"Excel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Agamemnon addressed: "Old man, now indeed, as at other times, dost thou excel the sons of the Greeks in council. For, would, O father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I were possessed of ten such fellow-counsellors among the Greeks! So should the city of Priam quickly fall, captured and destroyed by our hands. But upon me hath aegis-bearing Jove, the son of Saturn, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... constantly made the rewards of virtue and piety, such an administration must needs have a mighty influence on the faith and morals of the whole kingdom: And men of great abilities would then endeavour to excel in the duties of a religious life, in order to qualify themselves for public service. I may possibly be wrong in some of the means I prescribe towards this end; but that is no material objection against the design itself. Let those who are at the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... it was not for the inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't sleep soundly. And the Committee of Council are always changing the Code, so that you don't know what to teach, and what to leave untaught. I think father and mother are right. They say I shall never excel as a schoolmistress if I dislike the work so, and that therefore I ought to get settled by marrying Mr. Heddegan. Between us two, I like him better than school; but I don't like him quite so much as to wish to ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... patriots run, And serve their country—if the dance is done. "Are we not then allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; but first set your notions right. Worth, of politeness, is the needful ground; Where that is wanting, this can ne'er be found. Triflers not e'en in trifles can excel; 'Tis solid bodies only polish well. Great, chosen prophet! For these latter days, To turn a willing world from righteous ways! Well, Heydegger, dost thou thy master serve; Well has he seen his servant should not starve. Thou to his name hast splendid temples rais'd; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... which we experienced at the hands of this generous-hearted people will help more than anything else to make us recollect with pleasure our stay amongst them. In the character of hosts and hostesses they excel. The 'new chum' needs only the acquaintanceship of one of their number, and he becomes at once the happy recipient of numerous complimentary invitations and thoughtful kindnesses. Of the towns it has been our good fortune to visit, none have portrayed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fixings. Kaiser liked him, and it's easy to see why. I guess a man who had as many personalities as the Graf was amusing after-dinner company. Specially among the Germans, who in my experience don't excel in the lighter vein. Anyway, he was William's white-headed boy, and there wasn't a mother with a daughter who wasn't out gunning for Otto von Schwabing. He was about as popular in London and Noo York—and in Paris, too. Ask Sir Walter ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... makes his own most intense gratification. It is not possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride, humility, pity, and passion, which are excited by a look of happy love or an unexpected caress. To make one's self beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in talk, to do anything and all things that puff out the character and attributes and make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only to magnify oneself, but to offer the most delicate homage ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... social order. They visit and spend the time allotted to recreation in social intercourse, which their hospitality always insists on accompanying with a generous lunch, which, to say the least, is not an element that is conducive to either health or long life; for no people excel the Jew in home hospitality, and even among the poorer classes a stranger is never allowed to depart without some refreshment being offered him. Among the class better able to extend hospitality, social reunions and card parties, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... he showed the most adventurous spirit and ardent ambition to excel his mates, to do deeds of skill and dexterity that others could not do. When still a child he was running up an unsupported eight-foot ladder, and balancing himself upon the topmost round in a way to startle the cleverest professional ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry, that he held that artistic excellence, "however expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired." Writing to Barry he said, "Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed." And on another occasion he said, "Those who are resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... several customs and regulations to which the individuals of the same tribe conform. Personal wisdom and courage are the chief sources of distinction among them, and individuals obtain rank and influence in proportion as they excel in these qualifications. Natural reason suggests, that the man of the greatest abilities ought to be the leader of all possessed of inferior endowments; in him they place the greatest confidence, and follow him to war without envy or murmur. As this warrior arrives at honour and distinction ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Mr. Chickering continued his labors for the improvement of his instruments with still greater success than in former years. His pianos were universally regarded as the best in the market, and his competitors were unable to excel him. Although conducting a business which required the constant exercise of the highest mercantile talent, he did not relax his energy in the mechanical department. To the end of his life, long after he had become a wealthy and prominent man, he had his own little working-cabinet, with an ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... know how impartial I am; I can love him for being shocked at a system of cruelty supporting nonsense; I can be pleased with the truths he tells; I can and do admire his style, and his genius in recovering a language that he forgot by six years old, so well as to excel in writing it, and yet I wish that all this had happened ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... 