"Excel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unorthodox notions as to the correct method of presenting arms; we may not always present an unbroken front on the parade-ground—but we can dig! Even the fact that we do not want to, cannot altogether eradicate a truly human desire to "show off." "Each man to his art," we say. We are quite content to excel in ours, the oldest in the world. We know enough now about the conditions of the present war to be aware that when we go out on service only three things will really count—to march; to dig; and to fire, upon occasion, fifteen rounds a minute. Our rapid fire is already fair; we can ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... really Scripture history of Christ's time clothed gracefully and delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction.... Few late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... hatred of Belton accomplished the very same result in respect to their acquirements. The teacher soon discovered that both boys were talented far beyond the ordinary, and that both were ambitious. He saw that the way to wound and humiliate Belton was to make Bernard excel him. Thus he bent all of his energies to improve Bernard's mind. Whenever he heard Belton recite he brought all of his talents to bear to point out his failures, hoping thus to exalt Bernard, out of whose work he strove to keep all blemishes. Thus Belton became accustomed ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... valleys, one with the eye of an artist, who can perceive and differentiate varying shades of color, can not but admit that the Bernese Oberland is "par excellence" first. Even south of the Alps the verdure does not excel or even equal that to be seen here. There is something incomparably lovely about the Oberland valleys. It is indescribable, indefinable, for when one has exhausted the most extravagant terms of description, he feels that he has failed to picture the scene as he desired. Yet if one word should ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... next me in our heaven, Lustrous and costly, great renown hath left, And not to perish, ere these hundred years Five times absolve their round. Consider thou, If to excel be worthy man's endeavour, When such life may attend the first. Yet they Care not for this, the crowd that now are girt By Adice and Tagliamento, still Impenitent, tho' scourg'd. The hour is near, When for their stubbornness at Padua's marsh The water shall be chang'd, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to fill the intervening days with the most girlish devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle that Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen pleased herself with having in readiness for some ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... station which they filled. This indeed comes nearest the truth; for it is very common for biographers to pass eulogiums of a very high strain in praise of those whom they affect. But in these panegyrical orations, they oftimes rather exceed than excel.—It was an ancient (but true) saying of the Jews, "That great men (and we may say good men) commonly find stones for their own monuments;" and laudable actions always support themselves: And a thing (as an author[23] observes on the like subject) "if right, it ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... uncultivated and unadorned is for the most part, of modern growth.] where we have made a long sojourn. But what is most remarkable in friendship is that it puts a man on an equality with his inferior. For there often are in a circle of friends those who excel the rest, as was the case with Scipio in our flock, if I may use the word. He never assumed superiority over Philus, never over Rupilius, never over Mummius, never over friends of an order lower than his own. Indeed he always reverenced as a superior, because ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... have grace instead of awkwardness in his motions and gestures, and, in short, may be a very agreeable instead of a very disagreeable speaker if he will take care and pains. And surely it is very well worth while to take a great deal of pains to excel other men in that particular article ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the god Thor." Then addressing himself to Thor, he said, "Perhaps thou mayst be more than thou appearest to be. What are the feats that thou and thy fellows deem yourselves skilled in, for no one is permitted to remain here who does not, in some feat or other, excel all other men?" ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Great bequeathed to Prussia was universally regarded as the model of efficiency. Its methods were copied in other countries, and foreign officers desiring to excel in their profession made pilgrimages to Berlin and Potsdam to drink of the stream of military knowledge at its source. When it came in contact with the tumultuous array of revolutionary France, the performances of the force that preserved the tradition ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... upon as the most honourable testimony of their conduct, and are treasured up as valuable marks of distinction. This encouragement has great influence, and makes them vie with each other in endeavours to excel in sobriety, cleanliness, meekness and industry. She told me also that the young women bred up at the schools these ladies support are so much esteemed for many miles round that it is not uncommon for young farmers, who want sober, good wives, to obtain them from thence, and prefer ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... of character, great perseverance and ambition to excel are shown in the strenuous manner in which he overcame all these obstacles, and at the close of his college career at St. John's, Cambridge, became a wrangler in ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, where exteriour appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is with great propriety said by its authour to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim semper miraturi, whose ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Red Jacket was fitted by nature to excel in councils of peace, rather than in enterprises of war; to gain victories in a conflict of mind with mind rather than in physical strife, on ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... southern slope of the Sivalik ridge, between two mountain chains. In this valley, raised 1,024 feet above the sea-level, the northern nature of the Himalayas struggles with the tropical growth of the plains; and, in their efforts to excel each other, they have created the most delightful of all the delightful corners of India. The town itself is a quaint collection of castle-like turrets of the most fantastical architecture; of ancient viharas; of wooden fortresses, so gaily painted that they look like toys; of pagodas, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... support of Matilda. The garrison of Lincoln had no apprehension of a surprise, and were busy in those sports which hardy men enjoy even amid the rougher sport of war. The Countess of Chester and her sister-in-law, with a politeness that the ladies of the court of Louis le Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the wife of the knight who had the defence of the castle. While there, at this pleasant morning call, "talking and joking" with the unsuspecting matron, as Ordericus relates, the Earl ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... immediately entered Annie's name in the list of competitors, and Annie sat down again, not even glancing at her astonished schoolfellows, who could not conceal their amazement, for she had never hitherto shown the slightest desire to excel in ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... recognized in Billings the best kicker in the school. He was up against it for material in the fullback position. Rudolph did not excel in kicking. He was a good line plunger and fairly fast around the ends. Blackwell had been a triple threat player. There was a remote possibility that Blackwell might be able to get in part of the Canton High game. If Billings were not afraid of himself and had had more experience! ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... south; until the Taillkenn [**] should come to Erinn, bringing the light of a pure faith, and until they should hear the voice of a Christian bell. They were allowed to keep their own Gaelic speech, and to sing sweet, plaintive, fairy music, which should excel all the music of the world, and which should lull to sleep all who listened to it. We could hear it, we three, for we loved the story; and love opens the ear as well as the heart to all sorts of sounds not heard by the dull and incredulous. You may hear it, too, any fine soft ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dukes, hesitates one moment to send its sons into the army. When the news comes of their death, they never whimper. When you come right down to hard facts, the courage and the endurance of the British and the French excel anything ever before seen on this planet. All the old stories of bravery from Homer down are outdone every day by these people. I see these British at close range, full-dress and undress; and I've got to know a lot of 'em ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... art of rice cultivation they are past masters. They are skilled tank-builders, though perhaps hardly equal to the Kohlis of Chanda. But they excel especially in the mending and levelling of their fields, in neat transplantation, and in the choice and adaptation of the different varieties of rice to land of varying qualities. They are by no means specially efficient ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... are most likely to excel in the lighter arts—to design (for furniture or fabrics), to embroider, to carve, to engrave, to etch, to model, to paint. Here also success depends largely upon that which was inborn, though girls of moderate talent in art, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... to come, such as, for example, the lantern of the cupola of S. Maria del Fiore, and, in point of grandeur, the cupola itself, wherein Filippo was emboldened not only to equal the ancients in the extent of their structures, but also to excel them in the height of the walls; yet we are speaking generically and universally, and we must not deduce the excellence of the whole from the goodness and perfection of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... felt the least shame, however, in not being able to play cricket in a manner to please connoisseurs. I hated the game from the very beginning, and it was pure slavery to me, and I never had the faintest desire to excel in it or even to learn it. This dislike was a misfortune, as not to love cricket is a cause of isolation for an ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... emulation cannot exist in two minds; one must hate the perfections in which he is eclipsed by the other;—thus, from hating the quality in his competitor, he loses the respect for it in himself:—a young man by himself better educated than two.—A Roman's emulation was not to excel his countrymen, but to make his country excel: this is the true, the other selfish.—Epaminondas, who reflected on the pleasure his success would give his father, most glorious;—an emulation for ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... companies predominated and where he could place the Guardian upon the withdrawal of a Conference company. After all, the Osgood office was not the only good agency in Boston. A new vigor fortified him—he would find an agent for the Guardian who should excel the Osgood connection as the sun outshines ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... have been the prevailing sin among these degenerate professors. Like the Pharisee, they would boast of their riches, the spiritual gifts which they possessed, by which they flattered themselves that "they were not as other men." Possibly they might excel in knowledge, that "knowledge which puffeth up;" in utterance,—"great swelling words of vanity," by which they gained both "filthy lucre" and the admiration of an ignorant and carnal multitude. Such is too often the actual condition of ministers and people, when they are all the while under ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... accomplished for the glory of God or the good of mankind. This was a powerful argument, and the countess made the most of it. Then, whether by reason of a tacit understanding, a thinly veiled act of complaisance such as those who wear the ecclesiastical habit excel in, or whether merely as the result of sheer stupidity—a stupidity admirably adapted to further their designs—the old nun rendered formidable aid to the conspirator. They had thought her timid; she proved ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... authentic materials which must be disguised or kept hidden; while its leading features are a delight in elaborate accessories and that very modern sentiment, a horror of anachronism. A few living artists, like Mr. Shorthouse and Mr. Stevenson, can still excel under these difficult conditions, which have driven a crowd of second-rate novelists into the extreme of minute realism. Into this retreat, however, they have been followed by a host of readers; ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... men is idleness. They excel in it. Let us pause for a moment and ask what they do—this jeunesse doree, to whom the sacred mission is committed of regenerating an heroic people? They could teach Ovid "the art of love." It comes to them in the air they breathe. They do not love their neighbor as themselves, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... The Germans far excel us in this feature of their school work. No class of German children are ever sent to their seats with the simple direction to take so many pages in advance. Teacher and class together go over the next lesson, the teacher calling the attention of the ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... that was evolved under great stress is far too complex for discussion here. Suffice it to say this: Lincoln's clear insight and openness of mind enabled him to see the universal truth, that, other things being equal, the trained and expert professional must excel the untrained and inexpert amateur. But other things are never precisely equal; and a war in which the whole mass-manhood is concerned brings in a host of amateurs. Lincoln was as devoid of prejudice against the regular officers as he was against ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... distributed among officers and men at rate calculated at $25 for each person aboard the enemy vessel at beginning of engagement; British spy system has been so perfected that it is said in some respects to excel the German; Embassy in Washington denies that women or children are interned ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... excellence, lays down the pursuit of Knowledge for its own sake, as the first of them. "This pertains most of all to human nature," he says, "for we are all of us drawn to the pursuit of Knowledge; in which to excel we consider excellent, whereas to mistake, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived, is both an evil and a disgrace."(14) And he considers Knowledge the very first object to which we are attracted, after the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.—THOMAS ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant and steady exertion. He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity, so much wild wit as saved him from the imputation of idiocy, some dexterity in field-sports (in which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a prodigious memory, and an ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... this power was destroyed, by the ridiculous distinctions of rich and poor. Oh, mad world! Monstrous absurdity! Incomprehensible blindness! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater stores of wealth: which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth. How may this advantage be made general? Not ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a legend, but its lesson is well worthy our serious thought. Too many people in their life as Christians, while they strive to excel in character, in conduct, and in the beautiful graces of disposition, and to do their work among men faithfully, are forgetting meanwhile the law of love which bids every follower of Christ go about doing good as the Master did. To be a Christian ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... a rare and brilliant instance of those natural qualities in which these peculiar people are said to excel," he answered. "I agree with you, Alice, in thinking that such a front and eye were formed rather to intimidate than to deceive; but let us not practice a deception upon ourselves, by expecting any other exhibition of what ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... sea there is earth, nor are they at all worthy to be compared with the beautiful things with us. But, on the other hand, those things in the upper regions of the earth would appear far more to excel the things with us. For, if we may tell a beautiful fable, it is well worth hearing, Simmias, what kind the things are on the earth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... are backward learners. Some there are who excel in embroidery, crocheting, making ties and other fancy articles, but who have no aptitude for shaping and trimming hats. They plod on, and win at last. Then there is the girl whose parents wish her to open a millinery establishment in their town. She tries, but finally agrees with her ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... the day of his interview with Rodolph at Mayence, Gilbert's mind had been wholly engrossed with the bright pictures which a vivid and worldly fancy and a keen ambition to excel can always unfold to the eye of youth. At times he remembered the night passed in the missionary's humble dwelling, when Bertha's knife had confined him there, and he saw again the crucifix and the sacristan. But this was only for a moment. The image of the Lady Margaret was sure to enter and banish ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... education, which was general in Babylonia, was in the northern kingdom confined for the most part to a single class. In Babylonia it was of very old standing. There were libraries in most of the towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and in Semitic times this involved a knowledge of the extinct Sumerian as well as of a most complicated and extensive syllabary. A considerable amount of Semitic Babylonian literature ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... order. Their {very} multitude is a hindrance to those that are thrown, and it baffles the blow for which it is designed. Behold! the Arcadian,[66] wielding his battle-axe, rushing madly on to his fate, said, "Learn, O youths, how much the weapons of men excel those of women, and give way for my achievement. Though the daughter of Latona herself should protect him by her own arms, still, in spite of Diana, shall my right hand destroy him." Such words did he boastingly ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... darted at me, across the Elector's table, while the great drinking match that I had proposed was going on. It was right plain to be seen how much vexed you were, that there was anything in which Conrad von Burgsdorf could excel the wise, the learned, and the most ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... caprices of a wife, govern a state of twenty-six millions of men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness, a prodigality, a lack of skill, an absence of consistency that would scarcely be overlooked in the management of a private domain.—The king and the privileged excel in one direction, in manners, in good taste, in fashion, in the talent for representation and in entertaining and receiving, in the gift of graceful conversation, in finesse and in gaiety, in the art of converting life into a brilliant and ingenious festivity, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... myself are in possession of noble secrets and excel in their art should keep both mind and hand ceaselessly active to carry out their enterprises, so as to win much wealth and leave a long memory behind them. And if I, old and broken down as I am, spare myself no trouble, you are bound to do your utmost to help me ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... savage cannot, as a general rule, endure transplantation,—he cannot thrive in the country of the civilized man; whereas the latter, with time for training, can equal or excel him in strength and endurance on his own ground. As it is known that the human race generally can endure a greater variety of climate than the hardiest of the lower animals, so it is with the man of civilization, when compared with the barbarian. Kane, when he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... at any rate, the impression of disregard for the feelings of others. What a regard to appearances is not revealed in such common expressions as "Etre de mauvaise tournure" and "Avoir bonne tournure," as applied to either man or woman? And as for the women, who can excel a Frenchwoman in the art of looking if not elegant, yet at any rate spruce, by the aid of even meagre materials, and in the art of "savoir faire," of which our English "tact" hardly preserves the aroma? What dynasty or party shall rule the destinies of France may be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... its own peculiar boast, so that the city together combines within its precincts, if you take the word of the inhabitants on the subject, as much of historical interest as of natural beauty. Our claims in behalf of the Canongate are not the slightest. The Castle may excel us in extent of prospect and sublimity of site; the Calton had always the superiority of its unrivalled panorama, and has of late added that of its towers, and triumphal arches, and the pillars of its Parthenon. The High Street, we acknowledge, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... a declamacion, That chyldren euen strayt fr their infancie should be well and gent- ly broughte vp in learnynge. Written fyrst in Latin by the most excel- lent and famous Clearke, ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... all that went out or came in, all disbursements and all receipts, proceeded as it were by number and measure. His manager in all this was a single servant, Evangelus by name, a man either naturally gifted or instructed by Pericles so as to excel every one in ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... of weapons and courageous in the battle-field. He is not, however, bound to have the special science of a general, nor must he in times of peace profess unique devotion to the art of war: that would argue a coarseness of nature or vainglory. Again, he must excel in all manly sports and exercises, so as, if possible, to beat the actual professors of each game, or feat of skill on their own ground. Yet here also he should avoid mere habits of display, which are unworthy of a man who aspires to be ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... University match, Mr. Butler took all ten wickets in one innings. He was fast, with a high delivery, and wickets were not so good then as they are now. Mr. Francis was also an excellent bowler, not so fast as Mr. Butler; and Mr. Belcher, who bowled with great energy, but did not excel as a bat, was a useful man. For Cambridge, Mr. Cobden bowled fast, Mr. Ward was an excellent medium pace bowler, Mr. Money's slows were sometimes fortunate, and Mr. Bourne bowled slow round. Cambridge went in first, and only got 147. Mr. Yardley fell for 2, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... a State? Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown'd; No:—Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:— Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain; Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a Roman, and now delight us Britons. Thus every Thing conduces to debase Tragedy among them, as every Thing here contributes to form good Tragick Writers; yet how few have we! And what is very remarkable, each Nation takes Delight in that, which, in the Main, they the least excel in, and are the least fit for. The Audience in England is generally more crowded at a Comedy, and in France at a Tragedy; yet I will venture to affirm, (and I shall be ready upon Occasion to support my Assertion by good Reasons) that ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... I excel in metaphysical discussions, and was about giving further elaboration of my favorite idea when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... anger. Armarse de paciencia: To arm oneself with patience. Arrimarse a la pared: To lean against the wall. Arrostrar (con (or por)) los peligros: To face the dangers. Atender (a) los negocios: To attend to business. Aventajarse a otros: To excel others. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... insidework of my house myself. Indeed, it is really essential for the well-doing of the emigrant, that he, or some members of his family, should have some knowledge of carpentry—in fact, be a jack-of-all-trades; and, in that excellent profession, educated persons, healthy in mind and body, excel ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... could not have been four years old when he exchanged the amusement of building houses of mud and pebble-stones for that of backing horses. A couple of years later his atalik might even have presented him with a steed for the practice of those arts of horsemanship wherein the Circassians excel the most expert riders in the world. The Koissu must also have submitted to the triumph of his arms when their bone was still in the gristle, and during the warm season of the year have suffered, both at morning and evening, its torrent ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... our readers. Slavishly to copy, or systematically to imitate, are evils scarcely less reprehensible than to neglect them altogether; but frequent study of the great masters in any art is indispensable to those who would excel. It is to the absence of such study that we may trace most of the defects of the British artisan. Unhappily, he seldom either examines, reads, or thinks; generally he is content to work, like a horse in a mill, pursuing the same ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... are points of comparison which may be remarked in the characters of the French and English. The French are great talkers, the English great thinkers; the former excel in vivacity, the latter in solidity of intellect. The French dress with splendour, the English with neatness; the French live almost exclusively on bread, the English on meat. Both are passionate; but it is the blood ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... by allowing them to blacken; yet so soon do I overwhelm you with culinary suggestions. I am distressed to remember them. But you must forgive and smile me into peacefulness again. And be not discouraged, little housewife! It may take years of attention to excel in bread-making, some skill even for boiling potatoes, and common-sense for everything; but stand steadily beside your servants, and watch their processes patiently. Take notes, experiment, amend, and if there be failure, discover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... suspicion. All his bliss, all his honour, all his liberty he avowed was entirely in your disposal. Was he not of noble birth? And for beauty might he not compare with the rest of his townsfolk? Did he not excel in all the exercises and accomplishments proper to youth? Was he not beloved, held dear, well seen of all men? You will not deny it. How then could you at the behest of a paltry friar, silly, brutish and envious, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... dissertation on the treachery of friends; "never in all the years to come. The driveling fools! What do I pay them for? To let me lie there snoring so loud that I couldn't hear opportunity for the noise I was making? As in everything else I undertake, my dear Barnes, I excel at snoring. My lung capacity is something amazing. It has to have an outlet. They let me lie there like a log while the richest publicity material that ever fell to the lot of an actor went to waste,—utter waste. Why, damme, sir, I could have made ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right. Worth, of politeness, is the needful ground; Where that is wanting, this can ne'er be found. Triflers not e'en in trifles can excel; 'Tis solid bodies only polish well. Great, chosen prophet! For these latter days, To turn a willing world from righteous ways! Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve; Well has he seen his servant should not starve. Thou to his name hast splendid temples rais'd; In various ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the Dunciad, where at a diving-match in the putrid waters of Fleet Ditch, which "rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to the Thames," the heroes are bidden to "prove who best can dash through thick and thin, and who the most in love of dirt excel." ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... apparently plunged in deep and painful thought. Then, suddenly throwing up his head, he continued: "I belong to the genus Prodigal Son. Would you care to hear my story? I think I should rather like to tell it you; for you are a good lad, high-spirited, full of generous impulses, eager to excel, and full of pluck. You are bound to make a success of your life if you will only steadfastly follow the path that your feet are now treading. But— forgive me for saying so—the qualities that you possess, excellent as they are, are precisely those ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... in our family. I never saw a passionate face, never an anger that lasted till the morrow, never a look at all reproachful. My mother, grandmother, father, my brother and I, lived like those who understand each other's thoughts, and only strive to excel one another in the expression ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... ports, in everything which contributes to naval efficiency,—in size, in mechanical appliances, in concentration upon one spot of all the trades and all the resources necessary for the construction and repair of war-ships,—excel all other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... said of the superiority of South African scouting to that of the British regulars, but it must be confessed that a good many instances might be quoted in which the colonials, though second to none in gallantry, have been defective in that very quality in which they were expected to excel. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... born in New England would not now be such "jacks of all trades and masters of none" as we are. The West deserves great commendation for their lively interest in all that relates to the education of the young. Why, almost any of these States excel those of New England in school matters, outside of two or three of the great universities which they happen to possess. Several years ago, in passing through Indiana and visiting several of the village schools, ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... of their superior acquirements, were enabled to excel others in any pursuit, or who could foresee and avail themselves of events in the natural world, were liable, without any intention to deceive, to be classed under some of these denominations. For instance, a Roman farmer, Furius Cresinus, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... expect to equal, much less to excel, the original. The excellence of a translation can only be judged by noting how far it has succeeded in reproducing the original tone, colors, style, the delicacy of sentiment, the force of inert strength, the peculiar expressions native to the language ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... name. To such, the following facts may be of use. The game is interesting, and its rules can be soon learned, but like everything else we do for pleasure or profit, it takes a good deal of practice before one can pose as an expert. Boys take to golf and soon excel their seniors. ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... has read so far, can think I am unduly prejudiced in favour of America and the Americans. I have tried to write fairly, and point out in what respects their institutions, habits, &c., excel ours; but, on the other hand, I have criticized in no sparing language what I consider are faults or peculiarities distasteful to outsiders, and possibly there is more blame than praise in the foregoing pages. If now, therefore, I write strongly in favour of the great capital ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... much as glory. If he want that, then take it that he lacks all else. For nothing about a king is more on men's lips than his repute. I was credited with the height of understanding and eloquence. But I have been stripped of both the things wherein I was thought to excel, and am all the more miserable because I, the conqueror of kings, am seen conquered by a peasant. Why grant life to him whom thou hast robbed of honour? I have lost sister, realm, treasure, household gear, and, what is greater than them all, renown: I am luckless in all chances, and in all thy ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... of his profession. He had entered it under favourable circumstances. He had joined a crack regiment in a crack garrison. Malta is certainly a delightful station. Its city, Valetta, equals in its noble architecture, if it even do not excel, any capital in Europe; and although it must be confessed that the surrounding region is little better than a rock, the vicinity, nevertheless, of Barbary, of Italy, and of Sicily, presents exhaustless resources ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... good Quakers have all the hail-holes in their windows mended now, and they are as lively as ever. Among other things, they have two rival variety theatres, "Fox's" and the "Chestnut;" and the efforts of each of these to excel the other creates the greatest excitement among the young Broadbrims. Each establishment is continually adding something new and wonderful to its attractions. A week or so ago the weather was very warm, and the vegetable theatre ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... culture, has value as an intellectual stimulus and discipline. Here also the youthful mind is brought into the presence of a great and noble people, who, if they have less genius and a duller sense of beauty than the Greeks, excel them in steadiness of purpose, in dignity of character, in reverence for law and religion, and above all ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... me to dine with him the following day, and I should have thanked him and begged to be excused if Donna Ippolita had not pressed me to come. She assured me that I should find good company there, and that the cook would excel himself. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... late for a fresh compliment to be paid to him, but the London Spectator paid it in 1883, the year of his centenary, by saying, "Since the time of Pope more than one hundred essayists have attempted to excel or to equal the Tatler and Spectator. One alone, in a few of his best efforts, may be said to have rivalled them, and he is Washington Irving." The Spectator adds that one has surpassed ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... succeeded by their swiftness of foot, but by beagles very little superior to those of modern days [12]. Of the stronger and more ferocious dogs there is, however, occasional mention. The bull-dog of modern date does not excel the one (possibly of nearly the same race) that was presented to Alexander the Great, and that boldly seized a ferocious lion, or another that would not quit his hold, although one leg and then ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... from his famous tales, the happy art of narration, and the still greater merit of a depth and fineness in the workings of the passions, in which last excellence, as likewise in the wild and imaginative character of the situations, his almost neglected romances appear to me greatly to excel his far famed 'Decameron'. To him, too, we owe the more doubtful merit of having introduced into the Italian prose, and by the authority of his name and the influence of his example, more or less throughout Europe, the long interwoven ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... there is another name—'saints.' It has suffered perhaps more at the hands both of the world and of the Church than any other. It has been taken by the latter and restricted to the dead, and further restricted to those who excel, according to the fantastic, ascetic standard of mediaeval Christianity. It has suffered from the world in that it has been used with a certain bitter emphasis of resentment at the claim of superior purity supposed to be implied in it, and so has ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... spectator ever came away from one of these houses without having his feelings wrought up by actors of all ages, who far outstrip our Siddonses, Kembles, Bettys, Youngs, or Keans, and whose petit dramas excel those of Shakespeare, Rowe, or Otway, in the degree in which suffering and unsophisticated Nature is superior to the ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... world. The persons who have most feeling of their own, if intellectual culture has given them a language in which to express it, have the highest faculty of poetry; those who best understand the feelings of others, are the most eloquent. The persons, and the nations, who commonly excel in poetry, are those whose character and tastes render them least dependent upon the applause, or sympathy, or concurrence of the world in general. Those to whom that applause, that sympathy, that concurrence are most necessary, generally excel most in eloquence. And hence, perhaps, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... wisely remained faithful to his own first ideas. The restoration of the navy continued, and was accompanied and furthered by a spirit of professional ambition and of desire to excel, among the officers of the navy, which has been before mentioned, and which, in the peculiar condition of the United States navy at the present day, may be commended as a model. The building of ships-of-war continued with ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... compartment containing four seats or berths, divided by partitions from the rest of the parlour car. The ordinary carriage or "day coach" corresponds to the English second-class carriage, or, rather, to the excellent third-class carriages on such railways as the Midland. It does not, I think, excel them in comfort except in the greater size, the greater liberty of motion, and the element of variety afforded by the greater number of fellow-passengers. The seats are disposed on each side of a narrow central aisle, and are so arranged that the occupants can ride forward or backward as they ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... moon much higher, More clear and splendrous, 'bove all light Which the eye receives not, 'tis so bright. I seek a voice beyond degree Of all melodious harmony: The ear conceives it not; a smell Which doth all other scents excel: No flower so sweet, no myrrh, no nard, Or aloes, with it compared; Of which the brain not sensible is. I seek a sweetness—such a bliss As hath all other sweets surpassed, And never palate yet ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... Prodr. 416. Attack Creek. J.M. Stuart. (Victoria River and Sturt Creek, F. Muller; Sweer's Island, Henne; Nickol Bay, Walcot.) Capsula usually beautifully pink, sometimes purple or white. Peduncles occasionally more than 6 inches long; the staminodia sometimes excel the anthers in length. ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... upon the steep just over the boiling spray, add much to its beauty, taken as a picture. As a specimen of the picturesque, the whole scene is perfect. I should think Trenton Falls, in New York, must excel these in wild, startling effect; but there is such a scarcity of waterfalls in this land, that the Germans go into raptures about them, and will hardly believe that ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Aristophanes and Agathon, remained awake, and that, while he continued to drink with them out of a large goblet, he compelled them, though most reluctantly, to admit that it was the business of one and the same genius to excel in tragic and comic poetry, or that the tragic poet ought, at the same time, to contain within himself the powers of comedy. Now, as this was directly repugnant to the entire theory of the ancient critics, and contrary to all their experience, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... her was to go great dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. I could not help remembering that always this has been and still is Satan's favourite bait. To me it did not particularly appeal. I had been ambitious in my time—who is not that is worth his salt? I could have wished to excel in something, literature or art, or whatever it might be, and thus to ensure the memory of my name ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... for sharpening a man's intellect, and the natives of the coast being a class of ichthyophagi, it may be imagined that they excel in all the methods ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... initiation. Governments founded on pure liberty are not necessarily the most active. Free assemblies are better suited to put the drag upon the wheels, to check them when they go too fast, than to accelerate them. Like criticism, which is in fact their province and their strength, they excel in warning and in hindering rather than in undertaking. The eternal problem is to reconcile, to balance, authority and liberty, using sometimes the one, sometimes the other. In this double play theory may be at fault, but practical ability will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Moritz by name, [Map at page 214.] is the slaughter-house, killing oxen night and day; and the bakehouee, with 160 mealy bakers who never rest: in another village, Strohme, is the playhouse of the region; in another, Glaubitz, the post-office: nothing could excel the arrangements; much superior, I should judge, to those for the Siege of Troy, and other world-great enterprises. Worthy really of admiration, had the business not been zero. Foreign Courts: European Diplomacy at large, wondered much what cunning scheme lay hidden here. No scheme ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... what I had overlooked for ten years. On the contrary I hastened to pay him a heart-felt compliment upon his indisputable sagacity and keenness as a natural historian;—a measure of magnanimity easily enough afforded, since however the shrike might excel me at one point, there could be no question on the whole of my immeasurable superiority. And I cherish the hope that my fellow townsmen, who, as they insist, never themselves see any birds whatever in the Garden and Common (their attention ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... subject William F. Warren, in his book already cited, pages 297 and 298, says: "The Arctic rocks tell of a lost Atlantis more wonderful than Plato's. The fossil ivory beds of Siberia excel everything of the kind in the world. From the days of Pliny, at least, they have constantly been undergoing exploitation, and still they are the chief headquarters of supply. The remains of mammoths are so abundant that, as Gratacap says, 'the ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then defy us? Vile ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... donor really means business I shall be prepared to supply him with one or two rare and special examples myself. I possess tributes to the English effort written by Portuguese, Japanese and Belgians; and paeans by Englishmen which excel, as regards both simplicity of sentiment and illiteracy of construction, any foreign composition. Birmingham is not noted for very many things. It is, we know, the only large city in the country which remains solidly Tory ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... not make many witty speeches, it is not because I do not appreciate the value of trifles well said, and that I do not find great amusement in that manner of raillery in which certain prompt and ready-witted persons excel so well. I write well in prose; I do well in verse; and if I was envious of the glory that springs from that quarter, I think with a little labour I could acquire some reputation. I like reading, in general; ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... plainly appear, that this holy man being faithful unto God, was with Him as one spirit. Yet though in his manifold virtues he equalled or excelled all other saints, in the virtue of lowliness did he excel even himself; for in his epistles he was wont to mention himself as the lowest, the least, and the vilest of all sinners; and little accounting the signs and the miracles which he had wrought, he thought himself to be compared not to any perfect man; and being but of small stature, he used ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... dismissed my debtor cheerful and free. I am your debtor, send me not away sorrowful. May my dispositions, my sentence prevail with you. I have pardoned, pardon: I have showed compassion, imitate your servant's mercy. My offences are indeed far more grievous; but consider how much you excel in all good. It is just that you manifest to sinners a mercy suiting your infinite greatness. I have given proof of mercy in little things, according to the capacity of my nature; but your bounty is not to be confined by the narrowness of my power, &c." ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... consummated for the future, will enable us to improve even upon our present high standard of excellence, and keep us, as ever, far, very far in advance of the most labored efforts of all contemporaries. Our course is onward, and he must bestir himself actively who would excel us. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... than it is to poetry, that, of all the pleasurable arts, music is that which flourishes the most amongst us. Still, even in music the absence of stimulus in praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority of one individual over another; and we rather excel in choral music, with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments, in which we make great use of the agency of water,* than ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... husbands ne'er amaze me, For in the art of love I do excel, And there's no wife, however chaste she may be Who can resist me if I woo her well. And if her husband hate me I'll not grumble, Because his wife receives me in the night, If mine her kiss, if mine sweet love's delight, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... resistance to his pretensions. In June 1847 he paid his first visit to England, and enjoyed a triumphal social success; when he left, Charles Dickens saw him off from Ramsgate pier. After this Andersen continued to publish much; he still desired to excel as a novelist and a dramatist, which he could not do, and he still disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the composition of which his unique genius lay. Nevertheless he continued to write them, and in 1847 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... romantic character; they venture to assert a private ideal in the face of an intractable and omnipotent world. Some moralists begin by feeling the attraction of untasted and ideal perfection. These, like Plato, excel in elevation, and they are apt to despise rather than to reform the world. Other moralists begin by a revolt against the actual, at some point where they find the actual particularly galling. These excel in sincerity; their purblind conscience is urgent, and they are reformers ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... surpass her. But at the moment when she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to oust where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and hated. The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of Belgium and northern France from the Prussian conquest and the Prussian menace, but it must also deliver the peoples ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... unreasonable pair at Northlands as long as we could, doing all that lay in our power to restore Adrian's idiotically impaired health. I motored him about the county; I took him to golf, a pastime at which I do not excel; and I initiated him into the invigorating mysteries of playing at robbers with Susan. We gave a carefully selected dinner-party or two, and accepted on his behalf a few discreet invitations. At these entertainments—whether at Northlands or elsewhere—we ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... art is in front of us; that mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and immediately commence to degenerate. The modern painters and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient. I think we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements. Nothing pleased me more than the painting from Holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life. They paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint homes. They are not much on Ariadnes and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... whatever schemes were forming here at home, in this juncture, by the enemies to the peace, the Dutch only designed to fall in with it as far as it would answer their own account; and, by a strain of the lower politics, wherein they must be allowed to excel every country in Christendom, lay upon the watch for a good bargain, by taking advantage of the distress they themselves had brought upon their nearest neighbour ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... elsewhere, we found the same motley collection of semi-barbarous bric-a-brac—brilliantly painted Indian paddles spread like a sunburst against the farther wall; heaps of wooden masks and all the fantastical carvings such as the aborigines delight in, and in which they almost excel. Up the main street of the town is another store, where a series of large rooms, crowded with curios bewilders the purchaser ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... inestimable value. They teach us that slavery is compatible with the freedom, stability, and long duration of civil government, with denseness of population, great power, and the highest civilization. And in what respect does this modern Europe, which claims to give opinions to the world, so far excel them—notwithstanding the immense advantages of the Christian religion and the discovery of the art of printing? They are not more free, nor have performed more glorious actions, nor displayed more exalted ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... The uncertainty of the law arises in the doubt and uncertainty of the facts; and hence the doubt about which, of many rules, ought to govern. A man of genius, as you describe him, ought to become a good lawyer; he would excel in the investigation and presentation of facts; but none but a lawyer saturated with the spirit of the law until he comes to have a legal instinct, can ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... booty was hid, he made what reparation lay in his power. Poor wretch! He had not even the posthumous satisfaction of going down to posterity as a bold, bad man, a hero of the road. Not for him was it to emulate Jack Shepherd or Dick Turpin; he was of feebler clay, unfitted to excel in evil-doing. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Borneo understand the art of cutting, polishing, and setting their diamonds. Gold and silver filagree works they excel in; gunpowder is manufactured at Pontiana; brass cannon is cast at Borneo Proper; iron-shot is run from their mine. They can manufacture and repair krises, and clean their arms. Their carpentry extends to the building and repairing of prows, and the erecting of a hut. Their ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... of inferiority is as prejudicial as the thing itself, and we verily believe that it still has its effect upon the public taste. Artists have not sufficiently taken to etching. We have had more amateurs excel in it than professional artists. There was a collection of amateur etchings at Strawberry Hill, given to Walpole by the etchers. The greater part of them is excellent, though they are mostly copies from other works, but not all. There are some surprising ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... institutions occur in his contributions to the Edinburgh, but occasionally their perfunctory manner suggests the editorial pen of Jeffrey. Doubtless Hazlitt's discriminating judgment would have enabled him to excel in this field, had he been equipped with ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... pride In nobles wont to dwell, Each with his predecessor vied In bounty to excel, And thus it was the festive board With beaver, otter, deer, And fish and fowl was richly stored, ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... him above being commanded, he might in time be a great Man; at present, having all the Fire of a General without the Flegm, his great Misfortune and the only Thing that can ruin him is, That he thinks himself qualifyed to Command, and cannot bear the Lustre of their Merit that excel him. ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age of fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious manhood. He was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart glad and high; and all who anticipated the return of Indian war spoke of Cyrus ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and that they had even found all the countries situated under the torrid zone fully peopled." [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, 96.] In ship-building Henry and his navigators made positive progress. The Venetian Cadamosto testifies that "his caravels did much excel all other sailing ships afloat." Many varieties of vessels are mentioned in the records of Prince Henry's time—the barca, barinel, caravel, nau, fusta; the galley, galiot, galeass, and galleon; the brigantine and carrack. ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... had expelled, and the other had invited, the Barbarians. Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his actions ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Herself should choose, and I applaud her choice Of one more poor than ever Sophos was, Were his deserts but equal unto his. If I might speak without offence, You were to blame to hinder Lelia's choice; As she in nature's graces doth excel, So doth Minerva grace ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... timidity and shyness. Birds naturally so impetuous are restless and uneasy under observation. One must pose in silence until his presence is forgotten or ignored. Then the delicious melody, the approving comments of the songster's companions, and the efforts of ambitious youngsters to imitate and excel, are all part of a ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... still to hear colored children say, "I can't." The colored mother should put success in the child's thought and teach it to believe in himself and his race. It is the duty of every mother to preach success and one's duty to aim to excel along all lines. ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... task pursued. 700 And now the senior pilots seem'd to wait Arion's voice, to close the dark debate. Not o'er his vernal life the ripening sun Had yet progressive twice ten summers run; Slow to debate, yet eager to excel, In thy sad school, stern Neptune! taught too well: With lasting pain to rend his youthful heart, Dire fate in venom dipp'd her keenest dart; Till his firm spirit, temper'd long to ill, Forgot her persecuting scourge ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... plain that even beasts have a sense of gratitude: in this quality dogs excel all other beasts. Is not the story of the dog of Totoribe Yorodzu written in the Annals of Japan? I[82] have heard that many anecdotes of this nature have been collected and printed in a book, which I have not yet seen; but as the facts which I have recorded relate to a badger, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... pleasure he had watched the gracious growth of this young parishioner since he first met the lad of twelve and was attracted by the shining face, the pleasant manners. Dutiful and loving; ready to help; patient to bear and forbear; eager to excel; faithful to the smallest task, yet full of high ambitions; and, better still, possessing the childlike piety that can trust and believe, wait and hope. Good and happy—the two things we all long for and so few of us ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... or 7. Of 68 7-year-olds who were asked whether they had ever seen a bow-knot ("a knot like that") only two replied in the negative. It cannot be denied, however, that specific instruction and special stimulus to practice do play a certain part. This is suggested by the fact that girls excel the boys somewhat at each age, doubtless because bow-knots play a larger role in feminine apparel. Social status affects the results in only a moderate degree, though it might be supposed that poor ragamuffins, on the one hand, and children of the very rich, on the other, would ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... we have before us so fine a specimen, are naturally attentive and kind, skilful to discern, quick to feel, and prompt to relieve the wants of others. They seem endowed with a generosity, in which it is their honour to excel, while it is their duty to cultivate and indulge it. Are comforts needed? Their ready hands will supply them. Is pain suffered? Their tender hearts will sympathize and aim to alleviate it. They are officious to replenish the cup of joy, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... preeminence; lead; maximum; record; [obs3], climax; culmination &c. (summit) 210; transcendence; ne plus ultra[Lat]; lion's share, Benjamin's mess; excess, surplus &c. (remainder) 40; (redundancy) 641. V. be superior &c. adj.; exceed, excel, transcend; outdo, outbalance[obs3], outweigh, outrank, outrival, out-Herod; pass, surpass, get ahead of; over-top, override, overpass, overbalance, overweigh, overmatch; top, o'ertop, cap, beat, cut out; beat hollow; outstrip &c. 303; eclipse, throw ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ancient bards were all mistaken. Apollo's lately abdicate and fled, And good king Bacchus reigneth in his stead: He does the chaos of the head refine, And atom thoughts jump into words by wine: The inspiration's of a finer nature, As wine must needs excel Parnassus water. ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... other upon mind. The one attains perfection in his art by a process which in the other would produce an ignoramus, a bungler, a narrow-minded, conceited charlatan. Hence the necessity on the part of those who would excel in the profession of teachers, of endeavoring continually to enlarge the bounds of their knowledge. Hence the error of those who think that to teach anything well it is necessary to know only that one thing. That young woman who undertakes to teach a primary school, or even an infant class, has ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... letter; which we here insert, not only as we take it to be extremely curious, but to be a much better pattern for that epistolary kind of writing which is generally called love-letters than any to be found in the academy of compliments, and which we challenge all the beaus of our time to excel either in matter ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... most perfect things I have ever seen on the stage: the cold, cruel, acrid enjoyment of her rival's humiliation,—the quiet, bitter, unmerciful exercise of the power of torture, was certainly, in its keen incisiveness, quite incomparable. It is singular that so young a woman should so especially excel in delineations and expressions of this order of emotion, while in the utterance of tenderness, whether in love or sorrow, she appears comparatively less successful; I am not, however, perhaps competent to pronounce upon this point, for Hermione and Emilie, in Corneille's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... who as such, strictly speaking, have surpassed him. Minds not devoted to particular doctrines, not absorbed in the advocacy of cherished ideas—in a word, minds that believe little and aim only at the passing success of a day—may easily excel one like him in the preparation of a mere newspaper. Mr. Greeley was the antipodes of all such persons. He was always absolutely in earnest. His convictions were intense; he had that peculiar courage, most precious in a great man, which enables ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... all is room in the Promised Land! And, like, when fig-trees their buds are oping You know that summer is near at hand; Thus, when the chill Of your evening broaches, You feel, with thrill, That the friend approaches, To lead you homeward, where joys excel, United ever with Him ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... life and sense shall cease, then shalt thou cease also to be subject to either pains or pleasures; and to serve and tend this vile cottage; so much the viler, by how much that which ministers unto it doth excel; the one being a rational substance, and a spirit, the other nothing ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... sentimentality is the chief weapon in the hand of his opponent. It makes him [caroche] the fiction of his enterprise, and even of his daring, in the midst of the most crude and obvious operations against him. It makes him accept as real the bold play-acting that women always excel at, and at no time more than when stalking a man. It makes him, above all, see a glamour of romance in a transaction which, even at its best, contains almost as much gross trafficking, at bottom, as the sale of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... for a few moments to describe them. However rude and savage a corrobori may appear to those to whom they are new, they are, in truth, plays or rather dramas, which it takes both time and practice to excel in. Distant tribes visiting any other teach them their corrobori, and the natives think as much of them as we should do of the finest play at Covent Garden. Although there is a great sameness in these performances they nevertheless differ. There is always a great bustle when ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... wise conversation." "Ay, ay! Master Martin, my friend," replied Paumgartner smiling, "gladly enough will I stay a while with you; but why do you call your house a humble house? I know very well that there's none of the richest of our citizens who can excel you in jewels and valuable furniture. Did you not a short time ago complete a handsome building which makes your house one of the ornaments of our renowned Imperial Town?[13] In respect of its interior fittings I say nothing, for no patrician ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... donjon keep, And steel-clad knight and peer, Whose forts are girt with a moat cut deep— But none excel in soldiership My ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... answer—"Dear foster-father, the high gods in their wisdom have fashioned us each man to illustrate some virtue. To thee they have given strength, courage, and magnanimity above all others; and to me, in small measure, the vision of justice, and the perception of her beautiful laws. A man can only excel in what he loves, and verily I love well the known laws of ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... naturally fiery and exalted with the vivid poetry of Homer. While yet a boy, and probably about the time when Phrynichus first elevated the Thespian drama, he is said to have been inspired by a dream with the ambition to excel in the dramatic art. But in Homer he found no visionary revelation to assure him of those ends, august and undeveloped, which the actor and the chorus might be made the instruments to effect. For when the idea of scenic representation ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... however stupendous, were not gained at the expense of any pleasure which youth generally indulges, or by the omission of any accomplishment in which it becomes a gentleman to excel: he practised in great perfection the arts of drawing and painting, he was an eminent performer in both vocal and instrumental musick, he danced with uncommon gracefulness, and, on the day after his disputation at Paris, exhibited his skill in horsemanship ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Major North had for years complete power over these Indians and could do more with them than any man living. That evening after the parade was over the officers and quite a number of ladies visited a grand Indian dance given by the Pawnees, and of all the Indians I have ever seen, their dances excel those of any ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... intellectual requirements of the country. As it is now, the library contains only some 100,000 volumes, many of which have no particular value. The American and Canadian department is confessedly inferior in many respects, although we ought to excel in that particular. Of late years, the annual grant has been extremely small, and chiefly devoted to the purchase of books for the law branch, for the especial benefit of lawyers engaged in the Supreme Court. But we have as yet no Free Libraries like those in the United States, of which the ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... England! Come to England! Our oysters are small, I know; they are said by Americans to be coppery; but our hearts are of the largest size. We are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. Our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... illuminators, or rather calligraphers, while they constantly repudiate the golden splendour and monstrous follies of their rivals, absolutely excel in this same ornamental draughtsmanship. What, for example, could be finer than the pen-drawing of the great Arnstein Bible in the British Museum (Harl. 2800)? The ornament is mostly in a red ink, with flat-coloured blue, green, or yellow backgrounds, but it is not to be surpassed. No, ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... comfort, eye, mirth, &c.; his prayers before and after Sermon, with a few poetical pieces of quaint but touching sweetness. His poetry has been censured for its point and antithesis; but he cultivated the poetical art to convey moral and devotional sentiments; others excel him in smoothness of versification, but not in benevolent purpose. Herbert though himself a pattern of humility, was younger brother of the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whom Horace Walpole abuses for his beauty and gallant bearing, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... enclosure, to amuse himself in his recess as he best might,—whose continual talk with his comrades was of the bivouac or the battle-field,—and who considered the great object of life to be the development of faculties best fitted to excel in the art of destruction, would not be astonished to find himself sleeping on the bare ground with a levy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... excel yourself," he smiled. "Registering from Roumania, however, isn't prima facie evidence that ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... along. Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing hand. St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time, Not ev'n the feet of thy own Psyche's rime: Though they in number as in sense excel; So just, so like tautology, they fell, That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore The lute and sword which he in triumph bore, And vow'd he ne'er would act Villerius more." Here stopt the good old sire, and wept for joy, In silent raptures of the hopeful ...
— English Satires • Various
... and good-nature. He was born with a smile on his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both masters of their art, and can load a mule with a speed and skill which I would defy any Santa Fe trader to excel. The animals are not less interesting than their masters. Our horses, to be sure, are slow, plodding beasts, with considerable endurance, but little spirit; but the two baggage mules deserve gold medals from the Society for the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor |
