinion of myself, so I know I ain't bragging when I say I'll make a pretty good husband. You'd find I was no hand at nagging and fault-finding. I can guess what it must be for a woman like you to be independent. Well, you'd be independent as my wife. No strings on you. You could follow your own sweet will, and nothing would be too good for you. I'd give you everything ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... Harrison, "is the cant about culture. Culture is a desirable quality in a critic of new books, and sits well on a possessor of belles lettres; but as applied to politics, it means simply a turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision in action. The man of culture is in politics one of the poorest mortals alive. For simple pedantry and want of good sense no man is his equal. No assumption is too unreal, no end is too unpractical ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... severe judgment of actions joined to the merciful judgment of persons. "The man of culture is in politics," cries Mr. Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. Frederic Harrison wants to be doing business, and he complains that the man of culture stops him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision in action." Of what use is culture, he asks, except for "a critic of new books or a professor of belles-lettres?"[425] Why, it is of use because, in presence of the fierce exasperation which breathes, or rather, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... had reached his eighth year, and was what might be called a good boy; for, having no bad example, and being naturally of a docile disposition, and for the most part obedient and gentle, there was little occasion for fault-finding. To the anxious father the thought had often occurred, "What is to be his future lot—in what line of business is he to be brought up?" and he mostly concluded he could never bear a separation from this boy, who was as the very apple of his eye; he would teach him his own trade, which, although ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers

... salvation in any measure depended on Sedgwick's so doing. Hooker had the power in his own hand, if he would only use it. But it should be determined whether Hooker had any legitimate ground for fault-finding. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... the Eastern League, the American Association, Western League, Southern Association, New England League, Pacific League and the different state leagues. Professional base-ball has not been free from certain objectionable elements, of which the unnecessary and rowdyish fault-finding with the umpires has been the most evident, but the authorities of the different leagues have lately succeeded, by strenuous legislation, in abating these. Of authorities on base-ball, Henry Chadwick (d. 1908) is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... at any rate the fact that your sister is my wife. As this demand has been made upon me it was natural that I should wish to discuss it with some one whom I can trust. I tell you all the facts, but I am not going to listen to any fault-finding ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... momentous for a king, before whom others rarely stand with assurance and on equal terms; for his most sincere friends may yet turn into admiring flatterers, unstable in their bearing, now constrained under the moral spell of his majesty, now, under the conviction of their own rights, fault-finding and discontented. ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... Henry IV. had convoked; he had considered that his authority was still too feebly constituted, and even too much disputed in a portion of the kingdom, to allow him to put it to such a test; and honest and sensible patriots had been of the same opinion D'Aubigne himself, the most independent and fault-finding spirit amongst his contemporaries, expressly says, "The troubles which were not yet extinguished in France did not admit of a larger convocation; the hearts of the people were not yet subdued and kneaded to obedience, as appeared from the excitement which supervened." [Histoire ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Fault-finding should be discouraged in school and at home. It is never the best method of fault correction, ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... to poor Nelly, pining under continual chilling indifference and fault-finding. While she was hesitating, her mistress, hearing a strange voice in the kitchen, came down in wrath to dismiss the intruder, who rose instantly at the sound of her harsh voice. "I go, signora," he said in his ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... you a shirker, Bob, and ordered Helen to leave you alone. Now I see you're the better man and I'm a confounded, fault-finding prig. But you're not vindictive, and we'll let that go. The trouble is, I'm obstinate and sure of what I can do—at least, I was, though my confidence has got shaken recently. Well, I think I can finish this contract, but don't know. I've lost a good deal of ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... Aytoun asked permission of the proprietor to review Tennyson's Maud. (See Mrs. Oliphant's William Blackwood and his Sons.) The publication of the Idylls of the King (1859), turned the tide more strongly than before in Tennyson's favor, and subsequent fault-finding on the part of the critics was confined ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... money in the Colonel's pocket, and little good is done by exploiting these loose analogies and putting on a too easy air of optimism in the face of desperately serious and complex problems. But enough of fault-finding, which is a poor reward for the serious and generous labours of public-spirited men and women. After all, what one reader calls timidity of outlook another may care to praise as prudence. Here you will find an abundance of safe analysis, wise comment ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various

... it will make a man of him quicker, in my opinion, than any other sort of experience he could undergo. And suffice it to say, on the food question, that my life as a soldier forever cured me of being fastidious or fault-finding about what I had to eat. I have gone hungry too many times to give way to such weakness when sitting down in a comfortable room to a table provided with plenty that was good enough for any reasonable man. I have no patience with a person who is addicted to ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... letters alone. In what way his experiences arose, the desire at the outset to see nothing that was not favorable, the slowness with which adverse impressions were formed, and the eager recognition of every truthful and noble quality that arose and remained above the fault-finding, are discoverable only in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... only in regard to the conduct of the King. It seems that since this morning he has quite changed. Frederick-Christian, instead of keeping himself shut up as of late, now sees his friends again and has resumed his haughty manner and his fault-finding with ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... years principal oboe player at Covent Garden Theatre, is kinder to Madame Mara in his "Musical Memoirs," but it must be taken into account that he is kinder to every one else, too. There is little of the acrimonious or the fault-finding note in his pages. This is his version of the affair: "That extraordinary singer of former days, Madame Mara, who had passed the last eighteen years in Russia, and who had lately arrived in England, gave a concert at the King's Theatre ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten



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