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 ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... plentiful estate, anything to spare, or over and above; but all that went out or came in, all disbursements and all receipts, proceeded as it were by number and measure. His manager in all this was a single servant, Evangelus by name, a man either naturally gifted or instructed by Pericles so as to excel every one in this art ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... I'm but the Prologue of a book, What I've omitted all will overlook, And owe me for it, too, some gratitude, Seeing in reason it cannot be good Whose author has as much but now confessed,— For, Who'd excel when few can make a test Betwixt indifferent writing and the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... race— On each of 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 belong, The nightingale is put to shame, The Sirens lose one half their ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... and dauntless horseman, and not one of the broncho boys except Ted could excel him in horsemanship, but with his wounded arm he could not bring the brute ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... of raising his own character in the opinion of Mr. Pickle, who retorted this parade of learning in three verses from the same author, being part of the speech of Polydamas to Hector, importing that it is impossible for one man to excel in everything. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... use of sails, while the bee- hunter knew how to manage a bark canoe in rough water, with unusual skill. In the common acceptation, he was no sailor; but, in his own peculiar craft, there was not a man living who could excel him in ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... for nothing so much diminishes the grace and elegance of skating as sudden jerks and exertions. The attitude of drawing the bow and arrow, whilst the skater is forming a large circle on the outside, is very beautiful, and some persons, in skating, excel in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... this power was destroyed, by the ridiculous distinctions of rich and poor. Oh, mad world! Monstrous absurdity! Incomprehensible blindness! Look at the rich! In what are they happy? In what do they excel the poor? Not in their greater stores of wealth: which is but a source of vice, disease, and death; but in a little superiority of knowledge; a trifling advance toward truth. How may this advantage be made general? Not by the indulgence of the desires you ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... scythe they fell, And half the sky was curdled with their blood: So have all primal giants sigh'd farewell. No wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell, Nor pearly Naiads. All their days are done That strove with Time, untimely, to excel; Wherefore I razed their progenies, and none But my great shadow intercepts ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... in the furnishing of their homes, and give their personal attention to it with the result that as a rule they excel in household decoration, and often produce marvels of beauty and taste with the expenditure of relatively small amounts ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... some comfort, too, to write to her, but not much to receive her letters, for Daisy did not excel in epistolary composition, and after a few weeks her letters were short and far apart, and, as Guy thought, constrained and studied in their tone, and when, after she had been absent from him for three months or more his longing to see her was so great that ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... to see himself, Hermon, who, as a genuine Greek, was accustomed to moderate his feelings in intercourse with others, would have endeavoured to express the emotions of joy which filled his heart with more reserve, and to excel his companions at the festival ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... In music I excel the lark, She comes at dawn, I come at dark, And when the stars are shining bright, I sing the praises of ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... the just, and have confidence in them and give them credit. But as to the brave and wise, they fear the one, and give no credit to the other; and besides this, they think that the brave and the wise excel by nature rather than by their own will; and with respect to courage and wisdom, they consider the one to be a certain sharpness, and the other a firmness of soul; but inasmuch as any man who chooses, has it in his power to be just, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... 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 in it. ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... which he is capable. The best varies with the individual; one may be an admirable lecturer or teacher; another a profound thinker; a third a keen investigator; another a skilful experimenter; the next, a man of great acquisitions; one may excel by his industry, another by his enthusiasm, another by his learning, another by his genius; but every member of a faculty should be distinguished by some uncommon attainments and by some special aptitudes, while the ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... her, "Wilt thou come to my lodging or shall I go with thee to shine?" So she hung her head in shame to the ground and repeated the words of Him whose Name be exalted, "Men shall have the pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages wherein Allah hath caused the one of them to excel the other."[FN387] Upon this, Amjad took the hint.