"Excel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see her here in this rollicking, rustic gathering. She was, he thought, even more lovely than he remembered her. Beauty sometimes seen again does excel our recollections of it. Wylder had gone off the scene, as Mr. Carlyle says, into infinite space. Who could tell exactly the cause of his dismissal, and why the young lady had asserted her capricious resolve to ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the priests are regarded with infinite respect, they are not absolutely free from vice. When they have money, they spend it as freely as they have gained it. The number of pretty women who daily repair to the temple is very great. They far excel the women of the inferior classes in Hindustan in the elegance of their manners, their fine proportions, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... to Christ, and said: "Behold! The man, presumptuous and overbold, Who boasted that his mercy could excel Thine own, is dead and on ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, and on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. The boy of the South seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; he gives himself to games as to a business, striving to excel, but is not readily transported by imagination; the type remains with me as cleaner in mind and body, more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser and a less romantic sense of life and of the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... country! Yes; as Venice was. She may excel other nations in commerce, but yet it is not that in which she most prides herself, in which she most excels. Merchants as such are not the first men among us; though it perhaps be open, barely open, to ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that I have eaten many sorts of biscuits, cakes, cheese, and excellent sweetmeats I have not here mentioned, especially manger- blanc; and they have olives, which are no where so good; and their perfumes of amber excel all the world in their kind, both for household stuff and fumes; and there is no such water ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... an example of the affection and love of a wife to her husband, and of a mother to her children. The only relic I possess of her handiwork is a sampler, dated 1743, the needlework of which is so delicate and neat, that to me it seems to excel everything of the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... is well known to excel all others for making of Malts that produce those fine British Liquors, Beer and Ale, which no other Nation can equalize; But as this Excellency cannot be obtain'd unless the several Ingredients are in a ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... honourable emulation, the boy strove to excel. Using both hands for the elongation of his eyes, the extension of his mouth, and the depression of his ears, he turned upon the Haddock so horrible a mask that the stricken child burst into a howl, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... 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 ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... did the boy really excel, and that was in the matter of making rhymes. The Abbe Chateauneuf had taught him the trick before he could speak plainly, and Ninon had been so pleased with the wee poet that she left him two thousand francs in her will for the purchase of books. As Ninon insisted on living ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... said, with a sigh, "If a man had this quickness of wit, he would excel all the folk of his age and time." Then he called for a chess-board and said to me, "Wilt thou play with me?" I signed with my head as who should say, "Yes," and came forward and placed the men and played two games with him, each of which I won, much to his amazement. Then I took ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... had forfeited the regard of his equals, and with many of them he was at open feud. The only pleasure left to him was desperately hard work. Not only was he stimulated by a fiery ambition, a mad desire to excel in the half-year's competition, and show what he was yet capable of, and so to some extent redeem his unhappy position, but also his heart was fixed on getting, if possible, the chief scholarship of Saint Winifred's—a scholarship sufficiently valuable to pay the main ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... cultivated intellect easily accommodates itself to new occupations. The notion that individual genius can only excel in one thing is a vulgar error. A mind endued by nature with strong powers and quick sensibility, and by culture furnished in an uncommon degree with habits of attention and reflection, wherever it is placed will find itself employment, and whatever ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... 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, ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... Reuben occupies specially points to Gen. xlix. As the first-born, he ought to stand at the head; but here we find him occupying the second place. In Gen. xlix. Jacob says to him, on account of his guilt, "Thou shalt not excel;" and "the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power," which up to that time he had possessed, are transferred to Judah. Yet Moses has so much regard to his original dignity, that he places him immediately after Judah; the utterance of Jacob did ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... is a prejudice against inconsistent characters in books, yet the prejudice bears the other way, when what seemed at first their inconsistency, afterwards, by the skill of the writer, turns out to be their good keeping. The great masters excel in nothing so much as in this very particular. They challenge astonishment at the tangled web of some character, and then raise admiration still greater at their satisfactory unraveling of it; in this way throwing open, sometimes to the understanding even of school misses, the last complications ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... them of their mistake, saying: "This marvel that you see in me is a trance; when I pass into my deep sleep my spirit at once floats away in the upper air with the goddess, Poliahu. We are a numerous band of spirits, but I excel them in the distance of my flights. In one day I can compass this island of Hawaii, as well as Maui, Oahu, and Kauai, and return again. In my flights I have seen that Kauai is the richest of all the islands, for it is well supplied with food and fish, and it is abundantly watered. I intend to remain ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... of Assam it is said: "Of clothing there was not much to see; but in spite of this I doubt whether we could excel them in true decency and modesty. Ibn Muhammed Wali had already remarked in his history of the conquest of Assam (1662-63), that the Naga women only cover their breasts. They declare that it is absurd to cover those parts ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Hebrew of fine physique and rare endowment, who was, while but a youth, carried captive to Babylon, and trained for office in the court of the king; was found, after three years' discipline, to excel "in wisdom and understanding" all the magicians and enchanters of the realm, of which he gave such proof that he rose step by step to the highest official positions, first in the Babylonian and then in the Persian empire. He was a Hebrew prophet ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... be supposed, however, that the mob of cultivated Englishmen know how to dine in this elevated sense. The unpolishable ruggedness of the national character is still an impediment to them, even in that particular line where they are best qualified to excel. Though often present at good men's feasts, I remember only a single dinner, which, while lamentably conscious that many of its higher excellences were thrown away upon me, I yet could feel to be a perfect work of art. It could not, without unpardonable coarseness, be styled ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of any kind; he does not care for society; he very rarely goes to the club, and never touches a card when he does; and yet he is the sort of man one would think would throw himself into what is going on. He is a strong, active, healthy man, whom one would expect to excel in all sorts of sports; he is certainly good looking; he talks extremely well, and is, I should say, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... so, Grettir? Which then will the chieftains do? But true it is that you excel all men in courage. See you not how they are ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... incurs another. But the principal point of judgement, is in discerning between the qualities of inconvenients, and not taking the bad for the good. Moreover a Prince ought to shew himself a lover of vertue, and that he honors those that excel in every Art. Afterwards ought he encourage his Citizens, whereby they may be enabled quickly to exercise their faculties as well in merchandise, and husbandry, as in any other kind of traffick, to the end that no man forbear to adorne and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... means," he answered. "If we are to do anything at all we will do the thing in which I excel. It feeds my vanity, which is good for me, for ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... billiards well is like using a pencil, or a German flute, or a small-sword—you cannot master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of billiards. Like a great General, his genius used to rise with the danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... equivalent, "terra japonica," is prepared from the areca in Ceylon; but the nuts are exported in large quantities to the Maldive Islands and to India, the produce of which they excel both in astringency and size. The fibrous wood of the areca being at once straight, firm, and elastic, is employed for making the pingoes (yokes for the shoulders), by means of which the Singhalese coolie, like the corresponding class among the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... thee well, [5] Palliards all thou didst excel, [6] And thy jockum bore the Bell, [7] Glimmer on ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... 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
... the future; but the girl was sick of her dependence on George's father, and, in the revolt of her pride, she would have accepted any honest work which would have enabled her to escape from the insecurity of her position. Of her competence to earn a living, of her ability to excel in any work that she undertook, of the sufficiency and soundness of her resources, she was as absolutely assured as she had been when she entered the millinery department of Brandywine & Plummer. If Madame, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... than he would otherwise have considered safe. We find these people very different from the wild inhabitants of the coral islands we have visited. They have attained considerable proficiency in many arts—their cloth is fine, and beautifully ornamented, as are their mats, but they excel in feather work. The helmets, and mantles, and capes of their chiefs are very beautiful. The helmets are in the form of those of ancient Greece, and are covered with bright red feathers, worked in to look like velvet, with ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... no time, did I feel the impetus that the desire to excel brings with it. To be at the foot of the class always seemed to me the least of the ills that a school-boy ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... is a feeling inherent in most Englishmen, and whether in the chase, or with the rod or gun, they far excel all other nations. In fact, the definition of this feeling cannot be understood by many foreigners. We are frequently ridiculed for fox-hunting: 'What for all dis people, dis horses, dis many dog? dis leetle (how you call him?) dis "fox" for ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... his particular place in the universe where he will excel in some kind of activity, there being no two persons in all Creation exactly alike, the student on Mars is given an opportunity to obtain a broad and comprehensive knowledge relating to all subjects, both material ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... be truly great, it is necessary that nations should excel in the arts of peace as well ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... 'unfit alike for good or ill,' who try one thing, and fail because they are not strong enough, and another, because they have not energy enough, and a third, because they have no talent—inconsistent, unstable, and therefore never to excel, what shall we say of them? what use is there in them? what hope is there of them? what can we wish for them? [Greek: to mepot' einai pant' ariston]. It were better for them they had never been ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... his youth, his attitude, and his attire. The angelic life is vigorous, progressive, buoyant, and alien from decay. Immortal youth belongs to them who 'excel in strength' because they 'do his commandments.' That waiting minister shows us what the children of the Resurrection shall be, and so his presence as well as his speech expounds the blessed mystery of our life in the risen Lord. His serene attitude of sitting 'on the right side' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... ten minute 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 that scene ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... wish to excel in working guipure d'art should practise each of the stitches until they attain perfect regularity and quickness in their execution. Two or three hours devoted to this in the first instance will not be time wasted, as the most elaborate pattern ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... rulest each melodious lay That floats along the gilded shell, Who the mute tenant of the watry way Canst teach, at pleasure, to excel The softest note harmonious Sorrow brings, When the expiring Swan her ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... anecdote or shaft of pictorial satire; only with great pains is any one induced to regard a picture as an independent creation of form. In so literary a society it seems paradoxical almost to believe in pure painting; and, in despair, we cry out that no country can be expected to excel, at one time, in two arts. We forget Athens and Tuscany; we also forget France. For more than two hundred years France has led the visual art of Europe; and if English painting were ever to become one-tenth part as good as French literature I, for my part, should be as pleased as surprised. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... women are remarkable. The men, as a rule, attract attention by their height, fullness and symmetry of development, and the regularity and agreeableness of their features. In muscular power and constitutional ability to endure they excel. While these qualities distinguish, with a few exceptions, the men of the whole tribe, they are particularly characteristic of the two most widely spread of the families of which the tribe is composed. These are the Tiger and Otter clans, which, proud ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... prophylactic, is probably beneficial as a preventive of fever. The Khasis, like other people of Indo-Chinese origin, are much addicted to gambling. The people, and especially those who inhabit the War country, are fond of litigation. Col. Bivar remarks, "As regards truthfulness the people do not excel, for they rarely speak the truth unless to suit their own interests." Col. Bivar might have confined this observation to the people who live in the larger centres of population, or who have been much ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... been capable of seeing or imagining such things, they would never have fallen. There can be no question but that the glorious consolation of the faithful and obedient believers, will incomparably, not to say infinitely, excel that of the primitive state of man, or anything which could have been by man attained, if the blessed SON had not suffered. Let the most brilliant and soaring imagination exert its most strenuous and happy efforts in conceiving, arranging and ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... respects his influence on his successors is of no slight significance. As a satirist Pope acknowledged the master he was unable to excel, and so did many of the eighteenth century versemen, who appear to have looked upon satire as the beginning and the end of poetry. Moreover Dryden may be regarded, without much exaggeration, as the father of modern prose. Nothing can be more lucid than his style, which is at ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... horses which we saw before us on the road, pointing out in each of them some defect, and exclaiming: 'I shall excel them all, in sh' Allah! Does not your Honour also think ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... exercising, with the strictest care, The art bequeathed to his possession! Dost thou thy father honor, as a youth? Then may his teaching cheerfully impel thee: Dost thou, as man, increase the stores of truth? Then may thine own son afterwards excel thee. ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... red; others are of a straw colour, spotted with green; and others are worked with beautiful stripes, either in straight or waving lines of red and brown. In this article of manufacture, whether we regard the strength, fineness, or beauty, they certainly excel the whole world. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... the line to be drawn among the musical? Who are to earn their living by music and who are to be amateurs? Especially as fifty of our second hundred can with proper education easily excel fifty of the first hundred who have less education. Who is to decide whether it is prudent for a girl to spend all she has on a musical education with the hope of making herself independent in the end? No one can decide positively, ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... the patience to abide the post mortem publication of their memoirs. Sir Edward Goschen (former British Ambassador to Germany and Austria) or Jules Cambon (former French Ambassador to Germany, the United States and Spain) probably could excel Mr. Gerard in revelations of entertaining diplomatic history and gossip. Count von Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, too, I imagine might startle us with a ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... mutability. Nor can your words for all their honey breath Outsing the speech of many an older rhyme, And though my ear deliver them from death One day or two, it is so little time. Nor does your beauty in its excellence Excel a thousand in the daily sun, Yet must I put a period to pretence, And with my logic's catalogue have done, For act and word and beauty are but keys To unlock the heart, and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... be the last accomplishment of civilization. To be idle gracefully and contentedly and picturesquely is an art. It is one in which the Americans, who do so many things well, do not excel. They have made the excuse that they have not time, or, if they have leisure, that their temperament and nervous organization do not permit it. This excuse will pass for a while, for we are a new people, and probably we are more highly and sensitively organized ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and coquetry, to folly and vice, only when it is extended to unworthy objects. The moment a woman's wish to please becomes discriminative, the moment she feels any attachment to a man superior to the vulgar herd, she not only ceases to be a coquette, but she exerts herself to excel in every thing that he approves, and, from her versatility of manners, she has the happy power of adapting herself to his taste, and of becoming all that his most sanguine wishes could desire." The proofs of this discriminative taste, and the first symptoms of this ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... as they emerge into the cool air, in accents which only Wieland could excel; "there goes a cat!" Upon the information a volley of hats follow the scared animal, none of which go within ten yards of it, except Mr. Rapp's, who, taking a bold aim, flings his own gossamer down the area, over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... religious and political 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 ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... am aware of. He shows so little ambition to excel in any particular branch that I should say his choice of a profession may be best determined by his parents. I am, of course, ignorant whether his relatives possess influence likely to be of use to him. That is often the chief point to be considered, particularly ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... know a bottle-man Smiling and debonair, And he has promised me I can Choose of his precious ware! In age and shape and color, too, His dainty goods excel— Aha, my friends, if you but knew— But no! I will ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... laughter again broke forth, while the poet was thus announcing the quality of his wares. "And," he continued, "I have tried to excel everything that Boccaccio, Aretin, and other masters of their craft have ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... handle the ribbons." "My horses are all bloods, mayhap your lordship has noticed my team." "I pride myself on my seat in the saddle, mayhap your lordship has seen me ride." "If I am superlative in anything, 'its in my wines." "So please your ladyship, 'tis dress I most excel in ... 'tis walking I pride myself in." No matter what is mentioned, 'tis the one thing he did or had better than any one else. This conceited fool was duped into believing a parcel of men-servants to be lords ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... enabled the frequenters of the venta to indulge in the favourite juego de pelota, or a game at ball, to which the Navarrese and the northern Spaniards generally are much addicted, and at which most of them excel. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... life. Even to Raymond I attempted no extremities of confidence. Even to myself I tried to be the thing that was expected of me. I professed a modest desire for temperate and tolerable achievement in life, though deep in my lost depths I wanted passionately to excel; I worked hard, much harder than I allowed to appear, and I said I did it for the credit of the school; I affected a dignified loyalty to queen and country and church; I pretended a stoical disdain for appetites and delights and all the arts, though now and then a chance ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the natural blossoms, which they excel in beauty, live ten hours only, but they so far differ from them that their ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... were spoken in a voice that startled the physician. To divert Massimilla from her bitter reflections, while the excitement of recalling la Tinti was at its height, he engaged her in one of the arguments in which the French excel. ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... rest, I'm glad to see you on dis sunny day.' Now think! here's a human who has no other cares Except to please the white man, serve him when he's starving, And who has as much fun when he sees you carving The sirloin as you do, does this black man. Just think for a minute, how the negroes excel, Can you beat them with a banjo or a broiling pan? There's music in their soul as original As any breed of people in the whole wide earth; They're elemental hope, heartiness, mirth. There are only two things real American: One is ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... her holy Dee; York many wonders of her Ouse can tell; The Peak, her Dove, whose banks so fertile be, And Kent will say her Medway doth excel: ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... word," said Howard, and a second battle began. As we do not delight in fields of battle, or hope to excel, like Homer, in describing variety of wounds, we shall content ourselves with relating, that after five pitched battles, in which Oliver's champion received bruises of all shapes and sizes, and of every shade of black, blue, green, and yellow, his unconquered ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... wherein they differ: Of their Extent, Action, Unities, Episodes, and the Nature of their Morals. Of Parody: Of the Style, Figures, and Wit proper to this Sort of Poem, and the superior Talents requisite to Excel ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... excel in too many matters, out of levity and vain glory, are ever envious. For they cannot want work; it being impossible, but many, in some one of those things, should surpass them. Which was the character of Adrian the Emperor; that mortally envied poets, and painters, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... expeditions, and in playing tennis. During winter he hunted. Hunting was a greater passion with him than poetry. Much of his poetry celebrated the loveliness of the field as seen by the huntsman in the early morning light. But few probably guessed that the youth known to excel in field sports excelled also in poetry. For, in its way, this early poetry does excel. It was characteristic of him that nearly every little book he then wrote was privately printed. Poetry was for him just something for private and particular enjoyment—like ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... games and sports in which girls may find both pleasure and profit. The ideal type of exercise for girls is found in swimming, walking and similar activities in which the exertion is not excessively violent, and which call for long-continued or repeated efforts. Girls excel in ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... Voltaire was powerful for evil in France. Wielland, a friend of Klopstock, and a romantic poet, might have been the German Ariosto had he not abandoned poetry for prose. He tried to copy the Greek, in which he failed to excel. During this conflict in Germany between the French and English school, German literature was much influenced by Macpherson's Ossian, and Scotch names are found in a great many German works of this period. The literature ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... induce the commonalty of Jerusalem to take from me the government over the Galileans, and to give their suffrages for conferring that authority upon him. This Simon was of the city of Jerusalem, and of a very noble family of the sect of the Pharisees, which are supposed to excel others in the accurate knowledge of the laws of their country. He was a man of great wisdom and reason, and capable of restoring public affairs by his prudence, when they were in an ill posture. He was also an old friend and companion of ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... or obstinacy is the cause of their tears, there is a sure way of stopping them by distracting their attention by some pleasant or conspicuous object which makes them forget that they want to cry. Most nurses excel in this art, and rightly used it is very useful; but it is of the utmost importance that the child should not perceive that you mean to distract his attention, and that he should be amused without suspecting you are thinking about him; now this is ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... 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 ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... 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; for in ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... your books, you should set your mind on your books; and that you should think of home when not engaged in reading. Whatever you do, don't romp together with them, for were you to meet our master, your father, it will be no joke! Although it's asserted that a scholar must strain every nerve to excel, yet it's preferable that the tasks should be somewhat fewer, as, in the first place, when one eats too much, one cannot digest it; and, in the second place, good health must also be carefully attended to. This is my view on the subject, and you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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, by patience, may become skilled in many kinds of art work. Schools for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... a year I will teach you to sing well," said an Italian music teacher to a pupil who wished to know what can be hoped for with study; "if two years, you may excel. If you will practice the scale constantly for three years, I will make you the best tenor in Italy; if for four years, you may have the world ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... who by Divine help learned in your Republic the art of governing Romans with equity. Our royalty is an imitation of yours, modelled on your good purpose, a copy of the only Empire; and in so far as we follow you do we excel all ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... the heart itself, and its tests are exceedingly delicate and subtle. Its counterfeits abound." Most true. And yet humility is not intended for experts in morals only, or for men of a rare religious genius only. The plainest of men, the least skilled and the most unlettered of men, may not only excel in humility, but may also be permitted to know that they are indeed planted, and are growing slowly but surely in that grace of all graces. No doubt our Lord had, so to describe it, the most delicate and the most subtle of human minds; and, no doubt whatever, He had the ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... daughter, the Princess." The youth rejoined, "What is the matter with her and what hath befallen her?" and the man retorted, "O my son, verily the Sultan hath a daughter so fair that she seemeth cast in the very mould of beauty and none in her day can excel her, but whoso is betrothed to her and marrieth her and goeth in unto her the dawn never cometh without his becoming a heap of poison, and no one wotteth the business what it may be." Hearing these words the youth said ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... describing a bit of England and calling it the antipodes." He could infuse life into the dry figures of a blue-book; but in the mere portraiture of ordinary conventional society manners, free from the sway of strong passions and emotions, he did not greatly excel writers of far inferior ability. He had the graphic simplicity and realism of De Foe in describing places he had never seen; and as the historian of a country or a period in which he felt interested he would have been unusually brilliant, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... have perished. In the first ages of the Roman republic, the children of the nobility were sent to Etru'ria for education, especially in divination and the art of soothsaying, in which the Tuscans were supposed to excel. The form of the Roman constitution, the religious ceremonies, and the ensigns of civil government, were borrowed ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... by what they tell us Show all in which their wits excel us; But the true Master we behold In what his art ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... continued she, "to see and be acquainted early in life with superior people. It enables one to form a standard of excellence, and raises that standard high and bright. In men, the enthusiasm becomes glorious ambition to excel in arts or arms; in women, it refines and elevates the taste, and is so far a preventive against frivolous, vulgar company, and all their train of follies and vices. I can speak from my own recollection, of the great happiness ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the households! The good housewives of the Netherlands do not excel the Pueblo squaws in cleanliness. Floors are always carefully swept; all along the walls of the spacious rooms seats and couches are covered with finely variegated rugs; the walls are tastefully decorated with pictures and mirrors, and the large cupboards are filled with luxurious fruits, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... now a deep antipathy! How often the side we take even in the most momentous matters is decided by the most unworthy motives and the most contemptible considerations! Unstable as water, Reuben shall not excel. Double-minded men, we, like Jacob's first-born, are unstable in all our ways. We have no anchor, or, what anchor we sometimes have soon slips. We have no fixed pole-star by which to steer our life. Any will-o'-the-wisp of pleasure, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... grateful to the body. The whole science of Zooelogy has arisen, with its simple classifications and its vast details. The vivaria of the Jardin des Plantes rival those of the Colosseum in magnitude, and excel them in object. Nature is ransacked, explored, and hunted down in every field, only that she may add to the general knowledge. Museums collect and arrange all the types of creative wisdom, from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... but ill prepared," was the reply, "for such desperate measures. I am not certain they do not outnumber us; even so, we probably excel them in discipline and skill, and have every chance of victory tomorrow, which we should lose by ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... were any of them wanting in those perfections which attract the heart beyond the pomp of blood or titles; but she who had influenced that of our Horatio, was likewise in the opinion of those, who felt not her charms in the same degree he did, allowed to excel her fair companions in every captivating grace, and to yield in beauty to none but the princess herself, who was esteemed a Prodigy. This amiable lady was called Charlotta de Palfoy, only daughter to the baron of that name; and having from her most early ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... advantages I could lay no claim, for my fingers were all thumbs. Some at least of the others I possessed; and finding much entertainment in our commerce, I did not suffer my advantages to rust. I have never despised the social arts, in which it is a national boast that every Frenchman should excel. For the approach of particular sorts of visitors, I had a particular manner of address, and even of appearance, which I could readily assume and change on the occasion rising. I never lost an opportunity to flatter either the person of my visitor, if ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rule, are more intelligent and better educated than the fighting races of northern India, and I therefore thought it could not be difficult to teach them the value of musketry, and make them excel in it. To this end, I encouraged rifle meetings and endeavoured to get General Officers to take an interest in musketry inspections, and to make those inspections instructive and entertaining to the men. I took to rifle-shooting myself, as did the officers on my personal ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... to strike terror, because the lion at the same time erects the hair of its mane, and the dog the hair along its back, and thus they make themselves appear as large and terrible as possible. Rival males try to excel and challenge each other by their voices, and this leads to deadly contests. Thus the use of the voice will have become associated with the emotion of anger, however it may be aroused. We have also seen that intense pain, like rage, leads to violent outcries, and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... it enacted, that it shall be lawful for the protector of negroes to purchase the freedom of any negro who shall appear to him to excel in any mechanical art, or other knowledge or practice deemed liberal, and the value shall ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... emancipation is not quite complete even in America, and noblesse oblige! our code still reads: 'Zeus has unquestioned right to Io; but woe betide Io when she suns her heart in the smiles that belong to Hera!' Some women find exhilaration in the effort to excel, by flying closest to the flame without singeing their satin wings; by executing a pirouette on the extremest ledge of the abyss, yet escape toppling in; female Blondins skipping across the tight rope of Platonic friendship, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... 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 ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... prepared His throne in the heavens; and His kingdom ruleth over all." And, says the prophet, "I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne." In the presence-chamber of the King of kings they wait—"angels, that excel in strength," "ministers of His, that do His pleasure," "hearkening unto the voice of His word."(900) Ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, were the heavenly messengers beheld by the prophet Daniel. The apostle ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... product of three generations of heroic genius. He might have developed the frequent example of decadence; he might have sustained the excellence of his fathers' gift, but he could not surpass them in the methods of their school of sculpture and its results. There was one way in which he might excel, and he was born with his feet in that path. His genius was too large for the limits of his era. Therefore he was an artistic dissenter, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... I can say for myself," observed Nechludoff, "that I have met a FEW people whom I believe to excel ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... processes are operated alike. This gives an individuality to each man's work, and an expert can easily tell one from another. For high-class illustrations, no other photographic process can compare with photogravure, and no doubt it will be many years before anything will be found to excel or even equal it. Much experimenting has been done with other methods, but the results have always been inferior, and I think it is safe to predict that the photogravure will always ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... who are naturally ambitious, would do well to observe how the greatest men of antiquity wade it their ambition to excel all their cotemporaries in knowledge. Julius Caesar and Alexander, the most celebrated instances of human greatness, took a particular care to distinguish themselves by their skill in the arts and sciences. We have ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... libera nos, Domine! Perhaps the piece itself was weak. At all events, "Masaniello" had but a brief run. A drunken man, a jealous man, a deaf man, a fool, a vagabond, a demon, a tyrant, Robson could marvellously depict: in the crazy Neapolitan fisherman he either failed or was unwilling to excel. I had been for a long period extremely solicitous to see Robson undertake the part of Sir Giles Overreach in "A New Way to pay Old Debts." You know that Sir Giles, after the discovery of the obliterated deed, goes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... an eminent degree is evident from a striking fact. There are three avocations to which the faculty of close reasoning is a first essential—law, politics and theology—and in each of these our countrymen excel. ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... encouragement flowed in from every quarter. A wealthy music patron, Karl von Fuernberg, who had recognised his genius, persuaded him to compose his first quartet, and thus turned his attention to the branch of composition in which he was later on to excel. At the instance of this patron Haydn, in 1759, received the appointment of music-director to a rich Bohemian nobleman named Count Ferdinand Morzin, who was an ardent lover of music, and maintained a small orchestra at his country seat. This was a great step in his ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... their manner of living became more and more expensive, as each endeavoured to excel the others in the splendour of his hospitality, and to procure for the next meeting at his house scarcer viands and more costly wines. In this manner they vied with each other, increasing their expenses with savoury spices and the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... traveler declared, "are the politest people in the world. Every one acknowledges it. You Americans are a remarkable nation, but the French excel you in politeness. You admit it ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... vessels to be 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
... other states in the Union excel Washington in the great variety, abundance and value of the natural gifts prepared and ripe for the hand of man within its borders. Preceding races were content to leave its wealth to us, being themselves satisfied to subsist upon that which was at hand and ready for consumption with no effort ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... instructors, and by the most ample opportunities of cultivation and improvement. Such lessons and exhibitions, however, might have been thrown away upon many; but James had been born with those natural capacities which fitted him to excel in them. He possessed a fine and correct musical ear; a voice which was rich, flexible, and sufficiently powerful for chamber music; and an enthusiastic delight in the art, which, unless controlled by strong good sense, and a feeling of the higher destinies to which he was called, might have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... his who lacketh brain Bestows our ancient surname, ass! And, with abusive tongue portraying, Describes our laugh and talk as braying! These bipeds of their folly tell us, While thus pretending to excel us." "No, 'tis for you to speak, my friend, And let their orators attend. The braying is their own, but let them be: We understand each other, and agree, And that's enough. As for your song, Such wonders to its notes ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... full of gorgeous splendor—how much vital religion they contain, it is not, perhaps, my province to decide. But in beauty of architecture, in the solemnity and grandeur of interior, no city in the world, except Rome, can excel them. The church of the Madeleine is the most imposing of all; indeed, it seemed to me that in all Paris there was no other building so pretentious. But Notre Dame has that mellow quality which beautifies all ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... versification, music, and stage settings are the materials. It is in harmony with the romantic tendency of modern times that modern dramatists — Shakespeare as well as Moliere, Calderon, and the rest — excel in ethos rather than in plot; for it is the evident characteristic of modern genius to study and enjoy expression, — the suggestion of the not-given, — rather than form, the harmony ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... blame so unmerited never can be thy portion. Greater sins than thou canst commit have been committed by thousands far greater than thou, and these sins would plead as thy excuse, shouldst thou pursue that course which others have pursued—others who far excel thee. Thou wilt have sinned but a little, seeing that thou hadst far less power of resistance than those aforementioned. But if my words move thee not, and thou wouldst still wish to withstand ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... earth a shadowy floor far beneath. This gentle aerial support is distributed throughout hundreds of fine meshes, and the sole contact with the earth is through twin living boles, pulsing with swift running sap, whose lichened bark and moonlit foliage excel any tapestry ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... I excel in metaphysical discussion, and was about giving further elaboration to my favorite idea, when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the traces of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... of the vascular system. Thus Plutarch cites Empedocles as believing "that the ruling part is not in the head or in the breast, but in the blood; wherefore in whatever part of the body the more of this is spread in that part men excel."(13) And Empedocles' own words, as preserved by Stobaeus, assert "(the heart) lies in seas of blood which dart in opposite directions, and there most of all intelligence centres for men; for blood about the heart is intelligence ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... if we dwell, Do they not speak of trust betray'd; Of merit rising to excel, On which ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... some complimental talk, Time met them, bowed, and joined their walk. 90 Their chat on various subjects ran, But most, what each had done for man. Plutus assumes a haughty air, Just like our purse-proud fellows here. 'Let kings,' says he, 'let cobblers tell, Whose gifts among mankind excel. Consider Courts: what draws their train? Think you 'tis loyalty or gain? That statesman hath the strongest hold, Whose tool of politics is gold. 100 By that, in former reigns, 'tis said, The knave in power hath senates led. By that alone he swayed debates, Enriched himself and beggared ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... maintenance of the three best scholars in Greek and Latin, who should reside at College at least nine months in a year, in each of the three years between their first and second degrees." President Clap further remarks, that "this premium has been a great incitement to a laudable ambition to excel in the knowledge of the classics." It was commonly known as the Dean's bounty.—Clap's Hist. of Yale ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... give him one, he would steal away after his master had retired, and run the risk of being taken up by the night-watch. Of course, the master never knew anything of the absence of the servant at night without permission. As the negroes at these parties tried to excel each other in the way of dress, Sam was often at a loss to make that appearance that his heart desired, but his ready wit ever helped him in this. When his master had retired to bed at night, it was the duty of Sam to put out the lights, and take out with him his master's clothes and boots, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... well-deserved. He was laborious, pains-taking, and skilful; but, what was better, he was honest and upright. He was a most reliable man; and hence he came to be extensively trusted. Whatever he undertook, he endeavoured to excel in. He would be a first-rate hewer, and he became one. He was himself accustomed to attribute much of his success to the thorough way in which he had mastered the humble beginnings of this trade. He was even ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... galleys with brazen prows, whose oarsmen tore the white foam from the emerald seas as they swept towards the Irish coasts. But the lady had vowed she would wed with no one except a battle champion who could excel in music the chief bard of the High King of Erin; who could outstrip on his steed in the great race of Tara the white steed of the plains; and who could give her as a wedding robe a garment of all the colours of the rainbow, so ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... blood was the end of the beginning of many American industries. Ore was plentiful, wood was superabundant, methods were crude. They could easily excel the Virginia colonists in making iron in Persia and India at the same date. The orientals had certain processes, descended to them from remote times, discovered and practiced by the first metal-workers that ever lived. The difference in the situation ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... with large figures, but nothing specially interesting. There is a large pond in the midst of the garden, covered with duckweed, and full of beautiful gold and silver fish of many kinds. The Chinese certainly excel in producing gold and silver and red fish; they are the pets of every household, and are of all colours, some being striped and spotted, and boasting any number of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... while others wore cloth caps and red worsted nightcaps. I observed that all their arms were sent below, the captain only retaining his cutlass and a single pistol in the folds of his shawl. Although the captain was the tallest and most powerful man in the ship, he did not strikingly excel many of his men in this respect; and the only difference that an ordinary observer would have noticed was a certain degree of open candour, straightforward daring, in the bold, ferocious expression of his face, which rendered him ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... others only imitations of each other in their strife after complications to confuse the public. We do not boast but quietly excel them all in staunch reliable, economical power. Beautiful pamphlet free. GEO. TALLCOT, 96 ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... temptations, which give you a distaste of your employment; and to meditate, more on that, than how to engage yourself in such laborious affairs, as are not commanded you. Let no man flatter himself; it is impossible to excel in great matters, before we arrive to excel in less: and it is a gross error, under the pretence of saving souls, to shake off the yoke of obedience, which is light and easy, and to take up a cross, which, without comparison, is ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... for but by a miracle. It was asserted and believed that the Holy Virgin, touched with his great desire to become learned and famous, took pity upon his incapacity, and appeared to him in the cloister where he sat, almost despairing, and asked him whether he wished to excel in philosophy or divinity. He chose philosophy, to the chagrin of the Virgin, who reproached him in mild and sorrowful accents that he had not made a better choice. She, however, granted his request ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... cope with her in physical greatness—America with her noble institutions, elements of power, facilities of improvement, promises of greatness and high hopes of immortality, was this day far, very far behind her in natural resources. Nothing can excel the value of her productions—sugar-cane grows rapidly, cotton is a native plant, corn and hemp flourish in great perfection; oranges, coffee, wild honey, lemons, limes, mahogany, cam-wood, satin-wood, rose-wood, &c., abound ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... matter to me, that I do more or do better in the course of the day? What shall I gain by it? Nothing. Well, then, little work for little wages. But now, on the contrary (he says), I have an interest in displaying zeal and economy. All is changed. I redouble my activity, and strive to excel the others. If a comrade is lazy, and likely to do harm to the factory, I have the right to say to him: 'Mate, we all suffer more or less from your laziness, and from the injury you are doing the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... five waited in silence among the thick woods on the crest of the hill, and Grosvenor prepared his mind for his first stalk. Full of courage, ambitious, eager to excel, he resolved to acquit himself with credit. But this was war, far different from that on the open fields of Europe for which his early training had fitted him. One must lie in the deep forest and depend upon the delicacy of eye and ear and an exceeding quickness of hand. It had not ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fertile, and though only turned up by the hoe, yields pretty good crops of the small grain called gussub. Vast herds of cattle abound. The only manufacture in which the people can be said to excel, is that of cotton cloth died blue with indigo; pieces of which constitute the current coin. The natives have the negro features in their full deformity; they are simple, good-natured, ignorant, and fond of wrestling and gaming. The military force is almost entirely composed of ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... drudgery should somewhat soil him both in mind and health of body, or, if this be denied, surely it must let him and hinder him in running the race for unconsciousness. We do not feel that it increases the glory of a king or great nobleman that he should excel in what is commonly called science. Certainly he should not go further than Prince Rupert's drops. Nor should he excel in music, art, literature, or theology—all which things are more or less parts of science. He should be above them all, save in so far as he can without effort reap renown from ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... estimation, by contrast with the parliamentary learning and skill, the urbanity and accomplishments of my illustrious predecessor, but I shall strive to equal him in devotion to your service, and I shall endeavor, if that be possible, to excel him in grateful appreciation of the distinguished ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... 