Faults

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Faults are defects or weaknesses of character.

Quotes[edit]

  • The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
  • Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth;
    If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.
  • Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.
  • You crystal break, for fear of breaking it:
    Careless and careful hands like faults commit.
    • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book XIV, Epigram 111. Translation by Wright.
  • The glorious fault of angels and of gods.
  • And oftentimes, excusing of a fault
    Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse,
    As patches set upon a little breach,
    Discredit more in hiding of the fault,
    Than did the fault before it was so patched.
  • Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
    Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done;
    Mine were the very cipher of a function,
    To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
    And let go by the actor.
  • Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
    Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
    And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
    All men make faults.
  • Her only fault, and that is faults enough,
    Is that she is intolerable curst
    And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure
    That, were my state far worser than it is,
    I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations[edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 265-67.
  • Suus quoque attributus est error:
    Sed non videmus, manticæ quid in tergo est.
    • Every one has his faults: but we do not see the wallet on our own backs.
    • Catullus, Carmina, XXII. 20.
  • Ea molestissime ferre homines debent quæ ipsorum culpa ferenda sunt.
    • Men ought to be most annoyed by the sufferings which come from their own faults.
    • Cicero, Epistolæ Ad Fratrem, I. 1.
  • Est proprium stultitiæ aliorum vitia cernere, oblivisci suorum.
    • It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others, and to forget his own.
    • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, III. 30.
  • Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy;
    Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I.
  • Men still had faults, and men will have them still;
    He that hath none, and lives as angels do,
    Must be an angel.
  • The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.
    • Isaac D'Israeli, Essay on the Literary Character, Preface. p, XXIX and Volume I, p. 187.
  • Heureux l'homme quand il n'a pas les défauts de ses qualités.
    • Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities.
    • Bishop Dupanloup.
  • Do you wish to find out a person's weak points? Note the failings he has the quickest eye for in others. They may not be the very failings he is himself conscious of; but they will be their next-door neighbors. No man keeps such a jealous lookout as a rival.
    • J. C. and W. A. Hare, Guesses at Truth.
  • His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities.
  • Bad men excuse their faults, good men will leave them.
  • Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?
    • Who'd bear to hear the Gracchi chide sedition? (Listen to those who denounce what they do themselves).
    • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), II. 24.
  • Qui s'excuse, s'accuse.
    • He who excuses himself, accuses himself.
    • Gabriel Meurier, Tresor des Sentences.
  • Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo!
    Sed præcedenti spectatur mantica tergo.
    • That no one, no one at all, should try to search into himself! But the wallet of the person in front is carefully kept in view.
    • Persius, Satires, IV. 24.
  • Peras imposuit Jupiter nobis duas.
    Propriis repletam vitiis post tergum dedit;
    Alienis ante pectus suspendit gravem.
    • Jupiter has placed upon us two wallets. Hanging behind each person's back he has given one full of his own faults; in front he has hung a heavy one full of other people's.
    • Phaedrus, Fables, Book IV. 9. 1.
  • Quia, qui alterum incusat probi, eum ipsum se intueri oportet.
    • Because those, who twit others with their faults, should look at home.
    • Plautus, Truculentus, I. 2. 58.
  • Nihil peccat, nisi quod nihil peccat.
    • He has no fault except that he has no fault.
    • Pliny the Younger, Epistles, Book LX. 26.
  • Amici vitium ni feras, prodis tuum.
    • Unless you bear with the faults of a friend, you betray your own.
    • Syrus, Maxims.
  • Invitat culpam qui delictum præterit.
    • He who overlooks a fault, invites the commission of another.
    • Syrus, Maxims.
  • For tho' the faults were thick as dust
    In vacant chambers, I could trust
    Your kindness.

External links[edit]