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... First appearance. A father's advice. How Salvini studied his art. Faults in acting. The desire to excel in everything. A model for Othello. First visit to the United States. In Cuba. Appearance in London. Impressions of Irving's Hamlet. The decline of tragedy. Tragedy in two languages. American critical taste. Impressions ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... farewell to General Howe was to excel all other gayeties, and to be an event long remembered, including a regatta, a tournament, and a dance. Decorated barges left Knight's Wharf in the afternoon, full of handsomely attired guests, who were carried to Old Fort, and escorted by troops to the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to toil and march and amid dangers to preserve our existing prosperity. Against this prosperity many are plotting. Every object which surpasses others attracts both emulation and jealousy; and consequently an eternal war is waged by all inferiors against those who excel them in any respect. Hence we either ought not from the first to have increased, thus differing from other men, or else, since we have grown so great and have gained so many possessions, it has been fated that we should either rule these firmly or ourselves perish utterly. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... championship, "It was the booze did it"; meaning that he had violated training rules, and used liquor. University teams and crews have proved substantially that drinking men are absolutely no good in sports, or upon the water. Football and baseball teams, anxious to excel, are beginning to have a cast-iron temperance pledge for their members. So practical experience of those competing in tests of strength and endurance teach eloquently that alcohol does not give strength, but rather weakens the body, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... original sketches sometimes. Mr. Summers, the art master, thought well of her work, and had praised her study of a group of apples more highly than those of the other girls. It was quite a consolation to Patty to excel in something. She found the afternoon spent in the studio the pleasantest in the whole week, and wished the drawing lessons came oftener. She was not without a secret hope that some of her work might be considered good enough to secure a ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Here thou Thyself had rais'd the gallant brow Of conscious intellect, to twine Th'imperishable verse of thine, That charm'st the world. Or can it be, That scenes like these were nought to thee? That Scottish hills so far excel, That so deep sinks the Scottish dell, That boasted PEN-Y-VALE had been[1], For thy loud northern lyre too mean; [Footnote 1: The respective heights of these mountains above the mouth of the Gavany, was taken barometrically by General ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... 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, stretched above ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... that, of all the pleasurable arts, music is that which flourishes the most amongst us. Still, even in music the absence of stimulus in praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority of one individual over another; and we rather excel in choral music, with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments, in which we make great use of the agency of water,* ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... still to hear colored children say, "I can't." The colored mother should put success in the child's thought and teach it to believe in himself and his race. It is the duty of every mother to preach success and one's duty to aim to excel ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... which the Chinese excel is that of market gardening. In driving in the suburbs of Melbourne, our friends observed numerous market gardens cultivated by Chinese, and in every instance they remarked that the cultivation was of the most careful kind. John can make more ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... but give it up. Mr. Henry took the letters (both hers and his own), and looked upon their outside, with his brows knit hard, as if he were thinking. He had surprised me all through by his excellent behaviour: but he was to excel himself now. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about two years before the time of which we are speaking, he went to Boston to learn the art of daguerreotype-taking, in which he really did seem to excel, returning home with some money, a great deal of vanity, and a strong propensity to boast of what he had seen. Recollections of 'Lena, his early, and, as he sentimentally expressed it, "his undying, all-enduring" love, still haunted him, and at last he determined upon a ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... "gently ruling Hound" recall the French "Beausire"; it may be also noted that these compliments are paid even when Ferdia is protesting against Cuchulain's reproaches; similar language is used elsewhere, as "much thine arms excel" (page 122), and "Cuchulain for beautiful feats renowned" (page 134). It may be considered that these passages are an indication that the episode is late, but it should be noticed that the very latest date that can possibly be assigned to it, the eleventh century, precedes that of all other known ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... this custom remains to this day, and very important features in these processions are the statues and the reliquaries of patron saints. Some of these excel in bringing sunshine, others in bringing rain. The Cathedral of Chartres is so fortunate as to possess sundry relics of St. Taurin, especially potent against dry weather, and some of St. Piat, very nearly ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Come to England! Our oysters are small, I know; they are said by Americans to be coppery; but our hearts are of the largest size. We are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. Our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is supposed to exercise in these ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... that royal Abbas led: Sweet was his love, and innocent his bed. What if in wealth the noble maid excel? The simple shepherd girl can love as well. Let those who rule on Persia's jewel'd throne 65 Be famed for love, and gentlest love alone; Or wreathe, like Abbas, full of fair renown, The lover's myrtle with the warrior's crown. O happy days! the maids ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... it by that unlucky one, Sir Everard. He ridiculed the idea of male and female rhymes, and the necessity of trying them as rigidly by the eye as by the ear,—saying to Monsieur Dubois that the palate, in which the French excel all mortals, ought also to be consulted in their acceptance or rejection. Monsieur Dubois told us that if we did not wish to be taught French verse, he would teach us English. Sir Everard preferred the Greek; but Monsieur Dubois would not engage to teach the mysteries of that poetry in fewer than ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... your religion, of what you are pleased to call "the American system," show them that Christians are better than heathens. Prove to them that what you are pleased to call the "living God" teaches higher and holier things, a grander and purer code of morals, than can be found upon pagan pages. Excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in reverence for parents, in cleanliness, in frugality, and above all by advocating the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... labors, and spent a great deal of time in making charts; one of the history of empires, one of the history of inventions and discoveries; the latter, especially, was not worth the labor. I have had a taste of many things, and yet, to speak honestly, excel in hardly any thing: the reason of this is partly a great want of order. I never attempted any thing like a "course of reading:" but, when I began a book, the book was the object more than my own real improvement. I read often D.E.F., before I had read A.B.C., and so grew confused, and then, ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... soldiers, and more especially in those maneuvers proper in a campaign against savages. Firing at a mark was constantly practiced, and rewards given to the best marksmen. To inspire emulation, the riflemen and the infantry strove to excel, and the men soon attained to an accuracy that gave them confidence in their own prowess. On the artillery the General impressed the importance of that arm of the service. The dragoons he taught to rely on the broadsword, as all important to victory. The ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... the natural blossoms, which they excel in beauty, live ten hours only, but they so far differ from them that their pods ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... instruction. A good good deal of classics, daily readings in the French and German tongues, conversation after the Socratic method—these were the pillars of Stair's temple of learning at the Bothy. And because the root of the matter had always been in him—which is the determination to excel—he progressed with a ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... excel him; he never plays second fiddle to anybody. He will run faster, catch better, and hit the ball more times in ten, than any other boy. I saw him jump the other day, and he surpassed any thing I have ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... over him she owed not to her personal charms,—for it tasked all the art of Kneller to make her look tolerably on canvass,—not to those talents which peculiarly belong to her sex,—for she did not excel in playful talk, and her letters are remarkably deficient in feminine ease and grace—, but to powers of mind which qualified her to partake the cares and guide the counsels of statesmen. To the end of her life great politicians sought her advice. Even ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of husbands ne'er amaze me, For in the art of love I do excel, And there's no wife, however chaste she may be Who can resist me if I woo her well. And if her husband hate me I'll not grumble, Because his wife receives me in the night, If mine her kiss, if mine sweet love's delight, His pain and wrath my spirit shall not ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... but criticise. Obey but beware of reverence. If I surrender my conscience to another man's keeping, I annihilate my individuality as a man, and become the ready tool of him among my neighbours who shall excel in imposture and artifice. I put an end moreover to the happy collision of understandings upon which the hopes of human improvement depend. Governments depend upon the unlimited confidence of their subjects, and ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... subject does not make a big writer Bud will never come to flower if you pull it in pieces Do you know what it is to want what you don't want? Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them Freedom to excel in nothing Had gained everything he wanted in life except happiness Indefeasible right of the public to have news Intellectual poverty Known something if I hadn't been kept at school Longing is one thing and reason another Making himself ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... 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 own ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... now forty years of age, and esteemed a model of those virtues more peculiarly deemed Spartan. He was obedient to the constituted authorities, emulous to excel, courageous, energetic, capable of bearing all sorts of hardship and fatigue, simple and frugal in his mode of life. To these severer qualities he added the popular attractions of an agreeable countenance and pleasing address. His personal defects at first stood in the way of his promotion. He ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... is already to hand in the original romances of our present period; and a wonderfully great and perfect idea it is. Not the much and justly praised arrangement and poetical justice of the Oresteia or of the story of Oedipus excel the Arthuriad in what used to be called "propriety" (which has nothing to do with prudishness), while both are, as at least it seems to me, far inferior in varied and poignant interest. That the attainment of the Graal, the healing of the maimed king, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... 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. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... were entirely unknown to them,—the inducements to excel, and the will for great ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... of poems by Lord Byron. The meeting advised me to get rid of Shakespeare and Byron, and to be careful how I used the works of Barrow, Tillotson, and Paley, as they were not Methodistical, and my great concern, it was said, should be to excel as a teacher and defender of Methodism. With this recommendation I could not entirely comply. I retained my Shakespeare; I have him yet. And I read the works of Tillotson, Barrow, and Paley as freely as I had done before. But I lost all confidence in my superintendent, and a portion of ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... has deduced almost all our actions from this principle of their relieving us from the ennui or taedium vitae; and true it is, that our desires or aversions are the motives of all our voluntary actions; and human nature seems to excel other animals in the more facil use of this voluntary power, and on that account is more liable to insanity than other animals. But in mania this violent exertion of volition is expended on mistaken objects, and would not be relieved, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of the law arises in the doubt and uncertainty of the facts; and hence the doubt about which, of many rules, ought to govern. A man of genius, as you describe him, ought to become a good lawyer; he would excel in the investigation and presentation of facts; but none but a lawyer saturated with the spirit of the law until he comes to have a legal instinct, can with accuracy ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... "Many excel, my lord, in other studies: it is my chance to have bestowed the labour of my life on this: those labours may be of some use to others. This appears the only instance in which it is possible ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... not see you again, but I'll speak to a guard I know, who will try to get the good soup for you. The Sergeant of the guard is all right, but some of them are devils; they are looking for promotion, and know the way to get it is to excel in cruelty. We shall not meet, but remember, we shall win! Germany's military power will be defeated. Russia's military power is crumbling now, the military power of the world is going down to defeat, but the people of all nations ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... light, eternal life, everlasting love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the Lord, O my soul, that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the blood of His Son, and healed all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye His angels that excel in strength, ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was, by conquering and putting a constraint upon himself, to show a generous mind, and of his own accord suffer these two to enjoy the happiness Heaven had granted them. He bade him, too, turn his eyes upon the beauty of Dorothea and he would see that few if any could equal much less excel her; while to that beauty should be added her modesty and the surpassing love she bore him. But besides all this, he reminded him that if he prided himself on being a gentleman and a Christian, he could not do otherwise than keep his plighted word; and that in doing so he would obey God and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the barbarians. Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle to the senate and people of Athens seems to have been dictated by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his actions and his motives ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... impressing the name on his memory, "I will obey thee. We are but men, as are thy kinsfolk, subject to cold and hunger, ills and death. Yet, as God, our Okee, is greater than your Okee, so our power and our medicine excel those of the mighty Powhatan and of his shamans. Thou asketh for tales of the land whence I come. They are so many that like the leaves of the forest I cannot count them. If we sat here until thou wert a ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... metaphors, while he formed it of harsh and uncouth expressions, and thus became the greatest master of composition the world has seen. He was a great artist, making use of his scanty materials to the best effect; and since he could not attain the elegance of the Greeks, he sought to excel them in vigor. He had absolute control over the resources of his vernacular tongue, and not only unrivaled skill in composition, but tact and judgment. Thus he was generally successful, in spite of the venality and corruption of the times. The courts of justice were the scene ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... created thing, thus in every form, there are degrees. This Part of Angelic Wisdom will therefore treat of degrees. That there are degrees of love and wisdom can be clearly seen from the fact that there are angels of the three heavens. The angels of the third heaven so far excel the angels of the second heaven in love and wisdom, and these, the angels of the lowest heaven, that they cannot be together. The degrees of love and wisdom distinguish and separate them. It is from this that angels of the lower heavens cannot ascend to angels of higher ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... to strive to equal or excel, to rival. Wake, the track left by a vessel in the water; hence, figuratively, in the trail of. Bard, a poet. Martyr, one who scarifices what is of great value to him for the sake of ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... weapons—the wooden spear, the club, the quaint mere[1] and the stone tomahawk—required strength and endurance as well as a skill only to be obtained by hard practice. The very sports and dances of the Maori were such as only the active and vigorous could excel in. Slaves were there, but not enough to relieve the freemen from the necessity for hard work. Strange sacred customs, such as tapu (vulgarly Anglicized as taboo) and muru, laughable as they seem to us, tended to preserve public health, to ensure respect for authority, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... 