"Frustration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the way back in his chair, his face a mask of disappointment and frustration. "Malone," he said, "I wish I'd never heard of this case. I wish I'd been retired or died before it ever came up. I've been a police officer in New York for a long time, and I wish this case had waited a few more years ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... other hand, seems to me to exude morality—not least, when it parts with its head to save its life. There is no better preacher in the vegetable garden. It is the very Chrysostom of the gospel of frustration—the gospel that a great loss may be a great gain—the gospel that through their repressions men may all the ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... Measures that have been taken. I am pleasd to hear that a provincial Congress is proposd, and cannot but promise my self that the firm manly and persevering Opposition of that single province will operate to the total frustration of the villainous Designs of ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... up out of the mud, shaking his head and grinning stupidly. It was very unkind of Kueelo to treat him like this. He watched the Martian's departing figure. He made no effort to follow—not at once—not until a strange new emotion, part frustration and part despair, rose up in his breast, and close upon that the dawning realization that he was being cheated of ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse
... which she may never have formulated, but which, I am very sure, lie in her heart, too deep for any utterance but that of tears. If I know anything of village people I know this, that they shape their lives according to Nature, and are outraged to the root of their being by the frustration of Nature's laws and the stultification of man's function in the scheme of things. What the function of man is, what the power, what the dignity have been well ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... reverenced, and so unflinchingly supported by a brave and intrepid race, should never have attained the blessing of success. A more signal instance than that which Ireland can supply of the baffling of a nation's hope, the prolonged frustration of a people's will, is not on record; and few even of those who most condemn the errors and weakness by which Irishmen themselves have retarded the national object, will hesitate to say that they ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... initiation into the elements of mathematics had pointed out the road along which he should travel, but had simultaneously revealed all its obstacles, insurmountable for him solitary and unequipped. In those days his mind was constantly fumbling at some insoluble problem with the sense of frustration that one has who gropes vainly in the dark, well knowing how a single unattainable match-flare would put what he is seeking into his hands. And no brighter prospect seemed to lie before ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... sanction to carry him off to Vienna. In the father's case this was easily managed, but the mother only yielded when it was pointed out that her son's singing in the cathedral choir did not necessarily mean the frustration of her hopes of seeing ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... the hungry parasite's belly. We have been amused, perhaps astonished, on further reading, at meeting our new-found friends in other plays, clothed in different names to be sure and supplied in part with a fresh stock of jests, but still engaged in the frustration of villainous panders, the cheating of harsh fathers, until all ends with virtue triumphant in the establishment of the undoubted respectability of a hitherto somewhat ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... As for the hundreds who had felt the light but faintly—the skull told the story. They had died as they slept, died thousands of years ago, and their skeletons were all that remained to mock at their king and the frustration of ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... he grew the cherry-tree grew likewise, but in the strangest fashion; for though it flourished past all expectation, it never put forth either leaf or blossom. This bitterly vexed Old Gerard, who had hoped in time for fruit, and the frustration of his hopes became to him a cause of grievance against the boy. A further grudge was that by no manner of means could he succeed in lighting any wick or candle in the silver lantern, of which he ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... supervenes, capable of wholly or partially counteracting the effect of any one of the conjoined causes, the effect will no longer conform to the derivative law. While, therefore, each ultimate law is only liable to frustration from one set of counteracting causes, the derivative law is liable to it from several. Now, the possibility of the occurrence of counteracting causes which do not arise from any of the conditions involved in the law itself depends ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... hours together I carried it about me before I unsealed it, for days together before I read it; it seemed so improbable that my brother would feel himself able to help me towards the accomplishment of the desire of my soul, and I feared to find in that letter the frustration of my life's endeavour. When, after some days of vacillation between hope and doubt, I could bear the situation no longer, and opened the letter, I was not a little astonished that it began by addressing me at once in terms of the most ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... every minute of it. He galled at the pages and pages of juj juj juj frf frf frf. He cried with frustration because he could not perform the simple exercise to perfection. He skipped through the book so close to complete failure that he hurled it across the room, and cried in anger because he had not the strength to throw the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... touched a further depth of sadness. For the moving tragedy of circumstance, of lovers sundered by fate only to be swiftly joined in exultant death, we have the profounder tragedy of mutually destroying energies, of grievously miscalculating men, of failure and frustration dogging the steps of the strenuous and the wise, of destiny searching out the fatal weakness of the strong. To the poet has now been added the reader; to the master of the pathos of passion the student of the tragedy of universal life. It is thus by culture and ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... lands that they might profit by the purchase, and who saw in the success of the mission the chief danger to their plans, artfully enlisted the pagan party, of which Red Jacket was the leader, to oppose the missionaries, and thus effectually led to the final frustration of Red Jacket's policy; in and by the defeat of the missionary enterprise. But as this question is discussed in the sequel, I will not anticipate. Thus much it was necessary to premise, in order to explain the nature and ends of my interview with ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... departed. His voice and his presence had staved off a nightmare idea that was on the watch to seize on her—how if chance had brought Sally across this unsuspected relation of hers, and events had forced a full declaration of their kinship? Somnus jumped at the chance given by its frustration; the sea air asserted itself, and went into partnership with him, and Rosalind's mind ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... should have remained so true; but he had a bull-dog tenacity of purpose, as indeed his money-making indicated. Then there was good in him to the measure of admiring a woman like Alexa, though not of admiring a far better. He saw himself in danger of losing her; concluded influences at work to the frustration of his own; surmised that she doubted the character of his business; feared the clownish farmer-poet might have dazzled with his new reputation her womanly judgment; and felt himself called upon to make good his position against any and every prejudice she might have conceived against him! He ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... know arguing throws me off. I—now I've forgotten how I meant to say it!" Tears of frustration welled up ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... found frustration rampant even among the men who were most successful with the fantasy-trick. There were new devices. They were triumphs. They were plainly the beginnings of progress of a brand-new kind, not derived wholly from the present, and certainly not ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... The frustration of Mary's hope of becoming a mother, her subsequent ill state of health, and the resolute refusal of the parliament to permit the coronation of her husband, who had quitted England in disgust to attend his affairs on the continent, conferred, in spite of all the efforts ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... off Ushant he first learned of Calder's battle, and the public dissatisfaction with the results. He had undergone too much frustration and anxiety himself not to feel for an officer who had made a mistake, although it may safely be said that Calder's mistake was not only one Nelson could not have made, but was the exact opposite of the course which Nelson ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... secular duel. For Scotland it spelled independence, for Navarre the loss of independence; in Castile it set on the throne the new dynasty of Trastamare; to Aragon the result was the appearance of a new rival in Mediterranean commerce, the frustration of hopes which had centred round Provence and Languedoc, the imperilling of others which were fixed on Italy. With each successive triumph of French over English arms, the influence of France penetrated farther to the south and east; and by the marriages or military ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... country home of Mrs. Willoughby Brock, to play tennis. As however there was only one court and quite a number of young and middle-aged people were standing near it with racquets in their hands and an expression on their faces in which frustration and anticipation fought for supremacy, it followed that other beguilements had to be found. My own fate was to fall into the hands of Mrs. Brock, whose greatest delight on earth seems to be to have a stranger to whom she can display the beauties of her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... to denote frustration, usually at amazing stupidity. "I stuck the disk in upside down." "Weeble...." ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... continued Fa Fai, with a reassuring glance, "it is a detail that is not essential to the frustration of Fang's malignant scheme, for already well on its way towards Hien Nan may be seen a trustworthy junk, laden with two formidable crates, each one containing fivescore plates of the justly esteemed Wong ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... consequences, the injury she had done his prospects as a minister, would have seemed to her revering soul a far greater wrong than any suffering or loss he had brought upon her. For what was she beside him? What was the ruin of her life to the frustration of such prospects as his? The sole alleviation of her misery was that she seemed hitherto to have escaped involving him in the results of her lack of self-restraint, which results, she was certain, remained concealed from him, as from every one in any way concerned with him in them. In ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... too long with that false promise. In trusting too much in government, we have asked of it more than it can deliver. This leads only to inflated expectations, to reduced individual effort, and to a disappointment and frustration that erode confidence both in what government can do and ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... had lain for ten years on her back, and every year the hours had gone more lightly, through the hope of seeing him. She had outlived her time of torment and rebellion. There was a sense in which her life, in spite of its frustration, was complete. The love through which her womanhood struggled for victory in defeat had fulfilled itself by gradual growth into something like maternal passion. There was no selfishness in her attitude to him and his devotion. By accepting it she took his ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... of their industry, found their substance melting away to a mere pittance, insufficient for their support. The widow who lived comfortably on the bequests of a deceased husband, experienced a frustration of all his well-meant tenderness. The laws of the country interposed and compelled her to receive a shilling, where a pound was her due. The hapless orphan, instead of receiving from the hands of an executor a competency to set out ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... seemed to take possession of some of the men at the frustration of their hopes was soon dispelled. Parties were sent out daily in different directions to look for seals and penguins. We had left, other than reserve sledging rations, about 110 lbs. of pemmican, including the dog-pemmican, and 300 lbs. of ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... the old guildsmen is not only a truth, but is part of the truth I maintain here. The new guildsmen add what the old guildsmen would have added if they had not died young. When we renew a frustrated thing we do not renew the frustration. But if there are some things in the new that were not in the old, there were certainly some things in the old that are not yet visible in the new; such as individual humour in the handiwork. The point here, however, is not merely that the worker worked well but that he was working better; ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... pockets he stood and let he find a fur coat and slip into it. He had a sense of frustration. He wanted to let go of himself and tell all that was in his torrid heart. Instead, he encased himself in ice and drove her ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... the utmost enjoyment from the report. He liked the substance of it, and above all, he was tickled by the bitter tone of frustration which characterized it. Oakes was baffled, and his knowledge of Oakes told him that the sensation of being baffled was gall and wormwood to that high-spirited young man. Whatever might be the result of this investigation, it would teach ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... poor Annette Martin, upon this discovery of black villany meditated against her by the unprincipled huntsman, and upon its miraculous and awful frustration, may be imagined: yet had it also its beneficial influence; for, whilst shuddering at the fearful end of the wretch who had plotted her destruction, her once fond affection was converted into bitter hatred; and, ere long, blessing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... knew her not, And call her sweet, as if in irony, And call her hard and cold which seemed a truth: And still she feared that I should lose my mind, And often she believed that I should die: Till out of long frustration of her care, And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks Throbbed thunder through the palace floors, or called On flying Time from all their silver tongues— And out of memories of her kindlier days, And sidelong glances ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... decayed. And out of the rotting soil rose the strange new blossoms we call Faith, and Hope, and Charity. For Folly cried, 'I know not, but I believe'; Squalor, 'I am vile, but I hope'; and the oppressed, 'I am despised, but I love.' That was the Christian Trinity, the echo of man's frustration, as the other was the echo of his accomplishment. Yet both he needs. For because he grows, he is dogged by imperfection. His weakness is mocked by those shining forms on the mountain-top. But Faith, and Hope, and Charity walk beside him in the mire, to kindle, to comfort and to help. And ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... no choice. They teleported at once into the presence of the two nearby natives—and met with frustration beyond Ciriimian experience. ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength. The upshot of this is that we are uneasy most of the time. We go about our common tasks with a feeling of deep frustration, telling ourselves pensively that there's a better day coming when we shall slough off this earthly shell and be bothered no more with the affairs ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... sight. Far from me so curious an insolence; but I do ask you this: Reflecting on your past life as a whole, have not your chief sorrows had a common idiosyncrasy? Have they not been strangely directed towards the frustration of some one single object—cherished by your earliest hopes, and, as if in defiance of fate, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The frustration of this high ambition was not the only misfortune to Farragut arising out of the Mexican war. He contracted the yellow fever on the station, nearly losing his life; and subsequently became involved in a controversy with the commodore of ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... magistrates about a pauper, a superficial observer might have seen little difference, beyond his superior shrewdness, between the Vicar and his bucolic parishioners; for it was his habit to approximate his accent and mode of speech to theirs, doubtless because he thought it a mere frustration of the purposes of language to talk of 'shear-hogs' and 'ewes' to men who habitually said 'sharrags' and 'yowes'. Nevertheless the farmers themselves were perfectly aware of the distinction between them and the parson, and had not at all the less belief in him ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... what was afoot, and his hopes had run high once more, only to suffer cruel frustration when he learnt that Ferdinand had sailed, himself, for Naples. In his despair the duke roused himself to a last ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Himself meets him on those steps with the offer of God. He treats the duties of the second table as a stair to the first—a stair which, probably by its crumbling away in failure beneath his feet as he ascended, would lift him to such a vision and such a horror of final frustration, as would make him stretch forth his hands, like the sinking Peter, to the living God, the life eternal which he blindly sought, without whose closest presence he could never do the simplest duty aright, even of those he had been doing from his youth ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... quality suited to be his partner in a fashionable world; he vowed to think no more of a weak, capricious fool, so he now termed the girl he had fancied that he loved. As may readily be imagined, he felt his self love very deeply wounded by the complete frustration of his intentions, and being incapable of appreciating the better principles which had fortunately actuated the resolve of Caroline, a spirit of revenge entered his heart. He crushed the letter in his hand, and paced the room in fury, and would have torn it to atoms, when the thought struck him, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... subject to petition the King, as often as they judge necessary, 'till they are removed. To postpone a meeting of this universal body of the people till it is too late to make such application must be a frustration of one grand design of its existance; and it naturally tends to other arbitrary exertions.—I have often tho't that in former administrations such delays to call the general assembly, were intended for the purpose above-mentioned: And if others should ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... as if he had been its original advocate.' But both he and Lord Holland have been so vehemently committed in opposition to it, that, without any imputation of unpatriotic feelings, it is not in human nature they should not find a sort of satisfaction in the frustration of those measures which they so strenuously resisted, and this clearly appears in all Lord Holland said to me, and in Lady Holland's tone about Palmerston and his ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... portends frustration of well laid plans. To taste alum, denotes secret remorse over some evil work by you upon ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... recommending to us at present, did not by any means facilitate the plan then. On the contrary, to disparage those qualities which the highest characters in the country valued themselves most upon, was a sure way of making powerful enemies. As if the frustration of the national hope was not enough, the long-esteemed merit of ritual zeal and punctuality was to be decried, and that by ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... signifies vicissitude,' and looking at the history of the growth of the Church, it is impossible not to observe that almost in all cases, immediately upon any extensive progress, there has followed what seems like a strong effort of the Evil One at its frustration, either by external persecution, reaction of heathenism, or, most fatally and frequently during the last 300 years, from the reckless misdoings of unscrupulous sailors and colonists. The West Indies, Japan, America, all have the same shameful tale to tell—what wonder if the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the way was all one to him; whether Valerie de La Vauvraye married Marius de Condillac or the meanest cobbler in Grenoble was, similarly, a matter that never disturbed his mind. He would not even be concerned if he, himself, were to help the Dowager's schemes to frustration, so long as she were to remain in ignorance of his defection, so long as outwardly he were to appear faithful to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Lanyard told her of seeing the Comte de Lorgnes at dinner in Lyons; of the uneasiness he manifested, and the cumulative feeling of frustration and failure he so plainly betrayed as the last hours of his life wore on; of the Apaches who watched de Lorgnes in the cafe and the fact that one of them had contrived to secure a berth in the same carriage with his victim; of seeing the presumptive murderer ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... ready the adventurous sailors began to experience all the anxiety which is inseparable from an action involving much danger, liability to frustration, and requiring the ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... real, the enduring shyness is that inveteration of reserve to which a few men in a few countries are miserably condemned. Others know it as a transient inconvenience, as the croup or measles of childhood; but in us it is obstinate and ineradicable as grave disease. If out of the long frustration of our efforts to be whole some strain of bitterness passes into our nature; if sometimes we burn with unjust resentment against the fate which, suffers such lives as ours to be prolonged, let it be remembered in extenuation that to those who bear a double burden human ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... enough, for he could but lie inert, listen to the last news of the War, and wonder incidentally who would come to him first—the postman bringing the reviews of his first book, or the bony old gentleman bringing the scythe. He felt, of course, the mockery of this frustration of his powers. He thought—and, it seemed, with good reason—that he was a tragic failure. But was he? Read his books, and admit that he accomplished a little that is beautiful and enduring, and that he did it obscurely at a time when they who held ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... soon beside him. "A very clever trick, that ledge," he said. "Malmsworth thinks to elude us, but he never shall, eh, Mr. Wordsley?" There were tears of frustration in his eyes. ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... known for their hatred to the North. It was to prove his sincerity in the Southern cause that he had wormed himself into the confidence of Wesley Boone's comrades, and in order that he might be chief agent in the frustration ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... old soldier to be right. Month after month passed, assault after assault was repulsed by the wretched but indomitable burghers; but time was all on the side of the enemy. On July 12th, after the frustration again and again of hopes of relief from the Prince of Orange, whose plans were doomed to failure on every occasion, the city surrendered on the promise of complete ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... resolved that an alliance should take place between Coningsby and her step-daughter. But the plans of the princess, imparted to Mr. Rigby that she might gain his assistance in achieving them, were doomed to frustration. Coningsby fell deeply in love with Miss Millbank; and Lord Monmouth himself ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... not rest till they had produced the desired melioration of the state. The expedition sailed in May; but the Government was enabled to take such precautions as, from the very first, proved a complete frustration to their designs. Argyle lingered timidly in his own country, and, finally, against the advice of Cochrane and Hume, who were his chief officers, made some unfortunate movements, which ended in the entire ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... certain whether it was not originally put in motion by the machination of some of the paid spies and informers whom it was believed, at that time, to be the duty of the Ministry to keep in its service for the detection and the frustration of revolutionary conspiracy. It was the common practice of spies and informers, in those days, to go {16} about secretly in quarters where revolutionary conspiracy was believed to be in existence, to represent themselves to some of the suspected plotters as fellow-revolutionists ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... concerning the Island of Malta. The clouds of war began to gather. Napoleon discerned that England's powerful navy would constantly menace and probably capture New Orleans, if it were possessed by him, and fearing a frustration of his designs of conquest by too remote accessions, Napoleon, at this juncture, made overtures for a sale to the United States not only of the Island of New Orleans but of the whole area of the province. The money demanded would be helpful to France, and the wily Frenchman probably ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... again to The Ballad of The White Horse. Is it conceivable that any man should write after ten years of frustration and unhappiness: ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... once more the hypocritical mask of dissimulation fell away and the swarthy face showed black with the savagery of frustration. "Ef ye won't hev hit no other way, go on disgustin' me—but I warns ye thet ye kain't hold out erginst me. Ther time'll come when ye won't kick an' fly inter tantrums erginst my kisses ... ye'll ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... come to the interesting part of the story. Seven years of being a good little boy got you nothing but the promise of present and future frustration. Seven seconds of madness, of attempted self-destruction, brought you here. And as a reward for bucking the system, the system itself has provided you with a life of luxury and leisure—full permission to come and go as you please, live in spacious ease, indulge in the ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... guards to the plainclothes man and back, in frustration. Finally he spun on his heel again and re-entered the car. He slapped the elevation lever, twisted the wheel sharply, hit the jets pedal with his foot and ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... considered a traitor. South Carolina was not considered a safe place for a white man who was opposed to secession after the ordinance was passed. This probably accounts for the statement in the last part of the affidavit relative to the frustration of the plans. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Christina. I am glad you brought Sophy home in such good time. For I'm in a state of perfect frustration this afternoon. Here's a bride gown and bonnet to make, and a sound of more ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr |
