Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Faults
You shall find there
A man who is the abstract of all faults,
That all men follow.
Shakespeare.—Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. Scene 4. (Cæsar to Lepidus.)
Men have many faults;
Poor women have but two;
There’s nothing good they say,
And nothing right they do.
Anonymous.
Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
St. Luke, Chap. vi. Ver. 41.
The faults of our neighbours with freedom we blame,
But tax not ourselves, though we practise the same.
Cunningham.—The Fox, the Cat, and the Spider; and Cibber.—The Refusal, Act III. Gay.—The Turkey and Ant, Part I. Fable XXXVIII. Line 1.
Other men’s sins we ever bear in mind;
None sees the fardel of his faults behind.
Herrick.—Hesperides, Aphorisms, No. 182.
Hence we’re inevitably blind,
Relating to the bag behind,
But when our neighbours misdemean,
Our censures are exceeding keen.
Phædrus.—Book IV. Fable IX., Ramage, Latin Class. Quot. 286.
Best men are moulded out of faults.
Shakespeare.—Measure for Measure, Act V. Scene 1.
Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbours’ faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.
Knight’s Shakespeare.—Coriolanus, Act II. Scene 1. In Notis.
O that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves.
Shakespeare.—Coriolanus, Act II. Scene 1. (Menenius to Brutus.)
In other men we faults can spy,
And blame the mote that dims their eye,
Each little speck and blemish find;
To our own stronger errors blind.
Gay.—Fable XXXVIII. Line 1.
’Tis a meaner part of sense
To find a fault than taste an excellence.
Rochester.—An Epilogue, Line 6.
None, none descends into himself, to find
The secret imperfections of his mind:
But every one is eagle-ey’d to see
Another’s faults, and his deformity.
Dryden’s Persius.—Sat. IV.
Is she not a wilderness of faults and follies?
Sheridan.—The Duenna, Act I. Scene 2.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Tho’ they may gang a kennin’ wrang;
To step aside is human!
Burns.—Address to the Unco Guid, Verse 7.
They, then, who of each trip the advantage take,
Find but those faults which they want wit to make.
Dryden.—Prol. to Tyrannic Love, Line 24.
O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
Burns.—To a Louse.
Breathe his faults so quaintly,
That they may seem the taints of liberty:
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act II. Scene 1. (Polonius to Reynaldo.)
Bad men excuse their faults, good men will leave them.
Ben Jonson.—Catiline, Act III. Scene 2.
Excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault worse by the excuse.
Shakespeare.—King John, Act IV. Scene 2. (Pembroke to Salisbury.)