"Miscalculation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... N. misjudgment, obliquity of judgment; miscalculation, miscomputation, misconception &c (error) 495; hasty conclusion. [causes of misjudgment. 1] prejudgment, prejudication^, prejudice; foregone conclusion; prenotion^, prevention, preconception, predilection, prepossession, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... two, and still no sign of the figures he sought, and, wondering whether they could have passed through some miscalculation on his part, he stepped forward quickly to make sure, when he became visible to Brettison, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... hour he tramped through back alleys and squalid streets, seeking groups and crowds, and finding no end of them, but never any sign of the boy. This greatly surprised him, but did not discourage him. To his notion, there was nothing the matter with his plan of campaign; the only miscalculation about it was that the campaign was becoming a lengthy one, whereas he had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the measures taken by the British Government to promote Western education in India has been attentively studied by the author of this volume. It is a story of grave political miscalculation, containing a lesson that has its significance for other nations which have undertaken a similar enterprise. Ignorance is unquestionably the root of many evils; and it was natural that in the last century certain philosophers should have assumed education to be the certain cure ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... game of deceit; but there was no one who was so thoroughly deceived as Napoleon himself. By some extraordinary miscalculation on the part of his secret agents, he was led to believe that the the forces of whole force of Austria, both in the north and the south, amounted to only 100,000 men, [183] and it was on this estimate that he had formed his plans of intimidation. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... moment needed all his fortitude. The least mistake or miscalculation on the part of his friends, and what might not be ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... proved to be all a mistake, the prices naturally go up once more, and we get a long figure for all that we hold. That's what I mean by making 'a corner in diamonds.' There is no room in it for any miscalculation. It is as certain as a proposition of Euclid, and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... half a century before, a term of which he had spent forty years in exile. It was from Chambord that he dated his famous letter of the 5th of July of that year—the letter, directed to his so-called subjects, in which he waves aloft the white flag of the Bourbons. This rare miscalculation—virtually an invitation to the French people to repudiate, as their national ensign, that immortal tricolour, the flag of the Revolution and the Empire, under which they have won the glory which of all glories has ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... to remain impassive and as far as possible in profile; these were the lessons that old Dubois had mastered years ago. To seem to know all, to betray no surprise, to refuse to hurry—itself a confession of miscalculation; by attention to these simple rules, Dubois had built up a steady reputation from the days when he had been a promising junior officer, a still, almost abstracted young man, deliberate but ready. Even then men had looked at him and said: 'He will go far.' ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... nearly two hours awake; the race against a well-nigh impossible time limit which would brook neither mistake nor miscalculation had been picked up automatically at daybreak, where it had hesitated at nightfall the day before. While he stared down at this activity, a realization of the months of bitter toil which stood between them and ultimate, uncertain ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... her gown without a pattern and with no mirror to guide her, the skirt was several inches shorter behind than in front, and a miscalculation put the gathers ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... imbecility, miscalculation, senselessness, error, foolishness, imprudence, misjudgment, silliness, fatuity, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of existing parishes throughout the country had been grossly miscalculated. There were not more than 9,000, and the amount of assessment had to be proportionately raised. It was necessary to summon a council at Westminster in June, to remedy the miscalculation that had been made in March. Half of the representatives of the late parliament were summoned to meet the king, and among them two of the city's members, Bartholomew Frestlyng and John Philipot—"the first Englishman who has left behind him the reputation of a ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... that routine. It has no appreciation of the nature or measure of the power of enthusiasm, and on this matter it learns nothing from experience, but after every fresh proof of that power, relapses from its brief astonishment into its old ignorance, and commits precisely the same miscalculation on the next occasion. The power of enthusiasm is, indeed, far from being unlimited; in some cases ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... fallen apart. It is said that Stoneman and Sheridan were to have joined their separate cavalry commands at Lynchburg, and effect a simultaneous junction with the Army of the Potomac. This failed, through a miscalculation of distance or time; but had they succeeded, we should have been less than three days in turning Lee's right, and so made the campaign even more concise. But Grant's talent has been marked and signal. He is the long-expected "coming man." None can be lukewarm in surveying ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... defending units, and to compare their relative values; the latter must never be forgotten. If Black were to play KtxP in the following position, because the pawn at K 5 is attacked three times, and only supported twice, it would be an obvious miscalculation, for the value of the defending pieces is smaller. [Footnote: It is difficult to compare the relative value of the different pieces, as so much depends on the peculiarities of each position, but, generally speaking, minor pieces, Bishop and Knight, ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... Niagara—if, before his little skiff tilts over into the awful rapids, he can make one great bound with all his strength, and reach the solid ground—I know he may be saved. It is an awful risk to run. A moment's miscalculation, and skiff and voyager alike are whelming in the green chaos below, and come up mangled into nothing, far away down yonder upon the white turbulent foam. 'One was saved upon the Cross,' as the old divines used to tell us, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... war of raising no money at all by taxation, puffed up with the vain belief that the cost of the war, and a good deal more, was going to be handed over to her in the shape of indemnities by her vanquished enemies. This terrible miscalculation on her part led her to set a very bad example to the warring Powers, and when protests are made in this country concerning the low proportion of the war's costs that is being met out of taxation it is easy for the official apologist to answer, "See how much ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... of subduing the British by the cheaper method of exhaustion. The failure was not only signal, but in the end discreditable; for while success is no sure proof of merit, nor its opposite of indesert, the wide miscalculation of the ultimate result, which kept the Boers so long inactive before Ladysmith, and saved Natal, while reinforcements were {p.058} well known all the while to be hasting across the sea, is entitled to scant respect ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... rapidly and shot out some feet from the bottom, as he had, from an advantageous point of view on Blackfriars Bridge, seen sacks of meal shoot from a Thames warehouse into the barge beneath. If, however, he made a miscalculation, he inevitably rolled off sideways and landed in a heap on the floor. Either result appeared to afford him infinite enjoyment and exhilaration. On this occasion he performed the feat with ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... had long felt himself sure of being one day dictator by public acclamation, and to have been deceived by that dreamer, Robespierre, was most humiliating. But Robespierre would not dare to put him to death! Grave miscalculation! He was immolated like the rest; the crowd looking on with indifference. Along with him perished Camille Desmoulins, a young man of letters, and a Jacobin, but convicted of advocating clemency. Robespierre ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... the consciousness that in this iniquitous lecture he had overshot the mark, and made a grievous miscalculation in pushing his detestable argument too far—but, above all, the startling suspicions so boldly and energetically expressed by Lucy, the truth of which, as well as the apprehensions that filled him of their discovery, all united, made him feel as if he ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... up and attempted to grasp Ditson's arm, but he was so full that he made a miscalculation and caught nothing but empty air. Then he struck across the table ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... unfortunate miscalculation, however, the note missed its proper object, and, clearing the partition, fluttered deliberately down on the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... like a lion, and several of the conspirators had reason to repent their miscalculation in assaulting so spirited an antagonist. But this did not content him; his blood was up, and he determined to attack the evil at its source. He strode through his discomfited enemies straight into Brigson's room, struck a match, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... variations in the quantity of the antecedents as we have the means of observing are small in comparison with the total quantities, there is much danger lest we should mistake the numerical law, and be led to miscalculate the variations which would take place beyond the limits; a miscalculation which would vitiate any conclusion respecting the dependence of the effect upon the cause, that could be founded on those variations. Examples are not wanting of such mistakes. "The formulae," says Sir John Herschel,(136) ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... A hyper-pilot is always anxious just before crossover. You've got to be, because the slightest miscalculation can send you fifty thousand light ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... I said to myself that I would find another weapon, even if I should have to take a leaf out of your own book, dad, to do it. I took the leaf, and I have the weapon. You drove Gryson away, but you made one small miscalculation. You didn't believe that his desire for revenge would be stronger than ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... also erred when he believed the French social structure to be breaking up. Here again the miscalculation was perfectly natural in an age which regarded kings, nobles, and bishops as the fixed stars of a universe otherwise diversified only by a dim Milky Way. The French were the first to dispel these notions. In truth the strength of the young giant ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... de Sainfoy made some miscalculation as to her daughter's hours of study? or was it Helene's own mistake? or had the sunshine and the waving woods, the barking of dogs, the chattering of workmen, all the flood of new life outside old Lancilly, made it impossible to sit reading in a chilly, ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... turn in. But it ever points in the same direction, west and southwest, and we drift now quicker, now more slowly westward, and only a little to the north. I have no doubt now about the success of the expedition, and my miscalculation was not so great, after all; but I scarcely think we shall drift higher than 85 deg., even if we do that. It will depend on how far Franz Josef Land extends to the north. In that case it will be hard to give up ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... position he held with apparent ease, which amounted to a sort of primacy of New England. His dangers lay in the very fecundity of his mind. Though hampered by his education and profession, he was naturally liberal; and his first miscalculation was when, almost immediately on landing, he supported Winthrop, who was in disgrace for the mildness of his ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... probably believed his strength to be superior to that of the scouts, advanced boldly and seized him, with the evident purpose of drawing him down among the others and making him a prisoner in spite of himself. But he found he had made a slight miscalculation when he was lifted like a child from the ground and hurled over the heads and among the glowering redskins crowding below. The momentum of his body was such that a half dozen were forced backward and almost off their feet. Had the Apaches chosen to do so, it would have been an easy matter to ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... not the slightest suspicion of our being near any, although the reckoning of the chart with increasing degrees showed only 120 miles, and the reckoning by the terrestrial globe only 50 miles distance from the land. But to this little attention had been paid. It seems certain now that the miscalculation involved in the plane chart from Cabo de bon' Esperanca to the Southland in 35 degrees latitude gives an overplus of more than 270 miles of sea, a matter to which most steersmen pay little attention, and which has brought, and ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... last paper I have received, or to make inquiries about the American war. If no one comes I prop my book open with stones touched by the Fir-bolgs, and sleep for hours in the delicious warmth of the sun. The last few days I have almost lived on the round walls, for, by some miscalculation, our turf has come to an end, and the fires are kept up with dried cow-dung—a common fuel on the island—the smoke from which filters through into my room and lies in blue layers above my ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... the voice sat on the table and hummed fiercely. In the stress of mental anguish caused by his position, Henry made a miscalculation, and in turning bumped the table heavily ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... condition, he confided the management of his affairs to Orgonez, on whose loyalty and courage he knew he might implicitly rely. The first step was to secure the passes of the Guaitara, a chain of hills that hemmed in the valley of Zangalla, where Almagro was at present established. But, by some miscalculation, the passes were not secured in season; and the active enemy, threading the dangerous defiles, effected a passage across the sierra, where a much inferior force to his own might have taken him at advantage. The fortunes of Almagro were on ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... of difficult wilderness. This was done the succeeding year, it is true, but time is always necessary to bring out Jonathan's latent military energies. When aroused, they are not trifling, as all his enemies have been made to feel; but a good deal of miscalculation, pretending ignorance, and useless talking must be expended, before the really efficient are allowed to set about serving the country in ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... admitted these faults, and explained their origin, in strong and sincere language, in a passage of which we have already quoted the conclusion. 'A singular miscalculation of nature,' he says, 'had combined my poetical tendencies with the place of my birth. Any disposition to poetry did violence to the laws of the institution where I was educated, and contradicted the plan of its founder. For eight years my enthusiasm struggled ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... grass was thick, cutting between him and the woods. Might it also provide a curtain behind which he could hope to escape both parties? The fire was sending the horse back toward the waiting ship people. Ross could hear a confused shouting in the smoke. Then his mount made a miscalculation, and a tongue of red licked too close. The animal screamed, dashing on blindly straight between two of the blazes and away from ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... tatters of the human race, whom some east-wind of evil omen, howling along the streets, had chanced to sweep together into an unfragrant heap. Each and all of them, conscious of his or her individual misery, had blundered into the strange miscalculation of supposing that they could lessen the sum of it by multiplying it into the misery of another person. All the couples (and it was difficult, in such a confused crowd, to compute exactly their number) stood up at once, and had execution done upon them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... life he had made a miscalculation, and the next instant he realized it. He had reckoned without the blunderer Kelly. For a fierce oath broke from the Irishman at sight of the weapon, and in the same second he beat it down with the stock of his riding-whip with a force that struck it ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... been calculated, many of which we use every day without question. If we make a bad landfall, or, at the end of a day discover that we have made a different course from that which we projected, we do not attribute the errors to Bowditch, but to our own miscalculation. It is just so with the humble inquirer after truth; the Bible is his Navigator; he believes it the fountain of living truth, endeavors to shape the course of his life by it; and when he errs, he looks for the error in himself, not in ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... dealings with the rest of the world, is strikingly exemplified in your complete misjudgment as to the cohesive power of the British Empire and as to the loyalty of its component parts and subject races; by your gross underestimate of France and by your general miscalculation as to how the peoples challenged by you would react to the supreme test ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... Kinsale on the Irish coast. With her went down nearly thirteen hundred persons, all of them non-belligerents and more than one hundred of them American men, women, and children. This atrocious crime the Germans committed out of their stupid miscalculation of the motives which govern non-German peoples. They thought that the British and Americans would be so terrorized that they would no longer dare to cross the ocean. The effect was, of course, just the opposite. A cry of horror swept over the civilized world, and swiftly upon it came a great ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... to the Herron coterie and the Fanning-Smiths and Great Lakes and Gulf, Dumont was still motionless—he was now estimating the strength and the weaknesses of the enemy, and miscalculation would be fatal. At the end of three-quarters of an hour Culver stopped the steady, swift flow of his report—"That's all the important facts. There's a lot more but it ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... but the southern of the three lancets shows how the artists dealt with a difficulty that upset their rule. The border of the southern window does not count as it should; something is wrong with it and a little study shows that the builder, and not the glassworker, was to blame. Owing to his miscalculation—if it was really a miscalculation—in the width of the southern tower, the builder economized six or eight inches in the southern door and lancet, which was enough to destroy the balance between the colour-values, as masses, of the south ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... doubt due to the weakness of some of the Dutch colonists in tolerating, or supporting, the violent propaganda, which could not but lead the enemy to believe that they had only to come into the Colony in order to meet with general active support. But this was a miscalculation on the part of the enemy, though a very pardonable one. They knew the vehemence of the agitation in their favour as shown by the speeches in Parliament, the series of public meetings culminating in the Worcester Congress, ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... odor of the place assailed his nostrils. All was in darkness, and absolute silence prevailed. He had a rough idea of the positions of the various little tables, and he stepped cautiously in order to skirt them; but evidently he had made a miscalculation. Something caught his foot, and with a muffled thud he sprawled upon the floor, barely missing one of the tables which he had been at such pains ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer |
