"Outdo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greater service to his country. It would be difficult indeed to give the palm to any branch of the service. They have all endured hardship and met wounds and death with equal gallantry, each striving to outdo the other in devotion ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... and the foul fruit falls down; and so it is with Halleck's western military combinations. All the army of Grant running dispersed on centrifugal radii, Burnside sent in a direction opposite to Rosecrans. Bravo, Halleck! You outdo McClellan! ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... counts. In proportion to its increase, however, principles, ideals, justice, and uprightness are completely swamped by the array of numbers. In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god,—Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... has now excelled the others and developed the very features of a beautiful young woman. To say the least, she has ten thousand eyes in her heart, and were they willing to wager their mouths, why ten men gifted with eloquence couldn't even outdo her! But by and bye, when you've seen her, you'll know all about her! There's only this thing, she can't help being rather too severe in her treatment ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... their piece, pistols, and cutlass clean, and fit for service. (In this they were extravagantly nice, endeavoring to outdo one another in the beauty and richness of their arms, giving sometimes at an auction—at the mast—L30 or L40 a pair for pistols. These were slung in time of service, with different colored ribbons, over their shoulders, in a way peculiar to these ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... trivial questions and remarks, and oft-repeated observations, uttered apparently for the sole purpose of denying a moment's rest to her inexhaustible organs of speech. She had brought her knitting with her, and it seemed as if her tongue had laid a wager with her fingers, to outdo them in swift and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... thou thy meekness all adown; Hide, Jonathan, all thy friendly mannere, Penelope, and Marcia Catoun, Make of your wifehood no comparisoun; Hide ye your beauties, Isoude and Helene; My lady comes, that all this may distain.* *outdo, obscure ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... merely a quickening, inspiring, intellectual influence; but the boy's effect on Oscar was of character and induced imitation. Lord Alfred Douglas' boldness gave Oscar outrecuidance, an insolent arrogance: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in aristocratic disdain. Without knowing the cause the change in Oscar astonished me again and again, and in the course of this narrative I shall have to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Rodney. He was sorry now that he had ever spent his time teaching the Texan to pitch, and it occurred to him that the same amount of coaching and encouragement bestowed upon Hooker would not have resulted in the training of a man to outdo him upon the slab and push him into ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... my friend, I cannot, must not bear; Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care; This calls the Church to deprecate our sin, And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin. Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten Metropolitans in preaching well; A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife, Outdo Llandaff in doctrine—yea in life: Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Virtue may choose the high or low degree, 'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me; Dwell in a monk, or light upon ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Chabrias, and followed him in his campaigns, in which he gained considerable military experience, and in some instances was able to correct the strange inequalities of his commander's temperament. Chabrias, usually sluggish and hard to rouse, when in action became vehemently excited, and tried to outdo the boldest of his followers in acts of daring: indeed he lost his life at Chios by being the first to run his ship on shore and to try to effect a landing in the face of the enemy. Phokion, who was a man of action, and cautious nevertheless, proved most useful in stirring up Chabrias when sluggish, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... bottom of his heart, entertained a considerable degree of regard and affection for M. de Beaufort, made himself a great treat of this tete-a-tete supper. His chief foible was gluttony, and for this grand occasion the confectioner had promised to outdo himself. The pasty was to be of pheasants, the wine of the best vintage of Chambertin. By adding to the agreeable images which this promise called up in his mind, the society of the duke, who in the main was such an excellent fellow, who played Monsieur de Chavigny such capital tricks, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... direction of it that requires alteration. When the cessation of working for one's livelihood takes place, human energy and love of production will not cease with it, but will persist, and must find their channels. But competition to outdo each in the service of all is free from collisions, and its range is limitless. Not to support life, but to make life more lovely, will be the effort; and not to make it more lovely for one's self, but for one's neighbor. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... there were scenes just as terrible, perhaps, but to me nothing could outdo the tragic grandeur with which the Titanic went to its death. To realize it, you would have to see the Titanic as I saw it the day we set sail—with the flags flying and the bands playing. Everybody on board was laughing and talking about ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... rarest gems and jewels. It was indeed to be a fitting celebration of the glory of Bel, and the power and magnificence of his earthly representative; heathen opulence, heathen pride and sensuality were to outdo themselves. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... his instructions beforehand, for he was more anxious than ever to surprise people, and to have a horse like an equestrian statue, an animal which should outdo that famous black horse of General Boulanger's, about which the Parisian loungers had talked so much, and told Montboron not to mind what the price was, as long as he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... place where everybody gets nervous prostration trying to outdo everybody else in originality and extravagance, it wouldn't be like Mrs. Ess Kay to let herself ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... bright spirits, and seemed striving to outdo the night in brilliancy. For a while Kemp maintained a sort of Roland-for-an-Oliver conversation with her; but with his eyes continually straying to the girl before him, it became rather difficult. Some merry rowers down the river were singing college songs harmoniously; and Mrs. Levice soon ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... wants. Such a common interest spurs all to bend their thoughts towards simplifying and quickening the process of labor. The ambition to invent and discover is stimulated to the highest pitch: each will seek to outdo the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... they have the most profound veneration. Their impenetrable obscurity appears to be a sufficient motive among them for adding these. Their priests, encouraged by their credulity, which nothing can outdo, seem to be studious to multiply the articles of their faith, and the number of inconceivable objects which they have said must be received with submission, and adored even ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... it corroborates his own. Even therefore when the disseminator of the news, that is, the owner of the newspaper, has no special motive for lying, the message is conveyed in a vitiated and inhuman form. Where he has a motive for lying (as he usually has) his lie can outdo any merely spoken or ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... formerly. There have always been ambition, strife, struggle, suffering—why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... the Pole than any of his predecessors. Now, this vessel was American, Grinnell was American, and Kane was American. The Englishman's disdain for the Yankee will be easily understood; in the heart of Hatteras it changed to hatred; he was resolved to outdo his audacious competitor and reach ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... and instilled pride in nationality, were covered by worked apron-bibs, and even childish pinafores, is anyone likely to doubt? Schoolgirls can be patriots as well as rebels, and the seminary can vie with the college, or possibly outdo it, occasion given. Ask Juliette Adam whether the bread-and-butter misses of France in the year 1847 did not squabble over the obstinacy of King Louis Philippe and the greed of M. Guizot, the claims of Louis Napoleon and the theories of Louis Blanc, of Odilon Barrot, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... 'Lena, richly clad. The sight of her produced a reaction, and Carrie thought again. Captain Atherton was generous to a fault. He was able and willing to grant her slightest wish, and as his wife, she could compete with, if not outdo, 'Lena in the splendor of her surroundings. The pen was resumed, and Carrie wrote the words which sealed her destiny for life. This done, nothing could move her, and though her father entreated, her mother scolded, and John Jr. swore, it made no difference. "She was old enough ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... beyond disdain. He was a huge, toil- hardened, sun-reddened, hard-drinking soldier of the railroad, a loquacious Irishman whose fixed grin denied him any gravity, a foreman of his gang. His chief delight was to outdo his bosom comrade, McDermott. He did not realize that he represented an unconquerable and unquenchable spirit. Neither did his comrade know. But under Casey's grin shone something simple, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... present was required to say what reward he would demand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the wonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and each of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the reward he would claim; but when it came to Joan's turn, and they rallied her out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to her what the question was, for her thought had been ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... listen. Maybe he was kinder jealous at seeing old Squire Buck Throckmorton setting hisse'f up as a jedge of human nature that-a-way. Even the greatest of us air but mortal, and I reckon Colonel Bud wouldn't admit that anybody could outdo him reading character offhand, and he taken the floor agin. Replying to his venerable friend and neighbor, he would say that the Squire was talking like a plain derned fool. Continuing he would add that it didn't make no difference if both eyes was riding the bridge of the nose side-saddle, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... antipodes of his own exquisite creations. And for that reason he created them. In his troubled youth, tortured with the sense of that blessing which was denied him, he had said, "Providence has created me hideous: I will outdo Providence; I with my hand will continually create beauty." And so he did—ay, and where he created, he loved. He took his art for his mistress, and, like the Rhodian sculptor, he clasped it to his soul night and day, until it grew warm and life-like, and became to him in the ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... are to remember and apply, that the poorest person is not excused from doing good to others, and even relieving the wants of his distressed neighbour, according to his abilities; and if you perform your duty in this point, you far outdo the greatest liberalities of the rich, and will accordingly be accepted of by God, and get your reward: For it is our Saviour's own doctrine, when the widow gave her two mites. The rich give out of their abundance; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... their voices, arms, and feet. At length, when well-nigh exhausted from their exertions, having received the approval of their general, they moved on to give place to another regiment, which performed precisely the same manoeuvres, except that the men endeavoured to outdo their predecessors in loudness of ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... the weather had seemed to be trying to outdo itself. I remember in particular the day before Christmas. I rose long before daylight, crossed the Mystic River marshes as the dawn was beginning to break, and shortly after sunrise was on my way down the South Shore. Leaving the cars at ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... the same time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo most of the country churches ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... can no more make water run up hill than can you cause the tide of economic evolution to flow back in its channel along the way it came. Joshua made the sun stand still upon Gibeon, but you would outdo Joshua. You would make the sun go backward in the sky. You would have time retrace its steps from noon ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Almighty, that He would please to call her out of this world, and to take her to Himself; as accordingly it came to pass; for soon after his return, she died, at which he expressed a singular joy. This seems to outdo the other, forasmuch as he applies himself to this means at the outset, which they only take subsidiarily; and, besides, it was towards his only daughter. But I will not omit the latter end of this story, though it be for my purpose; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... South Bearn. From the terraced steps of Auch you can see the forest roll away in light and shadow, vale and upland, to the base of the snow peaks; and, though I come from Brittany and love the smell of the salt wind, I have seen few sights that outdo this. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... a glimpse of something, he hardly knew what, at any moment now. Doubtless all those silly yarns retailed by the ignorant gossiping farm-hands in the market-place in Scranton, while they tried to outdo one another in matching fairy stories, must have been circulating through Horatio's brain just then. The heavy atmosphere of the deserted stone quarry, and its lonely surroundings, added to the mysterious disappearance of K. K., combined to make him peculiarly susceptible to such influences ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... artist a picture begun, 'Twas over the Virgin's church door; She stood on the dragon embracing her son, Many devils already the artist had done, But this must outdo all before. ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... natural abhorrence of sane mankind for the vivisector's cruelty, and the contempt of able thinkers for his imbecile casuistry, have been expressed by the most popular spokesmen of humanity. If the medical profession were to outdo the Anti-Vivisection Societies in a general professional protest against the practice and principles of the vivisectors, every doctor in the kingdom would gain substantially by the immense relief and reconciliation ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... or any other young officer had lost his heart to her. But she isn't dressed, thought Gertrude; and the next moment a shadow crossed her heart as Diana's sun-bonnet came off, and a wealth of dark hair was revealed, knotted into a crown of nature's devising, which art could never outdo. "I'll find out about Evan," said Miss ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... earth reeked with blood in those days, yet the spring of 1849 saw the flowers blooming in as great profusion as ever, as if God's blessing had been vying with man's curse to see which should outdo ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... those of the fresh water, was richly worth inspecting; but not nearly so perfect as it might be. Now I think we have a right to claim, in a metropolitan establishment of this kind, in all its departments, a degree of perfection that shall quite outdo the unpractised thought of any man ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cities, the men whose daily life is rebellion against conscience, commandment, and justice, offer a gentler and nobler type of character and expression than these "children of nature." There was hardly a face among that gang of wild riders which did not outdo the face of Texas Smith in degraded ferocity. Almost every man and boy was obviously a liar, a thief, and a murderer. The air of beastly cruelty was made even more hateful by an air of beastly cunning. Taking color, brutality, grotesqueness, and filth together, it seemed ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... as he is—more so. We must outdo him at his own game. We—I, I should say, for you must go back to England—I am going to disappear and emerge as a simple workman, with German sympathies of course. Then the fight ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... Fishing Trade in Virginia, though there be Plenty of Fish there, yet I believe other Countries where Fisheries are establish'd, and that have little else to mind and depend upon, would outdo it in this Respect; only more Whales might be taken upon the Eastern Shore, and bring good Gain to such People as would make it their Business; and I don't question but the Sturgeons (with the ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... enthusiasm. Ostentatiousness had, I am afraid, more to do with it than love of art for art's sake. Music was simply one of the indispensable departments of their establishments, in the splendour and vastness of which they tried to outdo each other and vie with sovereign rulers. The promiscuous enumeration of musicians, cooks, footmen, &c., in the lady's description of a nobleman's court which I referred to in the proem, is in this respect very characteristic. Towards ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the enemy, to shake their spears as they yelled out the chorus, leaping and stamping with regular movement, till the earth seemed to quiver. The acts of the chief were imitated, every man seeming to strive to outdo his fellows in the contortions of their countenances, the protrusion of their tongues, and the way in which they rolled and displayed ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... donation party was decided, 'n' Mrs. Brown's good cookin' heart come out strong 'n' she pledged three pies right then n' there. I put myself down f'r a pan o' biscuit, 'n' Mr. Kimball said he believed 's the Aliens would outdo every one 'n' give a whole cow, without no urgin' neither. Mrs. Allen laughed a little, 'n' then Mrs. Macy come up so out o' breath 't it was all o' five minutes afore she could get out a word. Seemed when ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... check to his wallet and the wallet to his pocket. She would find it impossible to outdo him ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... me the most presumptuous of the arts. They are an effort of man to outdo God in creation. He never made a perfect form or face—the artist alone ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of the workmen had been touched, and for two weeks they had worked like demons to outdo the boss. At night when the amount of work done was calculated, they laughed at Ed. Then they heard that the piece-work plan was to be installed in the factory, and were afraid they would be paid by a scale ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... enthusiasm prevailed, and each tribe tried to outdo the other in generous acts. The example set by the Professor was, indeed, a lesson to these ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... engaged arrived in the morning, and I had had the loveliest flowers put in all the rooms. Pierre intended to outdo himself for the wedding dejeuner, I knew, and Burton had been able to find somewhere a really respectable looking footman, not ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... lazier, so much more weighed upon with matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and perhaps more instructive to consider the small dog in his conscientious and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the ideal of the dog is feudal and religious; the ever-present polytheism, the whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the other, their singular difference of size and strength among themselves effectually ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was satisfied, even charmed, with the personation of Osmyn; but, from the first, she could not abide either of the heroines, who, each in her part, strove to outdo the other in mincing, mouthing, attitudinizing, and all imaginable small sins against Nature and Art. She saw at once, by the sure intuitions of genius, how everything they did could be done better, and burned to do it. The part of Almeria she soon dismissed from her thoughts, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... millions, attracted by the lovely lights, which will be brighter than anything you have ever seen, by the jewels, which will be more dazzling than anything you have ever dreamed of, to say nothing about the gorgeous costumes that will rival anything displayed upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, outdo the splendours of any court, and put the pageant of the grandest pantomime ever witnessed to shame. Follow me," commanded the Lion, "and you will see what you will see only once in your lives, and it all begins ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... yield great delight in drinking our ale; Would you but vouchsafe a mug to partake, And as we can brew, believe we can bake. The life and the pleasure we now from you hope, The famed Violante can't show on the rope; Your genius and talents outdo even Pope. Then while, sir, you live at Glassnevin, and find The benefit wish'd you, by friends who are kind; One night in the week, sir, your favour bestow, To drink with Delany and others your know: They constantly meet at Peg Radcliffe's together, Talk over the news of the town and the weather; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the celebration was to outdo itself. Because of the centennial feature, no less a person than the President of the United States, who had spent a year of his boyhood at a local school, was pledged to attend. In itself this meant a record crowd. Crops had been ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... white race toward Negro education. This prejudice seems to be in all sections of the country, but it is the southerner who is heard from the most, possibly because he is more in contact with the real problem and then because it seems to be a policy of southern politicians to attempt to outdo each other in their speeches along the line of race prejudice. According to Weatherford prejudice has arisen out of the fear that education will lead to the dominance of the Negro in politics and to promiscuous mingling in social life. "The southern white man will never be enthusiastic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... But in these gentlemen there is nothing of the tender parental solicitude which fears to cut up the infant for the sake of an experiment. In the vastness of their promises and the confidence of their predictions they far outdo all the boasting of empirics. The arrogance of their pretensions in a manner provokes and challenges us to an inquiry into ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... what was the use made of the vast sums reported to have been expended in different productions. There was a rivalry of leading citizens, each taking upon himself the expense of mounting a new play, and striving to outdo the last before him ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... sawing and nailing furiously. They seemed bent upon outdoing each other and when one fell behind they laughed and shouted at him, asking him if he had decided to quit for the day. But though they seemed determined to outdo him the old man kept ahead of them all, his hammer beating a rattling tattoo upon the boards all day. At the noon hour he had given each of the men one of the pamphlets from his pocket and on the way back to his hotel in the evening he told Sam ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... out to travel. He wished to outdo all others, and see new countries, but after walking over America, and encountering many adventures, he became satisfied as well as fatigued. He had heard of great feats in hunting, and felt a desire to try his power ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... first drove back the Gauls when they made their night attack upon the Capitol, and who for that reason had been named Capitolinus. This man, affecting the first place in the commonwealth, and not able by noble ways to outdo Camillus's reputation, took that ordinary course toward usurpation of absolute power, namely, to gain the multitude, those of them especially that were in debt; defending some by pleading their causes against their creditors, rescuing others by ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... popcorn. Near it sat an old man playing the violin; and his whole wiry self seemed to quiver with joy to the tune of his merry "Money Musk." In the center of the room two gray-haired men were dancing an old-time jig, bobbing, bowing, and twisting about in a gleeful attempt to outdo each other. Watching them were three old women and another old man, eating ice cream and contentedly munching peppermints. And here, there, and everywhere was the mistress of the house, Lydia Ann herself, cheeks flushed and cap-strings ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... factors in the upbuilding of its commerce, and the necessity for getting this ore to the mills in Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, has resulted in the creation of a class of colossal cargo-carriers on the lake that for efficiency and results, though not for beauty, outdo any vessel known ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... sense of the weight of Scripture. He proposed to himself the same thing which was aimed at by the German divines, Arndt, Calixtus, and Spener, when they rose up against the grinding oppression which Lutheran dogmatism had raised on its Symbolical Books,[56] and which had come to outdo the worst extravagances of scholasticism. This seems to have been his object—a fair and legitimate one. But in arguing against investing the Thirty-nine Articles with an authority which did not belong to them, he unquestionably, without seeing what he was doing, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... this Generosity, Above thy Sex, and much above my Merit, I never can repay: my dear Urania, Thou did'st outdo thy Sex before in Beauty, In all the Charms that make 'em so ador'd: But this last Act, this noble Mark of Love, Begets a reverend Wonder in my Soul, And I behold thee as some sacred thing, That—this way should be worship'd— [Kneels, and kisses ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... expecting kinder treatment of Regan than he had experienced from her sister Goneril. As if willing to outdo her sister in unequal behaviour, she declared that she thought fifty knights too many to wait upon him: that five-and-twenty were enough. Then Lear, nigh heart-broken, turned to Goneril and said that he would ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... willingness, but not the resolution. She threw her scruples into the waste-basket, accepted Pet's invitation, went with her and her crowd to one of the most reckless dances in Greenwich Village, where men and women strove to outdo the saturnalia of Montmartre, vied with one another in exposure, and costumed themselves as closely according to the fig-leaf era as the grinning policemen ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... chicken on Father Bowles, took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... following story is that gem of the American Archipelago; the Island of Cuba, whose lone star, now merged in the sea, is destined yet to sparkle in liberty's hemisphere, and radiate the light of republicanism. Poetry cannot outdo the fairy-like loveliness of this tropical clime, and only those who have partaken of the aromatic sweetness of its fields and shores can fully realize the delight that may be shared in these low latitudes. A brief residence ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... had been newly erected, and the workmen had not removed the scaffolding, a fact which was hailed with delight by the choir-boys as affording an unlooked-for means of relaxation. One after another climbed the poles, each striving to outdo the rest in attaining the highest point. In vain did the Empress Maria Theresa, who had perceived them from her windows, issue prohibitions and threaten dire punishment to the offenders—the sport went on unchecked. At length a moment arrived when Joseph, who had beaten ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... the use of arms, and their numbers. He saw what is perhaps justly called the boasting of the American character, vindicated by their exploits; and marches, conquests and victories that, if sober truth were alone to cover the pages of history, would far outdo in real labour and danger the boasted passage of the Alps under Napoleon, and the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... West has long intellectually outgrown—the fancies of an unforgiving God and an everlasting hell—is surely to be regretted. More than hundred and sixty years ago Kaempfer wrote of the Japanese 'In the practice of virtue, in purity of life and outward devotion they far outdo the Christians.' And except where native morals have suffered by foreign contamination, as in the open ports, these words are true of the Japanese to-day. My own conviction, and that of many impartial and more experienced ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... hundred delicious things to please your appetites, & do as many Hocus Pocus tricks more. Now you may outdo Aretin, and all her light Companions, in all their several postures. Now you may rejoice in the sweet remembrance, how sumptuous that you were, in Apparel, meat and drink, and all other ornaments that my Lady Bride, and Madam Spend-all, first invented and ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... ordinary kind not only with patience but almost willingness. But indeed, so greatly did Pleminius surpass Hamilcar, who had commanded the garrison, so greatly did the Roman soldiers in the garrison surpass the Carthaginians in villany and rapacity, that it would appear that they endeavoured to outdo each other, not in arms, but in vices. None of all those things which render the power of a superior hateful to the powerless was omitted towards the inhabitants, either by the general or his soldiers. The most shocking insults were committed against their own persons, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Lady Betty, if you ask me," exclaimed Bob, but if Kit liked the compliment she didn't show it. Lady Betty was perfect and no one could outdo ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... a simple strength of purpose from which all aims of others bound back stone-dead: what brilliance of genius or quintessence of mother-wit can hope to outdo ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the plans of the great French manufactory. These colossal plates of glass are cast upon immense 'tables' of metal, and by ascertaining the dimensions of the tables ordered for St.-Gobain the ingenious Belgians hoped to get the measure of the effort it would be necessary for them to outdo. In anticipation of this subtlety the director of St.-Gobain ordered two immense tables, and when these were sent to the manufactory, had them skilfully thrown into one. Upon the gigantic table thus prepared ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... righteous and unrighteous deeds, And live in thee transplanted, and from thee Receive new life. So Man, as is most just, Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die, And dying rise, and rising with him raise His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life. So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate, Giving to death, and dying to redeem, So dearly to redeem what hellish hate So easily destroyed, and still destroys In those who, when they may, accept not grace. Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume Man's nature, lessen or degrade thine ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... to farming. I've two brothers and two sons, all young and strong, who believe in the game. We have land without end, thousands of acres; engines to pull stumps, to plough, to plant, to reap. The nigger go hang! A white boy with an engine can outdo a dozen of 'em. Cotton and corn for staple crops; peaches, figs, scuppernongs, vegetables, melons for incidental crops; God's good air in North Carolina; good roads, too—why, man, Moore County has authorized ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... historian belonged, to break their loyalty to Rome: "As though he had been sent as executioner to punish condemned criminals, he omitted no sort of spoliation or extortion. In the most pitiful cases he was most inhuman; in the greatest turpitudes he was most impudent, nor could anyone outdo him in perversion of the truth, or combine more subtle ways of deceit." Josephus, not altogether consistently with what he has already said, seeks to exculpate his countrymen for their rising, up to the point in which he himself was involved in it; ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... Galileo were compelled to confess to the truth of the discovery, and the next step was to outdo him. Scheiner counted five, Rheiter nine, and others went as high as twelve. Some of these were imaginary, some were fixed stars, and four satellites only are known to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... belongs to the Gentile. You cannot follow them. You are one of the multitudes over this globe who must walk among the nations and be known as Jews, and with words on their lips which mean, 'I wish I had not been born a Jew, I disown any bond with the long travail of my race, I will outdo the Gentile in mocking at our separateness,' they all the while feel breathing on them the breath of contempt because they are Jews, and they will breathe it back poisonously. Can a fresh-made garment of citizenship weave itself straightway into the flesh and change the slow deposit of eighteen ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... after him, while Dhritarashtra has a hundred sons called Kauravas after Kuru, their common grandfather. As children the two families grow up at the same court, but almost immediately jealousies arise which are to have a deadly outcome. Hatred begins when in boyish contests the Pandavas outdo the Kauravas. The latter resent their arrogance and presently their father, the blind king, is persuaded to approve a plot by which the five Pandavas will be killed. They are to sleep in a house which during the night will be burnt down. The plot, however, miscarries. The house is burnt, but unbeknown ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... completely surrounded by water, as if built upon islands; trees with their trunks submerged, their leafy tops alone visible; canoes and large periaguas, decked with flags and filled with people in their holiday suits, trying to outdo each other in speed or elegance of adornment; while groups of young girls, gaily dressed and crowned with flowers, may be seen seated in the boats, singing to the inspiriting accompaniment of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... through which he seemed to pass on landing. Freed from the glare of the waterfront of Hamilton and on the road to Fairyland Bay, he seemed to have entered a new world. It was a Paradise of Flowers, even the Golden State could not outdo it. Hedges of scarlet hibiscus flamed ten feet high, clusters of purple bougainvillea poured down from cottage-porches, while oleander in radiant bloom formed a hedge twenty feet high for as much as half a mile at a stretch. At one moment the road would pass a dense banana plantation ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... think already how he can manage to make his next year's Christmas Pantomime outdo even his,—this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... accustomed to great bodily fatigues, he endured those of the campaign with surprising strength, refusing all the alleviations that his superiors tried to offer him; for he would allow no one to outdo him in the trouble that he took for the good of the country. On the march he invariably shared: anything that he possessed fraternally with his comrades, helping those who were weaker than himself to carry their burdens, and, at once priest and soldier, sustaining them by his words when he ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... folly and frivolous emptiness,—but that our girls are going to merit the high praise given us by De Tocqueville, when he placed first among the causes of our prosperity the noble character of American women. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving to outdo the demi-monde of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young girl, must forthwith, and without inquiry, rush as far after them as they possibly can. Because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... two kingdoms at variance, directing at the same time that the printer should be prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the law. The Chief Justice had so quick an understanding that he resolved, if possible, to outdo his orders. The grand juries of the county and city were practised effectually with to represent the said pamphlet with all aggravating epithets, for which they had thanks sent them from England, and ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... three empty Sundays there would come a happy one, with the new car which was built like a projectile, purring in the road, George and Alice shouting greetings as they came in the gate, Louise excitedly attempting to outdo herself on the dinner, and the sunburned noisy babies shrieking themselves hoarse as they ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Syria of the invaders, was made by Aurelius a sort of generalissimo; and being thus free to act as he chose, determined to carry the war into the enemy's country, and to try if he could not rival, or outdo, the exploits of Trajan fifty years previously. Though we have no continuous narrative of his expedition, we may trace its course with tolerable accuracy in the various fragmentary writings which bear upon the history of the time—from Zeugma, when he crossed the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... frightening one another. Lily, for instance, in India: two eyes glaring at her in the dark, gee! And, in New York, a fall into a mirror; all over blood; half dead. She grew excited, in her desire to outdo Laurence and Crack-o'-Whip: the steel-buckled belt, the kicks in the ribs! Stories of brutal treatment picked up on every side—from the Gilson girl, from Ave Maria, from all the boys and all the girls and all the monkeys who ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... of the two editors to outdo each other have been titanic. When Simpson put in a steam engine, Ayers mortgaged his plant and got one of the new gasoline engines just then being introduced into an unhappy world. He never used it much unless he had lots of time in which to start it, but it was a great comfort and ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... us back. We are going to be real hunters and have adventures; so we must get lost, and find our way by the sun and the stars," answered Tommy, who had read so many Boys' Books his little head was a jumble of Texan Rangers, African Explorers, and Buffalo Bills; and he burned to outdo ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... those which were given in houses famous for their traditions and their magnitude, such as Devonshire House, Bridgwater House, Stafford House, and so forth; but already things were in this respect changing. Newly established families, or families in the act of establishing themselves, had begun to outdo the "great houses" in their lavish expenditure on this kind of entertainment. The center of social gravity was in this respect being shifted. As an illustration of this fact I remember some curt observations made by two ladies who were in ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... so to do? I know it is wrong—I know it is wicked—but I rather like the excitement, and so long as I am with these people I shall never be any better. Mark Ray, you don't know what it is to be surrounded by a set who care for nothing but fashion and display, and how they may outdo each other. I hate New York society. There is nothing there ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... We were great friends with the French-Canadian Battalion, but there was another Battalion in our Brigade with whom we did not pull at all, and there was always a certain amount of jealousy between us, which was a good thing as we were always trying to outdo the other. Their Commanding Officer thought that they were the best battalion that ever left Canada, and Hilliam, the bulldog that he was, would not stand for that; so there was always a certain amount of ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... medical treatment, concealing it even from her husband. Indeed, she sang on the same evening, and her prodigious facility in tours de force was the subject of special comment, for she seemed spurred to outdo herself from consciousness of physical weakness. When she returned to England again in the following September, her failing health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy struggled against her sufferings, and she would permit herself no relaxation. In vain her husband ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... among the knights-errant of old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they conquered, and I am determined that so laudable a custom, shall not be lost through my neglect; on the contrary, I resolve to outdo them in it: for they sometimes, and perhaps most times, waited till their squires were grown old; and when they were worn out in their service, and had endured many bad days and worse nights, they conferred on them ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... desire for social leadership pressed in on her. And it took all her time and energy to dress, to entertain, to outdo her social rivals. And Graham went his own way again, only wishing that it was not necessary for both father and mother to be so occupied with outside interests that they had little ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... devoted to some public purpose. We may be certain that there would be animated discussions, because a real solidarity of feeling would have arisen and a pride in the work of the community engendered, and they would like to be able to outdo the good work done by the ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... maintain an intellectual rapport with it and even with those who sought his humiliation. He never—as an instance—disguised his philosophical distrust of Samuel Clarke; yet during any debate he planned "most certainly [to] outdo him in civility and good manners."[2] This decorum in no way compromised his pursuit of what he considered objective truth or his denunciation of all "methods" or impositions of spiritual tyranny. Thus, during the virulent, uneven battle which followed upon the publication ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... frightful determination, Sir Hugh," pleaded Cousin Edward; "take my life in a fair field. I will offer no resistance; but you can hardly expect to outdo my throw, and nothing shall induce me to take advantage of it. Think better of it, Sir Hugh, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... (the home-made boat), and the Sprint. Now this would be ahead, and now that, until it seemed that there could be but little difference in the merits of any of the three. Of course most of the sympathy was with the Sprint, because a girl was striving to outdo the boys. At the same time, the Hague, being such an oddity, and the lake folks knowing that this had been built by the boys who were running it, came in for ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose |