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, very well read ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... acquisitions which we have made to this priceless inheritance of freedom? Washington is gone, but he has left us his bright example, and his solemn admonitions. Let those who are greater, and wiser, and purer than Washington, impeach him. Let those whose precepts or examples excel his, question the superiority of his virtue and valor. Let those who have done more for human freedom, denounce him as the enemy of mankind, and erect for themselves a standard of moral action, which shall rise to the stupendous height of their ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... prime importance in matters of expression, results the strange truth that Duerer says will be recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed Memento Mei 1505) of Death on horseback with a scythe, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... called Imagination. But human imagination is not first, second, or third in rank on the scale of the universe. God Himself imagined the universe before He created it. His imagination is infinite. The Cherubim and Seraphim have wings that elevate them above our zenith. And angels, too, excel us in this creative faculty, and therefore veil their faces before the Majesty of heaven and earth. Still, man has an humble portion of it, and can turn it ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The hard times of the nineties caused a rush of young men to the western El Dorado. Since then the influx has steadily continued until now over 200,000 are in America. They persistently avoid agriculture and seek the coal mine and the factory. The one craft in which they excel is tailoring, and they proudly boast of being the best dressed among all the Eastern-European immigrants. The one mercantile ambition which they have nourished is to keep a saloon. Drinking is their national ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... years ago in this annual, and supposed to be written with the view of surpassing a profound memoir on the same subject by James O. Halliwell,[263] Esq., F.R. and A.S.S., but the tremendous effort which the learned writer then made to excel many titled competitors for honors in the antique line appears to have had a sad effect upon his mental powers—at any rate, his efforts have since yearly become duller and duller; happily, at last, we should suppose, 'the ancient {149} and modern usage in reckoning' indicates the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... be, and far be it from me to say that non-college women fail in that high office. There comes before me one mother of fourteen children who has never seen the inside of a college classroom, yet whom it would be hard to excel in her qualities of motherliness. But, other things being equal, it is to the Christian, educated mothers that we turn to find the life of the ideal home, with real comradeship between wife and husband, with intelligent understanding of ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... credence than Ralph, who may or may not have been circumstantial; who may or may not even have existed, a point unworthy of disputation. As for Miss Reid, we will take an affidavit that neither in miniature nor at large did she excel the celebrated Rosalba; and with regard to Mrs. Lennox, we consider her to be a mere figment, like Narcissa, Miss Tabitha Bramble, or any hero or heroine depicted by ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Temple of the Tooth, which is an object of adoration to hundreds of millions in Burmah, China and India; the procession of the Elephants—a weird portion of the Buddhist ritual; the devil dancers, who excel the Dervishes of the Soudan in the fantastic nature of their antics. On the succeeding day the Duke received an address from the planters of the Island, enclosed in a beautiful coffer of ivory; presented colours to the Ceylon Mounted Infantry, and medals to men who had returned ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... Alexandria might never have existed. He recalls the age of Cato rather than that of Cicero. His versatility was as great as his industry. There was scarcely any department of prose or poetry, provided it was national, in which he did not excel. His early life well fitted him for severe application. Born at Reate, in the Sabine territory, which was the nurse of all manly virtues, [3] Varro, as he himself tells us, had to rough it as a boy; ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... whoever you be who are more successful [than me], and now strut proud of my misfortune; though you be rich in flocks and abundance of land, and Pactolus flow for you, nor the mysteries of Pythagoras, born again, escape you, and you excel Nireus in beauty; alas! you shall [hereafter] bewail her love transferred elsewhere; but I shall laugh in ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Seraphs came to Christ, and said: "Behold! The man, presumptuous and overbold, Who boasted that his mercy could excel Thine own, is dead and ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... porcelain are the manufactures in which the Japanese chiefly excel, besides those in silk-stuffs and lacquered ware already mentioned. Their porcelain is far superior to the Chinese, but it is scarce and dear. With respect to steel manufactures, the sabres and daggers of Japan yield only perhaps to those of Damascus; and Golownin says ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... what I say in speaking of McClellan's exaggeration of his enemy as constituting incompetence for such a command, it has reference to the necessity in which we were that our army should be aggressively handled. Few men could excel him in strictly defensive operations. He did not lack personal courage, nor did his intellectual powers become obscured in the excitement of actual war. He showed the ordinary evidences of presence of mind and coolness ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... we share with the brutes. Some brutes excel us in quickness of sense. They have the rudiments, but the rudiments only, of our emotions and affections. The mother bird loves her offspring, but only until they are fledged. The dog is attached to the master who feeds him, commands him, and if he offends whips him; but without respect to ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith
... Africa should be sought by reducing tariff burdens on such of their wares as neither we nor the other American States are fitted to produce, and thus enabling ourselves to obtain in return a better market for our supplies of food, of raw materials, and of the manufactures in which we excel. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of painting Valentine tried to excel in, the same unhappy destiny seemed always in reserve for each completed effort. For years and years his pictures pleaded hard for admission at the Academy doors, and were invariably (and not unfairly, it must be confessed) refused ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... than the Tachytes, would protest by eating the bungler; the game would devour the hunter, an excellent catch. Mantis-paralysing is a most perilous trade and admits of no half-successes; you have to excel in it from the first, under pain of death. No, the surgical art of the Tachytes is not an acquired art. Whence then does it come, if not from the universal knowledge in which all things ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... very right, sir," said the young man, warmly. "The finer shades of impertinence are infinitely subtle, and only experience and the society of one who is a recognised master"—here he bowed to his uncle—"can enable one to excel." ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 diary of ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... like the Germans, lovers of show, liking to be followed, wherever they go, by troops of servants, who wear their master's arms, in silver, fastened to their left sleeves, and are justly ridiculed for wearing tails hanging down their backs. They excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively, although they are of thicker build than the Germans. They cut their hair close on the forehead, letting it hang down on either side. They are good sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... subtlest questions of social and political science; in criticism she displayed powers which Schlegel might have envied while he aided their fullest development in her "Germany"; and her "Corinne" ranks amongst the best of those works of fiction which excel in description, reflection, and sentiment, rather than in pathos, fancy, stirring incident, or artfully contrived plot. But her tone of mind was so essentially and notoriously masculine, that when she asked Talleyrand whether he had ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... man of antiquity. He was at one and the same time a general, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an orator, a poet, a historian, a philologer, a mathematician, and an architect. He was equally fitted to excel in every thing, and has given proofs that he would have surpassed almost all other men in any subject to which he devoted the energies of his extraordinary mind. One fact places his genius for war in a most striking light. Till his 40th year, when he ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... yields to none in admiration of his extensive genius. Other writers excel in some one particular branch of wit or science; but when the King of Prussia drew Voltaire from Paris to Berlin, he had a whole academy of belles ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... performing the voyage between England and the Australian colonies have been built in the United States; therefore, in shipbuilding industry the United States not only compete with, but in some respects even excel, this country. Look at our present position and that of the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... this implore: That all base dreams thrust out at door, We may in loftier aims excel And, like men waking from a spell, Grow stronger, nobler, than before, ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... who as such, strictly speaking, have surpassed him. Minds not devoted to particular doctrines, not absorbed in the advocacy of cherished ideas—in a word, minds that believe little and aim only at the passing success of a day—may easily excel one like him in the preparation of a mere newspaper. Mr. Greeley was the antipodes of all such persons. He was always absolutely in earnest. His convictions were intense; he had that peculiar courage, most precious ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... doubt that the sphere of woman is properly to be enlarged. Every woman has rights as a human being which belong to no sex, and ought to be as freely conceded to her as if she were a man,—and first and foremost, the great right of doing any thing which God and nature evidently have fitted her to excel in. If she be made a natural orator, like Miss Dickinson, or an astronomer, like Mrs. Somerville, or a singer, like Grisi, let not the technical rules of womanhood be thrown in the way of her ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... greater 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 future, and ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had even found all the countries situated under the torrid zone fully peopled." [Footnote: Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle, 96.] In ship-building Henry and his navigators made positive progress. The Venetian Cadamosto testifies that "his caravels did much excel all other sailing ships afloat." Many varieties of vessels are mentioned in the records of Prince Henry's time—the barca, barinel, caravel, nau, fusta; the galley, galiot, galeass, and galleon; the brigantine and carrack. ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... re-organising the service down at the Porth. And it was now my hope that John Emmet might become coxswain of the boat as soon as he had local knowledge to back up the seamanship and aptitude for command in which I knew him to excel every man in the Porth. There were jealousies, of course: but he wrangled with no man, and in the end I had my way pretty easily. Within four years of his coming John Emmet knew more of Menawhidden than any man in the parish; possibly more ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... she saw that a conflict between the commander of the army and a guard could have but one result and that disastrous to the latter. One word from her would have ended everything for Baldos. She saw through the Iron Count's ruse as if by divine inspiration and profited where he least expected her to excel in shrewdness. Marlanx had deliberately invited the assault by the guard. His object had been to snare Baldos into his own undoing, and a horrible undoing it would have been. One blow would have secured the desired result. Nothing could have saved the guard who had struck his superior ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... But yet he must do—when another had failed. The Lord had set him a hard task; but being earnest and kind, he had no contempt, no lack of love, I am sure, for the soul the Lord had given him to lose or to save—neither gross wish to excel, nor ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... The birds that dance from bough to bough, And sing above in every tree, Are not from fears and cares more free, Than we who lie, or sit, or walk below, And should by right be singers too. What prince's choir of music can excel That which within this shade does dwell, To which we nothing pay or give - They, like all other poets, live Without reward or thanks for their obliging pains. 'Tis well if they become not prey. The whistling winds add their less artful strains, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... 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 of a new type, for whereas the old prophet ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... five little girls were clad very simply all in white. The five boys wore Eton jackets, and looked what they were, most gentlemanly young fellows. Mrs Constable, in a pale shade of gray, was altogether charming; and nothing could excel the courteous ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... any other country excel us in appreciation, then it behoves us to brace ourselves up to emulate and surpass that country, and learn how to understand Nature better and see more Beauty. For in love of Natural Beauty, and in capacity for communicating that love, England ought to be preeminent. She above every other ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... and sand, and mud in abundance, and filth in whatever parts of the sea there is earth, nor are they at all worthy to be compared with the beautiful things with us. But, on the other hand, those things in the upper regions of the earth would appear far more to excel the things with us. For, if we may tell a beautiful fable, it is well worth hearing, Simmias, what kind the things are on the earth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... the period as a whole he seems to discriminate sufficiently between indelicacy and dulness. "The talents of Otway," he says, "in his scenes of passionate affection rival, at least, and sometimes excel those of Shakspeare." Again: "The comedies of Congreve contain probably more wit than was ever before embodied upon the stage; each word was a jest, and yet so characteristic that the repartee of the servant is distinguished from that of the master; the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... atrocities those committed in the prisons and prison ships of New York are the most execrable, and indeed there is nothing in history to excel the barbarities there inflicted. Twelve thousand suffered death by their inhuman, cruel, savage, and barbarous usage on board the filthy and malignant prison ships—adding those who died and were poisoned ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... away slides the other, and down you go. It is like the movement in that scene with the pair of short stilts, in which the French clowns are so amusing, and it is almost as difficult to perform. Mr. Verdant Green soon found that though he might be ambitious to excel in the polite accomplishment of skating, yet that his ambition was destined to meet with many a fall. But he persevered, and perseverance will achieve wonders, especially when aided by the tuition of such an indefatigable gentleman as ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... this type. All gave their time gratuitously. It was a source of much pleasure to me to know the provosts and leaders in council of so many towns in Scotland and England, not forgetting Ireland where my Freedom tour was equally attractive. Nothing could excel the reception accorded me in Cork, Waterford, and Limerick. It was surprising to see the welcome on flags expressed in the same Gaelic words, Cead mille failthe (meaning "a hundred thousand welcomes") as used by the tenants ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... Darkness, though once chiefs; And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth, In form and shape compact and beautiful; So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads; A power, more strong in beauty, born of us, And fated to excel us, as we pass In glory that old Darkness: ———— for, 'tis the eternal law, That first in beauty ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the 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 ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... for its removal. Or, if of a dangerous or complicated character, and, therefore, not so readily understood, he may consult either personally or by letter, some learned and well-known physician, who makes a specialty of the treatment of such cases, and whose large experience enables him to excel therein. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... retired thither, with the humbly bowing host, to issue his own orders regarding their provision. The larder of the inn, however, proved to be miraculously well stocked; the landlord declared that no town in Burgundy, no, nor Bordeaux itself, could excel the wine that he would produce; and while the servants with messengers from the inn brought in packages, which seemed innumerable, from the carriage, the cook toiled in her vocation, the host and hostess bustled about to put all the rooms in order, Sir John Fenwick and Wilton Brown talked ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... enemy France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, Town-folk my strength, a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise; Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this, Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make. How far they shot awry! the true cause is, Stella looked on; and from her heavenly face Sent forth the beams which ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch |