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 any other class ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... Artistic as his temperament undoubtedly was, and conscientious as his writing appears down to its minutest detail, Gissing yet managed to turn out rather more than a novel per annum. The desire to excel acted as a spur which conquered his congenital inclination to dreamy historical reverie. The reward which he propounded to himself remained steadfast from boyhood; it was a kind of Childe Harold pilgrimage to the lands of ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 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 while they rend the chain; These constitute a State; And sovereign law, that State's collected will, O'er thrones ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... a boy, I always had an ambition to excel all the other boys. I wanted to be the best baseball player on the block—and I was, too. I could pitch three curves when I was fifteen, and I find I am the same now that I am a man grown. When I do a thing, I want to do it better than any one else. From the very first I have always been ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... presents a scene of extraordinary animation. Bottle-washing apparatus, supplied by a steam-engine with 20,000 gallons of water per diem, are ranged in fifteen rows down the entire length of this hall, and nearly 200 women strive to excel each other in diligence and celerity in their management, a practised hand washing from 900 to 1,000 bottles in the course of the day. To the right of this salle de rinage, as it is styled, bottles are stacked in their tens ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... was interested in the intellectual reception of the Gospel is shown by the earnestness with which he prays that his converts may excel in mental grasp of the truth. "I pray," he says, "that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment." And again he says, "Making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... old England long lift her white crest o'er the wave, The birth-place of science, the home of the brave! In her cities may peace and prosperity dwell! May her daughters in beauty and virtue excel! May their beauty and worth Bless the land of their birth, While heroes keep guard o'er the altar ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... foes, instead of struggling with the meshes of perplexity, which beset all concerned with Queen Mary, and then he turned his horse's head towards Wingfield Manor, a grand old castellated mansion of the Talbots, considered by some to excel even Sheffield. It stood high, on ground falling very steeply from the walls on three sides, and on the south well fortified, court within court, and each with a deep-arched and portcullised gateway, with loopholed turrets on either side, a porter's ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and worship, with francs, at the shrine; whilst at Bayeux, as we have seen, the old work is handled with reverence and fear, and the nineteenth-century mason puts out all his power to imitate, if not to excel, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... life to the curious make and frame of thy creation; and let the beauty of thy person teach thee to beautify thy mind with holiness, the ornament of the beloved of God. Remember that the King of Zion's daughter is all-glorious within; and if thy soul excel, thy body will only set off the lustre of thy mind. Let not the spirit of this world, its cares and its many vanities, its fashions and discourse, prevail over the civility of thy nature. Remember that sin brought the first coat, and thou ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... whatever disguise she takes up. And yet there is no reason women should take it amiss to be thus charged, for if they do but rightly consider, they will find to Folly they are beholden for those endowments wherein they so far surpass and excel Man; as first for their unparalleled beauty, by the charm whereof they tyrannize over the greatest of tyrants; for what is it but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... long study and careful practice far ahead before they could hope to equal or excel the cool, modest young aviator who came down so gracefully after a series of side loops that made most of the spectators ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... honourable, nothing more splendid, than after excelling all others, at length to excel one's self; so in my judgment you have most happily attained to this praise in your version of these psalms. For in translating the other odes of this sacred poet, you have been Buchanan, that is, you have been as conspicuous among the other paraphrasists ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... 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 the ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... excel all other groups of algae in the magnitude and variety of form of the chlorophyll-bodies. In Ulva and Mesocarpus the chromatophore is a single plate, which in the latter genus places its edge towards the incident light; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... obscure, The name of earth that bears, The Authors of that Universe Have, at thy call, descended oft, And pleasant converse with thy children had; And how, these foolish dreams reviving, e'en This age its insults heaps upon the wise, Although it seems all others to excel In learning, and in arts polite; What can I think of thee Thou wretched race of men? What thoughts discordant then my heart assail, In doubt, if scorn or ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... Shaftesbury, Dr. Mandeville, Mr. Hutchinson, Dr. Butler, etc.] in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing, and have engaged the attention, and excited the curiosity of the public. So true it is, that however other nations may rival us in poetry, and excel us in some other agreeable arts, the improvements in reason and philosophy can only be owing to a land of toleration ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... had I possessed one—I should in no long course yield utterly to a certain resentfully admitted tendency to dream and drift and live for pure beauty; finally desert my own country with the comfortable reflection: Why all this bustle, this desire to excel, to keep in the front rank, to find pleasure in individual work, when so many artistic achievements are ready-made for all to enjoy without effort? For—here is the point—an American, the American of today—accustomed to high speed, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... compare with it. This enabled me to do as much work as men of much greater strength. In those days reapers were generally unknown in our country, and the grain was all "cradled." At this I was an adept, never meeting any one that could excel me. The same was true of jumping and running foot races. Hundreds of men could no doubt beat me, but I never happened to meet them. I kept up these exercises till I ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen |
