"Supererogation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still and trust the affairs of State to the management of the rulers they, themselves, have chosen." And many of our "old Abolitionists," believing their work done, that the war had killed slavery, knocked the bottom out of the tub, not only declared our work one of supererogation, but told us that petitioning, as a means of educating the people or influencing Congress, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... advocates? Let them stand forth and show the right of barbarism! Let us have a homily on its beauties! let them picture to us the meliorations of cannibalism! Will any one do it? No; it is a self-evident wrong. To attempt, even, to prove it wrong, would seem to be a work of supererogation. Barbarism it repugnant to the common sense of the Anglo-Saxon race; a violation of the conscience of civilization. Cannibalism is an almost inconceivable outrage against all right, in moral, social, ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils, retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders, habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation, pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... supererogation. I maintain, however, that nobody can justly describe Nobby as a useless dog. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... I will, life permitting, the moment I can quit Paris, in person acknowledge, as far as words are capable of expressing, how sensible I am of this more than hospitable kindness, since to provide for and receive the stranger on arrival is the duty of hospitality, but here is a work of supererogation, and though no Roman Catholic myself, yet so catholic as not the less to love and esteem generous actions on all occasions. My most respectful and affectionate regards, with my ardent wishes for your ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... shorter hours and more invigorating conditions, and you will be working for much the same ends, that is to say for promotion to a larger salary and wider opportunities and for the interest and sake of the work. In your leisure you may be studying, writing, or doing some work of supererogation for the school or the State—because under Socialist conditions it cannot be too clearly understood that all the reasons the contemporary Trade Unionist finds against extra work and unpaid work will have disappeared! You will not in a Socialist State make life ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... hereafter. Wherever you look, you see the working of that tendency. It is the very mainspring of heathenism, with all its penances and performances. It is enshrined in the heart of Roman Catholicism, with its dreams of a treasury of merits, and works of supererogation and the like. Ay! and it has passed over into a great deal of what calls itself Evangelical Protestantism, which thinks that, somehow or other, it is all for our good to come here, for instance on a Sunday, though we have no desire to come and no true worship in us when we ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... forth to preach without scrip or stick, and so on, since they were empowered to accept their livelihood from those to whom they preached: wherefore He goes on to say: "For the laborer is worthy of his hire." Nor is it a sin, but a work of supererogation for a preacher to take means of livelihood with him, without accepting supplies from those to whom he preaches; as Paul did ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... women in a generation have the true gift. This cannot be too good. But besides this there is a mass of honest and needful work to be done with the pen, to which literary form is only accidental, and in which consummate literary finish or depth is a sheer work of supererogation. If Miss Martineau had given twice as many years as she gave months to the condensation of Comte, the book would not have been a whit more useful in any possible respect—indeed, over-elaboration might easily have made it much less so—and ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... and those whom accident has made so, or sudden distress reduced. The common or bred beggars I leave to others, and to the public provision. They cannot be lower: perhaps they wish not to be higher: and, not able to do for every one, I aim not at works of supererogation. Two hundred pounds a year would do all I wish to do of the separate sort: for all above, I would content myself to ask you; except, mistrusting your own economy, you would give up to my management and keeping, in order to provide for future contingencies, a larger portion; for which, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... of woodland at one's doors would seem a fact sufficiently suggestive; to particularize the attractions of Bourron after this statement were surely supererogation. Yet, for my own pleasure as much as for the use of my readers, I must jot down one or two especially persistent memories, impressions of solemnity, beauty and repose never ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... office proved no sinecure. Their labors, however, were not encumbered by antiquated forms. As this supreme and only tribunal for all the Netherlands had no commission or authority save the will of the Captain-General, so it was also thought a matter of supererogation to establish a set of rules and orders such as might be useful in less independent courts. The forms of proceeding were brief and artless. There was a rude organization by which a crowd of commissioners, acting as inferior officers of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and other, has been won—by volunteering for a deed to which he, too, was bound by no code or contract, military or moral. And it is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and, therefore, of heroism, that it should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least towards society and man: an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is above though not ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... supposes a traditional common law, as the ecclesiastical order a traditional creed, and the organisation is explicable only by historical causes. The system represents a series of compromises, not the elaboration of a theory. If the squire undertook by way of supererogation to justify his position he appealed to tradition and experience. He invoked the 'wisdom of our ancestors,' the system of 'checks and balances' which made our Constitution an unrivalled mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy deserving the 'dread and envy of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... England for two reasons. I found that it was more of an ordeal to get to London from Paris than to return to New York and sail again; and I heard that Mrs. Ward was writing a book about the women of England. For me to write another would be what is somewhat gracelessly called a work of supererogation. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... conception of the universe, "elucidates" Hamlet's talk about worms and bodies, and his further sketch of the progress of Alexander's dust to the plugging of a beer-barrel. It seems unnecessary to argue that all this is the idlest supererogation. The passages cited from HAMLET, all of them found in the First Quarto, might have been drafted by a much lesser man than Shakspere, and that without ever having heard of Bruno or the theory of the indestructibility of matter. There ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... opened out of Mrs. Stimcoe's own. ("It will give him a sense of protection. A child feels the first few nights away from home.") Though small, it was neat, and, for a boy's wants, amply furnished; nay, it contained at least one article of supererogation, in the shape of a razor-case on the dressing-table. Mrs. Stimcoe swept this into her pocket with a turn of the hand, and explained frankly that her husband, like most scholars, was absent-minded. Here she passed two fingers slowly across her forehead. "Even in his walks, or while ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... I cannot help thinking their services are a matter of supererogation, for a recalcitrant Irish tenant in the South and West needs instruction in no branch ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... whom he punctured did not fall, for the reason that two of his friends reached out and prevented him. It was a piece of supererogation on their part, for when the party emerged from the Ganges upon dry land that fellow was ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... containing fifty thousand pieces of eight. Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith, and Blood was determined that in all respects appearances should be entirely on his side. His followers had accounted this a supererogation of pretence. But Blood's will in the matter had prevailed. He carried further a bulky package addressed to a grande of Spain, heavily sealed with the arms of Espinosa—another piece of evidence hastily manufactured in the cabin of the Cinco Llagas—and ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... religious force enough to do an act of supererogation. The act was this—to go to some point of land and watch for the ship that ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... insolence of the pedant being pressed home with an insistence which must have been particularly galling to him as coming from a distinguished man of his own university, twenty years his junior. Harvey retorted with the heavy artillery of his "Pierce's Supererogation," which was mainly directed against Nash, whom the disappearance of Peele, and the sudden death of Marlowe in June, had left without any very intimate friend as a supporter. Nash retired, for the moment, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... clock struck, Loo turned to him with a laugh and a shake of the head as if the refusal were so self-evident that to put it into words were a work of supererogation. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... me into the error of yielding to that rather stupid kind of pride which makes a man presume upon his natural gifts. For a long time it induced me to neglect their real improvement, as if this were a work of supererogation. The idea that gradually grew up in me of the worthlessness of my fellows prevented me from rising above those whom I henceforth looked upon as my inferiors. I did not realize that society is made up of so many elements of little value in themselves, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Tommy Little was when he so terribly annoyed Mr. Pelby. Now, as to Henry's accomplishments, they were many and various. He could be a good boy when he felt in a pleasant humour, and could storm, and fret, and pout in a way so well understood by all parents, that it would be a work of supererogation to describe it here. But strange mutation of disposition!—Mr. Pelby could bear these fits of perverseness with a philosophy that would have astonished even himself, could he have for a moment realized his former state of mind. When Henry became ill-tempered from any ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... from God. This may happen in various ways according to the different kinds of union between man and God. For, in the first place, man is united to God by faith; secondly, by having his will duly submissive in obeying His commandments; thirdly, by certain special things pertaining to supererogation such as the religious life, the clerical state, or Holy Orders. Now if that which follows be removed, that which precedes, remains, but the converse does not hold. Accordingly a man may apostatize from God, by withdrawing from the religious life to which he was bound by profession, or from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... comes in the glory of supererogation is non-existent; but the merit of the virtue is not thereby excluded, provided the will be present. Consequently the argument does ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... what our guide and friend has to say about salads, especially note his remarks on the salad of "cold boiled table vegetables." His arrangement of the menu, to the Baron's simple taste, humble mode of life, and not inconsiderable experience, is perfect. Hors d'oeuvres are works of supererogation, and have never been, so to speak, acclimatised in our English table-land. The Baron may have overlooked any directions about ecrivisses, not as bisque, but pure and simple as cray-fish, which, fresh from the river and served hot and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... necessity of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be. There is, however, an old indisputable, very well ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... large Pharaoh's serpent-eggs out of his pocket and placed them on a flat stone about a yard from the fire. He then asked Shasha to approach, warning him to be very careful, as the serpents might be dangerous. After the experience with the potassium, such a warning to Shasha was quite a work of supererogation. He came forward with hesitating steps, and stood behind ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... Montmorenci.—The rest of the ride offered no object of interest. The road, like all the main post-roads, is certainly wide and straight; but the French seem to think that, if these two points are but obtained, all the rest may be regarded as matter of supererogation. Hence, very little attention is paid to the surface of the highways: even on those that are most frequented, it is thought enough to keep the centre, which is paved, in decent repair: the ruts by ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... of throwing things at her. She made him understand why there is more joy in heaven over one sinner saved, than over ninety and nine just persons. He could understand just how welcome to a bored heaven that sinner must be! And think of that poor girl living with this human work of supererogation! ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... Marquess, who resembles an irritable baboon, I have little to do. The marchioness—a strong woman is also, mercifully, too much engaged upon works of supererogation, which, in a rich bass, she styles "her manifold duties," to observe my existence. Lord Pomfret Fresne, however, a gilded youth with three thousand a year, finds me extremely useful. I bet for him, I make appointments for him to have his hair trimmed, I retain stalls for him, and occasionally ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... would have been a work of supererogation. Maddened by our vociferous exuberance, Nobby lifted up his voice and barked like a demoniac. The ungodly hullaballoo with which we shook the dust of Bordeaux from off our tires will be remembered fearfully by all who witnessed our exit from ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... imputation of such an employment of his mornings to one who had his studies to attend to—scarcely a wise line of defence where the truth would have been more credible as well as convincing—namely, that at the time when those works of supererogation could alone be effected, he lay as lost a creature as ever sleep could make ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... most practicable routes; but when I found him waiting for me at this bridge, to which he sarcastically pointed with his bow, I felt that had he known of it, to have made difficulties before would have been a work of supererogation. He seemed to think I should certainly turn back, and assured me there was no other crossing (a statement I afterwards found to be untrue); so, comforting myself with the hope that if the danger were imminent, Meepo would forcibly stop me, I took off my shoes, and walked steadily over: ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of recommendation reminds us of an act, on the part of a modern Rabbi, of supererogation in the path of honesty. The post is in the hands of the Government, and, accordingly, the late Rabbi Bamberger of Wurzburg, whenever he gave a Haskamah, or recommendation, which would be delivered by hand, was wont to destroy a postage stamp, so as not to defraud the ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... and crayfish drest with amber greece[225], and I may renew my acquaintance with mutton and bold chines of beefe; entertaine my tenants, that would pay for my housekeeping all the yeere and thanke my worship at Christmas, over and above their rents, with Turkies and Beeves of supererogation. You may guesse I have some reason to change the aire, wife, and so I leave you to prepare your selfe: You have my purpose and may ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... he was in the service of the Pony Express would require many pages to recite, and as there is naturally a repetition in the manner of all attacks and escapes in his struggles with the Indians of the Great Plains and mountains, it would perhaps be but supererogation to tell them all without taxing ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... as we had finished the Pentateuch, Mrs. Blatch declared she would go no farther; that it was the driest history she had ever read, and most derogatory to women. My beloved coadjutor, Susan B. Anthony, said that she thought it a work of supererogation; that when our political equality was recognized and we became full-fledged American citizens, the Church would make haste to bring her Bibles and prayer books, creeds and discipline up to the same ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... progress or disaster, since no preferences would exist to pronounce one eventual state of things better than another. These preferences are in themselves, if the dynamic order alone be considered, works of supererogation, expressing force but not producing it, like a statue of Hercules; but the principle of such preferences, the force they express and depend upon, is some mechanical impulse itself involved in the causal process. Expression gives value to power, and the strength of Hercules would ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... permission and operation refer to present time, permission being with respect to evil, operation with regard to good. Whilst as to future time, prohibition is in respect to evil, precept to good that is necessary and counsel to good that is of supererogation. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... vocation of setting the world to rights. But on the other hand, it must be remembered that her standard of exactingness was 'high, and some of the things that in her eyes it was merely culpable to leave undone might be counted by others among virtues of supererogation. Indeed, it is within the limits of possibility that a philanthropist wrapped in over-much conscious virtue might imagine her cold to the objects proposed, when she only failed to see uncommon merit in their pursuit. No one, however, could recognize with ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,' could only have been induced to investigate the intellectual status of the 'rising generation' of our village, there is little room to doubt that, as they are not deemed advocates for works of supererogation, they would long ago have appreciated the expediency of disbanding said society. I imagine Tennyson is a clairvoyant, and was looking at the young people of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of last year was very similar, were told that they must have been mistaken; and some who recollected high winds were considered romancers. We looked at the strong contre-vents placed outside the windows of our dwelling, and wondered why such a work of supererogation should have taken place as to put them there, if the hurricanes we had witnessed were unusual, when I one day, during a high wind, as I sat at home, happened to take up Palassou's Memorial des Pyrenees, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... passionate. The present plan in dealing, say, with a young man of twenty, is to surround him with scare-crows and prohibitions—to try to convince him logically that passion is dangerous. This is both supererogation and imbecility—supererogation because he already knows that it is dangerous, and imbecility because it is quite impossible to kill a passion by arguing against it. The way to kill it is to give it rein under unfavourable and dispiriting conditions—to bring it down, by slow ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... yield an income, and whose value could be realized in cash with fair promptitude in time of need. No calculated overvaluation by proprietors for the sake of keeping the slaves enslaved need be invented. Loria's thesis is a work of supererogation. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... le Brun. This is a refinement in cruelty. It is twining the rack with flowers; and hanging a man with a cord of gold. The sentence of the reviewer should be "Yea, yea; and nay, nay!" A Barmecide's feast of fame is a supererogation of malice. We hold that all authors so derided have a right to call upon their critics to make good their words; and build up the visionary castles of their Fata Morgana, (like London Bridge in the nursery song) with "gravel and stone;" ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... her efforts with melancholy contempt, and turned his back on her when she came near him, and even when she changed the water in his tin cup. As he only drank three or four drops in a day, it probably seemed to him a work of supererogation. While his mistress was out he rarely uttered a sound; but when he heard her footstep in the short passage outside, he gave vent to his feelings and hailed her return with boisterous shouts and unearthly whistling of old French ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... called it milk? Has he lost the remembrance of the Yorkshire pudding, vulgarly called choke-dog, of which you were obliged to eat a pound before you were allowed a slice of beef, and of which, if you swallowed half that quantity, you thought cooks and oxen mere works of supererogation, and totally useless on the face of the earth? Has the fool lost all recollection of the prayers in yon cold, wet, clay-floored cellar, proudly denominated the chapel? has he forgot the cuffs from the senior boys, the pinches from the second master? ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... these days of public and private baths, it may seem a work of supererogation to insist upon cleanliness as the first requisite in a lady's toilet. Yet it may be as well to remind our fair readers that fastidiousness on this head cannot be carried too far. Cleanliness is the outward sign of inward purity. Cleanliness ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... what supererogation in wit this is to think skill so mightily pierced with their loves that she should prostitutely shew them her secrets when she will scarcely be looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching; yea not without having drops of their souls like an heavenly familiar. ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... collected in the larval or caterpillar stage than in the perfect one. Every tree, bush, or plant, the grass, and even the lichens growing on trees or walls, produce some larvae feeding on it. It would, I feel, be a work of supererogation to attempt to give detailed descriptions of food-plants and the insects feeding on them, when we have a book so good and cheap to fall back on as "Merrin's Lepidopterist's Calendar," which gives the times of appearance of butterflies and moths in all their stages, with localities and the food-plants ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... looking lovely! At which compliment, open and above-board, poor Major Latrobe, who was over head and ears in love with her, and a very ugly man, only bowed and looked more silly than before, which seemed a work of supererogation. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... dissecting dish may be made by pouring melted paraffin wax into one of those shallow china pots chemists use for cold-cream, and tadpoles may be pinned out with entemologists' pins and dissected with needles. But this is a work of supererogation. Partially incubated hen's eggs may be obtained at a small cost almost anywhere, and the later stages profitably examined and dissected under warm water. For a clear understanding of the allantois and amnion, this ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that the name is borne by ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... quite unable to see any virtue in not doing it, but just asking the Lord to do it. If I really were convinced that He would meet the expenses whether I worked or not, I should believe that neither would He let people suffer and die untended out here or anywhere else. Indeed, it would seem a work of supererogation to have to remind Him ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... extreme the doctrine of supererogation, or excess of merit, was carried by the papacy in the 13th century; see ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... fastest, anoint thy particularly during from private devotion. head and wash thy face, Lent. A Catholic priest They even try to cast that thou appear not to is always fasting when ridicule on fasting as men to fast ... and thy he officiates at the a work of Father, who seeth in altar. He breaks his supererogation, secret, will repay fast only after he says detracting from the thee."(84) The Apostles Mass. When Bishops merits of Christ. fasted before engaging ordain Priests they are Neither candidates for in sacred functions: always fasting, as well ordination, ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... pies, preserves, ices, etc. I shall have a word or two to say under this head before I have done. I only remark now, that in my tours about the country I have often had a virulent ill-will excited towards these works of culinary supererogation, because I thought their excellence was attained by treading under foot and disregarding the five grand essentials. I have sat at many a table garnished with three or four kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron and spices and all imaginable good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... because these stories constitute the key-stone of the orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in their simplicity, assume that it must ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... it to the gas-fixture which extended its jointed arm above an ash dressing-table with a blurred mirror fixed between two standards. Having performed this office with an air of detachment designed to make Woburn recognize it as an act of supererogation, he turned without a word and ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... published my Confession [1528], setting forth both what I believe and what position I intend to maintain; and whereas the devil continues to seek new intrigues against me, I have decided, by way of supererogation, to publish conjointly, in the German tongue, the three so-called Symbols, or Confessions, which have hitherto been received, read, and chanted throughout the Church. I would thereby reaffirm the fact that I side with the true ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... not merely assumed by such as were anxious to make atonement for some heavy sin; it was often voluntarily undertaken by individuals whose lives had been blameless, and who were anxious by this work of supererogation to increase their stock of merits. If the penitent died of his disease, the intention of his sacrifice was believed to be availing in the sight of Heaven; if he recovered, he became a monk. No less a doom than excommunication, and a rigorous penitential seclusion ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... pretence on the part of one of my young hosts of going into his uncle's office and drawing a lease, until he is reminded that he will probably be performing a work of supererogation, that leases and feudalism and property are going out of date, and that the land agents of the future, if suffered to cumber the earth at all, will be elected by the tenants, as the New York magistrates are elected ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... responsibility, incumbency, accountability; service, business, work, function, office; tax, impost, toll, excise, custom. Associated Words: ethics, deontology, casuistry, ethology, morals, ethicist, ethically, supererogate, supererogation. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and walked in the direction of the gate of Inagh. "There's Mrs. Connell down there, that I ought to go and see; she's always complaining," he said to himself, in self-excuse. But having arrived at her cottage, he saw by a glance at the unshuttered window that his visit would be a work of supererogation, as she was busily engaged in carding wool by the fireside, the clear light of the paraffin lamp, which without any intervening stage of candles had superseded her rushlight, showing her comely face to be ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment —but only just a moment—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was seen similarly fitted in it; and a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these directions. And, therefore, it was thought a matter of supererogation to withdraw the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... more afraid of, and incomparably more influenced in their conduct by, the doctrine of purgatory, than Protestants by that of hell! That the Catholics practise more superstitions than morals, is the effect of other doctrines. Supererogation; invocation of saints; power of relics, &c. &c. and not of Purgatory, which can only act as a general motive, to what must depend ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... of the stage-coach by an intelligent but deeply-intoxicated Caucasian, whose moral nature was shocked at riding with one addicted to opium-smoking. At Hangtown he was beaten by a passing stranger,—purely an act of Christian supererogation. At Dutch Flat he was robbed by well-known hands from unknown motives. At Sacramento he was arrested on suspicion of being something or other, and discharged with a severe reprimand—possibly for not being it, and so delaying the course ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... curiously at Von Holzen, as if he were displaying a hitherto unknown side to his character. Von Holzen, too, was collecting the papers scattered on his desk, with a patient air and a half-suppressed sigh of weariness, as if he were entering upon a work of supererogation. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... dies,—never grows old. Fixed on an immoveable basis, it stands sublimely forth amid the lapse of ages and the decay of systems, charming all minds by its simplicity, and subduing all minds by its power. It says nothing of penances, nothing of pilgrimages, nothing of tradition, nor of works of supererogation, nor of efficacious sacraments dispensed by the hands of an apostolically descended clergy: its one simple and sublime announcement is, that Eternal Life is the Free Gift of God through ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... SUPEREROGATION. The 14th Article gives the teaching of the Church of England. Romanists teach that there are certain good deeds which have been performed by saints over and above those necessary for their own salvation. From this fund of good ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... as brave endurers of hardships. Each night and morning she carries her little pack on and off shore, takes her share of pot-luck at meat-su, and is never cross. Bless the kiddie! If ablutions seem to her a work of supererogation and our daily play of toothbrush furnishes all the fascination of the unknown, still hers is the right stuff for pioneer lands and she has lessons to teach ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... supplied the greater part of New England with stones, that it seems to most inexperienced persons to be a work of supererogation, almost, to manufacture tiles or any other draining material ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... with the fortunes of the children of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Tasso and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding proportions to give the bare titles of the plays that witnessed to that influence. Serassi reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino possessed ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... singular heresy in its modern history—the heresy of what is called, very foolishly, the Lake School. Some years ago I might have been induced, by an occasion like the present, to attempt a formal refutation of their doctrine; at present it would be a work of supererogation. The wise must bow to the wisdom of such men as Coleridge and Southey, but being wise, have laughed at poetical theories so ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... of his folly, and of bringing back a lost individual to the paths of utility and good sense. What should I have been, had I neglected such an opportunity? I have really no patience to think that a thing, which it would have been a crime to have left undone, should possibly be supposed a work of supererogation! ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Winter's Tale, and Calderon in El medico de su honra, (The Physician of his Honor), and A secreto agravio secreta venganza, (for Secret Insult Secret Vengeance). It should be said, however, that honor demands the punishment of the wife only; to punish her paramour too, is a work of supererogation. This confirms the view I have taken, that a man's honor originates ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... be literally true, and find our poor, neglected, and uninstructed brethren in danger accordingly, how can any thing that can be said, written, or done, to alleviate their condition, or to remove prejudice from the public mind, be counted a work of supererogation? ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... not know: he had only seen a little man strut about the stage and repeat 7956 words one hand to his forehead, and seeming mightily delighted, called out, 'Ay, indeed! And pray, was he found to be correct?' This was the supererogation of literal matter-of-fact curiosity. Jedediah Buxton's counting the number of words was idle enough; but here was a fellow who wanted some one to count them over again to see if he ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... economy of man's salvation he justly denominated articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae—"the hinge of a standing or falling church." By the defence and propagation of this doctrine especially, the priestly office of Christ was vindicated against the dogmas of penance, indulgence and supererogation, inculcated by the "Man of Sin;" and by consequence, one of the bulwarks of mystical Babylon effectually demolished. At the famous Diet of Worms, which, like the Council of Constance, combined the imperial power of Rome, civil and ecclesiastic, that indomitable servant of Christ gave a ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... character is formed, in the same condition as the rich: for they are born, I now speak of a state of civilization, with certain sexual privileges, and whilst they are gratuitously granted them, few will ever think of works of supererogation, to obtain the esteem of a small number of ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... an inquiry to be a work of supererogation. Seeing clearly themselves the absurdity of prevalent popular views, and the shallowness of popular objections, they may be impatient of any discussion, on the subject. But it is submitted that there are many minds worthy ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart |
