"Blamable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... holds how many myriad grass-blades? Here they are all matted together, long, and dragging each other down. Part them, and beneath them are still more, overhung and hidden. The fibres are intertangled, woven in an endless basket-work and chaos of green and dried threads. A blamable profusion this; a fifth as many would be enough; altogether a wilful waste here. As for these insects that spring out of it as I press the grass, a hundredth part of them would suffice. The American crab tree is a snowy mount in ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... sinless passion. You were ever with me, and I desired no more than to gaze on your countenance, and to know that I was all the world to you; I was lapped in a fool's paradise of enjoyment and security. Was my love blamable? If it was I was ignorant of it; I desired only that which I possessed, and if I enjoyed from your looks, and words, and most innocent caresses a rapture usually excluded from the feelings of a parent towards his child, ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... Cassiquiare we had to navigate three hundred and twenty leagues, from San Carlos to Angostura. By this way we had to struggle against the currents during ten days; the rest was to be performed by going down the stream of the Orinoco. It would have been blamable to have suffered ourselves to be discouraged by the fear of a cloudy sky, and by the mosquitos of the Cassiquiare. Our Indian pilot, who had been recently at Mandavaca, promised us the sun, and those great stars that eat the clouds, as soon as we should have left the black ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... farms frequently remain waste for years, without any person daring to bid for them. Now if public opinion, and the dread of the punishment which is sure to follow, operate so powerfully in favour of the really blamable person, as to keep his land untenanted, how much more influence will they possess in restraining any man from seeking to obtain the land of another, if that other be unobjectionable in character, solvent in circumstances, and still in possession? Such a thing is never heard of. The landlord, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... however blamable the conduct of Verney has been in this affair, the Court cannot see in that portion of the letter, the offence of inciting to hatred and contempt of the Government, since the order by which force was to be employed to prevent ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... another set of papers nominally published, were not so in any substantial sense. Here, at home, they may be regarded as still unpublished. [2] But, in such a case, why were not the papers at once detached from the journal, and reprinted? In the neglect to do this, some there are who will read a blamable carelessness in the author; but, in that carelessness, others will read a secret consciousness that the papers were of doubtful value. I have heard, indeed, that some persons, hearing of this republication, had interpreted the case thus: Within the last four or five years, a practice ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... have been no occasion for a commission to sit on Tilden. If it had struck us in 1880, Hancock would have been elected. Neither result would have its occasion in the superiority of the Democratic party, but in the belief that the Republican party was in some vague way blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change. The Republican party is not as strong as it used to be. The old leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places. Blaine has dropped ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... method of reasoning more common, or more blamable, than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of Young would almost sooner, I know, pass for a Lorenzo, than see himself vindicated, at the expense of his father's memory, from follies which, if it may be thought blamable in a boy to have committed them, it is surely praiseworthy in a man to lament, and certainly not only unnecessary but cruel in a biographer ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... consequence, have come not to be so much condemned as pitied, their perversion of character is regarded not so much in terms of iniquity as of disease, and as we thus condone transgression in others, so in ourselves we palliate our wrong. We regard it as the unfortunate but hardly blamable consequence of temperament or training. Our fathers, who thought that the trouble was the devil in them, used to deal sternly with themselves. Like Chinese Gordon, fighting a besetting sin in private prayer, they used to come out from their inward struggles saying, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... my Lord, that I could have had the thought, if only for an hour, that Thou couldst be a hindrance to my greatest good? Whence are all my blessings? are they not from Thee? I will not think that I was blamable, for I was very sorry for it, and it was certainly done in ignorance. And so it pleased Thee, in Thy goodness, to succour me, by sending me one who has delivered me from this delusion; and afterwards by showing Thyself to me so many times, as I shall relate hereafter, [6] that I might clearly ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... kind-hearted tutor, looking sadly on the gold-brown toasted little bird on his fork. "The pleasantest meat tastes bitter when seasoned with tears and moans. Could you have the heart to let a woman cry? Reprieve this one, I beg of you! Is she then so blamable for having thrown a kiss to my young pupil, who was her neighbour and companion in the days of their common mediocrity, at a time when this pretty girl's charms were only famous under the vine arbour of the Little Bacchus? It was but an innocent action, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... Madame? An action blamable in itself is often rendered meritorious by the impulse ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... with similar grounds of observation; for, as I have already remarked, whenever men collect together as a distinct community, the notion of honor instantly grows up amongst them; that is to say, a system of opinions peculiar to themselves as to what is blamable or commendable; and these peculiar rules always originate in the special habits and special interests of the community. This is applicable to a certain extent to democratic communities as well as to others, as we shall now proceed to prove by the example of the Americans. *c Some loose notions of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... spirit wherever I could trace it; but it still fled from me. It was a ghost which all had heard of, but none had seen. None would acknowledge that he thought the public proceeding with regard to our Catholic dissenters to be blamable; but several were sorry it had made an ill impression upon others, and that my interest was hurt by my share in the business. I find with satisfaction and pride, that not above four or five in this city (and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... without assistance, and to walk slowly about her room, feeling no worse effect from the exertion than a slight sensation of fatigue. She had been made a little anxious that morning about Miss Halcombe, through having received no news of her from any one. I thought this seemed to imply a blamable want of attention on the part of Mrs. Rubelle, but I said nothing, and remained with Lady Glyde to assist her to dress. When she was ready we both left the room together to go to ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... whole, there can be no room to doubt that the convention acted wisely in copying from the models of those constitutions which have established good behavior as the tenure of their judicial offices, in point of duration; and that so far from being blamable on this account, their plan would have been inexcusably defective, if it had wanted this important feature of good government. The experience of Great Britain affords an illustrious comment on the excellence of ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... by the Greeks with a courage and endurance, an energy and constancy which will awaken the sympathy of free men in every country as long as Grecian history endures; the two civil wars, for one of which the Primates were especially blamable; the dishonesty of the government, the rapacity of the military, the indiscipline of the navy; and the assistance given to the revolutionaries by Lord Byron and other English sympathisers. Lord Byron arrived ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... with the approval of the representative, Jeanbon-Saint-Andre.) "The moment has at length come when moderatism, royalism and pusillanimity, and all other traitorous or useless sects to the country, should disappear from the soil of Liberty." All opinions opposed to those of sans-culotterie are blamable and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... do, be they French or English. I think, however, that a foreign-born, or foreign-bred coquette, has more of the ease of practice, and less of the awkwardness of conscience, than a home-bred flirt, and is in reality less blamable, for she breaks no restraints of custom or education; she does only what she has seen her mother do before her, and what is authorized by the example of most of the fashionable ladies of her acquaintance. But let us put flirts ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... in the service, prepared, after hearing all possible testimony, to declare that he, Darrin, was not blamable! ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... appears to me that persons were less difficult in the times of madame de Pompadour." "But a creature who has been so low in society!" "Have you seen her so, madame? And supposing it has been the case, do we interdict all ladies of conduct not less blamable from an introduction at court. How many can you enumerate, madame, who have led a life much more scandalous? Let us count them on our fingers. First, the marechale de Luxembourg, one; then—" "Then the comtesse de Choiseul, my sister-in-law," added the duke; "we know it as well as you, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... any new or fruitful thought at all in proportion to his vast learning. His theory of the Reformation is therefore the old Catholic one, stripped of supernaturalism, that it was merely the product of the wickedness and vagaries of a few gifted demagogues, and the almost equally blamable obstinacy of a few popes. He thought the English Bishop Creighton too easy in his judgment of the popes, adding, "My dogma is not the special wickedness of my own spiritual superiors, but the general wickedness of men in authority—of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... curious part of the story remains yet to be told. Dr. Barnard was mistaken in his imputations, and Vernon was not the really blamable party. We tell the tale in Mr. Robertson's words in the work already alluded to.—"Who was the party guilty of these outrages? Barnard assumed that it could be no other than Vernon; but the truth seems to be that the Rector ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... than he judged to be in any way desirable; and the young man was there much oftener than his uncle knew. The Marchese Lamberto was still very much persuaded that Paolina had not been led by his nephew into any false step of a seriously blamable nature. But this was by no means any reason with the Marchese for approving of his nephew's conduct. The intercourse was altogether objectionable. Talk was engendered,—talk of an undesirable description; and this was excessively disagreeable to the Marchese, who had views ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... is true, O vizier, that resignation is praiseworthy, and impatience blamable; for a poet has justly said, 'Be calm under adversity; for calmness can alone extricate from danger.' To affliction joy often succeeds, and after trouble we generally enjoy repose; but, alas! human nature cannot divest itself ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... part, believe I am the only blamable member of the Club, as I have only assisted it by the ordinary daily propaganda. Nevertheless, I rejoice to state that not infrequently have I succeeded in enrolling recruits for our Cause from among the incredulous. Nobody can ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 4 • Various
... of Sertorius may be a favourable one; yet he does not omit to mention that act of his life which was most blamable, the massacre of the youths at Osca. From the slight indications in Frontinus, who found some material for his work on Military Stratagems in the campaigns of Sertorius, and from other passages, we may collect that, however mild the temper of Sertorius was, circumstances must often have compelled ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... gave the retreating admiral an official certificate of good behaviour, "their high approbation of Sir Charles Hardy's wise and prudent conduct;" but "gallant and bold conduct" would have been a better testimonial. The truth seems to be, that the Admiralty, blamable themselves in sending him to sea with an inadequate force, and scarcely expecting to escape if they had suffered him to lie under the charge, were glad to avail themselves of his personal character as a man of known bravery; and thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... am sorry to say it will make no difference. The rustlers are in an uglier mood than before—wrathful because they have been kept idle so long. They can claim that they have given you ample notice, and if you refuse to come out they cannot be held blamable ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... that, so far as it depended upon him, he would not be found slow to give satisfaction to a lawful grievance; but the accusation ought to be properly formulated and supported by proof; that no doubt Joan's conduct during and after her husband's death was blamable; but His Majesty must consider that the Church of Rome, which before all things seeks truth and justice, always proceeds with the utmost circumspection, and in so grave a matter more especially must not judge by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... concealing anything from you. Why should I? I only thought it would be blamable if one should reveal after death what another had thought best to reserve," replied Ukon. "Her parents died when she was a mere girl. Her father was called Sammi-Chiujio, and loved her very dearly. He was always aspiring ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... nation's heart. I am one of the miners who have come to dig it out before time and oblivion shall have buried every trace of it, and there shall not be even the will-o'-the-wisp of a legend to hover over the spot, and keep alive the sad fact of our loss and our blamable negligence." ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... steam-engines if we had not the means of boring out a true cylinder, or turning a true piston-rod, or planing a valve face? It is this alone which has furnished us with the means of carrying into practice the accumulated result's of scientific investigation on mechanical subjects. It would be blamable indeed," continues Mr. Nasmyth, "after having endeavoured to set forth the vast advantages which have been conferred on the mechanical world, and therefore on mankind generally, by the invention and introduction of the Slide Rest, were I to suppress the name ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... judges based the most serious of charges; they regarded it as furnishing proof of a most blamable temerity. What arrogance on the part of this woman, so it seemed to them, to claim to have been told by God himself that which the Church alone is entitled to teach! And to undertake by means of an inner illumination to point out the true pope, was that not to commit grave sin against the Bride ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... recognized by Hindoo law and custom only one is based on free choice, and of that Mann says: "The voluntary connection of a maiden and a man is to be known as a Gandharva union, which arises from lust." It is classed among the blamable marriages. Even this appears not to have been a legal form before Mann. It is blamable because contracted without the consent or knowledge of the parents, and because, unless the sacred fire has been obtained from a Brahman to sanctify it, such a marriage is merely a temporary union. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... nature and quick passions. In June, 1677, he was prosecuted and fined for striking a man who had incensed him. George Jacobs, Jr., his only son, at a court held Nov. 7, 1674, was prosecuted, "found blamable, and ordered to pay costs of court." His offence and defence are embraced in his deposition on ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... I had cheated him in a trade, giving him a large fish-hook which was partly broken through for three small sound ones. The first fish he caught broke the hook, but he did not know I was blamable, and he refused to take back one of the small hooks which my conscience forced me to offer him, but said, "A trade is a trade; the hook was bad, but that ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... what he had heard from Mrs. Farnaby when she had first taken him into her confidence, he inferred that the subject of the lost child had not only been a subject of estrangement between the husband and wife, but that the husband was, in some way, the person blamable for it. Assuming this theory to be the right one, there would be serious obstacles to the meeting of the mother and child, in the mother's home. The departure of Mrs. Farnaby was, in that case, no longer ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... gentle and of upright character, thou sayest: "Blameless are they for their small existence." But their circumscribed souls think: "Blamable is all great existence." ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... exercised itself within the limits marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine of subtleties among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. Like those saintly personages in whom religion does not stifle ambition, Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that she might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them again, implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once offended, she watched her adversaries with the perfidious patience of a cat, and was capable of bringing about some cold and ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... exchange for a handful of silver pieces.' There is no such handful to exchange—not of the kind he sickeningly nudges at you. I will prove to you it was not Countess Fanny's naughtiness, though she was indeed very blamable. Women should walk in armour as if they were born to it; for these cold sneerers will never waste their darts on cuirasses. An independent brave young creature, exposing herself thoughtlessly in her reckless innocence, is the victim for them. They will bring all society ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to assist Turkey to regain her position among nations, it seems foolish for the Powers to try and throw the blame on any one of themselves; they are all equally blamable. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... being very blamable, a woman can excite a good deal of uneasiness. Certain visitors may be received, certain preferences shown, which expose young women to remark, and which are enough to drive out of their senses even those husbands who are ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... nothing but the influence of Mr. Jefferson had saved Wilkinson from being included in the same indictment, and that he believed Wilkinson to have been equally a traitor with Burr. He admits that the expression of that belief was not only imprudent, but no doubt at that time blamable. But this was not the declaration on which he was to be tried. This was uttered in New Orleans, the headquarters of General Wilkinson. The utterance on which he was tried, as will be seen, was made in Washington, ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... and Lotty Burton going to the Minots' Christmas ball,"—a piece of naughtiness on Jill's part, for she knew Jack liked the pretty sisters, whose gentle manners made her own wild ways seem all the more blamable. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the first place, not to Dr. Smith, but to Richard James (Sir Robert Cotton's librarian), who wrote on the fly-leaves of all the MSS. in the Cottonian Library a note of their respective contents, and who is implicitly followed by Smith. Wanley is more blamable, and does not here evince his usual critical accuracy, but (as remarked by Mr. Morton) he could only have looked at a few pages of the work. The real fact seems to be that Simon of Ghent made the abridged Latin version of the seven books of the Riwle now preserved ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... One thing blamable in his actions occurred on the election of Julius II to the pontificate. He could not nominate the prelate whom he wished, but he had it in his power to exclude anyone whom he disliked. He ought therefore never ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... balance between the disputants, and dismiss them to their homes, with a significant admonition to "keep the peace." He usually acted upon the principle—no very erroneous one, either—that, when two respectable men resort to the law, as arbitrator of their controversies, they are both about equally blamable; and his judgments were accordingly based upon the corollary, that neither deserved to have all he claimed. This was the practice when any decision was made at all; but, in most cases, the justice acted as a pacificator, and, by ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... climb, that he was doing something very unusual, even unheard of among his contemporaries, and justified himself by the example of Philip V. of Macedon, arguing that a young man of private station might surely be excused for what was not thought blamable in a grey-haired king. Then on the mountain top, lost in the view, the passage in St Augustine suddenly occurred to him, and he started blaming himself for admiring earthly things so much. 'I was amazed ... angry with myself for marvelling but now at earthly things, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... the Romans that the undertaking of Scipio would be the destruction of the commonwealth. So that Pericles was a good prophet of bad success, and Fabius was a bad prophet of success that was good. And, indeed, to lose an advantage through diffidence is no less blamable in a general than to fall into danger for want of foresight; for both these faults, though of a contrary nature, spring from the same root, want of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the desires dictated by vanity is more general, or less blamable, than that of being distinguished for the arts of conversation. Other accomplishments may be possessed without opportunity of exerting them, or wanted without danger that the defect can often be remarked; but as no man can live, otherwise than in an hermitage, without hourly pleasure or vexation, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Gibbon on slavery, is full, not only of blamable indifference, but of an exaggeration of impartiality which resembles dishonesty. He endeavors to extenuate all that is appalling in the condition and treatment of the slaves; he would make us consider those cruelties as possibly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... where I have something to hope from my connexions and the favor of my countrymen, and where I possess an estate, the value of which depends in a great measure upon my attention to it. Under these circumstances, I flatter myself that the committee will not think me blamable, when I assure them, that though I am willing to give my time and services to the public if they should be deemed necessary, yet I cannot in justice to myself or my family, add to this gift that of such a portion of my property as I find absolutely necessary to support ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... of this nature; and as every tongue possesses one set of words which are taken in a good sense, and another in the opposite, the least acquaintance with the idiom suffices, without any reasoning, to direct us in collecting and arranging the estimable or blamable qualities of men. The only object of reasoning is to discover the circumstances on both sides, which are common to these qualities; to observe that particular in which the estimable qualities agree ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... same in France and England. A more serious panic and a more rapid recovery had never been seen. The rigidness and not the severity of the pressure that had to be exercised shows the condition of business. There had been most blamable practices employed; but the market as a whole was sound, and had faced ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... while the loss of all other losses the most deplorable to me was recent, I not only excuse, but commend you for it. But if you are really determined to meet me on any other account, [which, I own to you, is not however what I wish,] it would be very blamable, and very unworthy of the character I desire to maintain, as well with you as with every other gentleman, to give you ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... volunteers of Ireland; and five guineas only if they bring him in alive.' No amount of provocation or of precedent in his enemies, no degree of youthful ardour in himself, are at all adequate to excuse these most blamable words. When, however, he was called upon to vindicate them, Lord Rawdon declared that many of his threats were meant only 'to act on the fears and prejudices of the vulgar,' and by no means to be carried into ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... all men, who know any thing in politics, will agree, that a prince thus treated, by those he has most confided in, and perpetually loaded with his favours, ought to extricate himself as soon as possible; and is then only blamable in his choice of time, when he defers one minute after it is in his power; because, from the monstrous encroachments of exorbitant avarice and ambition, he cannot tell how long it may continue to be so. And it will be found, upon enquiring into history, that most of those princes, who have ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift |
