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Literary notes about shortcoming (AI summary)

The term "shortcoming" is employed in literature to denote a variety of deficiencies, ranging from personal flaws to structural or moral deficits. It often serves as a reflective tool, allowing characters or narrators to acknowledge imperfection and express a desire for improvement—as seen when an individual credits mistakes with curing personal shortcomings ([1]) or when a character humorously equates a positive trait with a minor flaw ([2]). In other works, it is used to highlight critical vulnerabilities within systems or relationships, inviting readers to consider the impact of such voids on broader contexts, whether in social dynamics ([3]) or even in the realm of art and technique ([4]). This versatile application enriches the narrative, underlining the complex interplay between human fallibility and the pursuit of excellence ([5], [6]).
  1. Ever since I came to Green Gables I’ve been making mistakes, and each mistake has helped to cure me of some great shortcoming.
    — from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
  2. "I'm rather a hopelessly cheerful person," she said, settling herself comfortably; "it's probably my chief virtue—or shortcoming."
    — from The Place Beyond the Winds by Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock
  3. The woman longs for her intensely beloved husband, with whom she cannot share her life because of his shortcoming and weaknesses.
    — from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
  4. The shortcoming thus acknowledged to attach to the content turns out at the same time to be a shortcoming in respect of form.
    — from The Logic of Hegel by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  5. Whatever we may do or be, meanwhile, is best attained and done as it confesses its own shortcoming, and hopes and longs to be better and to do more.
    — from The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians by Robert Rainy
  6. "For the lofty soul redeems the shortcoming of harsh looks, and conquers the body's blemish.
    — from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

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